:(I thought I had a pretty decent build TBH. I was at level 41 and had 3000 armor and was not having any problems. I'm specced DPS. Dorne was healing me and I was laying the hurt on the bad guys and it had been that way since Taris. No issues. Then I hit the end of chapter 2.

So I guess my question is whether commando is supposed to be squishy if there's not a healer around. Running DPS with another DPS companion or a tank companion sucks hard. I feel like if I don't have a healer there's no room for error in a fight. If I don't manage everything perfectly (take out the weaker enemies first, stun the higher level ones, use interrupts on the strong attacks, not the weak ones, use a medpack at the right time if appropriate, watch my companions health and heal them appropriately, use high damage/high ammo attacks at every single chance, etc....) I'll get wiped is what I feel like. With a healer I feel like that's not the case and I can take a more rounded approach. Yes, somethings you still want to do (like stunning the strong enemy and then taking out the adds), but if I screw up and accidentally stun a weak enemy instead of the strong one he's protecting I'm not guaranteeing a wipe.

I'm told by some that I should've gone Vanguard for DPS because they're not as squishy. Is that the case? Or am I playing wrong?

What level is the quest recommended for?

I can tell you for sure that you don't need to change your spec, or use a healer. I played the entire campaign as dps with 4X as my companion and it was fine, and that was before we even had an interrupt.

Are you using your mez to start the harder encounters? concussive round I think, it's puts a guy to sleep for 60 seconds. Also make sure you or your companion does not wake him up, I turned off all aoe abilities on 4X.

Kill the weakest targets first, remember that sticky grenade and full auto both will stun a weak target. I usually throw the sticky at one guy and full auto another so they cannot do damage to me during that time.

Use your knockback on melee enemies, every bit of time they spend not damaging you is going to help.

Keep in mind your heroic moment ability resets the cooldown on cryo grenade as well as heals you over time.

Use your shield and adrenaline rush, they make a big difference.

I usually start my attack thusly.

Scout out the mob. Find the one who hits the hardest (strong or elite usually) and stun that guy w/the 60 second stun.

Single out the weakest enemies and open a can on them. Full Auto and mortar shells all the way. Work up to the next weakest. Hit them with grav rounds, full auto, charged bolt, etc... mixing in the odd hammer shot 'til no one is standing except the stunned strong/elite guy. I've found through painful experience that using a mortar shell anywhere close to the stunned guy will wake him up.

Open up on him w/a mortar volley. If he's an elite I'll usually fire up my shield first. Hit him w/interrupts when he tries to pull off his strongest attacks. Him him with a rotation of grav rounds, charged bolts, mortar shells and full auto.

This doesn't work when I don't have a healer though as I usually draw way, way, way too much aggro. Then I die.

The mission in question was a level 41 mission and I was level 41 while running it.

I usually start my attack thusly.

 

Scout out the mob. Find the one who hits the hardest (strong or elite usually) and stun that guy w/the 60 second stun.

 

Single out the weakest enemies and open a can on them. Full Auto and mortar shells all the way. Work up to the next weakest. Hit them with grav rounds, full auto, charged bolt, etc... mixing in the odd hammer shot 'til no one is standing except the stunned strong/elite guy. I've found through painful experience that using a mortar shell anywhere close to the stunned guy will wake him up.

 

Open up on him w/a mortar volley. If he's an elite I'll usually fire up my shield first. Hit him w/interrupts when he tries to pull off his strongest attacks. Him him with a rotation of grav rounds, charged bolts, mortar shells and full auto.

 

This doesn't work when I don't have a healer though as I usually draw way, way, way too much aggro. Then I die.

 

The mission in question was a level 41 mission and I was level 41 while running it.

If you're drawing too much aggro, then pop diversion. This ability is key in pve as a healer or in your case, dps drawing too much aggro from mobs. You should know what diversion does but I'll tell you what it is anyway. Diversion has a 45 second cooldown and when you use it, it reduces your threat towards all current enemies. So if you start pulling too much aggro, just pop this and the npc will more than likely start attacking your comp. Pop a heal or two on your comp then restart your rotation. Also, if I remember correctly, Yuun and VIk have taunts so keep their quickbar open and select their taunts when needed.

If you're drawing too much aggro, then pop diversion. This ability is key in pve as a healer or in your case, dps drawing too much aggro from mobs. You should know what diversion does but I'll tell you what it is anyway. Diversion has a 45 second cooldown and when you use it, it reduces your threat towards all current enemies. So if you start pulling too much aggro, just pop this and the npc will more than likely start attacking your comp. Pop a heal or two on your comp then restart your rotation. Also, if I remember correctly, Yuun and VIk have taunts so keep their quickbar open and select their taunts when needed.

