Commando
The commando generally serves as the eyes of the squad. His ability to see the specimens' health bars and detect cloaked enemies at range makes him effective at preventing foes from sneaking up on the team, especially in dark areas. By reading the specimens' health bars, the commando can gauge the best time for the team to coordinate its attacks on more dangerous targets.
The primary role of the commando is providing covering fire for the rest of their squad, and should typically focus on taking out the weaker foes: Stalkers, Crawlers, Clots, and Gorefasts. Although all perks can be effective at combating these specimens, the commando has large ammunition reserves for his assault rifles, and with his rapid fire rate, he can easily beat down large groups of weak specimens in quick succession. The commando specializes in using the bullpup, AK-47, M4, SCAR Mk 17 and FN FAL. The commando receives a damage bonus, larger magazine, and less recoil for these weapons, as well as a faster reloading speed for all weapons.
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[edit] Weapon Statistics
| Weapon | |||||||
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| Bullpup | Tommy Gun | M4 carbine | AK-47 | MKb42 | SCARMK17 | FNFAL ACOG | |
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| Cost range | £400–£120 | £900–£270 | £1000–£300 | £1000–£300 | £1100–£330 | £2500–£750 | £2750–£825 |
| Ammunition | 40  9
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30 9
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30 13
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30 9
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30 9
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20 14
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20 14
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| Damage | 26–39 | 40–60 | 35–52 | 45–67 | 45–67 | 65–97 | 65–97 |
| Magazine size | 40–50 | 30–37 | 30–37 | 30–37 | 30–37 | 20–25 | 20–25 |
[edit] Weapon Analysis
[edit] Assault Rifles
Bullpup
The Bullpup is the cheapest and most easily acquired assault rifle. It is a pretty basic weapon, lacking damage and accuracy compared to other Commando weapons, but having a very large magazine capacity and lower full-auto recoil by comparison. This makes a good "sidearm" weapon for killing weak specimens or unloading on bigger enemies.
Ak-47
A fairly powerful, if inaccurate, rifle. This is a pretty good mainstay for most Commandos until they can afford a battle rifle, or the Mkb. The AK-47 is a middle-of-the-road gun; doing less damage, but having a higher magazine capacity than a battle rifle, but more damage and equal or lower magazine capacity than the Bullpup or Tommy Gun. This gun lacks the holographic sight of the Bullpup, the red-dot sight of the M4/SCAR MK17, or the ACOG sight of the FN-FAL, forcing its user to rely on somewhat intrusive iron-sights.
Mkb42
The Mkb42 is identical in damage compared to the AK-47, but has higher accuracy and less full-auto recoil. The Mkb, like the AK-47, is also a middle-ground gun; doing less damage, but having a higher magazine capacity than a battle rifle, but more damage and equal or lower magazine capacity than the Bullpup or Tommy Gun. This gun lacks the holographic sight of the Bullpup, the red-dot sight of the M4/SCAR MK17, or the ACOG sight of the FN-FAL, forcing its user to rely on ineffective point iron-sights.
M4
The M4 features a very high rate of fire at the cost of higher recoil, and an Aimpoint scope, but the second-lowest damage of all Commando weapons. This weapon is generally used for commandos wanting a faster, but lower-damaging, weapon setup that carries a generous reserve of ammunition.
[edit] Sub-Machine Guns
Tommy Gun
The Tommy Gun can be placed between the M4 and AK-47/MKb42 in terms of damage and accuracy. It lacks the magazine and ammo capacity of the Bullpup, having the same magazine size of the AK-47, MKb, and the M4. The Tommy Gun is highly accurate and fast-firing, similar to the M4, but lacking a red-dot sight, and on the other side of the spectrum, it does less damage than the AK-47/MKb42.
[edit] Battle Rifles
SCAR MK17
The SCAR MK17 does more damage than any of the assault rifles, and is highly accurate, but suffers from a much smaller magazine size. It features a larger red-dot scope than the M4, improving its usefulness over distances. It also features a rate of fire slightly slower when compared to the M4, but faster than the AK-47.
FN FAL ACOG
The FN FAL does the same damage and has the same mag/ammo capacity as the SCAR MK17, but fires some 10% faster, comparing to the speed of the M4. It also features an ACOG scope, giving a longer zoom than any of the other weapons' sights or scopes.
