Marksman skills

This is work in progress

CaLViN: I'm just going to make some notes on these skills. When release hits and we have time to adequately test everything out, we can edit all this down to just the facts. I'm going to just say a few things that I have learned from experimenting in beta, and try to leave my opinion out of it. -Filorux

Stances

Tactical Stance

Description

The Hunter's steadier aim and reduced profile as a target grant a tactical advantage over the enemy.

Bonus

Firing Accuracy increased by 50%. Range increassed by 25%. Missle Velocity increased by 25%. Rank Bonus (10 ranks)

1st rank: 5% crit. Other ranks: 1% crit.

Power Cost

33.8 (rank 3)

Restrictions

- Can't move while in Tactical Stance. Moving will cancel the stance. Using most other skills (grenades, strikes, Rapid Fire etc) will cancel the stance as well. - Does not stack with Sniper Stance; bonuses from Tactical Stance do not apply in Sniper stance and vice versa.

Synergies

Crit chance improves the chance to trigger the Passive skills, and will greatly enhance skills or items that increase critical damage.

Notes

Put at least one point in here. Anytime you are shooting and not running you should be in this stance (or maybe in Sniper stance). The bonuses are just too good to pass up.

Bugs / Issues

Builds

Overshield

Description

Whenever the Marksman assumes a Tactical Stance, his armor automatically uses stored kinetic energy to greatly increase personal shielding. Only active while in Tactical Stance.

Rank Bonus (10 ranks)

Bonus to maximum shield. Bonus for each rank: 190 / 237 / ?

Restrictions

Only works in Tactical Stance (not in Sniper).

Prereqs

3 points in Tactical Stance

Notes

If you spend a lot of time in Tactical Stance, investing the 3 points (one in Overshield, two in Tactical Stance if you haven't put points into this) might be a good idea. Can skip this skill if you spend most time in Sniper, or if you want to go for a more "glasscanon" build and invest the points into offensive skills instead.

Bugs / Issues

- bugged (as of 10/05): does not add the full amount to shield. Could be that the skill scales with level and the 190 value is only available at max char level?

Elemental Visions

Description

While remaining still and focusing on a target, the Marksman scans for elemental weaknesses.

Rank Bonus (10 ranks)

Stun, Ignite, Shock, Phase and Poison Attack Strengths increased. Bonus for each rank: 15% / ?

Restrictions

Only active while in Tactical Stance.

Synergies

cooll stuff

Description

Increases elemental attack strength while in Tactical Stance. Seems useful for elemental builds, but has quite a few prerequisites (3 in Tactical Stance, 3 in Overshield) that might be better spend somewhere else (e.g. Explosives). Invest (heavily) if doing an elemental build and you have spent points in Tactical stance

Sniper

Description

With enhanced vision, nerves of steel, and a steady hand, the Marksman reaches out and hits targets with fatal effect. teadier aim and reduced profile as a target grant a tactical advantage over the enemy.

Bonus

Some bonus

Rank Bonus (10 ranks)

some more bonus

Restrictions

some restriction

Synergies

cooll stuff

Description

my notes for this skill

Description

Reduces rate of fire; for zeus rifle, decreases effectivness faster.

Increases damage and rate of fire dramatically but decreases armor and increases energy consumption. Further ranks increase Range, Accuracy, missile velocity. Gives you cool FPS type crosshair mode. Invest 1 point for occasional long range shot (e.g. flyers, pulls, just for fun). Invest heavily if this is your primary build. - Does not stack with Tactical Stance ? How useful is this for boss fights? In party the damage bonbus could be huge depending on weapon. ? Is this usable with Automatic weapons or launchers? Or only with "sniper" type rifles?

• I've been able to use any weapon I had equipped while in Sniper Stance. Filorux

? Does this really decrease armor only? or shield as well? If it's armor only, that's almost neglectable since the shield is much more important for a marksman.

Master Sniper

Descrpiption

Through superior training and the study of demon physiology, the Marksman deals more damage when scoring a critical hit. The Marksman must be in Sniper mode for this passive skill to activate.

Increases Critical damage when in sniper mode. Invest heavily if doing sniper build.

