Scout Archive

My problem is I have had it work only one time from EXP II into EXP 3 and that is running around all levels of creatures.

I have crawled, ran , skirted them on radar but they always pick me up . I mean 1 time in over a week is just plain wrong. Even discarding the pts I was expecting the skill does nothing to protect me at this point.

Is there a trick to it?

Camo skill is used with maskscent and conceal skills. At exp 2-3 your camo skill isn't THAT high. Maskscent is the ability, the actual skill mod is the Camo skill. So basically if you have low camo, they're more likely to detect you. But detection doesn't mean they aggro.

Use it when a hositle red's are tracking you. Just last night I threw 3 reds of my trail and got 161 scouting per creature.

I didn't see this posted, so I'll add it - I'm a novice Bio-eng, and I at least TRY to use /MaskScent to sneak up on larger critters and sample DNA from them. Unfortunately, even at Explore 4, I'm only seeing about a 25% success rate. I personally wish they would drop the XP on this skill altogether, and make it actually WORK well. though I am VERY thankful that yellows no longer break /Maskscent, that makes things a thousand percent better!

maskscent is a life saver in some /corpse recoveries too.

Darth,

There is an additional modifier for walking and going prone. So if you are trying to sample from the critters, crawl up to 'em while mask scented, and you've got probably about a 20% greater chance of not getting your little BE tail handed to you.

B

>>> I wanted to clarify something Jmatt, are you lying down when you fire your first shot?

Yes.

>>> dont be so quick to dismiss Ranger as useless, trust me).

I wanted to be a ranger from the start, but others have said it's not worth it. Talk me into it.

I'm not a ranger, so I can't say whether it is a worthy profession or not, but one large drawback I see is that most of the skills are unusable on NPCs or PvP. I haven't done any of that yet, but plan to at some point in the future.

>>> You must not have explored much or do much serious hunting if you cannot find a use for it. There are many very difficult high level creatures that if they find you will tear you about. Mask Scent stops that.

Do you use it to hunt, or just sneak by a red to get to the one you want? I haven't been able to incorporate it into my attack routine with any effect, so far.

>>>Simply skirting arund at 65 meters isnt always possible. On some planets like Dathomir you can be praticly surrounderd by red dots on your radar and Mask Scent is your way out.

Ah, a valid application. I haven't found myself in that situation yet, so it hasn't been apparent to me.

Well, Jmatt, as I mentioned before, I'm an MS now, so any testimony I give might be colored by the fact that I have a lot more bonuses to the skill in question than you do, and I went through most of the scout tree while maskscent was being tossed around the developers cubicles.

Last night I took 1800 hides off of leviasqualls, ikopes, jaxs, and spineflap or two. I know for a stone-cold fact, that in my case, using a power-upped non-sliced laser carbine, that when I was under the effect of /maskscent, the target took an average of two attack cycles longer to find and pursue me. I repeated this at least30 or more times (30 or more uses of maskscent, that is) and the pattern of results held. Whenever I fired at a mob without maskscent in effect, the mobs attacked after an average of two attack cycles, rather than the four or more I was getting while masked. It may be possible that there are other modifiers at work here, due to being an MS, but that was my unerring conclusion after a solid night's hunt.

And, as far as being a Ranger, it's kind of understood as a PvE profession. If you're concerned with killing NPCs and other Players, see Bounty Hunter, Commando, Squad Leader, Teras Kasi Artist, Pistoleer, Pikeman, Fencer, Carbinier, Rifleman, and a few more of the combat professions that cater to PvP.

Rangers...well...range. They aren't meant to be Black Berets (like we may currently associate them). More like Park Rangers (HA!) with big guns.

Are people certain it's not useful for PvP? Well more large group vs large group 1v1 worthless is an easy call.

It would seem that being able to move into a flanking position with some large mean reds at your back might provide some tactical advantages.

1) A route of escape

2) Targetting dificulty

3) high risk for melee folks to close with you.

4) A prone ranged target hard to hit from the enemies position if they don't risk closing.

Now if the skill stays or was changed to stay up if it doesn'tagainst things you haven't attacked it could be truly advantageous for sniping positions.

Arys

Great thread.. really explained maskscent for me!

I have a question though- does anyone use maskscent, and fight melee? And how do they use it? I'm a swordsman- just haven't found an effective way to use this skill.

Thanks,

Seena Lonewalker

Kali

im a TKA and almost master scout, the only think ive been able to use /masksent for is to get into trapping range of a aggro mob. I can count on one hand the number of times ive gotten XP from /masksent but thats not really important to me, i get most of my XP from harvesting critters.

I get detected ALOT when ever i use it. i mostly dont bother with it anymore. but thats me....

I originally got into scouting purely for CH but found its actually a rather usefull profession to have (the wire mesh and glow-wire traps mostly for me) plus i dont have to go to town THAT often cause i can make a camp, meditate (lol its actually good for SOMETHING)and get all my wounds healed fairly quickly.

Baccadinio