I only have a gigawatt pulsar at the moment, but the huge aoe and damage are amazing. The large shots appear to do double the damage a silversix would on mobs weak to it, but the ability to strike a large number of mobs with each shot helps outclass it. On top of that of course there's the shock damage and knockback.

For anybody that doesn't know, the gigawatt pulsar's AoE and range are a tad larger than the 3* version. (Blast radius goes from 3x3 to either 4x4 or 5x5, need to measure it, but it's easily visible) I don't know if either expands further when it goes to polaris, wiki doesn't mention it (In fact, the range and aoe changing for gigawatt weren't mentioned on the wiki, I updated it)

The final nail in the coffin for the silversix series is almost certainly the split damage type, it only does 62.5% to 2 monster types and 87.5% to another two. At least most of the monsters it IS good against don't dodge bullets.

As for Storm Driver, I don't have any direct experience with it. Supposedly the charge attack can be good in some situations, but most of the time it's just a mid damage AoE, which is something the pulsar does on every shot.

Shot for shot, it seems a full clip from silversix or the gigawatt pulsar does roughly the same damage on neutral or weak monsters, perhaps the pulsar would be slightly stonger on neutral. Monsters strong to the silversix would take more damage than those strong to the pulsar because of the half of it's damage that wouldn't be affected.

Effect-wise, pulsar has a lot of utility that silversix doesn't have; blast radius, knockback and shock. The third shot in a series seems to prevent monster attacks (it definitely stops gun puppies from firing if it lands at the right time)

You might want to hear other people's opinions first, but I think the elemental pulsar series may be better than silversix by a longshot, equal damage but better extra effects.

I currently have Kilowatt Pulsar and I am very pleased with it. Once in ATH, I saw someone fire Polaris shots to the little Bots across that huge gap (where the vials are). When the expanded shots hit the Bots, there was a explosion (definitely bigger than my Kilowatt Pulsar) and also a blue spiralling upward montion (just a decoration, it didn't lift the bots spiralling up or anything). I thought that looked cool.

I am a very big fan of the Polaris, and actually do not like guns. If I'm doing a FSC run I bring an AP and my Polaris. AP for the well known barrier trick, Polaris for well... just about anywhere else.

I can also tell a couple other things about the Polaris (and possible it's line... i didn't pay much attention while leveling it unfortunately). The large shots can push back Phantoms... while still in their orb form. They take no damage from it but I believe its the only weapon that can force the annoying balls back before they can turn into the Phantoms. The other is that the big bullets can interrupt a gun puppy. It could be that they're getting shocked, even though I've never noticed the animation around the gun puppy.

Both have their uses, both work well, so its really up to preference.

~Gwen

I havent used the AP yet, but what i really like about my polaris is that it can be a "fire and forget" weapon. I use this all the time in the ironclaw munition to flip switches or break stuff that needs breaking. Just point it in the general direction and dodge traps/rockets.
Another trick i'm trying to perfect is herding enemies in a corner. If done properly you can herd 4 or 5 enemies in a corner and blast away at them. The key part of this trick is to keep your distance just slightly outside your range. this is important because if you don't set up your wall of explosions right, you might actually fling them back at yourself :/ Keeping your distance ensures that they will stay there till they die or untill your team comes and kills them.
This also works to deny entrance to a hallway if you and your team need to retreat to heal up.

The large knock-back from the Polaris-series makes them stay in the corner.

If you keep firing at the right distance you just keep knocking things back. Sometimes I even move in with the shots to become some kind of ''tank''. I walk right through mobs and they just fly around away from me.

Kilowatt Pulsar has a lower blast radius, so things are more likely to get pushed away from the corner if your aim's off. You really just have to position it so each monster would get knocked towards the corner by the explosion. Once you upgrade to Gigawatt/Polaris the blast radius is larger, so monsters are more likely to be projected in the direction you're aiming at.

There's also the trick of positioning yourself so that the bullets explode just before they reach the monster, ensuring the knockback direction is away from yourself.

And I do this in tier 3. It works expecially well against gremlins because they willingly back themselves into the corner, but my pulsar doing elemental damage slows things down. Really helps out if you know how to use the crowd control in a team though.

Some enemies like zombies and lumbers seem to go inactive after being hit by the pulsar's knockback and drop aggro til you go back into their aggro radius again.

Polaris is a fun weapon but I don't find it as practical as using my storm driver, and not nearly as fast at killing. The more the knockback increases as you go down the line, the more annoying I find the weapon becomes and feel it tries to be a sword and a bomb in one weapon which just doesn't work. I have a very high construct polaris and a low construct storm driver and I can kill single or groups of enemies twice as fast with the driver simply by simply firing a 1-2 well placed charged shots. Which brings me to another point, alchemers can instagib monsters with a good charge shot, while polaris can't. You can even reliably kill devilites with storm driver because they dodge into all the richochets. In the time you waste "setting up" your mobs, you could have just as easily fired a couple of well places richochets or charges and killed the room.

Now I'm not saying polaris is a bad weapon, it's certainly fun and powerful, and rather useful in -specific- situations. But when compared to storm driver, which is useful in every situation, it doesn't compare. Lets leave the knockback to the swords and the crowd control to shivermist.

To those saying that the Polaris is a superior gun, I hear a lot of people saying that they are able to herd mobs into corners, keep them controlled, and very carefully execute blasts so that they can dictate the direction the mob flies.

Are these people solo? Are you running with a group? I've tried both the polaris and the catalyzer, and what I've found is that solo, when you are the only person with aggro -- great. It's very easy to make mobs do what you want.

But once there's split aggro, the bullets are too slow, and the mobs are too unpredictable, to have any semblance of the control you have when you're alone.

I don't know if this was a recent addition or not, but I love how a charged shot from an alchemer will sometimes ricochet off the same enemy. It can be a one shot against turrets.

At FSC i'll use Blitz Needle, Nova Driver and Polaris. I also take with me a bomb. How ever AP is completly useless and a terrible weak gun, if you got BN. But lets talk about Nova and Polaris. I used to use Polaris since I had it, I hated and rejected Alchemers all the time, laugh at that crappy damage. But now I use them because they really outdamage Polaris. Polaris deals good against huge masses you have to carry on distance. About 15 mobs+ I start to use Polaris, or earlier if the room is closer. If there are less mobs, Nova deals much better. If you hit the left shoulder of a mob, the recouché (written wrong i guess D:) will hit the mob again, dealing double damage wich is about 500 then. Also I made many tests with Alchemer and their lv up:
Each level up (stars) gives them:
- more damage
- more range
- more BULLET SPEED
- more recouché

So a single shot into a group of 10 mobs will deal about 5x damage +/-, but never hit in front of a mob, allways into the mass. Also recouché have been buffed, automaticly aiming mobs in a potent target location.

Oh yes, and Polaris decreases passive the damage of all other members in the party, same crappy as Calibur charge ... It's annoying, not useful.