Pros
Skirmisher has amazing defenses due to a combination of many different factors:
- Ranged attack. You can stay out of melee with many enemies because you also have Tumble and Disengage for positioning as well as a knockback. Some enemies can get to you anyway, but they don't necessarily overlap with the ones that do huge damage. You can also position yourself much more safely than a melee class can.
- High defense stat, enough that many rares and randbosses can hardly hit you or at least miss a large percentage of attacks. At the same time, you still have good armor due to Buckler Expertise and your shield.
- Trained Reactions is an incredible talent. It reduces the damage of any major hit (>13% of your max HP) by 30-40% depending on your defense.
- Pace Yourself gives you flat damage reduction for smaller hits. This is 20-30 flat DR which may not seem like much but it largely negates DoTs and the damage you take is often many smaller instances, where the flat DR applying on each instance adds up. For example a Flurry backed by Shadow Combat is at least 12 damage instances. Assault + Greater Weapon Focus is 6.
- Pace Yourself also gives you a 40% chance to auto-block for moderately big hits (more than 33% of your block value). This is a big chunk of flat DR for the turn, although Block does go on cooldown for 8 turns.
- 23-27% chance to no-sell any melee attack.
- 25-37% chance to no-sell any projectile.
Additionally, whenever you shoot an enemy, you have a high chance of inflicting the following effects on them:
- 50-60% reduction in crit multiplier. Greatly reduces the enemy's damage spikes.
- A chance to fail talent usage, which which stacks up to 45% (applied at a rate of 9% per turn) which resets once they fail.
- 20-25% less damage done.
- 20-25% chance of failing talent usage, separate from the previous effect.
An example of Skirmisher defenses in action vs Vor (numbers altered to simplify things):
462 damage from Flame + 35 damage (ground AOE "Lava floor") + 154 damage (2nd ground AOE "cleansing fire area effect") = 651 total
Trained Reactions drops the Flame to 277 (0.6x), Pace Yourself flat DR subtracts 31 to bring it to 246
Flat DR drops the first AOE to 4 damage and the second AOE to 123
Total damage: 246 + 4 + 123 = 373 or 57% of the original damage
In the actual game, I had 73 flat DR due to shield and armor fixed arts, and the 40% Pace Yourself shield block triggered, blocking 220 damage. Also Vor's Flame did 161 extra physical damage for some reason, which was blocked separately from the fire damage. Long story short, I took 91 damage instead of 812 (73 flat DR, 78 reacted, 161 blocked, 220 blocked, 154 blocked, 35 blocked).
- vor_damage.jpg (41.23 KiB) Viewed 19603 times
Also the Skirmisher build comes together very quickly, by level 25 it has the full kit. It only has to unlock one tree, which it can do at 20.
Cons
* No escape mechanisms. Tumble and Disengage are good for tactical repositioning but not for completely escaping fights. You will want Movement infusion.
* No effect clear. You might want a 2nd Shatter Afflictions. Hopefully you can get Chants from an escort.
* Your defense against magic is not as good as your defense against weapons, since the Defense stat doesn't apply and neither do your Buckler Expertise/Mastery evasions. But see the above Vor example.
* Damage could be better, in particular randoms with high armor (i.e. Bulwarks) are hard to kill. As well as enemies with flat DR that can negate the on-hit damage effects on sling ammo.
I oneshot Vor with a 9264 Kill Shot crit, so Skirmisher damage isn't that bad. But if you run into a Bulwark randboss with >140 armor, or an enemy with extremely high Defense or evasion talents, then it can take a long time to kill them. Fortunately these enemies typically cannot do much to you either. The problem for Skirmisher is not that the enemy does more damage than you and kills you first, but rather killing them at all through their heals. So you can always just leave and come back later, or rearrange your gear to maximize damage and healing reduction.
Stats
Dex -> Cun. Afterwards, Con until around level 30-35, then switch to Mag. Boost Con after Mag is maxed. This assumes Ethereal Form and Arcane Might prodigies, if not then stat accordingly.
Races
Some comments on how specific races match with Skirmisher:
Cornac: Not a good option, since you only need to unlock 1 tree, and aren't starved for points.
Shalore: The global speed racial is nice, since Skirmisher doesn't have access to Blinding Speed and isn't cooldown dependent. Skirmisher can afford the generic points. Timeless for effect clear.
Halfling: The first racial gives a huge amount of crit, which helps with the damage problem. The saves are actually good too.
