It's broken. A few grizzlies and scallops can take on almost any land force. For only 2000 metal, the grizzly can outrange any skirmisher, and it is hard to catch, especially if it has a few scallops as an escort. It is annoying to kill by attrition if kills a few of your skirmishers every time your skirmishers can get close enough to fire. And that's not mentioning how it can retreat to water, repair for free, and all your forces would have died in vane. If you're a jumpbot player like me, you have literally no options to deal with it other than a factory switch. The scuttle sounds like it's made to deal with it, in the description it says it can "send a heavy tank straight to hell". Yet in practice, in a 1 on 1 situation, the scuttle decloaks before it can bomb the grizzly, and if you try to jump over the grizzly and detonate, it requires micro and usually only deals half the damage. The spectre can stay cloaked while it is shooting and has a smaller decloak radius, even though it can be safely far away from the combat and do damage, leaving the other team guessing while their skirmishers are dropping like flies. Why does the scuttle have to be as slow as a strider, require micro to use, and not work on against that can move?
+3 / -0
|
Bear in mind that if your opponent has enough resources to make "a few grizzlies" you should at least be able to facswitch. You don't need to go looking for answers in only one factory at that stage. Skuttle is kind of bad.
+1 / -0
|
Skuttle's still a 550M unit which can instakill expensive units which cost 4-8x as much if they keep advancing after taking some damage, namely it can take out expensive morphed commanders. It's AOE also allows it to destroy units close the target sometimes. it's a niche usefulness because it's ability to counter such units doesn't scale well as the number of units in play grows, but that's a still very important niche. It can also be airlifted behind the enemy base early and instakill the enemy factory and whatever's being built. Extreme burst damage is toxic. a possibility would be making it less cost effective against very tough units but more generally usable: - reduce energy requirements from 15-5 to 5-1 - reduce cost from 550 to 450 - increase speed from 46 to 60 - reduce damage from 8000 to 3900 - reduce decloak radius from 180 to 100
+1 / -0
|
I know what skuttles are SUPPOSED to do    raaar but have you actually tried using it? Decloak radius makes it a joke.
+5 / -0
|
I rarely use kamikaze units myself. I've seen skuttles being used often and not killing their targets, presumably because they get killed and explode too early? Not sure. It also makes them easier to screen against. I agree that the radius is nonsensically big for such a small unit, which is why I suggested reducing it. Widows' decloak radius is 60.
+1 / -0
|
Yeah but GF says they need to be shit cuz they are anti-fun I kind of agree cuz com morph is fun. My issue is current skuttle just lingering there gimped beimg advertised as a thing that does a specific job then nubs make it and dont understand why it doesnt do what it says on the tin. Id like remove or rework so ppl dont lose game to lvl 3 com push cuz someone left a fake anti-heavy unit in the game and you invested all your time and metal on it.
+4 / -0
|
I consider it a challenge to make cost with a Skuttle against a newbie. I believe    mojjj can pull it off from time to time but even he uses an area cloaker to fix the ridiculous decloak range. If making Skuttle more reliable would make it too strong, please increase the price or energy use. I'd rather pay a little more than play the lottery when it comes to a 500+ metal unit. Design-wise, Skuttle can be a bit annoying, especially if you don't see it coming. At the same time it's one of those units that allow a completely unexpected turnaround, which is why I think it should stay. With a little higher price/energy requirement it should be harder to use as an early Commander assassin while still being effective against late game heavies. If you don't screen your 2000+ heavies it should be possible to kill them at negligible cost. Smaller units have counters too, it's just that anti-heavies except sniper are all kinda bad right now.
+4 / -0
|
I like Skuttle but agree that the decloak radius is really kind of ridiculous. That said, if the radius was smaller then maybe it would be TOO good and there would be little defence against it. I think raaar suggested making it 450 instead of 550 metal? That would be a reasonable positive change without messing around with its fundamental properties.
+0 / -0
|
|
|
Would the Skuttle be more interesting and powerful if the cloak was completely removed in exchange for buffing the jump and HP?
+1 / -0
|
(insert nuclear suicide tank picture here) 
+2 / -0
|
|
|
i also agree skuttle need a buff
+0 / -0
|
Agreed. Skyttle cost, E upkeep, ridicolous decloack range, low hp, slowness, and the ability to get stuck in water make it a joke unit.
+0 / -0
|
My main problem with Skuttle is that, for the amount of damage it deals and considering how random it is, the only practical use of it seems to be killing trollcoms.
+0 / -0
|
less decloak radius would be thing already
+0 / -0
|
quote:
If you don't screen your 2000+ heavies it should be possible to kill them at negligible cost. |
Depends on how "negligible" and what archetype the heavies have. Against a heavy "tank", half cost would be ok, a third? maybe, probably not. This reasoning, plus the fact that most cheap and fast units are tuned for dps instead of survivability, makes using front line tanks too hard on ZK as the screening units keep dying and that defeats the purpose of the "tank"'s damage soaking ability. That's also why people switch to long range options or other trickery.
+0 / -0
|
Skuttle cannot actually kill a grizzly. The things cannot even make 50% cost on their own. Additionally, you are forgetting the energy cost from using their cloak. On an operational level its much close to a 50% kill. High risk specialists can make good cost. A leveler can kill many glaives. An inferno many wind gens. Skuttle is too extreme a unit. Its energy costs should probably remain, but the base unit cost and damage should go down with increased speed. Make it easier, make it take up more space to be harder to get extreme results. Keep its terrible damage efficiency, but make it more weighted towards energy cost, as is appropriate for such suicidal units.
+4 / -0
|
A glaive can kill 2-3 ronins even without any manual micro, so there's nearly no risk involved in using glaives against ronins. Still they make more than 4x cost. Why should a Skuttle, that is super risky to use, be less efficient? Heavies are not supposed to be Tier 2, they play on the same level as all other units.
+3 / -0
|
Propose Skuttle Remake (And reasoning) 6000 Damage (enough to 2-shot a Cyclops). 275 Cost. 10 Energy/Sec Cloak (moving and not). Decloak Radius 200. Weapon: Fires itself like a puppy at 200 range on a 360 turret. 50 AoE on Hit. At 275 Cost, it can get itself moving earlier and maintain its slow speed. High decloak radius means easier screening, unless there is a cloak generator (then other problems), and more risk. 200 Range Shooting itself means it will at least be able to shoot the unit that decloaks it, rather than flail about patheticly. Constant cloaking energy means that even in stand-by it can be seen unless you are paying for it likes its a 550$ unit. 6000 Damage means it will take 2 to take out truly heavy units, and it won't have a price-tag to pretend otherwise. This is my recommended set of changes for it to be usable.
+0 / -0
|
