Analysis of Pistols

To follow up my analysis of secondary weapons, I decided to write about pistols next since it's a little bit shorter of a discussion.  For the most part, pistols are simply used for fun in this game or when you are out of primary and secondary ammo.  Their killing power is just too low to make them the optimal choice for killing an enemy in either PvE or PvP.  Even when you consider the Gunslinger skill (6 points combat), which boosts pistol damage by 50%, they will always be inferior to primary and secondary weapons. That being said, I wanted to share my perspective on selecting a good pistol for either mode.

**PvE:**

Because pistols have such a small magazine size, the damage stat that is basically the only one that I pay attention to is DPS.  The only exception to this relates to the killing power of high damage per shot pistols like the Kestrei SJ-87 or AT Kub II.  With the gunslinger skill and the right perks, it is possible to kill weaker enemies like Dreads, Grunts, Spiders, and Thorns in 1-2 bodyshots or 1 headshot, which basically turns these pistols into unlimited ammo pocket sniper rifles against this enemy type.  If you're running a build that has the gunslinger skill, then I almost always prefer to use my Kestrei over another pistol like Peregrine or Ostrich, which have higher DPS, simply because of the one-shot potential here, which makes the time to kill on these trash mob enemies zero or close to zero.  Beyond just looking at DPS, accuracy is the most important factor to consider with magazine capacity also being important.  When it comes to magazine capacity, though, there are plenty of people that love the Skull's Sting pistol because of its large magazine, but the DPS on Skull's Sting is quite a bit lower (38% lower than Peregrine and 36% lower than Ostrich without factoring in perks), so its high magazine size can't really overcome that DPS difference when you are looking at something like how much damage that pistol can sustain over an extended period of time.  Low base accuracy is a really big factor in eliminating some pistols for me, namely the Peregrine and AT Kub II (the Kub is further eliminated for me because the fire rate is abysmally low).  Hitting your shots is so much more important at the end of the day than just purely going for the highest potential DPS that you can.  With that being said, I'll wrap up the PvE section with the recommendation of pistols to use in PvE.

*Recommended pistols:* Kestrei SJ-87 (if using the gunslinger skill), Ostrich, Last Stand MK II, Spectrum, Peregrine (if you can land your shots consistently)

**PvP:**

PvP is a whole different ball game when it comes to pistol usage.  I have a lot of perspective on this because I am currently waiting to compete in the finals of a pistol duel tournament organized by the APE guild, to which one of my alt characters (NabsulinCrAz) belongs.  I've also competed in another pistol duel tournament where I placed third, and I learned a lot from preparing and participating in both of these tournaments.  I'll elaborate on the ideal pistol strategy for PvP, including what build I use, but I'll talk in general about what pistols are good to use in PvP and when they should be used.

When looking at PvP from the competitive lens of facing a good opponent, you will almost never pull out your pistol because its killing power is so much lower than your primary or secondary weapon.  Pretty much the only time where I use a pistol in a competitive match is when I very quickly have to follow up a sniper body shot against an enemy that is rushing me and there would be too much delay time if I were to try to switch back to my primary from my sniper rifle.  I still don't use this strategy very often because a competitive enemy will likely have about 165 HP, so even if my sniper shot does 100 damage to them, they still have 65 HP that I have to burn through, and unless I hit some headshots, I have to land 4-6 bodyshots with my pistol, which takes a bit more time than using a primary due to the fact that no pistol pushes above a base 300 fire rate.  When I first started playing PvP, this led me to believe that the high damage per shot pistols were preferable because it would take fewer shots to finish an opponent off after a sniper shot, which is why I initially used an AT Kub II back then.  This, however, is a big mistake for one reason and one reason only: fire rate.  The reason why fire rate is so important on a pistol for PvP is because enemies move around a lot and are hard to track with slow fire rate weapons.  The higher the fire rate, the more bullets you can throw at your enemy while you are tracking them and the easier it is to land shots.  It is for this same reason that the Skull Blaster 3000 used to be used so heavily in PvP because people would aim for the head and even with the amount of movement that occurs in PvP, you'd often hit multiple headshots with this rifle because it spits out so many bullets in a short period of time.  This is why I recommend the Ostrich pistol for PvP.  It has a high base fire rate of 280 as well as a decent accuracy for a pistol of 15.  The damage per hit is certainly lower, but you are much more likely to hit your opponent, and because the DPS of the Ostrich is second only to the Peregrine, you can actually dispatch an opponent pretty quickly with the Ostrich.  The winner of the first tournament I was in (Nomadic) used Ostrich while I used a higher damage, but slower fire rate pistol (Last Stand), and I got owned.  Granted, he was a much better PvP player than I was, but after using the Ostrich in this latest pistol tournament that I've participated in, I completely see why he used the Ostrich.  It behaves so similar to an auto rifle that it's very easy to use in PvP and you just connect so many more shots than other pistols that have higher damage per hit.  Before I move on, I'll just mention that there was that one roll of the Last Stand MK II that came out recently with amazing perks (15% crit, 6% fire rate, 19% damage, 5% iron sight damage) that I always have equipped on my main account because (1) the pistol looks really cool and (2) it does really high backshot and headshot damage, so I can typically finish off an enemy with a headshot and body shot after hitting a sniper shot (no gunslinger build).

