If Rapid Fire, Chaos Shot, and Shadowshot are permanent- I do like the variety (although similar) and it helps to know what skills are planned to stay.

Bane Breath and Death Bounty: replaced by Ice Shield and Ice Prison- this gives further support to the already existing defensive skills found in the class such as the new Forcefield and the old Brambleshot.

Unless it's wanted: Death's Bounty may be underwhelming if Heal-Bot (passive health regen) and that mage elemental boost (one button every 10ish seconds with good mana regen) are being used.

Also I haven't tested this- but does Forcefield function fully with the Outlander charge bar?

Shotgun Master opens up more potential with Akimbo- yet my preference is for a Bow user to be able to access all 9 passives... but that's up to you... Shatter Storm- Ice Brand- or Elemental Attunement are my alt picks to support ice- magic- and battlefield damage + control...

= = = = = = =

My main reasoning for the above suggestions is found below:

This class has an impressive potential for poison (lower foes defenses) damage with the ranged skill tree...

Also has lots of options to control foes movement which would be further boosted by Ice skills.

And Rapid Fire gives the added option of Burn (ignores foes armor) damage at Tier 3.

= = = = = = =

However this depends on Akimbo- Shotgun- and Bounty skills being replaceable-

otherwise this class is near complete... I know Bane Breath may be replaced.

Another alternative skill set to replace Akimbo- Shotgun- Bounty- and Breath skills is:

Elemental Attunement- Fire Brand- Fire Storm- and Fire Pillar- if you want to further support a

Tier 3 Rapid Fire...

Really- if the class changes now or stays the same- the ability to access good vanilla summons-

most of all the non-cannon ranged weapon skills- and most of the much wanted defensive skills-

and some very effective damage boosters- means you have arranged one of my favorite remixed

vanilla classes to use outside custom ones- so good job ;)

Thanks for the input steffire. I'm glad you're enjoying the class. I'll work on the latest version tonight. I'm planning to replace bane breath and deaths bounty with some ice skills to improve the class's battlefield control capacity.

My vision of the class is that of a summoner primarily, with secondary roles of ranged combat and battlefield control.

I love to play with two pistols, so I don't plan to remove akimbo, SG master is more flexible. Though one of the other mods I use makes sgm apply to bows as well. (I'll post my personal modlist later)

I haven't tested the functionality of forcefield yet. It's also on my to-do list.

Added ice shield and ice prison. And I did some testing with forcefield. It appears to empty the charge bar which then grants up to a 50% bonus on the forcefield.

So when the bar was half full, it seemed to give a 25% bonus, full bar 50%. Other amounts seemed to affect the shield points proportionally.

As always, I'd be happy to hear feedback on what works and what doesn't

I can confirm that Forcefield works with the Outlander bar albeit not fully but- at tier 3 with full charge it does go from 17000 to 28000 absorbation- so thats good for me.

Ice Shield is amazing on this class because of the other defensive support skills.

Ice Prison with Bramble make an effective wall to distract and knockback and damage foes.

Ice Prison and Bramble actually deal damage by tier 1 so that means they are effective for offense as well...

Death Bounty is not missed; there are 3 skills that give health regen- and 2 that give mana regen.

= = = = = = =

In fact the only skill that may be replaceable is Frost Teleport with Shadow Burst from Berzerker.

Burst is a quicker escape than Frost and heals a % of health and deals electric damage...

= = = = = = =

It's also nice that all skills in the Tactical Tree can be used before level 30.

And I'm fine now with Shotgun and Akimbo as a bow user- I am able to max and use 6 passives- 11 actives- and half a passive... using a mod that gives twice the points...

Again thx for this class... :D

What really stands out is that it has access to some of the most useful defensive buffs from the

four vanilla classes... no matter what summon or range skills used- they all benefit each other.

I haven't played berzerker much, but isn't shadow burst more of an attack skill than an escape? Admittedly, it provides movement, healing, and invul frames, but you end next to enemies don't you?
Also, does it require a melee weapon?

At this point, I'm very curious how the three on-kill passives interact. EG: can shadow ammo, poison burst, and frozen fate all proc on the same kill?

My mod list makes shadow ammo on-hit. But I could test the other two. If you can test the interaction, lemme know. I'd appreciate it.

Once again, thanks for your help. And I'm glad you're enjoying the class :-)

It's time for me to talk about why some of these skills are so useful and worth keeping:

= = = = = = = GUNSLINGER TREE

Rapid Fire = supports shadowlings- only ranged skill that can do this. Good knockback. Ignite.

Shadow Shot = best dps and range- also fast- rivals Blast Cannon and Fusilade in one skill.

Tangled Shot = impressive chance to immobilize and supports high poison or magic damage.

Chaos Shot = speedy and very good at damaging crowds more than the other shots.

Elemental Boost = Resistance, Damage, Mana, Anti-slow, Anti-Immobilize.

Ice Prison = surprising number of uses as defensive- damage- distraction- and wall.

Venom Hail = easily the strongest poison skill in the game if foes are trapped in one place.

