I started spiral knights recently, so I have little clue how the game works. I had a couple questions.
•What's the best line of guns? Autoguns? Alchemers? Blisters? And is there a specific gun?
•How important is specialized damage?
•Is the nameless set good, or should I aim(no pun intended) for something with a certain resistance?
Regarding specialized damage, it's not really correct to say that it does 'about 20% extra', because it suggests a percentage.
The difference between specialized and normal damage is closer to being a fixed amount (about 82 damage on depth 28). This is a big deal when using normal attacks with weak guns, such as Antiguas and Blasters. It will matter less when using high damage per shot attacks such as the charge attack on Magnus.
Yes, we've discussed this many times. The damage type bonus is a fixed additive constant. There are also many other details to how damage is computed, as described at the wiki page Defense. However, for their first brush with the topic people don't want to think about all of the details immediately. They want a quick-and-dirty version of the truth, which they can refine over time as the details become more important.
For the endgame gunner you would want to aim for the Sacred Shade Firefly set. It has the Fire resist to help out on those tough fire levels and the Shadow resist to save you from those tough shadowy monsters. This should be a set you are hunting down when you journey into the clockworks.
The Nameless and Justifier sets are good if you plan on using the Blaster lines or the Autogun lines.
The Deadshot pairs up perfectly with the Argent peacemaker and other elemental guns used for hunting undead.
The New gunner sets offer a wide variety of status resist and type resist as well as sets built for taking down certain families. The Sacred Shade firefly is one of the new sets but it is one of the rounded sets and offers universal damage boosts rather than just family specific boosts.
We also have the Shadowsun set which is good at dealing high damage in fewer attacks, good for patient gunners who can snipe with Alchemer charges.
We have the Kat Eye set but it is outclassed by the Sacred Shade Grizzly set in both damage and accessibility.
There is the Chaos set which is made for large damage and CTR perks at the cost of status resistance.
We also have the Mercurial mail set which doesn't affect guns but does give you a large speed boost.
There is the Perfect Mask of Seerus which boosts CTR and speed while providing some nice status resist and damage resist, very useful on guns that require CTR to maximize the DPS, but for players that enjoy a bit more survivability than Chaos set.
Lastly we have the almost impossible to get Black Kat set, it's perks are a mix of movement speed and massive damage perks.
______________________________________
As for guns just try them all out, regular attacks and charge attacks to get a good feel for each.
@Bopp: But your 'quick-and-dirty' version of the truth is actually really misleading. It could lead to a player actually crafting Valiance thinking the damage difference is only about 20% when it's closer to 70% (108 to 180).
Specialized damage not scaling with the source is a really important factor in the choice of weapons and considering gearing for ASI vs DMG boost, and we wouldn't want people sinking radiants into the wrong choice based on incomplete information.
You are right. Approximations tend to hold in one regime, needing to be changed in other regimes. The 20% approximation I am using works for most sword strokes in Stratum 6, because that's where my thoughts are focused. But it is pretty misleading for weapons with lower damage numbers. There I should be using a different approximation, if any at all. And we've almost certainly had this exact conversation in the past. :)
Have you read the Gunslinger Guide on the wiki? It's not great, but it can help you crystallize your questions.
There is no "best" line of guns. Equipment in this game is not perfectly balanced, but it's not so unbalanced that there's one item that completely outclasses all others. Before this week's massive gunner update, I would have told you to go for Blitz Needle, Umbra Driver, and Nova or Storm Driver. Explaining why takes a while, but it involves doing a lot of damage and using weapons that reward skill. But now I (along with everbody else) am rethinking the handguns.
Specialized damage has a small effect (about 20% extra damage). But if you're carrying multiple guns, then you probably want them to be of distinct specialized types, because you might as well get that extra damage. To learn more, you might read the opening section of my detailed sword guide. The basic ideas are the same for guns as for swords (but not bombs).
Nameless is a good armor, with offensive bonuses and pretty good defense too. Read the Gunslinger Guide. Consider also reading the Armor section of my sword guide, for the basic ideas of how to choose armor. In short, status resistance is more important than damage resistance, and offensive bonuses are even more important than status, once you get advanced enough.