Think about the time you've spent in Borderlands 2; what has been your go-to weapon? The type that you've always had at least one of ready to go, the one that got you out of jams, maybe the one that you enjoyed using the most. Ideally I'm looking for more than just "A shotgun" here...let me show you what I mean:

The most useful all-around weapon for me, for both my Assassin and Commando that I have leveled up to 50, has been: a Jakobs revolver. Usually one that fires more than one bullet at a time, with a larger than average magazine size, and a bayonet. These little beauties are wondrous...they do huge amounts of damage, are nearly perfectly accurate, have insanely high rates of fire and reload lightning quick, ammo is plentiful, the scope allows them to be used almost as a sniper rifle in a pinch, and in the case of my latest find, almost bridge the gap into shotgun territory as well.

Since finding my first Jakobs revolver way back when I first started with the game, I don't think any of my characters has been without one for very long. I think last week my answer may have been shotguns, but they just don't have the range, capacity or speed to be better overall than a nice Jakobs revolver.

What is your go-to weapon?

I prefer fire pistols. If it's the exploding reload kind, all the better. Fire annihilates flesh, isn't particularly bad against shields, and the pistol is just a great weapon in Borderlands. Honorable mention to my old Moxxie corrosive SMG.

I gotta go with Hyperion shotguns. Every time I've found a decent hyperion shotgun on any of my characters it's stayed in my weapon slots for a long long time. The combination of high damage and increasing accuracy just makes them so deadly, and they usually have pretty good accuracy (for shotguns) to begin with combined with quick fire rate and reload speed. My experience with shotguns in general in this game is really that they seem overpowered. While they certainly can't compete with the luxury of staying at range with a sniper rifle, compared to most other weapons they deal equal or more damage at any other range than far away. The problem is really more that most other weapons seem less accurate at range in this game compared to BL1.

Having that said, I stumbled into a really interesting weapon yesterday. It was a Dahl rifle with a minigun barrel. When aiming down the sights it still did the normal 3-shot burst of Dahl weapons, but each of those shots used 3 ammo and did triple damage (without having the "uses 3 ammo" property). It eats ammo like crazy, but I can't imagine what would happen if you had a Dahl rifle with minigun AND extra ammo usage. It would probably just eat up your whole mag with every burst, but the damage would probably be insane and their reload speed tends to be quite quick.

Hyperion Shotguns.

They're a shotgun, sniper rifle, assault rifle, and rocket launcher all in one.

For some god awful reason like 90% of the guns I looted in my 25 hours were variations of shotguns. I only got TWO RIFLES along the way, a couple of explosive semi-RPGs, RPGs and pistols.

So I guess my answer is shotguns...

So far for me it's been SMGs, specifically Maliwan's. The combination of high fire rate/elemental damage just melts everything.

early game those Torgue hole puncher pistols got me through a lot of missions, my first five points went into Accelerate, which increases bullet speed, and pretty much negated their downside.

late game, with a scheming cat mod, it was smg's.

playthrough 2, given that i was hiding more and relying on d.o.t.'s, was mostly maliwan pistols with elemental effects,

now in 2.5 i'm cleaning up with a level 50 Fast Law, complete with Order shield and a Jakobs Allegiance relic that gives me 60% extra mag and 60% less recoil.

so it's easily pistols for me.

Easily Maliwan sub machine guns. Love the damage over time while the bullets keep taking off health. Depending on the enemy I can usually start firing one another enemy while the one I was previously engaged with dies slowly.

Vladof sniper rifles.

They're like an assault rifle with a much much better damage and long range potential.

HIgh damage, high fire speed, large clip, fully auto fire. Perfect for a rampage gunzerker, I can snipe with them or hipfire fully auto when gunzerkering. The damage potential is enormous. Large clip is important as reload = 0 dps regardless of how awesome your gun is so keeping the fire going is important to a gunzerker. Same for being fully automatic, hugely important as the last talent increases you fire rate more and more the longer you hold down the trigger which makes it useless without fully automatic weapons, but insanely good with one, also decreases reload times.

These things have been a mainstay in my inventory forever now.

