Ranger: Status Effects - Which ones and why?

[THERAPIST]

Up to now bullet choice for my Rifles & Shotguns has been determined primarily by which PA I'm levelling. Now that I've managed to get most of my bullets over LV21 I find myself wondering which bullets I should be using in any given map.

SO! Should I be aiming for inflicting the most damage I can (using opposing elemental bullets and/or DoT's) or should I be looking to inflict SE's that benefit the party ... in which case, which SE is preferred for crowd control - Shock or Freeze (and the occasional Silence)?

LV65 CAST ForteGunner 9.

[rena-ko]

burn and virus drain a percentage of the total HP.
the more HP an enemy has, the more it will drain.
SEs are the reason why protransers and fortegunners are able to solo S and S2 rank missions.
thus, inflicting those two SEs will be priority for you in higher levels.

silence is only good on casting enemies, such as gohmon.
shock, semi useful for stuff that is agressive, freeze for stuff that moves fast.

overall, damage inflicting SEs are to be prefered.

[Sephlock]

To the OP: Freeze would probably be more convenient for you, but switching between Shock and Silence would be ideal for your party, since neither of those can be undone by a few hits.



On 2007-01-30 00:22, rena-ko wrote:
SEs are the reason why protransers and fortegunners are able to solo S and S2 rank missions.


You mean by inflicting status effects, then running around (since running too far away will cause them to leave their designated area and disappear)?



thus, inflicting those two SEs will be priority for you in higher levels.


Do they stack with one another?



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sephlock on 2007-01-30 00:30 ]</font>

[MaximusLight]

I like confusion myself. Have you ever seen a monster Megid there ally? Because it's hilarious! (I only saw it once though)

[rena-ko]

virus overwrites burn, regardless of SE level. burn never overwrites virus, regardless of SE level.
thus, burn and virus dont stack.
ice and virus stack, shock and ice and virus stack, shock and burn stack too, iirc.
confuse is independent of them too. lets not talk about poison at all (i guess both virus and burn overwrite poison, but didnt look into that yet).


dark monsters (usually those that megid) have a high resistance to dark elements. thus megiding eachother might be fun but it doesnt bring you much. afaik, its not known how much elemental % the enemies have.

[Arigan]

Personally, as a ranger, I kind of classify my weapons as one of two types.

1. Anti-small enemy weapons. Pretty much anything without SE4 really, pistols, shotties, whatever. I only use PAs with shock, freeze and confuse with these, because in my experience, on smaller enemies, burn and virus are not as valuable, and neither is silence.

2. Dedicated SE weapons. Rifles and bows (no bows for fortegunner but I just mean in general) primarily, but I think dual pistols can also get SE4 (don't assume I'm right, I just randomly read it somewhere on these forums and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they can't). I use freeze, shock, burn, silence, virus, and maybe confuse for fun on these. These are what I use when I'm interested in getting a status effect on a specific monster so that it either dies way faster or can't do something that irritates and slows down everyone else.

So, for me, that set up has been pretty effective, I don't usually pay TOO much attention to element but I would give some preference to attacking a certain enemy with one of my PAs that isn't of the same element given the choice, but hey, if that jarba is fire element and I need it burned (assuming I'm not using dark shot for some reason), I'm going to be using that fire element PA.

EDIT: I was wrong about virus and burn overwriting each other as someone above said.

EDIT2: fixed a typo
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Arigan on 2007-01-30 00:41 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Arigan on 2007-01-30 00:43 ]</font>

[Sephlock]

Doesn't Megid have a chance to insta-kill a target regardless of elemental resistance?

[rena-ko]

no, elemental resistance also affects the insta-kill chance of megid. thats the reason why people wear dark element armor in LL, plant and hive.

twin HGs start with SE2 and end with SE2 (sadly, but understandable).

[MaximusLight]

On 2007-01-30 00:50, rena-ko wrote:
no, elemental resistance also affects the insta-kill chance of megid. thats the reason why people wear dark element armor in LL, plant and hive.

twin HGs start with SE2 and end with SE2 (sadly, but understandable).



sadly it's true more too the point I was getting at though even if they can't kill each other having them fight each other takes alot of pressure off of you if use correctly.

[rena-ko]

yepp, i dont deny that they fighting eachother is useful so you dont have to take care of the whole mob. however, the confuse state isnt lasting too long and they seem to do not really much damage to eachother. burn is way more useful. not to mention virus.

maybe a combination would win. confused, infected enemies fighting eachother and slowly dying. hmm...

