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Varoth Drac
Dead Man's Game
1
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Posted - 2015.08.28 20:09:00 -
[1] - Quote
Can it not do either, depending on how you fit it? There is more than one way to fit a scout suit.
Amarr counter recon light assault
Amarr assassin
The main thing the Amarr scout does better than other scouts is it's passive scan precision. It has the ability to scan at greater precision at medium range than a Gallente logi with an active scanner (non-focussed). It will pick up most scouts further out than any other passive scan, making it a deadly opponent for enemy scouts.
With the exception of a speed hack Min scout, scouts in general are played in roughly the same ways. The various bonuses give them advantages in different areas, but essentially they are all scouts. The Amarr scout is no different. It's precision bonus will just give it an advantage in passive scanning, and a capability to scan scouts beyond what other suits can do. All scouts can be fit as a light assault.
Reasons it is considered underpowered compared to other scouts:
Scan range amps were nerfed hard when the scan falloff was introduced. This was to prevent suits from buffing their hyper precise inner scan rings out too far and turning themselves into walking super radars for their squad.
Unfortunately, this nerf hit Amarr scouts hard, as they were left with little way to buff their diminished medium range scans. This combined with inner scan rings allowing mediums to scan even heavily damped scouts, the massive buff to logi scan range, and the existence of the very powerful Gal logi focussed scans, all diminished the value of the Amarr scout.
The other bonus the Amarr scout has is to stamina. Originally this was the only bonus the suit had. This is not considered terribly good, as the suit already has reasonably good stamina.
Suggestions to improve the situation:
Buff range extenders to 10/15/20%. This moderate buff would improve the Amarr scout's scanning without allowing logi's to become OP at it. If logis remain a concern, perhaps nerf the logi scan range down to be equal with scouts and assaults.
Perhaps swap the stamina bonus for a bonus to biotic modules. This will allow the suit to excel in a variety of ways such as running, jumping and melee. Module bonuses have the advantage of requiring the user to actually equip the right module, rather than just stacking a load of hp.
Maybe look at active scanning. Some proposals have put been forward, such as beam scanning, snapshot scanning, swapping the Gal logi bonus to cooldown rather than precision. I suggest nerfing the focussed scanner range to 50m would be an idea. The impetus for this would be to improve the EWAR situation for medium (and possibly heavy) suits, who currently find it very difficult to avoid Gal logi active scans. The knock-on effect would be that passive scanning would have more of a role.
I suggest trying just the buffs first (20% range amps), and seeing how it goes. |
Varoth Drac
Dead Man's Game
1
|
Posted - 2015.08.28 20:29:00 -
[2] - Quote
Kierkegaard Soren wrote:I like the idea of them being a fast assault unit that can move around the battlefield quickly, shoring up the Amarrian front line at the points where it's beginning to buckle, and when they have the upper hand they can act as a potent harrassing force, hitting flanks and rears to break up the enemy's lines even further.
From a practical stand point, then, we should be looking at bonuses that increase the effacacy of fitted biotics and reduce the fitting costs of damage/weapon mods. They should be durable, tireless and hard-hitting, relatively quick too; perhaps a bonus to the HP gain ferro plates to help promote a combat scout that can actually survive on the front lines? I think that would be a really solid improvement to the suit.
How about this:
Amarr Speed Light Assault
I've used shields because, whilst I agree with the biotic module bonus, I think damage is in the realm of the commando and assault (in a way). Also scouts have great innate shield stats, regardless of race.
Also of note, is that even without any EWAR mods, the Amarr scout can scan undamped assaults (the most common opponent) out to 30m. This is further than any other suit not fitted with EWAR mods. (Obviously discounting active scans). A useful attribute on a light assault. |
Varoth Drac
Dead Man's Game
1
|
Posted - 2015.08.28 21:51:00 -
[3] - Quote
I've put forward suggestions for improving the status quo with minor tweaks.
If bonuses were to be changed more drastically, like Breakin suggests, I've seen other ideas kicking around.
We could accept that stealth is the key purpose of the scout. Well, really I mean operations behind enemy lines, which requires stealth. After all, the cloak is pretty much the only thing a scout can do that an assault can't.
We could then change scout bonuses to the following:
Role bonuses: 75% reduction to cloak fitting. 10% efficiency to profile dampeners per level.
Caldari scout: 5% duration and recharge rate of cloak per level (more racially aligned).
Gallente scout: 10% bonus to scan range amplifier efficiency per level (racially aligned).
Minmatar scout: 10% bonus to codebreaker efficiency per level.
Amarr scout: 10% bonus to biotic module efficiency per level.
Increase nova knife damage by 25%.
So all scouts get decent stealth. The Amarr's precision is ditched, the stamina is replaced with biotics. Caldari and Gallente bonuses are more racially aligned.
Just another thought. |
Varoth Drac
Dead Man's Game
1
|
Posted - 2015.08.29 07:43:00 -
[4] - Quote
So long as CCP are careful with any changes to scanning. I suggested just a +5% to range mods. More of a buff than this would likely be OP. |
Varoth Drac
Dead Man's Game
1
|
Posted - 2015.09.02 15:16:00 -
[5] - Quote
Adipem Nothi wrote:
The "AM Scout Edge" translates to the ability to detect four loadouts ...
* 3x damped Assaults
* 4x damped Assaults
* 2x damped MN Scouts
* 2x damped AM Scouts
... and only between 7 and 15 meters (a little more if you're stacking range extenders).
Actually, unless you count non-existant 4x precision Cal scouts, you need to add 1x damps Cal and Gal scouts to this list.
So effectively the majority of all competitively fit scouts, as this is the level of dampening required to hide from Gal logi scans.
