Lolstab - beyond the over power

[Teeth]

My weapon, wat? I have never owned or played with an Awlpike apart from a few sessions where I grabbed one from the armoury. Last time I consistently used a two-directional was late 2011- early 2012 before any turn rate nerf was even implemented. I used the Ashwood Pike that cost 2k (lol) back then. That is when Chase used the Awlpike and Warlord was in our clan also using the Ashwood. That was when you could be getting ganked by like 6 people and all of them would be reluctant to let go of downblock because they would never know who you were going to hit next. Zipping around wiggling that thing all over the place. You could side wiggle to not glance instead of up down, but there were no insta-stabs. The stab always hit at the same part into the animation. Good times. That was my first venture into stabby support polearm and I never went back. Since the turn rate nerf hit I've went longspear - hoplite - pike, but never the awlpike.

Edit: If you want to nerf stabby polearms, than fix lolstab, face-hug stab mechanics. But don't nerf weapon stats because something is wrong with animation.

Exactly what I have been suggesting ever since the stab tweaks. Last patch tried to fix the OP stabs by nerfing certain stab weapons, including Awlpike to, no avail. Stabs in general are the problem, Awlpike and other two-directional are simply the most OP because they have the best combination of high reach, high speed and high damage stabs.

All in all you underestimate the average skill level these days. Most players can actually block simple attacks reliably and an awlpike is a much too viable weapon in the hands of many.

[Leshma]

Well I hope they'll fix that, but they usually choose easier, more convenient way and that's stat nerf. They nerfed 2H stab so many times, partially because it's truly awfully long but mostly because of wiggly lolstab. They couldn't find a fix for that. Same will probably happen with awlpike.

Edit: I used longevity of 2H lolstab all the time, but rarely its wiggly nature to avoid blocks. Then I joined duel server couple of times, and one time there was Merc_Tyr. He used GGS at that time. Let's just say that duel was awful for my side because I was constantly blocking down (wasn't and still aren't good at chambering stabs). He stabbed me 100 times per second. Just stab, nothing else. That is why things get nerfed, because players find a way to do something they shouldn't be able to do. Retarded 2H feints, spin stabs, everything goes into that very category.

I'm for realism, always were and always will be. Might never be better than average player but besides this nasty disease called backpedaling, I try to play as proper as I could. What means proper? Proper means fixing on your enemy like in actual fight, not turning your back to him to pull of some bullshit move that never works in reality. Not looking like complete moron, by performing so called feinting which looks like you want to chop off your own head with a blade... stuff like that isn't something I do or want to get good at. Because that shit breaks immersion and I like this game for being medieval simulator mostly, not just as "look at me, I've got k/d of 20 and 100 kills. I'm the man..."

Edit: Therefore, respect for Khorin, respect for Logen, respect for Butan, respect for Kastu. All you other fancy "mechanics" abusers can crawl under a rock and die. Players I mentioned chamber block all the time and that's their thing. No retardo feints, no facehug bullshit, nothing of the sort. And still rocking the server. That's why they got my respect.

[Logen]

They nerfed 2H stab so many times, partially because it's truly awfully long but mostly because of wiggly lolstab. They couldn't find a fix for that.

Um, didn't they change it somehow over the years, though? My memory isn't very clear, but 2h stab was shorter both in duration and reach as far as I remember. It's possible to make the stab shorter, no?

[San]

I believe it's a combination of things, especially with the high piercing polearm stab. Very high damage, the ability to choose whether to hit early or late if need be, great natural reach, great synergy with kicking, and stopping opponents in their tracks briefly are all great boons to the class. A few of these are quite good, but put all of them together and a case can be made about how good they are in relation to other weapons. It makes charging them quite dangerous since even a poor stab that barely does any damage can screw you over.

They can be hit out of their stun or facehugged, but early/late hits and kicking are options that can be used against these tactics. A group of polearms with 1 or 2 of another melee class are probably the most devastating at many v 1 in a melee clash. 2 directions isn't that bad when you take into account that most weapons are only going to use 2-3 swing directions in a situation outside of shortswords and spears.

I think the stun and 2 directions are good enough weaknesses for high tier weapons. I think awlpike/long awlpike series are some of the best, but not OP if that makes any sense, but I can see how one can argue either way. Definitely a performance booster for most.

Also @Leshma, I think a 4PS build 1h is equivalent to an 8PS build 1h, just good at different things. The combination of taking a lot of hits with your body and shield makes the build great for simply trading hits and coming out alive. Much better in clusters, too, while the agi is better on the outskirts where there's a bit of room. The shield also usually accounts for 1/3-1/2 of your overall weight, and twitch blocking with a shield if you let go too much just gets you hit. I think low stats balanced shielder like 18/18 is the hardest, getting much better with 21/21.

