Gunfire Reborn Luo Lei Guide: Ascension Tier List and General Tips ( Updated )

Quick notes about the Balance Update

The major points are:
-Fatal Current no longer recharges until the skill is over, which massively reduces the uptime of it.
-Thunderstrike went from +200% weapon damage bonus to +100%.
-Magical Supply cannot be chained indefinitely.
-Voltage Surge now functions properly instead of being a complete waste of points (stealth change?). It’s still not that great but it’s an improvement.

Unfortunately despite the the nerfs very clearly targeting MS builds, Chain Lightning (and Thunderbolt) builds were arguably nerfed even more than them, because the best skill damage sources were reliant on having a good Fatal Current uptime.

Basically every Luo build got significantly worse. The best ascensions are still mostly the same as they used to be, except Magical Supply and Storm Blast are lot weaker than before.

Why to Play Luo Lei (or why not to play)

+ Excellent burst damage potential
+ High natural mobility
+ Long/mid ranged playstyle (usually)

=Very consistent playstyle because of guaranteed sniper drops and limited ascension variety

-Very poor hp/shield (without a specific starting talent)
-Sometimes lacks sustained damage
-High ascension rng. Luo has the highest amount of weak ascensions out of the current 4 characters.

The problems with Skill Damage builds

Luo Lei has a lot of ascensions that are focused on Chain Lightning and Thunderbolts. Most of his damage ascensions also improve skill damage as well, so it seems natural to try to make a build focused on zapping as many foes as possible right? Unfortunately even with all the apparent support, these builds have problems scaling into the lategame.

Let’s take a look at what factors can scale weapon damage:
-Weapon Level
-Weapon damage Affixes
-Critical multiplier
-Lucky Shot modifiers
-‘Weapon damage’ Ascensions
-‘Weapon damage’ Occult Scrolls

Compared to the factors that can scale skill damage:
-‘Skill damage’ Ascensions
-‘Skill damage’ Occult Scrolls

Do you see the problem? On top of it being much harder to multiplicatively scale skill damage, it’s also very unreliable because both ascensions and occult scrolls are dependant on rng. It’s very easy to end up attempting to build for skill damage early on and then just never being offered the ascensions or scrolls you need, resulting in a mediocre build.

It’s not to say Skill damage builds can’t be good, just that if you don’t get strong early scrolls (such as dual-edge) then there’s no reason to risk building for skill damage when it’s just a lot more consistent to focus on weapon damage instead.

Note that this is less of an issue on lower difficulties, on normal and elite it’s much less likely that you won’t be able to get your skill damage to a reasonable level by lategame.

Starting Talents

Luo Lei gets to select an additional starting talent when starting a run. This covers all available options.

OFFENSIVE:

“Chain Lightning elemental effect chance is raised to 50%”
Dramatically improves Chain Lightning by giving it a somewhat reliable chance to trigger elemental effects. The ‘Lightning from Void’ ascension becomes significantly better if you have this. Prioritise Corrosive or Fire based weapons and you’ll benefit from free elemental fusion effects.
​
“50% chance to not consume Chain Lightning resources during Fatal Current”
Bad talent. Effectively it makes it so every other cast of Chain Lightning during Fatal Current doesn’t use ammo. This doesn’t help fix the problem that Chain Lightning will probably just be tickling the enemies late game. Not to mention you don’t manually cast Chain Lightning a lot anyways.

“+0.3% permanent weapon damage after Crit. hit kill from more than 15m away”
Potentially the best damage bonus talent. You have to actively try to keep your distance to build stacks of this though; Even though Luo Lei usually likes to hang back, 15m is still quite far. Also has no penalty for bosses, unlike the other two flat damage talents. Depending on your playstyle this might be a pain to build stacks of. The damage bonus isn’t as strong as it used to be before the balance update so don’t feel pressured to take it if you don’t like it.

“+30% damage to enemies above 80% combined health/shield/armor”
This is great for MS (Magical Supply) builds, and still decent but less useful on other builds. This gets more value the higher damage your first shot does, so it gives more value to the harder hitting rifles/bows rather than the rapid fire ones. Doesn’t help much on bosses unless you can one-shot them, but at that point it’s not like it really matters anyways.

“+50% lucky shot chance against enhanced monsters”
Provides a pretty hefty damage bonus against enhanced monsters (monsters with prefixes like ‘corrosive’ or ‘robust’ in their names). These enemies are usually higher priority to kill so this is generally useful. Doesn’t do anything for bosses though.

