Using guns to cluster enemies into corners is pretty helpful, a Leviathan Blade charge or similar makes quick work of 4 Gremlins trapped against a wall

Firstly, I'd recommend against trying to be a "pure" gunslinger. There's far too many situations where you'll find you just need a sword, regardless of what your primary weapon choice is.

Secondly, try and match guns to enemy weaknesses where possible. Guns do little enough damage as it is, but hitting a weakness will offset some of that. You have the advantage of doing damage from a safe distance, the reduction in our damage is the sacrifice you make for that. There are a few guns you can use where the damage type might not matter as much as the added effect, but as a general rule you'll want to use the right gun at the right time.

As for the fact that you're often inconvenienced by other people moving enemies around, there's not much you can do about that except pay more attention to what your teammates (and I use that word loosely, as any gunner knows by now) are doing. You have an advantage in mobility, so use it to get someplace safe so you can resume attacking. You'll want to keep your team-mates between you and the enemies most of the time, whether they're swordsmen or bombers. Pay special attention to calibur-wielding folks. Some of them just love that charge attack, and don't care who they endanger in the process of using it.

As for specifics:

The Alchemer series of guns come highly recommended. They all seem fairly lackluster until you get to 4* though, so you'll need some patience. You can get some surprising damage out of the ricochets (sometimes even on the same enemy), and they have useful charge attacks, which is a rare thing in the world of guns.

Either Polaris line is awesome. As long as you can maintain range, the expanded shots hit VERY damned hard for a gun, and the knockback is useful if applied properly. Be warned, you'll annoy most swordsmen with it if you're just spamming it all the time, but the elemental line in particular is very good for Gunpuppies and their ilk.

The Catalyzer series aren't as useful in a group, as you generally won't have the opportunity to stack charges with a bunch of folks swinging swords around the place. It has its uses though, mostly solo, in a duo with a bomber or in a group with other gunslingers with Catalyzers.

The Antigua line would be awesome, with a massive clip size (which keeps you safer), but the weird damage-split between 2 special types of damage hurts it somewhat. Each basically has two enemy types they do increased damage to, and they do reduced damage to everything else. The Silversix/Argent Peacemaker is arguably the more useful of the two, as it hits undead pretty hard. The Blackhawk/Sentenza only does extra damage to Beasts and Gremlins, neither of which are really fun to shoot at.

I approve of your use of the Troika as a back-up weapon, btw. I've since found the Sealed Sword lines to be just as useful, and they have the advantage of being able to exploit enemy weaknesses. Overall I think the heavy sword lines work pretty well as backup weapons for gunnery. Just be warned that you'll very rarely get to use the second swing safely as you go deeper, so get used to shield-cancelling the first swing.

Only if you or your teammates are idiots (or you lag) will you ever die in a battle, regardless of what weapon you use. Guns barely take you further out of the fray than you already are--you have crappy range and slowed movement speeds, not to mention you will still get hit by ranged attacks from monsters, or by those that come flying at you from knockback or swoop attacks.

Guns are still situational for most users, and require high tactical knowledge to master, and you're forever destined to be inferior when you run with untrained randoms--those who still knockback lumbers into you, or immediately attack the monster you're tactically targeting (break freeze from cryotech, disperse clusters or kill stickied monsters from catalyzer), or kick you just because you wield a gun.

I beg to differ. Given that the alternative is melee range, being able to attack from a full screen's distance away is a considerable distance given the nature of the game.

Now, there are some enemies with very high mobility around, like Greavers and Wolver, and Devilites have a very good (read: dangerous) ranged attack, but the vast majority of the time that distance keeps you very safe. Besides which, those enemies are precisely why I recommend any gunner carry a good sword as back-up, because there are times when having one is simply a better alternative to trying to shoot them. Several other enemies have ranged attacks, but they're mostly telegraphed or involve slow moving projectiles. In either case they're much easier to deal with at range than they are from up close.

Granted, there are times when I'm under threat more from my party-members than I am from the actual enemies present, because there will always be calibur charge-spamming fools in the game, or Nitronome addicts. Lumbers are a particular pain, because they're generally not a threat to anyone paying attention to them. If you actually get hit by one that you're actively engaged with, you messed up, plain and simple. It's the ones you're not paying attention to, on the far side of the room facing the other way that'll generally get you when some enterprising fellow bats it across the room like he's Babe Ruth or something. I find it much easier to get a feel for events around me when I have some space, and while it's just counter-intuitive to add your teammates to your list of potential threats, sometimes it's what you need to do.

Gunslinger have cruddy armor but good guns.so they use ranged wepeons to not risk any massive damage from a lumber or JK.about the cruddy armor I was joking.gunslinger sorta support swordsmen.you can hit a melee enemy from a distance to not be hurt.

@Unicornkitty

Highly disagree with this. I have yet to see a swordsman run once without dying unless they're specifically going for the title, whereas if you counted the number of times I've gotten gold survivor it'd be ridiculous.

I'm actually superior when I play with untrained randoms...I know how to shieldbump and often end up carrying the team.

Pure gunner here.

I currently use a sword and bomb but on JK runs I'm going to get a decent gun and sword.I already got a shadow tech recipe but waiting for my mist to recharge.

The three weapon types tend to have different roles, each of which is useful to a group, but each weapon type has weaknesses which promote carrying multiple types of weapons.

Swords tend towards single-target DPS, at the cost of the user's safety.
Guns tend towards higher user safety and controlling single mobs, at the cost of all DPS.
Bombs tend towards group DPS and crowd control at the cost of single-target DPS and safety

Now, there are exceptions in each group; two strike swords tend to excel at group DPS but have less single target DPS than standard three strike swords; the Pulsar and Catalyzer lines essentially shoot bombs; Crystal Bombs excel at single-target DPS instead of group DPS.

But for the most part, weapons in each group meet the ideas I set out above.

However, we have multiple weapon slots, and we can cover multiple roles by utilizing them. Specializing is actually enabled by the weapons in each group that act like other groups, though - Pulsars enable pure gunners to act like they have bombs, Crystal Bombs enable pure bombers to act like they have swords (to a degree). The puzzles in the clockworks are designed so they can always be solved regardless of what weapon types you carry, generally by having throwable items around.

Personally, I'll never venture into the clockworks without a sword and a gun, though if I use other slots, their usage is based on what I feel like using.

I'd say a gunner's role in a group scenario is keeping a large number of monsters aggro'd on themselves to enable the other players to pick targets out without being attacked by the rest; if you do this well and your teammates recognise that you're doing it, you'll feel it's worth your time. The gunner is also typically the last player standing when [crap] hits the fan, meaning they'll have to be grateful for you reviving them all the time.

Alhemers are very good.you don't have to charge to inflict the status if you choose a fire tech or something.they are pretty cheap to get so they are good for people who are starting to be gunslingers.theirnupgrades are very good.I recommend getting the shock one because shock is a very good effect.

@P1JK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6NQx4WRRg0 sry.

Gunslingers are the gods of kiting and dont worry about the low damage, just pick a freezing vap/vortex + needle and PEWPEW charge shot.

Hard guns ?
Elemental: polaris
Piercing: nedlee
Shadow: Biohazard

those are the hard guns ?