Gunfire Reborn has dozens of weapons and a plethora of characters to choose from that all have varying build options that make each run feel different. In typical roguelike fashion, mostly everything in a run is randomized. Your guns, items, and talents you acquire are all randomized.
However, despite the randomness of Gunfire Reborn, characters still have general play styles and talent trees that support them. The Crown Prince is the first free character everyone starts with until you unlock and can build Ao Bai in Gunfire Reborn at level 25. Crown Prince’s specialty is alchemy and the elemental arts. We will give you our guide on mastering these elements to wield against your foes.
Crown Prince Summary
The Crown Prince is among the many visitors from the Spirit Realm who is well taught in the ways of alchemy and elemental arts. He is a small and somewhat fragile character who prefers to stay at medium to long range to utilize his elemental strengths best and prefers stacking shields over extra HP. The Crown Prince can ensnare his enemies with his Energy Orb, a massive projectile that can freeze any enemy, including bosses.
The Crown Prince’s true strength resides in Gunfire Reborn’s elemental combinations. Elemental Effects have a chance to be inflicted each time elemental damage is applied, based on the source.
Elemental Effects
- The Burning elemental effect is applied from Fire damage. Burning deals 20% of the hit’s damage each second, lasting for five seconds. Stronger Burning effects override weaker ones.
- The Shock elemental effect is applied from Lightning damage. Shock causes the affected target to take 10% increased damage from all sources for five seconds.
- The Decay elemental effect is applied from Corrosion damage. Decay decreases the target’s movement speed by 50% for five seconds.
Fusion Effects
Fusion Effects are inflicted if the same target simultaneously suffers from two different elemental effects. Combining two elements causes enemies to take ludicrous amounts of damage.
- Decay and Burning inflict Combustion, dealing an extra 200% damage instantly to the initial target and 100% damage to other enemies in a 5m area. Enemies hit are also staggered, interrupting their movement and attacks.
- Burning and Shock inflict Manipulation, which causes the enemy to attack other nearby enemies for five seconds. If there are no other nearby enemies, they will stop attacking entirely for the entire duration. Manipulation is the weakest fusion effect since its only use is crowd control and lack of bonus damage.
- Shock and Decay inflict Miasma, which deals True damage equal to roughly 10% of the enemy’s maximum HP per second for five seconds. Damage dealt drops to 0.75% HP against elite enemies and 0.3% maximum HP against bosses.
- Miasma’s damage will still hit Shields and Armor first while dealing double damage since the original sources are Shock and Decay. Miasma can stack up to nine times, with each stack dealing separate damage.
How Crown Prince’s Abilities Work in Gunfire Reborn
Energy Orb
Energy Orb is Crown Prince’s Primary Skill. Using it launches a sizable purple orb which explodes if it hits an enemy, barrier, or surface. Any enemy caught in the explosion takes damage and is frozen, preventing them from moving and attacking. The freezing has reduced effectiveness against Shields and significantly reduced effects against elites and bosses.
The Energy Orb not only freezes a ground of enemies in place but pauses their animations. Utilizing excellent timing with Energy Orb will allow you to freeze enemies and reveal their weak points for a short duration. Most enemies’ weak points are their heads, but that isn’t the case for every foe you will come across. Several Talents can extend the freeze of Energy Orb, increase the charges, or increase its initial explosion damage.
Smoke Grenade
Smoke Grenade is the Crown Prince’s Secondary Skill. This ability lobs a grenade that leaves a corrosion pool on the floor for three seconds after detonation. Smoke Grenade deals four instances of damage, once on explosion and three for the AOE, but talents can increase its damage and duration. Unlike most elemental sources, Smoke Grenade has a 100% chance of applying Decay.
Smoke Grenade is exceptionally potent when combined with other elements. Since Smoke Grenade has a 100% chance to apply Decay, any weapon that applies Burning will inflict Combustion. Also, any weapon that uses Shock will inflict Miasma while enemies are stuck in Smoke Grenades AOE.
