24/18 is a shit build, at least on EU. The thing is you want to be fast enough to stick with others, not get seperated. You want mobility so you can move a few meters while you stab, effectively adding even more reach to your stab. Mobility allows you to support your teammates much more effectively and greatly increase the number of stabs you are going to pull off. What is the worth of 8 ps when you don't get to stab people because you are too far away. Aside from that the effects of speed bonus are huge on the damage of pikes. I have one shot infantry builds in heavy armour and I have required 4 hits on an archer that was running away. The length of the pike slows you down a lot, so on EU what I found is that with 12 weight body armour and 7 athlethics, I can fight very effectively with my team, because it is about average or slightly above average speed.
Also, it allows me to kick, backpedal beyond the minimum reach distance and hit during the kick stun. Which is fairly important if you are too proud to take a sidearm. You should try some skip the funs with different athlethics, but I think 21/21 or even 18/24 is the best piking build now. I maxed my WM to use a pike, because slow weapons get more speed increase absolutely. Also I think high WM reduces the stun time from hitting objects or hitting late. In my opinion it is also better to have 18/21 with max IF than 21/21 with 0.
I max ps athl and wm since day one and now I started to not skill in if and it works fine
Good argument. Killing people with a pitchfork probably works fine as well, must mean that a pitchfork is as good as any other weapon.