) Now on to skirmishing!Skirmisher was my 8th insane win, and I found it to be middle of the road in terms of power and how easy it is. Link to my winner. For a bit of background on the class, skirmisher is a rogue class that has a lot of overlap with archer due to both of them using ranged weapons. Skirmisher is more tactical and makes more use of positioning, with strong attacks from range with an arsenal of potent debuffing shots and many talents able to bypass other enemies between you and your target. It's a bit of an older class that hasn't been looked at in a while, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Pros:
+Most tactically focused ranged class
+High attack speed
+Long range makes combat mostly safe
+High mobility
Cons:
-No protection from your own shots, which can easily one shot you late game
-No good response to shoot down
-Overshadowed by archer being stronger while playing similarly
-Bland playstyle
Races:
Cornac – 2.5/5: Cornac gives a category point and extra class and generic points. Problem is, skirmisher lacks categories to unlock and has nowhere good to invest those extra class and generic points.
Higher – 2/5: Higher has nothing that really interests you. It’s slightly better than the undead races due to being able to use infusions, but that’s not saying much.
Shalore – 5/5: Timeless is always good, you don’t have blinding speed to compete with grace of the eternals, and crit chance/power is always welcome. My pick for strongest choice.
Thalore – 3/5: The racials are decent, but not as good as most other living races and a 35% xp penalty is a steep price to pay. Thalore will be much better in 1.6 when its xp penalty is removed, but isn’t a bad choice now.
Doomelf – 4.5/5: Doomelf teleport is one of the strongest abilities in the game and crit shrug is great. You even have a few debuffs to extend with Pitiless.
Halfling – 4/5: Halflings are one of the most fitting races thematically and are a great choice, but I’m not quite convinced their racials hold up to those of shalore, drem, and doomelf. Still, you can’t go wrong with them and they’re a strong pick.
Dwarf – 2.5/5: Dwarf is much better on melee classes than on ranged ones. You largely don’t care about their racials
Drem – 4.5/5: Double using talents, confusion immunity, and keeping enemies distracted and at range. What’s not to love?
Yeek – 3.5/5: The racials and xp boost are nice, but the low life hurts. Not a bad choice, but not a great one either.
Ogre – 3.5/5: Even without caring about ogrewielding, ogre is a decent choice. Beefed up infusions are always welcome.
Krog – 2.5/5: You unfortunately aren’t able to forsake a shield and dual wield slings, despite slings being 1h weapons
All of their other racials are good, but antimagic hurts.Ghoul – 1/5: The worst race for skirm no question. Being undead and not able to use infusions both hurt and the racials don’t have any significant appeal.
Skeleton – 2/5: The racials are OK and fit with the class, but are nothing special. The xp penalty and no infusions hurts a lot.
TL;DR: Pick Shalore, Doomelf, Drem, or Halfling
Stats:
Dex is your biggest contributor for damage and lots of your skills scale with it. You’ll want to take Cunning at least up until level 20, at which point what you go for depends on your prodigies.
STR: Provides physical power and is good for PES
DEX: Your primary stat
CON: Your attention is split with stats as is so you likely won’t have points to spare to CON, but it's not bad
MAG: Max it if you want arcane might, otherwise ignore. I highly recommend arcane might
WIL: You have a tree using willpower, but none of the talents in it actually scale off WIL. You have better things to focus on; use +stat gear to get Tireless Combatant skills
CUN: Your sling scales off this (albeit less than DEX) and a fair amount of talents use it. Less important than MAG if you go arcane might and STR if you go PES, so the highest damage build will not max it
Class Trees:
Below is the early game investment I would recommend:
Called Shots: 4/1/1/5
Buckler Training: 1/1/2/1
Skirmisher - Slings: 5/1/1/0
Tireless Combatant: 3/0/0/0
Poisons (locked): 2/1/4/0-1
Trapping (locked): ?/?/?/?
And for late game:
Called Shots: 5/5/5/5
Buckler Training: 4/3/3/2
Skirmisher - Slings: 5/3/3/0
Tireless Combatant: 3/1/1/5
Poisons (locked): 3/2/4/0-1
Trapping (locked): ?/?/?/?
This leaves you with around 5 extra points to do with as you see fit. If you want to pick up Trapping, I would look to Buckler Training and some of the Called Shots talents that only provide damage increases as the easiest places to remove points from.
