I needed to hear this. As a newcomer I was mostly just using my shield indiscriminately, and as a result feeling very slow and thought that's just how it's supposed to be. Tactical usage focusing on the charge skills sounds a lot better.
Absolutely. The class is usually perceived as easy because we can ignore some mechanics, but we have to be tactical about it. The class has a lot more nuance than just face tank everything. There's a lot of shield toggling which can really help distinguish good gunlancers from the mediocre ones. Happy to help!
So many gunlancer guides say put the shield up and stand in front of the boss, but they never really talk about what happens when the shield runs out, they make it sound like the shield will never run out.....thanks for clarifying that for me.
Gunlancer's technicality is a lot of fun once you start getting accustomed to playing it and learning boss fight mechanics. The shield will feel a bit weak in tier 1, start feeling good once in tier 2 with some extra skill points and runes, and feel fantastic once in tier 3. I don't particularly like gunlancer in clearing mobs, but his kit is incredible in guardian raids and abyss dungeons. Taunt and Nellasia's will open up damage windows and allow teammates to be extra aggressive, and the ridiculous amount of stagger he has on short cooldown ensures he will always be ready for stagger checks almost at any time. Also, since the boss is often facing you, you get to do a lot of countering (either Bash or Dash Upper Fire... or have both) Tip on runes: Wealth rune (extra specialty gauge generation) goes on his shout. It's a lot of extra shield gauge.
One comment about shout is the wealth rune doesn't actually affect the meter gained from the Open Weakness tripod. It only affects the base amount of shield meter gained from the ability. This makes wealth less valuable. I had the same thought of putting wealth on that skill initially until I realized it wasn't doing anything noticeable
Hi there, a fellow gunlancer. What you say makes sense, however being in the face of the boss makes it easier to counter with bash and even dash upper strike, this is because the time window is small and it can be hard to get in place to bash (even with backdash) to hit that counter. What i personally do is mainly use hatred shout to keep the shield up and if im very low i use the awakening skill. Hatred is your main refill, if you use it almost on cooldown and you have a decent amount of specialization this can keep the shield up for a pretty long time, another thing i do is when the boss is knocked or countered i turn off shield and use all i can to top off before entering def stance again. The point about dodging skills is true though, you should not facetank everything, often you can backdash through the boss to dodge alot of mechanics. So the rotation is something like shield off-->hatred strike-->bash-->shield on-->super charge-->lightning strike-->bash--> shield bash...........and so on. One of the main reasons to keep your shield active, even if you are not face tanking is because of the engraving barricade, 16% extra dmg when shielded, when watching the video i saw alot of skills being used and shield was not up, this is fine if you are playing red but if you are playing blue and have barricade then always have shield up when using skills, except when you are refilling or using hatred shout. Am i doing it wrong?
Both red and blue gunlancer want to try following the head of a boss because of counters, but the blue build doesn't get as much benefit from hitting the head of a boss compared to red build. So after a counter has successfully been landed, you don't have to be as strict about staying on the head because the boss enters a cooldown phase where they cannot be countered again. So you can safely just hit the boss wherever, unless you're running surge cannon in your build, then you want to try landing that on the head whenever possible. As for when the boss is knocked, I still think it should be dependent on a few things, like do you have the barricade engraving? Do I have my full burst available? Am I low on shield gauge? The biggest thing is barricade and the full burst though. If you don't have thunderbolt and leap attack available together, then it's probably better to spend your time generating resources. But if the boss is knocked and you have bash, leap attack and thunderbolt available, put the shield up to deal as much damage as possible. Especially if running barricade. If you're very low on shield meter and shout isn't close to coming off cooldown, then take the time to generate resources. As for your rotation, I'm not entirely sure what super charge is. Do you mean shield charge? If that's the case, I think you're shield charging too early. You want to maximize the personal damage buff received from bash which is only 4 seconds and shield charge has a long use time for not as much damage as thunderbolt and leap attack. But if you're running surge cannon, your rotation looks correct. Depending on skills it would look like shout > bash > shield on > surge cannon > lightning > leap attack. Or it would be shout > bash > shield on > leap attack > thunderbolt > shield bash. As for your last point about barricade, you are correct. If you have the engraving, you want to be holding up your shield more often for the passive damage gain. But in the background footage, I was playing red build and wasn't using barricade which meant only really using my shield during the burst combo. Sounds like you've got the right idea of what to do, just might want to swap up your rotation slightly to fit in more of your big attacks during the bash damage amp
@@GooberTroy ah thanks for the reply, i mean surge cannon, my brain mixes things up sometimes. i usually try to use surge cannon and lightning after my bash for the extra attack power. then i just use what is up like shield bash or shield charge. i dont run leap attack atm, i run surge cannon since i like the stagger and just the general feel of the skill. Cheers and keep up the good work making videos.
The gunlancer has 2 different resources to manage. The first is their shield meter. This resource only gets spent on your shields (both your z and x skills). The gunlancer generates this shield meter by using all their skills. The second resource to manage is your mana. Mana gets used by all your skills in order to use. So if you have no mana, you can't generate shield meter. And without shield meter, you're not as tanky. There are a few skills that use a lot of mana, specifically Shout of Hatred and Nellasia's Energy. So just be careful when using them is all.
