So how do we fix it?

The gun needs a few things. First and foremost, fix the stupid effective range bug. That's something that should have been fixed with the bolt pistol and will act as a massive buff in and of itself.

Next fix the false positives. If the gun isn't actually firing a round, I don't want to see a round.

If you believe a damage buff is in order, it should only be a fairly minor one. 55, 57.5, 60 tops. Although that's only a 5 damage per shot increase, it adds a potential 60 to the mag, and just under 39 extra damage for a full charge shot.

Next decrease the dispersion slightly and I do mean ever so slightly, no more than 10%. After you put this on a fully pimped Gallente assault and throw a couple levels into the dispersion, it's actually quite manageable. However if you guys at CCP decide to change the Gallente assault bonus to not include a dispersion bonus, then whatever you remove should absolutely be added to the base level of the Ion Pistol. Having that bonus is paramount to making the Ion Pistol a viable weapon.

Finally you -need- to change the operation skill of the Ion Pistol. In my opinion it would be best to change it from the current -5% charge up time, to a new -5% heat build up per charge. Let me explain how this would function.

Let's keep the overheat at 100 and the full charge at 100. But let's change the quick fire heat build up to a base 10. This means that at level 0 operation, (should CCP implement a militia variant) the gun will overheat either after a full charge, or 10 shots.

Let's add operation 1. Now a full charge only does 95 heat and allows for a follow up quick shot which now only cost 9.5 and allows for 11 shots to be fired otherwise.

Operation 2: Full charge is 90, allows for 2 follow up shots at 9 per piece and you can finally fire off the full 12 without overheating.

Operation 3: Full charge is 85, still only allows for 2 follow up shots at 8.5 per shot.

Operation 4: Full charge is 80, allows for 3 follow up shots before overheating at 8 per shot.

Operation 5: Full charge is 75, allows for 4 follow up shots at 7.5 per shot.

So now with the new bonus you actually -get- a decent return on your investment by being punished less from the overheat and actually incentivising the use of the charge rather and getting rid of the current thought process of, "Oh god no I accidentally charged it, I'm screwed..."

What do ya'all think of this, thoughts and other ideas are absolutely welcome, I'd love to hear from other ion pistol users and CCP folks on the matter. :)

I like your suggestion to the operation. I do believe the dispersion should be a lot lower, 10% reduction and it would still have more dispersion than a ScP. Like I said for the AR the weapon should be good by itself and better on the Gallente. It's dispersion should be similar or better to that of a ScP after all the Ion has the shortest range of them all, while the ScP has the second longest.

As for the damage it should have 68-72 damage per shot at the Creodon level, simply because it the shortest range side arm and also very skill intensive weapon it should have the highest DPS. And yes I know the charge function exists but that doesn't stop the SCR from having the highest DPS. At 60 damage per shot it has 375 DPS which is way lower than any other sidearm.

The damage really shouldn't be touched all that much because you never actually deal that base damage. Even those tiny charges add small damage multipliers to each shot. Watch this video.

They found that on average, even the basic Ion Pistol does 80 damage with a quick shot because of the tiny charge multiplier. After the 5 gained from the 10% bonus to shields, that's an extra 25 damage or basically a 50% bonus from the original base. The more you increase the base damage, the more monstrous it becomes.

I am aware of this but it counter balances against the SCP who also can have very high damage damage if you manage to hipfire a headshot which isn't to hard. Also your suggestion on heat% build, which I really like, would lower this effect.

My suggestion would not affect the mini-charges, it would only affect the amount of heat they produce when fired. Take the 68 damage suggestion. it becomes 74.8 after the shield bonus, add 45% for a mini charge and you now have a shot dealing between 89 and 109 damage. At 72 base it becomes 94-115. That's some serious power to be dealing out at a rate of 375 ROF. That's just under 590 DPS just against armor in fact. 718 vs shields.

The Burst HMG uses both overheat and ammo usage as balancing factors, and the result is fun to use. How about using a similar methodology with the Ion Pistol?

If the charged shot has a 7x damage modifier, how about have a charged shot consume 7 rounds of ammunition, and set heat buildup for a charged shot to just a bit higher than the heat buildup of firing 7 rounds one at a time. It should not overhead on a single charged shot (possibly with the exception of the militia version). When skilled into the weapon you should be able to get multiple single shots off after the charged shot. I like your scenario of being able to follow a charged shot with 4 single shots at full skill.

I donGÇÖt think it needs more range. It is supposed to be a pocket shotgun isnGÇÖt it? The effective range bug should be fixed though.

Regarding misfires, the same fenomina is recorded for the TAC Assault Rifle in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuOXdZfHeN8&feature=youtu.be

All that being said, I am not an Ion Pistol user, so my understanding of the weapon is purely theoretical.

So how do we fix it?

The gun needs a few things. First and foremost, fix the stupid effective range bug. That's something that should have been fixed with the bolt pistol and will act as a massive buff in and of itself.

Next fix the false positives. If the gun isn't actually firing a round, I don't want to see a round.

If you believe a damage buff is in order, it should only be a fairly minor one. 55, 57.5, 60 tops. Although that's only a 5 damage per shot increase, it adds a potential 60 to the mag, and just under 39 extra damage for a full charge shot.

