When to use PolearmFollow

Hey guys, sorry if this has come up before but I checked stickies and recent posts and couldn't find the answer.

Just started levelling my SAM and was wondering in what situations does using a Polearm beat out GK? As my main is DRG I have 8/8 Polearm merits which will certainly help a lot, but in general which weapon is better for which situations, on the way and at 75?

Obviously Polearm has an advantage on Piercing weak mobs, but at 75 for Colibri would a Polearm SAM beat out a GK SAM? I was doing a ODS run a few days ago on my DRG/WHM with a friend on his SAM and I noticed that while my WS were doing well over 1k on average without Angon, his WS were tending to do a lot less; is Polearm likely to be better on weaker/lower level mobs like this?

Just looking for a general idea on when to use Polearms, any input is much appreciated.

Correction
1-32 weapon type doesn't really matter, but skill level does, with merits it does not really make a difference
33-36 bats are weak to piercing, though without merits accuracy from skill diff could still win out
37-42 on past birds polearm wins. polearm wins with E skill on paladin, polearm will win with sam and war.
43-53 GK prolly better, though same as 1-32
53-66 on lesser and normal colibri, polearm wins, before yukki 100% win every time, all the time, GK should only be used to skill up on lessers IMO
66-75 on bugs or non-piercing weak mobs GK
75 greater colibri camp or fighting anything weak

Also, when fighting weak mobs, polearm will win from the fact that penta thrust easily owns any single hit. In nyzul I generally out do hagun on ramparts.

If it is flying, stab it.
If it is very weak, stab it.

I tried soboro/sidewinder, which was fun, but polearm will out damage it with less effort. I didn't have archery merits, so it might have skewed my results. If you want to use it, you really ought to have a corsair in the party for hunter's, because with a bard you don't want to sacrifice a melee song for a WS song.

GK at that level have better DPS and lower hit builds than polearms(that SAM can use), so it's really a wash yeah.

Edited, Jun 4th 2009 6:47pm by shintasama

Greater colibri def. w/o PA merits, use crab sushi (don't make your pt eat madrigal). W/ capped PA merits and good gear, you can easily support a meat build. I used usu mask (ace's for those of u who have), haub+1, usu gloves, kitty pants, usu shoes before getting full usu (which actually lowered my acc from current build). Cuch mantle also helps. With meat you want to bypass most str/attack and go straight for the acc, but the numbers will prove higher. Btw, to the guy who commented on Jinpu, while it may not be the best for exp mobs, it really excels on weak mobs or if you're super buffed. Go ahead and try using Jinpu on the early floors of any salvage zone and it beats out polearm easily.

I don't want to make a new thread for what would be a 1 answer /thread, so I'll ask here. Does Overwhelm work on Polearm WS too, or just GKT? Wiki says nothing about it besides a mention of Archery in the discussion tab.

Awesome, thanks. The archery discussion made me believe it was GKT only. Kind of explains why the SAM with 5/5 Overwhelm was doing ridiculous Penta Thrusts over me today ; ;

You don't really need polearm merit, really. In fact, I advise everyone to eat crab sushi so that:
- You can control your own accuracy instead of relying to BRD's madrigal which might be off at the time you want to penta.
- You don't need the BRD to sing the extra madrigal for you or forcing other competent DD in party eat madrigal.