Weapons:

Revolver: not THE worst, and is not the same as the starting pistol. It has some inherent piercing (can destroy 2-3 monsters). Still pretty useless beyond Normal.
Shotgun: ok at the start of Normal, but very soon becomes obsolate. Avoid, if possible.
Tommy Gun: It is only marginaly better than the Shotgun,as it has a larger barrel. But it is weak, and only shoots 1 bullet.
Rapid Tesla Gun: marginaly better than the Tommy Gun, so much it is ok for the majority of Normal. After that, forget this too.
Tesla Shotgun: it is semi-ok. The problem with it, its initial damage is very low. It becomes useful with a couple of perks under you (pick those which give extra bullet shot), but to get there you must be very lucky after half of Aether.
Gauss Shotgun: It packs a punch, but only has 2 ammo. It demands as bare minimum 1-2 faster reload, and 1-2 rapid fire to work.
Repeater Shotgun: This, and the uselessness of the previous guns makes you sorry that you can't just pick your weapon for the levels.
Gauss Assault Rifle: it shoots beams everywhere, whatmakes it heavily unreliable. Its damage per shot isn't great either,and requires some extr bullet shot, also ricohet if possible, and maybe piercing to make it as strong as it should be.
Ball Lightning Gun: very very useless with its very high reload time, and shooting only 1 bullet. Even with zounds of perks, it is lacking.

Abilities (secondary weapons):

Nova: very low radius, very low damage
X-ray Blade: very good defensive weapon. Unfortunately, defense isn't to rely on. Good against cthulhu statues too.
Aether Disc: it shoots some low-damage projectile which bounces around for a time. Pretty useless, spam it away. It should instantly destroy the enemy
Sparks: It is a fancy X-Ray Blade, only less reliable and less damage.
Repulse: I'm not sure if it does damage. If not, than it is one of the most useless thing in existence.
Explosive Barel: Onpaper this is good. In practice though... Youpick this skill, put down barrels, THEN you have to blow them up by shooting them. This last part can be an issue, also 99% of the time youjust want to get rid of monsters, you don't have time to strategy. The only nice thing to do with these is to put 2-3 around a cthulhu-statue, and deal good damage on it.
Static Cloud: it.... slows the monsters chasing you in a direction? Possibly the most useless thing in existence.
Thunderbolt: a projectile which explodes on contact. Can I have some Fire Bullets instead?
Energy Pulse: it shoots projectiles in a spiral. If you are in a semi-open area sorrounded with weak monsters, it cancut a path through them otherwise useless.
Tesla Stick: it puts down a stick which shoots electricity-beam. I'm not convinced. Spam it away, or something.
Self Defense Weight: unreliable, and comes in smaller maximum quantity. Don't bother too much.

Perks:

Faster Shooting: entirely uselss on Normal, becomes useful on Aether. Lowers the period between shots. Combos with the mecha, and shotguns. Can be chosen multiple times.
Extra Speed: useless. Can be chosen multiple times.
Reaper Bullets: only if nothing else is available. Can be chosen multiple times.
More Health: situational. Don't pick this at first. Can be chosen multiple times.
Power Up: only for two player mode
Thunder Storm (epic): it's a fancy-named version of Lightning Cloud. Not very epic.
Superconductor (epic): you can teleport indefinite. The monsters still can hurt you though.
Theseus Paradox (epic): leaves a clone of you from where you teleported. Pretty much useless, given if you teleprted, a zounds of monsters was at the location,and evenat full HP that means instant death. The clone also uses a weapon, but won't move
Prodigy (epic): in theory, this is finaly massive. Every time I got this, I died in that second though.
? (epic): seen this ina playthrough. Gives you the last weapon, some giant energy-whip.
Dodging:situational. Makes you dodge 25% of the time.
Supplier: pretty much useless. I'mn ot even sure what this makes more frequent. I think abilities spawning.
Bullet Sharpening: makes your shot pass through monsters. Of course such skills have their limit, so it gradualy becomes more and more useless.
Faster Teleporter: sounds good, but took me ages to figure out hw many charges I have, and definitely did not count how fast the recharge rate is. Also, teleporting is nice, but unless you have a safe space to tp into... Situational, not preferenced.
Extra Barrel: very good, and the best part is, the extra ammo shot is "magic", so you won't reload more. Still, just one of this won't be a gamechanger. Can be chosen multiple times.
Radiator: useless.
Ricochet: excelent on Normal, but the amount of monsters getting out of control on Aether, even combined with Bullet Sharpening, it becomes VERY stiuational.
Special Mastery: some maps forces you to use this not giving you resources, otherwise its 2 extra charge is meh.
Lightning Cloud: every so often a mini-blast hits the enemy. It helps thinning them out if youalready have/are close to control, but otherwise negligable.
Kinetic Inverter: good on Normal, obsolate on higher difficulties
ExplosiveTelportera nice thing to have, but more fancy than useful.
Poison Bullets:even more useless than Radiator. Only pick this if you have a clear map with a boss.
Vengeful Discharger: I'm not even sure this does anything.

supplies on maps:

Healing: don't even heal you by a full colour. Also, like any other of such supplies,very infrequent.
Fire Ammo: it passes through walls, monsters,and gives a punch to your shots. Very good on Normal - becomes noticably weaker, and even meh later.
nuke: it kills everything on screen in theory. In reality, bigger monsters will keep coming with half/third HP. And it is VERY infrequent, to the point it only exist to be pointed at. Its quantity is okon Normal, but nonexistent later.

