Polearms, Please FromSoft

Lances, Halberds, Spears, you name it.

Specifically, a lance from my eyes would be like the UGS of polearms. Very long, powerful, and slow.

Spears should be slightly reworked to be less abused.

And from demos, the halberds are spot on.
But why should From stick to their conventional 1-2-3 weapon class system if they don't use it for all weapon classes?
Axe < Poleaxe? < Greataxe
Spear < Halberd< Lance?
Whip < Flail< ???
Mace < ??? < Greathammer

Just from small things like this, From could potentially increase diversity in combat two-fold. Feel free to fill in the blanks accordingly.

How about bringing back the stagger thing, but increasing it to make missing more punishable?

With a spear you get the standard for halberds in Dark Souls

With Halberds you get a longer stagger

And with Lances you have a really long stagger.

That or just decrease their swing speed.

I don't really do pvp so I don't know about spears being "abused", but I can definitely get behind more polearms (and more weapon variety in general). I think seeing things like a naginata or guan dao would be really cool and add needed variety.

Why? setting up everything as 1-2-3 is incredibly arbitrary.

They already have a poleaxe btw, because a poleaxe is really the same freaking thing as a halberd.

SadPanda wrote:Spears should be slightly reworked to be less abused.

 Hmmm my last post disappeared.
 But anyway, in some way they need to try and make spears work the way they do in real life.

Good at range, bad up close... or so sez that bald guy on the history channel that reviews the weapons of yester years.
Not sure how that would work in-game...

-Some kind of damage reduction up close?
-Perhaps one handing any of the big spears should drain the heck out of stamina and have a guaranteed bounce if it hits a shield.
-Then have two handing a spear would not have any of those problems.

SadPanda wrote:
Whip < Flail< ???

That last one needs to be the big club on a chain the witch king used in Lord of the rings. Not sure what that sized weapon would be called... Giant Flail? Earthshaker? Siegebreaker?

Spears need to do significantly less damage if you hit closer to the hilt. Only the actual blade of the spear should be a hitbox for full damage. Polearms in general seem to have been slowed down from the trailers too, which is probably a good thing. 

I'd also like to see flails- you need to hold the attack button to swing it around the head, and then release to attack. It also needs to be swung for a few repetitions for full power. As a result, it has incredible guardbreak and/or shield bypass abilities.

Totally agree Mosquito Power,having a witch king flail is a must! Oh and Ghadis Gods flail idea sounds perfect. Man now I really hope flails make it in the game.

Bring back the mirdan hammer!!!

Best polearm imo.

twigsterxd wrote:Bring back the mirdan hammer!!!

Best polearm imo.

It WAS the best polearm.  It was so good they had to remove it from the game. We got the Lucerne in Dark Souls instead.

Playin DeS now reap. Do you think I can find one of those without clearing 5-1 and go swamp fishing. Think my game cd is missing a code LOL

twigsterxd wrote:Playin DeS now reap. Do you think I can find one of those without clearing 5-1 and go swamp fishing. Think my game cd is missing a code LOL

The only way besides the swamp to find one is to farm the Stonefang miners who use hammers. There's only 2 of them in 2-1 (at the top of the elevator shortcut that's by the first archstone), and I think something like 4-5 hammer-wielders in 2-2 (in the tunnel at the beginning before the catwalk-dropping shortcut).

Honestly, it's less annoying to just to do a suicide run into the swamp for it.

I just hate doing 5 1 without proper gear and magic. Farming is a pita.

I just want a really excessive looking Cone-type lance. (What you see during the jousts in all the medieval movies.)

I kind of feel that Halberd is the Dark Souls version of Mirdan Hammer. Thank Stockpile Thomas for Poise.

How about some quarter staffs. That would be a sweat weapon

Sentiel wrote:I kind of feel that Halberd is the Dark Souls version of Mirdan Hammer. Thank Stockpile Thomas for Poise.

The Halberd is the Dark Souls equivalent of Demon's Souls weapon, Halberd

It's just the most basic weapon of it's class. What made the Mirdan Hammer special was that it was just a regular polearm that happened to deal an alternate damage type instead of slashing damage. Turns out crushing damage was better for breaking through defenses than slashing damage so it turned out to just be a souped-up normal Halberd. In that vein, Dark Souls has the Lucerne. An otherwise normal polearm that happens to deal stabbing damage instead of slashing damage.

I meant the stunlocking to hell, but yeah.

Whiff animations need only to happen on weapons that do BIG damage and are otherwise relatively fast on hit, or can stunlock.  Literally stunlock as stamina allows, not "toggle/roll out after a few hits".

Whiff animation badly punished mace/axe in DS, despite that their scaled damage is less than or similar to a lot of fast dex weapons.  On top of that, mace weighs 4 units and some of the katanas weigh considerably more...where's the whiff animation on the washing pole and mura?

