Commando Archive

FROM NOVICE TO MASTER - HOW TO BECOME A MASTER COMMANDO

by

Ivoni the Bunny Slayer

Master Commando

Updated By Hellshot, Master Commando

Update Note - I have tried to leave this guide largely intact, mostly adding notes to items that have been added/changed in the game and removing out of date information.

INTRODUCTION by Ivoni

Let’s just say that after making Master Commando I’ve had a little free time. I also like to be helpful and felt that the Commando’s were missing their guide. Well, here it is. I hope that the tips, tricks and hints that I've provided here help you as much as they helped me.

As I write this guide, the Commando profession is, for the most part, working finally. The developers changes to our weapons have finally made us a viable functioning class. However, please note there are still several outstanding issues that need to be addressed.

Also, if you are reading this because you want to create a commando and wondering what the best class is, there really isn’t one best. There are those that have disadvantages.

Wookies have great stats, but can not wear any armor except a shield generator which gets eaten faster than candy on Halloween. This hurts later on.

Trandoshan do get bonuses for TKA but cannot wear gloves or boots. The regeneration skill can only be used once an hour and really does little to save you when needed. However nice the Melee Defense +10 is, the other bonuses are not used by Commando (at this time) although they do help slightly in earning the unarmed xp compared to others.

Then there’s the ones with the advantages.

Zabrak. Their stats are good and Equalize is an amazing skill used in PvP and when needed. Also Commando gets few defenses. Defense Vs. Dizzy +10, Defense Vs. Stun +10, and Defense Vs. Intimidate +10 and Anti-shock +5 are very welcome.

Human. No faction penalties playing Imp.

Rodian. Lots of action to spam specials with the Launcher Pistol. The Defense Vs. Blind +15 is nice as well.

In the end, play what makes you happy. It is a game after all.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let's get to it.

THE BASICS - GETTING NOVICE COMMANDO

Commando is a hybrid profession. It's going to take more time to master than any other combat class, and lots of hard work to become useful. Know this going in - while you may have made Master Marksman and Master Unarmed in two weeks, unless you have no job, no life or never sleep, it will take you much longer to hit Master Commando.

Now that you've decided to take the plunge and become a commando, the first thing that you need to do is to visit a Commando trainer. Like any "novice" profession, you cannot be trained as a novice Ranger by another player. You will need to visit a Ranger trainer and pay the 5000 credit fee.

The unfortunate thing is that Commando trainers are rare. I have located trainers in the following locations:

Corellia - Kor Vella (-3344, 3292)

Rori - Narmle (-5180, -2350)

Rori - Rebel Military Outpost (3695, -6485)

Tatooine - Mos Entha (1553, 3338)

Tatooine – Imperial Oasis West of Mos Espa (-5292, 2718)

Tatooine - Wayfar (-5038, -6609)

Once you are trained in novice, you can be trained by other players for all other levels, including Master Commando.

Update Note - Now NPC trainers can also be found in Player Cities

…END PART 1

BEGIN PART 2…

ASSUMPTIONS

First, I'm going to assume that you've made Master Marksman and Master Unarmed and are working on that 40k combat xp. If not, you're in the wrong spot. Go to those forums if you want a guide on how to obtain those, best place to hunt, etc.

This will result in you receiving full unarmed xp when the mob dies.

Anyway, as our only means of gaining XP, we needed to kill everything that moves.

How much? A LOT. 3.6 million heavy weapons xp to be exact.

With which weapon? The launcher pistol. Why not the flamethrower? Until you achieve at least flame3 you are going to be incredibly inaccurate. The Launcher Pistol is still faster until then.

But before we can do that we have to earn 40k combat xp or 400,000 weapons xp to get Novice Commando. Which weapon to earn it with?

I’m recommending Pistol. Why? Well let’s see where that 400,000 pistol xp would get you in gaining useful specials for the LP. 125k = Novice Pistoleer. 175k= Intermediate Pistol Stances and Grips. 250k=Advanced Pistol Stances and Grips. Mind you this is 15k more combat xp than you need, but in return you gain Healthshot 2, Double Tap, and Disarming Shot 1. Not to mention +5 Pistol Speed/Accuracy and Defense Vs. Blind +20 and Defense Vs. Stun +20.

Doubletap is a special that has a 2.8X multiplier to the gun. It turns a 45-176 damage 2.9 speed Launcher Pistol into 176-493 damage 3.9 speed.

Disarming shot 1 is a random HAM damage special that does double damage to lairs. In most cases, this will do the most damage over time of any pistoleer special to lairs. Otherwise, it’s not advisable to use this on opponents/mobs since it does less damage then the default attack mode.

