Strategy:Pistol Types

General

Pistols aren't very useful in general games because of their reliance on pistol-specific traits - son of a gun and dualgunner. If you aren't getting these traits, the pistol will see little use beyond level 1 - the shotgun reloads quickly enough to not need a backup weapon and the pistol is no better at very long range than the shotgun is.

However, if you get these traits and use pistols as your primary weapon outside of an Angel of Marskmanship game then they'll be rather efficient and powerful for general fighting, and you can keep a larger weapon (such as a missile launcher, powerful shotgun or BFG) for larger groups of enemies.

Angel of Marksmanship/Pistol-based characters

Pistols are extremely ammo-efficient and fast once you have a few levels of Son of a Gun. Their weaknesses are frequent reloading and poor accuracy at long range. These problems can be dealt with by getting traits, but generally modding your pistol(s) will be enough.

Fighting things one on one is more important with pistols than any other weapon - you don't have any AoE unless you get a unique pistol or something, and also reloading two pistols in the middle of a fight is a bad idea and it's something you'll have to do if too many enemies chase you down.

The most important mods for pistols depend on your master trait - but agility and bulk are good in general if you're not going for a master trait for some reason.

Pistol Marine - Bullet Dance

Bullet Dance gets your shots out faster, so you spend less time per enemy. Unlike other pistol master traits, it also allows you to take advantage of the damage boost for both Son of a Gun and Son of a Bitch. Reloading after each enemy is still an unfortunate problem, so your pistols should probably be bulk modded to cut down on that.

Bullet Dance is generally considered to be the worst pistol master trait, so it should be avoided unless you want to be a marine for other reasons.

Pistol Scout - Gun Kata

Gun Kata makes your next shot instantaneous when you dodge an attack (See Dodging), and automatically reloads your pistols whenever you kill something.

Gun Kata is probably the stronger choice of the two dual-pistol master traits. With hellrunner 2 and dodgemaster, your dodges are extremely likely to work so as long as there are no always-hit enemies hanging around you can constantly dodge and only stand still when taking free shots.

However, some attacks deal damage even when you dodge them (Arch-Vile and Revenant attacks, for instance) so you'll need HP for them, and some attacks cannot be dodged (only shotgun-based attacks).

With Gun Kata, your reloading is no longer an issue (perhaps the best part of the trait) so agility mods may serve you better than bulk mods. 12 shots is generally enough to kill anything that moves already, just make sure they all reach their target.

Pistol Technician - Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter is a single-pistol master trait. It guarantees maximum damage on all pistol shots and, because of Eagle Eye 3, might as well guarantee hits too.

Sharpshooter is the most effective Pistol master trait once it gets going. The guaranteed maximum damage will not only keep your DPS on par with Dualgunners when accounting for their varying damage and misses, but it will make your Pistols very ammo efficient, and more importantly, very reliable at being able to knockback enemies; just a single Power mod to a standard Pistol and it will be able to knockback enemies with a 2 armor value. This guaranteed damage will allow Sharpshooters to reliably kill the elite enemies in a single clip, when other Pistol builds can really struggle to do that without Exotic and Unique Pistols, and the guaranteed knockback makes Sharpshooters just as effective at Corner Shooting as Shotgun builds, while being able to be very effective at fighting enemies in the open when the knockback will push them out of vision and give you time to safely reposition and/or reload. This guaranteed damage will also allow Sharpshooters to flinch the Spider Mastermind easily and reliably, giving them a free victory against her if they get a strong enough Pistol, while other Pistol builds will struggle against her.

Another major part of Sharpshooter's strength is since you're a Technician, you can invest in Whizkid without needing 2 levels of Finesse first, not only making getting Whizkid faster but also allowing you to not need to invest in a mostly superfluous trait for Pistol builds. Since the only standard Pistol is so weak and none of the Exotic/Unique Pistols are ever remotely guaranteed to be found, modding is extremely important for Pistol builds to get stronger weaponry, so being able to get Whizkid 2 levels sooner gives Sharpshooters a serious legup over other Pistol builds. One more perk of Sharpshooters is since you're not dualgunning, you can use your prepared slot on an ammo box, and thus make reloading an almost nonissue, without needing to rely on killing something like Gun Kata does nor wasting any levels on Reloader.

