New guide for the new world.
Old guide about hoppers is horridly out of date and contains too much worthless information to be of any value, so I'm starting over from scratch.
Contents:
1. What are gunner lands?
2. Why should I play gunner lands?
3. Building part 1: Levelup Cartridges
4. Building part 2: Cores and parts
5. Building part 3: Weapons
6. Building part 4: End Goals
7. Videos
Shitty introduction:
I'm winty. I like to shoot things. I find the funnest thing to use to shoot people is a land core with a ranged weapon. I started doing this around the time of official release because my first few gara rolls gave me land bots(lazflammes and a shino) while in OBT I had played mostly airs. This changed me forever and now I shoot things.
1. What are gunner lands?
A land gunner is a LND core with a ranged primary weapon as it's main source of damage. The idea is to engage targets from a range and slowly(or quickly) wear down their HP with repeated ranged attacks while avoiding enemy bullets and melee. Think of it like touhou: you dodge their bullets while shooting your own. Nice!
2. Why should I play gunner lands?
There's several main draws.
First off, units specializing in ranged weapons are less susceptible to debuffs. While there are a lot of debuffs that affect main weapons(disorder, bad homing, charge delay, bullet jam, curse, etc) not having to commit to point blank range allows you to have an easier time avoiding them, which allows for greater flexibility in play whereas a melee unit would have to either dive into a crowd hoping for RNG clearance proc or simply avoid the situation entirely, a ranged unit can play from the outskirts and harass.
Gunner lands have ranged weapons, giving them an easier time fighting against other ranged units, such as air types or artillery on high cliffs that melee lands wouldn't be able to fight back against, or would have to wait for them to make a mistake – a gunner land can force that mistake.
There's a large amount of weapons to choose from, for a variety of ranges and roles. Land gunners have long range sniping weapons that can trade with artillery, up-close high damage burst weapons to rush in and destroy people with, and mid-range weapons to sit in the center of the map and harass the enemy frontline.
In modern times there are now a good selection of weapons for LND alpha builds, something that did not exist in the past.
Now that we've got that boring shit out of the way:
3. Building part 1: Carts
For a long time, the main thing land gunners did was take short boost and quick land and “hop” around, evading attacks with ease while shooting back.
This is still viable, but less invulnerable as modern weapons are much more capable of hitting hopping targets than older weapons.
Overall, your cart choices, both mobility and otherwise, will be related to the effective range of your weapon. Except for blast guard. You should always have blast guard. 50% damage reduction is huge. You want this.
For close range hoppers, the next most important thing is having access to fast recovery. If you don't have this, you'll probably want clearance tunes, so make sure that your core can support those if it lacks fast recovery. For this reason, I do not believe that accel saber is still the go-to choice for close range gunner builds due to not having this cart and lacking the capa needed for a fully optimized build with high-end weapon, mobility booster, and clearance tunes.
For long range and mid-range gunners, this cart is less important. Mid-range builds will probably still want it, to combat debuff-spamming airs, while long range builds probably don't need it at all.
- mobility carts:
For mobility carts, there are 4 dash options, and then there's boost run.
To start with, there is the aforementioned short boost. Short boost requires the additional quick land cart to be effective, so it's a cost commitment. Short boost allows for jumping on ledges, and getting closer to air units to have a better chance at hitting them. Against melee with large hitboxes and a lot of travel, you may run into problems. Using a mobility booster from a hop results in a large amount of distance covered and is a good escape. Using certain subweapons while short boosting will also increase the distance covered. Additionally, taking the quick jump cart will increase the height of the jump, making it cover more distance and climb higher ledges and be more effective in general.
Then there is sway. Once it was great, then it was nerfed to be alright, then they buffed it to be great again, then it was nerfed again but not as much as it was before so it's pretty good. Sway allows for repeated quick dodges and invulnerability. It's also completely grounded, meaning climbing cliffs and fighting airs is harder, though cliffs can be climbed with generation 2 multi jump boosters. Sway is easier to dodge melee with, due to the spammability of it. Unlike short boost, it does not require any extra carts to work well. There is also a core tune that improves sideways sway. Finally, sway is the only mobility cart that doesn't use the boost gauge, so all booster-related debuffs can be ignored on a sway bot.
Float dash is an underused choice for land gunners. The only real reason for this is that it's pretty rare. It allows quick motion in nearly any direction, making it excellent for closing distances. It can be applied to both close ranged weapons, since you can quickly get in someone's face, and long ranged weapons as you can quickly retreat while still facing your target. It works well with quick land, but that's not required. Like sway, it makes it harder to fight airs and climb cliffs since it does not grant height.
