Skirmisher Guide (1.4.9)

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voltteccer
Cornac
Posts: 43
Joined: Sat Mar 28, 2015 4:07 pm

Skirmisher Guide (1.4.9)

#1 Post by voltteccer »

General Playstyle -- Skirmisher is extraordinarily straightforward. We spam Called Shots, and then spam Called Shots some more. All of our damage is single-target and most of it is instantly applied regardless of range. We have no AOE and very very limited ability to control enemy movement, so we make liberal use of Bash-and-Smash, Tumble, and simple walking to keep ourselves in a preferable position.

Race Choice -- Ogre is the best because we want HP and we want inscriptions. All the Elves and Halflings are strong choices as usual, Cornacs are bad because we have only one category to unlock, the rest of the races suck regardless.

TL;DR core build summary
Generic
-Combat Training 0-5/5/5/0/0
-Acrobatics 2/1/5/5
-Survival 1/5/1/0
-plus racial/escort trees of choice
Class
-Buckler Training 1/5/5/4
-Skirmisher Slings 5/1-5/0/0
-Tireless Combatant 3-5/1/3-5/5
-Called Shots 4-5/5/5/5
-Poisons 5/1-5/0/0

Prodigies -- Vital Shot, PES, Eye of the Tiger make you more kill. Fungal Blood, Draconic Will, Never Stop Running, Cauterize are all good for being less die. Swift Hands is optimal if you are willing to subject yourself to correct use of Swift Hands.

Stats -- Dex/Cun>Str>Con/Wil>Mag. Early on you will want to lug around as much +Dex/Cun/Str/Wil gear as possible, so you can get your good stuff online quicker. Ideally we will never put points into Wil, but if you have plenty of Dex/Cun feel free to toss a few points into Wil for convenience.

In-Depth Breakdown
-Called Shots
Kneecapper- Pin, movement slow, and good damage. 1 point is fine for most of the game since the damage doesn't scale much, level 4 gives an extra turn of pin which is handy.
Kill Shot- Exactly as advertised. Do you like for your enemies to not be alive? Then this is the talent for you! 1 point is fine early when we have a bunch of important stuff to get online, once we're mostly set up 5'ing this becomes a priority.
Noggin Knocker- Three shots, stuns, all around excellent talent. All we get from levels is damage so leave it at 1 for a while, but eventually 5 this too.
Sling Sniper- 3/5 this ASAP for the reduced cooldowns on Called Shots. 5 it when convenient for the phys pen and crit boni.

-Skirmisher Slings
Sling Supremacy- Your mastery talent. 5 it ASAP.
Swift Shot- Just there to give us something to use while our Called Shots are on cooldown, leave it at 1 until the very lategame when you run out of other places to put points.
Hurricane Shot- Literally our only AOE. Too bad it is so weak. It is useless until TL3, and then it is a huge waste of ammo/stamina. If you are playing on Normal or Nightmare, go ahead and 5 so fighting groups doesn't make you tear your hair out.
Bombardment- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what complete freaking garbage! With 0% fatigue this costs 75 stamina per turn. For comparison, Noggin Knocker does much more damage, stuns, travels instantly, and costs 15 stamina. For further reference, Bombardment gives you nothing but an unimpressive damage increase, while Unstoppable makes you LITERALLY INVINCIBLE, and yet 7 turns of Unstoppable still costs less stamina than 2 turns of Bombardment.

-Buckler Training
Buckler Expertise- Deflects melee attacks. Don't bother leveling it past 1, the returns are tiny once your Cun gets high.
Bash and Smash- When dudes are next to you, this makes them not next to you. Usually by making them corpses. Take it to 4 for the extra shield bash, 5 it eventually.
Buckler Mastery- Deflects projectiles. More useful than the other passive. 5 it fairly soon for the auto-crit Bash and Smash.
Counter Shot- Free damage! 4/5 gives you the max shots per turn. Not a priority but very nice to have. If this talent burns through your ammo very quickly, you are almost certainly playing Skirmisher wrong, in that case either git gud or put these talent points somewhere that won't let you hurt yourself. On the rare occasion you get bone grabbed or whatever into a bad spot and can't extricate yourself, remember you can instantly deactivate to conserve ammo.

-Tireless Combatant
Breathing Room- Stam/Life regen. 3 it immediately to make life easier in the early game. Remember this stops working whenever an enemy is adjacent.
Pace Yourself- Talent point tax. We have loads of stamina regen and global speed penalties are the absolute worst. Who even gives a crap about fatigue, nobody, that's who. Never activate this. In fact remove it from your talent bar so you can't acccidentally activate it.
Dauntless Challenger- More Stam/Life regen, except it doesn't turn off like Breathing Room. 3 it when you can.
Eternal Warrior- Resist All is good. As a bonus we get even more Stam/Life regen when we 5 this.

-Poisons
Vile Poisons- 5 this ASAP. Numbing and Crippling poison are very strong defensive abilities, and you can easily apply them with Called Shots.
The rest of the category- Who the hell cares, maybe put a couple points in Venomous Strike if you want.

-Acrobatics
Vault- Not terrible. Float a second point in it early for the increased range, if you have extra points later on considering leaving the second point there.
Tumble- Very useful movement talent. Ignores Pins!!! 1 point is plenty for all we need, by the time we have spare points to put into it, we won't really want to anymore.
Trained Reactions- If you like being alive and/or winning, 5 this.
Superb Agility- Lowers stamina cost of TR and also gives free global speed boosts. 5 it early so TR eats less stamina.

-Combat Training
Heavy Armor Training- 5/5. Duh.
Combat Accuracy- 5/5. Duh.
Thick Skin- Resist All is good. Invest to taste.

-Survival
Heightened Senses- Point tax, 1/5.
Charm Mastery- Charms are good, probably 5/5 but depending on escort/racial trees you may not have the generics to spare.
Piercing Sight- Stealth/invis are annoying, 1/5 is plenty.
Evasion- Not terrible, but way worse than Charm Mastery.

ster
Spiderkin
Posts: 492
Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2016 7:05 pm

Re: Skirmisher Guide (1.4.9)

#2 Post by ster »

rip skirmisher in 1.5
<Shibari> You're full of shit
<darkgod #tome> ster is a troll
<Sheila> and ster, i do agree with you on most things game-related, but do try to not be such an ass!
<mex> your posts lead to people like me being abused and murdered

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