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Newbie weapon question
I've decided to give The Secret World a try. I have two quick questions while it downloads:
1. I've read that there are 3 broad categories for weapon skills, with 3 weapon styles in each (Ranged: Assault Rifle, Shotgun, Pistol, that sort of thing). I've also read that it's best to focus on two at a time when you start. Is it best to pick two from different categories (say, one melee and one ranged), or is picking two from the same not a big deal (say Assault Rifles and Shotguns)?
2. I also read that Shotguns have skill options to place defensive gun turrets. Is this true, and are there any other turret/pet type skills in the game?
I appreciate any input 
Comments
Your best best is to choose weapons that compliment each other in terms of passive skills. For example you can concentrate of crit and penetration or affliction and penetration. Or maybe you want to go more defensive or heal. Look through the skills in-game and see which ones are to your liking. I went with shotgun and blade, with 1 elemental passive and 1 hammer passive, which gave me +damage, +crit and +penetration.
Shotguns do have turrets but they are not on the first wheel, so it'll take some time to unlock them. Pistols have a drone summon and elementalists have a totem thing (forgot what it's called) summon which is sort of like a turret.
Try out different combos and see which one you like. It doesn't take that long to unlock all of the first wheel abilities.
Pistols have drones you can bring out. The choice of the weapons isn't the key. It's the abilities and the synergy that matter most. That said there are suggested decks that you can look at when you hit N and click on the tab to the left. These are only suggestions of weapon sets for your faction. If you unlock all of the abilities in that set, you get an outfit as a reward also.
Keep it simple and don't overwhelm yourself planning things out from the second you log in, that's no fun and you're bound to change your mind anyway. Start off by choosing a deck you like the sound of and work towards that... those combinations always work out well to start with. As you learn more about the game, take more time to look at more skills and get an idea of how it all works you can start doing your own thing.
Elementalism has some turrent abilities as well, called manifestations.
Thanks everyone. Is there any bonus once you get a deck, or are they just skill combos that are tested and work well?
It was mentioned above, but you get a clothing outfit as reward for each and every deck you complete. You do not need to have those deck skills equipped to wear the outfit.
And, yeh, they are just skill combinations that work 'ok' and are there as a guide really. It's obvious decks are not intended to be the most powerful skill combinations, if they were then what would be the point of all the other skills?
I started with the Mercenary deck for illuminati. But after 100 hours I still havn't got it. I still use assault rifle and elementalism but I've been diving deep into other weapon skill sets to pick up certain passive skills. As you play on you'll figure out which skills you like to use and start seeking out other skills that compliment them. It comes down to playstyle so it's hard to recommend a concrete set of skills for somebody else.
So if you unlock every deck you get all the outfits?
If you complete a deck, I think you get an achievement for it and the outfit associated with it.
As far as choice of weapons.. Play around a bit and experiment. I started with Assault Rifle and Shotgun which was a great combo early on, but is kinda losing it's synergy with how *I* play, especially in a group setting. Not saying it's a bad combo, there's actually a deck based on it, just that looking at the higher level skills, I don't see it quite gelling w/ how I like to play.
So I'm looking to complete the inner ring of skills and switch things up a bit, and there are some interesting options to try, and they can completely change how you play your character.
Yes. You also get outfits for faction ranks and completing other mission chains.
Here is a good guide for you: http://yokaiblog.wikidot.com/guides:weapon-choices
Basically you want to focus on the areas where the weapons overlap, for instance I am running a Pistols/Elemental build which are both crit weapons that can set/exploit the hindered state.
You can take a look at my build here: http://chronicle.thesecretworld.com/character/Blackbeard
My builder is a Focus ability and one of my finishers is also a Focus ability, which I use with the passive that gives increased crit chance with focus attacks. If I had gone Pistols/Blade or Pistols/Blood Magic I could have used a Focus ability finisher from there too. Would probably have been a better choice.
To OP:
The post quoted is excellent and well informed.
That being said, IF you you are adept at skill-based systems and general theorycrafting in games, then you SHOULD pick any two weapons that you actually WANT to play and you WILL be able to make them work. There are ways to make any weapon combo work for you.
That doesn't necessarily mean that you can fill every role with those two weapons - well.. maybe not well. Some weapons simply do not have a healing element to them. Some don't have a lot of aggro generation. So if you want to heal or tank, you want to ensure that at least one of your weapons can heal or tank. Every weapon can DPS in some way, so for DPS it doesn't really matter.
