Weapon Handling vs. Assault vs. Sharpshooting vs. Gunslinging (which is best!?) 

THE GUN IS GOOD.

Gunslinger plus energy drink equ- wait, where'd the horde go?

You should re-do these. The weapon handling skill is perfect for a new community in nightmare zone. saves a lot of parts!

Snap shot has the best synergy for any fight. 6 Zombies become 2 in a matter of seconds then you just clean up. One shot Ferals is worth it by itself. Gunslinger is king.

I have a very strict gun control Policy: if there's a gun around, I want to be in control of it. PS Great Video 🙂

I prefer gun-slinging, IMO its the best active skill for shooting. All of my "Adventure" characters all have gunsllinger, which increases confidence in a survivor running about alone.

I love weaponhandling, free gun repair at zero part cost. Guns break all the time, doesnt need to be full auto “jam” and weaponhandling fixed it. At least have one person in your community to fix your guns. Great vid man!!

I really enjoy Fox’s videos. They are always very analytical and informative. Keep up the good work!

Weapons Handling can be useful early game, especially when your RNG gives you few parts, fragile firearms, and a more-than-usual bad first week. In one of my most recent playthroughs, my survivors found 2 KSG shotguns and barely a hundred parts in their first few days in the Valley. Even scrapping surplus melee weapons was hard to maintain them, since the KSG's the most fragile shotty in the game, breaking down roughly every 40 shells, or nearly three full magazines. So in pragmatic desperation, my first leveled-up shooter got Weapons Handling to squeeze out the last two shell to finish of the third mag and even a fourth and fifth round of 12-gauge shells. And it paid off; One time I was killing a Plague Heart, my KSG jammed and several Plague Zombies and a Feral were charging in to prevent me from killing the Heart, but sheer luck and good timing allowed my charrie to fix her KSG juuust long enough to blast away a charging feral and get two more rounds into the Heart, popping it and nearly crashing my XB1 from the 10+ Plague Zombies ragdolling all around. So if you start a new game, especially in Dread or Nightmare Mode, Weapon Handling can literally save your favourite survivor from getting mobbed.

You didnt cover the fact that weapon handling fixes any weapon when its broken, and can be done multiple times before you eventually have to repair the weapon again. Weapon handling has major value on long looting runs or plague busting. It doesnt just fix a "jammed" weapon,it makes all broken weapons fireable again.

Gunslinging is by far the best shooting ability available to any survivor. I'm hoping to see a more in depth skill progression in state of decay 3 for all skills.

You got me wanting to change my favorite and oldest played character from assault to sharpshooting over the shotgun points.

4:57 channeling that inner Isaac Clarke. Also, it amazes me how many of these skill descriptions I never bothered to read. I honestly didn't know you had to click a button to snap with gunslinging. I thought it just worked when it wanted, since it sometimes locked on when I aimed in. I always just picked it for the reload speed. Hell, I never noticed the punch through with sharpshooting till today with a shotgun. Going for head shots, or running down hordes with cars, really does trivialize everything. Except juggs and slightly high rocks. The bane of vehicles.

I just don't know how you only have 645 subs dear Lord man you put a lot of time and your videos are awesome great job brother I been playing the game for awhile and had not seen the weapons abilities this close before, I use weapon handling almost in all my toons cause for some reason my weapons kind it jam fairly quickly but I think I am going to try gunslinging and sharpshooting more.

My son is 2 now and he will sit and watch your videos with me, he noticed your youtube emblem by the subscribe button, and on the last video discussing wits skills, when you concluded he started saying "Bye bye fox." Not sure if you have kids but take my word for it it was adorable

Coming back to the game after a while, gotta rewatch these vods.

I'm over here using a CLEO Mace and Sledgehammer. This man just killed a feral by curb stomping his ass faster than I can with a weapon!

I really enjoy these in depth videos. Makes my choices so much easier. Thanks again!