Yo this guide is so detailed and clear. Great job! Btw, do you have a PvP guide? I'm struggling when I CC spammed by combos. Esp Sorceress. If you're on Valtan, hope we can train together if you don't mind :)
@@GooberTroy Awesome, thanks dude! It seems like Blue gunlancers are quite weak in PvP but I'm determined to figure out how to do it apart from just "well, you just have to know your role isn't to deal dmg". Been experimenting but it's great to have other more seasoned opinions. Like how to stack the skills, watch out for CCs, baiting, mindgames, etc.
Hey After i hit t2 or at the end of tier 1 i felt so squishy and some basic patterns one shots me with full shield and same pattern doesn't effect others .and it's not a wipe mech or any thing. What's the probleme you think . Will it get better in tier 3 ?
@@GooberTroy blue build with grudge 3 and combat readiness 1 . And about boss , the last lvl 2 guardian raid and after that is too hard . I pop my shield and start my full combo , before finishing it boss forces me to leave with 10 percent hp
@@X-DeathTrigger Tytalos? He recently got nerfed to where his 1-shot mechanic now does a massive amount of damage. You will have to stand in a sandstorm to become petrified for that attack. The other attack I can think of is his flame thrower. That attack has a tiny hitbox, but will deal massive damage. It depletes shield pretty quick if you don't move out of it. But yeah, to me it sounds like you're getting his by his big aoe attack which you need to stand in sandstorms to avoid. That attack usually comes out a few moments after he does his area-wide triple ground pound.
idk, but i am not convinced of the back jump dash... i think its the most stupid thing of gunlancer... i would very like to have a tripod, jewel or whatever thing to convert it to a standard forward dash...
exactly the video I needed! I've been struggling with my gunlancer but thanks to your explanation I understand better what I've been doing wrong
Small tipp, if your mouse has some extra buttons put your shield toggle on it, jumping in and out of your shield is fundamental
I still have mine bound to Z by default. Haven't really changed any keybinds, tbh. Might give it a try, thanks!
A1 TIP
I needed to hear this. As a newcomer I was mostly just using my shield indiscriminately, and as a result feeling very slow and thought that's just how it's supposed to be. Tactical usage focusing on the charge skills sounds a lot better.
Absolutely. The class is usually perceived as easy because we can ignore some mechanics, but we have to be tactical about it. The class has a lot more nuance than just face tank everything. There's a lot of shield toggling which can really help distinguish good gunlancers from the mediocre ones. Happy to help!
Nice skill rotation guide! it's very useful to know these good details about the class.
So many gunlancer guides say put the shield up and stand in front of the boss, but they never really talk about what happens when the shield runs out, they make it sound like the shield will never run out.....thanks for clarifying that for me.
Happy to help. It's the concept that will make or break good gunlancers. Gotta manage that shield energy!
If you know how to play, the shield does indeed almost never runs out and you can face tank anything.
Gunlancer's technicality is a lot of fun once you start getting accustomed to playing it and learning boss fight mechanics. The shield will feel a bit weak in tier 1, start feeling good once in tier 2 with some extra skill points and runes, and feel fantastic once in tier 3. I don't particularly like gunlancer in clearing mobs, but his kit is incredible in guardian raids and abyss dungeons. Taunt and Nellasia's will open up damage windows and allow teammates to be extra aggressive, and the ridiculous amount of stagger he has on short cooldown ensures he will always be ready for stagger checks almost at any time. Also, since the boss is often facing you, you get to do a lot of countering (either Bash or Dash Upper Fire... or have both)
Tip on runes: Wealth rune (extra specialty gauge generation) goes on his shout. It's a lot of extra shield gauge.
One comment about shout is the wealth rune doesn't actually affect the meter gained from the Open Weakness tripod. It only affects the base amount of shield meter gained from the ability. This makes wealth less valuable. I had the same thought of putting wealth on that skill initially until I realized it wasn't doing anything noticeable
Hi there, a fellow gunlancer. What you say makes sense, however being in the face of the boss makes it easier to counter with bash and even dash upper strike, this is because the time window is small and it can be hard to get in place to bash (even with backdash) to hit that counter. What i personally do is mainly use hatred shout to keep the shield up and if im very low i use the awakening skill.
Hatred is your main refill, if you use it almost on cooldown and you have a decent amount of specialization this can keep the shield up for a pretty long time, another thing i do is when the boss is knocked or countered i turn off shield and use all i can to top off before entering def stance again.
The point about dodging skills is true though, you should not facetank everything, often you can backdash through the boss to dodge alot of mechanics.
So the rotation is something like shield off-->hatred strike-->bash-->shield on-->super charge-->lightning strike-->bash--> shield bash...........and so on.
One of the main reasons to keep your shield active, even if you are not face tanking is because of the engraving barricade, 16% extra dmg when shielded, when watching the video i saw alot of skills being used and shield was not up, this is fine if you are playing red but if you are playing blue and have barricade then always have shield up when using skills, except when you are refilling or using hatred shout.
