Quote Originally Posted by Register View Post
Yup. I was gonna say, NO SHIELDS FOR COMMANDOS! 144 armor wont protect you. Remmeber that armor test? ~55 armor=1 dmg reduction, i think. So very minimal boost. AOE cannon will be much more useful
I agree with Register. I am not a fan of commandos and the pistola/shield combo. Besides the problem with the ability to hold aggro with the pistol, the commando loses out on the AOE capablities of the Heavy Weapons. I'm all about effectiveness. Yes it is nice to have an extra 144 armor from the shield which gives you a little more than 2 points damage reduction but who cares about damage reduction when most of the time, you're running in groups with an engineer? You're not going to notice the reduction at all when you're getting healed on a constant basis.

Instead you lose out on the damage output of an AOE heavy weapon which when combined with your crit boosting skill, probably clears house. I'm working on my commando alt right now and I'm loving the AOE of Heavy Weapons. When mobs are closer together, I'm damaging at least 3 at once. I don't have the crit boost skill yet but I'll bet it'll be fun.