Passives

The passives are build around crit chance. Dead Eye increase cirt chance, while the other passives trigger when a critical hit is scored.

? There have been reports of the procs being mutually exclusive. Needs to be verified if this is a bug or intended.

Dead Eye

Description

The marksman is trained to find the weakest point in enemy defenses, increasing the change to strike vital organs.

Increases crit chance. Obviously pump this for a crit build. If not, this could be a good place to dump extra skill points (assuming that there will be any) unless there are some weapons that don't profit from crit.

Hollow Points

Description

The marksman modifies ammunition in order to deliver devastating shots that punch through enemy defenses.

Increases critical damage. Pump if doing crit build.

? Will need to look at scaling of various skill to enhance crit chance and crit damage. There will be situations where you get more damage form picking one over the other. In general I'd think that since more skill can trigger of the crit, crit chance is more important than crit damage. In that case you'd max Dead Eye before investing here.

Ricochet

Description

After any crit, shots may begin to bounce off of surfaces for a period of time. Any crit counts, including damage over time crits, which makes the Firefox more easily able to trigger this buff than it's firing rate would indicate. Additional ranks increase the chance of this occuring as well as the duration of the buff when it occurs. Fast firing weapons will maximize the time you spend in Ricochet state; dual wielding extremly high rate of fire weapons is optimal (if you care only about time spend with the Ricochet buff).

All shots bounce - misses will ricochet off the walls and floor (I have not noticed bounces off the ceiling). Hits will bounce off the enemy stuck; this typically will send the projectile careering in an unpredictable direction due to the irregular surface of enemies.

In the case of splash weapons, such as the Firefox, the projectile will explode (and leave the flame patch) every time it strikes something. In inclosed areas this can stack splash damage very quickly. When using a splash weapon, if you aim at an enemy's feet, they can be struck twice; once on the initial splash and again as the projectile ricochets upwards and strikes them. In optimal situations you could hit them 3 or 4 times with successive splash strikes (rebounding off floor, enemy, wall, enemy in the best case).

Certain weapons do not appear to do anything during the Ricochet buff. Lasers, for example will trigger it (and potentially very quickly due to the rate of damage application from their streaming attack), but do nothing.

Reflected Shot

Description

Crit hit makes shot reflect and re-target additional enemies. Not sure if this really means "re-target" as in change the flight path, or if this is simply a piercing shot, which will only get you a benefit if the enemies are lined up correctly.

• In my experience, they do re-target...and quite drastically in some cases. If there is one mob alone, and another a good distance away, you can see it hit the first mobs once or twice and then the next shot will fly wildly off in the direction of the other. My question is, what is the range restriction on the reflected projectile? Range of the weapon, taken from the point of reflection? Filorux 16:18, 30 Oct 2007 (GMT)

Homing Shot

Description

After crit, shots automatically track targets.

? Description says "certain projectile-based guns" do that. No clue what guns are meant there.

? Will this be more effective with weapons of high fire rate? Since some skill will trigger for a duration, the higher the fire rate the higher the chance to keep the effects up.

• For Homing Shot there are basically three variables (not including skill points spent on it) that will increase the chance to proc. Crit chance, Rate of Fire, and Hit Rate. Rate of Fire and Hit Rate are tricky in that typically the faster a gun fires the harder it is to aim after a few seconds of fire. Crit chance will always help, though. Filorux

? Do things line Ricochet work for bullets (physical damage) only? Can a poison attack bounce of a wall? What about launchers?

• It doesn't look like to me that shots of any kind actually bounce off of hard surfaces like walls and floors. The first two boost skills only seem to take effect if a shot hits a target. I've tried bouncing a firefox shot right in front of a mob to force it to splash the mob twice, but it seems that nothing happens unless I directly hit the mob, even when there is no direct damage being done by the weapon. For more evidence of projectiles without direct damage being treated oddly on a direct hit, try shooting a MIRV at very close range directly into a mob. Filorux

? Do the effects stack? E.g. when Reflected and Homing are both active, do shots auto-track AND pierce?