[edit] Leveling tactics
Though these tactics make it easier to level up, the commando remains notoriously difficult to level.
- Killing Stalkers with an assault rifle counts towards leveling the commando perk regardless of the perk currently selected by the player, so carry an assault rifle whenever possible and use it when confronted by Stalkers. This also works toward the general damage requirement. The field medic, berserker and demolitions expert can all make good use of an assault rifle as a sidearm.
- Farm's open spaces allow the commando to run if things take a turn for the worse, making it ideal for a solo game. Higher difficulty levels and longer games yield more Stalkers.
- When holed up care to switch to single fire, crouch after taking position and use iron-sights when needed; they all help reducing your high recoil. Unless you're mowing down low threat specimens it's always best to headshot small groups with single fire shots.
[edit] Helping the commando
- Do not shoot Stalkers unless you are going to die; the commando will happily kill them for you.
- Support the commando against stronger targets such as Scrakes and Fleshpounds; assault rifles do not damage them much.
- The commando perk levels slowly; donate some money to help the commando buy a SCAR Mk 17 or FN FAL as soon as possible.
[edit] Tactics
- Despite having large ammunition reserves and an extensive list of abilities, Commando struggles when pitted against larger specimens. Even in fully automatic firing mode, his assault rifles output mediocre damage. In these situations, player should carefully monitor the specimen's health and coordinate with his team to strike effectively. Commando player should only attempt to finish off a wounded foe when he can certainly drop them before they can close in and attack him. Learning the behavior of the larger specimens especially helps the commando, and will give him good trigger discipline to ensure he/she does not unnecessarily cause a specimen to rage if it would otherwise deal little damage to the team. Commando should take proper cover when stronger targets such as Scrakes or Fleshpounds appear. Focusing on lesser specimens benefits the team more than enraging such targets, allowing the appropriate classes to take them down easier without being attacked by weaker specimens.
- Even when fully leveled, a Commando greatly suffers from reload times when cornered. Commando needs enclosed spaces to ensure his survival since, they're not capable of being mobile with perk related weapons. Commando's job is small threat elimination, to achieve that; player must ensure lowest recoil possible and reload when needed. Crouching helps cutting recoil by a rate of 15%, switching to single fire cuts another 15% with diminishing returns, and finally getting down on iron-sights cuts recoil by 50%, combining them all helps would cut the recoil by 78% total for a fully leveled Commando. Player should be careful when crouched since Commando's damage mitigation is limited to his/her kevlar, an unexpected attack from behind would cause Commando to die in a blink.
- An alternative option for Commando is to make use of his improved reload speed with offperk weapons. Commando can take a more powerful weapon like a grenade launcher type, or a back up pistol with Shotgun to supplement his assault rifle—preferably by means of a teammate's discount. Since these weapons pack a substantial punch even without a damage bonus, the faster reload can maintain a formidable DPS for the commando, greatly expanding his available options in the field.
- Commando can even take a Field Medic's MP7M medic gun or MP5M medic gun to help heal his team while suffering less from its long reloading time. The damage factor does however come into play against the larger specimens on later waves, and much like before the commando should coordinate with his team on the best forms of action to take.
- In later waves, Commando may use a crossbow, HSG-1 or M32 as a sidearm; these weapons benefit greatly from the commando's faster reloading. Taking a SCARMK17 together with a crossbow allows the commando to pick off lesser foes with the former and headshot medium ones with the latter. Pairing any assault rifle type with M32 really helps clearing enraged Fleshpounds and huge chunk of zeds in a blink when a ranged threat approaches without any big specimen near them. Getting MK23 with HSG-1 with a battle rifle ensures that you won't run out of ammo for a long time and can gain a small mobility while taking on the horde at open areas.
- If the player has a high-ranked Demolitions Expert, he could buy an M4-M203. He would have 2 assault rifles, but would also have a grenade launcher to make him more effective against large mobs or Fleshpounds at no additional weight then a standard M4. This, however, comes with the disadvantages of having only iron-sights, no damage or recoil bonuses on the M4-M203, and of being locked in full-auto only.
