Gunslinger Class Update

[GM-Ayu]

The 3rd major class to receive skill edits in heRO will be the extended class: Gunslinger.

Gunslinger's Problems in Pre-Renewall

Gunslinger is not meant to be comparable to Sniper as Sniper required more experience to level, but Gunslinger cannot even compare to Hunter as a ranged class in damage. Hunter is considered the better ranged DPS class, and Gunslinger does not have many unique things going for it. Gunslinger has more SP, but every skill is extremely pricy in comparison to Hunter such that they actually have worse longevity than Hunter too.

It is supposed to have 5 types of guns, but beyond the pistol and rifle, the other 3 guns are barely (if at all) supported by Gravity. They don't have a lot of usable skills, and it makes Gunslinger really expensive to gear because you need a lot of weapon cards to make a new version of each gun type. The 5 types of guns don't have really defined build path or play pattern.

Finally, the lack of gear choices is not helping Gunslinger at all. It is the butt joke of all classes in RO for having no defining feature and is a total meme. If it is to be a meme, let's at least make it a fun one.


Unique Aspect of Gunslinger: Swap Weapons for Different Situation

In heRO, we want the 5 guns to have a reason to exist. With Gunslinger's extended status thus more skill points, you should have enough skill points to utilize 2 out of the 5 weapons (or 3rd.) Depending on what you want it to be and with careful planning of your stat spread, you should be able to use 2 different guns as you see fit based on what you want to do.

Pistols: The "default" weapon for Gunslinger, capable of doing bit of everything and suitable for all situations. They can auto-attack, have short range mobbing option, or single target high damage attack. However, they are not specialized in any of these actions compare to guns dedicated to the tasks. This is relatively the most usable weapon as is for skills, and using heRO's custom pistols available, you will find the pistol skills quite usable already. Along with a small boost in this update, pistols should be very usable for Gunslingers in many situations.

Gatling Gun: The auto-attack weapon: use Gatling Fever to boost your base ATK power dramatically and attack at maximum attack speed. The problem is that Gatling Gun has only Gatling Fever, and their auto-attacks aren't very powerful. In heRO, we will grant Rapid Shower to be usable by Gatling Gun, as naturally Rapid Shower is a pre-requisite skill to the unique Gatling Fever anyway. Chain Action also applies to Gatling Guns to reinforce the fact that Gatling Gun is the ultimate auto-attack gun of choice for Gunslingers. Gatling Guns will be useful if you want low SP usage, and stunlock the enemies. It is also a great weapon as the basis of any physical-based autocast builds.

Rifle: Rifles have always had great natural CRIT, but it is useless because the CRIT cannot be utilized. CRIT only applied to normal attacks but Rifle has a slow attack. In heRO, we will change Rifle skill "Piercing Shot" to allow critical attacks so that Rifle can finally utilize their natural CRIT oriented weapons.

Shotgun: Shotgun is the single target blowout abilities for Gunslinger, aiming to score critical OHKO or 2HKO enemies. heRO has provided some useful shotguns available and we'll like to continue to head towards this direction.

Grenade Launcher: Grenade Launcher is a joke as their unique traps do almost no damage, and this weapon group has the lowest variety of weapon. In heRO, grenade launchers will retain their trap, but they should also live up to the fantasy where grenade explosions should deal large area damage. Grenade launchers will be modified to always deal splash damage naturally, and the Gunslinger class set gives Grenade Launcher massive armor piercing abilities to deal insane AoE damage with the newly improved Spread Attack. Grenade Launcher build should find themselves at a easy time to deal ranged AoE damage.


The Changes


The changes are listed on the heRO wiki already, and will be implemented by the next major maintenance.

You can read about them here

For the explanation of each change:

Most SP cost changes: changed so that it's more in line with Hunter's Double Strafe, or Acolyte buff spells.

Flip the Coin: to reduce frustration of downtime where Gunslinger has to spend flipping coin, the success rate is greatly increased.

