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•Col•

Apr 30, 2012, 01:18 PM

So, am I the only one who thinks that Rangers do too much damage? I played the Beta extensively with my friend(I'm a Hunter, he was a Ranger)... And we ran through the open forest mission several times, throughout different levels. Whenever we'd have to fight the two Rockbears, we figured it'd be easier to split them up. Consistently he was able to kill his Rockbear quicker than me. Not only that, but he wouldn't even have to worry about taking damage.

As a Ranger, you're able to backpedal and non-stop shoot at the Rockbear's head. As long as you don't stop moving, he will never hit you. You don't even have to roll.

And it's not even the fact that the Ranger is able to attack more often.. As a Hunter, several times I was able to non-stop attack by staying directly under the Rockbear... Even then I would lose.

A Hunter can outdamage a Ranger normally... Unless a Ranger takes advantage of weakpoints. And there is where the problem lies.

It's INSANELY easy for a Ranger to take advantage of bosses' weakpoints while staying completely out of danger. Meanwhile, Hunters can hardly use them at all, and even when they do, they're put into a position to take a lot of damage. For Rockbear, it's his head, and for a Hunter to take advantage of that, you're in the perfect position to be punched or even worse, grabbed. Against Dark Ragne, it's sac is hard to reach, and when you do try to attack it, you're able to be hit by his lightning attacks.

This isn't even about B1G D@M@G3 NUMB3RZ DUDE!11!!1

It's like Hunters are pointless. I feel like I'm getting jipped. I have to go in and risk getting hit a lot.... And for what? Nothing?

It's not even like you're "tanking" or whatever for the Ranger, since they can easily move around and not worry about dying while still attacking the whole time. I just don't get it.

Maybe I'm missing something... How does everyone else feel?

EDIT:

http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2749144&postcount=186

Taitu

Apr 30, 2012, 01:23 PM

CelestialBlade

Apr 30, 2012, 01:28 PM

Personally I think if you nerfed Jellen some and maybe toned Launchers down a bit, Rangers would be fine. That and they haven't been OP since Blue Burst, let them have their time ;P

Hunter is a class that doesn't get good until later on, and it's all in skills and PA combos. There are some nasty juggles you can pull off with Hunter and once you combine them with stuff like Fury Stance, Fury Crit, JA Boost, and the Gauge skills, you can wreck anything. Sure, you'll have to do so from melee range, but I've seen plenty of Hunters out-damage Rangers with the exception of Weak Shot. Again, tone that down a bit and I think everything's fine.

Oh, and Hunter CAN do that to Rockbears--Gunslash and Aimed Shot does some very nice damage if you abuse weak points, and you'll have tons of range. Although I find it easy enough to let a Rockbear attack, then jump in front of its face and let a quick PA chain go.

serenade

Apr 30, 2012, 01:28 PM

So, am I the only one who thinks that Rangers do too much damage? I played the Beta extensively with my friend(I'm a Hunter, he was a Ranger)... And we ran through the open forest mission several times, throughout different levels. Whenever we'd have to fight the two Rockbears, we figured it'd be easier to split them up. Consistently he was able to kill his Rockbear quicker than me. Not only that, but he wouldn't even have to worry about taking damage.

As a Ranger, you're able to backpedal and non-stop shoot at the Rockbear's head. As long as you don't stop moving, he will never hit you. You don't even have to roll.

And it's not even the fact that the Ranger is able to attack more often.. As a Hunter, several times I was able to non-stop attack by staying directly under the Rockbear... Even then I would lose.

A Hunter can outdamage a Ranger normally... Unless a Ranger takes advantage of weakpoints. And there is where the problem lies.

It's INSANELY easy for a Ranger to take advantage of bosses' weakpoints while staying completely out of danger. Meanwhile, Hunters can hardly use them at all, and even when they do, they're put into a position to take a lot of damage. For Rockbear, it's his head, and for a Hunter to take advantage of that, you're in the perfect position to be punched or even worse, grabbed. Against Dark Ragne, it's sac is hard to reach, and when you do try to attack it, you're able to be hit by his lightning attacks.

This isn't even about B1G D@M@G3 NUMB3RZ DUDE!11!!1

It's like Hunters are pointless. I feel like I'm getting jipped. I have to go in and risk getting hit a lot.... And for what? Nothing?

It's not even like you're "tanking" or whatever for the Ranger, since they can easily move around and not worry about dying while still attacking the whole time. I just don't get it.

Maybe I'm missing something... How does everyone else feel?

rockbears are super easy as a hunter. sonic arrow destroys their face and gives the hunter distance to prepare for any incoming attacks.

as for ragne, all you need to do is break each leg one by one and attack the weak point behind his mask for massive damage. 4 times and he'll be just about dead. he'll more than likely drop 30 seconds afterwards. once again, sonic arrow destroys this guy.

sonic arrow seems quite a bit overpowered at the moment. it makes playing a hunter too easy. i mean yea, the other PAs work better on traditional enemies and mobs, but sonic arrow is a boss killer.

edit: I've maxed both ranger and hunter. and fully grinded the strongest weapons for each class. my hunter killed just as fast and as easily as a ranger and was a little more fun to play. love the mobility of running and gunning they gave rangers now, but i love seeing those "BEEG NUMBARZ" just a little more.

Griffin

Apr 30, 2012, 01:30 PM

Sneak Shooter, Weak Shot, and Launchers. All day. They're likely to be nerfed'd.

buri-chan

Apr 30, 2012, 01:32 PM

Chik'Tikka

Apr 30, 2012, 01:36 PM

i can't help it, i have to trolll!!!+^_^+
anyway, hunters versus rangers!! cold and hard truth+^_^+
http://youtu.be/XCtuZ-fDL2E?t=2m34s

Taitu

Apr 30, 2012, 01:37 PM

A Ranger's part of a boss-fight is damage-dealing. Since they're far away, they can consistently deal damage with the drawbacks of the Rifle's low damage or the Launcher's slow fire/immobility. A Hunter's part of a boss-fight is tanking. They can taunt the enemy and distract it from the tissue-paper-armored Rangers and Forces. It's interesting to note that while a Hunter is great at soloing maps but not bosses, it's the opposite for Rangers who are great at soloing bosses but not maps. It's all a system established for classic fighter/mage/thief-style gaming.

The real issue here is that the Hunter quick-step is entirely useless for how often a Hunter will need to evade damage, compared to a Ranger's dodge-roll which will consistently be useful.

This is perhaps the optimal scenario but not the actual scenario. Perhaps Hunters are meant to be better at travelling the map; however, I generally find that if I'm playing with a Ranger, if I'm not leading the pack around then the Ranger is going to end up killing all of the mobs before I get a chance to touch them. Also their paper-thin defense makes no difference if they're always capable of keeping their distance.

If they want to balance things out Ranger mobility needs to be drastically reduced so that a Hunter's protection is actually necessary for them to survive a fight.

Ark22

Apr 30, 2012, 01:38 PM

Guys, we are still playing the first 2 levels. Pretty sure when we play the other levels they will have resistance as well as buffing one another removing jellen or some BS.

So just wait.

yoshiblue

Apr 30, 2012, 01:38 PM

Monster Hunter GS users always came to mind when using a hunter. Right down to using Mono/Di/Trimates. The dash does need a boost though. When comparing it to a forces "lol I can get away from everything" drift, its a joke.

Dinosaur

Apr 30, 2012, 01:39 PM

It is true that Hunter has to put in more work than the other classes. Hunter has been constantly nerfed in every new version of PSO2 we've seen, starting from the very first trailer of the game. However, it is justified as Hunters were so dominant in recent Phantasy Star installations. It's only fair to give the other classes a chance in order to balance the variety given to players.

That being said, I disagree with the statement, "Hunters are pointless." They are still dominant with consistent power paired with the ability to fearlessly engage enemies head-on. They also excel in survivability through the highest defenses, have high battle mobility, and have access to best defensive skill to be introduced to the series, "Just Guard." You simply need to play really well to be as effective as other classes.

There's also the fact that this is a team game and that these classes offer different advantages for their team. I'm sure at higher difficulties with more aggressive enemies, a Hunter in the front line will ease tons of pressure for Rangers and Forces who in turn support the Hunter from the back line(via. both offensive support and defensive support). At the moment, normal mode is pretty much "press X to win."

Alenoir

Apr 30, 2012, 01:41 PM

A hunter's here so we rangers can let the boss go after you guys while dealing out the damage to take it down as fast as possible. Without hunters we'd be running around like headless chickens. :T

Chik'Tikka

Apr 30, 2012, 01:42 PM

It is true that Hunter has to put in more work than the other classes. Hunter has been constantly nerfed in every new version of PSO2 we've seen, starting from the very first trailer of the game. However, it is justified as Hunters were so dominant in recent Phantasy Star installations. It's only fair to give the other classes a chance in order to balance the variety given to players.

That being said, I disagree with the statement, "Hunters are pointless." They are still dominant with consistent power paired with the ability to fearlessly engage enemies head-on. They also excel in survivability through the highest defenses, have high battle mobility, and the best defensive skill to be introduced to the series, "Just Guard." You simply need to play really well to be as effective as other classes.

they also have the flashiest/coolist attack combos+^_^+ like ballet dancer!

eharima

Apr 30, 2012, 01:44 PM

well, I started as hunter, grinded to 20, changed to ranger to lv20 and had a much better time
the problem is that if your playing with a ranger and force they can both wipe out the enemys before you even get a hit in as a hunter,
It's too soon to judge fairly if enemys become stronger and stat/ skill growth for hunter are better with better equips it might balance out abit.
but yeah, ranger + launcher, there was no point in using anything else imo
great fun ^^

haha OP rangers true to PSO
inb4 hunters with spread needles :P

Chik'Tikka

Apr 30, 2012, 01:48 PM

lolz, i did launcher like crazy for awhile, but i really got addicted to that gunblade thing+^_^+ I'd shot and walk right up on them for a fancy finisher, that and it was easy to time the crits+^_^+ i didn't get to play with the higher level rifle skills though.... server shut of WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Scotty T

Apr 30, 2012, 01:49 PM

Seen a HU do almost 5k hits on ragne? *wink*

•Col•

Apr 30, 2012, 01:50 PM

Honestly this has been an issue in all Phantasy Star games. It's not that Rangers outdamage Hunters, because they don't. The issue is they can continuously attack without ever worrying about reacting to the enemy. They only need to worry about their distance from the enemy which overall makes their dps higher.

