Commando Archive
Thread: Compilation of suggested commando changes
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=commando&message.id=21089
tacwraith posted
Currently, the Commando class is not really a commando as the word defines it, but rather a Heavy Weapon Support Specialist.
Lets take a look at the weapons the commando can wield, how they are used and when they are used.
Grenades: Perhaps the commando's only true 'ranged' weapon. Has blast radius, kinetic, cold and heat damage types, does decent damage, when and if it hits (as its accuracy it appears to be not very good). Biggest drawback is it doesn’t do that much damage to be worth the cost of buying a few crates of grenades, and this is especially true in a game where most players can insta-heal themselves).
Currently the grenade is one of the least used and least useful (to kill, it is very useful to gain combat xp though) weapons.
Heavy Weapons: Essentially, 'disposable very high damage' weapons. Right now this weapon line is perhaps the most 'balanced' weapon line in the commando arsenal. It does a tremendous amount of damage but has an equally long refire rate and these weapons have limited charges before the commando has to purchase a new 'bazooka'.
Flamethrower: Made uber last patch. This weapon is the most unbalanced in the commando arsenal. Currently its DOT does the same damage regardless of the initial damage done to target. Simply put, if someone has 50% heat resist armor and gets hit by 1k damage from flamethrower, that person will only receive 500 damage, but the flame DOT will still tick to its full damage, 1k tics.
Pistol Launcher: Perhaps the devs thought commandos needed a 'unique' 'ranged' 'weapon'. Thus the Pistol Launcher is born. Essentially a slower scout pistol with explosive animations and blast damage type. Very few commandos will use this weapon in any seriousness, but plenty use them for the 'boom syndrome' that afflicts so many of us. Really, why buy fireworks when you can have it in the pistol launcher?
Heavy Acid Rifle: First of all, its not 'Heavy'. Second, its not a 'Rifle'. At least they did get the 'Acid' part right. Using it is an exercise in bitterness. This weapon is for all practical reasons, just a different damage type, lower damage flamethrower. The word 'Rifle' is misleading; 'Rifle' is a weapon that has medium to long-range capability. It would’ve been more accurate to call this weapon 'Light Acid Gun'. Damage dealt by this weapon is on average 40% less than a flamethrower, its only beneficial features are its lack of firing animation and that unlike the flamethrower, it can be fired at 50m, even though your chances to hit are as high as SOE fixing Droid Engineers next patch. Special attacks apparently just do 5% more damage than the normal weapon shot (but still has the longer refire delay), making it sheer idiocy to use Acid Single / cone attacks.
My suggestions to change the commando a class worthy of its name, yet not be 'uber':
-Make C12,C22, Glop and Cryoban Grenades avaliable to all elite classes when they get their novice elite certification (aka, Pistoleer, Rifleman, Novice CH) or when they get a base mastery (Master Scout, Master Marksman, Master Artisan, Master Brawler). Give commandos the certification of the other grenades in their Novice Commando certification.
-Change 'Tactics' Skill tree to be the commando's 'Melee' skill tree.
Military Close Combat 1 (5pnt box): Berserk3, Knuckler Certification (not vibro knuckler, knucklers would be a 'light' version of the vibroknuckler, trading added damage for speed, essentially making the commando knucklers just give the commando faster swing rates, but not damage) +10 mil. close combat damage
Military Close Combat 2 (4pnt box): 'Throws' (basically an attack that grabs an opponent, throws them 5m away and they fall in knockdown effect, attack does no damage), +10 military close combat speed
Military Close Combat 3 (3pnt box) : SpecForce Knife certification. Counterpart to the 'knuckler', the SpecForce knife is slow to swing (4 sec swing), does no more than 80 pnts of damage max, but can, at random, cause bleeds on health or mind or action. +10 mil close combat damage
Military Close Combat 4 (2pnt box) : 'Counters' (counter is a state like berserk, where the commando will counterattack every attack thrown at him in melee. Duration is the same as berserk. Cannot be used if berserk is up or if commando is stunned). +10 mil close combat speed.
-Make 'Heavy Weapons' like Rocket Launcher, Particle Cannons, etc, have a longer refire delay (40 seconds between shots), but be a bit more accurate and range modifiers be: 0m -20, 35m +10, 64m -60. These are to be the 'Heavy Fire Support' weapon, not a quake Redeemer type weapons. Aside from that, they ok as they are now damage wise.