Thanks for the fantastic video. Sharpshooting is my go to because of the crowd control capability.

excellent guides mate, straight to the point. no bs

I almost always go weapon handling. Repairing is super expensive, and every gun can break/jam except revolvers, bolts, and xbows. I used to only use those types of weapons, which saves a lot of headaches, but suffers from slow ROF, or Reload, or both, but are reliable and cheap to operate. However, with weapon handling, I can take any ol piece, even if its yellow and ready to jam, I don't care, I just watch my shots for that jam so I'm not caught in a bad situation with a yellow weapon.

That opening scene is the most concise representation of Borderlands 3 i've ever seen. that shits how i felt when i sacrificed myself to the marcus statue behind the dead W4RD3N in BL2 for a green torgue shotgun

I wished i had skilled weapon handling to clear jammed guns when in mid fight with a hordes. And it does cost a lot to repair those guns and the parts are not that abundant especially during early play through. its certaintly not the worst skill imo. Great videos man loving the content.

I like Weapon handling for anything other than bolt action rifles. And I like Sharpshooter when combined with the CLEO Blast Rifle. And the aformentioned rifle is imo the best bolt action rifle due to its reletively high rate of fire and high damage output (and being the only CLEO weapon that won't break) with the downsides being weight and the ammo being a bit hard to get sometimes.

I like this channel i have been looking for someone to do analysis on SOD 2 like what this guy is doing. I sub right away!

I been going all weapon handling. Since neighbors are so demanding I end up doing like 4 or 5 missions back to back. Gets old going to a outpost for ammo let alone weapon repairs. Also with more zombies in the game not compared to release day. It's like 1 shot two kills with so many zombies grouped together. Also its so easy to have good aim. Don't really need any of the skills. But select weapon handling so weapons last a little bit longer.

i think you need to give weapon handling another look! i've been playing on pc and i only use single fire on all my guns. ive noticed that my guns do jam or break quite often. the ability to auto repair guns and fix jams by just reloading is so amazing. especially since i use suppressors on all my guns. suppressors significantly lower the life of your weapon but with weapon handling that isnt an issue. also the perk saves on parts which can quickly become a rare resource at times. also i like to volunteer quite a bit cause its a good way to get free materials/loot and influence. i usually take my ak with the 150 drum mag and weapon handling is really great with that cause i can just rip through a bunch of stuff on other peoples map without having to worry about going back to base or to an outpost.

The reload speed from gunslinging is the best feature for me. Too many times I'm trying to reload a weapon in a fight with hordes of zombies and freaks and I get interrupted trying to reload. The aim snap is also nice, but I hardly I hardly ever use it on anything but ferals. Manual aim is nearly as good and doesn't waste stamina I'll need for melee.

Well put together vid! Enjoyed it greatly!

Shotgun and sharpshooting... yammi Ok when I think about it: A shotgun review would be nice ;-)

3 words. "Red Talon Opritive." :3

I like weapon handling too. Most of time I’m using parts to create repair kit for vehicles so it’s pretty useful for me to have at least 1 member with that skill

i really wanted to get in to this game but it was so overwhelming but thanks to your video im lovin it now! gotta say thanks Fox even if this game came out 2 years ago haha

Gunslinging and weapon handling are my favourite. I got the red talon guys only so they all know both 😎

Always go weapon handling simply because guns "jam" quite often for me(only use single-fire), and they usually break at the worst times. Though may start making a few sharpshooter shotgun survivors, since I get a decent amount of shotguns/ammo but rarely use them since they aren't as efficient as just kiting and HS groups. Yet that combo seems like it would work nicely, especially on missions where you need to save someone....Also tempted to let a siege build up on the mission that wants you to use the scent blocker, with that combo...

Assault seems to be the kind of skill you'd take when carrying shotguns, when your job isn't to pick off zeds one by one, but to knock plenty down so you and your partners can get a breather. That or if the survivor you're using uses blades/knives, so they can't use blunt weapons to knock them over effectively. That or when you're dealing with armored zombies often and shooting in general isn't a good idea, but you do it to get them down.