Assault step is not something I suggest. Assault step is 4 different dash actions in one cart. There's a quick forward dash that covers good distance, sideways cartwheels which aren't very useful, a backflip which is also not very useful, and diagonal backwards hops which are decent for gunners but not as good as short boost. It is less hurt by not having quick land, but is still suggested if you want to take this on a gunner. This cart is uncommon to find on gunner cores, as it's mostly designed for melee to close distances.
Boost run isn't a dash action, but changes your run to be faster, at the cost of using your boost gauge. There's a lot of benefits to faster movement, such as easier retreating, more ability to chase and catch opponents, and dodging more bullets with just high speed. Boost run also makes your character or robot lean forward, meaning crosshair will move downward. It's harder to shoot upwards while boost running. Using remote or homing weapons can negate this effect, or only shooting during dash actions. Boost run builds are harmed by booster-related debuffs, as without a boost bar they are forced to walk, unless they have sway, which as mentioned before can be used without boost. The core tune Eco boost running allows you to boost run for longer periods of time.
Tough runner is a useful cart if you have spare levels. What this does is double your TGH in regards to being stunned while running. (Note: unlike what the info screen says, running does NOT make you more vulnerable to stuns) This can be extremely useful for when multiple people are shooting at you, as it avoids “stunlock” situations.
Broad radar is never a bad cart to have.
Sword guard is never a bad cart to have.
As for drives, there are really two options.
Boost drive is decent for boost-run builds, as propellent armor works well against boost drain attacks and meditation can be used to restore boost with certain subweapons.
In all other cases, pick armor drive. Take HP. Wonder cancel is less useful for gunners than it is for melee, so usually the choice will be between last stand and stun recovery. Stun recovery prevents you from getting into trouble, while last stand helps you get out of trouble. Last stand only works once while stun recovery works forever. Also, don't take stun jamming, the activation rate is terrible, it's better to take any other cart.
4. Building part 2: Cores and parts
The old guide to hoppers had a huge list of cores. I'm not going to do that again. That no longer really matters. What matters is what you have access to.
Things to take into account when choosing a core:
Total capacity: Low-end cores won't get maximum stats, but will have low cost. The so-called “suicide” build.
Cart selection: Accel saber, the go-to shop core for an extremely long time, lacks the extremely useful fast recovery cart. Still very good for long range builds. Quick jump, and as mentioned float dash are rarer carts to have. Some things may lack boost run.
Built-in abilities/weapons: Blazed baron sets himself on fire, allowing for a build with the burning runner core tune and boost run to be extremely fast. Killica has air step and can air dash out of her hops/assault steps for free(gunner killica is extremely mobile because of this). Sharhead has the extremely rare Air Run cart, allowing him to avoid melee. Crimrose BF can give herself anti-homing. You may pick a core for an ability like this instead of one with better base stats/capacity.
Size. Size determines parts. M and L sized units can use K shield, which takes up an arm, and have access to nearly all weapons, while S sized units can use ALE lazflamme AMJ, which is weaker than kshield but doesn't take up an arm, though they have a smaller weapon selection.
There are a LOT of gara cores that are usable. At the time of writing this, B Pawnger Ar, growldian, and Robin Hunter cores are both extremely good, but garapon only.
I've mentioned multi-step boosters or mobility boosters several times. They are, as follows:
Generation 1 multi jump: Swift jet BS
Generation 2 multi jump: Noble Cape BS, thrones wing BS
Generation 1 full accel: Jet Accel BS
Generation 2 full accel: Shadow Wing BS, Grand Vernier BS
Other: Muffler Jet BS(never upgraded), Sol Volca BS(heavily nerfed), Zero Fighter NEXT BS, Robin Hunter BS
Wow, that's a long list. Let's go over all of them.
IMO, the most useful is multi jump BS, which come in two styles, the first gen swifts(you get one for free from doing order, though it's 0 slot) and the generation 2s. All have different stat gains. Let's cover the functional differences.
Generation 1 multi step makes the unit it's attached to do a flip in a direction. This flip does not go upwards at all. If done without moving, it will do a forward flip.(remember this last part)
Generation 2 multi step is more complex. It does a similar flip, except it goes upwards a bit, like a short hop, allowing climbing from the ground, or even more climbing from a shortboost action. The diagonal forward actions cause the robot to do a spin instead of a flip. If used without any directional input, it goes BACKWARDS.
