Revised Berserker and Skirmisher Feedback Thread

[Fortescue]

HELLO!

I am the person responsible for inflicting the revised Berserker and Skirmisher classes upon you all. At least from a design perspective! The actual coding was all done by talented individuals DarkGod, Shibari, grayswandir76, and at least a few others whose names I can't remember right at this moment.

Game design is an iterative process. Perfection is an unattainable goal, but something to strive for all the same with the hope of improving your designs. I feel Berserker and Skirmisher are far from complete at this stage and still have a lot of room left to grow as unique and fun experiences, and that this is just the first step down a long path.

My objectives going forward:

Trim the fat
If there is something available to a class that is inappropriate or just not mechanically useful for them, I want to remove it as an option. An example of this was removing Sunder Weapon, and DarkGod himself came up with the replacement for Sunder Armor. Going forward I am going to play both of these classes a lot and look for places where their design can be tightened up a bit more. Now, don't take this to mean I want the players to have less options in general, rather...

Give players more MEANINGFUL options
At the moment both classes suffer from having fairly clear cut builds that don't offer a lot of variety in what plays optimally. I would have liked to have added more variance for players on the first pass, but even just the things that made it into 1.2 took months to "finish" designing and have already been through multiple iterations. I want to make how you spend category points feel like more of a personal decision that reflects how YOU want to play the character, and have there be at least 2 viable, equally powerful builds with regard to which optional categories are chosen.

Your Turn
Those are my objectives and how I hope to continue to improve these classes. What are your suggestions? Is a specific skill too weak? Does a category feel like you waste points on filler to get to a skill you actually want? Does it feel like there is no circumstance you would ever get 5/5 in skill "x" ?

How about general feel? I had hoped to improve the pacing of Berserker by making the skill Berserk less punishing for new characters to use by removing the armor penalty, as well as offering access to the Bloodthirst tree immediately to get you into the theme more quickly. Fearless Cleave was also designed to make more aggressive play more rewarding and keep things moving along quickly. The full stamina drain on Execution was removed for the same reason, so that you could use it mid-battle when an opportunity arose to finish off something.

For Skirmisher, the whole theme is mobility. This is why you reload while moving. The intended play style is to use Hurricane Shot to whittle down large groups, with Swift Shot interspersed to pick off targets that get too close / are low on HP. You should be moving constantly during battle, not relying heavily on your regular attack until you have Sling Barrage. Breathing Room is your intended longevity skill, keeping your Stamina up until the fight is over. I have a goal of moving that category into other classes as well eventually, including ones that would be more at home with Dauntless Challenger (example, classes that use Rush would sync well with that skill). Buckler Mastery is there to keep you from getting splattered by long range enemies, primarily, with the added bonus of the counter attack skill allowing you to move and do damage in the same turn, further encouraging movement in combat. Acrobatics is key to keeping maximum distance between yourself and your melee opponents. So what is your experience with Skirmisher? Are these skills working as intended for you? Have you found another way to play Skirmisher you think is more effective?

[Davion Fuxa]

Haven't really had a chance to look at the new update yet so I can only give you some initial input from before starting to play. Note that I will assume that for the most part the talents are balanced (or will be balanced) so I'll take the initial appearance of what the new or revised talents do on the face value of what they do (IE, Berserker Rage makes you stronger at a cost of reducing a percentage of your life)

The Revised Berserker looks like a significant improvement that really makes up for a lot of the weakpoints it use to have with filler skills and expand its aresnal a bit without going overboard. Additionally, the shared category tree with Wyrmics and Arcane Blades looks slightly usable and potentialy useful to either of those classes.

Most importantly, it still has newbie friendly potential for easing players into Tales of Maj'Eyal without overburdening them with too many attack talents or potentially screwing them over with useeless ones. Some might take a little bit more experience to properly use potentially but that's fine.

I'm not sure if much more should be done to the Berserker class to change it, outside of perhaps taking a closer look at Superiority and Warcries. Once again I have to bring up the issue with shared class talents with other classes with those categories; however I'm not sure Bulwarks really see a lot of benefit either so you might end up fixing up two classes advanced options at once.