“Start the game with a Patrimonial Sniper Rifle”
As of the update, this starts you with a random Level 2 Sniper with 3 random affixes. There is a chance you can get something like a Goshawk with the Auto-Aim inscription and keep that for the rest of the game, but that’s pretty unlikely. This isn’t really worthwhile since it usually only helps in the first couple floors and there’s no guarantee the weapon is any good to begin with.

“-0.2s cooldown of [Fatal Current] upon every hit caused by [Chain Lightning]”
You need to get the ‘Lightning from Void” ascension to make proper use of this talent. If you do, it’ll give you a solid amount of cooldown reduction for your ‘Fatal Current’. Pretty self explanatory. Keep in mind it’s pretty weak in single target scenarios so it’s best for clearing groups or against bosses with multiple targets.

“Summon a thunderbolt to strike your target when [Chain Lightning] only hits one enemy”
This enables a funny build where you keep the ‘Lightning Governor’ ascension at exactly level 1. The -2 bounces penalty makes it so your Chain Lightning will always hit 1 target, so it will always activate the thunderbolt. It’s not a particularly good build so you probably shouldn’t take this talent, but it does make thunderbolt builds a lot more reliable if you really want to play them.

DEFENSIVE:

“+20 max shield, -50% shield recovery interval (from 3.5s to 1.75s)”
Nice, reliable defensive talent. Higher max shield means you recharge shield faster, and the recovery interval reduction is really helpful.

“Gain +5 max shield after killing an Elite/Boss”
This is basically just an inferior version of the last shield perk. It only ends up giving slightly more shield than the former late in the game, and not having the recovery interval bonus is a much bigger deal.

“Activating Fatal Current removes elemental effects from you. For the next 2 seconds, decrease damage taken by 60% and become immune to elemental effects”
Decent in an MS build since you will constantly be recasting Fatal Current, so you’ll have more uptime on the damage reduction effect. Not particularly useful if you don’t end up building MS. Not really worthwhile over the the better defensive talents with the nerf to Fatal Current uptime though.

“When shields are damaged to 0 they do not break and block ALL damage for 2s (180s cd):”
A deceptively strong talent despite the long cooldown. In nightmare, death often comes rather immediately. Unlike the Bird and Dog abilities that only block normal (non-elemental) damage, this talent protects you from elemental damage as well. Also unlike the other two, this prevents damage from overflowing to your health when it is triggered, making it significantly better.

Ascension Tier List

This list covers Ascensions in a vacuum. Specific ratings will shift as your build progresses in a run. Use your own judgement. (ex. defensive Ascensions may have more value if you have only found offensive occult scrolls)

Some Ascensions are also rated differently depending on how many points you have in them already.
(ex. lv3 rating assumes you already have 2 points invested).

The Tiers are divided as follows:
S: Excellent Ascension. Almost always pick if it doesn’t conflict with your build,
A: Great Ascension. Can’t usually go wrong with these.
B: Good Ascension. Good to have, just not as high priority.
C: Mediocre Ascension. Not necessarily ‘bad’ but you probably shouldn’t pick these over other ones.

Weapon Boost

Magical Supply “Once [Thunderstrike] kills the enemy, the ammo consumed will be recovered and [Fatal Current] will be launched. However, -30% duration for this [Fatal Current].”
No longer a one point wonder that defined an entire playstyle. Now it’s just a ‘nice to have’ skill that lets you get a couple more Thunderstrikes during Fatal Current. You shouldn’t expect more than 2-3 reactivations from this skill now. Also keep in mind that this ascension isn’t useful if you’re using a weaker rapid-firing weapon.

Storm Blast “+150% .. +225% .. +300% extra DMG for [Thunderstrike]”
This specifically buffs the weapon damage component of Fatal Current (the Thunderstrike), not the skill damage component (the Thunderbolt). Pairs well with ‘Magical Supply’ and weapons that can hard in a single hit. Since the patch, it’s not as strong as the other generic damage boosting ascensions since you’ll get a lot less damage from this over time than you used to. Also since the guaranteed Critical hit at level 3 was removed, going past level 1 on this isn’t especially useful.

Voltage Surge “Crit Hit will make the enemy take +10% .. +15% .. +40% Crit DMG for 4s .. 4s .. 5s. If weapon’s CritX is larger than 4x, +20% .. +30% .. +40% Crit DMG.”
This ascension was stealth changed recently to function differently. It now applies a direct multiplier to the final damage number, and also applies to the first hit (the duration is meaningless in solo play). This makes this ascension weaker than the other damage boost ascensions early on, but later in the game when you have more sources of +damage, this effect can end up fairly strong. However, for most of the run this will be weaker than a regular +damage boost, and if you have enough +damage effects for this to scale better, than you probably aren’t struggling with damage output in the first place. Also before level 3, it’s basically restricted to sniper weapons because the damage gain is very minor on weapons with a low critx value.