Called Shots: 4/1/1/5 early, 5/5/5/5 late
Kneecapper: It can bypass other enemies between you and your target so you can always hit what you want, and it provides some very useful debuffs with pin and slow. 4 points for an extra turn of pin.
Kill Shot: This is where your big hits come from. I hit for 16k with it in high peak and consistently reached 12k off it in the prides. Extra points only boost damage, but it gives a respectable boost. Obligatory screenshot of my high damage:
Noggin Knocker: Ranged stun that can target whatever enemy you want without worrying about rabble blocking the way. The stun duration unfortunately doesn't ever go above 1 per shot that lands, but more points give a respectable damage boost.
Sling Sniper: Crit chance, crit mult, physical res pen, and reduced cooldown on all called shots talents? Yes, please! Just make sure you don’t equip non-physical damage type ammo (not that you would ever want to anyway). Also, note that the extra bonuses depend on raw talent level, not effective, so don’t go 4/5 thinking you’ll be getting the res pen bonus because of an effective talent level of over 5.
Buckler Training: 1/1/2/1 early, 4/3/3/2 late
Buckler Expertise: Completely negating attacks is great, but extra points barely increases the chance to do so. It’s a good candidate for luxury points, but the boost isn’t significant enough to get early.
Bash and Smash: 3 points for knockback increase. The shot damage is decent but enemies shouldn’t be getting close to you to begin with. You don’t have shield mastery so hitting twice with your shield is useless.
Buckler Mastery: This is fairly dependable projectile defense and helps trigger counter shot often. Guaranteed critical is nice if you have PES, but you should be at 100% crit chance anyway and shield damage doesn’t matter because you don’t have shield mastery.
Counter Shot: Because of buckler mastery this can trigger surprisingly often, and I would bump this to at least 3 if you take extra points in Buckler Mastery. It’s not a huge benefit, but every bit helps and it’s not like you have anywhere better to put points.
Skirmisher - Slings: 5/1/1/0 early, 5/3+/3/0 late
Sling Supremacy: Your mastery talent. Max it as soon as possible.
Swift Shot: Because of slings already having fast attack speeds, this will only take around 35% of a turn endgame. It’s still not as good as Called Shots talents, but it’s close.
Hurricane Shot: One of your few AoE attacks. It’s not great, but is quick at clearing trash which is all you need it to do.
Bombardment: This is unusable because of the 75 stamina cost every time you shoot. It doesn’t even work with Highborn’s Bloom or Hidden Resources.
Tireless Combatant: 3/0/0/0 early, 3/1/1/5 late
Breathing Room: At 3/5 this gives enough stamina regeneration to not have to worry about running out in long fights. The health is too small to be meaningful and 3 points is enough to manage stamina.
Pace Yourself: This is a hilariously bad talent; fatigue doesn’t matter while global speed does. 1 point to get to the rest.
Dauntless Challenger: This is an almost strictly worse version of Breathing Room. It gives similar benefits with 4 enemies are in sight, and much worse benefits when there’s only one. You already have enough from Breathing Room.
The Eternal Warrior: Resist all and resist all cap are both great. You have more important priorities early, but it’s an easy 5/5 mid-late game.
Poisons: (locked) 2/1/4/0-1 early, 3/2/4/0-1 late You will definitely unlock this tree
Apply Poison: The poison chance increase has diminishing returns, so 2 or 3 points is a good cutoff point.
Toxic Death: 1 point at first to get to vile poisons, bump to 2 when convenient to increase radius
Vile Poisons: You want at least 4 points to get leeching poison. Whether you want 5 for volatile is up to you; it’s good for AoE damage early, but will be useless late. Leeching poison will also fall off late, meaning Numbing and Crippling will likely beat it out. Swap to insidious to deal with regen effects such as vitality or osmosis shield on enemies. The stoning poison from the merchant is useless, don’t buy it.
Venomous Strike: This is great on paper, but is bugged so you don’t actually get any of the additional effects. Take 1 point for rotation filler and stun fodder if you want it. It’s better early than late because late you’ll be stacking physical damage.
Trapping: (locked) ?/?/?/?
I didn’t take trapping and am unsure how good it is. If there’s anyone who has used it and can speak to it, I would be happy to edit in your thoughts on the tree.