****

I'll without comments on the Slinger for now, as I have yet to unlock them; let alone played any semblance of the playstyle they are suppose to entail.

[Davion Fuxa]

Right, I got around to unlocked Skimisher and giving it a spin. A bit of a recap them of some highlights of the Halfling Skirmisher I have on the go:

So far the character I made has leveled up to 7 and has progressed through Trollmire 1-3 and Norgos' Lair 1-3. I have had two Sun Paladin Escort encounters (sacrificed the first to Zigur and picked up Technique/Mobility for testing, other died); have 5/5 Buckler Expertise, 4/5 Kneecaper, 1/5 Killshot, and 2/5 Sling Supremacy for class skills; and have 1/5 Vault, 3/5 Tumble, and 1/5 Luck of the Little Folk in generic skills.

So here's a quick look on a few things regarding skill use:

Buckler Expertise is a fairly neat skill in that it reduces a lot of damage you take, and I saw it proc alot. However, one negative thing about leveling it up too quick too early is that if it procs while you actively use the 'Block' ability with your shield, it notably prevents you from putting a counterstrike debuff and enemy you succesfully 'deflect'; which procs more as you improve the skill. This was a bit of a nuisance because it made killing foes take that much longer with scarce ammunition and the weak starting sling and shots because you would have to kite foes all over the place.

I realize you initially wanted to have Block disabled on your class and just have passive blocking. However, as a suggestion, the Block ability should be made to either have priority over deflection or include successful deflects made for the purpose of enabling counterattacks should the player wish to actively Block during their turn - personally I would prefer the former, even if your chance to get your counterattack is largely RNG based.

Kneecapter was a fairly fun skill to use for the purpose of delaying enemies from approaching or for initial use for what active Blocks I did succesfully get off before running out of melee range again.

I'll probably will find some use for Kill Shot later, but for a single talent point the stamina cost is too high for the little damage it does in early game play; most likely I will find it more useful around the time I start getting Sling Sniper.

Now, if there is a skill I feel someone disapointed in it has to be Vault. To me it feels little better then Switch Place but with a bit higher stamina cost associated with the extra ability to also exit melee range and move away if desired. In practice I don't think there will be much use for me to use the skill specifically.

What I'll likely be making great use of for tactically repositioning is Tumble. With the ability to fall through enemies for an increased chance to critical I think I can find a lot of use for it. The range might be limited but it isn't like the Skirmisher is suppose to be a long ranged combatant.

In the future I'll also look into the potential worth of the Technique/Mobility tree, which looks like it has some fairly high synergy to be found.

I'll try to play the class some more tomorrow to try and note some more about it - most likely up to completion of all 1st tier dungeons, Trapped, and the Beast Within.

[Ragnarok]

One little thing I have to say about a zerker as I try to run one through for a victory is that the berserk rage ability has been changed to be more "newbie" friendly without the -10 debuff it suffers the same problem with the hp degen effect. Having you put a couple or more points into it and never using the ability until you can afford to take the degen because it gets deadly if your fighting alot of monsters early game or can't quite go toe to toe with a boss that could end up being more deadly then the -10 but late game is hardly noticeable like the -10. It needs a downside that you need to be mindful of but not one were you can't use it in most fights because it hurts you more when you don't need it.

Second is the entire zerker early mid to mid game is trying to get as much crit running as possible and killing stuff asap. There isn't a "tanking" zerker tree that makes you more powerful the more damage/attacks/enemies your fighting at once/receive or like a dual wield zerker that goes crazy with attacking as much as possible. It feels they should play like they put themselves at great risk for great reward but that isn't the case since you just play until all of the downsides aren't impactful. They lost unstoppable which made them really good at doing the former, while they aren't bad now they don't really have the "berserker" feeling.

