Rather than increasing the damage REs do, why not just separate them into variants. The ones we have now can have their damage lowered to better fit anti-personnel purposes, and introduce higher damaging REs intended for AV use at the cost of longer arming time. Flux grenades on the other hand have no reason to cause both shield and armor damage. That type of tweak would just make shields more in superior to armor. Considering now not only are your shields deactivated for 6+ seconds, now you're also short 10 - 30% of your armor on top of that? Might as well throw one of them REs down at their feet and save them the trouble of getting wrecked by a flux grenade.

I can see the RE damage not needing to be changed and you make a good point about RE variants. If you had to choose AV "shape charges" or anti-infantry that would help a little.

Not sure what you meant about the proposed adjustments to Flux grenades making "shields more superior to armor". I think the idea that you can take at least some minor level of damage...say about as much as a Scrambler overheat causes seems pretty legit to be honest. You're frying shields and it stands to reason you would some minor level of damage to the suit. I'm certainly not recommending they be anywhere on par with even locus grenades as far as explosive damage dished out.

May was let's p*ss on everything Scouts use month.
It is no longer May.

Hey man when you can simply drop an RE and kill everyone within its blast radius in a little over 2 seconds that's a little ridiculous. We should have a bigger window to escape instead of spending those two seconds of arming time turning our fatasses around and preparing to run. Its impossible to escape them in anything less than a medium suit, yet kills heavies with ease. Nobody wants to nerf its arming time so tweak its damage so heavies can actually survive one blast, that way you can use it as a crippling tool rather than an easy win button.

Scouts are about to get nerfed. Significantly. You guys have more going for you at the moment than ever before ...

* Massive HP Reserves
* Pirouette on a Dime
* Grenade Resistance
* Stunlock
* 30+ meter range (on a CQC weapon)

You're looking to take away one of the few effective means by which a high-end Scout can kill a high-end Heavy. You're gear is overpowered, and you're lobbying to nerf the tools by which others can threaten you.

You sound like a Pilot.

TL;DR: If you're concerned about "Frisbee RE" then convince Rattati to increase arming time. Nerfing any other aspect of REs (A) is unwarranted and (B) will interfere with AV functions.

As someone that has all 4 commandos, let me tell you that my favorite equipment is the Frisbee are Remote Explosives.
I say this as someone that uses them as better grenades, as someone that's been using them as better grenades for a long time: they need a longer arming time.

As someone that has all 4 commandos, let me tell you that my favorite equipment is the Frisbee are Remote Explosives.
I say this as someone that uses them as better grenades, as someone that's been using them as better grenades for a long time: they need a longer arming time.

You nerf RE damage, or increase their arming timer, you make them useless against tanks. REs take a LOT of skill to use effectively. They're certainly not more of an instant win button than rolling around in a proto heavy suit.

Hence why I said to also introduce a breach variant with high damage, and longer arm time. Solves both problems by dividing the uses, don't know why nobody else suggested it.

You nerf RE damage, or increase their arming timer, you make them useless against tanks. REs take a LOT of skill to use effectively. They're certainly not more of an instant win button than rolling around in a proto heavy suit.

Minimal arm time is essential to engaging tanks before dying or they run away.

Personally it drives me f*cking crazy that a basic Remote can kill my full proto Amarr Sentinel with little to no effort.

A basic tier RE shouldn't do more damage than a Proto Forge.

If you want to instakill proto heavies, you should have to pay a higher PG/CPU and ISK price for it.

Lobbying for Heavy 514.


After the hotfix, RE will be the only existing counter to a heavy blob right now. Also, it's one of the few remaining useful AV weapons.


You can't nerf RE without taking into account how that would affect the balance against vehicles and heavies.

You nerf RE damage, or increase their arming timer, you make them useless against tanks. REs take a LOT of skill to use effectively. They're certainly not more of an instant win button than rolling around in a proto heavy suit.

increasing arming time shouldn't increase the speed in which you deploy them, on the time between thrown and detonation when rapidly pressing L1

Issue:
With the impending changes in Hotfix Alpha to grenades having a significantly increase tiering in Locus variant damage and nanite resupply cost this has brought up a parallel discussion on REs due to how both are employed and their relative combat effectiveness.


Discussion:
1) Tiering the locus damage will incentivize SP investment to maintain lethality.

2) This may have the effect of increasing the use of Flux or Fused nades

3) Nades have had their base ammo reduced to 2x and REs can carry 3 to 4

4) There is a high CPU/PG cost for proto hades that may well deter the usage based on the benefit

5) REs have become at least as prevalent in usage as the Core Locus used to be which triggered much of the concern over grenade spam due to lower CPU/PG cost for significantly increased lethality at lower tiers and multiple employment tactics.

6) REs can be thrown fairly well, particularly if you have a height advantage.

7) If the base number of available REs is higher than grenades you begin to establish a situation where it will limit ability to clear objectives prior to hacking

8) If resupply of grenades is further restricted (removed or limited to supply depots only) in the future this will exacerbate the disparity between the two equipment types.

