Hoplite vs Piker vs support(overhead) polearm

[Vodner]

-damage absolutely not - long spear and particularly pike trade damage (and speed as well as for pikes) for reach. Long spear has 26 basic dmg and pike has 24 (which is very very low in comparison with 30+ for awlpikes, ashwood pikes etc). Your average hoplite deals much more damage

Unless hoplite damage calculations have been adjusted from vanilla Warband (which might very well be the case, I'm not sure), polearms suffer a 27.75% damage reduction when used with a shield. That would knock a 30p ashwood pike down to ~22p.

[Felix]

Unless hoplite damage calculations have been adjusted from vanilla Warband (which might very well be the case, I'm not sure), polearms suffer a 27.75% damage reduction when used with a shield. That would knock a 30p ashwood pike down to ~22p.

Based on my observations (i.e. getting hit by hoplites and awlpikes) the damage is reduced, but the rate maybe around 10% at most. In fact i'd say that it bears no difference.

Well i just thought of another crucial moment - pike indeed sucks in small scale battles, but if you have actually strong coordinated team to provide support for, then 300 length pike predates on practically EVERYTHING - be it cav, infantry, shielders, longspearmen etc. But you know how it goes - public teams are really random. Sometimes they display great coordination and teamplay, and sometimes they are just fucking IN WAY and excel in being useless.

For me pike and longspear are secondary/support weapons...like taking a crossbow or throwing axe as a backup.  If you are taking a pike or longspear, you better take a 1h as a melee weapon for when shit gets real.

  For me when shit gets real, i start using the great BENDING skill and try to BEND mah pike and abuse helicopter technique.
A three slot weapon can't be a secondary - either you are dedicated piker, or you just take a shield and 1h and dont play wannabe piker - just isn't worth it.

The 300 length pike is absolute garbage nowadays.

I feel your pain bro. Though yesterday night at EU1 was a great time for me - i topped the scoreboard with 15-20 kills for 3 maps and enemy infantry was shitting bricks when i rush into battle swinging my ridiculously long pike  On the other hand there were no byzantiums - just mercs and some random guys, so not much of competition.

[Teeth]

my rant was so strong that the forum moderators had to extinct the source of these revolutionary ideas by closing the thread:

http://forum.meleegaming.com/announcements/official-survey-about-item-power/msg746651/#msg746651

That is quite a lot of bullshit you typed there, really you are rather biased.

[owens]

Hoplite damage is simply down to every attack being a pause.

[no_rules_just_play]

That is quite a lot of bullshit you typed there, really you are rather biased.

i certainly want to believe i am biased, but i tried a lower lvl hoplite with cheap gear and no looms and ended up getting valour first round while i was almost laying in my chair. Could you please give counter arguments? i think mine are quite correct?

[Teeth]

almost 360 degree magnet shield for autoblock AND instastabbing. yes hoplites can stab while facehugging maybe its harder vs 2handed players but... they also dont suffer a long glance when their stab gets blocked.

Every weapon can insta stab, which I presume you mean hitting early in the animation. Hoplites, 2h, 1h, your long awlpike, longspear, pike. All of em, as for hitting at facehug range, all weapons can do it save the pike. Trust me, I know. Hoplite stabbing does in fact suffer a long glance when their stab gets blocked, as much as 2h, pike, longspear. It's just that slower weapons take a longer time to recover from it.

so conclusion: 2h and hoplite are very good at close combat. so what?

Don't kid yourself, perhaps hoplite is better at close combat than the pike and longspear, but any other 2 directional polearms are just as good and that is without taking into account that they have an overhead. Which you might not realize, but hoplites don't.

now we look at pikes (as i am piker i really felt this). We can all agree when a 2h attacks someone with a long spear/pike/long awlpike, he can easily win in a duel by facehugging and spamming. pikes are just slower and have very little directions to attack in. against hoplites, in facehug distance they will surely lose because the hoplite shield gives a huge glance when its hit and because the stabs are so instant.

Serious bullshit. The hoplite shield does not give a long glance when it is hit, except when hit by a late stab, but that is completely the 2h's fault and this happens also when you late stab a downblock. Your long awlpike is just as good in a 1 vs 1, it stabs as fast as an ashwood pike hoplite, if not faster and does more damage. Did you really just say a 2h would surely lose against a hoplite in close combat?

ok, no problem. dont cry pikes, you suck at duels? so what? your long awlpike has 185 length, just outstab that guy with his pathetic longsword of 106 nab reach or that hoplite with warspear: 150 reach lol, poke at him from a distance. so easy. pike easymode.

