I've had Callahan for awhile, I find it tends to work best with wolvers, or I'd use it in delicate areas in parties in FSC (Though it has a High undead UV+using one piece of Deadshot). Against a crowd of wolvers, it's alot safer to use a Callahan then it is to use a blitz which would do low damage as they teleport, though if it's a bad crowd I personally just switch to Umbra driver til they thin out enough to go back to Callahan..

Your Hunting blade does more damage because it's a sword. :P Maxed out with UVs or trinkets or armor, a Callahan will do about 150 on a slag, but if your after pure damage on slags, go with guntrinkets or deadshot and a Polaris.. heck, with just one piece of Deadshot and a Gigawatt pulsar you'll be doing more damage to Slags then a normal 5 star Polaris,or use a Nova driver. Other benefits being the gun will interrupt attack sequences on slags like when they try to breath fire, just shove a lead bullet down their throat and watch them hit the floor. This can be useful for you and teammates. It's a little tricky, but you can also shoot through barriers with the Callahan like the Argent peacemakers since the bullets explode the same way.

In lower tiers it works fine against devilites, but T3 darkcity I might use the blitz for spray and pray against those numbers.. but usually I bring the Blitz for T3 anyway.

Callahan also has it's uses against bomb gremlins(Or any gremlin really). You can stunlock them to prevent them from throwing bombs everywhere, in a party that works well to then have the random sword user finish the thing. Trojans either gun works well, Blitz kills them faster on a charge, while Callahan I almost never use the charge since the throwback is dangerous but can be useful if planned right.

Greavers wise I'd say go with the blitz, but I don't run into those that often. Greavers usually die in one or two shots from a Blitz, it takes a little more with a Callahan.

Other then that.. Callahan is generally better then Blitz at PVP. Or you could use a Sentenza.. but that's a little more useless outside of PVP.

Bosses wise..Snarbo can go either way depending on if you have someone with you or not (Solo Callahan, with others to ring the bell Blitz You'll kill Snarbo faster then most sword users), Royal Jelly Blitz, Twins No, and Vanaduke Blitz. Yes.. I've used Blitz on the Royal Jelly, it out DPS my Umbra Driver with it's charge shots. 0_o

And yes, Valiance is better then Iron Slug. I used to know a few Gun Bombers that only carry a Valiance, base damage a Valiance will do more damage then the Magnus series. It's a good sidearm if you only want to carry one gun. If I ever decided to go Bomber I might carry one of those just as a backup and switch gun.

"Valiance > iron slug :/"

pfffft valiance is one of the worst 5* guns. it sort of defeats the point of using a gun at all. It has no statuses and no super effective damage, and no unique properties.

I think only 2 guns are worth crafting unless you do PvP. Polaris for puppies and Blitz for Vana. All other monsters can be taken care of with swords much faster.

I like callahan, it's pretty much the only gun for wolvers, and you'd be surprised how often the charge attack comes through in a pinch.

But bekjan DOES have a point...

Uuni, I have a suggestion that might really help

Try getting gun damage trinkets (even if you just get low ones to start out), heat it at 10, then look at the damage.

If you hit ultra / maximum damage (I wouldn't hit max as it would make damage UVs useless and a bit of ASI helps) with gunner gear (as damage is our best stat) then you will notice a much better gun.

I once compared my Nova with this guy's Storm. He, like a lot of people (I am assuming in this thread too), doesn't have gunner gear.

He got it, cause he thought status was shiny obviously. He had no gun dmg, I had maximum at the time. He shot it at something at some depth, it dealt 100 damage. I shot mine, and it dealt 160 damage (this was in like tier 2, so lowish damage numbers)

There is a big difference between no gunner gear < gunner gear. If anyone has a storm / nova in swords gear, at d28, my Nova deals 273 damage maxed out on a zombie if you want to compare damages.

If you are a swords then I'd just get a polaris and call it good as far as guns go - Callahan isn't necessary when you have BTB / FF as swords.

Anyway, my opinion: Callahan is the best gun. It hits dodgers, which is the big thing about it that only a few guns can do, but this one has great damage. It is 2 shot, slow, leaves you immobilized so it packs quite a bit of damage. On a dodger, you want to throw up the most possible damage before it dodges in one single bullet, so Callahan makes sense.

Blitz, on the other hand, will hit the wolver maybe 2 times before they burrow, and leave you extremely immobilized. Blitz is more made for killing giant, slow things instead of quick dodgey things like Callahan.

Also, it knocks gremlins down completely, making it useful for menders. Once they get in their bubble, switch to a fast firing gun to break it, then back to cally.

So if you are a gunner, once you have all the gunner gear you will like Callahan. Remember that damage bonus will benefit you more than ASI.