The sad this is, Rangers ARE able to outdamage Hunters. I already mentioned, several times while fighting the rockbears there were several runs where I was literally attacking nonstop and would still lose out.

rockbears are super easy as a hunter. sonic arrow destroys their face and gives the hunter distance to prepare for any incoming attacks.

as for ragne, all you need to do is break each leg one by one and attack the weak point behind his mask for massive damage. 4 times and he'll be just about dead. he'll more than likely drop 30 seconds afterwards. once again, sonic arrow destroys this guy.

sonic arrow seems quite a bit overpowered at the moment. it makes playing a hunter too easy. i mean yea, the other PAs work better on traditional enemies and mobs, but sonic arrow is a boss killer.

Ok, so you missed the entire freaking point of my post. I'm not even going to respond to this crap.

Huge damage number?

You mean the forces, right? My ranger's highest damage dealt was 1001, while my friend's force have his number somewhere in the 3400.

Besides, a hunter's here so we rangers can let the boss go after you guys while dealing out the damage to take it down as fast as possible. Without hunters we'd be running around like headless chickens.

Already addressed this in my OP. Rangers don't even NEED Hunters to do this anymore, since they're able to just move around the whole time. I'd actually be fine if Hunters were meant to be the "distraction".... But you don't even need that as a Ranger now.

Zorafim

Apr 30, 2012, 01:52 PM

That and they haven't been OP since Blue Burst, let them have their time ;P

Fire status effects, PSU version 1, when enemies were much higher level than the players. That was some incredible damage.

Guys, we are still playing the first 2 levels. Pretty sure when we play the other levels they will have resistance as well as buffing one another removing jellen or some BS.

So just wait.

Now is the perfect time to complain, actually. This is the beta, where they're working on things to make the final product better. They're looking for complaints like this so they can work on them.

Alenoir

Apr 30, 2012, 01:53 PM

Already addressed this in my OP. Rangers don't even NEED Hunters to do this anymore, since they're able to just move around the whole time. I'd actually be fine if Hunters were meant to be the "distraction".... But you don't even need that as a Ranger now.

It all depends on situation. Rangers can run around? Not when you're using a launcher to clear out mobs. If we're using a rifle for the mobility while shooting, we're not exactly dealing out huge damage.

Itsuki

Apr 30, 2012, 01:54 PM

I think if theres 2 bosses and a ranger is soloing one while the rest of the team is killing the other, then that is not the optimal situation. Also, I think a well skilled force would probably do it faster. Even if you take into account weak bullet and them needing to regen PP, they just deal so much rock bears whether you go the Foie route or the Gi Foie.

Anyways, the thing is, who does weak bullet and jellen effect the most? Its not the ranger, because without those things the ranger deals the least damage. Its everyone else in the party that benefits from it more than the ranger does. They ranger is far away, they don't need to care about Jellen or how much the boss deals. And weak bullet triples everyone's damage, and everyone deals more than you. I mean, sure you deal a lot. But if your weak bullet causes forces to deal 4000 damage a foie, and the hunters are dealing over 1000 a hit on their PAs, they're both probably outdamaging you.

I do think that the ranger skills are currently overpowered. But, I think they're overpowered because in a party they're ridiculous. Not because the ranger himself is actually able to deal that much damage, even with them.

goldwing

Apr 30, 2012, 01:58 PM

Guys, we are still playing the first 2 levels. Pretty sure when we play the other levels they will have resistance as well as buffing one another removing jellen or some BS.

So just wait.

i think we all seem to forget that point. also we still have to see hard mode and beyond. so far i say we are good

xBladeM6x

Apr 30, 2012, 02:00 PM

They are OP. At least their Bazooka. Needs to be toned down in damage, and then all will be well.

Alenoir

Apr 30, 2012, 02:06 PM

They are OP. At least their Bazooka. Needs to be toned down in damage, and then all will be well.

I deal about 120 at most to the mobs in the Emergency Mission against Dark Ragne with the highest ATK launcher in the game (+6 or +8, forgot) and some 30-ish fire %.

We honestly don't deal a lot.

Edit: Shorten run-on a bit... Still run-on though.

Pillan

Apr 30, 2012, 02:10 PM

Yes, Ranger definitely seems overpowered. The ridiculous damage variance of grenades still seemed to average higher than the basic attack of anything else and the inability to dodge while firing really does not come into play with a party. Then add in the two already mentioned bullet types...

Interestingly though, I found myself getting hit more often as a Ranger solo than as a Hunter just due to the ability to cancel pretty much all the animations with dodge as a Hunter. That and the attack timing is just a bit more strict with Ranger. I assume that was the expectation that accounted for the horrible imbalance.

Tenlade

Apr 30, 2012, 02:10 PM

While rangers seem to have the advantage at the start, its seems more like most of the classes are balanced for later levels when all classes get thier skills. Rangers just get stuff like weak bullet sooner, but im sure in open beta when forces can get dome decent level techs and hunters can gt some decent weapons and catch up in stats with raw attack power it will turn out a bit more balanced.

Itsuki

Apr 30, 2012, 02:12 PM

I deal about 120 at most to the mobs in the Emergency Mission against Dark Ragne taking over the city with the highest ATK launcher in the game (+6 or +8, forgot) and some 30-ish fire %.

We honestly don't deal a lot.

Compare this to say... a force. Which with a 4* rod and 10% fire, I dealt ~200 per hit from gi-foie, which hits like 5 times, and if speced into fire could probably be cast almost as fast as a ranger can shoot (Fire skill tree makes charge time 60%).

GrandTickler

Apr 30, 2012, 02:13 PM

i think rangers and forces are both very powerful and good as they are, hunters just need a boost.

with a force i can dish out 1k damage and attack faster then a ranger on a breada or w/e its spelled and 400 with each lightning chain, so theyr pretty strong too. this is around 750 T-atk

Peejay

Apr 30, 2012, 02:14 PM

They are OP. At least their Bazooka. Needs to be toned down in damage, and then all will be well.

It's sort of supposed to be around where it is considering you're sacrificing mobility to sit there and fire death at a snail's pace. You can't exactly sit still for Vol Dragon, I mean.

Pillan

Apr 30, 2012, 02:22 PM

i think rangers and forces are both very powerful and good as they are, hunters just need a boost.

Actually, I agree with that solution. Kind of strange that all the moves Hunters have that do damage on par with that (i.e., the grabs) do not work on bosses...

Gardios

Apr 30, 2012, 02:24 PM

It's sort of supposed to be around where it is considering you're sacrificing mobility to sit there and fire death at a snail's pace. You can't exactly sit still for Vol Dragon, I mean.

You can, if you have a hunter to draw aggro that is. If you solo, yeah, don't use launchers. lol

I don't really see the issue myself. To me it looks like rangers will end up being more of a support class later on with Jellen Shot, Weak Bullet and traps while still dealing moderate damage.

Peejay

Apr 30, 2012, 02:27 PM

You can, if you have a hunter to draw aggro that is. If you solo, yeah, don't use launchers. lol

I don't really see the issue myself. To me it looks like rangers will end up being more of a support class later on with Jellen Shot, Weak Bullet and traps while still dealing moderate damage.

It's funny, maybe hunters just need a buff, since every match I enter, I'm the one with aggro, and Vol Dragon picks me out of the crowd for the Foie under your feet deal.

I'm still too stubborn to not use launchers, though. The whole reason I wanted them in the first place is because it gives the APPEARANCE of mass-destruction. It SHOWS power.

LokinModar

Apr 30, 2012, 02:28 PM

I played as a ranger for 20 levels then changed to hunter for another 20... I had much better time being a hunter than a ranger. I think the "time-to-shoot" and the lower mobility compensate for the "OP" launcher thing.

I particularly did not use rifles or gunslashes and when you earn the "mount-on-launcher dance" PA you need to fight closer to the danger to make more damage....

When you are in a group of hunters and forces at high level and you are a ranger, if you don't run you almost never kill a monster because they wipe every monster out of the room before you get the chance to fire heheh

Enforcer MKV

Apr 30, 2012, 02:32 PM

It's sort of supposed to be around where it is considering you're sacrificing mobility to sit there and fire death at a snail's pace. You can't exactly sit still for Vol Dragon, I mean.

I'd honestly say knock the firing rate down about 10%~ and buff hunters. They really don't need to be any weaker.

But I don't get where people are getting "hunters are useless" on bosses, if you're soloing as a ranger, you just can't sit there with a launcher and fire that thing at the boss, you're gonna get smacked around. You have to use the rifle, and that cuts down on damage considerably. And in a group, you've got mobs running around attacking everyone, in addition to the boss, and in cases like the rockbear, bosses. It's hard to hit Ragne's weak spot even as a ranger, because he's got that blasted head dress guarding it. You have to go for the legs and cripple him. Is Rockbear's weakpoint easy to hit? Yes, it is. But I had those blasted birds swarming me so often I'd hit them half the time.

DayDreamer

Apr 30, 2012, 02:41 PM

I played Hunter through most of the beta and switched to Ranger toward the end getting to about level 15 or so. As a Ranger I had no problems against bosses but it just took a little longer than it did my Hunter. I will say that the Launcher is over powered though.

But honestly, as long as I get to this with a launcher
[SPOILER-BOX]http://www.pso-world.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1947&pictureid=27268[/SPOILER-BOX]
I don't care what happens in terms of nerfing or buffing.

