Scout Archive

Don't forget about trapping! In my opinion, trapping is the soul of the Scout profession... it's one of the few interesting things we do that no other class does (except for Ranger, of course). While I'm also a Marksman, and thus do plenty of damage with my weapon, I also use traps constantly. Traps add variety and strategy to combat, and while their effectiveness tends to taper off as you advance in Scout, they are still quite useful. They also give you something to do with all that stuff you harvest... and if you're an artisan as well, the crafting XP you get from trap making adds up quickly. It's also a lot more fun crafting traps in the field between battles and then using them immediately, than sitting in town for hours making stuff people may or may not buy. (I'm already halfway through the novice Artisan skills, and I've seldom made anything other than traps.)

I would like to see trapping expanded to include stationary traps (which is, after all, what hunting traps actually are, not weird hand-made grenades). These could act much like mines, and you can set one down and wait for a creature to spring it. This might also work in conjunction to some of the other suggestions here, like hunting blinds.

Overall, I agree with most of the ideas in this thread, in that the Scout would be more fun if there were more unique abilities that did something fun and useful. I have a lot of fun with it now, but a broader selection of abilities would add some additional depth.

You can't look at scout like a profession as it's own. All beginning classes (execpt medic mabey) are speedbumps to somthing other than a scout. Weapon Specialists are only mediocore but you don't see marksmen complaining that they're too weak, they just pick up Pistoleer or Rifleman or Carbine.

Seeing how "there's very little reason to advance to ranger after Scout" don't you think it would make sense to put these more advanced things in the Ranger class to give people a reason to choose it?

I think scouts are find as they are right now. We can make good money off hides and bones and are great in groups if used right. Aside from needing Masked Scent fixed we're perfectly fine.

Sprite, the main problem is that the scout tree doesn't really give you any idea of what it's like to be a CH. As has been stated before, Scout is just Ranger part 1. Most other elite professions are actually practicing their skills in the starting professions, but CHs don't get any practice at actually handling creatures until the novie CH skills. I think they should be able to gain VERY weak creatures at maybe Huntin III or IV.

Scouts aren't just speed bumps to creature handler, they are also speedbump to Squad Leader, Bounty Hunter, and Bio Engineer!