SYNTHETIK – Commando Class Guide (Modules, Items, Weapons and Tactics)

More SYNTHETIK Guides:

• Guardian Class Guide (Modules, Items, Weapons and Tactics).
• Rogue Class Guide (Modules, Items, Weapons and Tactics).
• Specialist Class Guide (Modules, Items, Weapons and Tactics).

This guide will show all info about Commando class and subclasses in details.

Commando Class Overview

Introduction

If you want raw power, Commandos have what you want. Raider is a highly mobile jack-of-all-trades skirmisher with a healing knife; Heavy Gunner is a mobile armory, specialising in automatic weaponry: bringing down even the toughest of enemies with hails of lead.

Raider

• Core: Looter

Kills drop Dogtags which refresh shields based on pickup speed; Looting ant Pickups grant 1 stack of Looter, increasing firerate, burstfire-delay, and scavenging; Lasts 5 seconds & stacking.

• Core Item: Reverbing Blade

Unleashes a swift strike in close proximity, deals damage based on enemies’ missing health and increased damage while dashing. Finishers additionally heal.

• Starter Weapon: none

Overview

Highly mobile and versatile, Raider is best fit as a skirmisher, dashing in and out of battle, only going up close and personal with his blade when his enemies are weak. Additionally, finishers with the blade heals a small amount, aiding Raider with decent survivability. A well rounded, jack-of-all-trades class: not one you’d rely on for raw firepower (ask Heavy Gunner for that), nor extreme sustainability (Riotguard, Assassin) and it’s much easier to die from overextending with him than one might be inclined to believe. wip

Base Stats (All measured at 220% difficulty)

• Health: 1000
• Shield Max: 400
• Shield Regen: 120
• Movespeed: 424

Raider has standard health and shield regen, but higher shields and movespeed than standard. Has two dash charges that recharges one after another.

Talents

• Baseline: Dashing grants brief invulnerability and has 2 separate charges.
• Level 5: Decreases movement inaccuracy by 50%, Firing movement slowdown by 33%, and Weapon burstfire-delay by 20%.
• Level 10: Opening chests or using terminals grants a powerful critical strike chance and damage buff for a couple seconds; Finishing enemies with the commando blade resets its cooldown.
• Level 15: The commando blade has a 20% chance to crit for critical strike damage, instantly resetting the cooldown and granting a dogtag.
• Level 20: Finding 30 dogtags grants the Aircom item; finding 60 dogtags grants 1000 credits and 2 Upgrade Kits.

Unlocks overdrive slot.

• Level 25: Dogtags increase scavenging by 0.50% each, reduced effect after 50 dogtags; All weapons have a 15% chance to fire an additional shot.
• Prestige: Losing 3 Stacks of Core: Looter extends all positive buffs by 1 second.
• Class Challenge: All classes gain 3% movement speed. Doubled effect for party members in co-op.
• Insanity Challenge: Finding 111 dogtags grants a random ULTRA variant weapon.

Recommended Weapons

Raider receives no bonuses to any of the weapons, but one may conclude that he is one for shotguns and automatics. A few notable weapons are as follows:

• Tactical Observer: All rounder burst rifle that improves over time.
• R2000 ‘Sour’ DMR: Rather inaccurate for its class, but extra credits is good.
• Medic FMG-9: Health regen, enough said.
• SPAS-12: Synergises very well with hit and run playstyle that would suit Raider.
• Super 90: Powerful shotgun with limited ammo. 
• AMD 65: High recoil but good damage and comes with lifesteal.
• KI Vector: Suppressed SMG with good control. Withering fire rate means ammo won’t last.
• Heavy Flak Cannon: Devastating, accurate launcher with bonus 40 armor.
• RRX Coil Shotgun: Starts with low damage per shot but generous ammo capacity and has a chance to permanently increase damage upon firing.
• SCR Laser SOCOM: Decent burst fire laser rifle which improves itself after every floor. Weak individual damage and low ammo capacity/gain, however.
• Bren Anti-Air: All around incredible LMG that fires ricocheting splitting projectiles, deals bonus damage to bosses. 
• UMP-10 Tornado: High power burst fire fusion SMG, can increase your maximum shields as long as you keep it in your inventory and restores shielding on hit.
• AEK Special Elite: Decent assault rifle that comes with AP ammo and heals on Elite kills/confers an additional 5% crit chance.
• R5000 ‘Sudden’ DMR: All around performance with powerful AP ammo.
• Kaida Medic ACR-X: Increases hp regen when in inventory, average stats otherwise.
• Eminence AR: Fusion burst rifle that lowers items cooldown. Handy if you use your knife often.
• AN-94 Deathstalker: 2-round burst rifle that deals more damage and heals on double headshots. Requires a lot of precision to make good use of it.
• P9000 Supernova: Incredibly rapid firing laser SMG that upgrades itself after every floor. Fire rate slows down on prolonged firing and not particularly accurate, and weak damage may struggle against armored enemies.

