Chemical/energy pistols

[Sanger]

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.

I'm sorry, but no chemical pistol arrangement can even come close to competing with a .44 Hammerer. The latter accepts a rapid reloader and takes advantage of Gunslinger, meaning its AP cost is lower than a chemical pistol (22.6 vs 25); at the same time it has 3-4 times the maximum damage of any chemical pistol, it has a higher critical chance and higher critical damage, and it can accept a smart module and use Rapid Fire, both of which make it far better at deleting large targets. With a chemical pistol you're trading off all of that for inconsistent single target CC (46% chance to entangle on acid blob pistols with a QL130 dispenser - seriously?), and damage over time that typically won't bring the total damage per shot of the weapon in line with a .44 even if it does take effect.

If you want to argue that chemical pistols are less boring for you to play with than firearms then that's one thing (I would rather use molotovs and flashbangs for CC and use my pistols to kill stuff, personally), but you cannot argue that they're even in the same league when it comes to power, the numbers simply don't agree. If you found otherwise then you were using firearms wrong.

SMGs are as far above .44s as .44s are above chemical pistols. SMG builds have higher damage output than AR builds.

Edit: There is actually one chemical pistol in the game that almost approaches the power of a firearm, which is the XAL-001 unique. It deals 25-35 damage at base 16 AP per shot. It still falls somewhat short of the power of a late-game .44, and it carries a penalty that requires a particular equipment setup to offset, but nonetheless if you're interested in chemical pistols it's a good idea to keep and use it, as unfortunately you will never craft anything anywhere near as good.

[belial12]

I'm sorry, but no chemical pistol arrangement can even come close to competing with a .44 Hammerer. The latter accepts a rapid reloader and takes advantage of Gunslinger, meaning its AP cost is lower than a chemical pistol (22.6 vs 25); at the same time it has 3-4 times the maximum damage of any chemical pistol, it has a higher critical chance and higher critical damage, and it can accept a smart module and use Rapid Fire, both of which make it far better at deleting large targets. With a chemical pistol you're trading off all of that for inconsistent single target CC (46% chance to entangle on acid blob pistols with a QL130 dispenser - seriously?), and damage over time that typically won't bring the total damage per shot of the weapon in line with a .44 even if it does take effect.

If you want to argue that chemical pistols are less boring for you to play with than firearms then that's one thing (I would rather use molotovs and flashbangs for CC and use my pistols to kill stuff, personally), but you cannot argue that they're even in the same league when it comes to power, the numbers simply don't agree. If you found otherwise then you were using firearms wrong.

SMGs are as far above .44s as .44s are above chemical pistols. SMG builds have higher damage output than AR builds.

Edit: There is actually one chemical pistol in the game that almost approaches the power of a firearm, which is the XAL-001 unique. It deals 25-35 damage at base 16 AP per shot. It still falls somewhat short of the power of a late-game .44, and it carries a penalty that requires a particular equipment setup to offset, but nonetheless if you're interested in chemical pistols it's a good idea to keep and use it, as unfortunately you will never craft anything anywhere near as good.

not even in the same league! so are you just going to ignore my point about the ambush perk which will put the chemical pistol's critical chance even above that of a hammer's, and using acid pistol's stats when fire pistol's on hit chance is much stronger, with a 85% chance of 350% of the base damage with mad chemist perk with just 100 quality components, never mind the cc from burning and the fact it's fire damage, the number is just not agreeing with both of your facts that 1. chemical pistol don't trigger enough, and 2. the critical chance is higher than that of a chemical pistols. I also would like to point out that as the average damage of hammer is roughly about 2 times that of a acid chemical pistols and 3 times that of a fire pistols ignore both the on hit effect and the enemy armor type, counting the on hit effect the damage per shot is about the same if counting mad chemist. you could argue the addition of a smart module puts the damage per shot of the hammer with special attacks at about 50% more, and that's certainly a valid point, but I'd argue the cc of the chemical pistol and the armor bypassing nature of it makes it worth the 50% less damage part, I'd also like to talk about corrosive acid but that's really nitpicking, it's certainly not leagues below that of a hammer 0.44.

the reason why I prefer a custom one over the XAL-001 is that it triggers on hit effect around 10% and less depending on the quality of your hand made acid pistols, and I only keep acid pistols around for the on hit effect, with mad chemist perk and the fact that I need that one particular suit from that one questline makes it not worth it for me, I could definitely see it working better with a custom fire chemical pistol though.

