Far Far West Best Weapons: How to Judge a Gun Yourself

Search for a Far Far West weapon tier list and you will find several. They disagree on the roster, on the stats, and on the rankings. One site names a specific hybrid revolver as the meta pick; another names a rifle the first site does not acknowledge. Both sound confident.

That is the tell. Confidence is cheap to generate and expensive to verify. What follows is the verification framework instead of the conclusion.

Why a tier list is the wrong tool right now

A tier list is a claim about a fixed set of options measured against a stable difficulty curve. Far Far West currently offers neither.

The roster is not fixed. The developers have said the full release will add more weapons. A ranking of a moving list has a short half-life.

The stats are not public. No official stat sheet exists. The DPS numbers you see quoted are mined, estimated, or invented, and the sites quoting them do not agree.

Difficulty tiers shift with balance patches. A weapon that trivializes tier three today may be tuned down before you finish upgrading it.

None of that makes tier lists useless forever. It makes the useful question "what makes a weapon good in my hands on my current tier" — which is answerable.

The five criteria that predict performance

Rank on these, in this order. The first two dominate outcomes.

1. Damage uptime. Out of a thirty-second fight, how many seconds are you firing? A weapon with spectacular per-shot damage and a long reload loses to a modest weapon you never stop firing, especially against waves. Uptime is fire rate times magazine capacity divided by reload exposure — not damage per bullet.

2. Range band fit. Every contract fights at a distance you do not fully control. Objective layouts vary; some force sightlines, others corridors. A weapon that only performs in one band fails half your contracts.

3. Reload safety. Can you reload without being punished? If not, the weapon requires a utility throwable or a spell to cover the gap. That is a real cost and belongs in the ranking.

4. Element synergy. Does it apply or benefit from an element your squad spreads? Acid and fire setups make certain weapons disproportionately better by widening the reaction window. Schools are in /spells/all-spells-guide; the point here is that a weapon's value depends on its spell pairing, so no ranking exists in isolation.

5. Mobility cost. Heavy weapons slow you down. In a game where enemies converge and standing still is the leading cause of death, mobility is a defensive stat.

Matching an archetype to your role

Match roles to archetypes rather than named guns. This holds regardless of what items end up being called, and the role split itself is covered in /guide/coop-guide.

Anchor (holds the objective) wants sustained output and forgiving reloads, because they cannot disengage. Sustained-fire or mid-range rifles fit. Avoid anything that demands standing perfectly still while also being the player who must stay in one place.

Add control (watches flanks) wants area damage and knockback. Shotguns and utility throwables, not precision weapons — their job is denying space, and a single-target weapon is the wrong tool.

Burst (elites and boss) wants a short, high-value window. Precision and heavy single-shot options suit a slower rhythm because their damage is concentrated.

Flex (fixes what breaks) wants no glaring hole plus utility. This is the one role where generalist is a compliment.

If your squad has no add-control player, the boss fight will feel impossible regardless of anyone's ranking. Detailed boss job assignments are in /bounties/boss-fights.

Upgrade priority: depth beats breadth

The economy forces a choice, and the answer is consistent across player accounts of this build.

Upgrade one primary repeatedly — a deeply upgraded weapon beats several shallow ones at every tier, and levels unlock the modifier slots where build-defining effects live. Bring your sidearm to functional and stop; it covers reloads and emergencies, not a second primary. Buy the second spell slot before a third weapon, because two elements enable reactions while a third gun does not. And do not chase a new archetype until your main is finished: every new weapon restarts the fragment clock, and fragments are the scarcest early resource.

The urge to spread gold peaks right after a patch buffs something. Wait a week and see whether the buff survives.

What would justify a real tier list

We would publish rankings if three conditions held: an official or datamined stat sheet that could be cross-checked against in-game tooltips; two independent sources agreeing on roster and numbers; and a build stable long enough that a ranking would still be true when you read it.

None currently hold. /weapons/all-weapons-list documents the specific conflicts, including that published lists disagree on whether the arsenal holds ten, fourteen, or sixteen weapons.

Re-testing after each patch

Keep a three-line log per weapon: what it does well, what it costs you, and where it failed. After a patch, re-read the log and retest only the weapons whose failure notes you doubt. Fifteen minutes, and it replaces reading five contradictory articles. Payout and tier strategy sit in /guide/bounty-hunting-guide.

The one-line answer

Your best weapon has the highest damage uptime at the range your contracts actually fight, that your spell loadout can support, and that does not force you to stand still while four things converge on you. Everything else is tuning.