9) Locus grenades have become somewhat devalued not only by RE usage increase but with the increasing number of players using Heavy suits with significant resistances and eHP or even well tanked scouts (above the damage threshold that even a Core Locus can deliver),.


Recommendations:
a) Level the amount of carried equipment and resupply rates between grenades and REs. Recommend 1 / Standard and 2 at Advanced & Proto for both and keep the nanite cost and any future resupply constraints the same.

b) Lower CPU / PG cost for grenades and REs by 15% or allow additional reductions in resource cost with SP investment to maintain incentive to use proto gear

c) If future Dust balance iterations indicate that resupply should not be allowed for grenades or REs then increase the damage noticeable to increase the criticality of employing the weapon.

d) Consider adding some minor level of armor damage to flux grenades to increase the utility of flux grenades.

1) If DUST were to keep the tiers and remove the skill level requirement for items (e.g. Grenadier I gave you access to all grenades) then the tiered damage would make sense. But the numbers don't incentivize spending SP on the skill, but rather they make the disparity in SP more noticeable.

2) Flux grenades are, and should be, the grenade of choice in matches with Friendly Fire turned on. It took most of the PC crowd a very, very long time to realize that locus grenades get you more "-50 Team Kill" than "+50 Kill" displays. Zatara Rought has still killed me with more blue grenades than he has as an enemy and we haven't been corp mates for 7 months.
With AV grenades being buffed FF matches should be favoring AV and Flux over Locus. And with the Core being buffed by 50HP in pub matches it's just going to be spammed more.

3) I can only carry 1 cloak, but I can carry 2-9 nanohives.

4)That is how all modules should be. It's a minor improvement for a steep increase in fitting cost. STD should cost Y. ADV should cost Y+X, and PRO should cost Y+3X. That's very general concept and in actuality the cost comes close but none have those number specifically but it's pretty close.

5) This is a problem with the fuse time, Pretty sure "Lock on time" is the name of the category it falls in. The REs have a lock on time of 1 second and a reload time of 1 second. Lowering the reload time to 0.8 seconds would greatly increase it's use for deploying them on tanks. While increasing the lock on time to 2 seconds would give any suit that sees an RE thrown or dropped on them to safely move away from it. With a change like that REs could still be used for ambushes and traps as well as AV but would hinder the use as superior grenades.

6) Hmm. I'm too biased to answer this one. Personally I like to throw my REs above eye-level so no one sees them and with hope that enemies will be within my 5m radius while the RE is outside the 5-7m radius of a Flux grenade thrown to clear my trap.
The distance thrown is also incredibly useful for placing REs on vehicles. I think that with an increased minimum time to detonate this issue would be less severe, and something to talk about at a later date.

7) This isn't really true. Most REs are usually placed within the blast range of each other allowing a single flux grenade to take out 3+ at a time. While if in FW or PC where friendly fire in on then blowing up 1 will set off the others.

8) I think the proposed changes on nanite cluster cost for grenades in the Hotfix Alpha Numbers post is at good place. I would not support further increasing the nanite cost.

9) You post is mostly hyperbole.

A) This is in poor form because it makes grenadier skill far too vital to play DUST514. It's a nerf to AV, one we don't need in this game. It's a nerf to the tactical use of REs

B) I disagree with this based on my previous statement of PRO being a small difference in effect for a large cost in fitting.

C) OHK grenades are a terrible, terrible, terrible idea. It favors twitch shoot gameplay over tactical game play. The same reason short fuse time on REs needs to be changed, the same reason fuse time went from 2 seconds to 5 seconds.

D) I don't like d. That would make Flux Grenades way too powerful if they did armor damage. They already have a huge damage value. Enough to take out a Shield tanked proto Cal-Sentinel and deplete a gunnlogi's shields with 2 grenades. Giving them any value of damage to armor would need to completely redo the flux grenades.

1) If DUST were to keep the tiers and remove the skill level requirement for items (e.g. Grenadier I gave you access to all grenades) then the tiered damage would make sense. But the numbers don't incentivize spending SP on the skill, but rather they make the disparity in SP more noticeable.

2) Flux grenades are, and should be, the grenade of choice in matches with Friendly Fire turned on. It took most of the PC crowd a very, very long time to realize that locus grenades get you more "-50 Team Kill" than "+50 Kill" displays. Zatara Rought has still killed me with more blue grenades than he has as an enemy and we haven't been corp mates for 7 months.
With AV grenades being buffed FF matches should be favoring AV and Flux over Locus. And with the Core being buffed by 50HP in pub matches it's just going to be spammed more.

3) I can only carry 1 cloak, but I can carry 2-9 nanohives.

4)That is how all modules should be. It's a minor improvement for a steep increase in fitting cost. STD should cost Y. ADV should cost Y+X, and PRO should cost Y+3X. That's very general concept and in actuality the cost comes close but none have those number specifically but it's pretty close.

