Theatre of Light/Gunner

Overview

Gunner
Archetype:	Zoner
Health Defense Multiplier:	Melee: x1.5 Ranged: x1
Stagger Defense Multiplier:	Melee: x2 Ranged: x1.5
Walk Speed:	16
Max Light:	3

Theatre of Light's resident long range zoner, Gunner is a fragile class that plays keepaway with his array of grenades, sniper shots, and a unique parry to keep enemies off him. However despite his zoner status, he can be played as a semi-rushdown using his high light gain and incredibly versatile Swift Strike in order to breeze past traditional wake-up options.

Strengths

Weaknesses

Area Denial: Using the pineapple combined with bullets, its possible to completely lockdown your opponent into taking a set path, allowing for high damage headshot combos. Good Defense: His knife parry is unique in the fact its stun is similar to a Stagger stun, along with his invincible reversal having heavy evade frames and chucking the opponent a good distance away. The stun can be useful either for starting a combo or for continuing the zoning game. Bouncing Bullets: Doing perfect reloads enables his gimmick of Bouncing Bullets, which boost the damage and cause his bullets to bounce a variable amount of times.

Predictable Defense: As his defense is limited to "knife with guard" and "knife with evade", he has no great options to escape pressure against characters with guardpoint oki. Ammo Count: As many benefits as perfect reloads give, there are clear breaks in offense against gunners, and the reload can be abused to essentially hardlock the gunner into a state of knife or grenade, shutting down most options. Terrible Air Control: Has literally no way to hit any characters in the air due to a terrible Anti-Air in S1 Hold. Aim Required: In order to do some of Gunner's highest damaging combos, proper aim is required for certain routes.

Move List

Passive

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Ammo

Start off every life with 10 Yellow bullets, perfectly timing a reload when the bar overlaps the white bar enables Purple bullets, causing them to bounce and gain additional damage.

Normal moves

Double Tap ATK 2 Ammo per use. 2 Ammo per use.	Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 3 (x2) 0.9 0.85 0 0 Ranged - - - - Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 4 (x2) 0.9 0.85 0 0 Ranged - - - - Bounces Once if you have a perfect reload.

Headshot S1 Boom, Headshot. Boom, Headshot. Has bonus P1 if you hit it raw. Has bonus P1 if you hit it raw.	Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 10 1 0.9 1 0 Ranged - - - - Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 10/12 1.2 0.85 1 0 Ranged - - - - Bounces up to 4 times, but loses 2 damage per bounce.

Pineapple Surprise S2 Area Denial 101 Area Denial 101 File:TOL GunnerS2D.png	Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 10 1 0.8 0 0 Ranged - - - - bomb

Knife Slash ATK S1 Minus on Hit... Minus on Hit... ...Unless it counters. ...Unless it counters.	Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 5 1 1 0 0 - Guard 1~10 - - - Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 6 1 1 0 0 - Guard 1~10 - - - Negative on hit, and negative if you block a projectile

Reload SP If this animation passes, they missed the perfect If this animation passes, they missed the perfect	Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery - - - +1 0 - - - - - Has a consistent timing to perfect reloads. Uniquely the only SP to give light back with no additional requirements.

Psyches

Swift Strike ATK > S2 (HOLD) Has high evade, and a huge hitbox. Has high evade, and a huge hitbox.	Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 8 0.8 0.8 2 1 Melee Evade 1~24 - - - A wide invincible reversal

Over The Limit S1 > S2 (HOLD) Giant Hitscan Gun Giant Hitscan Gun File:Tol GunnerRailShot.png	Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 20 1.2 1 2 2 Ranged - - - - An incredibly slow, avoidable and blockable on reaction shot.

Gameplan

Gunner’s gameplan can be mainly divided into three main parts: Long range, Mid range and Close range

Long range

As stated in the overview, Gunner is a zoner that heavily excels at long range kiting, when he’s at least half a stage’s worth of distance away from his opponent. At this range, Gunner is capable of safely poking the enemy with absolute zero punishment while dishing out good damage himself.

