Battle of the Battlescouts

[RickDagles]

In this thread let's talk about the different possibilities of the Battlescout (T2 Scout) and your experience with those builds. This ship must have been a favorite of the developers because it seems to have gotten all of the best components. It seems like the only good component they left out is regular lasers (argueably better than Quads in many situations), railgun, drones, and mines

 

 

DOG FIGHTER/Anti-Scout: BLC/Cluster/TT/Wingman/DF/Retro

:)STRENGTHS: I have found this to be the best battlescout for taking out other battlescouts. This is typically a battle of evasion vs accuracy with constant threat of missiles. This build optimizes your accuracy and gives only a bit less evasion than the evasion scout (see below). This increases the chance that you can land BLC shots without getting hit by BLC shots. Also, your retro thruster doubles as a missile break and missile launching aid. A common occurence for me when I hear a missile tone is to pull a 180, use retro, and try to lock a missile of my own while shooting BLCs.

:mad:WEAKNESSES: The biggest weakness of this build is probably T1 bomber since clusters don't damage the hull and the BLCs aren't quite as supercharged as they can be in other builds. Ion Railgun can also be a serious threat since your engine ability doesn't provide mobility.

 

 

EVASION SCOUT/Anti-Gunship: BLC/Cluster/TT/Running Interference/DF/Power Dive

:)STRENGTHS: This build is extremely good against gunships. If you correctly time the use of running interference, you can become pretty much invulnerable to railgun fire for 20 seconds. Also remember that your TT active gives you additional evasion and this ability can be used for half of the entire game. Power dive is useful in the event that you do get hit by an ion railgun. It is also useful because it drastically improves your mobility and lets you deal with cluster missile scouts. You can also opt to use barrel roll here. This will give you more mobility and ability to grab damage overcharge pickups, but you become a lot more vulnerable to ion railgun and cluster missile spam.

:mad:WEAKNESSES: The biggest weakness of this build is the railgun drone since it ignores evasion. Also, since you are giving up wingman it is going to be more difficult to hit high evasion targets like scouts and the T1 gunship.

 

 

CRIT MONSTER/Anti Bomber BLC//TT/Concentrated Fire (pods or cluster)/DF/Retro

:)STRENGTHS: This build is great for quickly taking out bombers. Concentrated fire almost guarantees that you will land at least one monster crit shot on the bomber, and that means quick death. If you are good at lining up the target centred then you can supplement the attack with pods, but honestly I feel like the build kills quickly enough that you don't need them here. The clusters are likely a better choice because they'll let you handle scouts better. Likewise, retro thrusters are probably the best choice here because they will help you land more clusters.

:mad:WEAKNESSES: Again, giving up wingman means that you won't be as good against high evasion targets like scouts and T1 GS.

 

 

RAPID FIRE BLC SCOUT: BLC/cluster/BO/Wingman/freq capacitor/DF/Retro

:)STRENGTHS: When wingman is active, this scout has better accuracy than the evasion scout and the crit monster scout mentioned previously. This means that it can be a bit stronger against other scouts while still maintaining very good damage against bombers. It is also probably the easiest BLC scout to learn with because the BLC fires more similarly to traditional lasers. You can hold the button down and fire similar to how you would might use Quads or HLC. Since this build fires more shots, you can afford to be a bit less accurate and still do some important damage to the enemy. I find that this build is actually surprisingly good against scouts because you can often land an extra shot as the enemy passes by you.

:mad:WEAKNESSES: Since you don't get the TT evasion boost, this build is likely worse than the previous 3 builds against Gunships. However, in practice I find that it kills the GS really fast. It is just more of a glass cannon. If you want to give it a boost against gunships and sacrifice ability to kill scouts, swap retro for power dive.

 

 

BLC JOUSTER: BLC/pod/TT/Wingman/DF/Retro/Range capacitors

:)STRENGTHS: This build is one of the best 1v1 jousting builds in the game. How it works is - you get in close, pop your buffs, open fire, then hit retro as the enemy is starting to get out of your firing arc. Then you keep firing away. Range capacitors are usually a good choice in any build, but they are even more necessary here IMO because retro will be pulling you away a fair distance from the enemy. This build is also great at taking out charged plating bombers, although your attack approach is a bit different (you want to ensure that your target is always centered because the rockets have such a brutal tracking penalty).

:mad:WEAKNESSES: If your enemies realize that you are a supreme jouster, they may decide not to ever joust with you. This takes away most of the strength of this build. A dog fighter battlescout variant can really screw you up with cluster missiles because he can basically control the battle on his terms. Your only chance to win is to catch him off guard with a good offensive retro attack. Again, since you are using retro thrusters, ion railgun can be a serious threat. Also, running out of pods really hinders the build.

 

QUAD/POD: Quad/pod/TT(evasion dispel)/Wingman/Retro/Distortion Field

:)STRENGTHS: This build has the highest DPS of any build in the game. If you use the 5% evasion dispel T4 talent on TT, you get a monster accuracy boost of 35%. This build is very good at surprising enemies and melting them before they can even react. Because your Quads have a long range, you can often kill bombers from a safe position away from mines/drones. You can melt gunships before they have a chance to barrel roll away. Any half health targets really don't have a chance against this build unless they see you coming beforehand. It can even be half decent against some BLC scout builds if you can pull off some good offensive retro thruster attacks.