Next decrease the dispersion slightly and I do mean ever so slightly, no more than 10%. After you put this on a fully pimped Gallente assault and throw a couple levels into the dispersion, it's actually quite manageable. However if you guys at CCP decide to change the Gallente assault bonus to not include a dispersion bonus, then whatever you remove should absolutely be added to the base level of the Ion Pistol. Having that bonus is paramount to making the Ion Pistol a viable weapon.

Finally you -need- to change the operation skill of the Ion Pistol. In my opinion it would be best to change it from the current -5% charge up time, to a new -5% heat build up per charge. Let me explain how this would function.

Let's keep the overheat at 100 and the full charge at 100. But let's change the quick fire heat build up to a base 10. This means that at level 0 operation, (should CCP implement a militia variant) the gun will overheat either after a full charge, or 10 shots.

Let's add operation 1. Now a full charge only does 95 heat and allows for a follow up quick shot which now only cost 9.5 and allows for 11 shots to be fired otherwise.

Operation 2: Full charge is 90, allows for 2 follow up shots at 9 per piece and you can finally fire off the full 12 without overheating.

Operation 3: Full charge is 85, still only allows for 2 follow up shots at 8.5 per shot.

Operation 4: Full charge is 80, allows for 3 follow up shots before overheating at 8 per shot.

Operation 5: Full charge is 75, allows for 4 follow up shots at 7.5 per shot.

So now with the new bonus you actually -get- a decent return on your investment by being punished less from the overheat and actually incentivising the use of the charge thus getting rid of the current thought process of, "Oh god no I accidentally charged it, I'm screwed..."

What do ya'all think of this, thoughts and other ideas are absolutely welcome, I'd love to hear from other ion pistol users and CCP folks on the matter. :)

Your explanation of the IP's function were very good and your proposed fix makes sense to me (+ maybe increase clipsize).

But I'd like to toss in the idea I read in KAGEHOSHI's Thread for the next client update. Those changes do imo make more sense gameplaywise and synergise better with the suits.

I really like the idea of changing the IP's chargeshot from a damage multiplier to a shotgunstyle multiprojectile shot, which uses more ammo than a single shot. The IP would lose the heatmechanic completly (instead give that to the ScP).
It makes more sense since heatmanagement is an Amarr thing and a shotgunstyle chargeshot is easier to hit/more effectiv in cqc.

Increase charge dmg to 500
Increase damage of non charged shots to 70

Fixed

I really like the idea of the charged shot functioning like a mini-shotgun. That may not be possible in a hotfix. This isn't a weapon I ever use, but it seems like a really excellent discussion by people who have a solid grasp of the mechanics.

I had actually suggested that you third the heat for a charged shot. Normal heat would apply...with the addendum that you couldn't fire the shot unless you less under 2/3's heat to prevent firing a charged shot from like 10% heat to overheat if that makes sense.

My idea is to make it so you over get 1/3 the heat to overheat per charged shot...meaning you could not only fire regular follow up shots instead of being defenseless in overheat..but also you could get 3 charged shots off theoretically in succession.

Let me put the 'ion pistol shotgun' idea in a different light.

If it were function like the afore mentioned, realistically, it would function like the plasma cannon. It has a charge up time, it deals massive damage, and it only has one shot in the clip before reloading.

But now imagine if the plasma cannon had a longer charge up, dealt less damage at full potential, had less range, did less damage at range, had a longer reload, had less ammo in reserve, and almost never dealt full damage even within its optimal and directly on target.

That does not sound like a fun weapon to use.

And indeed I feel we already have a weapon that functions even closer to the ion pistol shotgun theory: the breach shotgun.

A super powerful alpha shotgun with very few bullets in the chamber and a long reload. But now imagine using the breach shotgun where it deals less damage, has a 2 second charge up time, has less ammo in reserve, has a mandatory reload after every shot, and its reload takes twice as long.

Think about how often you see the breach shotgun being used on the field and realize that's what you're saying you want the charge functionality to be as effective as. The only people who use the breach shotgun are newbros that are still experimenting, and people who are engaging in shenanigans or are trying to make a montage to look good.

I'm looking to make the gun viable, not more gimmicky.

You could make it so that it used more ammo based on how long you charged it, maybe with the capacity for 2 max charged blasts per reload. So you could fire many quick-charged shots for 2-3 round blasts each, fewer medium-charged blasts, or a couple max blasts. This gives you situational flexibility. Another point is this is a sidearm, so having a toned-down shotgun capability or a rapid fire pistol would be versatile and a useful compliment to your primary weapon.

I think the concept is interesting. It might not be as useful as it sounds in my head, but it would add more flexibility, diversity, and personality to the pistol lineup.

The thing is that even if you charge the weapon only 1/4 of the way and thus release 1/4 of the bullets, and even if they match up the charge to the ROF and they all manage to hit, you'll still be losing damage because had you fired them individually each would have also come packed with a mini charge damage multiplier.

So it's either fire 4 at once after a charge for 220 damage, or fire 4 individually at 80 a piece for 320 damage in the same amount of time or less. There is no situation here where the shotgun performs better.

That's a good point. So why not keep the damage multiplier for shotgun blasts too? I think there's a lot of room to play around with the stats to make it useful without surpassing the actual shotgun or outperforming other sidearms. I just like the concept of having a wide array of fun/interesting weapons that all feel very different. A slightly different version of the scrambler pistol is kinda underwhelming. Maybe this is to gimmicky to be practical though. I haven't spent nearly as much time analyzing this as you have, so I admit I could be totally wrong here.