"In-depth analysis" of Magic Gunner build

Disclaimer:
- I suck at writing and literature so apologies if you're expecting a good introduction here.
- This post is created with a few other magic-gunner-related posts/analysis (including those of @Red_Fox, @kousunpo, @Kaisyl, @Amaymon,...), along with my experience as a magic gunner wannabe, & the upcoming release of tier 5 skills, all taken into consideration. The main purpose is just in case to help anyone who happens to get the thought of trying this build because of whatever reason (i.e. got enthralled after watching some old Youtube videos). Will be updated regarding any future changes.
- Warning in advance, this build can prove to be a gigantic pain in the ass if you're planning to play it seriously. And don't make the same mistake of playing it as first character like I did.

General impression
Magic gunner is a nice build that can dish out both physical and magic damage from a safe distance. Has a very wide choice of build due to the number of usable skills. Can be versatile with builds, whether it is a physical dps with magic proration, a true hybrid dps, a supporter, or a farmer build. A fun and interesting build, although not really practical.

Pros:
+ Exceptionally good at MP managing. You have many ways to recover MP: a ranged decoy uninterrupted by AoE as a gunner, MP Charge + Maximizer of a mage, a fairly fast casting Warcry of Struggle with naturally high DEX (aka high CSPD), or Resonance with sub MD. It's pretty hard to run out of MP unless you die or use high MP combo too frequently.
+ Less affected by bad proration than other builds, as you can utilize both physical and magic proration, and can balance the proration by yourself.
+ Gain all the ATK just with DEX, allowing the use of other stats without sacrificing ATK like most other physical weapons (which usually gain ATK from 2 different stats).
+ Range advantage of bowgun. Most skills can be used from a safe distance, and bowgun itself has an average auto attack range of 8m.

Cons:
- Stat allocation as a damage dealer. Lose crit damage and stability without STR, lose MATK without INT. Basically after maxing DEX, you're stuck with 3 choices: either play as a mage-with-a-gun with unstable damage (DEX>INT), a gunner that sacrifice arrow benefits for some magic proration (DEX>STR), or try to balance the demerits (tri-stat distribution).
- Naturally low stability of bowgun, which gets worse without sub arrow, and even worse if you have no STR.
- Cannot deal as much damage as a pure archer or a pure mage (no arrow bonus like pure archer if not using arrow sub, lower matk than pure mage).
- Can be very difficult to build due to the picky choice of gears and, ironically, varied choice of usable skills. Although you only need to pick a few to use despite the wide range of choice (thanks to how limited skill points you have), some "skill set" can remove one or two advantages that you can have.
- Careful with who you're partying with. Pure mages may not like your magic (in various meaning).

Stat distribution
Max DEX. Always prioritize DEX first. After that it's your choice, as stated above.
Note that despite the seemingly high ATK that can rival 1hs, bowgun's average watk is actually lower than that of 1hs (6th anniv weapon for example, 1hs has 1.25 times the watk as bowgun), therefore bowgun md gains less MATK from Conversion than 1hs. Moreover, 1hs md can gain extra MATK with EBurst buff, while bowgun md can't. This might be changed in the indefinite future, but as of now, if you want to have slightly better magic damage output, getting some INT is a must.

Equipments
- Weapon: Player-statted bowgun with as high watk and refinement as possible. Statted the same as regular build bowgun (a11%d4%fc, or reduce some cdmg% for more dex% instead).
- Sub weapon: depending on build. A md with as high watk and refinement as possible if you use Enchant Sword in your build, get md for all elements if possible; any md you want otherwise, with md for all element being optional.
- Armor: Player-statted armor is prefered, light-remodeled. Unlike with bowgun case, the armor needs to either only have negative MATK%, or no negative stat that can affect magic damage at all, if you want to have good magic damage output. Otherwise using regular physical dps stats is ok. If you can't afford a good one yet then Savage Mail can be used as a temporary choice.
- Add gear: one that can provide both ATK/MATK or both pierce types (sometimes stability) is prefered, such as Cookie Earrings, Potum Backpack, Granny on Shoulder. Even York's Pendant can be a somewhat ok choice.
- Ring: Machina Ring for a cheap 2s ring; Day/Night Sakura or Full Blossom Charmstone for ASPD/CSPD and little MP (the last one is super expensive, even ns one); Glowing Sea or Road Sheep Talisman for stability.

