Polearms

The atgeir has the longest melee reach in the game at 3.2 metres, and its secondary attack is a 360 degree spin with no damage penalty however many things it catches.

Combat

Pros

The spin: a 3-metre, 360 degree sweep with 6x stagger, 10x knockback and no multi-target damage penalty, for double stamina. A Fuling village is what it is for.
3.2 metres of primary reach, a full metre more than a sword or an axe, so the class hits first by default.
The secondary's 10 times knockback clears a circle around you outright, the closest thing in the game to an escape button.
The primary still builds to a double-damage third hit, so single targets are not neglected the way they are with a hammer.

Cons

Every polearm deals Pierce, the most resisted type in the game, and nothing else.
Several tiers of the game go without any polearm, and a tier never offers more than one.
Two-handed, so no shield and no parry: you block on the atgeir's own numbers.
Despite the reach, the primary arc is only 30 degrees, so the long poke hits a single target and the wide attack is the one that costs double stamina.

Builds

Primary for one, secondary for many. The split is sharper here than in any other class: the primary is a narrow 30 degree poke from 3.2 metres, and the secondary is the 360 degree spin. Learning when to spend the double stamina is the whole skill.

It is a crowd weapon first. The sweep staggers 6 times and knocks back 10 times without splitting its damage, so 4 Greydwarves all take a full hit and all stop moving. Nothing else in the game does that.

Because it is two-handed, the atgeir is your guard. Block armour runs 16 to 88 across the class with no parry bonus to fall back on, so against anything heavy you dodge roll rather than block.

Pierce is the standing problem. Against the Charred and most of the Ashlands, the spin is still worth carrying for the stagger alone, even while the damage is being resisted.

Polearms are made at the Forge, the Black forge and the Frost Foundry.

The skill is Polearms, and it levels by use rather than by choice.

Best Polearms

Build	Weapon	Key Figure
Hardest hitter	Frostfire Atgeir	248 damage across all types
Cheapest to swing	Bronze Atgeir	12 stamina a swing
Longest lasting	Frostfire Atgeir	400 durability

Notes

The secondary's 360 degree arc takes no multi-target damage penalty, unlike almost every other area attack in the game.
You stay put on the first strike of the primary combo and step 0.5 m forward on each of the next 2 strikes, so the combo closes the distance your reach had bought you.
In game, most of the class is called an atgeir, a thin curved blade on a long pole, which is why the pages and the category use different words.

All Weapon Categories

All Polearms

*stats displayed are item's base values. See upgrades under each item for item stats per level.

Name	Pierce	Elemental Damage	Stamina	Block	Weight	Durability	Crafting Materials	Crafting Station	Spawn ID
Wooden Atgeir	1	-	8	12	2.5	175	-	-	`spawn AtgeirWood`
Bronze Atgeir	45	-	12	16	-	125	10x Wood 8x Bronze 2x Leather scraps	Forge	`spawn AtgeirBronze`
Iron Atgeir	65	-	14	28	-	175	10x Wood 30x Iron 2x Leather scraps	Forge	`spawn AtgeirIron`
Himminafl	85	40 Lightning	20	64	2.5	175	10x Yggdrasil wood 15x Refined eitr 5x Silver 2x Mandible	Black forge	`spawn AtgeirHimminAfl`
Black Metal Atgeir	105	-	18	52	-	175	10x Finewood 30x Black metal 5x Linen thread	Forge	`spawn AtgeirBlackmetal`
Frostfire Atgeir	148	12 Fire, 88 Frost	20	88	2.5	400	1x Nord Atgeir 20x Bloodgold 1x Frostfire Essence	Black Forge	`spawn AtgeirGold_FrostFire`
Nord Atgeir	182	-	20	88	2.5	400	1x Cast: Nord Atgeir 5x Liquid Frost	Frost Foundry	`spawn AtgeirGold`
Thunderblood Atgeir	192	45 Lightning	20	88	2.5	400	1x Nord Atgeir 20x Bloodgold 1x Thunderblood Essence	Black Forge	`spawn AtgeirGold_BloodLightning`