- An alternative to the above mentioned loadout, if the player has the appropriate DLC, is to buy the Tommy Gun, SCARMK17, and pair them with the M79. This loadout provides the advantage of having damage bonuses, selective fire, and a larger grenade pool over the M4-M203, but loses the ability to carry a medic gun or an additional pistol like MK23 as a backup.
- After the 2012 christmas patch a new unique neutral perk weapon added to the game, Zed eradication device is a powerful space-themed energy rifle that is perfect for supportive roles. Commando can carry it without sacrificing too much serious firepower. Its stasis field can disable and cause the specimen to incur double damage, once its stabled. It comes with a motion tracker radar that shows and quietly alarms the player about medium and big targets. It allows player to scan a 40 meter area in front of them and even locates Patriarch. With seeing the cloaked enemies ability that Commando possess, it could be an essential weapon to have for the final wave.
- If player does not spawn with an assault rifle as a Commando, they can search for a bullpup, or any other weapon at weapon spawn points throughout the map. If player cannot find a bullpup, he or she can at least sell any found weapons to go toward buying an assault rifle.
- Commando shines when the team holes up. The commando can handle groups of Crawlers and Stalkers with ease and pin down their spawn points. This lets Commando's teammates focus on larger targets—most perks (such as; Berserkers and Sharpshooters) appreciate this, so the commando should not be underestimated on any difficulty or map.
- The ability to spot cloaked foes and see enemy health bars makes the commando the ideal squad member for eliminating the faster and stealthier specimens, specifically the Stalker and Crawler. Stalkers can easily sneak up on distracted or inattentive players, and block or blind them with their scratch attacks. Crawlers tend to attack in swarms and can easily surround a player, especially in darker maps. These smaller foes create big problems for the other squad members by interfering while they focus on the more dangerous specimens like the Fleshpound, Scrake, Husk and Siren. The commando should therefore focus their attention on killing the enemies around larger specimens rather than the large specimens themselves.
- On the final wave, the commando can see the Patriarch when cloaked and gauge his current health. He should communicate with his team when the Patriarch cloaks to hunt him down and prevent him from healing.
- The commando can take on the horde even in the darkest places and can effectively pave the way to new safe spots.
- As a level 5 or six, up to normal or hard difficulty, a full magazine in the body from a SCAR or FN-FAL will make a Scrake rage, and a full magazine of Bullpup rounds to the upper torso and head can finish them off even in a full server. This will consume most or all of your ammunition in your magazine however, so a lengthy reload process is necessary before repeating, and failure to finish the specimen will certainly hurt or kill you. At Hell on Earth difficulty Commando still can pack a punch by getting 2 battle rifles together, that'll be costly and requires alot of trigger discipline with a dedicated team. Scrake can be enraged with around 14 headshots from SCAR then going full auto on Scrake's head with FN FAL will kill it in a blink. If you fail to aim for the head Scrake most likely hew through the helpless player.
[edit] Perk Ladder
| Rank | Requirements | Assault rifles | Reload speed | Spawn equipment |
Detection | Zed-time Extensions | |||||
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| Damage* | Stalkers* | Damage | Recoil | Capacity | Discount | Cloak | Health | ||||
| — | — | — | +5% | −5% | — | 10% | +5% | — | 4 m | — | — |
| ★ | 25 000 | 30 | +10% | −10% | +10% | 20% | +10% | 8 m | 4 m | ||
| ★★ | 100 000 | 100 | +20% | −15% | +20% | 30% | +15% | 10 m | 7 m | ||
| ★★★ | 500 000 | 350 | +30% | −20% | +25% | 40% | +20% | 12 m | 10 m | 1 | |
| ★★★★ | 1 500 000 | 1 200 | +40% | −30% | 50% | +25% | 14 m | 13 m | 2 | ||
| ★★★★★ | 3 500 000 | 2 400 | +50% | 60% | +30% | Bullpup | 16 m | 16 m | 3 | ||
| ☆ | 5 500 000 | 3 600 | −40% | 70% | +35% | AK-47 | 4 | ||||
| *With perk weapons. | |||||||||||
| Equipment by perk | ||||||||||||||
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| Weapon damage table |
