My suggestions regarding item balancing can be found below.
1. Swiftstrike buckler:
Problem: in firestorm citadel this shield simply shatters from 1-2 hits (2 from zombie swings, 1 from traps or vana swings or trojan attacks). Simply speaking its almost as bad as not having a shield.
My suggestion is:
4-star variant, 5-star variant of that same shield with same or stronger bonus to attack speed on all weapons, but increased protection vs normal damage, plus increased health. It should be weaker compared to other 5-star shields, but currently its way too weak.
Has already been suggested, but never implemented. Currently I'm using swiftstrike myself for vanaduke runs (gunner/swordsman combo).
2. Plague needle:
Currently its one of the hardest to obtain items in the game - recipe for plague needle costs 150 krogmo coins, which is very hard to obtain if you don't play lockdown/blast network. And you need 4-star and 3-star recipes as well. After obtaining this very rare item you'll find out that... its 30% weaker than blitz! According to wiki, that is.
Lets calculate damage with 4x blitz vs 3x blitz + 1x plague. Shooting... undead. Example is simple, numbers are from wiki:
4x blitz = 4x 1815 = 7260
3x blitz + 1x plague = 3x 1815 + 1170 = 6615
But wait, you'll say, plague does poison! So lets re-calculate insanely lucky variant, where 1st bullet does poison and that poison is calculated towards increased damage:
3x blitz + 1x plague = 3x 1815*1.1 + 1170*1.1 = 6615*1.1 = 7276
Basically, if you're super lucky and all 4 players are using guns to shoot that poor undead, you'll do exactly SAME damage with both blitz and plague needle. And if there are less than 4 shooters, you ask? Then you'll lose a portion of damage!
Basically, the problem with plague needle is that its damage is lower than Blitz. When all 4 players benefit from poison, total damage will be equal to that of 4 blitzes.
Simply speaking, plague needle is a victim of poor weapon balancing.
My suggestions:
a) match damage of Plague Needle to that of Blitz Needle. Or at least shorten the difference to 5%. So that poisoned enemy would take more damage from this gun compared to "normal" blitz. This way people will benefit from having at least one person with plague needle in the party. It will be wanted.
b) increase extra damage from poison to 30% so that having blitz/plague combination would be worth the effort, same as using any poison weapon.
c) any combination of a and b
d) make plague needle shoot more needles
e) add another status effect on top of poison, for example: stun
3. Med damage bonus to gunslinger armor with damage bonus. 5* armor with low damage bonus is just sad - swords all have med damage, med asi bonus, gunslingers only get med undead or med asi, but low damage (which is weird, IMO).
4. High bonus on trinkets. It would be nice to have a better bonus from them :)
5. Upgrade-able UVs. Just make it expensive to upgrade a UV one level, and it should require an existing UV of some level (med) and it should be possible to upgrade only once (if you want it "balanced" instead of having everyone run with same vh/max UVs).
6. Replace damage bonus vs enemy with damage bonus using element. For example: instead of having damage bonus VS Beast, add Low-Very High "extra piercing damage". Should be only one of 3 non-normal damage types (extra shadow, extra piercing, extra elemental damage). This bonus should be stack-able with general damage bonus, for example, from armor/trinket.
7. Pure piercing 6-bullet gun. Same good old antigua but without ele/shadow damage. So I can finally solo vanaduke.
8. Reload!
Force players to reload when they empty their magazine! For example: with silversix you have to shoot 6 times before reload takes place, but if you don't shoot all 6 in a row, but shoot 5, make a small pause, shoot 5, you'll never have to reload! Same with any gun, 2-3 bullet guns included. I can shoot my Nova Driver infinitely without having to reload by just shooting a bit less frequently.
I AGREE