Skirmisher; How I Learned to Stop Living and Love the Void

[HousePet]

This may cause someone to have a heart attack, but I agree with Doctornull.

(well I'm not sure about dropping the requisite bypass for shields.)

Skirmisher could work well as being a mobile shield user, with weapon choices being knife and sling (and whip).
Which is pretty close to what it is at the moment.

[Razakai]

Could give it the TW-style quickswap option in that case. Let it switch between using sling/dagger instantly, talents that do both ranged and melee hits if you have the right weapon set equip.

[HousePet]

Nah, if you are using a sling and shield and get into melee, you just smack with your shield.

[astralInferno]

One particular character concept I have is very sad that skirmishers can't use knife+shield...

[Jarinex]

I don't think the skirmisher should be completely removed, as there are few enough ranged-weapon based classes as it is. (at least without using addons )

I wouldn't mind seeing some more love for slings in general. Maybe integrating them within certain classes (like you guys have been mentioning).

[Doctornull]

Could give it the TW-style quickswap option in that case. Let it switch between using sling/dagger instantly, talents that do both ranged and melee hits if you have the right weapon set equip.

I've never heard a good reason for why anyone should NOT get instant quickswap.

(As a side-note, you might be interested to know that 1.4 TW does not have quickswap. Hitting 'q' costs you a turn. You're expected to hit a talent and then cancel, instead.)

[twas Brillig]

If we wanted to make Skirmisher the flexible weapon class (extending talk of shield + sling, versus sling + dagger, versus dagger + shield), maybe rather than a full free weapon swap (so TW can still feel all timey-wimey and stuff), they could freely swap a single weapon slot at a time? So you could go from sling + shield to dagger + shield, or to sling + dagger, but not to dual daggers or a two-hander. Is there a good way to get that action movie bit where the character drops their gun, spins in place, kicks a knife out of their boot, and does a handstand?

Maybe they could continue reloading their sling while swapped to a different weapon. Or does that raise too many questions about how they're juggling all of their gear?

(As a side-note, you might be interested to know that 1.4 TW does not have quickswap. Hitting 'q' costs you a turn. You're expected to hit a talent and then cancel, instead.)

Hasn't that been true since 1.3?

[HousePet]

Could have some talents that did quick swap in addition to their main effects.

[Doctornull]

1.4 TW does not have quickswap.

Hasn't that been true since 1.3?

Maybe? I know for damn sure it's true now, so that's what I'm talking about.

Was there something you wanted to say about 1.3?

Could have some talents that did quick swap in addition to their main effects.

There's nothing wrong with having some talents auto-quickswap, but it was very dumb to remove quickswap from the TW.

[bpat]

Skirmisher is not a complete class. It has four unique categories, one of which is a glorified Combat Veteran (Tireless Combatant), one of which is boring and overpowered and really has no business existing at all (Called Shots), one of which is the least reliable defensive category in the entire game (Buckler Training), and the last of which has a bunch of uninteresting talents that look very similar to ones from the Archer class (Slings). The locked categories are just Poisons and Traps which have no thematic relation to the class and are probably only there because the designers ran out of ideas for new talents so they gave them the same stuff as Archer. I don't know why it was released in it's current form, but it should either be completely overhauled or just merged with Archer.

If reworking, I like the idea of dagger swapping. I think Buckler Expertise is bizarre, unreliable, and boring so it should either be entirely redesigned or be completely removed and replaced with a dagger offhand tree. Called shots should probably be removed or reworked because it's evil and will probably never hit a balance sweet spot where it's useful but not overpowered in its current iteration. Bombardment should probably be buffed since it's the most interesting talent the class currently has by far, though we'd have to figure out how to make rares not instakill you with it.

Also the most important fix the class needs is making slings sound cooler. I always use bows as an Archer because the "pew pew pew" sound is much cooler than the boring sling sound. Even Skirmisher was fun I wouldn't play it because it doesn't feel satisfying to play with the lame sling sounds.

[HousePet]

Could have some talents that did quick swap in addition to their main effects.

There's nothing wrong with having some talents auto-quickswap, but it was very dumb to remove quickswap from the TW.

I have said nothing on the subject.

[Razakai]

Skirmisher is not a complete class. It has four unique categories, one of which is a glorified Combat Veteran (Tireless Combatant), one of which is boring and overpowered and really has no business existing at all (Called Shots), one of which is the least reliable defensive category in the entire game (Buckler Training), and the last of which has a bunch of uninteresting talents that look very similar to ones from the Archer class (Slings). The locked categories are just Poisons and Traps which have no thematic relation to the class and are probably only there because the designers ran out of ideas for new talents so they gave them the same stuff as Archer. I don't know why it was released in it's current form, but it should either be completely overhauled or just merged with Archer.

I agree with a lot of this. Giving Archer Acrobatics plus a locked Skirmisher tree with the better shield/sling type talents would result in no real loss to the game. People that liked Skirmisher can build a sling Archer with the new tree, and Archer would be in a stronger position as it's currently a weaker class. Some of the individual sling talents are fairly cool, but those could be used to replace existing, weaker Archer talents. Giving Archer Hurricane Shot instead of, lets say, Inertial Shot etc.

