Spear and Sheild

[Cyclopsided]

Hoplite is not a hybrid. It is a spear&Shield. Hoplite is being used as an umbrella term.

Also, all spears suffer the speed and damage penalty when used with a shield....

[Tzar]

I love hoplites we should receive a health potion when we run over you since your just speed bumps along my way of slaugther.

Only usefulness you bring to the team is maybe blocking and entrance or being cannon fodder 

[Kafein]

I don't know about hoplites, but pikemen can kill things. Even with the 300 reach pike that does very little damage I kill people occasionally, usually ending up with good k/d around 1.75/1.


I think you can't use the biggest shields nor the biggest armors in a hoplite set. You need the speed as much as a pikeman does. A war spear, a round cavalry shield, 21/18 build, there you go.

What about this ? No IF isn't really going to hurt you since you have your shield and good speed.

Level 30 (4 420 577 xp)

    Strength: 21
    Agility: 18
    Hit points: 56

    Skills to attributes: 8

    Ironflesh: 0
    Power Strike: 7
    Shield: 4
    Athletics: 6
    Riding: 0
    Horse Archery: 0
    Power Draw: 0
    Power Throw: 0
    Weapon Master: 6

    One Handed: 1
    Two Handed: 1
    Polearm: 156
    Archery: 1
    Crossbow: 1
    Throwing: 1


The damage calculator says 28 pierce makes an average 15.5 damage against 40 armor. Add the speed bonus and you can end up with 22 damage easily. With 33 pierce (awlpike), average damage goes up to 20.5.

[KaMiKaZe_JoE]

Oddly enough my spear/shield build IS a sort of hybrid.

I am, first and foremost, a cavalry player. However, since my cav player requires sheild and polearm points, I thought that I'd simply go all out with sheild, and add some points to athletics. I fight with spear and shield on horseback, and spear and shield on foot, and it works.

Still, I'd like to see the spear I use on foot do more damage when used with shield. I have six powerstrike, and while that doesn't exactly make me a heavy-hitter, I'm not a weakling either.

Six points in shield, athletics, power strike, and riding. 5 points in WM. 18/18.

No reason for me to not kill people when I poke 'em

[MaHuD]

I would like to see an increase in the speed of shields, if I have to do a 1 vs 1 I prefer to keep the shield because without it there is a chance that I will do a swing which will bounce and get me killed. However, if the enemy that I am facing has some knowledge about fighting with / against spear + shield it would be impossible to kill him.
Chambering is really easy and holding down block is rumored to be quite easy. Which means that I have to feint and try to outrange the enemy, however many have these gigantic 2h / Polearms which
 A) seem to swing a wee bit faster than my stab(Probably because of shield penalty)
 B) Have a longer reach then me anyway (Granted, I am using a normal spear so its not exactly very long)
 C) Can chamber all of my attacks because the attack direction is known (Fair game, that's the main drawback that I have to face I geuss )

Feinting is really dangerous, because if an enemy goes for the chamber, I have to block quickly but the shield's have a unique feature that controlls how fast you can block (Speed of Shield) much unlike normal blocking which happens instantly. A good shield has a low speed (Board shields) which means that the timeframe to block is very small. A cavalry shield has a better speed, but makes you extremely vulnerable to archers/xbows/throwing weapons which is kinda weird, because archers are supposed to be good against 2h and horses not people with shields.

Also taking a worse shield means I can take less hits

oops it's kinda late, I will finisht hse post later :O

[Seawied]

Good post MaHud. I agree, shields should be fast when used with a spear.

[Spawny]

I have a 1h/shield character and I don't get amazing scores. Between 1:1 and 2,5:1 most of the time.
I have a 15/21 build with full athletics/WM and some points in shield and a few in riding. 5 PS for obvious reaons.

With my twice heirloomed warspear I'm fast enough for a block-attack-block-attack rythm and with a bit of turning/twisting I can get hits in from point blank range. Especially my speed is what catches most people off guard. They come running at you with an attack chambered and just before they get in range I lunge out forward and stab them in the face.
If they hold downblock, I hold my attack chambered or feint an attack. If they release to swing, I try to stab them in the gut.