General Tips

• The Reverbing Blade can heal upon finishers, but that requires you to get up close to the enemy which could be dangerous if you are low on health. Bring the Overdose along for a reliable source of first aid early game. Overdose scales badly though, don’t depend on it for too long, especially when you reach Stage 3.
• Blade needs some planning – first lure enemies into groups, damage them with guns so they are in about 30% hp left and then rush to finish them with a blade. Notice that successful finish recharges attack and allows for second weaker damage attack. If you miss it’s better to run away. That’s why having stun weapons/items is pretty useful. Also Blade usually requires 200% upgrade to be useful/fast recovery.
• Don’t forget that you have two dash charges. Also don’t forget that they don’t recharge independently.
• One great way to finish bosses quickly is to open an ammo crate to gain the crit/damage boost (level 10 talent), activate Stimpak and let it rip.
• Don’t forget about your dogtags! At level 20 and 25, collecting dogtags will give you many fantastic bonuses like a guaranteed Legendary item (the Aircom), weapons, credits and upgrade kits. Prestige also gives you a Common weapon after collecting 45 dogtags: doesn’t sound so good but a good Common drop will carry you to victory.
• You get stacks for 1 of two things. Either dashing or picking up a powerup, ammo, or a dogtag. If you are at 3 stacks and you don’t dash or pickup an item you will go to two stacks and then to one. You won’t lose them all at once. It’s pretty easy to get 2 drops to get to stacks and them use a dash and keep dashing to keep 3 stacks and therefore have 35 hp regen for a long time. Health drops also count for a stack. This also means that if you want to kill a boss, you should double dash to get the weapon damage.
• The 60 dogtags credits are affected by the currency stat, so it is best to get the 60th Dogtag while under the 3x credits powerup.

Heavy Gunner

• Core: Suppression

Bullet hits have a heat dependent chance of Suppressing enemies, reducing their accuracy and movement speed for a duration. Carry an additional weapon.

• Core Item: Onslaught System

Turns on the onslaught feed system, taking enemy from movement and vision systems. Grants strong ammo regeneration, highly reduced recoil, increased firerate and a chance to fire twice for a duration.

• Starter Weapon: LG-2 ‘Onslaught’

A fearsome LMG, has a spin up time before firing; firerate increases with heat. Takes a significantly longer time before overheating than other LMGs. Cannot pick up ammo, instead regenerates 10% of magazine capacity every 20 seconds when stored in inventory (not held). Slows down movement.

Overview

The one class specialised in lots of dakka. HG brings unprecedented firepower to the table, and can keep himself alive with his talents. Onslaught System allows for good degree of versatility, favouring automatics with high magazine capacity (usually LMGs.) However, he is as fast as a glacier; his innate sustain is weak and is very much dependent on your accuracy, all of which can prove to be fatal.

Base Stats (All measured at 220% difficulty)

• Health: 1000
• Shield Max: 350
• Shield Regen: 120
• Armor: 0 (+50 with level 5 talent)
• Critical Chance: 100 (+10 with level 5 talent)
• Movespeed:     360

• 266 with LG-2 active
• 238 with Onslaught System active
• 176 with also LG-2 active

At level 5 talent, HG has an additional 50 armor, 10% critical chance and weapon hits regain 3 health and 10 shield. LG-2 reduces movement speed by 26%. Onslaught System when activated reduces movespeed by 34%.

