im newish to the game and not quite adapt at picking proper weapons to use, and all be it my Armour and sword work well, my shield and gun are both lacking in my opinion, and i was wondering what shield and gun (affordable please) would you suggest for general tier two traveling?
(im more concerned with finding a proper gun, this firotech alchemer is useless
It all really comes down to how skilled you are at avoiding damage.
Knowing how to Shield cancel and Kite effectively can make any weapon seem God-like (especially the Firotech line with it's increased DPS chance on hit) in Tier 2. I'd recommend a regular Blaster and Defender for you to get used to such concepts. Work from there and find a gun-type/shield that covers any monsters that you have problems handling.
Now as to general travelling, the new Pulsar line, mostly its 4-5* Shock variant post-patch, is seeming to be very promising to most gunslingers as a general answer to every monster the Clockworks can throw at you. I'd recommend looking into getting into that line after you get used to the basics.
The Pulsar line is good but the only way to get it now (and forever) is to beat Roarmulus Twins which I don't recommend you do unless you don't lag a lot and if you don't have 3* elemental defense gear.
4* and 5* Pulsar doesn't sound like a Tier 2 weapon, and that was what OP asked about in first place.
Actually If a player is able to get a Pulsar it means he doesn't need advice on Tier 2 gear any more.
It's like telling someone that Faust is best weapon to do Jelly Palace runs :-D
Blaster and Defender seems like a good choice. Also having several shields and changing them between Stratums to match a Stratum you're heading too, is a good idea too since in Tier2 introduced non-normal types of damage on a greater scale.
Also note that if you find your gun not a good enough it may be that you're just more sword-type player and you may as well go with two swords or sword and a bomb.
their are many times when i need to do longrange damage, but the firotech just doesn't do that much damage, and is slow, so im not a "sword man".
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Damage/Monster_resistances
This should be a starting point for you before you even start thinking about weapons that do elemental/shadow/piercing damage, if you don't want to worry about stuff like that go with the Blaster line as it deals the same damage to every monster in the game, you can see the damage tables for weapons on the wiki, type SKDamageTable in the search box and you will get all weapons with a damage table that is on the wiki.
I'd go with the Calibur line, as it's reliable in all situations(not too mention the knockback). As for a gun.... I'm not too sure. I don't use guns, but from what I am told, the cCryo series works well. Or the Blaster line, too.