- Xtal choice:
+ Weapon: Neo Maton Sword or Grecia for extra hybrid damage; Mardula for ATK, a little AMPR and Anticipate; Megiston the Champion if you really need cr.
+ Armor: Ornlarf/Sapphire Roga/Ferzen or DX Fighter if you want some HP along with a bit of extra damage; Demonic Quasar if you need MP; Iron Empress if you want some magic pierce.
+ Add gear: Gespenst 2/Stellar Ooze for extra MP and cr; Twilight Dragon/Baphomela if you want extra srd/lrd.
+ Ring: Venena if you want MP and a little bit stability; Seele Zauga if you need cr; can apply another xtal of your preference (which I don't have any certain recommendations) if you have 2s ring.
+ No need to put any xtal on the sub md. Nothing in the sub md matters, aside from refinement, watk, and maybe element.

Skills
As stated above, magic gunner has a very wide range of skill choices, while having a limited amount of skill points (sp for short) available. Many of the skills are expensive in both sp cost (& spina cost as stargem).
Here I will only list the skills that I deemed as possible desired skills for the builds. Some are optional & you can choose to skip/ignore them. It may look like there are a lot, but in reality you only need to pick some of them, depending on your choice of playstyle. Your sp is not unlimited after all.

Blade Skills (optional)

• Warcry: ATK buff for the entire party. Not really required as you can hope that another party member will cast it instead, & 1hs/2ns Warcry is always better than other's due to their bonus.

Shot Skills

• Snipe (optional): Can be used as sub dps skill thanks to fairly fast execution, decent multiplier & innate bonus stability. Sadly, it has cr penalty & almost nonexistence [Armor Break] chance when used with a bowgun.
• Crossfire: Your main physical damaging skill. Mandatory for any bow/bowgun builds, not just magic gunner. Need to avoid getting hit at all cost so this skill can charge up & deal more damage.
• Paralysis Shot (optional): A pretty meh skill except for its 10s stability boost. Can be good since the build usually has low stability. Beware of paralysis-reactive enemies, though.
  
• Shot Mastery: Mandatory for every bow/bowgun builds. You can also leave it at lv5 & use its Stargem instead.
• Long Range: Now necessary for bow/bowgun builds in general, & magic gunner in particular, as most skills they use can now benefit from its damage boost (having maximum cast range of 8m or longer).
• Quick Draw (lv10 is optional): Chance to recover 1mp after attack skill use is nice but magic gunner already has ways to recover MP, so not maxing it is fine.
• Decoy: One of your ways to recover MP. Can shoot an additional CF bullet with 20% the damage of the main bullet.

Magic Skills

• Magic/Arrow (lv10 is optional): viable choice as auto spell if you have Enchant Spell. Get its Stargem if you want lv10 for higher damage.
• Magic/Javelin (lv10 is optional): viable choice as auto spell if you have Enchant Spell, although it's mainly for ailment rather than damage. Currently the only attack skill in this tree that doesn't have cast time. Lv10 only if you want better ailment chance. Beware of flinch-reactive targets when using it with non-element weapons/sub md.
• Magic/Lance (lv10 is optional): viable choice as auto spell if you have Enchant Spell. Lv10 only if you want better damage & [Stop] chance.
• Magic/Impact: Required skill for halving the next skill's MP cost. Must be at least lv7 to instant cast.
• Magic/Finale (choice): Heavy hitter magic with super high constant & multiplier, partly mitigating the demerit of having low MATK. Using with a sub md gives it the md bonus of quadrupling the radius of the first (and also the strongest) hit, giving you more room to hit targets than when used with non-md. The drawback is that it has irreducible cast time (3s at lv10) & a lengthy casting animation, locking you in place for at least 5 seconds, removing your mobility advantage. Lv10 if you plan to use it as main magic damage, lv1 if you only need it as a combo ender.
• Magic/Blast (lv10 is optional): viable choice as auto spell if you have Enchant Spell, but its cast time is long (4s base). Lv10 only if you want better damage. Can also inflict element-dependent ailments like M/Javelin, but the chance is lower without md bonus.
• Magic/Burst (choice): An alternative as a magic dps, although you either need 7750 CSPD to use it as spammable magic dps, or combine with other Impact>smite combo and/or Enchant Spell as sub magic dps.
• MP Charge + Maximizer (optional): "Fast" MP recovery. MP Charge has 3s cast time with md and 1k CSPD but can give you an almost full MP bar when combined with Maximizer. This branch costs quite a lot of sp so take that into consideration.