Dwarf: The armor and Stoneskin are not really needed, but Power is Money helps fix the effect weakness (saves are still relevant even in Insane) and the combo of Tumble and Stone Walking could be good.
Drem: No Frenzy combos since your main attack talent is Shoot, additionally you have 100% uptime on Swift Shot already. Double Kill Shot I guess.
Ogre: Since Skirmisher has only 1 locked tree it can afford to get 6 inscriptions. Your main weaknesses are effect clear and escape, and you compensate with inscriptions, so the extra inscription and lowered CDs ought to be quite good.
Ghoul: Since Trained Reactions applies after resilience, it means a Ghoul Skirmisher can never take more than about 33% of max HP per hit. This is probably really good, but because you are undead, you can't use movement infusion. You do have Ghoulish Leap, which in conjunction with a Blink rune could take you far away and around a corner. You can't use regen or healing infusions, which should be better than shielding runes, but you do have Retch.
Skeleton: Can't use infusions, but unlike Ghoul doesn't have any substitutes. Probably the worst race.
Class Talents
Buckler Training: 2+/1/2+/1
Buckler Expertise: Excellent talent, that negates a significant percentage of melee hits, and also provides armor and armor hardiness. Can eventually be maxed, but there's no rush.
Bash and Smash: Knockback + good damage. 1 point is enough.
Buckler Mastery: Not as good as Buckler Expertise, since melee is more of a threat than ranged weapon damage, but still good. Can also be maxed eventually.
Counter Shot: 1 point is good for triggering proc effects but you don't need more.
Skirmisher: 5/1+/1/5
Sling Supremacy: Makes you do damage. Should be maxed early. The increase in reload rate is also significant.
Swift Shot: Great attack, which has half the energy cost but does increased damage. You gain a >20% increase in attack speed, and can maintain 100% uptime. It doesn't scale hard, so you can leave this at 1 early game, and the 4th and 5th point aren't priorities.
Hurricane Shot: AOE attack. Not that important.
Bombardment: Contrary to previous versions, this is 20 stamina per Shoot now. With 5 points, it is 3 hits that each do 67% damage, for a total of 200%. This is generally better than a single attack that does 200% damage, since it is 3 opportunities to apply on-hit effects, and the damage of procs are not affected. So if you do 100 base damage per shot, but have a on-hit for 20 light damage, you do 120 damage per shot, but (100*.67+20)*3 = 260 per bombardment. This is your main attack talent, and should be maxed fairly early. Put this somewhere accessible since you often want to deactivate it when you run out of stamina, or to kill shadows prior to engaging a Doomed rare, etc.
Tireless Combatant: 1+/5/1+/0+
Breathing Room: The HP regen is barely relevant. The main benefit of this talent is that if you run out of stamina, and reset the fight, you can quickly regen your stamina and head back before the enemy regenerates too much of their HP. You'll eventually want more points in this, but it's not a priority.
Pace Yourself: Very good defensive talent. The 5% global speed reduction is not important. The flat DR makes you nearly invincible early game and is much more significant than it seems later. The Block trigger is also very good. This should be maxed as a priority since points in this talent both reduce the global speed malus and increase defensive power.
Dauntless Challenger: Not impressive, eventually you can get some more points in this.
The Eternal Warrior: It takes 5 turns to build up to 15% res all. Shooting a wall for 5 turns before every fight works but is boring, lame, and probably not worth the stamina cost.
Called Shots: 1/1/1/0
Kneecapper: Like the other called shots, this targets a tile, and can miss if the enemy moves out of that tile. Super annoying since the enemies you would most like to use this on are the fast enemies, who are most likely to "dodge" this, as well as enemies with Blindside, Rush, etc. who would also avoid it. However, it's useful for sniping summoners, necromancers, etc. and sometimes you will have fodder in between you and a rare, which you can use as a shield while firing called shots.
Kill Shot: Does huge damage at long range, from 341% (at 1 point) to 416% (at 5 points). It's good, but investing in this talent doesn't change the damage much. Like Kneecapper, targets a tile. Best after you block an attack and get Counterstrike on the enemy.
Noggin Knocker: See the other called shots.
Sling Sniper: Good boosts to crit chance, crit damage, phys res pen, but only for called shot talents. Decreases the cooldown of called shot talents, but even with this, you cannot be spamming called shots every turn, so you still need to put points in Bombardment and get phys res pen from gear. If you commit to a Called Shots build, then you can put 4-5 points here and get the Eye of the Tiger talent, but I suggest relying on Bombardment instead, and only using Called Shots for Kill Shot's damage and shooting over enemies.
