compared to what?
Also which polearms?
Sure, the stab polearms are OP as fuck due to the retarded speed bonus + pierce damage, but most 4d polearms are inferior to most 2h swords.
Hasn't been true since forever. Even in dueling an average player (like myself) will do about as well with a polearm as a two-hander. Even though the most recent patch finally nerfed the broken overhead animation. In group fighting polearms are usually better and even if they weren't they would have the edge of multiple roles with same wpf - something which 2H totally lacks.
I personally find 2D polearms to be a bit too strong, but the rest of the community doesn't seem to agree on that and rarely anyone uses an awlpike or something similar. The 4D polearms are really strong atm. Something like the swordstaff/glaive or the longer axes (poleaxe, long bardiche) are really good and Bec de Corbin is prolly the best 3/4D pierce weapon in game.
I would love to see devs post some weapon usage numbers from the servers because for me it seems like 2H right now is the least played melee class in this game. At least on EU1. On EU2 which is all about spamming heavy hitting weapons anyway the 2H still dominate ofc. Also the internal balance of 2H seems to be heavily tilted towards the long weapons again. Lolswords are rare which saddens me