Evasion Is Fine

[Svarthrafn]

There has been lots of crying about evasion lately. Barring philosophical reasons for disliking it ("RNG dodge"), evasion itself is not overpowered in any way, and there are counters to it. The counter is accuracy.

 

Start by selecting a weapon with a higher base accuracy. When you select the gun with the "biggest bang" you are often sacrificing accuracy. Look at all of the weapon's stats when you decide which to choose.

 

Choose a crew member that will give you a boost to your accuracy. Some offer passive boosts, and others have a significant active boost.

 

If you fly a scout, drop a sensor beacon near your node. This will help all of your buddies nearby too as it gives an area evasion debuff to your enemies.

 

If you are having difficulty hitting consistently, extend to mid/longer range to line up some shots. It will be easier to keep the enemy in the center of the targeting arc than it is at close range. The reduced penalty to your tracking will more than offset the loss of accuracy due to range.

 

Even 41% passive evasion is easy to counter if you implement some or all of the above. That said, the active ability on Distortion Field IS jacked up, and needs a nerf in my opinion. Please do not bring up distortion field and then say that evasion needs a nerf. I've found that most people complaining about evasion are actually complaining about the Distortion Field active.

Edited January 1, 2014 by Svarthrafn

[renegadeimp]

Nobody is asking for evasion to be changed. Everyone is asking for bypass to be changed or removed. It is way too powerful in its current form and is only going to be mandatory as skill and mod level increases.

[Hambunctious]

Nope, it isn't fine. If you aim well, you should hit your target. Not miss it completely. A temp shield boost/overload I can understand, but not that.

[Verain]

Nobody is asking for evasion to be changed. Everyone is asking for bypass to be changed or removed. It is way too powerful in its current form and is only going to be mandatory as skill and mod level increases.

 

No, I very much want both of those things. Bypass should be changed so that it doesn't offer the same magnitude of shield piercing. Likely it should also have the cooldown and duration lowered as well. A 10% bypass would be absolutely fine.

 

Evasion likely does need addressing. Likely, some weapons should be very good at ignoring evasion, just as some weapons are very good at ignoring armor, as these two are common tradeoffs when selecting components and crewmates.

[Svarthrafn]

Evasion likely does need addressing. Likely, some weapons should be very good at ignoring evasion, just as some weapons are very good at ignoring armor, as these two are common tradeoffs when selecting components and crewmates.

 

Some weapons already are. The ones with higher accuracy stats. The problem is that people want the highest on-paper dps number, in addition to the accuracy. Having their cake and eating it too, so to speak.

 

Nope, it isn't fine. If you aim well, you should hit your target. Not miss it completely. A temp shield boost/overload I can understand, but not that.

 

I would be fine with this if the game had joystick control. As it is, aiming doesn't require any "skill" because all you have to do is put a mouse pointer on a target and let rip. Anybody who thinks there is any aiming skill in this game is kidding themselves. Without evasion, it is far TOO EASY to hit your target, as scout pilots laying into strikes these days can well attest.

Edited December 28, 2013 by Svarthrafn

[Gavin_Kelvar]

evasion itself is not overpowered in any way, and there are counters to it. The counter is accuracy.

 

In theory this is true. But the fact is that there are far more ways to passively buff evasion beyond what a ship's base stats are than there are to passively buff a weapon's base accuracy. For strikers the only way to buff a weapon's base accuracy is a companion, the most blaster reliant variant of the striker has no component to passively buff their weapons base accuracy (and if I recall only ions have an upgrade that buffs base accuracy).

 

The problem isn't that one is OP per se, just that it's not balanced with accuracy because of how you can passively buff evasion far beyond the levels you can passively buff accuracy. Fact of the matter is the only way a striker can passively buff their accuracy is with a companion 6% bonus which is immediately nullified by an evasion build using a companion with the 6% buff to evasion. Keep in mind that the ship class that benefits most from evasion - the scout - has a base evasion of 10% so the companion passive isn't even high enough to nullify a scout's base evasion.