*Recommended pistols:* Ostrich, Last Stand MK II, Spectrum, Lusty Betty (with gunslinger)

**Bonus section (how to main a pistol in PvP):**

Here I'd like to talk about all that I've learned from designing a play style that has been very specific to the rules of the tournament that I am currently in.  Basically, the tournament rules apply no restrictions whatsoever except that you may only use your pistol, but anything else is fair game, including all skills.  Of course, the easiest decision to make with a rule setup like this is that the gunslinger skill is a must have, so from a skill build setup perspective, 6 points in combat is the obvious starting point.  Based on my experience in PvP, I've always said that a build specifically tailored for PvP will have 9 points in Agility and 2 points in Survival at a minimum.  If I continued to follow this logic, then I had very few points left (3) to spend with a 9A-6C-2S starting point.  From this point, there were a few builds that I targeted: 12A-6C-2S (highest crit), 9A-9C-2S (one of my suggested builds for PvP), 10A-6C-4S (blink + deflector), 9A-6C-5S (maximum HP), and 9A-7C-4S (trading one HP and the wasted melee resistance skill from 9A-6C-5S to pick up stunner).  To expand the search for the optimal build further, I looked at building around the other very important skill in PvP, projectile resistance (8 points survival).  Because 6 points in combat was the required starting point in my mind, grabbing projectile resistance required me to break the rule of having 9 points in agility, so two builds really came into play here: 5A-7C-8S (to grab stunner) and 6A-6C-8S (to have extra back damage instead of stunner).  Of these seven builds, I narrowed it down to 12A-6C-2S, 9A-7C-4S, and 5A-7C-8S.  9A-9C-2S is fantastic when you can use your primary weapon because of the extra magazine capacity, but this was obviously a waste of two points in combat because neither elite damage nor extra primary magazine capacity would benefit me in a PvP pistol tournament.  9A-6C-5S was also eliminated because trading 1 HP and the irrelevant melee resistance (when it comes to PvP) for a powerful skill like stunner is an easy decision.  6A-6C-8S was eliminated because in duels, my logic was that it was less likely that I would be able to sneak up on my opponent to shoot them in the back. I did try out 10A-6C-4S for a while, but with Kira's Basilisk boots out there, relying on the Blink skill wasn't the most consistent choice, and I am just not as good as others with knowing the right distance to Blink someone and then kill them from behind. Compound that with how dirty it feels to use Blink, and I got away from that build pretty quickly.

