Because their attack power is very misleading. The way I understand it, a weapon with 14 attack should not be doing twice as much damage as a weapon with 40. Yet it does. Can someone explain what is happening here?
It’s modified by Speed, and ignores defense.
Yeah but how am I supposed to compare guns to other weapons? What number on a regular weapon is something like 14 on a gun? 
You also have to take monsters defense into consideration. Fighting something like Adamantoise, with high DEF will hve you better results with a Gun.
EDIT: I think i misunderstood your question. I don’t know the exact formula, but i always thought it of is your Speed + weapon damage+ bullet damage applied as direct damage.
That brings up another question. When do I get better bullets? I’m still stuck using onion shot. Do I just need to get further?
Quests, random bazaar items, sometimes you just stumble on them.
And don’t use guns. Or any ranged weapon in general unless you need them for flying enemies.
Which I currently happen to. I don’t see myself sticking with them though, but maybe I will, just because it doesn’t seem like something most people have the balls to do.
I’m not sure how balls enter into play here, but ranged weaponry is almost entirely useless when compared to what you can get from greatswords or katanas. In fact, everything to the left of the lower license grid is worthless.
I also had a hard time with bullets. The secret is in the Loot. Go kill some of the giant fish, and sell some Fish Scales on the Bazaar, that should get you another type of shot. Yensa Scales also get you a different type. There are other things you need to sell to the Bazaar, but i don’t know what they are, i didn’t have the guns and shot show up until i sold the fish scales. Hope this helps.
Unless you fight a monster with high physical DEF, but incredibly low Magic defense. The Greatsword will tickle it, but a Pole will make it cry. I liked using Spears a lot. I gave Fran the spear. Her ears just make me think “dragoon”. Also, what i thought was kinda fun(nerdy) was giving Penello a Katana. With her outfit, she looks kinda like the girl on Kill Bill. LOL
Also, the only other weapon that ignores a monster DEF, are the measures, but who the hell wants to give a monster Protect, or Bravery ?
Daggers are also nice, because of their speed. You’ll hit 2 and 3 times, not counting the chances of multiple hit, to a Greatswords 1. I think they did allright in balancing the weapons advantages and disadvantages well.
Ninja swords can hit many times as well.
I generally assigned each of my characters a particular weapon and stuck with it throughout the game. I probably could have done more damage otherwise, but I wanted to give them some individuality.
Vaan - Spears/poles
Penelo - Staves/Rods (she was my magic user)
Fran - Bows
Ashe - Swords
Basch - Axes/Hammers/swords if they were too weak or random
Balthier - Guns
Gun damage is just basically the guns attack power squared. None of your stats influence it, nor do any of the enemy’s stats. They can be devastating at lower levels if you can get the right ammo for them to hit elemental weaknesses.
(Handy at low levels since every other weapon uses the user’s level as part of its damage calculation, but guns don’t. Neither do measures, but who really cares about them?)
Guns can’t miss. That’s how people beat Yiazmat with level one characters.
See, I’m not sure I’ll ever use Ashe or Penello. I’ve gotten into a nice groove with Balthier and Fran and if I needed a 4th it would be Basch.
I’m only 15 hours in, and a few of those were spent hunting marks. I’m at the Tomb of Raithwall or whatever his name is. Right now guns do more damage than the best melee I can get, and they’re ranged, so I’m using them. I actually still have bows on Fran and she’s a killing machine. Vaan feels like a weakling with his 1h swords. I have Vossler as a guest and he’d be pretty weak too if he didn’t hit 2 to 5 times almost every turn.
I just killed the Garuda in front of the tomb, and the Great Wyvern mark, which was a lot harder. Having ranged weapons was necessary, since offensive magic seems like a joke in this game. Blind helped a lot with the Garuda, but I have no intention of really ever using magic at all.
I’ve had a lot of luck with poles so far too. I had one on Balthier for a while and he was wrecking shit left and right.
Honestly, I haven’t done much experimentation with gear. I use all my LP for stuff like HP+, Swiftness, and Battle Lore, and that shit gets pricey.
Very late in the game, you’ll regret it if you don’t level up secondary characters. If your entire team gets killed or low on HP, you can swap the entire team out, have your secondary characters revive them while they’re in reserve, then swap them back in. If your secondary team are all weaklings, you’ll never get the chance.