 

So all things consider this adds up to a striker being unable to effectively counter it's primary dogfighting rival the scout's base stat much less all the passive evasion a scout can gain from components. If you had components that could grant an accuracy buff on a 1:1 ratio with components buffing evasion the two stats would be pretty balanced, but such as it is evasion can be passively buffed to far exceed whatever passive buffs you might be able to get with accuracy. That's what's unbalanced.

 

Some weapons already are. The ones with higher accuracy stats. The problem is that people want the highest on-paper dps number, in addition to the accuracy. Having their cake and eating it too, so to speak.

 

In theory this would be true but flying my striker would indicate this isn't as clear cut. Now for blasters on a tier 1 striker you have rapids (lowest overall accuracy), quads (middle), and heavies (best accuracy). So in theory taking the highest accuracy blasters would look like the obvious choice to counter high evasion. And sometimes yes that's the case but it's unlikely you'll be shooting dead center of your firing arc the majority of the time and it's quite likely in a dogfight you'll have to fire off center to some degree plus you may have a very limited window of a small few seconds to fire. That's where things get complicated and the theory doesn't work out nearly as well as it does in practice

 

Now the problem with your point on the best accuracy weapon is 1) the higher the base accuracy the larger the tracking penalty and it's unlikely that in the majority of dogfights you'll have the luxury to line up a shot dead center (be it the nature of the situation or limitations of the controls) 2) as you gain accuracy you trade ROF which negatively impacts you ability to land shots by firing fewer shots (and thus fewer RNG roles).

 

From much personal experience I've found that currently the way accuracy/evasion works in a dogfight it rewards the weapon that has the best blend of accuracy and ROF. If you have so low a ROF only get 2-4 shots off with the best accuracy blaster in the game odds are the guy with the blaster with slightly lower accuracy but faster ROF to get more shots off than you will be better off.

 

The builds are favoring the blend of ROF + accuracy because the way evasion stacks with a weapon's inherent accuracy penalties doesn't reward picking the weapon with the best accuracy but slowest ROF. You can't ever ensure that you'll always be fighting in a situation where you'll always be able to fire dead center so if you want to survive you need to build for flexibility not a limited number of situations a skilled pilot isn't likely to let you enjoy.

 

I would be fine with this if the game had joystick control. As it is, aiming doesn't require any "skill" because all you have to do is put a mouse pointer on a target and let rip. Anybody who thinks there is any aiming skill in this game is kidding themselves. Without evasion, it is far TOO EASY to hit your target, as scout pilots laying into strikes these days can well attest.

 

Go old school and remove the lead icon that tells you where to fire. Problem solved. That being said I've noticed that most pilots have no concept of "don't fly in a straight line than more for 2 seconds." Scouts are especially curious since a lot of pilots seem to like flying in straight lines as if they had the hulls/shields of strikers, not bobbing and weaving like they should. To some degree yes things like the lead indicator make it easy to hit your target but from my observations the sloppy flying of many pilots is equally to blame. Evasion IMO ends up acting as a crutch for such sloppy flying, not compensating for the ease of hitting your target.

 

Maybe to some degree evasion is needed in a small amount but currently it seems far too much since it can be stacked with abilities to grant immunity to blaster fire temporarily. In my book immunity from enemy fire is just as bad as being 1 shot since in either case the person being attacked has little/no means of retaliating.

[Helig]

Stack accuracy (companion bonus included), line up your shots. Got no trouble blowing up Evasion-stacking Scouts with heavy lasers, railguns, light lasers and burst lasers.

 

Cluster missiles are also great.

 

Bypass, on the other hand, needs to die in a fire.

Edited December 29, 2013 by Helig

[Brilo]

Nobody is asking for evasion to be changed. Everyone is asking for bypass to be changed or removed. It is way too powerful in its current form and is only going to be mandatory as skill and mod level increases.

 

Actually, lots of people are asking for it to be changed. Having evasion on a ship that is actually in motion is a really cool idea, particularly when it has high transversal velocity to the shooter, or jinking, or is at least moving at high speed.