Honourable mention to rocket launchers for easy second winds, they have also been a mainstay backup weapon.

Playing commando here and I found a blue lvl 15 high fire-rate caustic sniper, and then an even better lvl 20 one recently, and they have been my total go to for a while now. Finally got a good shotty from Moxxie(the one with her pic on it)and it is my shortrange go to but that's less often as I try to murder everything from range with the sniper rifle. It's weird cuz I was mostly shotty/smg/pistol during my 400 hrs plus with Borderlands. Admittedly, I'm only lvl 25 so things'll prolly change...but damn the semiauto snipes are badass in B2.

SMGs. Fast fire rate, elemental damage, quick reload and a shit ton of ammo.

If you go full sniping with Zero (like I did) nothing beats a high damage Vladof Sniper rifle.

Once you have the extended clip perk and the massive stacking bonuses to critical hit damage, you can just one shot enemy after enemy and no-scope anything that comes too close. Jakobs and Maliwan are good too, but when you have high enough crit damage the only thing that I really wanted was a larger clip.

But right now i'm actually loving the Torgue shotguns and pistols with Maya (cataclysm spec) since they let me deal nasty damage to enemies that i've already phaselocked and drenched with elemental effects.

Man... what a fucking awesome game

SMG's, since you know, Maya. I go back and forth between Maliwan, Hyperion, and Tediore. For a while I thought Tediore was the king because of the incredibly fast reload times, but now I'm really liking Hyperion because of the increasing accuracy over time. It's a bonus that applies even when you in Fight for Your Life mode. Having a high DPS weapon with pinpoint accuracy makes it really easy to get a Second Wind.

But I always have a pocket Sniper Rifle as well. Nothing else but Vladof.

I am lvl 39 and so far I have to say that it is Grenades homing,electric, transplant.

I trow 4 or 5 in a room and noting survives, I dont even have to shoot once.

I've gotten a couple of elemental quad shotguns that just wreck shit. Both were bandit made so I can still pull off several shots before needing to reload even though each shot eats four rounds. Nothing like darting up to the eye of a badass constructor and just dumping and taking him down without having to reload once.

On a side note, is anyone else here completely underwhelmed by the E-tech guns? Most of the ones I've found have been pistols and sniper rifles and I find that they don't seem to be as awesome as they were made out to be. Kinda like the Eridian weapons from the first Borderlands.

I'm only around level 18 right now, but I haven't really found myself with a go-to weapon. I just switch based on range and the general quality of the gun I have. For me, SMGs, repeater pistols and assault rifles are pretty interchangeable for medium range, and long-range I'll use a sniper rifle, and short range I'll use a shotgun. For fighting flesh I use fire, and armor I use corrosive. I've found pretty much every gun I've used to be relatively satisfying, and I feel as though Rocket Launchers are much stronger, and it's easier to pull of a headshot with a sniper rifle.

Assault rifles I find are the best all rounders, they are fairly accurate in the mid to long range when you get a decent scope and are fairly effective at chewing dudes up in the close range, i usually go for a bandit weapon for the larger clip as i specced my dude to have extra ammo form clips and the bandit weapons scale the best with this, less reloading and more output at any range.

I'm Level 15 or so and I've fallen into using SMGs. Specifically ones that set dudes on fire. I have a pretty good Bandit one now that's been serving me incredibly well. It's weirdly accurate across distances too. I'll probably have a different answer by the time I hit the level cap (if I ever do) so I'll come back and vote then.

it's more about the random features of the gun than say the type.. exploding reloads, huge elemental damage, bonus exploding damage, consumes reduced ammo.. some features i hate are bursting snipers and consuming a lot of ammo, poor accuracy and reloading all the time sucks...

i'm just level 50 and tend to use whatever is the best weapon at the time, sometimes i may use a new rifle where i might not have used one for the last 3 levels :/... specifically speaking with shotguns, i prefer the additional exploding dmg per shot, huge bonus when trying to second wind.

I just got a conference call to drop and it is ridiculous so I'll go with that.

