I didn't know where to post this but i am wondering what is an easy class to use that is strong. i did try out gunner and got it to level 45 but i'm starting to see that imo the class is abit hard.. any advice is appreciated!
The Hunter Class itself is one of them as it's good for beginners and you'll be very strong. But since you started the game as a Gunner, I would recommend Braver as the class has two branches that goes into two different directions of whether you want to main the bow and arrow or Katana. Especially since the Bow has two different styles depending on how you will fight with it. There's a rapid fire option that will make simply tapping the attack button and shooting fast really strong as well making rapid fire Photon Arts stronger so you could probably still stick to a more gunner-like style. However that was only my intuition on this rapid fire branch since I main the Katana in the Braver Style and I only use the Bow Charge Shot Branch (which doesn't take long to max out) because I don't normally shoot often. The Charge shot is more beginner friendly and is best at being able to let you shoot from the far rear easier, especially if you're fighting against enemies that are much stronger than you.
As for the Katana style, even though I main this fighting style of the Braver Class, it's a bit hard for me to explain, but if you really like swords and fast swings and a good way to mix up charge attacks with it, this will be the best way to help you get a bit more comfortable in fighting close quarters come back. You'll even be allowed to defend with this weapon, so you can block attacks and making you take very little damage from them or perfect guard to counter attack which will give you a huge damage boost if you managed to fill its focus gauge making you the strongest person in the field (depending on your teammates) for a short while as long as you keep hitting enemies.
Fighters are what I considered to be the the strongest class, especially if you use the fists as your main weapon. However, I think without any kind of subclass (except for maybe the magic/tech classes) you'll probably be a bit squishy (So I think your Gunner Class being a subclass might be okay for this, emphasis on "might"). But the fist weapon has this good ground pound Photon Art which you can use to stun enemies around you and cause major damage around you, especially for low hanging flying enemies that happened to be near you if you used it from the air. Anyway, Fighter Class also emphasis on dodging and attacking at the right time as well and with the fist you'll probably give out the most damage to the enemy, you might even beat it to a pulp before it has a chance to move. This class is a powerful class to try out, but it may be a bit harder than the other two classes to master, since I think it's a bit less forgiving on damage you can take. I'm not completely sure since I didn't start Fighter from scratch as it was my subclass.
Anyway, those are the classes to try out from easiest to a little hard (for you) Braver, Hunter, and Fighter.
They all require some sort of investment and you learning when to dodge or not to be honest. You will hear all kind of opinions concerning classes.
Guilrel has decent information but there's no job in current form that uses Gunner as a sub job. In Episode 4 Summoner / Gunner might be viable is we go Japan road again.
@Pulptenks Don't forget that we already have the pre-03/25/2020 Episode 6 class balances on the NA server, so Chain Finisher is already main class only, defeating the purpose of Su/Gu (and Gunner as a sub in general).
I was recommending Braver with rapid fire bow because I believe they both somewhat fight the same way and a bit of an easier way to start out from there if Axel isn't that comfortable changing fighting styles too drastically, not because Gunner is a good sub class to Braver.
Hunter is easy to play and is strong, most of its PA's have a purpose and a place. However some people consider it a bit slow, and it is because of how the charge mechanic of its PAs works, so you need to have a good reaction time to make the most use of it effectively.
i would say an even easier melee to play is Bouncer, however if you really like sword gameplay, just wait until Hero comes to NA, wich is basically Hunter on caffeine and steroids and eazy mode https://youtu.be/zWW6DAu6e4c?t=217
Hero is much harder to play well than Hunter, and also requires you use at least 2 different weapons for max effectiveness. a Hero using only a sword is doing it wrong. Most at least do sword and TMG.
Hero cannot guard/block either, making it have less options for defense.
@ZeeHero9271 hmm are you kidding? Hero is much easier to play than HU, with only 4(?) PAs per weapon and each having it's place and purpose it's very hard to screw up. Also you can play with a single weapon, but i agree, the class plays at its moxt potential and its more fun if you use all 3 weapons, with the PA weapon switching mechanic making it soo easy to switch weapon there is really no reason to not use all 3 of them.
Regarding block/guard, they don't have neither because they have the Hero Counter mechanic, wich turns Step Dodge into your block/guard. The one thing i do give Hu over Hr though is Automate wich is life saver.
the number of PAs total per class has zero effect on how hard it is to play. all it means is you have less research to do when hero has less PAs.
The difficulty of actually mastering hero gameplay is still harder than Hu.
Surprised nobody mentioned summoner yet. Equip auto-attack ring and Wanda/Jinga, spam lightning AoE, laziest mobbing possible, only annoying part is sweets box.
@ZeeHero9271 Anyone saying hunter is easy to play is most likely not playing it effectively. Hero PAs have little to no commitment and has basically no mechanics to deal with when doing its main rotation vs hunter weapons having to deal with blaze parry/volkraptor/shocktether to actually get decent damage. Also the hero counter is a DPS gain for canceling your PAs on reaction when the same cannot be said for most hunter (or most classes for that matter) meaning there is less method behind it.
Successor classes at a baseline were designed to be easier to play and more broadly appealing. Hero is definitely the hardest successor simply because it has an actual disadvantaged state courtesy of hero boost but between the generous movement it gets during its PAs that have generally short duration and do not have all the damage at the end of them as well as amazing tracking potential, it is overall easier to land your hits to their maximum effect. The weakness of hero is simply that it has all around been powercrept by better successors that do not have demerits and the regular classes getting potency boosts out of the ass to compensate while hero has been seldom touched.
Actually shocktether is not what hunters use on bosses, or it wont be soon enough. my friends who are experts on the japanese server tell me wired lance is by far the weakest boss weapon, it's used for mob cleanup.
Hero has always been tougher to play even if only becuase it cannot guard. that one thing makes a HUGE difference.
The problem with wired lance during bossing has nothing to do with shock tether. It in fact has to do with everything other than that. But when a boss is downed, shocktether is extremely high DPS while being extremely efficient compared to volkraptor. But despite that, it is common for hunter players to 'main' a weapon due to all of them having the ability to cover a large variety of scenarios and for those players they have to work around it.
Anyway I don't think you should base your criteria of difficulty because of guarding. Hero actually has guard frames during it's fully charged Weapon Action AND during the start up of brightness end (similar to charge parry). Not only that, but guarding isn't the only form of defense in the game and more often than not, Iframes are better just because there are things in the game that cannot be guarded but there is no such exceptions for iframe dodges. In fact, you can still get hero counters WHILE invincible whereas you cannot guard while invincible for obvious reasons.
I think it's a bit of a fruitless discussion nevertheless but it is a common opinion that successor classes are much more accomodating compared to regular classes just by their modern design that has nearly no blindspots.