Commando Archive
Thread: 3rd Letter to SOE.
Let me start by saying I'm not a commando yet, but I am close. From what I have read and looked at on the Commando skill tree though I do see a few holes/problems. We do need a few extra things. Here are my suggestions.
1.)Add to the Field Tactics line +5 Melee/Unarmed Defense and +5 Ranged Defense at first box, at the third box add another +5, and at master add an additional +5 for a total of +15
2.) Possibly under the heavy weapons support line add 2 special moves for the launcher pistol, and possibly for other "generic" commando weapons, when they are implemented like the particle beam rifle.
3.) Add to field tactics 2 Unarmed skills, a Bleed attack would be nice, and possibly a disarm ability.
Thats all I can think of right now.
Kayyin Coterei
Wanderer of the Galaxy,
Squad Leader of the Imperial Oasis Outpost,
Commando in Training.
I would prefer if we have some kinda definition of our role before we start tossing around ideas. Right now, we seem to be all scatterbrained. We need to show some organization and get our class role defined first. Perhaps, SOE sees us as an "average" marksman, able to attack all 3 stats instead of how the specialists attack one. Perhaps we are a "vehicle" buster. Perhaps we are a "wizard" of fantasy, doing high damage, with low defense. Perhaps we are supposed to be the "AoE" guy.
No one knows what we are supposed to be doing, so making suggestions on how to "fix" us is not productive. Find out what they think we are, then we can talk.
Good job Garibaldi!
My pet peve-
The launcher pistol should NOT be oure main go-to ranged weapon. If I want to use pistols and carbines I'll get pistoleer/carbiner. I can understand it being our stepstone from Novice to the tier 1 skills, but not much beyond that. If we have unique special moves for it, maybe it would be useful in some situations.
The way I see our current roles (once our weapons are fixed and tweaked)-
Grenades/Launcher/Cannons- situational aoe or against heavily armored targets (AT-ST, Krayt, Rancor, etc..) This is where our niche as a combat profession should be. If I want to be the best dueler I'll go pistoleer.
Flamethrower- extremely effective at close range against lightly armored targets.dot/ aoe dotdamage.
if these work the way they should then we shouldnt have any problems being useful against BIG targets. The flamethrower will be very useful when melee fighters or mobs get a bit to close for comfort. Notice I said useful, not uber.
Since the launcher pistol shouldnt be our go-to ranged weapon, that leaves the acid rifle, or something better.
either a) make the acid rifle a viable option in PVP and against lightl/medium armor targets. This would be our main go-to ranged weapon when we are not blowing up big stuff with explosives and heavy firepower.
or b) drop the acid rifle and give us light repeating blasters. Repeating blasters are an important part of the STAR WARS battlefield and are sorely missed in SWG. These should offer enough dps to be effective without special moves (via EXTREMELY fast firing rate). The special moves wewould havewouldn't necessarily be souped up versions of the default attack, but extensions of our ranged support capabilities.Such as area-of-effect suppresion fire and warning shot. I wouldlove to see repeater blasters included at some point, even if only mounted on vehicles in a few months (though by all rights commandos should have light repeating blasters).
All in all, we dont need to re-define ourselves to be an effective combat profession. With a little work we can haveourown purpose in PVP and PVE.
A. Flamethrower is seen as melee. I can't do any NPC missions because they put away their guns and pull out their sticks and beat on me first.
B. No Knockdown skill. Everyone else can solo do to their knockdown skills. Looking at the Bounty Hunter Carbine Skill 3 description makes it look blatantly like our flamethrower knockdown, not carbine. The skill reads
"Fire Knockdown: This ranged attack blasts the target with a quick rush of flame aimed at their upper body, which can cause them bowled over by the sheer force directed at them, causing them to be dizzy as well.
C. Lack of Launcher Pistol Specials. I do NOT want pistol specials. I want like a version of AIM - but called Lock on. I mean, it's four mini rockets.
D. FIX the con on flamethrower gun. I have flamethrower 4 and just now got field tactics 1. Getting 1 combat xp is unacceptable.
That's it for now.
1. Give us a nice heavy weapon that is laser based...
T-21 repeating blaster?
Submit this to the developers first. Whether they agree or not, at least we will get some direction. We have players in this thread requesting defensive mods, requesting increased damage, better specials, better armor....think about it. If they give us all of that, we will be the best class. There has to be tradeoffs. We need a role. Submit this before we ask for anything else:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=commando&message.id=5047
Commando's DO get defensive bonuses. FT 3 grants +5 ranged defense, and FT 4 gives +5 melee defense. Granted, it's really not much, especially considering other classes get larger bonuses, as well as "evasive" skills like dodge or counter attack.
My pet peeve is that no one seems to know what the "vision" is for how the Commando is SUPPOSED to work. We all offer ideas, but don't know if they even come close to what the Devs had in mind. Get that information and we can all then work towards a COMMON goal instead of all of us going off in all different directions.
Get the "Vision" from the Devs.
for god's sake there is NO 3x damage multiplier for melee's vs heavy weapons users. This is legacy, it does not exist in the game as of now. Please stop posting this crap.
As an aspiring commando, I think the biggest issue is having to use pistol specials to do your damage. I agree that the launcher pistol should get its own line. How about skills like salvo (fires a volley at a single target), groundshaker (aoe knockdown), and rain of fire (aoe damage). It seems like the potential for SO much cool stuff is staring them right in the face.
On that note, there should be special upgrades for the commando pistol. These would work like ammo for the launcher pistol and would include things like disease shell, armor piercing shell, homing shell, etc. Have either the commando or a master weaponsmith craft these.
The launcher pistol really needs to loose the huge explosions and heavy smoke associated with it. These 2 things make this weapon VERY VERY VERY bad when you group. People can't see each other or what is going on around them especially your medics, which makes missed heals a very real possibility.
Yes, the huge explosions are cool to look at the 1st time you shoot the gun, but to make this our primary weapon then to put these huge explosions on them is pretty stupid.