Is Blade or Pole any good for BM?

XShui - Lost City wrote: »

They are great for range; harpies, heads, bishops in FC.

Thought I never tried pole, yet...

Harpies: Can pull down, leap back and stun then aps them quicker than you can Spirit Chase, Drakes Ray (wait 4 seconds for cooldowns) Spirit Chase, Drakes Ray (wait 4 seconds for cooldowns) Spirit Chase, Drakes Ray (wait 4 seconds for cooldowns)...

Heads: Get a bow.

Bishops: Why are you using range on bishops? Pull them together and zhen them or if you can't pull aps them.


Haven't tried pole? Well, if you like swords for range, try a weapon with a higher base damage who's skills also hit harder.

XShui - Lost City wrote: »

The harpie pull down works but when I go to the harpy and try to stun it it flies up in the meanwhile before I can do so. If I use any sprint skill to head faster to it Im mostly to laggy anyway and the stun is to delayed to stun the harpy in time.

and u forgot Myriad Sword Stance which is ranged aswell.

Heads; Blades got faster aps than bows thus I can get more heads with the ranged skills.

Bishops: I mean when they freeze you and you don't get close to them.

I didn't forget MSS. Its 8m range which isn't very far. Can count HF as a ranged attack too, but no one really uses it just for ranged damage, lol.

When harpies stop to attack you they stand there for like 4 seconds. Just wait for them to stop and start their attack then use leap. I usually use leap back since they stop 16m away so its perfect. It shouldn't be too laggy if you get the timing down.

Ranged attack has a 1.7 second channel+cast, heads only last for 3 seconds. Means you can get 1 head per set. Then there is a 6 second cooldown. Drake's Ray is quicker, but you can use that with axes also, and have the option of aoeing if theres a bunch of them. I personally used bow and hover my finger over axes to switch and aoe if theres a bunch by me.

Bishops: Anti stun. Or Holy path inside. Or get about 18m away and leap in (my preference). Then you're also in range to stun their friends. At the very least you'll be close enough to target the foxes by them and Roar stun the whole group.

XShui - Lost City wrote: »

I think ppl are blinded by fist/axe and consider blade and/or pole automatically as noob and useless.

In terms of raw experience over the years, blade and pole is mostly useless save the stuff outlined above. It's the ones that are all "OMG BLADE AND POLE ARE THE ****, FISTS AND AXES SUX" that are blind.

Don't get me wrong, if its fun for you to be inefficient and have a hard time getting stuff done, all while annoying your squad - go for it. If you're doing it on HT lemme know so I can put you on the "No" list for groups.

XShui - Lost City wrote: »

I neither said axe and fists suck. I like all 4 wep paths and each of it have their utility.
Blades/Pole aren't inefficient.
There are actually situations in which you do better with Pole or Blade.
They don't call it "Blade"master for nothing.

I'm gonna tell you the same thing I told the last "Pole and Blade are useful! I use it all the time! It's good DD! I know the math! I don't even have axes or fists!" BM I grouped with in FF:

*taps kick button*

If you can't even figure out 8th grade level logic and math you're gonna **** something else up like AOEing the Exp room boss. Go away.

Pole is good for reaching harpies, purge 99+, pushing mobs around, and GS.
Sword is good for pushing mobs around or a third range attack on harpies if you're too lazy to pull em down and stun.

The people who are all "I R UZ SWERD AND POEL" are really just selfish (bleep) that don't care about contributing to your squad as much as possible.

You're a troll. Using anything but a bow for heads is **** and a disservice to your group. Shame on you.

XShui - Lost City wrote: »

Everyone got his own style of gaming. You can't characterize someone who preferes to play blade/pole as useless. How do you even know if he/she is useless if you kick him out of squad just for him prefering blade/pole?
It just seems like you didn't even tried blade and/or pole or don't know how to use it.

How can you call ppl selfish for prefering blade/pole? Not every likes fist/axe like the mainstream.

...and again u get more heads with a blade cuz of the ranged skills than with a slow shoting bow so shame on YOU for using a bow...Guess what? I nearly never miss a head using blade

...It seems like you got no valid argument at all.

Did you eat paint chips as a kid? Live under power lines?

Maelael - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Pole is good for reaching harpies, purge 99+, pushing mobs around, and GS.
Sword is good for pushing mobs around or a third range attack on harpies if you're too lazy to pull em down and stun.

