Lone Knight Gunlancer Build Guide for Lost Ark

By focusing more on your output and cooldown management, this build makes Gunlancer a lot stronger and more fun to play. It is a high risk, high reward playstyle that incorporates one of the best mechanics in the game, the counterattack.

Counter Gunlance will both get you out of certain situations where your low mobility back jump can not, while at the same time providing a nice attack buff and a high damage hit on success.

The first thing to get used to when playing this build is the back jump that a Gunlancer has. If this is your first time playing Gunlancer, it will feel awkward to snap your mouse the other direction, pressing the spacebar and then moving it back to attack the boss. This will get easier with time and with muscle memory setting in. Specifically for this Engraving build, you will need to use the back jump to get closer to the boss on a regular basis in order to not miss attacks as the red skills will push you away from the boss.

The second thing to get used to is learning to efficiently shield toggle. Turning your innate shield on and off before every Shout of Hatred is very important for your survivability as this build does not use many offensive blue skills to charge your shield. The shield will also drain over time so knowing when to toggle it off and which other abilities provide you with a shield is very useful. Unless you are avoiding a knockback, you can toggle your shield off during abilities such as Shout of Hatred, Nellasia's Energy and Counter Gunlance.

You will need to reach certain milestones for the build to feel good as most Solo Knight builds shine if you crit on every hit. This is because the Solo Knight itself and the Earth's Entropy set which enhances your crit damage. Together with your tripods and engravings, several multipliers work together to maximize your burst damage.

Strengths

• High damage output
• Exciting, reactive gameplay

Weaknesses

• Lower survivability and movement
• Very reliant on timing, shield toggling and front attacks

We'll be starting with the red (gunlance) abilities as they appear in your Combat Skill book, followed by the blue (shield) skills. Every attack ability, outside of Shout of Hatred, will have the “Frontal Attack” tag. So make sure all your abilities hit the front of the boss as much as you can. Tauntable bosses will help with finding your window of opportunity to be in front.

• Fire Bullet will be your filler in between bursts as it can reset itself and, with lucky proc rate, will be up all the time. This is possible by combining the Lucky Chance (50% chance to reduce cooldown) and the Attack Creation that splits it into two attacks, both being able to proc Lucky Chance. We apply the Quick Recharge to reduce our other big cooldowns or the Purify where needed as it is a spammable skill.
• Charged Stinger is one of the main burst damage abilities in the rotation that will also move you forward. It is a charged ability with Super Armor: Paralysis Immunity, so you will use this to close the gap between you and the boss. You can rotate while using this ability up until it is fully charged but keep in mind that with the Super Charge and Galewind, you will not be able to rotate more than 180° before it releases.
• Counter Gunlance has a two second window where you gain 100% of your health as a shield and Super Armor:Push Immunity, Status Ailment Immunity. An important note is that the counterattack only occurs during the first second. It will still give you the shield in case you get hit by multiple attacks during the two seconds but if you are too slow, you will miss the counterattack window. That being said, it is very lenient compared to the Glaivier counterattack. Count provides a devent amount of damage while buffed, and it is a satisfying ability to use. This replaces Dash Upper Fire for most builds, which means you might have a harder time doing normal boss pattern counters.
• Gunlance Shot will give you Super Armor: Paralysis Immunity and root you in place for the duration. It hits multiple times and becomes a fast charged attack with the Nimble Movement tripod and a Galewind. One of the weaker damage abilities in your arsenal, but with a lower cooldown. Together with Fire Bullet and Bash, these are your filler abilities in between burst windows.
• Surge Cannon is the other main burst damage and stagger ability in your rotation. It will fire three times with the last hit being the most important, so make sure you have enough time and space for it to reach the boss before it turns its head. Each explosion will push you back slightly until the third hit.
• Bash will stun normal enemies but the main purpose on bosses is the Armor Destruction tripod, which provides a -12% Defense for 10 seconds on hit, and the second tripod providing attack power for yourself. Alongside Shout of Hatred, these are your synergy skills that should be combined before any burst damage is used. Since Bash has a short cooldown and this build does not have the secondary counter ability, it is important to know the timings. Bash, in this setup, provides high stagger, bleed, counter, an attack power buff and a party synergy buff which makes it an important ability to hit, the problem being that it has a really short range. Without using 10 skill points and the Bell Strike tripod, you will need to stand right next to the boss for it to connect. Due to the distance requirement, the rotation usually includes a back jump towards the boss or a Charged Stinger before using Bash.
• Shout of Hatred forces bosses to face you and is an extremely useful tool, but this skill also provides a synergy buff and charges your shield on hit. The debuff provides 3% damage for all party members and 9% additional damage from Frontal and Back attacks. Since our shield generation depends on this skill, it is used in every build. Toggle your shield off and then use Shout of Hatred as having the shield activated prevents it from being charged. It is a mana heavy skill that should be used frequently to position bosses and to set up damage windows together with Bash, hence we use a Focus.
• Nellasia's Energy should not be spammed on CD, but instead, think about when it is useful for your teammates and when a big shield is needed. This ability has situational tripods that can be changed. For the first tripod, I have a preference for the Quick Pace which will increase your own movement speed and lets you position and move out of danger easier. In a more dangerous fight where your party needs shields more often, you pick Quick Prep tripod for the cooldown reduction. For the second tripod, Shout of Purification is used to dispel your team and brings value to most fights. Otherwise you can choose the Effectiveness tripod for more damage reduction. This is another mana intensive skill that benefits from a Focus rune.

