[Eat Lead] +2 penetration to perk weapons

[flashn00b]

The unconditional damage bonus is a difficult thing to compete against, and the extra ammo doesn't really do much favours in terms of perk skill viability.

I have my personal doubts that my suggestion will change the meta all that much, but I'd like to think that this is something worth experimenting with so as to give something that resembles an actual choice for Level 20 perk skills.

Hollow Point Rounds: Increase perk weapon damage by 30% (no changes)
Eat Lead: Increase magazine capacity by 100%. Also enables penetration for perk weapons

The choices presented above could allow for the following: HPR to enable the Commando to generalize and have a better time in killing medium zeds, or further specialize in killing trash zeds, because a fully automatic weapon that can penetrate is a pretty big deal when you really need to clean house. I can see a penetration/extra mag size perk working if the Commando feels confident in his team's ability to fulfill their respective roles without having to overlap with them.

 

[Aze]

I'd rather make HPR part of the passives (or, well, +2% per level for a total of +50%) while swapping it for its reloadpassive along with some number tweaks (and do similar to other perks too like Firebug's first tier). So, you'd then have something like this:

Eat Lead -> +50% magsize.
Rapid Response (HPR-replacment) -> +30% reloadspeed bonus and +30% bashing speed.

 

[OnionBubs]

The unconditional damage bonus is a difficult thing to compete against, and the extra ammo doesn't really do much favours in terms of perk skill viability.

I have my personal doubts that my suggestion will change the meta all that much, but I'd like to think that this is something worth experimenting with so as to give something that resembles an actual choice for Level 20 perk skills.

Hollow Point Rounds: Increase perk weapon damage by 30% (no changes)
Eat Lead: Increase magazine capacity by 100%. Also enables penetration for perk weapons

The choices presented above could allow for the following: HPR to enable the Commando to generalize and have a better time in killing medium zeds, or further specialize in killing trash zeds, because a fully automatic weapon that can penetrate is a pretty big deal when you really need to clean house. I can see a penetration/extra mag size perk working if the Commando feels confident in his team's ability to fulfill their respective roles without having to overlap with them.

It's not just a damage bonus, it's both the value given and what that implies vs. the opportunity cost of not running it.

HPR's damage bonus is enough of a boost that it effectively drops shots-to-kill on all trash for most wave- and perk-appropriate weapons. It lets you kill gorefasts in 1 shot with the Varmint Rifle, kill Gorefiends in fewer shots, kill Stalkers with one bodyshot from the AK and beyond (rather than requiring headshots). On top of that, it's also part of the kit (RLLLR) that lets you solo Scrakes should the situation call for it.

Less ammo used for doing the same thing you should already be doing is a good thing, especially when blocking Zeds come into play. Basically, the better you get at the game, the more value it provides.

The problem with the Eat Lead suggestion is that Commando really doesn't have powerful enough weapons without that damage boost to warrant penetration. It's a similar issue to Gunslinger's Line 'em Up, but without Gunslinger's damage:
Lining up multiple Zed heads at once is nearly impossible on a regular basis, so in order to get use out of the skill, you'd basically be encouraged to bodyshot. Problem is, Commando's bodyshot damage is crap unless you're talking Crawlers, and sometimes Stalkers. This encourages spraying at enemies, which is bad form and wasteful on Commando.

On top of that, bullet damage is dropped for each enemy hit with penetration, meaning without the boost from Eat Lead you're basically doing less than SWAT's individual bullets in the event you hit multiple Zeds, so you might as well be tickling them. The main reason why it works on Support is because of the damage-per-shot and number of pellets acting as a base force multiplier for the penetration mechanics.

Honestly, I'm fine with leaving Eat Lead as the "meme/comfort" choice. Not every skill is going to be balanced in a vacuum or with other skills in consideration, and that's fine; someone will figure out the optimum and run with it. Which brings me to...

I'd rather make HPR part of the passives (or, well, +2% per level for a total of +50%) while swapping it for its reloadpassive along with some number tweaks (and do similar to other perks too like Firebug's first tier). So, you'd then have something like this:

Eat Lead -> +50% magsize.
Rapid Response (HPR-replacment) -> +30% reloadspeed bonus and +30% bashing speed.