Pretty much this. I also use it to get in a hit when mobs are kiting but haven't reached their stopping points. So its: aps with fists *they start running* Drakes Ray, swap to pole, Farstrike, leap forward while swapping to fist, aps again.

MSS is a lifesaver in metal when the bubble drops and you need it for damage reduction. Or on the AEU boss that does the purge then the big attack. Or in trials on a few bosses that have huge attacks at 25% or 33%. Or even in BHs if the cleric needs to drop bb to rez someone, it helps create that opening. But I never use MSS as a range attack or for the damage, its a waste of two sparks, but for the effect of reducing opponents attack its great.

I think you are inventing situations to use your sword, even though its wasting time and highly ineffective. Just because its there, doesn't mean you have to try to use it and so far you haven't given a single situation were pole would be appropriate but have given multiple uses of when its wrong. And you're talking to people that were around in the days of pole zhenning and needing to use linear aoes to fill the gaps.

Axe and Fist are the most appropriate weapons 99% of the time. Pole about .9% of the time, and sword .1% of the time. Its not that we're aps idiots or limited to axe and fist. We all carry around axes, fists, poles, swords, and bows. We just actually know when to use them.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

you haven't given a single situation were pole would be appropriate

I remember on bh metal fondly. One squishy sin died at the metal boss, right at the start. We got the boss's hp to 10% and waited for sin to come back. Sin came back a minute later, ported in, without buffs, getting full hp. Boss aoe killed him. He decided to go out and get barb buffs. Everyone in squad switched to purge weapons. Barb kept agro, 2 bm with purge pole, sin with purge bow. Cleric had bb up. Sin took 4 minutes to get back, and every time boss frenzied, boss got purged in 1~5 hits. It was awesome fun. Sin came back and yet again died. After that, boss started hitting 17~20k, i died, the other bm died, sin died, cleric died. Without bb, barb died. We had fun, and were laughing.

Moral of the story:..............XShui?

I'd say fists and axe is nice, but going 5 aps is expensive.... personally i think its good to have as much aoe's as possible, few from axe path, from pole the 29, 49 and 59 skill, and from others paths there r aoe's too and i'd say pole 39 skill is the best distance skill bm's have... more ale, is better in FCC/FF and even more in Rebirth and other high instances, cause later on alot of stuff is based on killing 5-20 mobs in 1 pull...

One time I inserted my pole in to harpy wraith. It felt good to me, but she didn't like it.

Actually i was thinking, we are all friends, so we didn't mind doing this. But if this was a random squad, imagine the charm ticks, mp charm ticks for cleric, pots, apoc items, def charms used. I wouldn't do the above in a random squad. I would kill the boss.

The purge pole is fun to have around, but the situations you use it in are very limited and very specific, as others have pointed out, maybe you find more uses for it, than everyone else, that is fine. Have fun with it. Does that mean, that your way is the best way to do it for others to?

Your argument that you have lag, and can not time things. There is an easy fix. Get the feel for the timings of your skills. I have had lag issues, but because i kept pressing the right buttons at the right time, the skills got translated, and the mob was dead. This lag i talk about is fps related, not ping related. Ping related lag is whack to play with.

If you really want to dd, buy a dragon hunt axe, 5.5m range. 1m more than most axes, 0.5m more than a monarch spear, 2.5m more than swords, and 3m more than fists claws. The options are out there. I admit, i use farstrike to hit harpy, after that i use a run skill, until the harpy is on ground, run back, stun it and dd away. If i am on my sin, i shadow jump back on it. If i have another bm friend, i just pull to her, and she stuns the harpy. But we would never range dd a harpy. Simply because the very vast majority of the players have refined their axes and fists to a much higher lvl than their pole and sword. I don't walk around in +10 g15 pole, sword. They are either quest rewards or cheap things i use, the monarch spear being a gift.

If your pole, sword is refined more than your axe and claws, i take back the above, if it is not, might not hurt to listen to what others are saying.

Jaabg - Sanctuary wrote: »

I remember on bh metal fondly.

Moral of the story:..............XShui?

Moral of the story is that sin is an (bleep) heh.

