Remove Skirmishers

[San0ix]

May as well remove the class, now that Archers are a way better version of Skirmishers and Skirmishers have nothing going for them anymore, right? That's effectively what already happened

[jenx]

And I still don't get why Skirmisher talents aren't allowed on Adventurers. DG?

[Pisastrish]

Adventurers are restricted from having any talents npcs can't have, so I thinks it's more about it being too powerful on npcs than adventurers. It would be kind of nice if this weren't the case though

[San0ix]

Adventurers are restricted from having any talents npcs can't have, so I thinks it's more about it being too powerful on npcs than adventurers. It would be kind of nice if this weren't the case though

Skirmisher rares caused a bug that made the player lose turns for no reason. Nobody could figure out why so they got removed from the pool

[Sheila]

This was never a good reason to remove anything, rogue was never removed even though it was a worse shadowblade, a rework will eventually happen, until then they'll do with a few small buffs and stay in.

[Aquillion]

This was never a good reason to remove anything, rogue was never removed even though it was a worse shadowblade, a rework will eventually happen, until then they'll do with a few small buffs and stay in.

Sure, but Rogues at least had a concept that made them clearly necessary, even if they were strictly worse shadowblades mechanically.

I'm not sure Skirmishers are justified thematically or conceptually. Why not just divide what they have between Archers and Rogues? Is the idea of a "ranged rogue-meta class" really necessary when rogues could easily be given the concept of "shields and slings are now a valid Rogue loadout, here's all the Skirmisher stuff" without breaking them?

Basically, it feels like it was a mistake to make them a separate class from Rogues and Archers in the first place, in the same way that there used to be a bunch of very Archmage-like Mage-meta classes that were eventually just combined back into Archmage. The concept of "sneaky git who uses sling and shield" makes much more sense as either some Archer skill trees or as some Rogue skill trees, rather than as its own independent class.

Personally I feel that whenever possible, ToME benefits from having larger, broader classes with more trees (especially locked ones), rather than having small stumpy classes with only a few build options. Yes, someone could go through and invent stuff to put into Skirmishers, but why? Does the game really need "sneaky archer" or "ranged sling-rogue" to be a distinct class from rogues or archers?

Especially when "sling rogue" obviously requires that the player make a decision between different weapon loadouts (and therefore skill trees); just giving sling / shield trees to Rogues would give them a lot more build options and would lead to more interesting options than trying to support those in a separate class. (I personally also dislike classes that only have one viable weapon setup. Occasionally it's necessary, but it's much more interesting to have a variety of build options.)

I mean, maybe someone has some brilliant, evocative idea for Skirmisher talents that would be so amazing that they couldn't be given to Archers or Rogues without breaking them. But if nobody happens to have those... why force it? I don't see what there is to salvage here.

Yes, someone could probably invent enough unique stuff for them to support a class, but why? Why put in that time and effort, or devote those cool ideas to a class that, honestly, has nothing interesting conceptually and basically nothing to build off of? I can understand putting that effort in to save rogues, because the game needs rogues and because they always had a clear underlying concept that nothing else could reasonably offer even back when they failed to represent that mechanically. But what's there worth salvaging in Skirmishers? If someone is going to put in that time and effort, why not devote it to a totally new class with a totally different concept?

[Davion Fuxa]

While I can't say I don't see where you are coming from, I wonder if it would be a good idea giving the Rogue ranged talents. Stealth and Scoundrel would become incredibly powerful with the addition of being able to use them at range. If those appeared on an enemy too....

[San0ix]

While I can't say I don't see where you are coming from, I wonder if it would be a good idea giving the Rogue ranged talents. Stealth and Scoundrel would become incredibly powerful with the addition of being able to use them at range. If those appeared on an enemy too....

Sounds pretty fun to me. Stealth already loses power when you are farther away from your target (the automatic crit that is)

[Dopaminka]

If Skirmisher became obsolete because of new archers and rogues then maybe archer/rogue reworks went too far?

I disagree with Aquilon, rogues are already bloated enough without melding skirmishers into them and the class concept is fun and unique. Can't think of any other game featuring such a class. If anything SM's should be buffed or made even more distinct.

[Razakai]

Skirmisher is getting some buffs next patch, combined with some Archer nerfs to balance them out a bit from a numbers perspective.

Long term? They won't ever be removed as that goes against DG's philosophy. I suggested some new categories and concepts to him as a future project, one that he liked the sound of was retooling Skirmisher to have more melee elements to them, along with the choice of using offhand daggers as well as shields, with a unique class talent that would allow your ranged attacks to trigger free melee offhand strikes (or if you're at range, build up stacks that would then be expended on reaching melee range to trigger multiple strikes at once). It'd probably be a way off though as the dev team is focusing on other projects and after dealing with the balancing nightmare of new-Archer I'm taking a long break from reworks.

[Jarinex]

This isn't DCSS, things shouldn't just be removed outright. They should be at least fixed first.

It'd probably be a way off though as the dev team is focusing on other projects and after dealing with the balancing nightmare of new-Archer I'm taking a long break from reworks.

That's a shame, I was looking forward to your bulwark/berserker rework. None the less you probably deserve a break after fixing up the rogue and archer lol.

[Davion Fuxa]

Skirmisher is getting some buffs next patch, combined with some Archer nerfs to balance them out a bit from a numbers perspective.

Long term? They won't ever be removed as that goes against DG's philosophy. I suggested some new categories and concepts to him as a future project, one that he liked the sound of was retooling Skirmisher to have more melee elements to them, along with the choice of using offhand daggers as well as shields, with a unique class talent that would allow your ranged attacks to trigger free melee offhand strikes (or if you're at range, build up stacks that would then be expended on reaching melee range to trigger multiple strikes at once). It'd probably be a way off though as the dev team is focusing on other projects and after dealing with the balancing nightmare of new-Archer I'm taking a long break from reworks.

What type of flavor would this type of change have? Having a class that uses melee and ranged type of attacks if fine but it reminds me of Temporal Wardens. I'd probably be up for visiting some ideas around this in a discussion later whenever you get back from your break. ^.v

[Razakai]

Well, I'm not on a total break - just from reworks, currently I'm working on some brand new stuff. It;s actually simpler than reworks in a way, as you have much more creative freedom.

If you're wondering about ideas, this is a quick set of concepts so you can see what I was thinking. Don't take is as gospel, this is just me having some free time at work. https://hastebin.com/azabakafox.vbs

[Davion Fuxa]

Looks like a high mix of Alchemist, Brawler, and Rogue. I take it you also plan to do something with the shields (or Bucklers), which is why nothing is in there yet?

[Razakai]

Deadly Agility would let you use shields, and would balance it so knives/shields deal approximately similar damage etc so you could freely use either one. The difference would then be in things like the melee trees, with certain talents acting differently based on what you had equip - e.g. the mystery talent in Close Quarters would consume excess Deadly Agility stacks - for knives this would act as a throwing knife attack hitting multiple times for each stack, for bucklers it'd apply a damage shield. Stuff like that, knives being offensively minded and shields being defensive when it comes to talent interactions.