zealot does not have many ranged talents. and before the update, sainted gunslinger was the only perk that could appreciably change the mechanics of zealot gunplay. having decently reliable 25% reload speed was a great buff for slow reload weapons like bolters, shotguns, flamers.
now we’ve lost sainted gunslinger and instead have out of pocket. this new talent is incredibly weak, i don’t see a use for it. it takes 5 backstab kills to reach max stats (whereas sainted gunslinger would stack from any melee kill), and it only refills 25% of the magazine at max stacks. which means your magazine needs to be partially depleted and not reloaded to even see the effect of this talent. and 25% is such a small amount that it’s not worth the talent point. that’s only 4 rounds for a bolter, or 1-2 rounds for a magnum. and higher capacity weapons like autoguns tend to have fast reload speeds anyway and wouldn’t benefit much from the talent.
i would much prefer to have the old sainted gunslinger talent back. or if we need to make this new talent work, then maybe have the out of pocket stacks spend the first few shots of your weapon from the ammo reserve instead of the magazine. this would make the effect useful at full magazine and not rely on the conditional of having it partially spent. and make it easier to gets stacks, go back to any melee kill. or make the effect stronger if it relies on backstab kills.
The old ones weren’t good and yet the new one is somehow worse. As much as I like the other changes, and I do, I was hoping that the gun zealot would get thrown a few bones in the rework.
Would love to have the option to build as a skirmisher that combos gun bashes with close range shooting.
All the other classes in the game can build for either melee or ranged. Zealot is the odd one out.
I prefer the idea of instantly replenishing the magazine more than faster reload speed. I think the intention for both of them was the concept of improving the zealot’s ability to suddenly bust out a gun and blast a few guys before switching back without bothering to reload, and instant replenish works better for that since it doesn’t require a reload at all.
I also don’t mind zealots being a bit worse at ranged combat in general, seeing as zealots are the melee class, and I believe the classes ought to be nice and distinct. Like I also feel like the Veteran has way too much melee stuff.
But that said, yeah Out of Pocket reloads way too little. Almost completely worthless. I would have it just stack basically infinitely on any melee hit. Like, gain one stack of Out of Pocket per successful melee attack, on switching to ranged weapon your magazine is reloaded for 4% of max per stack, max 25 stacks.
And I would make comboing gun bashes with close range shooting the domain of the Veteran’s right side Jungle Fighter skill tree.
I’ve been feeling the loss of it as well, I used to use eviscerator and double barrel together alongside the ranged talents to synergize well and swap back and forth.
At the very least, I’d like to see Out of Pocket get the Pious Cutthroat treatment and also have Weakspot Kills apply, even if it’s just lower benefit at 3% or so. That would at least work with the double barrel consistently and wouldn’t rely on you running stealth to focus on backstabs for the benefit. I do think the base backstab % should be improved too, it’s way too limited in use.
I agree…
I always HATE everything that relies on switching to an other weapon.
There is 0 chance I try/use this talent.
Also, after seeing that it takes ammo from your reserve, there is also no reason to pick it.
I don’t know who at Fatshark like to play by switching weapon every 10 seconds, but there must be a culprit… they always want to put something that relies on this action… and I always don’t see the interest.
I also forgot to mention, I do think some limitations on the proposed talent to incentivize using close range weapons (shotguns, db etc) and the smaller-mag weapons (bolt pistol, revolver) makes sense to differentiate from Veteran being the long-range gun specialist overall.
I have seen some people say Zealot lost the talent because Vet has Weapon Specialist to fulfill the ranged/melee swap combo fantasy, but I disagree. Zealot had Sainted Gunslinger and Anoint in Blood before the Weapon Specialist tree was even added, so clearly Zealot should be able to build in some close-range gun focus. The talent at present, however, just doesn’t provide that.
First you just get 25% of your magazine, with a lot of weapons that is useless. Then the activation is on backstab, it basically became even more niche node from what it was before. Basically you get the stacks, equip Ur range, repeat four times to fully reload.
Honestly I would like reload speed/magazine replenishment when using long reloading weapons not when I’m playing the assassin build with weapons already reloading fast.
What if the talent was mixed? Something like “Melee Weakpoint and Backstab Kills refill 1 round of Missing Ammo from your Reserve and increase Reload Speed by 3% when swapping to your Ranged Weapon. Stacks 5 times.”
That way, there’s some immediate benefit for the smaller-mag/specialized weapons but also a more general benefit and it’s not limited to pretty much just Shroudfield builds.
Its the activation clause changing that truly makes it horrible, the reload mechanics changing from reload time to % of magazine just favors high power low cap weapons only (I’m assuming there’s a round up like weapon specialist to keep it from delivering 0 ammo back?). And obviously a dead node outside stealth but at least you can path around it.
why would anything give you free ammo beyond scavenger that doesn’t make sense. this is like when people complained about charmed reload not generating ammo when it puts it into your gun with a 7 second reload for you instead. that is what it claims to be doing, not making ammo.