Direct damage spells, at least, are pretty much a joke. They’re pretty situational (attacking a sleeping/confused enemy without waking it, certain areas when “Attack” is disabled, but mostly just beating on the enemies will get you by. Even status-inducing magic goes by the wayside easily once the Niho… however it’s spelled accessory makes an appearance, which totally breaks the game.
Very late in the game you can level up secondary characters extremely fast by shoving them into hig-level areas with EXP-increasing accessories. Trying to level two parties at a time is a timesink since their role in the fight will be just popping in, throwing a Phoenix Down and dying so you can switch back.
1hSwords aren’t that hot by themselves, however the key is that they let you use shields, and a shield used with all the defense enhancing Licenses blocks at least one or two out of every three hits of anything (even magic) which doesn’t sound like much but is. Still, it’s simply much more effective to switch to heavy weaponry later on once you can get your hands on some of the stronger ones.
I found another Loot item used to get Bullets from a BAzaar. Green Liquid.
Maces are good for the same reason Swords are, except for the Mage characters. Some maces also have really good status effects, like the one that gives poison.
Magic is important when you are dealing with Weaknesses. I am obliterating the Mimics and Green slimes with Blizzard and Fire. Status Effects also make a big difference, they just eat up too much MP on normal monsters. I can kill Nidhogg(sp?) at lower level because i pummel it with Blind until it sticks. This reduces it’s accuracy by 90% easy.
A similar tactic applies to the Adamantoise, except i stock up on Phoenix Downs for the adds. How i beat the Adamantoise in the same dungeon is by using the time magic spell “disable”, or whichever the spell is that makes it so the monster can’t walk. After that, i pound it with Guns and Bows, and magic it’s weak to. It’s a really drawn out fight, but with Charge, it’s easy to KIT the monster around. Another dangerous aspect to this hunt, is all the skeletons that spawn up. Use your phoenix downs to kill them in 1 hit, after you kill about 5-8 of them, they stop coming.
The Magic is highly circumstancial though, and learning which bosses are immune, and which can be affected can be pretty time consuming. But where there’s an END stat, there’s a way 
EDIT: Fran is really good with melee weapons, any weapon you give her she will kick major butt with. You can even take weapons off her, and if you have learned the Brawler License, and have the Amber Armlet, she will do some pretty good number with just her fists and feet. The manual wasn’t lying when it says she’s a master of weapons, and her bare fists, LOL.
I found Bosche liked Axes, and i found Penello favored Daggers and Crossbows. I couldn’t find a weapon lady Ashe excelled with, but she handled a Greatsword really well.
Fran is doing about 800 damage to monsters in the flooded Giza Plains with fire arrows (the monsters are almost all weak vs it). Balthier is doing about 500 with the latest gun. To compare, Vaan is doing about 250 with an ancient sword. I’m not buying the whole “ranged is shit” theory just yet.
I just found my first kotetsu though, so I’m gonna see how that works out.
Also, gambits can really fucking backfire against tougher enemies. If I’m actually seriously fighting something, my strategy is as follows: Make everyone attack relentlessly while Vaan stands back and throws potions at them, because I still haven’t found a curative spell that heals for more than 200hp, over 15 hours into the game.
The only really useful gambit I’ve found so far is Self-Libra. I had auto-cure on for a while but now it just wastes turns and MP, and sometimes I’d have an enemy standing there with one hit to go for way too long because my characters will sit there throwing cures at each other instead of just fucking nailing him. Yes, I realize I can create a higher priority gambit to kill monsters at low HP before healing. But I don’t want do. I don’t feel like I should have to. And the enemy isn’t always at low HP when this happens, so fuck. The entire gambit system has only brought me to one conclusion so far: it should have a one-button off switch, because it’s good for managing weak enemies, but it fucks you when you need to micromanage.
Also, in the bestiary, there’s a number beside some of the monsters denoting how many are “left.” What is that for?
I was wrong about the Gun damage. It isn’t modified by Speed like i though.
Your Magic Power raises the effectiveness of your healing spells, so using Cure spells while wearing heavy or medium armor and using a bow wouldn’t do much. If you use Staves, and jack up your Magic Power, your Cures will be a lot more effective. Your characters Magic Defense also lowers the effectiveness of Cure… i think.