In an effort to figure out exactly how Burst recycle times are affected by Skill Lock reduction items, I have conducted a series of tests with various amounts of skill lock reduction items in use. Burst recycle times were both measured by a stop watch out of game and by looking at the reported in game recycle time. I used the following equipment in the test:
Weapons:
QL 200 Manex Catastrophe December
QL 260 Conf Syndicate Messenger Gun
QL 200 Mausser Chemical Streamer
QL 256 Defender of Troy
QL 247 Jake
QL 200 OT Kerans
QL 229 Inspirator
Skill lock reduction gear:
QL 240 Support leg symbiant (-11 skill lock value)
QL 220 Support left hand symbiant (-6 skill lock value)
Headband of Haste (-5 skill lock value)
My Stats are:
Burst skill: 1333
Attack rating: 1890ish (not that it should matter for this test)
Ranged init: 850ish (not that it should matter for this test)
The official say on how Skill Lock works are found in the Shadowland Patch notes (of 4th sep 2003):
“You might find items that buff a stat called "Skill Lock Modifier". This is not a new stat - we just haven't used it much before. This stat reduces the time your skill is locked by 1 percent per point. On e.g. a First Aid Kit - Skill Lock Modifier 15 would decrease the First Aid lock time from 20 seconds to 17 seconds. A lock can never be reduced by more than 50% of the original time.”
In addition to Skill Lock reduction items, your burst skill value affects how fast the burst skill of a weapon recycles. The basic formula for how much burst skill affects recycle time is very easy: 25 points of burst = 1 second faster burst recycle. Having a high burst skill can however only reduce the burst recycle value of a weapon to a certain figure: having more burst skill will not reduce the burst recycle time of such weapon beyond this cap. Bust recycle cap values varies somewhat from weapon to weapon, but for most SMG’s it seems to be between 8 and 11 seconds.
Test results:
QL200 Manex Catastrophe December
Base burst recycle time (no gear, zero burst skill): 100 seconds
Burst recycle cap without Skill Lock reduction items: unknown (not reached for me)
0 skill lock (no gear):
Measured: 50,7 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 50 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
-6 skill lock (hand):
Measured: 48,1 sec (reduction 2,6 sec, 5,1% of my burst recycle, 2,6% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 44 sec (reduction 6 sec, 11,8% of my burst recycle, 6% of base burst recycle)
-11 skill lock (hand, headband):
Measured: 45,7 sec (reduction 5 sec, 9,9% of my burst recycle, 5,0% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 39 sec (reduction 11 sec, 21,7% of my burst recycle, 11,0% of base burst recycle)
-11 skill lock (leg):
Measured: 45,6 sec (reduction 5,1 sec, 10,1% of my burst recycle, 5,1% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 39 sec (reduction 11 sec, 21,7% of my burst recycle, 11,0% of base burst recycle)
-17 skill lock (leg, hand):
Measured: 41,6 sec (reduction 9,1 sec, 17,9% of my burst recycle, 9,1% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 34 sec (reduction 16 sec, 31,6% of my burst recycle, 16,0% of base burst recycle)
-22 skill lock (leg, hand, headband):
Measured: 39,6 sec (reduction 11,1 sec, 21,9% of my burst recycle, 11,1% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 30 sec (reduction 20 sec, 39,4% of my burst recycle, 20,0% of base burst recycle)
QL260 Syndicate Messenger Gun
Base burst recycle time (no gear, zero burst skill): 35 seconds
Burst recycle cap without Skill Lock reduction items: 9 sec (reached for me)
0 skill lock (no gear):
Measured: 9,2 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 9 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
-6 skill lock (hand):
Measured: 8 sec (reduction 1,2 sec, 13,0% of my burst recycle, 3,4% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 7 sec (reduction 2 sec, 21,7% of my burst recycle, 5,7% of base burst recycle)
-11 skill lock (leg):
Measured: 7,9 sec (reduction 1,3 sec, 14,1% of my burst recycle, 3,7% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 7 sec (reduction 2 sec, 21,7% of my burst recycle, 5,7% of base burst recycle)
-17 skill lock (leg, hand):
Measured: 6,9 sec (reduction 2,3 sec, 25% of my burst recycle, 6,6% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 5 sec (reduction 4 sec, 43,5% of my burst recycle, 11,4% of base burst recycle)