I wasn't aware that SMG out damages AR, that's a good point there.

[MirddinEmris]

not even in the same league! so are you just going to ignore my point about the ambush perk which will put the chemical pistol's critical chance even above that of a hammer's

Ambush is not exclusive for chemical pistols. It's even easier to use with throwing molotovs then shooting from a pistol, than with chemical pistols.

Let's see numbers. We have a hammerer pistol with 132 quality frame and incendiary pistol with 133 quality collector and 125 quality dispenser. We have both gun nut and mad chemist. Hammerer does 19-100 damage (60 avg), chemical pisto does 15-25 (20 avg), so there is 3 times the damage. The on hit effect for  a chem pistol is 85% chance to set target on fire dealing 416% damage in two turns. The problem with later is that while this damage is ongoing the target can still attack you. Damage over time is less valuable than direct damage. Then we have the ability to put +50% damage on special attacks on hammerer, and then either +10% accuracy (which also will affect damage per round) or extended magazine (AP economy). We have none of those options for chemical pistol. Then we have the fact that hammerer has range 10 (7 optimal), while incendiary has range of 7 (4 optimal), meaning that you have a lot more flexibility with hammerer than you have with chemical. Accuracy drop from shorter ranges affects dpr too. Then we have the fact that hammerer has crit chance/bonus of 7/125 while chemical has 4/100. Then we have some special feats for firearms, like Gunslinger that does -3 AP per shot and increases initiative by 7 while wielding a regular pistol.

With firearm you also have special ammo, like W2C when you need to deal with mech resist and JPH to increase your damage when target has low mech resist. Explosive bullets also very good and increase your overall damage when you need it.

[Sanger]

not even in the same league! so are you just going to ignore my point about the ambush perk which will put the chemical pistol's critical chance even above that of a hammer's, and using acid pistol's stats when fire pistol's on hit chance is much stronger, with a 85% chance of 350% of the base damage with mad chemist perk with just 100 quality components, never mind the cc from burning and the fact it's fire damage, the number is just not agreeing with both of your facts that 1. chemical pistol don't trigger enough, and 2. the critical chance is higher than that of a chemical pistols. I also would like to point out that as the average damage of hammer is roughly about 2 times that of a acid chemical pistols and 3 times that of a fire pistols ignore both the on hit effect and the enemy armor type, counting the on hit effect the damage per shot is about the same if counting mad chemist. you could argue the addition of a smart module puts the damage per shot of the hammer with special attacks at about 50% more, and that's certainly a valid point, but I'd argue the cc of the chemical pistol and the armor bypassing nature of it makes it worth the 50% less damage part, I'd also like to talk about corrosive acid but that's really nitpicking, it's certainly not leagues below that of a hammer 0.44.

I ignored your point about Ambush because as MirddinEmris noted, anyone can make use of Ambush with incendiary grenades if they wish to. It's not an advantage that chemical pistols have over anything else.

I'll add one more thing to the figures mentioned above, specifically about why the damage over time from a incendiary pistol is inferior to the direct damage of a .44: the former doesn't stack. The damage doesn't get added onto, the effect doesn't last longer or even get reset - the ticks of the initial effect just keep running down with no subsequent shot affecting them in any way at all. That's particularly relevant since you brought up Ambush, because unless you illuminate your targets in some other way before you begin shooting, the situation will typically be that you shoot a target, set it on fire, and then it will take paltry damage over the next two turns from your initial non-critical shot whilst the criticals you inflict on it now that it's burning aren't able to take advantage of the damage over time bonus on the weapon. I almost consider this to be a bug. Though I do understand why it works this way, it's because the fear and damage over time effects of the burning status are rolled into the one thing, and if you could reapply a burning status it could keep an enemy indefinitely feared.

