The Party-friendly Marksman

Guide format stolen wholesale from Filorux' rainmaker guide. This guide is only based on playing the marksman up to level 22, so is subject to change after we get hands-on experience with the higher level skills.

The Spark

Some might consider marksman to be the solo player's character. While it's true that sniping from a distance with a sniper rifle isn't the best party support role, the well-equipped marksman has a lot to add to cooperative demonslaying, and this build is designed to maximize that.

Skill Choices

Key skills

• Beacon 5-10/10
  • Paint a single target for increased damage.

• Elemental Beacon 3-10/10
  • Paint a single target for increased vulnerability to elemental effects.

• Multi Beacon 5-10/10
  • Simultaneously paint several targets for increased damage.

These skills are your bread and butter. Count on spending around 20 points here, perhaps more for the truly dedicated. Multi Beacon should be spammed against groups to constantly increase damage for the whole group. Every boss, and rare/epic/named monster should be under the effects of beacon from the moment you see him, and additional beacons should be spent on the nastier of the usual monster types, such as bruisers.

Grenades

• Phase Grenade 1+/10
  • Your goal is to be group oriented, and what's more group oriented than a grenade which makes all monsters in an AoE take 50% extra damage? More points are good here if you want increased phase duration.

• Flashcrasher grenade 1+/10
  • If escape is your individual panic button, this is your group panic button. If your allies are getting overwhelmed, throw in a flashcrasher grenade for some breathing room.

Utility / Prerequisite Skills

• Escape 1/5 minimum
  • For emergencies. More points here give you more time to heal and reposition/get out of harms way.

• Sniper stance 1/10 minimum
  • Sniper stance is such a one-point wonder that it would be crazy not to put a point here.

• Tactical stance ?
  • This is your big choice. If your only consideration is damage over time, even a level 1 sniper stance is better than level 10 tactical stance. On the other hand, sniper stance means increased vulnerability, while tac stance does not, and may even offer increased security if they fix overshield. Regardless, tactical stance requires many points to be a serious competitor with sniper stance, so you're probably going to want to spend a lot of points here and skimp on passives and beacons, and skip the rapid fire tree altogether, or else skip tactical stance entirely and put more points into passives, beacon, and/or the rapid fire tree.

• Rapid Fire / Multishot?
  • This depends a lot on weapon choice. If you're going with a rocket launcher, sniper rifle, or beam weapons, rapid fire is not useful. If you're going with (non-beam) pistols or an automatic rifle of some kind, it can be very useful. And as for multishot... I have no idea.

Passives

• Dead Eye 7/7
  • While seven points here are not necessary for the build, it's a passive damage boosts - who's to object?

• Hollow Points 1+/7
  • It's a passive damage boost, but probably not as effective as Dead Eye. Between weapon properties, mod sockets, and accuracy, you're probably already doing so much bonus critical damage that more points here aren't that useful.

• Reflected Shot 7/7
  • This skill is way too good not to max.

• Homing Shot */7
  • I hear tell that this doesn't interfere with reflected shot. If so, it may be worth putting some points here to take advantage of max crit.

Any skill not mentioned is skippable, but can still be taken with leftover points if desired.

Leveling

This build is very powerful from very early on. Your first key skill is beacon, which is available at level 5. You have the energy to use it a lot, so cast it on anything that doesn't go down instantly (of course, most things will). Try to find a group early on if you can, since they will also benefit from your beacons. Playing solo should not be a problem however, due to the ease of the early levels.

Weapons

Since the build is based off of skills which benefit any weapon, use whatever weapon types you are most comfortable with.

Variants

This build has a lot of flexibility: which stance do you go for, or do you grab rapid shot instead? Do you go for special damage effects and elemental beacon, or focus more on pure damage output? Do you spend a lot of points in grenades and air strikes, or concentrate more on passives to increase your main weapon damage? All of these add room for individual customization.

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