I agree with Overdingle
I currently have a Gigawatt Pulsar and it is the only gun I use.(After trying out every frikin Alchemer mk ii)
The only thing i dont like is te dmg vs beasts and gremlins but they arent hard to take care of with a sword anyway.I am currently experimenting with the Gigawatt in FSC. I like its dmg so far but i ran into a problem.
Polaris vs. Argent Peacemaker
yea well that will be in a future thread ill start but for now its Polaris all the way. heres my equips in case you wanna know.

Armor:
Ash tail cap
Skolver coat (ill make a vog for my costume if at all. I actually do fine in FSC without one.)

Shield:
Dark thorn (i dont need no owl to own >:D....yet.)

Weapons:
Swords:
Leviathan(main for most places)
Barbarous thorn blade(for FSC.works real well)
Hunting blade (soon to upgrade)
(may get my ol' brandish finally upgraded soon. But to what?)

Handguns:
Gigawatt Pulsar (main. testing in FSC)
Silversix(main FSC atm)

Ok if you wanna send me a message or friend me my ingame name is:
Xylka

ok cyl

I swear by the Polaris any day. The balance between having a Piercing or Shadow weapon with the Polaris is stunning, since it's geared more towards slower moving enemies to begin with. The knockback and shock status also work great for pseudo-crowd control under some circumstances as well, but there lies the threshold between being helpful or being a hindrance in group lobbies. However, more often than not the Polaris is going to be a lot more effective than the Supernova, if only for the simple bonus of gunpuppy harassment. It's a great way of taking out gunpuppies from long-range, and the shock has a high chance of preventing them from even looking in your general direction. In most cases, after you get the Polaris, gun puppies fall in 4-6 shots at its completed level, and that's enough to make any swordsman happy if they can't reach the gun puppy themselves.

tl;dr - Polaris is better overall, although if you're heavy on elemental weapons as is, you may consider the Supernova for more balance to a loadout.

@john111 - When an enemy becomes shocked, it cancels all knockback effects.

Basically, if a Polaris shot shocks a monster, it won't also knock it back.

Supernova is normal, normal is not great. I'm looking at your equipment and you don't have an elemental gun, so polaris is perfect!

I still have my doubts about Polaris and teamplay. Many times, I have been annoyed with someone else spamming it. If the visuals were a bit milder, maybe I could consider it, but it just makes it very difficult to see what is happening, and the knockback can mess your teammates tactics up quite a bit.

@Fern
Yes! Xylka agrees!
anyway yea. if you cant handle living with knockback weaps then use one yourself. no one has complained that i met (cept this one troll who bragged a lot about his AP and said he hated me and my pulsar. totally random person and i kicked him at the end lol.).
anyway, again for the 6th time (ive counted), Polaris FTW.

There's really only one very narrow situation where you'd want Supernova over Polaris, and that's if you solo a lot, with only 2 or 3 weapon slots.

If you DO fit this category (like I do) then the Supernova is your best friend. Being able to hit everything (including hordes of melee gremlins, crowded menders, and quicksilvers) with ranged knockback/flinching damage is invaluable.

Without shock, which can affect knockback, you have a very reliable and consistent tool to control large crowds. And when you're soloing and being cautious, reliability and consistency become a lot more valuable than situational extra damage. Essentially, it's like a Valiance with more utility.

In any team situation, or if you're packing multiple guns, Polaris is superior. Barring gremlins, wolvers (which are impossible to hit with either gun in T3), and chromalisks (which are not threatening in any tier), Polaris does damage equal to or better than Supernova, and has a shock chance besides.

Go for Polaris. You never will have Problems with Gremlins and Beasts anyway will avoid the bullets. But you can deal Shock that deals 4 x 30 Damage and also stops actions and it will deal it to other enemies too if they're near. Also against machines -> gun puppies, you'll be awesome!

The lack of knockback when the enemy is shocked is compensated by the fact that the enemy stops moving for a sec. And meanwhile you can shoot another round that will probably nock them back this time.