WELL NO. this is fucking bullshit. a low length 2h easily outreaches my long awlpike. a warspear with a shield does the same. a ashwood pike does the same with a long spear. their stab has a huge bonus for some retarded reason and when a polearmer chambers his weapon, he stands there: bend forward like a retard his head open for all attacks while twohanders and hoplite just stand straight (wich is also weird because nobody would be able to hold balance like that).

Again loads of bullshit. The ashwood pike with a shield does not outreach the longspear, sure I try to do it, but that is because with proper timing and footwork you can surprise them, absolutely, it does not outreach it. The 106 practice longsword might outreach you with proper movement, but that is because the 2h stab stays active until way too late into the animation. When standing still I am fairly sure you outreach it. The posture during the stab animation doesn't matter at all and does not open you for attacks, if anything it makes you a smaller target.

In short, you are very biased. First of all I don't support you grouping the long awlpike with the pike and longspear. All your arguments are basically complaints related to close combat and therefore to the long awlpike exclusively, which is a completely different weapon. We all know that the pike and longspear are not great in close combat, and they shouldn't be. Your entire posts just radiates that you think your weapon is weak and everybody else's is too strong, which is a load of whine.

The MW Long Awlpike does 35 fucking pierce, can instastab, stuns 2h stabs as much by blocking as an hoplite shield, gets stunned on stabs exactly as much as hoplites do. Has a fucking overhead. Please do note that even though the MW Ashwood does 33 pierce, there is supposed to be a 27.75% damage penalty for using it with a shield. Which seems quite a lot to me, but at least I am a 100% sure that a MW longspear with 29 pierce does more damage than a MW Ashwood with a shield. Which means you have at least 6 more pierce damage. There is also a speed penalty for using it with a shield, your long awlpike is faster than an ashwood pike with shield and using it with a shield removes your overhead.

i certainly want to believe i am biased, but i tried a lower lvl hoplite with cheap gear and no looms and ended up getting valour first round while i was almost laying in my chair. Could you please give counter arguments? i think mine are quite correct?

Now I definitely think hoplite is a little too strong, considering it has a shield and stabs rather well, but almost all your arguments are basically whine about your long awlpike and a lot of them are simply not true. This argument right here is rather stupid as well, wanna see me get valour with a long awlpike? Want to see me beat 2h'ers in a duel with a long awlpike? Want to see me insta stab with a long awlpike?

Your long awlpike is a very good weapon and I am almost certain that I can get a better score with it on average on your precious siege server than as an hoplite, and that is considering I am very good at close combat as a hoplite. On battle hoplite is in fact a lot stronger, but hardly for the reasons you mentioned.

[no_rules_just_play]

i was using my long awlpike as a example because i use it. i separated 'pikes' in two groups: the 2d polearms like the long awlpike and the 1d polearms like long spear and pike. I understand your points but I think what i wrote is mostly correct, maybe i over exaggerated a bit at some points, but i can certainly say that a hoplite instastabs way easier than any other polearms and that they also have a longer reach compared to the same weapon without shield. This just sucks and it is a common problem that the piker finds himself unable to do anything when they are facing a hoplite or when the hoplite is sitting behind the lines, stabbing and backpeddling with his shield up. A hoplite can have multiple players hitting his shield while backpeddling. He doesnt have to do anything special at that point, no footwork or blocking.
Im sure what you are trying to say, I am far as skilled as you. but i think im not bad atleast and maybe you have no problems from this, but the average player does. Im surely not the only person thinking about it like that.

Its not really that you can say you are unbaised, some month(s) ago, i suddenly saw numerous people switching to hoplite, i dont even know what changed that it suddenly became such a wanted class. Their are two players I just totally try to run away from if they are facing me and those are you and knitler. I know both of you are both extremely skilled and i cant even get close to that, but since you became hoplite I just know you are unstoppable

[Teeth]

i was using my long awlpike as a example because i use it. i separated 'pikes' in two groups: the 2d polearms like the long awlpike and the 1d polearms like long spear and pike. I understand your points but I think what i wrote is mostly correct, maybe i over exaggerated a bit at some points, but i can certainly say that a hoplite instastabs way easier than any other polearms and that they also have a longer reach compared to the same weapon without shield. This just sucks and it is a common problem that the piker finds himself unable to do anything when they are facing a hoplite or when the hoplite is sitting behind the lines, stabbing and backpeddling with his shield up. A hoplite can have multiple players hitting his shield while backpeddling. He doesnt have to do anything special at that point, no footwork or blocking.
Im sure what you are trying to say, I am far as skilled as you. but i think im not bad atleast and maybe you have no problems from this, but the average player does. Im surely not the only person thinking about it like that.