The only ones that doesn't work against are the ninja builds, but I can always put away my shield for that.

It's underpowered to be an exclusive hoplite character, but it's versatile when you put away the shield.

Oh and the penalty to speed/damage should be for any weapon longer than 150 reach. (Awlpike, lances, etc). The red tassel spear, war spear and the other spears shouldn't have the damage/speed penalty.

[Cyclopsided]

Oh and the penalty to speed/damage should be for any weapon longer than 150 reach. (Awlpike, lances, etc). The red tassel spear, war spear and the other spears shouldn't have the damage/speed penalty.

They do have it though. The penalty doesn't deal with reach, it deals with a polearm being held in one hand. Problem is, you can do that fine with a spear up to 8 feet long in real life. ~_~

[IG_Saint]

They do have it though. The penalty doesn't deal with reach, it deals with a polearm being held in one hand. Problem is, you can do that fine with a spear up to 8 feet long in real life. ~_~

Back when 1h spear thrusting was introduced in the warband beta the speed penalty was only for weapon over 150 reach. So unless cRPG changed that, spears under 150 don't receive a speed penalty when used with a shield. Damage penalty I'm not sure about.

[WaltF4]

"Penalty with shield" has not done anything since the beta. It was left over code, and the cRPG team recently removed the flag from the item file as it does nothing. Holding a polearm in one hand causes it to do 30% less damage and reduces the attack speed significantly. The speed penalty makes the faster spear weapons used with one hand as slow as the slowest one handed weapons, and the slower spear weapons used with one hand are as slow as the slowest two handed weapons. I have posted exact numbers for the speed penalty elsewhere.

[MaHuD]

I have a 1h/shield character and I don't get amazing scores. Between 1:1 and 2,5:1 most of the time.
I have a 15/21 build with full athletics/WM and some points in shield and a few in riding. 5 PS for obvious reaons.

With my twice heirloomed warspear I'm fast enough for a block-attack-block-attack rythm and with a bit of turning/twisting I can get hits in from point blank range. Especially my speed is what catches most people off guard. They come running at you with an attack chambered and just before they get in range I lunge out forward and stab them in the face.
If they hold downblock, I hold my attack chambered or feint an attack. If they release to swing, I try to stab them in the gut.

The only ones that doesn't work against are the ninja builds, but I can always put away my shield for that.

It's underpowered to be an exclusive hoplite character, but it's versatile when you put away the shield.

Oh and the penalty to speed/damage should be for any weapon longer than 150 reach. (Awlpike, lances, etc). The red tassel spear, war spear and the other spears shouldn't have the damage/speed penalty.

If you feint someone who chambers you, you are dead.

[chief]

I can do pretty well with an elite cav shield and a shortened spear. It's fast enough to keep up with an attack-block rythem, you can even feint with it. (No one expects a spear/shielder to feint a thrust, so it can be extremely effective).

I never had any problems with damage (I have 8 ps), though I do admit that the longer spears are pretty useless for anything except support. Having an overhand thrust as well as the down thrust could be a solution that.

[MaHuD]

There is certainly a large number of people that doens't recognize / expect spear feinting.
But with the shortened spear you may be fast enough to attack before the enemy hits you from their attempt at chambering.

[Digglez]

I find the awlpike + shield gets me alot more kills than any of the spears.  The slowest is almost an advantage as I can weave/wiggle the tip to hit just about anyone thats open for a shot.  the stun screws up them completely and I swear I'm doing more dmg.

[Ylca]

If you grabbed a hoplite thinking you will get the most kills in a round, you will be very sad.

If you grabbed a hoplite thinking that you would use your polearm-stun to assist kills, your shield and range to distract and harass enemies, your main weapon to demolish cavalry and often times keep them from even approaching (especially your best buddies, ranged characters), that through your gear and build you would be able to casually choose when to engage and disengage, and that you would survive to the end of almost every round, even in lighter armor- you will be very pleased.

Hoplites are like god's gift to team players.