My issue with this is that either way it's another blanket buff to a class that's already bordering on "too powerful" at base kit, and I'm not even counting the FAL in that statement.

 

[o2xVc3UuXp0NyBihrUnu]

Penetration is detrimental for a meta commando, as oftentimes it gets a double or even triple extension to the detriment of team's survivability. It happens quite often if one chooses to run with FAL in order to contribute to big zed takedowns, and he runs out of ammo for the primary weapon during ZT and has to switch to FAL to extend.

So I don't think it's a good idea that can stick.

 

[Aze]

My issue with this is that either way it's another blanket buff to a class that's already bordering on "too powerful" at base kit, and I'm not even counting the FAL in that statement.

Hmm...

On live, you can pick HPR. This nets you a total of +55% damage, along with having a 10% faster reload due to that passive.

With my suggestion, you could pick Rapid Response. For contrast, this nets you +50% damage from passives, and +30% faster reloads. Overall, faster reloads, but a tiny smudge less damage.

This is barely a buff, but it would solve the level 20 choice being more of an actualy choice than it is now.

 

[OnionBubs]

Penetration is detrimental for a meta commando, as oftentimes it gets a double or even triple extension to the detriment of team's survivability. It happens quite often if one chooses to run with FAL in order to contribute to big zed takedowns, and he runs out of ammo for the primary weapon during ZT and has to switch to FAL to extend.

So I don't think it's a good idea that can stick.

Yeah, this is another excellent point. I wasn't even thinking about the fact that the FAL does penetrate, but imagine if that also applied to basically anything the Commando had.

You'd be sacrificing extension potential for no real reason and you still wouldn't be as good at taking down larges, so...net loss.

On live, you can pick HPR. This nets you a total of +55% damage, along with having a 10% faster reload due to that passive.

With my suggestion, you could pick Rapid Response. For contrast, this nets you +50% damage from passives, and +30% faster reloads. Overall, faster reloads, but a tiny smudge less damage.

This is barely a buff, but it would solve the level 20 choice being more of an actualy choice than it is now.

I get that. What I'm saying is that, if I understand correctly, you'd be making it a "choice" by just acquiescing that Commando now gets a universal 50% base damage boost at level 25 and going from there (50% is basically the same as 55% for the sake of hitting breakpoints on all non-boss enemies). So let's extrapolate those two hypothetical options given the aforementioned permanent damage boost.

With Eat Lead: Giving a 50% mag size boost on top of the potential from the lv. 5 Hi Cap Mags skill (which is already the meta pick, keep in mind) is nuts when you consider that the perk already has that 50% damage boost. You're effectively hitting much harder than a SWAT with similar mag sizes and that's not even getting into the meme stuff like the Stoner. Hell, that could actually deal with Fleshpounds on some guns (not named the FAL) given enough room because you're not bottlenecked by reloads at that point (and keep in mind that reload cancelling for faster reloads is not that hard).

With Rapid Response: Probably not the ideal meta option because of the stuff mentioned above, but it's still an extra reload speed boost (compounded by reload cancelling, mind). The bash damage is absolutely worthless in the vast majority of situations since AFAIK there is nothing it would do that one can't already accomplish with Fallback + forward heavy knife swings; bashes are there to kill Clots and stuff that get in your face while reloading, or to save ammo in early waves. Maybe it might one-shot Gorefasts but IDK on the actual math for that. Keep in mind that, as of the time of writing, a Fallback-boosted forward-heavy knife slash can one-shot Rioters on Commando at level 25.

So my final point is that just giving the Commando the free damage boost for the sake of reworking the Lv. 20 skills is completely unnecessary, especially given how powerful a good Commando player already is (there aren't many, but they do exist) on Hell on Earth and Suicidal. This hypothetical change would effectively be a free buff to Commando, which has had its fair share of buffs over the years in the form of various mechanic changes (weapon upgrades) and busted weapons (the FAL). It really doesn't need any more.

Just think of HPR as the "skilled Commando" skill, and Eat Lead as the "comfort Commando" skill. It has its uses on a handful of very niche loadouts, but broadly speaking, HPR will provide more value as you get better at the game, which is fine.