The Diepio Skimmer Guide

Skimmer is a tank with two pitfalls that players can fall into when trying to pick up the skimmer. The first pitfall is the building, not maxing out speed, reload, bullet damage and bullet penetration can end many skimmers, typically by the hands of necromancer (who can rush them down) predator (who can out-DPS them if they don't max out their fire power and can easily snipe slower skimmers) and many other problems, like focused spammers consistently destroying the main bullets, or being unable to reach them safely. This sometimes happens when people try to build skimmer as they would with hybrid. The second pitfall is technique, which can make it so that you'll die to overseers, snipers and focused spammers, even if you build correctly. This sometimes happens when a destroyer user isn't used to how skimmer has more FOV than a usual destroyer and thus, doesn't know how to take advantage of it, which is an extremely necessary thing to do, among other things. Skimmer techniques have a focus on manipulating the opponent and the distance, sometimes based on what tank they are and what their apparent build is. They set up defence and offence, not only directly, but in preparation for all of the possible moves that the foe could do. Getting around the first pitfall divides the builds and the techniques into two categories. The first build is 0/2/3/0/7/7/7/7 - Variations include moving some points of health into a bit of regen or bullet speed. The second build is 0/0/0/5/7/7/7/7 . Both of these builds have maxed the last four stats in order to prepare for overseers (notably, their repels) and predators, to make up for its lack of recoil and to use its FOV to dodge more bullets than a normal destroyer. From here, the techniques vary between the two builds, using the same general idea of manipulating the distance, the opponent and being prepared, but how they do it is different.(edited)

Skimmer has three basic ranges, though they vary depending on the opponent and your build. Though, even with 0 bullet speed, the maximum reach of your bullets still exceeds your field of view, as long as your reload is also 7. In the case of the 02307777 build, the ranges are smaller but workable. In the case of the 00057777 build, the ranges are wider, harder to work with and there are some instances of 'dead zones' where you're at too much relative risk especially with lower health, or your attacks seemingly fail to work as you would expect them to.(edited)

The three ranges are quite intuitive. Maximum range is as far as you can shoot, it's less of a direct attack and more of a means to prevent someone from closing in. Ex: Shooting past the drones of an overlord to prevent him from closing in so that you can back away, get off screen and reposition yourself safely for a second attack or to defend yourself from another attack... Such things are made easier with FOV. The higher bullet speed skimmer is good at this, but the lower bullet speed one isn't incapable of doing this at all. Grasp range is a certain point at which you can easily shoot around someone, even if they move back slightly, while having enough distance to dodge someone's attack, typically done to tanks like triplet and destroyer, grasp range also considers some movement in the direction of your shots, causing your bullets to end at a shorter distance compared to how far they would be from you if you stood still. At this range, if the enemy ever gets too distracted with your bullets rather than you, you can have the opportunity to close in and shoot them directly. Dance range consists of a few things. Usually you can't dodge at this range, but in some cases, you can outrun the aim of some of the more clumsy opponents, but aside from that, this is also the range that you can get into if you vertically ambush someone without shooting, which is made easier thanks to the FOV. This range usually intends to kill someone basically instantly, shooting on either side of someone to damage them and looking for an opening where you can directly shoot someone in the face. This is also a bit further than the distance at which your bullets can travel from you, if you move with your bullets, forming your own kind of bullet cloud.(edited)

The funnel is quite a simple technique consisting of an alternating pattern of skimmer bullets, usually to chase after someone or guide someone into a certain position, while each skimmer bullet is shot closer towards the foe than the last, until the trails begin to overlap, but not to the point of being too close to the foe, especially since tanks like triplet and overlord can block skimmer bullets and thus waste their potential and cause breaks in the skimmer attacks. In the case of the 0 bullet speed build, the funnel is usually narrower and done to get closer to an opponent and potentially open up the opportunity to shoot them directly or at least wear them down over time. In the case of the 5 bullet speed build, the funnel is done from a further distance since all three ranges are larger and the distance at which the skimmer trails overlap is not only bigger, but also a lot less dense.(edited)

With proper caution, this can be used to chase after rams as well, almost regardless of which skimmer build you use.(edited)

The tunnel is simply a technique where you maintain the same distance between the skimmer bullets to some extent, as its proving effective at damaging the chosen foe. Strafing movements can be used to create bends or to better surround or confuse the foe. The outsides of this formation can be used to keep other enemies away and the skimmer bullets themselves can provide some light protection... Keeping in mind that the 0 bullet speed skimmer usually makes a denser and narrower version of this technique and takes advantage of its durability more, while the 5 bullet speed skimmer prefers to do this from further away with a slightly wider attack, even though circling around someone quickly is harder to do from a greater distance.

