Introduction to Polearms

Discussion in 'New Player Welcome' started by Cryodacry, Mar 12, 2018.

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  1. Cryodacry

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    Introduction

    I am Cryodacry Sarbator. I am probably the highest level polearm on the server. I am making this guide as a means for helping players to understand the weight factors into what makes polearm good and why.


    Polearm 101

    Polearm has a couple major weaknesses in combat. The first is that Polearm suffers from the lowest critical hit chance in the game. The second weakness is the fact that Polearm also has the lowest base damage in the game. These weaknesses are offset by extremely high multipliers on the critical hits for polearm. This paired with the ability to ignore armor makes Polearm perform about average against PVM ( Player vs Monster ). Now the ability for polearm to ignore armor also makes it the king at fighting NPC’s with very high armor. These would include Mechanical NPC’s and Dragons. In addition polearm cannot be blocked by Shields.


    Review of Skills.

    I. Push 1.2m | Moderate Focus | 2 Targets | Gains large damage gains from Specialization
    a. Push is an expensive skill with the ability to push entities away from you.
    b. Recommended Train to skill 80

    II. Pull 1.2m | Moderate Focus | 2 Targets | Gains Large damage gains from Specialization
    a. Pull is a bread and Butter skill for polearm. This is a primary skill for PVE
    b. Recommended train to 85

    III. Puncture 1.2m | Moderate Focus | 2 Targets | Gains Bleed Damage from Specialization
    a. Puncture is the best ability for polearm. This is a Primary skill for PVP and PVE
    b. Recommended train to 100

    IV. Spinning Attack 1.2m | Very High Focus | 6 targets | Gains Bleed Damage from Specialization
    a. This is probably the best Melee ability in the game for AOE
    b. Recommended train to 100

    V. Leg Sweep 1.2m | Low Focus | 1 Target | No Specialization at this time
    a. This is a great skill for pvp and bosses.
    b. Recommended train to 100

    VI. Skewer 1.2m | High Focus | 1 Target | Gains large damage from Specialization
    a. This ability is complicated. It is the hardest hitting skill for polearm but also costs an immense amount of focus. A 6 stack hit from this ability leaves a 1 min debuff on any target. This is a great skill for PVP and an nice Debuff for Bosses
    b. Recommended train to 110

    Review of Innates


    I. Polearm Skill 1.2m
    a. This is your #1 damage boasting skill in the polearm tree. This skill should be where 50 % of your xp goes. Currently mine is at 140

    II. Reach 4.8m
    a. Reach is a handy skill as with 80 skill level you can gain 25 % more reach. The reach of this skill is a bit under powered so I do not recommend leveling this skill above 80

    III. Defensive Position 4.8m
    a. This passive is fairly worthless as DR is fairly undervalued in the game. This skill is worth taking up to 80 for the bonus DR.

    IV. Bec Du Falcon 4.8m
    a. This is your #3 damage boasting skill. This skill should be trailing your Polearm skill by roughly 30 points

    V. Polearm Specialization 24m
    a. This skill gives a large damage increase to some of the very important skills in the Polearm tree. This skill should trail your Polearm skill by 40 points.


    Supporting Skills for Polearm


    I. Armor Weak Points 4.8m
    a. This skill should trail your Polearm Skill by 20 pts

    II. Train Dextarity 12m
    a. This skill should trail your polearm skill by roughly 50pts

    III. Train Strength 12m
    a. This skill should trail your Polearm skill by roughly 40pts

    IV. Innner Calm 4.8m
    a. This reduces the focus costs of your glyphs. This skill should be 30 pts behind your Polearm.


    Basic Deck Building


    Deck building for polearm is actually fairly simple. First the Deck works best as a hybrid deck. This means you have 9 locked glyphs and 1 unlocked glyph where you have all of your attacks filter in. This will get you started with a deck that you can improve on latter.

    #1 Put as many punctures as you have in the deck.

    #2 Put as many Pulls as you have into the deck.

    This should leave you with either 4 or 2 glyphs required to fill the deck. This is where I recommend putting in 1 parry, A deflect if your using a shield, Offhand Attacks if your duel wielding. And finally if you’re using a 2h I fill the last glyphs with leg sweep.


    What is a good Polearm?


    There are not many people that make good polearms for people in the game. 90 % of the polearms that are out on the market are strait junk. With that understanding The +number has no bearing on how good a polearm is. Masterworks are the most important part of the Polearm. It is entirely possible to not even have enchants on the polearm and still be a great stick. The masterworks you are currently looking for are as follows. Puncture>Pull>Wepon Damage %>Wepon Crit>STR. Everything else on the stick is just junk.


    Types of Armor to go with Polearm.


    Currently both types of armor for polearm are perfectly viable. Light armor with Light armor specialization gives a great boast to the damage output of polearm. Heavy Armor gives a vastly superior amount of protection while giving a generous damage increase from the strength gained. Overall Both armor types are about equal for polearm. Using a shield with polearm is extremely viable also. Again this is not favored by either armor type.


    Leveling Strategy for Polearm.


