I have MANY MANY MANY times, accidently hit the trigger button instead of the weapon switch button and completed the full animation of turning off my cloak, THEN, I realize what I did (because if you do it that way, you will be locked into the animation (try it) until it completes. THEN, I switch to my weapon; fully decloaked and KILL MY TARGET. Because I have positioned myself to where they do not see me.

I'll tell you what, you can change the cloak to operate that way full time if you take away the feature that your reticule turns red when you hover over me and I am standing perfectly still watching my cloak timer count down and hoping you will turn away just as you mow me down without being able to react.

Your EYES and EARS will beat out any cloaked scout btw, most of us only have 300 to 500 armor.

Cloaks are fun with the exception of a certain bug that make them un-fun. Hunting for cloaked enemies adds a new challenge to the game and feels incredibly gratifying when you down a cloaked enemy.

Now some people are of the opinion that the bug that allows you to fire a couple of shots before you begin to decloak isn't a big deal. And they are partially right. If the bug is fixed and a cloaked player sneaks up on a unsuspecting target, the outcome remains unchanged.

But please consider another scenario: The cloaked player has failed at stealth and the enemy is searching for them. To hide from the enemy, the cloaked player stops moving to make themselves as least visible as possible. But it only partially works, the enemy knows that the cloaked player is somewhere in front of them, but not the exact location. The enemy begins scanning the area with their reticule and checking for visual distortions; it's only a matter of time before the cloaked player is located. But wait, what's this?! The enemy is dead, the cloaked player fired a couple of rounds into the enemy before beginning to decloak thanks to a bugged mechanic.

In this scenario, the enemy should have had a sporting chance to fight the cloaked player. But because of the bugged mechanic, the enemy is downed from a virtually invisible source of gunfire in front of them. The bugged mechanic is rewarding the cloaked player who failed at stealth. This bug is not a small issue.

Edit: Corrected the part about cloaked player being invisible to practically invisible.

And honestly, if someone is facing you and scanning for you with their aiming reticle, they deserve the chance to fight you fairly instead of being downed by an invisible source of gun fire. Why because you failed at stealth, the enemy is aware of your presence!

I don't view cloaks as a crutch. But the way some of you argue over how broken mechanics are fine sure makes it look like your using that cloak as a crutch. And I am a sick sadistic bastard that loves breaking crutches.

I complained about cloaks at one point just because of what I was able to do with one given I'm not even a scout.

I think the issue here is that bad players aren't so bad when using cloaks. It needs to require a degree of skill to be even with other suits. I also think they should have a lot less modules or a lot less CPU/PG. Something to make it so you can't brick tank, have super speed, pseudo logi, or whatever all around nonsense that I do myself.

Eh, blame CCP for allowing scouts to brick tank, I wouldn't/HAVEN'T survived this encounter, if people shoot me I die. I have 334 eHP. I don't think your story holds true either, most people that get killed by a cloaked scout switching to a weapon and firing is because its a high alpha damage weapon, like a shotgun. If its a rifle, as we start to decloak it's easy to find and kill us. Maybe if you guy was standing 4 meters away.....

The reason I kill about 40% of the people I do is because, I engage, I lose the upper hand, I RUN AWAY. And they GO back to their business, just cause you saw me run into the hillls 100 meters out doesn't mean you can go back to hacking dude. I can close 100 meters before you are done. Play smarter.