[belial12]

not even in the same league! so are you just going to ignore my point about the ambush perk which will put the chemical pistol's critical chance even above that of a hammer's

Ambush is not exclusive for chemical pistols. It's even easier to use with throwing molotovs then shooting from a pistol, than with chemical pistols.

Let's see numbers. We have a hammerer pistol with 132 quality frame and incendiary pistol with 133 quality collector and 125 quality dispenser. We have both gun nut and mad chemist. Hammerer does 19-100 damage (60 avg), chemical pisto does 15-25 (20 avg), so there is 3 times the damage. The on hit effect for  a chem pistol is 85% chance to set target on fire dealing 416% damage in two turns. The problem with later is that while this damage is ongoing the target can still attack you. Damage over time is less valuable than direct damage. Then we have the ability to put +50% damage on special attacks on hammerer, and then either +10% accuracy (which also will affect damage per round) or extended magazine (AP economy). We have none of those options for chemical pistol. Then we have the fact that hammerer has range 10 (7 optimal), while incendiary has range of 7 (4 optimal), meaning that you have a lot more flexibility with hammerer than you have with chemical. Accuracy drop from shorter ranges affects dpr too. Then we have the fact that hammerer has crit chance/bonus of 7/125 while chemical has 4/100. Then we have some special feats for firearms, like Gunslinger that does -3 AP per shot and increases initiative by 7 while wielding a regular pistol.

With firearm you also have special ammo, like W2C when you need to deal with mech resist and JPH to increase your damage when target has low mech resist. Explosive bullets also very good and increase your overall damage when you need it.

since we are talking about the weapon itself instead of build, anything outside of that particular weapon is irrelevant, as I can also counter the low damage of chemical pistol by saying the damage can be easily made up by an off hand SMG.

you are correct that the initial damage of the 0.44 pistol is about 3 times that of a chemical pistols, but the original statement that I replied to said the maximum damage, so my point still stands that the original statement is incorrect counting the on hit effect of chemical pistol.

you are also correct that initial damage is preferred over dot damage, and that 0.44 out class chemical pistol over this aspect, and there's no way I can argue otherwise with the existence of smart module, but I feel the difference in direct damage is not flexible when compared to chemical pistol, as the damage of the on hit effect bypass BOTH shield and most armor, the majority damage coming from on hit effect, with very useful effects like entangle and fear that make some fights trivial compared to 0.44, one fight that I can think of is the carnifex fight.

pistol indeed have special ammos for different situation, but the bypass nature from the chemical pistol is still preferred over, say, W2C, chemical pistol also has corrosive acid that's very useful for the endgame boss and possibly the next expansion.

chemical pistol outperforms the pistol, particularly the 0.44 over some areas while underperform on others, I could accept that 0.44 has more general application, I strongly disagree that they are not even in the same league.

[belial12]

I ignored your point about Ambush because as MirddinEmris noted, anyone can make use of Ambush with incendiary grenades if they wish to. It's not an advantage that chemical pistols have over anything else.

I'll add one more thing to the figures mentioned above, specifically about why the damage over time from a incendiary pistol is inferior to the direct damage of a .44: the former doesn't stack. The damage doesn't get added onto, the effect doesn't last longer or even get reset - the ticks of the initial effect just keep running down with no subsequent shot affecting them in any way at all. That's particularly relevant since you brought up Ambush, because unless you illuminate your targets in some other way before you begin shooting, the situation will typically be that you shoot a target, set it on fire, and then it will take paltry damage over the next two turns from your initial non-critical shot whilst the criticals you inflict on it now that it's burning aren't able to take advantage of the damage over time bonus on the weapon. I almost consider this to be a bug. Though I do understand why it works this way, it's because the fear and damage over time effects of the burning status are rolled into the one thing, and if you could reapply a burning status it could keep an enemy indefinitely feared.

your point about incendiary grenades is addressed.

you are correct that the on hit effect of the fire don't stack, that's why it's necessary for me to equip another acid pistol with a higher base damage and on hit effect, but as you said fear is a very op status, and typically when you are facing a mob you really just want to shoot them once.

