Commando Archive

Commando Issue 1: Commando Specials are significantly weak

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Problem: The new commando specials from Publish 24 are weak in damage compared to both novice and elite level specials. The warm-up time and cool-down time for all four of our new specials do not adequately reflect their damage capabilities.

Both Advanced Deadbang and Advanced Focus Fire yield the same exact damage that is equivalent to the damage produced by the Overcharge shot from Ranged Support IV. For these two specials, their functions do not seem to be working (shortening of range, and narrowing of the AoE cone respectively) and therefore are redundant.

Advanced Demolition shot’s bonus vs structures and droids is no different than that of other elite specials against the same targets. However, the bonus damage is apparently working, but the damage scale is underpowered.

Advanced Overkill shot is the worst damage special in the game. It has a 10 second warm-up timer and 60 second cool-down timer, but it only yields 10% less damage than that of other damage specials such as Improved legshot.

Because of the current lack of damage that our specials produce, the problem the profession has faced since the Combat upgrade remains true: Melee-commandos cannot produce damage that is comparable to that of Ranged-commandos. The damage disparity will remain.

Solution: Increase the damage modifiers of our new specials to accurately reflect both the restrictions (SAC, Speed, and ranges) of our weapons as well as the warm-up/cool-down timers associated with our specials, ie. Focus Fire has a 5 second warm-up, it should be more damaging than bodyshot or legshot.

Our specials should make melee and ranged commandos equal in the damage that they can produce from their own profession, while the template that the commando has chosen should build off of our role. This means ranged templates will be able to gain more utility/abilities, as well as the option to increase their AoE damage via elite specials since our specials only increase primary damage. The melee commando could increase his or her melee and tanking skills. The end result however, is a preservation of damage.

Commando Issue 2: Lack of diversity in our weapons

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Problem: Master Commandos have few worthwhile utilities and Kinetic weaponry at a Master Level damage rating.

All our CL54/CL50 weapons/grenades have either AoE, Fire DoTs (or both), or nothing.

Our only Kinetic weaponry are Cl22 and CL14 which are the Rocket Launcher and Launcher pistol respectively.

The majority of our single-target high level weapons are loot-only drops, forcing master commandos to rely exclusively on unpredictable circumstances in order to gain functionality that should already be part of the profession, as it is for the novice commando.

Solution: Diversify our weapons.

Give Master Commandos Advanced Versions of lower level weaponry (ie Rocket Launcher) so the preservation of damage, while producing a state effect can be achieved.

Convert more loot Heavy Weapons into schematics in order to allow those weapons to be more accessible. (Ie Proton Rifle, AK-Prime Rocket Launcher)

Bringing lower combat level weapons to a master level will also open the door for more use with our elemental damage, raising its effectiveness. Right now, low level weapons have high elemental but that does not make up for the differences in damage levels. This will give commandos more of an edge in the damage department if we can have some Master-level weapons that have good elemental damages.

This would help out weapons that do not have innate abilities (ie Proton Rifle), and allow our non-AoE weapons serve as front-loaded weapons because of the higher elemental damage.

Diversify our built-in utilites. The majority of our high level Heavy Weapons all have AoE and fire DoTs. Other than that, we only have a Knockdown, Blind, and a small Snare on the Cyroban grenade. Remove redundant built-in utilities, and give all of our weapons a unique role to play in our arsenal with more exotic or damaging effects.

Commando Issue 3: Grenade Timers & Crafting Process are negatively impacting their Usefullness

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Problem: Grenades have little use to many commandos out there and are worse than they were Pre-Combat Upgrade.

They’re hard to craft and very time consuming (factory time can stretch into days for a few crates), hence they’re expensive to make for a consumable that is used up in a very short while.

The timers further make Grenades undesirable.

It has been estimated that the base timer per grenade throw is 18 seconds;

Between grenade throws of the same grenade, can be between 18 and 45 seconds. (Ie Cyroban, that produces the snare is on an 18-25 second throw timer...when states don’t stick or last a short while with high timers, it is often easier and more efficient using normal weapons)

Solution: Improve grenades with the following:

Streamline Component, Factory Time, and Resources in grenade production to make them more economically efficient to produce and in greater quantities than before - they're disposable, not golden nuggets.

Remove timers or significantly reduce them

Commando Issue 4: Power-ups and Cybernetic Arms

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Problem: Heavy Weapons still under the “Special Heavy Weapon” catagory (Plasma Flamethrowers, Flamethrowers, and Heavy Acid Rifles) do not benefit from power-ups or Cybernetic Arms that increase range.