Crown Prince Strengths
In Gunfire Reborn, Crown Prince’s Strengths lie in the ease of elemental procs and crowd control. Without any other elemental damage, Crown Prince’s raw power can keep enemies stunned and slowed to whittle away their HP from a distance.
Energy Orb’s freezing effect locks down a small group of enemies, pausing their animations and possibly making it easier to hit their weak points consistently. While striking at their weak points to deal guaranteed crit damage, Smoke Grenade can be weaved between using Energy Orb and firing your weapon.
If appropriately done, Smoke Grenade will explode just as Energy Orb’s freeze ends. This will make enemies crawl through an AOE of Decay. This is Crown Prince’s early stage power level, but this combo skyrockets one acquiring a reliable elemental weapon.
Crown Prince has the best overall elemental control of any of the heroes on our Gunfire Reborn characters tier list. His rounded play and elemental control earned him a high spot.
Tips & Tricks to Playing with the Crown Prince in Gunfire Reborn
Performing this stun and slowing combo ensures a group of enemies will be ensnared and slowed by your Energy Orb while stuck in Decay. As we previously covered, Smoke Bomb has a 100% chance to apply Decay, resulting in any Shock or Burning to proc to trigger an elemental fusion instantly.
Instead of weapon swapping or needing to combine abilities or ally damage types to trigger elemental fusions, Crown Prince can reliably achieve this with one weapon and a single use of Smoke Bomb. Reliably inflicting Combustion or Miasma is devastating, while maintaining a freeze on enemies to accurately guarantee crits from hitting weak points is where Crown Prince shines.
Crown Prince’s Best Talents
Every character in Gunfire Reborn has three separate talent trees that focus on enhancing their guns, abilities or granting extra utility. Crown Prince’s talent trees enhance his elemental damage, Smoke Grenade, and Energy Orb. While there are viable builds for focusing on one tree over the other, we found that focusing primarily on the elemental tree gives Crown Prince the best results.
Elemental Rage
Elemental Rage is the best talent Crown Prince has in Gunfire Reborn. It is an absolute must-have when playing him. Elemental Rage Increases your damage dealt to enemies under any Elemental Effect, scaling from 30%, 60%, to 120% DMG increase. Smoke Grenade has a 100% chance to apply Decay to anyone that stands in its AOE. Therefore, it guarantees extra damage every time you use your grenades.
Energy Echo
Energy Echo is another high-priority talent we consider a must-have in every run. This talent causes your Energy Orb to share the same elemental type as your current weapon. It also increases Energy Orb’s elemental chance to 100%, making it guaranteed to proc any elemental type such as Shock or Burning.
As previously stated, Crown Prince’s combo with Energy Orb and Smoke Grenade is highly potent at crowd control and applying Decay for easy elemental fusion procs. With Energy Echo, this stunning combo now guarantees elemental fusion procs without needing to gamble with weapon damage.
Related Guide: How to Build Qian Sui in Gunfire Reborn
Hex Smoke
Hex Smoke is a fantastic talent that enhances the deadly nature of your Smoke Bombs. It causes enemies hit by your Smoke Grenades to deal less damage to you and take more damage. The damage reduction scales from -40%, -50% to -60% per level, while enemies take an increase of +20%, +40%, to +60%. The first two levels of this talent set the Hex Smoke’s debuff duration at six seconds, but maxing out the talent makes the debuff last a whopping twenty seconds.
Even if enemies or bosses don’t remain in the Smoke Grenade for very long, if Hex Smoke is at the max rank, they deal 60% less damage to you, take the same amount of extra damage, and it lasts for twenty seconds. It’s completely devastating, and that’s why it’s a must-have on every run.
Alternate Talents for Crown Prince in Gunfire Reborn
A few other strong talents to grab are Chained Duration, Power Source, and Elemental Shield. Chained duration increases the freeze duration. Power Source adds extra charges to Energy Orb, and Elemental Shield grants extra max Shield after using a Smoke Grenade. Using all the talents mentioned above is essential to making the best Crown Prince build.
Gunfire Reborn Crown Prince Builds
While there are three different talent trees to choose from, we still believe that strengthening the Crown Prince’s elemental power is the best build for your Gunfire Reborn runs. Along with taking the previous talents aforementioned such as Elemental Rage, we have to recommend taking Pyrodominance, Electrodominance, or Acidominance.