-Flamethrower: Fix DOT to do damage based on the damage that was actually applied to target. in the example I gave at the start of this thread, if player got hit by 500 damage, then the dot should do something around 50 damage per tick. Aside from that, range and damage in that short range is appropriate for a flamethrower.
-Launcher Pistol: Reduce launcher pistol damage, but in return give it 100% accuracy regardless of range (out to 64m max of course). Its description reads as it having 'homing' warheads. Fine! Make it do less damage but be guaranteed damage. Add a 5m radius to blast of weapon.
-Heavy Acid Rifle: Remove this weapon completely from the game. Replace it with: Advanced Versatile Rifle
== Advanced Versatile Rifle: Literally, a rifle that can use different ammo types. Cannot use weapon powerups.
Short description: The AVR is a Rifle weapon with a 8.0+ refire delay that can be loaded with different ammo types. To load the ammo type on your rifle, just drag the ammo type over your weapon and drop it, just like adding a powerup. Once the AVR has a certain ammo type, it will fire that ammo type until the 'ammo powerup' expires (aka, 100 shots) or a different ammo type is loaded, ejecting and destroying the old ammo type that was previously loaded. If no ammo is loaded, gun will not fire.
Ammo types: Artisan Engineer4 gain the ability to make the ammo types:
-Heat Round: Does Heat Damage, armor piercing:none
-Explosive Tip Round: Does Blast Damage (no radius), armor piercing:light
-Heavy Caliber Round: Does Kinetic Damage, armor piercing: Heavy *
-Carbonite Round: Does Cold Damage, armor piercing:none
-Ion Round: Does Stun Damage, armor piercing: light
-Laser Round: Does Energy Damage, armor piercing: medium *
-Riot Control Round: No damage, blast radius:10m, effect: knockdown. *
* = You will notice the most common armor protection types, kinetic and energy have good armor penetration to compensate for damage lost due to armor, Heavy Caliber Round and Riot Control round will be the hardest to make since they would require rare metals/components.
AVR range modifiers: -80 at 0m, +10 at 35m, -20 64m
Rifle damage (regardless of round or round quality, keep it simple stupid!), of highest quality rifle possible made, unsliced: 800 min, 1200 max, spd 8.0, wound chance:5%
AVR will have NO attacks that increase damage. It will be allowed to use any of the RANGED SUPPORT and MASTER MARKSMAN abilities: (aka, overcharge shot2, threaten shot, suppression fire, AIM, etc).
AVR skill tree:
AVR1 (5pnt box): +10 AVR accuracy
AVR2 (4pnt box): +10 AVR accuracy, AIM2 (takes 2 combat rounds instead of 1 like AIM1, but has double the effect in accuracy)
AVR3 (3pnt box): +10 AVR accuracy
AVR4 (2pnt box): +20 AVR accuracy, Cover Fire (like carbine full auto area, this can hit multiple targets in front of commando, and even single targets multiple times. drawback: this will fire off 50 rounds in 1 shot, eating up the commando's ammunition rather quickly, takes away 1 combat round after this attack is used)
With the above changes, the commando class can have the anti-vehicle ability given by heavy weapons (armor penetration and very high damage), point blank range weapon capability (flamethrower), melee capability (mil. close combat) and has its unique ranged weapons: a low damage, guaranteed accuracy, blast radius pistol launcher and a medium to long range weapon that does medium damage and has access to many damage types and armor penetration ratings, but is low and consumes ammunition.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=commando&message.id=22579
Wroth_Scylla posted
This is just my opinion of what I think would make commando a more interesting class to play, as opposed to a "we got 2 specials class". First of all it would be nice to fix the small bugs which I believe will be fixed soon, I would also like it if the HAR went to ac1. Finally, I think master should be far more rewarding then it is. We all know this is a problem with all classes, so we are not alone there. Anyways, this is how my skill tree would break down.
