Lets start this backwards... What will nerfing the cloak do? The other major issue evolving is the heavy unbreakable tank fits. I have already seen some. Props, my cloak scout can only knife them, and when they survive that 90% of the time I am dead. NOPE. Cloak nerfs will nerf Scouts back to pre 1.8 - But its not 1.7 there is a new abundance of heavies! When the Cloak is nerfed the FOTM player types will all switch to heavy suits with huge tanks until 1.9 (nerfs them). So many people in heavies, it will force players in lighter suits to use Assault and logi, you will need the HP to even compete. a 300HP scout with no cloak and a shotgun runs into a 1000HP Heavy with a shotgun.
What has the Cloak done for the game:
Already people are getting wise to it. It has limited the amount of soloers and hero hunters. People are player more as a team, they are not blindly running into buildings, they wait for a scout or back up. Logi and Assault are not just solo running around hacking. You see less proto suits in public matches because even they die trying to run the hero solo hunter. That is bad? NO!...
The cloak has increase the in-game tactics more then anything else in 1.8 update.
Acceptable nerf:
Small increase in decloak delay (SMALL) with a added sound effect for the other player. This would allow the other player to hear the scout decloak even if the scout was out of view. It would limit some decloaking right beside enemies - as the added warning would alert them and others close. This is a similar effect used in other MMOs.. Where cloak is real CLOAK!! invisible... which makes these nerfs sad.. its already not real cloak!
Suggestion to Buff over Nerf:
Give an assault suit a 5% bonus to cloak use. (similar to a assassin MMO style and a Ranger MMO style) The Assault cloak would be less effective but would be a scout killer suit.. making scouts fear the blue tint to! (CCP always buff others never nerf, if it comes out so bad it requires a nerf it should be bad and not just the expected norm.)
Nerfing the Cloak will nerf the NANO knife back to pre 1.8 and will put all the (precision enhances, dampeners, range increasers) back in the useless pile.
The current issue is the gap, unbreakable tanks require players to fit shields and armor ++. But then scouts make players fit precision enhances and dampeners.... They can't fit both - or they are gimped.. The game in 1.8 is paper, rock, scissors... Don't pick paper
...If you nerf scissors, there will be forum fires made with all the rocks banging together