Overall, generation 2 is more useful for land gunners(and walkbased units in general). Remember that when using a booster after being stunned, or from WB activation/deactivation, your movement is neutral, so you will straight forward/backward, depending on which type of booster you have equipped. These movement boosters are spammable, but only have 15 ammo can cannot be refilled in any way.
Full accel boosters don't seem to do anything different between generations when used on lands. I suggest using gen 1 on lands for this reason, as gen 2 is more useful on airs than gen 1 is. These are mainly used for approach/retreat, rather than evasion. They also have a heavy cooldown penalty and are not spammable. They will combo to certain other subweapons. Experiment to find out what is or isn't useful. Different versions have different stats. There are some rare garapon versions of this which leave barriers behind you.
Muffler jet: An evasive subweapon that sadly has the same cooldown as full accel type boosters. It does 3 dashes which you can alter the direction of, allowing for more varied movement than full accel. Also combos.
Sol Volca BS: Once probably the best subweapon with fast movement, now has a heavy cooldown period. Will maintain height while being used from a jump, allowing Kshield equipped units to move through areas they would normally not.
Zero Fighter NEXT BS: Like a jet accel, except covers a much shorter distance, doesn't allow you to turn while using, and has very little cooldown. Also combos into things. Very useful. Slightly more expensive than other options.
Robin hunter BS: Backflip with an attack built in. Pushes things hit up and away. Useful, but high cooldown and low ammo. However, less expensive than other options and provides more stats.
5. Building part 3: Weapons
Most moe cores come with their own weapons. Usually you'll want to use those. Instead let's talk about handheld options.
Aqua parasol is in the angel coin shop right now, and I believe it will stay there for quite some time. This is an extremely effective, extremely versatile weapon. It can be tuned for more speed or range to allow for a sniping build, or tuned with Gforce Alpha to reduce range and increase force for a midrange aggressive build. This is a non-garapon, extremely effective weapon that is M-sized so can go on anything.
Negatron rifle is a shop weapon that you can get from UC gara or bazaar in 3s form. It's L-sized so S-sized cores can't use it. Note that it's a beam weapon so it does high damage to other lands. It can be tuned for either mid or short ranged fighting. There is a garapon-only mod version with altered stats which is slightly but not overly better, though has yet to appear in 3s form(to my knowledge). It loses some ammo for more speed. Ammo shouldn't really be a problem on this weapon to begin with.
Payload rifle is a bazaarable weapon that can be pulled out of lotto cubes in 3S versions. They are rather expensive UC wise but are usable in 2s form, which are a bit more common but still rare. Like negatron rifle, it's L-sized, but has high force and stuns extremely hard. Good for mid or long range builds.
Beyond that, there's a selection of high-powered garapon-only weapons to look out for:
Heracles beetlegun: Comes with Heracles beetlander(pullable from Thanks gara 2, if you are lucky with tickets). Short range, hard-hitting weapon with high stun rate. M-sized for everyone to use.
Advanced shotgun: shows up from time to time and is usable for close range fighting, but is inferior to the brand new(as of this writing)
Shred Shotgun: Not actually a shotgun. Instead just a close-range weapon capable of doing 80+ damage in a single hit to the front due to the mechanics of it. Extremely effective weapon.
S blast railgun: After the blast railgun, there was the air-only beam blast railgun. And then, there was the Shell Blast Railgun, which allows land units to pierce barriers from a long range. There's also a mod version out with more force and less ammo.
Beryl Gun Launcher: Comes in a box when you roll Berylskid U. basically an LL version of the basic piercegun, with improved stats all around and a larger projectile with a higher stun rate. Extremely good choice for LL sized units.
Double Gat/LL bulk gat: Probably the only gatlings I'd still consider using. Both LL sized. You want at least 2S versions of them, don't bother with shop versions, can't do force+grapid with 1s weapons.(Force tune very effective for gatlings.)
6. Building part 4: End Goals
For mid or long range builds, the most important thing to stay relevant is having a lot of HP. To this end, armor drive is very helpful, as it gives a total of +100 HP between it's two carts. I'd aim for 500HP before drive.
Why?