In the long run (like endgame sorta thing) - you're definitely going to be using more than two weapons among your different decks. So.. if you think it's more fun for you to use two specific weapons, just take those to start and make them work. It'll teach you how to adjust your decks given the skills you got! And don't be afraid to pick some passives from other weapons - you do not need to have a weapon equipped to use many of the passives (e.g. if a passive skill says "adds DoT on Hindered", it doesn't matter which weapons you're using, as long as one of them causes "Hindered", then the passive will work with it).
For example.. I use Assault Rifle and Chaos. I use the Assault Rifle skill "Slow the Advance" that is an AoE nuke that does dmg and HINDERs the targets. Even though I use AR/Chaos, i have the Passive "Toxic Earth" from Elementalism which puts a dot on any target hit by "HINDER". So.. while wielding AR/Chaos, when i hit 5 targets with Slow The Advance, not only do I do (approx 500) damage to the 5 targets, but i also put a dot on them that does an additional (approx 300) damage from Toxic Earth.
Have fun in TSW.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
They're pretty much guideline builds to give you a better feel of how skills synergize with each other, and the outfit rewards are a fun addition once you've completed the deck, but when you really get into building skill sets for your character you will find that you're borrowing "passive" skills from all over the ability wheel.
There are key words that you'll find yourself pairing, like "focus", "frenzy", "affliction", "hinder", "evade", "block", "burst", so on so forth. There wil be passive skills that you can benefit from that are triggered when you use an activie ability that creates one of these key conditions.
Know this as well; when you unlock the final skill in any specific skill line, whether it's a passive or an active skill, the final skill at the end of that particular set is known as an "elite" skill. They will be noticable by the gold frame around their icon. You can only have one "elite" active and one "elite" passive skill equipped at any given time, so research them and distribute your points accordingly.
In any given weapon skill set, on both the First Tier and Second Tier, the left side is offensive/dps, and the right side is support/heal/defensive (depending on the weapon type). You MUST unlock both the left and right side of your First Tier abilities in order to access the Second Tier, but after that the choices are up to you.
Also, be sure to look over each of the "Miscellaneous" skill sets. You probably won't want to delve into those right away (unless you're a tank-- there are a lot of great "hate" generating abilities under the tanking "Misc" skill set), but it's good to be familiar with them.
I'm not sure if it was mentioned, but it is worth repeating if nobody mentioned it. You can use passive skills from any weapon, even if you don't have that weapon equipped at the moment. Active skills are restricted to the weapons they are made for.
This concept opens up a lot more build possibilities and can even make two less-synergistic weapons work well together. One example is a passive that causes a DoT (Affliction) every time you hit an enemy. There are many passives which take advantage of the afflicted state from all over the skill wheel. This has the potential to produce "universal" builds that work with any weapon.
Read a lot of guides and don't be afraid to experiment. You can repeat most quests daily, so ability points are virtually unlimited. There are no repecs, nor is there a need for respecs.
If you want a starting point, follow a "My First 60" build.
Thank you for the replies, everyone. It certainly sounds like an interesting skill system, I can't wait to play around with it.
The 'turn the tables' healing skill in the top most misc skill set is especially good as an emergency skill for soloing. If a build lacks self healing and you can fit it in, it's awesome. My solo build is based on frenzy crit healing and afflictions. If I get unlucky with the crits (which isn't often at all) that skill is around for the 'oh shit' moment.
Actually all those misc skills are interesting. They seem more focused towards making a tank viable though increasing hate on mobs so they get attacked or reducing hate on DPS characters..aside from the heal tree.
They dont require specific weapons so you can use them with any build. Would be interesting to see a pistol wielding tank since most people tank with fist weapons or hammer (usually both)
One thing to mention in addition is how each weapon type builds resources used for your finishers.
Melee weapons resources are built on your character and recharge to 5/5 while out of combat so you usually start combat with full resources. This is pretty decent for tanking since you can open up big and also good for PvP since you don't have to build resources at the start of a skirmish.
Ranged weapons build resources on each target that you hit. If you're hitting with an AoE/multi-target abilty you can build resoures on multiple targets at once. There are some ranged weapon passives that exploit this (if an enemy dies with resources on it it does AoE damage to things around it) but also allows you to tab around between targets and alternate finishers for a lot of burst damage.
The magical weapons start at 0 resources and build for each builder you use. Blood is a bit unique because some abilities can forgo resources in exchange for blood (in essence you can use the ability but you get a damage over time placed on you that drains HPs to compensate for not having those resources). Some elemental attacks will use less resources depending on states on the target.
These are important parts of the system to keep in the back of your head when you build synergies.