shadow gunner: how to manage focus

[pikapikapika]

My main is a sum (which is all about managing focus), and now i made a gun slinger, so i guess that makes me a noob gunner.  I found it very difficult to manage focus for the SHADOW build.  No matter if i was pvping or pveing, i always found myself constantly managing my focus and skills instead of managing the target i supposed to be fighting.  

 

Again, i am not here to trash shadow.  I am a noob, i am here to find out what i have done wrong.

 

First, dark shot, this skill is critical since it builds up dark energy to tigger bullet storm.  Unlike sum's rmb/lmb combo, i found 2 problems witih this skill: 1. fluidity is very important, but every time i reload, it breaks up the rythme, and i had to reload very frequently since i run out of focus all the time; 2. when using darshot with other moves, i found dark shot unreponsive.  I had to press rmb a couple times to start the attack, which is really annoying.  Also, does any other skill build up dark energy for bullet storm besdies dark shot?

 

Second, Unlike the fire gunner, shadow gunner cannot tab until the RMB bullet storm is ready, because if i fires off bullet storm without tab, i run of focus almost immediately, and renders my most powerful attack useless.  and omg, why is cd for tab so long, and "dark shot dark energy build up" is also so slow.

 

Thrid, under taker.  I mean what is the point of this skill?  It deals damage, but drains my bullet storm dark meter.

 

Fourth, those four aerial attacks are so cool, but they do not deal much dps.

 

Your insights are appreciated.

[amokk]

Shadow gunner shines with focus regen soul and raven weapon. Before that, yes, shadow is quite a pain.

Only go bulletstorm once every minute with tab up. Inbetween, use 4 RMB F. 

 

Your V increases your gained dark light stacks (I think this is a HM skill?) from RMB, so use that if you wanna go bulletstorm rather quickly.

 

Your 4 is there to manage dark light stacks. You only want to go bulletstorm once every minute (or whenever your Tab is ready).

[MantisxD]

Hi there. Problem is you think bullet storm is your strongest atack that isint true. SHadow gunner have 2 builds buletstorm and undertaker. 

At the moment undertaker is better build for shadow gunner because  it doesnt drain your  focuse that fast. By using bulettstorm every time its on is actualy a dps loss because of focuse drain. No good gunner are using this build becasue its pointless and use bullete storm only when your tab is of cd and thats it. Till its cd is ticking use undertaker to deplete your dark energy and just look after your cooldowns( tab/soul/braclete buff skill).

Also shadow build isisnt very goood choice for pvp. Pvp need better burst power when target is cced shadow doesnt provide that thats why TOI/all pvp fire is supperrior.

I am gunner as well and i actualy play both elements. My man for pve is shadow and for toi/pvp i use fire. At the moment farming fire accesorys because i alrd have shadow ones.

 

[897647_1452550632]

Shadow gunner needs BT ring and cosmic soul to work fine

[Kasuka]

I am also maining a summoner and playing a gunner as a main twink :)

The main thing with the shadow gunner is to manage your shadow gauge. You don't want to randomly get into bullet storm since as you mentioned it drains your focus drastically. Bullet storm only deals most damage if you have full focus, so you should always try to time to activate it when your tab is ready. 
-> and this where under taker comes into the game. It is there to reduce your shadow meter if it is too high and your tab is still on CD.

It is also possible to use Moonlight (C skill) when you don't have tab to regain some focus, but it is not as effective.

 

The roation I use is 4-V-C-3-F-F as opening then holding RMB down and always spamming 3 - F and 4 when they're up and of cource V and C when they're off CD

I usually activate tab when I have Soul Burn. 

[amokk]

Just now, Kasuka said:

The roation I use is 4-V-C-3-F-F as opening then holding RMB down and always spamming 3 - F and 4 when they're up and of cource V and C when they're off CD

Whats 3ff? Do you mean 333f, for Dark Mark? If so, thats bad once you have a soul. By the time you used all that, your soul is almost gone. So use it after your soul runs out.

[DeCeption1]

I main a shadow gunner because the rotation is fluid imo. Also, to build up more dark energy for lightspeed, you can use HM moonshine, and one of the badges, I forgot which one.

But as for rotations go, I always start out with triple shot, then true shot, and undertaker, during that moment I would use moonshine for the focus regen, then darkshot reload darkshot reload. Pretty simple for pve

[pikapikapika]

5 minutes ago, amokk said:

Your 4 is there to manage dark light stacks. You only want to go bulletstorm once every minute (or whenever your Tab is ready).

