Commando Archive

Kildor

commando used to be the way to go but i wouldn't be so quick to invest all those skill points into it over pistoleer. i dropped master commando for master gunfighter after the flame dot nerf because you can't rely on it to kill anything anymore. in PvE if your attacking a single lone target by yourself and it doesn't have 100% heat resist then yes commnado is better, but in most PvE senerio's your better off as a pistoleer. at novice pistoleer it is true, pistols suck. but one you get fan shot commando's can't even come close to your damage output, and best of all if you go hunting in a group everyone will compain about the commando stealing all the xp while as a pistoleer with fan shot your really the one stealing all the xp and you don't have to listen to anyone whine about it.

since your already a smugglar you probably have last ditch at your disposal so that would give you a serious starting advantage as with just pure pistoleer the profession sucks untill you get at least 0040 in it. even as a master gunfighter last ditch is better to use on lone targets then any pistoleer special, except lairs or anything with a single ham bar in which case you want to use disarming shot 2 after you reach master.

i don't expect you to just take my word for it so why is pistoleer better? heres the break down between commando and pistoleer. i'll make all comparisions as if you had mastered both professions as i did.

[1]Damage variety - with commando you get heat damage and no armor pierce, thats all. the DoT however does restraint damage so before the DoT nerf even if a target had 100% heat immunity (yeah they are out there), which would compleatly nullify your inital strike damage the DoT would eventully kill them. now on most targets you might as well forget the DoT even exsits because it's so weak it does little more then give them a massage. as a Pistoleer you get many damage types to choose from, if your like me you'll examine your targets before attacking them to see what they are vonerable to. with pistoleer you get to choose from acid(DX2), energy(Scout, Republic Blaster), heat(FWG5), or stun(Sonic Pistol, you could use a tangle for stun as well but they arn't that great)damage. additionally you also have light armor pierce at your disposial with two damage types, Acid(DX2) and Energy(Republic Blaster). many PvE targets are suprisingly weak ageanst acid damage making the DX2 a good all around gun.

[2] Damage output - with flamesingle 2 and a good flamethrower your inital stike damage on a target that does not have high heat resists would be a nice 8-10k on average, however you also have to stand there for 10 seconds or so untill you can do something again. since as a pistoleer you can choose to use a damage type the target has poor resists against you'll do an average 1300-1500 damage per shot every second. fan shot also is an area attack so you will hit everything in front of you allowing you to kill entire groups rather quickly. wouldn't flamecone 2 work as good? you might think so but it doesn't even come close, with fan shot you can stand 50m out and attack everything easily while as with flamecone you need to be within 16m or so and the targets pretty much all have to be stacked on each other, not to mention flamecone often misses most of the secondary targets with it's inital strike damage completely leaving them with only the DoT on them (which is now mostly useless). also since your a smugglar with all the speed mods from master gunfighter you can spam last ditch once a second for 1600-2000 damage on a single target, which also gives them a stun status.

[3] Defense- Commado's are forced to engauge all targets at close range meaning they are far more likely to be attacked while hunting in a group, and they have little to no defense skills. in addition to the 169 skill points it takes to master commando most commando's invest the rest of there skill points into other professions to try and make up for the lack of defense in their own. if you don't do this you are garentted to earn lots of frequent visitor points at your local cloning center, exspecially if you want to hunt solo. Pistoleers get decent all around defenses, having good melee defense and some of the best status defenses given from a single profession however lacking in ranged defense. ranged defense is the one catagory where a commando beats out a pistoleer without dabbling in another profession, however this only holds true if you actully master commando and don't just be a Flame IV dabbler. as a stand alone profession you don't really need to invest additional skill points in other professions as a pistoleer to get worthwhile defenses like you do with commando.

[4] Range - as i mentioned above a commando must allways remain close to it's quary in order to attack it effectively with his flamethrower. though pistols are biased toward close range combat as well, even with the heavy accuracy penilties for firing a pistol at long range your overall accuracy is still plenty good enough to hit PvE targets at long range, sure maybe a shot here and there misses but you shoot so fast and at so many targets who really cares if one shot misses? you can also use the Republic Blaster effectivly at long range since it's accuracy mods are +0 at max range if you find your overall hit ratio to be to low for your liking.

[5] Skill point investment - it takes 169 skill points to master commando and only 92 to master pistoleer. if we assume you are a master smugglar already and didn't invest in any of the marksman skills you didn't need to get smugglar (ie: the pistol tree only) then it would cost you an additional 63 skill points to master pistoleer or 111 additional skill points to master commando. you have to ask yourself even if you think commando has an edge over pistoleer it is worth the extra 48 skill points?

[6] Wild Card factor - commando's get a perk here as they have an ace or two up their sleves pistoleers just don't. the rocket laucher(RL) and and heavy particle beam cannon(HPB). both have heavy armor peirce and do lots of damage if made by a good weaponsmith. personally i don't know what all the other commando's are complaining about as they almost never miss when fired from the approprate range (also assumuing you are a master commando btw and have all the accuracy mods from the profession at your disposal). when i fired a RL between 50-60m maybe one out of every ten shots missed. however if you stray even one meter outside it's optomal firing range it is almost garentted to miss so you have to pay close attention to your distance from the target, you can think of these as your long range fire support. the down side to these weapons is they might as well removed the disposable factor and make them launch your credtis directly out of your bank account at the target as you get an average 30 shots per RL or HPB and unless your rich or know a weaponsmith that will hook you up with all the weapons you need they can get expensive if you use them a lot.