The original post is a model for how people should ask for advice. You tell us what you know already, and what the problem is, and what you've tried, and so on. Excelsior!

Sorry that my advice of piercing sword with elemental gun hasn't worked out for you. It may still work out, sometime in the future.

If you favor kiting, then weapons with strong charge attacks are a natural choice: Brandishes, Divine Avenger, alchemers, and all bombs. I agree with Zeddy's suggestion of Ash of Agni (or Voltaic Tempest) and Venom Veiler. Consider also Dark Briar Barrage and other low-knockback bombs for parties.

You will get better at Royal Jelly Palace (and every other part of this game) with practice --- knowing where monsters spawn, knowing their AIs, etc. On my first knight, I went through the RJP learning curve, just like you. On my second knight, I was surprised to see that I could do the first two levels of RJP in 2-star gear without taking any damage --- using the kiting-and-charging play style.

"However, there isn't a combo that puts both of them on the neutral list."

I just want to throw out there that, despite people's overstatements, a lot of normal weapons are perfectly viable choices.

I found this video is quite helpful when I was newbie at royal jelly palace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-lhP9q2B3A
flourish usually just stick with first swing -> shield cancel. Otherwise, I put monster to corner, if I want it full combo.
alchemer charge only shine at 5* unfortunately. It will split up 4 bullets, not only 2 anymore.

This is doubtlessly the best post asking for advice that I have ever seen. Kudos to you for it!

I'm pretty knowledgable on T2 gear, though not so much on T3, but this might help you get through T2.

Flourish Alchemer like Bopp said is an effective combo; flourish is extremely nice if you limit yourself to using the first swing. Alchemers have great charges and are great for mobs, albeit lacking 1v1.

Bombs to consider for partying: a cheap alternative to Fiery vaporizer is the 1* Firecracker, which actually has a HIGHER proc rate for fire, with stronger fire, than any of the Fiery line up until Ashes of Agni.

Definitely consider the Troika line; back in my day, I could solo RJP by kiting the jellies into a small narrow pathway and then unleashing 2* hell upon their little squishy heads. It can also make quick work of turrets (I forgot it if was a 1 combo kill, or if I needed an extra swing... But it's still fast) A heavy sword goes phenomenally witha vortex bomb, though you need some CTR to get your troika smash in before the bomb knocks them back our.

People absolutely disdain Cutter and Spur line, and for good reason. Cutter is for interruption, and is hard to use right, while Spur is basically a crappy normal damage Flourish with smaller range, a crappy charge, and no 5* variant.

Guns that you haven't mentioned: Pulsar, Catalyzer, Magnus, Antigua, Autogun, and Blaster.

Quickly now:
Pulsar is great solo, and can be ok if used correctly on teams. It is wonderful for all turrets since it is elemental, and also tends to interrupt their attack.
Catalyzer is fun as hell and is really hard to get used to. It is best used in a party of other Catalyzer users. The explosions actually deal unproportionally large amounts of damage.
Magnus is weaker than it should be, but it's perfect for fiends. Fast pegging action, but loss of mobility.
Antigua is handy for swordsman as a sidearm. While the damage is hardly phenomenal, it is great for switches and blocks. For fighting.... You might want to leave it at home.
Auto gun really sucks in T2, but once you get to T3, Blitz is freaking steroids. No like, it IS steroids. Insane charge damage, the choice weapon for Vana. Pepperbox is in fact viable for RJP, but it's hard to use.
Blaster is best pony. It is useful for basically 120% of all situations. Though the damage isn't wonderful til T3, it still packs a punch, and it's Knockback makes kiting an easier job. I've seen both swordies and bombers use Valiance as a sidearm.

So my first and only build so far started out focused on the Storm Driver. I was playing primarily solo on a crappy laptop that doesn't have the muscle to really handle all of the graphics needs of this game and I figured a "run and gun" style would be more for me as about half the time there was some serious lag.

I wasn't dissappointed. The shock status helped to slow down the enemies I was running from. The richochette, while undependable against very small groups, was useful against a large crowd of loosely packed enemies (aim for baddies in the rear or the middle, the bounce of the bullet almost always moves back towards you and hits those in the front of the pack in their backs). When I did run in a group the swordies got some indirect assistance with me firing over their heads, shocking the baddies and keeping at least some of the attacks against my allies from finishing. When in groups where the swordies were able to easily handle a few enemies at the same time, I would move my attacks to the rear most enemies to pull them toward me. When the swordies finished off their main meal, I would have dessert all warm and ready for them. The shock status also helped against greavers, ghosts and skeletons (anything that has a "rush" animation to their attack sequence) and while single shots sucked balls against the devilites, the charged shot fired about two finger widths to the left or right of the devilite usually caught the devilite with the burst of bullets after it completes its dive to avoid the shot. When shocked, the devilites are much easier to hit as their dive can get interrupted. I think this helped out in the groups that I've run with in the past.

