Help me appreciate chemical pistols

[Trashos]

I am currently trying a pistolero/grenadier build (with 1.0.4.17), and I have to say it is a lot of fun. I appreciate the simplicity of the 0.44 Hammerer, the crits of the plasma pistol, the stuns of the electrical pistol, and I love Execute too. Sometimes I use the laser pistol as well, eg when enemies have great mechanical resistance and the geometry of the situation doesn't  inspire me for electrical pistol use.

What I have trouble appreciating is the chemical pistols. I can find some utility in acid pistols and their entanglement. I also use them against metal armor. But incendiary and cryoliquid pistols have left me scratching my head. Specifically, I have not met any situations this far that would call for pyro/cryo guns.

Maybe part of the problem with pyro guns is the existence of pyro grenades. Throwing is a different skill altogether, but it is a support skill, and what pistolero doesn't use them? With cryo guns, I don't see the utility at all.

Do you guys have any advice on chemical pistols? I do not need them to be absolutely awesome to enjoy them, but they have to be at least situational if I am to carry them with me.

(My current build, I am at level 15, Hard difficulty: STR 3, DEX 10->11, AG 3, CON 5, PE 8->9, WILL 3, INT 8->9.
Skills: Guns, Throwing, Stealth, Hacking, Lockpicking, all Crafting skills, and partially Traps & Mercantile. Later I am going to max out Dodge too.
Feats: Gunslinger, Aimed Shot, Opportunist, Point Shot, Grenadier, High Technicalities, Cooked Shot, eXecute, Critical Power. The rest of them are going to be Three Pointer, Sharpshooter, and three out of Ambush, Uncanny Dodge, Quick Tinkering, Nimble, Mad Chemist, Practical Physicist)

[TheAverageGortsby]

Acid gives you roots, pyro gives you a good CC+DoT on living targets. Cryo is a little lackluster.  A pyro chem pistol is a nice supplement for those incendiary grenades.  Even if you get your throwing high enough to reliably put them where you want, you can't be certain that the targets will catch fire, so it sort of doubles up those chances for you.  If you've got a lot of movement points for some reason, cryo guns can be quite helpful with kiting strong melee enemies.

[Quidam Craft]

If you are ready to use a bit peculiar build with a chemical pistol, you can try my Crossbow-acid pistol build.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1662842028

It use the new versatility feat, and it's an hybrid build. But definitely, it work well. At least on hard I can guarantee you'll rock !

[mattu]

Quidam, that is quite an interesting hybrid build. I had kind of written off Versatility, but this is a clever use of it. I like it a lot.

You must be better at inventory management than I am; I don't think I could play a build that relied heavily on both traps and caltrops with 3 STR and no Pack Rathound.

[mattu]

Trashos, I've seen pyro pistols work to very good effect. They go well with Ambush. Setting living things on fire is a huge bonus. You can use a pyro pistol every round, unlike grenades. Porque no los dos?

[hilf]

Chemical guns may not be very strong initially but their power grows fast, compared to other weapons.
They not only get more damage but also chance for special effects and % of damage as DOT (acid and pyro). And attack speed if you choose to raise DEX which is something i recommend. Chance to proc just goes well with attack speed.

At 16 DEX and Adv. Catalyzing Belt one attack costs 12 AP so it's 4 attacks per turn. At this point chemguns are just awesome, although it comes late - 20th lvl if you put all into DEX and eat eel sandwich.
Looks like you won't be able to get your DEX that high but with Point Shot you'll be able to shoot 4 timer per turn with less.

You'd be mad not to take Mad Chemist. Its bonus is really good, especially for pyro and cryo pistols.

Do you have Adv. Catalyzing Belt already? It improves chem pistols greatly.

As for situations where pyro is good - Goliathus beetle with Pseudo Spatial Projection active. Fire Cooked shot at it and there's big chance it will catch fire. If it won't die from burning then at least its 'Mirror Image' will be wasted.
At your level you should be able to craft pyro pistol with capped proc chance - 85%.

Cooked Shot works like an explosion so its chance to hit does not depend on enemy dodge/evasion. Crawlers and Death Stalkers do not like it.

Cryo pistol lags behind others, i wasn't using it before i got Mad Chemist, but it eventually catches up. That extra turn of freeze is big.