HG has standard health and shield regen, but lower shields and movespeed than standard. At level 5, he can gain 50 more armor, which adds greatly to survivability.

Talents

• Baseline: Dashing is slower but lasts longer and grants 30% dodge chance and movement accuracy; Start with the LG-2 ‘Onslaught’ machine gun – the Onslaught System item slowly prints new ammo for the LG-2 while in backpack.
• Level 5: The heavy gunner gear grants 50 armor, 10% critical strike chance and weapon hits regain 3 health and 10 shield; doubled when Onslaught System is running and while dashing but consumes a lot of energy at the cost of 25% longer item cooldowns.
• Level 10: All weapons have 25% reduced reload times, upgrade costs and you can choose from a larger attachment selection*; Starts with a Custom Upgrade Kit.
• *You can choose from 4 attachments instead of 3 when using an Upgrade Kit.
• Level 15: Unjamming grants a random powerup and reduces running item cooldowns by 10 seconds, jamming chance increased; Unjamming while Onslaught System is running increases its duration by 5 seconds.
• Level 20: All projectiles gain one bounce and deals 25 additional damage; Grants a 2% chance for a stumbling ultrashot, dealing 1 – 1500 bonus damage.

Unlocks overdrive slot.

• Level 25: Picking up ammo grants an ammo regeneration powerup, permanently increases Onslaught System power by 2% and supplies it with 5 missiles.
• Prestige: LG-2 gains double ammo regeneration effects.
• Class Challenge: All classes gain 5% movement accuracy. Doubled effect for party members in co-op.
• Insanity Challenge: Onslaught System gains a 20% chance to not consume missiles and fires the next one instantly.

Recommended Weapons

HG works best with automatic weapons and/or weapons with high magazine capacity, but otherwise can go with anything as he receives no bonuses to any weapons. Remember: it’s okay to pick weapons and items that go against your class specialisation. A few notable weapons are as follows:

• Medic FMG-9: Health regen is always good. Magazine is rather small for Onslaught System’s ammo regen to be particularly effective but would help with control.
• Bren Anti-Air: Unusually effective weapon but small magazine size (20 at base). Normally I’d recommend this weapon to go with every class.
• UMP-10 Tornado: Good burst fire fusion SMG that increases maximum shields and restores shielding per hit, good for increasing maximum effective HP but magazine size is a little small.
• Apollon 5 LMG: Fusion LMG with negative recoil, becoming increasingly accurate the longer you fire. Best pair this with Heat Sink, or else long bursts. 
• RPK-12 Tundra: Acid tipped LMG that confers +20 Scavenging when carried and fires acid rounds every 4th shot. Handles like an AR, average stats otherwise. 
• MAG47 Heavy MG: Slow firing LMG that can pierce enemies with its 8.8mm Kurz, confers +15 Damage Absorb for the first kil for 2 seconds and +1 for subsequent kills; duration can stack. Very high magazine capacity but very slow to vent heat; gains significant fire rate bonus when overheated but best not rely on that under fire. Slows down movement.
• Kaida Medic ACR-X: Confers +5 HP Regen when stowed. Average stats otherwise.
• Armageddon: Outrageous bullet hose that deals 2 damage to self for every shot (goes thru shield first before health) and reduces heat upon kills. Best fired in short bursts as it loses control very quickly. Fire rate fluctuates randomly, but generally high enough that you must pay attention to how fast you are burning through ammo. 

General Tips

• Like Riotguard, you are very slow at the beginning of the game, and using Onslaught will make you even slower. Find a Lightning Boots (preferably recycle it, its recycle bonus is keeping the movespeed bonus) or getting movespeed upgrades is crucial. By default you do gain a movespeed bonus in boss rooms to compensate, however.
• You may find it easy to lose yourself in the heat of the battle and forget about your health. Don’t expose yourself too much to danger, as your level 5 talent can’t heal you as fast as you might think.
• The starter LG-2 is much slower to overheat than all other weapons, so don’t be afraid to let it rip on some unfortunate cluster of enemies. Still, better to get yourself a Heat Sink to deal with overheating even if you aren’t planning on using other LMGs.
• Heavy gunner actually heavily bases on Weapon Jamming – allows to limit heat and upgrades weapon. Also to compensate the problem get ammo regeneration perk.
• Notice that standing still with Heavy Gunner is not an issue (except disco room or mortars). This effectively increases aiming. Just make sure to stand close to the cover so that you can dash behind it to recover in tough situations.
• Field rations change Heavy into a tank.