There are two main ways to approach zoning with Gunner at this range:

• ATK chain: abusing your ATKs at this range is completely valid as it is fast, multi-hitting and easily sustainable. As you fire out two projectiles, ATK chaining demands less aim from the player. However, ATK bullets are slow and hard to hitconfirm from given their low hitstun, making hits from this tactic less impactful, but is effective at stopping overly aggressive players.
• S1 Sniping: this tactic involves observing your opponent and attempting to snipe them with S1 when the conditions line up (Dash CD, endlag, etc…). As S1 fires a fast, damaging and high hitstun projectile, it allows Gunner to easily convert from any hit, dealing great damage and retaining distance as long as the player has decent aim. Nevertheless, it is more risky as S1 consumes one light, making misses more impactful to you instead. This method is useful against defensive players aiming to slowly work their way towards you.

When zoning at long range, exert caution to not spam your moves. This is not only to stop yourself from burning resources but also to catch the opponents’ attempts to bypass your zoning like blocks or sidedashes.

Reloading is a free action at this range. You can reload at anytime, mostly to recover light and not necessarily resorting to it when you run low on bullets. Alas, although long range is gunner’s favored distance, the majority of the match will have you in the next section.

Mid Range

This is the range where opponents like samurai or vigilante can threaten you with their neutral skip moves. Now, zoning has more risks to it and precautions must be made.

• Mid range neutral sees heavy use of ATKs more than S1 as it is inherently less committal. Practicing hit confirms with S1 is vital here to make use of any stray ATK hit to push the opponent back in an advantageous position and range for yourself. If need be, you can spam S1 to buffer it after firing ATK and stop when you think the ATKs won’t hit. This is, however, far from optimal.
• Grenade is also essential in mid range, generally used in neutral or to end combos for setup. It is useful for creating distance, limiting the opponent’s movement options and mental stacking them as well as extending stray hits if the stars align. You can also use this to try and gain back distance immediately when the opponent starts to intrude from long range to mid range.
• Aside from attempting to zone, you can also opt to bait out the opponent’s neutral skip options by committing to a knife parry. Aggressive opponents will use their tool as soon as they see that they are in range, so respond by parrying first to gain the opportunity to dish out huge damage and maintain distance. Regardless, the opponent can also bait this out by delaying their move, spelling the end for you if you already committed to knife parry.
• It is also an option to use the knife reversal preemptively in order to gain back distance easily and sneak in some damage. Although this is Gunner’s best option in mid range, it is very costly at 2 light as well as being prone to the opponent’s defensive options like block or evade. Use it sparingly.
• Reloading in neutral is more risky at this range and not advised, although it is still possible if you threaten them with an immediate parry after. Generally, you can reload after throwing out a grenade, landing a stray hit, or ending a combo/canceling out knife super.

Close range

You’re most likely dead.

In all seriousness, playing close range is extremely hard as Gunner. Zoning becomes invalid, and you’re focused on resetting back to mid range ASAP.

• Knife reversal is your strongest option. It is fully invulnerable and can be reload canceled to reset back to neutral. However, TOL classes have multiple ways to safely pressure someone like moves with added block or evade. Therefore, it is not infallible, and god bless if you got called out and parried by something like To claim their bones.
• Knife parry works as an alternative. It has a melee hitbox, which can prove useful in some situations although it’s minus on hit. What you’re mainly looking for is to parry the opponent’s pressure string and do a combo that reset to neutral. You can also aim the melee hit away to avoid hitting the opponent’s block for the aforementioned purpose. The threat of the parry may make the opponent hesitate, forcing them to attempt to bait it out first before punishing. This makes them prone to the next option
• Mash M1. If the opponent is trying to bait your knife options, you can usually M1 some classes in the face and get away with it. This doesn’t work most of the time, however, and should only be used very sparingly to mix up your options.
• Grenade can also be used to create superficial distance. If the opponent commits to an attack and whiffs, you gain back distance. If they were expecting it or they cancel out of it, it is very easy for them to chase you and you are back to selecting one of the above options.
• ONLY reload after one of the above options succeeded.

Anti Air

Don’t try it. It’s better to do this in combo more than in neutral practically. But sometimes it’s ranger and you are forced to do or die.

TL;DR: spam ATK and S1 at long range, add in knife moves and grenade at mid and use almost exclusively knife moves at close.

Recommended Cards

General rule of thumb when building decks with Gunner is to have a status and sustain card, below are some notable examples of this.

Scars

EL1: Scars
EL2: Alertness
EL3: N/A

Gluttony

EL1: Metallic Ringing/Cocoon
EL2: Gluttony
EL3: N/A