Yayyy gunner here, and i just caught your thread minutes after the making! I <3 these questions.

Okay:

1. Polaris and its utility.
a. polaris knocks back. this can help you but it can also hinder you and annoy groups. it knocks mobs out of the other bullets making DPSing harder. This is going to be a negpositive though, only because it is very very situational but in those situations, priceless (FSC).
b. It shocks. The shock will stop knockback, improving DPS but making the above utility kinda quirky :/ this is a negpositive.
c. This gun is for Soloing mostly. This is a negative unless you are a lone wolf (which is respected even if).
d. Has slow bullets. This is a negative.
e. Has a "safety" (bullets that do not expand are underwhelming). this is a negative.

2. Polaris and its aoe (area of effect damage).
a. the blast radius knocks mobs crazy, so you might get a good two or three shots into a group, then they are spread like heck. This is a negative.
b. it shocks which is an AoE status. This is a positive.

____
1. Alchemer and its utility.
a. Alchemers do not knockback, which in itself makes it utility. you do not knock mobs out of DA charge, but help the DA charge kill things. You do not throw mobs out of other's attacks period, let alone your own. This is a positive.
b. This gun is great when you are in a group. You aren't being annoying knocking things out of other's slashes and help weaken things before they are sworded. It is also good solo which is explained in AoE.
c. The charge attack can be utilized to one shot certain mobs due to insane clipping of splits, including open-mouthed gun puppies, and phantoms. Or shot into a pocket of monsters, disintegrating anything in the pocket.
d. Has fast bullets. This is a positive.
e. Has no safety, can go up and mash things point blank if ya feel like it. This is a positive :)
f. Charge attack can be utilized to hit things un-reachable or with an obstructed path between you and it with split bullets. This is a positive.

2. Alchemer and its AoE.
a. split bullets. These always shoot off to the left of you and will ricochet, bouncing off of enemies dealing 100% per hit. This is massive AoE damage at times. This is a gigantic positive.
b. hitting switches etc. this kinda sucks. This is a negative.
_________

It's kinda obvious what you should go after, its the alchemer. Don't worry about clip size, you should shoot around in the trianing hall. try shooting a bullet, waiting a bit, shooting another, repeating that over and over without reloading. 2 bullets though will pack a ton of AoE damage, always aim for the mob at the right or in a pocket. Don't worry about switches though, youll even learn how to make split bullets not hit em.

"Fire one shot, pause, one shot again, pause, etc"
Boom you beat me to it, i included that in the wall. please read it all though it'll help you decide on the alchemer which is my whole goal here :)

Edit: oh wait that wasn't you. You both look alike... i just can't put my finger on it.... what black magic is this.

Polaris is an amazing gun. I love my Umbra Driver and all (it's my favorite gun), but I don't think I'd sacrifice the incredible utility of the Polaris for an elemental alchemer.

Here's my take:

Polaris has:

* A 3-bullet clip. Benefits much more from ASI than alchemers do, and is better against stationary targets.
* Knockback. I can't stress how important this is. You really can't gun FSC without it (unless you want to rely on your teammates for things, which is a bad idea most of the time) and it's useful at other times too. In particular, it shines when you don't have a lot of room to maneuver.
* Area shock. More useful than it looks.
* AoE explosion radius hits all of the monsters that are closest to you and pushes them away.

Alchemer has:

* A charge shot that does something.
* Bounce. Can deal a lot of damage if you know how to use it, but it's an acquired technique. Polaris techniques are easier to learn and deal comparable damage.
* Status of your choice. If you want it.

Polaris vs

Zombie - Epic win
Spookat - Meh
Howlitzer - Great

Gun Puppy - Great
Lumber - Great (but takes a while to kill them which is annoying)
Mecha Knight - Bad (all guns are bad on them, but Polaris is arguably the best; will annoy the hell out of your swordie teammates though)
Scuttlebot - Who really cares
Retrode - Fine

Alchemer vs

Zombie - Great if you can stay mobile
Spookat - Fine
Howlitzer - Fine

Gun Puppy - Fine
Lumber - Good (but takes a while to kill them which is annoying)
Mecha Knight - Bad
Scuttlebot - Who really cares
Retrode - Good

And technique guide.

With Polaris you have to learn how to use the knockback to keep the enemies where you want them. And it won't always work, but it mostly does. If you're single-targeting to clean up the last monsters you can shoot at close range for lesser damage so you don't have to worry about the knockback. And slow bullets aren't always a negative (you can reload while your bullets are still hitting). Shoot 2 and wait to skip the reload works fine and is useful frequently, but I don't use it all the time. Charge shot is worthless.

With alchemers you have to learn how to use your bouncing charge shot to properly hit all the enemies, as well as sometimes getting your regular shot to bounce too. I would argue that alchemers are best charged. They should be fired past the enemies nearest to you and into the thick of things (this is sometimes a difficult shot) where they will bounce and deal steady damage to a large number of enemies. The charge shot isn't bad on single targets as well if you're just trying to deal damage, but alchemer single-target DPS leaves something to be desired (not that Polaris is any better in that respect).

And final note:

Polaris is the most annoying weapon in the game save Nitronome. If you use one, try not to shoot it in your teammates' faces and try not to push the enemies into them.

