Please Improve Spears

[Wood]

Spears, and other polearms such as pitchforks and pikes, need to be improved. They are too slow and do not do enough damage.

It is almost impossible to attack anyone with a spear as all the other weapons attack a lot faster. Even a lone river pirate can kill me because he keeps hitting me with his club and I cannot get a single attack in. If by sheer luck I do manage to hit him, the damage is so low that it hardly matters.

Please increase the damage do that it matches that of other weapons and please increase the attack speed so that it is possible to hit someone in the first place. Perhaps you could add a damage bonus to horses for polearms as in battle spears and pikes were very effective at bringing down an opponent's horse. And then reduce the couched-lance bonus so it is as it was before.

Polearms were very popular in middle-age armies, please make it so using a spear or a pike is a valid option in M&B.

 

[DaLagga]

If you put a few points into athletics i think you'll find the spear quite deadly on foot. Remember, you have the range advantage over other melee weapons, so just maintain that range and they can never even hit you. However, i do agree that the damage is a bit low, and needs a bit of an increase. Also, they already do increased damage to cavalry in a way, but it does need to be greater. Notice that when you use a thrust attack you get a much larger damage bonus than when using a slashing attack. Naturally this is best reflected against enemy cavalry.

 

[fak]

Polearms can stop charging horses, which is a great advantage over other melee weapons. If you stop the horse, the horseman can do nothing but turn around and run, looking for another chance. The stopped horseman also helps putting other horsemen following him into a halt and shields you other charging horses, giving you more time to take them out.
You can also do deadly counched lance attack on horseback, using one-hand polearms. Counched lance damage is usually high enough to kill most opponents in one hit. I used to counched lance enemies in the first encounter of battles to reduce their numbers.
I would say polearms are pretty balanced in M&B by now, as DaLagga said keep distances from foes and you will be fine. For higher damages per hit, try rushing towards your target at the moment you strike, as in M&B relative speed of the assailant and the victim matters the amount of damage dealed. You may sacrifice protection from shields and use two-hand polearms to further your damage protential.

 

[allthesedamnnamesaretaken]

try using a scythe if you have problems hiting people with polearms. the scythe has 180 range and you can swing it and thrust it. the damage is a bit low though, but you'll have so much range that as soon as someone starts to swing, you can hit them and they can't hit you.

 

[Cataphract]

Giving some sort of knockback effect on the polearms would be good in order to keep the enemy away, right now if he comes close your dead and can hardly deal any damage, but by making the spear push him back at least when he comes close would be nice.

 

[MMad]

I spent a lot of time using a couched lance early in one character's career, until I got bored with it. Much later I came up with the idea to try using a two-handed spear on horseback. Due to having a high polearms skill from the lancing, it worked great - I did pretty good damage with it, and it was much more fun having to time my attack instead of just rushing straight at my enemy.

 

[sheek]

It is almost impossible to attack anyone with a spear as all the other weapons attack a lot faster. Even a lone river pirate can kill me because he keeps hitting me with his club and I cannot get a single attack in. If by sheer luck I do manage to hit him, the damage is so low that it hardly matters.

The point of the spear is the range. Keep the enemy from getting close enough to hit you and you don't have to worry about speed.

With one of my characters I use the spear a lot. Of course you should always have another quicker weapon like a sword as well. Use the spear when you can and when you can't (too many enemies, surrounded) switch.

I think in real history that's what happened.

 

[sheek]

Much later I came up with the idea to try using a two-handed spear on horseback. Due to having a high polearms skill from the lancing, it worked great - I did pretty good damage with it, and it was much more fun having to time my attack instead of just rushing straight at my enemy. Smile

With my priest character I spent a lot of time trying to use the quarterstaff on horseback. Very difficult...

 

[mfberg]

If you are looking for increased range and damage go with the poleaxe, a deadly weapon with great range. To keep your enemies away while you are hacking them to bits go for the athletics skill, put rocks and trees in between you, keep a horse in front of you.

I do think we should be able to set our two handed spears in the same manner of couching lances. At speed 0 the spear is set, and anyone charging up to it gets impaled for damage depending on their speed. That would make riding spirited coursers a bit more dangerous.

mfberg

 

[Wood]

Polearms can stop charging horses

How do you do this? When I try I usually get trampled by the horse. Is there a special method or do I just have to practice more?

For higher damages per hit, try rushing towards your target at the moment you strike, as in M&B relative speed of the assailant and the victim matters the amount of damage dealed.

I've never thought about this when on foot, only when charging on horseback. I'll try this next time. Thanks for the advice.

