Suggestion: Allow Sharpshooters to equip rifles (SMGs)

[darkerevent]

Did any of you actually try to use that sniper rifle?

Yes, of course, and it works okay enough as a gun when I want it to. But I almost never want it to. That's not why the character exists in my squad.

I don't want my holo sharpshooter officer to shoot, except in very rare edge cases. I want her to remain concealed via Phantom so that she can be my forward spotter without risking wounds that're going to make her unable to lead a squad for a month.

Hence why I wish I could equip an SMG, or even equip "nothing" in order to gain the same mobility and stealth bonuses that an SMG offers.

[LordYanaek]

We obviously have different ideas of the officer's position. I sure don't want my officer doing some scouting away from the squad, i want him/her with the squad to actually provide bonuses. The sharpshooter have the advantage of being able to operate at the back of the squad and hopefully not being shot at. If my officer is ever wounded it's AWC training time for other soldiers from the squad.

An SMG Sharpshooter would certainly be a good scout but the scout is not the officer for me (apart from those Oscar Mike Shinobis i used in pure stealth squads but probably won't use much in 1.3). This soldier could totally remove the shinobi scout build however and would bring a number of balance concerns. I'm not against the idea but if that's not something that should be done lightly as if it affects just the Sharpshooters.

[darkerevent]

We obviously have different ideas of the officer's position. I sure don't want my officer doing some scouting away from the squad, i want him/her with the squad to actually provide bonuses. The sharpshooter have the advantage of being able to operate at the back of the squad and hopefully not being shot at. If my officer is ever wounded it's AWC training time for other soldiers from the squad.

An SMG Sharpshooter would certainly be a good scout but the scout is not the officer for me (apart from those Oscar Mike Shinobis i used in pure stealth squads but probably won't use much in 1.3). This soldier could totally remove the shinobi scout build however and would bring a number of balance concerns. I'm not against the idea but if that's not something that should be done lightly as if it affects just the Sharpshooters.

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, just far enough ahead to preview what pods are incoming so that I can set up for the engagement without being surprised. Standard generic usage is that they paint something with holo and/or Focus Fire, and the rangers and gunners and other sharpshooters shoot it.

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. I already stated that I think Ghostwalker and Covert are essential stealthing tools that will still allow the scout shinobi more scouting dependability and objective-capturing usefulness on GOps compared to a holo spotter (who only gets phantom, unless you got lucky in the AWC, and therefore is tremendously more prone to getting spotted around blind corners and the like), so I don't think they're going to be outshone on the stealth front. They also get a distinctly better "need to kill this one guy quickly so that we can get out of here" move in the form of Shadowstrike, along with being able to ignore reaction fire thanks to Shadowstep. These are all things that the holo sharpshooter can't really do, and they aren't without value. 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.

In general, I think it would be balanced if scout shins were optimized for timed-mission GOps use while holo spotters were optimized for open combat use, even though either one could technically be used in either situation. If scout shins do need some sort of buff or rework in order to make that happen, I'm all for it -- I like scout shins too, and my guess is that they're indeed going to be on the weak side in 1.3 because one of their major roles (full-stealth GOps clearing) is being nerfed out of existence, and it's going to take some time for enough feedback to come in for Pavonis to decide how to fix them long-term. But I don't want this notion of, "Well, the new meta in 1.3 is probably going to make life hard for scout shinobis," to be used as the main justification for saying no to what is otherwise a fairly reasonable request for holo sharpshooters.

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.

(Late edit: I should also mention, adding the ability to equip an SMG on a holo spotter would not disable the playstyle of keeping the sniper holo-speced and but still taking taking shots from the back of the squad from time to time. I certainly don't want to disable that playstyle for those who want to use it, but I equally don't want to be forced to carry the heavy+noticeable long rifle when I really don't want it.)

[ndessell]

One more thing, what actually bothers me. Why SS have both Phantom and Conceal if we not supposed to use them as scouts? Only use of Conceal outside of scouting job is assassination missions with bad infiltration timers. And Phantom? What use is possible for Phantom on non-scout unit?

the current 1.3 perk tree only has phantom and it's up against damn good ground and Deadshot

[LordYanaek]

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.

[DonCrabio]

One more thing, what actually bothers me. Why SS have both Phantom and Conceal if we not supposed to use them as scouts? Only use of Conceal outside of scouting job is assassination missions with bad infiltration timers. And Phantom? What use is possible for Phantom on non-scout unit?

the current 1.3 perk tree only has phantom and it's up against damn good ground and Deadshot

I hope current 1.3 perk tree will change, because from my point of view it just worse than 1.2 and do not solve any issues SS currently have.

[koso]

One more thing, what actually bothers me. Why SS have both Phantom and Conceal if we not supposed to use them as scouts? Only use of Conceal outside of scouting job is assassination missions with bad infiltration timers. And Phantom? What use is possible for Phantom on non-scout unit?

Last campaign, I had two sharpshooters roll Shadowstrike, I believe, as their first level AWC offensive perk. Had to retrain one SS just to take Phantom, and both took Conceal. Two guaranteed crits, one whenever I wanted, each mission from each of those guys.

But normally yeah, not sure when you'd end up taking them.

[Dlareh]

For those wondering about the rationale for Phantom, just think about snipers in real life - you see them in camouflage all the time. They go to a location with a good vantage point and eventually shoot at something, aiming for a kill before anyone ever knows they're there.

Just because they have that perk doesn't mean anyone ever intended them to close-and-personal scouts. You can use them that way, and it's damn convenient mechanics-wise when you don't have someone else concealed to do it, but it's a side effect of the ability, not the original intended purpose.

[darkerevent]

Just because they have that perk doesn't mean anyone ever intended them to close-and-personal scouts. You can use them that way, and it's damn convenient mechanics-wise when you don't have someone else concealed to do it, but it's a side effect of the ability, not the original intended purpose.

The Phantom perk appears in a direct vertical line with all of the holo targeting perks and is one of only two perks in that line that don't directly enhance holotargeting. I think that a more reasonable conclusion based on the interface and the flow of options available is that holotarget spec sharpshooters are indeed designed and expected to take Phantom, in order to take advantage of the fact that holospotting does not break concealment. The easily interpreted synergy from this is that with Phatnom, they can creep forward or around the sides and paint targets for the rest of the team in relative safety.

Mechanically, this makes them make a lot of sense as officers, since they can also use officer abilities while concealed. Thematically or for immersion flavor, it's also not unheard of for a field officer to be calling the shots from the shadows (e.g. over integrated voice comms), so there's that too.

Conceal I won't comment on since it's probably being removed for sharpshooters in 1.3 (and probably justifiably so, since the only sharpshooter that cared much about it, the holo spotter, had a competing essential perk in the same row). But I don't think it's any accident that Phantom is in the holotargeting "line."

[Tuhalu]

One more thing, what actually bothers me. Why SS have both Phantom and Conceal if we not supposed to use them as scouts? Only use of Conceal outside of scouting job is assassination missions with bad infiltration timers. And Phantom? What use is possible for Phantom on non-scout unit?

Based on the in-progress sharpshooter tree we've seen for 1.3, Sharpshooters are losing Conceal (in favor of Lone Wolf).

You can use Phantom to get an easy flank shot against the survivor of your first activation in a mission. Contrary to popular belief, a combat scout doesn't even need Ghostwalker or Covert to safely locate the next enemy pod. Phantom by itself is usually good enough.