Peejay

Apr 30, 2012, 02:42 PM

It's hard to hit Ragne's weak spot even as a ranger, because he's got that blasted head dress guarding it./
He has two weakpoints. There's an exposed soft part under his abdomen which if you're clever enough, you can hit while he's rearing up to roar. Or if you're stupid, you can try and go under it and sit there, hoping he doesn't flatten you.

Enforcer MKV

Apr 30, 2012, 02:44 PM

He has two weakpoints. There's an exposed soft part under his abdomen which if you're clever enough, you can hit while he's rearing up to roar. Or if you're stupid, you can try and go under it and sit there, hoping he doesn't flatten you.

no...I've fairly certain he's got a glowing red weakpoint on top of him. You usually have to climb on his back to get to it, though.

Can anyone confirm this for me? I never really attempted to get close to that thing.

(wasn't that showcased in one of the videos, come to think? Investigation time!)

Peejay

Apr 30, 2012, 02:45 PM

no...I've fairly certain he's got a glowing red weakpoint on top of him. You usually have to climb on his back to get to it, though.

Can anyone confirm this for me? I never really attempted to get close to that thing.

Yeah, the red KKartagot like point is a weak point, but so is under his abdomen. Because I've BEEN the stupid shmuck to try and get in a few more shots when he raises himself up, and wait until he leg sweeps me away.

Enforcer MKV

Apr 30, 2012, 02:49 PM

Yeah, the red KKartagot like point is a weak point, but so is under his abdomen. Because I've BEEN the stupid shmuck to try and get in a few more shots when he raises himself up, and wait until he leg sweeps me away.

....I read your original post as "no" weakpoints, not 'two' weakpoints.

.....Uh, yeah, fail on my part. Sorry.

foreignreign

Apr 30, 2012, 02:50 PM

I don't think enough Rangers in this topic used Weak Shot + Homing Emission to hit all of the exposed Weak Shots in one shot.

I didn't get to try that myself on bigger bosses, but when I did that on Rockbear I was pulling ~500 damage per Homing Emission just from 2 weak spots I'd say? One of the weak spots being the boost ball on his head.

Compare this to say... a force. Which with a 4* rod and 10% fire, I dealt ~200 per hit from gi-foie, which hits like 5 times, and if speced into fire could probably be cast almost as fast as a ranger can shoot (Fire skill tree makes charge time 60%).

Hits 4 times I believe.

And what you mentioned isn't even what makes FOs ridiculous currently. You can lock-on to Ragne's weak spot (the one on his back/behind his mask thing) and Rafoie it... without Ragne actually being down or anything. Which makes for 1k Rafoie hits every time with the lock-on.

RA and HU can't do that.

serenade

Apr 30, 2012, 02:51 PM

The sad this is, Rangers ARE able to outdamage Hunters. I already mentioned, several times while fighting the rockbears there were several runs where I was literally attacking nonstop and would still lose out.

Ok, so you missed the entire freaking point of my post. I'm not even going to respond to this crap.

Already addressed this in my OP. Rangers don't even NEED Hunters to do this anymore, since they're able to just move around the whole time. I'd actually be fine if Hunters were meant to be the "distraction".... But you don't even need that as a Ranger now.

i read your post, and it sounded like whining to me.

not to be rude but rangers can work a rockbear a little faster yes, but hunters own ragne. i dont know how you played both classes, but i've seen and experienced that hunters can take down ragne faster than rangers. especially using the strategy i mentioned. most rangers use the launcher which slows them down against bigger enemies, ala bosses. and while strafe running they do alot less damage with the assault rifle, so they have to pick their poison. a low-risk but more drawn out fight with a gun blade or assault rifle, or a quicker albeit riskier fight with the less mobile launcher.

the only thing i find broken about rangers is the dodge roll. that's the one real advantage they have over hunters. its gives them more invincibility frames meaning they dont need to time things as precisely as a hunter when they are trying to dodge.

either way, i'm sure sega will tweak things again. they always seem to. they did it in PSU and they'll do it in PSO2.

i love both classes and will have a character dedicated to both. so bring just bring on the enemies, please.

edit: i guess our ideas of tanking are rather different as well. the job of a "tank" is to absorb damage and deal damage while letting everyone else move freely and attack/heal as needed. so the fact that your running in and taking damage while they attack freely bascially means yea, youre tanking for them....

Reia

Apr 30, 2012, 02:58 PM

If you didn't play the class don't whine that is OP, I played all classes deeply in this CBT enough to give my opinion about them.

Ranger aint OP, Its their role as DPS, SEGA decided to MMOtize this and make the Hunter the begginner class giving skills oriented to survival no matter how bad you play and all you have to do is remember what weapon to have equipped and in which hit left click and if you nerf the ranger what will happen? It will be PSO all over again where Force is a master race that has not only the best DPS, but best survival and support abilities in endgame, and we go back to tiering up the stuff as Force > Ranger > Hunter again.

Some more anotations.

The main problem here is that enemies are too easy to deal as a ranger, like PSO always was in the start for them, all they do is kite the enemy and shoot it with a handgun/rifle or a spread. When difficulty increase it dont start becoming easy when enemies move faster, leading them to kite more than attacking, also the fact that Hunter starts powering up their stat from this rate and can always fight face to face, midgame is the dropdown of rangers. Wait until you see enemies with tiny weak spots, that move fast, need a lot of shots to die and can get more into zoning attacks, it wont be as easy for the ranger as it is for the hunter, specially that we now dont worry on attacks that might blow us in 1 hit and megids start showing up.

Now CBT oriented, maybe your ranger partner was also a good player (he know how2aim), 90% of the rangers I saw, dont aim, just pull the dem rocket launchair and spam it whenever they see enemies, either they miss often or dont hit the weakspot (that even a tune to hell units and launcher you wont do more than 180 damage on an enemy if you dont hit the weak spot). Like Mordecai from Borderlands, a character with an unrivaled DPS AS LONG AS YOU SHOOT THE ENEMIES HEADS OR MONSTERS EYES THAT IS! If something made me facepalm so hard in this beta, is whenever I saw the double horned dragon from the caves needing like 50 rockets to die and being knocked down everytime, a skilled ranger can kill it with nothing more than 3 rifle shots.

Finally the hunter is not so left behind in terms of DPS but I'll be honest, I haven't seen a 1/20 of dedicated hunters with their builds and gear than I seen rangers! There are some few pro hunters and I must say, the sword build can do better AoE attacks than the Launcher Ranger!

Triple_S

Apr 30, 2012, 03:39 PM

It will be PSO all over again where Force is a master race that has not only the best DPS, but best survival and support abilities in endgame, and we go back to tiering up the stuff as Force > Ranger > Hunter again.

wat

waaaat

Pretty sure Forces have sucked ass for DPS (and burst damage) in PSO since V2 added Ultimate, for multiple reasons. They were great at healing, buffing, and debuffing... but their own damage output was sad compared to Hunters and even Rangers, especially once people started abusing sacrificials. Forces could abuse Demons to an extent, maybe Spirit, but that's about it.

Reia

Apr 30, 2012, 03:42 PM

Under the assumption every player is skilled and is well geared in the endgame, Im not talking when you are still progressing. But it is common for people to think that when they reached the max level there's nothing more to do. I met godly OP forces like Kef back then.

Quatre52

Apr 30, 2012, 03:46 PM

No. At no point in PSO or PSO v2 was a Force the bet option....especially in the case of PSO they were hardly useful at all, considering a hunter and ranger could use techs just fine.
Back then, as would be seen again in ep1&2, Hunters were the damage dealers, just try out a HUcast.

BahnKnakyu

Apr 30, 2012, 03:51 PM

It's pretty easy to fix Rangers. In A2 they were fine because they only had the rifle, and it had a variety of useful PAs that did decent damage, nothing that stood out like a sore thumb.

In CBT the launcher just does too much damage, but the fix is pretty simple: Tone down the damage and it'll be better. Remove their ability to fire infinitely in the air. I find it silly I can do ground control by firing at my feet and using Divine Launcher to knock mobs away. I know this is supposed to be arcadey, but in most other "TPS"es, you would damage yourself doing stuff like that. I'm not expecting them to implement self damage-from-point-blank-explosions but as someone who's played FPSes/TPSes before, it feels weird being able to suicide-bomb mobs around me.

Anyway, I'm sure this will be addressed in the OBT. We're not the only ones complaining about RA's excessive damage, and I'm glad that this is being addressed BEFORE release. RA's damage would've turned me off if it was in this state on release.

Reia

Apr 30, 2012, 03:53 PM

Back then, as would be seen again in ep1&2, Hunters were the damage dealers, just try out a HUcast.

Here we go again, well let's stop getting offthread, it doesnt change the fact that the force damage in this game is huge and ranger is just a few away from the ranger charging their TECHs, even I ran around explaining to PuGs how weak shot works but seems that im talk to a wall since they dont understand and still whine that Im OP (From that reason I only explain things in the forum since the people do care to read, but ingame, I don't give a sh*t about what people say), until they notice like, HEY I DID 2000 DAMAGE!? And people dont understand that even Im a weak shot build ranger, I cant kill bosses THAT FAST, on a part boss dies fast because party do the damage for me while I wait for my PP to recharge while I keep tagging with weak shots, I just switch to the launcher when tagging is no longer neccesary.

And about the launcher, I said long time ago to do like rifle mechanics, add it a reload and your character falls while doing it.

Gunslinger-08

Apr 30, 2012, 03:56 PM

As long as the rifle doesn't get nerfed, I won't complain. Launchers were situationally amazing. It was hard to solo with them, but when there were hunters drawing aggro from enemies and bosses, yes, they had incredible dps.

Also, I think Reia was talking about forces being the best in PSZ. In the same game, rangers were nerfed to hell, probably in an ill-concieved attempt to balance out how amazing they were in PSO.

Cayenne

Apr 30, 2012, 04:02 PM

We're not the only ones complaining about RA's excessive damage, and I'm glad that this is being addressed BEFORE release.

