[Review] [SW] Scout Tactics

[Tesq]

well i do agree that as you said balance "scout" primary around dance stace is not optimal because is a long range build so if you wanna stance dance then is always gona be more skirmish. oriented

i do not love the idea of the cast time reduction 1/3 sec is basically give 33% more dmg to fest arrow x GCD spent, while sw have alredy m2 and veneange of nagaryte which can make the burst alredy pretty high, i know is not reliable as combination but is still a burst boost you can get instead reliable every 30 sec (cycling both every 30 sec) or 2x+1x every 60 sec. In fact my problem is just encourage massive nuke drop every 60 sec or when you jsut want.

i can instead go with the CD reduction of 5 sec because it increase not the burst in a short ammount of time but the average dps the spec can dish in 10 sec or generally in 2 rotation each of 5 sec and so counterable, It also make it better over target swap (it also would synergy better with bw, dots) but cast time reduction coupled with CD reduction? no way.

since at least 2 ppl seems okish on something what about to just change 1-a and go like -5 sec CD on all scout skills (it also fit with the name, you are expert in go in-otu combat so your cd are faster). Is a 11 pt tactic so maybe is worth to work on all the mastery not just FA

fest arrow CD 5 sec
flame arrow CD 5 sec
rapid fire CD 3 sec
throat shoot CD 25 sec
fell the weak CD 5 sec

armor/block debuff no CD
glass arrow no CD

this feel a good boost to all scout and dosent involve dance stance OR increase stacking bursty things all togheter on top of FA, plus glass arrow with no cd feel nice trick vs destru rdps since you can keep it up 100% of the time and gain some sec which make you able to better pressure up with out talk about reducing mara pull range and we/mara RKD and such effect so is gona be worth both vs melee and rdps.

[Manatikik]

well i do agree that as you said balance "scout" primary around dance stace is not optimal because is a long range build so if you wanna stance dance then is always gona be more skirmish. oriented

i do not love the idea of the cast time reduction 1/3 sec is basically give 33% more dmg to fest arrow x GCD spent, while sw have alredy m2 and veneange of nagaryte which can make the burst alredy pretty high, i know is not reliable as combination but is still a burst boost you can get instead reliable every 30 sec (cycling both every 30 sec) or 2x+1x every 60 sec. In fact my problem is just encourage massive nuke drop every 60 sec or where you jsut want.

i can instead go with the CD reduction of 5 sec because it increase not the burst in a short ammount of time but the average dps the spec can dish in 10 sec or generally in 2 rotation each of 5 sec, It also make it better over target swap (it also would synergy better with bw, dots) but cast time reduction? no way coupled with CD reduction? no way.

since at least 2 ppl seems okish on something what about to just change 1-a and go like -5 sec CD on all scout skills (it also fit with the name you are expert in go in -otu combat so your cd are faster). Is a 11 pt tactic maybe is worth it works on all the mastery not just FA

fest arrow cd 5 sec
flame arrow cd 5 sec
armor/block debuff no CD
rapid fire CD 3 sec
throat shoot 25 sec

this feel a good boost to all scout and dosent involve dance stance OR increase stacking bursty things all togheter on top of FA

Two issues with your stuff: there is no UF anymore so cycling for M2 burst with VoN doesn't matter unless you're running a WW + FM build (which is gimmicky and has its own glaring flaws) and Fester is already on a 5 s CD so reducing its CD at all is a poor decision for obvious reasons.

Also saying -1s cast time = +33% damage is just wrong; it will give SW an effective damage buff but not due to an increase in burst potential just the reliablity of starting your rotation. This change doesn't let SW kill faster just actually be able to get off more than 1 or 2 Festers a fight (against competent enemies; against pugs you can usually Fester all day).

On Stance Dancing; Scout had always been the least defendant on dancing. You only ever would swap for defensive Assault moves or for a RKD if some one was closing in. Naturally skirmish was the most dancey build because of how well assault and skirmish flowed together as well as the less common times of Scout for a Throat Shot + AA and a little extra range on BHA and SS.

[Tesq]

@manatic

1-im refering to FM not UF

2-no: is a 33% dmg more because dmg on skills is motly based on GCD spent to use skills, so if you cast FA in 2 sec you throw 1 sec faster another skill after it which increase the avarange dmg x the same GCD ; so yes buff 1 sec to FA is coevalent to 33% dmg increase for FA or between a 10-20% dmg increase on the next used skill.

That's the point of Focussed mind also be a dmg increase as it basically 2x the thing you can do in 10 sec, 2x same thing do in half the ammount of time mean 2x dmg...

half build time = 2x dmg

*till the skill you are reducing is 2 sec cast time*

the only difference between FM and UF is that FM is Ap consume heavy so:

UF > FM, for do more dmg while mantain AP
FM> UF, for be immune to CC while spend lot of AP

[lefze]

Sounds good, doesn't work. What scout needs is to have the same functionality all the time that it has during M2 now. Lower cast time =/= more burst, how hard is it to understand? All this does is to enable the spec, that one extra theoretical gcd you can get off means nothing. Right now you are barely able to cast fester at all unless you have M2, why should cooldowns on all the other skills be changed to fit around a burst rotation you can't get off? It would only make up for the lack of SFA, ergo make you run around casting the instaspells while waiting for M2 to be able to maybe get off a proper burst. In conjunction with a cast time decrease it would work, but unless fester is usable you can do whatever you want with cooldowns and damage on the other skills and you still won't have a usable spec.