If reworking, I like the idea of dagger swapping. I think Buckler Expertise is bizarre, unreliable, and boring so it should either be entirely redesigned or be completely removed and replaced with a dagger offhand tree. Called shots should probably be removed or reworked because it's evil and will probably never hit a balance sweet spot where it's useful but not overpowered in its current iteration. Bombardment should probably be buffed since it's the most interesting talent the class currently has by far, though we'd have to figure out how to make rares not instakill you with it.

I think a rework would probably have to chop the vast majority of their talents and trees and keep nothing but the concept of 'agile fighter with dagger/shield/sling'. Would be pretty much a ground-up rework, I wouldn't envy having to do that sort of thing.

Although the chances of a major change like that are quite low I think.

[HousePet]

We do have a conceptual gap for a mobile shield user. Is it worth retaining Buckler Expertise in some form? Or just use normal shield categories? They could be changed to have str or dex requirements instead of just being str.

We have 4 possible weapon layouts to consider:
Dual Knife (Currently Rogue.)
Sling and knife (Doable with Rogue, except you don't get sling mastery. Also doable with Archer, but none of your talents use the knife.)
Sling and shield (Currently Skirmisher.)
Knife and shield (Doable with Bulwark, but since you are building str you would just use a bigger weapon.)

People seem to like the concept of Skirmisher, and it does have a stronger theme than Rogue or Archer, so I guess it should stay.

So then question then is which class to assign each layout to. But that is a trap. Weapon layouts don't need to be class specific. So both Rogue and Skirmisher should be playable with Sling and Knife.

...and I'm waffling due to lack of sleep.

Short version:
Why not both?
Keep a Skirmisher class as a mobile sling/knife/board fighter. Heavy boarding is covered by Bulwark. Heavy slinging can be done by Archer. Rogue could do with some sling categories. Rogue is more of a dirty fighter, so it would be different enough from a Skirmisher sling+knife to be sensible to allow for.

[Atarlost]

We do have a conceptual gap for a mobile shield user. Is it worth retaining Buckler Expertise in some form? Or just use normal shield categories? They could be changed to have str or dex requirements instead of just being str.

Bulwarks are pretty mobile. They have Combat Techniques and Battle Tactics and could get Field Control if they wanted. They lack Mobility compared to the Marauder, but Mobility only has one actual mobility enhancing talent. I don't think mobile shield user is itself a conceptual gap.

We have 4 possible weapon layouts to consider:
Dual Knife (Currently Rogue.)
Sling and knife (Doable with Rogue, except you don't get sling mastery. Also doable with Archer, but none of your talents use the knife.)
Sling and shield (Currently Skirmisher.)
Knife and shield (Doable with Bulwark, but since you are building str you would just use a bigger weapon.)

The only relevant layouts are those that include sling. Skirmisher is not going to steal the rogue's role and knife/shield is a combat style pretty much exclusive to Roman heavy infantry. For a generous definition of knife.

People seem to like the concept of Skirmisher, and it does have a stronger theme than Rogue or Archer, so I guess it should stay.

The Rogue and Archer need to stay because they do things it's not reasonable for the Skirmisher to do, those being dual knives and bows respectively. The Skirmisher doesn't need to stay because everything it does can be folded into one or the other. The archer desperately needs mobility whether it keeps slings or not.

So then question then is which class to assign each layout to. But that is a trap. Weapon layouts don't need to be class specific. So both Rogue and Skirmisher should be playable with Sling and Knife.

...and I'm waffling due to lack of sleep.

Short version:
Why not both?
Keep a Skirmisher class as a mobile sling/knife/board fighter. Heavy boarding is covered by Bulwark. Heavy slinging can be done by Archer. Rogue could do with some sling categories. Rogue is more of a dirty fighter, so it would be different enough from a Skirmisher sling+knife to be sensible to allow for.

I don't think heavy archery/slinging is viable at all. The archer needs to move into the mobile role for the sake of having viable bowmen that aren't temporal wardens. Both light and heavy melee and shield are covered by the Bulwark.

I think I've figured out a proposal.

Sling Mastery: add stat conversion for shield wielding, riposte on partial block, ammo reload on block, and a Corrupted Strength effect for off-hand weapons. Yes, that's a lot of things, but they're mostly things that shouldn't even require talents.

Give the Archer Acrobatics and make it less lame. Give the Archer Mobility and allow Hack'n'Back to perform a ranged attack if no melee weapon is wielded. Now the archer handles slings with either shield or dagger and sucks less at bows.

Give Archery-Slings to the Rogue.

The Skirmisher should never have existed.

[HousePet]

Hrm, forgot Bulwark had those categories. I guess I really meant a light shield user.

One problem with having Archer as mobile is that Temporal Warden is also very mobile.

Not sure about riposting on partial block for Sling Mastery. Are we just flailing with the sling? Other stuff is good.