darkerevent wrote:
I position my frontline within command range of my holo officer once I'm ready to make contact. I don't send the officer waaaaaay ahead of everybody else
OK, my bad, we don't have different ideas of the position of an officer, we have different ideas of the position of a scout
My scout's ideal position is the other side of the pod from the squad so i'm sure the pod won't accidentally spot me while advancing and in case i really have to go loud i'm in the ideal position for a flanking kill.
This would be an awkward position for my officer
In fact my 1.2 holo-officers don't even have Phantom, they have deadshot.
I can entertain the concern that a sharpshooter being able to equip an SMG might cause phantom holo spotters to too-far outshine the shinobi scout build, but I'm still waiting for someone to explain why this would actually be the case. <...> For example, I certainly wouldn't want to task a holo sharpshooter with the job of stealthing in to the button on a network tower, for instance -- a shin is MUCH better suited to that job, and giving the holo sharpshooter an SMG isn't going to change that.
You pretty much pointed what i think would be the only frequent use of a shinobi scout if sharpshooters could equip SMGs. For simple scouting you don't have to move really close to an enemy pod and the SMG should be enough unless you're trying to run some low % mission.
It will be harder for shinobis to take objectives and flee with Conceal at MSgt in 1.3 so objectives will be a specialist's job. That doesn't make the shinobi bad : the blade and rifle builds can both be really good but the pure saboteur would be left with only Network Tower to shine (at least until MSgt) as an holobot with SMG would be better in any mission that could involve fighting, especially now that the Shinobi looses the ability to return to scouting if he have to go loud. If the only way for a scout to help in fight is indirectly without shooting, the holo-scout is already better than the shinobi, if in addition he can be stealthy
and fast there is nothing left for the shinobi. You talked about Shadowstrike but Shadowstrike got a major nerf in 1.3 with the move of conceal to MSgt unless conceal is made a cooldown perk.
I would consider that issue a sign that the scout shin needs to be made better or given a clearer place in the game's design, rather than seeing it as a justification for making sure the holo sharpshooter has to have its scouting partially crippled by the long rifle it's forced to carry.
I totally agree on that part. I think the shinobi scout should be able to serve as a scout-assassin hybrid, able to occasionally (but more than once and not at the cost of his scouting ability) bring a good power spike to a tough fight while the pure scout (holo-SS build) would be a better utility scout without the power spike. This would make shinobis good for small teams fighting lower numbers of enemies and SS-scout best for larger squads (who would benefit from holotargeting more) where you can afford to keep your scout hidden for the entire mission.
Unfortunately it looks like that shinobi built is gone from 1.3 unless some unexpected changes bring them back.