Hackers have a severe lack in the abilities department to withdraw from combat, with only rollout to aide them in such a task. They suffer the penalties from interlock combat yet have nothing to help them leave it, unlike Spies who actually have a lot of abilities without penalties to use inside interlock.

The hacker has the ability Gaussion Blur, but anyone who has done enough tests with it like myself will know that at most you can gain 1 additional shield break protection if you use block and the oponent uses speed, outside of that combination the majority results end up being the same anout of shield breaks as it would be without the ability.

I would like to see Hackers gain 2 changes.

1. A mid level ability to withdraw from combat
2. An increase in gaussion blurs evade combat % (I think if that is done it needs to be moved to a higher level requirement in the hacker tree, or maybe give a ability which increases the evade combat bonus from this ability.)

Unlike the operatives trees, hackers are punished with accuracy on attacks inside interlock, for that reason they are promoted to AVOID interlock. Currently nothing seperates their ability to get caught into interlock, and whereas a Spy class can go toe to toe with trees inside interlock, they have a multitude of abilites to escape, hackers NEED the same ability.

Spy is just a class, forget all this espionage and evasion talk, if thats the case... hackers should be sitting away from combat hacking using a terminal, we are here talking about combat class needs. I don't know how you play your MA, if that is your tree, but as a MA I rarely worry about hackers as superior defensive stats Vs reduced accuracy leads to an easy MA win.

Hackers are far to vunreable to interlock moves,in particular against good MA's who know what they are doing. The issue here is not about jumping/evading, it's about how the hacker tree is punished for interlock yet lacks an ability to help remove them from it.

You just said it yourself, they are an OOIL tree.

It doesn't matter how much damage you might do to someone outside interlock, you might hit everything, you might miss everything that is not the point here.

A tree designed to avoid interlock has no means to leave combat without using only rollout, hackers NEED an ability without interlock penalties to have the chance to do so. At this time a lot of hackers have a hard time leaving interlock and regardless of damage done outside interlock before they are interlocked is negated when everything only misses inside interlock. Now we're not talking exceptions to the rule here. I've killed hackers as a MA with ease, I've also killed MA's inside interlock with hacker tree (obviously that happens very few times for hackers). However, I'm not just talking MA Vs Hacker here, I'm talking about the fundamentals of the tree and the negatives for interlock are so great that it needs a balance to it.

Hackers life easier? Eh, no I'm trying to make the combat of a tree more balanced, and it's the one tree that gets punished the most for it and has no balance in getting out of it. Remember even an ability to withdraw would be a roll against a potentially higher rolling attacking, it's never a guarantee.

Also FYI, powerless is only effective for a short time, so serves little purpose in hitting the person who is about to interlock you unless its a spy using a OOIL>IL ability. Destroy resolve is only as effective as an attack IF they person uses abilites to burn IS, guess what, when a MA is OOIL he won't be burning that much IS.

Hackers need an ability to remove from IL, if anything it will help people in keeping hackers about when their shield is broken, rather than going tactical to reset/re-apply a shield.

If spy is an espionage and EVASION tree the how about giving them penalties in IL like hacker?

I've also killed MA's inside interlock with hacker tree (obviously that happens very few times for hackers).

I don't think Hackers need a withdraw ability, especially when they have such a wide range of roots, stuns and pacifies to use to prevent IL in the first place.  I do agree though that Gaussian Blur (and the other related abilities like Compel Close Combat) needs some attention as they're currently pretty worthless. 

For the record, I don't think any class should have an IL penalty.  *looks at Vinia*

I don't know how you play hacker, but besides bottleneck, all hacker rootes break on damage (so... basically we can't attack during that part), Pacify and stun durations are small enough to hit a few attacks and then potentailly get away. I'm not trying to make hacker a class that can get away more, but if anything the ability to stay in the thick of battle more.

If hackers had no IL penalty, I wouldn't even be making this point. (To be fair I can agree on giving them a penalty, but it's far too severe in most cases which warrants an ability at least to try and get out of IL.)

A good hacker can root/stun/pacify you and completely savage you before you can get their shield down and IL them, and if they have Upgrade Attacks, your best off avoiding IL with them
Giving them the chance to Root/Stun/Pacify do their attacks, get ILed, take a little beating, roll out new shield and more roots/stuns/pacifys, may favour them in battle

As said, they are encouraged to avoid Interlock, not escape it.

Aquatium. wrote:

I've also killed MA's inside interlock with hacker tree (obviously that happens very few times for hackers).

I have to disagree here.  If you come to Syntax you'll see hackers taking on martial artists on a regular basis and having a fair rate of success.  Heck, i'm sure you remember Zudrag posting some combat research last week which supported hackers viability as an IL class. 

Then I'd have to say your MA's need to work on their ability to take down hackers. To be fair, I am speaking about my own experience as a MA being able to destroy most hackers without much effort. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but the stats speak for themselves.

If the negatives on attacks were reduced and gaussion blur was given a higher boost, there will be no need for an ability to give a chance to leave combat BUT it is suprisingly a tree with the biggest negative for interlock lacks even 1 special ability to leave combat.

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Giving them the chance to Root/Stun/Pacify do their attacks, get ILed, take a little beating, roll out new shield and more roots/stuns/pacifys, may favour them in battle " width="15" height="15" />

As said, they are encouraged to avoid Interlock, not escape it.

Every situation has many potential outcomes, but I'm talking about the general status of hacker here.

As posted earlier here, Gaussion Blur needs something at the very least.