Revision as of 22:01, 16 October 2011

Scope of the Guide

 Be Aware
* Normal damage is the only damage Vanaduke is not strong against during his mask phase.
Unnecessary, as this is not a boss guide. I have left it here in case someone chooses otherwise.

I see someone commented out this and another "Be Aware" note about a specific weapon because they only applied to specific case.

My thoughts in putting those types of specific notes in is that they are gunslinger related and are useful bits to know, even if they are not generaly applicable. I can see why someone commented them out, given that they ARE about specific zones or bosses.

So what do other people think? There is a bit of a scope issue here, which I have been thinking about in other cases too. So here are some questions I would like to put before the people who read & write this guide or know much about wiking:

• Should we cover just pure gunslinger material and only go as far as to note what weapons could be good sidearms for swords or bomb people, or should we go so far as to cover people who play hybrid gunslingers/bombers or swordsman/bombers?

• Should we deal with zone and unit specific information here, or should we instead keep the scope to information that is non-zone/boss specific? Should we write a section in boss or zone guides specific to gunslingers?

--ShideKnight 28 July 2011

I think it's best to keep the guide clean, simple and organized for now, and maybe have a separate section for boss tactics and side weaponry. No need to give all the information at once when the user is just looking to see which gun is best for their general usage. Btw, I'm the person who commented it out originally, so don't count my opinion twice. :P

--Unicornkitty 04:19, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

"Bumped" this section to the top since it is kind of important that we agree on the "direction" of where the guide should be headed....
For your 1st question, I don't know much about wiking in particular, but I think that we should concentrate on pure gunslinger material since:

• It is already stated in the beginning of the guide that "Specializing as a gunslinger blah blah blah".....

• It is a "Gunslinger Guide", not a "Guide on using Guns". Besides, is a character that uses 1 sword & 1 gun considered a swordsman or a gunman? Maybe someone can start a "hybrid" guide in future that focus on using the best weapon for the situation.

• It seems kind of strange if we talked about which sidearm is good for bombers & then the same sidearm is being mentioned again by the bombers in their bombing guide. (Same information being conveyed in two different places.) IMO, a more logical configuration would be to have a "usage strategy" section in each weapon's homepage. (But that kind of mean we should ignore guns strategy in the guide altogether...) Guess in this case, a "middle" road approach would be for the best. Lets have a section for each "class" of handguns (alchemers, autoguns, blasters, antiquas, magnus, catalyzers, pulsars) and concentrate on how the weapon "gel" with the pure gunslinger style.

As for your 2nd question, I believe we should expand the scope to include strategies for enemies/situations where "pure" gunslingers have difficulties dealing with. (Such as twin gremlin menders, wolvers, jelly king, T3 grievers, rooms with limited maneuver space, etc)

On a related issue, I think it would be nice if the guide could elaborate a bit about equipment upgrade strategies. Us gunslingers are at a bit of a disadvantage here due to there being no 2-star armor/helm/shield that works well with the gun-slinging style. For me, I choose to skip directly to Swiftstrike Buckler + Gunslinger Hat & Sash to unlock Tier 2. It wasn't a problem for me as I was doing Tier 1 damage testing for the lower tier handguns anyway but I suspect that most other players would want to unlock Tier 2 ASAP to start turning in a profit on their runs....

(sorry for not using indents, but I don't think indents would work very well with my "wall of text" approach to discussion. ;-P )
--SK Tactics 17:24, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Control Scheme

Well, since you asked for control schemes variations on the forums....

Mouse
For me, I use LMB as attack, RMB as shield, & the mousewheel for weapon switching.
Reason is that I usually operate the mousewheel & left button with my index finger while my middle finger is on the right button.
This allows me to switch weapons while being shielded / quickly shield-cancel when switching weapons. (no reason to switch weapons when attacking or charging)
In addition to using WASD for movement, my MMB is mapped to "move forward" so that I can grab a beer with my left hand while playing with only my right. (^^)/

Keyboard
erm... you probably should stop reading from here onwards unless you have OCD like me or just wanna be known as a crazed gunman...

 Colored dots indicate which keys to press with which finger.

