- Hermes FFXIV Guide - February 2, 2023
- Every Final Fantasy Game Ranked - January 28, 2023
- Hydaelyn FFXIV Guide: Facing your Maker - January 22, 2023
Gunbreaker is one of the character classes you can embody. They are arguably the most extraordinary tank solely because they use gun blades. In addition, their aesthetic looks amazing, and they have some really flashy abilities.
Oh, but it’s not all for the looks. Gunbreaker is a fast-paced job with high damage output. Besides their impressive offensive kit, Gunbreaker’s defensive utility enables fantastic damage mitigation and self-healing, making it strong on both ends.
To put it plainly, Gunbreaker really gets the best of both worlds. It scratched both my defensive and offensive itch.
Speaking about itches, if you’re scratching your head wondering why the gun looks familiar, it’s because it’s very similar to FFVII’s Squall.
In this Gunbreaker Rotation guide, we’ll go over all of Gunbreaker’s actions to build the perfect opener and rotation.
My TL; DR
- Job: Gunbreaker
- Unlock: level 60
- Playstyle: refill your cartridge to burst out some quick and deadly damage
Opener:
- Lightning Shot to pull
- Keen Edge
- Brutal Shell
- Solid Barrel
- No Mercy
- Gnashing Fang
- Jugular Rip
- Bloodfest
- Double Down
- Blasting Zone
- Bow Shock
- Sonic Break
- Rough Divide
- Savage Claw
- Abdomen Tear
- Rough Divide
- Wicked Talon
- Eye Gouge
- Burst Strike
- Hypervelocity
- Keen Edge
- Brutal Shell
- Solid Barrel
- Burst Strike
- Hypervelocity
Gunbreaker Rotation Guide
Gunbreaker Overview
The Gunbreaker is aggressive, but it isn’t ferocious like a Warrior.
It’s also defensive but not as steadfast and hardy as a Paladin.
Since it will never match up to the archetypes occupied for years by the original FFXIV tanks, the question is: What’s the point?
For me, it’s all about style. But although the Gunbreaker is incredibly stylish, it hasn’t forgotten about substance.
If you’re looking for a change of pace in tanking and fighting styles, the Gunbreaker is worth checking out.
It may feel weird to start with, but if you’re anything like me, it will grow on you as time goes by.
Gunbreaker’s Abilities
Main Combo: Keen Edge into Brutal Shell into Solid Barrel
Â
Â
Â
- Keen Edge deals an attack with a 170 potency.
- Brutal Shell deals an attack with a 130 potency, but when it combos with Keen Edge, the potency goes up to 270. It also restores HP by 200 potencies and creates a shield equal to the HP restored.
- Solid Barrel deals an attack with 140 potencies, but when it combos with Brutal Shell, the potency goes up to 360.
Your main combo is Keen Edge into Brutal Shell, which will store a little HP and give you a small shield.
Then, you should move on to Solid Barrel, which will give you a Cartridge.
AoE combo: Demon Slice into Demon Slaughter into Lightning Shot
- Demon Slice deals an attack with 100 potencies to nearby enemies.
- Demon Slaughter deals an attack with 100 potencies to all nearby members. Still, when it combos with Demon Slice, the potency goes up to 160.
- Lightning Shot deals an attack with 150 potencies to all nearby enemies.
Your AOE combo will consist of Demon Slice, then Demon Slaughter, which will also give you a cartridge.
You also have your ranged attack, Lightning Shot.
Powder Gauge
You’ll be able to hold 2 cartridges at first but can hold 3 cartridges at level 80. With your cartridges, you’re able to execute a few powerful abilities, such as:
- Lv. 30 Burst Strike deals a single-target attack with 380 potencies in exchange for 1 cartridge.
- Lv. 60 Gnashing Fang: deals a single-target attack with 380 potencies in exchange for 1 cartridge.
- Lv. 72 Fated Circle: deals an attack with 300 potencies to all nearby enemies in exchange for 1 cartridge.
- Lv. 90 Double Down: deals 1200 potency damage to the first enemy and 15% less to the rest in exchange for 2 cartridges.
