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Yee haw! Howdy y'all, I dun heard 'bout this here cowgirl's rootin tootin cowboy shootin and had to give 'er a whirl, take a lil look-see for what kinda caliber she's really shootin' at
… (more)if y' know what I mean. What I dun went 'head and got fer ya here is a handy lil' (not so little) guide for playin' the new stranger that just rolled into town. I'll be breakin' down all her reg'ler com-bos and then 'splainin how ye can put as much lead into those pesky rodents as ye can. Let's get on this pony and saddle up for a new adventure with yer new fam fatal or whatever they call those fancy girls nowadays.
With that out of the way, Eira is a fast, high damage character who mostly revolves (heh) around cancelling the animations of her bigger attacks with dodges and actives to maximize her lethality and survivability. Thanks to a Scythevie style teleport and sick animations, she just feels super fun to play. You'll probably figure some stuff out while just playing through all of S1 and S2 but this is here to provide a little handbook for anything you might have missed.
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NORMAL COMBOS:
LR (Mana Launcher)- Pretty much never used. Fun for air comboing trash as you play through story missions, though. It's really fast, but its damage and range just aren't up to par for bossing.
LLRRR (Bullet Storm)- The big combo that everyone's been hailing as the second coming of Christ himself. It's good, and you'll probably be bullet dancing through the entire campaign with this combo as it has good range, damage, and hits all around you- making it perfect for clearing entire rooms very quickly. It's not as good for bossing as some have made it out to be, but I'll get into that later.
LLLRR (Warp Shot)- Probably the best mix of speed and damage in her arsenal. Doesn't take too long to wind up, does good damage, respectable range, all that jazz. You'll probably want to use this if you're soloing a boss as you can cancel its animations pretty much any time.
LLLLRR (Disruptor Shot)- Due to the 4th L taking a while to use, this one's usually way more difficult to pull off. Still, it does high damage and has good range just like LLLRR.
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GIMMICKS:
Eira has two main gimmicks- the portal teleport dodge and the kick shot.
-KICK SHOT: Look, I get it- this looks cool as all hell and the kick shot actually does a lot of damage for one attack, but don't use this in boss fights unless you're trying to style. Sure it gives a good chunck of mana, but it locks you in an animation for so long, and for such little payoff, it's hard to ever justify using this except in weird, not-actually-using-as-intended situations where the boss teleports behind you and using this gets you in their face or something. 9 times out of 10, if you're using this unironically in your gun combos, you're going to get hit by the boss.
-PORTAL TELEPORT: Ooh boy. For as bad as the kick shot is, the Portal Teleport more than makes up for it. Use this bad boy right and you can just keep chaining your two best smash attacks over and over. It has a couple intricacies, and a good amount going on, so let's get the important stuff out of the way right here.
-If you teleport and start right clicking before you exit the teleport, you'll do the Bullet Storm smashes.
-Wait till you leave the portal to start right clicking and you'll do your Disruption Shots.
-Leave the portal, left click-> right click and you'll do your Warp Shot smashes.
The I-frames kick in earlier than the animation would suggest, they can last a long time, and you get all your smashes basically on demand from it. The main draw of this ability that isn't immediately obvious, though, is twofold- one, you can activate a warp to completely bypass the endlag of your attacks and continue chaining smashes on a boss, and two, you can interrupt most of the animations of your attacks, allowing you to spam (non-bullet storm) combos basically risk free as you can cancel most of your smashes' startup and avoid an incoming attack. Portal Teleport makes this character good. It's why they tried to limit its spammability with a mana bar. Last thing to know is that you can leave the teleport early by pressing tab (or whatever you have teleport bound to) again.
All the stuff I said about cancelling animations can be done with normal dodge as well, but it has far less i-frames and options out of the dodge.
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OTHER THINGS SHE CAN DO:
-ENTROPY SHOT: Hey, look, it's Tiede's entire gimmick condensed into a 20 second window. Keep this on a boss as much as you can. Free damage is free damage, and them hurting you for less is a nice bonus. If you can pop this and then use one of your actives, even better.
-GRAVITY SHOT: If the boss sticks in one spot, there's no reason to not pop em with an entropy shot then laying this at their feet. Most bosses move around enough that this doesn't get much utility, but against something like Braha, it's very good.
