I never said a word about awlPIKE.
I'm mainly talking about: war spear, red tassel spear, the lances and some of the short spears.
Something should be done at least for the polearm+shield combination.
ok but how does that cancel out my point?
have you ever duelled against a spamming or skilled war spear user, red tassel, spear, shortened spear etc etc etc?
give them the ability to feint overhead and downstab that you cannot tell apart animation wise, together with the occasional sideswing and there is no way in hell you can live through the duel for longer than 10 seconds if you are an ironflesh hoarder
lances: you apparently are GK so you probably dont have the problem yourself often, but i can imagine nearly everyone else has been impaled by cav often enough, now imagine a lancer being able to stab and overhead stab -> op
if that was disabled like the overhead swing: same problem as awlpike, its just as fast, even longer so it can be used as a support weapon more effectively, and overhead stab hits the head with ease -> op
and the hoplite only has one attack direction for a reason: hes got the longest reaching animation of all, with terrific damage (ashwood: 33p) at good speed (94speed) AND a shield that blocks melee in all directions as well as arrows (provided you know how to use the shield properly)
if a hoplite wants more directions he can put the shield on his back, giving away the advantage of easier blocking, but gaining attack directions
conclusion: overhead stab should stay in NW where its useful and not too op (cause of slow attack speed and movement speed)
in crpg its absolutely op no matter for which weapon