It's like a really powerful hot glue gun, except it explodes in your face instead of hitting the enemy.

Don't ever charge it

You also forgot not to charge it bro

I noticed that not a lot of people are telling you this but you have to make sure you never charge it.

CCP designed the Charge to make the weapon more "unique" sadly CCP sometimes puts more thought into how to make weapons sound cool than the thought into making the actual weapon.


The Charge was meant to knock off a ton of health, I assume as a finishing shot but there are multiple problems with that.

If I'm using the pistol as a finisher and I'm in CQC I have resorted to my pistol because I can't reload right then which means I need to be able to fire immediately. This is where the problems arise, when needing to immediately switch to a backup if I want to use the charge I have to wait to charge (Keep in mind you can't do a lot while charging) and then risk it all on one shot.

If you miss in that one shot it's all over because there's an overheat stun function on the charged shot for 2 seconds which in a CQC situation is likely to mean death. You are likely to miss the shot because the dispersion as well as hit detection is god awful (I have Gallente Assault and Ion Pistol Sharpshooter to level 5) with the Ion Pistol.

If all goes well and none of those things happen to you will kill him as long as he has less than about 330 health.


So lets say you use it as a Starter shot.
Lets say you actually hit him, you are now stun-locked for 2 seconds and unless he was an untanked scout or any militia suit besides heavy you will kill him. Outside of that, using the charged as a first shot will get you killed in most situations.


It's just poorly thought out mechanics of a pistol at the attempts of making something sound "cool"

Sharpshooter is by far the best skill for the ion pistol and is the only one worth training if you want to actually use it.

The charge shot is terrible, don't use it. Also, in semi-auto operation be really careful to only tap the trigger lightly because if you lag slightly or hold down the trigger for marginally too long you'll overheat.

Remember that you only have about 600-700 damage in a clip - you won't be taking down heavies with it.

Also be careful with the hipfire. It's a little awkward to ADS with because it only has point blank range and the hipfire might miss the planet you're standing on if you aim downwards.

This is a little off track, but this is why you don't put people in charge of game design who don't actually design what they know.

Look at Rattati, for example. He was in accounting or something crazy. He wasn't a game designer. But he actually played the game, knew what was going on and thus had interesting legitimate ideas on how to improve it. And it's working better than any of the updates in the previous year.

Then look at the other guys who are SUPPOSED to be the designers. Wolfman, former CCP Blam!, etc. Wolfman had ideas that sounded alright at times, but they would usually be implemented half-broken and confused. Like he was trying to figure out the game he was making. And it didn't help that they effectively put him in charge of everything at one point. Vehicles, weapons, aiming... how the hell can you be more responsible than that?

Then CCP Blam! was quoted as having the reverse Midas touch, where everything simply turned to **** instead of gold. Vehicles have been stuck in limbo between OP and worthless forever thanks to his initial bad design, and Wolfman's attempted overhaul of the entire system that dumbed everything down to the point nobody was happy with it.


A cautionary tale, friends. A college degree is excellent for programming. A college degree makes you a terrible game designer.

"The World may never know..."

It only worked on non-damped scouts (assuming you'll hit them) and starter Minmatar frames. If you miss the shot, you're dead (unlike the ScR).