While constant pressure is nice and all, skirmish already exists, why should the class not be able to burst if invested fully into a mastery tree for it?

[dansari]

Technically 2b isn't a buff to Fester; it's a buff to the normal Scout rotation, locked behind a relatively high rr, mainly Scout focused build. The reason I like 1a+2b is because then your rotation revolves around 3-4 GCD bursts with 13-15s downtime, giving you time to re-position in between rotations. Is a 50% damage increase on an instant cast silly? Maybe. But I think Scout needs a reliable burst rotation to make it viable, not just in pug environments (and Guerrilla Training is an 11pt tactic -- it should be worth the investment). I think we should try to make everything viable in "competitive" situations.

Moving FtW to 9pts would not be good, imo. You're buffing a Skirmish/Scout build pretty heavily then, and you don't fix the issues Scout has.

I don't think we should disregard potential changes to GT, even though I think most people agree a cast time decrease on Fester, tied to its main buff tactic, is needed.

And again, my viewpoint is that Scout has to be brought up to par with Skirmish or Assault if it is to be deemed "viable" after potential changes. Because it lacks utility, I think it should have a strong damage component, hence the suggestions made.

[Tesq]

Technically 2b isn't a buff to Fester; it's a buff to the normal Scout rotation, locked behind a relatively high rr, mainly Scout focused build. The reason I like 1a+2b is because then your rotation revolves around 3-4 GCD bursts with 13-15s downtime, giving you time to re-position in between rotations. Is a 50% damage increase on an instant cast silly? Maybe. But I think Scout needs a reliable burst rotation to make it viable, not just in pug environments (and Guerrilla Training is an 11pt tactic -- it should be worth the investment). I think we should try to make everything viable in "competitive" situations.

Moving FtW to 9pts would not be good, imo. You're buffing a Skirmish/Scout build pretty heavily then, and you don't fix the issues Scout has.

I don't think we should disregard potential changes to GT, even though I think most people agree a cast time decrease on Fester, tied to its main buff tactic, is needed.

And again, my viewpoint is that Scout has to be brought up to par with Skirmish or Assault if it is to be deemed "viable" after potential changes. Because it lacks utility, I think it should have a strong damage component, hence the suggestions made.

that's the exat reason why it should not happen, you wanna make the class go ALL OUT in 3-4 sec which basically mean with assit

-less time to counter reack
-more awarness required
-lower ttk when rotation is in motion

this is basically cheese kind use by any premade for make kills-> dont let enemy play, ista nuke it and you win and usually revolve around 3-7 sec rotations, any 5x2 or 10 sec rotation is fine for target swap and is also fine to focus thing but leave time to counter react without going into the limbo of you must being super aware of what is going on.

on top of that scout have MORE range than skirmish so is even SAFER to toy around.

Spoiler:

i do not wish to be unrespectfull just imo a solution which make all the dmg so much concentrated just encourage more that mentality which i dont like/ is not fair imo

[dansari]

that's the exat reason why it should not happen, you wanna make the class go ALL OUT in 3-4 sec which basically mean with assit

-less time to counter reack
-more awarness required
-lower ttk when rotation is in motion

this is basically cheese kind use by any premade for make kills-> dont let enemy play, ista nuke it and you win and usually revolve around 3-7 sec rotations, any 5x2 or 10 sec rotation is fine for target swap and is also fine to focus thing but leave time to counter react without going into the limbo of you must being super aware of what is going on.

on top of that scout have MORE range than skirmish so is even SAFER to toy around.

I'm not sure why that's a novel concept. Magus/Engy/Sorc/BW also work on this type of mechanic. To pull this off you would have to invest heavily into Scout, leaving very little room for any deviation in build, which means if you can disrupt a Scout rotation and keep them mobile you're effectively shutting down the class.

Edit: And a full Scout build does not leave room for enough points for Powerful Draw, so sure you're shooting from 110ft range, but you can't apply any Skirmish abilities from that range (not until ~70ft), and you can't even apply Flame Arrow until 88ft.

[Tesq]

Edit: And a full Scout build does not leave room for enough points for Powerful Draw, so sure you're shooting from 110ft range, but you can't apply any Skirmish abilities from that range (not until ~70ft), and you can't even apply Flame Arrow until 88ft.

you will always start your rotation closer because

1-you need it for some dots
2-you want some compensation for when the enemy kite/run away so you can still finish it; max distance is called max for a reason, you dont START your rotation at max distance; you END your rotation at max distance

[dansari]

you will always start your rotation closer because

1-you need it for some dots
2-you want some compensation for when the enemy kite/run away so you can still finish it; max distance is called max for a reason, you dont START your rotation at max distance; you END your rotation at max distance

I feel like we're derailing, but one final point -- sure, *or* you get pushed in/mara pulled/m1 rooted because you're 65ft from a destro melee train, i.e. disrupting a Scout rotation and rendering them useless. You can kill pugs with any build; we're talking about making a build viable against good players.

[Penril]

There are a bazillion counters if the SW gets within 20ft from you (expert skirmisher). If he does get within 20ft to spam FA (assuming he has WW), that means he is not in Assault stance (he is probably squishy). Just focus him, and if he gets in Assault stance he just lost access to FA.

As for Focused Mind, it is a M2. If you see the SW use it, detaunt him if you are so worried about him. It is completely different from the old festerbomb, where you would use FA and then UF mid-air, giving you no chance to counter it.

Too many Ifs, and most of these have counters. For these reasons, ES/FM making OP's proposal too strong are not valid arguments.