T1 Weapon: Occult Loader

[Stark Trist]

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.

 

[Stark Trist]

*Edit: Loader's cooldown is triggered upon finishing a reload or gaining ammo/temporary ammo.

 

[AleksiyFlek$$iy]

I don't really understand how the item works. Does it let us to empower one bullet in every 1.5s just by reloading?

 

[Mokuzzai]

I don't really understand how the item works. Does it let us to empower one bullet in every 1.5s just by reloading?

The way I understood it, it lets you empover a specific bullet in your magzine by reloading.

So with at 10 round mag, at 5 bullets, reloading to full, 10 bullets, would make your 6 bullet of that magazine empovered.

I like items that add to your mental stack on top of chaos that is Deadlock but this might be taking it a bit too far.

 

[Stark Trist]

I like items that add to your mental stack on top of chaos that is Deadlock but this might be taking it a bit too far.

Yeah... The idea is that for ~80% of all players this is a damage item that rewards frequent reloading. So if that is a player behavior then this item makes that hurt player's total DPS better. [new player item]

For the very skilled player the mental game should give a notable damage burst when used well.

 

[gibnewitems]

Very overloaded, especially for a 800 cost item. I don't think people should be rewarded with a notable damage burst to their most consistent source of damage just for doing nothing extra, especially if said source doesn't play well with sliding.

 

[Stark Trist]

Very overloaded, especially for a 800 cost item. I don't think people should be rewarded with a notable damage burst to their most consistent source of damage just for doing nothing extra, especially if said source doesn't play well with sliding.

That's a fair counter point to make. It is deceptively complicated even if its description is short. It is as complex as Rebuttal, Mystic Burst, or Mystic Regeneration if not more so AND has persistent state modifications to the player's ammo magazine.

I also agree that it is a question of design goals on if certain types of play (often used by newer players) should get an item that makes that behavior stronger/better.

I don't see how this doesn't play well with sliding.... Sliding gives you the choice to continue dealing damage and save the empowered bullets for later.

I certainly think the damage burst is earned as the player behavior to empower your magazine isn't "natural". In order to fill a clip with empowered bullets in lane you would need to do the following sequence while doing normal fighting/lane behavior (~15 seconds):

Full Reload -> Fire till ~5% Ammo (or 1 ammo left)
--> Reload -> Fire till ~10% Ammo (or 2 ammo left)
--> Reload -> Fire till ~15% Ammo (or 3 ammo left)
--> Reload -> Fire till ~20% Ammo (or 4 ammo left)
--> Reload

Doing the sequence above would make the final 5 bullets empowered (assuming a clip >16 bullets). I can't imagine most players have the extra mental bandwidth to pull this off. For those who can manage, it can be a cheap and powerful setup for a kill.

I agree, In theory it's simple: Reload your gun each time with more ammo then that the last reload. In-game I doubt it will be easy to pull off.