When I play in groups I don't have the problem drawing too much aggro. When I play with a healer it's fine. It's what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to draw aggro and the healer keeps me alive. When I play with a non-healer toon it's a problem as my companions are at one extreme or another. Vik draws aggro from everyone. And then gets squashed. So I have to heal him which is completely different than how I am used to playing. Yuun draws no aggro at all so I take a huge butt kicking and he takes no damage. I feel like I have to alter my play style completely and even then I feel like a take a whole lot more damage than I should.

I had a hard time with TV and Yuun and my deal was because I never used them and they were equipped with crap gear. I know you said you crafted them gear but I did too and their gear still sucked.

Clearly I'm doing something wrong then. I shouldn't have to heal from 25% health every single mob fight. I should be able to move on to the next mob without having to pause to heal.

that is not true at all. you didn't have so much downtime before because you were using a healer companion.

Clearly I'm doing something wrong then. I shouldn't have to heal from 25% health every single mob fight. I should be able to move on to the next mob without having to pause to heal.

Heals are part of your skills, you should be using them. You should be CCing the toughest mob and killing mobs from easiest to toughest to mitigate a large portion of damage you are taking. With the large number of abilities that CC as well as kill you should not be having to much issue.

Do you have any lvl 50 characters? The first playthrough can be a bit more brutal than some people remember, as you don't have any of the legacy presence bonuses yet (which make a surprising difference).

Regardless, another trick to try is LOS pulls. Concussive round on the strongest, line of sight the rest of the group round a corner, and open up some AOE (plasma grenade and mortar volley) to take them down quickly.

I had a alot of trouble doing quests as Assault Specialist, Gunnery is much easier agaisnt mobs

The opposite can be said for pvp, no one should EVER go pvp as gunnery

Clearly I'm doing something wrong then. I shouldn't have to heal from 25% health every single mob fight. I should be able to move on to the next mob without having to pause to heal.

i have done that as both the commando healer and vanguard tank and i have found it was harder on my vanguard. as a commando u have healing skills for a reason and u don't need to solely dps every harder fight u get into. but to anwser the main topic yes commando are not ment to be tanks in any stance or tree specing but they are not the squishest class, thats scoundrels.... they are ever so squishy.

:(I thought I had a pretty decent build TBH. I was at level 41 and had 3000 armor and was not having any problems. I'm specced DPS.

Gunnery Sgt. Shorzen is really tough at level and over level. He has a lot of DOT damage, that makes him tough to heal Tanno through. You have to time your interrupts really well and even then, when he's over your level it's a huge sink of your own ammo to keep the healing up.

I beat him by levelling up and coming back. When you are +1 level to him, he's much much easier.

On the bright side, it was this fight and this chapter that prompted me to switch my primary companion to Tanno Vik permanently. He's a good tank. And with the right gear, and the right management, I think he's a lot easier to tank for me than Forex was. (At the most basic level, Tanno's much easier to gear up than the droid since I'm biochem).

This chapter got me to switch my playstyle accordingly to healer for my tank companion on tougher fights. And I started to use the CC abilities so much more than before. If it's just three weak enemies, I'll go into my DPS mode and mortal shell and full auto and all that. But if it's a gold or a strong, I'll be healing the tank, and mixing in some efficient DPS type shots into the heal rotation. That's how I did the last 10 levels.

So thanks to Gunnery Sgt. Shorzen of the Imperial military for teaching me how to adapt to being a combat medic.

Heh.

I remember this mission, it is one of the hardest ones in the quest line for trooper. I was bang on the lvl for it when i did it and didnt gear up yunn and vik so they where both in the gear they come with, so i think no implants in one case or even both. A few good tricks are.

As has been said always use your 60s stun on strongest mob

Then kill in order of strength, these two are very well know and used by most

Also with vik you should be in control of his taunts so you can "bounce" aggro" between you, if the elite mob is running hes not dpsing. Do this by attacking hard then using viks taunt to take aggro off you, this is not so amazing vs range units if so use LOS.

This can also be done with Yuun, to do this you can no longer use the taunt so now you have to use your threat reducing ability in order to create the bouncing aggro effect.

And finally more mission specific last boss does lots of dots if i remember right(this was 4 month ago mind you) so use your cleanse on vik and yourself even if your not healing.

Finally to answer topic, yes we are quite squishy, but your just in shock because your use to a healer comp we are still dps and all dps take dmg hard when attacked. The reason when you use dps and tank comps you take so much dmg is because you clear the mobs so much faster this speed of killing is evened out when you have to rest between fights. Personally i use healer comp for all my chars unless my char is a healer then i use dps comp.

