Haerr wrote:
Regarding the Amarr scout, I saw a thread on hp vs movement speed and sprint speed which made me thinking that the hp difference between Scout suits does not exactly line up with the penalty (or increase) on movement speed. Perhaps that would be a good place to start looking for a buff to the Amarr scout?
It's been awhile since I ran the numbers, but it "used to be" the case that the hp bonus of the suits was inferior across the board relative to the speed differences of the races. That is, if you compared the relative hp-gain of a basic armor plate vs. the relative hp bonus of the races, the penalty/bonus didn't make sense.
Arguably, an intrinsic racial trait should probably be "better" proportionally than a module to differentiate the races better. That is, the armor on an Amarr suit is better than the plates anyone else can add (more efficient with respect to hp/speed-hit), and so on with the Caldari shield advantage, etc.
It looks like now, the Amarr Assault sits at 460ehp and 4.8 m/s speed vs. 430ehp and 5 m/s speed for the Gallente (for example). This is comparable to the old numbers in that you're getting about 30hp for a 4% speed hit. A basic plate gives you 85hp with a 3% speed hit, the enhanced give 110 at 4%. So, taken as a straight module comparison, the Amarr suit sacrifices proportionally more speed for the amount of hp advantage they have. This comparison also holds true for the Amarr scout (30hp for about a 4% speed hit). So, not that much has changed really (even with the plate and hp changes), and having passives doesn't really change the math here much.
The way they bracket the speeds also resulted in the Minnie Assault being marginally faster than the Amarr Scout (5.3 vs. 5.25).
It got brought up more when the scouts were first being talked about, but it seemed like any adjustment of the base speeds was off the table (I believe I argued that the Amarr would be a better "scout" if it lost the 30hp and was 4% faster instead). The racial hp bonuses vs. speed differences have come up before too, with various opinions on the subject.
I guess it depends on if you feel like the Amarr hp advantage needs to be noticeably "worse" than a module to account for the fact they're not using a slot to get it. This seems silly to me in light of the fact that the other racial bonuses (like Gallente Armor reps, or the relative shield stats of Caldari) don't carry such drawbacks. Of course, I'd also prefer the Amarr Scout were faster than the fastest assault (with scout speed bonuses raised correspondingly).
In a way, the Amarr Scouts' speed/hp issues are a relic of the identical mold they tried to apply to all racial suits to establish certain fixed differences, regardless of the purpose of the suit (Amarr are always slower with a little more hp, etc.). I don't generally like to make lots of EVE comparisons, but I like that EVE is somewhat less slavish in applying the racial mold (Amarr have the faster ships in some scenarios, etc.). The racial advantages vary a bit more.
/shrug