Commando and SCAR

[moleculo]

Okay folks let's talk about the Commando again I know you love it :3

According to THE NUMBERS, Medic's assault rifle only does 17 % less damage per second than SCAR. Interestingly enough, it also does 20 % more damage per mag than the SCAR, so higher burst damages. Medic AR also has 30 rounds per mag as opposed to SCAR's 20, which makes it a way better trash killer. So I suppose you could say the rifles are about as powerful, but on top of that medic AR also has the invaluable 3 healing darts.

Mando's perks even the situation out, but at the same time medic gains insane buffs to team and personal survivability. If mando's job is to keep the trash away, medic with his AR can do almost the same with his AR while simultaneously carrying a whole team with his awesome abilities.

I'm not saying Medic is OP - he's pretty well balanced as far as I'm concerned and i wouldn't start balancing things out by nerfing him much. I'm not necessarily saying Mando is UP either like the Zerk currently kinda is, but I think his top-tier weapon, the SCAR, is lacking. Just look at Support: from the other shotguns he goes a huge jump up when he gets to the AA-12. It's his gamechanger and he would be kinda useless without it. Same for Medic: even though the medic shotgun is plenty powerful too, he gets a huge boost when he picks up the rifle. Now commando: he gets a bit more powerful rifle with less ammo per mag. Not that awesome.

So what to do? I say give Mando's top-tier rifle a noticeable buff. Less recoil, better mag size or some more damage. Or something similar. Maybe a bigger mag while buffing the sustained DPS slightly at the same time (currently SCAR's sustained DPS is about half of AA12 even with extended mags). That would make him significantly better against trash and husks than medic, and buff him a bit against scrakes and FPs. I think Mando deserves some love.

E: pls move to suggestions area if necessary, I wasn't thinking

 

[Vintage]

The SCAR isn't very good. It's outshined by the AK-12. The AK-12 is better at killing trash because of its much larger magazines, but it's also better at killing large zeds because when you put it in 3 round burst mode it's fire rate skyrockets and you can dump its much larger magazine faster then you can fire the SCAR's shorter one.

 

[smoothapples]

The SCAR feels so wobbly. I'm getting all dizzy when quick scoping with it.

 

[Shamoke]

The SCAR is great for killing sirens and husks, which is what a good commando should do for his team.

 

[Vintage]

The SCAR is great for killing sirens and husks, which is what a good commando should do for his team.

The AK-12 is better at killing Siren's and Husks. The three round burst mode let's you kill them faster than the Scar can kill them.

 

[CrashFu]

Well if you're specifically comparing the SCAR to the medic AR, you have to factor in Commando's access to skills that boost the weapon effectiveness. Medic has no such offensive benefits, other than weaponizing the darts.

Also you can use the SCAR in single-shot mode like a low-damage, high-capacity sharpshooter weapon, whereas the MedicAR is stuck in full-auto mode and even if you only spray off two or three shots at a time, you'll be lucky if more than one hits the head (crouching does help a lot with that recoil, however)

They're both good pieces of gear, though.

 

[JoelFig]

I'm not sure what numbers you are referring to so I have to take that DPS comparison with a grain of salt.

You made an interesting analogy regarding the support though. Apart from the obvious damage bonus the support has over a medic w/shotgun, what I think truly makes the difference is "handling." Support has bullet penetration that puts the medic shotty to shame. Likewise, if commando had his iconic recoil reduction I think he would clearly blow medic w/rifle out of the water in terms of clearing.

We can adjust numbers all day, but ultimately it's how the weapon handles in your perk's hands that differentiates each perk, I feel.

 

[Deafmute]

Well if you're specifically comparing the SCAR to the medic AR, you have to factor in Commando's access to skills that boost the weapon effectiveness. Medic has no such offensive benefits, other than weaponizing the darts.

Also you can use the SCAR in single-shot mode like a low-damage, high-capacity sharpshooter weapon, whereas the MedicAR is stuck in full-auto mode and even if you only spray off two or three shots at a time, you'll be lucky if more than one hits the head (crouching does help a lot with that recoil, however)

They're both good pieces of gear, though.

For once I agree with you.

I don't think Commando really needs a 'game-changer'. Unless a Scrake or FP has a sliver of health left and you need to save a teammate, you should be full-on ignoring them. When I'm playing with a trusted team I don't even look at the big zeds. If I do, a pack of Crawlers might slip by which means I'm not doing my job.

I think Commando weapons are totally fine as they are. The perk has never been about having one 'top tier' weapon that does LOADSADAMAGE like the AA-12. It's about having a handful of weapons that are all effective for different play styles (e.g. SCAR as a Sharpshootery gun, AK for lots of damage fast, bullpup for being the bullpup).

 

[moleculo]

I'm not sure what numbers you are referring to so I have to take that DPS comparison with a grain of salt.

Sorry about that, I forgot to add the link. It's there now, courtesy of the awesome dude who made it.

Well if you're specifically comparing the SCAR to the medic AR, you have to factor in Commando's access to skills that boost the weapon effectiveness. Medic has no such offensive benefits, other than weaponizing the darts.

Also you can use the SCAR in single-shot mode like a low-damage, high-capacity sharpshooter weapon, whereas the MedicAR is stuck in full-auto mode and even if you only spray off two or three shots at a time, you'll be lucky if more than one hits the head (crouching does help a lot with that recoil, however)

They're both good pieces of gear, though.

Mando's perks even the situation out, but at the same time medic gains insane buffs to team and personal survivability. If mando's job is to keep the trash away, medic with his AR can do almost the same with his AR while simultaneously carrying a whole team with his awesome abilities.