Thunder Turbo “Receive 1 layer of [Thunder Turbo] after killing the enemy with Crit Hit. Receive 2 layers of [Thunder Turbo] after killing the enemy with [Thunderstrike]. Each layer of [Thunder Turbo] will +5% .. +10% .. +15% weapon DMG and skill DMG (up to 8 layers). Once shield is broken, all .. all .. 50% of layers will be lost. At lv3 layers also apply +5% crit damage.”
Just a great all around damage boost. Provides +120% damage at lv3 with 8 layers stacked (plus some bonus crit). The downside of losing all your stacks when your shield breaks (only half at lv3 though) is pretty major in some boss fights like the Sky Lord where you are unable to recharge your stacks, so take extra care in those situations. In most cases though you will be able to recharge it pretty quickly off of normal enemies. Luo’s shield should not be breaking very frequently though (he probably won’t even survive if it happens to you a lot), if it’s breaking too much you may consider prioritizing the ‘Voltaic Aegis’ Ascension or the shield based starting talents.

Shadow Knight
“+30% .. +60% .. +100% weapon DMG and skill DMG if there is no enemy within 10m .. 10m .. 5m.”
Another nice general damage boost. Doesn’t provide as much of a bonus as the other two options, but 100% at lv3 is still a lot. The range requirement to maintain it is pretty straightforward, but many enemies attempt to rush you down, and they’ll deactivate this every so often. It also does somewhat limit your movement options if you want to keep the bonus.

Eye of the Storm “+15% .. +25% .. +50% (up to 60% .. 100% .. 150%) weapon DMG for sniper on next hit to the same target after dealing damage with sniper.”
A massive +150% weapon damage bonus with some caveats. Many snipers are slow hitting weapons so having to hit enemies multiple times can be slow when it comes to clearing rooms. This ascension heavily benefits from either using the faster firing bows (all bows count as snipers. Strike Wing in particular works really well with this) or getting the ‘+1 projectile’ inscription. Also doesn’t provide any skill damage unlike the other damage ascensions but skill damage boosts don’t really matter anyways.

Thunder Roar

Fulminous Zap “+200% .. +300% .. +400% damage of the ThunderBolt summoned by [Fatal Current] and -80% movement speed of the enemy hit by ThunderBolt for 0.4s .. 0.6s .. 1s. At lv3 the Thundebolt inflicts additional 50% damage on enemies affected by the shock elemental effect.”
This specifically affects the skill damage component of ‘Fatal Current’ (the Thunderbolt) not the weapon damage component (the Thunderstrike). The Thunderbolt has all the scaling problems mentioned in the earlier section of this guide. By default you only get one Thunderbolt per cast of ‘Fatal Current’, so once every 11-16 seconds, and it’s not nearly strong enough to justify that. This is intended to be used in combination with with other Thunderbolt ascensions but it just requires too much investment for too little result most of the time. The movement speed reduction rarely does much either. If for whatever reason you do end up attempting a thunderbolt build though, at least 1 point in this is vital.

Voltaic Aegis “Obtain 1 stack of [Voltaic Aegis] per 4s .. 3s .. 3s and gain 1 stack of [Voltaic Aegis] during [Fatal Current] per 1s .. 1s .. 0.6s. Each stack of [Voltaic Aegis] increases maximum shield by 5 .. 10 .. 20 and offers 10% .. 15% .. 20% damage reduction. Stacks up to 3 .. 3 .. 5 times and lose 1 stack each time you take damage.”
Luo Lei’s premier defensive ascension. The numbers on it are great; even if you get hit the stacks recharge quickly and at lv 3 the defence you get from it starts to get ridiculous. It also makes it easier to maintain your ‘Thunder Turbo’ stacks. The only problem is that multihit attacks will shred through your stacks and leave you vulnerable, so watch out for enemies that can attack rapidly.

Lightning Governer “During [Fatal Current], inflict [Chain Lightning] with -2 .. -1 .. default bounces on a random enemy within 20m around you per 1 .. 0.85 .. 0.7 second. At lv3 If [Chain Lightning] successfully kills an enemy, the duration of the active [Fatal Current] will be increased by 1s.”
Adds a miniscule amount of passive damage during the duration of your ‘Fatal Current’. Chain Lightning already isn’t worth using much outside of clearing weak (explosive) enemies, let alone Chain Lightning with reduced bounces. The big issue with this is the opportunity cost; to get lightning effects from this you have to actively avoid shooting, a tradeoff that is rarely worthwhile. This ascension got hit the hardest by the Fatal Current nerf, giving this way less uptime. It did gain an amusing interaction with the Thunderbolt starting talent; since level 1 of this trait gives you a Chain Lightning effect with no bounces, you can always trigger a Thunderbolt effect using it since you only ever hit a single target.

