Commando Archive
Thread: Revised Commando Weapon Roles
This update is a revised post of the role of our weapons, based on the latest information from the test center (you guys on the test center rock).
Heavy Pistol
Launcher Pistol - Role unchanged. The Launcher Pistol is designed to take advantage of our prior training (the pistoleer branch of novice marksman) and provide us a means to get heavy weapons experience to get our other weapons up and running. Its damage is not good compared to other "top line" weapons of other professions, and it is not meant to be. It has no armor piercing, which is very reasonable, since it is simply a gateway weapon. A master commando will have little need to use the launcher pistol.
Primary Heavy Weapons
Heavy Acid Rifle - It looks as though our Heavy Acid Rifle will be our "goto" weapon. When running from place to place, most commandos will equip our HAR. Its major benefit is that its damage type is acid, which is not a primary damage type. Neither of our primary Heavy Weapons have Armor Piercing, which is again acceptable. The HAR has a high minimum damage, which is arguably more important for a general use weapon. It is an accurate weapon up to 35 meters. This makes our largest distinction from the elite "specialist" marksman. We will not simply run around at max range. We will have to "play" with critters at a closer range. Our primary weapons are our general use PvE weapons.
Flamethrower - Our flamethrower will be used in longer battles, or in battles where area of effects are needed. It is a special situation weapon, and will be very useful when fighting a large number of foes, all bunched together. Flamecone attacks a large number (my max has been 7) enemies, and does damage, and a reasonable DoT on them, all for one shot. It is our "area of effect" weapon. While you can use a flamethrower against a single foe, you would be best served to use it for flamesingle, to place a dot, and then switch out to the Heavy Acid Rifle. Our primary weapons are our general use PvE weapons.
Heavy Support Weapons
NOTE: This is where commandos really shine. Any reference to commando weapons that say "excluding" charged weapons is faulty. Commandos are "charged weapons experts." We have great power, and must pay for it. Our general use weapons are adequate, but not as good as the specialists...as it should be.
Acid Stream Launcher - This weapon has a very high minimum damage, no armor piercing and a high (but not our highest) maximum damage. The range of the ASL is tighter than the Particle Beam Cannon, and the resistance type is better (acid over energy). This will be our anti-personnel weapon of choice in PvP, or when fighting an important PvE event. The large delay is present for a reason. These weapons are not made to operate over time. The proper use of our support weapons is to enter a fight with a BOOM. Huge damage at the outset, is more valuable than huge damage over time, in the context of PvP, although the opposite is true for for most cases. The ASL, using specials, will be like getting hit with an AT-ST. Very potent in PvP. No Armor piercing makes this weapon an inferior choice against fighting heavily armed macherinery. In one on one PvP, is when this weapons will shine. Walk up to someone and unload on him with this, and you should have the fight won before it even starts. The high minimum damage nearly ensures it.
Lightening Beam Cannon - This weapon will be good for fighting multiple foes. It is a faster cannon, with very nice range modifiers and the Area of Effect is nice as a default attack. It has an AR of 1 so, it is also useful against certain armored foes. In those battles where two sides are running around haphazardly, this weapon will be useful. You can fire at a reasonable range, takeing melee out of the equasion, and still hit multiple foes as a default. The major concern about this weapon is the HAM cost on Action.
Heavy Particle Beam Cannon - This weapon has an AR of 2, with a very wide range of damage. It is the most unpredictable of all of our weapons. Its inaccurate. Its AR2 will help against armored foes, and this may (depending on how our rocketlauncher shapes up) be our anti vehicle weapon. I am not sure what situations this weapon will be useful, other than armored units. If the rocket launcher has AR3, it will probably be a tighter range, with a lower max, making this our "wildcard weapon" against certain medium armor foes.
Thoughts?
With our goto weapon being shorter range and with the NPC worping all over the place meaning we have to start wearing armor now.....
with theheavy supportweapon look like we can do 1 short 1 kill (PVP) so it dont really matter if it have high HAM cost. (well as long as you have medic near by or happen to be a medic your self) In away we wont have too many people whine about us being too over power I mean if we use it too many time we could end up being easy picking.
