Being curious about how the opportunist nerf upcoming in dec i decided to do some investigating into PW.
From what i could tell PW involves 3 stages.
3/4 second cast time followed by
1/2 second first hit + stun then
about 1 second for the consecutive hits
I’m guessing it takes atleast 2 seconds to cast pistol whip, probably a bit longer and there seems be some delay in between casts. So I’m going to assume that you’ll have a fresh ICD on opportunist by the next cast.
This means that you’ll recieve 1-2 initiative per a cast of PW depending on when you trigger your first crit and luck.
First lets assume, it takes 2seconds per a round at 1 initiative
2x .75 = 1.5 +1 from opportunist. That means you get 2.5 initiative back between casts.
Over 10seconds, that would be a total of 12.5 regen
Lets compare this to the new opportunist trait.
2×1=2+1 from first cast, 2 on second(opportunist on ICD), 2+1 from third, 2 on 4th, 2+1 on 5th.
Over 10 seconds thats a total of 13 regen. Although this does overlook the fact that one(or more) casts might fall under ICD and not trigger any regen although that seems unlikely.
Second scenerio assumes that PW has a 2.5sec delay
2.5×.75=1.875+1= 2.875x 4 casts = 11.5 initiative over 10 seconds
2.5x 1=2.5+1, second cast wont trigger(still under 5sec ICD) 2.5 , 3rd cast = 2.5+1, 4th cast no trigger = 2.5 = 12initiative over 10 seconds.
So there seems to be a .5 increase in initiative with the new initiative regens. But this is assuming that PW can only trigger 1 initiative from opportunist per a cast. And since i have no way to test this, we can assume as best case we gain a slight boost in initiative gain, worst case we could lose up to 4 over a 10 second period(although i doubt it would be that high). My personal guess would be about a .5-1 initiative over 10 sec loss depending on crit. Not as bad as i thought so maybe there still is hope for PW after all.
BTW if i made any mistakes, please point them out so they can be corrected. Thanks