Polearm needs some love

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by ChairStacker, Feb 2, 2017.

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  1. ChairStacker

    ChairStacker Avatar

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    • The last skill in the polearm tree is weaksauce compared to last skill in blades & bludgeon trees.
    • 1h polearms (spears) can only hit 2 targets at once. Blades can do 3. Dunno about bludgeon.
    • Polearms only have 2 innates, compared to 3 in bludgeon/blades.
    • Range bonus innate? Wha...? How about add one more innate in polearm that increases damage.
     
  2. Black Tortoise

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    Agreed, the special abilities need to be stronger, or damage output increased (or something else like parrying comes along with the innates).

    Im also in support of a polearm innate that ignores a significant % of target's armor.


    I figured 1h polearm was simply incomplete - it seems a bit useless atm. Ive only ever used 2h.

    I dont use the pull skill at all, and the spinning/aoe skill costs too much focus. Push, like all knockback skills, seem to actually give opponents an advantage. Anytime I get knockedback, I use the time to heal or cast a buff. Anytime I knock the enemy back, all that happens is the fight takes longer and they can passively heal a few hp before attacking me. I see both push and pull use for PvP though, and I havent used polearm in pvp yet.


    Leg sweep could use a % chance increase. Puncture is decent. Skewer could really use improvements in damage, duration of effect, and % chance of effect.
     
  3. Gamician

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    Agreed.
     
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  4. Elnoth

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    2H polearms hits 4 targets, 2H swords hits 3 targets
    1H polearm hits 2 targets, 1h sword hits 2 targets
     
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  5. Toadster

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    Would like a parry innate
     
  6. Curt

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    Polearms can't be blocked if can trust some loading screens.
    How big advantage is that?
     
  7. Bowen Bloodgood

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    One could argue this falls into Defensive Positions skill.

    I have several issues with polearms..

    All the animations.. are completely wrong.
    Not all polearms have a hook so Pull shouldn't apply to some..

    Pull in of itself is useful against archers and such.. BUT... why would you bring an enemy close enough for you to be within their weapon range???? That's just stupid. The advantage of polearms is being able to keep them far enough away for you to hit them and them not being able to hit you. To which I say.. "Pull?? what the hell?"

    I could rant on but I have to leave for work in an hour. :) Needless to say I would've done polearms VERY differently. But then realism is a concept that rarely (if ever) applies to online melee combat.
     
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  8. 2112Starman

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    All Melee need love period, not just Polearm.

    Im blunt and Polearms give me a great run for my money... more the swords. I was almost taken out by a Polearm in virtue league this week. I thought I was the stun lock master with blunt, he dropped me 4 times with his stuns (Ill link below with an edit).

    Ive posted on this many many times and I dont want to rehash them but I was forced to be a mage because blunt sucks so bad. I can crack crits for 300 hp on my GM obsidian arrow and Im lucky to crack 100 hp on a blunt skill. Throw in death shield on a mage and Im toast (which is why I shifted to earth). Melee needs "magic reflection" where we can reflect back 50% of magic damage back to the caster.
     
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  9. Arya Stoneheart

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    I am doing better with my ranged attack - aimed shot then my blades attacks other than Coup De Grace.

    I just started training ranged so blades seems off to me too.
     
  10. Bowen Bloodgood

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    To be honest I would not have done combat the way it is at all.. but then.. what I would do would also be far more expensive and probably exceed Portalarium's budget for the entire game. :) Which is one of the reasons I don't complain much about some ridiculous skills like Ground Pound. :)

    Right now my biggest pet peeve are the animations.. both feet should never slide along the ground at the same time fellas! :)
     
  11. 2112Starman

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    Agreed, melee combat in this game is no different then magic. You have a skill, you press the button... an action is taken and focus is used. We are basically shatty mages with no focus.

    MELEE SHOULD HAVE A DIFFERENT BAR THEN FOCUS THAT'S BASED ON STR.

