[Level9Drow]

There is a growing trend in weapon releases I've noticed recently. A lot of the newer weapons, like Shy, Barrier, Tolchock, Patient Boy, and of course the infamous Rock and Roll, are all so incredibly useful, many of them even giving the character an additional special ability, that all the other weapons are quite obsolete.

I don't point this out because I want awesome weapons not to come out anymore (except in the case of Rock and Roll), but because I'm questioning the game philosophy for the second and even third tier weapons. I realize the beginner weapons should be fairly simple and straight forward having the least amount of utility and complexity. But why make second and third tier weapons if the 4th tier weapons and on are going to be so radically different and useful as to render the 2nd and 3rd obsolete? If it was a progression thing where you had to be higher levels and pay more money for each progressive tier I could understand. But it's not, somehow the game, through cost and drop rate, wants me to believe O.Shtorm is equal to Tolchock, or that Popcorns is equal to Cookie (hell Bubblegum isn't even good as all three of it's common counterparts and it's a rare and costs more), Granny as good as Barrier.

When I get these 4th tier weapons I don't have any reason to build the 2nd or 3rd tiers I have. I just got Shy, why the hell would I ever build Raceme? I gor Rock and Roll, why would I ever build ANY other of her weapons?

I guess what I'm saying is that these 2nd and 3rd tier should cost less and some shouldn't even be considered rare, as they are quite useless, like Bubblegum for example. 1st tier should be cheap, 2nd should be normal cost, 3rd should be a little bit more and 4th tier should cost the most. Then there would be incentive to build lower tiers. And rare weapon costs often do't reflect the effectiveness of the weapons and so there are some rares that collect dust because there's nothing great about them to merit the rare cost. Prices and categories should change.

[TheBrentWoody]

I would disagree with you, except in the case of the RnR.  It is just so much more efficient than all of her guns it doesnt' even make sense.  With Hive, however, all of her other guns are different and have a different play style.  Same with Loaht.  The Bubblegum is really good, just imo, but I would usually pick it over the Cookie/Popcorns just because its more my style.  It seems a few people have 1 useless gun.  And some unfortunately have 2 (like Alicia with the Eager/Novera, they just don't scale well and require massive card support to be functional.)

Novera, Eager, Dolores, Hatchet, Last Wish, Warm.  These are the main weapons that are outclassed by those characters other guns.  (Also I still love the Smoking Daisy over the RnR all day.) But for the most part the other guns have a function/style that still makes them useful.  More guns drop off this list as MMR goes up, just because health increases and time taken to kill something is too high.

[Level9Drow]

I can get behind most of what you're saying, but Shy and Barrier give completely new abilities to the character. On top of that, Shy is the only gun of Hive's that actually does direct gun damage, and damn good damage as well with it's high crit. I can't accept Wasp as equal because it does crap damage until you proc it's special, but it has so much downtime before you get this higher damage. The other bad thing is I don't think it infects them. In its downtime it's the worst gun for her. After I got Shy and maxed it out and used it I can't see using any of her other guns. Then there is Tolchock. I don't have ANY reason to use any other weapon Konstantin has, they don't offer anything as useful.

Some characters I think your opinion really holds true is with Harec, Shae, Iune and Hans it holds true. But other characters they seem to only have 2 viable weapons, like Ginebra, Kuzman, Lycus, Hans, Alicia, Doldren, etc... Of course some of the characters only HAVE 3 weapons. But I guess I find it odd that many non-rare weapons are better than their rare counterparts on a character, then I wonder what merits the cost of the rare weapons in the first place and should they even be considered rare if that's the case and should they no longer be rare then.

[TheBrentWoody]

Well, Raceme is an area denial weapon, Shy can't do that.  Shy is probably her objectively best gun WITH utility and damage, but Racecme is still useful and Wasp is still more synergistic with her power (The only one of her guns that do REAL damage during over heal).  Just since HIVE was the example.

Konstanin's Hornet is still better imo than the Tolchock, you just have to control your range, since it dishes damage at long range way more consistently than Tolchock.  Also, Tolchock is just asinine with its mechanic.

Rare doesn't mean good.  Just means hard to get. Some bad things can be hard to get.