Dual Sword Skills (optional)

• Reflex: Fast 1mp combo opener. You can also buy its lv1 Stargem instead of spending 6 sp if you don't plan to get any other skill in this tree.
• Godspeed: A small unsheathe boost for Enchant Sword if you ever use it. Forget it if you don't.

Halberd Skills

• Quick Aura (optional): A decent ASPD boost with the cost of HP. You can use it if you don't want to use ASPD potions. Can be left at lv5 and use Stargem instead, but its Stargem price is pretty expensive.
• Warcry of Struggle (optional): An alternative choice for MP Charge + Maximizer, has reduceable-with-CSPD cast time in exchange for much less MP recovery in comparison, and a low HP requirement for higher MP recovery. I put it here but it's actually not really recommended.
• Godspeed Wield: Self-buff that grants tremendous motion speed in exchange for turning you into a snowflake. Use with caution.

Mononofu Skills

• Shukuchi: Allowing you to rush to any target from long distances. Lv1 is enough.
• Kairiki Ranshin (optional): A 10s buff that increases your AMPR but burns you. Good if you want some extra AMPR & want, or at least don't mind, the burn.

Guard Skills

• Mirage Evasion: Allowing you to use manual evasion while casting a skill with cast time (only during when the cast time bar is running). Lv1 is enough for most cases, but the higher the better if you frequently use skills with cast time.

Assassin Skills

• Backstep: Required for quickly escaping from enemies' AoE attacks. Lv1 is enough.

Wizard Skills (optional)

• Familia: Summon dumb cat. Lv10 is preferred if you ever plan to use this lame skill tree.
• Imperial Ray: An alternative choice as a magic dps, although you need CSPD to mitigate its long cast time. The additional hit has absolute crit if the skill was casted with dumb cat, but doesn't gain combo tag bonus.

Hunter Skills

• Satellite Arrow: Great physical dps skill for bow/bowgun, as it has high total damage along with innate 100% physical pierce. It has very slow arrow falling rate in exchange, so proper timing and pattern learning is required.

Dark Power Skills (optional)

• Soul Hunter: Currently overrated skill, although not as much for bow/bowgun. Lv1 is enough if you just want the Invincibility, lv10 if you also want to use it for damage and MP recovery.
• Regretless: A buff that gives lots of AMPR, but is very risky to use. You have to recast it frequently and avoid dying, or you'll die a regretful death, unable to struggle, use revive droplets, or have revival time reduced by skill effects.
• Eternal Nightmare: A buff that reduces nearby enemies' DEF/MDEF, and drain a little bit of your HP every 2 seconds, which can be used to stack up Soul Hunter stacks. Lv1 is enough, but only get it if you get lv10 Soul Hunter (in which case this skill will be highly required), as the DEF/MDEF reduction scales with how much skill points you spent into this tree, also the HP drained is wasted if you don't use a high level Soul Hunter.