Are the japanese players also saying this and has SEGA said they're doing something about it?

Reia

Apr 30, 2012, 04:07 PM

I want to say something more about the launchers, I played all classes and that allows me to compare this fact between ranger and force, people dont pay attention on how fast the Ranger runs out of PP, I fire my 3 sneak shot on tagging and that's it gotta wait for my recharge, what about force? yeah it has to charge but in the same consumption of my skill, It does 3 times my damage, that means it can do 6 times more damage than me on the same cost, doesnt help that forces have more PP and faster recharge. Meanwhile us we fire our 3 crazy sneak shots or shotgun and we're done, the rifle don't do good normal DPS? The launcher is the only thing that allow us to do more DPS than a force, because its our weapon when we run out of PP to spam Rifle PAs, the skills are only good for the knockdown or getting a chance on a stunned boss with the 35 PP cost PA (which you see me firing it 3 times because im having rappy souls in my units you can only fire it twice). So basically, we fire our 3 PAs and pull our launchers to keep out our DPS when we need to recharge the PP, something force barely dont even have to worry about with some few hits and full PP again and can preserve the PP due to their high damage per hit.

Do something about the normal attack, I dunno add it a reload every shot or something, but don't nerf the damage.

Dinosaur

Apr 30, 2012, 04:07 PM

Here we go again, well let's stop getting offthread, it doesnt change the fact that the force damage in this game is huge and ranger is just a few away from the ranger charging their TECHs, even I ran around explaining to PuGs how weak shot works but seems that im talk to a wall since they dont understand and still whine that Im OP (From that reason I only explain things in the forum since the people do care to read, but ingame, I don't give a sh*t about what people say), until they notice like, HEY I DID 2000 DAMAGE!? And people dont understand that even Im a weak shot build ranger, I cant kill bosses THAT FAST, on a part boss dies fast because party do the damage for me while I wait for my PP to recharge while I keep tagging with weak shots, I just switch to the launcher when tagging is no longer neccesary.

And about the launcher, I said long time ago to do like rifle mechanics, add it a reload and your character falls while doing it.

This was a huge headache to read. English probably isn't your main language but I honestly don't know what this is about.

OT: As for PP management for Rangers, I found that two regular attacks into a PA is a pretty efficient and balanced 3-hit combo when you're low on PP. Using a PA in the 3rd part of a string bypasses the reloading animation that happens after using a normal attack on the 3rd part of a string. It's very reminiscent of the normal-normal-hard combo in PSO1.

Rath-Kun

Apr 30, 2012, 04:15 PM

If the ranger is doing damage that helps the team as a whole, I don't see why it matters.

Zyrusticae

Apr 30, 2012, 04:17 PM

The existence of this thread makes me seriously lol @ all the folks who were complaining about the 'obviously OP' hunter dash...

Meanwhile, rangers and forces pretty much get a 'get out of jail free card' during the few times they actually need to GTFO. Riiiight.

Reia

Apr 30, 2012, 04:17 PM

This was a huge headache to read. English probably isn't your main language but I honestly don't know what this is about.

OT: As for PP management for Rangers, I found that two regular attacks into a PA is a pretty efficient 3-hit combo when you're low on PP. Using a PA in the 3rd part of a string bypasses the reloading animation that happens after a normal attack on the 3rd part of a string. It's very reminiscent of the normal-normal-hard combo in PSO1.

PuG means a Pick up Group, Random Join party, a group of scrubs, many definition to it. That means a bunch of idiotic player that don't care to give attention to the game mechanics and even their ignorant enough to dare discuss about what is right and balanced kinda like the sort of saying "my class is the best and anything stronger in what I like from it is OP". If you find a decent player out of it, it's a rarity and even between the japanese happens the same.

To reply to OT: In the OBT Weak shot will have from a 90 to 120 seconds cooldown, for rifle builds, it is suggestable you avoid having your gauge empty until you got it ready, Its much better you fire one or two PA and then recharge it to 90%, then fire it again, you wont DPS good if you have an empty gauge and the Weak shot is about 5 seconds to finish it's cooldown.

Eggobandit

Apr 30, 2012, 04:19 PM

everyone seems to be forgetting the first time they fought these bosses as lower levels.

Other than that, Weakshot/jellenshot and Launchers are quite OP. Launchers simply need to have either PP costs drastically increased, or combo frequency drastically reduced.

The problem with Launchers is that they aren't situational weapons -- they're good at everything. Their downsides are greatly tipped by their good sides.

Frankly, everybody's evasion skill is too powerful. Hunter Guard is barely needed because Step gets them out of absolutely everything, which is a real pity because they actually put limits on blocking now. (guard breaks when PP is depleted) Ranger Dodge Roll needs to be nerfed off general principal -- if something catches up with you you're doing something wrong anyway. Mirage Step simply needs more cooldown frames on the end.

Dinosaur

Apr 30, 2012, 04:20 PM

To reply to OT: In the OBT Weak shot will have from a 90 to 120 seconds cooldown, for rifle builds, it is suggestable you avoid having your gauge empty until you got it ready, Its much better you fire one or two PA and then recharge it to 90%, then fire it again, you wont DPS good if you have an empty gauge and the Weak shot is about 5 seconds to finish it's cooldown.

IIRC Weakening Bullet has a 60 cooldown but seriously I still can't figure out what you're trying to say so I'll just leave...

FenixStryk

Apr 30, 2012, 04:22 PM

As of now, I'd say the classes are considerably balanced; there is room for fine-tuning, but it's not at the point where one class is clearly ahead of the other in all aspects.

Launcher Rangers are undoubtedly very strong overall, but their AoE potential is outpaced by Forces in stages, and their boss-killing capacity is equaled by Hunters when played at the highest level (Forces lag behind in speed due to their overreliance on PP, but they are still safer than both classes). When HU and RA can get sub-3 minute Ragnes and FOs are getting sub-5 Ragnes with faster stage clears, I don't see the issue.

The only complaint I might agree with is that Ranger doesn't have to work as hard as the other classes, which is partially true: once you have the basics of Ranger down, the difference between a good Ranger and a great Ranger isn't nearly as big as the difference between a good Hunter (one that avoids damage) and a great Hunter (one that knows how to DPS in situations that look unsafe).

TL;DR: Sword Gear + Fury Stance + Rising Edge/Sonic Boom.

Xenobia

Apr 30, 2012, 04:25 PM

I dont care for the ranger class itself (or any other class) but for the whole game balance. Its just not fun when certain stuff is just way OP and then the enemies just gets killed so fast that there is just nothing left anymore. Unfortunately at this point the game is way to easy and i would not enjoy when certain actions can kinda just screw up the entire game balance and its challenges (which is something joyful, i love challenges).

Eggobandit

Apr 30, 2012, 04:25 PM

I think alot of the balance issues with Rangers would be fixed if they removed the ability to cancel cooldown frames with Dodge Roll.

If launcher users were forced to sit through the ending animation like on PSO, they'd have to think alot more about when they wanted to spam. Of course this cant be the only fix because launchers are still OP.

Shakuri

Apr 30, 2012, 04:26 PM

Rangers have been "OP" since PSO, so no surprise they're "OP" here too. The only thing that really needs nerfing is Jellen, it never reduced damage to a point where nothing could touch you. It's almost as bad as EVP stacking in the PSP2 series.

Frankly, everybody's evasion skill is too powerful. Hunter Guard is barely needed because Step gets them out of absolutely everything, which is a real pity because they actually put limits on blocking now. (guard breaks when PP is depleted) Ranger Dodge Roll needs to be nerfed off general principal -- if something catches up with you you're doing something wrong anyway. Mirage Step simply needs more cooldown frames on the end.

Hunters don't need an Evasion skill anyway, Just Guard>>>All of them.

Eggobandit

Apr 30, 2012, 04:34 PM

Just guard needs a nerf too. They should never give you an ability to negate all damage for free. thats just stupid, and it's Balance suicide. It takes pretty much all the "danger" feeling out of everything.

inb4 tanking Falz Grants / Flow Heaven Destruction / Shambertin kamehameha wave / sephiroth meteor

It should reduce damage taken, but should still remove the PP from the weapon with a shorter cooldown. But regardless, desperation attacks should never be able to be safely tanked...

Xenobia

Apr 30, 2012, 04:34 PM

Fhin

Apr 30, 2012, 04:37 PM

Alpha and beta phases are for just those cases....to look if the classes/jobs/etc are balanced and so on...

Taitu

Apr 30, 2012, 04:39 PM

•Col•

Apr 30, 2012, 04:43 PM

If the ranger is doing damage that helps the team as a whole, I don't see why it matters.

More like, why have a Hunter in your party when you can just have another Ranger and kill things even FASTER with even LESS risk.

Of course, after making this thread, I didn't have Force in mind. Maybe the Hunter's job is to protect them. Rangers are meant to go off and do their own thing, and inadvertently help their teammates by weakening enemies.

Rath-Kun

Apr 30, 2012, 04:46 PM

That's true. Most of the games I played was three rangers and one other class.

Shakuri

Apr 30, 2012, 04:46 PM

Force's don't need protecting.

foreignreign

Apr 30, 2012, 04:47 PM

Nah, Guard is way less powerful than many people do expect because... when you got range you see the enemy charging you. But how do you evade a arm swing which only takes like 1 sec to reach you? Have to be dirty fast at blocking else its to late... its just another level of difficulty at closed range. So its totaly legitime to make guard powerful... if hunters actually get the chance to execute that block. They cant block forever. Besides, block doesnt completly nullify any damage, thats mistaken. You probably just want to kick a hunter butt without even knowing theyr class. Bosses can indeed even go through block as far as my experience goes. Rockbear vs. hunter, its dirty difficult always to block at the right time. Its just hard to predict the next action a boss is doing, and when he does it... its a very fast strike, reaction time is close to zero.

I had way easyer time just to run out of range, and strike the boss uppon landing, much more safe..