At the very least I'd expect commando's killer gun to have more ammo than medi-rifle after perk buffs. No harm trying different numbers out.

 

[Pavlov's Dog]

I wonder what level your commandos are at. I feel fine playing with the SCAR on a lv. 18 commando. If I pick the single shot damage boost perk and switch the SCAR to single shot, (on hard) I can one-shot crawlers, 2-shot clots, instakill gorefasts and all weaker zeds with a headshot, 3-shot headshot a siren or a husk. Depending on the number of players, I can usually drop a scrake on my own with two mags or less. The SCAR doesn't feel as punchy at lower levels of commando, but now that I've leveled up a bit it feels fine to me.

Also OP I'm curious on your math in the first paragraph. Are you using base weapon stats without perk buffs? Because perk buffs make all the difference and weapons are balanced with that in mind. There's no way a medic gun out-performs a SCAR unless you're using the SCAR off-perk, if then. And the medic assault weapon should be powerful. Medics get no damage buffs or any combat bonuses other than survivability (as they should). Having a powerful tier 4 gun for medics makes perfect sense to me since their offensive potential will never increase.

I dunno, maybe you guys are playing a higher difficulty or at a different perk level. But at hard the commando feels pretty good to me.

 

[moleculo]

I wonder what level your commandos are at. I feel fine playing with the SCAR on a lv. 18 commando. If I pick the single shot damage boost perk and switch the SCAR to single shot, (on hard) I can one-shot crawlers, 2-shot clots, instakill gorefasts and all weaker zeds with a headshot, 3-shot headshot a siren or a husk. Depending on the number of players, I can usually drop a scrake on my own with two mags or less. The SCAR doesn't feel as punchy at lower levels of commando, but now that I've leveled up a bit it feels fine to me.

Also OP I'm curious on your math in the first paragraph. Are you using base weapon stats without perk buffs? Because perk buffs make all the difference and weapons are balanced with that in mind. There's no way a medic gun out-performs a SCAR unless you're using the SCAR off-perk, if then. And the medic assault weapon should be powerful. Medics get no damage buffs or any combat bonuses other than survivability (as they should). Having a powerful tier 4 gun for medics makes perfect sense to me since their offensive potential will never increase.

I dunno, maybe you guys are playing a higher difficulty or at a different perk level. But at hard the commando feels pretty good to me.

Well I can assure you you won't be 2-shotting clots on HoE, without headshots that is ofc. A 6-man HoE scrake takes something like all your ammo resources to kill, idk, but a huge amount anyway.

I'm using the base stats, but like I said medic gets other useful skills while commando gets some extra damage. The base 25% damage increase most classes have isn't the biggest deal, and matters less for a perk whose main role is trash-killing.

 

[Rattler]

which is what a good commando should do for his team.

No, that's what a good SS should do for his team.

 

[Rocker Fox]

Pretty much what CrashFu and Deafmute said. It's not only the fact that the scar gets a 25% damage bonus from the perk itself but can get it up to 65% with the select fire perks.

I practice using full auto and tapping to simulate single shot on targets to get the full bonus from full auto. It also gets a fairly fast reload and fairly good accuracy when used properly. It doesn't do nearly as much dps as the AK-12 on burst when tapped repeatedly but it still hits fairly hard all the way up to HoE. It works for anything but FPs and Scrakes and for those you really should be leaving it to supports anyways, only using your scar to assist when things go wrong. The commando never was good against those 2 things in the first game either, even with the Scar and FN Fal combo which came in later on it was better just to leave it to the support, berserker, or sharpshooter.

Not to mention it's a god send against the boss. Solid damage, easy to control and a decent ammo pool on top of good accuracy at range makes it one of the better weapons to use against hans.

Edit: woops, it's actually 45% bonus but still, a fairly big number.

 

[Vin]

The AK-12 is better at killing Siren's and Husks. The three round burst mode let's you kill them faster than the Scar can kill them.

The AK-12 has some pretty horrible recoil. Sure, for the 3-round burst it is not a problem, but when you need to go full auto because the rest of your team is on an FP and there's trash coming from everywhere, I'd much rather have the SCAR on my hand that rips through trash faster because of it being much more controllable than the AK.

* * *

Other than that, to the OP, no, the Medic can't be a more efficient trash killer than the Commando. The Medic AR has more recoil than most Commando weapons so it needs to be fired in shorter bursts, doesn't have the damage increases of the Commando perk to his weapons, and the Medic just simply is NOT supposed to be clearing trash when everyone else is taking damage from a Scrake or a Fleshpound. And the whole role of every class becomes pretty clear when a large zed comes in. That is when you should be judging just how efficient each perk is at what it is supposed to do.

The Commando is the only perk that can, and must, be keeping trash away from the rest of the team while their focus is on something else. If you, as a Medic, are dedicated to killing trash while your teammates are taking damage from one of the large zeds, you are doing your job wrong. The Commando can look at every direction and kill whatever is approaching, but you as a Medic can only kill what already gets really close, and can't spare to look away to kill anything else. Simple as that. And as it is now, a Commando with a SCAR already manages to keep trash away pretty easily. There is no other focus the Commando should have. Buffing the SCAR when it already helps the Commando do what he's supposed to do perfectly fine will just make it too strong.

 

[outofrealman]

Unless the AK cannot oneshot crawlers while SCAR can or both SCAR and AK cannot one shot crawlers, I will always prefer larger mag. Just like in KF1 I prefer the AK over SCAR too.

They kill trash with almost the same number of shots, so larger mag is always better. But then they make AK reload slower....

 

[Kopikatsu]

I actually use the AK-12 and Medic Assault Rifle as the Commando. Works really well. Plus it lets me level two perks at once, and be of extra value to team.