[Retehi]

From what I saw with confuse bullets, they're not all that worth it in S-rank missions. More than likely the enemy that's being attacked will shuffle away in time from a hit, or the attacking enemy will simply do little damage.

You're better off infecting enemies, and using SE4 freeze on em. Shock to, but it just depends on what enemies you think you'll be facing along the road. Freeze for enemies that cast spells, and attack, or simply shock to keep the angry hordes of melee enemies from doing anything.

I say level both, freeze and shock on a rifle, but I know very well how tedious and boring that can be, just depends on the time you have I guess.

[Zato-2TWO]

What's the damage ration on Poison? I only carry poison traps around in case I ever run out of burn or virus, but I'd like to know the actual damage ratio, and why there aren't any bullets that inflict poison.

As for other status effects, most of the "miscellaneous" ones are very situational depending on the area. For instance, there's an area in Mizuraki where you'd enter a cave with two treasure rooms, and breaking the treasure would spawn enemies outside the cave; I would let the party run in, set some Sleep traps, and set them off as soon as the enemies spawn, followed promptly by an easy Virus G.

Silence, as mentioned, is useful only in areas with magic casting enemies, but MY is it useful. If there was ever a corridor with a firing line of Olgohmons pushing the party back, I'd make a valiant charge and Silence bomb the whole line, letting my party get through without eating plates of Barta.

Shock is a bit more versatile, but really can't be depended on to use commonly. I usually use it in Lab, on spawns of Volfu (since the damn things hurt like a mo'foker), but a well placed Shock G can make a group of hard-hitting monsters easier to deal with, even if it's just for a few seconds.

Confuse is a little tricky to use, but with proper application, the results are outstanding. The first instinct, of course, is to try to use Confuse on megid-spitting enemies, like Deljabans in LL S, but sometimes this isn't always the best course of action; that's what makes Confusion so tricky. I've tried confuse-bombing groups of Deljaban before, and usually since they're in close proximity to one another, they'll just turn around and whap each other, and even if one DOES decide to spit Megid, they're uh...kinda dark creatures, so they do get resistance to the one-hitter-quitter.

Confusion really works best on packs of enemies that attack frequently and/or widely. Thus far the most useful places I've seen Confusion work its magic is Bruce's Dungeon and Train Rescue. In Bruce's, you have large groups of Vandas in small enclosed spaces; with a well placed Confuse, you'll have Vandas turning to each other and fire-breathing all their allies; besides, seeing a Vanda spit fire on an overturned Kogg Nad would make anyone proud =P. On the train.....need it be said? Drop some confuse on a pack of saber-rogues and watch them tear into each other! It's pure entertainment!

[THERAPIST]

Nice guys - thanks http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[Itsuki]

confuse doesn't stack with freeze, in case you all didn't know. (not that it really matters, if the monster is frozen, it can't attack its allies)

I really really love paralysis. Especially on a crossbow. Damn thats godly.

And you can never really understimate SE4 Freeze.

The problem with silence is that all monsters that you'd want to silence, also have a huge resistance to silence. Which means... silence is pretty useless.

[Tycho]

On 2007-01-30 00:38, rena-ko wrote:
virus overwrites burn, regardless of SE level. burn never overwrites virus, regardless of SE level.
thus, burn and virus dont stack.
ice and virus stack, shock and ice and virus stack, shock and burn stack too, iirc.

afaik, its not known how much elemental % the enemies have.
All monsters have 5% on attack and defense.

If the list of negative status effects is as follows, I wonder which would be able to overwrite/ignore each other. Perhaps it's based on the order:

Burn
Poison
Infection
Shock
Silence
Freeze
Sleep
Stun
Confuse
Taunt
Incapacitate
Lower ATP
Lower DFP
Lower TP/MST
Lower ATA/EVP

[Itsuki]

On 2007-01-30 03:22, Tycho wrote:
If the list of negative status effects is as follows, I wonder which would be able to overwrite/ignore each other. Perhaps it's based on the order:

Burn
Poison
Infection
Shock
Silence
Freeze
Sleep
Stun
Confuse
Taunt
Incapacitate
Lower ATP
Lower DFP
Lower TP/MST
Lower ATA/EVP

Incapacitate == megid effect.
Taunt = charm (monster only attacks you from now on?)