The fact that passive scans don't give enemies an on screen warning like actives do, increases the chance of catching unsuspecting scouts. |
Varoth Drac
Dead Man's Game
1
|
Posted - 2015.09.02 15:38:00 -
[6] - Quote
Breakin Stuff wrote:Let's look at the triangle here. The scout skills are range, dampening and precision. so why not put range and precision to Amarr, Dampening and precision to gallente, dampening and range to Caldari, and Melee and biotics to minmatar?
Gallente: Dampening and Precision
Caldari: Range and Dampening
Amarr: Precision and Range
Minmatar: Hack and Slash/ Biotics
Please don't change the Minmatar hacking bonus. Also, counter-intuitively, it's quite difficult to fit many biotic modules on a Min scout due to the low PG and reliance on shield tanking. So it's not a great fit.
Combining precision and range has the potential to be OP, as it was when the Caldari scout had it. Passive scans may have been nerfed, but they were nerfed because they were considered OP. This is a change that many have been happy with. We don't see GD spammed with threads saying "make scans stronger".
For example, Caldari scouts can scan assaults very well at relatively long range, if they fit a precision mod. If they had a bonus to precision as well as range they would not have to fit any scanning mods to achieve this advantage.
You could give Amarr scouts a watered down version of the Caldari range bonus, but it still may cause problems.
Range amps are still a weak module. If they were buffed, but Amarr scanning had been buffed previously, we would end up with OP Amarr scouts.
By giving three of the four scouts bonuses to EWAR you have actually reduced the variety, as at the moment we have only 2.5 scouts with these bonuses. You would have to remove one of the bonuses from the variety of scout bonuses to make room for this idea.
In summary, I think combining range and precision bonuses is dangerous, and reducing the variety of scout bonuses would be bad. |
Varoth Drac
Dead Man's Game
1
|
Posted - 2015.09.02 15:52:00 -
[7] - Quote
Adipem Nothi wrote:
Absolutely fair, Varoth. Still, the point remains:
The AM Scout's "competitive edge" is limited to a very narrow middle ring.
I still think the Amarr scout's unique ability to detect assaults at 30m, without fitting any mods, is an advantage that many don't consider.
If fit with damage mods, shields or myos, scanning assaults at 30m is pretty nice. Here are other suits by comparison:
Unmodded range to detect undampened assaults (max skills):
Am scout - 30m
Min scout - 15m
Gal scout - 15m
Cal scout - 23m
Logi - 19m
Assault - 15m
Commando - 6m
Sentinel - 5m
I'm not saying they are in a great place. However I don't want to see passive scans becoming OP again. |
Varoth Drac
Dead Man's Game
1
|
Posted - 2015.09.02 16:24:00 -
[8] - Quote
Adipem Nothi wrote:
Perhaps, but I don't know that I'd call that a competitive strength or unique advantage. Once EWAR modules are in play, GA and CA Scouts can do the same if not better. Competitively speaking, long range passives are inferior to actives, and if shared passives are disabled (which seems to be a possibility), they'll be even more inferior than they are now.
If we were to move the AM Scout bonus away from passive scans, his new-found role(s) would be insulated against upcoming EWAR changes. This is another good reason, in my opinion, to be looking at reasonable alternatives.
Plenty of people run without precision mods, and undampened assaults are probably the most common suit. So it is a competitive advantage.
It's not a unique advantage, but that wasn't my point.
I'm not saying Amarr scouts are fine. Whilst I don't think they are terrible, I agree they are less desirable than the other scouts. I just don't want the scans to be buffed to OP levels, when I don't consider them too bad in the first place.
It's difficult for the Amarr scout's unique scanning advantage to very significant, when both Gallente and Caldari scouts also have bonuses to scanning.
I agree that moving away from scanning would be good. This is another reason. Although I don't think it would do any harm to leave it's scanning the way it is now.
What makes you think shared passives can be removed? I don't think Rattati's table of detection is evidence of a change of stance. Notice how all his scenarios have squad shared passives. I'm not even sure that I want this to change anyway.
At the end of the day, in a world where active scans (and logi passives) are so effective, you would have to have very powerful passives for it to be a worthwhile unique advantage on the battlefield, and I don't think that more powerful scanning is on many Dust player's list of desires. |
Varoth Drac
Dead Man's Game
1
|
Posted - 2015.09.03 17:42:00 -
[9] - Quote
Protected Void wrote:Adipem Nothi wrote:Breakin Stuff wrote:Hence Why I'm asking ... Understood. Some suggestions: Quick and Dirty Band-Aid FixSet AM Scout base scan range equal to Logi base scan range. Would help the AM Scout a little; wouldn't hurt anything else. Wouldn't make Scouts any less grumpy about Logi base scan range, but that's beside the point and an altogether separate issue :P AlternativeIf Rattati's set on keeping the AM Scout EWAR bonus, I'd propose holding off on a "proper fix" until after the EWAR changes. AlternativeIf Rattati's open to moving the AM Scout bonus away from EWAR, I'd propose the following: * Precision Bonus ----> Biotic Bonus * Precision Bonus ----> Uplink Bonus * Precision Bonus ----> ScP Headshot and Dmg Bonus My preference would be the Quick and dirty fix, at least until active scans receive a nerf. After that, passive scans can be revisited.
Giving them bonuses to both range and precision would be a less dirty way of achieving the same thing (but with less stamina). I just don't see why we need a third scout with a scanning bonus, especially when scouts aren't even that good at scanning. Nerfing scout's scanning relative to other suits was a major part of the design of the last EWAR changes. It seems a bit foolish to reverse this. We don't need more scout scanning. Better to come up with something more unique I think. |
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