The Arbalist

If you liked this item, please rate it up on Steam Workshop page.

Author: Zero

Last revision: 27 Jan at 01:55 UTC (1)

File size: 268 KB

On Steam Workshop

Description:

*The core shield rush > Shield Wall mechanic should work properly now – automatically triggering shield wall after a melee attack, which should trigger the auto-guard and other optional shield wall enhancers. The Auto-Guard trigger should be limited to 1x per turn to prevent protect and serve allowing infinite guard stacks, but I’m still testing for edge cases*

Looking forward to feedback, in my tests it seems like the Arbalist might be a bit on the ‘too strong’ side.

Making a Shield/Shooter class that was distinct from the Hoplite and served a different role was tricky but fun, and this class is tricky but fun. It’s all about positioning and planning your shots; as you probably know if you’re looking at this class, the crossbow is kind of anti-action economy, single shot magazine, and mid damage makes it more of a utility weapon for a stealth class – but I wanted to do something else with it; leverage the reliable damage and good close range effectiveness with a class that could position themselves in more risky ways and benefit from it.

The Arbalist is an aggressive defender, creating space and cover for suadmates while taking advantage of their forward position to deliver reliable chip damage. They’re pretty tanky without being invincible, and they have a variety of useful perks to take advantage of their positioning. They’re not meant to carry, they’re meant to hold the line and protect your damage dealers while pushing towards an objective. As usual, with crossbow specs you need to manage your shot pacing with the restrictive ammo requirements of the crossbow, so they aren’t crowd control, they’re duelists with limited action economy.

This class required some updates to the crossbow mod, a handful of new abilities resident in that mod that this mod uses, so if you’re just grabbing this now, make sure to update the crossbow mod as well.

It’s not a particular creative or dynamic class – no killer combos or crazy scaling – just a solid bulwark that provides decent mid tier shooting and does a good job protecting their team.

The three ‘builds’ though I recommend mix and matching to taste, are a Shooting heavy build, a defensive build that revolves around the shield rush, shield wall, and guard mechanics, and a utility build that leverages the variety of crossbow bolt abilities. The Breach bolt is the preferred bolt for this class, as it’s a very reliable way to open a target for the rest of the squad.

Squaddie:
Guard
"unbreakable" – formidable and steadfast
ShieldRush – A dashing melee shield fleche that disorients, an upgrade over the standard shield bash, triggers shield wall.

LCPL: Ways to get guard stacks
Quick Nock – using point fire against a target within 6 tiles grants a move action
Ready Guard – Using shield wall grants a guard stack (once per turn to prevent protect and serve cheese)
Double Time

CPL:
Center Mass
Hardpoint – Reduce wound timers by 2HP and Regenerate 1 Ablative per turn
Breacher – Gain two uses of the breach bolt (the signature bolt for the arbalist)

SGT:
Split the Arrow – essentially Rapid Fire for a crossbow, fire a shot, if it hits, reload and fire again with +20 to hit
Steady Hand – Shield wall grants a +25 Aim and +25 Crit bonus to the first shot of the following turn
Shield Expertise – Grants Blademaster and En Garde

SSGT:
Follow Up Bolt – On a 2 turn cooldown, Slow fire and single target bolts trigger a follow up free point fire.
Shield Trauma
Implacable

TSGT:
SpineBreaker – A high crit chance crossbow shot that ruptures the target, reloads the crossbow if fatal
Shake The Earth
Lock and Load

GSGT:
Final Mercy: Bonus to Hit, Crit, and Damage against stunned/disoriented/panicking targets
Protect and Serve
No Quarter: Adds three uses of the breach bolt ability

MSGT:
Bandit
Final Quarrel – Follow up a shield rush with a crossbow shot automatically
Endless Bolts – adds one charge to all equipped bolts and quivers

The full list of required mods probably runs pretty deep; but if you can play ted jam and you have the perk packs here you’ll probably be fine.