Im guessing theheavy supportweapon will be easyer to find now?
Alsowill there still be15 sec between Acidshot and Flameshot? if it still there then those 2 weapon cant me are goto weapon
Erm... Mystidia, are you really serious about what you are posting?
Leaving the commando like that is a joke.
No good armor ratings on our LP weapons, ridiculous range and refire rates on the HAR and FT, no styles for the LP, poor armor ratings on most charged heavy weapons, no good boni for defense?
Excuse me, we are playing a hybrid profession being the 2nd most skill-point-taking class in the game.
And still we get outdamaged by a novice rifleman?
Sorry, but that is not what a commando is meant to be, period.
Commando = master suicider with no defense
reason: must get within 15-35 meters to use primary weapons, while master rifleman and master pistoliers target the suicider at will and DOT, KD, Dizzy and whatever else they want to hit us with while we approach our target of choice.
Result: Commando gets one shot off (and waits 15 sec for cycle) if lucky and clones
Analysis: Commando is a heavy support character that still needs much work.
I am sticking with commando as I know they will eventually fix us. I am not looking for god mode or the one shot king of the battlefield. However I am looking for balance in the issue of damage vs other classes.
Right now a rifleman AE is insane and at master can spam his AE at 2.5 sec and does around 2500 per target. And that at 64 meters.
A Commando MIGHT be able to hit with an AE flame cone 2 and do insane damage, however no where near the damage ratio of a master rifleman. AND the commando must still get witing 15 meters to use this special. Not the Master Rifleman who can set up and start shooting at anything that gets into his/her 64 meter range.
In the end Commando at this stage is just cannon fodder for PvP. Lets no get into PvE issues and grouping.
and besides...
why do we have to be the only class whose "primary" (because the heavy support weapons WILL be our primary guns since all other guns have issues from 0 armor rating [rofl] to crappy range and dmg over time...) weapons have NO STYLES AT ALL and we have to pay for our ammo?
ridiculous...
The flamethrower has very specific uses which make it the most powerful weapon in the game, bar none. It is specialized though. Look for my other post about the FT (it deals with kiting). In a PvP contenxt, you will probably be better off using a charged weapon, but thats how it should be. Charged weapons should be powerful.
The HAR will be our LP, unless you need a knockdown, once you hit HAR III. If you go pistoleer, then your LP will have added life, but then you shouldnt be using a LP...use a real pistol.
We need some minor tweaks, but for the most part the changes to the test center weapons verifiy that we are a viable and needed class now. Once I hear about the Rocket Launcher (which I suspect will be AR3) and grenades, we will know whether we can say "good! go fix other professions now".
People are comparing our general use weapons (FT and HAR) with the general use weapons of the elite specialist. You cant do this. Our general use weapons should be adequate, but our charged weapons are what sets us apart. No one can use our charged weapons but us. If our non-charged weapons were as powerful as our charged ones, we would never use our charged.
FT and HAR should be approximately, or slightly below the effectiveness of the best specialist weapon. After all thats the only thing specialist do (albeit for less points). Our charged weapons should be head and shoulders above the pack, though, and really shine. They do on the test server. While the maximums are important, more important are the minimums. They are very high.
I am reserving judgement as to whether we are fixed yet until the grenades and rocket launcher comes out. If they come out as expected, we should be good to go.
My thoughts? Sounds like its still useless to go up this "elite" class. Unless they changed the armor piercing of the HAR, it will never be my 'goto' weapon. For one, a 35m range rifle is useless. Ever get hit melee with a rifle equipped? And the warping of NPCs/animalsishurtingevery rifle skill. Just cause its acid attack means nothing,my jawa ion rifle's stun seems better suited. And even if it was an animal withall resists, my 451 damage, AR2 laser rifle still does better.
and very potent in PvP is something I would like to see. Considering that there are at least 3-4 expert bounty hunters for every commando, you will die everytime no matter what special you have the way the delays are now. If and when I do decide to pick up flame cone, and I hit a big group for a lot of damage and DOT,unless I kill them all, everyone and their pet will be hitting me while I wait 15 seconds to recharge. But it takes alot less time than that to die. And don't say I am whining, cause I can just use my rifle from 64m to pick people off alot easier. My strategy is to not die. If this is the case, I am starting a new character.