We don't need that unless there is a very good balance justification for it, halberd or no.  Most of us would whiff with a halberd if we missed, but if we were even 3-4x stronger than we are we really wouldn't.  These characters in the souls games are not just in peak physical condition, they're superhuman.  There is no rational justification for whiff punishment on these weapons other than for balance, and you can't possibly tell me the mace/reinforced club *needed* a disadvantage when compared to an uchi or washing pole.  That's absurd.

The only whiff animation that makes sense to me is the Halberd class one. You're using a long pole with a weight on the end of it, it's going to have a bit of pull if you miss.

The small axes/blunts however I don't really like, they don't have a long enough moment arm to justify the stagger imo.

As for the Mura, et al, well the weight of those weapons is evenly distrubuted down the blade, an the hilt is most likely counter weighted to a certain degree, so no stumble makes sense (to a degree).

I get that it's for balance, but really the halberds are the only ones that deserve it. And maybe some of the spears with a big head like the Pike.

StiffNipples wrote:...The small axes/blunts (whiff animation) however I don't really like, they don't have a long enough moment arm to justify the stagger imo...

 Its almost that the character has bad form when swinging axes/blunts.
They need to follow through with the swing and return to a natural stance. Not try and come to a complete stop with the ax/club in mid swing.

Soul Calibur's Astaroth needs to be a consultant on Dark Souls 2.

I don't think one can make a justifiable claim that whiff animations are for "balance" in dark souls, even if you DIDN'T have toggle escapes.  A shorter weapon of comparable weight that has 10 more AR at most is not a candidate for "needs a relative nerf" if you're talking balance.  Halberds have some justification because of the kind of weapon they are, but it *still* doesn't make sense from a lore standpoint at all.  If I could fall two-three stories and run in a full sprint to engage and defeat a demon about as tall as a two story house, I can promise I could poke OR swing a basic halberd without a whiff recovery.  Being superhuman tends to allow that.  Unfortunately, I have no such strength and thus can't cheese millions of dollars from professional sports, but still.

Even if the Mura is "balanced" with weight distribution, it's still TWELVE UNITS.  It is three times heavier than a mace, and four times heavier than a club which STILL has a whiff animation at 3 units.  "counter-weight" on the hilt does not make a weapon that weighs four times as much as others recover faster!

Something should be fixed on spears especially, though im not sure exactly how to manage it. Most important attributes for weapons (aside from your basic scaling and base damage) is obviously speed , range, moveset. The spear is  OP because it has huge range and speed advantages on almost anything, along with good dmg and moveset, plus a shield poke.

Someone mentioned reduced dmg and or stun at close range which makes sense, but it could backfire and create a new turtle that won't poke unless he's 5 ft away. Closing the distance would be terrible.
Increased stamina drain is an option, or cool down between pokes, though i think the best may be really reducing the horizontal hitbox on it. Make it so that it's basically a straight line, and pokes require good timing, accuracy. Loosen up the tracking on it as well, so ppl can strafe around you. I think the rumored looser lock-on system could solve this issue, once you poke and whiff, you will miss the rest of the combo if you immediately follow with r1 spam.

Something should be fixed on spears especially, though im not sure exactly how to manage it. Most important attributes for weapons (aside from your basic scaling and base damage) is obviously speed , range, moveset. The spear is  OP because it has huge range and speed advantages on almost anything, along with good dmg and moveset, plus a shield poke.

Spears do pretty poor poise damage and are awful against shields.  Block + poke got nerfed down to the point that any decent stagger weapon will break guard quickly, and as a bonus the person is rooted while blocking + poking AND can't parry.  You're giving up a lot for that block + poke, so it needs to be worth something.

They also do poor damage per individual hit and if 2 handed don't really have a good answer to people who close distance while blocking.  Spears are the least of the worries in dark souls 2.

31 poise with 2hnded sks,dss,pike etc is plenty, since the weapon is 10 ft long, and have great speed. Two quick pokes for 62 poise dmg while your on the other side of the lvl is not too shabby eh?. If the player is very defensive, good luck finding the range on a roll bs, with well timed pokes and space, no weapon should be able to touch him.  They don't weigh alot (cept pike) and pair it with leo ring for high dmg if you like. No one trys to break guard with a spear really, it's light enough to carry a great swrd to handle that, or a 0 lbs pyro glove to eat thru it.
They did increase stamina drain on shield pokes, which was a good measure i agree. I'm also not saying they are an unbeatable answer to evrything, I've killed quite a few with out a shield and low poise, but it usually requires me to work hard, and have the opponent to make a mistake.

Sure, a spear is tailor-made to poke non-shield builds and avoid damage.  However, spear builds that keep their distance have no reliable means of hitting through shields at all.  Switching to pyro or a sword removes the ability to use the spear to its potential.