You arrive at an objective and there is a cloaked scout-shotty waiting in the corner. How do you propose to see him with your eyes?

Cloakheads aren't always running in front of you where you can see them shimmer. Most of the time, they are cloaked waiting or running up behind you. The only counter would be that EVERYWHERE you go, you must CAREFULLY survey the area for your crosshairs to turn red. Hopefully, your back doesn't turn from them or they don't just pop you with the shotgun before they decloak if you happen to walk right in front of them.

I understand cloaks are here to stay....but remove the dampening bonus, remove the decloaking animation when changing your weapon, and you should decloak or be at maximum shimmer when you take damage.

This week, I will make sure that I post some video and commentary of when cloak scouts are ridiculous.

Well they wont have so much armor now will they?

Well, look at the situation in reverse. You ask how you're supposed to counter the Cal scout, but you never bother to ask how the Cal scout is supposed to counter you.

The reality is that the Cal scout IS your counter, and you're the counter to everything else. You aren't supposed to counter the cal scout. You're supposed to accept the fact that at least one entity out there is going to hunt you down and kill you. And you are supposed to be comfortable with that because its exactly what you do to every other suit in the game.

Indeed.

I don't think there are many scouts out there who don't believe Gal scout is too good at what he does.

Brick tanked cloak scrubs are the problem I believe so we need to keep in mind that proper scouts are not the problem. I believe simply setting the CPU and pg cost for cloaks higher would help. That way its either brick tanked scrub or hidden scrub but not both.

I have a scout alt with 17mil sp FYI, its amarr and I run either light assault or ninja fit depending on my squad composition. I have experimented and I can produce a fit that not only has better stats than an assault but it can also cloak. I know the amarr scout is supposed to be more assault oriented but seriously now lol. Its HP is slightly less but its quicker and can cloak with proto weapons. I do not use that fit though and deleted it after completing it, I cannot bring myself to run that easy mode bull sht and of course, it is proto amarr scout.

I'll start with saying I could careless if any changes are made.

BUT!

If the dampening of cloaks was removed then all scouts would be forced to throw dampeners in their low slots rather than stacking ridiculous amounts of armor. This would hurt the Amarr scout the most. The Gal scout would still be fine, being able to use its bonus as an advantage while needing less dampeners as other suits so they can still armor tank, but not to ridiculous levels. As for the Minmatar scout, you're just pretty screwed all the way around.



All in all I really could careless. CCP has proven time and again that they aren't capable of releasing new content into Dust without there being mass amounts of issues. The real focus needs to be on the ability to fire your weapon while still going through the de-cloaking process. Any good scout can get at least one shot off with a shotgun before they are fully uncloaked, I've seen some get two off (could be due to lag), which is enough to kill all but the most bricked tanked heavies. IMO you should have to be fully uncloaked before being able to fire your weapon. No "time" delay, no weapon switch delay, but a 100% deactivation of cloak effects before you're capable of firing your weapon.

But hey, who cares. I'll deal with 2-3 shotgun to the back deaths per match rather than see CCP nerf the cloak to uselessness. You know because the whole CCP overnerf to everything they touch ordeal.

Funny thing:

99% of these QQ scrubs that complain about cloaks and say that its a crutch; used ACTIVE SCANNERS pre 1.8.


just a thought.

Yes, and if you actually COULD fire 2 shots before being visible at all, you'd have a point.

Barring glitches, which have no bearing on a discussion about balance, you can't, and you don't.

If a person is FULLY CLOAKED and firing, then they're EXPLOITING A GLITCH to switch to their weapon without decloaking. If they aren't exploiting a glitch, then they're already in a decloaking animation and at the highest visibility a player can be without the cloak being fully deactivated BEFORE they can fire.

Also, even while standing still in ideal conditions, a cloaked player WILL BE VISIBLE if you're in range for them to hit with a Shotgun. Unless you're facing the wrong way. Or have bad eyesight. Or have your TV set up wrong.

Funniest **** ever is when anything but a scout uses a cloak LMAO i killed this commando MKO using a bolt pistol only... The guy had his cloak on and i spotted him about 40m away took my pistol and started shooting, the cloak took so much fitting requirements he probably couldnt put anything else, killed him in a clip

Well I'm not looking at the radar. In fact I learned to play without relying on it from the start.

My issue with cloaks is that a cloaked scout is hard to ******* see. And the fact that the skill needed to cloak up and shotgun someone in the back doesn't come near the skill required in situational awareness to spot a cloaked scout in the middle of a firefight.