-22 skill lock (leg, hand, headband):
Measured: 6,5 sec (reduction 2,7 sec, 29,3% of my burst recycle, 7,7% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 5 sec (reduction 4 sec, 43,5% of my burst recycle, 11,4% of base burst recycle)
QL200 Mausser Chemical Streamer
Base burst recycle time (no gear, zero burst skill): 40 seconds
Burst recycle cap without Skill Lock reduction items: 11 sec (reached for me)
0 skill lock (no gear):
Measured: 11 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 11 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
-6 skill lock (hand):
Measured: 9,9 sec (reduction 1,1 sec, 10,0% of my burst recycle, 2,8% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 7 sec (reduction 2 sec, 18,2% of my burst recycle, 5,0% of base burst recycle)
-17 skill lock (leg, hand):
Measured: 8,6 sec (reduction 2,4 sec, 21,8% of my burst recycle, 6,0% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 5 sec (reduction 4 sec, 36,4% of my burst recycle, 10,0% of base burst recycle)
QL256 Defender of Troy
Base burst recycle time (no gear, zero burst skill): 80 seconds
Burst recycle cap without Skill Lock reduction items: Unknown (not reached for me)
0 skill lock (no gear):
Measured: 28,7 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 28 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
-6 skill lock (hand):
Measured: 26,3 sec (reduction 2,4 sec, 8,4% of my burst recycle, 3,0% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 24 sec (reduction 4 sec, 13,9% of my burst recycle, 5,0% of base burst recycle)
-17 skill lock (leg, hand):
Measured: 22,7 sec (reduction 6 sec, 20,9% of my burst recycle, 7,5% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 19 sec (reduction 9 sec, 31,4% of my burst recycle, 11,3% of base burst recycle)
QL247 Jake
Base burst recycle time (no gear, zero burst skill): 116 seconds
Burst recycle cap without Skill Lock reduction items: Unknown (not reached for me)
0 skill lock (no gear):
Measured: 67 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 66 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
-6 skill lock (hand):
Measured: 64,4 sec (reduction 2,6 sec, 3,9% of my burst recycle, 2,2% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 58 sec (reduction 8 sec, 11,9% of my burst recycle, 6,9% of base burst recycle)
-17 skill lock (leg, hand):
Measured: 55,3 sec (reduction 11,7 sec, 17,5% of my burst recycle, 10,1% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 44 sec (reduction 22 sec, 32,8% of my burst recycle, 19,0% of base burst recycle)
QL200 OT Kerans
Base burst recycle time (no gear, zero burst skill): 44 seconds
Burst recycle cap without Skill Lock reduction items: 9 sec (reached for me)
0 skill lock (no gear):
Measured: 9,1 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 9 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
-6 skill lock (hand):
Measured: 8 sec (reduction 1,1 sec, 12,1% of my burst recycle, 2,5% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 7 sec (reduction 2 sec, 22,0% of my burst recycle, 4,5% of base burst recycle)
-17 skill lock (leg, hand):
Measured: 6,9 sec (reduction 2,2 sec, 24,2% of my burst recycle, 5,0% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 5 sec (reduction 4 sec, 44,0% of my burst recycle, 9,1% of base burst recycle)
QL229 Inspirator
Base burst recycle time (no gear, zero burst skill): 42 seconds
Burst recycle cap without Skill Lock reduction items: 9 sec (reached for me)
0 skill lock (no gear):
Measured: 9,1 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 9 sec (reduction 0 sec, 0% of my burst recycle, 0% of base burst recycle)
-6 skill lock (hand):
Measured: 7,9 sec (reduction 1,2 sec, 13,2% of my burst recycle, 2,9% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 7 sec (reduction 2 sec, 22,0% of my burst recycle, 4,8% of base burst recycle)
-17 skill lock (leg, hand):
Measured: 6,7 sec (reduction 2,4 sec, 26,4% of my burst recycle, 5,7% of base burst recycle)
Reported: 5 sec (reduction 4 sec, 44,0% of my burst recycle, 9,5% of base burst recycle)
Edit: The Blinded Blackbird and The Perennium Beamer have been tested! Test results are posted further down in the thread as this post is at maximum length :-) No real changes to the analysis and conclusions resulting from the extra tests tho - well apart from the obvious: they are pretty darn good weapons both of them!
