Skill Discussions

Which gunnery skills need to be a lvl 5?

i would say surgical strike aswell m8. it adds alot of dmg

both should deffo be on the list though ;)

he only asked, what gunnery skills NEED to be at 5. All others are pretty cool, but not necessary.

Needs to be for what?

Well you don't "need" any of the gunnery support skills at 5, but I'd certainly advise taking them to 5 eventually. I think a better question would be which ones should I take to 5 first. The only exception for Minnie pilots would be controlled bursts. The return on that skill is nil when using projectiles.

Also remember that unless you plan on soloing don't stress too much about taking them to 5. Unless you're trying to unlock a certainly skill/shiip/module most level l5 skills aren't needed. Klizman has ~164 lvl5 skills. I also have an alt that has ~30. Tbh I have a lot more fun on my alt.

I got most of them to 5 aside from trajectory analysis which is currently at 4. I'm Amarr specialised though.

If you're combat focused and either Minmatar or Amarr, I'd say every gunnery skill except the specialisations. Minmatar can exclude Controlled Bursts as well. This character has ~8.1M SP in gunnery and I'm not done yet.
If you're gun focused Gallente or Caldari, it's mostly the same story.
If you're either not combat focused or your preferred method of combat doesn't rely solely on gunnery, I'd say nearly no support skill needs to be 5. Those needed to get your specialisations so you can use T2 guns are needed at 5 at some point, but the diminishing returns of SP means that the time spent for training for example Surgical Strike V could be spent better somewhere else.

I think before hybrid buff it was necessary at least at 4, but with the reduced cap usage for hybrids I think it's a skill that can linger at 3 a bit longer. Of course if your fit is perfect except for cap difficulties, those 10% reduced usage on your weapons (Going from 3 to 5) might make a difference, but in my rudimentary experience it's not enough to justify a 5 in Controlled Bursts before your other skills are as you want them.
If you train Rapid Firing 5, you might want Controlled Bursts 4, since that would equal each other out in increase cap and decrease cap usage.
And of course, if it's a combat toon then you'll want Controlled Bursts before, say, Industry 5.

Let me paraphrase the original question -

Working towards medium guns - which are the gunnery support skills which need to get to V, if any, before you get T2 guns?

(the fact they will all eventually get to V is a given in my case, just a question of when)