Novice Commando
CERT FT HAR LP Frag grenade, and Acid stream Launcher
FT Accuracy/Speed +15, HAR accuracy/speed +15, Shoulder Fired WEP +20 accuracy/speed
FT 1
Accuracy/Speed +15 Ability>Flame Single 1 High damage attack (NO DOT)
FT 2
Accuracy +15 Speed +10 Ability>Flame Cone 1 Low damage Old DOT minis crazy wounds
FT 3
Accuracy +20 Speed +15
FT 4
Accuracy +20 Speed +10 Ability>Flame Single 2 High damage (No DOT)
HAR 1
Accuracy/Speed +15 Ability>Acid Single 1 Med damage 50% chance of blind 50M range and 3 second cool down.
HAR 2
Accuracy/Speed +15 Ability>Acid Spray 1 Low Damage 25% Armor Debuff duration 10 Seconds 50m Range 3 second cool down.
HAR 3
Accuracy/Speed +15
HAR 4
Accuracy/Speed +15 Ability> Acid Single 2 High Damage 75% Blind
HW 1
Shoulder Fire Weps Accuracy/Speed +15 Cert HPBC
HW 2
Shoulder Fire Wep Accuracy/Speed +15
HW 3
Shoulder Fire Weapons Accuracy/Speed +10 Cert LBC
HW 4
Shoulder Fire Accuracy/Speed +20 Cert Rocket Launcher
Field Tactics 1
Thrown Wepon Accuracy/Speed +15
Cert Cryobryne Grenade Chance to cause delay in opponents next attack
Field Tactics 2
Thrown Wep Accuracy/Speed +10 Cert Glop Grenade Chance For Acid DOT 35%
Field Tactics 3
Thrown Wep Accuracy +20 Speed +15 Cert IMP Detonator Chance for posture Change Down 50%
Field Tactics 4
Thrown Wep Accuracy/Speed +15 Cret Therm Detonator Chance for Fire DOT 50%
MASTER COMMANDO
+20 Accuracy all weapons +15 speed All weapons (LP Included)
Ability> Flame Cone 2 Does 1 damage (but is a full effect DOT)
Ability> Acid Spray 2 50% Armor Debuff (15 Seconds)
LP Ability>Knockback (Melee Type attack that knocks opponent back to 15m)
Cert Proton Grenade KD Area effect
A Few Side Notes
All The special abilities on grenades only effect the target all radius damage is pure damage no status effects (except proton grenade)
I realize that a % (IE 50% chance to blind) isn’t how it works I think it would be more like 30 points to blind which would be but against all applicable defense to blind modifiers.
Also I don’t know if a armor debuff is doable in this game but I think it would be an ability that would make us very valuable for groups.
I realize this might make us a bit overpowered but I'm sure it could be toned down to a reasonable level. The debuff Idea for the HAR came from the description of HAR 4 also as A side note when doing a acid debuff special you can not change weapons till the effect is over with. If you read all this thanks let me know what you think or what could use improving.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=commando&message.id=22121
nightwolf180 posted
Ok so the spice girls lyrics wasn't the funniest thing to put as the subject 
Its 4:30 am, don’t judge me
LOVE were the number 1 busted class STILL and a lot of the bugs/exploits are griefer friendly Particularly the flamethrower ones. DOT wounds shouldn't exist, maybe make the flamesingle1/2cone1/2 dish out MORE wounds then normal but the wounds from the DOT suck. Our primary wounder should actually be the HAR with a 40% (or there about) chance to wound. This would be considered a griefer friendly exploit.
Melee Damage. Why does our ranged flamethrower "swing" at targets? I thought we passed the "use our heavy weapons as bats" stage. This is more of an insult then a bug however it does hurt riflemen a lot (I feel for you guys, really, I avoid shooting riflemen with anything but the LP because of the insane damage)
Acid Rifle. Enough said.
Grenades. They aint working, they ain't hitting. Make em ground-targeted, employ terrain as collidable (no more shooting through hills) and let us toss grenades OVER hills and other obstacles. Lotta potential, little use. The AOE effect doesn't work right either.