In retrospect, I could have got a bit more milage out of a cryotech alchemer as a soloist and running with groups of 1/2/3 star equipped knights. Kite around, freeze the baddies, charge up a sword and do a high damage hit and run. Pick single enemies to freeze and keep a giant herd from rolling over your fellow undequipped battle buddies.

Nightblade was my default blade for the longest time. Good speed, team friendly charge attack, excellent for farming RJP. Snarble barb was probably my second low star sword. Fast, good against devilites (which everybody hates) and the first swing "sweep" was good at hitting fast moving targets (wolvers and devilites) and keeping greivers at bay.

My thoughts specifically on being a hybrid:

As a gun/sword hybrid, focus on one side of the equation more than the other when starting out. If you use your gun most often, keep a sword on hand that can sweep the enemies away when they get too close (first swing with a toothpick or the large 2 swing swords).

Also, when playing in groups, think about what you want your roll to be and work your first set of gear to fit that roll. Damage dealer? High damage weapon with armor that give a damage bonus. Shield bearer (keeps the baddies from rolling over your allies by shield pushing) a shield with the best health. Status inflictor (i couldn't think of anything cooler sounded at the moment), weapons that cause status effects and anything that speeds up your rate of attack (swiftstrike buckler and shield cancel are two ways) as the more attacks you make the more likely you will inflict a status.

If you use your sword most often, keep a gun on hand that has a specific status or effect that works with your sword. An alchemer with freeze status can be used to keep baddies far enough apart so that you can pound one or two enemies with your sword, shocking status can save you from damage when trying to use a heavy two swing sword. Any gun that can give an enemy the stun status would be great for a starting attack. While the enemy is stunned, it will move towards you - slowly - and you can work on a sword charged attack.

Don't forget about armor/helm/shield that have special abilities.

The swiftstrike buckler gives "attack speed high" to ALL of your weapons, not just swords. If you spend a lot of time kiting and using a gun, the increase in attack speed will give you a bit of extra DPS. Combine the swiftstrike with the prismatech alchemer (no status but more damage) or the firotech alchemer (fire status, status damage ticks faster than the shock status of the voltech alchemer). The modest peirce protection offered by the Swiftstrike buckler isn't much, but it won't be completely useless at the RJP (jellies attack with peirce).

Wolver gear gives a sword attack bonus and peirce defense, which combined with your nightblade (shadow damage) is great for soloing the RJP.

The OP mentioned a lack of skill using the shield cancel. That is a skill that needs to be honed. Play with the configuration of your control layout until you can instantly attack and then smash the shield button. It seems like the "left mouse button attack/right mouse button shield and spacebar/mousewheel to change weapons" is a pretty standard and user friendly configuration.

Also, weapon switching is essential for a close combat hybrid. I will pop off a few rounds with my alchemer while kiting (don't fire so fast that you start the reload animation) around and then behind/beside an enemy quickly switch to my sword and swing once or twice with a three swing sword (once with a two swing sword) and then shield cancel (which tends to push the enemy away from you so that you can kite away to a safer distance to start your next attack run). You will be able to lay down quite a bit of damage, possibly inflict some type of status (if your gun does that) and then give some major DPS with your sword. Ending everything with a shield cancel typically pushes any baddies that start to crowd you away so that you can make your escape. Add some extra pain and use your gun while you fall back to a safe distance to keep the status effect oging and a constant rate of damage going.

Don't forget, when playing in groups, think about what you want your roll to be and work your first set of gear to fit that roll. Damage dealer? High damage weapon with armor that give a damage bonus. Shield bearer (keeps the baddies from rolling over your allies by shield pushing) a shield with the best health. Status inflictor (i couldn't think of anything cooler sounded at the moment), weapons that cause status effects and anything that speeds up your rate of attack (swiftstrike buckler and shield cancel are two ways) as the more attacks you make the more likely you will inflict a status.

As more resources become available to you, expand your gear to fill other rolls and be able to switch to whatever gear the group needs to be the most successful.

For fiends, either:

A. Use the first stroke of your piercing sword, shielding after that first stroke. It doesn't matter whether you like the charge attack or not, because you won't be using it. Really, the first stroke is all I do most of the time.

B. Charge your Voltedge at them. Once they're shocked, they should be easier to handle, for example by Voltedge regular attacks.

C. On a really fiend-heavy level (Dark City, etc.), there will be only fiends and undead, so you can take your Voltedge and elemental gun, and use either one on them. If for some reason an elemental-resistant monster pops up, then use Voltedge; it's half normal, so it still does some damage.

