Only builds which will work better as Commando are SharZul fire Forcewave and that’s debatable whether passive RR from OK/Inquisitor might provide better results. And Turrion BwC spam retal Commando by mister @John_Smith .
Any other fire/lightning build will work as Commando… but worse. Soldier is awful for support class, outside of shield or physical builds.
this was tested, and despite passive RR commando was better as it has very strong fire support like BWC, flat and %fire etc.
Good to know. Tho forcewave right now is still the worst soldier main skill imo. Not as bad as DEE but a little bump is still welcome.
surely. sth like decreasing the penalty on transmuter is welcomed.
and it’s actually OK on Commando with Justicar and Worldeater, other options are not so strong and lack support a bit (especially ele one).
In my opinion the main reason why Fire Forcewave works best as Commando is far more skill points.
+3 to Demo on Shar’zul and Justicar to begin with. 0 to other classes.
Oathkeeper’s Guardians’ position in the skill tree should be exchanged with Eye of Reckoning so that people can access the RR whitout investing 50 points in the mastery bar.
It’s annoying having to choose OK as secondary mastery and still spend so many points in it just for the guardians’ RR
And even if you want Temper, mostly time you just don’t have skill points to spare.
unfortunately, Commando is not that tanky as it seems as I sometimes struggle even on my FW one with like 30%phys res and 3+k of armor (seems like it doesn’t make sense to IM at all).
going for phys and/or lightning is also not too good to build around (as you can’t outplay sth like Warlord or Warder on their field).
also, Commando lacks some native cc-resists and energy regen for quite expensive skills, what Ceno’s GT perfectly shows.
(not saying about things like: playing with 1 fire RR is PITA, not having any racial damage is PITA etc)
This is the thing that I think Commando catches the most flak from.
There’s no denying that Commando is worse than other alternatives, but I strongly disagree with statements such as this:
Making a Commando variant of a Shieldbreaker/Warlord/Pyromancer is going to be offensively worse in most regards and that should be expected. However, it is leaps and bounds more defensive.
IM doesn’t super care about your Armor. Most of her damage is Bleed/IT which will bypass Armor anyways. Also, this:
My build has no energy problems whatsoever.
well, I actually see no reasons even in this tankiness as Soldier can give like … OA? DA? Armor absorb that doesn’t make much sense of most of caster builds? These stats are only a part of multiple defensive layers. And often these stats are overweighted by extra -%RR as it means faster kills - safer gameplay.
I like the Commando, but it’s really the lackluster.
He can grab Throne + Chariot easily though
% Armor, Armor Absorb, DA, % Damage Reduction, Elemental/Pierce/Bleeding Resists, Health.
Coupled with Demolitionist’s Fumble/Impaired Aim and Damage Absorb, that’s more than most mastery combos have available without items.
Edit: No Pierce res; thought Decorated Soldier provided that. But you do also get Freeze/Stun/Slow res from Soldier, too.
All these commando talks indicates we need another fire set. Justicar is good but focusses on OK and take everything too general.
Not saying, let’s make a fire forcewave set. No ofc, but a set focusses on soldier skills with some demo bonus should create some diversity and commando support.
4 pieced set, including chest, shoulder, amulet and head would be cooler, for example adding some flat elemental RR to warcry line as set bonus to increase creativity. Some physical resist, some X>Fire conversion to flame touched or global would be well maybe even Pierce? Two bird with one stone. Could be some support for fire saboteur aswell.
I’m sure other more experienced players have something to suggest in.
Slow resistance as well.
-25% target all damage reduction via War Cry as well. It’s easy to forget that the only other mastery that gets as much is Necromancer and with less AoE. War Cry on the other hand hits entire crowds at once and on your Commando has about a second of downtime.
Your Shieldbreaker build should never skip Temper since the Soulblade converts its physical damage to fire, but most of the time Temper is pretty much so-so. Giving it phys res would make Pyromancer broken af though. Maybe put some phys res on Rhowan’s Crown’s last node.
Also make EoR strike with a shield as well if it doesn’t do it already otherwise going for sword and board EoR is meh. Some mod for Guardians to get cold RR on items would be nice as well and more accessible lightning RR on them other than pyran set (useless for melee).
I would suggest changing conduit for aether ascension to cold and lightning RR to Guardians.
Considering the robust itemization around lightning EoR, plus the lightning retaliation gear being highly Oathkeeper-centric, it does seem a little odd that it can’t pick up any lightning RR itself other than Pyran set. Prevents some creative solutions with Warlord etc. and instead shoehorns you into using Inquisitor or Shaman.
There is the Mercy of Empyrion mace, which is better than nothing.
I have about 10 or so Lvl 100s but don’t play crucible and don’t have the deep theorycrafting experience of some here, though I do enjoy trying to optimise my builds to a degree.
Of all the Lvl 100 characters I have, I think that my conjurer (close to Maya’s build, but heading towards Ishtak rather than Mogdrogen devotion) is one of the most powerful and is also almost auto pilot. It’s got great survivability with physical resistance of 63% and pets that taunt, and Ishtak as well for an extra taunt. The DPS seems really high as well. I think what makes it especially strong is that I have the rend devotion from Huntress bound to my (2) briarthorns, which also have their damage modified by 65% from Zaria’s pendant along with a bloodsworn codex. The build could be even more powerful if it had better rings, and I’m sure others will see ways to improve it (it is still a work in progress) but here it is FWIW - https://www.grimtools.com/calc/r2BqB1KN
The defence seems quite good and the DPS is really high for how tanky the character is. I think that, perhaps, the 30% total damage modifier from Zaria’s pendant to both Briarthorn and Hellhound is a bit high.