- Avoid reloading. Reloading makes you move slower and makes it easier for you to die. You can use all but the last bullet in each gun, then wait until your character puts the gun down. That's about the amount of time that you need to wait in order to avoid a reload. There are other techniques to avoid reloading, all having to do with switching weapons, but I'll leave that for another time.

Guns do better in certain situations:

• Blaster line (normal damage) is your all-around gun. Has great range, decent fire rate, 3 bullets, and minor knockback per bullet. Does best on single monster targets.
• Antigua lines are quick, long ranged, and weak. They have fast fire rate and 6 bullets, dealing quicker damage to single enemies. Doesn't really shine on spread monsters, but the charge attack has a final shot that pierces through multiple monsters.
• Catalyzer line deals most damage vs large groups that are stuck together. If you're not paired with a vortex bomb, then you can use catalyzer to spread enemies away from your tagged target
• Pulsar line deals more damage/knockback with the ending part of the shot. You can use that if you're playing keepaway with monsters.
• Magnus line is slow and keeps you still when shooting. It's okay if you don't shoot often, or if you plan to use the charge to snipe from a distance.
• Autogun/Needleshot line: Charge attacks deal the damage. Generally used for situations where you need to wait for a weakspot to arrive, then deal a bunch of stored damage from the charge.
• Alchemer lines: 2 bullet magazine, so you need to shoot fairly slowly. On contact, the bullet will spawn another bullet at a random angle 0-90 degrees to its left. Great line to use vs groups of monsters. With each upgrade, the charge shot will spawn more and more bullets.

Armor...

ain't really gonna bother putting much thought into this, but:

Chaos Set and Swiftstrike buckler.

Swiftstrike gives you attack speed for all weapons, meaning that your reload speed and animation speeds are generally faster.
Chaos set gives you charge attack and damage for all weapons, meaning that once you're tired of guns, you can go back to using swords.