Nerfing the Flashfire/Sting through Minor Component swap?

[Nemarus]

One of the strengths of the Sting is that it is the only ship that has all four of the ideal Minor Components: Reactor, Armor, Thrusters, and Capacitor.

 

Every other ship has one slot filled by Magazine ("mehgazine") or Sensors (mildly useful on a few ships, only moderately useful to the S2E build).

 

The Dustmaker (big surprise) is the only ship to have both a Magazine and Sensors.

 

It seems like a simple, very targeted adjustment to the Sting would be to swap out one of its ideal Minor components for one of the two lesser components. Considering its flavor text calls out that it Sensors capabilities are second to those of the Blackbolt and Bloodmark, I don't think it makes sense to give the Sting Sensors.

 

So let's give it a Magazine instead.

 

Magazine isn't even so bad on the Sting. Additional Pods or Cluster Missiles would both be welcome, as would blaster regen for BLC's or Quads. It might not be ideal, but it's not wasted.

 

Then the question becomes--which Minor Component to remove? I think the Sting absolutely has to have Thrusters, but the rest are really all viable candidates for being swapped out for a Magazine. It really depends on how you want to target the Sting for a nerf.

 

If you want to nerf its offensive potential, remove its Capacitor. This would reduce its ability to deal out burst damage. It would also give the Rycer, Quell, Blackbolt and Bloodmark some much-needed offensive advantage against the Sting. Right now, the Sting is the obvious choice for primary weapon offense. But if it lacked a Capacitor, those above four fighters at least have some ground to stand on.

 

On the other hand, if you want to nerf the Sting's Evasion, remove its Armor. This would be a very interesting choice, as it would paint the Blackbolt and Bloodmark as the supremely evasive and hard-to-hit fighters, while keeping the Sting as the offensive juggernaut of Scouts. It might also persuade more people to use Directional or even Quick Charge shield on the Sting.

 

Finally, you could remove its Reactor, making it more fragile. The Sting would remain an offensive and evasive beast, but it would have less capacity to survive a lucky hit. Personally, I don't think this change would move the needle very much. The lack of a Reactor on the Blackbolt isn't very crippling, nor is the presence of one on the Bloodmark very important.

 

Whichever of the three was chosen, I do not think it would be a grievous nerf to the Sting. In fact I think it might still need further nerfs. But it would move it in the right direction, and it would potentially add some distinctive value to the Blackbolt, Bloodmark, and the Strikes.

 

As for the Dustmaker, it should get a buff. Swap out one of the weaker Minor Components for an Armor. That alone wouldn't buff it to parity, but it would help.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

The thing I wonder with swapping out magazine for capacitor is whether you'd move the needle much. Magazine would still be useful to the Sting offensively which might mitigate the loss of capacitor. Personally, I'd give it sensors though. Assigning minor components based on flavor text has largely hurt the strike class (the T2 would be much better off with reactor instead of flavor text fulfilling armor; the T3 would be better off with magazine than sensors) so I don't think it should be the driving motivation when choosing what minor component to swap.

 

I would personally swap out armor of the two defensive components. That's a bigger defensive hit than the loss of the reactor and therefore helps counter the raw damage output. It also makes the T3 scout a little more durable and unique.

 

EDIT: What if though you swapped capacitor for magazine and armor for sensors? That would distinctly move the needle but given how much raw power the T2 has I don't think it'd become neutered like the Dustmaker.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Gavin_Kelvar

[RickDagles]

Why nerf the Flashfire/Sting? That would make gunships too powerful.

 

Magazine would actually probably benefit the battlescout as much as a large shield reactor. Munitions capacity extender would finally have a purpose, especially in rocket pods builds. However, the large shield reactor is pretty important against railgun drones.

[Ramalina]

From a design standpoint as of right now, it's probably way down the list of potential changes. Mostly because people already have spent requisition to master things on their battlescouts.

 

When they took sensor dampening away from gunships, they didn't do it by making a different selection of components available on the ship, they did it by breaking the functionality of the offending component in a way that crippled the component for gunships but largely didn't affect other ships.

 

The problem is that none of the battlescout minor components lend themselves to that sort of treatment.

