This Article Guide is about stocks because there are lots of misconceptions about what stocks are? what Stocks do? and how exactly Stocks work? by reading this article you’ll learn tips to equip your weapons faster and more useful details that nobody has ever really talked about.
If you put your stock on the right weapon you could be saving a lot of time and actually the right weapon is usually not what you think it will be so this could potentially save you intense fights where every second count so let’s talk about it.
What Stocks are used for?
both the sniper and standard stocks serve two functions to reduce aim drift and to improve handling speed aim drift simply means how much a move as you stay still whilst aiming down sights it’s to simulate breathing with bigger weapons and higher magnification scopes there’s more aim drift stocks can reduce that, stocks also improve handling speed this simply means how fast it is to switch that weapon.
first, let’s look at a handling speed because the biggest misconception lies there I will be testing how stocks change how weapons are equipped and unequipped.
to calculate this I started a timer from the frame the UI switched to the weapon to the frame we were able to fire first we had to test the stats with no attachments to get a base I used full auto weapons that way I could fire as soon as it was ready and there were no discrepancies where when clicking the mouse in the stats I found that actually the equip type isn’t based on what weapon you are equipping but the weapon you are equipping to.
for example, switching from an r301 to an R99 takes 0.43 this is longer than the not 0.36 seconds it takes to switch to an R301 from an R99 there’s a common misconception that smaller weapons have faster equip speeds it’s sort of true but actually, it’s more like this smaller weapons have faster-unequipped speeds.
this means it’s faster to switch from an R99 to a crabber than it is to switch from a crabber to an R 99 so straight away we’ve learned something if milliseconds matter the actually makes sense to start with your heavier weapons first and then use your lighter weapons as a backup we really are talking milliseconds.
What is the Best Stock to Use In Apex Legends
here though so this brings us to the next question what should the best stock go on for example if we have a purple stock should we put it on the SMG or the assault rifle this is an important question because the switch time is reduced for both weapons so in tests found something quite strange so first here is the swap time for no attachments now if you put a stock on the r301 you’re getting a 13.88% time reduction when switching to the r301 yet switching to the r99 has an even larger 16.27% reduction this is because we are reducing the unequipped time of the r301 by putting the purple stock on the r301 remember we’re talking about unequipped times here not equipped times now if we put the stock on the r 99 you are getting a 6.97% time reduction when switching to the r 99 yet when switching to the r301 you get a 13.88% reduction these may seem very confusing but let me keep explaining and you’ll understand.
so far we found that putting the purple stock on the r301 one the larger weapon gives us more of a reduction in time to equip both weapons this makes sense in a weird way there are two timers an unequipped timer and an equipped timer these stocks reduce the unequipped time so by putting a stock on the heavier weapon you are taking the same percentage of a larger timer which means you save more time we can prove this further by comparing the equip times of devotion and in our r99 when alternating which weapon has the stock if the theory is true a devotion unequip timer should be very big so adding stock to it instead of the r99 will see an even bigger time saving than the r301 and our r99 switch.
R301-> r99 Faster
let me clarify it will take longer to switch from a devotion to an r99 than it will to switch from an r301 print R99 but the time saving with the stock and the devotion will be far larger so the point I’m making here is if you put the stock on the lighter weapon when you have something like an LMG you’re going to be losing a lot of time when switching weapons.
if you put the purple stock on the devotion you get a huge 18.75 % time reduction when switching to the r99 and a decent 14.28% time reduction when switching to the devotion however with the stock on the r99 time reduction is almost non-existent in fact take a look at the stats here for there’s only a 6.25 % time reduction when switching to the r99and a tiny 2% time reduction when switching back to the devotion imagine all this time the entire community has been fooled at putting a purple stock on the r 99 will help to speed up the time to equip it but actually it’s completely wrong I mean a stock on an R 99 will help of course but if you put the better stock on your heavier weapon you’ll save so much more time it doesn’t even matter if you’re switching from the devotion to the r99 or the other way around if the time reduction is still improved massively when the stock is on the heavier weapon.
So to summarize
- always prioritize putting the stock on your heavier weapon.
- also, try to prioritize using your heavier weapon first and then switching to the lighter weapon.
- if you have the opportunity you can even save more time by equipping weapons from your fists that way you are cutting out the unequipped animation of your other weapon entirely it’s the unequipped animation that takes the most time.
so an alternative option could be that you still put the purple stock on say your R 99 but you just walk around with your fists and then pull it out when you need to but the downside to this is when you run out of ammo definitely going to be quicker to reload than it is to switch to the devotion with no stock.
now we’ve talked about weapon handling but stocks also serve another purpose to reduce aim drift thankfully the functionality is once again weighted towards providing more support for heavier weapons so let’s take a quick look at that so aim drift doesn’t change your recoil or your horizontal recoil in any way all it does is change how much sway there is.
So on something like an r99 it’s almost non-existent you can see it here but you’re never really going to see the benefit for aim drift on an SMG however on a sniper there’s a massive difference the aim drift is reduced quite considerably and in fact, hitting long-range shots without the sniper stock is surprisingly difficult.
also, a lot of aim drift on assault rifles especially when you have longer range scopes you can’t put standard stocks on snipers though so once again it makes more sense to put your stock on the assault rifles or LMGs to reduce aim drift because that’s where it matters most.
so in summary what have we learned today well contrary to what makes sense these stocks help to reduce unequipped I’m far more than the equipped type which means you will save far more time when placing your higher-level stocks on your heavier weapons although if you really want to save time you could put you’re stuck on your lighter weapons still and then engage with your fists out that way you can pull up your weapon and skip the unequipped time from the other weapon entirely on top of that stocks help with aim drift lighter weapons don’t have much and you’re never really going to use them at a distance where it becomes noticeable so that’s another reason for prioritizing our stocks on assault rifles and LMGs instead.
