Commando Archive
Thread: Where Smugglers and Commandos meet
What really IS the deal with Unarmed IV as a prereq for anything other than TKA? Smugglers and Commandos both have to deal with this, and neither one has ANY use for it.
No player is going to fight with his fists when he has access to a flamethrower. Similarily with the Smugglers, none of them are going to fight barehanded when they have an entire skill tree devoted to pistol skills.
Waaaay back in the day, the Commando was supposed to be a sort of self-sufficient field agent, with some crafting abilities (no joke! Read the old manual). Now what I think would be excellent for the commando is to be altered so that the theme of self-sufficiency is maintained. Not in the realm of crafting, because obviously anything a Commando is going to find useful can't be made by anything less than a Master Weaponsmith.
I think that the Unarmed IV requirement should be changed to First Aid IV. Instead of a dead 29 skill points, we'l actually have something we can really use. What's more, it won't upset PVP in any serious way (The BHs won't have a harder time with us - they all use Eye Shot anyway and you can't heal mind damage)
A commando is indeed supposed to be a self-sufficient special-operations soldiers, not really a heavy weapons specialist. A change like this I'm sure would only help reinforce that identity, and also please the commandos without giving them an unfair boost.
As I just said in another post--whatever the devs original conception was--Ithink they NOW think of the Commando as primarily a short range Heavy Weapons specialist (with some mid range capabilities and limited long range capabilities).
As for Brawler, I suspect it's there literally to burn away skill points. I think the thinking is (i) it's not wholly out of character (the way, IMO, the Engineering requirements for Commandos used to be) and (ii) that the abilities we get in the profession are powerful enough that you need a decent upfront cost (in skill points) to justify them.
I think the requirement is there to add to game balance.
While I agree that the commando needs more than just Master marksman to be balanced, I think it would be more appropriate for them to have to invest points into skills that might actually be useful. Not necessarily powerful, but useful.
Since we're already always compared to BHs, I'll use them as an example. Their other requirement is Master Scout, which gives them a number of abilities which, while they in no way directly increase their power, do give them useful secondary abilities such asharvesting from creatures, surveying and faster movement over inclines. Our Unarmed IV requirement is a completely dead waste of points, offering us no use whatsoever.
Actually, I believe the prereqs for commando should be
Master Marksman
Exploration4
Master Bartender ( *hic* ) 
Well as said before me, its to burn skill points. Look at the BH who have to master scout tree, the trapping line of scout for example are the most useless tree in the world for a BH.
I kind of like unarmed for Commando, makes it easy to pick up the defence from TKA and get a potent fighter (and yes i know you could do this anyway)
Similarily with the Smugglers, none of them are going to fight barehanded when they have an entire skill tree devoted to pistol skills.
When you throw a rancor at this smuggler, he puts his guns away and goes to knuckles with the rancor.
I see this come up all the time with people wanting to change the pre-reqs. I don't think it is realistic to think SOE will. Many people designed their characters with the pre-reqs in mind. So, there are a number of people who have gone TKA for some of those skills. Are you going to say they have to give up that class because the pre-req is suddenly changed? Rather than ask the Devs to change the pre-req, ask them to have it make sense. Things like giving better unarmed defenses to dodge those MOBs that get close.
I really like this game and enjoy it immensely. I spent a great deal of time planning out my character and figuring how best to use my pre-reqs (sensible or not) to make the character I want. But, if SOE goes and changes the game so that all my planning and work has been for naught, I will have to seriously consider leaving the game. It's one thing to nerf a class and a completely different one to change the rules to get the class. Think of those people 3/4 through the unarmed4 box when the change would happen. Think about the outrage involved from those people. Think about what that would have made you feel like if it had happened to you.
And, it isn't easy to offer a choice. That doesn't currently exist in any of the classes for a pre-req. It's very linear and would require a great deal of programming and quite a bit of de-bugging time tomake it have a choice. Do you want to ask them to create more potential bugs and issues with our class while they still have others to work on? What would happen if instead or X or Y, it got messed up to X and Y requirements, or neither? Would you merely loose access to your commando skills, or would you loose them altogether and need to retrain?
I'm not happy with the requirements either, but rather than ask them to change it, I would rather they added things to the commando tree instead of making me (and others) completely rethink their characters. Something good would be to try and get it so that we can use unarmed skills during the 'cool down' on our weapons. Maybe at reduced effectiveness, but still there.
Does anyone not notice that the only pre-requsite skills that you use at commando are the ranged support tree and the pistol tree? And that's only if you use the launcher pistol.
So, why complain about the unarmed tree?
Novice Brawler + Unarmed 4 = 29 kill points gone completely to waste.
I don't actively complain about the Unarmed prerequisite, but those 29 points would be a lot more FUN if I could spend them elsewhere.
IF you are an all out commando there is a high probability that you will use your flame thrower as a primary weapon. So what do you do during the7 second cooldown at flame 4 standing toe to toe with your enemy. I'll tell ya what I do. Rely on my teras kasi unarmed toughness by unequiping the flame thrower and having enemies do 53% less damage on me. I think the pre-req is a great idea if you go down that path. You can aslo blind/dizzy/stun/knockdown your opponent before you do a flame attack which makes it even safer during the cooldown! You also have enough points left over at Master TKA/Master commando to pick up novice scout or novice medic and get one skill box!
for what its worth,
Serum Deadlan
Radiant
zyzxxx sees my point. The carbine and rifle skills at least don't force you to pick up a useless 14 point novice skills just for one (equally useless) tree. The TKA/Commando is still a completely viable and logical combination. Nobody said you *had* to drop them.
If they were to change it, I'm sure the people working on Unarmed IV would be plenty happy. I spent the better part of three or four days getting those skills. It sucked hard, and I'd love to drop them for something useful if only I could.
Of course, altering the skills so they actually benefit a commando is also a good suggestion. Changing "Unarmed Toughness" to simply "Toughness" would not only make sense (I don't understand what dropping my flamethrower does for my natural resistance to blades and blasters) but give us something to show for our 29 skills points. My only worry is that such an alteration would directly increase our combat power, as opposed to just give us a useful secondary skill.