Hope this helps (and finally first post on forums )

HUH what are u talking about???? your post makes no sense. Your complaining cuz u had a hard boss fight that u wiped only twice on. Ok this is a mmo and u should feel lucky to be able to do so much without a group. If u want easy why dont u go play wizard 101 or hey how about trying a sent they are easy to play pve and pvp with.

*** is this bull, people wanting everything without putting in any effort. Thats whats wrong with gaming today and mmo's and why the worlds economy is so effed up. U R not entitled to feel like a god smashing everything in game with no effort, this game is not for 5 year olds........END RANT

Edit: Commandos are not easy to play pve or pvp but if u have some skill, have a good rotation and learn the class they can be awesome. I soloed every thing in pve, every boss fight and wiped maybe twice on each chapter boss and was able to do all 2 man heroics and some 4 man alone. PVP was rough at first but now im either top or atleast top 3 in dps in wz's and yes im gunnery and no i dont care if u think gunnery suxs in pvp cuz i can take on almost anything 1on1. Also i'm not even close to being the best at this class see this

I literally annihilated **** left and right with my gunnery Commando in PvE with rather well geared Elara watching my back.

Forex if well geared is also an excellent backup, and funny also, that crazy robot is rather cool.

Also i'm not even close to being the best at this class see this

and their are plenty of others way better then me i only broke 600k twice others do it on a daily bases................

I find it hilarious that the maker of that vid states that he is no match for an equally geared and skilled melee in the comments.

Kind of throws your whole rant off.

Gunnery Sgt. Shorzen is really tough at level and over level. He has a lot of DOT damage, that makes him tough to heal Tanno through. You have to time your interrupts really well and even then, when he's over your level it's a huge sink of your own ammo to keep the healing up.

 

I beat him by levelling up and coming back. When you are +1 level to him, he's much much easier.

 

On the bright side, it was this fight and this chapter that prompted me to switch my primary companion to Tanno Vik permanently. He's a good tank. And with the right gear, and the right management, I think he's a lot easier to tank for me than Forex was. (At the most basic level, Tanno's much easier to gear up than the droid since I'm biochem).

 

This chapter got me to switch my playstyle accordingly to healer for my tank companion on tougher fights. And I started to use the CC abilities so much more than before. If it's just three weak enemies, I'll go into my DPS mode and mortal shell and full auto and all that. But if it's a gold or a strong, I'll be healing the tank, and mixing in some efficient DPS type shots into the heal rotation. That's how I did the last 10 levels.

 

So thanks to Gunnery Sgt. Shorzen of the Imperial military for teaching me how to adapt to being a combat medic.

 

Heh.

I beat him by getting out from in front of him and attacking on the side and healing myself and Vik. Both me and Vic were undergeared (Vik hadn't gotten new gear since I first got him and I had a few pieces of gear as far back from as Alderaan!) but I got Vik to last until a third of Shorzens health was gone, then I stunned him and ran, healed myself and foguht him, stunning and running until he died. It took me 2 tries before I figured this out and did it.

Also the Gunnery DPS build is stronger and has better defense than the healer. I have played both specs before and the Gunnery build has some more stuff aimed towards defense than the healing build has. I still had some healing abilities as a DPS so I was able to do both, I have even healed in 50 flashpoints despite having a DPS spec and everyone survived. So the healing spec is weaker than the DPS spec and that may be why it looks so weak, but at least its still effective if you are in flashpoints, heroics, or warzones or any multi-player stuff, I just don't reccomend healing build for solo PVE unless you have a very decently geared tank companion. I reccomend DPS for Solo PVE, I switch specs every time I go between different things and I handle out fine.

I find it hilarious that the maker of that vid states that he is no match for an equally geared and skilled melee in the comments.

 

Kind of throws your whole rant off.

if u would have looked i said almost not all

I'm going to have to start putting boilerplate 'please don't use as any kind of evidence for commandos being balanced in pvp' disclaimers on my videos.

But thanks for the link, even if it was a horribly old one. Arrgh, my ammo conservation was terrible back then. Check out the new ones! /shamelessselfpromotion

Also, buff commandos plzkthxbye.

if u would have looked i said almost not all

Post the videos of you in rated warzones taking on and winning against anyone 1v1. I can't wait to learn from you what I already know.

I've gone straight gunnery on this guy more or less. Should I re-spec assault specialist?

If you want to compete in RWZs, you're probably best off respeccing as heals. If not, do whatever floats your boat.