Disclaimer: This is a pub guide for lone wolf players. This isn't for hardcore squad play or PC in any form.

Some critical changes in 1.4 have had a drastic effect on the pub metagame.
Specifically:
-No more shared squad vision
-Powerful auto-aim (I'm not going to commentate on it being good or bad. At this point we have to accept it.)

Effects of these changes:
Everyone and their mother is rolling with active scanners now. 95% of pub matches I've played since the patch have had at least 1-2 scanners on each team, meaning that most people on most teams are scanned most of the time.

Scanners are deadly, because they show facing in addition to position, for anywhere from 5 to 25 seconds. However, due to high fitting requirements, the vast majority of people only run STD, which has 46db scan precision.

Auto aim and lowered strafe speeds mean that you can no longer just out-strafe a whole squad. Everyone in a pub can be relied upon to lay down solid DPS, once they can see the enemy.

Basically, the current pub metagame and patch state are turning Dust into a game of perfect information. Unless you play the EWAR game, it's all going to come down to EHP vs DPS, every single time. This is not a good position for anyone with <10 million SP. In terms of pub play styles, this means that by and large every match plays out as the AR Ball. The (majority of the) two teams set up ~50M away from each other and go for AR/LR picks until the match is over.

So, that's the state of the game, and it's a little boring. Now what?

How should our tactics change?
Flanking is now critical, both because scanners have at most a 60 degree scan zone and because no shared vision means that as long as you don't ping (hit w/ 1 bullet) anyone else by accident, you can pick off stragglers without alerting the entire enemy team. Using a LAV to sneak ~200M behind enemy lines, then running up on them scanning as you go, will pretty much always net you 2+ kills on unsuspecting enemies. The TAC, LR, and AR are all ideal weapons for this purpose, depending on whether you prefer mid-long or semi-cqc. The shotgun is workable but gives you less hit and run ability. The locus grenade is your best friend here, learn to cook and love that 500+ damage alpha.

How does this affect fitting logic?
Being able to hide from active scans is now far more important than being able to survive 3 extra AR bullets. A single ADV dampener is now by far the most beneficial use of a low slot. This will take an Assault suit's scan profile to <45, and a Logi's to ~37. If you get rank 5 dampeners but use the ADV dampener, it should (my math may be wrong) get a Logi to <36, which is the ADV scanner precision.

By the same token, fitting an active scanner for yourself is now equally important. Get ADV for the quantum and stable versions.

I could go on for hours but I assume people know to fit an armor repper when lone wolfing, etc. Feel free to reply with questions.

tl;dr:
Take any medium suit, slap on an AR, locus nades, profile dampeners, and a scanner. Run or use a LAV to flank and abuse your scanner. Slay noobs and protobears alike with your devious sneak attack. Hit, run, repeat.

Thoughts? Testimonials? Improvements? Critiques?