Legend:
Measured burst recycle is the out of game, stop-watched time it takes from the “You hit for xxx burst damage” appears on screen until the “Burst skill available” message appears. Each gun was stop-watched 3 times, and the average value is presented in the results above. A few times during the test some results were truly oddballs, and those results were discarded (they could be caused by server side lag, or other problems that are not really weapon related).
Reported burst recycle is the value displayed on screen by hitting burst twice real fast.
% of my burst recycle is the amount of reduction the skill lock items provide compared to the recycle time I had prior to putting on any skill lock reduction items
% of base burst recycle is the amount of reduction the skill lock items provide compared to the base unmodified-by-skill recycle value of a weapon
Analysis - What can we learn from these results?
Result 1
Skill lock reduction items breaks the cap on burst recycle speed, and enable you to burst faster than what is possible than by merely having a high burst skill.(ok so most people already knew that, but its sometimes usefull to state the obvious!)
Result 2
Stacking of Skill Lock reduction items seem to work flawlessly. More Skill lock is always better than less skill lock, and all items always provide their bonus. -11 Skill Lock reduction provided by one item equals -11 Skill Lock reduction provided by several other items.
Result 3
Reported burst recycle times and real burst recycle times are 2 very different values when you have Skill Lock reduction items. As you get more Skill Lock items, the gap between the reported and the real value widen. The test data suggest the following rule of thumb: The real benefit of Skill Lock reduction items is approx half of what the reported benefit is.
Why this difference exists I can only speculate, but I guess the most likely theory is that the reported recycle value and the combat engine use different formulas for calculating the recycle time. The combat engine calculation is obviously done server side, while the reported recycle time could be calculated client side (or maybe in the chat server?).
Result 4
The test data indicates that Skill Lock reduction is (as stated in the patch notes) a percentage reduction applied to the base, unmodified-by-skill, burst recycle value of a weapon. This can most easily be seen in the Manex and Jake test results (the slowest weapons). For these weapons the reported reduction recycle times seem to be either exactly (or very close to) to what one could expect using the formula:
Base Recycle speed * Skill Lock reduction %
For weapons that have faster base burst recycle value (including all weapons that have capped burst recycle speeds due to having high burst skill) the Skill Lock reduction items provide less effect. Apparently the Skill Lock reduction effect is approximately halved for all such weapons. So the reported recycle reduction times for “faster” weapons follow this formula:
Base Recycle speed * Skill Lock reduction % * 0,5
Conclusion – So how does it work?
According to the test results you may calculate how much your burst recycle speed will measurably be affected by Skill Lock items thus:
Base Recycle speed of weapon * Skill Lock reduction % * 0,5
If you are using a weapon that has a recycle value capped due to your high burst skill (or has reasonably fast base burst recycle value to start out with), you need to use the following formula:
Base Recycle speed of weapon * Skill Lock reduction % * 0,25
Currently unknown issues – feedback wanted!
Is there a firm cap for how low burst recycle speed can go? The Shadowlands patch notes state that max skill lock reduction is 50% of the initial skill value. Under the current combat engine we have seen that the effect of Skill Lock reduction items is halved from what they apparently should have accomplished.. Still: when adding these numbers one can get really low burst recycle values.
Is there a mathematical way to figure out what the recycle cap (without skill lock reduction items) is for a certain weapon, just by looking in the Database? If there is, it would greatly help in analyzing how well new weapons perform before they can be tested in detail.
What determines when a weapon only get “half the effect” of Skill Lock times, as pointed out in Result 4 above? Is it at a certain base burst recycle value, or is it perhaps when a certain adjusted burst recycle value is reached?
If anyone has information that could help with these problems, please post here or feel free to send me a PM. Also please keep in mind that all the above information is based solely on my own test results and by browsing the Database. The conclusions I have drawn may turn out to be utterly wrong, in which case I will happily change the info in this post accordingly. Also knowing FC: it’s not entirely unlikely that combat rules may somehow change in the future, making all this info out of date. So use this information at your own risk!