chardin
Community Advisor
Posts: 1181
Registered: 04-18-2004
PA:
Wookiees of Steel [WoS]
Server: Radiant
Hey everyone, just mastered pikes (again) and i thought id share a few tips I have on grinding it all. The following steps are how to GRIND a certain box effectively, not how to grind after youve gotten it. Enjoy
............................................................................................Polearms 1......................................................................... Here, just buy a woodstaff (or take the one given to you by your newbie helper droid) off the bazaar, youll be destroying it in a few minutes anyways so dont worry about stats. Personally, i did polearms 1-3 outside coronet w/o buffs and i suggest the same. Its easiest to target the "corellian butterfly drones" for this box as they go down faster than the others, dont use specials here, just use auto-attack and youll be lvl'd in no time. Some may suggest meatlumps/ragtag spawns, however for this first box I had hard time hitting the ones that went TKA or fencer and could dodge 3/4 of my attacks. The attack "Berserk" is also a good method for the first 2 boxes, so if you're having troubles with this way give it a try.
.............................................................................................Polearms 2.......................................................................... Here, a good quality metal staff is most important. I did it with a 4.4spd 80-160dmg one and it worked nicely..... To make the further steps easier stock up on some +33% mind cost +15% attack speed melee powerups (in crates).. then just go kill meatlumps/ragtags. remember after you kill one *LOOT IT*. That way another will spawn and you can rake the xp in very fast. here Polearmhit 1 is your best friend.
.............................................................................................Polearms 3........................................................................... Personally, this box for me took the longest. I just used the same tactics as Polearms 2 for the entire thing. ragtags and any large spawns of butterflies around that you can find, it takes a while but it REALLY pays off to get it done fast. It is possible to do all of polearms AFK using macros, but i dont want to post any, as macros are sometimes hard for newer players to get the hang of AND I discourage AFK grinding *REMEMBER TO BE USING THOSE POWERUPS THAT YOU BOUGHT!*
.............................................................................................Polearms 4............................................................................. Hooray, you've made it thus far. Now you need to be prepared to drop ~50k if you want to get that master pikeman fast. Look around for a good SLICED weapons vendor. (if your on radiant go to the Extreme Force Mall and use nemis's vendor. hes stocked with the best weapons vendor on our galaxy) Once your there, look for a Long Vibro Axe that has gotten a 30%+ speed slice. ie, 3.3 speed or lower (for max damage it should have between 360-380) Throw another pup (short for powerup) on it and now your ready to whoop ass I prefered grinding on dant for this stage off off huurton howlers (wild spawns I saw on my way to my missions) and quenker missions (these run about 5k payoff) make sure your in a solo group for the experience boost. It is wise to get some buffs and armor for here. Now that you have obtained Polearm Stun 1, USE IT! I found that using intimidate and getting the "Stun" state to stick on a creature, immensly helped my grind as the amount of +miss+ 's that came up were significantly reduced. after you have gotten that to stick quickly look at your targets HAM. if health or mind are lower use polearm hit 1, if the action is lowest use Leg hit 1. you should be able to grind polearms 4 after following these steps in 1/4 of the time it took for Pikes 3.
................................................................................................Novice................................................................................. Now that you have a weapon to grind with and some awesome specials grinding is much easier. By running up to your quenker mission and spamming PolearmSpin1 the quenkers go down very fast and the xp pours in. just rinse and repeat with missions... I found that walking back from my mission helped because i was able to kill lots of the stuff in my path for nice xp. But unless your a more veteran player I do not reccomend it because the spawns have been boosted and there are many more difficult NPC's and high lvl creatures that may kill / slay you and force you to find more buffs.
ok, now that you have gotten to novice here is a list of what is needed to do.
1. grind the entire STANCES tree first, once you gain Polearm Stun 2 use it for the rest of the branch. once you are 400x you have great speed multipliers and it would be wise to trade your current LVA up for a high damage sliced one (looking for 470-500dmg and 4.5-4.8 spd)
2. Here, the grind becomes extremely repetitive... just kill quenkers until you have gotten area attack 2 in the polearms offense line. This attack is the best one in a pikemans special bar.
