There are three kinds of turrets: gun puppies (construct), polyps (slime), and howlitzers (undead). Therefore elemental weapons are disproportionately useful against turrets, and piercing weapons are generally bad against turrets.

As I mentioned in another current thread, I like alchemers as sidearm guns, because I can take out a turret in a single charge attack, rather than standing in its field of fire and wearing it down with multiple shots.

A lot of players will recommend pulsars as good sidearm guns, especially against turrets. They are easy to use, and the knockback doesn't push the turrets away from the shots, so you don't lose damage as you sometimes do against movable targets.

Nertgvv is right that the magnus-line guns have big charges. But to get the most out of the charge, the monster has to be knocked back, so that the charge shot hits multiple times. I'm not sure, and I can't test it right now, but I'm concerned that magnus-style charges might not hit a turret many times.

So in short I would just carry Storm Driver or Umbra Driver, depending on which kind of turret you expect. This is the cheapest solution for you, because you already have these guns. And if you know how to aim charge attacks, so that the ricochets go into the target, then it's also the most effective solution.

Heya! Jack-of-all-trades here, primarily a Heavy sword/gun user.

You wanna kill turrets fast? I have some recommendations, and here's why:

Pulsar: Easy a good gun for some area control and minor stagger over turrets. Sure, the damage isnt the best, but the wide area coupled with the status effect it causes (or slightly more damage in the case of Supernova) make it an easy-peasy gun to use.

Alchemers: The powerhouse of guns. You need something dead /now/? Chargeshot* it. That's really all you need; like Bopp mentioned, elemental guns have an advantage over your issue, so either the Nova Driver or any of the status variants work more than fine.

*You'll need to learn land the charge in an unorthodox way to get the full effectiveness of it.

Iron Slug: A personal favorite. This is where I'd like to clarify a bit; while hitting the monster with the charge from beginning-to-end would be optimal, this isnt necesary as most of it's damage occurs at the final explosion; yes, you will lose about 2-3 ticks of damage, but the final blast hits approximately 3-5 times, effectively enough to either one-shot or leave them almost dead (so that a clip or so finishes the job). The downside is that it's a relatively slow gun, so you need to be careful.

Note that these aren't the only guns that work well against turrets, but recommended for quick-n-easy turret wrecking.

Your polaris and storm driver should fit you well enough for turrets, but iron slug and a good number of guns are effective and fun if you have time and effort to put into it. If you have CTR, go for storm driver as its charge can be incredible and if you don't, just use your polaris and be done with it. What you shouldn't do (to solve this issue at least) is try to craft something like argent peacemaker, wildfire, arcana- that would be a rather wasteful use of resources.

Since you're a bomber, I'd also recommend you look into operation crimson hammer (if you haven't already) for dark retribution and possibly the mask of seerus (to buff your storm driver/slug, if you decide to use handguns). Dark retribution is capable of killing slime and construct themed turrets just as well as any gun is, provided you can get close enough to bomb it for a bit. Dark retribution is also the most potent DPS bomb.

@Nert

Actually, the drivers' charge is just about the most damaging thing of all time when all of it lands. From the wiki-

Driver damage effective, D28:
Normal: 220
Charge: 431

"A large bullet which will split into four smaller bullets upon impact. Two bullets split off at right angles from the original shot, two fire back towards the gunner at a 45 degree angle, similar to previous versions of the gun. Each smaller bullet will ricochet twice. "

1x charge damage
(4 * 3 = 4 bullets that ricochet twice)x normal bullets

Total damage: 3071-- if all of it hits (a big if)

Iron Slug damage, D28:
Charge: 385

Hits 3 times: 1155
Hits needed to outdamage a successful driver charge: 8

Combuster charge: 613 + 184*5 = 1,533

And this doesn't even factor in something like getting an attack boosting orb, which grants the knight a 1.3 damage multiplier applied prior to subtracting defense.. which would magic up another 300 or so damage on top of boosting the 3071 damage mentioned before all the way to around 4000. There is a reason Bopp and I keep telling people to craft the drivers.

Thanks to various people for chiming in on magnus damage against turrets. I haven't tried it recently. They're definitely fun guns, and you should definitely give them a try. But if you're looking to bust turrets cheaply, you might as well use Storm Driver or Polaris for now.

Awoogawooga, you asked me about Polaris vs. Storm Driver. The best use of Storm Driver is to charge up, land the shot on the left or right side of the target (it's crucial to have auto-targeting off), and then the target dies. The best use of Polaris is to smother the target in regular shots, keeping it interrupted and/or shocked, until it dies. The first tactic might require me to dodge projectiles while charging. The second tactic might require me to dodge for an even longer time, but maybe at less risk per second. Ultimately both work. It's up to you. The first tactic is more fun for me.

Don't discount the Neutralizer

With a charge time that is typically less that a second and a base damage of 421 per charge bullet (502 at Max) you can spit out some pretty nice damage. This compiled with the perfect flinch rate means that you can shut down turrets and flinch any (flinchable) monster other than T3 Lumbers and Trojans.

But why not discount neutralizer? It has no redeeming features and is basically just garbage. Everyone knows that.

After checking with my Callahan, I agree that its charge can definitely one-shot-kill howlitzers. So I expect Iron Slug to one-shot-kill all turrets.

I haven't retested gun damage since the gunner update. Many of the guns were adjusted, but I have not heard about adjustments to alchemers (other than full movement speed while charging).

Maybe you are better at landing the ricochets than you used to be? That is really the big difference between doing poor damage and thinking that alchemers are weak, versus doing huge damage and thinking that they're strong.

But Holy-Nightmare, why would I put down my acheron to use some sort of garbage handgun when I can instead just charge up my acheron and kill them? I mean I'd much rather just kill them than mess around flinching them and all of that business and the catalyzers are pretty much just trash to begin with, regardless of how much time I've spent with them before and after some update.

And wouldn't having a weapon that doesn't rely on a charge attack be considered a positive for bombers? So that they don't necessarily have to charge all the time?

Sure but I've already used and enjoyed the catalyzers, so why wouldn't I go back to being effective most of the time? Being effective is at least as fun as being completely dysfunctional.

I'm a bomber, and I've tried a mega tundrus for one-shotting puppies and polyps, which it often does if I'm not in a full party or have enough gun damage bonuses. But, I agree with Fehzor, having a weapon that does not rely on charging as a utility weapon is a perk for a bomber. Sure, Holy-Nightmare said, as a bomber I'm probably more used to dodging while charging while not using a shield, but some enemies or situations are hard to deal with with just charging weapons.

I can more quickly pop off a pulsar shot then shield while engaging several turrets at once than I can charge up my tundrus to hit each one, and not always sure of KOs either. Tundrus doesn't have quite as much range I think, and if I have the space and the time to charge something, I"ll just charge a bomb and place it at max range from the turret. Kats, fiends, "bullet hells" like those side paths in the clockworks with all the puppies and spike traps, or the gun puppy danger room, all can use a weapon that can more quickly acquire and send off at least a distracting shot. I think pulsars are the only line of guns that can easily interrupt at longer range without charging, which is why I usually take one of those for my utility gun when going (nearly) full bomber.

P.S. Hey Awooga, this is Hareth on a forums account. Cya in-game!