The most surprising thing I found out in this experiment was what it takes to increase the Assault's stats to scout levels.
To make an Assault that has similar stats as a base proto scout with bonuses you need:
-1 Enhanced Energizer
-2 Complex Precision Mods
-1 Advanced Precision Mod
-1 Complex Dampener
-1 Enhanced Kin Cat
-1 Complex Shield Regulator
-2 Complex Range Amp
-1 Basic Range Amp
-CPU and PG Mods

To make a Scout that has similar stats as a base Assault?:
-Complex Shield Extender
-Basic Shield Extender
-Enhanced Ferroscale Plate

Crazy huh?

We're is the TL; DR for chumps who can't sit still for a second?

Final Thoughts/TLDR:

I want scouts to be competitive but I don't want them to be the best slayers in the game because their base stats tell them they are. I want scouts to be the best ones at being sneaky and getting kills while the player isn't paying attention rather than being able to dance with a heavy and win.

I want it to be punishing for a scout to be detected. If I see a scout charging right at me, they should die quickly. If they decloak right in front of me it shouldn't take 10 seconds of direct hits to strip away their HP. They shouldn't be able to hide behind cover for 5 seconds and have their 450 shields back up.

I want scouts to use e-war mods rather than HP mods, to be punished more (not less) for stacking shield extenders, to have a reason to use armor repairers and shield rechargers/energizers rather than relying on insanely high base recovery values built into the suit. To still have to use modules that relate to their skill bonuses...

I want to be killed by high HP/fast regen slayer assaults, which I can dampen my suit against, that can't see me sneaking up on them, which I can destroy in my heavy if they get out of hand, which can't cloak and tank their suit at the same time.

The op seems to be suffering from a case of imafuckingsmartarse syndrome , this horrible infliction forces the inflicted to come on to the forums and continue to complain about cal scouts when CCP has already confirmed a nerf/overhaul of all the scouts bonuses in hot fix charge.

The op seems to be suffering from a case of imafuckingsmartarse syndrome

Cal scout - working as intended.

Why are you still whining about the cal scout when its already getting nerfed in Charlie?

When Charlie drops you'll need to save all that whining for whatever kills you then.

Some very reasonable points OP. The OG scout community is working with CCP Rattati to try and reign in a number of these issues in both the short and medium term.

I would recommend waiting for Charlie to drop and then re-assessing. Buffing the Assault so that the difference between light and medium suits is more pronounced, along with changes to EWAR within the scout suits should provide a push towards better balance between the classes, and changes to HP modules that will push scouts away from armor tanking. Hopefully...it may actually take until Delta (with the proposed addition of efficacy bonuses and removal of shared passive scans) for that to really eventuate.

I'd disagree on one point, which is recharge on scouts. Looking at the suits through the Destiny paradigm does not accurately reflect balance in Dust.
Due to the extremely low EHP on scouts fitted for their role (most of my fits run between 200 and 300 EHP), high recharge and agility is a necessity. My buffer is very limited, so being able to rebuild that quickly is crutial to playing an effective hit-and-run/flanking role. I would hope that the changes to Assaults in Charlie would allow then to achieve similar or greater recharge values, if fitted for it. But the changes already underway should go some way to adressing your concerns.

o7

nope scouts cant have the best speed, regen,ewar, and be freaking invisible. what does a scout need faster regen then a assault when he can run out of the area and turn invisible.

nope scouts cant have the best speed, regen,ewar, and be freaking invisible. what does a scout need faster regen then a assault when he can run out of the area and turn invisible.

I want scouts to be competitive but I don't want them to be the best slayers in the game because their base stats tell them they are. I want scouts to be the best ones at being sneaky and getting kills while the player isn't paying attention rather than being able to dance with a heavy and win.

I want it to be punishing for a scout to be detected. If I see a scout charging right at me, they should die quickly. If they decloak right in front of me it shouldn't take 10 seconds of direct hits to strip away their HP. They shouldn't be able to hide behind cover for 5 seconds and have their 450 shields back up.

I want scouts to use e-war mods rather than HP mods, to be punished more (not less) for stacking shield extenders, to have a reason to use armor repairers and shield rechargers/energizers rather than relying on insanely high base recovery values built into the suit. To still have to use modules that relate to their skill bonuses...

I want to be killed by high HP/fast regen slayer assaults, which I can dampen my suit against, that can't see me sneaking up on them, which I can destroy in my heavy if they get out of hand, which can't cloak and tank their suit at the same time.

