Aura Kingdom Gunslinger Grenadier PvE Guide

Aura Kingdom Gunslinger Grenadier PvE Guide by utsuhoshi

Introduction

I am Sefi, and this is my first class guide, as all others were game mech guides that involved too much math and spreadsheets. I have made a guide after doing all the research and tests and all the resets spent, and people might find it surprising to see build I have found to be the most efficient. But I promise, I won’t put too much math here and get to the point directly, unless if discussed in the topic. :p

This will be a PVE glasscannon guide, so if you don’t like that, this guide may not be for you.

Why Gunslinger-Grenadier?

Gunslinger is all about having the four of the strongest, most spammable skills, while having the traps’ damage reduction as a very very good bonus. However, you will lack good utility, and kiting enemies will be key to your survival in PVE. So your goal is to complement this.

Among the subclass options for PVE, the best choices that we currently have are: Sorcerer, Grenadier, Wizard and Duelist. Wizard is for having more AoE skills but their cooldowns don’t really make them nice for DPS, and you would be better off spamming your main class skills most of the time. Sorcerers, duelists and grenaiders give decent DoT, but since this is something that you will cast while spamming your fast cd skills, you would want to minimize having to cast skills other than your main DPS skills.

So your remaining options are Duelist and Grenadier which both offer the DoT you need (best DoT per cast), with one being stackable and one being ranged. They both offer enough duration and cooldowns to keep the DoT up all the time, but Duelists don’t really offer anything else nice for you. You won’t need more damage skills as you already have those, but you will need that ranged stun of grenadier. You can also have a turret which helps a bit for kiting, which still lasts longer than the cooldown even as a subclass.

Envoy Path

Here is my Envoy Path at lv59, and what I will get at lv60.

Discerning Attack (30% chance to deal 100% bonus damage on the next attack)
Lethal Armor (7% of Def added to Crit)
Lash Out (+20% crit rate when HP reaches below 40%, lasts 8 seconds)
+12% main weapon damage
+30% main weapon crit damage
+5% main weapon crit rate
+1% damage
+9.6% crit rate
+3% def
-30% crit damage taken

Discerning Attack and the damage/crit damage envoys are pretty much a given.
Lash Out is a pretty good skill to get too. Think of this: If your HP dips down below 40% at least once in a one-minute battle, you’re looking at +3% effective crit rate on average, which is pretty good for an Envoy point.
Crit rate envoys add a significant amount of crit, especially the additive ones for your main weap.

Lethal Armor, even without a Def-focused build, will give you around 2.5% crit rate, which is pretty good. However, you might want to trade this out and Determination for the damage envoys for 6% more damage. But Lethal armor also has an advantage as it can be improved by upgrading your armors, and using lv60 armors (which might not arrive soon here :s).

Potential changes can be: Swapping 2% def for 2% HP, swapping 0.8%+1.6% crit rate for 1%+2% HP., or swapping -15% crit damage for 2% HP.

Stat Build

I went 4:1 damage:crit ratio and placed all my def stat points on HP.

Why not pure crit?
Actually, pumping your stats on full crit won’t really do better than mixing them both with damage. And the reason why I prioritized damage is because damage is more effective when fighting against higher-leveled opponents, while against lower levels, you will most likely try to burst them down under the frost trap duration so pumping crit rate is not really effective there.
Assuming you’re a lv60, while fighting against lv80+ monsters, pure damage will always be better than pure crit rate. Your crit rate will be reduced much against high level monsters as you need higher crit points to land a crit on them, so crit rate loses its effectiveness.

The same goes for Def. Against high level monsters, it will be reduced significantly. So with reduced effectiveness against these monsters, 0.20% def might not be worth the 0.58% HP that you will sacrifice. And eva won’t really help you much in PVE, except if you’re taking the aggro and you’re the target of the normal attacks of the boss, or if you’re mobbing monsters more than what your bard can heal.

Item Build

Weapons: It greatly depends on your preferences, but for a pure damage build, you can never go wrong with a Max’s Magicked Dual Pistols (Rare 50). +50% Aimed Shot crit damage is very good to have, and it ensures your that Aimed Shot will always have capped crit no matter what buffs you have. You might go for crafted 50 with Nocturnal for added healing, or Deadly for more damage. But once you reach lv60, the best weapon currently available is Zaahir’s Hail of Fire.

