Rance Quest:Playable Characters/Gunners

Gunner (ガンナー) Rance8Gunner.png
Despite the name of this class, this doesn't just refer to those who use firearms but includes most characters specializing in ranged physical attacks such as archers (and, well, actual gunners). They can hit the back row of the enemy (but their single attacks often can't bypass ally guard).

One thing to note about gunners: when using matchlocks, the character's attack will skyrocket, but each normal attack can only be fired once per battle. This can be quite a big handicap, because even after using 1 of each equipped attacks, their turns will come up, only to be skipped over and over, wasting valuable turns. Bow skills don't work when equipping firearms, and vice versa. When using matchlocks, make sure to increase damage limit to maximum so the gunshots deal maximum possible damage.

Tulip (Maria's cannon) is the only firearm that can be fired repeatedly.

Aegis Kalar (イージス・カラー)
How to get: Complete quest #70

Key Skills to learn and rank up to ★★★: 弓の攻撃(Bow Mastery), ダメージ上限(Damage Limit+)

Attack skills to get: 一斉射撃(Volley), other attack skills and amount are to your preference.

One of the potentially most powerful Gunner in the game, dealing very high range damage, out damaging Maria's tulip even.

Aegis is a mixed bag. On first glance, she has a wonderful skill making her similar to Spartas with Elemental Punch. If an enemy (once identified with Weakness Search) has weakness to fire/ice/lightning, Aegis's physical attack (whether she's using a bow or a firearm) be imbued with that element. However, カラー種 is an unpredictable and negative skill. Depending on the map, Aegis will receive buffs or debuffs--even then, this happens randomly. For example, even if she's battling in a forest (a favorable ground to her), Aegis won't always receive buffs. So put a tactician by her side to use her comfortably.

There are some key points on what to not do. First, do not invest points into Reinforcement of Multi-Shot--this skill costs too much points. Even if you do, Multi-Shot's number of shots will be random; you won't always make seven shots. And don't invest in her magic skills because it's hard to raise both physical attack and magical attack. There aren't any clean bows with bonuses to magical attack either.

So the best path is to raise her like a normal Gunner. Increase any of her Shooting Attacks to your liking, teach her Volley, Damage Limit, and give her Bow Knowledge. These, along with her elemental arrows, will be sufficient to make her formidable. Note Aegis can exceed any damage limit if she can target an enemy's elemental weakness--if it wasn't obvious. Her damage further increases with Damage Limit mastery as well.

Very useful, she comes with several passives that allow her to automatically deal Fire, Ice, or Lightning damage on regular attack if striking an enemy whose weakness you've deteremined with Weakness Search and another that removes buffs. She does come with several magic spells but it's best not to invest in them since her magic will never be very good. Also worth noting that she has a Kalar racial passive that gives her boosts in outdoor areas and debuffs when indoors.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

★Magic Attack growth increased by Magic talent.

Initial non-unique skills:

Athena 2.0 (あてな2号)
Gunner Lv 1/1

How to get: Complete quest number 81 奇跡の人工生命体

Build memo: Athena 2.0 is unique character, she is limited to level one and her max level limit can't be raised because her item and accessory slots are locked with Rance's gifts that she refuses to part with. But she has a number of yellow skills that allow her to raise some of her stats - HP, Hit Rate, Critical Rate, Attack, Speed. If a skill is equipped and battle ends with a character before her (to her left) who has higher stat, her own stat will be raised. This way she can gather max stats from all characters and become much stronger while still being only first level. It takes into account stats modified by items - so if you want to learn as much as you can of hit rate/crit rate/speed, you can use items that will lower her visible stats (so she can learn above the stats level of character she learns from). She attracts attacks of enemies that target lowest level characters (this will help in a quest with guarding Nobel, but is often making her killed when she is opposing Zashikiwarashi).

She only have three attacks, but her HP and attack uses are restored after each battle, so she is good for short skirmishes but not so good for prolonged fights. Her skill "Becoming human", can be learned in World 3 (? can it be?).

Her defenses don't grow, so you have three tactics: bear the attacks with her HP, kill monsters before getting hit, or use Guards.

Tips:

For her armor the best may be the Leather Armor XA with growth? (and with more RES or other stats too if possible) Got a (9) one from Malgreed 2 with growth and 50 Res though needed 10 min temp save try.

For her weapon... You don't have to care about damage and Crit since you can improve them, so I think the most important stats are stun and an element so that she will be more effective against that kind, so maybe save more kinds of Short Bows with different elements. She can't effectively use matchlock because of "stupid" trait - she will have only 10 accuracy using that. You can use it for your adventage though - this way it's easier to learn accuracy up to 200 as character on your left will always have better accuracy. Supposedly, in world 3, level requirements lowers to 0 (maybe only for her) so she can use all (or almost all) the bows and armors there. (only in newer).

Fixed items:

Marble, Broken Clock - both gives nothing, they just exist so you can't give her items apart weapon/armor. Those can be removed in World 3 (but she still can't aquire experience so giving her forbidden talent is meaningless)

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

Initial non-unique skills:

Jima Bakasko (ジーマ・バカスコ)
How to get: Complete quest number #92　「呪われたプリンセス」.

Zima's a great offensive character due to 攻撃特化型, which raises her offense by 20%. However, said skill has some penalties--defense/evasion drops by 50%, and accuracy (which his vital to Gunners) drops by 20%. Therefore, Zima greatly appreciates any boost to accuracy.

