Commando Archive

I had saved up many Combat XP. As I was had enough to go from no-TKA to 0003 TKA, I decided to use the points to conduct a little combat testing, which took several days. The length of time was important because there is evidence that the ability to dodge, block and counterattack took an effectiveness hit since I began the testing last Sunday.

There are several mysteries that arose from the tests, noted below. If saying "I do not know" is the beginning of wisdom, then my inability to explain these anomalies makes this my wisest post by far.

My relevant starting/ending skills and stats were:

SKILLS: BEFORE: Master Commando/ 0021 Pistoleer/ no TKA

AFTER: Master Commando/ 0021 Pistoleer/ 0003 TKA

STATS: BEFORE AFTER NET CHANGE

Defense v. Knockdown +5 + 5 --

Defensive Acuity 0 (not TKA yet)+56 +56

Dodge/Block/Counterattack +10 +10 --

Melee Defense +44 +89+45

Ranged Defense +47 +77+30

RANGED TESTS: I tested myself against a TKA Master who had no Marksman skills. He wielded a DL 44 Metal Pistol (3.4 Speed) at 15 meters (giving +0 range modifier). Obviously, no special attacks were used, because he had none. The test was broken into three parts: (1) with me unarmed, (2) With me having equipped my Flamethrower and (3) with me having equipped a one-handed sword. I have only novice brawler and so am not proficient with the sword, so we hoped to use it as a baseline of sorts.

(1) UNARMED RANGED TEST

BEFORE: Total shots fired: 334

Number of hits: 134

Hit %: 40.12%

Number of "special misses" (dodges, blocks or counterattacks): 16 (6, 4 & 6, respectively)

AFTER: Total shots fired: 357

Number of hits: 120

Hit %: 33.61%

Number of special misses: 5 (1 dodge, 1 block, 3 counterattacks)

First, I note that the +30 Ranged Defense I picked up seems to have done something, as I was slightly more difficult to hit; though the effect was not as large as I had supposed. Also, keep in mind that my opponent had no skill at all with the weapon he was holding. I would therefore not expect to see much of a difference against a highly skilled opponent.

Second, I note that I was somehow dodging, blocking and counterattacking more effectively in the Before test (when I had no Defensive Acuity)than I was in the After test, when I was +56. It's not clear to me where this ability came from--while I have +10 Dodge from Pistoleer, that ability is only supposed to work with "dodge linked" weapons (i.e. pistols and one-handed melee weapons) and I had no block or counterattack abilities in any event.

When I was 0003 TKA I did have these skills, though. That said, my +56 Defensive Acuity netted me only 5 "special misses" out the the 125 shots that would have otherwise landed (120 which did and 5 that were dodged.blocked or countered). That is not very impressive. Defensive Acuity seems largely ineffective in this test.

(2) FLAME THROWER RANGED TEST

BEFORE: Total shots fired: 345

Number of hits: 141

Hit %: 40.09%

Number of special misses: 0

AFTER: Total shots fired: 336

Number of hits: 115

Hit %: 34.23%

Number of special misses: 0

Again, I first note that there was an approximately 6% drop in the hit percentage against my (non-proficient) pistol wielding attacker. Also, as I would have expected, there is not a dodge, a block nor a counterattack in sight in either test, as there are no skills which allow for such things while holding a Special Heavy Weapon.

(3) ONE-HANDED SWORD RANGED TEST

BEFORE: Total shots fired: 325

Number of hits: 131

Hit %: 40.31%

Number of special misses: 29 (all dodges)

AFTER:Total Shots fired: 339

Number of hits 99

Hit %: 29.20%

Number of special misses: 10 (all dodges)

Here , I was very surprised by the low Hit % in the "After" test. My attacker was still not proficient with the weapon and I was not proficient with the sword, yest it came out best of all the ranged tests. I was so surprised, in fact, that we reran the test, getting comparable numbers (334 shots, 96 hits and 14 dodges).

Assuming Dodge is functioning as it's billed in its description, each dodge should count as a hit, for purposes of the base hit/miss calculation (which is not done in the "Hit %" statabove). Even accounting for this though, it seems I was hardest to hit while wielding the sword.

The big news here is that between the time of the Before test (last Monday) and the After test (yesterday) something seems to have reduced the effectiveness of Dodge considerably. This is also consistent with the reduction I saw in my Unarmed test, above (though since I cannot explain why I was dodging at all in the Unarmed Before test, I'm not sure what the significance of that is). It could all be a statistical fluke, it could be a nerf that I am unaware of from the patch notes, it could be a bug. I don't know.

It did confirm that "Dodge", earned in the pistoleer tree, was working with one-handed swords. This confirms that the devs have not yet eliminated the ability to carry the Dodge bonus between Fencer and Pistoleer, albeit possibly with a reduced effectiveness.

KNOCKDOWN TESTS: Standing at 5 meters, my Master TKA friend would pummel me, bare-fisted, with Knockdown1 every 35-60 seconds. Each test consisted of only 100 blows, as it is far more time consuming to conduct Knockdown tests due to the KD timer. The tests otherwise followed the format of the raged tests, with the addition of a fourth test, with me holding a pistol. There were no "After tests" here, because there was no increase in my Knockdown defense to bother testing. All these tests took place with mt Before stats in place, but there were a few interesting anomalies.

(1) UNARMED KNOCKDOWN TEST

Total punches: 100

Number of hits: 100

Number of Knockdowns: 87

Number of Special Misses: 0

Median damage per hit: 159

Here, my magical ability to dodge, block and counterattack was non-existent and the attacker never missed--and before you say "of course he never missed, he's a Master KA," see test 2 below). I notethat here (and in the other tests below) my +5 Defense v. Knockdown did not translate into a 95% effectiveness of KD1, which suggests that there may be some innate failure rate on the Knockdown on which my Defense v. Knockdown merely builds.

As for "Median damage per hit"...we noted it only because it was so much lower in this test than it was in the other Knockdown tests. Since these were "Before" tests functionally, I had no Melee Damage Mitigationto effect this, yet the difference was very clear. So why is the damage here so (relatively) low? I have no idea.

(2) FLAME THROWER KNOCKDOWN TEST

Total punches: 100

Number of hits: 94 (6 misses)

Number of knockdowns: 66

Number of special misses: 0

Median Damage per hit: 199

This raises two questions: (A) Where did those 6 misses come from? None of the other Knockdown tests showed any misses at all. (B) Why were the number of failed KDs so high when the flamer was equipped? Again. none of the other tests showed any such thing.

Somehow, my +5 Defense v. Knockdown was doing a lot of work in this test.

(3) ONE-HANDED SWORD KNOCKDOWN TEST

Total punches: 100

Number of hots: 100

Number of Knockdowns: 93

Number of special misses: 0

Median Damage per hit: 199

Again, I was not proficient with this weapon. This test is only interesting as a comparison. The Median Damage was high, relative to the Unarmed test, the number of knockdowns was high relative to the Flamer tests, and there were no misses this time. Also, my ability to dodge (+10) seems to have done nothing.

(4) PISTOL KNOCKDOWN TEST

Total punches: 100

Number of hits: 100

Number of Knockdowns: 86

Number of special misses: 0

Median Damage per hit: 200

This time I was at least proficient with the weapon, though that did not help my Dodge percentage at all. In fact, the numbers were, as expected, cery similar to the one-handed sword.