= = = = = = = overall there really aren't any good reasons to replace these skills:

Offensive Ice skills wouldn't be neccessary since Icy Blast- Hailstorm- and Glacier Shatter wouldn't offer much to this tree since it fulfills the need for crowd control.

= = = = = = = SUMMON TREE

Heal Bot = Health, Mana, Armor- will not despawn.

Shadow Wolf = steals health for User- next best thing after Heal Bot.

Immobile Copter = slows foes greatly and will not despawn.

Gun Bot = at Tier 3- best crowd damage of all summons.

Sledge Bot = great variety of attacks and distracts foes.

Nether Beast = basically a second Sledge Bot but more speed.

Astral Ally = has many of the Embermage's attacks- like Fire Pillar- good crowd damage.

= = = = = = = as long as there are no spider mines- those things require much button spam.

This covers all the good vanilla summons.

= = = = = = = TACTICAL TREE

Blade Pact = along with Immobile Copter- one of the best slow skills.

Backfilp Skill = maybe the best escape ability if User aims in opposite direction every jump.

Frost Teleport = a small cooldown after use- has knockback yet Shadow Burst may be better.

Ice Shield = single- best- missile deflection- in- entire- game.

Bramble Skill = great knockback- can even be used with Ice Prison for Ice and Poison hits.

Stone Pact = amazing armor buff- and damage deflector- and good health regen.

Forcefield = Engineer may max at 80000 but Summoner maxing at 28000 damage is good.

= = = = = = = This class has almost all the best vanilla skills in game.

Notice that almost every skill has it's own unique job- or [2] skills that work well together that still serve different functions.

= = = = = = = PASSIVE SKILLS

Ranged Master = more range and damage- so useful.

Shotgun Master = limited but very useful for shotguns controling foes.

Akimbo Skill = limited but very useful for adding damage for dual pistols.

Elemental Buff = alot more power for all magic types- very good.

Shadowlings = very useful to raise an army- way better than Spider Mines.

Death Something = boosts the Shadowlings- so they are an almost permanent force.

Frozen Something = immobilize on kill is one of my favorites- so useful.

Poison Something = chance to poison and explode on kill- infecting others? so useful.

Share the Wealth = this and the Bar means there's little need to invest into Dexterity.

= = = = = = = I'm actually running out of skills to recommend- It's not like the Embermage's

Electric or Ice or Fire trees would do much for where this class is... there's so much utility that

even the Berzerker has little to offer- and Engineer has many skills that rely on it's chargebar.

As far as the Frozen- Poison- and Shadowling Passives proc on same kill... I will have to pay closer attention during battles to see whats happening there.

From what I've read- Shadow Burst does not require a melee weapon... I do see your point about it's vulnerability- in fact it's the only other escape skill I can think of that may dethrone Frost Teleport... more for It's speed than reach.

Also- all the other skills in this class satisfy many needs... deciding to keep Teleport is still a good choice- although Shadow Burst ends up behind enemies and if used correctly can actually go through foes and then one of [2] things: holding button makes user run back through the foe again and again- or if released- pressing again will cause user to escape a group of foes quickly. It has less lag than Teleport- yet I'm not sure which one is better...

The way I look at it, right now the class has two escape skills: frost phase and rune vault. Two aren't *really* needed, so there could be a place for shadow burst. But I really like the teleport and cold damage of frost phase, so I'd be more inclined to replace rune vault with shadow burst, or something else.

Also: thats a great skill analysis you wrote. Do you mind if I used an edited version in the mid description? I'll credit you, of course.

Mod* description

Hard for me to give up Rune Vault... I'll think more about what skill could be replaced...

Yes- feel free to use the analysis any way you wish :)

I know rune vault is considered probably the best escape skill in the game, which is why I included it. But I just don't enjoy using it.

I think the class is in a pretty good place. I'm not sure anything *needs* to be replaced. It has multiple ways to escape, and multiple ways to gain health. Which is really all shadow burst does.

Of course I'm always open to suggestions. But it seems like the skills are in a pretty good place.

I'm particularly pleased with how the third tree has turned out.
When I started I had a very good idea of what I wanted the first two trees to look like, but I just kinda threw the third one together more-or-less randomly.

And, after your notes, it really seems that thats the tree you like the most. :-). Hopefully others feel the same way

Good news, after some testing I can say I'm fairly certain that frozen fate and poison burst can proc off the same kill.

I like that :) ... I need to test the shadowling skill to see if it procs on kill with those two... so busy- I'm trying to find time.

And yes- I can't get enough of the Tactical tree... how'd you guess? I can't hide my favorites in my notes it seems... lol.

I'm glad you are open to suggestions... I've thought about Frost Teleport and realize the Ice damage is worth more than Shadow Burst, after all- 3 healing skills is more than some classes will ever have- a 4th would mean losing Bramble or Rune Vault and I can't give them up without feeling like I have enough healing already.

I have no more skills to suggest to you- I've seen and read into the others- and there isn't much to improve where this class is now- without changing it.

The only thing that would be nice is:

Moving the passives: Share the Wealth to Elemental Something- because Wealth is a summon bonus and Elemental is more related to Frozen and Poison passives.