Tier 3 Combat Readiness Gunlancer Build Guide

Welcome to the Combat Readiness Gunlancer Build Guide! This build revolves around utilizing youDefensive Stance (Z) to become an indestructible warlord. Combat Readiness grants you an amazing increase in your shielding efficiency and damage allowing you to ruthlessly attack bosses with no care to what they have in store.

Outside of that, this build provides great Stagger and Destruction to the party. The main things to watch out for are his poor mobility and relatively long animations. Some may think this class is a tank at first glance but in reality, it is a very strong warrior that can dish out amazing damage and has so many useful tools in his kit.

Want a more burst focused warlord playstyle? Check out our Lone Knight guide.

Builds

Raids

Chaos Dungeons

Need some tips for general content? Check out our Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides.

• Guardian's Thundercrack and Leap Attack are your main damage skills.
• Shield Bash, Shield Charge, and Shield Shock are your filler damage skills.
• Shield Bash and Shield Shock provide extra Destruction.
• Bash is your Synergy from Armor Destruction with an added Counter and Destruction.
• Shout of Hatred is a Taunt that applies your second Synergy from Open Weakness.
• Dash Upper Fire is your Counter and some bonus Destruction.
• Guardian's Protection is your Awakening. It provides Push Immunity and Damage Reduction to all party members inside while charging up your Shield Meter.

Alternative Skill, Tripod, and Rune Options

Dash Upper Fire can be swapped for Nelasia's Energy, using Quick Prep, Shout of Purification, Survive, and Focus.

• This will give you a party wide Cleanse and shield that can be useful and since we already have Bash as a Counter it is a viable alternative.
• You can also swap Shield Shock instead however this will give you a serious damage hit.

Leap Attack

• Quick Prep + Low Shock
  • Can be used for much higher damage potential but this will require you to modify your rotation slightly and use more mana making the rotation overall harder to use, only recommended once you understand the class.

Shout of Hatred

• Wide Hit - Can be used to make the skill easier to use but requires Focus to sustain the increased mana cost.

Shield Charge

• Shield - Can be used to make the skill more defensive at the cost of making it slower.

Shield Bash

• Purify - Can be used if you need a self Cleanse.

Check the Rune Guide for more details on Runes and how to obtain them.

This build is optimized and meant to be used only in Chaos Dungeons. For Ebony Cube please use a Raid build.

• Surge Cannon is used for everything and gets reset cooldown from Rotating Barrage.
• Charged Stinger is your best skill for elites and bosses.
• Leap Attack, Guardian's Thundercrack, Shield Charge, Shout of Hatred, and Shield Shock are all filler damage skills.
• Lance of Judgment is your Awakening. It does massive damage and buffs you, use it to one shot elites and bosses.

Recommended Engraving Setup

While you can freely experiment with any engravings you want for this content, here's a recommended setup, based on the Engraving Support system:

• Preemptive Strike causes your attacks to deal immense amounts of damage to monsters that you haven't attacked yet, making it ideal for Chaos Dungeons.
• Contender is a stacking Attack Power effect that increases in strength once you kill a monster, making it ideal for Chaos Dungeons.
• Raid Captain provides damage based on your Bonus Movement Speed, synergizing well with the Buff Nodes scattered throughout Chaos Dungeons.
• Lone Knight provides damage and crit damage to Gunlance skills, the crit however is not useful in this build, if your Gunlance are already strong enough try out Cursed Doll.
• Combat Readiness provides improved shielding, increased damage, as well as increased damage to Normal skills allowing them to be more useful.

Gameplay & Skill Rotation

Combat Readiness significantly increases the efficiency of your shields allowing you to entirely play around Defensive Stance (Z) and increasing the damage of Normal skills.

Activating his identity Defensive Stance (Z) grants you the following effects for its entire duration:

• Grant Shield based on Meter
• Push-Immunity
• 50% Reduced Movement Speed

Activating his identity Battlefield Shield (X) will:

• Gap close and unload your entire Shield Meter dealing damage relative to the amount used.

Gunlancer Identity

Defensive Stance (Z) is core to our build, it will allow us to send everything while taking no damage and having Push Immunity and granting increased damage from Barricade.

Taunt is an important mechanic from the skill Shout of Hatred. Many bosses will not be tauntable, so this will not apply to them, but if they are then there are a few rules you need to consider. Taunt has an internal cooldown on the boss, the more you Taunt the longer this becomes. Additionally, you need to consider your team when using Taunt, your goal is to hold the boss in place, not turn it whenever it feels convenient for you. If everyone is in position and the boss turns, you can Taunt to bring the boss back in place, but you should not be using it at the expense of your team's positioning.