[duskhorizon]

Maybe it's kinda off-topic but first : get patchnotes straight please! Those you have are not specific enough. For example I still have no idea what have you changed in each class. Not everybody is expert so will remember every talent and every tree. Why don't have detailed patchnotes like :

- xxx skill is now 30 CD (was 25)
- replaced xxx with yyy
- moved xx skill to yy talent tree

That would make judging changes much more easy. I know it takes some time to do it butt compared to effort you put in this game overall it's not so much.


Sorry for my English I try my best

[B4nk5y]

I completed a normal Skirmisher playthrough yesterday and overall I think it's one of the more cohesive classes in the game, so kudos to the designer/devs.

Loved the emphasis on movement, found myself vaulting and tumbling to gain max range for Kill Shots (which I massively overused contrary to one of the earlier posters!)

The buckler was underused on normal difficulty - there simply weren't enough situations where a block was more effective than a 1-shot kill - kill shot was dishing out 2000+ damage to ranged opponents. I could see this being much more useful on higher difficulties.

Trained Reactions seems like an odd talent to me:

There's a tradeoff between the increased damage mitigation and the decreased damage threshold that makes levelling it to 5 questionable. On one hand, you'd like to keep it at a low rank so that it doesn't go into cooldown on insignificant hits, leaving you open to big burst damage. On the other hand, you want to rank it to 5 to get the max mitigation, and the max use from the +global of Superb Agility - I think this might need a rethink, but happy to be persuaded otherwise.

One consequence of the "arcane resource burn on hit" items that are available now is that the plethora of multi-shot abilities (Noggin Knocker, Bombardment, Hurricane Shot) make previously powerful enemies such as the "Crusher" orb guardian, Atamathon, High Peak stair bosses, enemies with bone shield etc laughably easy, but that's more of an observation of the current game mechanics than Skirmishers specifically.

Overall I think this is one of my new favourite classes, and will be trying out Berserker and the new Sun Paladin next.

[Davion Fuxa]

My adventures on my Halfling Skirmisher continue, as I have no completed all the Tier 1 Dungeons, Trapped, and the beast within. Continued Highlights:

I've reached level 13, and done the arena quest in Derth. All areas that newbie might visited have been visited. My equipment leaves a bit to be desired but I found a Tier 3 shield in the Unknown Tunnels. Of specific note, I sided with the Assassin Lord (I'm attempt to learn the viability for Tricks of the Trade with Skirmisher). I have continued to invest in skills as follows:

3/5 Sling Supremacy
3/5 Bash and Smash
2/5 Buckler Mastery
1/5 Breathing Room

5/5 Duck and Dodge
1/5 Armour Training
3/5 Combat Accuracy
5/5 Tumble

Thoughts then as follows

I finally found a use for Kill Shot in potentially being useful during the early game, specifically for killing enemies behind other enemies. It's not something I use often due to its high Stamina cost for that purpose but it is something I could use it for nonetheless.

Bash and Smash seems potentially useful, but it seems to have some sort of speed penalty associated with the skill - where enemies get to take an extra turn to your single use of the skill. It does do good damage, but the turn delay afterwards is a consideration that needs to be taken into account since enemies get free hits on you.

I tested Buckler Mastery a little. I didn't notice it having much effect yet but I did see a note popping up about trying to evade a Skeleton Mage a few times when it did Manathrust.

I invested a single point in Breathing Room and may invest more in that tree - Dauntless Challenger looks like it will have some use with Militant Mind. Not sure if I will invest more into Breathing Room specifically - stamina is a problem on this class but that might just be in relation to the early game where my equipment isn't up to par yet.

I invested a point into Armour Training and a few into Combat Accuracy - Armour Training is a given to wearing better equipment, but for Combat Accuracy I have Knoggin Knocker in mind. So far I'm feeling that the lack of status ailment effects I can inflict (ie, just Kneecapper) is a bit of a liability.

Tumble is awesome. I've used it to make Kill Shot more effective, to escape enemies that I can't Vault over, and much more. The extra Physical Crit Chance is also gravy on the side.

****

One thing I should throw in here that something you might add to the Skirmisher is Cunning/Dirty Fighting. The stun or free attack from Dirty Fighting, extra damage and Stun chance from Backstab, the use of Cripple to further hamper your opponents - even friggin Switch Place woudl probably have advanced use due to Vault.