• Wouldn't that be awesome? So far there is no evidence that any of these skills stack or are even able to reboost while active. Haven't seen Homing Shot in practice, however. Filorux

Explosives

These are Grenades and "air strikes" you can use for AoE damage. Grenades tend to have a shorter time to explosion, but the strikes have a larger radius.

To me it seems like you'd pick one of the "control" grenades (either phase or stun) and one of the "damage" grenades (either fire or poison), but likely not invest heavily in both of the same type.

Same with the Strikes. You probably pick one and fully pump it.

Explosive Grenade

Description

The marksman lobs a high-explosive grenade towards the enemy.

Fire damage and ignite attack.

Phase Grenade

Description

Spectral damage and phase attack.

Toxic Grenade

Description

Poison attack.

? This one lists the poison attack strength as 9, whereas other attack strength are in the areas of 150-300. If the description or the skill bugged? Or does poison have a very different rating?

Flashcrasher Grenade

Description

Physical damage and stun attack.

Strikes

Napalm Strike

Description

Fire damage and ignite attack.

Smackdown

Description

Physical damage and stun attack.

Shock and Awe

Description

Electrical damage and shock attack.

? Do elemental attacks stack? E.g. is there any benefit to use a toxic grenade together with a toxic launcher? ? Do mods that you have in your weapon apply to explosives as well (e.g. to toxic strength)? I think not, but not sure

Rapid Line

Rapid fire lets you fire with increased rate of fire for 3 seconds. You can not move during this time (it also plays a very annoying alarm sound). Can not be used in connection with Tactical Stance. Note: Rapid fire has just been changed in recent patch, making it more offensive and useful.

Rapid Fire

Description

Increases rate of fire for 3 seconds. Invest 1 point because it is very useful as an "oh shit" skill. Invest heavily if going for a rapid fire build.

Heightened Senses

Description

Increases damage for rapid fire.

Controlled Burst

Description

Increases cooldown of rapid fire. If you make rapid fire your primary skill, you probably want to pump this. Without it's 3 second use and 10 second cooldown (starting when you fire, so bascially 7 seconds between use).

? Not sure how low you can get the cooldown with this.

Multishot

Description

Can alter projectile based guns to shoot 2 extra shots. While this is in the rapid fire line, and has 8 points prereqs in this line, it does not seem to be linked but a separate skill on a separate cooldown. Assuming same accuracy for the two extra shots, this would effectively triple you damage for the duration.

? Again, no clue what "certain projectile-based guns" applies to.

• I'm assuming it applies to the same class of weapons that are affected by Ricochet, Reflected, and Homing Shot. Originally MultiShot was in the Boost skill line, just under Homing Shot. I think that was in alpha. In beta it was moved to the bottom of Rapid Fire, but the skill description still lists it as a Boost skill even though Rapid Fire is a Tactical / Combat class skill. Filorux

Other

Beacon

Description

Increase damage to target. Invest 1 point as this is a great boss-skill, more for single-target (sniper) builds.

Elemental Beacon

Description Lowers target elemental defenses.

Multi Beacon

Description

Like Beacon, but multiple targets.

? Might be worth for an AoE build, but seems like a high skill point investment for a low benefit.

• Probably best realized in group friendly builds, eh? Filorux

Escape

Description

Makes you invisible, and monsters will ignore you for duration. Very strong escape skill. Invest at least one point into it. As LG pointed out, might be interesting to make a build around this, especially in HC

• I speculated in my Homer guide that you might be able to use this skill to sort of "turn the tables" on its basic idea. Instead of stealthing out of a bad situation, use it to stealth into an advantageous location...like with the Homer where you need to core a lot of hits really quick - find a good spot without worrying about aggro then let loose with a barrage. The followup skill might help with that too. In the same vein, I use this skill a lot in Millenium Battle to activate the turrets unnoticed. For hradcore challenge mode I know I'll be using it to scope out rooms before I just start blasting away around corners and such, especially where ravagers are concerned. Filorux

Escape Artist

Description

Increases Movement Speed while in Escape mode. Invest if using Escape heavily.

? So far, just one point into Escape seemed enough to get away from most situations. Maybe at later levels this becomes more important?