In terms of skills, besides your choice of shooting attack, Zima should be using Volley and Strong Bow (怪力弓), which deals 250% damage. However, the latter is locked on the first turn. So giving her Priority Seating and any speed boost is welcome to fire Strong Bow right away on bosses. If you have spare points, consider Bow Knowledge to complement Strong Bow too.

Her unremovable passive (攻撃特化型) which forces some hefty penalties on her in exchange for a small attack boost is awkward, but her other unique ability 怪力弓 lets her deal potentially insane damage that other characters will have difficulty matching. Unfortunately it costs 8-9 skill points to get any additional uses out of it.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

★Actual growth/stats due to Attack specialized type skill

Initial non-unique skills:

Maria Custard (マリア・カスタード)
Gunner Lv 20/40 In quest number #124 「マルグリッド迷宮4層」bring Masou Shizuka in party and activate a green star event in A3.

Raising Maria isn't special. She comes with Damage Limit mastered, so simply focus on increasing the damage of her shooting attacks. You can do it by learning canon knowledge (砲撃の知識).

One caution though: don't accidentally teach her bow skills as they're not compatible with her Tulip (doesn't have the Matchlocks's one-use-per-battle restriction). However, her Ranged Attacks (射撃攻撃) requires more skill points than other gunners.

In a recent patch, she gains a 0.5x fire elemental area attack, Explosive shot (炸裂弾).

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

Initial non-unique skills:

Megadeath Moromi (メガデス・モロミ)
How to get:

Up to 1.15: Clear any 2 quests with map after getting Mahoko.

In 1.6/Magnum: Complete quest number #16「酒場でスカウト」 after clearing #86「街道のヤンキー」.

She will learn Salvo (一斉射撃) (1,5x damage +200 versus all enemies) during her CITY event without need of spending 4 skill points or having bow mastery one-star.

In Rance Quest Magnum, she has gained a white skill, プリマと一緒, that gives her an attack/magic attack buff at the start of a battle when she's with Prima (but it also poisons Prima at the start of the battle).

Apart from those little skills she is rather generic gunner, with completly normal stats and only 3 starting skills, also with low initial level limit. She is one of first ranged units that you will get so she might be useful anyway (and if you will take time to level her she will do well as generic archer anyway). You need to have her on lvl 35 for HCG with her, Prima and Cessna.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

Initial non-unique skills:    

Reset Kalar (リセット・カラー)
Need to progress in Magnum campaign, quest #205.

Comes with 50% Light and Dark resist yellow skills. Pathetic HP growth which is only slightly better than Frostvine.

Her saving grace is her 4 unique skills. Primarily, the 2 white skills; Stun Immunity for party (Lv 20) and 20% damage reduction (Lv 40). The other 2 red skills are Sleep (% hit dependent on her level) and Queen Curse dealing attack, defense debuff and poison status to all enemies (Lv 60). Stun immunity might be useful for some enemies, while 20% damage reduction works even after Reset is defeated so it can be reliabe on some boss fights.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

★Stats due to being immature

Initial non-unique skills:

Urza Planeis (ウルザ・プラナアイス)
Gunner Lv 30/75

How To Get: Bring any three of Magic, Kaloria, Karou, Rocky, Bernard, Prima, Cessna, and Megadeth to a マルグリット Labyrinth quest.

Note: A patch has restricted Urza's recruitment event until after Magic has been recruited first.

Max out her Tactician Knowledge to begin battles with +25% buffs, and then raise her as a standard bow or firearm user; either is suitable. Pep Talk may be handy for end-game bosses, but isn't necessary.

先制攻撃 has a chance to let Gunners act two times before anyone else. So combining this skill with Urza's manual buffs may be a good option too. You probably don't want Tactician Knowledge in this case though.

15/05/2014 NOTE: Playing a Modified 2.050; she showed up SUPER Early, during 087 "Yankee" Quest.

Skill Slots: 5

Skills:

Yuzuhara Yuzumi (柚原 柚美)
Gunner Lv 1/38

How to get: Has a random chance of joining when you change areas and Kuma (see quest 121) is in your party.

In my case her joining event involved KUMA and Sachiko (also redoing #86). So maybe those two have to be in the team at the same time when you switch map.

For her skills, take Shooting Attack 3 (or 4 if you have Magnum expansion), Decreased Monsters (魔物減らし), and Strengthen Critical. She can only fire each shooting skills once per battle (which mean 4 if you have all 4 shooting attacks), so make it count. Raise her critical in other ways possible, and increase her accuracy--you don't want the shots to miss.

Joins at lv 1 with no special skills except Firearm Mastery 2-star (which would normally cost 24 points!) but between the above skill and her starting weapon she'll have a massive attack score of around 1000 to start with and she's extremely fast as well.

On the downside, using a musket means she can only use each basic attack skill (1, 2, 3, and 4) once per battle. She needs to get to lv 15 ASAP so she can learn Weapon Attack 2 and be able to act at least twice per battle as otherwise all her turns after the first will go to waste. Muskets don't have any special attacks either and she'll probably want the passive to increase the damage limit of attacks as otherwise she'll have her potential damage output hampered heavily by the limits of the lower attacks. Very useful character early and mid-game, but there are only two muskets she can ever equip so other characters will eventually overtake her in attack power.

Skill Slots: 3

Skills: