Chemical/energy pistols

[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.

[Sanger]

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.

The main benefit is that you use one action to illuminate multiple targets and then can pop off criticals on them one by one, rather than having to double tap each one to get a critical.

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.

The probability of the effect happening at all raises, but it's still a coin flip's chance of the weapon being able to project damage with any given shot that can compare with other weapons. The acid blob pistol depends very heavily on being able to proc its on hit effect in order to be competitive damagewise and it does this far too infrequently. It would be a much better weapon if its stats were simply identical to an incendiary pistol but with acid damage and acid entanglement rather than fire damage and burning.

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.

I won't even try to analyse throwing knives as my experience with them is laughably limited, but I would be inclined to agree that they are pretty crap (I've always thought of them mainly as a poison-delivery device for characters with Throwing, but I don't think that's the developer's intent). For chemical pistols, just doing something about the inability to benefit from stacked effects would make a huge difference to them. Some kind of AP cost mitigation would be good too, even just making them work with Gunslinger.

[destroyor]

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.

I won't even try to analyse throwing knives as my experience with them is laughably limited, but I would be inclined to agree that they are pretty crap (I've always thought of them mainly as a poison-delivery device for characters with Throwing, but I don't think that's the developer's intent). For chemical pistols, just doing something about the inability to benefit from stacked effects would make a huge difference to them. Some kind of AP cost mitigation would be good too, even just making them work with Gunslinger.

Actually throwing knives do alright (not good, not great, just passable) damage if you max DEX and throwing. The problem w/ them is that a throwing knives build lacks something like expose weakness, so is helpless against high Mech resist target. You can combine grenades + quick tinkering + traps to cover this weakness but it's not ideal.

[Fenix]

What about poison then? Or high mechanically resistant targets recieve no damage at all?

Aslo, I remeber I saw build on rutracker thread about Underrail, that was tremendously OP, it was mix of melee and throwing (before it was nerfed), that build could kill  6 enemies in one turn I think, or even more.

[Sanger]

What about poison then? Or high mechanically resistant targets recieve no damage at all?

Aslo, I remeber I saw build on rutracker thread about Underrail, that was tremendously OP, it was mix of melee and throwing (beore it was nerfed), that build could kill  6 enemies in one turn I think, or even more.

From before the Fatal Throw nerf? Yeah, I never got a chance to try one of those builds out. Kind of sad.

[Fenix]

Yep, it relied on feat that add AP on kill. Not sure, but it possibly utilised even Force Emission.
Hybridized and OP as fuck, to the point Ihad absolutely no interest in playing it.

[Tygrende]

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.

Let me adress that.

Mechanical damage with W2C ammo is the all-around most effective damage type in the entire game, no contest. This is because unlike all other damage types in the game, the DR against W2C bullets will never be higher than 35%. That's in theory, in practice it will never be higher than 33% since the highest mechanical DR in the game is 95% (Cuttlesnail). That's without counting damage modifiers from things like Conditioning, but those can apply to other damage types as well, including heat.

All other damage types are ineffective against enemies with high respective resistances or even an immunity. Acid will be harmless against mutants and deep worms, fire will be very ineffective against bladelings or industrial bots and somewhat ineffective against any NPC wearing an antithermic coat, even otherwise irresistible mental damage is useless against robots, etc.

On the other hand there is not a single enemy in the entire game W2C bullets would be ineffective against, except Godmen of course.

This is the main problem with energy/chemical pistols if you ask me, they get very little support from other sources such as mods, feats or ammo types. If you compare a .44 hammerer and an incendiary pistol without any mods, feats or ammo types, they will be pretty evenly matched. Energy/chemical pistols are solid at their core, they just need more bonus goodies other weapon types get.

Also, if any of the chemical pistols really needs to be buffed, it's the cryoliquid pistol. That thing is just irredeemable crap, I don't think I ever saw a build made around it.

[belial12]

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.

Let me adress that.

Mechanical damage with W2C ammo is the all-around most effective damage type in the entire game, no contest. This is because unlike all other damage types in the game, the DR against W2C bullets will never be higher than 35%. That's in theory, in practice it will never be higher than 33% since the highest mechanical DR in the game is 95% (Cuttlesnail). That's without counting damage modifiers from things like Conditioning, but those can apply to other damage types as well, including heat.

All other damage types are ineffective against enemies with high respective resistances or even an immunity. Acid will be harmless against mutants and deep worms, fire will be very ineffective against bladelings or industrial bots and somewhat ineffective against any NPC wearing an antithermic coat, even otherwise irresistible mental damage is useless against robots, etc.

