My goal is face-tanking and dishing out AoE, so far I’m having fun with a sword 'n board Commando emphasizing burn damage with BWC. I just want to know if I’m missing out on any other commando opportunities that would maybe do better with those goals in mind.
Commando is the tankiest version of the BWC set. The Sorcerer and Pyromancer versions deal more damage but are less tanky.
My favorite is the Sorcerer version because of trasmuted Callidor Tempest (huge burn source), Elemental Balance for some high crit and burn damage, Mirror of Ereoctes and Maiven sphere for defense and Reckless Power for more burn damage and duration.
But all three function very well and i’d say the Commando version with shield is the best for Crucible.
bwc mando better than bwc sorc for cruci?! You sir are a mad man 
The other options available are fire strike and fire forcewave. Not too many people are a fan of the latter option though it is a lot better than it used to be and fire strike option is definitely good. Good for both campaign and crucible. If you have a warpfire and the elemental balance rings you can do some damn fine damage
Given that the Crucible pretty much steers towards tankyness and BWC Commando is the tankiest version of this build, i just assume it’s the most safe to farm Crucible.
Not to say BWC Sorcerer can’t because it can, quite easily.
not so sure about commando being tankier, just a matter of hp and DA basicly, unless as you said you take a shield,but kill times are way slower this way, so youll have to deal with more incoming damages, from more enemies while sorcerer have nulification, mirror and maiven with faster kill times (and also can pick devastation btw)
going full dps aint the best option obviously, especially if aiming at crucible but the faster you kill,the less issues you have, dont forget that.
but commando is sure a good option, nodoubt, at the end its also a matter of taste and personal goals, and about that i prefer bwc with occultist using that whole synergie with chaos, not loosing so much in fire compared to arcanist while having CoF as extra debuff.
At a glance it can seem that way, but it’s actually pretty damn impossible to die on sorcerer if you play well. With CDR stacking you have either blast shield or mirror up constantly on top of maiven’s max as well as high uptime on behemoth/tree depending on which you go with. You also kill quite a bit faster which counts for something 
2nd this, with no buffs/banners doing gladi crucible my BWC/devastation sorc achieved better results than BWC commando.
I made a BWC Commando with not-quite BiS gear (primarily Warpfire and 3/4 Infernal Knight set) and it is far and away my tankiest, highest DPS character.
Kills faster than my DW jajaja Sabo, tanks better than my S&B Phys Witchblade… the BWC Commando is a goddamn juggernaut.
And if I’m hearing in this thread a BWC Sorc can survive and kill even better than that?? Sold!
I really need to get to fine tuning mine. I did build the Sorcerer 100% Offensive (sitting at 7.2k with all Devotion towards Offensive I have as much Devo Proc as I have active skill).
To show how damaging it can be…Come facing Anasteria drop everything and start spamming…Life start to move down Pop Nullification to remove debuff keep spamming (some Devotion help me life steal) life start to go back down pop Mirror. End of fight. And that is at Nemesis level.
Spam Fabius until he pop his Blade Barrier. Move a bit away let him jump back to me drink a potion spam him pop mirror. End of Fight.
Still in Crucible it clearly doesn’t cut it but 3k + OA with the amount of damage source that character got is really insane. Just need to rework some Devotion and maybe change one green piece.