Thanks amokk, are you saying that one of the main purpose of 4 is to drain dark energy in order to make sure bullet storm do not happen til tab is ready?  it is a good idea.  But the problem is that it is crazy that during a fight, i have to divert my attention to such nusiance.  

 

7 minutes ago, MantisxD said:

Also shadow build isisnt very goood choice for pvp. Pvp need better burst power when target is cced shadow doesnt provide that thats why TOI/all pvp fire is supperrio

Thanks Mantis.  I take it as you agree with Amokk.  I am playing dark only cuz i got both bt dark ring and earring.  it is such a frustraing experince.  I will go with fire as soon as i get fire earring.

[MantisxD]

Shadow isint that bad but it requires more work on rotation then fire :D

[Dark Falz]

I main shadow gunner and I find that never using bullet storm at all is an overall DPS increase at higher gear.  You pretty much just spam rmb, 4, f no matter what's going on.  Your burst rotation ends up being exactly the same as it is outside burst.  The only issue I ever really have is during soul burn I sometimes have to stop hitting F to keep my dark light from filling.

[Namifish]

Just keep track on your soul timer( you dont need reload when soul is active)  also with raven you get a lot focus back at last stack of raven happens almost evry 30 second on gunner and dont waste C (most of gunners open with C , is very wrong, C is for focus only opening with C while your soul active is just wasting ) use it when your soul is cd and you need focus 

i have managed dpsing already for minutes already without using a single reload if you keep good timing on your buffs, also i dont even have BT ring so i get that once would be even easyer but a little tip what u can do for sure is use reload when u pressing 4 :) the animation simply just dissapears you can cancel it all the way, i dont have single element accesroy and my dps is around 220k and when i see other gunners with raven9 and element accs doing 160k is kinda dissapointing how ppl dont know the way to play it

but the best tips i could say is reload while 4, watch your buff/soul timers 

[Namifish]

12 hours ago, DeCeption1 said:

I main a shadow gunner because the rotation is fluid imo. Also, to build up more dark energy for lightspeed, you can use HM moonshine, and one of the badges, I forgot which one.

But as for rotations go, I always start out with triple shot, then true shot, and undertaker, during that moment I would use moonshine for the focus regen, then darkshot reload darkshot reload. Pretty simple for pve

Never use tripe shot combo as opening, you start with 4-holding darkshot- F  keep this rotation until your soul effect is gone then you can put the dark mark (thats simply becouse puting dark mark on the target while soul is active is DPS LOSS (KR tip) also use moonshine only after your soul effect is gone.. soul is enough to keep up your focus at the same level

[Parayaw]

On 12/6/2017 at 10:44 PM, amokk said:

Shadow gunner shines with focus regen soul and raven weapon. Before that, yes, shadow is quite a pain.

Only go bulletstorm once every minute with tab up. Inbetween, use 4 RMB F. 

 

Your V increases your gained dark light stacks (I think this is a HM skill?) from RMB, so use that if you wanna go bulletstorm rather quickly.

 

Your 4 is there to manage dark light stacks. You only want to go bulletstorm once every minute (or whenever your Tab is ready).

nice,, good that i have read this... i really like playing shadow but i need to learn so to have full potential,, my problem is ping,, i have 260 to 340+ms, stable 300ms,, so my rmb is too slow, (i think i lost so much dps with this). what i do instead of holding rmb, i spam press it seems it is a little bit faster. and I want try this rotation hopefully it will up my dps more. Right now 10 to 25k dps lower than fire depending on the boss. But question is with my ping go shadow or better fire?

[amokk]

1 hour ago, Parayaw said:

nice,, good that i have read this... i really like playing shadow but i need to learn so to have full potential,, my problem is ping,, i have 260 to 340+ms, stable 300ms,, so my rmb is too slow, (i think i lost so much dps with this). what i do instead of holding rmb, i spam press it seems it is a little bit faster. and I want try this rotation hopefully it will up my dps more. Right now 10 to 25k dps lower than fire depending on the boss. But question is with my ping go shadow or better fire?

With your ping, gunner in general isnt really recommendable. But yea, fire is better for high ping.

 

Just look at this quick dps test I did and compare the speed of our skills: 

 

[Parayaw]

15 hours ago, amokk said:

With your ping, gunner in general isnt really recommendable. But yea, fire is better for high ping.

 

Just look at this quick dps test I did and compare the speed of our skills: 

 

Wow,, your ping and resolution is amazing... my darkshot is way way way slower or i mean super slow than this. I might stick with fire, coz ping in SEA (philippines) region really sucks. Thanks for sharing man! shadow build is really dope!

[Parayaw]

Btw, how did u made ur damage output (numbers) in that font??