Gunfire Reborn: Best Solo Characters, Ranked

Gunfire Reborn is not exactly an easy roguelike. There are assuredly many roguelikes that are more difficult than it, but making it all the way to the end of a run in Gunfire Reborn is no simple task. In multiplayer or with AI companions, it’s a whole lot easier due to the ability to revive and even bring back dead teammates, but in solo play players really only have one chance to revive themselves.

Outside of that, if they go down, the run’s over, so picking the right character and choosing the right build is especially important when playing solo. With that in mind, let’s go over some of the all-time best picks for a character in a solo run as well as why these characters are such great picks, in general.

10 Crown Prince

The Elemental Alchemist

Starting things off at the bottom of the rankings with the default character of Gunfire Reborn, The Crown Prince. Now, it needs to be stated right at the start that all of the characters in Gunfire Reborn can perform incredibly well in solo play if they’re used properly. We’re merely ranking how strong these characters are by default on this specific mode if they were all played by a person with the same level of skill.

And as far as that’s concerned, Crown Prince has a lot of survivability tools, but he’s at his best in multiplayer when he can take advantage of the elemental effects his allies are outputting. Crown Prince is all about dealing Elemental Damage and is essentially one of the main ‘mages’ of this game, and as such he can struggle with both damage output and survivability in solo play if players get even a little unlucky.

9 Ao Bai

The Firearm & Explosives Expert

Next up is Ao Bai, another basic character and one with a very basic kit. Essentially, Ao Bai is all about raw firepower, raw damage, and dual-wielding weapons, that’s his whole game plan.

He tosses explosive grenades, he has a lot of Talents tied to pure DPS, and he’s all about buffing himself while dual-wielding. Because of his Talents like Dual Battle Soul or Extra Reserves, Ao Bai is pretty survivable, and he’s got a lot of overpowered dual-wielding combinations. But, Ao Bai just doesn’t scale to absurdity quite as easily as a lot of other characters, which is why he ranks this low.

8 Qing Yan

The Armored Martial Artist

Now if the reader were to take a look at Qing Yan’s talents and abilities before reading this list, they might be surprised to see him ranked this far down. However, most of the reason Qing Yan is here is due to one simple reason, he’s based around fighting at close range.

Yes, while Qing Yan has a lot of innate tankiness, a lot of ways to recover Health/Armor, and a lot of mobility, the more often someone has to fight up close (especially in the last couple of stages) the more they’re at risk of suddenly getting melted by some unexpected Elite or enemy combination. In multiplayer Qing Yan is essentially unstoppable and almost entirely unkillable, but with no safety net in the form of an ally, Qing Yan is a pretty risky choice.

7 Xing Zhe

The Shapeshifting Monkey King

Moving on to the first DLC character in the rankings, it’s Xing Zhe, the incredibly obvious Wukong reference character. Xing Zhe is one of the new playable characters added with the Visitors of the Spirit Realm DLC back in August of 2022. Both he and Li were added to the game together, and were the first time Gunfire Reborn began its pattern with DLC characters where one of the two is relatively complicated and the other is incredibly simple. As it turns out, the monkey character is actually the more complicated one, as Xing Zhe has the weapon-type mechanic that’s part of his Soul Strike ability, the extra mechanics of his Essence Chains, and even his Steady Stance auto-revive passive Talent.

As a solo character, Xing Zhe is actually pretty good, the only reason he’s ranked this low is simply because he needs the proper combination of weapons, Ascensions, and Occult Scrolls to really start scaling out of control mid-run.

6 Li

The Fiery Spirit Summoner

Li is the other character that was added in the Visitors of the Spirit Realm DLC and she’s the simpler one of the two, at least mechanically. Like Crown Prince, Li is a Mage-type character, relying heavily on her Spiritual Flame and Blazing Meteor abilities for her damage in most runs.

And while the damage potential of Li is actually pretty absurd, especially if players build around her innate Burning Ailment synergies, her survivability is pretty awful. A lot of the time in multiplayer runs, Li will be the biggest glass cannon in a party, but will also need to be revived more often than everyone else in exchange. And in solo play, there are only a few ways to get revived (most of which were introduced alongside the new Demon Spirits system).

5 Zi Xiao

The Master of Fate & The Occult Scrolls

When it comes to complex characters, Zi Xiao pretty much takes the cake. While his Astrohouse and Astroaspect gimmicks become second nature after a while, they’re incredibly confusing to figure out at first.

So, if the player in question is looking for a good character to just pick up and play in solo, then Zi Xiao is not for them. But, for anyone who already understands this character, he’s one of the best solo options due to the ways a lot of his Ascensions interact to give him more damage as well as survivability.

4 Nona

The Genius Mechanic & Her Mecha Wing

If we were to compare Gunfire Reborn to another gun-centric first person shooter with character classes, Nona would absolute be the Mechromancer (from Borderlands 2) of this game. Just like Ao Bai is essentially a twist on the Gunzerker from BL2, Nona has a lot of the same pros and cons as Gaige does.

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And, Nona is the only character (at least before Demon Spirits were introduced) with a method of getting herself up after being downed. That said, she does struggle with survivability outside of a few specific builds and she can struggle with keeping Mecha Wing alive if the enemies start outscaling her at any point.

3 Lyn

The Cold & Masterful Dominator of the Snow Realm

Next up is Lyn, one of the most recent playable characters added to Gunfire Reborn with the Realm of Frost and Inkwash DLC. To be more specific, Lyn is the ‘Frost’ part of that DLC title while Momo is the Inkwash part.

As a frosty character, Lyn’s who gameplay loop revolves around getting enemies to an amount of health determined by Lyn’s ‘Lethal Line’ and then executing said enemies using Frost Burial. Lyn is a character with fantastic damage output, the unique ability to see enemy weakpoints, and with some great crowd control options as well. However, like Li, Lyn is very damage focused and not very survivability focused, making things tough if she can’t quickly take out enemies before they take her out.

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2 Momo

The Ink Spirit Artist

At the time of writing this (September 30th, 2024) Momo is pretty absurdly overpowered. His Ink Form is just way too tanky, and his ability to scale out of control using his Ink Form in combination with an auto-firing weapon such as the Starfly is so incredibly easy to get set up.

On top of all this, he also gains a whole lot of bonus stats by picking Ascensions around his Blank Domain and a ton of damage by playing around certain Weapon Skills. Momo is truly a complete package of a character and as long as he has a Demon Spirit that grants him any survivability or can revive him if he goes down, it’s almost impossible to lose a run with this little squirrel.

1 Qian Sui

The Ultimate Tank With His Tidal Aspis

While high damage is obviously an important factor in solo play in Gunfire Reborn, it really all comes down to survivability more than anything else. As long as a player can stay alive, they can always get stronger with just a single Occult Scroll synergy, but a player with high damage and no survivability is going to be struggling most of the run.

Thankfully, Qian Sui is the ultimate tank character and the best option as a solo character, simply because he’s basically unkillable. With his innate Talents based around survivability and all of his Ascensions that help him keep Tidal Aspis active constantly, it’s basically like playing a melee character with godmode turned on, though players will need to survive around 4-5 stages to first to really get most of Qian Sui’s builds off the ground.