All these people with there head shoved up there ass XD.

Scouts are supposed to rely on speed stealth and awareness, meaning they are supposed to know where you are and get the drop on you to make up for there obvious lack of health, people ***** but scouts need a weapon that puts people on there ass almost instantly.

"But ARF for a game you need to save up for suits/aurum etc. Why would CCP make a weapon that can insta kill like that it's OP!"

First off scouts are supposed to get the drop on you, unless your with a squad and are watching your six, plus now 95% of players know what the cloak looks like, about 50% know what sound the decloak/recloak is and about 20% can spot a non moving scout with moderate ease.

As a scout I also know besides everyone's popular belief most of the good scouts don't just run around cloaked all the time I use it to pass narrow hallways/ alleys and to escape a fight. Plus I have never ran a Proto cloak, 30 seconds is quite enough for me, the only people who use Proto are normally PC suits, which even if, I would rather have a complex rep over a complex cloak any day.

I also know if I have a shotgun I will not approach 2 people unless they are running militia frames, and I avoid armor heavies, and I know there exceptions and assholes who still run a lot of tank on a scout but it's not as useful anymore because of the assaults HP.

So there, challenge it whatever etc.

Cloaking has never been the problem.

Automatically winning or losing if your db is .01 higher or lower on your profile/scanner with no variation is the problem.

There is zero margin for error on either side. If you are scanning and there is a scout 20m away but his db beats you by .01 you're dead, barring outside factors like him being stupid

But by the same token if the scanner is .01 db lower than the scouts profile he is automatically detected. This is equally bad for a few reasons.

EWAR disparities make the cloak stronger, I can play a scout without a cloak and as long as my ewar is strong still dominate. I will still need a smidgen of tank which is usually one extender or plate but other than that if I can see everybody and they can't see me I can usually kill them with ease.

The only thing the cloak does make OP is the shotgun other than the EWAR is the main culprit. Try running a a scout with just a cloak and tank modules you will find yourself at a disadvantage when other scouts are hunting you down indefinitely.

I wouldnt say EWAR is balanced.

The realities of EWAR today is:
Scout suits get to equip dampeners to make them 100% undetectable
Medium/Heavy suits can expect to be scanned 24/7

Until the profiles/precision of the suits get tightened up so that precision/dampening actually matters for non-scout suits, this will be the case.

But thats not what you asked...

As for the cloak, heres my opinion/wishlist:
Cloaks are overpowered as hell when combined with dampening. And even doubly so when combined with a high alpha weapon like Shotguns/Plasma Cannon.

Its like running around in quake 3 with invisibility and double damage at the same time, its absurd that this is even in an FPS game without any sort of counter.

Wishlist:
1. Some sort of actual mechanics based counter. Some people say that the counter to cloaking + damps is some kind of godlike 24/7 360 degree hyper awareness while trying to accomplish game objectives and defend yourself against the rest of the enemy team so that the invisible guy with the weapon that one shots people cant sneak up on you. This opinion is insane. I cant even imagine being so deluded or disingenuous that I would let words like that escape my lips. Scanning should reveal cloaked people.
2. Standing still/climbing ladders/hacking stuff should not leave you entirely invisible. Its difficult enough dealing with nearly invisible super fast scouts with hitboxes smaller than grapes without having to wonder whether there is or is not a scout right in front of your eyes.
3. Longer delay to decloaking and then firing.
4. A set cooldown to the cloak (regardless of cloak charge) which disallows cloaking for a while after decloak.

EWAR wishlist in general:
5. Make scanning more squishy. Scanning should strengthen to a maximum value as the scannee approaches the scanner. This would combine with wishlist item #1 to make an actual non-****** EWAR landscape, where precision is useful and will reveal anything, but at a range which is affected by the dampening of the suit being scanned, longer ranged scans will stretch the effective scan radius and higher precision would increase the height of the scan curve, while dampening would lower it back down.
6. Tighten up the profiles/precisions of scout/medium/heavy suits so that each tier is not completely outclassed by the tier below it and each suit can contribute meaningfully except at the highest levels.

Crazy silly ideas that could be alternate ways to fix junk:
7. Make suits scanned while cloaked stay tracked for 2/3x longer.
8. F it Im bored

Anyway thats my take on things. Full disclosure: I run amar sentinels proto, minmatar logi prot, caldari scout proto, minmatar assault adv, I have all rifles protod out, most other weapons I have tried and had some fun with, I have a vehicle alt and I am skilled into proto forge guns, I have no desire to promote any one role in dust over any other role in dust, I use all this ****. And if you seriously think that cloaking + damps + shotgun is not rediculous then you really havent thought about it much or you are just kinda dumb.

Great Feedback! Thank you for your analysis.

I am trying for feedback that can be used in a Hotfix environment. Points 3 and 4 look like something that can be changed and implemented. I believe number 6 was already done with this hotfix and number 7 is interesting since a scout can elude being scanned when decloaked by cloaking. Maybe retaining the scan even after cloaking could open the table a bit more?

Thank you.

I don't think distance traveled is as much a factor as the ewar tables themselves. Scouts, after all, are meant to me the most mobile and stealthy suit on the field. When not cloaked, they are vulnerable and when they are cloaked, they are unable to perform important tasks; other than hacking.

I'd also add that cloaks above standard gimp a fit pretty hard. I rarely hear of scouts equipping more than standard cloak, and the OG scouts rarely equip a cloak at all since they're already accustomed to being stealthy with positioning rather than using a module.

It's always nice seeing balance analysis, thanks for putting in the effort!

I see that you play scout can you give feedback based on use of the cloak and if you find it difficult to remain cloaked and beat any Counter EWAR?

Thank you.

Running two dampeners on my caldari has never been scanned since the hotfix, this is while being uncloaked. While being cloak, those that have read the table released by rattati know that you'll never be scanned. The same goes for other racials when built to be undetected. For one thing, there are not enough gallogis running around and the downtime to active scanners make the individual using the gallogi with the focused scanner have a high probability to never picking of an uncloaked scout, rendering the equipment practically useless.

Breaking stuff make a great thread regarding ewar and having a margin of error built into the ewar system that I fully agree with.

I think number one would be doable too, you just need to make it so cal/amar/gallogi scan precision is > max dampening possible with damps + cloak. I would rather everyone be perma scanned than have a bunch of invisible jerks zipping around exploiting broken game mechanics.

In fact just make me perma scanned in exchange, Ill be the dust jesus and die for the cloakers sins.

As for #7 I'm not sure you understood me :D

I'm saying if a person is cloaked and manages to get scanned by an active scanner, the scan sticks to them longer. But that was a crazy stupid idea and doesn't really fix anything, since it wouldnt fix the issue of people being unscannable in the first place, which is the real issue. All the dumb bastards running around with cloak and no dampening whatsoever are entirely unthreatening to someone who is participating or has a squaddy participating in EWAR, you can see them easy. Its the guys running around in unscannable invisible fits exploiting one shot kill weapons that are the cancer of dust right now.