:mad:WEAKNESSES: The biggest weakness is that you can and often run out of pods. Without pods this build is probably not even meta worthy. Another huge weakness is that you can't really fight on the node with this ship (it sucks in close range), so you are really dependant on your teammates staying on the node. Also, if the enemy chooses not to joust with you, you lose a lot of your strength. This build is not nearly as good against charged plating as a BLC build since the Quads don't ignore armor. As always, ion railgun is a serious threat. It sounds like a lot of weaknesses but the ability to melt targets before they can run is very important.

 

 

Those are the builds that I've used pretty regularly. My personal favorite is the Quad/Pod scout, but I also find the Rapid Fire Scout to be a lot of fun too. I know there are lots of other combinations out there. So please share your ideas, how/why they work, and some potential shortcomings.

Edited April 7, 2015 by RickDagles

[Ardaneb]

Hilarious. The rapid-fire build does not use rapid-fire lasers. Totally appropriate and correct. Still hilarious (Buff please). Thanks for posting all these builds. I definitely learned something from the descriptions. I want to add a build:

 

SNAP SHOT DAMAGE: BLC/Pods/concentrated fire/DF/Powedive

This build is for situations when you are up against a team with more players at an advanced level than your team. The goal is to do quick damage (one shot, one pod) without exposing yourself to chasers. To make this strategy work you have to plan a power dive around line of sight before or after each target. The primary advantage of the build is that it occupies a large proportion of the opponents force while still doing reasonable damage. This can enable teammates of intermediate/advanced skill to rack up kills or take a different satellite. Remember, you can choose which opponents to occupy. Focus the best two if you can, plus one or two more. Wingman (good scout or no bombers on other team) or Running Interference (strong player on your own team) are reasonable variants.

Edited April 7, 2015 by Ardaneb

[Mintas]

Rapid Fire Scout is very good IMO. In a gunship heavy Death Match you can normally hit two or three cause a nice barrel roll fireworks display to go off and still have enough go-go juice to get out of dodge.

[tunewalker]

Any one else get a chuckle out of the fact that the "rapid fire" one lacks "rapid fire lasers" IE it still uses Burst Lasers and no "fast firing laser" like Lights or Rapids... (though can you even put Rapids on a Battle scout)

[StrixHiraeth]

I run something very similar to the "Evasion Scout" build. I prefer barrel roll to power dive because it's a better gap closer (or gap maker) and it's easier to aim. But yeah. It's a solid build, and you're right about it being good for hunting gunships. Distortion Field + Running Interference + strafing on approach is fun, especially when multiple gunships are shooting at you and rail shots are zinging by

 

I'm ashamed to admit that I have been using burst laser cannons on my Sting lately.

 

Edit: The Evasion Scout build is pretty good defense against battlescouts with BLC, as well.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Ymris

[Linuxizer]

The Padawan's Battlescout: BLC/Pods/TT/DF/BR/Wingman

It just feels easier to use. I can hit mines from 6000m, I have good weapons against bomber and gunships, I feel stealthier using pods than clusters, and BLC is better than QLC in those chance encounters. If I get into a joust I shouldn't have, I can simply barrel roll past the other guy.

[Verain]

Any one else get a chuckle out of the fact that the "rapid fire" one lacks "rapid fire lasers" IE it still uses Burst Lasers and no "fast firing laser" like Lights or Rapids... (though can you even put Rapids on a Battle scout)

 

Not really- the goal of a "rapid fire" anything isn't to shoot a lot of shots unless that in and of itself has merit (it does not). Shooting many times is strictly worse than shooting a few times, so the goal of a "rapid fire" anything is to trade away the benefits of burst damage and easy targeting for another benefit. In this game, the benefit you can get from frequency capacitor and damage overcharge is a higher dps from all the extra shots. You could meaningfully use lights, but not because "they shoot faster", but because you want to trade away even more good stuff for higher dps- but in general, lights are only higher dps in a much more limited fashion than BLCs.

 

RFLs aren't interesting because of their speed (that's a disadvantage). Their actual "power set" appears to be:

 

> Low damage fall-off with increased angle

> Low power consumption

 

Obviously, the first doesn't matter (the damage fall off is mild, but the damage is so bad that even the "high penalty" lasers are generally better at high deflections) and the second is essentially unimportant.

 

So you'd expect RFLs to appear on a build that was meant to be able to shoot forever, or something. The fact that the lasers shoot rapidly is just one more crappy thing about that gun.

[SithAceI]

I can't believe no one has mentioned the build that gave the Battlescout its "OP" reputation!

 

Probably because this build is what got the Battlescout Nerfed in the first place, and it is not as effective as it once was hehe!

 

The Original "OP"

 

BLC, Clusters/Pods, BO, Concentrated Fire, DF, and Retros.

 

Just thought I would remind everyone and was feeling a little nostalgic lol!

[RickDagles]

Ha! That is a great build if there are no scouts or t1 GS in the game. Evasion is the meta and you usually need at least 10% boost to consistently hit anything.

 

Quad/cluster/TT/wingman is a pretty old school build that is honestly still a scout r4pist. It just sucks too hard against bombers that it doesn't really work anymore.

Edited April 11, 2015 by RickDagles