For the cannon, the main damage stat won’t really matter much as you won’t be using cannon skills to deal the DPS, so go more for their utility. Blockhead Nemesis Incinerator (Rare 50) works fine as it also gives 8% chance to deal 80% bonus damage, but this can be substituted with weapons you want to use for utility like those with 3% lifesteal.

Armors: Go for Bestial/Spiky Aria Set. The hidden set bonuses are too good to let go in PVE. +15% damage and +30% crit damage against bosses will be very helpful. Bestial/Spiky is for the added damage and HP/def. If you’re going for Infernal Abyss, it also helps to have your armor crafted with a Flame element, to reduce incoming damage by 25% from flame attacks.

Accessories: Comet Set. It also has the 10% crit damage hidden set bonus. Why not Frederick’s? Because you’re gonna break the set bonus. You’re breaking the 10% crit damage set bonus, losing 1% damage and ~600 HP for the 8% crit damage and some Eva, which we aren’t really building. The same goes for Saint Hale’s Divine band. Though wearing them both will actually give you +12% crit damage, you will still lose out on some crit rate. So in the end, for a pure PVE build slinger, lv55 yellow WT acce aren’t worth it.

Trophies: Use Shard of Toto’s Water Blade (yellow 50 trophy) as it gives really good stats and good crit damage. For the second, this is a pretty good choice:

It actually gives a good amount of damage, has the crit and the HP we want. It actually helps more than Argus Dragon Heart (orange) since the dragon heart buff is not really there all the time. Another viable choice is Toto’s Cursed Tusks which also gives a good amount of dmg, hp and crit, and you can use a Core on it (once again, Bestial/Spiky).

Secret Stones:

Golden Aimed Shot (Pistols)

Golden Cannon Salvo (Cannon)

Sunrise Plasma Artillery (Headgear)

Sunrise Bombardment (Body)

Azure Sonic Bomb (Waist)

Emerald Fiery Grenade (Gloves)

Golden Ultraviolet Catastrophe (Boots)

Try to find those with 6% crit damage (Destroying prefix), and if you’re serious on doing infernal, get those with bonus damage to flame targets. If you can afford them, you can also go for those 6% crit damage which also have +2% dmg, or 2% damage reduction for survivability.

Masteries

Those are the ones which are pretty easy to get.
You’d want to use:
Pinpoint Strike (+15% Aimed Shot damage) or Precision Bombardment (-8% target defense)
Zeal (50% bonus damage)
Exploding Wolf Trap (+5 levels to Dark Flare Trap) or Flechette Turret (+15% crit damage for 10 seconds)
Break Defense (25% chance to apply -8% defense)
Deep Blue (+2% damage, -5% malice)

Pinpoint Strike, Exploding Wolf Trap and Deep Blue are easy to upgrade. You can buy Pinpoint Strike and Exploding Wolf Trap using tokens from Turin (Master Gunslinger) at the top right of Navea. If you’re in a guild, you can buy Deep Blue using guild funds in the guild hall, or from the guild merchant in Navea, to the south of Analisa.

Eidolons

For Solo, you might want to stay with Sigrun for survivability. However, in parties, you can go concentrate on adding DPS for yourself and the party, so Bel-chandra and Uzuriel will be your best choice.

They give the same crit + crit dmg buffs, and are both melee. They are pretty much the same eidolons, just differing on stat focus and elements.

Extras

How does Discerning Attack work?

It has a chance to trigger every time you attack a target, either with a skill or with your normal attack. Once it triggers, the next attack will have a bonus 100% damage like how Zeal procs. It also works on subclass skills, or even Ultimate skills.

How do the traps exactly work?

Only one trap can exist at a time. Frost Trap disappears once it is activated, and will appear as a debuff on the target for 6 seconds. Dark Flare Trap does not disappear, but will instead keep on damaging the enemy just as long as he is on the trap. So the usual combo is Frost Trap > Dark Flare Trap so that both effects are active on the target at the same time.
Trap DoT ticks are also unaffected by your speed, they will always stay as 1 tick per second. They can crit, but they are not affected by crit damage envoys.