    When leveling as a polearm. Your first priority is to get your tree unlocked. After that I would recommend leaving pull at 40 and puncture at 60. This will make both of the skills efficient in use due to low focus costs. These skills can raise as you feel comfortable with their focus consumption. Just be aware that the DPS gains vs the focus costs increases are nominal. 50 % of your experience should be going into your polearm skill and 30 % should be going into your polearm specialization. Once you achieved 120 polearm and with the appropriate level of skills trailing 120. I would start assessing your focus costs of skills and finalizing their location. The recommended levels are where I determined to settle my skills. After that all DPS increases come from your Polearm skill and the trailing skills.

    Last but not Least. Defensive Stance is probably the most important skill while leveling. Polearms damage does not come from Auto attacks. The bulk of your damage comes from Glyphed attacks and of those puncture is your heavy hitter.
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2018
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  2. St Drahcir

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    Awesome write up! Great info and details. Too bad I'm not polearm.
     
  3. Daxxe Diggler

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    Excellent mini-guide! How about if you take it a few steps further and expand upon your recommendations for:

    1. Devotional buffs
    2. Food / Potions

    Also, since DEX helps with crit, I would add that stat after STR as a good masterwork for a polearm. Basically, if I was MW a polearm and DEX came up with INT and "whatever else isn't on your list"... I wouldn't feel too bad selecting the DEX as a choice. Obviously your other choices would be preferred but I wouldn't say DEX is junk as it could make it a better stick. ;)
     
  4. Nick

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    @Cryodacry , any issues if I put the info a book and have it placed in a visible location for new players? This should generate some interest for new players passing by Soryn Fields. :p

    Or why not you have it in a book and get @Vyrin or @Womby to sell it at their bookstore. :D
     
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  5. Womby

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    @Cryodacry We would be happy to either sell your books or put them on display for people to read free of charge. The latter option is a free service that we provide to the community. We have stores in Central Brittany, Aerie, Ardoris, Soryn Field and the New Britannia Market. Contact Vyrin or Womby.
     
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  6. Cryodacry

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    Go for it, This is free knowledge to everyone
     
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  7. Nick

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    @hroth, you were looking for this?
     
  8. Ben_Hroth

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  9. Mystic

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    How about supporting magic? I've been using some fire magic with it for Ignite Weapon which seems to be helping a lot for PVM.
     
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  10. Nietzsche

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    Question about the deck building. You suggest that skewer should be 6 stacked for getting maximum damage on a boss. If you have all the polearm skills randomly showing up in your unlocked glyph how can you charge any of your attacks? Being a polearm user isn't it a better idea to have a few more as locked glyphs for the purpose of being able to charge?...

    But if not... What are good skills to use for the remaining 9 locked glyphs? Like earth magic stuff seems a solid option right?
     
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  11. Cryodacry

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    So I normally lock a skewer if I plan on using it. If you are planning on it being in your deck then you can put other things on your locked bar. I normally run the following.

    Deflection / Parry
    Glancing blows
    Fortify defense
    Inner strength
    Shield spell usually death shield
    Healing touch
    Healing grace
    Defensive stance
    Bezerkers stance

    Hope this helps
     
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  12. mass

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    I never understand the love for 'pull'; seems like damage is better with puncture, skewer, and spinning attack. I leave them locked and fully charge them and they work great in a variety of situations.

    I agree with most of the rest.
     
  13. Cryodacry

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    the damage is actually identical between the two.... Pull is more popular due to the fact it can be spamed in a PVE scenario with out putting the target out side your range. If push would stop at your max range then i would endorse the use of this skill quite a bit more.

    As is ... it has limited use and is extremely situational
     
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  14. Cliquet

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    can you show us your tree lvls? avg dmg and equips to help? i have pole spec too :D
     
  15. Andrew Silverston

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    Pole is great... very good dmg, great AoE, great crits, if properly skilled, and puncture is the best skill out of the whole tree, hands down. Boost it and you can end up doing 300 dmg per hit on crits, plus the DoT stacks, so its just a wow dmg dealer. Stacking in a deck is meh... I stopped doing dynamic decks. It's a waste of power.
     
  16. Glepo

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    Excellent info here thank you for that. Would it be possible to get some examples of a possible PVE deck? How many of what skill, locked or unlocked and some variations maybe.
     
  17. Cryodacry

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    Figured i would give this a friendly bump. Hopefully for a sticky from @Berek

    Berek If it needs to be moved i can understand that also. Might belong better in Player created resources section
     
  18. Dorn Slate

    Dorn Slate Bug Hunter

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    As a Polearm user, this is the best information about this tree that I have read. @Cryodcry this is great info thanks for taking the time to write this up. Yes it should be stickied!
     
  19. Floors

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    Berek is sadly no longer with us. Perhaps @Serafina or @Chaox could help, since they've both moderated me lately I know they're on the forums :)
     
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  20. Solazur

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    *sol assumes his best Marlon Brando Godfather pose*

    Hey kid... @Cryodacry

    ya did ok! :)
     
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