How about giving certain polearm weapons a certain tag, like "cruel" or "inflicts heavy wounds" or something like that, and those weapons do have the polestagger. That way people, who relied on the stagger or saw it as a (viable) feature could still take advantage of it, but it could get balanced by certain weapon stats. For example it should always go hand in hand with "unbalanced", like most crushthrough weapons do.
I think it would be a nice compromise and add another, real and intended feature to combat, next to others like unbalanced, good against shields, knockdown or crushthrough.
I would suggest to add the polestagger/cruel flag to the following weapons:
visitors can't see pics , please
register or
loginGerman Poleaxe
weapon length: 131
weight: 3
difficulty: 16
speed rating: 90
weapon length: 131
thrust damage: 29 pierce
swing damage: 42 cut
slots: 2
Can't use on horseback
Bonus against Shield
Secondary Mode
visitors can't see pics , please
register or
loginGreat Long Bardiche
weapon length: 155
weight: 3.7
difficulty: 18
speed rating: 87
weapon length: 155
thrust damage: 18 pierce
swing damage: 46 cut
slots: 2
Can't use on horseback
Unbalanced
Bonus against Shield
visitors can't see pics , please
register or
loginEnglish Bill
weapon length: 174
weight: 4
difficulty: 17
speed rating: 89
weapon length: 174
thrust damage: 28 pierce
swing damage: 31 pierce
slots: 2
Can't use on horseback
Can't sheath
visitors can't see pics , please
register or
loginBoar Spear
weapon length: 145
weight: 1.8
difficulty: 4
speed rating: 92
weapon length: 145
thrust damage: 27 pierce
swing damage: 16 blunt
slots: 2
I chose the German Poleaxe because it is not used that much, and there should be a top tier weapon with this tag. Perhaps you can even try to not make it unbalanced, but lower the weapon speed 1 or two points.
Then I chose the Great Long Bardiche and the English Bill because they look mean and a hit of them would surely inflict terrible wounds. It's also a chance to mark them off from the Swiss Halberd, respectively Long Bardiche/Long Voulge.
The Boar Spear finally is to add a spear weapon with this feature. It has a broad tip, which justifies it to inflict cruel wounds, and I don't see it that much as a hoplite weapon, so again it's a chance to increase diversity.
And I know there are always people who are using those weapons, and say that this would destroy a perfectly balanced and wonderful weapon, but I think all in all those weapons are used that little, that such a change could add a little bit more diversity to the polearms you see on the servers.