The big weakness with Sharpshooter is that it's really really hard to get it off the ground. Pistol builds already have it rough in the early game, but Sharpshooters have it so brutal that they may have the hardest early game of any build, even harder than melee builds have it; on harder difficulties, you're going to have many Sharpshooters die before you ever get the trait. The first big problem is that since you can't get Dualgunner, you lose the big halfway powerup other Pistol builds get, and SoG3 alone is still pretty damn lacking; you're going to have a really hard time killing anything bigger than a Demon before it gets to you, and you are not killing bigger enemies in a single clip. The second big problem is the requisite three levels of Eagle Eye. One level in it is really helpful when it'll shore up most of the annoying yet crucial misses Pistols will frequently have, but the second level has seriously diminished returns that won't help you much when you're already hitting over 90% of your shots after the first level, and the third is flatout superfluous, while the trait is useless with Shotguns, your main supplemental weapon you'll be relying a lot on as you build your Pistols up. So in getting Sharpshooter as soon as possible, you'll be wasting about two levels that could have went to getting Whizkid to make your Pistols and other equipment stronger or to getting something like Hellrunner to help keep you alive until you get Sharpshooter. Once you get Sharpshooter it will get a lot easier and thus getting it as soon as you can is an upmost priority, but until you get it, those issues combined with the general weakness of Pistols and the inherent weakness of the Technician, will leave you with a pathetically weak character that will die ridiculously often.

Pistols as a Sidearm

w/ Rapid Weapons in Angel of 100/666

Many masteries can use rapid weapons primarily and don't block Son of a Gun, and this can enable pistol usage as a sidearm in longer games where ammo can become a serious issue. This is especially a problem for rapid-using masteries other than Ammochain (which does block Son of a Gun), because even without Triggerhappy, you'll burn through cells and bullets fast, and while a lot of enemies are worth spending them on, not every enemy is. Thanks to already having Son of a Bitch when using burst weapons, and likely Eagle Eye and Finesse as well, you need fewer Son of a Gun levels for pistols to really come online, so if you find one of the unique pistols--or best of all, a Blaster--you could let that gun be what you use when facing weak enemies or shooting from out of vision range. This is especially good when paired up with Juggler, so you can switch to a bigger gun when a big nasty pops into view.

If you find a good pistol out in the wild, it can be worthwhile to put a few traits into Son of a Gun to use it. The main advantage of this is that you don't typically need to carry extra ammo, as 10mm ammo is common in the early to midgame. Because pistols really rocket to insanity once they get their final two levels of Son of a Gun, and their damage becomes monstrous when double dipping with Son of a Bitch, you could even gradually replace your 10mm weapon with a 10mm-using pistol, carry only one or two stacks of bullets, and then use more of your inventory for cells without fear of running dry.

If you have Finesse 3, Son of a Gun 4 reduces your pistol fire time to 0.11 seconds, which I'd generally say is "close enough" if you have Son of a Bitch investment. Mod-wise, sidearm pistols are generally better as non-assemblies unless you want an energy pistol or a speedloader pistol, but pistols are a good place to stick a lot of mods you don't need, since they get really good no matter what you put in them. Obviously, storm bolter pistols are excellent for DPS, but they're worse as a sidearm because of their increased ammo usage, so they're not recommended. Ya Girl Juniper (talk) 06:33, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

w/ Other Builds

Using a pistol sidearm is less useful for a shotgun build, but they can also help during runs that find a lot of Sniper mods and no desire to make more plasmatic shrapnel shotguns, since even with just S1, a pistol needs no accuracy investment, so you don't need to worry about Eagle Eye, and if you find Trigun, your accuracy is perfectly serviceable with no further modifications. Unfortunately, unless you find a Blaster, you'll need ammo space investment, and unless you find Trigun, you'll need to get accuracy from somewhere. That being said, if you're in Angel of 100 and you have outlived the need for the Agility mods that keep dropping everywhere, you could definitely stick them in a pistol, and a S2 pistol or combat pistol is so reliable and powerful with minimal trait investment that you might find yourself using it more than your shotguns at a certain point.