Basic Rotations

Standard Damage Rotation

• You can use Leap Attack before Guardian's Thundercrack if you need to gap close to the boss.
• You cannot gain meter while Defensive Stance (Z) is active, make sure to disable it before using Shout of Hatred.
• Battlefield Shield can be used to dump the rest of your shield at the end of the rotation to gain some more damage however if you are still new feel free to maintain shield to take even less damage.
• Remember you can gain Adrenaline stacks as an opener by utilizing skills like Shield Charge, Dash Upper Fire, and Shield Shock. Additionally if the boss is in range you can use Shout of Hatred and Defensive Stance (Z) to gain Combat Readiness stacks.

Stagger Check Rotation

• Simply follow this rotation to do high Stagger. Remember you can also use a Whirlwind Grenade if you have one equipped!

Tripods and Gems

Tripod Levelling

Increasing the level of Tripods greatly enhances their effectiveness. You may only increase the level of 18 tripods at a time. Some of them cannot be leveled at all, or are left at level 1 - these tripods are omitted from the table, even if they are used. Here are the main tripods you should look out for in order to maximize this build's potential.

Tripods written in bold text are your highest priority, make sure to level them first!

For more information on where to obtain Tripod Amulets and how to use them, check out our Skill Tree System Guide.

Gems

Gems are another significant aspect of your build, as they directly impact the damage and cooldowns of your skills. You can equip up to 11 gems at a time. Here are the ones you should focus on in order to maximize this build's potential, listed according to their priority.

For more information on where to obtain gems and how to use them, check out our Gem System Guide.

Stat Priority

This build utilizes Crit and Specialization.

• Specialization is the primary stat. It increases damage of Normal skills and the generation of Shield Meter.
• Crit is a secondary stat. It provides you with some extra needed Crit Rate to help directly increase damage.

Gear Set

Hallucination Set

This set provides us some much needed Crit Rate and gives a significant damage increase.

The name of your set will change every time you acquire a higher tier of gear, but the set effect will remain the same. Look for your set's keyword when recrafting it in order to find it more easily (e.g Entropy, Hallucination etc).

Check out the Gear Progression Guide for step by step instructions and early game gearing.

If you are interested in Sidereal Weapons, click here for more details.

Engravings

Engravings are a core part of your build. Typically, most engravings will be used at level 3, but somet can be used at level 1 or 2 in addition to the others, after reaching item level 1540 and unlocking Ancient Accessories.

Engraving Explanations

Core Engravings

• Combat Readiness significantly increases the effectiveness of our identity and increases our damage greatly, but also is extremely good at level one.
• Grudge increases damage done while also increasing damage received. The engraving is a highly effective damage increase without needing specific positioning, making it worthwhile even with the penalty.
• Barricade due to our extreme shielding this becomes very efficient with 100% uptime for our rotation.
• Adrenaline provides an additional source of Crit Rate and Attack Power. It is fairly easy to upkeep.

Add-on Engravings (Pick 1 or 2)

• Cursed Doll is a significant Attack Power increase at the cost of 25% healing. The healing penalty can be punishing for inexperienced players who are not familiar with boss mechanics, but it becomes easy to overcome with time.
• Keen Blunt Weapon due to our high Crit Rate from multiple sources this engraving becomes a very efficient damage increase.
• Stabilized Status is a great option that is always cheap but will require you to always maintain 80%+ health which is easy but it is an extra thing to account for.

Level 1 and 2 Engravings

• Combat Readiness this engraving is highly efficient at level one, on an end game build this will allow us to take an extra add-on engraving.

Check out the Engraving Guide for more details.

Bracelet

Bracelets provide beneficial effects to yourself or to your party members depending on the rolls they have.

The primary goal is to get the main stats used by this build Crit and Specialization. After that you should be aiming for Special Rolls to get more damage. Please note that this system is heavily reliant on RNG, and you should not expect to get much more beyond your main stats early on.

Check out the Bracelet Guide for more details.

Elixir

The recommended Elixir Set for this build is Master.

Check out the Elixir Guide for more details and general stat recommendations.

Card Sets

Cards are an endgame system that helps maximize your character's damage. Here are the recommended card sets for this build.

• Deep Dive is used early on as it is fairly easy to obtain.
• Light of Salvation is the standard endgame option, but it can take a long time to acquire 30-piece Awakening.
• Kazeros's Legion Commanders is used as an alternative to Light of Salvation, in content where enemies have a weakness to Dark Damage.

Check out the Card Guide for more details on how to obtain cards and interact with them.

End Game Damage Card Set