Pointers on Grinding Pikeman + Polearms
By Chardin

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 got it. Enjoy

Polearms 1
Here, just buy a woodstaff (or take the one given to you by your newbie helper droid) off the bazaar, you'll 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. Once your there, look for a Long Vibro Axe that has got 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 huurton howlers (wild spawns I saw on my way to my missions) and quenker missions (these run about 5k payoff) make sure you're 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 you're 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 got 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 it'll 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!

Pikeman FAQ
By antares_Kauri

Q: What do I need to hit the speed cap?
A: The current speed formula is:
final_delay = special_delay_multiplier * weapon_delay * (100 - speed_bonus)/100
The general answer is +95, this will allow you to hit the cap with any polearm at master pike, as we rarely if ever use a weapon with a speed slower than 6.7.

Q: Which Pikeman skill attachments work, and which do not?
A: Working: Polearm Speed, Polearm Accuracy, Block
Not Working: Polearm Evasion, Polearm Counterattack, Polearm Damage

Q: What is the best progression to follow when levelling Pikeman?
A: This post should help you out with that info. Generally, the best way to go is speed first:
000x -> 400x -> 404x -> 444x -> 4444

Q: Do DoTs stack from different polearms?
A: Yes they do. This should have been fixed before, but the fix the devs added evidently failed.

Q: Is block working or is it broken?
A: Yes. Block works as the devs intended it to. It is currently inherently inferior to counterattack and dodge because, whereas the others evade 100% of the incoming damage on a successful activation, block allows 50% of the damage to pass through. There are no other features of block that offset this imbalance.

Q: Where can I find a Pikeman trainer?
A: Pikeman trainers can be found in:
Corellia - Kor Vella: -3412 3084
Talus - Dearic: 522 -2934
Tatooine - Mos Espa: -2931 2386
Rori - Narmle: -5278 -2328
Naboo - Theed: -5375 4311

Q: What mob drops Polearm or Polearm Speed attachments more often?
A: No mob in particular drops Polearm attachments in any higher frequency than other types of attachments, it's all random. Popular places to loot attachments are from factional NPCs like commandos, also Aa'kuans, Nightsisters, etc. The higher the level of the NPC, the better the attachment will be if you loot one. Lord Nyax has been sadly camped for a long time because of this very reason. The man gets no sleep.

Q: Is there a cap on accuracy?
A: There is no hard cap on accuracy, but there is a limit on what you can do to increase your accuracy. To improve your accuracy you can add:

[*]+25 accuracy from skill attachments

[*]+12 from FS melee accuracy bonuses

[*]+5 from Master Brawler

[*]more bonuses from Squad Leader and food

[*]better range mods on your weapon (i.e. +7/+7/+7 on lances, -45/-45/-45 on looted LVAs) - weaponsmiths can experiment with this