Performing a Just Guard deals no damage to you and consumes no PP. You specifically need the skill to Just Guard.

And you really shouldn't be blocking Rockbear anyway. You stand up right next to him and most of his attacks whiff you, or you just dash under him, between his legs to his back side.

The real unblockable attacks (I think Vol Dragon's standing fire ball is unblockable?) are dodgeable even without skill points invested into Step anyway.

Not to mention just guard can't be cancelled into like the quick step. Some moves will cancel into guard but for the most part you must experience your entire/most of your move's recovery before you can guard on top of requiring the necessary PP to perform the guard before it breaks which can be an issue if you were pouring PP into PAs to attack the boss. So I do have to say quick step is more effective than Just Guard.

Honestly never had real problems "cancelling" my attacks to go into guard, at least with Partisan. You can jump cancel all the attacks (unless you're in mid-air) and then immediately block. It's not too bad.

And again, PP isn't a problem once you get the Just Guard skill.

Just guard needs a nerf too. They should never give you an ability to negate all damage for free. thats just stupid, and it's Balance suicide. It takes pretty much all the "danger" feeling out of everything.

A lot of games let you completely negate damage through guard mechanisms.

You're also still vulnerable from attacks from behind. Which can be problematic if the boss is summoning monsters or if an attack comes at a weird angle (Vol Dragon's tale swipes). And it's not like you're going to Just Guard every attack, assuming that is silly.

FenixStryk

Apr 30, 2012, 05:14 PM

Of course, after making this thread, I didn't have Force in mind. Maybe the Hunter's job is to protect them. Rangers are meant to go off and do their own thing, and inadvertently help their teammates by weakening enemies.Forces do not need protecting. If anything, Forces are the one baby-sitting bad Hunters with card Restas, and often failing because those same bad Hunters run away from the cards in zigzag patterns, wasting your precious PP in chunks of 30.

The balance as it is now is simple:
Hunters have the highest skill cap, but with that have the highest damage potential. Launcher Rangers are close behind with considerable AoE, and Forces are in the back supporting, resilient and safe yet limited to short bursts of spike damage due to PP restrictions.

It's easy for me to see why so many of you think of Ranger as broken, but the adjustments needed for the class are few and small: all that is necessary is for a three-shot clip to be enforced on Launchers shot from the air, and a longer cooldown on Weak Bullet. With that, and with a higher level cap, everything will fall into place.

If you want me to link you 150-second Hunter Ragne videos from YouTube and Nico, I can do it, but this really should be enough to stand on its own. Everything is fine.

P.S. Dash invincibility is fine too.

njdss4

Apr 30, 2012, 05:20 PM

I thought Rangers were fine. It's easier to target enemy weakpoints, but you're far more fragile, and you can only dodge, not block. People say Hunters can do the same, if not more, damage once they've gotten all their skills learned, but it's more dangerous to be in melee range. However, that's why they can both dodge and guard and negate most of, if not all, of the incoming damage.

Honestly, I thought that the most underpowered class was Force, just because of how few spells you can cast before needing to replenish your PP. Even if you spend all your skill points in PP Up 1 & 2, it's still not much. Resta's AoE range is also garbage, even when charged. Even if I throw a card and then charge cast Resta, it's not fast enough to heal who I want nor does it seem to land where I need it to. I just didn't feel very mage-like having to use physical attacks so much to replenish PP.

foreignreign

Apr 30, 2012, 05:27 PM

Honestly, I thought that the most underpowered class was Force, just because of how few spells you can cast before needing to replenish your PP. Even if you spend all your skill points in PP Up 1 & 2, it's still not much. Resta's AoE range is also garbage, even when charged. Even if I throw a card and then charge cast Resta, it's not fast enough to heal who I want nor does it seem to land where I need it to. I just didn't feel very mage-like having to use physical attacks so much to replenish PP.

If you're spamming basic techs, which I think took 20 PP, 100 PP would last you ~10 techs before you ran out if you had PP Charge Revival.

Xenobia

Apr 30, 2012, 05:29 PM

NoiseHERO

Apr 30, 2012, 05:30 PM

Kind of annoying running into that one Japanse soloist guy with a full party of NPC's running around nuking everything with a launcher and all of his NPCs before you can even get to mobs in the Multiparty area.

It doesn't help that the NPC's spam up an annoying storm every 5 seconds. JUST USE YOUR FRIENDS PARTNER CARDS/GET SOME FRIENDS AAUGGGHHH I'LL END YOU!!!

foreignreign

Apr 30, 2012, 05:37 PM

"Just guard" is hilarious, where is the damage coming from? In term there is a ranger, OK... it works. But then the hunter simply is doing a job as a tank or punching bag... but is not actually a damage dealer. Its not a ultimate battle, its either protect... or attack.

... what?

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Just Guard is a... guarding mechanism. You're not guarding all the time, and Just Guard is there because you're not supposed to be guarding all the time.

And after performing a Just Guard, if you attack immediately after, the attack becomes a Just Attack (PA or not).

Not to sound like a dick or anything but... I really don't think you played Hunter all that much, Xenobia. Or know what you're talking about when it comes to Hunter.

Eggobandit

Apr 30, 2012, 06:35 PM

Nah, Guard is way less powerful than many people do expect because... when you got range you see the enemy charging you. But how do you evade a arm swing which only takes like 1 sec to reach you? Have to be dirty fast at blocking else its to late... its just another level of difficulty at closed range. So its totaly legitime to make guard powerful... if hunters actually get the chance to execute that block. They cant block forever. Besides, block doesnt completly nullify any damage, thats mistaken. You probably just want to kick a hunter butt without even knowing theyr class. Bosses can indeed even go through block as far as my experience goes. Rockbear vs. hunter, its dirty difficult always to block at the right time. Its just hard to predict the next action a boss is doing (oh yes thats random, as long as he stays in close range), and when he does it... its a very fast strike, reaction time is close to zero. The only way to predict a incoming attack is by reading a "pre-movement" which is in some term linked to that attack, but that its not aways clearly visible.

I had way easyer time just to run out of range, and strike the boss uppon landing, much more safe.. I just had in mind "if i would have a gun... never get any damage and no risk running out of mats".

the problem is, while it's a "skillfull" manuver, after a while it becomes as easy as performing Just Attack for one simple reason : repetition. In the little bit of time we were able to fight Ragne, Rockbear and Vol, im pretty sure 70% of action game players would be able to perfect block MORE than half of all their blocks. Even more if they were fighting solo and all the attacks were directed at them.

This is fine for an action game where you're encouraged to basically play to feel invincible after a while, but in an MMO with balance to maintain it's a terrible idea.

Basically, bosses like Falz form 3 wouldn't work with Perfect Guard. Grants was basically put there to pressure the player's supplies and put the team into a corner if people had trouble surviving it. And most RPGs have attacks that do % health damage regardless of your defense to insure that they always critically damaage you, and force you to prepare for them accordingly. But if you can perfect guard them and negate all damage it's basically pointless.

~Inu~

Apr 30, 2012, 07:02 PM

I personally don't understand why the penalties to Defensive/Fury Stance have to be so large.
I was looking at the majority of the Hunter talent tree and I think it would have functioned so much better with more SP.

I had a Fury Stance spec in the CB that I liked (I really wanted to try the crit+ talent) however I don't understand why the stance penalties are so giant - seriously I take more damage then a force and I think the penalties could really be toned down a bit.
There are several photon artes that don't allow you to dash/block mid attack if you suddenly think "Aw crap, I gotta move!" plus the inability to move while 'drinking' a mate also put me in that same situation a few times.

I don't know, I really think the hunter tree had lots of potential in the CB but we didn't have enough SP really see it. We needed more HP and bigger criticals - plus I would have liked to see what warcry was like.

foreignreign

Apr 30, 2012, 07:06 PM

the problem is, while it's a "skillfull" manuver, after a while it becomes as easy as performing Just Attack for one simple reason : repetition. In the little bit of time we were able to fight Ragne, Rockbear and Vol, im pretty sure 70% of action game players would be able to perfect block MORE than half of all their blocks. Even more if they were fighting solo and all the attacks were directed at them.

This is fine for an action game where you're encouraged to basically play to feel invincible after a while, but in an MMO with balance to maintain it's a terrible idea.

Basically, bosses like Falz form 3 wouldn't work with Perfect Guard. Grants was basically put there to pressure the player's supplies and put the team into a corner if people had trouble surviving it. And most RPGs have attacks that do % health damage regardless of your defense to insure that they always critically damaage you, and force you to prepare for them accordingly. But if you can perfect guard them and negate all damage it's basically pointless.

There are unblockable attacks, you know.

moorebounce

Apr 30, 2012, 07:51 PM

Angelo

Apr 30, 2012, 07:56 PM

"Just guard" is hilarious, where is the damage coming from? In term there is a ranger, OK... it works. But then the hunter simply is doing a job as a tank or punching bag... but is not actually a damage dealer. Its not a ultimate battle, its either protect... or attack.

I actually think Just Guard needs to do a bit more damage, to be honest.

Also, Rangers seem fine as most of their skills reward tactical strategy with damage. Launchers on the other hand need to be toned down a bit, since they are just senselessly powerful with little delay, skill or risk.

Shakuri

Apr 30, 2012, 07:56 PM

The only Non-J.Guardable attacks are Vol's fire based attacks, all of which are step-able. The Just Guarding in the PSP2 series was too good due to being able to block any and everything (even consecutive combo attacks and the bosses super attacks), the Just Guard in this has a slight delay with Wired Lances and Swords that can get you hit if you try to JG quick combo attacks, the Spear doesn't seem to have that issue though from what I have seen. Ragne's Bloodwave is an example, the waves are very easy to see coming, but the delay after JG with a Sword/WL, and trying to JG again can result in getting tagged. For most everything else though, Just Guard is clearly superior to evading, especially if you have Just Counter and an absurdly powerful move in your first slot.

