Steady Aim is now the best version so far ; for a class that can easily reach over 50% crit chance without any single renown spent, the crit bonus is very useful.
Of course a +50% crit damage would be even better, but it will become a 87% crit damage bonus under Vengeance, so maybe a bit much. Or decrease to 20 or 15% the AP malus.
Previously, Steady Aim was ultra bad ; iirc it only affected Scout abilities, direct damage ones only, for a flat +15 added AP cost (wich was about +50% AP increase)...
No bonus to DoTs or any skirmish skill, wich further crippled Skirm specs.
Now Steady Aim is still a very good bonus, provided you play Bullseye with remotely enough base crit chances.
You even can go up to 66% crit chance with skirmish, liniment, legendary talisman and full renown + minmaxed sov set. So I'll take that for my AoE skirm spec :p...
Indeed, Skirmish and scout SW specs are still lacking punch and burst ; I tested on constructs (BiS warlord/Triumph + BL weapon + Lini), and got about half the Assault mode DPS (around 25s to down the target, instead of 16s in Assault mode), and I even was using No respite tactic to get a +15% damage from 45ft away...
So yes, the SW ranged DPS is still uber bad, especially compared to other ranged dps classes around there (Inge, BW, even DPS AM...).
Most of OP's suggestions are needed, like return of a 80-100ft healdebuff (to help scout and skirmish), and some adjustements to base damage of ranged skills, and/or more utility to some skills (make something with sweeping slash pretty please, in actual state this skill could as well not exist at all).
Some ideas :
- Make Acid Arrow castable on the move ; remove block debuff, but increase armor debuff.
Since it's a ST skill, useable in all stances, it would make more sense to have it that way.
The block debuff is not needed since we have access to plenty strikethrough and avoidances debuff by tactics and gear.
- Make Eye Shot (ranged KD) castable on the move, but reduce range to 80 ft ;
it will now allow more flexibility for skirmish/scout builds, wich are gimped from many mobility options after this change.
- Make Shadow Sting (heal debuff) a 80ft skill ;
same reasoning for skirmish range, now that range tactic is gone and pretty much all other main skirmish skills are 80-100 ft range (BHA, SFA, Flame Arrow)
- Up base damage of BHA, to match similar 15s DoTs around here, and/or make it do magic damage (spirit or corp ?) under Vengeful.
BHA is still underwhelming (half the damage of Gettin Smarter from a DPS Sham... no comment), and still doesnt match with similar 15s DoTs (Inge, BW, etc, wich have all access to AoE resistances debuffs, while SW have to struggle with armor).
- Reduce cd of Sweeping Slash to 5s, and/or make it debuff something for enemy ;
at least a 20s aoe debuff, anything, would be better than this pityful state.
- Reduce CD between Stance change to 3s ;
We dont need a so much long CD, especially when you need to switch stance to apply some debuffs (ailments and snare from skirmish only, before getting in assault or scout). And the "bug" wich still launch the 5s when you miss the stance dansing (switching to already active stance) is often a death sentence.
- Give SW slightly more wounds on gear, and/or more defensive options (magic resistances, avoidances, self-healing) added to a skill or two ;
Assault stance alone is not going to make it for the Zero Toughness / 7k HP issue, even in BiS gear without min-maxing, talismans and renown into HP, we barely get above 8k HP, with light armor and close to zero toughness, it's the squishiest rDPS around. Even rSH got a instant healing option + damage reduction tactic...