Nano-Technician: You can do without a gun.

[Legrandchef]

I reached level 200 without using a weapon for damage. I used a soft pepper pistol for buffs but the cyber deck takes that away anyhow. An odd one or two of you might just remember me having a shotgun in the early days. Even without the gun I mananged to do enough damage to draw lots of aggro and be an unwilling tank in many team missions. "Chef tanks again" was an often heard phrase and no-one could pull the aggro off me.

Chef

[rahmorak]

However...

Pistol can be an excellent choice at TL5 and opens up a wonderful world of buffing items (suc as the Pepper pistol chef referred to)

[Smacdevil]

Generally I would recommend using no weapons up to at least TL5, as you will do very well with only nano damage for PvM. For PvP however, you will want access to special attacks and greater damage. Using the 2nd specializaton Augmented Cyberdeck (which buffs all nanoskills by 50), you can easily get 1k+ MC at TL4, giving access to some great nukes. Putting IP into weapon skills will hurt you in other areas (for instance evades which are also dark blue), so consider carefully.