1. Introduction
Eira is the newest and weakest character in Vindictus. Being a new character, she requires time to grow and evolve. There is literally no reason to play her now, but if you’re a masochist and are committed to suffering, following this advanced tutorial guide will teach you how to effectively play Eira and maximize your chances to place 3rd in raids.
Be prepared, Eira takes an enormous amount of skill to use. You will have to spend countless hours to master her move set and utilize her tall array of advanced techniques. Before playing Eira, I suggest taking an online IQ test, getting any result under 200 may disqualify you from being able to take full advantage of her abilities.
2. Basic Combos
2.1. Left Click
For her left click, she wields a gun. Left click is Eira’s best combo starter as it contains the most viable follow ups and can potentially lead into her strongest skills. The simplest of these is stringing together multiple left clicks. By pressing left click after left click, the second left click effectively animation cancels the first left click allowing you to use gun a second time in quick succession. If your APM is high enough, you will be able to follow with up to two more uses of gun.
2.2. Mana Launcher
Mana Launcher is the first combo extension of gun. By pressing right click immediately after gun, Eira shoots at the ground directly in front of her dealing massive damage. This combo is very fast and difficult to punish, so make sure to abuse it frequently.
2.3. Bullet Storm
If you’ve mastered gun animation canceling, you can reach Eira’s second combo extension, Bullet Storm. By pressing right click after two successful strings of gun Eira will begin a long spinning process. You can animation cancel Bullet Storm with right click up to two more times to reach your Bullet Hail combo. However, I advise against using this as it is a long commitment and does low damage. A single bullet only deals around 4000 points of damage.
2.4. Warp Shot
Warp Shot is Eira’s bread and butter combo. It has the highest DPS of all her skills and has the highest mobility between her combo finishers. Higher mobility means better tech chasing and keeps you in the boss’ face for longer. Prioritize and use this as much as possible
2.5. Disruptor Shot
Disruptor Shot is the most difficult of Eira’s basic combo extensions. To reach this skill you must successfully pull off 3 consecutive gun animation cancels. The sheer difficulty and time spent makes this an unviable option.
3. Defensive Options
Being the difficult character that she is, dropping combos will be common and when you do, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Luckily, Eira has wide range of defensive options to help survive against the boss’ counter attack.
3.1. Weave
Pressing the dodge button while holding a single direction will cast Weave. Eira makes use of her level 99 agility and leaps forward for a quick dodge. There is not much to say about Weave as it has minimal follow ups and only spends your own resources (Stamina). Does not put you in a better position that you were already in.
3.2. Distortion Shield
Pressing the dodge button without holding any direction will cast Distortion Shield. Unlike Weave, Distortion Shield consumes zero stamina making it better in every way. However, Distortion Shield does consume mana on use, but if you successfully defend against an attack, you will regain some mana. Thus, when mastered, Distortion Shield becomes your best friend.
3.3. Portal Leap
By pressing tab, Eira jumps into a wormhole and can teleport somewhere else on the map. This skill consumes a hefty amount of mana. Without mana, you won’t be able to cast Distortion Shield, so you should learn to preserve mana as much as possible.
4. Mana Munitions
4.1. Entropic Rounds
After accessing Mana Munitions, pressing D will use Entropic Rounds. If it hits the boss, Entropic Rounds will increase all your attack’s power by 20%. The big problem with this skill is that it is a long cast time and 20% is a small amount. Instead of spending time to slightly increase the damage of your Gun when you can instead make better use of that time by using more Warp Shots.
4.2. Gravity Rounds
Pressing A in Mana Munitions will cause Eira to place a puddle of dark magic in front of her. This puddle deals damage over time to any boss standing inside it. It is difficult to maximize this skill’s potential because the boss can just walk out of it. To fix this problem, save Gravity Rounds until you’ve filled Eira’s special meter to combo it with her ultimate skill, Waveform Collapse.
4.3. Flux Rounds
Pressing W in Mana Munitions will cast rapid fire in the direction she is facing. This skill has the highest BPS (Bullets per Second) therefore it gets the most value out of increase attack items. Each hit of Flux Round also generates precious mana allowing you to continue casting Distortion Shields, making this skill both good offensively and defensively. Use Flux Rounds whenever possible, it is essentially the hollow shot of Eira. The two share the same cooldown for a reason.
5. Active Skills
5.1. Phase Burst
Eira’s shotgun skill. Phase Burst deals more damage, the closer you are to the target. The problem with Phase Burst is that it cannot Crit. Making it a powerful tool to have if you are going 0 Crit builds but awful with good late game builds that heavily rely on Crit.
5.2. Mana Phase
Mana Phase is a powerful self-buff that grants an income of stamina and mana over 20 seconds. The extra stamina helps sustain Eira during long combo chains and makes it easier to use consecutive Gun animation cancels. The extra gained mana also helps defensively and allows you to more freely cast Distortion Shield.
5.3. Infinity Shot
Despite what the name implies, this skill is not infinite.
5.4. Waveform Collapse
Once you fill up your special meter, Eira can use your ultimate skill, Waveform Collapse. Waveform Collapse traps the boss in place during a long cutscene combo dealing massive damage. Combing your ultimate after Gravity Rounds will keep the boss in place for the entire duration of it. To get the most reward out of Waveform Collapse, use it as late into the battle as possible. When the boss’s HP is almost depleted you will be able to rack up an insane overkill score, massively raising your style points.
6. Summary
To recap, Eira has a powerful combo game but the most devastating ones are difficult to pull off. The first step you should take when picking up Eira is to go into practice mode and attempt to master consecutive Gun animation cancels. You will need to be able to pull this advanced technique off consistently mid battle to reach your bread and butter combo, the Warp Shot. Defensively, you should be casting Distortion Shield as much as possible while upkeeping mana generation.
Here is what the first few inputs might be when starting a raid.
Left Click into Left Click > then skip into Left Click by Left Click (This is because the first left click is cancelled by the Left Click).
You can also link Left Click into Left Click > Left Click (Left Click, again cancelled by Left Click for the first Left Click > Left Click > Left Click)