Thunder Nemesis “When casting [Fatal Current], summon a Thunderbolt to strike on 3 .. 4 .. 6 random enemies within 20m .. 25m .. 25m. At lv3 also summon a Thunderbolt to strike 1 random enemy every 2 seconds”
If only the decent part of this ascension wasn’t stuck at level 3, it could improve the Thunderbolt build’s consistency a lot. As it is now, it just summons a couple thunderbolts every 11-16 seconds if you use ‘Fatal Current’ on cooldown. Their damage is pretty much nonexistent without also investing in ‘Fulminous Zap’. Even getting a single ascension to level 3 is not something you can reliably do, requiring investment even beyond that just makes this horribly inconsistent. The ‘Fatal Current’ nerf also hit this pretty hard and it wasn’t even good prior to that.

Heart of Battle “-0.5s .. -1s .. -1.5s cooldown of [Fatal Current] for every Critical kill. At lv3 also refill 50% of your secondary skills upon every critical kill.”
The cooldown reduction is a decent effect, though the amount of cooldown reduction per point is pretty bad, making this a relatively low priority. This was inadvertently nerfed along with ‘Fatal Current’, since now this ascension does not apply to kills made during ‘Fatal Current’.

Bolt from the Blue “[Fatal Current] offers additional 50% skill damage, during which every Shock Effect triggered will summon a Thunderbolt to strike the affected enemy.”
The last member to round out the trio of bad Thunderbolt ascensions. Like the rest this got hit hard by the ‘Fatal Current’ nerf. It’s very difficult to trigger shock effects during ‘Fatal Current’, since Chain Lightning only has a base 25% elemental effect chance, and you can’t hit with your weapon without ending the skill. This is also reliant on investment in ‘Fulminous Zap’ and the same problems with damage scaling apply. At least this one’s only 1 point so you don’t see it again if you had to take it for whatever reason.

Lightning Strike

Lightning from Void “Chance to trigger [Chain Lightning] by dealing critical hit. (Trigger probability is related to CritX, once per second at most).”
This basically gives you occasional free casts of Chain Lightning (and sometimes the Shock status) with no effort on your part. The trigger rate scales directly off your crit chance, as of last patch a 4x crit weapon triggers it 70% of the time, so it’s quite frequent. This ascension benefits heavily from the starting talent that boosts Chain Lightning’s elemental effect chance to 50% (it raises this ascension to A Tier). Keep in mind that basically every other ascension in the Lightning Strike category is useless if you don’t have this, since manually casting Lightning Strike is weak, laggy, and not usually worthwhile outside of clearing tiny rushdown enemies.

Electric Current “[Chain Lightning] would connect all affected targets together and complete a circuit. Next time when you hit the connected target, 40% .. 70% .. 100% of the DMG would be transmitted to all connected targets. (Void .. Void .. Doesn’t void previous connects after casting [Chain Lightning])”
This ascension is a lot better on paper than it is in practice. Having to cast Chain Lightning on a group before attacking them is quite clunky with the cast delay and bouncing mechanics; it’s usually better to just start shooting. The payoff for it isn’t large enough to be worthwhile before lv3 either, and it’s not worth investing 3 points in it just for that. At least you get minor benefit out of it randomly with ‘Lightning from Void’. If you want a similar effect, look for snipers with the inscription ‘on Crit kill share all damage to enemies within 10m’; it’s not quite as strong an effect but it requires way less investment.

Tesla Coil “+2 .. +3 .. +4 bounce and +2 .. +4 .. +6 max capacity for [Chain Lightning]. At lv3 if [Chain Lightning] causes Shock Effect, players get 1 more usage immediately.”
This doesn’t really do much of anything. Chain Lightning still isn’t going to do any appreciable damage.

Hyper Current “+100% .. +200% .. +300% [Chain Lightning] Damage. At lv3 after the bounce(s) ends, it would bounce back to the initial target and deal extra damage based on total number of bounce(s).”
More Chain Lightning damage. Not much more though. Especially not enough to be worth taking.