 

Probably the closest you could get would be to cripple Lightweight Armor in some fashion. Say make it a triggered effect that lasts 5 seconds with a cooldown of 20 seconds that triggers on taking more than 300 hull damage in a 1 second window. That would make Lightweight armor pretty useless, but it would be clunky, and it would hurt the T1 scout, T1 gunship, T3 gunship, T3 scout, and the T2 strike. Just all around not a good change, and that's probably about the best change to minors that you could make in the way of a targeted battlescout nerf.

 

 

In a sequel: GSF the Second Attempt, then I'd say that ditching the armor component and replacing it with something useless would probably be the way to go. Sensors most likely.

[Kinsha]

IMHO the safest component to remove would be the reactor. That would put the shielding at equal level to the T1 scout. It never made much sense (not much in GSF does) to me that a ship with the same chassis, trades away sensors, maintains the same speed, maneuverability and at the same time gains powerful armor piercing high energy consumption scatter guns with more shielding. I think there' could be an argument for that trade off if a lack of sensors could somehow leave you blind to what's shooting you, but that's no longer possible.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Probably the closest you could get would be to cripple Lightweight Armor in some fashion. Say make it a triggered effect that lasts 5 seconds with a cooldown of 20 seconds that triggers on taking more than 300 hull damage in a 1 second window. That would make Lightweight armor pretty useless, but it would be clunky, and it would hurt the T1 scout, T1 gunship, T3 gunship, T3 scout, and the T2 strike. Just all around not a good change, and that's probably about the best change to minors that you could make in the way of a targeted battlescout nerf.

 

What about implementing a hardcap on how much passive evasion you could stack? If you placed the hard cap somewhere around 25 you'd nerf scouts while largely leaving the component fully effective for GS/Strikes.

[Ramalina]

What about implementing a hardcap on how much passive evasion you could stack? If you placed the hard cap somewhere around 25 you'd nerf scouts while largely leaving the component fully effective for GS/Strikes.

 

Oh, yeah, that'd work. Basically just unequip lightweight armor for scouts. It'd hit the other two scouts a bit harder than they really need to be hit though.

[RickDagles]

Nerfing evasion would be a terrible idea. Good gunship players already commonly shoot through 33 base evasion + 8% TT evasion + 15% running interference. You even have a decent chance to shoot through distortion field if you have a perfectly centered wingman shot. If you are going to nerf base evasion then you're going to need to buff the purple orbs to like 20%+ evasion or something crazy enough to make them nearly as good as damage overcharge. But that still won't fix domination mode.

 

EDIT: On second thought the purple orb buff is a horrible because it would make T1 GS even more super godly. Unless perhaps it buffed different ships to different amounts.

Edited November 4, 2015 by RickDagles

[Bolo_Yeung]

Yes... nerf scouts, ion rail spam ftw! Apparently there is not enough gunships in games, We need GS-only games!

 

And seriously, you can't just nerf only one class (except maybe mentioned ion rail...) without changes to other classes as well, so threads like "nerf scouts" "nerf bombers" "nerf gunships" should be consolidated into one thread. Ok, well, maybe "buff strikes" can be done alone .

 

Maybe scouts are really best on 'ace' level, however, Not much 'aces' in game ... didn't see it really in action. Didn't see a "scouts countering GS" in matches with equally skilled pilots on each side.

Virtually every higher level TDM switches into Fortress Deathball, Domination with scout-heavy in first seconds will go bomber/GS heavy later.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Oh, yeah, that'd work. Basically just unequip lightweight armor for scouts. It'd hit the other two scouts a bit harder than they really need to be hit though.

 

Well if it capped at 25% wouldn't that basically be what a T1 S2E can achieve? So wouldn't it just make those builds more appealing and more viable in the meta since they wouldn't be sacrificing passive evasion to do so?

 

EDIT: I do get what you're saying that the T1 loses more than the T2 but that seems to be an inherent problem with balancing it with it's optimal component selection. You can't nerf it without nerfing the other scouts more.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Altheran]

Where do I sign for Armor -> Magazine ?

 

And I don't care a second for the "GS would be too strong" kind of arguments. For a real balance to happen, scouts as a whole need to be balanced against GS, and for that to happen, scouts need to be balanced amongst themselves. As long as its not done, balance between scouts won't happen, let alone any general balance.