[jubisloviu]

You should try the cryo pistols with mad chemist.
a decent one has over 50% chance to freeze anybody for 2 turns, with some dex/the chemical pistol belt you could create chokepoints everywhere with frozen enemies.
plus cooked shot, it's a amazing attack that works wonders to catch enemies with high dodge/evasion
also works to freeze a bunch of enemies clumped together.
There's also incendiary pistols wich i find better to use with execute because it boosts the damage the enemies take from burning.

[Quidam Craft]

Quidam, that is quite an interesting hybrid build. I had kind of written off Versatility, but this is a clever use of it. I like it a lot.

You must be better at inventory management than I am; I don't think I could play a build that relied heavily on both traps and caltrops with 3 STR and no Pack Rathound.

Thanks for the feedback

I have to admit that I finaly took packrathound at level 20, before going deep cavern. You could swap Quick pockets and packrat at level 12 also.

The thing is, you'll need less caltrops and bear traps since cooked shot will do most of the work, I only use traps and quick tinkering as a Last resort. Or if I kinda know that a fight will be hard, and prepare for the battle.

About inventory management, caltrops are really unexpensive, I kinda put stack of caltrops in container around the map (and use the notes in the global map to remember the position of my stashes) and I do not hesitate to get rid of my caltrops if I go over the weight limit.

[Trashos]

All right, some good points were made here. I am convinced that I should give the incendiary pistol a fair chance. And yes, I am going to pick Mad Chemist. Let's try it, why not.

I am still unsure about taking Ambush (have never tried it- sounds too situational for a feat and I still have many good feats to take), but I can see how it could work well with the incendiary pistol.

The build I posted in the OP is my third consecutive try at a pistol build. The first try was a mess, the second try was better but was designed around Steadfast Aim which I regretted, and my current run is the third. My DEX is 11 because that's decent enough for all types of pistols, and allowed me to have high INT for the skill points and High Technicalities. At L16 the point went to PE (for accuracy, damage and Sharpshooter). I am going to think about the 2 future ability points at L20 & 24, but they will probably go into CON for further survivability.

If I am happy with Chem weapons after this playthrough, my fourth try may feature DEX 14 to shoot them 4 times/turn. I am still not totally convinced that my AP are not better spent on energy pistols. I am convinced, however, to give chem pistols a fair chance. If  Iam happy with at least two of the chemical pistols, that's going to be good enough.

[Quidam Craft]

One other reason I could add in favor of chemical pistol is that it bypass most of the enemies defense.

It's a low speed projectile, it tend to work well against energy shield even the one that are specialized against low speed projectile.
If you forget about mutants, almost no kind of enemies have proper acid protection. Laying acid on the ground also do extra damages (very usefull against burrower spawn for instan)

Acid gun works wonder against burrowers, bladeling, bots of any kind, guys in metal armor or any melee character thanks to entanglement.

Flame gun works wonder against spiders, crawler, mutants.

So basicaly, damages are high and most enemies do not have the means to protect themself from these damage type.


The damage bonus you get from the chemical belt is also intresting, mostly with the flame gun if you also use incendary grenades.

[TheAverageGortsby]

Oh, and I know this is situational but I just want to add, my favorite use of pyro gun (not its best use, mind, just my favorite) is in the Arena fighting gladiators on Dominating.  If you can keep refreshing the DoT, keep them on fire so their panic debuff never drops and gets replaced with Aphobia, you can set those 2000+ health enemies on fire and chase them around the arena for ten turns, relighting them again and again as they flail and eventually burn to death.

Turn off game sounds, tab out, and play The Prodigy's Firestarter in the background, for maximum effect.

[Trashos]

Oh, I think I see the chemical weapons' appeal more clearly now, Average Gortsby.

Quidam Craft, yes, combining pyro pistol with pyro grenades seems like a good plan. I have also been considering combining the other two chem pistols with gas grenades. Maybe throw a gas grenade and then invite the enemies to pass through it, while I am shooting them with the corresponding pistol. Could be a good plan against multiple enemies, but I have yet to try it.

In other news, I have been using the pyro gun and it is indeed very good against the right enemies. Destroys psi beetles and humans without heat protection. Much better than I thought it would be!