[Davion Fuxa]

Starting the 2nd Tier Dungeons then. Progress included going into the Old Forest and Sacrificing an Anorithil and an Alchemist to the Zigur. I proceeded into Lake of Nur early and found that the Wierdling Beast was too hard to overcoming - but I'll chalk that up to going in early and because he seems to have received a buff. After that I went to Sandworm Tunnels for some more equipment, cleared Derth of Elementals, raided Mark of the Spellblaze for a quick Faeros kill, and acquired the Elixir of Focus.

Skills then are as follows on my character now:

4/5 Sling Supremacy
5/5 Kneecaper
4/5 Bash and Smash
5/5 Kill Shot

1/5 Think Skin
5/5 Combat Accuracy

Because I finally found some decent equipment and have some stamina, Kill Shot is starting to see some moderate use. It's damage capabilities also greatly improve in tight places like Sandworm Tunnels and against a boss like the Wierdling Beast when it's talent level is increased. Most likely it will get better as the game goes along.

Bash And Smash feels a bit like a detriment. Because enemies are getting more time to act I'm taking risk using it - unless I feel it will finish and enemy off or if i am only fighting one enemy that will be knocked back. It should be limited to taking 1 turn duration only for sure.

[notacorporal]

My halfling skirmisher plays pretty well so far (lvl 10).

I have shied away from the technique/skirmisher tree so far because of the way it burns through ammo. This might not be as much of a problem as it first looked. It took me a while to figure out how reloading works. The penalty for active reloading seems too steep considering how easy it is to reload by moving.

When I started the character all the stat ponts were spent for me. I could only use 4 out of my 5 class points. Then I found I could not take any points out of buckler expertise. If only the first level in that talent was fixed that would be nice.

On normal difficulty the class is pretty powerful. I have not met anything too challenging. Given I entered the first zone surrounded by foes, perhaps it is too strong. Alternately I have been getting stronger as a player.

Vault is an odd ability to find a use for. Most of the time it will take you deeper into unexplored areas. I guess it works as an escape option after you have already rushed into the middle of a large pack. It will be fun to see how this works against mobs of spellcasters.

[Davion Fuxa]

Continuing on in the 2nd Tier Dungeons, I roamed the Ruined Dungeon, delved into the Old Maze, and cleared out the Mark of the Spellblace (1) instance i initially visited before. Then I went back to defeat the Wierdling Beast and claim the Sher'Tul Fortress for my use.

At this point I feel I have reached a considerable leg in the journey of my character - I'll describe this as the end of what can be considered 'Earlier Play'. Currently my level 19 Halfling Skirmisher is as follows with talents:

5/5 Buckler Expertise, 3/5 Bash and Smash, 5/5 Buckler Mastery
5/5 Sling Supremeacy
1/5 Breathing Room
5/5 Kneecapper, 5/5 Kill Shot

1/5 Luck of the Little Folk, 5/5 Duck and Dodge, 1/5 Militant Mind
1/5 Think Skin, 1/5 Armor Training, 5/5 Combat Accuracy,
1/5 Vault, 5/5 Tumble, 1/5 Trained Reactions, 1/5 Superb Agility

A look at skills as follows

I decided to remove the point from Bash And Smash since I feel it is a little dangerous to use and not worth the full amount of points to max it - perhaps later I might though. Buckler Expertise is somewhat helpful for reducing damage when enemies get close - though I find that Buckler Mastery is somewhat weak in negating damage compared to Buckler Mastery. This might change with more gameplay.

Sling Supremacy has been aced, and the increased damage really helps out - specifically I attribute taking down the Wierdling Beast to this talent. Will look into the other skills in its category eventually - probably after Tirely Combatant.

Kneecaper overall is a strong skill for the Early part of the Game. I used it to great affect for both its pinning and slow capabilities, as well as its damage and low stamina cost. Kill Shot ... a bit of a late bloomer that hasn't fully bloomed I guess. It's a useful skill to be sure for its ability to bypass other enemies to hit the enemy you want, but it's high stamina cost and limited capbilities at closer range hurt its potential in the close corridor dungeons you start out in; not more then a one point wonder in early gameplay that you might consider investing in later.

