question about hunter vs ra/fo

[Alisha]

from what we have seen so far do hunters have to work harder to do their damage as opposed to ranger and force? i feel this became a problem with a lot of the content that was added to infinity so im concerned about this here. though its possible this wont be known till the game is released and people get to high lvls where the game tends to change quite a bit.

[Angelo]

From my experience it seems hunters have to be more aware of their surroundings than FO or RA. The exchange for damage output for a HU is the risk of being in the range of enemy melee attacks, which are conventionally much more potent than their ranged ones (if they have one at all).

Strangely enough, the difficulty in the classes has almost flipped, in my opinion. In the original PSO FO was recommended for advanced players and HU was recommended for newcomers. Due to the advancements in the combat system and overall speed of the game compared to PSO, playing a FO, in my short experience was more or less a cakewalk, even if at times it took longer to kill an enemy due to MP conservation in comparison to HU. This doesn't mean FO is overpowered, it just means that there was much less risk involved. HU took a bit more strategy when it comes to twitch thinking and placement, where as FO takes more strategy in terms of conservation and multi-tasking. All classes feel very dynamic and offer a fairly unique experience compared to PSU, and PSO. All are fast-paced and fun, but require you to think in different ways.

[rezakon]

In most action oriented games your gonna make your melee work harder then the ranged players, even in most mmorpgs that is the case as well because the closer you are to something the more limited your perspective of the battlefield comes (and enemy animations). So like Angelo pointed out your situational awareness has to adapt and you literally are doing more work because you have to play aware or die a lot.

I played kTERA for the last year and that as any melee class vs ranged shows the situational awareness of players in those melee roles become far too focused were they should actually be more aware, so most the smart players in those roles are doing way more work then anyone 10yards or more away.

Everything has it's trade off though, FO & RA have their strengths but again they do have weakness (either class can't take hits worth jack) and it just comes back to different styles of play and how to effectively play them.

[Arika]

So, in PSU and PSO1, Hunter is easier to play compare to FO, but now people is saying PSO2 FO is easier to play than Hunter, hmph. :3

[moorebounce]

So, in PSU and PSO1, Hunter is easier to play compare to FO, but now people is saying PSO2 FO is easier to play than Hunter, hmph. :3

In PSO Hunters could take more damage so you tend to spend less on your monomates, dimates and trimates. If you pair a hunter up with a Force a hunter rarely uses their mates because if the force is doing their job right they're healing you as needed. As a Force you tend to go through a lot of your monofluids, difluids and trifluids because of casting attack techs and support techs. The difficulty was in having enough meseta to buy your fluids in your early levels.

[Strider_M]

From what I remember from PSO1, as soon as I got the ability to use Resta, all mono/di/trimate usage was limited to emergency use. This is especially true when everyone in the party could use resta that could heal others.

But since this is PSO2 I'm not sure how everything will be balanced out but based on what I saw/and what I know from PSU, when attacking Hunter types rarely miss when compared to Ranger and Force types

Rangers on the otherhand are more likely to miss their attacks when compared with Hunters, but they are at a safer distance anyway so there's no worry for them to be attacked as often.

Forces..... well I don't play force as much so I can't speak for them completely. However I can say that I don't play Force like I would play as a Hunter or Ranger.

This game should be balanced; all classes should be easy to play with unless there's a newcomer who hasn't played a game with these types of classes at all.

Anyone who has played a Hack'n'Slash can play Hunter and people who has played a FPS/TPS game can play Ranger.

[Shadownami92]

I think classes might balance out more as new areas get put in. Like I think I remember in the caves that there was some tech casting lizard guys.

So I think with the introduction of new enemies that Hunters might not be harder, as they might be better against tech casting or ranged attacking enemies (As these enemies could possibly have better resistance to elemental damage than melee focused enemies.)

Doesn't the Caves also have that weird laser shooting thing that reminds me of Beamos from Zelda? If I recall it had a platform like back that was it's weak spot that make melee fighters well suited to dispatching them faster than rangers or forces.

[Mike]

Doesn't the Caves also have that weird laser shooting thing that reminds me of Beamos from Zelda? If I recall it had a platform like back that was it's weak spot that make melee fighters well suited to dispatching them faster than rangers or forces.
Everybody, not just hunters, can take those things down without much trouble. As long as you hit the weak spot, it dies fairly quickly.

[Dinosaur]

It's true that FO and RA have an easier time than HU in this game. Due to the long lock-on range and TPS mode, FO and RA can sit back and blow everything up from great distances. With the addition of cards, Force can attack from every angle possible in any position. Hunter, on the other hand, must constantly put itself in the most risky position: directly in front of the enemy.

[Shadownami92]

Everybody, not just hunters, can take those things down without much trouble. As long as you hit the weak spot, it dies fairly quickly.

Everybody can easily take them down on easy mode sure. On the current mode I think everything is incredibly easy to take down, so in that sense there really isn't any class imbalance by that mindset either, since it's just so easy to stay alive and destroy stuff.

I'm thinking that in higher difficulties where enemy damage and health get higher there is the possibility of seeing the examples of monsters with varying attack types and attack range to actually pose as a sort of threat to the varying classes in different ways.

EDIT: Not to mention we have no level that is an equivalent to the Ruins of PSO. That level had lots of enemies that covered ranged attackers pretty well. Chaos Bringers could charge fast, shoot strong long ranged shots, Del Sabers were fast, and had a jump attack, Bel Arms could shoot their arms at you from off screen.