To my knowledge, the only things that DON'T stack are:
Confuse - Freeze
Burn - Freeze
Any 2 DoTs.

Everything else should stack. Though I'm not sure about sleep or stun since those aren't easily applied by players (well, I guess traps would work).

And the DoTs overwrite in the order of
Poison < Burn < Infection

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Itsuki-chan on 2007-01-30 03:36 ]</font>

[Almalexia]

I hate paralyze. You just know that if a force is out of range, anyone capable of using Sol Atomizers, is going to go dumb on you.

[Akaimizu]

Dual Pistols sadly only get SE 2. I love them, but if they did have SE4, I'd LOVE them and would have no big reason to use anything else. Well, except Bows, due to that one aspect that they ignore the (half damage from guns) so many monsters have.

Anyway, as a Guntecher, if you favor twins, you'll find yourself carrying 2 of them, but it's also very important to carry an SE4 weapon. Sadly, all of those are generally rifle/bow type weapons, forcing us to stop moving to use the better SEs.

Of course, there is also the crossbow option, of which one should carry one as soon as you can afford to buy it. I sometimes wish the monsters weren't so incredibly resistant to SEs, but then again I have a feeling that is what great A-rank guns are for. I wouldn't be surprised if the Evil Twins has a great Elemental Percentage on it.

[Deja]

The Gran Sorceror (not sure of their PSU name), the ones in Hive that cast that damn 900+ foie, is the one single monster that silence is useful on. My SE2 lvl 19 silence crossbow hit them with silence every once in a while, and once I get it to SE3 I'm sure I'll hit silence a lot more.

Other than that, silence sucks. Hard.

[Thrash777]

Burn (or infection) on strong enemies such as Gaozoron, Tengohg, Carriguine, Jarba, Vorapohra, Bil de Vear, Kamatoze...

Freeze on enemies that more fast and frequently such as Ollaka, Sendillan, Dis/Koltova, Bil de Vear, Goshin...

Shock on aggresive enemies such as Deljaban, Goshin, Vahra...

Silence on casting enemies such as Gohmon, Olgohmon, Gaozoron...

BOLD are the most important ones.

[Akaimizu]

Silence is a tricky one to use. Oddly enough, I feel no matter what level you have on your guns, it's not going to make it easier to actually get the status effect on them. Trust me. I have 2 level 30 bullets. One is silence and one is freeze. Having them up high did pretty much nothing for SE effect percentage. That is, you get no bonus outside the couple elemental percentage boosts you get at 11 and 21.

Perhaps getting higher and higher ranked weapons will increase the percentage and work better against the resistances.

[panzer_unit]

You can always use a handgun at SE3 and eventually tag those big status effects.

For gunning, I'll usually equip:
* Laser Cannon with whichever does more damage between Ice and Light. Frozen and confused mobs are immobile or actively bunching up... makes it easy to keep up the multi-target AOE until all my hunters start playing baseball with the mobs. Generally I don't care for Confuse when I'm on a team. Someone's always in melee with whatever I'm shooting, and the confused mobs are just as likely to keep attacking them.
* Bow-or-Shotgun: Silence, Shock or Freeze... whatever defensive status attack is doing better damage vs small mobs. Silence is the best of this lot against Olgohmon, Fanatics, and Special Ops IMO.
* Bow: Burn or Virus... whichever DOT element is doing better base damage.

[Jife_Jifremok]

In a large party situation, I don't find any element to be worth bothering to deliberately use for anything other than damage, unless something chock-full of HP comes up, like an S-ranked large monster (Kog Nadd, Bildebear, etc) or a swarm of Mizura swarms. Big enemies deserve an SE4 virus or burn, Mizura are conveniently not large, thus infectable or burnable with some well-placed shotgun blasts (or other fun guns).

But, shock status is good for when you're party's doing Linear Line S and are a-scared-a the megid. Also, freeze status is good on the goshin because they are conveniently fire element. And, of course, Dead status is good on EVERY monster and EVERY bullet can inflict this if used often enough to make their HP go down to zero. (Burn and Virus can speed this up.)

And if you're solo...well, time to rack up those DOTs. I haven't seen any buffed monsters able to be statused though.

[Carbinne]

Rifle and crossbows the end!
Fire, Dark on rifle
Elec, Ice on crossbow

That's really all you need for a lot of things. Of course, these are some of the harder bullets to level up, too. Well worth it as far as I"m concerned though.