Granblue Fantasy Relink sees the return of characters from the iconic Granblue Fantasy, introducing new and returning players to many familiar faces. One of the most iconic characters is Rackam, an excellent marksman and skyship pilot who packs a lot of firepower.
Granblue Fantasy Relink: Who is Rackam?
Rackam is one of two primary gunslingers from the original crew of Granblue Fantasy Relink. While his primary element is Fire, with enough levels and points invested in his skills, Rackam can learn Wind damage skills and melee attacks for extra coverage.
Unlike most characters that you unlock using Crewmate Cards, Rackam is available in your party from the beginning of the game. This gives you enough time to customize Rackam, and if you plan on keeping him in your party for the rest of the game, there are a few things you should know.
Rackam functions purely as a damage dealer and lacks support skills, making him quite inflexible when you compare him to characters like Rosetta who can fulfill multiple roles. Because of his defined role, Rackam excels at what he does and can quickly stack damage as he levels up.
With six weapons and a multitude of powerful Fire skills to choose from, building Rackam is quite straightforward. This build will be effective throughout the game, so let’s get started.
Best Rackam build in Granblue Fantasy Relink
Rackam’s strength lies in his fire rate. His playstyle revolves around maintaining his Heat Gauge, which increases as you use his primary attacks. When filled up, the Heat Gauge provides several benefits to the rest of Rackam’s skills, including bonus damage, faster charge-up time, and stronger projectiles.
But before we get to Rackam’s skills, you need proper gear to get started. This involves working toward collecting all of Rackam’s weapons and acquiring proper Sigils to get the most out of Rackam’s firepower.
Gear
Like other characters in Granblue Fantasy Relink, Rackam starts with a basic weapon and, throughout the main story, gains access to six weapons. His signature Flintspike provides bonus health and is good enough for the early sections of the game. When you feel like your damage isn’t enough to kill enemies quickly, it might be time for an upgrade.
Depending on your needs, you can pick weapons with different primary traits, ranging from bonus health and bonus damage to critical strike and stun power. Refer to the table below to know which weapon works best for you.
| Weapon | Type | Forge level | Trait |
| Flintspike | Defender | 1 | Health boost |
| Benedia | Ascension | 65 | Attack damage boost |
| Stormcloud | Executioner | 65 | Weak point damage boost |
| Wheellock Axe | Stunner | 65 | Stun power boost |
| Tiamat Bolt Omega | Stinger | 40 | Critical hit rate boost |
| Freikugel | Terminus | 1 | Regen/Catastrophe |
Each weapon type gives you a specific trait you can use throughout the game. But, once you finish the main story and make it to the Maniac quest difficulty level, you can access new quests and get the final weapon you need to complete your collection. The strongest weapons in the game are Terminus Weapons, and that’s what we will need for this build.
We recommend sticking with any weapon until you unlock the quest The Tale of Bahamut’s Rage, which gives you Terminus Weapons. The drops from this quest are random and you could gain a Terminus Weapon for any character, which might necessitate some grinding until you can find the Freikugel.
After acquiring it, you should get the weapon to level 150, which will take a while and a lot of resources. But once you do, this weapon can decimate everything with Catastrophe. The next step to powering up the Freikugel is finding appropriate Sigils.
There are only two important Sigils that are non-negotiable for Rackam: Helmsman’s Navigation and Helmsman’s Tenacity. Apart from these, socket any of the following Sigils to boost Rackam’s stats further.
| Sigil | Effects |
| Attack Power | Increases raw damage output |
| Critical Damage | Increases critical hit damage |
| Critical Hit Rate | Improves critical hit rate |
| Damage Cap | Increases the maximum damage rate of attacks |
| Quick Charge | Charge attacks charge up faster |
| Quick Cooldown | Reduces all skill cooldowns |
| Supplementary Damage | Attacks and skills have a chance to damage twice |
| Tyranny | Boosts attack power in exchange for lowered health |
| War Elemental | Attacks and skills are effective regardless of elemental weaknesses |
Skills
Rackam begins the game with his initial skill, Bullet Hail. As you level him up further and invest points into his Masteries, Rackam will unlock more skills. A balanced build involves having skills from all three categories: Offensive skills, Defensive skills, and Support skills.
