Pikes suck

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Reasons why pikes suck:
  • Too slow to block or attack. Sure you can say they are not meant to be 1v1 weapons, and that's fair, but they suck at everything else too.
  • Bad as anti-cav. They are too slow to attack. It's too easy for cav to come around a corner and tag you before you can get an attack off. You need to see them coming from a mile a way. Not to mention that you shouldn't even need to attack with a pike to make it effective against cav. It would be cool to be able to set your spear into the ground to meet incoming cav. It would be a good counter point to the lance couch.
  • Because of it's lack of speed, it's near impossible to make contact in the "sweet spot" where the weapon actually does damage. It glances more times then not.
  • The damage appears to be crap. I don't know if this is it's stats or just due to the constant glancing as stated above. I'm sure they try to balance the damage due to the added damage which is done against charging cav due to the relative speed but it makes it utter crap in melee.
What i would do about it:
  • Increase its attack speed.
  • Slightly increase its block speed.
  • Increase it's damage if the increased attack speed doesn't work on its own to increase damage.
  • Balance the increased damage with a corresponding decrease added damage due to relative speed.
  • Increase its "sweet spot" for damage if attack speed doesn't do enough.
Cool things to add:
  • Weak but slow overhead attacks. Don't know how they would do this being that they have overhand and underhand stabs already.
  • Be able to set your pike against charging cav.
  • Make pikes effective against cav without attacking. Very similar to setting against a charge, if you are holding a heavy pointed object and proving some resistance it will still be partially effective against charging cav.
  • Carrying pikes, or any weapons on your back, is stupid. Make it better and make it drop when you pull out a side arm.
p.s. spears suck too
 
Spears and pikes should be braceable, with the effect being greater for pikes. Say spears only take the horse while pikes could take both the horse and the rider when braced. And yes, primary weapons should be dropped when switching to sidearm.
 
I mostly agree with the OP.

But I actually like to use Pikes against cavalry.
It works out, especially in uncoordinated casual matches.
Pikes can oneshot cavalry sometimes and so I always go for the player and not the mount.

However the damage is always suprising me. In Bannerlord it is a common issue with all weapons that damage might feel unreliable. Sometimes hits that feel fast and well placed glance off and sometimes the opposite happens.

But with pikes I get this feeling more than with every other weapon. I guess that's due to slow speed and late point of impact.

I suggest to speed them up a little bit.
They already come with so many disadvantages: They are useless in close range, pike units are usually badly armored and they come without a shield which makes them easy target for archers.

It's a shame that pikes feel so unreliable, as they could have been a strong tool against the current cav meta.

I hope to see them improved in the next patch.
 
So with a weapon like the pike, there's a much slower windup time before you get the release. What if the windup was much faster but there was a "cooldown" before you could strike again?

So with something like a pike, you could strike very quickly and hit hard, but you wouldn't be able to strike again for a long period of time (relative to faster weapons).

Might make for an interesting dynamic that could simulate the power of a pike without making it op, just a random thought.
 
Agree with OP. Crossbowman's pike is a long woodstick with a butterknife in it's edge. Stop a cav charging is extremely hard, causing no damage, and the cav will kill you before you get the time to land another pike hit.

But I would say it also has to do with the horses being tanky af.
 
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