Backpack Items (aka. heavvily overpriced, not very useful, real money dump):

- the first three will be found on the tutorial levels, the 4thwill be given finishing Normal Difficulty.
Regulator: marginal. The random picks again form the pool of perks when leveling, but there's no guarantee you get anything new. Yes, at times NONE of the perks got changed. To make this thing useful, the thrown perks should not reappear when shuffling. Woth the 1stlevel, but the rest is exponentialy more useless.
Quantum Condensator: ye, sure, extra charges for abilities. First make the abilities useful, please.
Dimensional Teleport: 20dmg per teleport. Look pal, on higher difficulties if themonsters are close enough to be hit with this thing, the player is already dead,and the monsters numbers are infinite. Avoid.
Graphene Alloy: ye, sure, merc for longer. Too bad, you won't have time on any decent map to assemble the merc, so this only influences the start of the map.
Conductor: ye, sure,whatever. I bet it becomes useful, andis very convenient - your typical Pay To Win thing.
Aether Distiller: ye,sure. I bet my chance for the mostly useless epic perks is 1%, and with this it can become 10%. Again a typical Pay To Win stuff.
Tesla Glove: while abilities are ... lacking in punch, you'll likely have to have this starting with Aether Diff, given every time you start from scratch.
Eccentric: this is the ONLY thing that can make you stronger by the numbers. Of course it is overpriced as hack

Suggested order of buying backpack items:
- 1-2 Regulator (it's kinda cheap in comparsion of other posibilities)
- Tesla Gloves
- 1 Eccentric (it counts)
- 1 Conductor (that extra teleport is demanded by design on Aether)
- nothing, because with 1.0 Aether's Mountain of Madness is simply impossible. The things are too big, and you are too puny. The weapon pool only involves revolver, shotgun and tommy gun. No ability-supply here. No chance to level up,as the things are too big to kill. even with everything on maximum this'd be a challenge. And there's no option in 1.0 to farm gems.

Honestly, I don't get your logic. According to this list almost every perk and weapon is useless or situational at best. Having played it for quite a good time I can't agree with you. The game has to be a challenge and it's up to you and your strategy how you handle these perks and weapons encountering different enemies...

Even so, if your summary is correct, isn't it better to get a 'useless' perk than not to have it at all? There just can't be a weapon that automatically wins you a scenario or a perk that makes you invulnerable forever. That would suck out all the fun.

It's not my logic, those factors ARE situational, or negligable. They must be,as the game is getting stronger, but every other element is pure random.
The game is a failure, because it fails to recognise you must make the player stronger too. It isnota challenge to send one man with a slingshot against Panzerkampfwagen VI.

You also CAN'T have strategy if all things are pure random. You can't handle perks&stuff different in a fast paced shotter in enclosed environment. The sorrounding does not change, thus there's no place for adaptation. there's only space for building up. And you can't build up by random.

And no, a useless perk IS THE SAME as not getting anything. That's pure logic.
And please, stop the trolling with tthis "automatic win" nonsense. I told the game is manageable on Normal.
While You clearly didn't even turned on the game. Otherwise you'd know there aren't different kind of enemies in the game, there are only swarms. Ok, there are 3 type: basic, shooter, and those thing leaving damage where they got destroyed. Also, the weapons all do they exact same. Ok, there are 3 type of weapons: single line shooters,shjotguns, and that ball-gun. You don't know squat about the game.

I know nothing, that's the only message you have to give?

The player IS getting stronger and stronger, as you spend gems on upgraded abilities and you deal more damage to certain enemies as you annihilate them. You have shuffle options for perks, you combine them according to your strategy.,.. Seriously, you try to present the game as a random fiesta, but it's up to player's decisions how every gameplay look. Do I dive for the nuke, shield, do I attack tentacles first, etc.

Throw out bile. Slay some Fallen Ones instead :)

Problem is, you don't gain gems (on the necessary scale).
You obviously needs to get near-maxed to Hardest Diff, but you can only buy 2-3 from the megaton of shop-items during the normal gameplay, and you're left with the daily 8-16 gems (you'll need like 5,000 gems to max).

The shuffle DOES NOT WORK, as you can get back the perks you flushed away easily. Also, there are a megaton of random variations, so you can not build them, and the shuffle is for the whole of the level, not per levelup.

The game IS a random fiesta, no place for strategies, with highly improbably odds,and lack of chance even for grinding. the game was obviously intended to work as a free-to-play model with the pay-to-win construction, but they even messed THAT up.

Just for other readers, take this would-be Guide to Abilities with a large pinch of salt. Personally I disagree with more than half of what is said in the initial post. I've no interest in debating any of it -- it's all just opinions -- but YMMV.

(For context I have finished all single-player Planes from the base game, as well as Dreamlands 1-4 from the expansion, including obtaining the Eldritch Sign for every level on each of those Dreamlands planes; so I feel I at least have some basis for my disagreements.)

Unfortunately the op has some valid points. 10tons always make a strong effort of ruining somehow all of their games, which is a pity. The game is terribly unbalanced as you progress on each difficulty. Most of the weapons, perks and abilities are a joke and completely unuseful as the games progresses, and nothing in the game changes to balance that fact that it's even more ridiculous.
The overall stupidity is that levels becomes solvable depending on RNG. If the drops are reasonable you can do it, if they're crappy you'll just die. Also the RNG is not totally RNG, just see which is the first weapon you'll get (90% of the times the useless shotgun), and the fact that health either drops in 2 or 3 on a level or simply never drops (what's the point of a more 30% health perk if there's no health, more 30% of nothing?) .
Strategy wise becomes boring as the only viable one is circling around the map and shoot back, while "praying" that the mech pieces are not stuck in the middle of the map along with 100 enemies.
The game is fun but as always they always make these crude errors. There's always something that simply diminishes a lot the great experience they could provide. Again it's a pity there's talent and good ideas on their products.
They'll most probably do it again on their next games...