Commando Archive

Last night I was running around overt in Coronet when I see a red dot on my radar. I turn on the overhead map, and atack in a way that I'll be able to get within 16m for a FS2. My target, not knowing that I'm a commando, obliges and I get a nice blast off at about 6m for a solid hit.

His health takes a dip, but I see that he's in full composite armor. What do you know, someone who might know what they're doing... Anyway, I'm on my timer now so I unequip my FT (as A TKA, I take less damage when unarmed), and try to keep close for a KD+dizzy once I can act again. However, I'm dead before the timer ends.

I'm a bit surprised as I wake up in the cloning center, as my armor (I too wear full composite at around 40%) normally protects me from small arms fire for long enough to last 10 seconds. I was also buffed by a doctor, so both my health and action were both over 2000.

I check the log and see that he was consistently hitting me for 250+ with fan shot, once per second. Of course, I get the customary /tell bitching about FTs being overpowered, bla,bla,bla. This from a guy who just DB me. I ask him about his gun, curious about the damgage. Turns out it's an FWG5. I'm even more puzzled now, as FWG5s are AP0, and frankly shouldn't be doing much damage through 40% composite.

I continue my inquiry to find out the weapon's true stats. It's made of Kryat tissue, sliced and powered up for a top-end damage of over 400. Apparently, he can do an unmodified 2000 damage per shot with fan shot, once every second.

Once again, this guy was complaining about FTs being too strong, and he has a pistol that will outdamage my FT any day of the week.

Anyway, not being one to exploit the revenge TEF, I head to the recruiter to go overt again and hunt the guy down. I have Heavy Weapons 4, and a PBC just waiting for an excuse to be used. Unfortunately I miss the PBC shot... twice, and die again. Both times I was in the general range of 40-50m, but with moving targets it's tough to be precice.

The point of this story is to ask what options commandos have for dealing with armored PvP opponents. The only AP weapons we have are charged, and unforgivingly inaccurate. With hyper-powered weapons like that 400 damage FWG5 running around, we won't last past our timer delay, and a flame dot victory after being DBd is a shallow victory at best.

I guess we can hold out hope that the devs will realize that the HAR needs to be AP1, that would at least give us a fighting chance. I'd hate to have to resort to a DX1 and pistoleer pistoleer skills against armored opponents... talk about a let down.

At the very least, heavy weapons should have access to the power-ups that other weapons have. Since Kryat tissue damage bonuses do not stack, there's no real point to making a Kryat tissues FT, as it would only add 30 damage.

The only thing I can think of tactics-wise is to maybe flame then burst run to break line of sight. In a city, you could probably play lag-tag long enough for the DOT to do him in. Anyone have any other suggestions?

I actually ended up fighting the same guy again and found that for doctor-bufffed, armored opponents, my TKA skills are currently far more effective than commando weapons.

Turns out the guy is also a master doctor, so his health and action are always hovering around 2800 or so. This means no 1 shot kills unless you get really lucky with a BPC and hit the mind pool. He can also stim himself for about 2000 points of healing (stim E I believe). So even if you do get a huge hit on one of those pools, he'll stim himself and close before you can get another shot off.

The way I beat him was to lure him into a situation where I could land a dizzy lunge combo, and from there, equip VKs and mind hit until dead.

Now, if the HAR would be given the AP and speed of the LLC, or if you could reliably hit moving targets with heavy weapons, we'd have more options.