"*Dread Venom Striker: I've heard that it's really good at taking down Vanaduke's mask."

It used to be, before chaos. Now, there's not much reason not to just use charge-up attacks on it with your blitz needle, since the charge-up is fast enough to get great DPS out of it. It also used to be fantastic to JK, before he was changed, now it isn't very useful against him.

Anyways, guns can be really useful against wolvers if used correctly. Generally they teleport behind you, so you can lay a bomb, then shoot at them with a gun to get them to teleport into your bomb.

With a bit of damage bonus, the cutters can tear through devilites due to their low health, and I find it a lot easier to use than flourish against them.

Splinter bomb can be pretty nice for kiting a large group of devilites along the windy, narrow roads of devilish drugery. The area will clump the shards together and the long fuse time means you never have to be within attack range.

Dark Matter Bomb can juggle gremlins where DBB is no longer powerful enough to do that. Where DBB is powerful enough to do that, the core of DMB will also, and you can use that to more easily conquer most gremlins. Takes a bit of practice and can be risky, but also faster.

Similarly, Crystal Bomb can interrupt puppies where Nitro will no longer.

Pepperbox is great for everything except wolvers.

Rocket Hammer's charge in conjunction with a vortex bomb. I prefer Triglav's charged in it's place but the hammer charge is surprisingly fun to use too. The weapon gets a bit boring versus monsters with vanilla attacks.

Blitz. I thought I'd only use it for FSC but I find it handy for beasts (jury's out on devilites. Too easy to take a chair to the face.)

These are pretty recognized "good" weapons but I was surprised.

I'd say swiftstrike is the #1 gunner/swordsman shield, but Scarlet probably has the edge for bombers. Twisted Targe is only useful for swordsman, but depending on the weapon Scarlet might still have a use (for example, don't need much of a damage bonus when using high damage weapons like rocket hammer or troika).

Haven't had the chance/desire to use the status break line, mostly because I feel the massive stat weakness make them way to weak compared to the alternatives.

"A knight need not have courage, only Valiance. It's surprisingly effective gun fir the sheer utrility of it alone."

New players might want to hold off on crafting Valiance.

@Thinslayer: I think that's just part of the game, I've seen discussions of that phenomena of always ending up with one bar left before.

As a veteran swordsman, I'm having a hard time seeing any use of swords as unexpectedly good. I know every sword very well, with the exception of the Flourish line (BTB, close enough) and I know where I'll find use for each and every single one of them so long as we're not talking about swords that really don't have any use, such as the Cautery Sword.

As for guns, Valiance provides terrible damage but great utility in a huge amount of ways. Having a CTR VH UV on it means I can keep a turret from firing but that's what we have Polaris for, no?

Lots of people seem to say Venom Veiler but if you just know the mechanics of poison, it should be rather obvious that it will make any final wave in an arena squirm when paired with some damage.

Okay, I guess it's pretty good. Unless you compare the possible DPS with DVS, Suda/Triglav, Levi, VPB, Nitro and probably a couple other guns.

Polaris, Supernova, * Driver (-Umbra).

See, to hit a devilite, you shoot where it's going to be, not where it is. It's not awfully hard to hit a bunch by shooting Pulsar bullets with a nice spread, kinda like you do in LD except it's easier.
As for switch shooting, of course you'd do that if you're out for damage.

I know. VV is one of my favourite bombs but it's far from unexpected.

Then you bring an autogun and shoot everywhere. It'll run into a bullet sooner or later.

"It's a bit like playing the lottery. Once it's shocked, it's a lot less threatening, though."

This is true. Still, even if you land some shots, your DPS is limited by their dodging.

Either way, Valiance's few gimmicky uses are going to be invalidated when the gunner patch lands, so I suppose its a moot point anyways.

Wait what is the gunner patch going to do to Valiance?

Let's say if there were hypothetically a situation where a player has finite orbs of alchemy and wants to use a weapon as part of one's first, general-purpose loadout, or maybe uses Danger Rooms...

I'm an Alchemer fiend these days, (despite not being anywhere near their skill ceiling) so I'd totes like to have a Normal-damage Alchemer even though I already have Shadowtech and 3 of the Elemental ones to 4-star or higher, because sometimes I get Gremlins, Fiends and Slimes in the same level. If I could bring just one Alchemer for all 3 of those, that would be perfect since it would free up another weapon slot for something more complementary in capability than a second Alchemer, which is usually worth more to me than the bonus damage of Meatloafing the damage types vs. the hypothetical Vanilla Driver.

@Traevelliath
The point is, Valiance is so awesome handgun, that if we hypothetically had each damage variant for it, it would make most other guns obsolete (maybe except needles). For example I don't see the point in crafting Argent Peacemaker/Polaris if there were elemental Valiance. I don't see a point in crafting Callahan / hypothetical piercing antigua if there were piercing Valiance. I don't see the point in crafting Sentenza or Biohazard if there were shadow Valiance. As a player who have almost all guns in his arsenal, I'd be a bit... sad (?) to find them totally useless at one point.

I'm actually a little concerned about that situation. If we hypothetically had a shadow, elemental, and piercing Valiance, what purpose does the normal damage one serve? I think I'd still find a use for a Sentenza if I had a shadow blaster, but I don't think I'd find a use for the valiance.

"I don't see a point in crafting Callahan / hypothetical piercing antigua if there were piercing Valiance."

I don't agree with this one. Piercing antigua would still be fantastic, when you consider it will more than likely have a damage bonus vs fiend. Pierce valiance will probably be hitting for around 170-180 damage per shot on pierce weak, pierce antigua will be hitting for 127-143 on fiend. Considering antigua can get basically twice as many shots off... pierce antigua still has plenty of reason to be used.

Same scenario with pierce valiance and sentenza vs gremlins.

As far as Callahan-type weapons... well, that's an issue with their design, not an issue with valiance.

@Battlegrinder

"If we hypothetically had a shadow, elemental, and piercing Valiance, what purpose does the normal damage one serve? "

What purpose does normal damage serve in the first place? Levi's are outclassed by Brandishes in general, and DBB generally outclasses Nitro.

I made a suggestion on the suggestion forums about an idea for content where normal might find a place to shine, but other than that... normal damage just sucks in general.

"Swifstrike bucler--just for the bonus......and that it could take a hit from a depth 28 trojan"

Wat? On elite? This doesn't sound right to me.

Valiance. Generally, it sucks. But it's great for lockdown, and it pushes enemies back, which could come in handy if you get cornered.

...charging Triglav and spamming Wolvers, Undead, Construct, Jellies and Gremlins.
Its just so darn fun.

Graviton bomb + Triglav charge = everything dead. With max sword damage it kills off entire wolf packs with 3 or less in party.
I usually rock that combo with a valiance to shoot turrets in clockworks. It even dominates the puppy danger room.. pretty legit.

America!

These hypothetical guns sound interesting....ow callahan (useless pretty much) and grim repeater