So, if GS would dominate, that'd be okay, they'd just need their balance pass on their part. But any potential consequence, real or not, does not make this kind of balance move less mandatory.

 

 

For the Cometbreaker/Dustmaker parenthesis, I'd put Thrusters instead of Sensors, for a Strike wannabe Gunship.

[Greezt]

How about something simple, like taking TT away from the T2? You'd reduce their accuracy and evasion, forcing them to choose between RE and wingman. They don't need the extra burst anyway, and it'll make them a bit more vulnerable. It'll also give other ships a better chance to escape them.

[RickDagles]

It would also make it way too difficult to use a scout against a gunship wall.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Where do I sign for Armor -> Magazine ?

 

And I don't care a second for the "GS would be too strong" kind of arguments. For a real balance to happen, scouts as a whole need to be balanced against GS, and for that to happen, scouts need to be balanced amongst themselves. As long as its not done, balance between scouts won't happen, let alone any general balance.

So, if GS would dominate, that'd be okay, they'd just need their balance pass on their part. But any potential consequence, real or not, does not make this kind of balance move less mandatory.

 

I've always had the impression that, offensively, the T1 can be built to be a perfectly good gunship hunter. It seems the "GS would be too strong" argument is cover for actually not wanting the battlescout to have offensive competition from the other scout classes.

[Ardaneb]

I've always had the impression that, offensively, the T1 can be built to be a perfectly good gunship hunter. It seems the "GS would be too strong" argument is cover for actually not wanting the battlescout to have offensive competition from the other scout classes.

 

I prefer to fly S2E to the battlescout. It is significantly more fun for me. I am identified as a battlescout, only because it is the meta ship. I agree 100% that nerfing the battlescout in isolation will be a huge benefit to the gunships. So, I guess you just wrongly accused me (and others) of having false motives in this debate.

 

The arguments that nerfing battlescouts will help gunships are not in any way disingenuous. Motive attribution is often misplaced and should never be supported with "I've always had the impression ..." and "It seems ..." as the underlying source of the accusation.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

I prefer to fly S2E to the battlescout. It is significantly more fun for me. I am identified as a battlescout, only because it is the meta ship. I agree 100% that nerfing the battlescout in isolation will be a huge benefit to the gunships. So, I guess you just wrongly accused me (and others) of having false motives in this debate.

 

The arguments that nerfing battlescouts will help gunships are not in any way disingenuous. Motive attribution is often misplaced and should never be supported with "I've always had the impression ..." and "It seems ..." as the underlying source of the accusation.

 

But how will it be massive buff to GS? It's not like the T1 is unviable as a GS hunter-killer so I fail to see how making the battlescout less of a godscout will result in GS becoming horribly dominant. Again it's my impression that the T1 is a perfectly viable hunter-killer (with only ~300 less points of shield than a T2 all other components being equal), so I don't see how ~300 shield difference + the minor difference between MLC/QLC (my understanding that quad'n'pod is the generally preferred GS hunter-killer loadout) makes such a massive difference that any nerf to battlescouts would result in the massive GS buff the anti-nerf argument claims. Sure a nerf to scouts would impact the GS/scout balance, I don't deny that, but I don't see how it would result in GS becoming so obscenely powerful unless the premise that T1s are viable hunter-killers is false. And even if that were the case that GS would become obscenely powerful then it just means that GS would need a companion balance pass.

 

Ultimately though whenever nerf battlescouts come up you have a group of people who argue tooth and nail against any sort of nerf regardless of whether it might be ultimately beneficial to the meta. You believe GS would need to have a companion balance pass, and that's fine. But I'm skeptical of motives when the argument against a balance pass is "GS would need to be nerfed too." That's it, no suggestions of what would need to be changed with GS to not sway the balance of power too far in one direction, just the argument that the fact that a second ship would need to be nerfed justifies why the first ship shouldn't be nerfed.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Ardaneb]

But I'm skeptical of motives when the argument against a balance pass is "GS would need to be nerfed too." That's it, no suggestions of what would need to be changed with GS to not sway the balance of power too far in one direction, just the argument that the fact that a second ship would need to be nerfed justifies why the first ship shouldn't be nerfed.