3. By now you should have 4402(or maybe 3), which means you have plenty of accuracy i suggest you head to the squill caves on tatooine *10, -200* here is a GREAT way to finish the grind. Some of the squills have an intimidate attack, however, which means itll take longer to take certain ones down. All i did was run through spamming stun2 untill I had lots aggrod on me, then i stood there spamming Area Attack 2 until they were all dead. Every 30 mins you should be getting at least 200k xp (personally because I had bought myself a very fast 1.8 190-487 looted LVA I was lvling every 20, but the xp depends on how many people are at these caves.) Just stay there until you either cap your xp or maybe another pikeman is there to teach you and u can master without leaving
4. Now that you have mastered go test out your new mods and skills on some animals just to make yourself feel big If you are new to the game then you may take longer before you can get a nice lance But if you are a veteran player watch your trade forums regularly for polearm speed tapes and nice damage looted LVA's and VL's. or you can group with some friends and hunt SMC (singing mountain clan) or NS (nightsisters) on dathomir, they regularly drop very nice pikes that you will definatly like.
* You have now entered the realm of the DoT war. pikemen are extremely useful in battles AND vs jedi. Being able to spin area knockdowns and area dizzies with a mind fire pike is CRAZY. Also, if you have a high damage LVA try to hunt a jedi with a friend or 2. because they lack melee mitigation you can rip them apart! *
Just remember, we are all in this together and I wish you best of luck with your new pikeman career!
Message Edited by chardin on 02-18-200511:45 AM
Message Edited by chardin on 02-18-200502:48 PM
------××× Omarri x x x The wookiee formerly known as prince ------××× P[v]A Master of Radiant (player vs ALL) ------××× Teh Wannabe Troll strikes Again!
Many Imperial Officer and Stormtrooper NPCs are wishing from the great beyond that you had posted this months ago. Those NPCs were the source of my entire needed xp for Pikeman. Got a faction base out of it, too. Took about 3-4 weeks.
"Reality doesn't care if you believe it." - Boba Fett - Tales of the Bounty Hunters
Narreem on Corbantis Rebel Colonel, Rebel Pilot, Master Pikeman
'cept you'd be a noob to do butterflies first. do meatlumps all the way from 1-3. a woodstaff can 1 hit kill any meatlump as long as you are berserk, so the /loot and insta-spawn makes 1-3 very fast
so have this macro
/berserk
/berserk
/berserk
/pause 40
/macro berserk
running as well as this one
/tar corpse
/loot
/pause 1
/macro loot
and you can just afk, coming back when you need to train.
i believe it takes about 1 min for 1000 xp, if you group with a droid that is...
and don't snuff the afk macro for this little stuff, it's not fun anyway and no one thinks it is, just alt+tab to the forums or something while you're macroing the first 21k XP
Devil_Tiger
Community Member
Posts: 152
Registered: 01-05-2005
PA:
Death by Krayts - Tatooine, outside Bestine
Server: Radiant
Wow, I wish I knew I could have AFKd my way to master pikeman! Had I done that, I would have made it in less than the 2 months it took doing it ATK. Oh well, at least I learned how to use the profession for all my needless work. Next time I want to master another combat profession, I'm going to do it AFK. I had way too much fun hunting klikniks, giant baz nitches, rancors, pikets, and tuskens during my wasted time grinding out pikeman.
/sarcasm off
Message Edited by Devil_Tiger on 02-18-200508:54 AM
-----"Hurry to meet death before your place is taken."----- The greatest honor a warrior can have is to die in the glory of defending those he loves, for in the afterlife he will continue to fight for them.
if you could afk macro to master pikeman faster than doing it atk i would do it, then just pick out my favorite specials at master and learn from there.
the point to afk-macroing 1-3 is that they die in 1 hit anyway, you are using the standard attack, and theres no real player experience to be gained except a work out for your index finger when you loot the corpse. you don't lose any time and no one really enjoys low level grinding anyway.
don't see why you're getting all butthurt about macroing 1-3 in brawler, but to each his own.
