Commando Archive

Let's examine the fundamentals of a commando melee attack -

Actually switching to our bare hands for a melee attack is quite cumbersome fora fewreasons: weapon switching delays, lack of a Vibroknuckler certification, and the low damage/speed with our fists.

The melee attack must be usable by our heavy acid rifles and flamethrowers.

Garvin hinted toward a melee knockdown move for commandos in the thread about our unarmed prerequiste. I'd like him to chime in here and give his full view of such an attack.

Garvin's idea of a melee knockdown seems flawed for a few reasons -

1. Pistoleers already have this ability. This would blurr class distinction and encroach on pistoleer ground.

2. We are supposed to be a high risk/high damage class. Knockdowns are the most safe attacks in the game. Your opponent cannot attack you back. This isn't quite in the flavor of the commando.

3. Balance. With the melee penalty when weilding a flame thrower or heavy acid rifle, you will find commandos who perform the knockdown with a flame thrower or heavy acid rifle, spam specials while the enemy is down, and then switch to the launcher pistol once the enemy stands up. While classes, skills, and help from other players can help a commando accomplish knock downs, they should not be able to be so comfortable within their own class.

Thus, a knockdown will not be adequate for the commando melee skill. Moreover, justa hard hitting move like Unarmed Hit 1, 2, & 3 would be too much like the bread and butter of the melee professions. While we share the random HAM damage as they do with these attacks, it is still ground that should be very much protected. Finally, it cannot be a melee attack that damages a specific HAM pool. We get a whole host of these attacks in the marksmen profession that would make it worthless, this is melee ground, and it goes against the random HAM/high damage nature of commando.

So here are the things the melee skill cannot be -

High Damage

Knockdown

Specific HAM Pool Damage

So what is in the flavor of commandos?

Commandos must get close to an enemy to do their best attacks. For a commando to attack a target with a melee attack with their flame thrower or heavy acid rifle, that melee attack must do something beneficial for the commando. If not, we would just hit /flamesingle2 yet again. We have already crossed more damage off the list. Thus, the attack must do decent damage (but less than the flame thrower and heavy acid rifle specials) that inflicts a negative state on the enemy. Commandos do not have any ways of inflicting states on an enemy. A melee attack doing such a thing would be beneficial and risky at the same time. Remember, the enemy could melee you back much harder than you hit them. Sounds in flavor and fun all around Knockdown is out of the question for the reasons outlined above. Posture down is much like knockdown and should not be considered either. Dizzy is worthless as anything that is within our melee range will already be standing.

It seems then we have three candidates:

Stun

Blind

Intimidate

All three would be great. Anything to help ourselves do our jobs with our flame throwers and heavy acid rifles would be great. Stun would let us hit the enemy a bit more. Blind would keep us alive longer. Intimidate would do both.

I would be happy with either of these three.

Any thoughts? If I'm wrong about something or everything, please tell me. I'd rather be wrong and understand what is right, than think what is wrong as right.

Kyeran Halkyon

Master Gunfighter and Demolitionist of the Old Republic Navy
SWG Commando Forum