I use Sharpshooting with 9 mm and .45 guns. It works like 7.62/5.56 bullets. Gunslinging + x3 crossbow is the best choice. Weapon handling works fine with 5.56 and 7.62 weapons with big magazine because 5.56 and 7.62 have sharpshooting ability as well also big magazine doesnt need to reload.

My shooting skill is prepared for Blood Feral. That's why I always choose Assault. Fast reload + chance of knockdown.👍 Second choice is Weapon Handling.

I think on console, gunslinging is easily supreme to any other ability on an individual survivor level. Ferals are easily a bigger threat on console than on PC and on higher difficulty game modes, shotguns are quite hard to come by, let alone shotgun ammo itself. When you’re relying on .22 and 9mm gunslinging is very easily the best, especially on console. Now I’ve not played PC but I’d suspect sharpshooting on PC may be slightly better or at least have its place when it comes to specialisation.

Yes thank you I found that to be very helpful I love State of Decay 2

Gun-slinging first Sharpshooting Assault Weapon-handling last Nice video bro👍

Very useful video, thanks for sharing it mate.

thanks, because of this video I know what to choose shooting for my Perfect ninja Looks like you can make a video of a "Build" that combine the skills which complement each other and the weapon that fit in the build

The best way to use Assault skill is to immediately go into a crouching animation for knife kill or down kill after knockdown. Or to effectively use this at bottleneck choke points like door entries. It's easier to use at enclosed spaces since it temporary goes into first person view from gun aim to kick.

I'd like to point out for it, since the newer updates I might be 3 years too late, but assault is just helps all around because they buffed it to allow you to carry more ammo. I hardly use gunsling for snap and I normally have drum guns so I normally don't reload often, only time I catch myself reloading is after the horde is dead, and I still got a few shots left. So assault is just good now because you can stack more ammo in your pouches.

I prefer to have a gunslinger and a weapon handler in my exploration runs, just in case my automatic weapons get broken! I love revolvers and bolt action rifles. My prefered weapons are: Timberwolf, Hunter's Viper, Devgru X12 I, Restored Echo-S1 Revolver, Vulture King and the cowboys weapons! XD Timberwolf is king! XD

I make a character solely for adventuring, I choose gunslinging to give another option especially against hordes

I think the assault 50% knockdown could show its worth for a character or person that cant headshot really well with a automatic weapon that uses cheap plentiful weapon ammo So a character thats really good in melee, can use a automatic with cheap bullets like 9 mm and spray into a horde to knock most of them down so they can melee the one that's still standing coming to them

I’d like to add info that was either left out, or is new, I’ve never used gun handling, I have no comment for it For sharp shooting, the bullet piercing is very helpful, the only problem I’ve ever had with it, is that, if you use a crossbow, you bolts pierce through them, so you can’t just go and grab it out of their heads, the bolts may be like 50-80 meters away which can be a problem, but at the same time, it’s helpful because you can stealth kill 2-3 zombies with a single crossbow bolt I’ve never used assault, so I have no comment on that skill For gunslinging, the aim lock can be used with crossbows for very quick quite headshots at close range, the reload speed is helpful, but aim lock can only be used in a closer range, and only if you have zoom on your gun toggled off, so you can use it on a long range rifle, but you have to have zoom toggled off, I’ve also noticed that on very long range rifles, the aim lock can lock on from a farther distance, and shorter ranged weapons like shotguns, don’t lock on unless you’re decently close, also, using it with a shotgun still makes your crosshairs super small, and I can’t say this for certain, but it feels like it completely removes the spread that shotguns have while it’s aim locked, I can’t say for certain, but a few times, I’ve used it and nearby zombies were not injured, and using it on a bloater would cause them to do the headshot death where the leaks out like a ballon, rather than popping and exploding

I would choose weapon handling kuz of the name and the jamming part but after watching this I know what to choose. Thanks fox! If there are 4 options why does it only let us choose from 2?

Damn I miss those Guides. you‘re by far the best State of decay 2 RU-vidr and Im pretty sure I watched every single guide, but there’s one thing I don’t understand, why didn’t you do a Utilities Guide?