Having evasion affect a ship that is sitting dead in space is enough to completely pop you out of an immersive experience wondering what the hell just happened, particularly when a button press can cause that ship to be invulnerable to all blaster fire for 6 seconds. Scouts aren't supposed to be tough, but being completely unable to hit them is better than any shield in the game, which is antithetical to the concept of a fast assault vehicle let alone a reconnaissance vehicle.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Stack accuracy (companion bonus included), line up your shots. Got no trouble blowing up Evasion-stacking Scouts with heavy lasers, railguns, light lasers and burst lasers.

 

Stack companion passive accuracy with what? That's literally the ONLY passive accuracy buff strikers get in the game (save for ions, but you can't shoot down an enemy ship with those).

 

Sure you have companion active abilities you can use (note strikers have no components that grant them active abilities to buff accuracy either - all accuracy buffs come from companions) but the fact remains that you can passively buff evasion far more than you can passively buff accuracy, not anywhere close to a balanced ratio by any means.

 

Scouts aren't supposed to be tough, but being completely unable to hit them is better than any shield in the game, which is antithetical to the concept of a fast assault vehicle let alone a reconnaissance vehicle.

 

Agree. It lets them survive things they shouldn't be able to (playing chicken with a striker for example). IMO invulnerability like that is as bad as the ability to 1 shot people.

Edited December 29, 2013 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Sharee]

Scouts aren't supposed to be tough, but being completely unable to hit them is better than any shield in the game, which is antithetical to the concept of a fast assault vehicle let alone a reconnaissance vehicle.

 

It's better than any shield in the game - for six seconds. After that, it's death in two hits. THAT is the downside of distortion shield.

 

And don't count on the passive 41% evasion to save you. Burst cannon has ~120% accuracy at the distance it is supposed to be used. Kira gives a 20% accuracy buff for 20 seconds - i need three seconds to kill a distortion-shield scout.

 

Also remember: even if you DO have 41% evasion, any incoming shot is still more likely to hit you than to miss you. And two burst cannon hits means death for you.

Edited December 29, 2013 by Sharee

[Sharee]

 

The problem isn't that one is OP per se, just that it's not balanced with accuracy because of how you can passively buff evasion far beyond the levels you can passively buff accuracy. Fact of the matter is the only way a striker can passively buff their accuracy is with a companion 6% bonus which is immediately nullified by an evasion build using a companion with the 6% buff to evasion. Keep in mind that the ship class that benefits most from evasion - the scout - has a base evasion of 10% so the companion passive isn't even high enough to nullify a scout's base evasion.

 

Do you know what passively negates 50% evasion?

 

Shooting twice.

[LeonBraun]

^^ This right here.

 

Sharee, you are one I see here who really sees and understands the variations between the fighters and how they should be played, and how to counter the others.

 

What I see a lot of people trying to do here is out-scout the Scouts and then call them OP when they can't beat them at their own game.

 

Scouts can have some short bursts and also some burst defences, but on both counts, once they blow their CDs, they're paper thin, and this is when they're vulnerable.

 

Don't try to out-scout a Scout by playing chicken with one, or being stationary when the pop their CDs. Once they're used their CDs, hit them at range and at angles with your missiles and they will fall easy. Because the Scouts need to use the low accuracy Rocket Pods combined with their offensive blaster CDs to be effective, they also have to fight stationary or straight in line targets for those to be effective. Don't play to those strengths.

Edited December 29, 2013 by LeonBraun

[Guinness]

Sorry I tend to agree with others - if it's in my sights and I'm shooting it - that should count for something... you want evasion ? fly better lol This is just Expertise all over again... real expertise should come from the player and being good at evading attacks should be the same. Give 'em increased shields instead, I say.

[Lymain]

There has been lots of crying about evasion lately. Barring philosophical reasons for disliking it ("RNG dodge"), evasion itself is not overpowered in any way, and there are counters to it. The counter is accuracy.

 

I just don't like how evasion gets better and better the more you stack it. However, it doesn't really seem overpowered to me in practice. In addition to accuracy, missiles are a great counter to it as well.