Commando Modules

Commando modules are mostly focused on utility, with few offensive/defensive options. Most are rather situational like Rogues’, but unlike the three other classes Commando modules have little to no synergy between each other, allowing you to more freely mix and match whatever combo you desire: jack-of-all-trades indeed. They also tend to fit other classes more than the Commandos themselves.

Stats in square brackets are affected by daily bonus power and Overdrive slots.

Weapon Drop

• A random common class weapon is sent to the proceeding teleporter after obtaining 50 kills. Higher module power decreases the requirement.

Common class weapons are still quite powerful in their own right, and RNG won’t always give you the weapon you want, or any weapon at all: pick this only when you want to make absolutely sure you have something to fight with, because otherwise this module pales compare to other stronger, more combat focused options. Raider can be given a common weapon upon collecting 45 dogtags with his Prestige talent, so once you prestiged Raider you should only take this on HG, unless if you want to double your chance to get the Common weapon you want.

Routine

• Active reload grants Routine, increasing armor penetration by [15] and movement speed by [2%]. Stacks 8 times – Failing loses all.

The strongest module of the Commando class, possibly one of the strongest modules: grants armor penetration for use against late game enemies and bosses, and bonus movement speed for general evasion. The perfect combat module, but one may struggle to maintain Routine stacks with Haste and Hardcore I turned on: when in doubt, allow the weapon to reload itself: it will take longer but non-active reloads does not reset Routine stacks, failed active reloads do. Even stronger on HG whose base movement speed is slower than baseline and has higher potential damage.

Charge

• Dashing [SHIFT] grants [25%] increased firerate for 1.5 seconds and damage immunity while dashing.
• Redundant on Raider whose dashing grants invulnerability while dashing, but necessary on HG: makes for a good initiation tactic by dashing and then opening fire on unsuspecting enemies with the increased fire rate.

Specialised Ammo

• Grants [1] selections of custom ammo types at first teleporter usage and passively increases critical damage by [25%].
• A strong utility module but quite dependent on RNG, can grant you new ammo types without having to get a specific weapon, and the extra crit damage is a nice bonus. Not a safe pick.

Drone Mod

• Allows your companion drone to fire. The drone has a range of [750] and a firerate of [30] shots per minute. Companion drone is only available when solo.
• A little bonus firepower but usually not worth taking. Raider may benefit from this early game.

Field Rations

• Health crates grant [75%] increased health and permanently increase healing by [5%]. Ammo crates grant double ammo.
• A little RNG dependent but as health/ammo chests are very common, can more or less reliably alleviate any ammo/health issues you may have. Renders Special Ammo Supply more or less redundant.
• Extremely useful on any class if found.

Press the Attack

• Active reload grants a brief surge of speed with [20%] dodge chance and [35%] increased accuracy while moving for 2 seconds.
• Strong offensive module with focus on mobile fighting, definitely one for Raider, but fairly short duration means you have to play aggressive to make best use of it. Would fit Guardians better, frankly.
• This works pretty well with Heavy Gunner and Onslaught + Overdrive.

On the Edge

• Grants [15%] increased critical strike chance below 35% health and [50] health regeneration over 85% health.
• Somewhat akin to Breacher’s talent, confers stronger firepower when you are low and quickly tops your health up when you are slightly damaged. Can go with both classes: more effective on HG who can’t self-heal as reliably as Raider who has both his knife and Core:Engage for self-sustain.

Pack A Punch

• The first found weapon is upgraded [3] times and also gains [10%] more weapon damage.
• Heavily RNG dependent, would be wasted if you ended up with a weapon that you disliked. Not recommended in most cases.

