As
GoogleFrog said in a previous thread:
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Skuttle is anti-fun in the sense that there is no player interaction. All other cloaked snipes have more interaction.
When Scythe or Scorpion are revealed the attacker and defender fight over the survival of the units, as they can be reused.
Window requires followup to kill the stunned unit.
With cloaked Snitch the defender can search for the cloaker.
Many Phantoms are required to 1-shot a large unit, and the defender can search for the Phantoms.
After a successful Skuttle strike the attacker rarely needs to provide provide followup, and there are no units for the defender to kill as a consolation prize. The defender should put out a screen, but against Jump they probably should have been screening before the strike. In theory, the only change to the game is that some of the defenders units died and they know that the attacker spent 550 metal on a Skuttle.
Currently, Skuttle is fairly difficult to use so it is rarely seen and degree of respect is given to a successful strike. A better Skuttle would be seen more often, which looks bad with its current design. The first step towards buffing Skuttle should be to make it more interactive.
Saktoth had the idea of giving Skuttle fire damage. The intention was that you lose your heavy unit unless it is sent to retreat and repair. This still lacks counterplay, although there is more as the attacker has effectively attracted constructors to the affected structure/unit, and can take advantage of that. The main issue with this idea is that fire is frustrating and constrained. Burning currently deals the same DPS across all sources of ignition and I would like to maintain this rule. Dealing 8000 fire damage at the current rate would take 9 minutes.