If you are playing on a day without much lag, in the Northeast room (the one with three walls bordered with spike traps) keep to the east side and move in a slow rectangle. You will want to play it risky by kiting the baddies onto the inactive spike pit, smacking the slimes once with your sword and then shield pushing the rest away. Be careful when using the alchemer as the richochettes often trigger the exploding blocks when you are trying to dance between spike traps. I wouldn't recommend this tactic when running in a group, too much lag and too many things to go wrong.

The idea is to keep away from the gun puppies field of vision/bullets, train the mobs to follow you on your path through the spikes, you aren't trying to kill anything in one sword combo, just nibbling away at their HP's. Use the alchemer to keep the Trunks damaged and the silkwing tends to stay next to them and away from the faster slimes that are following you.

The next best tactic, is to just avoid that room all together. The amount of time it takes to finish that room added to the cost in Mist/CE to revive never really felt worth what little bit of loot I might get from the treasure room's four boxes (most of the time its just heat anyways, hardly worth it). If you're going to burn Mist/CE on revives, skip this room and head for the Jelly King. If you've got some Curse and Poision potions along the way you shouldn't have too hard a time.

@Kneller: One thing about your first post, I didn't see anything about what armor and shield you have, that would be good to know for helping you with advice. Also, you mentioned not being able to decide well between something like pierce/elemental and shadow/elemental--just take whatever fits the level. You said you have a pierce sword, a shadow sword, and an elemental gun, so you can take which ever sword fits the level and the gun for now.

One thing that might help with your decisions on weapons to use would be getting some more weapons from missions to try out if you haven't already. There's a nice bunch of 0-1* weapons that mimic how other lines work--like the Hatchet has a very similar feel to a Troika line weapon. Even if it's just the Advanced Training Hall, it would help you see how they work. You also get some 2* normal damage weapons that might be useful.

IMF might be a good mission to try out too, it's not very hard once you get an idea of where the spawns are and a method to get through the puzzles and traps, and a 3* shadow sword and elemental gun would be about perfect for it. I've beat it pretty easily with my 2* alt (it does have a 3* Owlite Shield, an accidental craft lol), although it took quite a while to beat the boss with a 2* Calibur. That part would be faster with a 3* sword. Shadow is good since there are some gremlins (and some shock slimes), and although shock from Voltech won't work on many of the constructs, it's still an elemental gun. The tokens from this and from RJP (if you can beat RJP, with a group perhaps) could help with either getting more weapons/armor or just more crowns if you don't need them.

Feel free to send me a friend request to my main, Hareth. I'm not on as much as I'd like, but I can take you though some missions if you want to and we are on at the same time.

I was gonna suggest looking into the Pierce guns if Fiends are the biggest problem right now, until I read "full swordie." Magnus has big hits, Needler has big attacks and, if you can place the charge attacks, great DPS. Focusing on swords, and armor with bonuses for them, makes weapons selection much easier. The Pierce sword choice just comes down to the charge attack on the Snarble vs. Flourish, as you seem to have noticed. In Tier 2, the only Shadow option is your Nightblade and the only real choice is between the Elemental Brandishes. I'm guessing you've already found a preference for Fire over Freeze if you're going for Combuster, so I guess you're set through 3-star.

Whether to use your UV-augmented Brandish for that or sell it and craft another, I don't know. Try the Bazaar subforum here and see what kind of price it's worth, I guess. I'm pretty sure that crafting for UVs is not the most cost-effective way to get your starting arsenal up, as all paths to UVs (except a "steal" on the Auction House, of course) are rather expensive and right now you should be picking the lowest-hanging fruit in terms of benefit in proportion to cost, particularly if you're still in T2 trying to get a feel for both what works best for you and what you enjoy most.

If you haven't already, you might best consider trying a heavy sword before upgrading your Fireburst to a Blazebrand, despite faster swords working better for you so far, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, and these are in no particular order by the way, heavies are really very different so you might be surprised. That upgrade to 4-star is gonna cost a lot so you should be as sure as is practical that you're upgrading the best sword type for you- trading in 20 Jelly Gems for a sword might turn out to be a waste, but it would be much worse to find out in T3 that the other type of sword works better for you. (I myself gravitated toward the Snarb because it seemed nice and quick-stabby and worked well with shield-cancelling single swings, but soon found myself using Brandishes more and eventually settled on the Troika as the sword I find most fun, but overall went from gun-and-sword to mostly guns since guns are the quickest and most handy due to much lesser impairment of my movement, except the status-free Autogun lines which offers awesome burst damage _and_ pretty good overall DPS.) Secondly, In your case I'm guessing the Avenger path is your best bet for a heavy sword and, more importantly _perhaps_ also for an Elemental sword, given your feedback re: the Elemental gun suggestion. Brandishes have some nice reach, but that chain of blasts is stopped by a lot of things that a Jelly sword projectile flies over just like a gun projectile. If it turns out that the Sealed Sword feels right to you, then upgrading that to 4-star instead of the Fireburst will let you have a gun-like Elemental projectile, boosted by your swordie gear, from a weapon that "pulls its weight" as a sword rather than dedicating a weapon slot to a Blaster or some such.