Magic Blade Skills

• Magic Warrior Mastery: Mandatory for sub md users, as it reduces the ATK% penalty of equipping sub md.
• Conversion: Mandatory for sub md users (except staff), as it grants bonus flat MATK based on your main weapon watk.
• Resonance: Mainly used for fast MP recovery, mostly when your HP is high and MP is low, as it averages the current percentage of both (e.g. if you have full HP and no MP, using this skill with turns both to 50% of their respective maximum value). No need to max this as the bonus stats granted by the buff is unreliable due to being RNG.
• Enchanted Spell (optional): Chance to cast a tier 2 or lower Magic Skill with auto attacks, but you need to cast the desired skill first, and the auto spell does not get the md skill bonus. Requires lv10 for highest activation chance and highest auto spell level, as the auto spell's level cannot exceed that of this passive. Gains 50% more activation chance when Resonance buff is active. Auto spell can give Magic/Burst stack so this passive has good synergy with the said skill.
• Element Slash (optional): Required to inflict [Weaken] if you want higher chance of magic crit. Lv10 with a sub md with advantage element is required for 100% chance.
• Enchant Sword (optional): A would-have-been-good skill if it didn't have a lousy 4m maximum cast range and a slower-than-2hs casting speed. Decent damage but whether it is worth using or not is debatable.
• Enchanted Burst (optional): An alternate choice as a magic dps, but you need to stack it up by using ESword. Can have twice as much base damage as the other magic dps choices thanks to its own properties, can crit easier as it can utilize Element Slash with low cost, always have advantage element against the target, can inflict additional hits in a similar manner as Imperial Ray (although it needs stacks to do so, 1 additional hit per stack), and also gives a temporary damage boost for ESword that depends on the sub md. Though, the requirement of using ESword beforehand and not giving MATK buff like with 1hs md makes its worth questionable.

(to be continued)

 

(continue)
Survival Skills (optional, take them if you really want them and have spare skill points, skip if you don't)

• Play Dead: Reduce your revival time.
• HP Boost/MP Boost: Increase your maximum HP/MP.

Support Skills

• Recovery (optional): Remove a debuff from you or a party member. Lv1 is enough. You can also buy its stargem instead of spending 6 skill points.
• Brave Aura: Nice area party damage boost skill. You need to avoid getting hit, though, or the buff will disappear. It also greatly decrease your accuracy, which makes your physical attacks graze more often, making their damage more unstable. Not that it affects much against high diff/high flee bosses anyway, as you would be grazing all the time regardless of the accuracy you have.
• High Cycle (optional): Greatly increase your (and nearby party members') CSPD, at the cost of greatly reduce your base AMPR. Synergize well with bowgun's natural high DEX build, but the big drop in AMPR may hinder your decoy advantage. Same as Brave Aura, you'll need to avoid getting hit or the buff will disappear.

Minstrel Skills

• Healing/Fairy/Life Song (optional): Actually has no use aside from being three fast 1mp combo opener for the cost of 7 skill points.
• Ad Lib: Another fast 1mp combo opener with no demerit.

Dancer Skills

• Fairy Dance (optional): Another fast 1mp combo opener, although not as fast as all the mentioned above.
• Elegant Poise: A good panic button with very cheap cost, giving you a long Invincibility when hit during animation, and let you survive any hit, even lethal one. Cannot be used when inflicted with an ailment/debuff, though, so you might need Recovery with you.

Battle Skills

• Magic UP/Increased Energy (optional): A small boost to MATK. Get the former's Stargem and/or get them both to lv10 if you have spare skill points, but leaving them at lv5 just to unlock the next skill in branch is enough. If you're not planning to get Spellburst then Familia (which I mentioned above) can be a cheaper alternative, as dumb cat can also give as much MATK as each of these 2 skills (providing that they're all at lv10) in addition to 200mp and 100% additional magic when active.
• Spellburst (optional): Grants a chance for your magic to deal critical damage. The bonus magic crit damage is about 3/4 of your bonus physical crit damage, but sadly the chance is only up to 1/4 of your total cr. Pretty ok if you want a chance to boost your magic damage, but it'll suffer againts crit resist enemies, as crit resist affects magic crit the same way as physical crit. Lv10 is required if you plan to use it.
• Attack UP/Intimidating Power (lv10 is optional): same as Magic UP and Increased Energy, but this time is for ATK.
• Critical UP: Increase cr and %cdmg. Who wouldn't love it huh?
• Whack/Concentrate (lv10 is optional): Small chance to increase physical/magic damage dealt, respectively. Not really necessary to max unless you really want the little RNG and have spare skill points.

Now that the currently existing skills are done, let's move to the speculating with the upcoming tier 5 skills, using what was revealed in Asobimo stream to work with until official info is known. I'll only list skills that can (or probably/have a chance that it can) be used with bowgun and/or sub md.
Blade Skills

• Gladiator: Since we don't know what kind of buff it gives yet, let's skip it for now. There's also a chance that it's exclusive for 1hs/2hs.