Shout of Hatred → Bash → Shield Toggle → Surge Cannon → Charged Stinger → Fire Bullet → Gunlance Shot → Fire Bullet → Back Jump Towards the Boss → Bash → Fire Bullet → Alternate Autoattack / Fire Bullet / Bash

Rotating in a Counter Gunlance after the second Bash to get the double buff is ideal but otherwise you use it when applicable and as often as possible. Same goes for Nellasia's Energy and your awakening, use when needed. Find your damage window and dodge mechanics while spamming Fire Bullet when your big abilities are on cooldown.

As a main stat we use Crit because we are chasing a 100% Crit rate. As secondary, Swiftness.

1700 crit rating is 60.84% crit chance from stats.Together, with your Lostwind Cliff card set (7%), the Earth's Entropy gear set (17%) and the Lone Knight Engraving (15%) you will have a 99.84% chance to crit with red skills, without a crit synergy buff from your party, so adjust this to fit your playstyle. Having said that, for fights such as Vykas Gate 2 and 3, where you will use the Light of Salvation, having a Crit class synergy is good.

Before item level 1445, we use the Preordained Dilligence set of gear because of the extra crit chance.

After level 1445 we use the Earth's Entropy set because of the same reason, but also the fantastic head attack bonus.

1. Solo Knight is your main engraving and is boosting all your red skills crit by 15% and crit damage by 50%. This also increases your shield consumption by 100% which is why shield toggling and awakening timings are important.
2. Super Charge gives us +20% damage and +40% speed to charge skills. Since we change both Surge Cannon and Gunlance Shot to charge skills through tripods, this affects most of our damage.
3. Master Brawler gives +25% Frontal attack damage. Another multiplier as all of your damage skills have the tag “Frontal Attack”.
4. Grudge gives +20% damage to bosses but you also take 20% more damage. Since you are playing a tanky Gunlancer, as long as you toggle your shield at the right moments, the increased damage taken is negligible.
5. Cursed Doll is good because you will rarely use a potion with proper Counter Gunlance usage.
6. Combat Readiness can be kept at level 1. Increases the damage of your blue skills, +30% Shield Amount, +4% Damage for 10 seconds when hit while in defensive stance (stacked up to 3 times, once every 1 second). This will provide nice damage when getting hit and counter balances your shield loss from Lone Knight. Very effective level 1 engraving.

• Galewind on your charge skills.
• Bleed on your low cooldown Bash skill.
• Quick Recharge on your repeatable Fire Bullet skill.
• Rage on Counter Gunlance.
• Focus on high cost blue skills, Shout of Hatred and Nellasia's Energy.

A damage gem on each of the following skills:

• Charged Stinger
• Surge Cannon
• Counter Gunlance
• Gunlance Shot
• Fire Bullet

A cooldown gem on each of the following skills:

• Charged Stinger
• Surge Cannon
• Counter Gunlance
• Gunlance Shot
• Shout of Hatred
• Nellasia's Energy

Like most classes, start by getting your Red Skills Tripods for the stacking multipliers on your crit damage. Mainly Charged Stinger and Surge Cannon. Luckily a lot of the good tripods for your shield generating and defensive skills are maxed at 1 so no further commitment is needed. Two important tripods to focus on are the Quick Prep tripod for Shout of Hatred and the Lucky Chance tripod for Fire Bullet, max those as soon as possible.

Use the Lostwind Cliff card set for +7% crit. Use the Light of Salvation card set for Holy Damage when applicable. You can use the Forest of Giants and We'llMeet Again to reduce the negatives of Grudge and Cursed Doll until you get used to the build, then change to Lostwind Cliff or Light of Salvation.