Generic Trees:
I will not be providing split early game/late game investment because generics depend too much on what racials you have and what other trees you're picking up. Below is my suggested investment in the base trees skirmisher has available:
Survival: 1/1-5/1/1
Combat Training: 3+/1/3/1+/0/0
Mobility: 2+/1/2+/3+
Scoundrel (locked): 2/1-3/1-3/2 (not recommended to unlock)
This is a total of 21-35 points out of the 48 you get (50 with alchemist potion). You need something more to spend generics on in addition to a racial tree, which is why I don’t recommend cornac to get extra generic points with no racials.
Survival: 1/1-5/1/1
Heightened Senses: 1 point is nice and gets you to the rest. More doesn’t add much.
Device Mastery: Max this if you recognize how overpowered active items are, otherwise leave it at 1.
Track: 1 point for the rare occasion you decide to check what’s ahead instead of autoexploring.
Danger Sense: 1 point is good because you always have at least a 5% chance to save; don’t bother with any more.
Combat Training: 3+/1/1+/1+/0/0
Thick Skin: Resist all is useful, but not crucial. Good place for any leftover points.
Heavy Armour Training: 1 point to wear metal helmets/gloves/boots.
Light Armour Training: 1 gives good things, go to 2-3 for extra armour hardiness. There are hard diminishing returns so going to 4 or 5 is not recommended.
Combat Accuracy: 1 early. You’re maxing dex so you probably won't need more, but you can take it if needed.
Mobility: 2+/1/2+/3+
Disengage: One of the best escape talents in the game if you’re attentive to your positioning (which you should be!). 2 is a good breakpoint for range. More points for more range and speed boost.
Evasion: You shouldn’t be in melee often to make use of this and you have buckler mastery to defend against ranged. Still, it can be a good buff to use before starting fights.
Tumble: Tumble is an instant use movement to a tile of your choosing, which is extremely good. 2 points for range 3, 4 points for range 4.
Trained Reactions: This talent is why you aren’t wearing heavy armor, and it helps you survive against spike damage. You want 3 points by the time you’re level 14 and can consider taking more later. It costs more stamina and gives rapidly diminishing returns as you go though so sticking to 3 or 4 may be best.
Scoundrel: (locked) 2/1-3/1-3/2
Scoundrel is a mediocre unlock which I took because I wanted more debuffs to extend with Pitiless. I was fully unimpressed and I think you would be better off with something else. It's not terrible, but it's not very good either.
Lacerating Strikes: Low chance to add a bleed to your attacks and cause your enemy to lose a small amount of a turn. It’s okay, but nothing special. 2 points is a good cutoff for proc chance.
Scoundrel's Strategies: One of the better talents in the category, reducing enemy critical strike chance is good and is what you’re here for. Your only way of making targets bleed is Lacerating Strikes, so you need two low-ish chance rolls to get the forget a talent aspect to work. It’s not even a very strong effect.
Misdirection: A chance to avoid a physical effect and hand it off to an enemy is good, but it’s a low chance. Many physical effects are dangerous enough that you can't afford this low chance and will have to get near 100% immunity elsewhere. Still, not a bad use for extra generic points you may have.
Fumble: This is one of the better talents in the category, giving a stacking chance of talent failure until your enemy eventually fails, loses their turn, and takes a small amount of damage. It’s nothing game changing but is definitely appreciated. 2 points massively increases the talent fail cap, any more than that doesn’t add much. Interacts nicely with crippling poison.
Antimagic (NOT RECOMMENDED):
Skirmisher has the ability to go antimagic due to not having any inherent magical abilities, but I would advise against it. This is because shields with a Time Shield active are one of the best defensive finds you can get, there are multiple very strong arcane powered endgame gear pieces such as Dahktun’s Gauntlets, Arcane Might is one of your best prodigy choices, and Light and Chants are both very strong category takes. Skirmisher doesn’t even have particular trouble against mages to begin with, so the only thing you’re really in it for is Fungus. Skirmisher does not need Fungus, and this is nowhere near worth what you lose going antimagic.
If you want to go antimagic regardless, the generic investment I would recommend is 5/1/4/1 in Antimagic and 5/1/1/1 in Fungus. Sustain antimagic shield as a strong damage reduction ability and manaclash any mages you see for the bonus manaburn damage it adds to your attacks. Sustain wild growth for near 100% uptime on regen infusions. Silence for radius or manaclash for duration are both good candidates for extra points.
