The Gunlancer is a heavy tank class that provides some shield buffs for your party, as well as by far and large one of the most useful skills in the Anime Game Guide: a taunt . The Gunlancer also has a powerful shield that lets you ignore a lot, if not all, attacks – even those from bosses. This means you can stick right in the face of the boss, taking heavy hits (even staggers and knock-ups) while consistently doing damage. The class relies mainly on heavy burst damage with the Lone Knight Engraving or for consistent, sustained tanking with the Combat Readiness Engrav

My journey with Lost Ark has been a long one. I first saw the game appear back in 2018 with a four-minute CG trailer that looks nothing like Smilegate’s MMOARPG today. The game was then released in Korea at the end of 2019, and like other eager players, I followed the news about the game’s release in the West . Three years later, the game is finally getting Western European, North American, and South American servers. At last, I am free from the terrible ping on the Russian server and squinting at the Cyrillic alphabet trying to figure out which ability is which.

Stats aren’t massively important during your first T1 Dungeons. You can clear a lot of content with a reliable gear set and enough AoE damage. However, to get speedy with your clearances, opt for a Crit focus for your stats. This is because of the Sharpshooter’s general inclination toward Crit, especially with their skill Tripods we’ve listed above.

You’ve got a choice between the two Awakening skills here – Bursting Flare or Clay Bombardment. Both are viable. Bursting Flare is probably more popular because it’s a bit easier to land all the damage, and it has a lot more stagger in comparison.

Cone-shaped explosion, longer cooldown (+4s), and extra 100% damage to Challenge or lower enemies

Awakening Skill – Golden Eye. Both Engravings are viable, but Golden Eye often finds itself in Dungeon-clearing builds thanks to its massive AoE output. It’s faster than Fenrir’s Messenger, the other class Engraving, and doesn’t need to be charged up. Instant hit for lots of damage. Can’t really go wrong with it.

This is the simple stuff. You’ve just hit level 50 and you want a build that will help you clear the first dungeons. Don’t worry. You don’t need anything too complex to get through your first runs. This build is designed to make the most of the Sharpshooter’s great damage , a mix of AoE skills , some Elite-focused abilities , and a simple rotation of abilities , and a pretty straightforward choice between the two class Engravings – Loyal Companion or Death Strike .

Overall, Lost Ark feels like a reward after so many hashed-out and rocky launches of new games. You know what you’re getting with Lost Ark, it’s an experience that has already been through the tests and tribulations of its first two years of content. Its story won’t speak to everyone, but the endgame experience is worth a few cutscenes here and there. Lost Ark is one of the most polished titles I’ve played for some time, especially an MMO. The game is free and will be hyped-up thanks to Amazon and Twitch. I can’t think of a reason why you shouldn’t try it. Pick a class and go— if you can get into the servers this week, that is .

Others might be wary of Lost Ark’s aesthetics. That’s fair enough. It’s a Korean MMO. It has dancing girls, moody dudes with fringes, and some truly massive swords. Some people just don’t gel with this sort of thing, and that’s alright. The endgame content is enough to carry Lost Ark regardless of its aesthetic, and I should note that the actual world design, cinematic set pieces, and the bustle of the game’s large quest hubs are all gorgeous, especially on high graphics settings. Barring any sort of launch day server chaos – which I 100 percent expect, by the way – Lost Ark is one of the smoothest games in terms of performance that I’ve played in a long time.

Engravings are similar for the Raid build as they are Dungeons – go for Death Strike, Loyal Companion if you have it, and Hit Master as the recommended Combat Engraving to get first with the Sharpshooter.

Later, once you start dishing out stats between different pieces of gear, you want Crit as primary and Specialization as secondary, just to get your Hawk up again and provide debuffs/damage. We cover this in more detail in our Sharpshooter Raid build.

Guardian’s Protection – When you activate this skill, you recover 100% Shield Meter and release a protection aura of 10m around your character. Foes inside the aura take extra damage and are stunned. All party members take 40% less damage and are immune to debuffs and pus

The Sharpshooter comes with some decent abilities for clearing Dungeons solo, some very reliable DPS for Raids (although a lack of party support lets them down somewhat), and the sort of damage/mobility/range that can be deadly in PvP if played correctly. Here’s a rundown of those builds.