* Decloak distance 150 -> 180 (increasing the decloak area by 44% in one version) * Jump speed 6 -> 5.2 * Jump height 200 -> 120 * HP 320 -> 250 Why? Skuttles weren't overpowered and I don't think anyone thought they were. The only result of these changes is that they're just fucking frustrating to use. They decloak without provocation and whiff all the time.
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Battles were becoming heavies vs skuttles. It was getting a bit silly. Heavies got some nerfs, and so so did skuttle. The main philosophy behind the nerfs are that if you have accurate mid ranged units (LLT's, felons, Banishers, etc) in the area, they should be able to snipe the skuttle before it lands, rather than relying purely on bumping into the skuttle before it jumps. Much like with the roach (Though obviously you need more firepower). I agree with this, as I think that the bumping-into-stuff mechanic is really stupid. Skuttle is hard to use well, yes, but it relies entirely on the USERS micro and choices, rather than on the targets micro or choices. So, if you support a heavy unit with enough appropriate units, you can now catch the skuttle mid-air. Personally I think the skuttle needs a bit of a rethink in general, we can't keep relying on the cheap gimmick of cloaking + huge alpha to counter heavies, where the only reason you need light cheap units is to bump into things.
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Weaker skuttle means more heavies than ever, and not just from the enemy team who spent 300 metal on scouts and thus has nothing to fear for their heavies. If skuttle can't jump into porc without decloaking, jumpfac has to make a Sumo every time it sees any. The nerfs are just frustrating. You now have to micro twice as hard because they decloak nearly 50% more easily. If you wanted skuttle to be a worse anti-heavy, reduce the damage or something. The current ~9k is way more than enough for anything except striders. Tone it down to ~5k and reduce the cost in exchange. Now you need three to kill a Dante or Sumo, not just two.
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Uh, Jack? Or if its not under a shield, firewalker? Not to mention that the Pyro is one of the better raiders vs defense. What are we talking about here, DDM's? If you can't afford a Sumo by then... (and cant go around).
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Think about spy, it can almost touch HLT and still is cloaked :)
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You're replying to one sentence and not to my point. Skuttle was nerfed in a way that makes it really annoying to use and increases the already-high micro requirement. The more appropriate change would be to reduce its damage to like 50-60%, making it less awesome against heavies but without damaging its other roles or making it less fun to use.
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I explained the philosophy behind the changes. A player should be able to counter skuttle with enough accurate mid-ranged DPS fire support, the way he can roaches. Also, one unit from one factory should not be 'THE' answer to heavies. Reducing its damage that much just starts to make it actually non-viable as a damage source. I agree the changes make the unit just too frustrating to use now, when it was already pretty hard to use. I think its use and function probably need a re-think.
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Skuttle always works against lone heavies like golly, dante, and(probably) sumo. Who has supporting army deserves get better counters than oldschool almighty scutling. Even my OP commander was scutled recently. I personally like emp and how it works against heavies and prefer it over skuttles. People should make spy's too they are awesome and awesome part is they are reusable, but you need fusions to power them on... Also emp bombers are way better than skuttles (from attacker with heavies view) just because you see that somebody attacked you, not some random "babah" you died.
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Wow hey.. now suddenly everything starts making sense!! Licho said he sees more heavies than ever and thinks it's because of the silly OD thing. Instead it's because of the Skuttle nerf! I didn't even realize that. :O
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A skuttle that deals five or six thousand damage with a good hit would be plenty useful. That's still enough to kill an L1 commander, a shieldball, HLTs and whatnot, etc.. Pretty much anything it's ever been used for except it'll be marginally worse against 2000+ metal units.
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Keep in mind the insane falloff rate, Anthem. 6k means it'll be much harder to kill lvl 1 comms, etc. Just sayin'.
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If skuttle change alone accounts for a certain heavy re-emergence, perhaps it really was OP and other anti-heavy slightly UP. There should be lots of anti-heavy options viable similarly to skuttle.
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The edge effectiveness might need to be increased, Skasi. Change it so it deals similar damage at the edge of the radius but way less at the center. And then revert the decloak nerf, please.
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Skuttle is probably one of the most micro-intensive units in all of ZK. That by itself is the biggest problem. You shouldn't have to dedicate 100% of game time to microing a single unit within range of a heavy, then having to jump and hope that it lands before 2 defenders pick it off. What it does is fine, how it does it is stupid.
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That's a fair point. A possible way to remove the micro-heavy part would be to decrease decloak distance and remove jump, so you are walking it into lone heavies instead of careful maneuvering + jumping. I think people who like skuttle like it because of the micro though, so I'm not sure how that it will go down. Also, how can you have a jump lab unit that doesn't jump!?
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Auto-jump when range of enemy as part of its base attack? That way it's more of a "fire and forget" unit that you tell to attack and let it do the rest? Would remove a ridiculous amount of micro.
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While it is hilarious to see felons kill all skuttles thrown at them just because you have a few thugs, revert nerfs. Maybe not all the way, but jump(to 200) for sure, and much of the cloak(165-160?). If I make a shield ball and I know they are going to use skuttles I should have to screen with bandits.
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You don't want it to auto-jump into a clogger though. In my own use I would probably just turn auto-jump off and manually jump it for better results. Or even if it was smart enough to not waste on cheap units, there are a lot of situations where a human would be smarter than a reasonable AI.
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what about giving skuttle the ability to fire its jump automatically on attack command, and ideally also selfdestruct on impact? that would reduce the need to micro it a lot, except for the part of sneaking around and avoiding defenders until it is in jump range.
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oh antelope already wrote that :) in this case, i agree
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