Bloodfest
At level 76, you’ll unlock Bloodfest, which will give you two or three cartridges, depending on how many you can hold.
Powder combo: Gnasing Fang, Savage Claw, and Wicked Talon
Â
Â
Â
With one cartridge, you can use Gnashing Fang, the start of your cartridge combo. Gnashing Fang will be replaced with each combo action.
The combo itself is Gnashing Fang into Savage Claw into Wicked Talon.
- Savage Claw deals with an attack with a 460 potency. When it combos with Gnashing Fang, it grants the “Ready to Tear” effect.
- Wicked Talon deals an attack with a 540 potency. When it combos with Savage Claw, it grants the “Ready to Gouge” effect.
You can also spend a cartridge on Burst Strike, Fated Circle, and Double Down, which are strong AoE and single-target attacks.
Continuation
At level 70, you’ll unlock Continuation, allowing you to use some extra abilities.
Each move of your cartridge combo will change Continuation to a different move.
- Gnashing Fang will change it to Jugular Rip.
- Savage Claw will change it to Abdomen Tear.
- Wicked Talon will change it to Eye Gouge.
- Burst Strike will change it to Hyper Velocity.
You’ll want to use each of these abilities to not miss out on damage. So right after Gnashing Fang, you should go for Jugular Rip. Then, when you use Savage Claw, follow it up with Abdomen Tear, and so on.
Unfortunately, Fated Circle and Double Down don’t have anything tied to Continuation. Yet.
Other Abilities
No Mercy will increase your damage dealt by 20% for 20 seconds.
Rough Divide is Gunbreaker’s gap closer, which you have two charges of.
Danger Zone is a global single-target attack that gets upgraded to a Blasting Zone at level 80.
Sonic Brake is a single target damage over time, while Bow Shock is an AoE DoT that applies to all nearby enemies.
Mitigation tools
Gunbreakers have a lot of mitigation tools that can be applied to yourself and other party members. So they’re essentially really good at keeping everyone and themselves alive.
- Nebula will reduce your damage taken by 30% for 15 seconds.
- Camouflage will increase your parry rate by 50% and reduce damage by 10%.
- Aurora will give you or another party member a small regen for 18 seconds. After that, you’ll get a second charge of Aurora at level 84.
- Heart of Light will reduce you and the party’s magic damage taken by 10% for 15 seconds.
- Heart of Stone will reduce damage taken by 15% on either yourself or another party member. This move has a neat effect if you have your shield from Brutal Shell up when you use it. It’ll give the party member the same shield for 30 seconds. At level 82, Heart of Stone will upgrade to Heart of Corundum.
Heart of Corundum will give two additional buffs. One of them will reduce damage taken by another 15% for four seconds. The other one has to do with your HP. If your HP falls below 50% or the 20-second timer expires, it’ll give a strong heal.
Superbolide is Gunbreaker’s invulnerability move. When you use it, your HP will fall to one, and you’ll become invulnerable to almost any attack for 10 seconds.
Gunbreaker Opener
Well make a distinction between the main tank’s opener and the off-tank’s opener.
Generally speaking, main tanks pull the boss and take all the incoming damage from them. On the other hand, off-tanks take the ads and deal with them before they damage the rest of the party.
Main Tank Opener
Alright, now let’s move on to the opener. The great thing about Gunbreaker is its versatility with this rotation.
It all starts with the opener. The opener will set the tone for the rest of the encounter. So let’s split it into two sections: one for the main tank and one for the off tank. Each will have a Standard opener and an Early Burst opener.
Early Burst openers are for new situations where fights have a lot of downtimes. Using a Standard opener will result in losing uses of Gnashing Fan combos, Blasting Zones, or No Mercy windows.
However, the Standard Opener is the way to go.
The main tank standard opener looks like this.
