I posted this over in the game’s Steam forum but didn’t get much beyond nostalgia in the way of response.
Quite simply, if I don’t want to run with one of the games pre-designed character templates - where do I buy weapons to support this?
For example, I chose the Gunslinger template, but what I really wanted was pistol/rifle combo. I have been looking high and low for a vendor who sells base level weapons and… as far as I can tell, they don’t exist. How do I get an Assault Rifle? I’ve been hoping to get one as a random drop but after playing for ~8 hours… I’ve gotten drops for every weapon other than a Rifle.
I’ve been avoiding going to the auction house because that seems like it’s a cheap shortcut somehow.
There are Vendors in Agartha that sell Epic Quality MK 2 weapons for Third Age fragments, the currency you get from opening caches, that likely you don’t have.
I don’t think there’s a vendor that sells green weapons, but getting a particular weapon shouldn’t be a problem at all, just run missions and eventually a weapon reward bag will give you a rifle.
The catch here, is that it’s likely to be garbage. As a matter of fact weapons you actually want come from caches or activity chests (dungeon, raid or what have you). And since to open those you have to either be a patron (you get a daily cache key for “free” that way), buy a key with Aurum (money) or do endgame content, the best way to get those is from the AH.
You could get some by getting someone to run you through story mode dungeons, or running them yourself (although I suspect you can’t do that yet) but again, they are likely going to be bad.
There’s some useful info on how to choose and where to get your gear in this guide I wrote
TL; DR
Just buy an AR of Destruction / Havoc MK 3 from the AH.
P.S. Also “classes” that the game offers to you are nothing more than presets, some of them are fine and some are straight up unviable for high level or dps. Once you get to high enough level you will have to unlock all weapons anyway just so that you can get the passive stat increases, so don’t sweat about it too much. Just find whatever you want to play throught the story with.