No, the problem with scouts isn't armor plates. It's the fact that we went from 45 profile down to 35 - that's right a scout with *NO* skills invested in profile dampening inherently dodges advanced scanners from anyone but gal-logi's... and on top of that the scouts 5% profile dampening per level was switched over to the cloaking device (on all scouts except the gallente who still have the inherent dampening), making most scouts even harder to scan. If you have 1 complex profile dampener on your scout and a cloaking device you cant be scanned by anything except for a gallogi with a proto scanner, if you have 2 complex damps he needs a focused proto scanner.

surely your problem is with the current state of scanners - scouts could always evade ADV scanners passively, all this does is make it so new guys getting into scouting (or wanting to try it out) don't have to wait an extra couple of weeks to actually be able to avoid the most widely used scanner - it's not really OP just easier to obtain. If anything, older scouts like me should be bitter about that.

It's actually kinda harder for non-gals to avoid proto scanners now, before you only needed max skills and a basic damp. The only scout that could possibly evade a focused scan before was a protofit gal scout using all low slots, which was kinda ridiculous against even level opponents. Also, cloaking has to be active to provide that bonus (which you still have to spend significant SP to use)

On top of that scouts got some pretty insane stamina buffs across the board, and the cloaking device has no transitory period from 'cloaked' to 'shooting', in fact you can often 'decloak' and get a shot or two off before you're even through the animation.

first - stamina bonuses being insane? Does that make Amarr the most OP scout? I don't think people reckon the stamina bonus is OP, it was always a basic change scouts always cried for, because we knew it would help us without anyone getting all QQey about...As for the cloak switch shoot - everybody knows its an unintentional feature that needs fixing - like 360 scans did. In fact it's the first thing CCP should change before considering anything else in IMHO).

Now I'm fine with the buffs to powergrid, cpu and slots because honestly scouts *needed* those buffs, but the massive buffs to profile weren't needed and are causing the problems.

The overall *massive* buffs to the scouts base stats in terms of profile and stamina are what are making scouts so problematic - if 'bad' scouts could be more easily countered with advanced scanners, you'd see more people using advanced scanners.

seriously - the potential HP advantage on top of the stealth is what the reasonable QQ is about - and that is all down to armour plates

I was playing with a proto minmatar scout beforehand on my alt, and I'm playing with a proto caldari scout now on my main, and I frequently run with 2 proto gallente scout friends (one of whom switched over to cal scout with the patch). Cloaks do need some balancing, but hitting scouts for 5 profile would fix some of the problems.