On the other hand there is not a single enemy in the entire game W2C bullets would be ineffective against, except Godmen of course.

This is the main problem with energy/chemical pistols if you ask me, they get very little support from other sources such as mods, feats or ammo types. If you compare a .44 hammerer and an incendiary pistol without any mods, feats or ammo types, they will be pretty evenly matched. Energy/chemical pistols are solid at their core, they just need more bonus goodies other weapon types get.

Also, if any of the chemical pistols really needs to be buffed, it's the cryoliquid pistol. That thing is just irredeemable crap, I don't think I ever saw a build made around it.

yeah cryoliquid pistol is indeed the weakest out of all three chemical pistols, I'd still equip it if I have 3 slots though since it offers more utility which I'm very much for, increase the chance of freeze and it's a good cc weapon.

you make good point about w2c, but have you considered energy shield? to bypass energy completely is still preferable than w2c in my mind

[belial12]

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.

I won't even try to analyse throwing knives as my experience with them is laughably limited, but I would be inclined to agree that they are pretty crap (I've always thought of them mainly as a poison-delivery device for characters with Throwing, but I don't think that's the developer's intent). For chemical pistols, just doing something about the inability to benefit from stacked effects would make a huge difference to them. Some kind of AP cost mitigation would be good too, even just making them work with Gunslinger.

Actually throwing knives do alright (not good, not great, just passable) damage if you max DEX and throwing. The problem w/ them is that a throwing knives build lacks something like expose weakness, so is helpless against high Mech resist target. You can combine grenades + quick tinkering + traps to cover this weakness but it's not ideal.

yep, in my current build I have to rely on grenades a lot against high armor enemy.

the damage is passable and I can definitely complete normal with this, but I prefer all my other builds over this in term of power level.

[belial12]

I won't even try to analyse throwing knives as my experience with them is laughably limited, but I would be inclined to agree that they are pretty crap (I've always thought of them mainly as a poison-delivery device for characters with Throwing, but I don't think that's the developer's intent). For chemical pistols, just doing something about the inability to benefit from stacked effects would make a huge difference to them. Some kind of AP cost mitigation would be good too, even just making them work with Gunslinger.

there's just too many perks out there about throwing knifes that I can't resist, do you think poison need a buff?

[destroyor]

What about poison then? Or high mechanically resistant targets recieve no damage at all?

Aslo, I remeber I saw build on rutracker thread about Underrail, that was tremendously OP, it was mix of melee and throwing (before it was nerfed), that build could kill  6 enemies in one turn I think, or even more.

Well throwing knives have a base AP of 18 and you can bring this down to 11 AP with 17 DEX. Burrower Poison Throwing Knife deal 7 damage each turn for up to 5 turns. Stacks 5 times. Cave Ear Poison Throwing Knife can increases all biological damage taken by 50% and reduces perception by 5. Hypertoxicity increases damage done by poisons you apply by 100%.

So under ideal condition you deal one hit w/ cave ear + 5 hits w/ burrower, the max poison damage is 35 * 250% = 87.5 = 87 damage per turn, but you just used 66 AP against one high mech resist target and ... it's not very effective when your enemies have health from 200ish~600ish. You are better off quick tinkering a HE mine besides the target and then toss a high grade HE grenade.

Another problem w/ poison is robots are immune to poison - solution: EMP grenade MKIII.

Overall I think throwing build could use a buff helping the build dealing w/ high mech resist/DT targets, either a feat like expose weakness and/or explosive/plasma throwing knives that will bypass mech resist.

Fatal throw can refund 18 action points per kill without limit before ver. 1.0.1.8, now this can only happen once per turn so nothing OP here.

[Fenix]

Crawler poison can help with living target, not sure but cave ear could extend stun to 3 turns.
But yeah, grenades look more potent.

[Sanger]

there's just too many perks out there about throwing knifes that I can't resist, do you think poison need a buff?

My experience with crossbows tells me that no, they're probably fine. Crawler poison is very good, and burrower poison at least handles effect stacking properly so that you can focus fire and kill single targets with it quickly. I didn't find burrower poison all that useful as a crossbow user, but I think that's because the relative slowness of crossbows didn't enable me to spread enough stacks of the effect around per turn for it to be competitive with the damage of eg. shock bolts, or Aimed Shot, or Snipe, etc. With throwing knives it should theoretically be a much more viable option.

[Dieusama]

This debate inspired me too . . .

. . . keep rolling pure psi-based Southgater :p