Chain Action: although critical is not the focus of Gatling Guns and Pistols, it has been changed to allow critical attack to be consistent with Thief's Double Attack. Chain Action also applies to Gatling Guns to boost Gatling Gun in auto-attack department.

Madness Canceller: greatly improved in almost all areas so that it's more enticing to use. Its shortened duration is actually a buff since it gives you flexibility to exit the stance when you don't need it. Its SP cost ratio for duration is actually the same so there is no SP cost nerf of any type here. You can also cast the skill again to end it prematurely for further flexibility.

Gunslinger's Panic: Use it in a pinch to gain defensive abilities, but its SP cost and duration are now much shorter/lower to give you the flexibility to use it only when you need it. Again, this change is to give Gunslinger the flexibility that stances are meant to be.

Increase Accuracy: boosted to be more in line with Blessing in duration/cost.

Single Action: ASPD boost so that there's actual motivation to consider getting it for all 10 levels.

Tracking: is now affected by Poem of Bragi- this shouldn't be a dangerous change considering that there are many other stronger skills that are made near instant-cast by Bragi.

Rapid Shower: usable by Gatling Gun now since you need to learn Rapid Shower to learn Gatling Gun exclusive skill anyway.

Desperado: a small boost in reliability should make Desperado stronger in the long run, without ruining the defining feature of shotguns/grenade launcher to be the safer and stronger AoE option for Gunslinger.

Gatling Fever: more boosts to give one of the worse gun types a bit more oomph and power.

Spread Attack: the scaling is now actually considerable and thus no longer a useless joke. This should be the AoE attack of choice for Gunslingers.

Ground Drift: total damage formula rework so that the skill is worth using, without being a status focused trap to be different from Hunter traps. This is an all-out damage oriented trap, with a status that is also damage oriented.


Gear Changes

Just like other updates, some gears are also updated to reflect the new changes.


The following weapon has attack power changed, but no effect changed:

• Gold Lux[0]: Power 20 => 110
  
• Wasteland's Outlaw[2]: Power 68 => 80
  
• Soldier Revolver: Power 70 => 90 (to be closer to Sniper BG weapons)
  
• Glorious Pistol: Power 80 => 90 (to be closer to Sniper BG weapons)
  
  Grenade Launchers
  
• Destroyer: Power 220 => 270
  
• Inferno: Power 280 => 330
  
• Soldier Grenade Launcher: Power 300 => 350
  
  Rifles
  
• Soldier Rifle: Power 50 => 110 (to be closer to Sniper BG weapons)
  
  Gatling Guns
  
• Drifter: 50 => 65
  
• Butcher: 75 => 90
  
• Soldier Gatling Gun: 80 => 100
  
• Glorious Gatling Gun: 90 => 100
  
• Minigun: 60 => 75
  

Guns/Gears with effect changes:

• All Grenade Launchers: they will naturally deal splash damage in a 5x5 area (2 cell splash radius)
  
• Minigun: will always have 3x3 splash radius, without any chance activation
  
• Sharpshooter Revolver: each refine rate of this equip will reduce SP cost of all skills by 3%- previously this pistol has no understanding quality and the rapid shower boost doesn't make sense. We've changed this to allow pistol users to really spam skills for huge longevity boost in battle.
  
• Color Scope: this weapon previously overlapped with Lever Action Rifle as both are crit oriented. We'll change Color Scope to provide a +25% crit damage. If you already have enough crit via other gears, then Color Scope can give you even more damage than before.
  
• Gunslinger's Jacket: now that Spread Attack's base effect is boosted, the jacket's boost for Spread Attack will be scaled back to 20% only
  
  

When will the changes rollout?

Whenever GM-Ayu doesn't need to work overtime.


When the change is rolled out, all Gunslingers will be given 3 free reset for a month so you can test out the changes and reset to a build that you like with no penalty.

All of the following weapons will be given a chance to have their cards de-carded as their effects have changed.
- Color Scope
- Sharpshooter's Revolver
- Any Bombardier gears


Mini-FAQ

Will there be a Gunslinger card set?

Yes but due to lack of time, it will not be released with this set.