Terran Scouts Alternative To Hacking

[Sotikia]

Instead of Hacking a hybrid skill called Virus.Uploading a computer Virus to targets ship causing the ship to possibly attack oher nerby ships that are hostile to you or self inflicted damage and it would be a breif effect

[Terrell [BT]]

I think that whatever the Scout gets to replace hacking should work against both ship mobs & organic mobs. One of the reasons that Hacking isn't that good on a Scout, is that any major fight will likely include several TWs who are better at hacking. There's also the problem with organic mobs being immune, and the Scout not having a complementary skill for organics, like biorepression on the TW.

[Mattsacre]

If the scout is to have an other combat skill it needs to NOT be a twofer that combines organic/nonorganics, the reason being it would shortcircuit the pattern of other race class skills. As an example: A PW gets gravlink and shield inversion, but not menace. A PS gets gravlink and menace. A PP gets menace and inversion.

The warrior types gets the 2 more "offensive" skills i.e hack/biorepress (as PW gets GL/inversion), the scout types get 1 "offensive" and one more "defensive" i.e. hack/ combat hullpatch ( as PS gets gravlink and menace) and traders get either 2 defensive or 1 and 1 (TT get befriend and combat hullpatch, PP get inversion and menace) ((yeh yeh I know befriend is the suck, even when it did work...but it is what it is))

So folks don't think I was forgetting the Jenny

JD= Reactor Leech/summon(teleport) ,JE=Shield leech/teleport, JS=teleport/cloak (2 defensive atm)( JS is missing a combat skill in truth)

[Terrell [BT]]

Not sure what you mean Matt. By work on both organic & mechanical mobs, I mean that a whole class of mobs (mechanical or organic) wouldn't be immune to the skill. As far as I know only Hacking & Biorepression work that way. Hacking works ONLY on mech mobs, while biorepression works ONLY on organic mobs. Since the TW has both, they compliment each other. AFAIK all other combat skills work, at least to a degree, against both organic mobs and mechanical mobs, though they may be better against one type than the other. Shield Leech for example works better on organic mobs, since it can't destroy hulls, but it can drain the shields of a mechanical mob, so long as it's shields aren't already down.

Now if the Scout was to get a new & unique combat support skill that would work too. Whether or not I would support any particular skill proposal, would depend on the specifics of said proposal. I don't think that the scout's replacement for hacking should impart more firepower to the scout, but it should be helpful to the scout and group in some new, unique, and needed way. (I suspect that balancing the new classes may also require that the mobs, particularily those intended to be attacked by groups, may need new abilities as well to make the new classes needed)

[Mattsacre]

My point I was making is if its a new and unique skill it could be anything that fits lore etc. but if it was REPLACING hack that would be wrong and break the skill patterns laid down in every other instance, I gave examples of that in my previous post.

Perhaps the skill you are advocating could be the L135 proposed that all classes are deemed to need, or even hack moved to that slot, but to cut hack and strip another in would break how the skill sharing between classes of same race have been established in the past, if that pattern is to now be broken for one of the "lost" classes then might as well go all the way with the other 2 and strip their shared skill as well and give them a unique as also.

[Terrell [BT]]

The JT already broke the pattern when she traded Psi Shield for Build Reactor and gained Fold Space. Before then the JT and JW had Psi Shield while the JW and JE had Fold Space.

[HellHasArrived]

Patterns aside L5 Hacking on the TS sucks... Makes as much sense as L5 Menace on a PT.

[Reon]

so, why not keep the patterns, but just modify them? in other words, keep the basic idea, just improve on it. The devs wanted the JS to have psionic shield, but it is too redundant to be useful, right? so, modify the type of psionic shield, turn it into a short term few second group ward against damage, make it stack with normal psi shield and buffs, and call it good. hacking sucks on the TS, right? hacking is a debuff on a mob, so, give them a debuff...why not give the TS a skill that gives mobs -20 resistance to all damage types?

In other words, keep in line with what the WW devs had planned, but tailor it to keep classes useful and unique. Replace heals with heals, debuffs with debuffs, and it will make balancing much easier. You don't have to reinvent a wheel that is broken and make it square, you just have to repair it...

[Mattsacre]

[quote name='Sleven.' timestamp='1337533150' post='58107']
Patterns aside L5 Hacking on the TS sucks... Makes as much sense as L5 Menace on a PT.
[/quote]
Yeh I never understood menace on a PS to begin with, putting it on a PP made even less sense. You "frighten" a mob into running, eventualy they come to their senses and gain enough courage to reattack you. A PS as "menacing"? pfft. Yes, Yes PS needs a skill that buys them uninterupted pewpew time....but you frighten them with your buffy brawniness......yeh, ok the skill "fools them into thinking you are even more god like than a warrior...whatever. But to put that same skill on a PP and say "all good", a healing dpser no less, seems redundant and clunky.

