Wait, so individual weapons have their own level?

[Omnifarious Xji]

I've been seeing all this talk about it not being worth it to buy certain weapons because you'll just throw it away once it's maxed out... Not sure what all this is about, you can't gain weapon skills with maxed weapons? Does that mean your, lets say, VBI LMG has its own level, and once it reaches its max level, it can no longer contribute to your skills? Do you gain anything from leveling it up? I've been using the same guns since the start of the game! Have I been wasting all my xp? Is this why my Votan AR has 177 damage, while all other ones in the store have 40? What the hell is this system all about? I haven't bought any new guns because even the purple grades are far worse than my current EGO 10 type guns. (My EGO is at like 350 or so)

[Thee Apothecary]

no you still get xp towards the weapon skill ive noticed your weapon can reach maxed out and not gain xp but weapon type still goes up because my AR rank has been increasing even vo its reached maxed level

[ghostercon]

Well, Trion devs promised us there will be an option on the ark salvage tool to reset the weapon xp as much as you want using arkfall crystals. You will lose the maxed out bonus ( which is crap in most of the times ) but you will be able to use the same weapon as much as you please, until you will be able to find something better.

They promised this feature will be enabled on the release ( 2 weeks ago : ) ) but so far no word about it.

[Kommissar Kaede]

There are a few separate terms here that are being confused.

-First, all weapon classes have a skill rank. You appear to be clear on this. As you use a weapon (that has not had its own XP bar filled, more on this later), that skill is advanced.
-Second, guns do have an Ego level, this is the number on the left of its listing. This is more an informal way of describing quality. It should not be viewed as a perfect way to measure such.
-Thridly, all weapons have their own XP bar, listed under the image of the weapon on the right of the menu. It is the white bar. As you use this particular weapon, the bar fills. When it is filled, the weapon no longer contributes XP to the overall weapon skill, but it does gain a bonus stat (which is unknown before you level it I believe).

I blame cynicism in most part for the belief that weapons are "useless" once you fill up that XP bar. If a weapon is still good it can serve as a good emergency backup if a situation is too difficult. Also, once the skill has reached 20, there is no reason for further leveling. At that point you can revisit any past weapon that you particularly liked.

[Omnifarious Xji]

There are a few separate terms here that are being confused.

-First, all weapon classes have a skill rank. You appear to be clear on this. As you use a weapon (that has not had its own XP bar filled, more on this later), that skill is advanced.
-Second, guns do have an Ego level, this is the number on the left of its listing. This is more an informal way of describing quality. It should not be viewed as a perfect way to measure such.
-Thridly, all weapons have their own XP bar, listed under the image of the weapon on the right of the menu. It is the white bar. As you use this particular weapon, the bar fills. When it is filled, the weapon no longer contributes XP to the overall weapon skill, but it does gain a bonus stat (which is unknown before you level it I believe).

I blame cynicism in most part for the belief that weapons are "useless" once you fill up that XP bar. If a weapon is still good it can serve as a good emergency backup if a situation is too difficult. Also, once the skill has reached 20, there is no reason for further leveling. At that point you can revisit any past weapon that you particularly liked.

So, this could be why I'm still level 3 in semi-auto snipers, even though they're like the only thing I use.

[Margrave]

There are a few separate terms here that are being confused.

-First, all weapon classes have a skill rank. You appear to be clear on this. As you use a weapon (that has not had its own XP bar filled, more on this later), that skill is advanced.
-Second, guns do have an Ego level, this is the number on the left of its listing. This is more an informal way of describing quality. It should not be viewed as a perfect way to measure such.
-Thridly, all weapons have their own XP bar, listed under the image of the weapon on the right of the menu. It is the white bar. As you use this particular weapon, the bar fills. When it is filled, the weapon no longer contributes XP to the overall weapon skill, but it does gain a bonus stat (which is unknown before you level it I believe).

I blame cynicism in most part for the belief that weapons are "useless" once you fill up that XP bar. If a weapon is still good it can serve as a good emergency backup if a situation is too difficult. Also, once the skill has reached 20, there is no reason for further leveling. At that point you can revisit any past weapon that you particularly liked.

Thank you for this informative post!!! I had no idea!

[Napalm Sunrise]

There are a few separate terms here that are being confused.

-First, all weapon classes have a skill rank. You appear to be clear on this. As you use a weapon (that has not had its own XP bar filled, more on this later), that skill is advanced.
-Second, guns do have an Ego level, this is the number on the left of its listing. This is more an informal way of describing quality. It should not be viewed as a perfect way to measure such.
-Thridly, all weapons have their own XP bar, listed under the image of the weapon on the right of the menu. It is the white bar. As you use this particular weapon, the bar fills. When it is filled, the weapon no longer contributes XP to the overall weapon skill, but it does gain a bonus stat (which is unknown before you level it I believe).

I blame cynicism in most part for the belief that weapons are "useless" once you fill up that XP bar. If a weapon is still good it can serve as a good emergency backup if a situation is too difficult. Also, once the skill has reached 20, there is no reason for further leveling. At that point you can revisit any past weapon that you particularly liked.

Agreed, max level weapons especially upgraded with mods can and will be your lifelong friends for your career (however long that may be) in Defiance irregardless of statistical skill level. Before this last patch and possibly still after it, people were also using max level guns in their respective categories to effectively freeze their skill level since leveling past 20 seemed to be resetting skill levels back to 0. Meaning people had to level the skill all over again. But with a max level weapon they could get it to 19 and just wait til the bug gets fixed.

[Mivo]

So, this could be why I'm still level 3 in semi-auto snipers, even though they're like the only thing I use.

You also don't get weapon XP during Arkfalls and only a little in PvP. So if you have done a lot of those, that would contribute to the problem as well.

[Mivo]

(double posted, somehow)

[russell733]

So, this could be why I'm still level 3 in semi-auto snipers, even though they're like the only thing I use.

Probably is since it takes about 3 levels of skill to level a weapon