You can also choose Smuggler if you like. Feign Death is useful against NPCs when you don’t want to die. Panic Shot is very useful when grouped to save melee’s a beating. Low Blow and Last Ditch do good damage. However, considering how much more xp it takes to get these and the comparison to the pistoleer, I don’t recommend getting them unless you want to.

Some recommend going with Rifleman to get Mindshot2. Be aware, though, that none of the accuracy/speed mods for rifle and none of the rifle specials work with any Commando weapon. Thanks to macros it’s easy to switch to rifle, do mindshot1 then mindshot2 then switch back. It only takes 300k xp xp to do this leaving you with 100k more weapons xp to do as you please.

Carbineer is also an option. For only 125k Novice Carbineer adds actionshot2. No Commando weapons uses Carbine accuracy/speed nor any carbine specials.

If you have not trained in one of the alt professions to gain the two stack bleeds then expect your path to Master Commando to be much slower. As of this date we have no unique specials with the Launcher Pistol so it is recommended at some point to get Pistoleer under the assumption that it uses pistol speed/accuracy.

Update Note - With a reduction in the cost of the bounty hunter prequisites, another option is to use the pistol and save that experience for getting bounty hunter pistols 1 once you have sufficient extra combat exp.

Choose which you want. It is up to you.

I'm also going to assume that you have a good weapon. If you don't, get out and make some money and get one. Read the galaxy forums and learn who the best weaponsmiths are and get out to their shops. Once you get that good weapon, find a trustworthy Master Smuggler and get it sliced. The harder you hit, the faster you can kill and harvest your prey, and the faster you'll go through the trees.

As of this writing an average Launcher Pistol is 45-176 damage 2.9 speed.

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE COMMANDO TREES

There are four trees in the Commando profession. Sadly, two of them are carbon copies. I will outline them here to make it easier:

NOVICE COMMANDO

Field Tactics (Demolistionist)

Heavy Weapons Support (Artilleryman)

Flamethrower Specialization (Shock Trooper)

Acid Rifle Specialization (Heavy Infantry)

All but the Field Tactics require heavy weapons xp. Field tactics is combat xp.

END PART 2 ..

... BEGIN PART 3

TACTICS - WHAT SHOULD I DO DIFFERENTLY FROM MARKSMAN?

This will be the absolute hardest part to accept. You get to start all over.

Other than the Launcher Pistol which uses the 60 accuracy/30 speed you have earned as a Master Marksman (this is assumed mind you), your accuracy with all heavy weapons is worse than a Novice Marksman.

Don’t go with the flamethrower initially for getting xp. With a Flamethrower at Novice Commando you will miss 9 times out of 10. Seriously. Your accuracy is only +10. It isn’t until you master the tree that you will actually be able to hit commonly with the weapon. At flame3 is when your skill is greater with the flamethrower than the launcher pistol.

Fortunately it isn’t all bad. There are tactics and tips to be used to make life easier.

1. When Soloing, ALWAYS have a bot (any bot) grouped with you and parked in town for safety. Why? They give an xp bonus. Which sounds better 1497 xp or 1871 xp? Same mob, just grouped or ungrouped.

2. Have Novice Scout Exploration 1 at a minimum. Be sure to harvest your solo kills and sell them for cash.

3. If you are soloing a lot, get novice medic and buy good stims. Stop buy and buy buffs from Doctors. They last up to two hours.

4. Buy crates of powerups. They really help. They only work on launcher pistol.

5. Make friends with a master weaponsmith and get crates of grenades. Use them exclusively on lairs as you can get full combat xp off a lair. 2k of combat xp is very nice. Or just kill lower level things with just grenades. Makes killing newbie mobs much more productive.

Update Note - Grenades are the fastest way to gain combat exp, but should only used when buffed and wearing armor that can absorb the damage type of the grenade as these can damage the user.

6. Find a Master Smuggler you trust. All commando weapons, including the grenades and consumables, can be sliced. Told 35% is the best possible for weapons.

Update Note - Grenades also accept power ups to further increase damage.

WHAT PLANETS SHOULD I HUNT ON?

The starting planets remain good choices for soloing since we are weak. Search out the "elite" level creatures that give good XP, like Leviasqualls on Rori. These will be your fallbacks when you can't find a group to go off planet.

If you like a more challenging solo experience there are Snorbals on Lok and the Baz Nitches on Dathomir. You will also find the higher level missions on these planets, and the payouts are outstanding - generally 10k - 20k credits per destroy mission.