5) This is a problem with the fuse time, Pretty sure "Lock on time" is the name of the category it falls in. The REs have a lock on time of 1 second and a reload time of 1 second. Lowering the reload time to 0.8 seconds would greatly increase it's use for deploying them on tanks. While increasing the lock on time to 2 seconds would give any suit that sees an RE thrown or dropped on them to safely move away from it. With a change like that REs could still be used for ambushes and traps as well as AV but would hinder the use as superior grenades.

6) Hmm. I'm too biased to answer this one. Personally I like to throw my REs above eye-level so no one sees them and with hope that enemies will be within my 5m radius while the RE is outside the 5-7m radius of a Flux grenade thrown to clear my trap.
The distance thrown is also incredibly useful for placing REs on vehicles. I think that with an increased minimum time to detonate this issue would be less severe, and something to talk about at a later date.

7) This isn't really true. Most REs are usually placed within the blast range of each other allowing a single flux grenade to take out 3+ at a time. While if in FW or PC where friendly fire in on then blowing up 1 will set off the others.

8) I think the proposed changes on nanite cluster cost for grenades in the Hotfix Alpha Numbers post is at good place. I would not support further increasing the nanite cost.

9) You post is mostly hyperbole.

A) This is in poor form because it makes grenadier skill far too vital to play DUST514. It's a nerf to AV, one we don't need in this game. It's a nerf to the tactical use of REs

B) I disagree with this based on my previous statement of PRO being a small difference in effect for a large cost in fitting.

C) OHK grenades are a terrible, terrible, terrible idea. It favors twitch shoot gameplay over tactical game play. The same reason short fuse time on REs needs to be changed, the same reason fuse time went from 2 seconds to 5 seconds.

D) I don't like d. That would make Flux Grenades way too powerful if they did armor damage. They already have a huge damage value. Enough to take out a Shield tanked proto Cal-Sentinel and deplete a gunnlogi's shields with 2 grenades. Giving them any value of damage to armor would need to completely redo the flux grenades.

Appia,

I appreciate the detailed feedback. By and large I believe I agree with your comments and i've got a couple points of clarification in areas I might not have been clear on. Quick note: I'll keep using the number / letter headers just so I can keep track.

...

3 - I might not have been clear. You can already carry more REs, which i think we agree have greater utility and lethality, than grenades. By increasing the nanite cost or potentially removing replenishment from nano hives for grenades it would continue to make the RE a far better choice for a player.

4 - I agree that SP pays for minor increases in effectiveness vs increased cost of CPU/PG, no issues with that. My point is that the relative value that proto nades (particularly locus) give you vs the CPU/PG cost has now shifted somewhat out of balance. With the ability to carry less (and no variant that gives you that option) and a nerf to resupply capabilty my subjective opinion is that they aren't quite worthy the CPU/PG outlay. Admittedly, this could be just reflective of my personal view and not indicitive of anyone else.

I do think it's safe to say that most folks would agree the proto RE options are more value per resouce cost (CPU/PG) than proto nades.

...

7 - I see your point on distance factors and tactical employment; my point is that not every objective gets 2 to 3 REs. On a purely one for one basis it is imbalanced.

. . .

9 - I take a little issue with referring to it as hyperbole; i.e. "hyping" things to make the point. Granted it is a subjective assesment but i suspect you would agree that there is a distince uptick in heavy suits and "tanked" scouts.

Also - i should have clarified that I had CCP Rattati's comments about his subjective effectiveness tiering of nades vs various suits and meta levels. Basically...militia nade should kill militia medium suit and it scales up so that proto nades kill proto non-sentinel suits. Based on the tiering noted in Hotfix Alpha the numbers don't seem to jive with that based on relative amounts fo eHP and calculated resistances.

My base opinion is that RE's have too much overlap with grenades...and are simply more useful in many ways.

Utility is not (and never has been) grounds for the Nerf Bat.

Perhaps the argument could be made ...
Over Utilization = Potential Nerf
Under Utilization = Potential Buff

But are REs over-utilized? No.

TL/DR: You're attempting to solve a non-problem.

Ok, just to be clear, you believe that REs are fine as they are?

For the most part, yes.

Arguments could be made for a slight increase in time-to-arm to discourage use-as-grenade.
Arguments could be made for faster toss and/or further toss to encourage use-as-AV.

REs may need polish but they are not broken; other things are -- quite plainly -- broken.
Time and resources are limited; would they not be best spent on first fixing broken things?

If your proto sentinel gets wiped by a single RE then you're doing it wrong.

Hell I survived REs pre 1.8. And now we have -25% damage from explosives.

You know you're supposed to put complex plates on the proto Amarr sentinel suit right? Not hacking mods.

Sure you can't just shrug them off, they'll leave you pretty weak.
But the rule for Amarr and Gal sentinels is simple.

"It puts the rep-tool on its skin or else it has to spawn again."