Melee builds typically gain the most from using a shotgun sidearm rather than a pistol sidearm, since shotguns have no accuracy worries and need no levels in Eagle Eye, but a pistol sidearm can help a melee build too in certain scenarios, typically when there's something too far away for melee range to be a possibility but it absolutely needs to die now and a shotgun just won't kill it fast enough or from far enough away. Of course, without at least Son of a Gun 2 or 3, pistols are still pretty crappy. That being said, I did at one point finish an Archangel of 666 game where I went Son of a Gun 4 but found and used Dragonslayer with Eagle Eye being blocked, and it didn't feel like I was missing anything, so depending on where/when/if you find Dragonslayer, you might find it worthwhile. Ya Girl Juniper (talk) 06:33, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Sidearm Pistols

• Pistol: Free gun! But I wouldn't blame you if you chucked this gun for space a long time ago. If you have Whizkid, pistols can use mods quite effectively since they have two damage dice. Generally, though, there's no reason to keep using this unless you can't bring yourself to toss it, so if you find nothing better, and end up needing a sidearm later on, it's what you'll use. Bulk mods help a lot more than Power mods, since pistol DPS is generally fine until you have to reload. Generally, though, that one extra bag slot might just be better served by more ammo for your bigger guns unless you really like pistols or find yourself in an ammo drought.

• Combat pistol: A straight upgrade to the pistol and one of the better weapons in the game. They roll 3 dice for damage, so power mods are excellent on them, and they have a large magazine and higher accuracy already, so bulk and agility mods aren't nearly as necessary. The only downside to the combat pistol is the longer reload time and the rarity, being as difficult to find as a Nano pack. If you're lucky enough to find one of these, that's the point I'd definitely consider dipping into Son of a Gun for a sidearm if you weren't going to already. These can get better than the unique pistols with heavy modding, but if Whizkid is blocked for you, then the unique pistols are generally better.

• Blaster: One of the rarest pistols in the game, as rare as the BFG 9000s and the Unique pistols, but just as implied in the item description, it's one of the best when you're in need of a sidearm because it needs no ammo. Best used in rapid builds, since it has lower accuracy than the pistol and you'll likely have Eagle Eye investment already. If you find a spare Nano pack, giving it to a Blaster gives it infinite ammo, since it will fire one shot and then immediately regenerate, giving you the equivalent of a fully moddable plasma-damage Nanomachic. Otherwise, it has the exact same stats as the basic pistol but has a slightly shorter fire time.

• Anti-Freak Jackal: Unlike other pistols and rapid weapons, this gun deals fire damage and has a splash radius of 1, which allows it to blow holes in walls, gib corpses, and splash lots of enemies at once. It even has enough damage to knock enemies back without trait investment. Cool! But it has the same accuracy and clip size as a normal pistol, so even though it is powerful, be careful not to shoot an enemy that's already in your face or it'll hurt. You'll definitely want Juggler if you run with this. Unlike the other unique pistols, it can dualreload, making it usable with Dualgunner if you're so inclined, but for sidearm usage, I don't recommend that.

• Grammaton Cleric Beretta: A gun that fits perfectly into a rapid build even without Son of a Gun! Its alternate fire modes benefit from triggerhappy, although even with its 18 clip size, it will require a lot of reloading if used this way, and it has the same 2.0 reload speed as a plasma rifle, so you'll want to run it with an ammo chain if you can while in full auto. Rapid builds can use semi-auto mode the most effectively of any build, but if you have Son of a Gun investment already, it's generally better to leave it on single shot mode for the ammo efficiency. It can bridge the gap quite easily, though, and if you don't have Juggler, switching fire modes is faster than switching weapons. The only problem is it can't be modded, and of the unique pistols, its individual shots are definitely the weakest no matter what mode it's in, and it can't knock enemies back without some damage bonus and/or a max damage roll. There's an achievement for killing the Spider Mastermind with this weapon, so if you need that, that could be reason enough to keep it, though not if your build would have trouble killing her with it.

• Trigun: Of all the unique pistols, its raw damage per bullet is by far the best, having an excellent 0.7 attack time (as good as two T mods), a massive 3d6 for damage, and a whopping +6 accuracy. It may still only have a clip size of 6 and a long 2.0 reload time, but its sheer damage can drop even Arch-viles before it runs out of bullets, especially with Son of a Gun and/or Son of a Bitch investment. It can also be your game-ending nuke in a standard playthrough thanks to its Angel Arm ability, which is a great reason to keep it if you're going for a full win. It can knock enemies back even without traits, though, which makes it an excellent pistol to find and use as a serious sidearm even in a shotgun or melee build. Technically, it can still use aimed shot if you really need to not miss, but its accuracy is already 91% at the edge of your vision, so there's hardly a need to do so.

Ya Girl Juniper (talk) 06:33, 22 June 2023 (UTC)