Couldn't figure out whether to put this in New Recruits or The Arsenal, so here it is.
While I would just make them myself and see what I like, I'm a little short on money and time at the moment.
Since I've been on hiatus I haven't really been keeping up with the new guns. After coming back I do want to make some but I honestly can't choose and I'd simply like recommendations on which to choose from people more knowledgeable than myself; after asking around some of the guns I initially wanted actually seem to be considered "bad" or "sub-par" by the majority of people I asked, so here I am for a final opinion.
Skip this if you want, it's just my thoughts if you care to know what I'm looking at, at the moment: initially I wanted Riftlocker and Winter Grave, and although I still have my sights set on obtaining Winter Grave, I've heard over and over again that Riftlocker is not that great. Besides those two, I'd like Arcana simply to replace my Polaris and Drivers as a basic Elemental gun; the fact that it makes a good Lockdown gun also somewhat appeals to me though that's irrelevant as I'm looking at this solely from a PvE-perspective. Phantamos I wanted simply because I love all the Shadow weapons though I can't see myself using it over Umbra Driver. Wildfire I find to be Polaris but slightly less useful (I actually like that Polaris shocks enemies because it lets me freely slay Gun Puppies and Howlitzers with no risk among other things besides being a DPS machine against a shocked enemy), and really the only place I can see myself using it over Polaris is Ghosts in the Machine. I'm not getting Gilded Griffon: I hated Antiguas before the update, and I recognize that they are actually good now, but I still hate them and Gilded Griffon lives in Callahan's shadow in my opinion (and I can't even get it for the sake of speedrunning areas, as Carbine works best in Piercing areas, Sentenza works best in Elemental areas, and Argent Peacemaker works best in Shadow areas, and I have all three of those). I'm quite interested in Permafroster due to its Shadow damage as well as Freeze being useful; the same reasons I want Winter Grave. I can't even see any area where Grim Repeater is useful (if you tell me Jelly King, I'm going to tell you Dark Retribution and move on).
So basically my options as it stands are Winter Grave, Arcana, and Permafroster, but I'd like a second opinion on this. May be worth noting that I do have every pre-update gun besides Overcharged Mixmaster, so I'm mostly looking for a gun that is fun and interesting while still retaining usability and filling a role that the previous guns may not have (which is why Winter Grave interests me so much). Sorry for somewhat medium-long post I think? I just would like a solid opinion on this.
Grim repeater is excellent against all manner of gremlin, slime and construct. This happens to include Seerus, compound 42 and many enemies on dreams and nightmares.
Winter grave is the other best choice that stands out to me. Many will tell you not to bother with it since it doesn't knock them back all the way, but the ice makes it better in a different way that you've probably seen before- the freeze + charge again way. This makes it quite possibly the single best weapon to fight tortodrones with, and it's plausible that more things will come out in the future for it to hard-counter in this way.
Arcana doesn't really stand out much but is still fairly useful as just "an elemental gun". I do get a lot of use out of mine, though I'd honestly rather you craft it later since it doesn't expand your capabilities nearly as much as just using valiance.
Permafroster I'm really not so impressed with. It does freeze and then break its own freeze, which is good because it means enemies get hit twice and knocked back, but it can also be a tremendous safety hazard and in general has been a lot more trouble than it's worth. It's fun to use since it's a shadow polaris and all that, but I'd get it later than sooner.