If you have average length fingers & dexterity like me, the above picture would indicate which keys you can comfortably reach for without putting your hand out of position.
e.g. Try reaching for the "1" key with your ring finger & you will see that your pinky finger have shifted beyond the reach of the "shift" & "ctrl" keys.
IMO, a good setup should allow the user to simultaneously perform as many actions as possible.

My Current setup:

• Movement - W A S D (of course)
• AutoTarget - Spacebar (Since I need to press & hold it while moving)
• Voice Chat - Shift (Since I need to press & hold it while moving)
• HUD Lock - Ctrl
• Quickslots - Q E R F (I only have to stop strafing momentarily to tap them. W & S keys remain operational at all times.)
• Unused - 2, 3, C, V, ALT, CAPS

In a pinch, I can also use the quickslots by tapping Ctrl & clicking them with the mouse.

--SK Tactics 07:28, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Table of Contents Discussion

Is it just me, or does the TOC seem super long and messy? Not sure how it could be compacted though, so if anyone has more experience in aesthetically pleasing TOCs, go right ahead. Or leave it as is. :P

--Unicornkitty 03:09, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Now that I think about it I agree. I will take the individual guns out of the TOC to see how that works. If people would really like them added back in, please say so eaither here or on the forum thread. Thanks ^_^

--ShideKnight 28 July 2011

Techniques Discussion

Thanks for starting a gunslinger guide. Here are 2 gunslinging techniques which you might find useful to include.

1) Shield buffered charge.
Press & hold shield button. Without releasing the shield, press & hold attack button. Release shield button.
This allows you to charge up your attack without firing a shot first. 
Very useful for autogun users as they have to stand still when firing.

2) Switch shooting
You can actually cancel the weapon switching animation by tapping the shield button.
Therefore, if you have at least 2 guns, instead of doing a shoot->shoot->reload or a shoot->pause->shoot pattern,
you can try doing a shoot->switch->cancel->shoot.
Doing so should give you a higher volume of fire + a nasty cramp in your hands... ;)

--SK Tactics 24-July-2011

Bullet Speed Discussion

• Biohazard

 Be Aware
* This gun has very slow bullets.

erm... you sure about this? so far, i've encountered 3 types of bullet speeds.

• Fast - Faster than proto gun. (punch gun, pummel gun, magnus series)
• Medium - Proto gun speed. (blaster series, proto gun variants)
• Slow - Slower than proto gun. (various alchemers)

does this go slower than an alchemer?
--SK Tactics 03:37, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Yep. It is a LOT slower than alchemers. The Polaris/Supernova is also slower than alchemers, but Neutralizer/Biohazard is even slower. ~Katmint 03:59, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Bummer.... this means i'll have to rethink the gun descriptions on the wiki.....  :(

Fast -> Medium -> Slow -> Very Slow -> ???

Anyone has any suggestions for the last item?

If possible, i would like to retain the "medium" bullet speed description for proto gun as it is the 1st gun that everyone uses & it would be easier for ppl to gauge whether something is "faster" or "slower" than the proto gun.

--SK Tactics 20:35, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Teehee. Just add Very Fast to the beginning, and change the Proto gun's speed to Fast, since its bullet speeds are actually higher than most other guns. Unless you plan to do something like "Slow" "Slower" "Slowest" or "Even Slower Than Very Slow".

--Unicornkitty 04:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Personaly I would like to suggest the title "Slower Than The Slowest" for some recursive fun.

--ShideKnight

Actually, I was hoping that if a new player was to look at an Alchemer's page & see the "slow bullet" description, he/she would immediately know that its going to be slower than what they were used to (proto gun).

Guess I'll just say something like "gun fires very slow bullets" + put in a note saying its even slower than Polaris when I get to editing the gun's description.

Or maybe I should use "squares per second". but it seems a bit too much.... Even for me. ;-P

--SK Tactics 07:28, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, a 'medium' label is still identifiably slower than the 'fast' label on proto gun, but if you want the Proto gun to be established at zero, there's not much you can do besides finding more adverbs to describe 'slow'. Might I suggest "very super duper"? Then again, it would help to establish that Proto Gun is faster than most other guns so as not to confuse newbies into thinking something like that is *only* 'medium'.