It's always been pistols, now that I think about it. I've got some seriously kick-ass sidearms, and they've saved my ass more times than I can count. The fully-automatic pistols are surprisingly powerful when Gunzerking, too. I've got two that when I start Gunzerking, I fucking wreck shit. Tore the Wildlife Expoitation Reserve's asshole wide open with those suckers. When I was on the Bloodshot dam, the 'fire as fast as you can pull the trigger' revolvers saved me. I whipped out two of those and the Constructor holding Roland was down pretty damn fast.

I've had a hard time with guns this game. There was a pistol that carried me through the first 1/2, but sure not the second. I finally have a shotgun that fires 3 rounds, knocks big stuff down, and w/my turret can get going on a constructor. Also a good Jacobs rife. But I'm pretty desperate for a good weapons set-up, this hasn't been like Borderlands for me Guess I could say more, got a really nice sniper rifle in Borderlansds, and with the commando had that sort of thinking. I now have a decent corrode sniper, just on the outside what I really want.

So I actually do not have a 'favorite' weapon right now though I have some that if I am careful and accurate, they work. With the turret...always.

Maliwan Snipers and SMG's for the insane chance for elemental damage, plus the good fire rate and damn good accuracy, Vladov assault rifles especially with an elemental mod. It shoots so BAD (in the 90's version of bad. And Hyperion Shotguns for raw damage, fire rate and reload speed.

Sniper rifles are all I use. I think any weapon is capable of being the best "all-around type of weapon" provided you use the right elemental properties for the situation, so it really just comes down to personal preference.

I said pistols.

I mostly use a shotgun with explosive rounds and high damage because I like killing things in one shot. But that's a specific play style that suits me. I would say the best weapon type for accuracy, reload speed, and damage are the pistols. Specifically the Jakob's pistols.

Elemental SMGs for me. I got a level 50 Maliwan E-Tech Plasma Caster that just destroys. In combat with normal enemies without The Bee it cruises through everything. Against bosses of course I'm going to use a Conference Call and The Bee but that's only because I know there is only one enemy that can hit me so The Bee is viable. In every other situation SMGs do the talking. Explosive assault riffles are a good alternative though.

Sniper rifles and pistols. I feel like assault rifles while good, don't really have a good punch to them and smgs overall seem to just be spray and pray type guns (unless they have that "get more accurate as you shoot" ability). Shotguns are a close runner up since they have good spread and some even have pretty good range.

Pistols have good accuracy, can be fired as fast or slow as I want, and have good damage.

Sniper rifles are basically like pistols with good zoom/accuracy and have higher amount of damage.

This poll is strangely balanced. Everybody hates rocket launchers and grenades, but everything else is even.

As of level 24, pistols have typically been my go-to weapon, but I found myself a really good shotgun lately which can last at least 4-5 levels. And I've found myself being more loyal to Jakobs recently.

I like my high accuracy, high fire-rate, high capacity shotguns.  The Hyperion ones are usually best, but the Jacobs stuff can be decent when they have a good reload speed to compensate for the small magazine.

I prefer Jacobs sniper rifles mostly, character spec'd out for crit damage is ridiculous.

Sniper rifles. Playing Zero in playthrough 2 (near 2.5) and taking enemies out at long ranges has made it considerably easier than if I were playing as any of the other characters who need to get closer to shoot enemies. When combined with the outrages critical hit bonuses from Zero's sniping tree a sniper rifle that's not that great can become an instrument of destruction. I'm able to one shot a great majority of enemies from a safe distance away. Really don't understand how having to go near an enemy can be better. Those fuckers will chew you up at level 50-52 if you get close. But when I can't get an enemy with a sniper I just use deception + shotgun which is even more powerful, but riskier.

As for manufacturers, Vladof and Jackobs are awesome for snipers, I always have one of each equipped.

And also, I don't get the hate launchers get. They're great for getting a second wind, and can be used with great efficiency against super badass enemies. Slag and rocket launcher damage have helped me out quite a bit in the past.

Tediore SMGs, for sure. I can get range out of them if I really want to and they completely decimate enemies upclose. The reload toss helps tremendously, too. I'll usually fire a single bullet before the start of a combat scenario and toss it first thing to get one enemy instantly out of the way. Same kind of tactic if I go down into Fight for Your Life.

