A lot of the equipment we have in the game still need its stats to be tweaked and it has been discussed before. However, after having some great time using the glave and iron staff lately, I wanted to draw some attention to the polearms. These are the backbone of every army since biblical times till the renaissance. Every culture had its own versions of fighting stick, stabbing stick, hammer on a stick, sword on a stick and axe on a stick.
1. Damage:
It seems that polearm damage stats need a lot of tweaking. For example, most swords, even 1 handed, do higher pierce damage than spears, glaves and pikes. A spear held 2H does 23 pierce, a glave, which is basically a sword on a stick, does just 19, while a an arming sword does 24 and sword of war 30 pierce. An iron staff which is a two handed club should do more blunt damage than a club. However, thrust blunt damage should be significantly reduced.
2. Speed - swing vs. thrust
Polearms are slow weapons to swing which is fine. The long shaft and off center mass makes them require a lot of torque for swinging. However, nothing should make them slow to thrust. A spear (in two hands) is not slower to thrust than a sword. This would require a deeper modification to the game engine, but pole arms should really have two separate speed stats: thrust and swing (if applicable). Those with a very heavy head or extremely long pole might be somewhat slower to thrust though (halbards, poleaxes, polehammers, really long pikes), but still faster than they are now.
3. Two thrust modes:
This has been mentioned before, but it is important enough to mention again. If you are attacked by 3 spear users, holding weapon block blocks all 3 of them until released. We need 2 thrust moves: a heap thrust (operated normally) and a shoulder thrust (replacing the non-existing overhead move for polearms).
4. Normal, Heavy, light types:
We have these for all other melee weapons, why not polearms? heavy type - slower but more damage, light (instead of balanced) type - faster, but less damage.
1. Damage:
It seems that polearm damage stats need a lot of tweaking. For example, most swords, even 1 handed, do higher pierce damage than spears, glaves and pikes. A spear held 2H does 23 pierce, a glave, which is basically a sword on a stick, does just 19, while a an arming sword does 24 and sword of war 30 pierce. An iron staff which is a two handed club should do more blunt damage than a club. However, thrust blunt damage should be significantly reduced.
2. Speed - swing vs. thrust
Polearms are slow weapons to swing which is fine. The long shaft and off center mass makes them require a lot of torque for swinging. However, nothing should make them slow to thrust. A spear (in two hands) is not slower to thrust than a sword. This would require a deeper modification to the game engine, but pole arms should really have two separate speed stats: thrust and swing (if applicable). Those with a very heavy head or extremely long pole might be somewhat slower to thrust though (halbards, poleaxes, polehammers, really long pikes), but still faster than they are now.
3. Two thrust modes:
This has been mentioned before, but it is important enough to mention again. If you are attacked by 3 spear users, holding weapon block blocks all 3 of them until released. We need 2 thrust moves: a heap thrust (operated normally) and a shoulder thrust (replacing the non-existing overhead move for polearms).
4. Normal, Heavy, light types:
We have these for all other melee weapons, why not polearms? heavy type - slower but more damage, light (instead of balanced) type - faster, but less damage.
