Nothing wrong with playing on normal. I rather judge builds by how they perform compared to other builds. By that metric it's pretty difficult to see chemical pistols as anything but the weakest subgroup of an already weak weapon group.
that's where you are wrong my man, in my normal playthrough my chemical pistol build performs way better than my critical pistol build, the damage per shot in average is higher and there's just no comparing the cc potential, as both acid and fire gives me amazing kiting ability, with execute + Taser and the critical chance bonus that one perk gives me because fire in dark places, I encountered almost no difficulty once the build is complete in normal, while my pistol build has huge difficulty fighting large mob and enemy with high armor and robot enemies, I haven't had the chance to make a submachine gun main but I can't see how it outperforms chemical pistol, assault rifle is indeed better but I don't want to admit such brain dead and boring weapon exists, so gun-wise chemical pistol is actually my favorite, it is the only weapon that had a chance to kill Tanner after all.
