Uprising 1.8 Cold Feet: Must Have Caldari Commando

So after logging many more hours in the current Amarr Commando suit using the Rail Rifle/Shotgun setup, I've decided to ditch my plans for skilling into Caldari Logistics in favor of Caldari Commando.   I am not ready to give up inside-out play style I have recently grown to love.  I am still training into Gallente Commando for more in-your-face DPS.  This will give me more versatility on the battlefield, something I am always looking to increase. 

My current plan for tomorrow is to train both commando skills to level III.  After a week or so of field testing, I will likely train one of them to level V.  The fourteen-day event will give me ample opportunity to decide.  With the way bonuses will now be attached to dropsuit skills, it is important to cap them out.  With commando suits, more dropsuit skill means more DPS.

I predict the Caldari Commando will be the flavor of the month die to the bonus to rtange weapons.  I usually try to avoid such setups, but I believe this is my only option to avoid throwing away all the SP I have put into the Rail Rifle.

I am legitimately looking forward to the patch tomorrow.

Respec Decisions

Uprising 1.8, set to launch March 25, will add more content and change the game more than any patch since DUST 514 was officially launched last May.  There will be eight new racial suits, as well as nerfs to weapons and equipment designed to increase specialization through dropsuit bonuses.  As a result, Time-To-Kill (TTK) will be going up due the focus being shifted to heavy suits.  Oh, and scout suits will be able to cloak and nobody knows exactly how that is going to play out.  As a result, CCP will be refunding every DUST merc's skill points in the Dropsuit Command tree.  After the patch, I will have a little over 10 million SP to play with.  This is what I have decided:

 (Note: All changes referenced can be found in the Uprising 1.8 Patch Notes)

Gal Heavy Supremacy 

Both the commando and sentinel suits are set to become the major infantry players on the battlefield.  With the Caldari Assault suit getting its shield extender bonus whacked and light weapons getting a healthy nerf to the tune of 8-16%, the medium assault suits are going to have a much harder time killing before being killed.  With a 2% per level damage bonus to their racial light weapons, the new DPS king is going to be the commando.  The TTK increase is also going to turn sentinel suits into monsters.  The light weapon nerf helps enough (with no word of a heavy weapon nerf!), but the big guys will also be receiving damage resistance bonuses geared towards the expected incoming damage from enemy races.  I want to be fully skilled into one type of heavy suit after the patch to take full advange of these bonuses.  I'm going with Gallente for both sentinel and commando.  Here is why:

Besides saving 273.6k SP to cross train into another racial heavy tree, I feel both Gallente heavy suits have the edge over most of their competition in widest range of scenarios.  The Gallente Sentinel is the only version with two types of armor resists, its armor tank being the key advantage of the sentinel suits.  The resist bonuses are also against the type of damage done by the Rail Rifle and the Combat Rifle.  Although both of those weapons received sizable damage nerfs, I predict they both will be used extensively with their respective commando suits.  Given the primary role of the sentinel is to take and control small areas, those specific armor resists are enough to outpace the Amarr suit which has a slightly higher raw armor pool.

I ruled out the Minmatar Sentinel right away.  Its tank is too close to some commando suits and the speed bonus seems silly.  The Caldari Sentinel's one-second shield recharge delay definitely looks intriguing.  However, I'm looking for something capable of in-your-face fighting for my sentinel, so I'm going Gallente.

I gave the Amarr Commando some serious time during last weekend's Million Clone Challenge and liked the playstyle quite a bit.  I went with the Rail Rifle/Shotgun combination to utilize both long and short range tactics.  With the racial damage bonuses coming, at least one of those weapons would suffer.  Substituting the Assault Rifle for the Rail Rifle, I believe I can mimic the setup I experimented with and receive the bonuses to both of my weapons.  Another upcoming change is that weapon proficiency skills will only apply to shields or armor depending on the weapon type.  The Gallente weapons I plan on using will have their proficiency bonuses applied to shields.  This gave me pause, especially when it came to the shotgun.  However, the shotgun is not receiving a damage nerf so I believe it will perform roughly the same as it does now, just not as well against armor.  The other key damage nerf is the one to damage mods, bringing the complex boost much closer to the basic version.  The extra high slots in the Caldari and Minmatar versions do not allow them to outperform the Gallente and Amarr Commando suits enough to make them superior solely due to damage mod stacking. 

The major wildcard is what I believe will be the new flavor of the month when Uprising 1.8 is deployed: Caldari Commando.  With the Caldari Assault suit going the way of the dodo, I believe you will see most of the shield tankers utilizing the Rail Rifle with the Caldari Commando suit for the damage bonus.  The Rail Rifle holds its own at short range, but it outperforms the competition at medium-long distances.  So who will slay this beast?  Well, the Amarr Commando will benefit from a laser rifle damage buff and can hunt Caldari Commndos who are sniping.  However, with the Assault Rifle and Shotgun also very effective against shields, I contend they could hold their own against the Caldari version in the open, and outclass it up close.

Minmatar Haxor

Although I have a separate scout-only character on another account, I haven't trained heavily into the skills needed to be successful in a light suit on the DUST battlefield.  However, I want to have a nice scout loadout in my pocket to adjust to changing situations while playing the Skirmish game mode.  More specifically, I want a scout that can decloak at a control point, hack it before the enemy can respond, then run away like wuss.  Speed hacking may be a nice exploit using the 5% hack time reduction the Minmatar suits will enjoy.  They also get a 10% base bonus compared to 5% for the other scouts.  I think I can reap the benefits of such a setup by just training to Minmatar Scout III, saving me some valuable SP for other areas.

Bi-Logi-Curious

I love my jack of all trades Gallente logi setup.  It has advanced uplinks and nanohives, as well as a basic repair tool.  I can jump into any public match that is not a total facestomping and have a blast playing support, helping my team achieve victory.  The proto version of that suit can absorb much more damage while turning the tide at a control point.  The changes to both equipment and logi bonuses makes support roles much more specilized, forcing me to make some tough decisions.

The new Gallente Logistics bonus is to active scanners, which like other equipment is receiving a nerf.  This makes Gallente logis the best scanners in the game, a crucial element for squads to succeed in DUST.  The people I play with know this, and I anticipate we'll have our fair share of high level scanners.  The same can be true for uplink droppers, that bonus going to Amarr logi.  Many in my alliance have the Anniversery Edition Amarr suits, and the path of least resistance will be training into Amarr Logi for uplink spam.

That leaves Caldari and Minmatar, and I think I may may be training both.  Caldari seems like it will be the most useful because of the bonus to nanites, which allows better ammo as well as armor healing hives.  It is definitely more versatile.  However, with the rise of the heavy suits armor logi may become very important.  The repair tool is getting a range and repair amount nerf, which leveling into Minmatar Logistics can more than make up for.  I enjoy the playstyle of the repair tool, and it will be very hard to use without the right dropsuit.  I will very likely train both to level three, then figure out which prototype variant I want for important matches.