Vault is for the most part coming off as a filler skill currently. It can be useful to jump over foes when you get an enemy that did Switch Placed or appeared behind you blocking your exit. However, it's limited in its usefulness because a player doesn't want to run into the dark. Tumble is very useful in correlation with the Skirmishers ranged abilities. Technically it's a better version of Vault for tactical repositioning, moving while pinned, and in general just escaping. I haven't used Trained Reactions because it looks a bit heavy in stamina cose, Superb Agility looks insanely useful - even if just for Tumble.

I may play some more tomorrow to try to get towards the Master and beat at least half the game with the character. For the most part it looks like an improved Archer class but with less debuff ability and more mobility.

[Torokasi]

I'm the second clear in the Vaults on Skirmisher (the first one's right here), so I guess I've got a lot to say on the class! First, I definitely enjoyed the class a ton.

Skills-wise... gonna hit the highs and lows here.

Tireless Combatant: The bane of earlygame Skirmishers. Requiring Willpower makes them have to split their points significantly early on, which makes them either hamper their offense or longevity. I ran 3/0/0/0 until about L15, then ran up my Willpower to get 3/1/3/5. Very worth it.

Of note, the tree's underperformer is Pace Yourself; it's... good, don't get me wrong, but I think it needs some greater impact at lower levels (bonus Stam/HP when you wait in place, maybe?) since a lot of builds won't need to worry about Fatigue much (I ran Heavy Armor for most the end game, and I still didn't use it, preferring equip -% to fatigue. This being said, I was sorely tempted by Tarrasca...) Give it some further bonus and I think it'll be fine, but it should probably be usable for light armor/robe builds as well.


Buckler Training: Ran 3/1/3/0 for most the game. Bash and Smash taking two turns eventually removed it from my main toolbar, though it saw use on a nasty Mindslayer unique at endgame. The first skill is glorious at melee, and the third is awesome against archers (less so on mages whose projectiles tend to explode anyway).

Called Shots: Okay, I loved this tree. 1/1/1/5 was my baseline for a lot of the game, since all three offense skills are solid without much investment. Kneecapper is good for slowing enemies down, Noggin Knocker was basically my basic physical for most of endgame once I got Eye of the Tiger rolling, and Kill Shot was good.

Question on Kill Shot, though: does the damage multiplier for high range go up with levels? I didn't notice it, if it did, so I left it at 1 and just didn't use it if someone was in melee with me.

Sling Supremacy: I ran with Sling Mastery at L2 until Dreadfel. This was a mistake, don't be like me. Swift Shot... it's decent, it really is, but I found myself just not using it since it didn't fit the flow of combat often enough/I wanted Called Shots for damage to mages behind enemy lines and was using Bombardment once I got it, so Swift Shot wasn't too impressive.

Hurricane Shot is good, but I think it could stand a minor buff on damage or "spend X bullets to hit everyone in the cone" or something. Not being able to control -who- you hit is a massive pain and made it unreliable - and that, combined with it being the only crowd control Skirmishers get, made a lot of fights a lot slower. Not harder, Skirmisher defenses made sure I survived it, but... slower.

Acrobatics is awesome and I love it. Works well with the Buckler Mastery tree, but won't keep you alive unless you're very good at making sure you use those escapes. An excellent tree and really helps everything gel. Vault is great for distance while Tumble's great for positioning, and neither really treads on the toes of the other IMO.



One thing I will say is, post-Reknor, I was really not phased by being in melee. Vault still saw tons of use for setting up Kill Shots, and Tumble was great for positioning properly to deal with hordes/getting behind someone who wasn't in melee with me, but... mmm. Lategame, Skirmisher is less an agile damager and more of a flying armada of offense, which... feels fine, to be honest?