[Kafein]

Sanxus may be biased, but his point is correct : all stabby weapons have bullshit mechanics, making them much more powerful than they should be.

[Nightmare798]

(click to show/hide)

Alright, it started to annoy me very hard. Once I was happy, I lived in my hood, I was riding on mah pony all day everyday, coudn't stop it. But then, they stopped it! They ruined everything! LOLSTABERS! Pike, awlpike, long spear, or just a pitch fork. Those suckers can stab your horse from a side, and then swing their weapon like it weighs nothing and stop it like stabing from front. Ya all know what I'm talking about! U can't hide it!

Here is my fascinating, and brilliant and original idea. Make it impossible to move your weapon while making stab. For example, with pike you can stab a man standing like 4 meters away cuz of it's range, but you can also kill someone standing next to you, no matter it has 3 meters and weighs 3 kilos (or whatever the units are) but you still are able to stab the air and then swing that shit into your oponent. The same, but worse is with awlpike - faster and more deadly - lolstab is why it's the way it is. Without it knitler would be just a little prick normal player ;).
It affects 2h and 1h aswell, spamwhores with 1h lolstab wouldn't be OP, also that would make rondel dagger less annoying.

@haters: don't give me more infamy than I deserve just cuz I want to make this game playable...

Let me get this straight...

You complain about getting killed by polearm stab while on horseback?

Dude srsly?

[Patoson]

(click to show/hide)

Alright, it started to annoy me very hard. Once I was happy, I lived in my hood, I was riding on mah pony all day everyday, coudn't stop it. But then, they stopped it! They ruined everything! LOLSTABERS! Pike, awlpike, long spear, or just a pitch fork. Those suckers can stab your horse from a side, and then swing their weapon like it weighs nothing and stop it like stabing from front. Ya all know what I'm talking about! U can't hide it!

Here is my fascinating, and brilliant and original idea. Make it impossible to move your weapon while making stab. For example, with pike you can stab a man standing like 4 meters away cuz of it's range, but you can also kill someone standing next to you, no matter it has 3 meters and weighs 3 kilos (or whatever the units are) but you still are able to stab the air and then swing that shit into your oponent. The same, but worse is with awlpike - faster and more deadly - lolstab is why it's the way it is. Without it knitler would be just a little prick normal player ;).
It affects 2h and 1h aswell, spamwhores with 1h lolstab wouldn't be OP, also that would make rondel dagger less annoying.

@haters: don't give me more infamy than I deserve just cuz I want to make this game playable...

That's exactly what I've always thought would stop lolstab: making it impossible to turn / move the weapon as you stab, but I don't think it could be possible with the hard-coded engine. The few attempts to fix this were the same animation but no damage after a certain angle - a weird but only possible fix I guess.

[Gurnisson]

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That's exactly what I've always thought would stop lolstab: making it impossible to turn / move the weapon as you stab

That would make stabs pretty much useless.

[Leshma]

Yeah, and as a way to balance stabs reliable downblock would have to go. Because in reality you can't turn as much but you can't block stabs as easily like in cRPG.

Also, stabs from historical point of view were most effective way to kill your opponent. For those who ask why are stabs so powerful and how it makes no sense.

[BlindGuy]

STAB irl is not blockable without a shield. You can deflect it, you can chop down at opponents weapon or wrists/forearms, but just stopping it dead like in M&B is redunculous. So if you wanna nerf stabs by making them unable to turn, make them only chamberable. As Leshman said, stabs where THE way to kill anyone who had even thick leathers on, forget about ever harming an enemy in plate with ANY kind of slash or cut.

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

To be fair it's not like you could block any attack, even though deflecting a thrust is probably far harder than deflecting a swing. I'd love for blocking to be removed and the chambering window made bigger.

[Logen]

To be fair it's not like you could block any attack

why not?

[BlindGuy]

To be fair it's not like you could block any attack...

Why not?

[Rebelyell]

pesant with pichfork and arena shield stab plated charger to face, hores continue and trample and kill pesant

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not in crpg

[Skoffin]

pesant with pichfork and arena shield stab plated charger to face, hores continue and trample and kill pesant

(click to show/hide)

not in crpg

Hm, wouldn't it be truly interesting if polearms occasionally glanced on cav, depending on their armour? It would be a horrible mechanic but it would surely spice things up. Regarding this thread itself I think it should be moved to The Chamber of Tears.