Hold Breath

• Standing still continuously stabilizes the stance, reducing weapon deviation and recoil by up to [135%] and increasing critical strike chance by up to [40%] – resets on shots fired.
• Raider strongly depends on his mobility so this one is best utilised by HG, and even then unlike Sniper with his protective modules and Smoke Grenade, standing still is usually not a good idea. If you have to, combine this with Hard Light Cover for best effect.
• Very specific use cases – like sniper guns, not worth it, unless if you play sniper and find this perk in upgrades.

Madness

• Increases credits gain by [15%] for each consecutive kill – combo diminishes after 5 seconds. Decreases accuracy by [10%].
• Can go with either classes: Raider can chain kill with his knife, whilst HG with his Onslaught can eradicate groups in short order. Accuracy decrease isn’t too significant: if you want to offset it, take Target Cogitator.

Scarred    
                 

• Increases existing life steal and health regeneration by [35%] as well as armor by [40] when shields are down.
• Definitely a module for HG who would find himself out of shields fairly often because of the low max shield, and can regain health with his level 5 talent for every shot (though much smaller health gain) rather than relying on the knife like Raider, but it could work on both classes just fine.

Take Cover

• Standing near intact destructible cover grants [30%] increased shield regen and [20%] increased accuracy. Increases maximum shields by 50.
• Combine with Hard Light Cover for best effect, grants more protection for using cover.. Not that you’d be using cover that often in the game. Better on HG.

Killer

• Headshots deal [15%] more damage and increases the chance of finding damage powerups by [75%].
• Simple offensive module, requires accuracy to make good use of it. Goes especially well on Rogues.

Drill

• Each consecutive hit grants one stack of Drill with [3%] increased firerate and [5%] reduced weapon deviation. Stacks 10 times. Misses halve the stacks.
• A curious module that would fit Rogues much more than Commandos, but there you have it. Better fit on Raider who has no specialisation in any weaponry.

Commando Items

Commando items are a nice balance between offence, defence and utility but some of them seems to belong on the wrong class. 

Overdose

• Deals minimal damage then heals team members by a large amount after a delay. Uses no charges and reduces cooldown on kills and vial pickup.
• Decent healing item but hurts you on usage, and falls off hard later in the game. Don’t keep it for long. Co-op partner is not affected by the self-damage.
• Watch out for that in Hyper Adrenaline – in that mode this items is a suicide wish.

Plasma Grenade

• Throws a plasma grenade, dealing a high amount of damage concentrated in a circular area.
• A decent source of damage against crowds early game but falls off hard later on. Should be recycled at some point.
• Pretty good alternative to HE grenade, on explosion it lures enemies where it exploded, so drop it on traps like laser pipes or underground bolts, ot just use it to gather crowds to knife them.

Stim Pack

• Stimulants grant fire rate, damage and movement speed and improved dashing recharge for all team members when used.
• Commando’s best item, confers multiple useful temporary buffs upon activation but beware of the long cooldown. If need to, you should save this for when you are surrounded or against bosses: for the former, consider it not unlike a panic button. 

Special Ammo Supply

• Uses charges to place ammo packs that can be used by all team members, refilling ammunition and granting a damage boost. 
• Useful for replenishing ammo, especially for weapons with poor max ammo, but can’t heal like Field Supply, which limits its effectiveness. Fairly situational.

Hard Light Cover

• Places a hard-light barricade, granting normal cover if standing close and recharges shields per second for a duration. (Cover absorbs 30% of non-penetrating enemy shots depending on projectile angle.)
• Can be useful for HG who would usually be exposed to enemy fire as he unleashes his barrages, combine with Road Flare and modules like Take Cover for best effect. Situational.
• Can be used to block movement for certain enemies, like tanks, causing them to move differently on the map.

Road Flare

• Fires a flare projectile lighting up the area and granting increased accuracy and damage if within range while revealing invisible units.
• Confers good bonuses when activated but not very helpful if you are playing a more mobile playstyle. Functionally identical to Flare Gun but this is active rather than passive, which solves one of the two biggest weakness of this item type (the other one being limited range.) Situational, not a safe pick.