| Skill | Type | Effect |
| Bullet Hail | Offensive | An attack that launches a rain of bullets over a small area, dealing Fire damage. |
| Coffinmakar | Offensive | A skill that launches a constant stream of bullets. The longer you hold the skill button down, the more projectiles you launch. |
| Collateral Damage | Offensive | A powerful shot that attacks all enemies in an area. The blast damages Rackam as well. |
| Double Tap | Offensive | Upon activation, increases the number of projectiles launched by Rackam’s primary attacks. |
| Duration | Defensive | Activating this skill begins a series of controlled dodges. Each successful dodge increases Rackam’s Heat Gauge. |
| Rhythmic Trigger | Support | When activated, Rackam’s primary attacks fire thrice. Perfectly timed shots deal bonus damage. |
| Slag Shot | Offensive | Fires several Wind projectiles that explode upon impact. |
| Sleight of Hand | Support | Activating this skill makes Bull’s Eye Blast charge faster depending on the Heat Gauge. |
| Spitfire | Offensive | A powerful ranged attack that inflicts Defense Down on all foes hit. |
| Wild Gunsmoke | Offensive | Increases Rackam’s Attack and Critical Hit Rate while lowering his defense. |
Every skill in Rackam’s arsenal is directed towards one aspect: damage. Rackam either inflicts heavy damage on his opponents or reduces their defense so his allies can chip away at their health. A few of Rackam’s skills also deplete his own health, so make sure your healer is ready to support you while you maintain a safe distance from most enemies.
For the sake of this build, we’re going full offense, starting with Double Tap to maintain a consistent barrage. Next, choose a setup skill, Spitfire, to lower enemies’ defense. Finally, wrap it up with a couple of damaging skills. You can choose from Bullet Hail, Coffinmaker, and Collateral Damage or Slag Shot (for Wind coverage).
Apart from new skills, you also pick up useful stats from the Masteries tab.
Masteries
As you level up Rackam and gain MSP (Mastery Points), head over to the Masteries tab to invest them into stat levels. Apart from stat and skill unlocks, leveling up weapons also grants you additional stats for your character.
For this build, invest points into Rackam’s Offensive and Defensive Mastery trees. Completing higher-level quests will grant you more MSPs as a reward, so prioritize them (if you can complete them fast enough) to farm Mastery Points.
Once you have a sizeable chunk of points, use them to unlock stat boosts like health, attack damage, link level gain, and critical hit rate to pump up Rackam’s stats further.
You can use the rest of your MSPs in the Collections tab for weapon upgrades. Additional stat boosts unlock every time a weapon reaches its level cap, and every weapon has six weapon caps at the following levels: 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150.
Party setup
A balanced party is the way to go for any endgame squad. Since Rackam brings the damage, the rest of your party will need to provide defense, healing, and utility. Because the game allows for so many combinations of party members, we’ve listed three combinations that are easy to work with.
Each of the following setups excludes the main character and focuses entirely on creating a four-man squad from scratch. Since Gran/Djeeta can fulfill multiple roles, you can remove one of these party members and replace them accordingly based on the role you’re missing if you must have them as an active party member.
| Party role | Party members |
| Offensive | Rackam, Narmaya, Cagliostro, Eugen |
| Defensive | Rackam, Katalina, Zeta, Vasarega |
| Utility support | Rackam, Vane, Lancelot, Rosetta |
The offensive strategy revolves around maximum burst damage. Rackam pairs well with Eugen as they both provide strong suppressing fire and AoE damage. Cagliostro is your crowd controller with secondary buffs. Narmaya is the ultimate frontliner, as long as she’s supported with enough heals and lifesteal through appropriate Sigils.
The defensive strategy brings Vasarega to the forefront as a hulking tank. His ability to absorb damage makes him quite vulnerable, which is why you have Katalina to act as a secondary tank and keep him alive. Zeta buffs herself and the party with damage, which greatly helps Rackam and the rest of your squad keep up their assault.
The utility strategy comes out swinging with great crowd control thanks to Lancelot’s Glaciate abilities. Since there’s no proper tank here, Vane acts as a great makeshift frontliner with Rosetta’s roses for AoE healing and additional crowd control. Rackam, with a strategically placed Low Profile Sigil, should be able to output high damage while staying relatively safe.
None of these builds are set in stone—they’re all guidelines for you to make your own setup. All 20 characters have unique mechanics and can fulfill different roles, so we encourage you to experiment with your favorites to find out what works for you.
