Well, maybe they have great damage, but I think the OP's point is that it doesn't synergize well with anything else on the same character. Or rather, it CAN'T synergize very well with anything else, and they even added insult to injury by removing Rapture and Tactical Retreat ( First Aid was buffed, though ).
At any rate, Marksman lacked mobility and it now doesn't even have any mobility by itself, meaning that when you're in a tight spot you're basically screwed UNLESS you get some Scoundrel skills like invisibility or the disengagement skill whose name eludes me right now.
Where OP is kinda wrong though is that you can still just switch weapons when you're engaged in melee combat, meaning Scoundrel is far from being a useless secondary set of skills.
Basically Marksman requires specialization to be fully viable but it somehow limit your other options and leave you quite dependent of the other party members. Reaching Master skills in itself is a lenghty procedure, making Marksman a gamble during the early game, just as making a backstabbing rogue was in Classic DOS, since you build your character around talents and / or skills you will need time to get.
Not to mention of course you're dealing Piercing damage during early game against ennemies that inherently resist Piercing.
All of this wouldn't be an issue if next to this you wouldn't have Mages capable of a lot of things and now armed with 100% accuracy wands or invincible Men-at-arms warriors capable of dishing almost the same kind of damage while being ultra mobile.
Rangers and Rogues were bullied around in EE, let's face it.
edit : Rangers are far from "useless" though. I wouldn't go as far as say that. It's just they feel a lot like being subpar against everything that other characters can do.
Last edited by Dr Koin; 02/11/15 01:46 AM.