 

As I get more experience, I'm finding that I don't even really value Distortion Shield very highly. It's great for jousting, but that's kinda a "n00b tactic" for scouts. At low levels of play, it's especially powerful because it catches people off guard, but I think it really loses a lot of its value as the level of play rises.

[Zoom_VI]

Nope, it isn't fine. If you aim well, you should hit your target. Not miss it completely. A temp shield boost/overload I can understand, but not that.

 

Except then why does my weebitty scout have the exact same hitbox as a gunship? Evasion is there to simulate the increased difficulty of hitting a small target.

 

Also if you have your target dead center you will always hit your target.

[Hambunctious]

Except then why does my weebitty scout have the exact same hitbox as a gunship? Evasion is there to simulate the increased difficulty of hitting a small target.

 

Also if you have your target dead center you will always hit your target.

 

It shouldn't, and that's another problem they need to address.

[Lytewraith]

do you all relize missles negate evasion get into something with some bang in it and personal 11500 range proton followed up by anything destroys them and there evasion build with no bypass abilty used another thing is to start using debuffs on them instead of bypass or crit or hull heals if you fly well you can get a copilot that has something usefull like servo jammer with 20% manurvering debuff and that my friends will cripple any scout a lot better then 6 ecs of wep shield piercing because it effects them and then if they cant maneuver so fast the die from everyone shooting them faster Edited December 29, 2013 by Lytewraith
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[Brilo]

It's better than any shield in the game - for six seconds. After that, it's death in two hits. THAT is the downside of distortion shield.

 

I doubt that you're here to agree with anyone about the fact that Scout evasion is unbalanced, but for those of you that do not have your minds set on keeping your flavor, you have to consider what can be done in 6 seconds of invulnerability. No one is going to just wait for death after 6 seconds for starters, but also it's relatively simple to kill two players that naturally believe you to be an easy target. I most often use this ability to completely ignore danger and destroy one incoming target, but if timed well it is actually more than enough time to take out two people. Dead ships don't kill scouts.

 

Even if I don't kill them, my superior maneuverability and evasion are more than adequate to finish them after we are engaged. Death in two hits? Not unless they happen to be flying a Scout. Gunships and strikes don't have the maneuverability to bring weapons to bear on a circling Scout, and that high evasion % only applies to a ship sitting still, when you add in tracking penalties the only way to hit a Scout enough to kill is if the fly straight for a period of time.

 

Again, invulnerability is antithetical to the concept of a fast assault frigate let alone a reconnaissance vehicle. If you believe that Scouts are supposed to be able to take Strikes head on, then I will refer to the quote on the FlashFire, "A Flashfire may not compete head-on against a strike fighter, but its maneuverability may be the edge a skilled pilot needs".

Killing a Strike head on with two rounds of weapon fire while sitting dead still in space invulnerable doesn't quite fit that bill, regardless of how many seconds you get to do it. Instead, they can take strikes head on, outdamage, and outmaneuver them.

Edited December 29, 2013 by Brilo

[Brilo]

On that note, I just got hate mail for a GSF match (from a deleted character amazingly enough) where I flew my FlashFire, claiming I was hacking. Quite a few curse words.

 

When people are firing perfectly at a ship that is sitting still, they expect to hit them, not to have some retarded mechanic cause them to be invulnerable for any amount of time. Damage reduction would be one thing, but when you fire for 6 seconds at the "weakest" ship in the game and nothing happens, the average player will think something is up.

[BuckeyeChris]

I think evasion is perfectly fine right now. I really don't get the argument about "strikes can't increase their accuracy as well as scouts can increase their evasion. Therefore unfair." So what? God forbid a ship type gets to be good at something without another ship having the ability to fully counter it. That's called building an advantage, and evasion is one that a scout should be expected to get.

I think people grossly underestimate the abilities of strikes too, I don't feel like some slow stupid elephant when I'm flying my strike, even against scouts. People act like the scouts just fly circles around them and execute them at their leisure when that is far from reality.