The divide is usually a follow up to funnel or tunnel. It's where you deliberately shoot down the middle of your attack to form two valleys of bullets, usually done against crowds of weak or low level tanks or tanks with lower fire power (like some snipers and battleship, but it can also be used against rams) in order to try and trap them faster, or at least push them away - As the bullets travel, they will drift apart, but this technique ensures that there is less of an opening, even when the bullets reach their maximum range. When they do, they're off screen.(edited)

This is the result of shooting in the same direction of movement, using a 02307777 skimmer, the basis for compression techniques... Unlike a bullet cloud, it's not as dense or strong, but still provides some protection that can allow you to get close to particularly annoying tanks to the skimmer, such as predator and ranger, hoping that they're either flanked, distracted or they're too slow to get away. The skimmer bullets can be spread slightly to provide a wider shield, while the trail bullets, especially at 0 bullet speed, still provide a bit of damage reduction to some passing bullets.

The opposite of this is used to escape from someone, especially faster tanks like bullet fighters. Typically trying to make someone travel a greater distance than you by making them go around your skimmer bullets and their trails. But usually, this won't kill tanks, unless they continue to try and go between the skimmer bullets... If you happen to get enough distance though, you can compress a series of three skimmer bullets into a funnel shape, where if the fighter tries to go between them with a bullet cloud, it has the potential to take a lot of damage and if it tries to go around the outside of your attack, you'll have the opportunity to distance yourself again. Using the funnel while moving away from a fighter can be a bad idea however, because the lowered density of your attack can be tanked with health and bullet clouds. Be careful however, as fighters can also destroy skimmer bullets faster than you can make them, though it requires accuracy and may cause them to waste a bullet cloud on doing so, which can become your opportunity to attack.

... The rest of the techniques are already almost explained in the three ranges. Including dance range explaining what a dance is, maximum range explaining what a dynamic distance is (it's used against overlords) and most of this explaining how one can take advantage of their FOV, as it makes long ranged attacks and ambushes easier.

And lastly. Catch and blockade are basically a well placed stab with the intention to block someone's line of movement and a much wider funnel respectively, used to intercept someone who is trying to go past you. While skimmer has some crowd control and FOV, it's better to avoid getting surrounded.

... Some closing points. The biggest struggle of the 00057777 build is the low density of the trails due to how much they spread out, the frailty and some aspects of awkwardness on being unable to form dense enough attacks. that keep the foes trapped and damaged. The increased bullet speed also makes the compression technique less dense. The biggest struggle of the 02307777 build is how close and precise it needs to perform some techniques (such as funnel), or otherwise, tanks like triplet will just kill the skimmer or destroy the skimmer bullets themselves, or the bullets won't be close enough together to at least threaten a foe and instead leave the skimmer open to being attacked without risk. And of course, its maximum range is slightly smaller than the bullet speed build.(edited)

... What does skimmer counter?..(edited)

It doesn't counter anything with ease, however, it has several opportunities varying in difficulty.(edited)

Obviously, anyone with slow reflexes could get ambushed or flanked, but that's the player's fault, rather than the tank's fault.(edited)

With its techniques, it has the potential to annoy anyone slow and with low bullet speed. While they'll take longer to kill, they're so easy to trap and mess with, some of which are almost completely free kills.

With the funnel, it can disrupt focused spammers and possibly severely damage them. This can also be used to pressure and trap overseers who defend too much, or trappers who haven't built up a trap nest enough, or have parted too much from their traps. Another one of its techniques lets it beat overseers on occasion... However, these aren't exactly things that skimmer counter, as they still have the advantage in some aspects, so ultimately, you're exploiting their lack of skill and if they happen to be skilled, you're simply preventing them from approaching you and making them less able to harm you.

While battleship counters any other destroyer, skimmer can be quite safe to use against battleship, as the trails can be used defensively and offensively, just like the bullets themselves and battleship doesn't have the power of other seers or spammers to be able to destroy its bullets, or at least, not with ease. Unlike other destroyers, skimmer also has improved FOV, so that's one less advantage for battleship to exploit.(edited)

Crowd control spammers can be impossible to kill if they're built correctly and played correctly. For instance, octo-tank doesn't necessarily destroy skimmer bullets, but is resistant to trails and basically cannot be distracted, as it will always have one gun pointing at the skimmer and another couple guns pointing at the bullets that run past it. Your best hope is to actually hit it directly... The most memorable moment of killing a penta-shot was when I used my FOV to ambush him while he was boosting south, before shooting him head on, one-shotting him because he was a glass cannon.

Fighter is already explained with some depth, but explaining it in more depth is hard since they come with such a variety of builds and skill levels.

Other destroyers are fought similarly to focused spammers. You shoot on either side of them since they can easily destroy skimmer bullets. If they move in, they may get caught and if they get too distracted with shooting your bullets, you can try to close in, but not too closely as they're still dangerous at close range... Just like in the case of overseers though, your FOV and techniques will keep you safe from them. They don't counter you.

I do not have enough experience fighting certain other tanks (like auto-5) to know if skimmer counters it, or it counters skimmer, or its neutral. However, I have had very easy experiences against: Auto-5, other skimmers, streamliner and triple twin.