Then there's the fact that the cloak gives semi-invisibility AND a dampening effect. Usually this game requires you to choose between two different benefits of a particular weapon, gear or module. Yet the cloak gives two benefits and no real drawback.

It would've made more sense for the cloak to make you invisible to the naked eye but more visible on radar.

You keep saying "oh without the damp bonus u still wouldnt see me," which is completly false. Everytime a brick tanked scout decloaks behind me he pops up on my radar. I then turn around to blast him down, and look, he has as much HP as a damn logi. 2 shotgun rounds later im down and he is still half armor. Why do you expect a free complex dampner from your equipment slot?

Scouts either have too much fitting, or the cloak has too much dampening.

Try one of the two direct counters?

I think more or less the issue, is not the cloak itself but the combination of different weapons and equipment when used with it.

My original belief was that the cloak was going to be used more for a s supporting role, then the slayer. Currently that is far from the case.

The cloak is here to stay, but to insist it does not need tweaking is questionable

Nothing there to counter it ?!

Logi Suit - 2 PE + 1 RA
Assault - 1 PE + 1 RA
Cal Scout = lol Cloaked scouts

Fix the assault class?

*Sigh* All scout suits received a 1.8 profile reduction, not just gal scouts. People just like to complain about tacnet no longer spoonfeeding them Intel instead of adapting. I've ran a gal scout since they were released and I've seen more cal and Minnie scouts on the field over gal scouts in 1.8 because pubstars don't encounter proto scanners or dedicated precision scouts on the field so loldampening. I hope CCP trolls you all and brings back the chromosome shotgun... THEN you'll have a valid reason to belly ache.

And stop complaining about all these scrubs running cloaked sg FOTM. SG range is trash and Real assassin's run NKs. Wait til assaults get their buff before you premature evaluate all over yourself.

Also, gal scouts must choose between armor, dampening and speed. So raise up off these gal scout nuts.

I have only read the 1st post of this & a little after but here is my thoughts.

Recall the days you could scan everywhere? If you were a Scout, and you see "You have been scanned" was really annoying.

Remember Scouts being made of paper?

Recall if you were a Scout you were just as easily spotable as a Heavy?

Well now the scout is actually playable.

What people are really annoyed about is the cloak & shotgun, being a smart scout includes being a sort of Assassin on the battle-feild & using good tactics such as watching points, ninja hacking, or tracking a target to kill is fine & is grand tactics.

The problem is it's no longer Cloak & Dagger - It's Cloak & Shotgun. The majority (not ALL) of scouts currently are Scouts with NO originality - Scouts who are only Scouts for the shotgun purposes.

They pump into shotgun, probably proto, get a low level cloak & a decent suit, & the best modules possible.

They run around 1 shotting everyone with them having no chance to react. Proto Heavy's with complex sheilds & armor are took down in seconds to these shotguns. That shouldn't be happening & that's the REAL issue. The cloak complaints is because it's a CLOAK it just annoys people when they go invisible, running around killing people like it's nothing.

The only nerfs needed in my opinion are possibly Combat Rifle Range & shotgun DMG.

To CCP - Do not be afraid to stand by something that isn't broken like how the AR was originally, or how the scout suits are now. Only fix what needs fix & if it's not broke don't fix it. You have people like CPM's & CCP LogiBro - they'll tell you the facts they see on the feilds.

I like that you didn't even mention Amarr scouts.

Cloaky-crutcher spotted.

I believe Judge's words were "invisible" and "invisible at full sprint on certain backgrounds"

My thoughts on some of the ideas in this thread

- Removing the dampening bonus

I wouldn't mind this change but I feel like it wouldn't do anything towards addressing the real issues. As it would only knock brick tanking scouts down a just peg but would royally screw all others.

I would prefer a small scan profile penalty of 3/4/5 scan db added per bas/enh/comp armor plate instead.

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- Fluxes disable cloaks

No, just screws over shield tanked scouts.

Instead cloak depletes at a faster rate when under fire (2-3x normal rate when being fired upon and hit)

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I'd also like to add that cloak duration is too long and they need to be shortened. 30 seconds, that's the duration of the basic cloak that is more than enough time to get anywhere, position oneself perform a hack, whatever it may be.

I'd suggest

30 seconds across all tiers
20/15/10 second recharge duration

Users would have think more tactically when deploying their cloak (e.g.before going into hot areas), instead of leaving it always on and/or camping objectives and spawns.