All three talents share the same scaling, increasing either Fire, Lightning, or Corrosion DMG from 40%, 80% up to 120%. Lightning deals extra damage to Shields and Corrosion shreds armor, but Fire damage only increases damage dealt to an enemy’s base health.
We always recommend taking Acidominance and Electrodominance over Pyrodominance when playing Crown Prince in Gunfire Reborn. Enemies with Armor and Shields are a far more significant threat than standard health enemies.
Additionally, an extra elemental feature is unlocked for raising each talent to its third rank. Acidominance causes critical hits against enemies to spawn a toxic cloud equivalent to a Smoke Grenade. Electro Dominance adds +120% weapon DMG against enemies under the Shock effect.
Sadly Pyrodominance only doubles the damage of Burning effects and Combustion.
In later stages during your run, enemies with regular health bars melt so quickly, and trying to shred someone’s Armor with pure fire damage takes significantly longer. Overall, we recommend taking whichever dominance your weapons synergize with.
Prioritizing Lightning weapons and combining them with your Smoke Bomb is a fantastic way to spread Miasma. Miasma, in turn, deals True damage. True damage ignores Shields and Armor while having the capability of stacking. This allows you to melt enemies while bypassing their defenses.
Weapon Builds for Crown Prince in Gunfire Reborn
If you want to lean more into the Miasma build with Crown Prince in Gunfire Reborn, we recommend finding an excellent Lightning weapon like the Thunderclap Gloves or the Flowing Light sword if you’re going to want a melee build.
If you want to focus more on Combustion and cause your enemies to explode, we recommend taking the Fire Dragon or Laser Gloves. Even if Fire damage is the weakest element, except in a solid Li character build in Gunfire Reborn, it’s still incredibly fun to use, especially if you get a godlike run. Or, if you want to try a more tanky elemental build, we recommend taking the Advanced Shield, Hex Smoke, and Elemental Shield talents.
Gunfire Reborn talent systems are all upgrades but focus on the three different areas of your character’s kit. If you want to play as a full Smoke Grenade or Energy Orb build, you can concentrate on taking those specific talents. However, we still recommend that you always grab our top talent picks whenever possible, no matter what Crown Prince build you choose when playing Gunfire Reborn.
Best Occult Scrolls for Crown Prince
There are a lot of Occult Scrolls in Gunfire Reborn. They can shape the outcomes of your build by adding some quality of life or drastically changing your damage. To round up our Gunfire Reborn Crown Prince build, we recommend the following Occult Scrolls:
- Elemental Relic: +5% Elemental DMG for 10 seconds whenever you kill an enemy affected by an Elemental Effect
- Elemental Bestowment: Recover 1% Max HP and 5 ammo of the currently used weapon whenever you deal an Elemental Effect to enemies.
- Elemental Torment: 20% Lucky Shot chance against enemies affected by an Elemental Effect.
- Fire, Corrosion, or Lighting Enthusiast: All Enthusiast Occult Scrolls cause you to inflict Decay, Shock, or Burning on yourself whenever you inflict the elemental effect on enemies. In return, you gain life steal while on fire. You also gain damage reduction plus movement speed when decaying, and bonus lightning damage when shocked.
- Flame. Lightning, and Corrosion Shard: All Shard Occult Scrolls give you +25% damage to their respective elemental type and make you immune to their adverse effects. The additive effect is doubled if you’re currently Burning, Shocked, or Decaying, depending on the Shard.
- Elemental Magazine: Deals an additional 50% DMG when weapon DMG causes an elemental effect.
Wrapping Up Our Crown Prince, Gunfire Reborn Build Guide
That’s our guide and build for the Crown Prince in Gunfire Reborn. While remembering the statistics to enhance your elemental damage might seem complicated on paper, we assure you that utilizing all of this elemental power is significantly easier when put into practice. If you’re looking for more Gunfire Reborn guides, you can find our recommendations for the best guns and weapons in Gunfire Reborn.