I have grown fond of the Torturs on Talus, Leviasqualls on Rori, and the Snorbals on Lok. Both are large creatures that give good XP, are slow enough that you can generally outrun them. If you trained in the scouting trapping skill then using Adhesive Mesh or Phen Dart will slow them down and makes them solo capable. With a mix of traps, warning shot, stopping shot, or surprise shot (if you have them), you'll be able to solo these critters if need be. Always keep in mind the XP over time rule, but if you want a challenge with a good reward (and some good harvests) these are the way to go.

Update Note - I am personally fond of hunting regular quenkers on Dantooine. When a grouped, you can reach the experience cap with each kill, and you can kill these rather easily. Also, a good tactic to use is to buy a tank droid and have it pull the aggro while you blast away.

END PART 3 ...

…BEGIN PART 6

WEAPONS AND SPECIALS – WHAT SHOULD I GET AND WHAT DO THEY DO?

We have several different weapons and their specials.

Launcher pistol: Our bread and butter. Sadly we never get any better with it nor do we receive any unique specials. It is assumed to use pistol accuracy/speed skills and it uses all pistol specials. Unfortunately it only has AP0 but it does blast damage to which At-St’s and Turrets are being made vulnerable.

Be forewarned, it puts out an amazingly large video graphic explosion. Melee will hate you for using it. Being prone only makes it worse.

As of this writing an average Launcher Pistol is 45-176 damage 2.9 speed.

Update Note - Changes were made to the particle graphics system to reduce the amount of lag caused by particle effects like the launcher pistol.

Flamethrower: This is a weapon to which an entire tree is dedicated to. As a Novice Commando be forewarned you will be incredibly inaccurate until Flame 3. This is due to the +10 accuracy/+0 speed you receive as a novice. You can honestly expect to miss 7 out of 10 times. It does Heat damage of course but sadly only AP0.

It has two specials (flamesingle & flamecone) which both get upgraded but can only be used 16m or closer. All four specials have dots which all stack. The downside is the massive delay. It is a 15 second delay when you get it speeding up to 9 seconds at mastery.

Update Note - As of Publish 6 (?) the damage of all DOT's was reduced to about 20% of the initial damage, with the initial damage getting some boost in damage. Also, the 4 fire dot's are not supposed to, but presently still do. Only 1 cone and 1 single are supposed to stack . Also now the flamethrower damage and DOT are affected by heat resistance.

The only difference between the two attacks is single target vs AOE.

As of this writing an average Flamethrower is Flamethrower 423-814 damage 5.0 speed.

Heavy Acid Rifle: The other weapon to which an entire tree is dedicated to. This has the same warning about accuracy as with Flamethrower. It does acid damage and sadly AP0 as well.

Its specials are a carbon copy of Flamethrower (acidsingle & acidcone) but it is missing the dot effect. Same delays as well.

As of this writing an average Heavy Acid Rifle is 318-704 damage 5.4 speed.

The following are the consumable weapons gained from the Heavy Weapons Support tree. They all have charges vary from 28 to 50 depending on what the weaponsmith did.. Again, you must commit to the tree to not miss with these. They all hit incredibly hard and using them cues up like any other special.

Acid Stream Launcher : Consumable. Acid Damage. AP2

Lightning Beam Cannon: Consumable. Electricity damage. At least this is AP1

Heavy Particle Beam Cannon: Consumable. Energy damage. Even better, this is AP3

Rocket Launcher: Consumable. The most time consuming, most resources needed to make weapon in game. It’s Blast Damage and best of all AP3. Soon to be made At-St’s worst nightmare.

Update Comment - For taking down turrets and AT-ST you are better off picking up pistoleer skills to increase the speed of the launcher pistol and using either pisoleer, smuggler, or bh pistol specials. The reason for this is that you get no damage bonus when using an AP3 weapon versus a vulnerable target due to bugs in the combat system, so you can actually do more damage per second with the launcher pistol than a rocket launcher. This is supposed to be revamped during the upcoming combat balance.

Grenades. These result from the Field Tactics Tree. They come in stacks of 5.

Fragmentation Grenade:

Cryoban Grenade: Cold Damage. AP1

Glop Grenade: Acid Damage. AP0

Imperial Detonator: Blast Damage. AP1

Thermal Detonator: Blast Damage. AP2

Proton Grenade: Heat Damage, Ap1

END PART 6

….BEGIN PART 10

UPCOMING CHANGES TO COMMANDO

We are currently waiting for the combat balance, at which time 2 of our trees will be merged, we will get a new tree of some sort. Also, the combat balance will adjust the damage table for all weapons, as well as affect the way damage and specials affect a players HAM. We don't have many details at the moment for this, but more information should be available as this publish approaches.

