Shattered Kingdoms

Well sure, I would definitely use SS if I wanted to have a chance against one of these halberd-specced mercs, though there are a couple halberds that break SS.

There's nothing stopping the guy with the halberd from having SS, too, and it's not going to last that much shorter for him than for the guy getting more attacks.

But yes, someone with powerful stone skin vials is in a good position to try to put up a fight against one of these guys.

I'd honestly be curious to see who'd win in a 1v1 given the best buffs and armor and good weapon enchants: An aggressive kama merc, or an aggressive halberd merc.

I think sickle would be a much better choice than kama, but remember the halberd merc can just go behind a pet and trip while the kama merc hits his pet. Well maybe not trip if the guy is flying, but you get the point.

Right, and the kama merc can also go defensive and take a lot more of a beating, or the halberd merc can summon tigers.

Obviously there are pros and cons to every situation, but when it comes down to it I'm not so convinced that massive weapons don't come with a heavy enough drawback as it is. I think it makes much more sense that in a 1v1 fight the guy with a big huge weapon does more damage, and is also subject to taking more damage. Makes a whole lot more sense than a guy with a greatsword getting beat out by a dude with a rapier because of his greatsword getting parried or shield blocked.

I think there is a problem because there's no reason to spec greatsword/claymore/flamberge anymore except for availability of materials. These accurate/damaging weapons are also very powerful, but at least force you into the front row as opposed to halberd/bill/glaive.

Not going to get into a huge debate with you on this except to say that I think the massive weapons bonus is too big, as evidenced by how incredibly easy it is to tear through swashbucklers atm.

Meh, halberd is still on the slowest end of the massive weapon spectrum, so unless you have powerful/GM haste, you're not going to get 4 attacks, and even then it isn't guaranteed.

Also, while I haven't seen a log of logs on the matter, dodge isn't affected by massive weaponry, and it's still got crappy accuracy, so I don't personally think that a halberd will hit 100% of the time against a high dex defensive opponent with a shield, unless maybe the person wielding the halberd happens to be in a certain cabal, be mood aggressive and also have 10/10 enchants on their weapon?

It just seems to me that there's only been one halberd spec merc played by a very capable PKer that has brought you to this conclusion. Pilnor was specced in halberd and he just did more damage with an HoL most of the time on account of the fact that he didn't have a +10/+10 halberd nor did he have access to 24/7 powerful haste, and getting 2-3 attacks with a halberd is pretty sucktacular compared to getting 6 attacks every round: Not to mention I was able to bash in mood aggressive without getting my arms chopped off in the interim, which is something that a halberd spec merc will have trouble doing if you ask me.

It's a lot harder to mangle an arm than it should be.

Tweaks that I'd suggest.

- Reduce the penalty to parry by 50%
- Reduce the penalty to shield block by 25%
- Increase movement cost for iterative attacks.

In the end, massive weapons only affect the PvP area of the game, and melee characters cannot stay permanently hasted due to fatigue, so it's not as if they are spamming 4 attacks all the time. My character for instance only gets 3 attacks, and it requires a high level haste spell to spam 4 attacks a round.

Also, the massive weapon is only viable in the aggressive stance, this is something you're ignoring about the weapon such as the kama. I can guarantee that if you go defensive with a massive type weapon, you'll get murdered. Or at least look very dumb (teehee).

I would just like to say that I disagree with both Edoras, and baldric, and believe that Minette should have her stimulants taken away.

I like the part where you say massive weapons should be tweaked, but disagree with me.

I never PvPed without haste, and I avoided stacking fatigues by not PvPing constantly. I don't think the argument about haste makes a lot of sense. If you cut the opponent's attacks by one as well, the three attacks from the halberd will still be great, anyways.

Why would anyone care that the weapon isn't useful for pve? pve does not require awesome weaponry, anyways, or even a specced weapon.

Without haste, halberd spec gets 1-3 attacks a round.

I didn't realize that and stand corrected.