If the pull succeeds, the Skirmisher automatically and unavoidably hits the target with their Ripjack. This effect has +25 Aim over the Skirmisher's innate Aim, and is affected by height advantage, the target's Defense, and the target's Cover, but distance has no effect. At least, not in this part of the post.Īttempts to pull a human enough target adjacent to the Skirmisher. A Skirmisher additionally having the option to fire and reload is only a little more flexible than a non-Skirmisher only being able to reload and then fire in a turn they weren't going to move anyway.īut it's still an excellent skill for defining a class.Īlbeit in a sufficiently straightforward way in the context of XCOM 2 that it doesn't provide a lot for me to talk about. A Heavy firing and then reloading was avoiding having to lose an entire turn to reloading, which was huge. Mind, Marauder is functionally a little less impressive than Bullet Swarm simply because XCOM 2 is more willing to provide actions that don't end the turn. This is the biggest pressure toward 'don't move' on the Skirmisher: where the default rule is that moving isn't costing you an offensive action, for the Skirmisher every action point is a potential shot at the enemy!Īlso: huzzah in Bullet Swarm -the actually-defining skill on the Heavy- being made into a class-defining skill! Much like Long War does with Infantry, in fact. The game does consistently refer to using the Ripjack to attack in each such case, but the game does a poor job of conveying that this is a mechanically meaningful statement and not just a flavorful description.įiring the primary weapon doesn't necessarily end the Skirmisher's turn, consuming just one action point. Unlike the Claymore, it really is a proper secondary weapon, with three tiers to be upgraded through and being affected by Breakthroughs, but the specifics can be a bit unintuitive because its stats are only applied on a few specific skills. It's also specific to the Bullpup, which can get a bit confusing when using their multiple ranged attack skills that don't use Shotgun-style Aim climb. This fact anchors basically every single one of their skills and their overall play dynamic, as many of their skills are designed to somehow or another help them offset the Bullpup's short-range qualities, and/or complement that quality. Their primary weapon, the Bullpup, actually uses the same Aim climb rules as a Shotgun, making it extremely accurate when up close but suffer badly when firing from a distance. I'm honestly not sure why the game describes them this way. There's very few situations in which it actually makes sense to have a Skirmisher do any kind of hit-and-run behavior. It is technically possible to have a Skirmisher fight in a manner that could be accurately described as hit-and-run, as they have two skills that involve attacking by getting in the enemy's face and can then Grapple out of reach on the same turn, but most of the time a Skirmisher should either be holding still or closing on enemies. In any event, the game's own description of them being a 'hit-and-run attacker' is. Surprisingly, they're designed so these two pressures aren't completely contradictory, though it's still a bit awkward. Possibly also an intention to have some Grenadier hybridization, given a couple of grenade-oriented skills they have, though if so it's pretty limpwristed.Īnother, non-trivial, part of the Skirmisher being just plain weird is that they're unique among classes for having strong pressures toward holding still in a turn and strong pressures toward moving more than usual. In practice, this comparison doesn't work out particularly, as Skirmishers end up heavily defined by their ability to manipulate positioning, particularly their own but also secondarily enemy positioning, but I do suspect the developers had something along those lines in mind. They even get their own version of Bladestorm! Just as the Reaper can be viewed somewhat like a Ranger/Sharpshooter hybrid with stealth from Rangers and Squadsight and all from Sharpshooters, the Skirmisher can be viewed somewhat like a Sharpshooter/Ranger hybrid, specifically a Gunslinger Sharpshooter they can output many low-strength shots per turn, and they have modest skill focus on melee abilities.
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