[destroyor]

You guys sure ambush works w/ grenades? The description said ranged weapon and off hand I don't remember nade criting with "Ambush!" sign in my game plays.

[Fenix]

belial12 made a interesting points about chem pistols, so in my eyes they goes from "completely useless" to "actually worth to try", thanks you.

[MirddinEmris]

You guys sure ambush works w/ grenades? The description said ranged weapon and off hand I don't remember nade criting with "Ambush!" sign in my game plays.

I don't think it does. I was talking about making lighted area with molotovs, then using regular weapon.

since we are talking about the weapon itself instead of build, anything outside of that particular weapon is irrelevant, as I can also counter the low damage of chemical pistol by saying the damage can be easily made up by an off hand SMG.

Talking about weapon while not talking about how it plays in the actual game is pointless. And if you are using SMG, you are better off using it as main weapon instead of chemical pistol. Greandes are supplementary weapons, they have their own slots and all you need to use them is good DEX and couple points in throwing. I'm not saying that regular pistol is better then chem because you can use grenades. I'm saying that grenades are far superior to incendiary pistol when it comes to activating Ambush, so having this pistol on your hand is not really an advantage.

you are correct that the initial damage of the 0.44 pistol is about 3 times that of a chemical pistols, but the original statement that I replied to said the maximum damage, so my point still stands that the original statement is incorrect counting the on hit effect of chemical pistol.

Don't really see what your point is here. I was just providing numbers to compare those two and hammerer is just superior in EVERY way. Also, that means that your original statement is wrong, because maximum damage is more than 2-3 times higher. It's 4 times higher.

but I feel the difference in direct damage is not flexible when compared to chemical pistol, as the damage of the on hit effect bypass BOTH shield and most armor, the majority damage coming from on hit effect, with very useful effects like entangle and fear that make some fights trivial compared to 0.44, one fight that I can think of is the carnifex fight.

While chemical pistol build has it's enemies entangled and on fire, regular pistol build has it's enemies dead. I don't think i need to explain why later is better.

pistol indeed have special ammos for different situation, but the bypass nature from the chemical pistol is still preferred over, say, W2C, chemical pistol also has corrosive acid that's very useful for the endgame boss and possibly the next expansion.

W2C reduce mechanical resist by 65%. In vast majority of cases it makes this resistance negligible. 10-20% resistance is not enough to put chemical pistols ahead. Maybe you should compare actual numbers instead of intuitively gauging it? Like i did.

Regular pistol build has access to it's ammo for 95% of the game. Corrosive acid is something you get at the endgame only. Also, unlike regular pistol with W2C, chemical pistols loose most of their precious dot when fighting final boss. So i don't think they have any advantage in this fight, since even without any resistance we have an enemy with 2k health and damage form chem pistols is not even close to regular or energy ones.

[Sanger]

You guys sure ambush works w/ grenades? The description said ranged weapon and off hand I don't remember nade criting with "Ambush!" sign in my game plays.

It doesn't; the point is that you can use an incendiary grenade to illuminate targets for Ambush, so anyone can make use of the feat, not just people with incendiary pistols.

your point about incendiary grenades is addressed.

Denying the validity of using utilities to set up ambush situations is somewhat absurd, I think you're just withdrawing into a strict weapon vs weapon position to try to make your argument more tenable. Lots of builds use Ambush without access to an item that goes in a weapon slot and can set things on fire, that doesn't make use of Ambush an invalid consideration in the effectiveness of those builds. The question is, which weapon makes better use of Ambush, a chemical pistol or a firearm? You can illuminate multiple targets at once with a utility rather than wasting shots doing it one at a time with an incendiary pistol, and the .44 can deliver much more devastating criticals than any chemical pistol.

the original statement that I replied to said the maximum damage, so my point still stands that the original statement is incorrect counting the on hit effect of chemical pistol.

