Secondly, handguns.

• Alchemers [14]

I've discussed this in a previous thread, but I'll shorten it to, making Alchemers more consistent weapons by removing the randomness of the first ricochet on each projectile.

• Antigua [18]

Antigua is in a rough spot, most other guns are generally better, and with the addition of the specialized Blasters, many players have left their Antiguas in their arsenal to collect dust. The first idea in mind to increase potential is to further reduce or remove the movement speed reduction while firing it. Antiguas are the lightweight guns. This should be reflected more than being fast-firing. Furthermore, Antiguas do not have any feature that defines a good player from a great player.
The damage of Antiguas is particularly troublesome, simply increasing the damage will make them a superior weapon type to Blasters, and they already require much less thought than Blasters to use effectively. Unfortunately the best way to improve them while keeping them balanced with Blasters would be adding a new mechanic to Antiguas. Each consecutive shot (perhaps on the same enemy, perhaps not) will increase the bullet damage by 10% of the last hit, this bonus would be lost if the player misses a shot, or if they reach the end of the magazine. This will define someone who knows what they're doing from someone who is still learning, as well as increase effectiveness.

Sept. 7th edit - Three new ideas, without touching damage numbers.

1. Allow for the player to move around during charge.

For a kiting gun, it's rather strange that the charge locks you in place for as long, if not, longer than an autogun's charge, with little benefit. Allowing the player to move around while using the charge, and only locking the movement at the last shot would be great for the weapons.

2. Remove the first five shots from the charge attack

I do like this change a lot, however the problem is it would just be a weaker Magnus charge attack, albeit with wider range, but it definitely would see more use.

3. Have a weaker version of the charge attack bird be shot out on the last hit

This would make the weapons much more interesting, and the birds would flinch or knock enemies back (preferably flinch, as it's less disruptive than knockback). Perhaps giving the bird a hard cap of 2 or 3 hits before despawning, as well as doing the same damage as regular shots should keep it line with blasters.

• Obsidian Carbine [21]

The chance to poison should be increased, as you are trading a consistent bonus of damage versus Gremlins for a small chance to poison.

• Autoguns [-]

Autoguns are great, unfortunately two of the options outshadow the remaining two. This shouldn't be the case.

• Plague Needle [16]

Plague Needle is an interesting spot, and akin to the CIV, it has a weapon that severly overshadows it, the Blitz Needle. With the Plague Needle, you trade some damage for the ability to apply a strong poison. Unfortunately the additional damage from poison doesn't improve damage by enough to make it a sidegrade to the Blitz. I believe the damage should be increased to make the damage of Plague be equal to that of Blitz when the target is affected by a strong poison. This will bring it up to a sidegrade of Blitz, which will make players pick up their Plague Needle more often.

• Volcanic Pepperbox [17]

Volcanic Pepperbox and Plague Needle have the same damage to a neutral target which is justified by them both doing statuses, if Plague Needle damage were to be increased, Volcanic Pepperbox should receive the same damage increase.

• Catalyzers [2]

Catalyzers are in a quite sticky spot. I imagine they're somewhat hard to balance, but as it stands now, are quite underpowered. The only time you'd use a catalyzer would be when doing Catalyzer parties, the weapon is a gimmick, which is okay, but it needs a little more "oomph", my proposal is that basic attacks on Catalyzers do more than a single point of damage. I've had some ideas thrown at me, such as the damage of a detonated tag with no knockback, I feel that would be a bit much, so I believe 70% of the tag explosion damage would be a fair number, and give it use outside of spamming shots at an enemy for 15 seconds to kill it, more if in a party.
On top of that, catalyzers lock players in place for far too long when using charge attacks, which makes it very impractical to use in many situations, as you have a high risk of being hit, making it particularly difficult to use in enclosed spaces. This is a fair trade off for weapons like autoguns or alchemers, because those are high burst damage weapons that require little set up, but considering how long it takes to prepare tags to do great damage, I feel that it would be a fair change to half the time you are locked in place. The time you are locked in place seems to be 0.8s, this should be made to be 0.4s.
Finally, I would like to adress the Neutralizer. The Neutralizer, is a normal weapon that deals no status. A trend within the game is that weapons that inflict no status have a damage increase to compensate for the lack of status. However this is not the case, and we are confident this is bug rather than intentional game design as this occurs no where else within the game. Neutralizer's charge bullet does more damage than Biohazard's bullet neutrally, which is to be expected, however the problem lies when we look at the tag damage. Biohazard tags do more damage neutrally than Neutralizer. This is a bug that severely impedes the effectiveness of the weapon and should be fixed. I don't imagine it taking more than 5 mintues to fix, so please, do so!