My only significant issues were a low-offense earlygame with lots of durability and kiting but little to follow up with, and Hurricane Shot being the only crowd clear (and being unreliable on who you want it to hit, if more than 5/more than 10 are in range). The latter... I'd say buff the damage (slightly; 10% on base? 15%?) and make it hit everyone once at T1, with it hitting twice at T5 or TL6, but that's totally just me.

Thematically... it basically plays fine, emphasizes mobility/repositioning excellently while being quite defensive. I kinda wish there was a Wil tree (possibly to unlock?) to make Dex/Cun or Dex/Wil early both equally viable, with the Wil side possibly focusing more on offensive shield/sling combo work?

[Davion Fuxa]

Question on Kill Shot, though: does the damage multiplier for high range go up with levels? I didn't notice it, if it did, so I left it at 1 and just didn't use it if someone was in melee with me.

I have the talent to 5/5, and can say it only increases the damage from Point Blank to before Max Range. Fortescue made an effort to make it so some skills could be one hit wonders, useful when a certain number of skill points spent, or max spent points for all flavors players might choose.

[Davion Fuxa]

I have more time, so, my run continues. I cleared Halfling Complex Ruins, Golem Graveyard, Elven Ruins (1}, Slavers Compound, Tempest Peak, and finally I did Daikaira and the Temporal Rift. Of important note I also disturbed an Old Forgotten Battlefield Mini Instance, Rat Lich Mini Instance, I killed the Exploratory Farportal Unique that always spawns when you get notified of the disturbance, killed the Bringer of Doom, and a certain Succubus.

Currently I've reached level 25 on the character and I'm standing in Dark Crypt to continue next time.

Some things of note is that I got my 600+ damage achievment (notably I got this by blocking a Skeleton Archer in Halfling Complex and a Kill Shot, but...), some finally half-decent Shots and a Sling with Range +9 (now practically all my Kill Shots are 600+), and I finally unlocked Technique/Mobility.

So, on talent changes:

3/5 Breathing Room
5/5 Noggin Knocker
1/5 Sling Sniper

1/5 Hack'n'Back
1/5 in Mobile Defense
1/5 Light of Foot
1/5 Strider

And of course thoughts on skills:

Kill Shot has finally become useful around this time - even more so when I picked up decent weapons. While still expensive to use, it does fantastic damage - and that's ignoring Counterattack debuffs. I'm using it for it's actual purpose now of dealing high damage to foes at long range.

Noggin Knocker is interesting. It's a Stun skill that stuns oppoents obviously, which is useful for reducing the damage they will inflict on you, slow them down, etc. Getting a 3 turn Stun duration on an enemy is a little short even if it is something you can inflict at range - I think this talent would benefit from another Stun skill for use (see my Note about Dirty Fighting for example).

Sling Sniper is fairly straightforward - it improves the Kneecaper, Kill Shot, and Noggin Knocker some more - will be investing to full on this talent fairly soon.

I also invest a couple points in Breathing Room, which will let me get a health regen along with stamina. I'm not sure how specifically useful this will be for health regen, but getting more stamina for skill use is certainly worth it.

I'll note that Actively Blocking stopped being useful around Halfling Complex due to me not finding a better Shield then the one I'm using. I haven't really noted much of an issue in attempting to Block Projectiles in regards to Buckler Mastery, but I didn't really get that many Active Blocks off before enemies started doing more damage then my Block.

And then of course I note that I have Technique/Mobility. At this time I'm not sure how my investments here will pan out. I plan to get Strider for the increased movement speed, and maybe potentially for Disengage later (maybe?), but I suppose Mobile Defense could help bolster my Defenses further, while Light of Foot might be very useful for reducing fatigue - and it's minor stamina boost. Will have to think on this category a bit.

[tylor]

Skirmisher is meh. TW and Archer have better firepower and disable, especially against crowds. And TW has better mobility.
Buckle Mastery is only really good looking skill.

[Fortescue]

Skirmisher is meh. TW and Archer have better firepower and disable, especially against crowds. And TW has better mobility.
Buckle Mastery is only really good looking skill.

So you didn't actually play it.