Shakuri

Apr 30, 2012, 08:04 PM

Just Guard doing mediocre damage is a trait inherited from the Shields of PSP2/i. Doesn't really need to do any damage at all to be honest, I find it to be an added bonus.

Forces should be good at giving support and bad at fighting at any range.

"Nurses, not forces", what a joke.

Hayde

Apr 30, 2012, 08:05 PM

The only time I thought Rangers were too powerful IMO was when they were using launchers. Sega do need to tone launchers down a little. I think we all agree on that.

IMO Forces were too powerful because they shouldn't be able to take enemies head on in a melee fight (with a cane or wand or whatever you want to call it) and live to tell about it. I had a force and I didn't even break a sweat.

Hunters should be good at giving and taking damage up close and not accurate from far away.
Rangers should be good at ranged attacks and very accurate but not so good up close.
Forces should be good at giving support and bad at fighting at any range.

Don't you need to "attack" as a force to gain PP quicker? I could have sworn some said you gained somewhere around roughly 10 PP back per swing/attack with a weapon. The problem is, up to level 15ish I could literally cast about roughly 3-4 charged foie's and I'd be out of PP unless I was attacking with my cane or card weapon in between.

In this scenario, you kind of "have" to attack in order to not be casting 3 spells and standing around for 30 seconds while you regen. In the original PSO games, a force either had to chug down fluids or use a TP-absorbing weapon, which was nowhere as effective (nor accurate) as the current system in PSO2. For me, force was one of the most difficult classes for a new player starting out in the PSO; going through mono/di/tri-fluids was far more expensive than chugging mates as a cast.

I would not necessarily say Ranger nor Force is overpowered, I would be more inclined to say Hunters are at a disadvantage. It seems to be a fundamental flaw with modern online games that has the three archetypes; the problem is that hunters have to physically RUN up to the enemy and avoid attacks, crap on the floor, and the usual stuff.

In other other games--notably MMO's, melee generally had means of getting to their targets quicker to offset this problem (charge, sprint, etc. etc.) and that's PSO2 is currently lacking for hunters. When I finally got up to a mob, I often killed quicker than rangers (especially after the forest) the problem was most of the time...by the time I had got up there, the forces had shot several gizonde and the ranger was blasting their launchers everywhere.

It's not a matter of my photon sword and its PA being weaker than the other two classes, it's the problem of closing distance IMO.

FenixStryk

Apr 30, 2012, 08:40 PM

Hunters should be good at giving and taking damage up close and not accurate from far away.
Rangers should be good at ranged attacks and very accurate but not so good up close.
Forces should be good at giving support and bad at fighting at any range.Hahaha! You're pretty funny, for a second I thought you were serious...

PSO2 is an action beat-'em-up. There are no tanks or healers; you have a Melee DPS class, a Ranged DPS class, and a Magic DPS class. Every class is self-sufficient: they can jump, they have dashes with invulnerability frames, they have buffs or debuffs, AoE options, single-target burst damage options... this expectation that there are Raid MMO archetypes is fallacious. This game was never built with "tanking" in mind. No class is supposed to take damage, ever.

The only time there is a problem is when one class is doing significantly less damage than the others during a specific time frame (Forces ATM), or if one class has to work significantly harder for the same damage as another class (Hunter vs. Launcher Ranger ATM).

Do not misunderstand: Launchers need to be adjusted. However, this belief that Hunter is weak damage-wise or missing tools to beat beta PvE content is untrue by all measures, and the mindset that Hunters are the true heroes and that the other classes are there to make Hunters better is wrong.

Reia

Apr 30, 2012, 09:13 PM

Do not misunderstand: Launchers need to be adjusted. However, this belief that Hunter is weak damage-wise or missing tools to beat beta PvE content is untrue by all measures, and the mindset that Hunters are the true heroes and that the other classes are there to make Hunters better is wrong.

This!

I always wanted to express that a best nerf for launcher is forcing it to reload each shot, that will reduce their DPS but still get their OHKO high PP cost PA potential when fully tuned+Grinded+Synthethized.

This also why I say "There we go again" when people come at me saying "look at HUcast".

Hunters are not weak, it's just how dedicated you are. PSU was full of dedicated hunters that did over 20000+ damage on LV180 like PSO2 got its dedicated rangers pulling those normal PA damage above 1200 as LV20. Dedicated hunters were a rarity to see (I haven't seen anyone in Ship-2), neither when I showcased my gear I was amazed I only found 4 people out of all the rangers I know that used what they learned from PSU to get OP gear quick.

Crystal_Shard

Apr 30, 2012, 09:27 PM

@Hayde: Might you have overlooked Step Attack? There's a skill in the Hunter class skill tree that lets you launch an attack after a step, giving you an additional step as well as deal out an attack with a fairly long reach. Granted that's only one, but you can also switch to Wired Lance and do a distance grab PA to bring an enemy closer.

On the topic of regenerating PP for Forces, it's fairly easy to whip out a Gunslash and shoot instead of using a Card weapon.

Omega-z

Apr 30, 2012, 09:43 PM

Hmm.... The only thing I can think off after reading the thread and what I seen and played between the class.

Hunter - Faster movement speed and attacking speed. So they can run to there target faster and dodge better. This would be a Skill of course or would it be better as passive ability.

Ranger - I think the only thing would be decreasing the speed on the Launcher, everything else on Ranger seems fine since this was Beta and everything got powerful quick to help people to get to level 20 and Bosses weaker...etc it was a test.

Force - really just need there Normal Tech reduced to 5-8pp use instead of what they are now and be more of a use.

Other then these adjustment's and a little fine-tuning with the Skill Tree and it's fine.

foreignreign

Apr 30, 2012, 09:45 PM

Omega-z

Apr 30, 2012, 09:54 PM

I wouldn't see a problem with that if they reduce the attack down a little or have the tech's come out slower. But right now there's really no point in using them. it wouldn't be endless since you would have a pause in the cast for each time you use it, that does not gain pp. so if you spammed it you will still run out. But give Forces a more techie feel without having to recharge as much. They could do half of the PP cost of the Charged Tech instead too.

foreignreign

Apr 30, 2012, 09:56 PM

I wouldn't see a problem with that if the reduce the attack down a little or have the tech's come out slower. But right now there really no point in using them. it wouldn't be endless since you would have a pause in the cast for each time you use it, that does not gain pp. so if you spammed it you will still run out. But give Forces a more techie feel without having to recharge as much. They could do half of the PP cost of the Charged Tech instead too.

No, I'm telling you, there is a skill called PP Charge Revival that lets you regen PP while charging a Tech, any Tech. And during charging time you can get around 7 PP back.

So yes, it would be endless at <10 PP cost per tech.

And if you toned down basic tech damage, you might as well not use them at all and instead just use a Gunslash's shooting function to gain PP to use bigger techs.

Spellbinder

Apr 30, 2012, 09:57 PM

5-8 PP cost basic techs would be ridiculous.

PP Charge Tech Revival would recoup all of the PP cost of a basic tech, letting a Force shoot basic techs endlessly.

You can already get 10 PP cost Zondes with maxed Bolt Tech Save or whatever it's called.

I think he's saying 5-8 PP cost for a "normal" technique and letting charge ones still caused what they are now. The PP restoring skill would have no effect on non-charged techniques making your point kind of moot.

Personally I think it should be about 50% of the cost of charged skills considering how much weaker uncharged techs are in comparison. 10 for foie, 20 if it's charged, etc.

Zyrusticae

Apr 30, 2012, 10:01 PM

I agree with Spellbinder, uncharged techs, being as horribly weak as they are, should be REALLY cheap to cast. 10 for regular techs, 15 for AoE techs, double the cost for charging.

As it is, there's literally no reason to NOT charge, as charging gives you more bang for the buck and actually matches rapid spamming of normal techs in DPS!

It was one of my biggest disappointments that there is actually no decision point in playing a Force. You ALWAYS charge your techniques, with the JA bonus on top. If you do anything else, you're wasting PP. And with how little PP you get, well, you really can't afford to waste it...

Omega-z

Apr 30, 2012, 10:04 PM

Spellbinder you hitted it on the nail.:) yeah Charge Revival only work's on Charged tech'. when you use a normal tech it eat's your PP. So if it's cost at least half as mush would be better since right now it's like about half in power. The only other thing I can think is add a higher rate of SE for normal tech's.

foreignreign

Apr 30, 2012, 10:08 PM

I don't see the problem in non-charged Techs being dinky.

Like, charging is basically PSO2's answer to proper cast times for spells. And, at least as far as FO and HU are considered, there's a sort of "commitment" to all your PP-based attacks. Charging does that, and turns the "spam my single most strongest tech of the boss' weakness" festival of PSO1 into something with a bit more... style? I guess.

People are just going to gravitate towards whichever version of a tech does more damage over time anyway, and we'll be back to square one.

Zyrusticae

Apr 30, 2012, 10:13 PM

What is the point in even having uncharged techs if they're completely useless?!

Does not compute.

Hayde

Apr 30, 2012, 10:24 PM

What is the point in even having uncharged techs if they're completely useless?!

Does not compute.

You can put points in your force skill tree to increase the damage of uncharged techs--which I THINK continues to branch out into additional talents that do this. I can't speak for certain or how much of an impact it does, because I placed my points into additional charged tech damage (seemed to make more sense)

Can anyone confirm how much of an improvement it does?

I'm not going to lie, Resta seems utterly worthless unless you charge it up.

Dinosaur

Apr 30, 2012, 10:25 PM

You can put points in your force skill tree to increase the damage of uncharged techs--which I THINK continues to branch out into additional talents that do this. I can't speak for certain or how much of an impact it does, because I placed my points into additional charged tech damage (seemed to make more sense)

Can anyone confirm how much of an improvement it does?

I'm not going to lie, Resta seems utterly worthless unless you charge it up.