Thunderbolt Converter “+10% .. +20% .. +100% weapon DMG on your next hit every time [Chain Lightning] inflicts damage (up to +40% .. +80% .. +100% weapon DMG). At lv3 also adds +40% Lucky Shot chance.”
At least this provides some benefit to any build that took ‘Lightning from Void’. Compared to Luo’s other damage boosting talents, this one has significantly worse uptime and doesn’t provide nearly as much overall damage output as a result. It gets quite a bit better at lv3, but you’re pretty unfortunate if you were forced to get it to lv3 in the first place. If you remember, you can cast Chain Lightning before a big Thunderstrike hit to boost the damage on it somewhat.

Super Charge “Max Shield increases by +20 .. 30 .. 40 for 5 .. 6 .. 8 seconds after [Chain Lightning] inflicts damage. Also recover 4 .. 5 .. 8 shield for each hit by [Chain Lightning].
Luo’s other defensive ascension option, got a decent buff last patch so now it can actually be worth taking (assuming you have taken ‘Lightning from Void’ already, it’s still useless otherwise). The max shield increase and recovery isn’t a lot but Luo’s squishiness makes every bit help. You would never take this over ‘Voltaic Aegis’ but it can provide a reasonable alternative if you were never offered it.

General Tips

About Fatal Current
-‘Fatal Current’ has a long start up lag. Try to use it preemptively if you see a dangerous enemy.
-‘Fatal Current’ does not interrupt reloading. If you’re already in combat, using it during a reload is the most efficient time to activate it.
-Don’t always use your ‘Fatal Current’ as soon as it’s off cooldown; there’s no need to use it if you aren’t under pressure, and having it available at the start of a new wave is a good habit to have.
-Don’t forget about the +30% movement speed boost ‘Fatal Current provides’. Sometimes it’s best to activate it just for this effect, and use it to re-position yourself rather than shooting a target (though still attempt to shoot something right before it expires).
-If your weapon has an inscription that boosts a specific shot (like the first or last shot) try to align your ‘Fatal Current’ activation with it. You can also intentionally miss an enemy to lower your magazine count without cancelling the active ‘Fatal Current’.

About your Weapons
-Luo will overwhelmingly often be using snipers, because of his guaranteed drops and natural synergy with them. He does fine with other accurate weapons as well as long as you aren’t using the ‘Eye of the Storm’ ascension.
-All bows and crossbows weapons are also classified as snipers, so you can freely use those too.
-Shotguns and Launchers can also be pretty compatible with Thunderstrike. Unfortunately many of Luo’s damage boosting ascensions don’t support them properly. (With the Magical Supply nerfs, Launchers are no longer as reliable either)
-Get used to constantly strafing while you’re looking through a scope. Standing still can result in instant death from bullets you weren’t able to see.
-Don’t tunnel vision too much. While some weapon inscriptions may benefit from staying in scope for a duration, try to keep an eye on your radar so enemies don’t blindside you.

About Enemies
-Luo has a much easier time with long range enemies than most because of his preference for snipers. It’s usually good to focus the rushdown enemies first, so you aren’t forced to awkwardly to quick scope a group of them, and so they don’t catch you unawares while scoped.
-You don’t always have to stay at maximum range. Luo has the highest base movement speed which makes him more evasive than most other characters despite his low defences.
-In stage 3, Monks of both varieties are high priority targets. Nihilation monks especially, as they will s*rip your ‘Voltaic Aegis’ stacks almost immediately and can easily blindside you with their teleport.
-Enemies with the ‘Immortal’ prefix will interrupt your kill chain when using ‘Magical Supply’ (since your shot doesn’t kill them immediately). Try to kill them near the end of a kill chain if possible.

Making this guide may have been a bit preemptive since Luo hasn’t got a balance patch yet, but it’s been over two weeks since his release so I guess I’ll just have to redo parts of it if he changes significantly. Hey, the balance patch came and it was kinda disappointing. Magical Supply and thunderstrike nerfs were expected and reasonable, but I guess they didn’t realize the Fatal Current nerf also gutted Chain Lightning and Thunderbolt builds (and those weren’t even good before the patch). Luo is still a decent character, he’s just very one-dimensional now that he’s pigeonholed into being a sniper generalist since all his other options are bad.

It’s been a longstanding problem that skill damage doesn’t reliably scale as well as weapon damage, even Qing Yan’s Cleave builds exhibit this issue. Crown Prince is still the only character with a consistently good secondary ability because it’s not reliant on damage so it’ll be nice if something can change regarding how this works in the future.

Credits to the Wiki contributors for providing the skill icons and descriptions.

If you have a different perspective on something in this guide, feel free to leave a comment.

Here we come to an end for Gunfire Reborn Luo Lei Guide: Ascension Tier List and General Tips ( Updated ) hope you enjoy it. If you think we forget something to include or we should make an update to the post let us know via comment, and we will fix it asap! Thanks and have a great day!