• Permafroster (and to a lesser extent, Polaris) [20]

Permafroster by nature is counterintuitive. The Pulsar weapon line's differentiating attribute is to keep enemies at a distance through high knockback, however Permafroster freezes them, which completely negates the knockback any time it freezes.
Unfortunately I have no ideas on how to adjust this without changing how the freeze status works.

• Supernova [19]

Supernova just needs a damage increase, more so now that there are 2 more alternatives in the Pulsar crafting line, so it can compete better with other Pulsars. Currently it does ~10% more damage than Valiance, and I think this should remain consistent, so ~10% more damage than Valiance after its damage increase.

• Tortoguns [15]

Tortoguns have too many inhibiting factors to make them good weapons, which is rather unfortunate when you consider the amount of effort that is put into acquiring them.
Most importantly, invinticlinks most definitely need to be removed from the weapon. Invinticlinks were previously on Shard bombs and Seraphynx's Light Ray, but was reverted some time ago, there is no reason for them to exist solely on Tortoguns.
In addition, the Tortogun charge should not displace enemies when they land, enemies try and path around shards, which severely reduce the potential damage of the weapons. Removing knockback from the charge attack and granting them all shock status on charge will increase damage output and make the weapons feel great to use.
Tortogun's basic attack projectiles need a range increase, they are guns, but have a really short range when the forward movement isnt considered.

Sept. 7th Note
Perhaps if shock was given, knockback would be fine on the shards, as the shock would keep the enemies in place just enough to get some more damage in.

• Valiance [3]

Valiance was a pretty great weapon, until it got severely overshadowed near the end of 2014 with the gunner update's specialized blaster additions.
A very justifiable change would be increasing the damage of Valiance so it isn't almost completely overshadowed by the other 3 blasters out of very specific situations. I believe a 25-35% damage increase would suffice. It should not do the same damage as the specialized damage blasters against a neutral target, that makes it less desirable when compared.

I've been keeping an eye on the replies for a little while. Here's my thoughts on the replies.

@Zinca

The problem with Strikers currently is that it is often easy to put yourself in danger by using them, more so without ASI, there isn't much point in completing combos because you will take the hit 9 times out of 10. This counter intuitive especially when you consider that the weapon is fast but relatively weak in terms of damage as a trade off, and you want to try and get as many hits in as possible, but it typically isn't a great idea unless you have high ASI.

I agree and disagree with what you said on the Obsidian Carbine. The poison is better than the gremlin damage, if you factor in the damage maximum from the Black Kat set, but for argument sake, let's ignore it exists. How often does the poison proc? I don't think it procs enough to make it a fair trade in terms weapon balancing, hence why I suggested the chance on basic hits should be bumped up. Even as I was writing this I jumped into a training hall and spammed shots at the bags for a few minutes, I only saw two poison procs.
This does remind me that I forgot to add in another change to the Antiguas, so I will edit it in shortly with a note.

I do like your idea on removing the movement speed penalty while charging, I believe I'll add that to the post.

@Elegies

Thanks a ton. I also share the sentiment that balancing around PvP shouldn't be done, perhaps maybe as an afterthought if it's insisted that it needs to be balanced, consider balance afterwards.

@ Hatn

(Hatn has not edited his post so there is nothing to reply to yet)

@Fish

I forgot about Antiguas doing more DPS than blasters, however I still think there should be something to differentiate skill between users of Antiguas, perhaps as a trade off, but I've thought of a few different changes after reading Zinca's reply.

I think Supernova is too niche right now, which is a problem many normal weapons have, especially when the selling point of normal weapons are to supply general coverage. The few places you may use normal weapons are high difficulty locations such as unknown passage, but then there are other options which tend to overshadow them. This is also a problem with Pepperbox. (Also, what do you mean by pure normal damage Pepperbox, it already does normal damage, unless you mean statusless?)

Plague Needle, as I said in the original post, is a downgrade most times, the only, if not, one of the few, times, it's somewhat useful is fighting Vanaduke with a party, but oftentimes you're better off with everyone running Blitz, because the difference is negligible.

Perhaps you may be right with the keeping the knockback on the shards, as most of the weakness is due to the invinticlinks present, however should would open up for more usefulness, as it keeps enemies in the shards just that bit more longer. I think I will edit that into the original post.

Regarding Turbillion, I believe 4* vortex strength would be sufficient, and I agree with the projectile speed being slower, but it might not make sense as these changes would be applied to Winmillion and downgrades too.

I've made some new ideas with what you've said in mind, and I think the changes I've written would fit better in the game than the original ideas, which should answer your questions.

Also to note, it seems people like my bomb ideas as there havent been any qualms voiced yet. :P