@aurahack said:

Tediore SMGs, for sure. I can get range out of them if I really want to and they completely decimate enemies upclose. The reload toss helps tremendously, too. I'll usually fire a single bullet before the start of a combat scenario and toss it first thing to get one enemy instantly out of the way. Same kind of tactic if I go down into Fight for Your Life.

I still don't get why the reload toss is hated on so much. It's extremely helpful, especially in the Fight for Your Life.

No revolver option :(.

@BraveToaster said:

No revolver option :(.

Wouldn't they technically fall under pistols/sidearms, though?

@zombiebigfoot said:

@aurahack said:

Tediore SMGs, for sure. I can get range out of them if I really want to and they completely decimate enemies upclose. The reload toss helps tremendously, too. I'll usually fire a single bullet before the start of a combat scenario and toss it first thing to get one enemy instantly out of the way. Same kind of tactic if I go down into Fight for Your Life.

I still don't get why the reload toss is hated on so much. It's extremely helpful, especially in the Fight for Your Life.

There is hate for the Tediore guns? :|

@zombiebigfoot said:

@BraveToaster said:

No revolver option :(.

Wouldn't they technically fall under pistols/sidearms, though?

Well, either way revolvers are awesome.

@aurahack: Yup. I think in the 'favorite manufacturer' thread, a lot of people cited the reload toss as the main reason why they hated them.

@BraveToaster: Damn straight. The '_ Iron' guns are kickass.

@buft said:

Assault rifles I find are the best all rounders, they are fairly accurate in the mid to long range when you get a decent scope and are fairly effective at chewing dudes up in the close range, i usually go for a bandit weapon for the larger clip as i specced my dude to have extra ammo form clips and the bandit weapons scale the best with this, less reloading and more output at any range.

I think Assault rifles were better in the first game. They feel kind of toned down a bit for my taste.

@mikey87144 said:

@buft said:

Assault rifles I find are the best all rounders, they are fairly accurate in the mid to long range when you get a decent scope and are fairly effective at chewing dudes up in the close range, i usually go for a bandit weapon for the larger clip as i specced my dude to have extra ammo form clips and the bandit weapons scale the best with this, less reloading and more output at any range.

I think Assault rifles were better in the first game. They feel kind of toned down a bit for my taste.

I have to agree. The assault rifles were much funner in the previous game. There's still some really good rifles in 2, though.

@zombiebigfoot said:

@aurahack: Yup. I think in the 'favorite manufacturer' thread, a lot of people cited the reload toss as the main reason why they hated them.

@BraveToaster: Damn straight. The '_ Iron' guns are kickass.

That's the worst. Like, the trade of losing a couple rounds of ammo for doing a ton of damage is always worth it. Always.

Also, revolvers are rad. When you've got one with a crazy fast fire rate and reload, they're massive fun to use.

@aurahack: Exactly. When I'm a few seconds away from dying in Fight for Your Life, it's a fucking godsend to have that little grenade in my hands. Who cares if I lose twenty-something bullets?

The ones that fire as fast as you pull the trigger are the best. Especially when they have a wicked fast reload speed.

Snipers and I see that Rockets are as useless as ever

@Nightriff said:

Snipers and I see that Rockets are as useless as ever

Rockets doesn't really count though, as you can't use it as main weapon anymore.

The Hyperion SMG's with the increased accuracy bonus are by far my favourite weapons because I can just fire them from the hip and they hit so much that it just melts people

I'd say SMGs for me. Best all around weapons I've found. Though hyperion shotguns are really nice too,

Shooting a pistol western style by fanning it is badass. I always carry a pistol by default and switch when needed. Haven't gotten a good one in that style with an elemental though.

Personally, I'm a fan of sniper rifles. Comes from the first game, where I bought this amazing Volcanic Sniper rifle that carried me through like...20 levels. Headshots did just so much damage. I haven't found that perfect sniper yet, but I have found multiple awesome ones. I've actually been keeping a few on me (usually one elemental for living things, a corrosive for bots, and one regular sniper) for various enemies.
 
But, to be perfectly honest...the one gun that has gotten me out of more situations than any other has got to be this baby: