A request was made to fill out our style articles. After my Tournament Champion run with a parry striker, I'm as qualified as anyone to talk about the parry striking style. First, this style is almost unquestionably the worst style in the game. Their initial skills are on the low side. Their favorites are typically bad. Their natural learning is not quite the worst of all styles. They are easily the hardest style to win with in tournaments.
So why should you make a parry strike warrior? First, people like to try and experience everything this game has to offer. Second, they are one of the most flexible styles in the game. Their ability to change things up is unparalleled. Thirdly, they seem to fight better than their skills would suggest. Fourth there is a greater chance for them to be bonused or cursed in skills than other styles. So they are not without advantages. But they are still the worst style, overall, in the game. They naturally learn decise and parry, both powerful skills in the basic game. That would suggest making pikers that take advantage of one of these skills. They conserve endurance very well, so that suggests that they can skimp on will in design. I'm going to base my comments from here forward on what I've succeeded with in tournaments. I know for a fact that you can win outside of these suggestions, but winning in tournaments is the pinnacle of this game, so I'm only going to share what has worked for me in touranments.
Design: ST: 6-17 (recommend 9-17 for weapons & damage) CN: 5-12 SZ: 3-11 WT: 17-21 (recommend 21) WL: 7-21 (prefer 15, 17, or 21) SP: 4-16 DF: 11-17As you will see, the most important feature on these pikers is wit! Second is deftness. Most of my success stories have 11 deftness, but higher doesn't prevent success. All but one of my TV pikers had good damage, one had great damage. But I've been close twice with normal damage. Endurance does not seem to be important (the range on my successful pikers is poor to good)
Great stats do NOT ensure success with pikers
My TC was a DYO type at 12-7-7-21-21-5-11. But I have a near perfect natural stat 15-5-10-21-17-5-11 that learns attack that has been completely mediocre in tournaments.This is consistent with my experience. You can make perfect versions of pikers and see them roll well and fail. Or you can make less perfect versions of pikers and see them succeed. 17-12-4-21-7-12-11 doesn't look like anything super special, yet this TV'd for me.
One thing I will absolutely say. Do not make average numbers into pikers.Making an average set of numbers into the worst style in the game will normally lead to lots of losses. 10-10-10-17-17-9-11 types? I have yet to see something like this lead to success. And even that is above average for numbers.
Do not expect those perfect sets of numbers to succeed. For every success story I can give 2-3 failure stories.
Weapons: I stick with LO and SC. It is lazy, but these two weapons are great.
Armor: I generally tend to wear armor based on my strength. ALE/L or none for faster pikers with less con (like my TC). The 17-12-4 guy wore APA/F in his TV run.
Strategy: 9-10 or 10-10. Add tactics as desired. Feel free to slow down for scum, but this is my 'magic' strategy for Pikers. These are the numbers that have worked for me.
Learning: Attack is the best favorite learn. More importantly, you want to learn a LOT of skills. That is what 21 wit is for.
If you do undertake making Pikers, I wish you the best. There are no numbers that ensure success, but they are definitely an interesting experience and winning with them is very satisfying, knowing you're winning with the worst style in the game.
Addendum: The Scum Piker I have run between 6-12 scum pikers. They do NOT do as well as total parry scum.I haven't gotten one to the Freshman class yet, where they can certainly do things.But my one success story has a feature that is related to my successes above... WIT! 11 wit.
My design: 15-16-5-11-21-5-11 PS TV'd rookies and is now graduating at 19-3.
The 3-7 wit versions have all been average at best. I've stopped making them. You may see more success than I have, but at this point, I'm sticking with 11 wit on my scum pikers.