44 pistols are underwhelming

[A_Clever_Monocle]

I've been experimenting with point shot builds using the pisol early game I've been using the crossbow and versatility with the pistol as a sidearm.

The w&s worked fine for a while as did the wasteland hawk buth those atlre unique pistols and as such have fixed damadge.

The hammerer is the only frame compatable with 44 but its too damn erratic one minute your spitballing the other someone gets turned into bloody mush.

And then there are the lackluster criticals, it seems that whenever I get a crit off, its a low damadge shot.

Either fix the hammerer or add a new pistol frame optimized for higher calivers with a tighter damadge spread

[cypherusuh]

Pistol is infamous to be the worst firearm, but it's dominating-viable. At the very least, it's more viable than throwing knife build. You need max Dex + gunslinger + jkk armor to make it spammable, which increased the damage a lot. Sharpshooter and critical power helps a bit with your crit damage. Alternatively, you could use 9mm Falchion, which has better damage range and better crit chance

Also, keep in mind that it's possible to use chemical pistol, energy pistol, or even SMG in "pistoleer" build. Chem has a lot of great CC capability and you only need Cooked Shot feat, while energy works great on heavy armored enemies and it doesn't need any special feat (although you could use high-technicality if you have 8+ INT, and maybe Practical Physicist if you're going crit build)

[A_Clever_Monocle]

Oh im aware and thats fine for lower calibers (after all pistols are supposed to be blatantly inferior) Im hust disippointed by the lack of ompf that the 44 suffers from Its the one caliber that shouldn't be a total crapshoot

[cypherusuh]

Hammerer has vastly superior max damage, while having really wide damage gap, it's just the way it is. Alternatively, you could switch gear to SMG and use Tommy Gun, which uses .44,too

[ciox]

I've been shilling for a while for some kind of solution that lets you deal max damage under certain conditions, as a specific buff to weapons like the .44 hammerer, but I don't think devs are interested.
If you want pistols, go chem/energy to have the most fun.