Hello, I mostly use my pistol (silenced beamer with laser sight) to finish off people when I run out of ammo with my solstice and I don't have time to reload. Unfortunately I often find myself alone, behind enemy lines, with no more magazines and only a pistol and a knife in my hand. Needless to say I prefer to sneak behind people to knife them instead of using the beamer... so here's my question: Which pistol should I get?
Personally I use the Commissioner. Massive damage, especially if you can get headshots, and it deals great damage even at mid range. It also has a very high chance of finishing off a wounded enemy on the first shot. The major downsides of it though, are that you only get 6 shots, a very, very long reload, and it has some pretty massive recoil. If you like to just fire off as fast as you can, this is not the pistol for you, as you have to take the time to line up each shot to make it work. The Underboss is also a good alternative. Much easier to control than the Commissioner, and will perform better against a target without nanoweave; but you've got a higher chance of running out of shots with your enemy still alive if they're using nanoweave, or if they're a HA.
i'd find yourself a good fight, then trial the commissioner, and just use it as if it was your primary weapon. if you get a decent number of kills, then you've found yourself a pistol. if it's a little too slow and kicks a little too hard, then try the underboss (in 8 hours, stupid trial delay) the same way. if those don't work out, then you're probably gonna be best off with the manticore. not as extreme as the NS pistols, but hits harder than the beamer (drawbacks being 2 fewer rounds per battery, reloads marginally slower, and slower RoF, but how often does spamming the beamer work out anyway?). it's basically identical to the NC default pistol, a good solid gun.
Honestly I wouldn't worry too much about their lack of a suppressor. The only advantage they give is making you not appear on the minimap, which already only happens if you're within 40m of the player, at which point they can easily hear the gunshots, or see that someone just died near them. If you're dead set on having a suppressor though, the Manticore is probably your best bet.
1170 1210 These numbers are what worries me. The first number, 1170, is the Manticore DPS, while the second, 1210, is the Beamer's, which means that the Beamer allows us to kill people faster. But the manticore, with a 15 rounds magazine can kill more people: it can deal , in fact, 3000 damage per mag vs 2840. Anyway, thanks for all your answers! I'll trial the commissioner and the underboss like you suggested and after that I'll finally make a decision
DPS numbers on pistols mean very little from my experience; recoil, damage per shot/burst, and clip size are the important stats. You generally don't want to be firing off as fast as you can anyway, as they have such small clip sizes that you need to line your shots up and let recoil settle a bit, so the damage per shot (or burst) tends to be more important than dps (in most cases, obv against a target at extreme close range who isn't really moving, you can just unload, but then anything will do.)
The difference between their damage potential is quite small. The more important thing to think about is the click rate required from the beamer. 7.5 clicks per second versus 5.8 of the manticore. I guarantee you that 98% of humans cannot click at ~7.4/s while tracking a target properly. Another practical difference is the hip fire bloom. The beamer's usually settles quite well, allowing good sustained fire. The manticore blooms more and cannot recover quickly enough to allow this sustained fire. Overall: hipfire = beamer, ADS = manticore or beamer. I personally like the revolvers but just remember that your missed shots will be very painful, especially on the underboss (2000 damage per magazine). If you're shooting a shielded HA in the back, you must be quite accurate to kill him at all.
Listen to this guy, he knows what he is talking about. Clip size, damage per shot, and recoil are more important then anything else in a pistol your pulling after your main weapon goes. The commish is a good pistol but treat it like a bad shotty with slugs. It's best used as a main gun, rather then something to pull out when you run out of ammo
If trapped behind lines with only ammo for your pistol, I'd say that the Commissioner is an excellent gun to use. It has the sheer stopping power needed to put down most targets without expending too much ammo. While this may not be effective as a LA, as an infiltrator, I shoot enemies at close range and finish with a knife stab. This makes each bullet equal a kill and I will rarely run into a full reload time.
I try to avoid the need to use pistols but I equip the Commissioner (or recently the Underboss 357P), however I would go out with the Desperado anytime anyday, that's a neat pistol and gets the job done.
I'd say Manticore. It hits hard, has a good ammo supply, and a higher refire rate than the commie or the underboss.
If you use a shotgun, the Commissioner makes a great primary weapon. By that I mean run around outdoors with Commissioner and switch to shotgun for rooms or other obvious shotgun situations. It feels like a battle rifle with an effective range just a bit longer than a SMG.
The commissioner works extremely well with pretty much any short ranged weapon. I use it with my Sirius for dealing with targets at long range. Stand still while firing and fire slowly and it really does feel like a BR.
Play TR and you never have to worry about ammo, 40 round standard for all carbines and 200 reserve ammo.
I agree with this. The Pulsar C is great. As for a pistol, I'd recommend the Underboss. You can't silence it, but it's such a common pistol that you won't immediately alert enemies with the sound, and it's great for shoot+knife instakills. All these things apply to Commissioner as well, but I find it to be too clunky and obtrusive for effective use.