It's not just “because HP is meta.” There are both artillery and air alpha builds that can burn 200hp off in a matter of seconds. There's melee units that do 100damage in a single hit. Land gunners are the least played units, next to pure-jamming supports, because they don't usually have high spike damage like this. To do damage, they need to continually hit a target, which often means taking a few hits themselves before retreating. Unlike air or art alpha builds, if you run forward and shoot 3 times and then retreat, you won't be very useful. You want to stay in there, and dodging is no longer what it was. Even if you dodge 70% of what is thrown at you, you'll still take a lot of damage. If you get hit once and take 150 damage because of it, when you have 600+ HP you won't really care that much, but if you're playing with just over 400 like the old days, it's a much bigger loss.
Also it's because HP is meta.
My goals for building are:
500+ HP before drives
40TEC(or go home)
WLK: 32 or 36
carts: Blast guard. Fast recovery. Sway/float dash+swordguard/tough runner, shortboost+quickland. Boostrun+sway.
Armor Drive: Ablative, 30HP, 70HP, repair+/wonder repair(personal preference), last stand/stun recovery(personal preference)
parts: Mobility booster, if the core doesn't have it's own.
Bit: anti-homing bit(if positive stats. If not, chiv shield bits.)
examples builds
- shred shotgun:
[Robot Name]
Shred
[Parts]
BD： Pawnger BD2
: Anti Homing Bit
LG: Segment Tail LGJ [High Tech Beta]
LG: A.L.E. LazFlamme LG [High Tech Beta] [Run] [Tech]
BS: Frog Lander BS [EX High Run Alpha] [EX High Tech Beta] [EX High Tech Beta]
HD: Growldian HD [Run] [Run] [Run]
HDAC: Chef's Hat [EX High Tech Beta]
FCAC: Catastrophe Muffler [EX High Tech Beta]
BS: Noble Cape BS [EX High Tech Beta] [EX High Tech Beta] [EX High Run Alpha]
AM: A.L.E. LazFlamme AMJ [Run]
AM: Build Arm AM [High Tech Beta] [Tank] [Run]
WP: Shred Shotgun [Force]
AM: Agnizyne AMJ [High Tech Beta]
AM: Build Arm AM [Run] [Run] [Tech]
WP: Fireflower [High Tech Alpha] [Tech] [Tech]
[Config Check]
COST: OK
BS: OK
LG: OK
AURA: OFF
[Stats]
TYPE: 陸
SIZE: S
COST: 1295
CAPA: 1295
HP: 613
STR: 1
TEC: 40
WLK: 36
FLY: 1
TGH: 14
LEVEL: 10
[Cartridges]
Capacity +60×6
Blast Guard
Fast Recovery
Short Boost
Quick Land
- sway sekka:
[Robot Name]
luto
[Parts]
BD： Luto Mikazuchi BD3
: Anti Homing Bit
LG: Luto Mikazuchi LG3 [Clearance] [Clearance] [Power]
HD: Luto Mikazuchi HD3 [Power] [Power] [Power]
HDAC: Clan Coin Ribbon [EX High Power]
FCAC: Berry Earrings [EX High Power Beta]
BS: Hanna Fritz BS [EX High Run] [EX High Run Beta] [EX High Power Beta]
AM: Luto Mikazuchi AM5 [High Power Beta] [Power] [Power]
WP: Kikotou Hyouryuu Sheath [High Power Beta] [Power] [Power]
AM: Luto Mikazuchi AM6 [High Force Beta] [High Shooter] [Power]
WP: Kikotou Hyouryuu [High Run Beta] [Power] [Run]
WP: Fireflower [EX High Run Beta] [EX High Run Beta] [EX High Run]
[Config Check]
COST: OK
BS: OK
LG: OK
AURA: OFF
[Stats]
TYPE: 陸
SIZE: S
COST: 1365
CAPA: 1365
HP: 538
STR: 40
TEC: 1
WLK: 36
FLY: 2
TGH: 9
LEVEL: 10
[Cartridges]
Capacity +70×6
Sword Guard
Blast Guard
Tough Runner
Sway
(Note that sekka's weapon uses STR instead of TEC despite being ranged)
That's just me, though, and these are just examples.
find what works best for you. Maybe you don't need a dash action, and are fine with the default dash. Who knows.
7. Videos
Here's some videos of play to get an idea of things. Note that I mainly play short boost based units as I like shooting airs.
Midrange hopper videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYVDHcfkbTM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glpAuw7aCDY (pre-drive update)
I'm going to get more as I don't have a lot of current videos (there have a been a lot of major updates, like drives, core tunes, etc etc so I don't want to bring up large amounts of outdated videos.)