I started off using Weapon Handling most when the game first came out. Now my order would be 1. Gunslinging 2. Weapon Handling. ( great when doing a fresh start in Nightmare ) 3. Sharp Shooting 4. Assault. I wish Shooting was broke down into Gun Classes (Assault, SMG, Shotguns, Marksman (sniping) They are closely resembled currently, but they could be more specific. 3.

THANK YOU. Everyone I see LOVES weapons handing and you took the words out of my mouth. Gunslinging is where it’s at with the aim snap and reload speed. Like 9 out of 12 of my community has gunslinging. Weapons handling is useless because by the time you comeback to your base after a day you can repair it. Assault and sharpshooting are meh. I always pick gunslinging or retrain to gunslinging. I’m just finally glad a RU-vidr said weapon handling is the worst. Thank you.

I usually have one member use the weapon handling skill with a high capacity weapon and go ham on plague hearts. The others use either gunslinger or sharpshooting.

Love the Zardoz reference!

ranking them would be like this Rank 1: Gunslinging - OP Aim Snap Rank 2: Weapon Handling - OP repairs, Best support for Gunslinging characters coz they can repair the weapon on the field, or once you deposit it on the base Rank 3: Sharpshooting Rank 4: Assault - kicking suks, you better press C to dodge instead of kicking

I wanted to come back to this video (after more experience and thinking) to say that the assault skill isn't bad on shotguns, it's just too many of the guns are OP!!! The kick of the guns is control by a stat that goes from 1 to 15. Most shotguns have high kick stat with the saw-off shotgun being at 15 being the highest (and some .50 cal called Otoe Howlitzer). You shoot once with the sawed off and then you suddenly aiming at the sun lol. Now the weapon you tested was the DEVGRU X12 Infiltrator (one of the most OP weapons in the game). Even being a shotgun, it's kick stat is only 2! Matter of fact, just about all the best weapons in the game are under 2 except the timberwolf that is 4.5

You want at least one long weapon handler! I don’t know why you don’t get the jams, but I feel like I get a jam after 3 magazines.

love the video, its just perfect :) anyway atm i play normal mode and im bored of it, im looking to train few survivors to max with best skills, so i can use them in nightmare mode....can you make video about that, what skills to pick and how to equip survivors....

9:38 Lies. Sniping 2-3 zombies with 1 bullet is one of my favorite things to do, I do it quite often. It's been one of my favorite things about the game so far lol. The shotgun looked even more fun.

I think you Tested the Assault Feature incorrectly, when I use it, its about staying ADS(aim Down sight) you'll burn through alot of ammo and need a secondary on quick equip stand by but its about standing your ground. If any zombies do push into you kick them over shoot the most immediate threat and then decide if the head shot is safer than melee to finish off kicked Zed(also great with your back on a wall indoors)

My buddy that I play with typically chooses weapon handling while I choose gunslinging for the snapshot ability. Every time my weapon breaks/jams I just drop it for him so he can unjam it then he hands it back, super useful imo.

Weapon handling is alright to have on one community member of you don't have the red talon workshop. Put it on a character you wouldn't normally play as. Otherwise I pretty much always choose gunslinger if possible.

Weapon handling saves you because you can Unjam guns

LOL this was recommended after watching your nightmare zone S02E05 He can't be trusted @ 6:52, sorry, I had to laugh at the foreshadowing. If I hadn't already commented on one of your other videos, I always choose gunslinging, when possible, just for the reload speed. After finding my 1st eternal guard's infinite rage, having to wait, what felt like hours, to reload... Gunslinging or exile. Of course now there are respec books, but those degrade the learning exp, so it takes longer to specialize

Very good information. I never would have thought Gunslinging would be such a good choice.

I just started playing and I've been surprisingly good at getting headshots in this game, even with pistols at longer range and no shooting skill. I'm not sure if that's mostly the game or if it's just my years of gaming coming into play.