I then of course ran the math on the offensive and defensive capabilities of each of the three remaining builds to determine which was the optimal choice.  From a defensive perspective, obviously the 5A-7C-8S build was the clear choice because of the extra resistance, and it was the first build that I practiced with to see how it performed.  Thanks to the many great people that agreed to practice with me (kaibil, SoloKing, Xheki\_RF, GOLDEN\_THUNDER, -\_-12BORE-\_-, and -47-), I quickly came to the conclusion that my reasons for always saying that 9A-0C-2S is the starting point for any PvP build were reaffirmed.  Speed is freaking important and Fight for your Life is a purely invaluable skill.  The extra defense just wasn't cutting it when my character was not as nimble or as dangerous at low health.  So now it was time to decide between 12A-6C-2S and 9A-7C-4S.  Of course the 12A-6C-2S was optimal purely from a damage perspective as far as using my pistol was concerned, but from my experience playing PvP with the 9A-9C-2S build, I know that the stunner skill is an extremely powerful and short cooldown skill that can make a huge difference in PvP.  Add on top of that the fact that 9A-7C-4S also had deflector as an option to compensate for the choice to move away from the projectile resistance skill, and it already moved ahead of 12A-6C-2S by a considerable margin.  By also incorporating the decision to use the critical damage buff instead of the base damage buff, I could compensate for the lower critical damage and have better active skills at my disposal.  As you might expect at this point, I chose 9A-7C-4S.  Before I discuss any further, I have to give a shout out to GOLDEN\_THUNDER for helping me get to this decision point.  We did a lot of duels with a lot of different pistols and he experimented using a lot of different skills against me, and I would not have learned how powerful this 9A-7C-4S build is in PvP when you're maining a pistol without his help.

At this point, I practiced a lot with the folks I previously mentioned as well as going into random Nitro duels to train my skills further against people who were going to use their primary to make it even harder of a challenge.  When facing people who I knew were going to use a pistol, using Survival Kit and Stunner as my active skills is the absolute best combination.  Stunner is a great skill to setup an easy kill, get the enemy to burn their deflector, or kill a low health enemy when I happen to be reloading my pistol.  The Survival Kit is the preferable defensive skill over Deflector Skin when it comes to a pistol duel because the DPS of the pistol is low enough to where your opponent has to either land their headshots to kill you or run away, which gives you the opportunity to shoot them in the back or just give your stunner more time to recharge.  When I was queuing in random Nitro duels, I would use Deflector Skin instead of Survival Kit because it is easier for someone to kill you when you're standing on the Survival Kit with a Faraday because of the nerf that MFG implemented to the Survival Kit's health regeneration rate some months back.  While a good opponent would easily overpower my Ostrich with a Faraday, there were plenty of opponents that couldn't adjust to the extremely evasive tactics I would use of ducking in and out of cover and utilizing stunner to beat them with my pistol, and I could tell that this pissed some people off.  That alone made using this build an incredible amount of fun.

Finally, I'll mention the pistols that I tried out or went up against for the purposes of your selecting the right pistol for the job here.  Ostrich was just the clear winner time and again because it has great accuracy, a fast fire rate for being able to track enemies on the move, and high DPS, especially when you can land multiple headshots.  The runner up for me was the Last Stand MK II because of it's great damage per shot, but the fire rate was just too low to perform as consistently for me.  Spectrum can certainly be a scary pistol to go up against when your opponent has a good ability to hit headshots, and -\_-12BORE-\_- certainly was able to get a few choice kills in our duels with his Kub and Kapralova pistols, though I would still win the duels because these slow pistols require headshots to truly overpower an Ostrich user.  The final pistol that I'll mention is the Lusty Betty, which is a burst pistol that fires three shots per burst.  GOLDEN\_THUNDER gave me a lot of trouble with this pistol, but burst pistols in general suffer when your opponent has good strafing movement.

So in conclusion, if you find yourself looking for a great challenge to shame weak PvP players who still have Faraday by beating them with a pistol, spec yourself to 9A-7C-4S (or go for 9A-9C-2S if you just want to occasionally have this kind of fun with the only difference being that you won't have Deflector Skin), grab yourself an Ostrich from Brothers of Fire, get the critical damage buff from the casino and the projectile resistance buff from the Bar of War, equip Stunner and Deflector Skin, and just pester them like crazy by popping in and out of cover and relish the ensuing carnage!  Cheers, folks!