A SMALL buff the commando could use

A buff to his attack speed say, HALF of what a syringe would give you, would go a long way to making him feel like the fast shooting character he SHOULD be, I know you want syringes anyway on the commando but it feels that early on that you NEED at least 1 to feel like he is doing anything.

 

I feel like this is the key phrase. The commando has gotten the short end of the nerf bat for a few updates, this or some other buff would help him feel rounded out a little more I think.

 

I ain't gunna lie, the commando has been a lot harder to play as recently. It's been a real pain that as of late you either need to be lucky with your items, or play as miner/HAN-D. It's a struggle to get past sky meadow without being really lucky with your items. Damp caverns is manageable though. Either way, the commando does need a buff, whether its attack speed or something else.

 

But dose he really? I think having the commando nerfed a bit isn't a bad (Not saying he needs nerfing now, just saying that he's been nerfed) as most people saw him as a easy character to play, the Miner and HAN-D are both melee characters, the commando is already at a huge advantage over these guys for the fact that he doesn't need to rub his face against the bad guys in order to deal most of his damage.
Personally I don't think he needs a buff, but that is just me

 

I will also agree that Commando feels pretty weak in the latest version (0.30.3.1 as I write) but would reserve judgement until I've played around more on whether or not he NEEDS a buff. All I know is that now that Elite monsters are only half affected by knockback/stun it is very hard to manage a large group of enemies. It's definitely a good change overall, though!

 

Well I've been playing nothing BUT hardcore since my 330+ game and what I've seen so far since I play pretty much Commando ONLY since I love his gameplay is that his: A- his damage is pathetic compared to everyone else ESPECIALLY the bandit*shot for shot* B-he is so reliant on syringes it becomes an insane hassle when you don't find ANY because you don't do any kind of knockback on anything except the lizards in the first stage and maybe the childs.

I love the commando but as I keep playing him he is just a PITA to play, now I love that its hard, but its hard because he doesn't really do ANYTHING, my gameplays EVERYTIME, whether I have good items or not, even on a time I made it nearly 70 minuts on hardcore all you end up doing is running and using FMJ since it will knock things back and deal good damage to everything, but that's all you CAN do really, if you stop for even a second you get 3-4 quick type mobs teleporting to you and ripping your face off unless you roll.

 

I'm with Vahnkijoy. I think commando is still fine. He does almost universally end up becoming FMJ spam but it is enjoyable to jump around and fire off beams of doom.

 

I think he needs a damage buff, personally. After a few aggravating fails as Commando, I switched to Bandit and found that even at level 1 I was chunking enemies and bosses. Commando can't do that even when he's ahead of the game.

I would prefer a +AttackDmg buff over an +AttackSpd one though if only because Attack Speed is what determines how frequently you proc items. Maybe that's what you want, though?

 

Unless you manage to find the right items, Commando's gameplay can turn into Run Away, FMJ, Run Away, FMJ, etc. I'd like to see what would happen if Suppressive Fire was given a tiny AoE. Like, tiny enough that it only hits enemies stacked behind the enemy you're hitting. And it wouldn't do any damage. It would be just for the purpose of crowd control, spreading the stun effect to additional enemies. One of SF's weaknesses is that when there are a decent number of enemies, it can't stun enough of them to prevent you from getting overrun and possibly killed while you're locked in place firing. And most of the game involves fighting those kinds of numbers.

 

How about having it ignore monsters that are already stunned?

 

When you're being followed by a bunch of enemies that are mostly stacked on each other, as is common during teleporter events, it already effectively ignores stunned enemies. Because when an enemy gets stunned, it stops moving and other enemies overtake it nearly instantly. Plus the stun has a short duration as it is, so I'm not sure that would offer a large amount of benefit.

Also to consider is how that change would affect other things, like fighting single monsters. Would the single monster become stunned with the first hit and have most of the rest of the shots pass through it and be wasted? I guess it could be coded to check if there are any enemies behind that enemy when deciding if the shot should pass through, but that seems awfully complicated in comparison to just adding a tiny AoE.

 

People seem to forget that it already DOES have a knockback, it just isn't all that noticeable unless used on 1 or 2 enemies, case in point it pushes crabs back, now unless we are talking about making that knockback MUCH BETTER, I could possibly get all behind that, especially since if when you use SF and it shoots BOTH directions not only do you lose shots in the direction you actually wanted you stun/knock back less enemies because of it.

 

Maybe a nitpick, but I don't think Suppressive Fire itself has knockback. SF has stun, and knocking enemies back is a function of stun. So improving SF's knockback would entail improving knockback from hitting stunned enemies, which would affect Concussion Grenades and other attacks. We could give SF knockback and make it better than the knockback from stun, I guess. But improving knockback still won't stop you from getting overrun when using SF during the teleporter event. It just doesn't hit enough enemies at once, which is what the AoE suggestion was looking to improve.

Right now, you can only use suppressive fire against a sizable group of enemies when you have a significant amount of room between you and them because you can't move while firing. If the enemies are on a small to medium ledge and you jump down and use suppressive fire, the enemies will reach you and begin taking chunks of your life off while you're in the middle of suppressive fire, especially if you have teleporting enemies around. With a tiny AoE, SF would suddenly become usable in close combat against groups because you'd be stunning and knocking back more than one enemy per shot. As a proof of concept, SF becomes amazing against large groups of enemies at any range if you happen to find a Brilliant Behemoth. The AoE I'm suggesting would be like a miniature Brilliant Behemoth effect built in, except the AoE does no extra damage and is much smaller. It would become a wonderful defensive ability, like you'd expect "Suppressive Fire" to be.

 

So much this.