Why are they even called gunslingers? The guns we might as well be small pump trigger water guns for all the use they have in the game. A hand full of enemies are easier to kill with a gun (gun puppies and trees are examples), but I'd say about 80% of enemies are better killed with a sword (higher damage, push back, and mobbing capability). Every gun's damage is pitiful, every gun's clip size is minimal, every gun's ability to mob is 0 (except for the autogun series which isn't too great at range but it can mob), every gun's ability to perform knockback is nil (I'm not too sure about the iron slug and callahan though can those knock enemies back?), every piece of armor in the gunslinger set is nearly useless, and every gunslinger is complaining about it.
Lots of suggestions have been put through, but none of them have been implemented or even shown any consideration as far as I can tell. The thread here: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/3475 typifies the complaints gunslingers have for me. It also offers some good suggestions for balancing (my favorite is clip size increase). However it seems like nothing's been acknowledged at all. Are gunslingers fated to die out and become a dead class?
I don't want them to be which is why I'm making this thread to again bring up grievances that gunslingers have against the current system. Swords and bombs can mob and do fairly good DPS. Guns can only hit 1 enemy per shot and do mediocre to junk DPS. Swordsmen and Bombers get equips which have a noticeable positive effect on their performance. Gunslingers get an equip set that only offers piercing defense and has a tiny positive affect on performance. Enemies which dodge a sword swing will usually be hit at least once, and enemies don't really dodge bombs (although bombs are kinda hard to place). Enemies which dodge a gun shot do not get hit at all.
These problems point out a few things to me.
For the first problem, guns hit 1 enemy per shot and do mediocre damage while swords and bombs can hit multiple enemies and will hit them pretty hard. Any way you try to look at this it's not balanced. Guns need to either do a ton of damage to that 1 enemy (guns = king of single attack damage) or guns need to be able to hit more than one enemy per shot (damage spread out over a mob instead of concentrated). Increasing gun damage (increased single mob damage), introducing more bullets fired in one shot although not autogun style but maybe a 3 spread shot like the gun puppies in T2? (mob damage spread), or introducing enemy piercing bullets (also mob damage spread) are solutions in my mind for that. Introducing enemy knockback when hit by bullets would also help deal with crowd control. Giving some guns better charge attacks with the intent of targeting one of these areas could also help.
For the second problem, gunslinger equips do nothing. I saw very good proposed solutions to this problem in the thread I linked to. Combining attack and reload speed increases and making both more noticeable, giving equips a clip size increase bonus, and giving equips a gun damage increase bonus all sound like pretty balanced requests to me.
For the third problem of enemy dodging, this isn't really a huge problem. It's annoying I must say, but I actually like the dodging system. It's kinda boring when RPGs just give you a "miss" when you miss the enemy. This way enemies are actually avoiding your shots and your aim determines your accuracy instead of an assigned number. Enemies also have lots of times when they aren't dodging like when they're taunting or charging an attack. However, when enemies do dodge guns lose out big time. Swords manage to get at least one hit in usually, but guns... guns don't get any hit in at all usually once the enemy dodges (and even if it's 1 hit guns do such pitiful single hit damage that it really shouldn't count). A solution I think might work for this is to increase the shot speed of guns. Not the speed at which the player pulls the trigger, but the speed at which the projectile moves through the air. Most guns kinda spit out this slow moving ball which inches its way along to its target sometimes fizzling out right before getting there (guns like the Antigua and needle shot series exempt). If bullets moved faster (or if there were just more bullets in the air) dodging wouldn't be so horribly frustrating. I've also noticed that enemies, when dodging, tend to dodge 100% of the time whenever bullets are flying whether they're being targeted or not. Maybe if enemies only dodged bullets targeted at them, dodged after 1 hit, or dodged only when bullets are within a certain radius then things would be better.
In conclusion, I'm not saying saying that gunslingers become super powered players capable of soloing every level of clockworks in minutes. I'm saying that swordsmen and bombers are somewhat balanced (I'm actually not sure about bombers as I don't see many of them) while gunslingers are not. Gunslingers need to be experts at something. Right now they're experts at nothing. The only thing that's good about them is that they can kite around enemies and avoid taking damage (at the cost of a huge decrease in DPS). Swordsmen and bombers need players just as much as gunslingers do. I do not advocate the adoption of every single idea presented here, but rather just a few (maybe 2 or 3 in combination with each other) which will present a more even playing field between the 3 specialties. The 3 specialties should compliment each other and bring a balance between their positives and negatives. Right now gunslingers have a few narrow positive qualities (kiting, some enemy killing is easier, status effects) and a whole slew of negative qualities (low damage, no mobbing, junk armor, limited usefulness on dodging enemies, tiny clips, fairly useless charge attacks...). Why does anyone even become a gunslinger anymore? This needs to change or gunslingers should just be cut completely from the game in favor of another more balanced specialty.
just passing by not in support or against, but to leave this note..
Guns can hit two enemies at the same time too. I've done it. Two Kats side by side in dead center with an alchemer. I won't dare say that's intended but it can happen. But hey with swords, they're really meant for one target too, they just tend to also hit multiple targets if they are in the way (similar to the dead center aiming I did with kats).
once again, just passing by.