 Akimbo |
Fugitive: Gunslinger | Tier 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Basic (2 pt): Your Akimbo weapons' stability penalty is reduced by 8. | ||
| Ace (4 pt): Your Akimbo weapons' stability penalty is reduced by an additional 8 and they also have a 50% increased ammo capacity. | ||
Akimbo |
Fugitive | Tier 6 |
|---|---|---|
| Basic (4 pt): You can dual wield two weapons. These can be found under the Akimbo tab in the inventory menu.Dual wielded weapons have 50% stability penalty. | ||
| Ace (8 pt): Your stability penalty with Akimbo weapons is set to 25% and increases the ammo capacity of your Akimbo weapons to 150%. | ||
Mechanics
Player wielding 2 modified Crosskills under the effects of Akimbo/Ambidexterity.
Akimbo is technically the improved Skill version of the Ambidexterity and Tooth and Claw perks (without the armor recovery and reduction effect of the latter), with additional 25% bonuses to akimbo weapons's Stability and total ammo.
As of Update 46, weapons granted by this skill are now affected by or can trigger Leadership, Equilibrium, Gunslinger, and Pistol Messiah. Note that the damage increase provided by Gunslinger is reduced to +7.5 Damage, to account for the fact that Akimbo Weapons fire twice per trigger pull rather than once.
The skill Trigger Happy cannot be triggered by Akimbo Weapons, but they can benefit from the damage boost it provides.
Strategy
Gameplay-wise, Akimbo is more effective compared to its two perk counterparts, as the bonuses it confers to dual-wielding are superior, does not reduce the player's total armor value and (once purchased) is always active regardless of the currently equipped perk deck, though it also does not provide the 10% armor recovery rate increase of Tooth and Claw. It also can be used in combination with Equilibrium and the Rogue Perk Deck, which allows you to switch between pistols for maximum combat efficiency.
Granted, the perk version has certain advantages over its counterpart, as it is not reset upon the player entering Infamy, can be unlocked much earlier (depending on where and how the player invested their perk points) and does not require a huge amount of skillpoint to reach, buy and subsequently acing. The only other downside to using the Tooth and Claw version is that one must equip the Hitman perk deck at all times if they were to actively use Akimbo weapons. It is not recommended to have both akimbo aced and the Hitman deck, since the highest stability penalty applies to the weapon (if you have Akimbo aced and Ambidexterity but not Tooth and Claw, the stability penalty will be 75%)
It is recommended that one focuses on using Akimbo weapons and uses a Fugitive-centric build should they decide to purchase (and subsequently ace) the skill at all due to it not offering any bonuses to single-wielded weapons and due to it being a Tier 6 skill, the amount of skill point spent leading up to it is very large, and can leave the player lopsided should they decide to invest in the other trees as well.
Low Blow is highly recommended in combination with this skill, as Akimbo Weapons can be kept highly concealed and receive a tremendous damage boost via Critcal Hits.
Compatible weapons
Trivia
- The term Akimbo did not originally refer to the practice of dual-wielding weapons, but rather a standing pose in which the hands are placed on the hips with the elbows bent, naturally. It was not until the success of the 1998 Quake II mod Action Quake 2, whose association of the word with dual pistols popularized the term, that it gained the meaning we now see.
- In addition, the general association of "akimbo" as dual-wielding a firearm extends even further back to the Guns Akimbo power-up from Monolith's Blood, released in May '97, an entire year prior to Action Quake 2.
- Players wielding Akimbo weapons will only hold one of the two guns when posing in the main menu screen. This is the only way for one to wield a pistol in their right hand, as usually all secondary weapons are held off-handed.