I find the knockback to be very useful in group situations because you can use it in several ways beneficial to the group:
- herd ennemies in a corner and keep them pinned there
- keep a group of enemies from approaching your meleeing mates (especially lumbers)

in some situations, however, specially when rhetrodes are involved you might want to keep away from using a knockback weapon all together but that's an other story

A Gremlin UV Supernova would be pretty sweet, never considered that!

I however, despite being mainly solo went polaris..nothing wrong with the supernova though, i thought about it for a while but figured i have other weapons for for the job. Though a weapon i could do good damage to anything with at anytime im feeling the need to stay back (low hp etc) would be pretty awesome; could imagine it being very useful for swordsmen on mass waves of those bomber gremlins as well..they're a pain with no bomb spam

I said you never have really probs with these 2 mobs, so you don't need a gun against them, so use Polaris.
Polaris also prevents Puppies from attacks.

however, i noticed they can also push around trojands if they are directly b4 you and you also can push around the huge black cats in candlestick, if theexplosion is right next to them :D

As other's have said, great for hearding (spaming Lumbers et al in JK runs) and shock interupts polyp and puppies attacks.

Polaris.

In case it wasn't clear, expanded shots interrupt turret attacks the same way the last hit from most swords do, in addition to the Shock status. It's every expanded shot, too, not just the last one, so it's a perfect anti-turret weapon since no turrets are resistant to Elemental damage and most are extra vulnerable to it.

YMMV regarding complaints about visual and physics spam, different groups have different opinions. I have a Prisma Driver for swapping out if a team mate minds, but it doesn't come up often. I imagine that knowing to stay inside the "grenade arming distance" when supporting sword-users goes a long way toward getting other players to be okay with your Pulsar, in which case the Shock effect on the Elemental path is probably welcome. :D People who would have a problem with your Pulsar, whichever type you go with, even if you know how to use it in a party, will probably not be much fun to play with often and would likely object to your Leviathan Blade anyway...

Since you are not liking the Blackhawk or Shadowtech much, if you are still interested in a Shadow-type gun I highly recommend the Toxic Catalyser. IMO Poison is really, really useful in T3 when Menders are present, and the Shadow damage kills Gremlins fast enough that I find it worthwhile to just close in and use it at sword range, as in, "Dodge this." I also like how when Gremlins dodge, they are not attacking me. ;) They also seem to have been fixed so they dodge reliably and predictably again. The ability to stack gobs until you can kill something instantly (and maybe several other monsters in blast range!) so you don't have to fight the healing is another really useful option, so altogether it is my favourite weapon for Gremlin-heavy levels since it offers a lot of different ways to counter Menders. You can also stick gobs to monsters without un-freezing them, so you might very much enjoy the way it works with your Shivermist. :D "What's the point of cake if you can't eat it?"

In case it is relevant to what you are considering, I found my Alchemer underwhelming up through 3-star but really nice at 4-star, and others seem to be saying the same, so despite not being very impressed with your Alchemer you might want to consider holding onto it until you can more easily afford to upgrade it. Being able to instantly pop a turret with one charge shot is nice, despite being a bit unreliable. Alchemers are also much better in close quarters, IMO at least, than Pulsars; if the level gives me lots of long sight lines, I prefer the Pulsar but if there's so much cover strewn all over that I can only attack up close, the Alchemer's abundant ricochets and hit-and-fade nature make some fine lemonade out of those lemons. For what it's worth, though, I rarely find myself using it over my Roarmulus guns and various swords.

You also might find it perversely amusing later on to equip Quicksilver set, both Roarmulus guns, Swiftstrike, and both Snarble weapons if you use 4 weapon slots.

Date of OP: Thu, 08/04/2011 - 16:45
Today: 3/25/2012

*Cough cough*

Right after I got Supernova for my alt, I tried soloing Vanaduke with it. Trust me, all those who say Polaris is the best gun for Vana is arguable since I soloed Vana withe Polaris as well, but I realized the super weakness against the mask and slightly lower damage. Polaris is only good in FSC
But Supernova is good against Vanaduke. (Easier mobility compared to Blitz)

Anyone who claims Valiance is better than Supernova is also arguable.
Valiance is quicker, but does the exact same damage as unexpanded Polaris bullet. Charge is 310 while supernova is 360.