Long spears aka pikes

[Ozwan]

Make pikes/long spears 3 slots and maybe buff the stats a bit, then only dedicated pikemen can use them instead of everyone with a bit of sense.

Doesnt fix anything. The point is to force the pikeman to drop his weapon when enemy is close and stop exploiting with lolstab, not to force him to actually use his pike all the time.

3 slot pike/longspear + no blocking sounds okay.

[Tot.]

edit. Nvm, late hour, cant read.

[Cyclopsided]

Doesnt fix anything. The point is to force the pikeman to drop his weapon when enemy is close and stop exploiting with lolstab, not to force him to actually use his pike all the time.

3 slot pike/longspear + no blocking sounds okay.

This suggestion quite frankly sickens me.
The line of logic follows: "This weapon is very good in the support scenario. To the point of making itself look overpowered."
"To prevent it from being overpowered overall, since it is the best support -- it needs a down side."
" A good down side would be to remove all skill from using the weapon, so that the user is defenseless. Disregard that it already is bad in 1 v 1. Make it impossible to use in 1v1. In fact, make it so that they can't carry any other weapon AND can't use it in 1v1."

Please god tell me that you see something wrong with your suggestion and the reasoning behind it.
What do you mean force him to not use his pike as a pikeman? If you catch him in a 1 vs 1, then he is already at maybe a 10% chance of victory when comparing players of equal skill. Wouldn't you want him to use it and be fucked? You do realize that they are 'lolstabbing' because it is already nerfed so bad that it can't hit the enemy with a regular thrust without glancing?

The long spear does have a fucked up overhead, as do all pole arms. True story. It however can't be used in 1v1. It is too slow. No matter what, if you swing again after they block, you will ALWAYS hit them first if they go for an overhead. It is too slow. It they begin a thrust, just swing cancel and block it.

Looks like I need to do a Public service announcement on how to fight people with long spears, where after learning you'll never lose a 1 v 1 with them again in your life unless you done goofed.
I need to take some screenshots to show you how to position yourself, how to use their lolstabbing to your advantage, etc. Please don't make me have to do that though. I shouldn't have to explain this to players, you can figure out the huge glaring weaknesses yourself by using a longspear for a few days. Fellow pikeman will hate life later when you fight them...

p.s. Since they can't win in 1v1, it makes sense that they are good in support.

[Ginosaji]

In 1v1 the long spear/pike is just fine, if not underpowered (aka difficult to use - it's not meant for 1v1, so this would be ok).
But in large battles IMHO they have too much influence. 3 good pikers in a group of 10 decent players can counter nearly everything. You release your downblock/lower your shield => you get hit by a pike. Yeah, I know that's how it was in real life, but in real life a shielder was also able to stab with his short sword without lowering the shield, so don't come with that real life bullshit.

I don't have any suggestions how to ballance those weapons, though. I don't like the idea of removing the possibility to block with them as there are many players dedicated to those weapons. Also 3 slots requirement doesn't change the problem above. And I'd rather have too much pikers that can counter cav than even more cav and less pikers.

[Tears of Destiny]

This must be an EU problem or an exaggeration, on NA the range spam solves pikemen in groups, and on 1 VS 1 there are only a half dozen players at best who can kill reliably with it and to be fair they kill most people regardless of what they are using (Besides Walt, I have honestly never fought Walt without his Long Spear, ever... not a clue how he is with anything else).

Pikes are dismally slow, and have one attack direction. Long Spears are still slow, and have just two directions. Facehugging seems to work well, and if they have high agility it still is difficult for them to score kills one on one. It is one of the few melee classes that I don't run screaming from with my 1 wpf 0PS archer.

EDIT: What with the new wpf having an effect on weapons breaking, it is also worth noting that together with the new prices of 5K+ pikes/longspears along with the overal increased upkeep system, carrying a pike is not exactly like it used to be (Oh, sheathable and only a wee cost? ofc I shall take a pocket pike!), and now has some setbacks for both money and lugging it around (can not sheath).

[DrKronic]

Facehug. You are literally immune to every attack they have if you facehug... Pikers become a problem mainly if in groups (and of course anything is deadly in groups).

not really, if u know the poke down bring the spear up move it works almost always, also its known as athletics and all good polearm users have it

devs love the pole, it will never be nerfed, hence my use of polearms now, why use 2hand when my elegant is a greatsword that breaks shields plus I can carry a long spear with it on my back and waste horses, infantry, basically everyone

no point, hell if I feel like it I can have my wpp and use a spear/shield as well with a poleaxe on my back(or a hafted blade) polearms are just the best weapon, not to mention best cav use weapons

2handers? lol yea they are good if you like a weapon that looks like a sword I guess or want unbalanced shield breakers(in other words good luck dueling that 1her lol)

the item "balancers"(if u can call them that) don't care about balancing weapons

[Tears of Destiny]

I thought the advantage of the 2 handers was the significantly better reach due to the attack animations. *shrugs*

[Ginosaji]

This must be an EU problem or an exaggeration, on NA the range spam solves pikemen in groups

On EU it's also hard playing as pikeman because of the much ranged, but there are maps where it's better (village maps where one team doesn't have a roof to shoot from and stuff) and there it can get really annoying getting poked all the time.
It's not that I personally have a problem with that, I just think there's some room/need for balancing.

and on 1 VS 1 there are only a half dozen players at best who can kill reliably with it and to be fair they kill most people regardless of what they are using

Yeah, that's true.

EDIT: What with the new wpf having an effect on weapons breaking[...]

Some dev (Paul) said in the German boards that the highest WPF in all melee classes is used to determine that effect for all melee weapons.

[Vibe]

Can you still hit thru thin walls with a Pike?