Shot Skills

• Twin Storm: Will be a nice addition to magic gunner's kit if it is usable with sub md. Double AMPR and slight boost in moving speed, would be a better & cheaper choice than Kairiki despite being limited to only 15 auto attacks and a 10s cooldown. There are a few things to consider: Will it also affect decoy; Will decoy consumes stacks or will it work similar to Magic Arrow (the Hunter Skill); And will it give any other benefits;... That said, if in the end it turns out to be only for no-sub, or just unusable with sub md, then there'll be no need to pay any mind.
• Conquistador: 12mp is quite a hefty cost. The skill should better be worth the cost or it might end up being used either in save combo to reduce Twin Storm cooldown, used as aggro generator, or just an alternate combo ender. Judging from the reveal, it seems to be able to deal half as much damage as a fully charged CF, so this skill might have around 20 multiplier. That's just a guess, though, as things can change, and I don't know if there is any hidden effect yet.
• Parabola Shot: The fact that it was placed in the ailment shot branch already reduced its worth greatly. Unless it turns out to be good enough, otherwise it'd just be a waste of sp.
• We don't know what Samurai Archery does yet. Judging from the name, it might only affect bowtana, and we can skip it if it does.

Magic Skills

• No idea about Magic/Fall yet. Since it's in M/Burst's branch, it might be worth taking if your build uses M/Burst, assuming that it is usable with sub md. Otherwise the sp cost is quite high.
• Rapid Charge: Apparently it can reduce MP Charge's cast time by up to 1s, letting md charge as fast as pre-tier 5 staff. I'm not sure if taking it along with MP Charge Maximizer is worth it though, especially if Twin Storm is usable with bowgun md. That'd be redundant in MP recovery.
• Chronoshift: Quite a nice skill to improve md's damage output and speed, but it also depends on whether it can copy just any magic skills or only specific ones. It was placed in MP Charge branch, so getting MP Charge Maximizer might be inevitable if you plan to get this skill. There may be changes when it's officially released. Same as what I said with Twin Storm, it will no longer matter if this skill cannot be used with sub md.

I'll skip Martial Skills as this is magic gunner post, not gunfu post. And it doesn't seem like new tier 5 Martial Skills are either good or usable with bowgun md anyway.

(to be continued)

 

Reserved

 

i think the problem with skill points can be migitated by limiting your skill choices.
you take too many tier 4 skills from different branches.

personally i would pick the upper branch with Finale over the lower branch.
cspd (which you have a lot) reduces casting aggro on Finale, and Lances 14m range aligns with shot skills attack range.

Familia grants the same matk bonus as Matk Up from battle skills, and you also get 200mp and 100% additional magic.
with this you can take the middle branch and get Secret Chase attack, no need to fill both lines.
Lightning costs 0mp so it's a great combo filler/ender and can save 1mp with the reflection tag.

War Cry of Struggle can never be better than MP Charge, especially because you get the weapon bonus for one and not the other.

Magic Warrior skills should also be only for passive and buff effects if you go for the sniper build.
alternatively, if you want to use it's attacks and Enchant Sword, pair it with the lower magic branch with Burst. since you'll be fighting at mid range you probably need Wall.

 

There are also other pros and cons with this build.
Bowgun allows better mobility and continuous mana regen via uninterrupted Decoy, which in turn enables continuous skill use. The usage of Finale as the main damage skill removes this mobility advantage. If staff/md Finale are sitting ducks, this build becomes a sitting duck that have passive MP regen. On the other hand, Decoy's effect is weakened if you use High Cycle for Burst. At least, you will be fine as long as you don't use Quick Motion on top of it, but you wouldn't be so happy if high amounts of damage is what you are looking for. Do take note that this build will be extremely infuriating for mage(primarily Finale) party members should it be used by inexperienced players. Much, much more annoying compared to staff Burst mages.

It is possible to build one right now while ignoring some skills you mentioned and using stargems instead on some areas. This one I am sharing here uses 286 skill points, leaving some room for tier 5 skills. Yes, feel free to change it however you want.

 

I haven't been able to finish the post yet due to real life stuff but thanks for your opinions. I'll keep those in mind '-')b
Edit: maybe I should have reserved one more reply slot. I have a feeling I'm not gonna have enough space.