Heavy Launchers. Same as Grenades, they aint working. AOE effect isn't working and a lot of them are hard to find and expensive to boot (then again, considering their power, I don't wanna see price drop. Less usage that way) AND GIVE US SOMETHING TO SHOOT WITH THESE THINGS! I getting bored blowing up giant frogs
Variety. Master commando is boring (I know, I'm one) I'm thinking (hoping) this will change when the class stops having major bugs. But I'd still like to see major changes. You guys have NO shortage of suggestions here! Unarmed maneuvers useable with weapons equipped, bonuses to cover, ability to hide from radar (actually I think COVER should do this. Bonuses would apply to enemy chance to Uncover you by checking it with THEIR cover bonuses, Riflemen would, therefore, have a major advantage with this area since they ARE snippers.) Putting flame and acid throwers into the same tree and calling it liquefied weaponry and add liquid nitrogen launcher to it! then add a tree for heavy firearms for spice and variety.
Meaning. Right now were anti-personnel, anti-armor, anti-user-friendly, and anti-social we cause massive wounds in a short time, lots of grief, lots of frustration, and lots of giant newborns with the red faces screaming nerf with spittle flying out of their mouths This from both commandos AND non-commandos. Somehow you guys have made us rock at all of these; yet fail to perform these tasks reliably. Ivoni said it best when he said we need more depth and purpose for existence.
Reason. Reason applies to why exactly we gotta master marksman and unarmed. I know both are only logical when you think commando but neither have much to do with the profession as is. Most people want to see this change. Moving our current trees around (a big task I'll bet!) could solve this. Read Below.
I think commando is MEANT to be a battle-monster. But because we invest so much in combat and so much into our profession (especially masters) we can't take up a craft or any other class except other combat classes. Not to a master's level, and not easily. Combat gets boring after awhile and most of us WILL get bored of burning turtles and rebels if the class stays as is. We need FLAVOR! SPICE! VARIETY! Stuff to do in our spare time
A lot of commandos have added suggestions and I welcome any that you may have. Since its early I haven’t had sleep and I'm sugar high I wanna put down basics of new trees just to drool over and dream about (I have no life! CURSES!)
Field Tactics: This would keep our grenades. Many suggest adding SOME terrain negotiation but I'm starting to not agree. Field Tactics speaks of using terrain to our advantage, not exploring and navigating it. Instead we could petition for small bonuses to Cover and maybe throw in some unarmed specials (would kick ass if these could be done with a weapon equipped, but ONLY check your UNARMED damage/speed/accuracy/range etc.) We could also petition for Cover to be made the radar cloaking ability. (yeah yeah I know, any marks with rifle skill could learn to cover themselves from radar! but only when their prone and they cant move while doing so! obviously we should let bonuses effect both our ability to cover ourselves from observation AND our ability to SEE covered people. Alertness might add to the later as well. Thus NO ONE would outmatch the riflemen when it comes to hide and seek. As I only suggest cover bonuses in the field tactics line. I admit Riflemen need love too!)
Heavy Range Support: Keep the Launchers. This particular line is actually quite good as it is. Anything added to it would have to increase the exp required for it.
Liquid Based Weaponry: These weapons are the Flamethrower, the Acid thrower (name changed cause acid rifle does NOT describe this weapon accurately!) and possibly Liquid Nitrogen thrower. <I really like that last one, CUDDOS to whoever thought it up... whatever that means (if its bad I don’t mean it!). These weapons are a lot harder to control reliably and require special skill. Yet they all run along the same basic principles of each other. All are based on "throwing" liquid substances. And keep the accuracy/speed/specials (both damage and delay) the same. Instead of Flamesingle1 and 2 and yaddy yadda. Just have 4 specials that work with all of these liquid based weapons. Single1 Single2 Cone1 and Cone2.