1% per level

level 1 normal tech advance = 101%
level 10 normal tech advance = 110%

JA tech advance has the same ratio per level

Primobol

Apr 30, 2012, 10:28 PM

I feel fine as a HUnter. I just feel like the Resta is healing too much isn't it? It's like half HP bar for everyone. U can basically make your party immortal by spamming it on them even if they r being constantly stomped by a dragon.

Just sad I wasn't able to solo Ragne in 20+ minutes as a level 12 hunter, but I almost did it. All 4 legs were broken and that chick said that message when the boss is dieing with only like 10 or 20% health left.

Oh I didn't have the "Sonic Boom" PA for the sword too. I think I would be able to kill him in time if I had that or the mag PB.

Shakuri

Apr 30, 2012, 10:33 PM

Yes, if the idiots stop panicking and allow you to actually heal them. I think full Charged Resta healing so much is fine, considering that you have to stop hitting the boss and put yourself in danger for someone else's sake.

foreignreign

Apr 30, 2012, 10:40 PM

What is the point in even having uncharged techs if they're completely useless?!

Does not compute.

I don't see the point in making 50% PP cost uncharged techs. It's like, there's no balancing point between uncharged and charged to me. If we make 50% cost uncharged techs (and assume they do like, 50% damage, I forget how much the ratio is really), then you're essentially doing the same amount of damage with 2 uncharged casts as one full cast.

Except with a charged cast, there's risk involved since you're vulnerable, and if you Mirage Escape away you lose the charge. Plus you can most definitely get 2 uncharged techs faster than one charged tech. So basically uncharging Tech is better since you can do them at your own discretion. You could unload an entire PP bar and then just Gunslash snipe it all back.

And if uncharged actually does less than 50% vs. charged... I don't see why you'd use uncharged since you're getting even less out of your PP.

Atyl

Apr 30, 2012, 10:51 PM

The main problem with normal techs is that PP Revival is +8 pp a tech for one point
If they boosted the JA bonus to 1pt at 10%, and doubled normal tech boost while changing the prereqs to 5pts each normal techs would be very well balanced with charged techs.
It would be even better if the PP talent was changed to PP recovered per hit.

Then you would have the choice between reliable (8 Charged techs in a row) or burst (5 techs really quickly but a longer % of downtime using your weapon).

Edit: Resta easily fully healed my FO with 425 HP. I believe it was doing 135 a tick at full charge.

Spellbinder

Apr 30, 2012, 10:51 PM

I don't see the point in making 50% PP cost uncharged techs. It's like, there's no balancing point between uncharged and charged to me. If we make 50% cost uncharged techs (and assume they do like, 50% damage, I forget how much the ratio is really), then you're essentially doing the same amount of damage with 2 uncharged casts as one full cast.

Except with a charged cast, there's risk involved since you're vulnerable, and if you Mirage Escape away you lose the charge. Plus you can most definitely get 2 uncharged techs faster than one charged tech. So basically uncharging Tech is better since you can do them at your own discretion. You could unload an entire PP bar and then just Gunslash snipe it all back.

And if uncharged actually does less than 50% vs. charged... I don't see why you'd use uncharged since you're getting even less out of your PP.

Generally charged techs have other benefits such as range and area of effect. There's a significant difference between an uncharged foie that zips and hits one target versus a charged foie that is much larger, I'm assuming goes a little farther, and can hit multiple enemies if they're close or happen to graze the trail of said foie.

Eggobandit

Apr 30, 2012, 11:43 PM

Just because it looked like it was going to scale at 1% per level, all of the abilities in the beta didn't start at 101% and end at 110%. Many of them started at 1% per level and ended up being 120% at max.

The skills will probably branch out for uncharged techniques and turn them into their own style of teching. All they'd have to do is basically decrease PP consumption and give a % upgrade to uncharged techniques to make them equal or even surpass DPS of charged ones. Uncharged techniques suck but they're surprisingly fast.

I think it would actually be a perfectly wonderful choice for a Hunter/Force hybrid that focused more on melee. The uncharged techniques could just be for extra damage, cleanup or hard to hit enemies.

Possibilities are very broad. Remember, they can still be JA'd, and Resta still counts as a technique. It would basically be like the difference between a Fomar and a Fonewm -- power vs. speed. Also taking into account we havent seen any technique evolutions yet, we may not be looking at the full potential of charged OR uncharged techniques yet.

Kind of makes you excited, huh?

Spellbinder

Apr 30, 2012, 11:47 PM

By the way... when did this become the force thread? Let's get out of here and let them get back to business. O_o

sibladeko

May 1, 2012, 03:20 AM

At first I felt the same way, I felt HU was sort of pointless when theoretically all FO and all RA teams could stay 9000 years away spamming weak points and heals and spells with minimal interaction while dealing way more damage than me.

But you know what, HU is not gimped at all.
Sword and Partisan in particular have retarded damage that is on par or better than RA and FO, you just have to hit more buttons.

Just because RAs are LAZIER for equivalent damage doesn't really mean they need to be nerfed.
If anything I want FO and perhaps wired lance to be buffed because they can't quite keep up with the craziness of the other archetypes in the game (Rifle and Launcher RA, Sword and Partisan HU)
Oh, and actual skill trees instead of skill one way streets, I mean why do traps still suck since Alpha, and who the hell uses uncharged techs?

Don't nerf Just Guard, I honestly just dodge everything because it's faster, don't nerf fury stance defense penalty, it's so small it doesn't matter.
FIX boss hitboxes, boss jump up and slam moves should not hit only low!
Who the hell heard of jumping up to beat a boss falling down on their head, oh wait PSO2.

Anyway here is about every boss done solo as partisan HU totaling under nine minutes with a one star +10 weapon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKXqxHaDqVM

Don't nerf RA, they need it.
Maybe make them slightly less lazier to play.

Disclaimer blahblah I raised one 20HU one 20FO two 20RAs.

moorebounce

May 1, 2012, 03:59 AM

Force's don't need protecting.

You got that right. They're way too powerful. IMO They should be for support only.

Spellbinder

May 1, 2012, 04:15 AM

You got that right. They're way too powerful. IMO They should be for support only.

>_> ......

jmanx

May 1, 2012, 04:40 AM

At first I felt the same way, I felt HU was sort of pointless when theoretically all FO and all RA teams could stay 9000 years away spamming weak points and heals and spells with minimal interaction while dealing way more damage than me.

But you know what, HU is not gimped at all.
Sword and Partisan in particular have retarded damage that is on par or better than RA and FO, you just have to hit more buttons.

Just because RAs are LAZIER for equivalent damage doesn't really mean they need to be nerfed.
If anything I want FO and perhaps wired lance to be buffed because they can't quite keep up with the craziness of the other archetypes in the game (Rifle and Launcher RA, Sword and Partisan HU)
Oh, and actual skill trees instead of skill one way streets, I mean why do traps still suck since Alpha, and who the hell uses uncharged techs?

Don't nerf Just Guard, I honestly just dodge everything because it's faster, don't nerf fury stance defense penalty, it's so small it doesn't matter.
FIX boss hitboxes, boss jump up and slam moves should not hit only low!
Who the hell heard of jumping up to beat a boss falling down on their head, oh wait PSO2.

Anyway here is about every boss done solo as partisan HU totaling under nine minutes with a one star +10 weapon.
Phantasy Star Online 2 Closed Beta Solo Partisan HUMarl - Boss Rush - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKXqxHaDqVM)

Don't nerf RA, they need it.
Maybe make them slightly less lazier to play.

Disclaimer blahblah I raised one 20HU one 20FO two 20RAs.

And See as I watch this video it makes me wonder if all HUNTERS are fighting like this. If this is so I see why you guise are complaining about damage. One just not simply atk the ROCK bear derp derp. Constanlty Jump and Aim for its face you do tons tons of dmg that way if do this.

If this person was attackign the face the whole time they woulda been done so much faster

If your not jumping and AIR comboing which pretty much applies to dragon to at their weak spots your not going to get the dmg input you want.

Arika

May 1, 2012, 06:32 AM

Did you send this into your suggestion in the application form of the beta test?

If so, then "thank for your work" as a beta tester.
If not, please do it now.

Angelo

May 1, 2012, 06:36 AM

Don't nerf Just Guard, I honestly just dodge everything because it's faster, don't nerf fury stance defense penalty, it's so small it doesn't matter.

Defense Stance's Damage reduction needs to be altered. It nearly halves your damage output. I'm wondering if the debuff is stripped away the more points you put into it.

kazuuya

May 1, 2012, 06:41 AM

Arika@: Actually I was wondering where I could get the application form. x__x Does anyone have a link maybe?

Also about Rangers... yeah it felt like the Launcher was a little bit overpowered, I boomed everything away before my Hunter friend could actually reach it. But am I the only one who had problems with the Kyatadorans? Actually I couldn't even shoot with the Launcher, I had to focus myself on doding their underground attacks, since they were aggro at me. My Hunter friend actually kept attacking them, and kept throwing the tiny enemies at them with her Wired Lance, but they were really constantly fixed on my character. (Which was pretty annoying.)

And about the Rock Bears, my friend and me we split the enemies up as well, and I was also finished with my Rock Bear faster then my friend. She also used a lot of Mates, while I was just dodging everything. (But I haven't used the Dodge Roll that much, it was more that I just kept running away when the Rock Bear charged for it's Body Slam attack.)

sibladeko

May 1, 2012, 08:32 AM

Dinosaur

May 1, 2012, 08:40 AM

Just because it looked like it was going to scale at 1% per level, all of the abilities in the beta didn't start at 101% and end at 110%. Many of them started at 1% per level and ended up being 120% at max.

It was like that in alpha, but it is 110% at level 10.

Source: http://wikiwiki.asia/pso2/index.php?%A5%D5%A5%A9%A1%BC%A5%B9

moorebounce

May 1, 2012, 09:20 AM

Don't you need to "attack" as a force to gain PP quicker? I could have sworn some said you gained somewhere around roughly 10 PP back per swing/attack with a weapon. The problem is, up to level 15ish I could literally cast about roughly 3-4 charged foie's and I'd be out of PP unless I was attacking with my cane or card weapon in between.