LISTING OF KNOWN COMMANDO ISSUES – in no particular order

1. Lack of definition: What exactly we are and are not supposed to be has never been said since the changes in beta. STATUS: With the new changes we are devastating in short range. Still some depth lacking, but it's a wonderful start.

2. Inadequate Armor Piercing. There is a question to the AP value on several weapons we have. All other acid weapons in game are AP1 except the HAR and glop grenade. Also, in light of 40 charges or less on the consumable weapons they all need to be AP3. Otherwise their time and cost to manufacture isn’t justified. STATUS: No Change

3. Launcher Pistol. In addition to the AP0 issue, there are no specials for this nor do we get any better with it. With the recent fixes to the rest of our weapons we feel a need for a better answer than get Master Pistoleer as well. As it stands a Master Commando duels a Master Pistoleer/Novice Commando and gets beaten with his own gun? STATUS: No change.

4. Crism Silicate Ore not removed from Proton Grenade spec. This gates not only making proton grenades but rocket launchers as well. STATUS: No Change

5. Grenade Revamp. There is a serious desire to see the entire grenade manufacturing and use revamped. It takes 5 factory runs to make one crate. This doesn’t seem bad till you consider it takes 27 minutes to make one five charge grenade. ONE! STATUS: No Change

6. Reduced number of charges on consumed Heavy Weapons. Prior to patch some had up to 200 charges on weapons. Now we are ranging 28 to 40. Considering the huge time involved to make them they are excessively costly. Can this be returned to 200 charges? STATUS: No Charge

7. Radius attack from consumed Heavy Weapons not functioning. Beam Cannons and rocket launchers with a radius don’t seem to be hitting anything in said radius. Not even a miss message. STATUS: No Change

8. Accuracies are wrong with weapons. Kneeling is more accurate than prone. As designed? STATUS: No Change.

9. Range modifiers for all weapons save Rocket Launcher make no sense. The range modifiers are supposed to indicate to the user where to ideally be when using the weapon. STATUS: No change. To give a few examples:

- Flame Thrower: +11@0m/-55@50m/0@64m. I can shoot it at 64 with no problem? Ideal should be 16m

-Heavy Acid Rifle: +16@0m/-13@35m/-116@64m At least this says to use point blank. But ideally I should be at 35m?

-Acid Stream Launcher:+1@0/+26@16m/-120@64m This reads like what the flamethrower and HaR should be, but not a launched consumable.

-Heavy Particle Beam Cannon: -120@0/+14@48m/-122@64m. This is exceptionally harsh. In 16m you go from +14 to -122.

10. Large Pause when initiating combat with Flamethrower & Har. If you are running you will stop to start fighting and then start running again. STATUS: No change

Update Note - This was fixed

12. Lack of use of unarmed line prerequisite. Not that we wish it removed, it’s just that absolutely nothing is done with it. STATUS: No change

Update Note - This was fixed

14. Questions about the knockdown given to Bounty Hunter in Carbine 3. Reading the description of it implies it is a flamethrower attack. "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." STATUS: No Change

15. Beam Rifle. No one has a cert for this. STATUS: No Change

Update Note - This was fixed

17. No Heavy Weapons Powerups exist. Short of the pistol powerups and grenade powerups, we have none. STATUS: No Change

18. Odd Certification for Acid Rifle. It says cert rifle acid beam. This doesn’t follow the format of any others. STATUS: No Change

19. Typo in the abilities description of Flame Cone2 in the abilities and commandos menu. It says to type /flameCone1. STATUS: No Change

Update Note - This was fixed

CONCLUSIONS

Commandos are a looking to finally be a rewarding class for all the work that’s involved in getting there.

I’m already seeing a definite increase in popularity due to the previous changes we have worked hard to secure in the game.

For all of my fellow Master Commandos, this is icing on the cake. We worked hard to make it here and when the patch hits it will be a whole new world.

For those new to Commando, or who just read this guide to see what it was like, I hope that these hints, tips and information will help make your experience a little easier, a little quicker and a little more fun.

If you've read this far, and you're on Intrepid, all you need to do is send me an in-game tell and I'll train you.

Good luck, Commandos! And remember our motto

ALL YOUR FRAME RATE IS BELONG TO US!

Update Note - In the time since this was written there were a number of changes that have rendered commandoes to be a back burner professions, including our very low damage per second, increase creature HAM, the reduced damage of the flame DOT, and our poor accuracy in PvP owing to defense stacked templates. While I personally enjoy this proffession, its one of the poorest choices for doing PvP or tackling high end content owing to low defenses and low DPS.