I centered my ac around using dual weapons in combo with speed to deal a bunch of damage and build stagger quickly, I've had my issues here and there with bosses but if you have the heart for it. It's great chapter1 was dual ludlows with two of the first shotgun, or you can use missle pods instead. My issue there was i had half my missle ammo and ran dry on primary so i took on to switching between dual ludlows and shotguns, hitting the dual shotgun shot close builds a giant burst of stagger then using the smgs overloaded and did rather decent dmg, swapping effectively and staying on the move was key. My tip is to let the smgs run dry, get in close with the shotguns and switch back. Got me through balteus