Commando Archive
Thread: We deserve specials, too!
Sylow wrote:
Accept it, the Commando is not a stand-alone combat profession. A Commando without another combat profession is a laugh, just like a Squad Leader without another combat profession is making a joke of himself.
Both these professions indicate that the person has some military experience and training.
Both these professions should represent this training by having invested skillpoints in another combat profession.
I expect the commando to be an incredibly fearsome profession when elemental damage is fixed, but only as long as being combined with another combat profession. Which makes perfect sense for me.
(Come on, what do you expect? A special force tailor, surviving in the wilderness behind enemy lines for a long time and then stunning the enemy with the most beautiful dress made from branches and leaves? )
I see your point, and agree mostly, but will play devil's advocate.
Commando has an unarmed prereq taking up another 15 more skill points than the basic elites. We make no use of that Unarmed IV prereq to be honest and if you decide to make use of it in adding in TKM with Master Commando you are left tough, but offensively lacking. Specials would enable the ability to add a punch to basic marksman skills and still make use of a prereq. Or else as was suggested earlier... enable melee specials with heavy weapons. Squad Leaders and Bounty Hunters get to make use of their Scout prereqs... in camping (kinda useless nowadays but still usable), terrain negotiation for BH"s, and they both can harvest.
Commando and SL are both military backed professions as you stated. Now, let's pair these two together. Not a good thing to be honest. With out a Commando being able to be a 5 in damage on it's own as a Rifleman can be (costing less skill points), it wouldn't compliement Squad Leader all that well. If Commando had specials, that might actually be a fun and effective template for group play.
Bottom line is our innate specials are not special. Elemental Damage is not as high as it should be on our weapons to compensate for the lack of specials. The only thing that Commando has going for it is not demolitions.... It is not Utility either as the devs seem to want to call us now. It is straight up there for crowd control but only effective when paired with a crowd control prof. I have a Master Smuggler/Master Commando with 4/4/0/4 Pistoleer and it is absolutely insane at crowd control. Gonna be a little tougher and have to use my FWG5 when Concussion Shot changes to a mez or I will accidently be breaking every mez in the area.
I would not expect a Master Commando/Master Tailor to be rough.... funny example by the way 
I would however see a Melee Commando still be able to dish out damage after expanding on his brawler prereqs and still be able to hit harder than ranged shot with his heavy weapons.
I would expect a Master Commando/Master Squad Leader to still maintain a 5 in damage on it's own and be able to lead his troops as well.
I wish someone had told me this before I became a Commando/Squadleader.
icarus-uk wrote:
"A Commando without another combat profession is a laugh, just like a Squad Leader without another combat profession is making a joke of himself."
I wish someone had told me this before I became a Commando/Squadleader.
Exactly. Commando is rated 5 in damage. Not Commando/BH or Commando/Rifleman: Commando. Face it, the devs tried an interesting idea, and it just doesnt work, so it's time to remove the auto-AOE on Flamers, HARs and LBCs and give us a few specials back.
Commando has an unarmed prereq taking up another 15 more skill points than the basic elites. We make no use of that Unarmed IV prereq to be honest and if you decide to make use of it in adding in TKM with Master Commando you are left tough, but offensively lacking. Specials would enable the ability to add a punch to basic marksman skills and still make use of a prereq. Or else as was suggested earlier... enable melee specials with heavy weapons. Squad Leaders and Bounty Hunters get to make use of their Scout prereqs... in camping (kinda useless nowadays but still usable), terrain negotiation for BH"s, and they both can harvest.
I'd take the little +10 melee defence over the +40 camping any day of the week, would i have the choice... but that's not the core of the discussion, i think that of the hybrids, the BH is definitely the winner, terrain negotiation is actually the most helpful of all three trees in discussion. (And the reason why i admit that the SL is a bit better off here, only needs to invest 9 skillpoints to have it, for commando it's much more expencive.)
Commando and SL are both military backed professions as you stated. Now, let's pair these two together. Not a good thing to be honest.
Or even more clearly said, "lousy". But kinda makes sense, you have to choose... you're the one leading the heavy weapons dude, or you're the one packing the heavy weapons. (That's what the commando in SWG actually is, not so much the classical commando, but the heavy weapons guy / demolitionist. Where again the unarmed requirement looks a bit strange, but i also don't know what to do. Devs definitely didn't want two professions to have the exactly same requirements. Ranged support is logical for commando, but the regulation of never the completely same requirements ruled out the rest of marksman. Perhaps the commando should have the scout trapping, there you also throw things at targets, hinting towards your grenades? I don't know if that really makes more sense...)
