Welcome to the Time to Hunt Gunslinger Build Guide! This build revolves around unleashing devastating long-range shots using your Rifle stance and swiftly evading your enemy's attacks using your Handgun stance. The Shotgun stance is disabled for this build.
Time to Hunt Gunslinger struggles to inflict reliable amounts of Stagger and Destruction, mainly due to her best contribution skills being part of her main rotation. However, her Counter is readily available. This is one of the few builds that utilizes double Class Engravings, with one granting you specific buffs each time you swap stances, and the other granting you a significant damage boost.
- Non-positional gameplay
- Good mobility
- Ranged
- Easy to learn
- Low defense
- Relatively long downtime
- No shotguns
Want a more intricate playstyle that uses more weapon types? Check out our Peacemaker guide.
Builds
Raids
Chaos DungeonsNeed some tips for general content? Check out our Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides.
- Focused Shot, Target Down, Perfect Shot, and Catastrophe are your main damage skills.
- Bullet Rain and Meteor Stream are secondary damage skills.
- Dexterous Shot and Spiral Tracker are your Synergy (Weakness Exposure) skills.
- Peacekeeper is your Counter skill.
- Somersault Shot and Quick Step are used as mobility skills.
- Eye of Twilight is your Awakening. It is preferred over High-Caliber HE Bullet thanks to its higher damage, but both can be used.
Alternative Skill, Tripod, and Rune Options
Spiral Tracker
- Purify - Allows you to cleanse your debuffs.
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.
- Sharpshooter, Shotgun Rapid Fire, and Equilibrium are your main ways to deal with large packs of lesser monsters.
- Last Request, Catastrophe, Focused Shot, and Meteor Stream can all deal with Elite monsters on their own.
- Dexterous Shot serves as a quick mobility option. It can also easily break crystals on the 3rd Floor.
- High-Caliber HE Bullet is your Awakening. It is preferred over Eye of Twilight thanks to its wider area of effect. It is also your primary way of dealing with the Boss on the 2nd Floor.
Recommended Engraving Setup
Acquiring additional engravings leads to a faster clear potential, but the build can perform quite well with the bare minimum.
Minimum requirements
- 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.
Additional engravings
- 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.
- Hit Master provides an unconditional damage boost to your skills, as none of the important ones have a positional affix.
- Peacemaker provides significant bonuses to each of your weapon stances.
Gameplay & Skill Rotation
Time to Hunt Gunslinger uses her Rifle and Handgun stances, but most of her damage comes from Rifle skills. In exchange, Handgun skills provide exceptional mobility and utility. The Shotgun stance is disabled.
Thanks to the Peacemaker engraving, swapping stances grants you the following effects:
Entering the Rifle stance
- +16/22/28% Damage
Entering the Handgun stance
- +8/12/16% Attack Speed
The Time to Hunt engraving grants you the following effects:
- +22/33/45% Crit Rate
- +0/6/15% Crit Damage
- Shotgun stance is disabled
Gunslinger Identity
Each buff is unique to the stance it correlates to, and swapping to another stance will replace the current buff with the one from the new stance. All buffs have a duration of 9 seconds.
This build focuses on empowering your Rifle skills and taking advantage of their range to inflict highly concentrated damage.
Basic Rotations
Standard Damage Rotation
- Using skills in this specific order is recommended at the beginning of the fight, but due to the chaotic nature of encounters, you may have to improvise and adapt.
- Try your best to maintain your Synergy using Spiral Tracker and Dexterous Shot, even if you aren't planning to attack immediately after.
Stagger Check Rotation
- Using skills in this specific order is recommended for most stagger checks. However, each check can vary in duration, so you may need to readjust depending on that and your party's composition. Remember you can also use a Whirlwind Grenade if you have one equipped!
- If you need more stagger, consider using High-Caliber HE Bullet.
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.
| Skill | 1st Tripod | 2nd Tripod | 3rd Tripod |
| Focused Shot | Double Tap | Final Strike | |
| Target Down | Large Magazine | Steady Aim | |
| Perfect Shot | Cutthroat | Enhanced Shot | |
| Catastrophe | Cutthroat | Eternal Calamity | |
| Bullet Rain | In a Tight Spot | Rapid Fire | Flame Shot |
| Meteor Stream | Weak Point Detection | Piercing Explosion | Meteor Fall |
| AT02 Grenade | Ranged Throw | Enhanced Grenade | Internal Ignition |
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.
Damage Gems
- Focused Shot
- Target Down
- Perfect Shot
- Catastrophe
- Bullet Rain
- Meteor Stream
Cooldown Gems
- Target Down
- Focused Shot
- Perfect Shot
- Catastrophe
- Bullet Rain
For more information on where to obtain gems and how to use them, check out our Gem System Guide.
Stat Priority
This build utilizes Specialization, Swiftness, and Crit.
- Specialization is the primary stat. It directly increases the damage of your Rifle skills.
- Swiftness is a secondary stat. It offers a small boost in cooldown reduction, as well as attack and movement speed.
- Crit is a tertiary stat. It offers damage consistency as well as synergizing well with your Class Engraving.
Standard Setup
- Specialization + Swiftness
- Specialization
- Specialization
- Specialization
- Specialization
- Specialization + Crit
Gear Set
Hallucination Set
This set is optimal thanks to the combination of Damage and Crit Rate that it provides, on top of not requiring any active maintenance beyond initial activation.
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 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 there are some that can be used at level 1 or 2 in addition to the others, after reaching item level 1540 and unlocking Ancient Accessories.
Relic Gearing Build (5x3)
- Time to Hunt
- Grudge
- Hit Master
- Keen Blunt Weapon
- Peacemaker
Ancient Gearing Build (5x3+1)
- Time to Hunt
- Grudge
- Hit Master
- Keen Blunt Weapon
- Cursed Doll
- Peacemaker Lv 1
Engraving Explanations
Core Engravings
- Time to Hunt provides a significant damage boost and consistency.
- 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.
- Hit Master provides an unconditional damage boost to your skills, as none of the important ones have a positional affix.
- Keen Blunt Weapon is a good option that synergizes well with your Crit stat.
- Peacemaker provides significant bonuses to each of your weapon stances.
Level 1 and 2 Engravings
- Peacemaker provides significant bonuses to each of your weapon stances. This engraving is incredibly efficient at level 1, instead allowing you to run Cursed Doll at level 3 for an Attack Power increase, at the cost of -25% healing.
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.
Optimal Bonus Rolls
Crit
Specialization
Circulate
Fervor
Hammer
Wedge
Alternative Bonus Rolls
Precise
Assail
Superiority
Weapon Power
Dexterity
Check out the Bracelet Guide for more details.
Elixir
The recommended Elixir Set for this build is Critical.
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.
Early Game Damage Card Set
End Game Damage Card Set
Credits
Written by Raeinor
Reviewed by Starlast