Am i doing it wrong?
Both red and blue gunlancer want to try following the head of a boss because of counters, but the blue build doesn't get as much benefit from hitting the head of a boss compared to red build. So after a counter has successfully been landed, you don't have to be as strict about staying on the head because the boss enters a cooldown phase where they cannot be countered again. So you can safely just hit the boss wherever, unless you're running surge cannon in your build, then you want to try landing that on the head whenever possible.
As for when the boss is knocked, I still think it should be dependent on a few things, like do you have the barricade engraving? Do I have my full burst available? Am I low on shield gauge? The biggest thing is barricade and the full burst though. If you don't have thunderbolt and leap attack available together, then it's probably better to spend your time generating resources. But if the boss is knocked and you have bash, leap attack and thunderbolt available, put the shield up to deal as much damage as possible. Especially if running barricade. If you're very low on shield meter and shout isn't close to coming off cooldown, then take the time to generate resources.
As for your rotation, I'm not entirely sure what super charge is. Do you mean shield charge? If that's the case, I think you're shield charging too early. You want to maximize the personal damage buff received from bash which is only 4 seconds and shield charge has a long use time for not as much damage as thunderbolt and leap attack. But if you're running surge cannon, your rotation looks correct. Depending on skills it would look like shout > bash > shield on > surge cannon > lightning > leap attack.
Or it would be shout > bash > shield on > leap attack > thunderbolt > shield bash.
As for your last point about barricade, you are correct. If you have the engraving, you want to be holding up your shield more often for the passive damage gain. But in the background footage, I was playing red build and wasn't using barricade which meant only really using my shield during the burst combo.
Sounds like you've got the right idea of what to do, just might want to swap up your rotation slightly to fit in more of your big attacks during the bash damage amp
@@GooberTroy ah thanks for the reply, i mean surge cannon, my brain mixes things up sometimes. i usually try to use surge cannon and lightning after my bash for the extra attack power. then i just use what is up like shield bash or shield charge. i dont run leap attack atm, i run surge cannon since i like the stagger and just the general feel of the skill.
Cheers and keep up the good work making videos.
Thanks for the awesome content, insta-subbed!
Thanks for the support!!
Hey, when you talk about “mana” fo you just mean the shield meter, or are the two separate things and ive totally missed something? Thanks!
The gunlancer has 2 different resources to manage. The first is their shield meter. This resource only gets spent on your shields (both your z and x skills). The gunlancer generates this shield meter by using all their skills.
The second resource to manage is your mana. Mana gets used by all your skills in order to use. So if you have no mana, you can't generate shield meter. And without shield meter, you're not as tanky. There are a few skills that use a lot of mana, specifically Shout of Hatred and Nellasia's Energy. So just be careful when using them is all.
@@GooberTroy so “mana” is the cooldown time? Or is there another bar somewhere?
@@Edcaseuk1985 It's the blue bar above your like item bar.
Yo this guide is so detailed and clear. Great job! Btw, do you have a PvP guide? I'm struggling when I CC spammed by combos. Esp Sorceress. If you're on Valtan, hope we can train together if you don't mind :)
I'm on NA East - Regulus, but my few videos will focus a bit on gunlancer in pvp. So watch out for that guide in the future!
@@GooberTroy Awesome, thanks dude! It seems like Blue gunlancers are quite weak in PvP but I'm determined to figure out how to do it apart from just "well, you just have to know your role isn't to deal dmg". Been experimenting but it's great to have other more seasoned opinions. Like how to stack the skills, watch out for CCs, baiting, mindgames, etc.
what are you using for guardian raid, lone knight and crit/swiftness ?
I prefer playing lone knight in guardian raids and a hybrid in mobbing content.. But stats are crit > swiftness
Hey
After i hit t2 or at the end of tier 1 i felt so squishy and some basic patterns one shots me with full shield and same pattern doesn't effect others .and it's not a wipe mech or any thing. What's the probleme you think . Will it get better in tier 3 ?
Which build are you playing and which boss were you fighting?
@@GooberTroy blue build with grudge 3 and combat readiness 1 .
And about boss , the last lvl 2 guardian raid and after that is too hard .
I pop my shield and start my full combo , before finishing it boss forces me to leave with 10 percent hp
@@X-DeathTrigger Tytalos? He recently got nerfed to where his 1-shot mechanic now does a massive amount of damage. You will have to stand in a sandstorm to become petrified for that attack. The other attack I can think of is his flame thrower. That attack has a tiny hitbox, but will deal massive damage. It depletes shield pretty quick if you don't move out of it. But yeah, to me it sounds like you're getting his by his big aoe attack which you need to stand in sandstorms to avoid. That attack usually comes out a few moments after he does his area-wide triple ground pound.
@@GooberTroy thank you for reply
idk, but i am not convinced of the back jump dash... i think its the most stupid thing of gunlancer... i would very like to have a tripod, jewel or whatever thing to convert it to a standard forward dash...
How to maximize your class in lost ark, drop 15$k
Or by just playing the game 😲