Commando Archive

Heya all. This is a working title only, and I'm hoping for alternative suggestions.

Recently, Ackehace put forward an alternative suggestion to increase the usefulness of all commando weapons at the master level. I would like to get the ball rolling with this post, towards a working and balanced model as a point of discussion, so that we can see whether or not this concept has merit enough to be submitted in a finalized draft as a request fordramatic imrovement of the commando profession. Starnick had mentioned the desire to begin such a discussion, and I defer to our correspondant should he desire to begin another post on this topic ( Honestly hope I'mon not stealing any of your thunder Stern).

One of the things that seems to be a sticking point, and this is true for me, is the seeming change in developer attitude over our intended placein the hierachy of combat professions. We have gone from a role of lords of area damage dealing to a "utility" class. I find this change in attitude disturbing. It feels almost as though, because for the first time in recentmemory some of our tools actually worked, that should be enough. I respectfully disagree. Some would say commando exsists to power up other professions, I maintain that other professions exsist to shape acommando's focus. Our weapons do have utilty, but the goal of entering combat is to destroyall enemies, not to dazzle them with a smoke and mirrors show. How many times must we hear "cool weapon.... kind of weak though huh?" from onlookers. In order that we may fill even a utilitarian roll, we must be able to effectively inflict more than interesting states. We must be able to strike targets with damage on par with other professions, and this is the important part: when considered as a stand alone profession. This in my opinion must be a guiding consideration. It is not enough to be simply a utility, or a powerup. The class must stand on it's own merits if it is to be viable.

In considering the proposal to increase the damage factor of our lower class level weapons as a commando progresses in skill, one poetential area of concern, is that in raising the damage output of something like a standard Flame Thrower, which has great range, the importance ofour Plasma Flamer might be diminished as a master level weapon. Another concern whichhas been appropriately voiced, is the idea that any such move might result in an overpoweredprofession. The originalsuggestion called for a powerup of all weapons to CL54. It has been pointed out be the developers that elemental damage is currently broken, and will serve to enhance ourdamage levels. I believe this too must be taken into consideration. For the purposes of this attempt at balancing "commando damage"as a modifier to our weapons, I will use the values as listed of the test center frogs. These values are slightly lower than maximum crafted values, but are representative of a well balanced crafted weapon, and I feel more useful when examining end damage levels of weapons that would see benefit from such a system.

All figures are taken from RazerWolf'sexcellent stickied post.

The tools of our trade:

I am going to leave off grenades for the time being, if there is enough interest in this topic, and a demand for that information, I will add it to the table. Looking at the numbers, one thing that does come to mind, is theneed for any damage modifier to ignore elemental damageentirely. Elemental damage seems unaffected by level, and including this figure with a damage modifier would, I believe create an unbalanced result.

So.... some questions.

1. Will increasing the overall damage output to the level of that listed for Plasma Flame Thrower create a "fixed" situation for commando?

2. If not, what additional items currentlyuseable by the professionmust be addressed (DOT's, Grenades, AOE, etc)?

3. What additional items, excluding special attacks, would be desireable (Consumables, armor break, etc)?

Just trying to consolodate some of the ideas already presented with this forum. Looks like I may be in no danger of needing to update, but if any would like to voice opinions on a damage modifier, and in what way it should affect commando weapons, or just some other generalized concepts, I'll be happy to keep the topic up to date, and try to form a modified damage chart based on feedback. Thanks for any help/ ideas/ input.