Its not really that you can say you are unbaised, some month(s) ago, i suddenly saw numerous people switching to hoplite, i dont even know what changed that it suddenly became such a wanted class. Their are two players I just totally try to run away from if they are facing me and those are you and knitler. I know both of you are both extremely skilled and i cant even get close to that, but since you became hoplite I just know you are unstoppable

Here you use the term pike again, when referring to hoplites outranging you, but ashwood pike hoplite does not outrange the longspear nor the pike, so again you are just talking about your long awlpike when you mention pikes. Hoplite does not instastab easier than any other polearms, it simply isn't true. Instastabbing at facehug range as an ashwood pike is not actually that easy. As you probably haven't noticed, hardly all of the hoplites can do it, let alone reliably. I can do it quite well, but that is due to a year of playing longspear, with which instastabbing at facehug range is also possible, it is only slightly harder. Yet I still fail on occasion on pulling it off. If it is possible with a longspear, I am quite confident that a long awlpike can do it as well, rather fast even.

As for me being biased and switching to hoplite. I had been planning to get shieldskill to do some hopliting as soon as I would hit 34 for months. When I got there it turned out to be superior to longspear. I can tell you what changed, turn rates, the longspear got less turn rate, the ashwood pike got more. Also, blame ranged and cav. I did in fact say that I definitely thought hoplite is a little strong and also that hoplite is a lot better in battle than a long awlpike.

I don't in fact think that long awlpike is better than hoplite as a class, it is somewhat worse, hoplite is too strong, but it isn't because of the arguments you provide, of which the bulk are exxagerated, untrue, or hold for other weapons as well. After all, the long awlpike still is one of the highest damage polearms in the game, don't forget that hoplite damage does not quite compare.

One of your arguments I did agree with is the turn rate, it is rather random and not well balanced, but they are not able to address that as of now. Still, the long awlpike is hardly fucked by it, can't find the formula but I think it still turns faster than before. The English Bill now for example has the same speed and lower reach and turns at the rate of the great maul and pike, now there is a weapon that could use a buff. A simple fix for the ashwood pike would be increasing it's weight to 2.5 or 3 and thus reducing it's turn rate.

[Felix]

This just sucks and it is a common problem that the piker finds himself unable to do anything when they are facing a hoplite or when the hoplite is sitting behind the lines, stabbing and backpeddling with his shield up. A hoplite can have multiple players hitting his shield while backpeddling. He doesnt have to do anything special at that point, no footwork or blocking.
Im sure what you are trying to say, I am far as skilled as you. but i think im not bad atleast and maybe you have no problems from this, but the average player does. Im surely not the only person thinking about it like that.

Piker isn't supposed to confront hoplites alone. He fights from from afar with his teammates, using timing and length advantage. I can't count how much hoplites i fucked up with my pike while standing behind the front line of shielders. The only hoplite that shrugs off my attacks is Teeth. I swear it - none other was as good as he is, most of them open up too carelessly.

Hoplite can't sit behind the lines, if he wants to hit someone - they have shield and that's why they are always in front. No foortwork or blocking? That's the whole point getting shield skill, you know - they actually sacrifice IF or something else to get shield points.

I have to agree with teeth concerning your long awlpike. It's very good weapon - long enough, high pierce damage and good speed. And for god's sake it has overhead. Do you want to know how frustrating it is to have nothing but one attack direction that is neither damaging nor fast?

[[ptx]]

Tbh, Long Awlpike/awlpike are relatively easy to use weapons, especially the latter. High damage + overhead make these more than capable of 1v1, even good at it against a lot of people.

[owens]

In native i purely play hoplite. I never ever use a sword only war spear and shield and i know that you cant just bluntly stab at point blank even with low native armour values.

Hoplite has a good chance at beating 2d polearms (no 1d in native) but 1 v1 it takes a huge amount of skill to take out fast weapons and hoplites move the slowest of all classes except archer(wont go into that).



I dont know how good teeth is say he is as good at cRPG hoplite as i am at native hoplite. He will beat 2d and 1d. Part of hopliting is the gamble the slower your opponents weapon the better the odds. You get stunned so much you cant risk attacking a quick blocking opponent unless you know they are open. 2d is the same in fact hoplite blocking can be slower due to shield speed.



cRPG in NA is a slightly more hoplite friendly environment than native_AUS from what i have seen and im certain teeth is a frightening opponent next time he comes at you carry the 97 speed long axe down block and don't feint. Never feint a hoplite.