Heavy Firearms Specialist: This would be the home for our weapons like the Launcher Pistol. We would also have something like a Heavy Carbine (think heavy machine gun) and maybe a Valcon Cannon, or Laser Gattling Cannon. The LP and HC would use accuracy and speed mods from the marks tree but not the mods from Pistoleer and Carbineer trees. These are, after all, HEAVY weapons and run along the same (but not exact) principles, and should require (and give) heavy weapons exp. The VC or LGC or whatever would be an exception. This would be a weapon we can't move while its equipped (it sets up with a tripod, like some instruments) yet we could turn (if we aren't prone/covered) It would have a wide damage range (50-500ish) and fast speed (2.0) with no support mods from the marks tree, only from the commando tree. Most of the Heavy weapons should be based on those damage ranges (HC would be closer to 40-400 and LP would be 25-250) and speeds (1.0 LP and 1.5 HC) HC and LP would use some specials (no knockdowns or status changes or even bleed 2s, just specials from marksman tree.) from this line. Cover Fire 1 and 2 (HC based special, adds intimidation to a single/multiple targets, and causes them to stop for 1-5 seconds due to hesitation. Would do less damage at 1 and normal damage at 2) and Target Lock 1 and 2 (LP based special, puts you in a state that increases your accuracy and damage with the LP ONLY for 6 and 12 seconds, by 70%-95%, during which you cannot use any other specials) The VC or LGC would be based ENTIRELY on FAST RANGED DAMAGE, with no specials and up to 50% total speed and 65% total accuracy mods. This weapon would automatically strafe an area around the target (every shot is a cone effect) and deffinately add some REAL flavor to the commando. Damages for these weapons would be ABOUT:
Launcher Pistol: 50-300
Heavy Carbine: 70-650
Heavy Chaingun (either Laser Gatling or Valcon Cannon): 80-800
That’s the "hit" damages (damages you'll actually see them do). In PvE that is.
My moto - IF IT AINT BROKE DONT CHANGE IT!
What is wrong with a revamp? I mean currently Commando = Pyromaniac and thats about it. Hell they should just change the flamethrower title from Grenadeer (which makes no sense really) to Pyromaniac.
The only good things in Commando so far are Flame Throwers ( which eventually will get changed, call it nerf or whatever, but they won't stay like this) and heavy weapons like HPBC and rockets. The rest is just crap you have to do to get to master so you can use your flame thrower better. What sort of class is that? Both smuggler and bounty hunter have a wide array of skills available to them. Why shouldn't a hybrid class like Commando have the same?
I like the idea of somehow working in the unarmed line. I mean I have to waste all those points to get brawler/unarmed 4, why not at least get something for it. I also like the idea of having a 'do it all' rifle. That makes lots of sense, and I can imagine having much fun with it. It also provides a way for adding new features to commando later just by adding a new ammunition.
Lastly, please, don't flame a person for suggesting radical ideas. Just because you don't agree doesn't make them wrong. If you disagree, just say why you disagree, this personal vendetta against the posters is childish and not constructive. Besides, what makes you an expert in what commando should be like? Have you ever been a real commando?
not a bad post
ok i got a few probs but ....
first of all the HAR is pointless we are master marksman here **edit** we gunna hit at 65m... this gun should have a farther range... the amunition sound neat might take some wear and tear off my 600-1100 flamer
flame thrower is fine execpt for the flame dotbug..
field tact tree ehhh i agree with some of it we are a melee spec and dont use melee HOW EVER knock down is about as*** as a 3 dallor bill ... im a master and i dont want other commandos usein the pansy cheat kill tactic of KD... posture change i can live with...
and OMG dont nerf the hw there perfect the way they are no deley needed ham costs are fine 5-6 shots should be the max till a heal...this is the only way non ch guys can kill the big pets and or god forbid at-st's...ive incapped a pet on a dead run from 55m to 10m that grual neverknew what hit it and nevertouched me...
Major Haywood ... master commando
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=commando&message.id=20482
ardorseraphim posted
first off new to the forums and these forums dont seem to have a edit buttonso i dont know what was suggested before but i have played SWG for awhile and love the game these are all ways of fixing commando
first off i love the way the acid rifle gun looks but not the way it fires it fires gay little "vials" of acid the whole gun should be reworked to be heavy "toxic" rifle and it shoots a stream of green or blobs of green stuff its special attacks should be poison to the action pool but it would be called "corrosion" have the acid rifle be ap1 or up the damage to be as strong as the flamethrower
next is the kick ass gun we never get any special attacks for ... the launcher pistol ... i say as we advance in heavy weapons or grenades we get a few special attacks with the launcher pistol 1 attack is "rocket blast" attack makes it so the launcher pistol has a blast radius of 10 another attack is "rocklets" it attacks anything in a cone for health damage because rockets im sorry wont hurt your mind or fatigue they straight out blast ur ass
heavy weapons need to come in different kinds
for the rocket launcher there is a high explosive that take off as much as it does now and knocks downor u could havea incindeary rocket that sets you on fire and does 500-1000 damage
HPBC just keep it the way it is now cause its far to strong to change
heavy acid cannon could do "contamination" damage which would have a blast radius of 15 and it corrods armor so there is none but have it take off 200-500
similar results to grenades
everything except the rifle would be very simple to do in 1 update, 2 hours of programing at most
btw maybe the heavy acid rifle should be changed to be a heavy "Toxic" gun that shoots quick little blobs instead of doing the same thing as a flamethrower aka 200-400 dmg at 3.6 with AP1 with the best materials and the best weaponsmith instead of 500-1000 at 4.8 without ap for the flamethrower
Negative HELLSHOT..............My character is based around the tactics skill tree so don't disband that tree! What field tactics needs is an upgrade.
