Remove Skirmishers

[Davion Fuxa]

I suppose I should ask what the aimed playstyle would be for the Skirmisher, since it looks like it is getting moved away from its original design?

Initially the concept that came for them from what I recall, was that the Skirmisher really didn't care about Block Values, opting to just deflect all damage done to them by chance when attacks came their way; used a slew of high powered (and high stamina costing) talents to pelt enemies with a sling, Called Shots in particular hampering enemies and being usable on any enemy in LOS regardless of whether you had enemies in front of them or not; and using mobility to keep out of melee range of enemies to both gain back more stamina (and health) to keep the process going.

It seems like the current idea is to change the class to emphasis movement more heavily; change the idea of positioning to sometimes have you near enemies as opposed to always staying away; maybe be capable of inflicting some melee attacks while still being heavily focused on ranged abilities; and leaving the Buckler Training deflection stuff into a later locked category (which coupled with Locked Scoundrel means a player could build an extremely elusive character, but not would taking some category unlocking). I'd assume that depending on how the talents are written, you could opt to use either a dagger or a shield, and switch them accordingly in your run?

[Razakai]

Yeah, it does move them away from their original design a fair bit (I did show DG an alternate version that kept them as a pure ranged+shield class though).

My opinions regarding their current theme is that it does have a fair few issues - Bombardment is basically useless due to the insane cost unless you're running Higher/Hidden Resources, and seeing as you naturally get 10-15 stamina regen per turn anyway that invalidates the high cost of the remaining talents. Buckler defenses also had the issue of being heavily unreliable, and scaling poorly with investment. Archer/Rogue having Mobility also weakens their niche further, so they come down to their only unique point being a series of high damage, high disable ranged attacks that ignore LoS. Reloading on the move was also supposed to be unique to them as well. So it had a fairly narrow, precarious niche to begin with that's been almost entirely lost thanks to changes (some of which were mine, one reason I'm taking an interest in fixing them).

Their new theme basically started with Rex mentioning that a knife offhand would be cool. Then I wrote Deadly Agility, and it all sprung from there.
So, with movement and mobility as one of their original goals, the new changes would make them noticeably more mobile than many other classes, as well as emphasizing it with their buffs and procs. They'd still be heavily ranged, but would be encouraged to occasionally dip into melee - but ideally with the option of building towards either becoming more of a melee hybrid, or focusing even heavier on the ranged side for players that want to keep it closer to the original design (having that mystery talent in Close Quarters consume DA stacks is one way that you could play as a pure ranged class). While they do lose Buckler Training, they gain Duelist/Parry - which is a powerful melee/ranged defensive mechanic. And yeah, you'd be able to switch freely between knife/shield, which would affect how some talents work, but they wouldn't be a mutually exclusive choice like SP deciding between 1h or 2h.

[rexorcorum]

It *is* cool, isn't it

[Jarinex]

Glancing at the ideas, I think it looks pretty good. I was thinking about some kind of attack that let you both shoot and melee at the same time, so it's good you have that covered already.