Welcome to the fun world of Tl5 pvp on a doc, it can be fun as well as frustrating all the time
(Warning: Wall of text inc...)
Since I've had a tl5 pvp doc for about two years now, I feel that I got lots to add to what the others have said, and I'll start with the evaluation of the weapon, as this choice might define whatever setup you'd like for your toon.
As for weapon choice, picking a weapon just to archive for example 11 sec AS without thinking about the rest of your setup i'd say is mildly stupid. All the choices of weapons that are listed here are nice for pvp, and I've personally tried out 3 of them over a longer period.
Zastaba:
+ Easy to cap As recharge, can implant rifle instead of AS in right wrist and still have 11 sec AS, will give you some higher attack rating too. Projectile damage, means it's supported by rbp and imps.
- You won't get on a QL 160+ without sacrificing either AS skill or hp/nano/nano cost etc from using supple or css instead of paramedic/ofab/reactive
If you can live with having some lower HP and nanoresist and want a setup which is easy to get nice AR and 11 sec AS with osb's, I'd definitively go with rifle. If you triple plant rifle, you can have around 1.2k ar with UA, meaning you will perk most non-evaders.
Arbalest:
+ Semi-easy to cap As recharge (caps with TTS), high max damage, decent reg hits if you can hit non-evaders with it.
- Low Ar due to split skills (66% rifle, 33% bow), a challenge to keep an 150 out of oe if you don't have a ransack tower. Cold damage, which isn't buffed by rbp/imps/symbs etc.
You have to triple imp AS for this weapon to be at it maximum effect, as well as using cold dmg aruls and you'd want to get ua/tts for mass pvp situations. AS caps a lot of professions, but the low ar means you will not perk a decent non-evader twink even, making our already semi-crappy damage even worse.
Snakemaster:
+ Fling shot, checks duck exp, adds evades, again projectile damage which is supported by rbp/symbs etc
- In no way possible to archive 11 sec As recharge at tl5, min damage is totally f*cked, and the weapon is relying on crits to a certain degree
Since you can double imp shotgun, the Ar you can get with this weapon is pretty high for a tl5 doc. Its lack of fast recharging AS defines your playing style to more outlasting then trying to play an agent with only AS and no perks. This weapon is better used for its evades if you are in a dodge setup (more about this later on) and possible AR high enough to perk people with nano feast. Since your will look at an AS recharge of at least 20 seconds, you might just as well drop AS in right wrist and go with a symb there instead, giving you some 50ish more NR then what you'd have with other AS gun setup.
As you can see, getting the fastest AS recharge isn't always what benefits best for a tl5, but I'll go thru the various setups I have tried over the time on my doc and evaluate their effiency both in mass pvp situations and duels/random ganking.
NR setup with arbalest:
This was the first setup I tried for my doc, a QL 147 arbalest coupled with NR1 perked.
The pro's of the setup is obvious: you got a fast recharging AS and NR that the most persistant twinks will give up to get something thru (even if roots/snares/ubt lands if they are spammed).
The cons are that you won't have very high HP selfbuffed, even with towers. I think I had just shy of 11k hp fully buffed with HP perked, which means you will be alphafood easily for serveral professions.
http://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=118285 is about the setup I had when I tried this setup.
HP setup with arbalest:
After realizing that my nanoskill setup didn't really do much good since everything that could be spammed landed anyways, and I could never land the zap nano on good twinks anyways, I tried to make a sensible hp setup with arbalest. It worked well, landing me at around 13.4k hp, but still making the best twinks able to alpha me since I didn't really have the def to support this high HP as perks could cap and a few too many would reliable crit me.
Still, for mass pvp this setup worked out really well as I'd run around with close to 15k with osb's and rrfe, being a very hard target to bring down.
http://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=118288 was the setup I was using at that time.
HP/Dodge setup with arbalest:
This setup is the one I'm currently using, focusing mostly around dodge ranged, aad and HP. Weapon is still arbalest, and even if I'm more def setup now, I still have enough skills to cap recharge with TTS. Having maxed dodge ranged, combined with a good amount of aad and using wrack & ruin for draining 100 Ar from your oponent, I rarely see FAs and burst capping anymore, I won't get perked by everyone and their grandmother if they're ranged and this have made my survivability substancional better.
Tho, I still miss having high enough AR to perk non-nr twinks and evaders with nano feast, mistreatment etc due to arbalest being split ar, and to keep the 150 arbalest out of OE, I need a 120+ ransacking tower.
http://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=118289 - Setup I'm using atm.
Note to the setup, I swap various helmets including upgraded gph, reactive helmet, pointed hood, chest I swap between dchest/reactive/shapeshifter vest, pants between reactive/dalja skirt etc. Even rings I swap out from time to time.
HP/Dodge setup with snakemaster.
I am reperking at the moment to put on shottie instead of arbalest and to swap some of my implants and symbiants around. The goal of this setup is to gain even more defense from snakemaster, add in a 6 second fling shot with possible proc/crit chance and to get back some of my NR that I now lose in right wrist.
I also hope this setup will give me more powerful offence due to the added projectile damage from rbp/dchest etc.
http://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=118290 is the setup I plan on using. For perks, you'd better shoot me a tell ingame and I'll tell you what I plan on using and why I'm planning on that.
If you got any questions, just bring them on, either here or ingame
Perky