Tiers 5-6

Tier 5

Basic (4 pt): Increases your shotgun weapon accuracy by 20% when firing from the hip.



Ace (8 pt): Increases your weapon accuracy by 20% when firing from the hip with all weapons.

Basic (4 pt): You total ammo capacity is increased by 25%.



Ace (8 pt): Enemies drop 75% more ammunition.

Basic (4 pt): Unlocks the OVE9000 portable saw for you to use.



Ace (8 pt): Increases your saw blade amount by 1.

Tier 6

Basic (4 pt): When you kill an enemy using a shotgun or saw, you receive a 75% damage bonus for 5 seconds.



Ace (8 pt): The damage bonus now applies to all weapons, but the effect must still be triggered with the shotgun or saw.

Basic (4 pt): Unlocks the ability for you to wear the Improved Combined Tactical Vest.



Ace (8 pt): When you melee Shield enemies, they get knocked back by the sheer force. Run and shoot – you can now shoot from the hip while sprinting.

Basic (4 pt): You replace your saw blades with carbon blades, increasing your saw efficiency by 20%.



Ace (8 pt): Attacking enemies with the OVE9000 portable saw wears it down 50% less than before. Saws are 20% more effective.

While shotguns accuracy from the hip is helpful, it's only one of the few weapons that can accurately be fired from the hip, as most other weapons should be shot through steel sight, unless you're just spraying and praying. Ace is just 8 points to waste, while Basic is situational; take if you need the accuracy.Basic is a very useful skill as it means you're less reliant on ammo bags and ammo drops and also gives you the flexibility on firing since you have the extra bullets. Also synergies well with ammo bags since ammo bags restore based on your total ammo. Ace is not worth 8 points; it means you get 2 bullets instead of 1, but you should have plenty of ammo bags and extra ammunition so long as you aren't just wasting bullets.Basic is one of the most useful weapons in the game; the Portable Saw can be used in many missions such as bank heists as well as escape missions (like Garage Escape) to access shortcuts. The only problem though is that it replaces your primary weapon, so you have to take a powerful secondary that you can rely on if you take the saw. While Ace increases the saw blade amount, it's not always needed; you should take your ammo bags and that should be enough ammo to fuel your saw in most bank heists and the 8 points can be put elsewhere. If you feel like you want the extra blade, take the ace.Half of this skill should never be used; killing with a saw. Using the saw as a melee weapon is such a bad idea, since you have to be in melee range and you will use up all the saw blade so quickly. Using a shotgun and getting the damage boost is pretty helpful since you can go on a rampage quite often (and if you take Shotgun Impact, you can be doing over 100% damage) so it's your choice. Ace is also more of a gimmick since it means you will have to switch back to your shotgun every few seconds so you're much better off just staying on your shotgun which means you can save your 8 points.Basic gives you the most powerful armor - Improved Combined Tactical Vest. This vest has the highest armor at 170 and also reduces your speed to a crawl. This is a good skill for people who just want to go gun heavy and shoot everything that moves; it gives your more time shooting since you're going to take less damage. Ace on the other hand is a dangerous skill; 8 points to be able to melee shield, which will certainly come in handy in a lot of missions since shields can single-handely ruin a mission, and the shoot from the hip is just icing on the cake. Your call if you ace it. Also, this skill also synergies extremely well with Bulletproof giving you a huge amount of armor so consider that if you're going into the technician tree.This skill should almost always be avoided; Aced doesn't provide anything that can be justified for 8 points; less wear down when attacking enemies shouldn't happen since you shouldn't really be sawing people except for the occasional bulldozer, and the saw efficiency is about the rate the blades wear down and from some tests done, it will only save you about 2 ammo bag uses over the course of a opening a full bank heist vault. Stick with Ammunition Specialist and that should bethan enough.