You should reread that statement. It says that with a chemical pistol you're trading 3-4 times the maximum damage for damage over time. It also says that even with damage over time accounted for, the weapon can't match the average damage that a .44 would have dealt immediately. I'll concede that I was specifically talking about acid blob pistols in that case and didn't specify. Since you're still insisting that acid blob pistols are worthwhile, here's a bit more number crunching, all components QL130:



Here's the acid blob pistol itself, since its on hit effects don't show up in combat stats:



We'll just look at standard shots, no criticals/specials - those would skew the figures way out in favour of the .44. The .44 averages 143 damage per shot. The acid blob pistol averages 63 damage per shot. If the acid blob pistol's on hit effect occurs, and if it is allowed to deliver all of its delayed damage over the subsequent 2 rounds, its average goes up to around 208 damage per shot. Its on hit effect occurs 46% of the time. 46% of 208 plus 54% of 63 equals around 130 damage per shot on average.

In other words if you are willing to juggle enemies to avoid wasted damage from lack of proper effect stacking, and willing to let them die over a period of three rounds rather than immediately, you can squeeze almost as much as the average damage of a .44 out of an acid blob pistol with a standard shot.

So what do you actually get for using the thing? Well, you get acid entanglement, and you get acid damage. You seem to value the latter very highly; I don't, I've found the ability to switch between JHP and W2C rounds much more valuable than the ability to switch between damage types, because I would rather be able to mitigate (or punish a lack of) resistances to my primary weapons's damage type than have to switch to another weapon depending on the target's resistances. The choice ultimately comes down to single-target CC, or higher damage/stronger criticals/stronger special attacks. I can't possibly see a case for the acid blob pistol in those terms, as its on hit chance is always too low; even with a QL150 dispenser it's a coin flip, which is simply not good enough for a single target weapon that is so weak in every other area.

very useful effects like entangle and fear that make some fights trivial compared to 0.44, one fight that I can think of is the carnifex fight.

You don't say?

[MirddinEmris]

It seems that hammerer has less AP per shot. 17 AP per shot for strictly inferior pistol is just...sad. It's like it's teasing you with "almost three shots per round" thing. So, in one round you can squeeze 1 more shot more from a hammerer than you can from acid pistol. How acid pistol can be considered "more flexible" is just beyond me.

Also, Carnifex fight is one fight where having more initiative is your best advantage. So, having +7 initiative from Gunslinger is WAY better than anything chemical pistols can bring to the table.

[Sanger]

As a show of good faith here's the stats on a QL130 incendiary pistol, also; they do compare much more favourably to other weapons than the acid blob pistol.





48.5 average damage per shot, but the on hit effect is much better than the acid blob pistol. It's 247 average damage per shot over three turns when it inflicts burning, and that occurs with basically double the frequency of acid entanglement. Total average is about 217 damage per shot. Between its much higher damage over time and its fear effect, that would almost turn this weapon into the electroshock pistol of the chemical pistol world, except for a couple of things - firstly, fire damage isn't particularly good, with every robotic enemy highly resistant to it and half of them immune to burning, every other human opponent equipped with antithermic armour and likewise immune to burning, etc. Secondly, as mentioned, the game has no handling for the stacking of the burn effect (even acid entanglement handles it by refreshing the effect with the new damage value applied; burning just ignores subsequent applications entirely), which is a huge problem and in my opinion needs fixing - the fear and damage effects of the burning status should be separated into one visible and one invisible effect, and further applications of burning should either increase the damage inflicted in subsequent rounds, extend the number of rounds the target burns, or some combination of the two. As it is, there is no way to focus fire on a single target with chemical pistols, you just lose a tonne of damage by doing so.

It seems that hammerer has less AP per shot. 17 AP per shot for strictly inferior pistol is just...sad. It's like it's teasing you with "almost three shots per round" thing. So, in one round you can squeeze 1 more shot more from a hammerer than you can from acid pistol. How acid pistol can be considered "more flexible" is just beyond me.