 

Guess what? If you are going to impune others' motives, you have the burden of proof. You have to prove, not only that you are right, but also that your opponents are not arguing in good faith. You have the burden. Somehow, you think that you can make these accusations and then force the accused to have the burden of proof. You did nothing to refute that I prefer S2E scouts. Nothing. You just repeated your accusation of false motives. For crying out loud, literally no one opposes strike buffs. There, now you have two arguments that we are arguing in good faith. Are you going to repeat the accusation a third time? Try to shift the burden again?

[Greezt]

It would also make it way too difficult to use a scout against a gunship wall.

 

It would make the T2 hard to use against gunships, but that would make the T1 more viable. The T2 could focus on killing other scouts and bombers.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Greezt

[RickDagles]

It would make the T2 hard to use against gunships, but that would make the T1 more viable. The T2 could focus on killing other scouts and bombers.

 

True, the T1 would be the top choice in TDM. Missing that large shield reactor might be a pretty big deal though. I personally don't notice the difference until there are feedback shield gunships or more than 1 railgun drone in play.

 

Would we still be allowing blaster overcharge for T2? Because that's actually the better component against bombers anyway. And with wingman it's pretty great against gunships too. IMO Currently the main reason to take TT in domination is to get the 10% accuracy and 8% evasion boost to help against other scouts. The accuracy and evasion obviously helps a lot against gunships too, but a case could certainly be made for blaster overcharge being better in a game that is purely gunships, bombers, and strikes.

 

The more I think about it, this would actually be a really cool idea. The T1 would be the evasion specialist and could even take running interference in tdm/dom while the T2 would be the true heavy duty battlescout and would pretty much be forced to give up running interference for wingman. This would make T1 scout pretty strong against a T2 Scout and would open up the meta a bit.

 

The only problem is that I bet most players would continue to try using the T2 in tdm games, even against multiple gunships. The proof here is that most scouts continue to use wingman in tdm even though running interference is usually the best choice. People love their BLC/TT/wingman combo because it's easy kills. You really don't even need terrific aim or good judgement of distancing in order to be successful with it. When these players die to multiple gunships then they only lost because the other team was "cheap" when in reality it is because they didn't equip their ship with the proper defenses.

Edited November 13, 2015 by RickDagles

[nyghtrunner]

This would make T1 scout pretty strong against a T2 Scout and would open up the meta a bit.

I don't think this is correct, at least if you're referring to more or less head to head, and not as a choice between the two when choosing your ship for a match.

 

The T1 is simply an inferior dogfighter when compared to the T2, and it's not because of the evasion or because of TT. It's because the T2 has access to BLCs and Clusters, which are simply better dogfighting weapons than anything the T1 has access to. BLCs in particular are THE trump in dogfighting. They're so good that they give even the slow turning boat that is the T1 GS a bit of dogfighting game, and IMO allow Troll Shield to even be a viable component on that ship. I wouldn't give a damn about troll shield if not for the fact that I simply HAVE to respect the Troll with a follow up shot with BLCs, meaning I can't always just rely on being able to out turn the Gunships (hooray for high deflection shots!).

 

Not to say that I don't think some of this is interesting from the idea standpoint, I just don't think the portion I highlighted is actually true under almost any circumstance.

 

I will note that I think removing TT from the T2 scout (I assume that's what we're still talking about? I only skimmed the last few entries) would largely invalidate the QnP T2 Scout build, giving the T2 more of a focus on dogfighting. I guess you could run Blaster Overcharge with something like Concentrated Fire and be good for killing a gunship every minute or so...

Edited November 13, 2015 by nyghtrunner

[Kinsha]

I don't think this is correct, at least if you're referring to more or less head to head, and not as a choice between the two when choosing your ship for a match.

 

The T1 is simply an inferior dogfighter when compared to the T2, and it's not because of the evasion or because of TT. It's because the T2 has access to BLCs and Clusters, which are simply better dogfighting weapons than anything the T1 has access to. BLCs in particular are THE trump in dogfighting. They're so good that they give even the slow turning boat that is the T1 GS a bit of dogfighting game, and IMO allow Troll Shield to even be a viable component on that ship. I wouldn't give a damn about troll shield if not for the fact that I simply HAVE to respect the Troll with a follow up shot with BLCs, meaning I can't always just rely on being able to out turn the Gunships (hooray for high deflection shots!).

