^ This much is true.

And if we agree on the bottom line, it'd be a futile exercise to nitpick at one another's opinions. The MN Scout is performing on par with the GA and GA Scout. The AM Scout is behind these three. There is no sound reason to nerf the MN Scout.

What I'm seeing here is that people are looking at the wrong issue. What is the point in making all of the scouts on the same weak playing field, when you can just bring the rest up to par with the best?

The Min Scout is over-performing. And becoming FoTm

Reasons:
- CCP killed Scout EWAR (The Minja has worse EWAR, but that hardly matters anymore)
With EWAR being left near useless, that downside to the MinScout means little

This is why when CCP gave out the free respec I got out of scouting and stopped communicating or having anything to do with other scouts. Scouts are the whiniest crybabies in this game and I do not wish to be lumped in with you. Now that cloaks have been fixed and the suits tuned down to appropriate levels I do rock my cal scout again.

I use 1 complex range, damp, and precision. I see everything but heavily damped scouts before they can close the ground on me. I use the cloak to get away or to travel across open ground only.

I use the suit and tools as intended, but majority of scouts believe they should be special forces capable of taking out full squads easily and undetected like some COD rock star. And that whining about the gal scanner, its scan only last 7 seconds. Can you all not hide for that long really?

tl;dr scouts are no longer easy mode FOTM, and takes skill like all suits should be.

@gustavo acosta- Thank you for proving my point. All I saw was a brick wall of tears that scouts should see everything at all distances, and be completely unseen. Ewar is viable and it does not need to fill up all of your slots. You should have to choose between the type of ewar to be best at, or be well above the average in all. Demanding or expecting to have all three is just unrealistic and has been proven to be too powerful.

I personally decided to be above average, and the only people that can scan me are other scouts or heavily ewared logistics (you know the ones that fill there whole suit with ewar thus sacrificing alot). The only people that can sneek up on me are other scouts.

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 a sad day on the forums when there's talk of nerfing the nova knives.

Did anyone suggesting a range decrease even USE the knives prior to the range buff? It was incredibly frustrating. That buff is what made the nova knives. The idea that range, or damage, or anything about them should be dialed back is ludicrous, especially given what Rattati has said about their performance. Go back to your holes cretins, and leave my hard mode sidearm alone.

If you are all going to get so defensive over something clearly over-performing ...

Guys, if NK kills were remotely a problem, or a potential problem, with slightly lower backpedal, I wouldn't be advocating for them. With Scanning changes, they became less effective, but I want all styles, even niche, to be able to flourish if they want to. It's not my personal style, but I appreciate it and get killed by novas every 10 battles, maybe. Stats say the same. We should be proud of our NKers if anything. I tend to think "good kill", versus "**** you" for most other kills.

I've used them since I began playing, and ran Min Scout for well over a year
Your hard mode sidearm is no longer that at all. And this is from a dedicated Min Scout

I don't care if it's your suit/my suit, your weapon/my weapon I want to see balance in-game
If you are all going to get so defensive over something clearly over-performing, fair enough

I'll keep on knifing

The Min Scout is over-performing. And becoming FoTm

Reasons:
- CCP killed Scout EWAR (The Minja has worse EWAR, but that hardly matters anymore)
With EWAR being left near useless, that downside to the MinScout means little

- NK range buff (2m is too much, they are daggers you swipe with)
A 2m lunge is not how they are used, when knifing you look like a damn T-Rex, how can that be 2m?

- Hack Speed (used to be great when other Scouts were good, now it hands a major advantage)

Killing off EWAR use on Scouts screws 3 race types, leaving Minmatar ahead of the pack
Where before the Min Bonuses made up for what it lacked compared to Cal/Gal...
Now EWAR means little, so those Scouts lost their main bonuses..

Have CCP noticed this??
I love the MinScout, but when the FoTm bandwagon are all wearing it, you know there's a problem

Fixes:
- Define the role of Scouts,
should they be intel slaves and WP candy for Slayers?? OR
should they be the assassins waiting for you to drop your guard?
- EWAR, have the bonus come from modules not suits.

16v16 boxed in objectives, leaves little room for an intel role ...
But murder packs, or 1500hp fattys on point defence, leaves room for an assassin

So should Scout EWAR/Bonuses be re-looked at??

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

Perhaps not so clearly over-performing.

You're in a PC corp, right? How many NK kills do you see in PC killfeed for every 20 HMG kills?

The minmitar scout is not fetish of the month.

I see a fellow minmitar scout every 3-4 battles. Most battles are filled with gallante shotgun scouts, minmitar assaults and sentinels

It takes skill to use nova knives. Let me explain;

1. ISK-wise if you want to suceed with nova knives, proto is the only option. I don't play PC so i am not super-rich Really? Wow, I do decently well with STD, and pretty well with ADV.
2. Nova knife range. 2m isn't a lot. The fact that you let somebody get that close to you bothers me, not that you do. Agreed
3. Ammo. I am constantly running out of ammo using knives, and have to resupply at a depot. ??? Have you found a way to throw your knives or something!
4. I don't have a gun on my minmitar scout (ADV). The only suit i have problems with are shotgun scouts, which 90% of the time i lose 1v1. Why don't you have a gun?

Feedback in bold.