Yes, this is a problem I have with energy pistols also. I find it ridiculous that even the most heavy-hitting firearm can still shoot faster than much weaker chemical and energy pistols because there are just no equivalent options for reducing AP cost/firing more shots with non-firearm weapons. Even if you could squeeze every last bit of delayed damage out of every shot from an incendiary pistol, it would still barely match the direct damage of a .44 using Rapid Fire in terms of standard shots (217 times 4 vs 143 times 6).

I should probably say, I am not 'rooting' for firearms to be more awesome than anything else. I don't want them to be, I want everything to be well-balanced. But I don't see how you could look at the way things are now and see them as balanced. (Although in saying that, Styg will probably nerf regular pistols again now )

[belial12]

since we are talking about the weapon itself instead of build, anything outside of that particular weapon is irrelevant, as I can also counter the low damage of chemical pistol by saying the damage can be easily made up by an off hand SMG.

Talking about weapon while not talking about how it plays in the actual game is pointless. And if you are using SMG, you are better off using it as main weapon instead of chemical pistol. Greandes are supplementary weapons, they have their own slots and all you need to use them is good DEX and couple points in throwing. I'm not saying that regular pistol is better then chem because you can use grenades. I'm saying that grenades are far superior to incendiary pistol when it comes to activating Ambush, so having this pistol on your hand is not really an advantage.

you are correct that the initial damage of the 0.44 pistol is about 3 times that of a chemical pistols, but the original statement that I replied to said the maximum damage, so my point still stands that the original statement is incorrect counting the on hit effect of chemical pistol.

Don't really see what your point is here. I was just providing numbers to compare those two and hammerer is just superior in EVERY way. Also, that means that your original statement is wrong, because maximum damage is more than 2-3 times higher. It's 4 times higher.

but I feel the difference in direct damage is not flexible when compared to chemical pistol, as the damage of the on hit effect bypass BOTH shield and most armor, the majority damage coming from on hit effect, with very useful effects like entangle and fear that make some fights trivial compared to 0.44, one fight that I can think of is the carnifex fight.

While chemical pistol build has it's enemies entangled and on fire, regular pistol build has it's enemies dead. I don't think i need to explain why later is better.

pistol indeed have special ammos for different situation, but the bypass nature from the chemical pistol is still preferred over, say, W2C, chemical pistol also has corrosive acid that's very useful for the endgame boss and possibly the next expansion.

W2C reduce mechanical resist by 65%. In vast majority of cases it makes this resistance negligible. 10-20% resistance is not enough to put chemical pistols ahead. Maybe you should compare actual numbers instead of intuitively gauging it? Like i did.

Regular pistol build has access to it's ammo for 95% of the game. Corrosive acid is something you get at the endgame only. Also, unlike regular pistol with W2C, chemical pistols loose most of their precious dot when fighting final boss. So i don't think they have any advantage in this fight, since even without any resistance we have an enemy with 2k health and damage form chem pistols is not even close to regular or energy ones.

grenades are far superior than the fire chemical pistol? I think you need the elaborate more on that, as both the proc chance and damage is lower, and I'm also not sure if it trigger ambush as maybe the fire on the ground counts as a light source and thus nullify the effect, could someone clarify?

4 times the overall damage? could you show me your calculation? I suspect you are confusing initial damage vs overall damage.

once you got an enemy entangled and set on fire, they might as well be dead, so I think you and I both agree that we want our enemy dead.

I made no such statements that chemical pistol is a overall better weapon than the pistol, only that the w2c is inferior to the by pass nature of the chemical pistol, which you did not address.

[belial12]

As a show of good faith here's the stats on a QL130 incendiary pistol, also; they do compare much more favourably to other weapons than the acid blob pistol.