Poisons (locked): 2+/1/3+/1+
Apply Poison: The 2nd point gives a meaningful increase in the chance to apply the poison, which is the most important part since you want the enemy debuffed. I eventually went up to 5 points since it's a good way to do some damage against enemies with super high armor.
Toxic Death: If you want, a second point increases the AoE, but it's not important.
Vile Poisons: Get this to 3 quickly to get the Numbing Poison / Crippling Poison combo. Numbing decreases damage dealt by up to 25%, crippling is up to 25% talent failure. More points increases the effect and gives you more poisons to play with if you want.
Venomous Strike: I skipped this, since it does nature damage and I had alot of physical damage boost and res pen, but it's probably good.
Trapping (locked): 0/0/0/0
No experience with this, doesn't seem as good as an additional inscription.
Generic Talents
Combat Training: 5/1/1+/5/0/0/0
Thick Skin: Skirmisher can spare the points to get 15% res all. You're not in a rush though.
Heavy Armour: Increases equipment options.
Light Armour Training: 1 point is great, you can get more if you want, but it's a luxury.
Combat Accuracy: You don't need to rush to max this, because of the inherent sling accuracy bonus, but eventually enemies with lots of defense will show up, so you will want to max this at some point.
Mobility: 2/1/4/5
Disengage: 2 points gives you 2 additional range. You have to jump in an almost straight line away from the enemy, so position yourself accordingly. Usually, you should use Tumble first, then Disengage if they close the gap again. When you Tumble, keep your Disengage follow up in mind.
Evasion: Doesn't scale well with talent points. It's good, but you're already strong against melee and projectile attacks.
Tumble: Great since it's an instant. 2 points for 3 range, 4 points for 4 range.
Trained Reactions: Super strong defensive talent that makes you take 30%-40% less damage from any damage instance that does more than around 13% of your max HP. Incredible. Put points in this immediately, the fifth point has somewhat marginal benefits though. This scales with defense which is a nice synergy.
Survival: 1/1+/1+/0
If you get Track from an escort, you can potentially skip putting points in this tree. I like having a second point in Track though. Device Mastery is potentially very strong, depending on what items you get. Healing totems and shielding wands are candidates.
Scoundrel: 2+/3+/2+/2+
Lacerating Strikes: Attacks have a chance to inflict bleed for additional damage. This is a nice boost. There are no real breakpoints, but put at least 2 points.
Scoundrel's Strategies: Reduces enemy crit multiplier i.e. their ability to oneshot you (although they can't anyway due to Trained Reactions). Again, no real breakpoints, but more points is better.
Misdirection: Not sure if this is as good as the others, but negating blind and disarm status is good when it happens.
Fumble: Great debuff that screws with the enemy's talent usage. The fumble does pretty good damage as well.
Inscriptions
Inscription at 10 because you don't have points to spare for Poisons yet. Poisons at 20. You can do whatever at 34 and Wyrm Bile depending on what escorts you get.
One inscription should be Movement and another should be Shatter Afflictions. Consider getting a 2nd Shatter Afflictions at some point. Healing, Regeneration, Stormshield are all good defensive inscriptions. Rune of Dissipation is good for the final battle, before then, you might get more mileage out of having something else as your 5th inscription.
Chants is an excellent escort category to unlock. With the investment of 3 points you essentially get a physical wild, a mental wild, and a magical wild all on 12 CD.
Augmented Mobility could be good for Quick as Thought and Telekinetic Leap but I haven't tried it.
Prodigies
I suggest Ethereal Form at 25 and Arcane Might at 42. Use Mag gear to get Ethereal Form, and get 50 Mag naturally at 42 from leveling the stat.
Ethereal Form gives you a huge amount of defense. This is wasted on many classes since those classes have bad defense by default and like saves, it's a stat which is useless unless you have enough. Skirmisher has enough defense normally that the boost from Ethereal Form makes it super hard to hit. You should have around 75-80 defense without having to prioritize defense gear, with my char having 90 going into High Peak.
You also gain 25% absolute defense, which decreases by 5% on every weapon hit. Since you're hard to hit, this absolute defense says up for longer than it does for other classes. In addition the most dangerous enemies for Skirmisher are casters, so this basically reduces their damage by 25%. The damage penetration is nice, but you can lose it, so consider itemizing for 70% res pen from gear.