- Lightning Shot to pull
- Keen Edge
- Brutal Shell
- Solid Barrel
- No Mercy
- Gnashing Fang
- Jugular Rip
- Bloodfest
- Double Down
- Blasting Zone
- Bow Shock
- Sonic Break
Rough Divide
- Savage Claw
- Abdomen Tear
- Rough Divide
- Wicked Talon
- Eye Gouge
- Burst Strike
- Hypervelocity
- Keen Edge
- Brutal Shell
- Solid Barrel
- Burst Strike
- Hypervelocity
While the Early Burst opener looks like this:
- Lightning Shot to pull
- Bloodfest
- No Mercy
- Gnashing Fang
- Blasting Zone
- Jugular Rip
- Double Down
- Rough Divide
- Bow Shock
- Sonic Break
- Rough Divide
- Savage Claw
- Abdomen Tear
- Wicked Talon
- Eye Gouge
- Keen Edge
- Brutal Shell
- Solid Barrel
- Burst Strike
- No Mercy
Off tank opener
If you are off-tank, you’d be surprised that the off-tank standard opener is the same as the main tank version, minus the Lightning shot in the beginning.
The off-tank early Burst opener is the same as the main tank version. But use Keen Edge instead of Lightning Shot.
Gunbreaker’s Rotation
FFXIV rotations are methodical, and the difficulty they often have is having to acquire the muscle memory of the whole process from beginning to end with each of the keys separately.
Your Gunbreaker rotation is deceptively simple. Essentially, you spend your Gnashing Fang combo and Blasting Zone on cooldown. Then, you’ll build 3 cartridges for your following No Mercy windows and spend Burst Strikes or Fated Circle before you overcap.
You always want to enter No Mercy with a max cartridge to use the Gnashing Fang combo and Double Down inside your window.
Your combo priorities for building gauge and spending cartridges are as follows:
When Building Gauge
Use Solid Barrel Combo for single targets
Use Demon Combo for more than 2 targets.
When Spending Gauge
Use Gnashing Fang Combo for single targets. Use Burst Strike if Gnashing Fang is unavailable.
Use Gnashing Fang Combo for more than 2 targets. Use Fated Circle if Gnashing Fang is unavailable.
If there are three or more targets, just use Fated Circle.
You’ll perform the right combo to build cartridges and activate Gnashing, Fang, and Blasting Zone on cooldown.
FAQ
Question: Is the Gunbreaker a Tank or a DPS?
Answer: Square Enix’s design philosophy follows the DPS as a tank idea. This means Gunbreaker is a tank but still has mechanics to deal damage. As a result, Gunbreaker’s defensive and offensive toolkits are insanely powerful.
These tanks equipped with saber guns are specialists in taking damage. Still, they can also deal damage more effectively than other heroes of the same style. Its lack of weaknesses makes Gunbreaker a top choice for raiding parties.
Question: Is Gunbreaker a Hard Job?
Answer: Gunbreaker is a relatively straightforward job. What makes it easier to master is the ultimate flexibility you have on your rotation. Also, the fact that cooldown highs and lows feel very well balanced.
You can use combos and interrupt your sequence whenever you want. As long as you don’t use anything in between your continuation window, no other skills break combos all alike.
Question: Why Should I Play Gunbreaker?
Answer: When you’re interested in heavy damage numbers, breaking the charts, or even outperforming DPS jobs when they aren’t the best, the Gunbreaker is the top choice here. It’s considered the highest DPS job among all tanks.
Grinding the Gunbreaker is an obvious choice. Only the Paladin’s versatility is a close follow in its footsteps. But as we’re talking about attacking teams, Gunbreaker is seen in nearly every popular combination.
The Gunbreaker performs the best overall damage. Suppose that is a trait you’re looking for while also holding up the tanking and damage mitigation spirit. In that case, nothing can lead in another direction.
Parting Words
The Gunbreaker is one of the most unique job designs on the roster. It is a true Final Fantasy origin being portrayed and idolized by many protagonist characters of the main series, with Squall and Lightning being the prime example of this.
Though we are still unsure how this weapon works, Square Enix nailed it when they transfused that idea into an MMO environment.
I could say that Gunbreaker is a must-play role, especially if you are a Final Fantasy 9 or 13 fans.
But each job experience is created by your own story. So whatever path you may take, the Gunbreaker will always be there waiting.
When the time comes, fill your cartridge blast in some bullet shells and show all the other tanks around how damage is served while still being part of the blue role.