Granblue Fantasy Relink came out with a free playable demo for the PlayStation 4 and 5 consoles recently.
This demo features a lot of playable characters, one of whom is the topic of this article, Rackam. Rackam is an excellent character to main as your first character.
If you want to fast-track your learning progress with Rackam, keep reading! This is a comprehensive guide on everything you need to know to play effectively as Rackam.
How to Play Rackam | Skills and Build
Rackam is primarily a ranged combat character. After all, his main weapon is a gun. As with most gunners, the best way to play Rackam is to stay at a distance while pouring consistent damage into your enemies.
This character is especially recommended to anyone who’s a fan of using firearms in games. Rackam is also great for beginners, as he provides an easy way to have high DPS and is fun to use.
In this article, we are gonna go through all of Rackam’s skills and the best sigils to equip to play as him.
Rackam’s Skills
1. Spitfire
The first skill we’re going to talk about is the Spitfire skill. This is a shotgun blast that applies a 10% defense loss on all enemies it hits. This is always worth having equipped, no matter what you’re fighting.
It’ll help you end fights quicker, saving time and making them easier overall.
2. Duration
Duration is a very unique skill, the name of which gives us no information. It is a defensive skill first and foremost, allowing you to dodge attacks continuously using the left stick.
It also helps you max out your heat gauge, which is very important for Rackam. We will learn more about that later.
3. Bullet Hail
Bullet Hail is a fun skill that attacks enemies in an area. It functions as a standard AoE or Area of Effect attack. It rains down bullets from the sky over the enemies for a period of time.
This skill is good when fighting many smaller enemies, not so good for bosses however. This is because the damage output of this ability is not that significant against stronger enemies.
4. Wild Gunsmoke
Wild Gunsmoke is an interesting skill, offering some welcome risk to reward gameplay. It buffs you by increasing your health by 50% and raising your critical hit rate by 30% for a brief while.
It also applies a debuff, however, lowering your defense by 30%. This isn’t that much of an issue, however. As you play Rackam more, you’ll learn to keep your distance while fighting enemies so that you don’t take much damage. By doing this, you can make this skill just a straight-up buff.
Last but not least by any stretch of the word, this also maxes out your Heat gauge. It also stops it from decreasing for a short while, allowing you to pump out massive damage numbers against enemies for a short while.
5. Double Tap
The Double Tap ability temporarily increases the number of hits dealt when using your basic attack. This isn’t the most useful by itself, but offers a massive boost to your heat gauge.
The heat gauge is one of the most important tools in Rackam’s arsenal and learning to use it is imperative.
Rackam’s Heat Gauge
Making effective use of Rackam’s Heat Gauge isn’t very easy, but you can get comfortable with it with just a little practice. You need to get used to the loop of charging it up, and then using it to deal high amounts of damage.
Rackam’s basic shot attack increases your heat gauge. Holding it down does a 3-short burst attack which does more damage and rewards more heat gauge, but takes more time to come out. The Rhythmic Trigger ability is very useful here.
Essentially, by mastering the timing and chaining attacks together properly, you can deal more damage and get more gauge. You’ll know you’ve gotten the timing right when the golden clock symbol appears.
You should start every fight by doing this so you can fill up your Heat Gauge. Rackam’s support skill, the “Bull’s Eye Blast” uses the Heat Gauge. You can charge this attack up to Level 5 to deal absurdly high damage to your enemies.
The higher your Heat Gauge, the faster this attack will charge. This Bull’s Eye Blast requires you to be close to the enemy for maximum damage output. If you are further away, some of your shots will miss.
Rackam can also do some aerial melee combos to enemies. Doing this is not recommended, however, as it is slow and generally not worth it. The lengthy animations and low damage provide low DPS, especially against bigger enemies that can not be juggled.
Rackam’s Best Sigils
The demo gives you access to some Sigils. Learning to use them effectively can help you give your all in fights. Be sure to use the highest-level versions of all of your sigils.
1. Attack Power III
Just a simple damage boost, but it can go a long way regardless.
2. Stamina III
As long as you don’t get hit, this provides an excellent boost to your stamina.
3. Combo Booster III
This gives you the ability to keep pouring damage on your enemies as fast as possible.
Using these three sigils in combination with each other can make the game a lot easier, especially when leveled up.
Rackam’s Best Teammates
Generally speaking, Rackam works best with teammates who have special crowd-control abilities. You can use Rackam’s skills to reduce defense on enemies, then follow it up with crazy crowd damage.
The best teammate abilities are listed as:
Io’s Lightning:
Katalina’s Sacred Winds:
Ghandagoza’s Infernal Stomp:
You can use these abilities to keep the enemies in place while using Bull’s Eye Blast to maintain a consistent damage output on them.
That is it for our beginner’s guide to playing Rackam. Hopefully, when following this, you can achieve higher levels of play and have more fun while doing it.
Ibraheem is an action game veteran. Alongside playing Devil May Cry, God of War, and Bayonetta extensively, he has experience in twitch shooters and most recently, rhythm games. He is always in search for the newest games to sink hours into while learning how to play stylishly.