Which weapons are bolstered by which skills?

Question

In Payday 2 there is a set of weapons and skills that you can get to improve certain aspects of their usage. What I can not find however is which weapons the skills affect and if there is any overlap. Some of the weapons are easy to tell, like the SMGs. But the rest seem like they could fall into two groups.

The skills break down as such:

• Equilibrium - Pistol
• Gunslinger - Pistol
• Kilmer - Assault Rifles
• Leadership - Pistols and All Weapons when Aced
• Shotgun Impact - Shotgun
• Shotgun CQB - Shotgun
• Hard Boiled - Shotgun and All Weapons when Aced
• Overkill - Shotgun, Saw and All Weapons when Aced
• Rifleman - Assault Rifles
• Sharpshooter - Single Shot Weapons and All Rifles when Aced
• Mag Plus - All Weapons
• Silent Killer - All Silenced Weapons
• The Professional - All Silenced Weapons

There are some of these that are obvious. What I am wondering though is about cross over. Are the single shot shotguns considered Single Shot weapons for the 'Unlocking the Sharpshooter' skill? Do pistols that are single shot count as single shot weapons? Is the M308 a single shot weapon only or will it gain the benefits of skills like Kilmer and Rifleman that affect assault rifles?

Answer 1

The following abilities will affect all weapons:

• Leadership (when Aced)
• Hard Boiled (when Aced)
• Overkill (when Aced)

The Mag Plus skill in tier 6 of the Technician tree increases magazine size for all weapons that do not have a fixed magazine size. This basically means "all weapons" excluding the Bronco (it's a revolver...) and the Mosconi 12G (it's a double barrel shotgun...).

In addition to the above, each class of weapons gets additional bonuses as follows;

Pistols

Pistols are affected by the abilities Equilibrium, Gunslinger, Leadership and (excluding the STRYK 18c) Sharpshooter. The pistols in game are as follows;

• Chimano 88
• Crosskill
• Bronco .44
• Bernetti 9
• STRYK 18c
• Deagle

All pistols are secondary weapons. Pistols fitted with silencers (the Bronco .44 cannot be fitted with a silencer) also pick up bonuses from Silent Killer and The Professional.

Shotguns

Shotguns are affected by the abilities Shot Impact, Shotgun CQB, Hard Boiled, Overkill and Sharpshooter. The shotguns in game are as follows;

• Reinfeld 880
• IZHMA 12G
• Mosconi 12G
• Locomotive 12G

All shotguns except the Locomotive 12G are primary weapons. It is possible to silence all of the shotguns apart from the Mosconi 12G, and doing so will pick up bonuses from Silent Killer and The Professional.

Submachine Guns

Submachine guns get bonuses from SMG Specialist, which can be aced to provide further bonuses. The submachine guns in game are as follows;

• Mark 10
• Compact-5
• Para
• CMP
• Krinkov
• Kobus 90

Submachine guns are secondary weapons. They can also be fitted with silencers allowing them to pick up bonuses from Silent Killer and The Professional.

Assault Rifles

Assault rifles are affected by the abilities Kilmer, Rifleman and Sharpshooter when aced. The M308 rifle is considered a single shot assault rifle due to its semi automatic nature. This means the M308 rifle picks up bonuses from Sharpshooter to reduce spread, in addition to the aced bonus.

The assault rifles in game are as follows;

• AMCAR
• AK
• CAR-4
• UAR
• JP36
• AK .762
• M308
• AK5
• AMR-16

Assault rifles are primary weapons and they can be fitted with silencers, allowing them to pick up bonuses from Silent Killer and The Professional.

Answer 2

I'd say that given the wording of the skills, it implies that the first skill applies to single shot rifles and the Aced skill applies to all rifles.

Logically speaking, the Aced skill would apply to a greater number of weapons than the standard skill. If the Aced skill applies to all rifles, you would assume that the standard skill applies to single shot rifles. As it covers a smaller scope of weapons than Aced, yet not outside the scope of those same weapons.

However, it's diffficult to determine what is a single shot weapon when you start discussing shotguns. I'm not too familiar with the weapons loadout, but what single shot weapons are there besides pistols, shotgun and the sniper rifle?