Commando Archive

Heya fellow commandos. There have been some really great threads on this topic, far too many really, because unfortunately, all of these great ideas mean that something is very wrong with our profession. I am not going to break much new ground here, I'm just pulling from some other folks that have already put a lot of time and thought into potential fixes, and put a little of my own spin on them. I think we are not so very far away from being a working profession, and I also believe a fix is possible without rejecting the notion of a profession without special attacks.

What we have right now, is a half fixed profession. Commando, conceptually, is supposed to amplify the direction you wish to take with another ranged profession. In theory, damage becomes more damaging, and crowd contol becomes more controlling. What have in actuality, is a profession which allows crowd contol to be more controlling, and nothing else. I believe the fix to the profession need not lie in commando specials. There are alternatives.

Here is whatI would propose, based on some of the best suggestions I've seen so far, with some of my own ideas tossed into the mix.

1. Area damage should consist of 50% of normal damage, full elemental damage, and full DOT where aplicable. Primary targets should see a DOT stick roughly 50% of the time, whereas secondary targets should see a 20% chance of receiving that same DOT. The lack of full AOE damage ties in with my second suggestion, and would (hopefully) serve to arrive at a balanced end.

2. Armor Break should be incoperated at master as an innate ability. Advanced armor break to the primary target only, with basic armor break applied to secondary targets. Advanced armor break has a greater chance of sticking, a greater effect, and longer duration than basic armor break. It is through the use of armor break that commandos will be able to outdamage other profession using area attacks when faced with elite enemies, or armored pvp adversaries. The action cost is greater when using a heavy weapon, the damage should reflect this. Taken in conjunction with the AOE damage listed, the commando would outdamage any other class vs a primary target, and should do comparible damage to other professions on secondary targets with the added bonus of a possible DOT.

3. As an alternative to the looted proton rifle, and advanced version of the Rocket Launcher should be a craftable item. The advanced version would be kinetic damage,lack knockdown, and burst radius, but would retain a 64m range. This would allow the commando great reach, similar to that of a rifleman, but at the cost of higher action cost, leaving the riflethe supreme choice for longer range in combat. This would leave commandos with a heavy damage short distance cone effect aoe weapon, a moderate to heavy damagemedium range burst effect aoe weapon, a moderate damage longe range large cone effect aoe weapon, and with this addition, a craftablekinetic basedheavy damage single target weapon.

4. All grenade attacks should be given as innate abilities, similar to the treatment given to combat medic poisons, fire, and disease. Craftable grenades should be available as a means to increase the effectiveness of these attacks, in terms of duration of special state changes, damage, and burst radius. Grenade state changes should be of a 20 to 30 second duration. 20 seconds for the innate version, up to 30 seconds when using the craftable enhancement. Grenades should be on a re-use cycle timer similar to that of a stim, 1 minute. Each grenade type should be on a seperate timer, allowing for grenades to be used more frequently than is currently possible. Grenade cooldowns shouldbe reduced to one second, and should require a warmup of 2 seconds before use. The burst radius of all grenades and theiraggro rangeshould be limited to 6m, with craftable enhancement allowing for an experimental possiblity of a 9m burst.

5. The grenade requirements in crafting rocket launchers, both the basic and the advanced version should be dropped. The market for commando weapons is relatively small, and increasing the difficulty in crafting these items serves only to decrease further their availability. Grenades in general as powerups need to have their crafting complexity reduced by 50% in order to facilitate faster factory production, and stack sizes need to be increased to numbers morecommensurate with stim packs, with uses experimentable. The areas for experimentation should be damage, burst radius, elemental damage, special effect duration, and stack size. The default stack size should be 10, with a maximum stacksize of about 30.

6. The Commando melee hybrid is currently unattractive, and has previously been a player favorite. The reasons for this go beyond the sacrifices made in terms of ranged special attacks. Heavy weapons are already the slowest attack speeds in game, and suffer further when commando is mixed with a melee profession. Futhermore, the melee class isoverly penalized in terms of accuracy for an attempt to blend with a hybrid profession with afoundation in melee. The modifiers for a master commando need to be increased in the following areas: General Melee Accuracy: +10, Heavy Weapon Speed +15. These may seem like small tweeks, but they are neccesary if the possiblity of a melee commando hybrid is to be a viable alternative IMHO. Massassi (sp?) Knucklers must also come in an advanced version, and must include a highpossiblity for a built incritical hit capabilityfor increased damage in exchange for higher action costs than other melee weapons.

That's about all I can think of for now.

Thoughts, opinions?