48.5 average damage per shot, but the on hit effect is much better than the acid blob pistol. It's 247 average damage per shot over three turns when it inflicts burning, and that occurs with basically double the frequency of acid entanglement. Total average is about 217 damage per shot. Between its much higher damage over time and its fear effect, that would almost turn this weapon into the electroshock pistol of the chemical pistol world, except for a couple of things - firstly, fire damage isn't particularly good, with every robotic enemy highly resistant to it and half of them immune to burning, every other human opponent equipped with antithermic armour and likewise immune to burning, etc. Secondly, as mentioned, the game has no handling for the stacking of the burn effect (even acid entanglement handles it by refreshing the effect with the new damage value applied; burning just ignores subsequent applications entirely), which is a huge problem and in my opinion needs fixing - the fear and damage effects of the burning status should be separated into one visible and one invisible effect, and further applications of burning should either increase the damage inflicted in subsequent rounds, extend the number of rounds the target burns, or some combination of the two. As it is, there is no way to focus fire on a single target with chemical pistols, you just lose a tonne of damage by doing so.


I should probably say, I am not 'rooting' for firearms to be more awesome than anything else. I don't want them to be, I want everything to be well-balanced. But I don't see how you could look at the way things are now and see them as balanced. (Although in saying that, Styg will probably nerf regular pistols again now )

wow, thanks for the math

yeah, that's why I tend pair fire and acid together as they work really well.

all of them are good points that I cannot argue with, and as you said I highly value the cc and bypass nature and the damage type of chemical pistol, to the point where I do not consider the damage difference to put chemical pistol as vastly inferior or inferior in everyway compared to 0.44 and its positives and negatives, whether it's alright to buff chemical pistols or not I do not know, but I strongly think throwing knives should be buffed before the developer even touch chemical pistol (doing a throwing knives poison build right now) , all the points, either good or bad about chemical pistols are already made, so I rest my case unless someone has something new to add.

[belial12]

Denying the validity of using utilities to set up ambush situations is somewhat absurd, I think you're just withdrawing into a strict weapon vs weapon position to try to make your argument more tenable. Lots of builds use Ambush without access to an item that goes in a weapon slot and can set things on fire, that doesn't make use of Ambush an invalid consideration in the effectiveness of those builds. The question is, which weapon makes better use of Ambush, a chemical pistol or a firearm? You can illuminate multiple targets at once with a utility rather than wasting shots doing it one at a time with an incendiary pistol, and the .44 can deliver much more devastating criticals than any chemical pistol.

You should reread that statement. It says that with a chemical pistol you're trading 3-4 times the maximum damage for damage over time. It also says that even with damage over time accounted for, the weapon can't match the average damage that a .44 would have dealt immediately. I'll concede that I was specifically talking about acid blob pistols in that case and didn't specify. Since you're still insisting that acid blob pistols are worthwhile, here's a bit more number crunching, all components QL130:

Here's the acid blob pistol itself, since its on hit effects don't show up in combat stats:

In other words if you are willing to juggle enemies to avoid wasted damage from lack of proper effect stacking, and willing to let them die over a period of three rounds rather than immediately, you can squeeze almost as much as the average damage of a .44 out of an acid blob pistol with a standard shot.

So what do you actually get for using the thing? Well, you get acid entanglement, and you get acid damage. You seem to value the latter very highly; I don't, I've found the ability to switch between JHP and W2C rounds much more valuable than the ability to switch between damage types, because I would rather be able to mitigate (or punish a lack of) resistances to my primary weapons's damage type than have to switch to another weapon depending on the target's resistances. The choice ultimately comes down to single-target CC, or higher damage/stronger criticals/stronger special attacks. I can't possibly see a case for the acid blob pistol in those terms, as its on hit chance is always too low; even with a QL150 dispenser it's a coin flip, which is simply not good enough for a single target weapon that is so weak in every other area.

very useful effects like entangle and fear that make some fights trivial compared to 0.44, one fight that I can think of is the carnifex fight.

You don't say?

you are correct that I'm using a strict weapon vs weapon argument to strength my argument, and that might be a bad argument, I don't think how fire chemical pistol is not better than grenade though in both damage and proc chance, plus the burning ground thing, you are also shooting at one person at a time, so I don't see the benefit of setting multiple people on fire.

that's about it, the rest comes down to personal preference and the definition of the word "inferior" and "vastly inferior".

by the way, if you can get three shots off acid chemical pistol in a turn, the chance of landing the on hit effect is around 70%, so not really a coin flip, just a little info for anyone who wants to try out the duel chemical pistol build.