Either I don't do what I am thinking I do, or you didn't spectate me enough. Because I try to fend off people, and I heavily rely on teammates being between me and the enemy. It's not like I try to engage them face to face, as I know all they need to do is to downblock.
Feel free to spectate me and comment more on what you see. In this case your comments are most welcome.
Well yeah that's kind of the thing. You seem to expect the enemy to just fight your teammates in front of you, to leave you free to just poke in. And while this kind of thinking works "okay" with a pike, it shines through when you're playing a regular melee as well. And then it doesn't work.
You seem to think ahead, but a little too much. You can't "plan" a melee engagement, what you need is the ability to make split-second decisions, and just-make-it-work.
"Standing fast" doesn't mean supplementing the wall of teammates by adding a long pointy stick to the arsenal, standing fast means building that wall yourself. You can never rely fully on teammates. From what I've seen, what the everyday engagement on EU1 needs is not more people who hang back and try to get a few free hits in, but people who dare to get into the thick of it to create some momentum and initiative.
Sadly, teammates are utter shit when it comes to following through a successful charge, but then, teammates will always be utter shit at everything :p
A bit ranty, I know but I hope you get my point. Getting into the thick of things also has the considerable benefits of making you a better solo player (since you're forced to make the split-second decisions, block multiple enemies and so on) as well as generally having a bigger impact on things (I fully believe in a heavily offensive style in battle and the importance of psychology in battle. If you break the enemy and gain the momentum and initiative that you need to follow through, you will have the positional advantage and will be able to squash the enemy with little effort. What this sort of play requires though is skilled players who are willing to stand up and break the enemy ranks. This is often seen on battle servers as the side which forces the enemy to retreat often wins the whole melee engagement since they're able to go and backstab/roll the enemies across the rest of the battlefield, while the opponent will be in "retreat mode" and thus too scared and ambivalent to push them back.)