Teamwork with bombs is highly dependent on the type of bombs you are using and the enemies you face. Understanding how your bombs will affect other party members is important because you can get your party killed if you don't pay attention.

Seeing as gunslinger gear increases attack speed, what is the most effective gun to use it on? I want to use the Antigua because it has 6 shots which I think would be good with increased attack speed, but I am not sure as I don't have the antiqua. It feels like the increased attack speed does not do any significant results with guns even with the master blaster that has 3 shots compared to the normal 2 for alchemers and magnus.(It might be useful for the magnus however)

Also, another reason why guns seem fruitless is when you are in a party. When you are in a party and you have a gun compared to everybody elses sword, you can signficantly see how much more damage the the swords do. While you are working on 1 guy, a sword weilder can take on 2 or 3 before you can kill it. Also, seeing how alot of enemies like to dodge bullets, it moreso makes guns underpowered. Nothing dodges the sword, you only need to get close enough to them which is mainly only a problem when facing gunpupies.

@w1mark
The most effective gunslinger gear is the Nameless set, because of elemental defense. Attack speed doesn't really change the Antigua's already high firing rate, and I notice it most when using alchemers (the bullets fire nearly on top of each other with higher speed).

When in a party you shouldn't be taking on enemies 1 on 1 anyway, the role of the gunslinger is to do some damage from afar to help the sword users. If you had 4 sword users on 1 enemy they will be competing with eachother because of knockback, where as 3 gunslingers wont compete with eachother because they will be all hitting the enemy while the sword user keeps the monster away.

The enemies that dodge a lot can be knocked down with some guns (magnus line).

To answer one of your questions that everyone else seems to have ignored:

Yes, it'd be pretty stupid to roll out into the clockworks with nothing but guns in your weapon slots. There's a whole bunch of enemies that are basically just un-shootable outside of one specific gun line or being frozen in place. You need a back-up plan. I'm a pretty dedicated gunner, and I make sure I always have a sword of some description on me at all times. Currently it's a Troika-line or a Calibur, depending on the stratum, although my next project after I upgrade my armor is an elemental Brandish or two.

The Antigua isn't a bad gun. Overall you probably get the same damage "per clip" out of it that you'd get out of any other gun. The real issue is that most enemies that are weak to piercing damage aren't enemies you'd want to shoot at. However, as someone mentioned, the larger clip size gives you more opportunities to shield mid-barrage, and a larger "safe" window to realise that you might need to. The two-shot alchemers, by comparison, are occasionally a liability, as they take longer to reload than they do to fire.

As for the low-damage issue, two points:

#1) Guns basically trade damage for safety. You're at range, away from the monsters' nasty melee attacks. As long as you're reasonably aware of your surroundings and what else is going on, you can generally get away with taking far less damage than your sword-wielding counterparts.

#2) Once you open at least one extra weapon slot, you can mitigate the low-damage issue somewhat by matching damage types to targets. The alchemer lines are good for this, offering pure elemental or shadow damage along with a bullet-multiplying ricochet effect further down the line. Making sure you hit the middle of a pack of enemies can make sure the ricochets hit something, and can net you a surprising amount of damage.

The role of the gun in most groups, honestly, is simply to supplement the damage of your front line people, or to take on specific targets that might be unsafe or difficult for a swordsman to reach or kill himself. And to have enough health to safely heal people when/if they fall down.

I usually run JK with a Shadow Driver, and my job in the palace (as I see it) is basically to get all the Jellies out of the way so that my sword-wielding brothers and sisters can take down the harder targets with out stuff getting in the way. The fact that I'm often capable of killing a whole pack of jellies before they can kill a Lumber is just bonus.

A gunslinger should carry a magnus (piercing damage), Shadowtech alchemer (shadow damage), and one of the elemental alchemers (cryo would be my choice), to cover every type of enemy.

That being said, guns are a bad choice...

If you're a competent gunner, you should already know that going guns-only is a good way to get dead, leaving aside the annoyance you'll cause by scattering all the wolvers around. You must first accept that there are enemies that you simply can't shoot at. Carrying a second weapon type is pretty much a necessity, regardless of what your primary specialisation is. I recommend a sword, simply because they're just effective, period. Others might advocate one of the status bombs, most likely a shivermist series, mostly because it turns non-shootable enemies into shootable enemies.

That said, it's no more annoying than the bomber who uses a Blast series bomb indiscriminately, scattering enemies away from the swordsmen as they attack, or into people as they're about to attack. The charge attack with the Calibur line is almost as bad. There is a time and a place for these things, and in any party it's always nice to pay attention and not step on anyone's toes. There is honestly nothing more annoying than taking damage from a mob that you either made a point of moving away from or didn't involve yourself with because someone is being obnoxious with knockback.

Which is not to say that a bomber should never use a blast bomb. They need to cause some damage too. Just pay attention to placement, and work with your gunners and swordsmen, not cross purposes.

As a general rule: if the mobs are between you and your party, you're probably in the wrong place, regardless of what you're trying to do.

For a no-sword bomber, it depends on whether you are more support or offensive- the former usually use the haze series with maybe a piercing gun

Bad idea. More than half the enemies weak to piercing damage are the enemies that you can't really shoot at in the first place. Elemental or Normal damage would be a much better damage choice for a single back-up firearm, whether you're using swords or bombs as your primary offense. (Unless you know you're going somewhere that a piercing firearm will be useful...)

As a final note: As a good gunner, you are not the weakest link in a good party. You have mobility and the luxury of picking your targets. You can safely deal with a number of targets that are more dangerous for a swordsman to engage, or simply difficult to reach. You can, with a little work, kite whole packs of mobs safely while the swordsmen pick off stragglers or work on harder targets without interference. You might not deal all the much damage, or actually kill too many mobs, but you can give the other guys space and time to do their thing.

And if all else fails, you should have plenty of health to share when you have to bring one of your brothers and sisters back into the fray.

You shouldn't be worrying about lighting up Quicksilvers or Oilers anyway since you should be using your Umbra Driver (or other shadow damaging weapon) against jellies. Maybe if you get an unlucky ricochet from another enemy onto the jelly, but if that's the case worry about taking out jellies first.

The main reason why people don't use firotech is because it's not very useful during citadel since pretty much everything is immune to fire (or healed by it). Why I stopped at Cryo Driver and went for the Storm Driver was because I found myself never getting the freezing bonus damage since they usually get hit before it thaws or a ricochet/second bullet instantly breaks the ice. Plus the number of people that use Shivermist that I run with made the Storm Driver so much more useful.

The reason people like to bring the Argent Peacemaker to Citadel is because they usually only bring 1 gun, and since it does half elemental damage it will do somewhat good against the Undead and it will do a little extra damage against Vanaduke because it's half piercing. However, if you bring more than one gun I suggest an Alchemer and Callahan, Alchemer for dealing with the undead/mechs and Callahan for dealing with Vanaduke. That combination will give much better DPS than an Argent any day.

wondering how they work against groups: can they afflict more than one mob with status effect? At least with the charged attack?