Pitchfork of death

[Bauta Beepsky]

Has anyone else experienced that Pitchforks are really freaking efective and quick ? When i meet a Pitchfork wielder in the lower Arena ranks i basically give up

[Excalibrrr]

Yep

[Roryn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4rp2T5oVQo

^Everyone's master fighter in aspirant tier.

[Gusme]

geralt of rivia aproves

[SleepingSnail]

Quite so, but if you are careful enough it shouldn't be a problem. If you have a short weapon like a dagger or something, I would suggest waiting until the opponent does a side swing attack, then close in and stay close. Because of the long shaft of the pitchfork, they won't be able to do much. As soon as they manage to get enough distance, fall back and repeat. Do not randomly close in as they will just thrust and kill you. With longer range weapons such as the iron bar, I just keep my distance and take any opportunity to attack. Side dashes work quite well to dodge the thrusts, and front/back dashes will render the swings pretty much useless. I wouldn't recommend parrying as you could easily fail to do so and get killed. Same as before, don't close in if you are not sure that he will not attack, else he can just thrust and ggwp.
In my opinion, the best weapon for both inept and aspirant levels is the iron staff. It combines speed, range and decent crush+impact damage. When equipping my npcs with them, they tend to win almost always. Hell, those staves even do decently well on novice level. Of course, they are not as deadly as pitchforks, but are much faster and more reliable in general.
PS: I still did get killed twice by a pitchfork wielding peasant.

[Douglas Rattmann]

Yeah, recently I've been avoiding pitchforks/spears and shields.

You can deal with them, but its a feat pulling it off without getting any red, and I personally enjoy keeping my hirees alive.

[Lane]

Originally posted by Bautark:

Has anyone else experienced that Pitchforks are really freaking efective and quick ? When i meet a Pitchfork wielder in the lower Arena ranks i basically give up

Ah.......I remember those. *Queue Vietnam veteran flashback music*

It was another day in the arena, I sent a few of my new recruits to gain some experience in combat with hopes of at least getting them to adept before they die... But then, the pitchfork showed up. Thrusting was already dangerous enough, but with that beast....it was undodgable.

It took me three recruits until I found a good way to counter it. The solution was, and listen closely...

It was a shield.....SIKE






The forfeit button.

[Crackpunch]

I suffered my worst case of the pitchfork blues when my opponent managed to get three stabs to my gut while recovering from a heavy blow I dealt to him. He didn't thrust three times, there was just a brief moment where the prongs weren't in contact with my body, then gently brushed it again.

Can't really say if that was the pitchfork's fault or the physics engine being silly.

[Judasilfarion]

Pitchfork users still scare the ♥♥♥♥ out of me but I usually deal with them (and their spear wielding cousins) by rushing straight at them before they can prepare a stab and flailing at them like a drunken madman with my weapon. Preferably your weapon will be one with good balance so you can do more damage when you hit them with the shaft of your weapon, like the iron bar. The AI will attempt to back away, but whatever you do you MUST NOT allow them to break away from your frenzied facehugging. Sometimes you will get lucky and the AI will back away just enough to get hit by your weapon, and as long as you keep this up they will never be able to get a good stab in on you while you slowly whittle them down with your weapon shaft/lucky hits.

Against a one-handed spear user they will also uselessly flail with their spear and hit you in the back with the shaft of their weapon, but at least this only does yellow damage as opposed to red. If your armor is good enough you should just be able to outlast them.

[Prairy]

same here, have found the pitchfork to be a challenge. I keep hoping to find one being sold by the arena vendor but no luck so far.