Keep 2 weapon handlers at least. But Gunslinging is a MUST!!! ESPECIALLY IN NIGHTMARE MODE or dread. Weapons break 3 times faster.. Saves Bolts. Gunslingers are vital vs Hostiles in the harder modes.

on nightmare, i think weapon handling is highly useful, at least for me i dont need gunslinging aim bot since i play on pc where i can aim really well. also weapons like submachine guns reload fast enough, so i just go for weapons that dont have a long reload time. but honestly, red talon soldiers are the best

Assault's Kick should have been an enhancement to your Sprint that allows you to bowl non-Juggernaut enemies over on contact for a static stamina cost per impact.

"Aim snap is useless" *laughs in blood ferals*

I give everybody weapon handling. I like to use my parts for everything but repairs, otherwise I tend to come up short when I need to craft resources or upgrades. The other thing is that it's handy when I get stranded too far away from an outpost without the marathon ability.

I love weapon handling, i just pick everthing of with an silenced ar on single fire and they breakdown easy, but that is because i use improvised silencers alot. This way i can keep going. In nightmare mode guns break down faster too. For me its weapon handling mostly.

You're a gud fox. Thank you.

The shooter skills should include the weapons itself. Assault: -X% Reload speed for shotguns, you kan run trough enemies and knock them down while you do it Sharpshooting: Lees recoil for Sniper, piercing through enemies Gunslinger: able to hold 2 Revolver (instead of a knife), kick down enemies in front of you and a forth one maybe something like supressor, where you slow down zombies if you use machineguns. These are just examples. But it should be more unique.

Semi-automatic weapons also jam, weapon handling has got me out if trouble so many times!

it seems that the power of an assault kick depends on the weapon you're using and is actually more powerful when used while wielding heavy since it makes a feral roll like it got hit by the heavy weapon itself

Wait🤔 so if I pick weapon handling I can take my Tommy gun out go crazy with it and never worry about it braking🤔... fucking legendary 🤘🏿 say no more lol thanks for the video.

Do you have any videos on preferred skills for nightmare? Or even weapons. Obviously anything with a high quietness. I been reading stuff on reddit and have several playthroughs done and completed. Had a survivor who's been around for almost since the release date. Always like hearing other players thoughts on the game. Also if you did a weapon breakdown. When to use them and why? I normally keep assault weapons at home and try to keep anyone looking for loot carrying lightweight weapons just so I can move around better. What are your thoughts. I like the short videos for when I'm commuting. At my desk its normally the long playthroughs ones

Snap aim used to work 100% of the time but stupid ass Undead Labs broke it just like they did with the pop in hordes now, infinite respawning zombies in cleared buildings, spawning 4 or more hordes on you back to back when nothing was around & all you did was sneak into a house to search a box, spawning fearls & juggernauts together like they've grown sentient & are working in tandem, spawning about 6 ferals back to back in less than a minute, Ive recorded almost all of these but I almost got destroyed by a feral on 2 occasions due to the ability never working on the feral even when it was unaware of me & running in circles. I had to manually unload a mag into it to get it to stop tackling me & the other got killed by a trader.

I've always put Gunslinger on my guys and if i could'nt chose it i've respec them. 1 shot 1 kill. (mostly) How can anyone argue with that. Saves a ton of ammo and i never worry about guns breaking because all zombies will be dead before that happens...

Sharpshooting seems good to clean up , pass through with shotgun however gunslinging is king snap shot is good 6 zombies down and for a sole survivor playthrough don't know if snap shot works on a sniping playthrough but I think it and Sharpshooting are good and weapon handling is good in nightmare mode I don't play that mode much but I love snap shot I feel like john wick with all those rapid fire headshots is best and the reloading is good to.

My weapons jam all the time especially shotguns and I never go auto

I'm subbing!!!

Guns break so much more w/o weapon handling. Also full auto is great for huge horde headshot strafing

What it should have been (while retaining everything they currently have): *Sharpshooting:* Bullet Time (from SOD 1) at stamina cost. Increased zoom, even with weapons without optics. *Weapon Handling:* Move faster while ADS. 200% faster reload, Dual wield pistols and SMGs. *Gunslinging:* As is *Assault:* Ammo Stack increased at every skill level. 90 rounds per slot at full level. Sprint into zombies causing them to fall over (except for Jugs). Imagine having a plague horde sprinting toward you? Leeroy Jenkins!