If the proposal is really to break patterns for JS and lock that with a new skills, as well as TS, then yes PP needs a menace replacement as well. But in reality the JS break was a strip and drop idea that was never intended to be the final skill set.

PS menace never really fit, at the time they were the shield manipulators of the progen, they didn't have recharge that TT had, but they had all the recharge rate increasers, and BOOST! buffs even more then TT, they also had the shieldGEN stuff, they had all the explorer dmg type buffs via animal skill gear and they had anti running gear like burden line and grav link. but they weren't beefy in DPS, menace did give them the "buy more time to do more dps without being hit" thing, but really a shield manipulative way would have fit better.

Live, shields didn't stop recharging during combat, they still ticked back, when you had shieldGen stuff and BOOST! in tandem you didn't need a TT unless you had gone too big, my PS could chain fight even CL mobs with no down time from shield problems, the only inhibitor was reactor. Paired with my guildy JE we chain fought L55 volts with no down time until I ran out of ammo or we ran out of cargo space. Menace in that instance was a mob splitter, I know that PW will scream HERESY! But I always felt that shield sap wasn't a PW skill but a PS and menace was a PW skill, but then that wouldn't work in arena would it?

[jrichards]

Menace was used in Live as one of only 2 really effective CCs. In solo it was useful but in Ardus and der Todesengel it was crazy helpful.

I would hate to see hack be removed especially since in Live it became so critical in der Todesengel. In my opinion getting ship mobs to have working skills/better AI to really make hack a useful skill would be better than just removing it. In Live I used hack all the time on ships while playing my TE. The biggest problem though was how close you have to get. In a raid terrans getting close isn't much of an issue since they need to be in range of the traders but in solo play the benefit of using hack is less beneficial when a terran can just kite the mob.

Note: now if one of the items that could be hacked was a ship's shields, so that they lost a large chunk (20%-30% maybe), using this skill solo might be even better.....and if the devs added a device to increase the chance/skill level this could be a valued weapon for Scouts and Enforcers.

[Ryle [N7R]]

Tractor beam. Drag corpse. Whatever you wanna call it.

Either used to drag a dorito out of a killzone OR to crowd control a MOB.

[Ryle [N7R]]

A stun effect that freezes the mob for 15 seconds or something, maybe with a 45-60 second recast to prevent spamming it.

[Taluna6]

1 Irritating scanners... Enemys can't target for 5-10 sec (33%chance skill works)
2 Interrupt scanners... Enemys can't target for 5-10 sec (66%chance skill works)
3 Blinding scanners.... Enemys can't target for 5-10 sec (100%chance skill works)
4 Reroute scanners... Overwriting targets Scanners to attack a nearby Minion for 5-10 sec. (30 seconds cooldown)

5 Multi Reroute scanners....Overwriting Enemys (5-10k Area) Scanners to attack a nearby Minion for 5-10 sec. (30 seconds cooldown)

Takes Pressure from Shield rechargers and gets DMG to other enemys. Edited June 12, 2012 by Aru

[Mattsacre]

My friends and I was kicking ideas around, and a dumb question was asked, but then we got to thinking,,was it so dumb? Why are activatable skills range dependant and disengage when you run out of envelope, and passives are ethier aura based or passive in nature?

What rule says you can't have a activatable skill qued/powered and it unloads when in range?

The idea: TS Skill Viral Hack, you download a worm/virus in your ship systems (you are immune) that downloads into a enemys systems when download range is attained. This is a "preactivate" skill, you activate the button and it stays qued until range is met, being a virus it acts simular to hack, but instead of attacking a set system for time , it runs its course throughout each thing frizzing it for seconds ea. So for a few seconds they stop thrusting, then for a few seconds they stop firing, then for a few seconds they maybe steer wrong, then maybe loss a tiny bit of shield, then some rector..whatever, basicly they go nuts for a cumlative 20-30 sec.

At low tiers it whacks ea system for 1-2 sec with short range activation, and ea tier whacks ea system for another 1 sec, with longer range ea.

Why this would be good and more utility than normal hack TE has, a TE has to get in hack range, activate skill, maintain range until charge up, all the while taking dmg. With Viral Hack it plays into the TS's afterburn and better thrust/high sig., they load the virus, swing through to range, it pops as you swing by and then charge out of mobs range once again.

[efialtis]

Will just leave this here from a post i made on a similar thread.
[url="https://forum.enb-emulator.com/index.php?/topic/6427-terran-scout-feedback-request/page__view__findpost__p__52718"]https://forum.enb-emulator.com/index.php?/topic/6427-terran-scout-feedback-request/page__view__findpost__p__52718[/url]