GRENADES, GRENADES, GRENADES, GRENADES, GRENADES, GRENADES, GRENADES
Currently grenades do minimal damage even though they have high stats, why? Because there are no damage modifiers....so
----Add +10 Damage modifiers to the field tactics skill tree and to master commando.
Also the base stats are too low for grenades anyway, why? Because grenades usually have 3 optional damage, speed, and range components that cannot be made by anyone in the game....I know I make grenades but commandos are supposed to be granted schems for these components but aren't....So
----Grant Commandos or weaponsmiths the Schems and Ability to craft these optional components thus making the grenade stats better.
I can hit a person with my 59-209 FWG5 with my Smuggler Last Ditch Special Move and do 1500 damage. I throw a glop grenade, powered-up'ed, and sliced with a base of 700-1900 damageand do 1500 damage,. The only difference inthat one cost me a ton more time to do during comabat, more HAM side effects, and a hell of a lot more money..........can you guess which one and why?..................good boy now why? THERE ARENOGRENADE SPECIAL MOVES.............so
-----Add Special Moves for Grenades in the field tactics skill tree.
And that's it the skill tree will be fixed people will actually start usingand buying grenades,imperials andrebels will become best friends, wild aggro animals will trust and defend me, and there will be a bank error in my favor granting me 10 million credits............................
I think that the Melee Commando Tree is original and brilliant Hellshot ..............but a very dumb Idea.........If you want fight hand to hand they already have a skill tree for that.......you have all the prerequisites to pick up the novice too....aside from experience points possibly.
http://fourms.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=commando&message.id=22817
pyshcocow100 posted
I was gonna run this by the commando community before posting this on the main dev boards. I didn't want flame and nerf yellers to get their hands on it first.
Everyone in the commando community knows that since we can't make out grenades anymore they are more than a little useless now. They all do low damage comparatively, they have bugged AOA, and are have atrocious HAM costs.
My idea is to make these little buggers usefull finally, help balance us out even more against the nasty BH eyeshot, and give the weapon crafters another form of constant income.
Grenades, as some of their names imply, should give special effects. My shortlist is:
Fragmentation- itimidate (due to the load explosion)
Cryoban- stun (due to the cold explosion)
Glop- imobize for a few seconds(due to the glop duh)
imp detonator- dizziness(due to a disorientating blast)
Thermal detonator- blind( due to the bright flash explosion)
Proton- knock down due to it being the biggest exploding grenade or at least should be)
I think that this would help to give us a chance to fight back against the blind of a BH which makes it impossible to hit anything. Protons to help fight back against the pistoleers with buffed stats. That and we're the only profession that has no specific attacks that give special affects. I think that blind is high enough up the ladderthat it wouldn't be as bad as the BH eyeshot. It would add balance and be an alternative the the ceaseless nerfing. I'ld like to have some feedback please post
This idea sounds good to me, but I think grenades would still be somewhat worthless.
Unless the AOE of the stun/blind/dizzy etc. were fairly large. As it is the HAM cost is huge, the damage is low, and the delay in throwing is high. If these area affect blindness type attacks were wider than the blast area which I think for most is 6m then maybe this change would make them worth using again. Admittedly having a grenade that knocks down might be cool, or even one that does posture change/dizzy. But with the nerfs to these, unless the radius is larger it would still be pretty worthless.
I could see something like a 15m radius being useful, also the commando would have to be outside this radius for fear of getting the same affect on himself.