sorry, i can't agree on that
flame cone 1 is NOT that powerful... use healthshot 1&2 and you get a 300-1200 dmg bleed...
using a fast pistol you are able to DOT 3 mobs like that in the time of using flame cone... so... not powerful enough
besides, its completely inacceptable that we need to get pistoleer skills to actually get some use out of our launcher pistol
additionally, we get no real anti-personell weapon like the imperial repeater
the commando is a carnival clown at the moment, good for making huge explosions... but the effect of them is ... ridiculous
hell, we're talking about ROCKETS, EXPLOSIVES, CONCENTRATED ACID STREAMS AND LIQUID FIRE, not about being a profession every chef pistoleer can beat....
Mystidia you do know that composite armor has a defense rating against acid right?
Thus making the HAR less a threat than the Launcher pistol
LP = Health 1, Health 2, Body 1, Body 2, Body 3, Suppression fire, and much more ( go look in the pistol line of markman and pistolier) all specials are negligable in time cycles
LP acurracy is well over 100 if pistolier, speed is insane
HAR = Acid 1 Acid 2 Acid cone 1 and Acid cone 2 (if you are suicidal and want to use a speacial here, have fun)
HAR accuracy MAX is 80 (tier 4 of acid rifle ) lets not talk about speed here...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
also take into account most everything has an acid defense of some kind and with no AP of any kind and a 15 meter max distance to use specials, and the extremely high miss rate and the extremely high recycle time makes me wonder if you even play a commando at all and are just grabbing at straws here.
Or are you just reading the DEV notes and what they envision the commando to be but have yet to bring into practice what they say?
I have read and beleived what they wrote about the commando in the tutorials and manuals (a HIGH impact character who unleashes death and devestation whever he goes) ROFL!!!
yeah i believe laughing to death can count for the death and devestation.
right now this so-called fix the devs are making is a bone, and we are gobbling it up totally, as there is nothing else we can do at this point in time. I only hope the commando's on the TC really give the devs an earfull as the info that is coming from there is NOT encouraging. But baby steps isprogress if nothing at all.
Why? For the price we pay, we are not rewarded.
The whopping two specials we have only work 14m or closer on test now. This means we are the only melee ranged class.
Funny how most everyone else's specials work up to 65m, with the exception of specials like point blank.
We have the worst accuracy/speed skills of all the classes.
Toss in our weapons skills and it's downright sad.
At 65 meters the Launcher Pistol is our bread and butter because of range mods.
Launcher Pistol is +0 @ 64m
Flame Thrower +0 @ 64m (this is on test, currently on release only works 50m or closer)
Acid Stream Launcher -120 @ 64m
Heavy Particle Beam Cannon -120 @ 64m
Heavy Acid Rifle -115 @ 64m
Lightning Beam Cannon -120 @ 64m
I could go on. But really. Read the many other posts. Or go make a Master Pistoleer & Master Ranger in half the time it took to get Master Commando / Gimp medic / Gimp exploration. Then feel useful because you killed things at 65m with your specials with a pistol.
How do I know this? Cause I trained pistoleer so I can actually kill things.
This is my first post and it takes quite a bit of aggrovation to get me to post anywhere, unfortunatley playing the commando class has driven me to the edge of insanity and I feel for all of you master commando's who have stuck with the game this long waiting for something to happen with this proffesion. While I do still have faith that the dev's will fix this problem, I'm not paying 15 bucks a month to sit on my butt and wait. everyday i play it's the same thing for me, run out do some missions and get smoked by a AT-ST with no chance of even killing the guy controlling it. I guess these changes are a decent start but I don't understand why we have to pay for ammunition. I personally think If were going to continue playing the commando proffesion we should all quit the game and come back maybe six months from now because like Ivoni said I don't think the dev's understand what the role of commando is just yet.
Grifter, worthless commando
Intrepid.