-FLUX ROUNDS: I guess you can do it at the beginning of a fight for free mana? It doesn't do much damage, locks you in place, and it doesn't seem you can cancel out of it.
-BLOCK: I mean, you can definitely do it. If you're trying to stay in a boss' face then it's usable. I personally don't love it but its good against bosses that fly in and attack you with one strong attack (Glas, Regina) so you don't have to get back in after dodging, and it's also a nice option if your i-frames wouldn't get you out of the range of an attack or something. I don't love that it costs mana to use considering its probably riskier to use this vs dodging, but whatever.
-DODGE ATTACK: Only use this if you're going to cancel its animation with a warp -> smash. It doesn't do much damage and it's endlag is pretty rough to deal with, but it does come out fast, so you might use this if you're normal dodging around a boss while they're doing a mobile combo (like Lugh) to get some free damage in. You can dodge -> smash -> kick for a cool looking combo, but you're wasting your time if you do that vs a boss.
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ACTIVES:
You have 3 actives that actually matter and 2 that you'll probably usually forget about
-PHASE BURST: If you can cast it on a boss at point blank range with entropy shot applied, this can do some silly damage. It's on a short cooldown and fairly cheap to cast.
-MANA PHASE: Cheap, and ensures you can go HAM on a boss for a while. It takes a while to cast, and MP/Stamina are rarely issues for me in boss fights, but I imagine with a high attack speed this will be mandatory.
-CHAOS WARP: Forgettable, but good if you're having to keep up with a boss that moves around the arena a lot, or if you're about to get absolutely bodied and really just need to GTFO for a second. THIS CAN I-FRAME THROUGH RED ATTACKS.
-INFINITY SHOT: Costs a lot to cast and doesn't do amazing damage, but couple it with entropy shot and you can do some work with it. It's long windup makes it hard to use vs bosses with any level of consistency.
-QUANTUM RUIN: Oh my god. It's so good. Basically a dodge, and then you just drop on a fool and shave off a chunk of their health. You'll find yourself one-shotting some s1 and s2 bosses with this. Easily her best move. Keep this on cooldown, using it as often as you can. THIS CAN I-FRAME THROUGH RED ATTACKS.
-WAVEFORM COLLAPSE: It's a lockdown skill.
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HOW DO GUN SHOOT GIRL WORK
So in a perfect world it seems like spamming bullet storm on a boss over and over again is the best bet, as the full bullet storm combo is, by far, her best DPS. However, bosses aren't sandbags that just allow you to spam attacks on them with no repercussions, and the reality is that the Warp Shot and especially her Disruptor Shots are close enough for DPS while allowing you to cancel the shot whenever you need to avoid the boss' attacks- something Bullet Storm does *not* allow. Bullet Storm is very, very good and has a place in her moveset, but it's not a combo you should just be spamming on every boss with reckless abandon. You should be spamming bullet storm only when you know the boss is not aggro'd on you, it's knocked down, or has committed to an attack you know you're safe from. It's hyper armor seems fun while progressing through the story, but against the heavy hitters in level 100 content, all that hyper armor will do is get you dead, as you now won't be getting knocked down- and thus you'll miss out on all of the invincibility that provides.
Ignore that whole breakdown on bullet storm if you don't mind spamming merc pots and goddess graces.
Here's what you should do against a typical S3 boss: Open the fight with an entropy shot, [edit: AND A BLACK HOLE] combo them as normal to gain SP and MP. Pop Quantum Ruin ASAP. Entropy Shot should be back up by the time you've generated enough SP to pop a phase burst at the boss. Continue comboing and fighting as normal. Cancel your attacks with Portal Teleport as often as you can. Use bullet storm if you know a boss uses a specific attack that leaves them vulnerable for a longer time than usual. If someone locks the boss down, drop a gravity shot + entropy shot at them and get that free damage while you pop whatever active (Phase Burst/Infinity Shot/Quantum Ruin) you have available at the time.
EDIT: I'd like to point out Black Hole as being your new lord and savior if you're having stamina issues. Each hit from black hole restores a fairly sizeable chunk of stamina. It's really tough to make it work on mobile bosses, but given that you get so many stam stams from a good placement, it's an invaluable part of her kit.
That's the character. If anyone has any suggestions or noticed I left anything out, please let me know and I'll add it in. (less)