IMPORTANT:

This post is mainly directed at the Caldari Scout. Minmatar and Amarr are fine (could use a buff?)
Just because I use the term "Scouts" doesn't mean I think all scouts need such drastic changes.

As for the Gallente scout...well, it doesn't have a 50 hp/s regen rate, or a super fast shield delay, and if you tank a lot of armor you become really slow. The dampening bonus it gets benefits the scout, not the squad like precision does.
__________________________

Before I begin, here's a post I made the other week about the difference between the Caldari Scout and the Caldari Assault:
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=167580

To summarize, here's what I concluded:



While yes the Assaults need a buff, the Caldari Scout is being abused just like every other FOTM that has ever come into existence.

At the beginning of Uprising, a corp named Nyain San was notorious for running the same suit in every match. This suit at the time was the Logistics ck.0. Here's an example of what that fit might have looked like:
http://imgur.com/4tn6aJV
Link to full video of gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPjAIg1NJUA

For comparison, here's what a Caldari Scout fitting might look like: http://imgur.com/foa00JO
__________________________________________________________________________

OKAY, ON TO THE ACTUAL POST

Again before I say anything, please know that I like to look at things from a neutral standpoint. I always look at the pros and cons, both sides of an issue, and the FACTS.

So here's the first question we need to ask:

1. Why did no one use the Scout role in the first place? Why were all the other roles a better choice?

To quickly answer that, cloaks never existed for a long time. This made it easy to pick off scouts from a long distance away. They also had less HP than every other role and could be quickly eliminated. This was mainly due to their slot layout. It was almost impossible to tank a scout suit, making it very hard for a scout to survive head to head against any role.

As for the other roles, speed and dampening was just a few modules on an assault or logi suit, and scanners could provide all the e-war info that medium frames needed with even bigger ranges than scouts.
_________________________________________________________________________

2. Why are scouts now fulfilling a slayer class? What changed that made scouts go from a barely used "specialist" class to a "best suit in the game, you have to use one to be competitive" class?

Well, three things happened

Buff to Scouts (slot count, fitting space, skill bonuses)

Introduction of Caldari Scout with the best skill bonuses and base stats

Nerf to Active Scanners (But letting scouts still have 360 24/7 passive scans)

The buff to scouts was a good thing. It made the class playable after so long and we immediately saw more players using scouts. It also diversified the fittings of a scout. Before, the slot layouts really limited the Minmatar and Gallente scouts as to what they could do. When the cloak was introduced and when scouts were given the second equipment slot, we saw all sort of things from logi-scouts to tanky scouts to full e-war and AV scouts.

Scouts no longer needed to fear the wide-open maps because cloaks helped them hide better. Except that cloaks also became an issue because of their additional 25% bonus to dampening and long duration times. A scout could easily appear from nowhere and kill you even while tanking their suit to extreme levels. Passive scans let the scout know your every move and passive skills let them basically have free e-war modules, allowing them to further tank their suit.

The Caldari Scout was introduced with huge advantages in its base stats. All other suits in the game need to use modules to get to these sorts of stats, whereas the Caldari Scout was essentially given free modules BUILT INTO the suit.

Here's a list of modules that the Caldari Scout doesn't need to use:
-Shield Rechargers/Energizers (already has a 50/s base shield recharge)
-Shield Regulators (Shield delay values are low enough that even the penalty from stacking shield extenders doesn't do anything. Shield delay is 3 seconds, depleted is 4 seconds....best values in the game aside from Caldari Sentinel)
-Precision Enhancers (Why use them when your skill bonus will allow you to scan 99% of suits out there aside from PC)
-Range Amplifiers (Again with the skill bonus amplifying your gigantic 20-30 meter scan radius even further, who needs modules?)
-Sprint Mods (Debatable, but the only reason you need to be faster than your base stats is to compete with enemy scouts, or if you're running a shotgun fit. Caldari isn't penalized in speed for tanking their suit like gallente are)
reading it. [/u]
Thank you.

While I'm here .... aren't you an uber-logi?

Seeing as Scouts are doing their part, perhaps you can talk sense to some of your Heavy friends? They're a 'bit spam-sandwiched these days, and they are quite sensitive about it. At least when we bring up the issue.

Heavy spam isn't an issue...equipment spam is where the true problem lies.