Category Points:
You want Poisons at 10 because skirm lacks places to put class points and poisons is a strong tree.
Consider taking Celestial / Chants at 20 if it’s going to be one of your escort categories because chant swapping allows very similar benefits as both a physical and mental wild infusion. If you aren’t, then take an inscription at 20 (or Tinkers if you’re going down that road).
At 36 take whichever of an inscription or an escort category you didn’t take at 20.
From wyrm bile, you have a choice between a fifth inscription or a second generic category. Be prepared to max a lot of generic skills if you take a fifth inscription.
Inscriptions:
Start with physical wild, movement, and one of healing or regeneration. Add a heroism for your fourth. If you get a fifth pick between a second heroism for constant uptime, a second wild for better debuff management, or a second movement for higher mobility and better stun/pin/daze management. You could also consider a phase door rune (not for the teleport, but for resist all and reduced debuff from out of phase buff).
Prodigies:
TL;DR: take Arcane Might first. Choose between PES, Eye of the Tiger, or Cauterize second depending on if you want damage, utility, or defense.
Strength:
Pain Enhancement System: only one third uptime, but it’s so strong everything will probably be dead by the time PES goes on cooldown. If you take it first, you may have trouble getting high enough crit chance and strength to see significant boosts from it. I recommend PES as your second prodigy if you want something offensive.
I Can Carry the World: could be funny along with PES, but you have better options (such as Arcane Might plus PES).
Superpower: worse version of Arcane Might for if you’re antimagic. You don’t care about mindpower, but a 40% willpower damage mod is decent.
Dexterity:
Vital Shot: this doesn’t give you anything you don’t already have from your called shots, which have both a stun and a slow. It’s not a terrible choice, but you would be better off with something else.
Constitution:
Nothing really interests you here
Magic:
Mystical Cunning: this is terrible, don’t take it. The poison it gives is nowhere near worth a prodigy, nor is the trap.
Arcane Might: I recommend this as your first prodigy. 50% magic damage mod to your shots is a huge boost and the physical power and crit chance boosts are appreciated as well. This is appreciated considering skirmisher’s damage starts to lag around the end of tier 2s and dreadfell. Stop putting points in CUN and start putting them in MAG at around level 20 if you plan on taking Arcane Might.
Cauterize: do you want to not instantly die if you don’t pay attention and run into one of your shots or get it shot down? Then take cauterize. I recommend Cauterize as your second prodigy if you want something defensive. You can meet the unlock requirement through using runes.
Willpower:
Draconic Will: not getting debuffed is great, consider this as a defensive option if you want one.
Hidden Resources: this does not work with Bombardment, so it’s useless to you.
Cunning:
Eye of the Tiger: this will hasten the cooldown of your talents and is a strong choice if you want a more utility driven prodigy. Windtouched speed is better than it, but meeting the requirements for windtouched is problematic.
Escorts:
Sun Paladin: The category is a good take and is what I went with, but a point in Chant of Fortress for armour hardiness is probably better. If you take the category, go 3/1/4/0 and sustain Chant of Resistance for a sizable reduction in damage from mages and archers. You can then swap to the other chants as a makeshift physical wild and mental wild to clear debuffs.
Anorithil: Take the category as the best unlock behind Tinkers. Bathe in Light and Providence are both very good while Barrier and Healing Light are okay. I would recommend 1/3+/1/4+ if you take the category. Take points in BiL if you either don’t want the category or already have it.
Temporal Explorer: A point in Dream Walk is great if you’re able to betray. If not, take Foresight for the extra crit shrug.
Alchemist: Alchemist escorts are useless for 90% of classes, and skirmisher does not fall into the lucky 10%. Just kill them to release your anger at having 8 escorts instead of 9 for the run.
Seer: Betray for Nature’s Touch if you can. Otherwise take Premonition or Arcane Eye. Arcane Eye is better, but requires active use while Premonition can be sustained and forgotten. I usually take Premonition.
Warrior: A point in Vitality is great. Use any additional warrior escorts you get to start stacking Unflinching Resolve.
Thief: Free generic points!
Loremaster: You don’t really care about anything they have.
Tinker: Take the category if you’re fine with using it in AoA, otherwise Last Engineer Standing is good to make shooting yourself slightly less lethal.
Alchemist Potions Quest:
2 generic points > 2 class points > 4% physical crit > 3 dex/cun > whatever’s left