With the armor and buffs currently in the game, people advance far too quickly for their own good. Nobody went AFK against meatlumps or anything else in the early days, they'd end up dead if they tried that.
There are actually things to be learned about the profession while one progresses. Unfortunately the focus is now on grinding to master as quickly as possible, not learning about the profession and how to play it.
In the end, who's the better pikeman, someone who grinds to master in 3 days or someone who plays their way up over the course of several weeks or months?
------ Ilykerrimo Grumpy Old Pikeman (emeritus) Masochistic Wookiee
Frankly, I don't mind someone using AFK macros. Like stated above, someone who afk's thier way into the profession won't necessarily know everything about the profession and might miss out on opportunities because of it. Plus, meatlumps, even afk, won't give u as much xp as someone who's in a solo group hunting lairs worth 20-30k a pop.
but why would you even have a need for lairs worth 30k a pop when the cap on xp for polearms 1 is 2k?
meatlumps afk for 1-3 is perfectly fine. after 1-3 the meatlump gains are too small and yous need to grind for real, but before then, all you do is save yourself some time you would waste 1 hit killing noob spawns.
MP-Denmark
Pilot
Posts: 1087
Registered: 09-23-2003
PA:
Been in CT, UMM and BAGH
Server: Starsider
Hi...Some pointers...
I grinded pikeman in 22 hrs and Brawler in less than 4...
On e can be smart grinding and use strategy as this game really is!
Bear in mind that im an experienced grinder and therefor would be faster than any noob that does not have the weapons and credits to be as fast...But the pointers r the same:
Any proffesion master speedtree first. exept if u already had a master proffesion. Then u could just throw u combat xp cap into the the last skill tree and cap that...In pikes its 0004.
Then I startet the grind. I bought a metalstaff...to hech with u proffesioncy to use weapons from the beginning...it was + accuracy skillmoded. cant remember how much! I hunt noob spawn outside eisley sinse I find most creatures spawning there. then after second box should take u about 10 min tops using berserk Macro. I switch to the vibro ace and when I got novice pike I used a lanse. al the time keep u weapon full of speed pups.
at novie I Imediately filled out 0004
then used my area attack hunting anything in same direction in sologroups from gquenkers to any hurtons...
There u wanna get pikeman4000 to get speed mastered and use spin2. next u cap offensive and get the area2 then defense...
I use this tactic on almost any combat proff aI mastered...It works...also for a newb commin up...Many of the SWG combat proffs can be mastered in 2 days of steady 16 hr grinding...
Leetfoce Quakestar Chilastra/Bria
When life is victorious, there is birth; when it is thwarted, there is death.
A warrior is always engaged in a life-and-death struggle for peace.
What's funny is that you did not do that because the cap for combat experience is 300,000. You need 415,000 combat experience to train the entire tree.
I know i got little room to talk, seeing as i'm still brawler and i just recently picked it up( what a conincedence, i did it at cornet too!) but doesn't acctually playing the game while u grind ( i don't grind by the way, unless the droid market is slow) have it's own rewards? this is an online game people, talk to someone. the guy who started this forum, thx for the good tips and will put them to good use. the rest of u who bicker over wether or not afking is right or not, get a meaningful hobby.
pls no hate mail, i just wish to participate in chatter, hehe.
"Leave me be, before I pull an Anikan on you."
-Adwa Saki, Droid Engineer/ Sniper/ Pikeman
( in referance to the scene in episode 2 where anikan is teaed off and slaughters an entire tribe of tusken raiders in one night for the imprisonment and later death of Anikan's mother right as he finds her. Following this scene, someone behind me at the movies said," Feel Better?" )
If you are new to the game then you may take longer before you can get a nice lance But if you are a veteran player watch your trade forums regularly for polearm speed tapes and nice damage looted LVA's and VL's. or you can group with some friends and hunt SMC (singing mountain clan) or NS (nightsisters) on dathomir, they regularly drop very nice pikes that you will definatly like.