I find that my Callahan tends to miss enemies, not because they dodge, but because it hits them and then deals no damage for some reason (happens a lot on Silkwings, which eh, ok, but it's not ok when it happens on Devilites that I need to be killing). Any tips about this?

I also find that my Max Damage + Max ASI Callahan is inferior to my Base Damage + Base ASI BTB in most situations, both offensively and defensively.

And @Uuni, the sad truth is that guns REALLY need damage trinkets. It doesn't matter what gun, even Polaris benefits so much from actually having a damage bonus that they should be considered nearly as much a priority as a full set of 5* weapons and armor. Gunning is expensive.

"I find that my Callahan tends to miss enemies, not because they dodge, but because it hits them and then deals no damage for some reason (happens a lot on Silkwings, which eh, ok, but it's not ok when it happens on Devilites that I need to be killing). Any tips about this?"

Kalaina, do you have auto target set (by default) to activate when holding left shift?

If you aren't (though you probably are) just incase though, I would because using auto target helps a ton. But not all situations are good for auto target. Some you'll want to keep it off and aim w/ mouse / laptop... thing.... it's just a matter of finding out when

Also the bullets are a little screwy while shooting at blocks, and wings have really wierd hit boxes for everything (I find Nova easier to use on them).

I never want to mess with non-heart trinkets, it's too much hassle. First you need to play coliseum for mod calibrators, then you need trinket slots. All that CE could be better used towards new weapons/armor.

"and usually at lower risk?"

Not really. The majority of people that hate fiends / hate vana being devilite themed are swordsman because they complain about things sword related and manage to hint it

I haven't heard a gunner complain about dying to devilites / wolver etc specifically mentioning / hinting that they use guns.

"and more utility too"

A BTB does not have utility besides its charge attack which knocks back. A Callahan can stun a dodger (which is a positive not a negative of stun unlike stunning lumbers etc.) as well as completely knock down gremlins with every bullet.

Not only, but if you have 4 swordsman swingin at a devilite, they slap the thing out of eachother's reach. A gunner isn't going to be knockin the thing out of your reach unless the thing gets a dodge off

While using a Callahan, you will find that most monsters do not dodge even after being hit.
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@Zmag, if you think it is the WORST of the guns, go spam a nova driver / blitz needle into a pack of devilites / wolvers and report how useful that was compared to Callahan.
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"I never want to mess with non-heart trinkets, it's too much hassle. First you need to play coliseum for mod calibrators, then you need trinket slots. All that CE could be better used towards new weapons/armor."

Once you have that new weapons / armor, you don't have anything else to get besides trinkets. Also, check the AH for mod calibrators.

Also, weapon and trinket slots are something that will help you a ton end-game. If you cannot get those, I wouldn't try to be a gunner especially.

"But when you add something like a dodgey monster, it is similar to PvP - things avoidin your stuff. If you go charge a Blitz into a wolver, it burrows and a good 12 of your bullets of the charge miss."

No, if you manage to hit a wolver with Blitz it will be stunlocked and die very quickly. At least that's what happened earlier today to me.

"So go to LD and try using Blitz Needle if you think it is burst. Then try using Callahan and report which is better."

That's because people in LD do not get stunlocked, are not large enemies that stand in one place for large periods of time, and have invulnerability frames, which prevents all the needles from hitting.

"This is the best gun to use on dodgers for every dodger situation"
Unless you have too many people in your party and are too deep and your Callahan stops making dodgy monsters flinch from single bullets.

Swords will always have more DPS than guns. Guns (supposedly) make up for this by being able to attack from range. The point of Callahan is to give PURE gunners a weapon against Wolvers and Devilites - if you find a sword more effective by all means use it.

On the other hand, if you're comparing Callahan to Blitz Needle, the Blitz will do more damage, but you're vulnerable for much longer when you use it. The knockdown effect of the charge attack is extremely useful, but if you miss one Devilite or Wolver in your cone of fire it'll most likely hit you before your attack is finished. On the other hand, if you don't have room to stay still or walk around charging, the better mobility of Callahan will make it more viable.

Overall though, I think you've sadly made the wrong choice Uuni - Callahan isn't a swordsman's sidearm like Blitz or Polaris, it's a beast and fiend killer for pure gunslingers.

Ween-Bot hit the nail on the head: Callahan is not a swordsman's weapon, it's a gunner's weapon. Its mechanical purpose is to get around gunners' weakness to enemies that dodge. It's not going to be as effective as a sword in terms of damage because you're attacking (relatively) safely from range.

As a pure gunner myself, Callahan is one of my favorite guns because (compared to other guns, mind you) it hits hard on enemies that are normally troublesome for me. Wolvers and Devilites don't land a single hit on you if you time your shots correctly, and nearly every bullet you fire connects. Solo, it only takes 3 shots in t3 to kill a devilite!