Return of Reckoning

Hello,
I'm currently setting up a scouting/skirmish SW. What offensive and defensive renown points do you recommend for small groups of 6 to 12 players?

Thank you for your answers.
Derol

- Futile Strikes II or III is almost a must have, especially in smaller scale. Less crits on you means living longer and giving healers and tanks more time to react. Be careful with Bullseye tactic. It increases your chance to be crit.

- Deft Defender III. It is cheap and gives a lot of value. The SHs are like machine guns. It is always good to evade a few shots. Sorcs are also nasty.

- Rest in Crit and Weaponskill for Skirmish spec. Id recommend you to go skirmish with WS talis in armor and do AOE shots/dots. That's the strongest SW build atm.

How you balance your defensive vs offensive abilities depends on your skill and group. Just see how often you are dying, adopt and overcome.

Futile Strikes is useless as a SW. If you get cought you die regarless of whats you chance to be crit it. You defense is being mobile.

Go pure glass cannon with full Crit and Weapon Skill and put the rest where you want.

Tactics: Masterful Aim, Instinctive Aim, Powerful Draw, No respite (for pug blobs you can go split arrows)

Your AOE is Barrage and Lileath Arrow. Don't use Flame Arrow.

lumpi33 wrote: Tue May 19, 2026 12:18 pm - Futile Strikes II or III is almost a must have, especially in smaller scale. Less crits on you means living longer and giving healers and tanks more time to react. Be careful with Bullseye tactic. It increases your chance to be crit.

- Deft Defender III. It is cheap and gives a lot of value. The SHs are like machine guns. It is always good to evade a few shots. Sorcs are also nasty.

- Rest in Crit and Weaponskill for Skirmish spec. Id recommend you to go skirmish with WS talis in armor and do AOE shots/dots. That's the strongest SW build atm.

How you balance your defensive vs offensive abilities depends on your skill and group. Just see how often you are dying, adopt and overcome.

AOE shots/dots is only good if you're fighting PUGs. If you want proper AOE burst you go for <45ft Barrage spam, and get paired with a WW-spec SM. Either way, he was asking about 6-12 men, so AOE is a bit mood.

For small scale, you either go Scout / Skirmish, or you go Skirmish / Scout.

Skirmish / Scout takes a lot from Skirmish and then Fell the Weak from Scout for an additional finisher. You want WS talis, and since mobility is your core strength I typically go glass cannon and take crit and WS in RR. You won't be able to 1v1 a lot in this spec, but you're saying you're rolling in 6/12 men, so you'll have a healer and perhaps a tank.

Scout / Skirmish takes most from Scout, and then the heal debuff from Skirmish. You're less mobile, but since you have 100ft range I typically also stay specced as glass cannon. You need less WS, as you take the tactic to bypass defenses on Festering Arrow, which is your main burst damage.

The only time I take futile strikes is when I am assault specced, but I'm generally more defensively specced anways in that case.