Commando Archive

Hmm, I almost forgot to wrap-up the details on the profession's abilities at master.

Master Commando

An all around competent and capable fighter capable of causing damage through a multitude of ways. At the master level the commando would get specials for each of his/her primary lines that were the most powerful available of that type (the type being the unique variant within the profession, note that these specials would not infringe on elite combat profession strengths at the master level, but would still be reasonable powerful, and server a different purpose.)

Master Heavy Weapons Specialist

At the master level, the heavy weapons specialist is the ultimate support profession, being able to change the states of large clusters of infantry in addition to being the best profession in the game at taking down 'hard targets'. These guys are your tank and bunker busters. At this level, their accuracy with heavy support weapons is good enough to reliably hit the target the weapon is intended for (ie. a rocket launcher won't hit troops reliably, but something like a shrapnel projectile designed to cause AE infantry damage with only light AP would hit home more often.) Through state-effecting grenades they can greatly influence the condition of enemy troops. Finally, through the use of E-Web mounted blaster cannon, they excell at supressing enemy advances and holding a fortified position; however, this is counter-balanced by the fact that they are rather vulnerable when alone (as a stand-alone profession.)

Thoughts, ideas, input?

/shrug

I don't see why they wouldn't be as effective as TKA except for the fact that you'd have to invest a few more skill-points that could be allotted to something else to do so. Regardless, my emphasis was on balance among the ranged professions as commandos are predominantly a ranged class.

• The creation of a new profession, The Heavy Weapons Specialist (prerequisite being the ranged support tree in marksman.)


• The commando would be designed in such a way that ideally, should the player choose to be most effective in a specific area of combat, he/she would master commando, and then complement it with the mastery of rifleman, carbineer, pistoleer, heavy weapons specialist*, or teras kasi artist.


• The commando would be fairly potent on its own, having decent skills in all of the areas of the other elite professions, yet not being overpowered in this skill.


• This would create a broad variety of commandos, as even in modern commando teams the individuals on the team have varying roles - General purpose soldiers, demolitions experts, snipers, machine-gunners, gunman, and perhaps close-range specialists would be possible.

I know this might seem like a rather drastic develpment move, but I really feel it would help us fit the role of what a real commando is more. Given this would be a drastic restructuring of the profession, here's what I would propose for the skill trees as sort of a rough-draft idea.

Advanced Pistol Skills

This skillset would build off of what we learn in the marksman pistol tree, consisting of a few mods to accuracy and speed, but not nearly as many as in the pistoleer tree. In addition, a few specials would be added to compensate for the lack of pistoleer at this point. As our trademark pistol is the LP, this is where the LP specials we've been asking for would go. They would be decent attacks (but not overpowering in comparison to pistoleer attacks) that would function in unique ways, and maybe that would only work with the LP - such as the Lock-On, smoke-screen,or Rocket Barrage specials I've heard suggested.

Advanced Carbine Skills

This skillset would build off of what we learn in the marksmancarbine tree, consisting of a few mods to accuracy and speed, but not nearly as many as in thecarbineer tree. This is where the commando-specific repeater could be added, being an assault carbine of sorts, certification could be given at either novice or the first box of commando carbine skills. Like commando pistol tree, the specials would be decent, yet not overpowering, and offer a unique variation of the traditional carbine attacks, presumably with a focus on rapid-firing supression and/or raw DPS.

Advanced Rifle Skills

Here is where we could fix the HAR and make it act like a true rifle (or better yet, scrap it in favor of the concussion rifle, but I digress...) Basically do for the rifle tree what was done for the carbine and pistol trees. Specials would be focussed on long-delay single-shot attacks designed to hit hard and accurately, but without hitting a specific HAM pool as not to infringe on rifleman specialization.

Heavy Weapons

Our existing flamethrower certification would be found here, and would remain relatively unchanged/balanced for the upcoming combat review. I'd say it's balanced about as it should be now (2/13/04) assuming the rest of these changes made to balance out the rest of the profession.

Grenade Certifications and Stat Modifiers

Spread throughout the trees would be modifiers for terrain negotiation, various state defenses (reflecting our toughness acquired in the brawler unarmedtree), grenade certifications and accuracy/speed mods. Where have our consumables gone you ask? I'll cover that in a follow-up post.

The Balancing Factor

The primary balancing factor in all of this would be our inability to attack a specific HAM pool, which would remain the distinct advantageof the elite combat professions (in addition to having overall more accurate, faster and more powerful attacks.)

Follow Up Post: The Heavy Weapons Guy

Message Edited by Raptor2k1 on 02-14-2004 10:58 PM

Hmm, seeing as this has kinda fallen out of attention, I was wondering if anyone else had some feedback. Garvin, maddogs, anyone?

Anyways, just wanted to make sure that there's some positive construction threads floating around so people don't get the impression that we're all rather grumpy and irritable.

To be honest, BH is closer to what we should be right now, and the profession was part of my inspiration for this. What makes the BH different is that they have the innate scouting abilities that allow them to stalk their prey (and they have very little room to expand on their skills) and take single-targets down efficently (or at least this is where I see the profession headed.)

BH's get spiffy things like humanoid traps, and whatnot to make this easier - their focus is on using a broad variety of skills to take down a target though - the commando's strength lies ina broad variety of weaponry and combat skills usedto adapt to virtually any situation that arises.

To further clarify distinctions:

BH = Scouting + Marksman skills used to take down single targets (IMO they probably are one of the best at reflecting their prerequisites right now.)

Commando = Marksman + Unarmed 4 making an emphasis on pure combat, with unarmed 4 factoring as innate melee defenses. Room is left to build upon the profession via mastery of another elite to become a specialized commando.