Lost Ark Gunlancer guide: Best skills, build, engravings, and leveling

Mar 3, 2022

In Lost Ark, the Gunlancer is a warrior class that focuses on supporting his allies in combat with shields and blasting away enemies with his Gunlance as his party’s first line of defense. While the first impression of the Gunlancer may seem that it’s Lost Ark’s tank class, that’s only partially true. The Gunlancer in Lost Ark is actually still primarily a DPS class with a good amount of party utility and durability. Gunlancer will feel and play like a tank class, but you’ll have the added benefit of dealing some pretty good damage too. Gunlancer’s Gunlance skills are devastating and explosive, and his normal skills feel heavy and impactful.

From a gameplay standpoint, the Gunlancer is a very forgiving class in Lost Ark. Your innate tankiness and Defensive Stance (Z key) will help you stand in the thick of things and shrug off most attacks. As a result, this class is perfect for beginners or people who may have slower reaction times. As a Gunlancer, our identity is a gauge that allows us to use either our Defensive Stance (Z key) or Battlefield Shield (X Key) by consuming it. The vast majority of the time, we’ll be using our Defensive Stance. Be careful though, you won’t be able to generate more gauge while it’s toggled on.

Best Gunlancer builds

Much like every other class, the two primary builds that Gunlancer has are determined by their Class Engravings.

Combat Readiness Gunlancer

The Combat Readiness Engraving buffs the damage of your Normal skills (your blue colored skills), your shield amount from your Identity Gauge (Z key), and increases your damage every time you are hit.

The build has a playstyle where you'll fill up your gauge and then use your Defensive Stance to tank your way through everything, gaining increased damage for all of your skills the more hits you tank. This build primarily uses Normal Skills to do the majority of its damage. The Combat Readiness build is heavily reliant on getting specialization, as specialization will directly increase the damage of all your abilities. It may feel a bit lacking in the earlier stages of the game due to the lower amount of specialization available.

This build typically looks for Specialization and Crit as their desired stats, with Specialization usually being the primary focus. Aim for around a 70/30 Specialization/Crit split.

Desired engravings for this build are (in order):

Combat Readiness
Barricade
Stabilized Status
Grudge
Adrenaline

An example Combat Readiness build for a brand new level 50 character with 252 Skill Points will look like this:

Lone Knight Gunlancer

While the Combat Readiness build mostly uses blue normal skills, the Lone Knight build gets most of its damage from their explosive red Gunlance skills. This is because the Lone Knight Engraving heavily buffs the critical chance and damage of these Gunlance skills. However, you won’t be able to use your Battlefield Shield (X Key), and your Defensive Stance (Z Key) will drain your shield gauge twice as fast.

Lone Knight is a build that mainly uses charging abilities, and as such it can leave you quite vulnerable while charging. While Combat readiness has a steady flow of consistent damage while staying quite durable, Lone Knight will unload explosive bursts of damage at the cost of their defensive capabilities. This is a heavily offensive version of Gunlancer, and as such does not have the forgiving defensive qualities that the Combat Readiness build provides. This is a significantly harder build to play compared to Combat Readiness, but is extremely fun with a significantly higher payoff.

This build typically looks for Crit and Swiftness as their desired stats, with Crit usually being the primary focus. Aim for around a 60/40 Crit/Swiftness split.

Desired engravings for this build are (in order):

Lone Knight
Super Charge
Grudge
Master Brawler
Adrenaline

An example Lone Knight build for a brand new level 50 character with 252 Skill Points will look like this:

Gunlancer leveling guide

Leveling in Lost Ark is pretty streamlined and straightforward, but here are a few key skills and tripods that will aid you in the leveling process.

Leveling as a Gunlancer can be particularly slow as our cooldowns on big-hitting skills are pretty high.

Sharp Gunlance

This is a Gunlance skill that is unlocked immediately. It’s going to be our saving grace during the leveling process while our major AoE skills are on cooldown. While its damage may not be as high as your other hard-hitting AoE skills, it will do more than enough damage to clear trash mobs during the downtime of your other skills. Its low cooldown means you’ll always have it available to clear packs. I would get this skill to level 7 by investing 20 skill points into it early, and then leave it at level 7 for the time being. Level this skill to 10 once you’ve maxed out Guardian’s Thunderbolt and Charged Stinger.

Guardian’s Thunderbolt

This is a normal skill that is unlocked at level 14. This is your high damage AoE skill that we’ll be using. You’ll use this skill to clear large packs of trash mobs, but it will also still deal good damage to bosses. You want to get this skill to level 10 by investing 48 skill points into it as soon as possible. Since this is the first main AoE skill that you get access to, I would suggest leveling this one to 10 first. Having good mobbing is extremely convenient for leveling, as there will be a significant amount of trash mobs that you need to clear.

Leap Attack

This is a normal skill that is unlocked at level 12. This is a utility skill that makes your character leap to a target location. With 4 skill points, you can level this skill to 4 and increase the dash distance by 2 meters with the Excellent Mobility tripod. I would leave this skill at level 4 in order to conserve skill points thereafter. This is a great skill for moving through zones and you should be using it often. If you like using this skill, this will become a major damage skill of the Combat Readiness build, so keep that in mind while deciding between the two builds.

Shield Charge

This is a normal skill that is unlocked at level 12. This is a utility skill that makes your character run forward for a set duration. With 4 skill points, you can level this skill to 4 and decrease the cooldown by 2 seconds. I would leave this skill at level 4 in order to conserve skill points thereafter. This is a great skill for moving through zones and you should be using it often. If you like using this skill, this will become a major damage skill of the Combat Readiness build, so keep that in mind while deciding between the two builds.

Charged Stinger

This is a Gunlance skill that is unlocked at level 20. This skill is a charging skill (obviously) so make sure you use it in your Defensive Stance (Z Key) so you can’t get interrupted. This is our main single target skill for the majority of the leveling process, so get used to channeling it. You’ll use this skill as your main damage skill for bosses for the large majority of the leveling process. I would get this skill to level 7 by investing 20 skill points into it early, and then leave it at level 7 until you level Guardian’s Thunderbolt to 10.

Gunlance Shot

This is a Gunlance skill that is unlocked at level 40. This is our other main single target skill, but we get it quite late compared to other classes. You’ll use this skill as one of your main damage skills to bosses, along with Charged Stinger. I would get this skill to level 10 by investing 48 skill points into it. By the time you unlock this skill, you should have Guardians Thunderbolt and Charged Stinger fully leveled. Take points out of Sharp Gunlance and put points into this until it is level 10. Once leveled to 10, this skill will become a charging skill. Once again, make sure you use it in your Defensive Stance (Z Key) so you can’t get interrupted.

Thanks for reading our Gunlancer Guide! We hope you enjoy tanking and spanking the world of Arkesia!