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 Maximum to ★★★ so the gunshots deal the highest 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: Once More to the Kalar Forest.

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

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

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

Aegis is a mixed bag. On one hand, she has a wonderful skill making her similar to Brawlers with Element Strike. If an enemy (once identified with Weakness Search) has a weakness to fire/ice/lightning, Aegis's physical attack (whether she's using a bow or a firearm) will be imbued with that element. Unfortunately, Kalar Species(カラー種) is an unpredictable and largely 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 not to do. First, do not invest points into Rapid Fire, this skill costs too many points. Even if you do, Rapid Fire '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 Ranged Attacks to your liking, teach her Volley, Damage Maximum, and give her Bow Knowledge. These, along with her elemental arrows, will be sufficient to make her formidable. Note Aegis can exceed any damage maximum if she can target an enemy's elemental weakness--if it wasn't obvious. Her damage further increases with Damage Maximum mastery as well.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

1 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 #81: The Miraculous Artificial Lifeform.

Build memo: Athena 2.0 is unique character, she is limited to level 1 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 without leveling up. It takes into account stats modified by items - so if you want to raise ACC/CRT/SPD, 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 Nopel, but is often getting her killed when she is opposing Zashikiwarashi).

She only has 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 "Become Human", can never be learned and seemingly does nothing.

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:

This character is really bad. You really have no reason to use her unless you like Athena. Her unique mechanic hints at high potential growth, but this is actually a huge bait. She is fatally flawed since all 3 of her attacks have damage caps. This means that even if you grind her for hundreds of hours, her attacks will still do trivial amounts of damage compared to other characters with uncapped skills. There's only a couple of quests where she is good since her moves replenish, but those quests aren't hard and it's not worth the time to train her up.

For her armor the best may be the Leather Armor XA with Talent (and with more RES or other stats too if possible).

For her weapon... You don't have to care about damage and CRT since you can improve them, so the most important stats are stun and an element, so maybe save more kinds of Short Bows with different elements. Because of the skill Stupid she can't effectively use an Arquebus - when equipped with one her accuracy will be set to 10. You can use it to 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:

Zima Bakasko
How to get: Complete Quest #92: Cursed Princess.

Zima's a great offensive character due to Attack Specialist (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 Ranged Attack, Zima should be using Volley and Super Draw (怪力弓), which deals 250% damage. However, the latter is locked on the first turn. So giving her Preemptive Strike and any speed boost is welcome to fire Super Draw as soon as possible on bosses. If you have spare points, consider Bow Knowledge to complement Super Draw too.

In conclusion, her unremovable passive Attack Specialist (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 Super Draw 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

1 Actual growth/stats due to Attack Specialist

Initial non-unique skills:

Maria Custard (マリア・カスタード)
Gunner Lv 20/40

How To Get: In Quest #124: Malgrid Dungeon 4th Stratum bring Shizuka Masou in the active party, and activate a green star event in A3.

Build: Raising Maria isn't special. She comes with Damage Maximum mastered, so simply focus on increasing the damage of her Ranged Attacks. You can do it by learning Firearm Knowledge.

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

In a recent patch, she gains a 0.5x fire elemental area attack, Explosive Shot.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

Initial non-unique skills:

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

Up to 1.15: Clear any 2 quests that have a map after getting Mahoko.

In 1.6/Magnum: Complete Quest #16: Scouting at the Bar after clearing #86: Highway Yankees.

She will learn Volley (一斉射撃) (1,5x damage +200 versus all enemies) during her A Day in Cidade event without needing to spend 4 skill points or having Bow Knowledge ★.

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

Apart from those little skills she is a rather generic gunner, with completely normal stats and only 3 starting skills, also with low initial level limit. She is one of the 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 a generic archer anyway). You need to have her at lvl 35 for a 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, then clear Quest #205: Pencilcow Conference.

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

Her saving grace comes from her 4 unique skills. Primarily, the 2 white skills: Reset Slap, which gives stun immunity for the party (available at Lv 20) and Mysterious Reset, which gives a 20% damage reduction (available at Lv 40). The other 2 red skills are Sleep (% hit dependent on her level) and Queen's Curse, which debuffs the offense and defense of all enemies as well as poisoning them (available at Lv 60). Stun immunity might be useful for some enemies, while 20% damage reduction works even after Reset is defeated so it can be reliable on some boss fights.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

1 Stats due to Immature

Initial non-unique skills:

Urza Pranaice (ウルザ・プラナアイス)
How To Get: Bring any three of Magic, Kaloria, Karou, Rocky, Bernard, Prima, Cessna, or Megadeth to a Malgrid Dungeon 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. Encourage may be handy for end-game bosses, but isn't necessary.

Preemptive Strike (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.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

Initial non-unique skills:

Yuzuhara Yuzumi (柚原 柚美)
How to get: Has a random chance of joining when you change areas and Bear (see Quest #121) is in your party.

For her skills, take Ranged Attack 3 and 4, Thin Ranks (魔物減らし), and Critical Boost. She can only fire each shooting skill once per battle (which mean 4 if you have all 4 Ranged 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 Knowledge ★★ (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 an arquebus 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 Ranged Attack 2 and be able to act at least twice per battle as otherwise all her turns after the first will go to waste. Firearms don't have any special attacks either and she'll probably want the passive to increase the Damage Maximum 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 other characters will soon overtake her in attack power.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

Initial non-unique skills: