Curse

BahamutKaiser · Jul 02, 2006, 01:00 AM // 01:00

Well this is probably the first time I have responded to a class from the class suggestion list, because responding to most of them would be an idiotic bump. This class has some of the working of a very useful class, but I think it lacks greatly in function, Greatly. Although there are some simple things that can be done to fix this, I'm not going to stress it much because I am about to write my own class revolving around polearms in a short wile. Forgive me for my scathing review.

First of all, there certainly is a class that can do this better, Ranger. Ranger is equip with even longer range than any caster allowing him to match their spell casting with arrows. Rangers armor comes with a base 30 vs all elements rather than 30 vs a certain element, 30 vs a certain element is crap which is why the new elementist armor have more universal armor and some vs a certain element. At 70 + 30 on all elements, all elemental damage is severly reduced, to about half.

Second, Ranger is a peerless Interrupter, with abilities that can interrupt a single target, and skills which can put down a cloud that interrupts a group for a short duration, using some Mesmer skills to slow spell casting, Ranger can easily interrupt most spell caster, from a distance equal to or greater than a casters spell range, allowing him to get them as soon as they are within firing capability.

A two handed sword and axe are just larger versions of a warriors weapons, compared to Warriors mastery and Strength attribute, your probably still going to do less damage, or at the best, slower damage, this is a mockery. I would love to see two handed swords and axes, but I think a special skill set in sword and axe mastery can be made for new two handed swords and axes, and making another class with these weapons betrays the diversity of weapons which could be used instead. The spear is a great idea, and as a more intregal part of real warfar than swords and axes, I think it should be stressed more than several weapon types.

Spears are the initial weapon of real (historical) combat, where the only ranged attack is arrows and other projectiles. A spear serves as a offense which will clip ground fighters from a safer distance than a sword or axe, allowing them to ward away or reach foot troups before they can attack with such lower range weapons, and also allows advancing troops to provide equal distance to their attack range. Spears are not a substitute for bows, and are not a weapon useful for countering bows either, sheilds are....

As a good pole arm wielding class, I think the attack attributes should be Lance Mastery, the use of a polearm to jab and skewer enemies, and Halberd Mastery, the use of axe or blade type polearms to slash and chop with a polearm. With this, there can be lance/spear weapons, and Halbred/scythe weapons, each with special functions. The lance and scythe would work only for one attribute, and have slow but heavy attacks, lance would have armor penetration and scythe would have high damage figures. The spear and halberd would allow attacks skills from Lancing or Halberd mastery. The spear would use medium speed jabbing attacks, and the halbred would use simular chopping attacks, but the weapon would have 2 damage figures, Piercing for lancing damage, and Slicing for halbred damage, even though the normal attack of the weapon only uses one of these figures, it allows you to select skills from either Lancing or Halberd mastery, and both attributes increase the damage of the polearm attack allowing this class to increase his damage 2 fold like any good melee class.

Most importantly, the function of a "pikeman" would be to defend the casters on his team, not take out enemy casters. The last thing we need is another rush in melee unit, what we need is a melee "counter melee" unit, and a unit which focuses on the protection of his teammates instead of another advancing unit. The use of spears and halberds revolves around overcoming advancing units, or running them down, not catching up to casters and taking them down, taking down casters is certainly more effective with a ranger who can get them from the same range, or an assassin who can teleport to them instantly before they peel off some, by the time a "sentinel" gets to them, the necromancer could have easily neutralized their attack, this isn't very efficient.

These are my general thoughts on a spear "centric" class, and although your sentinel class isn't impossible, I don't feel it provides anything useful to the game. Unless it has more armor then a warrior so it can advance without perishing to attacks in general, can move to the enemy in an instant to avoid the damage of advancing, or has the range of a ranger and the second best interrupts in the game, it certainly isn't providing anything useful, it is significantly weaker then every exsisting class in one way or another for caster counters, and using a melee unit to counter ranged units is never wise, even if they have slightly longer melee range. As I said when I began, I am about to take some time and make a polearm class which also includes some interesting "moral" effects in the form of battle songs, or I would suggest more alternatives. Since the class idea was formed around the belief that we should have a melee "caster counter" and that polearms, and two handed swords/axes should be used to overcome casters, I think that this idea is best replaced instead of improved. As for a working caster counter melee unit, I would suggest my stalker concept, which instead allows the enemy to hit him with their spells and turns them around to punish them for it, it is much more feasible than thinking your going to take a ranged unit by surprise with a melee unit.