Commando Archive
Thread: Wacky Commando Combo
Just wanted to toss out this combo that I'm looking at trying with one of my characters for you to look at...
Master Commando
4:0:0:4 Teras Kasi (Med and melee defense)
4:3:1:2 Carbineer
Maybe if I discover that the defensive bonus in Teras Kasi isn't worth it I'll drop that line and add more to the Carbineer tree.
What I'm going for here... Well, I don't particularly want to melee with this character, and I think that the Carbineer has some of the most promising mid-range skills out there. It gets a nice ranged knockdown, some impressive bleeds, but most importantly good area effect and cone attacks. This is the kind of guy who can sit in a defensive position all day and kill groups of enemies that try to enter. Anyone gets too close and they get roasted.
Any opinions on the feasibility of this setup?
HAM COST.
Carbineers kill themselves. even with low ham cdefs its ridiculous 
A couple of things....
The area effect cone KD of carbineers is broken, and doesn't knockdown. Carbineers really don't fly through their HAM as fast as everyone says.....no wait, yes they do =). Fortunately popping a tatooine sunburn before battle pretty much eliminates your HAM problems. Honestly though, with Master Commando, you've got plenty of firepower, and the only reason I could see taking Carbineer would be status effects/KD's/etc. The one ranged KD that DOES work is awesome. It has an awful animation that makes you stand to use it, but it has no knockdown timer, which allows you to spam it with reckless abandon and as long as the KD keeps hitting, you're cool. The full-auto carbine shots have a chance to stun/blind/dizzy with every hit, which is EXTREMELY useful. The dizzy very rarely sticks, but you'll stun and blind pretty much everything you shoot. The first action bleed includes a posture component, which is fairly spiffy for nailing opponents that are moving out of your flamethrower range, but the second one is both cone and a posture down, making it very useful in limited situations, and just awful in others. Finally, leg shot 3 doesn't really do much more damagethan leg shot 2, and has quite a bit higher HAM cost, so don't get that line expecting a great upgrade there.
The defensive acuity bonuses from TKA will only work when unarmed, you would be better off taking the melee damage mitigation line (balance I believe). The melee and ranged defense bonuses would be good, sure, but you can get skilltapes or armor attachments to raise those skills, and melee damage mitigation is just too awesome to miss out on.
So, in conclusion, do whatever you feel is fun, this could be a good build, but experiment with it before making any big decisions.
First you get Feign Death, which allows you to fake incapacitation and you can not be deathblown.
Then, you get panic shot. With panic shot, you fire several shots in a cone in front of you, delaying every target for ten seconds. This works REALLY good when you're up close. After you hit this, you flame cone and run away
.Then, you get Low Blow. Ranged KD. Nuff said
Not sure about Last Ditch, pretty sure it's a high damage attack. If they nerf flame DOT, it might be good to combine with low-blow as a finishing move.
I hear the meditation line is extremely useful, in TKA.
My main doubt with this lies in the area of flexibility. Frankly, I don't know how often I would need to use a carbine, given the normal Commando weaponry. It might be that a melee skill would be more useful, but if I did that I couldn't take anything but TKA very far.
In terms of ranged skills, I'm looking at Carbine simply because it has the most flexible utilities. Lots of area effects with specials applied very quickly, combined with some nice bleeds and a bit of a knockdown capability - plus it fires fairly quickly. Rifleman, when not mastered(and I won't have the points for that), is just simply too slow for firing. Pistols are nice for Dodge, but quite frankly I'd rather have a little more meat to my shooting.
So what I'm looking at isthe heavy weapons/pistolat extreme range, carbine at medium, the Flamethrower at short, and TKA at point blank range. I rather expect that I'd be able to make a helluva dent in almost anything given that sort of structure.
So, given that I cannot do Rifle because it'd be too slow, is there a way to tweak this to make it a little more effective?
rifles arent slow. theres a lot of different rifles. my E11 rifle, with just the 2nd tree in rifle speed, has had its firing speed cut in half. weapon has 6.2 spd. in game i fire at 3 secs per shot. Slow compared to a pistol yes, but baby I got STUN damage from 50m and mind bleeds.
if they get any closer they'd better bring the A-1 'cause they'll be sizzling on my napalm grill.
I hear the meditation line is extremely useful, in TKA.
As a TKM I can confirm this. I can cure both poison and disease, as well as heal my own wounds. That includes mind wounds I don't need medics, doctors or entertainers to heal anymore. Well, I can't get rid of my own BF but still...
Then there's Power Boost and Force of Will. With Power Boost I can buff my HAM pools by 50% of my Mind. With Force of Will I have a chance of getting up from incapacitation almost immediately. Yes, Meditation is very useful
The full-auto carbine shots have a chance to stun/blind/dizzy with every hit, which is EXTREMELY useful. The dizzy very rarely sticks, but you'll stun and blind pretty much everything you shoot.
really? O.o I didnt know that.