Pre-Combat Upgrade our weapons didn’t take power-ups because we had specials with such large damage modifiers. Now our weapons function like normal weapons, and all our pre-CU consumables turned non-consumable all take power-ups like normal weapons.

Solution: Set all Heavy Weapons to a unified “Heavy Weapon” category and allow all of them to be able to be power-upped or have their ranges extended.


Commando Issue 5: The Proton Rifle

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Problem: The Proton Rifle is a random loot item off of NK-Necrosis, and the only long-ranged/non-AoE weapon available to the Commando Profession. Compared to other rifles, it generally has very high SAC costs (106-122 compared to 100 SAC for other Necrosis rifles) and is difficult in obtaining.

Old Proton Rifles that were not affected by the patch that fixed the Rifle’s misfire bug, are still either not firing or producing an AoE.

Proton Rifles do not have built-in abilities or added damage whatsoever, these weapons could benefit greatly by having at least elemental damage added and help serve as a front-loaded, non-AoE Heavy Weapon.

Solution: Make the Proton Rifle easier to obtain (ie other Necrosis loot, or Proton Carbine...by better loot drops or a quest item), and reduce the SAC on newly looted Proton Rifles to the Heavy Weapon SAC cap of 100. Also, fix (if possible) older Proton Rifles that were not affected by the Publish 18 bug fix. Lastly, if at all possible...let the Proton Rifle have elemental damage to reflect its Heavy Weapon nature.

Convert the loot drop into a weapon schematic, if at all possible

Commando Issue 6: The Crafting of Heavy Weapons

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Problem: Rocket Launchers, a CL22 weapon, is the hardest weapon to craft in the game. Other weapons, such as the Heavy Acid Rifle (Cl22) take as many components as a Plasma Flamethrower (CL54). All our weapons, in their schematics, are nearly the same in resources/components, but they are not the same when it comes to power levels.

Rocket Launchers require far more than traditional CL54 weaponry, and hence its resources/component requirement is not justified. The same applies for all of our low level Heavy Weapons.

Solution: Reduce the resource/component requirements for lower level Heavy Weapons. Allow the resources to reflect on the weapon that is being produced.

Resources needed for lower level weapons should adequately reflect the weapons' damage capabilities. It would make more sense if the current Heavy Weapon schematics were made into Advanced levels of the weapons, but it is highly illogical where a CL54 Advanced Laser Rifle can produce far more damage for far less resources than a CL22 Rocket Launcher.

Commando Issue 7: The Melee Component of Commando

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Problem: Given the amount of Melee we need to invest into the profession (29 skill points or 24% of commando's overall skill cost), there is barely anything useful stemming from that melee component. It is underused, inefficient, and there is no purpose for going melee as we need ranged professions to supply us with more damaging specials. Due to the weak damage levels of our specials, this is still an issue.


Solution: Give commando melee specials, or a “Bash” attack that could induce stunning and can be used with a Heavy Weapon. Or possibly allow Center of Being, work with Heavy Weapons to reflect our melee component.



--Note: Rough Draft, will keep tweaking this as the month progresses.--

Message Edited by StarNick on 10-19-2005 02:58 PM

I would like to bring up again a solution for issue 1. Make some or all of the new specials into buffs. We could only have 1 of these active at a time, and they would affect any attack made with our heavy weapons. This allows a commando to manage size and range of AOE as well as enhance attacks with specials from other professions. These buffs would not be overpowered as there is some tradeoff. For example, either AOE is reduced to increase damage, damage is only increased against droids/structures, or damage is only applied against a single target. The effects of these buffs would have to take into account other professions enhancements, but should allow a commando to be more versatile in the field.

havent been able to log in yet, and seeing as i dropped commando some 3 months back, ill have to regrind. no biggie. but i agree with the melee and proton rifle aspect from when i WAS a commando. id rather have like master marksman. we are masters of all ranged weapons arent we?

If you read the descriptions for Focus Fire and Dead Bang Shot it may explain alot:

# Focus Fire: This ability decreases the area of effect on AOE weapons & gives a damage bonus. The damage bonus is only for non-AOE weapons.
# Dead Bang Shot: This ability decreases the range of an AOE weapon & gives a damage bonus - damage bonus only for non-AOE weapons.

Damage bonus only for non-AOE weapons?
Damage bonus only for non-AOE weapons?

Excuse me?