So, the SL/Commando combination is not viable, and i personally accept that it makes little sense in this picture. Rather see yourself as a member of a special forces team. A leader, a demolitionist, a communications expert (not represented by any class in SWG), a forward spotter / recon man (master scout or ranger), you get the point. Not one allrounder but one flexible team.
Bottom line is our innate specials are not special. Elemental Damage is not as high as it should be on our weapons to compensate for the lack of specials. The only thing that Commando has going for it is not demolitions....
For sure not at the moment... i LOVE having a commando in team, it's a wonderful sight, commanding a team and seeing "your" commando setting the target you mark (and everything around) on fire... unfortunatly elemental damage is still broken. I hope and assume that the damage output of the commando will increase significally as soon as this is fixed. Then they should (after a long time) again be a worthwhile profession.
It is not Utility either as the devs seem to want to call us now. It is straight up there for crowd control but only effective when paired with a crowd control prof.
Have you seen a Commando/Carbineer attack with charge shot yet? I got pale of envy of the effect... and that's despite not doing the elemental damage. When that is fixed, it'll be murderous... 
I would however see a Melee Commando still be able to dish out damage after expanding on his brawler prereqs and still be able to hit harder than ranged shot with his heavy weapons.
RaidCasto wrote:
Does a BH/tailor suffer from lack of specials??? No. Nor should we. Dont piss down my back n tell me its raining.
Sylow wrote:
RaidCasto wrote:
Does a BH/tailor suffer from lack of specials??? No. Nor should we. Dont piss down my back n tell me its raining.
Then tell me what high-damage specials the Squad Leader has? I know, the total of specials is higher than with Commando (no big surprise here), but none of them is for weapon useage, either.
Actually i dare to say that the pure Commando, without any other profession, is more viable to do some solo-fighting than the pure Squad Leader.
You just see it from the wrong side, commando is not the foundation where you put some other profession on top. The other combat profession is the foundation where you come from, commando is the profession with which (by area effect) you power it up to dimensions where the other "plain" combat abilities have no chance to ever compete with. Of couse, with the currently badly broken area damage, this is plain theory.
[But still, it's a severe bug and not a conceptional mistake.]
/salute
Well said. Yes, a Pure SL would be way worse off than a Pure Commando. At least Commando has +45 heavy weapons speed as a base to stack general ranged speed mods. A Squad Leader has it kinda rough having Pistol XP everywhere and no actual Leadership xp anymore. With the Ranged Support line and Survival line.... heh not gonna be able to put up much of a fight without some supporting combat skills.
I have seen a Master Commando/Master CH still do "okay"... not very good mind you, but he had fun with it and could do ok with good gear but I couldn't even begin to imagine a SL/CH...
Ok i just want to say this and see who agrees with me.
When i see a commando i expect them to be the most damageing combat class hence the name commando/. But a rifleman beats us.. Come on thats like saying a privite can beat a captain its just pathetic and i think they shojld change it.
When i see a commando i expect them to be the most damageing combat class hence the name commando/. But a rifleman beats us.. Come on thats like saying a privite can beat a captain its just pathetic and i think they shojld change it.
I fully agree with your statement. But i also dare to hint towards this:
- what damage do you expect from a FLAME thrower?
- what damage do you expect from a ACID rifle?
- what damage do you expect froma LIGHTNING rifle?
And what kind of damage is currently broken in SWG? -> Elemental damage.
As soon as elemental damage is fixed, i expect the commando to badly outgun the rifleman. If fixing elemental damage doesn't do the job, then i agree that further actions might be necessary. But currently, this is the main and primary issue of the commando.
Message Edited by Sylow on 06-23-2005 08:24 PM
Sylow wrote:
When i see a commando i expect them to be the most damageing combat class hence the name commando/. But a rifleman beats us.. Come on thats like saying a privite can beat a captain its just pathetic and i think they shojld change it.
I fully agree with your statement. But i also dare to hint towards this:
- what damage do you expect from a FLAME thrower?
- what damage do you expect from a ACID rifle?
- what damage do you expect froma LIGHTNING rifle?
And what kind of damage is currently broken in SWG? -> Elemental damage.
As soon as elemental damage is fixed, i expect the commando to badly outgun the rifleman. If fixing elemental damage doesn't do the job, then i agree that further actions might be necessary. But currently, this is the main and primary issue of the commando.
Message Edited by Sylow on 06-23-2005 08:24 PM
So true AOE should help us out alot! but i expect our guns to do at least 600 to 1k damage range depending on stuff. But yea if AOE does not work then other actions must be taking place.
plus in the lastest publish 19 thread did it say something about elemental damage being fixed? i am not sure .