Well, I too love Combuster and Acheron. But keep in mind that Divine Avenger and Gran Faust have much wider swings, so that you can hit more monsters (depending on the tactical situation). Hence you can achieve higher DPS, interrupt more would-be attackers, etc. In Compound 42, I prefer GF over Acheron, simply because it keeps the slimes off of me.

Personally, I never saw the point of having a DA. Sure, it has knockback, sure the charge is liquids, but why use it over a Combuster or Voltedge?

I went with Gran Faust, and I never looked back. Sure it's useless in FSC, but I have a Voltedge for that. GF is awesome for RJP and for Gremlin levels especially. The thing absolutely wrecks menders, and with some ASI on a Vog set, even using the full combo isn't too dangerous.

Now here are my thoughts:
There are 2 shadow-damaging swords in the game: Acheron and GF. There are (basically) 2 Elemental swords in the game: Combuster/Glacius/Voltedge, and DA (Ok fine there's the WRH, but who uses that ever? :P)

The Brandish lines are almost undeniably safer for regular combat; just kite and charge! The statuses from the elemental ones are quite useful as well, and Acheron's "full charge ride the lightning baby" is pretty awesome.

The Sealed lines are more... showy. You can use them to make quick work of single targets (without having to charge and spam), and can also use them to juggle crowds. Personally, I've never found juggling with my GF as safe as Acheron spamming, but the GF gets its job done pretty quickly, and the curse on 2nd hit is always welcome.

The one place I can see anyone valuing a sealed line over a brandish is Lockdown. GF is undeniably AWESOME in T3; just combo for kill! Brandish, on the other hand, requires charging, sneaking, and lucky shots. Sure, the Chaos + Charge spam sets are on the rise, but GF and DA remain staple weapons in T3.

TL; DR: Brandish lines are infinitely safer for Clockworks, GF>DA b/c LD and Curse.

gunners are a pretty rare occurence in random t2 runs. theres a slowly growing number of people trying out pure guns, and as one of those people, i can tell you that guns are friggin awesome. wish i started with them as opposed to doing them last. i can show u some time if you like (and dont assume just cuz they're 5*, thats why im wreckin' the hood. i did the same when the guns were 2*).

my advice is to get to 5* as quickly as possible, and if the game doesnt bore you then, come back and try out guns. the DPS is comparable to swordies with gun-swapping (and using charge attacks in the case of t3 beasts), and in fact, a good gunslinger can easily out-damage good swordies. i would advise against getting a weapon slot just yet, because 150 CE could easily go towards getting a 4* piece which i feel is better for progress. also read the shield-canceling guide. if you can shield-cancel well, you'll find that any mixture of weaponry is deadly in its own right, and then you can focus on pure offensive measures without sacrificing survivability and safety.

if you do end up going pure swords, i would wholeheartedly recommend a brandish/flourish line combo. i own a triglav, DA and GF, but the slow and steady approach was never how i liked to play my games. they DO have better crowd control, but launching attacks quickly can mean both more safety and more damage in many situations. a combuster/final flourish combo will carry you through anywhere (except c42 maybe XD, it can theoretically get you through, but thats a pissing contest which is a waste of time.).

i have a glacius, and i dont like it. if i could magically change it to a combuster at no cost, i totally would. the reason is simple: glacius freezes targets with its charge attack. if you want more DPS, u actually want them to clump, not all spread out and frozen. combuster does exactly that: pushes guys together. if you have CTR such as through the chaos set, a UV on the sword, or a charge trinket, all you need to do is spam the charge attack and you can mow through 30+ zombies super fast. if your party does the same thing, you'll wonder where the crowd went cuz they died so fast. volt edge will take a long time to grind pvp, which will be horridly tedious if you dont enjoy it.

I've never tried Combuster against Vanaduke. It's certainly not a recommended tactic for novices. Some experienced players do Vanaduke sword-only, by carefully managing his fireballs. Then Combuster should be fine (although still not the best sword choice).

In the rest of Firestorm Citadel, Combuster is a very powerful weapon. The fire doesn't affect most of the monsters, so Combuster is essentially without status effect, like Acheron. Monsters ride the entire charge attack (unlike with Voltedge and Glacius, often) for huge damage. Oilers are adversely affected, but there are very few of them, you don't have to charge at them, and if you do they die quickly anyway.

now that i refreshed i see bopp and i wrote basically the same thing. see, its troooo!

It depends on how long you want to hold out. If this is your first 5-star set, then UVs aren't as important as that you get to 5 stars and start earning lots of crowns. If you're an experienced knight with dozens of 5-star items, then you already have lots of good weapons to use, so you should hold out for better UVs, namely ASI and CTR on weapons.