I logged in and tried out everything except for grenades since I did not have access to newly crafted ones. I completely agree with StarNick here. This is what is wrong and what needs to be fixed. Do this and I am happy. Nothing extravagant just these simple little things. It is in no way unbalancing either. Right now there is no difference except for AoE working. Specials are fairly useless since I can do much much better with another ranged proffessions specials. I hope Helios is reading and aware because I appreciate his effort and that of this community. Enough said.

Xak Tsaroth

Hmm looks like we dont have any SINGLE target weapon more.....

So stupid placewarm up on all special .....

Nades damage must be sugnifical improved.

I agree with that more then the last list, and i notice it smaller!

Well put list again, StarNick. keep it up.

Why oh why are the devs so scared to make us on even terms with the rest of the professions?

Message Edited by Ajo79 on 10-20-2005 03:25 PM

Yeah, there's nothing special about being a Commando at all. The weapons deal out the same damage range and the same types of damage as other profession. What? We got acid weapons, fire weapons, lighting weapons and cold weapons. These come in 3 levels: novice or beginner, advanced and master with little difference between all of them. If I play a Rifleman, guess what? I get acid weapons, cold weapons, lighting weapons and kinetic weapons or weapons that do "heat" elemental damage.

Additionally, our weapons are all under this Combat Level thing, so a lvl 54 weapon is almost identical in performance to a lvl 54 weapon weilded by ever other profession. A pistol does exactly the same damage out output as a heavy battlefiled weapon or a rifle. That's stupid, nay innance and idiotic, ubsurd even.

There only real difference between a Commando and other other elite profession is that our specials (for god's sake it took forever and this is what they give us?!) are substandard compared to other professions and our speed/accuracy is only marginally equivalent. I know this is not a mistake, so what's the rationale here?

Does someone really believe that because our weapons are AoE, that, that somehow warrants lower powered specials?! As a point of fact, the AoE is only occasionlly useful, and most of the time, not at all on account that the AI will surround you with targets at an even spread out of your AoE range, so there's no value, and players will cut you down a lot faster than your specials will help you, so heavan forbid they be ina group, and if they are, they won't be standing shoulder-to-shoulder. If you try it on TC and turn on verbose combat logging, just read over your log as an after action report. You use a special to enhance your AoE damage on targets that are bunched up and guess what? You hit just one target, and the other one eats you alive.

I dueled another BH the other night as a test. We are both master BH's and I am a Master Commando with Rifleman skills. I've got a suit of very high quality composite armor, that's new btw, just put it on, new imperial test prototype PSG, food, drink and spice buffs and powerful powerups on all the weapons that will take them. I use a Lighting beam canon, because ironically, it has the best speed and damage output out of everything I got, best SAC, good bonuses and 200 element damage and so on. It's better than my master level weapons,...before the powerup. I fight him using Commando only specials except for one BH special. I open with an Improved Underhand Shot. this is pretty cool. I love doing this with Commando weapons. He drops instantly and stands right back up instantly. When he hit the ground I used Focus Fire and three a Proton Grenade to get some DoT on him started. I didn't expect him to get back up instantly. I expected his timer to offset my wait after using the grenade.

AFter he got up he cut me down and rushed me. I used, oh what's it called, the special that increases the damage on narrow range for closer targets. Nice thinking, just what we need, but we need it to work a lot better. Before he was even 1/3 damaged I was dead. He did this using a generic laser rifle....

If I hadn't used my grenade, or used Commando specials that would have turned out very differently. The most simplistic truth is Trial by Combat and the fact is that our equipment and specials are not even close to equal with others...and on that, this is what I got to say:

There is no such thing as equality in nature. This is a human concept invented to pander to our fragile sensibilities and prejudices. No two men are alike. If that wee so, no one could govern anyone and anarchy would reign supreme. A smuggler should not be as good in fight as a Commando. One's a thug, the other a highly trained elite combat specialist with gadgets that make James Bond look liek child's play. A Rifleman, is not a Commando, and a Commando is not a Marine. For god's sake, who came up with this nonsense?

A Commando is the Best of the Best. We're not second rated. We (should) take more dangersous missions, have a higher operating tempo, have better training/skills and better equipment that everyone else. I see a strong argument for BH's to be just as elite as well seeing as they are essentially Assassins with high tech gear. As it stands, Commandos are designed as THE definitive support element in this game. We're not supposed to fight alone. We're supposed to be on the flank of a Rifle team or supporting guys with Carbines or whatever. That's cool, but listen carefully oh ye designers THAT IS NOT WHAT A COMMANDO DOES. What is difference between surgical precision and using a sledge hammer? Commandos are currently designed as the sledge hammer, which means they are easy to get around and out fight, and our weapons are less effective than they shuold be. Where does this mentality come frum?!