Well the polaris really screwed with the hierarchy of gunners since annoying polaris spammers think they are so great. Also all the ask the master gunslinger threads have died so I guess the skill level of gunners in the general SK population has gone down a bit.

maximum, dont mind the OP, he is only T2 lol

i dont like gunners either i would rather use my swords.

@Randomjockey
1) There is nothing they can do when it comes to damage, so this has nothing to do with party unloyalty. The best thing about gunners is that they don't compete with swordsmen for damage. (Ex. 3 swordsmen chasing after a kat with a DA causing eachother to miss because of knockback) Also they can give out good status effects from a distance without leaving themselves open.
If you're that upset with their lousy damage then complain to OOO, not the poor fellows using them.

2) This has absolutely nothing to do with the gunner party as a whole, this is simply you coming across certain people that do not listen, wether they gun, bomb or use a sword, you just happened to point out the gunners specifically since you've probably seen less of them.

3) Polaris would be an obvious answer, as well as the Catalyser series (that charge attack is amazing in jelly palace as well as arenas). And of course the alchemers' charge attack getting amazing ricochet in groups (regular shots too).

All you're doing is making the already tiny gunner population smaller by putting this rant up. I notice you may be fine with this but there are a lot of people trying desperately to help out the smaller communities. You can't make that huge generalization of 80-95% of the gunner community when you just haven't even been to T3 yet.

[slight sarcasm]
Swordfighters are all Zerg-rushing suicidal fools who wouldn't know how to calculate DPS if the formula were tattooed to their foreheads. They like to jump in and slash and it's always swing-swing-die for them and I always have to finish off the enemies they barely dented before getting killed and then waste all of my health revving those stupid swordfighters all of the time (love the heat from that, though).

Just today in the RJP two swordfighters in my party zerg-rush-died against a giant lichen colony, scolded me for letting it form, then laid there uselessly while I shot the thing to death with a combination of shadowtech alchemer mk II and firo driver. They out-DPSed my guns for about 10 seconds before they were dead, but I clearly did more damage throughout the entire battle. In the end, I killed the lichen and they had only killed themselves.
[/sarcasm]

Guns don't have the same single-target DPS that swords do, but so what?

If, as a gunner, if I do less damage than you, at least I'm preserving my health to revive you when your rush-in tactic makes you eat retrode swipes. And then I'll revive you so you can play on. I can clear the whole room by myself with just my guns, while you lay dead on the ground. Gunners aren't worse, just occasionally slower and usually safer. Speed isn't quality. DPS isn't the key to winning. DPHT (damage dealt per hit taken) is the real key. You have to kill enough enemies to drop the hearts and pills you need to heal yourself. I can do that with guns. I've met a whole lot of people who can't do it with swords.

Icee, you took the words out of my mouth. Randomjockey, what i found particularly ridiculious was your comment about the 1vs 100. Gunners are better set up for this than swordies! Have you ever seen a decent gunner in an arena? I can literally run in a circle shooting Alchemer shots at them all day. This is even easier with a Polaris, or Supernova. Friend me in game and I'll show you how gunning actually works.
Plus, I'd like to see anyone do FSC and Vana without a gunner!

Azkaellion

I agree with Icee entirely. Great post.

There are a few things that signals a good or bad gunslinger.

Bad gunslinger:
-The most fatal flaw i have seen is, gunslingers that use the mouse movement. These people are pretty much swordsmen that have recently picked up gunslinging. they move in one direction, then turn around and standing still to shoot. etc.
-Do they get hit alot/trapped?

Another thing is, what gun are they using?
-If you see a guy with a autogun, they will probably die alot if they dont know what they are doing. Using a autogun without taking hits takes a bit of practice, and it only does its max damage if they are using the charge attack properly.
-If you see a guy with an antigua, they probably dont know what they are doing.
-If you see a guy without a magnus, they will have problems interrupting attacks, and dealing with devilites/wolvers.
-If you see a guy with a normal damage line catalyser. (It might have its used, but its few.)
-Pulsar spam/cant control the knockback etc.
-Gets other people killed with bad shield bumps/knockback from pulsar/valiance.
-They bring the wrong guns, example: Magma driver in FSC.

Good gunslinger:
-A good gunslinger will try to snipe/stunlock annoying gremlin bombers and healers.
-They will try to shield bump/interrupt monsters trying to attack you.
-They will take few hits, and will rarely get trapped. (this still happens to everyone ._.)
-They use the correct gear, and know how to use their difrent guns against difrent monsters.
-He can kite monsters well, without annoying other party members etc.
-Pays attention to his surroundings and his team.

Personal note: i normally dont revive randoms who clearly will just die again and waste the teams overall HP. Example, two people rush in to kill a giant lichen colony, but both die. Ill kill it first then revive you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is also the gear advantage.
Swords have most of their damage right off the bat.
Some guns dont reach their full potential until 5*

Example:
Standard sword: Calibur: decent damage and charge attack all the way from 2-5*
Standard gun: Alchemer: 2*= bullets dosent bounce off targets, charge attack splits into two bullets.
3* bullets bounces once, charge attack splits in two, the shots can bounce once.
4* bullets bounce twice, charge attack spits in two, but the shots bounces twice.
5* bullets bounce twice, charge attack now splits in 4, and the shots bounces twice.

So the damage potential of and alchemer basically doubles each time you upgrade it, while calibur has a much more average damage curve as you upgrade it.

Also, gunslingers have a limited choice when it comes to gear.
the basic set can be either upgraded into:
-a normal/elemental set with +VH attack speed.
-a normal/piercing set with +Vh attack speed.
-a normal/piercing set with negative poison/curse resistance and +medium damage bonus.
-a normal/shadow set with curse resistance with VH damage to undead. (this set also works for swordsmen and bombers)

Swordsmen have Vog cub and Skovler, each providing either VH ASI + fire resitance or VH damage bonus + freeze resistance.
and they also have the barbarous thorn shield to boost the damage by another 12%.

So swordsmen get the better armor choices, it has a higher possible damage/ASI bonus, and better resitances.

In the end, its really expensive for a gunslinger to max his DPS. And to catch up to the swordsman who is already ahead because swords do more damage.
Alchemers really shine when they have maxed CTR as an example, but that requires us to sacrifice two damage trinkets for CTR ones, or pay a ton for a VH CTR UV.

-Leaf

Now you're dissing medium-speed swords?

Yes, please move this thread to the Graveyard, so that we don't have to "enlighten" you any more.