Do you use it? How much do you invest in it? Is the downside worth it in your opinion? If you don’t use it, but you do go down to custom loads, what are the alternatives that you like?
I was skeptical of this skill at first. While it makes burst damage weapons like snipers and jakobs shotties a whole lot better, I thought it would make stream damage weapons like blasters and SMGs way worse. What I found after heavy investment is that alot of SMGs still have enough bullets to function correctly. Jakobs shotguns could be brought to a mag size of 0, however, preventing them from being fired. (IMO clip size shouldn’t drop below 1, going down and switching to a nukem that can’t be fired was really annoying.) In general though, I’ve grown to love this skill.
It’s worth mentioning that the mag size penalty is diminished when you invest more. (1st point is -13% mag next point is -23%) So my idea is it’s probably best to invest heavily in it or not at all.
As far as snipers are concerned, the mag size decrease can be almost completely offset with 5/5 in Only The Best, even at 9/5 Large Caliber (Chronicler of Elpis COM)
I find when sniping the mag size decrease hardly matters for most enemies, since you are out of immediate danger when sniping, you have all the time in the world for reloads.
With guns other than snipers (OTB offset), I try and balance ‘Large Caliber’ and ‘Quality not Quantity’. Damage and reload speed v Damage and Fire rate. I usually take some of each but I have not taken more than 6/5 ‘LC’ so far as I use a Ravager occasionally and more than 6/5 reduces mag size to 4 which is only one shot.
I do like the extra damage though as it is all the time (on both ‘LC’ and ‘QnQ’), whereas ‘Avalanche’ for example relies on stacking and has a time limit. This is problematic playing the story missions as some scripted dialogue lasts just long enough to wipe ‘Avalanche’ out eg just before Zarpedon fight.
btw I use either Celestial or Chronicler class mods - with Chronicler I have 6/5 ‘LC’ and 8/5 ‘QnQ’ which gives +100% damage and with Celestial I use 5/5 ‘LC’ and 6/5 ‘QnQ’ which gives +80% damage. This more than makes up for the smaller mag - except maybe some Boss fights where mag size may benefit if you cannot kill them fairly quickly. I have not tried Sentinel with ‘LC’ yet.
I love it. I have 9/5 points in it on my main build. If I use some specific weapons I avoid it but most of the time it’s included because I go down the tree anyway and I love to shoot spiked iron fists with a nuclear explosion on hit.
I only have issues with it concerning Jakobs shotguns. With Jakobs revolvers and rifles though it helps them out greatly and makes them even more efficient as weapons.
Just used it for the first time today and it is AWESOME. After spending days of playing as Salvador from BL2, I almost always habitually reload after a kill (unless fighting torks or rathyds) . Even if the magazine is still quite full. So go ahead, give me more gun damage and faster reload speeds! The lower magazine size has effectively zero effect to me.