I wouldn't be surprised if enemies of a similar nature were introduced that would cause Rangers and Forces more trouble in the future in new levels.

[Dark Emerald EXE]

Even though at the time when my friend got me yo play PSO (on GC)
iirc how the manual explained it (yes i read manuals)
Hunter: For beginners players
Ranger: For Intermediate players
Force: For Expert Players


In some ways I kind of felt PSU was the same way based on the PAs of the jobs.
IMO (From easiest to hard to level)
Skills> Bullets > Technics

Which one of the reasons why I enjoyed Gunmaster....there was so many PAs and not alot of people I came across balanced there PAs I believe all my PAs for Gunmaster (Except killer shot and Mayalee Prism) where capped around40 which I believe was the cap at the time before I left (mid 2009)

[Alisha]

hunters have the same damn problem in infinity so im worried. the problem isnt the damage you take its the damage lost to getting knocked down and out of your attacks. its hard to do anything about it even with super armor. meanwhile forces and ranger are destroying shit before you can get back on your feet.

[Reia]

We always have to compare DPS against damage per hit, and depending on the enemy. I learned it in Early PSU that Rangers use to have stronger DPS just because the AI was a bit more "hurr durr" and make the monsters run at any random location rather than directly to you like in PSO. DPS can be said about total damage / amount of seconds of the fight from the monster being spotted to it's death, of course Hunters and forces will have a higher damage per hit than the rangers, but the rangers can immediately start damaging the same second they have spotted on the enemy, while Hunters lose a bit of time on enemies running away or avoiding a fight or simply evading your attacks forcing you to chase them and waste seconds that you didn't even inflict damage so as forces time to charge an attack, not let's even say if it's miss, dont hit the right spot or projectile get stuck with an obstacle. This also applies on Ranger player skill as well as how good they are aiming at long distances with TPS mode as well as how much time spent between kiting and shooting they do. In PSU I learned wether class you play, your DPS depends mostly on the side of your player skill than the class you choose.

[dooby613]

I think in the end game PSO1 also played where you needed to be a better player as a hunter than force also but it doesn't start that way and many people never get to that point either.

[Shadownami92]

I think in the end game PSO1 also played where you needed to be a better player as a hunter than force also but it doesn't start that way and many people never get to that point either.

I don't necessarily think that later on a Hunter really had to be a "better player" than a force. While weapon stats were pretty straight forward for their effectiveness (good against Native, Altered Beast, Machine, Dark) and with most cases being that each of the 4 levels of Episode 1 only really had 1 type of enemy it was a bit easier in terms of weapon matching for efficiency. Likewise later on Hunters would have better defense making it so they could survive hits better, such as when you get into Ultimate mode.

Forces had a different way they had to work in order to be decent damage dealers. They had to type match their techs in order to really do any worthwhile damage. And while enemy types pretty much stay the same between the diffifulties, the elemental effectiveness did change with difficulty levels and the change was per specific enemy type.

Then you get to Episode 4 which is a totally different story all together, with those stupid jumpy del saber like stretchy sword guys that I hated so much, so fast moving birds and those enemies you could only really damage from the back along with the booma things that shot foie from their arms. Yeah I guess Episode 4 pretty much says "Screw you!" to hunters. But for Episodes 1 and 2 I'd say that Hunters are pretty darn efficient, and I don't think the play style differs as much as earlier in the game. Especially compared to Forces where you start off only with Foie and you pretty much have to rely on partners to help you not die and level up to become a little more self sufficient (at least if you didn't want to be super cheap and stand by a door and use a hit and run and repeat tactic.)

Think I ranted a little and went a little of course with this post. But the basic idea I was trying to get across was I feel like Forces had to play better overall, at least compared to the basic Hunters I always ran into. Some had to use more complex strategies at times, like an underleveled Hucast or Hucaseal would normally have to work smart using traps in order to efficiently survive and kill things.

[Arika]

So far people only play alpha, and there are only 2 stages with no much of variation between enemy, so you can't really says which one will be easier to play/ which one will be stronger yet.

So far Ra is easiest to play, but that is because there is no any range monster or range-resist monster yet. In my opinion, when people play a lot and start knowing the game more, Hunter will be the easiest class with highest damage dealer again as it always been in PS series. PSPo2I is like... the only exception there being from all PS series.

[Omega-z]

If your worried about being knocked down then do what Dinosaur did with his red Cast it owned's. That too the GS glitch was very useful to stopping blow away, knock down ..etc. if they keep it in the finial version. I don't think it will be a problem for them at all since this isn't PSPo2i.

[Dark Emerald EXE]

I wonder will "Rappys" (the regular yellow ones) come back as a rare variance. Idk if they ever did that with PSP and PSP2 only played PSP when it first came out over a friends house...


Also we don't have to worry much about PSO days where people could do their dirty work offline (dupes,hacks,etc) and bring it online right? Character is server based i'm guessing?

[•Col•]

^Rappies were kind of rare while playing the alpha... However, they had a dedicated mission that you could just spam to fight a decent number of them, so it didn't really matter.

There will probably be an even more rare variants of the rappies in the final game, though. <.<

[Rizen]

Here is another way to look at it.

For the full action pack adventure of killing monsters and looking sexy while at it, you have to gauge your enemies so that you make them look like fools as you dash just our of their range and deliver decisive blows.

Those who choose not to do this have to live their lives staring in awe as you dance around with pretty sparkles cleaving enemies away.

[Alisha]

more like fo's and ra's get the kills while you are dirt napping.