Honestly, I can't even distinguish between the alchemers, proto gun or valiance anymore--they're all "fast" to me since largely I just use Polaris. Perhaps a blocks-per-second thing would work better to describe them, since the difference between Alchemers and Polaris is much greater than the difference between the Alchemers and Proto gun, even though both are adjacent in the scale you described. But then there's not really a faster-than or slower-than for the average player to compare them, since nobody remembers how fast each individual gun performs (as comparison) until they're past the stage when they need to look at speeds on the wiki.. I think? Blah, I'm not really making progress here. Ultimately it's your call. :P

--Unicornkitty 21:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

A Swordmaster's Perspective

I use swords almost exclusively, but while grouped with gunners I've noticed several things they often do that make life harder for me. Perhaps there are reasons for these that aren't apparent to me, but I thought an outside perspective might be helpful for seeing how gunslingers interact with other knights. I'm not sure how to incorporate this into the guide, though (or if it should be), so I'll put it on the discussion page for now.

Don't Shoot My Target

Based on the wiki numbers, it looks like a pure damage gun targeting an enemy's weakness does roughly similar damage to a pure normal sword. I'm sure not every sword-user is in my position, but I use specialized-damage swords and I have sword damage bonus: maximum, so I could easily be doing double your damage, and I kill most enemies in 3-4 hits, even in large parties. Attacking the same enemy as me won't necessarily reduce the number of swings I need to kill it, and even if it does, I'll likely waste a swing because I don't know when it will die (which I would if I were the only one attacking it). So providing support fire against the same monster I'm attacking is probably not actually saving me any time.

More importantly, if your gunfire causes the monster to dodge, or if your gun has knockback, you may cause a lot of my sword strikes to miss, in which case you are effectively dealing negative damage, because you are replacing my sword damage with your weaker gun damage. Knockback or bright flashes also makes it much harder for me to defend against enemy attacks, since I might not be able to tell where or when a monster attack will hit. Pulsar line, I'm looking at you.

Whenever possible, please try to attack an enemy that isn't already being attacked. However, when you do...

Don't Lead Enemies Behind Me or Away from Me

I see a lot of gunslingers get a monster chasing them and then just keep backpedaling...and backpedaling...until they're not even in the same room. This causes two problems:

1. It's very hard for a sword-user to hit a monster moving away from us; we waste a lot of time chasing them, and then even a tiny bit of lag can make us miss. If that's the last monster, or I have to run farther away to find another monster to attack, you're wasting my damage potential and making it very hard for me to help you.
2. A lot of the time, the monsters don't all continue chasing you forever--you get far enough away, and they decide to go after me instead. But you've just lead them behind me, so now I'm getting attacked from an unexpected direction and have a much higher risk of being surrounded. This can be even worse than fighting solo, because I still have to defend against almost all the monsters, but now I don't know where or when they're coming from. This is especially likely if you lure them behind me and then knockback them towards me.

Could you maybe shield-bump them away instead? Or circle? Or at least pick a direction to run that won't lure the enemies behind me?

If you can't deal critical damage, bring a sword or bomb

As noted earlier, a pure damage gun exploiting a monster's weakness looks to be roughly on par with a normal-damage sword. There are also a few situations where ranged attacks are really important (e.g. enemy on top of spikes) and it makes sense to use one almost no matter how poor the damage is. But if we're in a "normal" fight and you're using a gun the enemy is neutral or resistant to, that looks like you care more about protecting yourself than contributing to the group (especially if you also are not holding the line, see above).

If the stratum has a monster theme, two damage types is probably enough. In a status-themed stratum, I would suggest you either shell out for a third weapon slot or bring one gun and one sword or bomb. I sometimes see people using normal damage guns, or even two guns with the same damage type, and they just don't seem to pull their weight.

This is just what it looks like from the other side of the looking glass, but I hope it's helpful. Feel free to drop by the Swordmaster Guide and tell me everything we do that you hate. --Antistone 22:01, 16 October 2011 (UTC)