 

Not to say that I don't think some of this is interesting from the idea standpoint, I just don't think the portion I highlighted is actually true under almost any circumstance.

 

I will note that I think removing TT from the T2 scout (I assume that's what we're still talking about? I only skimmed the last few entries) would largely invalidate the QnP T2 Scout build, giving the T2 more of a focus on dogfighting. I guess you could run Blaster Overcharge with something like Concentrated Fire and be good for killing a gunship every minute or so...

 

I'd just like to throw out to nyte that I've actually seen a certain player use QnP with BO without Wingman and use it very effectively. After trying it out myself, I've seen that it does shoot fast enough to overcome evasion by sheer rate of fire. Of course it does struggle with fighting a BLC/Cluster scout but even the same build with TT does not have an easy time vs a dog fighter and is better off doing something else.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Kinsha

[Greezt]

Would we still be allowing blaster overcharge for T2? Because that's actually the better component against bombers anyway. And with wingman it's pretty great against gunships too

 

I guess the next choice would be blaster overcharge, unless someone decides to run their scout with booster recharge... but blaster overcharge still packs a punch, like you said. The main difference would be the accuracy and evasion drop.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

You did nothing to refute that I prefer S2E scouts. Nothing.

 

I didn't for the simple fact that it would be a waste of my time to do so. In order to refute your statement I have to call, and prove, you a liar. To do so means following you into numerous matches and getting screen shots of you primarily flying a battlescout (of the scout variants), something I have neither the time or inclination to do. Even if I were inclined to do that you could simply dismiss my evidence as being cherry picked to prove my point, that the matches I flew with you aren't representative of your overall flight time between the S2E and battlescout, or any number of other reasons. Either way we'd be right back to where we are now.

 

With that in mind I'm perfectly happy to concede that you, and no doubt others, are not motivated by the ulterior motives I originally suggested. I'm content to concede that.

 

This being said I stand by my skepticism of the factual basis of the argument that any nerf to battlescouts would be a huge buff to GS that would allow them to run rampant. Let me go into detail why I'm skeptical of the factual basis. First off the premise is that a nerf to battlescouts will be a buff to GS. That's true by the virtue of the fact that literally every ship that isn't a battlescout will be buffed proportional to how meta worthy that ship is. On this I don't dispute the factual validity of that.

 

What I do dispute is the second implicit part of that argument: it relies on the premise that the T1 is ineffective as a hunter-killer and you need the battlescout to retain all of it's current power to keep GS in check. Now what's the difference between a T1 and a battlescout assuming they both use DField and a MLC/QLC + pod setup. Defensively the T1 has 1170 shields + 950 hull (2120 total HP). The Battlescout has 1430 shields + 950 hull (2380 total HP). The HP difference is a measly 260, it still takes 2 slug rail shots to kill both and a crit slug will 1 shot both. So defensively there is 0 difference between the two in regards to their ability to survive an encounter with a GS.

 

How about offensively then? MLC has, at max range, 749 dps shields & 635 dps hull (assuming the T5 right is taken) and 8% crit (T4 left). QLC has, at max range, 853 shields dps & 723 hull dps (assuming the T5 right is taken) and 8% crit (T4 left). That's 104 dps on shields and 88 dps on hull difference respectively (14% more DPS than MLC). However, MLC is slightly more accurate at range (5%) and has a lower tracking penalty (-0.3%). In all other regards the two scouts can equip the same offensive components. Now the number crunchers on the forum are free to correct me on this but that seems hardly a big enough difference to make the T1 ineffective as a hunter-killer and make the battlescout the only effective hunter-killer. Maybe I missed the thread that argues that it is but I've also not seen anything on the Stassiepedia or elsewhere indicating that the T1 is anything other than a viable, effective hunter-killer using an MLC/pods build.