Do you fly straight at a gunship when it's charging a big old slug, and pointed at you? Do you wail on a sage who pops his immunity bubble for the full duration? I doubt it. You're allowed to veer off when a scout blows his cooldowns too.

Last, this isn't a 1v1 format. You know what's pretty easy to hit? A scout trying to shoot down someone else. Everyone is way too worried about not being able to 1v1 every other ship at all times in all situations with their own favorite.

 

I think the only thing that really needs to be addressed right now is the ion railgun tap. That has to be an oversight. Balance-wise, I think it's pretty good. What tweaks may need to be made should NOT be made on these knee-jerk reactions of people when the game is still in this early stage of play. That's how you ruin balance.

Edited December 29, 2013 by BuckeyeChris

[DEATHICIDE]

On that note, I just got hate mail for a GSF match (from a deleted character amazingly enough) where I flew my FlashFire, claiming I was hacking. Quite a few curse words.

 

When people are firing perfectly at a ship that is sitting still, they expect to hit them, not to have some retarded mechanic cause them to be invulnerable for any amount of time. Damage reduction would be one thing, but when you fire for 6 seconds at the "weakest" ship in the game and nothing happens, the average player will think something is up.

 

You good sir are completely on the ball in this thread.

 

I posted a whaaA???? experience of mine in another thread that I would like to toss back in here in order to illustrate the problem:

 

I had fully upgraded the rapid fire blasters on my strike fighter, fully upgraded the shield power pool, with regen at 60% while taking damage chosen, fully upgraded the large reactor, joined a game right after my final tier of shield power was purchased, and saw what I thought would be an easy target...

 

Sitting there motionless on top of a base right at the beginning of a match was one of those czerka style flashfires, it was pointing away from me towards it's own side of the map.

 

I thought, this guy is just asking for it, so I approached, as soon as i was within blaster range, i put power to weapons, hit the full stop on my engines, opened laser fire, and shortly after began the missle lock.

 

Before the lock could even be completed, all the while having this guy dead center in my sights taking full on laser fire, the ship simply turned itself towards me, seemingly unscathed by my maximum powered assault, and 3 shotted me into oblivion.

 

I have never been more jaw dropped in the history of SWTOR than I was right then, and only then did I become a believer in the crying for flashfires to get a nerf, because that my friends, is absolute crap, no two ways about it.

[Guinness]

The Scout seems to have better engine/better turning as standard - this is what should be being used to evade - not a stupid mechanic... Nobody is complaining because the Scout has an ability that others don't, we are trying to take the scouts down with skill, what's the problem with scouts using skill to evade ? Hitting them fair n' square should always count and it doesn't seem to me that this is happening. Edited December 29, 2013 by Guinness

[BuckeyeChris]

The Scout seems to have better engine/better turning as standard - this is what should be being used to evade - not a stupid mechanic... Nobody is complaining because the Scout has an ability that others don't, we are trying to take the scouts down with skill, what's the problem with scouts using skill to evade ? Hitting them fair n' square should always count and it doesn't seem to me that this is happening.

 

If their innate speed were noticeably faster, their turning noticeably better, and their hitbox smaller I might agree with you. But if I'm sitting on a gunship it hardly matters what's on the other end of my snipe - nothing is particularly hard to hit with the exception of a ship who's flying specifically to make themselves harder FOR ME to hit. It's every bit as easy to hit a scout as a gunship a lot of the time. Increase all those maneuverability innates on a scout and I might agree with you.

[Zoom_VI]

The Scout seems to have better engine/better turning as standard - this is what should be being used to evade - not a stupid mechanic... Nobody is complaining because the Scout has an ability that others don't, we are trying to take the scouts down with skill, what's the problem with scouts using skill to evade ? Hitting them fair n' square should always count and it doesn't seem to me that this is happening.

 

Evasion is just taking the standard tracking penalty and making it worse.

 

If your target is dead center you will always hit your target.

[Lymain]

Do you wail on a sage who pops his immunity bubble for the full duration? I doubt it. You're allowed to veer off when a scout blows his cooldowns too.

 

Bingo. People are complaining about n00bs being n00bs.