Black Powder
A note about Gun skills: All gun skills trigger a 10 second cooldown on your gun. This means that if you're primarily focused on guns, you'll need a backup melee attack to supplement your guns while they're cooling down. Also note that gun skills are almost all single-target only, and cannot be parried.
Point-Blank Shot
ATTACK.
Cost: 10 Initiative
Damage: +40%. Only usable at melee range.
This skill's primary use is as a high-damage complement to melee combat. As with all gun skills, it cannot be parried, making it ideal for use against parry-heavy defensive characters like Fencers.
Aim
BUFF.
Cost: 20 Initiative
You gain +10 Ranged Accuracy (30s). This buff is twice as effective for the first 15 seconds.
If you regularly use gun skills, you should keep this buff active as often as possible. Given that gun skills bypass Parry, this buff will make your gun attacks hit almost every time.
Knockback Shot
ATTACK.
Cost: 20 Initiative
Damage: +20%. Target gains Stunned (2.5s) and is knocked down
Stunned: Cannot move, attack, use skills, dodge or parry. Any damage inflicted on this target will break the stun.
Knockback Shot has two primary uses. First, as a 'pulling' skill, it will allow you to bring a group of enemies to you while leaving one enemy on the ground struggling to get to his feet. A few seconds of numerical advantage can make a significant difference in the outcome of a fight. Second, it can be used during combat as an ordinary stun, taking one of your enemies out of the fight temporarily.
Cross Shot
ATTACK.
Cost: 30 Initiative
AOE 90 degree arc, to 12y
All targets gain Staggered (6s).
Staggered: -1/s initiative recovery rate, -25% movement speed
Cross Shot is the only gun skill with an area of effect, and is therefore extremely dangerous to massed groups of enemies. The additional Staggered effect allows you to keep enemies at a distance, giving your gun cooldown a little more time to expire.
Gut Shot
ATTACK.
Cost: 30 Initiative
Damage: +40%. Dodge is only 80% effective against this attack.
Gut Shot is almost unstoppable. Combined with the Aim buff, it is nearly guaranteed to hit any target, even high level or highly defensive targets.
Throw Grenade
ATTACK.
Cost: 30 Initiative
AOE: 4 yards around the target
Damage: 25-40. All targets gain Off-Balance (15s).
Off-Balance: -15% dodge, parry
Throw Grenade, unlike the other attack skills in this tree, does not use the 10 second gun cooldown. It's therefore ideal to use while waiting for your other skills. The addition of the Off Balance effect will make your enemies even easier to hit.
Head Shot
ATTACK.
Cost: 40 Initiative
Damage: +40%. Target gains Blind (15s) and one other random negative effect (15s).
Blinded: -10% offense, parry, dodge
Blind is, by itself, an extremely useful effect, in that it significantly reduces a target's defenses and offense at the same time. However, the other possible effects this skill can apply include Off Balance, Shaken, Weakened, Broken Defense, Staggered and Crippled. A lucky shot that applies Broken Defense, combined with the Blind effect, will make almost any target easy prey.
Rapid Reload
BUFF.
Cost: 60 Initiative
You gain Rapid Reload (15s). While Rapid Reload is active, the ranged cooldown for all gun skills (10s) is reduced to same length as the global cooldown (2.0s).
Rapid Reload can instantly end a fight. It allows you to trigger gun attacks as fast as you can use sword attacks, and given the generally higher damage and higher accuracy of gun skills, this is likely to be fatal to most targets. Be sure to trigger this only when your most effective gun skills - Cross Shot and Head Shot in particular - are ready for use.
