Making a Fortegunner.. weapon questions

[Hrith]

What I'm concerned about is how he got a Machine gun to last that long... Cati Bullet Save on a Fortegunner with a Beam Vulcanic 10/10?

But machinegun is clearly the weapon in the game which benefits the most from ATP, so not using at least a Cati / Power is a major loss in DPS; it would widen the gap between other weapons, comparatively.

Machineguns are really nice on Fighgunners, IMO, for a lot of reasons:
FI specialises in two single-handed melee weapons.
FI is primarily a melee class, so the quickly drained PP of the machinegun is not so much an issue, since you'll be using melee a lot more.
FI has high base ATP.

Since machineguns rely so much on the character's ATP, it's likely they will one day surpass crossbows in DPS, when we have enough ATP for that -- but that probably won't be until Lv180+ if the class levels remain at 20, less if they increase classes to 30 or more. Although that will be for elemental crossbow PAs, it'll take more than that to match the DPS of Yak Zagenga.

[mvffin]

What I'm concerned about is how he got a Machine gun to last that long... Cati Bullet Save on a Fortegunner with a Beam Vulcanic 10/10?

Pretty sure HPC and bullet saves do nothing for PP usage of MG's.

[panzer_unit]

Since machineguns rely so much on the character's ATP, it's likely they will one day surpass crossbows in DPS, when we have enough ATP for that -- but that probably won't be until Lv180+ if the class levels remain at 20, less if they increase classes to 30 or more. Although that will be for elemental crossbow PAs, it'll take more than that to match the DPS of Yak Zagenga.

Mechguns can pull ahead of Crossbows for per-hit damage thanks to the higher ATP% but even at best (assuming no base ATP advantage for xbow, or infinite character ATP to make the diff insignificant) the per-hit damage advantage will max out at about 10% compared to xbow. Even assuming 5% more damage output from higher element, and 5% from higher ATA they'll never match crossbow allegedly firing 25% more shots over time.

It's close though. Level 50 skills might do it. Normal mechgun progression gains 1% element and 5% more ATP compared to crossbow every 10 levels.

Even long-term I think mechgun's advantage is always going to be the same: it incapacitates any small/medium target it attacks regardless of element (your defensive options aren't limited to lightning and ice) and can do full damage to a single target from outside of melee range. The frag skills Mayalee Fury and Yak Zagenga are like a coles' notes version of "what mechs and crossbows are good for". One's got reliable damage rate and contributes to team safety. The other is more pure damage but with more risk and fewer beneficial side effects ... unless you pick a defensive SE over element %, in which case proper element mechgun does more damage.