Stark Trist
Member
Occult Loader
This item's aims to provide a boon to players who reload their weapon when partially filled and a damage buildup mini-game for more experienced players.Boon Rational: When watching some of my friends play Deadlock I noticed they like to reload their magazine early (at ~50% Ammo). When asked, they explained this behavior was intentional. They did this to make claiming soul orbs easier and always have bullets ready for a fight. Additionally, killing a second trooper on the same clip often emptied their ammo, leaving the soul orb open to the enemy.
For some players, the slide mechanic solves this issue as it greatly extends ammo. However, executing this is very challenging and often significantly reduces their hit rate. This item is designed to help players deal more damage by boosting damage per reload. The goal is to mitigate some of the lost damage from continual reloads, thereby improving their total damage output.
Damage Buildup Rational: For a skilled player, this item is interesting because it can be used to defer the reload damage to a later fight. Careful usage of reloading and ammo effectively gives the player a high-damage opportunity by virtue of their shooting patterns.
Notice: The first loaded bullet is the last bullet to be fired. This means that if you reload a full magazine, the final bullet will be empowered. As such, you can "fill" the latter half of your magazine with empowered bullets with mindful reloading patterns.
Notes:
Abrams: Reload Rate only affects a single loaded bullet and then the loader goes on cooldown.
Paradox: Like Lucky Shot, Occult Loader's empowered bullets do not work with Kinetic Carbine.
Alt-Fire: Must be triggered on the empowered bullet to apply the bonus weapon damage.
Cooldown: Most guns empty their magazine in ~2-4 seconds (no slide). The cooldown is mostly pointless except to prevent extreme damage on Abrams.
Headshots: Damage Stacks with headshots/crit. This rewards using the loader on troopers as headshots are within the reach of most players.
Sliding: Bullets fired while sliding cannot trigger/use empowered bullets.
Item Combos:
- Intensifying Magazine
- Kinetic Dash
- Crushing Fists
- *Active Reload
- *Quicksilver Reload
- *Express Shot
I expect this item will be popular at both low and high MMR, as it helps solve an ammo/damage issue for new players and gives experienced players a mini-game to acquire a notable damage burst.
Occult Loader is designed to be great at all stages of the game like Rebuttal is great. The real trouble is getting the open slots to hold onto it.
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