Polearm Still needs More Moreness...

Puncture buff was in the right direction. Damage is still really underwhelming on it. It's better to keep the skill ranked down to and cheep to use than to rank it up due to the focus costs. The skill is still most efficient at level 43. This is Mainly because the focus scaling is completely out of balance on this ability.

Spinning attack fix is Really nice.... It's nice that it hits 4 targets.

The concept of our class being an AOE class still needs improved. Leg sweep should hit around 3 targets. Pull and Push still only move 1 target and have troubles hitting two targets.

Skewer is Still bugged on the Immobilize in PVP.

Base Damage of Polearm is still pretty bad. Either Polearm needs it's crit drastically re-evaluated or the base damage needs to be dramatically increased. I am not going to go into a huge rant of how we got here and why it's so broken. In General the polearm is just Shart.

 

I like a lot of your suggestions as I use polearms. I am not feeling that underpowered. I am using a normal shop bought spear with polearms at 80 and the crit passive at 80 and I can handle 3 to 4 yellow 5 skull creatures with crits ranging from 25 to 95. Not sure how that compares with other melee skill trees.

 

I understand your point of view. You will feel the same pain that i am having when you start pushing down the progression line towards 130 polearm... realizing how much xp is going into that and find that a regular GM swordsman does more dps. Until anyone else comes forward i have to assume i am the highest level polearm. @Solazur Is either the same or right behind me. My current highest hit is 359 and that it terribly under powered compared to my fellow melee's.

 

I'll admit I haven't had time to be more scientific but I'd venture a guess and say that you get more dps with blades in the 80's than I do with polearms past 120.

fwiw.. I've held at 121..

I know people who have plenty of XP they could put into the tree.. like enough to be where I am. There's a reason they don't!

 

@Chris
There is a really big issue with the DOT being applied by Puncture. It's not criting properly. It's failing to take into account position. I would say that the best way to remedy this is for the damage of the dot to be decided by the applicating strike. This will take into account positional strikes where the ability should really shine. Right now the DOT portion of puncture has nice utility for keeping melee your fighting from stealthing again. It has terrible damage output.

 

I think puncture is a huge step in the right direction. It stacks up to 3 times and when combined with poison, immolation, and fiery weapon, has finally made it somewhat competitive on aggro tables (though is still a bit shy of where it needs to be) i'd like to see a new ability added or something though.

Suggested new ability.

Entangle opponent:
You thrust your weapon directly into the opponents chest or abdomen hindering their ability to attack and causing ripping damage every time they move: this has a 50% +( 0.25*Abilityskill)% chance to entangle an opponents attacks. EFFECT- *Polearm Entanged* target has -15% hit chance and takes 1 to 10 + (0.07*Abilityskill) + (0.03*Polearmskill) damage for each action the take or second they move for 2 + (0.1*Abilityskill) seconds

I mean lets face it, it would be pretty hard to attack someone with a giant polearm sticking our your chest. For one thing, the shaft alone would simply deflect some your attacks and limit your available attack angles greatly.

This could also probably just be rolled into impale more easily though. which right now doesn't have massive reason to use it in late game. In end game, targets running away, if anything is a bonus because it exposes them to opportunity strikes and increased hit/crit chance, making pull far superior to impale right now. as it is more versatile and useful.

Though I do think polearms does still need another good damage ability regardless of which way the last suggestion goes, something like

Savage Swing: (Long cooldown) - Or this could also be rolled into a current AOE attack for polearms.
You swing your polearm with savage fury dealing massive damage (bonus Str Dmg modifier) and +25% crit chance divided by number of targets hit. So more targets = less crit but still has the Strength Damage Modifier bonus, where as a single target, it would bump polearms up to be competitive with other weapon types.

I imagine if someone swung a bardiche as hard as the could in a horizontal arc, it would either massively hurt 1 person or do moderate damage and pain to several targets. The angle the weapon is held during the swing would of course be altered based on the number of targets to either hit solidly (landing at a 90 degree angle against the target) or be allowed to bounce/pull free from and continue swinging (hitting each target at 45 degree angle or something). <- just context as to the understanding why the crit chance would be determined by the number of valid targets in range, certainly not something I would expect to be a variable animation.

This would further add to polearms tanking capability which based on its passive bonuses seems to be the current advantage of polearms, it's large number of targets it can hit also nods towards aoe threat generation. (though it's skills are lacking in aiding that advantage) as well as would give a minor threat generation bonus

 

++agree

 

Polearm is not fine... how you could say so i don't know. There is nothing that says polearm has to be the absolute runt of the litter. All Melee classes should be within a respectable range of each other. At no point has any of the Dev's said that polearm is supposed to be the worst DPS.

 

That is a problem you view Pole as a secondary weapon.... That is un-acceptable. In addition to your argument over -healing. You do realize that Swords has Minus healing also. Either way i think your alone with the thought that every melee should have all weapon skills. The majority of us believe polearm should stand on it's own.

 

Just food for thought, Anouther Innate that would make sense with Polearm would be giving it +Hit .... It would be unique to Melee and would make sense. That is if you want polearm to be the tanky weapon it's best if it has +hit.

 

Earlier in this thread I stated that, I have not had much of a problem killing multiple mobs with a store bought spear in 5 skull areas. I have only played with polearms since the beginning with huge breaks between releases. I was happy with the progress of polearms, however I finally tried swords on my second account and I was like @#<£ the damage is insane. I was using store bought dagger.

I am now convinced that some of the skills need to be increased. I like the utility that polearms offer such as leg sweep, pull, and skewer but they need to proc more often. I am a tank mags that relies on these utilities that allows my burst damage abilities to be effective. Having poison on my spear does help with damage.

 

And if we want ''MORE ..HUGE...AOE..''damage with polearm ? Is that a problem for you ? It seems you already decided that sword and fire mage should be better then polearm ..you mentioned the countless abilities polearm has ..... you can have all abilities in the game with the weapon if the damage is not there ......i suggest you play polearms for few months then come explain us why SWORD and FIRE MAGE should be better then polearm. No wonder you play ranged ...you know polearm sux...what i dont get is why you are so opposed to it being fixed... Polearm damage sux it got a bit of a boost with the crit increase ...but it still sux... i play ranged too....after i played polearm for months i switched because ranged is way better damage ... Ill say it again POLEARM DAMAGE is low ...and it shouldnt be... hope it gets a boost.

 

1.This is a thread about improving POLEARM damage its not about SWORDS.
2.No one wants polearm to do more damage then swords so you can stop panicking.

How would you know ? You dont even play with polearm ..You think looking at some numbers with skills at lvl 40 tells you all you need to know ? Why do you think Crit modifier was increased for polearm in recent patches ? Because there was a problem with its damage ? Why do you think they increased spining attack targets from 3 to 4 ? To make polearm more attractive . There is obvious work in progress being done...feedback being collected and stuff getting done...

So can you stop posting about how great sword is and why we should all use it ?

 

Have 3 melee chars
ADV 98 - Bludgeon (main) but also uses two-hander sword - both 120 GM
ADV 80 - Blades (poisons, daggers, shortswords)
ADV 74 -Polearm (death magic)

I'll have to disagree that Polearm needs a lot more. I would not expect it to have same DPS as sword. Definitely has same CC as Bludgeon, and way more reach. I can easily snatch running enemies by there backs of the neck and spank them.

I'm actually really liking the way it plays... my build is slightly unorthodox... but I can out kill my blades user in most situations except PVP.