Jaabg - Sanctuary wrote: »

Actually i was thinking, we are all friends, so we didn't mind doing this. But if this was a random squad, imagine the charm ticks, mp charm ticks for cleric, pots, apoc items, def charms used. I wouldn't do the above in a random squad. I would kill the boss.

The purge pole is fun to have around, but the situations you use it in are very limited and very specific, as others have pointed out, maybe you find more uses for it, than everyone else, that is fine. Have fun with it. Does that mean, that your way is the best way to do it for others to?

See now with friends, yea sometimes you gotta goof off. The story you outlined though, if it was a random squad...guh. And as Saku kinda alluded to and said straight out - even in that situation BP heals from Fists would be more efficient. Personally in those situations I just axe kite.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

And XShui is...off.

And I've never seen Maelael chastise anyone, lol. Was quite funny. Joshcja put him and I in the rainbows and puppydogs category because we answered stupid questions, rather than tell people how stupid they were for posting. He'd normally answer the question but throw profanity and vulgarity in, then leave it to me to clarify and sugarcoat the answer. This thread needs less sugarcoating, more ****&learntheclass.

Small Rant:

I'm starting to notice a trend of two types of gamers:

1. People who do their best to support the group. Because teamwork creates efficiency and benefits all and ends up being fun for everyone.

2. People who do what they want for themselves. They care not for efficiency or if its fun for others, just for them.

#2 annoys the **** outta me. You wouldn't want someone else to go afk for an hour while you and the rest of the group clears the instance. You wouldn't want someone else dragging your team down by not working their best "because its their style". It's just selfish and inconsiderate. I remember a time in multiple games, including this one, that if you pulled that kinda **** you got booted and publicly ridiculed or PKed if on a red server. Lately it seems that its acceptable to be a jerk to others YOU sought out or agreed to cooperate with by joining the squad.

I'm sure this is compounded by recently doing a bunch of FFs with some crappy players and people (Although, I had some freaking amazing ones, so #1 totally still exists), but the amount of it lately is appalling.

So yea when I see stuff like this - which really reflecting back this guy could be trolling or yulking us - sometimes I can't stop myself from going "You're a (bleep)". Then theres that pride thing where I get tired of hearing about fail-(bleep) BMs all over the place. I'm not that good. The extreme amount of suck BMs make me look good. It shouldn't be that way.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

This isn't an attack on sword or pole, or an omg5apssparkspamrulez thread. This is a thread about finding the right situation for the right skill. And XShui is...off.

And I've never seen Maelael chastise anyone, lol.

I do find Maelael a bit harsh if he really reacts like that ingame with squads. I sometimes run into not-fist/axe bms that have a reason for that (ofc, this is more a thing that concerns alts then someone's main bm toon), and I won't directly kick them for that. I think the most common example would be those pvp/tw axe-only bms that decided to do some bh. I don't mind them in squad, as long as they speed up at the parts they are good at.

I'd also like to add that before lvl80~90 zone, nobody gives a damn about which weapon a bm uses mainly. No bm sane in his head will walk around with 2+ weapons during the 40s (they have no spirit to lvl more then 1 path next to the "must have" main skills anyway). At those lvls, the difference in "dps" is pretty much inexistant anyway. I would encourage them to try out all weapons during that periode, rather then doing it at the lvls where it actually makes a difference on what you use. In bh51 and 59, I found mss way more usefull then hf, just as an example.

Swords were designed as a defensive weapons. Today at endgame, and even from 80s on where bh starts to be wined and gear making fcc easy, there is no more real need for defensive weapons. Gear is overkill for most pve content, -int exponential effect with bp gives more survivability also. Same goes for pole that was an excelent 1-doing-all option allowing a large freedom in stat distribution. Gear is overkill, nobody cares about how much vit you could add. High lvls (and the relative cost of skills) allow the spirit (and coin) needed to pick a better aoe option + a better 1 target option seperately. So yeah, both weapons became a bit obsolete except for a few specific uses.

It's mainly the experienced ppl aiming for a niche-activity on their alt bm that are interested in those weapons as a main/secondary weapon. For all others, going axe/fists will make life way easier. As a first toon, it's not likely you will have the coins to have a good refined/sharded weap off each path, forcing you to use some weapons only for specific situations/skills. If you do want to be different or go another route for whatever reason, just make sure you're good at something and ppl will squad with you. In that part, Elvarin is right.