Arcane Might gives you a big damage boost. You miss out on some Con in exchange for the needed Mag.
Vital Shot is a powerful attack that also throws stun and cripple debuffs on the enemy.
Eye of the Tiger is mandatory if you want to rely on Called Shots talents, otherwise not helpful.
Cauterize and Draconic Will are strong but extremely cowardly choices.
Mystical Cunning allows your poisons to affect poison immune enemies and has some additional benefits. No personal experience with this.
Gear
Early game, +HP gear as usual.
Offensively, physical resistance penetration is the most important stat. Critical chance, critical damage multiplier, and physical damage bonus are also good. Dex, physical power, armor pen, etc. are good but harder to gauge the effects of. You generally do not need to equip accuracy gear, but if you find a Perfect Strike pickaxe, carry it around in case you run into high defense enemies. You might also want to carry around gear with high (>20) boosts to accuracy as a swap.
Items that give high (>20) defense boosts are good, but it's not vital.
Wear robes for the res all and because they often have nice stats.
Make sure to side with the Assassin Lord if you have Cults DLC so that after you come back from the East you can make insanely powerful gear. It can be worth carrying around trash T5 orange randarts just to reroll them at the font. In particular, make sure to save T4 and T5 randart ammo to reroll. Good egos include the one that boosts base damage, the one that gives added ammo capacity, crippling, torment, etc.
In the early game, you want ammo that has on-hit effects for extra damage. As the game goes on, and you accumulate physical damage boosts and physical res pen, you want to prioritize ammo with higher base damage. Also, if you are fighting enemies with high armor, then you want ammo with as much extra damage as possible, since that isn't affected by armor, and you might also want to swap in a sling that does extra damage as well. On the other hand, if you are fighting an enemy with flat DR, it might negate your on-hit damage. So you should swap slings and ammo as needed. Also if you run into some seemingly unkillable tank, you can swap your poisons to Insidious and Volatile for healing reduction and more armor bypassing damage.
Fire and cold resistance are helpful for Vor Pride, cold and darkness for Rak'Shor Pride. The entrance rooms are dangerous since there's nowhere to run, consider floating some points into Hurricane Shot so you can quickly clear the rooms. Also, the faerlhings in Ardhungol do massive damage when their disruption shield bursts, make sure you're not next to them when it happens or can get away (i.e. don't be pinned). Arcane res is harder to get though.
Good fixed arts include:
Nithan's Force - powerful sling that grants res pen, damage boost and also shoots faster than normal
Temporal Rift - extra flat DR
Worm Nest - also extra flat DR and mobility, with 5 Device Mastery you can use it twice in a row
Temporal Augmentation Robe - 20 res pen and 20% physical damage boost, also robe res all
The Untouchable - cool damage shield whenever you take big hits, the damage shield can take a turn to actually go up though
The Black Core and Unflinching Eye - 100% blind res, useful since Skirmisher doesn't have effect clear
Bloodcaller - Good for Skirmisher since you tank with HP and sometimes get into extended combats
Eden's Guile - massive global speed boost activation, without putting charms on cooldown
Called Shots vs Bombardment
I prefer Bombardment as the primary damage talent since it hits three times, meaning three opportunities to put your very important debuffs on the enemy. It also does more damage, and if you invest points in Called Shots, you still have to invest in Bombardment and get physical res pen from gear anyway since you can't be using a Called Shot talent every turn. Also the debuffs on the Called Shot talents aren't that great.
If you do want to spam Called Shots, then the prodigy Eye of the Tiger is a must so you can reduce their CDs as much as possible.
Antimagic
Skirmisher can spare the generic points, although you'd want a race that isn't generic point hungry. Antimagic does increase tankiness even further with boosts to max HP, regen uptime, and reduction in caster damage. However, Skirmisher doesn't level Willpower or get mindpower, and you lose the excellent Ethereal Form and Arcane Might prodigies. Also many of the ammo egos that give on-hit damage are arcane, and without them it's hard to kill enemies with high armor. You also lose Shatter Afflictions and can't use Chants. So antimagic more or less increases Skirmisher's strength (tankiness) but makes its weakness (effect clear) even weaker, which is not what you want in a roguelike, and without Ethereal Form it might not even be an improvement defensively.
Alchemist quest
Get the 2 generic points elixir, then whatever.
Tips
Since you reload per move you can reload fast by using a movement infusion. You can also put your ammo on the hotkey bar so you don't have to search your inventory every time.