Foreword
Caster pistols are often being brought up when discussing endgame balance. Reason is quite simple: compared to scepters or daggers, caster pistols offer very little to no advantage: they severely lack damage %, they require cunning (so potentially less investment into Spirit), most of them don’t have enough caster stats (like cdr, casting speed and regen) and their mods can be quite lackluster as well. Here is a list of caster pistols that could be improved and made more competitive. Not to mention, they have 0 benefit from pistol passives aside from some very small % damage that is restricted only to elemental and pierce damage types.
Pistols
Let’s start with a couple of good pistols that have great mods and stats to compensate for a pistol base:
And here is how it looks now:
As you can see crucial casting speed was added and to compensate for pistol’s base low %damage rolls a hefty OA roll and a small-ish hp bonus was added as well. For an item that is loaded with build-enabling mods this is a decent trade off despite still being inferior to quite a few caster daggers and scepters. The damage roll is still pretty low though.
Note that this item has another (albeit minor) mod added to it in the PTR (minus OA to SS). Now this is another example of a good caster pistol. It has two double mods that are useful for some Vitality Ritualists, but it also has base cdr and base casting speed which is pretty big, especially given how good it can become if you roll it with good affixes.
Now, moving to pistols that are fully or partially meant for casters and yet are unfortunately designed in a way that would hold your build back if you don’t have a viable scepter/dagger alternative.
Now “half” of this pistol is meant for PRM casters, yet you would never see it on endgame elemental or aether PRM builds. Why? Well, competing options (Panetti wand for Elemental and Wrath of the Ascendant for Aether) are infinitely superior to begin with. But really, 26% weapon damage is really nothing for PRM - it’s a very insignficant damage boost and adtch boost overall. Plus pistol doesn’t have vital bonuses to PRM nodes or cdr and its chaos conversion is absolutely wasted on PRM builds.
What can be done? Some more meaningful mods to PRM other than weapon damage. Like something unique like chance of fumble attacks and impaired aim for example. Skill bonuses to Proliferation or Distortion could also make this pistol a competitve option, even 4% cdr roll.
A caster weapon without identity. If you look at the cooldown reduction, conversion, huge OA roll and RR proc it might look good on paper. But where would you use it? For Wind Devils and most things lightning you have Spark of Ultos that has similar conversion and cdr but is infinitely superior because of its huge damage roll. For Lightning TSS slot is taken because there is Allagast. So the weapon ends up being mostly never used ever.
What can be done? A meaningful and unique mod. Maybe a mod that converts Vindictive Flame into Lightning and flat cd with it? Maybe some flat damage or/and adtch to Storm Box? Casting speed would also be welcome as well.
A really obscure caster weapon that was probably last used in Ashes of Malmouth by John Smith. What’s funny about it is that during that it received a nerf in patch 1.1.9.0 and then a small buff (that does not compensate for a previous nerf) in 1.1.9.2, so a net loss to a weapon that’s probably mostly gathering dust on people’s mules. Its mods are more or less okay, but it directly competes with full Ulzuin set or green mace for Canister Bomb and lack of caster stats on it (cdr or flat cdr mods, casting speed and energy regeneration).
What can be done? Cooldown reduction and\or flat cdr mod and some energy regeneration as well as casting speed. Honestly, mods to Canister/Grenado have to be pretty strong for this weapon to be even considered.
This pistol is just loaded with mods, it also has cdr and rare Frostburn duration as well, some OA and a decent conversion (which is partly useless if you take Anubars with Star Pact). What’s wrong with it? Well, a few things. First, the mods itself are quite weak: cooldown Phantasmal Blades is a very weak skill to build around, and a small flat damage bump and very low Chaos to Cold conversion pistol offers is nothing to get excited about. Now Devastation mods. Devastation is one of the weakest skills to build around. And cold damage on a single RR class (which is Arcanist with Cold Devastation) is not strong by any means. Conversion in this mod is also scuffed (should be 100% to even begin a conversation of using this pistol anywhere). And cold Canister is just extremely weak despite mods looking half decent on paper, especially when Canister itself was nerfed into a oblivion and stopped being a prospective skill to build around.
What can be done about it? I think PB mods should offer full chaos to cold conversion, Devastation mod should offer full conversion as well as some flat cd to the skill. Canister mod should also offer flat cd, as well as pierce to cold conversion.
Those pistols have been discussed to death and yet almost nothing has been done about them. The main problem with them is that they are the only way to play Lightning Canister/Grenado and they block main-hand\off-hand slots. With that any build that uses them potentially loses on (from not using mh/oh)::
- Up to 13% cdr (maximum cdr from mh/oh is 23%, pistols offer just 10%)
- Up to +2 to all skills (realistically it would be +1 to each mastery on average from mh/oh, but some builds are lucky enough to indeed have +2 to each mastery from that)
- A LOT of casting speed (probably 15-20% on average, up to 40%+) and energy regeneration (Canister + Grenado are the most energy hungry skills and it’s almost impossible to play them without Arcanist)
Another glaring problem with pistols design is their weird AA part. Never really used in
any ranged build, it becomes even more useless in the current pass through wps meta.
*What can be done about it? Possible fixes: dropping outdated AA/WPS part and buffing
caster part with caster stats such as casting speed and flat energy regeneration energy regeneration %and ideally +1-2 to Demo skills*
Strictly inferior to Wrath of the Ascendant or green DE scepter when used with Uroboruuk set on a Spellbinder. Not much to add here. The only redeemable quality it has is that it’s basically “free” (you can buy its blueprint from Coven once you get enough rep)
What can be done about it? A bigger damage boost to DE, as well as maybe some crit or/and something special like fumble/impaired aim to DE and a much higher OA roll.
Both got decent mods on paper but the problem with Repeater is that it only has one mod. It could definitely be a weapon for physical caster Paladin, so a mod like a flat cd to Rune of Kalastor (or extra projectile) would be more than welcome. As well as some base cdr or/and casting speed.
Hemorrhager is just outshined by all the competing options Bleeding Tricksters have. The mods need to be stronger, especially to PB - which is considered a very weak Bleeding source given how much investment skill line requires. Some base casting speed/cdr would also be nice.
- Oathbearer and Bloodborer
Both are meant for autoattacking. However both are used in Pierce caster builds since Pierce meta doesn’t really have dedicated caster weapons (and Oathbearer carries very valuable conversion). Both could really use some casting speed since Pierce Inquisitor always casts WoP/Seal/sometimes Horn of Gandarr, and Bloodborer straight up supports casting skill.
Any suggestions and experiences with caster pistols are welcome here. But please let’s not clutter this thread with AA pistols discussion or Rifles/Crossbow discussion which deserve separate topics on their own.