I have 5 Red talons they have it all but I do prefer gunslinger if I have to choose

Gunslinging and Weapon Handling are my preferences. Clearing jams is just ridiculously useful since fixing weapons is expensive. Gunslinging with a Bolt Scout (i think that's it) and an improvised silencer is the cheapest combo for my Gunslingers. Really any rifle that won't jam because bolt action, but that's the lightest I personally have found.I Plus Gunslinging hostile humans, since they have freak aim. Guess they have Gunslinging too. 😒 Mark Crilley? Is that you gaming? Love your artwork.😛 Sigh, this is the only game I still play on xbox. (Obviously joking, but similar enough sounding.)

I miss the slow motion gun shooting in SoD1 ;)

That intro clip is like heaven

Fox, do you still order the skills like this since you moved to Nightmare, where parts are hella scarce? I go Gunslinging first then Weapon Handling second in Dread Zone and it seems to be working well.

on xbox the snap shot is off for me. can rarely use it correctly. i can snap to a zombie's head but the zombie will get out of the way before i can fire. on pc it doesn't do that.

I wanted to add my input into this On weapon handling. I personally see this as a garbage skill. And you could say its good for nightmare zone but I personally think its not worth it compared to the other skills and parts arent that hard to find. Even if they're reduced due to nightmare zone. And if you really have to you can turn your materials into parts. But not only that but I never really experience too much durability loss to my guns no matter what zone I play in. Despite the fact I use em alot because they're satisfying as hell. And if parts and materials are both a problem then choose the lumbermill over the fire station. Its a huge downgrade but I dont think its worth giving your survivors weapon handling. As youd probably have to give the majority of them weapon handling and the skill just isnt great. In assault however, I do see a bit more use for this. For example if your trying to shoot zombies but one zombie got too close to you, you can kick them in order to get them out of the way. It is however inconsistent, it also looks wonky due to the zoom effect not going away, and doesnt kick them far. So there isnt much use for it. The knockback of assault can be useful if you miss the zombie's head but it still hits a zombie's body. It gets them out of the way and makes them an easy kill. But if this actually makes a difference to you then your probably better off with gunslinging due to its snap ability. Also I think the recoil reduction can be very useful. After firing your weapon still goes up. It can make things a little bit harder once it goes above the heads, if your sensitivity is low then itll allow zombies to get a little closer to you, if its high then its straight up harder to aim at their heads. However if you dont suck then again it shouldnt be a big deal. I dont have anything to add on sharpshooting. Going back to gunslinging. I think the normal reload speeds in general of the game are very very slow. So the increase of reload speeds from this are amazing. Especially for manual reloads or drum mag reloads. Also if your having a heard time hitting a zombie you can snap to their head. Its especially useful for ferals. However if you have to rely on this it is impractical due to its stamina loss. If you cant aim at their heads I suggest dropping this skill so you can actually get decently good at the game, so you dont have to throw your stamina away to kill a zombie that generally isnt hard to hit. Its not a huge deal if you have a ton of energy drinks on you or snacks or any stamina items but thats inventory slots gone that you could use for scavenging, which also weights you down a little. The weight probably wont have any effect but ya never know.

I thought it was completely ridiculous how they would take forever to load a drum magazine, but then I realized the devs must be implying that you're loading each bullet into the now empty drum magazine. The animation needs work for sure.

So, since the difficulty levels have been introduced, have you thought about redoing these vids?

The gun is good lol. What film is that? I watched that as a kid

I'm glad you went through these because wow these devs really did a horrible job with these perks lol

Ever try powerhouse + close combat + stealth

Does the assault kick get the feral to an executable state? If so is this the same for dread and nightmare?

Weapons jam all the time for me, it has nothing to do with burst or auto fire. They jam in single fire, too. I always have a Weapon Handler at hand to repair the 8+ broken weapons in the locker until I get the Red Talon Workshop.