[DrKronic]

I thought the advantage of the 2 handers was the significantly better reach due to the attack animations. *shrugs*

yea but the thing is, most 2handers don't have that reach, take katanas/morningstars/bar mace/great maul etc, they are not as nearly long my elegant poleaxe I assure u, in fact they are same length or even shorter than certain 1hers in terms of overall attack range/radius;

 ok a greatsword?, I've used both MW germans and danishs for countless builds, I tell u for a fact the swings on my elegant are either the same length or nearly the same length, and the hitbox on polearms is extremely forgiving(bugged is the better term, u can still go through blocks)

the stab animation for 2h greatswords is longer, but it can't facehug hit nearly as easily as a polearm

(not every fight involves running away and spinthrusting, which btw works on the skilless masses mostly),


 polearm pierces are way better damage, also good luck outranging my longspear, u get to close its poleaxe time

most people that believe 2hers are amazing do not use 2handers, or have only seen 2handers in the hands of amazing players (the likes of carebear/dan/myself/homey_D_clown/etc)

those same players given a polearm(or 1h for that matter) would still wreck the server

[WaltF4]

An alternate animation change is to make it begin thrusting earlier in the animation, which counter-intuitively makes it cause less damage and will surely glance a pointblank thrust.

The weapon collider for the two handed polearm thrust will interact with other objects as soon as the weapon begins to advance. I am fairly certain weapon colliders for all weapon types and attack directions work similarly, but I have not tested them to the same extent. So, I do not know if it is possible to make a distinction between starting the animation and the weapon advancing.

Since you seem to have more than a passing interest in the thrust mechanics you might be interested in an experiment I ran in the native tutorial using modified characteristics for the practice sword and quarter staff as well as the practice dummies there. I changed the practice sword to use the two handed polearm thrust animation instead of the one handed weapon thrust animation and set the length to 200 cm. I used this 200 length reference weapon to set my distance from the practice dummy such that a thrust would barely reach the target at full extension. There is a rapid drop in damage after the sweet spot is passed that I used to repeatedly find the same spacing. I would estimate that the precession of this method of range finding is better than 5 cm as it was sensitive enough to detected the very small difference in reach between quick thrust and held thrust attacks. After finding the correct spacing, I then thrust with the quarter staff modified to have lengths between 150 cm and 400 cm and recorded the damage dealt when striking the practice dummy. The plot below show the damage dealt as a function of quarter staff length.

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

For clarity, I have replotted the damage data as a function of the distance the trust traveled before reaching the practice dummy. I have also labeled the major distance regions of interest.

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

If the thrust hits the practice dummy before traveling any distance (i.e. the weapon collider starts inside the practice dummy) it always deals 3 damage regardless of the weapon damage value. This seems to be the minimum damage that can be inflicted to unarmored targets (without speed bonus) and occurs with the other thrust animations. For two handed polearm thrusts traveling between 1 cm and 85 cm, the damage dealt increases with increasing distance traveled. This 1 cm to 85 cm range is where spinning with the thrust allows you to delay when the thrust hits to increase the distance the thrust will have traveled and the amount of damage dealt. The sweet spot for maximum damage of a two handed polearm thrust is between 85 cm and 165 cm. After traveling 165 cm, the rapid drop in damage occurs, and 175 cm is the maximum distance the two handed polearm thrust will travel.

Can you still hit thru thin walls with a Pike?

Yes. You can also thrust through some walls with the long spear. This would suggests that the pike can thrust through objects at least 55 cm thick.

[Cyclopsided]

Nice. Plots.

Yes. You can also thrust through some walls with the long spear. This would suggests that the pike can thrust through objects at least 55 cm thick.

Just for people's reference, exploiting by stabbing through terrain (walls, doors, etc.) is illegal. Stabbing through a 2 foot wall next to that ladder the enemy is climbing up is not intended.
Stabbing through a teammate? Not illegal. You have such a small margin of error, that you'll probably hit your teammate anyways if they move (and everybody LOVES to hold movement keys). Also, it is considered stabbing over their shoulder if you're doing that... Don't try it often unless you have disciplined teammates.

The weapon collider for the two handed polearm thrust will interact with other objects as soon as the weapon begins to advance. I am fairly certain weapon colliders for all weapon types and attack directions work similarly, but I have not tested them to the same extent. So, I do not know if it is possible to make a distinction between starting the animation and the weapon advancing.

Good to hear someone say that other than me. After reading your post and stuff on length, I have something to add. What I do understand about the animations and doing damage, is that damage is largely based on at what point in the duration of time, relative to the complete animation, it occurred. Regardless of weapon length.
Thrusting having a sweetspot based on time, swings having time & location relative to length.
I want sweet spots to matter more, especially on swings. I hilt-slash people all day for way too much damage, when that should glance.

[WaltF4]

Good to hear someone say that other than me. After reading your post and stuff on length, I have something to add. What I do understand about the animations and doing damage, is that damage is largely based on at what point in the duration of time, relative to the complete animation, it occurred. Regardless of weapon length.

Agreed. In case I was unclear before, the distance traveled and time of traveling for a thrust are not separable and are effectively the same metric for how much of the animation has been completed. The plots could be reworked to be function of time of travel, but the measurement would be significantly harder to make and would then also depend of weapon speed and weapon proficiency. The distance scale is applicable to the two handed polearm thrust in a general sense as the animation always travels the same distance. The weapon length just determines the distance away from the attacker that the 175 cm path will cover.

[Kafein]

I thought the advantage of the 2 handers was the significantly better reach due to the attack animations. *shrugs*

And the 1000% better feints.

[Gorath]

And the 1000% better feints.

truth