 

[allthesedamnnamesaretaken]

yeah it does work. i've done 35-40 damage with a great lance poke before while running towards my target. stationary pokes do like 20 damage or less

 

[Destichado]

I'd like a spear -two handed, if necessary- that CANNOT do couched lance damage -much like glaves and such- but has higher speed. Glaves are wonderful for dealing out indescriminate slashing damage at range, but I want a thrusting spear with SPEED!

IRL, I can make a spear move like a giant sewing machine gone berserk. Properly used, a 8'-10' spear with a reasonably-sized head can make all swords (save smallswords and fencing foils) look incredibly SLOW

 

[Cataphract]

IRL, I can make a spear move like a giant sewing machine gone berserk. Properly used, a 8'-10' spear with a reasonably-sized head can make all swords (save smallswords and fencing foils) look incredibly SLOW

Agreed, thrusting is much faster than swinging anything, jabbing is quicker than hooking in boxing terms.

 

[katank]

Invest heavily in atheletics as others say before.

I find investing in athletics more important than ironflesh or anything else. An athletics of 5 or more is almost essential for fighting on foot. Wear hardened leather jerkin until you get to that point or the extra weight will cause stunlock and all the protection in the world wouldn't save you.

With horseback polearms, you can't slash. Just stab which defeats purpose of some of them. The staff with priest is pretty good on horseback as you can couch it and it's blunt. If dismounted, you can swing it around on foot.

As for countering horses, standing directly in front and the horse will rear. At that moment, back pedaling will let you get in a few extra stabs.

 

[holybandit]

Doesnt anybody else use a ground-horse combo? Try having a heavy armoured horse (charge or warhorse) with a scimatar and your a killing machine..Along with a bow or something like that and you can slash (and most likely kill the horse) in one swing when its charging by you.

And im most heavily armored

 

[Crazy Eyes]

If you are agile, like these lot say you should be, then you will be able to slice horses in half many a time with the glaive. The glaive is horrible for a head-on charge, though; pull out a pike and you've got courser-on-a-stick. Happily feeds a squad of 10.

If you don't know what couched lance damage is, grab a one-handed polearm (lance is the most obvious type, but it works with spears and anything one-handed), get on a horse, ride until you're at a full gallop (beware the hills and water, which will instantly lower your speed!) and your hero will couch the lance cozily against the side of his body automatically. Do not attack. Instead, use precise aim and try to ram the lance into something. If you did it right, the game will say "Couched Lance Damage!" in red, and an unusually high amount of damage below it. More horse-kabob.
Note that speed determines all of the damage with a couched lance. Use a courser if you want to be a lancer.

That stuff gets boring fast, though, so I prefer hoofin' it.
EDIT: No pun intended.

 

[Cataphract]

My suggestions after reading this thread and destichado's post:

1.Make polearms do less damage, but are faster to use
2.Make polearms have increased knockback effect for proper "defensive" usage on foot, and to get rid of the annoying 0damage speartickles.
3.Much taller polearms on foot would be welcome to be able to really be defensive, after all spears were AFAIK mainly defensive weapons.

Theres already some knockback effect in weapons in M&B, i wonder if armagan could give his opinions/knowledge if its possible to implement increased knockback, after all spears and polearms were used so that the opponent wouldnt come close. I know it would be hard to balance everything so i guess it needs to be tweaked quite alot. PS: i bet armagan knows more of this game, than we think, his probably already laughing at us and has some better ideas in mind.

 

[holybandit]

Spears werent MAINLY defensive weapons, they were however cheap and easy to build compared to the sword (which took skill and time to craft), If you stabbed someone with a spear it should be equal or even more then a javelin through.

IF you want a purely defensive weapon. Look at the pike.

 

[Cataphract]

If you stabbed someone with a spear it should be equal or even more then a javelin through.

I think ill disagree, javelins are hurled at much higher speed and have much more of impact energy than High torque thrusts. Or do you mean the javelins that are in M&B at the moment? Real javelins weighed 1 to 3 kilos which is loads more than todays javelin throw competition javelins which weigh only 800grams. And even those feel kinda heavy if youre inexperienced. On top of it all you very rarely both get a fast thrust and leverage against your opponent, but when you do, lots of the energy you thrust with goes to waste because of its slowness, you rock him back quite a bit. Its a little like hitting a fly with a warhammer, but not as pronounced.

 

[NikkTheTrick]

Polearms are powerful enough right now. They have a range advantage over other weapons and, more impotrantly, you can do deadly couched lance damages, which are very powerful. At good skill level, you will take dark knights with 1 charge!

As for when enemies come point blank to you, you are screwed as you would have been in real life: it is much easier toweild a sword at poink blank range than to do anything with a spear!