I'd use polaris if you're a regular sword swinger that has problems with turrets. I use a nova driver personally in the clockworks with dmg vs construct VH, and trinkets so all my guns have max charge. Max charge on the alchemer line will blow holes in mobs of enemies. The polaris also knocks around the enemy quite often, and can be equally harmful to your allies by blowing a charging tree into your teammates.

In LD you'd probably want to go polaris heavy either way unless you are good at dodging rapiers. Getting good enough to dodge/hit with alchemer requires a lot of practice, patience, and pain :).

If they made Silversix pure elemental, it probably wouldn't be too bad as a sidearm for a swordsman, since the high speed and large clip size (and range) makes it great for picking off that one monster you don't want to charge at again. The only thing is that it is reaally weak, but considering the clip size, it shouldn't be an issue.

there should be no doubts in terms of dps by this point in time

nova's dps > polaris's by a crazy amount

reasons:
1) polaris have slow bullets and knock back, both hinder your dps significantly (especially the ridiculous knock back)
2) nova's normal shots do the same amount of damage as a polaris's expanded shot (without the annoying knock back)
3) using nova's normal shots, if you can spawn the ricochet inside the target = 2-3 hits on the single target per shot. (reason 3 alone allows you to out dps the polaris easily)

even the status alchemers can out damage the polaris because of the internal ricochet and the high status infliction rate (each shot does the same damage as an unexpanded polaris shot; status effects are inflicted VERY frequently)

i know alchemers go "boom, boom" then reload. pulsars go "pew pew pew" then reload.

I dunno, I'm a pretty good gunner and I reload a lot because I'm lazy and shoot&wait takes too much concentration. On top of that, the third shot is really what turns the Polaris shot spread into an unstoppable knockback wall, and alchemers don't gain much DPS from shoot&wait because of the one shot clip.

I mean I definitely understand why shoot&wait is optimal and I use it when I need to, but I think it's silly to judge someone's skill by whether or not they're playing optimally. Maybe they just don't want to. Sort of like how I always take a Blitz into Jelly Palace because I like to use it to destroy blocks, and how I always take an Umbra into FSC because I don't like fighting slimes with the Polaris.

@Kalaina-Elderfall: Elemental guns are not that bad against Mecha Knights. Using a bullet to force a shield helps with keeping a swarm of them from getting too close. Once you know how to anticipate when a shield is about to drop, you can fire off shots during that window of opportunity.

Traevelliath: Trying to avoid reload as a gunslinger defeats the purpose using gunslinger gear. Increased gun attack speed doesn't do anything if you aren't trying to fire multiple shots in quick succession.

Some replies, in no particular order:

With a good Polaris 3-bullet spread in FSC, you can hit about six zombies for full damage (~250 per hit with Max damage bonus, varies by floor), maybe seven. With a meh spread you can hit three zombies. If you don't hit three zombies with the spread, you can consider it a miss. You should never be using a Polaris to try and hit the same zombie multiple times if there are three or more zombies to shoot at. When shooting at a single target, you should be moving directly at that target while shooting so that your later shots have a better chance of hitting them. You should also be knocking the single target into a corner where you can then bullet spam them to death without knockback concerns.

When I'm in FSC, I'm nearly always fighting my own zombies while the rest of the team does other things. So it's rather easy get the "solo" benefits of the Polaris knockback even while in a group. In battling rooms with a lot of zombies, I'm either trying to pick off the trojan(s) with my Blitz or I'm getting the six-hit shot spreads against zombies while pushing all of them back.

I would definitely agree that the Supernova could be useful in a lot of situations. Personally, I never use a gun that doesn't hit the enemy's type weakness, though. So while I love the Polaris and all, I never want to use it on slimes or fiends unless I have to. Maybe in solo I could stomach a few extra shots to kill things, but when grouping (and I always group nowadays), exacerbating the weakness of guns by not getting type advantage isn't really a good thing when your swordie teammates end up having to fight everything while you work on the same enemies the whole time.

Shoot&wait's primary advantage isn't the increased DPS but rather the fact that you can shield whenever you want to. It's very defensive. And it does noticeably increase your damage on guns that aren't alchemers. Personally I find it easier to be accurate when I'm not constantly firing, though, and I like to click spam, which is why shoot&wait takes so much more effort than just reloading.

When soloing mecha knights in an arena, guns work fine to kill all of them without taking any damage. It just takes a while. But I wouldn't say that guns aren't bad against them.

@kalaina
shield and run is great. but i think it's for some people (or most?). but when i play i tend to get into positions where i can do consistent damage while i can dodge everything regardless of if i'm reloading or not.

@ traevelliath
what you've defined as good gunslingers are obviously not good gunslingers. good gunslingers don't get hit period. it doesn't matter if they reload or not; as long as they don't get hit and can pull off consistant dps, they are good gunslingers.

as a side note: how many times have u run fsc and what were u doing there? why would you even put urself in a position where a zombie can jump at you when you can't get out of the way because you are reloading? i run fsc all the time with my full gunner gear (nameless set, no fire resist, no shadow resist). i reload a bunch and i rarely get hit. when i do get hit it's not because i was reloading.