 

TL;DR version (borrowed from Drakkolich):

the differences:

Sting/Flashfire:

+14% Damage on lasers (Down to a 7% increase at 500 range)

+20% Shields

 

Blackbolt/Novadive:

+5 Accuracy on lasers (Only from range 3000-5000)

+2000m Sensor dampening

-0.3% Tracking penalty

 

Of the things listed as pros for the battlescout the only one that actually has an impact is the 14% extra damage (the 20% extra shield has 0 impact on ability to survive 2 slug rail shots over a T1). But that's somewhat mitigated by the +5% accuracy & slightly better tracking of MLC which give it better ability to punch through DField. Regardless the premise of the argument relies on that 14% extra damage being a large enough difference to make the battlescout the only scout capable of keeping GS in check. And I'm skeptical of that premise.

 

This is why I'm skeptical of the premise that battlescouts are the only thing keeping GS from running amok and that any nerf would result in GS now being able to do so. It relies on the premise that T1s are not effective hunter-killers and if you weaken the battlescout in anyway, shape, or form will remove the one thing keeping GS from running rampant.

 

EDIT: corrected math error caught by Drakkolich and added the nice concise TL;DR version he had at the end of his post of my longer paragraph on the differences between the T1 and battlescout.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Greezt]

The T1 is simply an inferior dogfighter when compared to the T2, and it's not because of the evasion or because of TT. It's because the T2 has access to BLCs and Clusters, which are simply better dogfighting weapons than anything the T1 has access to. BLCs in particular are THE trump in dogfighting. They're so good that they give even the slow turning boat that is the T1 GS a bit of dogfighting game, and IMO allow Troll Shield to even be a viable component on that ship. I wouldn't give a damn about troll shield if not for the fact that I simply HAVE to respect the Troll with a follow up shot with BLCs, meaning I can't always just rely on being able to out turn the Gunships (hooray for high deflection shots!).

 

In regards to this (and I know this is a big dream here, but whatever), if they made sabotage probes a viable choice the T1 scout could semi dogfight with even the T2 scout. Give probes a 6000m range, make their lock on time similar to clusters', and you get a very good component to beat BLC + cluster builds. Maybe even only one of these is enough.

 

Well, if I'm allowed to believe that strikes will be buffed and scouts will be re-balanced, I can dream that components will be fixed, right?

Edited November 13, 2015 by Greezt

[nyghtrunner]

In regards to this (and I know this is a big dream here, but whatever), if they made sabotage probes a viable choice the T1 scout could semi dogfight with even the T2 scout. Give probes a 6000m range, make their lock on time similar to clusters', and you get a very good component to beat BLC + cluster builds. Maybe even only one of these is enough.

 

Well, if I'm allowed to believe that strikes will be buffed and scouts will be re-balanced, I can dream that components will be fixed, right?

If you gave Sabo Probe a similar lockon time to Clusters, they would quickly, I think, become better than Clusters, and I don't think it would be close. If you're late on a double cluster volley lock, and eat the first portion of it, you eat ~400 damage, and keep on going. It might kill you here and there, but it's not the end of the world. It's honestly not the end of the world if you eat a full double cluster if you're in good health. Timing on Sabo-probe is extremely tricky, though. Or at least it has always seemed to have very close to a 0 travel time, so you have to be extremely on top of your missile break timing. Being able to land a Sabo probe in the middle of a turning war is effectively giving your target a death sentence.

 

The reason this is relevant... There's a sort of circular logic here, because the T2 has access to Sabo Probe. So you'd be largely just shifting laterally, and the trump still ends up being BLC in the T2's favor.

 

EDIT - But yes, it's OK to dream.

 

I guess the next choice would be blaster overcharge, unless someone decides to run their scout with booster recharge...

For most games, someone has already decided to run their scout with Booster Recharge, but that's because he loves him some Retro, and doesn't want to sacrifice mobility, and outside of multi-premade scenarios, doesn't miss the additional burst. And when the multi-premade thing happens, it's honestly just best to have 2 specialized builds on your bar, since that's where the hybrids start to show the corners cut for pet component choices.

 

But that's a completely separate discussion. Suffice to say that I honestly do believe that most times, Booster Recharge is an important part of the best multipurpose dogfighting build in the game. Certainly debatable, but I would argue strongly that it is far from the garbage component it sometimes gets the rep for being.

Edited November 13, 2015 by nyghtrunner