    Obviously good mages in this game have 900 focus which at that point is an endless pool of focus with its regen alone. Melee has to focus on str (and lets not forget dex to actually hit and crit) and yes, they may have 900 hp.. they have a bad focus pool and run out quite fast. My battles against mages has to be shock and awe... Run out and hammer them with hits and stuns as fast as possible to drop them fast before I run out of focus which rarely works but is the only shot I got even with earth (str based). But, in the end, the good ones just drop death shield and I die by my own hand (because even at that point, I will shift to Earth which makes that match a shatty out of focus earth mage vs a real mage).
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2017
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  12. The One True Nobody

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    Ah, that pesky "balancing" question. You know, in a single-player-only game no one would really care, but the moment it becomes an online experience, you have to start thinking about making PvP fair, and players are going to go for the "best" options for DPS and whatnot so their co-op partners don't get snooty with them for not min-maxing super-efficiently. In a single player game, you can "balance" in a way that favors weapon-realism over gameplay balance because players are unrestricted by the expectations of fellow players and nothing is stopping them from choosing a slightly "worse" option either for roleplay reasons or to challenge themselves. But in an MMORPG... nope. Gotta go fast. Gotta kill things fast. Gotta be teh bestest. YOLO so why would you ever do anything that slows down your YOLOing. Sighhhhhhh...

    Well, anyway, I'm just griping, really. I think the swords and polearms are competently "balanced," if we're gonna talk technicals here, but I also feel as if the system is limiting its own potential by trying to fit both the single-player offline campaign model and the online community-based stuff at the same time. Perhaps this sticks out to me in particular because I'm more interested in the solitary, immersive offline mode than in the Ultima Online-like stuff. But the effects are there and they can very much be felt.
     
  13. 2112Starman

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    I agree, I actually have no issue with my melee build in PvE.
     
  14. The One True Nobody

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    On the other hand, melee fighters are also doing damage with basic attacks while their focus regens, so there is some give-and-take there. But I agree, melee should run off of its own stamina bar. But at this point that would mean tying it to a stat that players may not have been paying attention to, which would piss a lot of long-time players off. (That kind of shift in the metagame is an MMO-killer.)
     
  15. 2112Starman

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    ok, so you will need to get past this idea that a warriors basic attack is worth anything at all in PvE or PvP. I have 106 blunt now (had 110 before wipe) and Im lucky to hit GREEN stuff (5 skulls) for 10 hp using a big arss 2H Axe while having enough str to have 950 hp.

    At best, when a mob is down to 50 hp, I may sit there for the 10 seconds it takes to wack that away with my axe, but its a complete waist of time when I can drop it in 1 second with an earth spell that only costs 7 focus (which I regen in 1 second) and hits it for 100 hp.
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2017
  16. yobtar

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    We need more combos!!!!!!!
     
  17. Arya Stoneheart

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    Yeah add a stamina bar. Although I would get rid of distract and put in train stamina under subterfuge.
     
  18. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    You said it yourself, Bowen, because it is "useful against archers and such" that want to constantly run away and hit you from a distance. And there's no shortage of archers and mages in the game who do just that - in every fight.
     
  19. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Except in responding to what you quoted.. you're not putting yourself within range of their weapons because you already are in range of their weapons. The question was.. why would you pull an enemy close enough for them to be able to hit you. The question doesn't apply to ranged combatants as their ability to hit you doesn't change.
     
  20. The One True Nobody

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    EVERY point of damage that you can inflict within a span of time is significant. It's not a matter of abilities-versus-normal-attacking. It's abilities-PLUS-normal-attacking that comprises the melee fighter's total damage potential. I agree that the current damage output attached to basic attacks is silly to the point of nearly being worthless, but the idea that a warrior class would have to go back and forth between relying on regular, less-than-impressive jabs and thrusts and big, heavy hitting moves makes logical sense as an abstraction of the way melee combat would realistically play out. You won't constantly be doing big, impressive, stamina-draining things. It'd be like constantly sprinting instead of jogging. Endurance is a pacing game. So it should also be one in this game; the problem isn't the basic gist of the system, but the way it's balanced within its own numbers.
     
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