In this scenario, you kind of "have" to attack in order to not be casting 3 spells and standing around for 30 seconds while you regen. In the original PSO games, a force either had to chug down fluids or use a TP-absorbing weapon, which was nowhere as effective (nor accurate) as the current system in PSO2. For me, force was one of the most difficult classes for a new player starting out in the PSO; going through mono/di/tri-fluids was far more expensive than chugging mates as a cast.

I would not necessarily say Ranger nor Force is overpowered, I would be more inclined to say Hunters are at a disadvantage. It seems to be a fundamental flaw with modern online games that has the three archetypes; the problem is that hunters have to physically RUN up to the enemy and avoid attacks, crap on the floor, and the usual stuff.

In other other games--notably MMO's, melee generally had means of getting to their targets quicker to offset this problem (charge, sprint, etc. etc.) and that's PSO2 is currently lacking for hunters. When I finally got up to a mob, I often killed quicker than rangers (especially after the forest) the problem was most of the time...by the time I had got up there, the forces had shot several gizonde and the ranger was blasting their launchers everywhere.

It's not a matter of my photon sword and its PA being weaker than the other two classes, it's the problem of closing distance IMO.

They need to change the PP to not charge so much for using tech (I'm sure this may change in higher lvls because It would have to. My problem wasn't the techs so much it was the weapons being way too powerful for a force. If you can fend for yourself why would a force need to be on a team. The way you got around buying so many mates in PSO was to collect and sell everything you came across.

You know you don't have to hit everything to get EXP now right?

Alenoir

May 1, 2012, 09:37 AM

Arika@: Actually I was wondering where I could get the application form. x__x Does anyone have a link maybe?

https://ssl.pso2.jp/cbt/report/

Please DON'T use the survey as your "suggestion dump". Wrong place all together.

jmanx

May 1, 2012, 10:03 AM

@jmanx
The rockbear run is super slops but I didn't care to improve it...
Just I find that every time I was risking jump attack at his face his face's collision box would push me out into his attack box range.
Sword can probably do this way easier with uppercut spam, it is the same with Dark Ragne for them.
So better safe (near him under his body constantly so I don't get hit as that wastes time) than sorry (hovering near his weak point head.)
I did try to go for head weak piont some times but after getting hit twice or so I got annoyed and tried to rely on the attack's hitbox going through him instead.

Also man you consider the damage in the video low?
Scared to see what other people are outputting then.

Rock Bear DMG was low is basing it on the weak spots as u hit 482+ when u do hit the face. My way of hitting is face is comboing then blocking right after instead of dodging lol which I figured how awesome blocking is late in the game.

caterdra or w/e his name is dmg was high and dps was high, hunters can fight him normally without jumping and all that

Dragon dmg was good though if you aim for the ball on his tail and broke it and stun him and stuff all that goodness

You are lvl 20 This video is fine im just saying if a lvl 10 HUNTER was fighting this way they shouldn't expect doin much dmg at their level.

Also I hope everyone sees how awesome partisans from this vid remember how my little brother showed me how awesome they were

jmanx

May 1, 2012, 09:35 PM

Ive also seen another video a ranger fighting ragne solo their weapon of choice was a launcher. They were really doing heavy dmg but see Launchers are slow but powerful but Sibladeko over here killed Ragne here a whole minute faster then this ranger.

So clearly this game is more based how you play the game

Hayde

May 1, 2012, 10:01 PM

They need to change the PP to not charge so much for using tech (I'm sure this may change in higher lvls because It would have to. My problem wasn't the techs so much it was the weapons being way too powerful for a force. If you can fend for yourself why would a force need to be on a team. The way you got around buying so many mates in PSO was to collect and sell everything you came across.

You know you don't have to hit everything to get EXP now right?

I'm not sure I understand your mentality. You seem to have this kind of "force needs to be in the kitchen and make me a sammich" type of vibe in every one of your posts lately.

Also, as to your final statement; I understand that. But what fun is a game if I'm simply going for a stroll while I leech EXP? This is one of those games where you have to dodge, block, jump, and chain combo's--not your static MMO. Frankly if everything died before I reached it, I wouldn't be having any fun.

Eggobandit

May 1, 2012, 10:59 PM

It was like that in alpha, but it is 110% at level 10.

Source: http://wikiwiki.asia/pso2/index.php?%A5%D5%A5%A9%A1%BC%A5%B9

Yeah, no that wiki is just incorrect. Flame Mastery on my force this test was 120% at level 10, not 114%. The first few added 1% per level. The last few did not.

They shouldn't have assumed. I honestly have no clue what the others are, but they ASSUMED Flame Mastery scaled at 1% per level all the way through, like many people here assumed. So I wouldn't take any of that information too seriously unless you tested it personally.

Not like it matters, this stuff is subject to change. But if people were min-maxing Force builds without first manually getting their stuff maxed, they were probably off. I personally got far more damage out of Lv10 Flame Mastery on Emergency Mission / Dark Ragne than i did with Photon Flare.

ClothoBuer

May 1, 2012, 11:45 PM

Honestly, in my time spent in groups with all the other classes, I'd say everything is pretty closely balanced. HUs have the block, from which I gather is ungodly useful, RAs have their ranged attack spam, and Dive Roll to fall back on (which admittedly I used quite frequently in conjunction with Just Reversal, can't even BEGIN to describe how amazing that skill is if you get caught) if things get hairy, and FOs have their Mirage Step plus access to Resta. In terms of damage, I can't really say I saw a clear frontrunner, as HUs had higher damage strings in place of close-range, RAs had a steady low-high mix of attacks and PAs, and FOs could almost or even one-shot regular mobs with a Tech.

Call me late to the party on this, but I think they've got class balance where it needs to be, all they really have to do is fix some of the weapon's outputs, or lack thereof.

Eggobandit

May 1, 2012, 11:51 PM

It's certantly small fixes that would be needed to completely balance things.

I personally think they should take away immunity from Perfect Guard, lower invincible frames (or ADD uncancelable frames on the end of) the dodge moves, and nerf the shit out of the debuff ammo.

Launchers also just need either a small damage reduction or an increase in delay inbetween shots.

Also this is just me, but i personally think they should remove the ability to use a Grab-type PA when you failed to grab the enemy. It's kind of stupid to me. Some PAs like Cruel Stab are pretty useless on bosses, but others like the Wired Lance moves still have pretty much full use. I think it'd be better to make them more situational. Most grab moves have Splash damage during the end anyway. You should be forced to grab the minions around the boss and throw them to make use of those specific PAs.

ClothoBuer

May 2, 2012, 12:16 AM

Agreed, Weak Bullet is broken to no end. I could drop that on a weak spot, and chain 1Ks from Sneak Shots and end boss fights in fractions of the time needed. Invulnerability frames are iffy, especially since you can add more of them on with the skill required to pick up Just Reversal, but I suspect personal preference may weigh into that one a little more. And Launchers just need a damage drop, their action timer is fine, but they do WAY too much damage in comparison to Rifles and Gunslashes, and it's all treated as splash as well.

Chik'Tikka

May 2, 2012, 12:20 AM

Dinosaur

May 2, 2012, 12:28 AM

Just because it looked like it was going to scale at 1% per level, all of the abilities in the beta didn't start at 101% and end at 110%. Many of them started at 1% per level and ended up being 120% at max.

Yeah, no that wiki is just incorrect. Flame Mastery on my force this test was 120% at level 10, not 114%. The first few added 1% per level. The last few did not.

They shouldn't have assumed. I honestly have no clue what the others are but they ASSUMED Flame Mastery scaled at 1% per level all the way through, like many people here assumed. So I wouldn't take any of that information too seriously unless you tested it personally.

Forget whatever I said. This place is shit.

jmanx

May 2, 2012, 01:08 AM

Nothing needs to be rebalanced Hunters can kill bosses faster than rangers in a solo

FenixStryk

May 2, 2012, 01:39 AM

Nothing needs to be rebalanced.FO needs to have their uncharged techs completely reworked, and a boost to their out-of-PP damage to help them keep up with HU/RA damage in longer engagements such as bosses.

FO's defense is fine, and their burst damage on creeps is great (if not the best). However, the moment their PP bar runs out and they have to regenerate, their DPS falls behind HU/RA by a significant margin. Proven simply and by example: a Launcher's normal attack does roughly the same damage as Rafoie, but doesn't cost PP to use and has a shorter "charging" time.

Do not misunderstand: FO being limited by their PP is fine; all that is necessary is for their damage between several PP rotations to be put on the same level as HU/RA rotations. FO deserves their damage just like everyone else.

TL;DR: Buff FO. Yes, really.

Eggobandit

May 2, 2012, 02:03 AM

Forget whatever I said. This place is shit.

Oh look at me

my name is Dinosaur, im really smart

I take posts and decipher them like a politician

just to mask the fact that this Eggobandit guy just totally made me look not as smart as i think i am

It was like that in alpha, but it is 110% at level 10.

I even have a SOURCE http://wikiwiki.asia/pso2/index.php?%A5%D5%A5%A9%A1%BC%A5%B9 i went to college

Oh SHIT im wrong better do something drastic

see i can do that too, we both are pretty cool guy arent we

Mr. Dinosaur

Enforcer MKV

May 2, 2012, 02:07 AM

Oh look at me

my name is Dinosaur, im really smart

I take posts and decipher them like a politician

just to mask the fact that this Eggobandit guy just totally made me look not as smart as i think i am

Not really helping your own credibility by outright mocking the other guy, dude.

Eggobandit

May 2, 2012, 02:08 AM

Not really helping your own credibility by outright mocking the other guy, dude.

Wow, seriously? Scroll up. He started it!

Spellbinder

May 2, 2012, 02:13 AM

How about everyone just drops it and focuses on the topic?

Enforcer MKV

May 2, 2012, 02:13 AM

Wow, seriously? Scroll up. He started it!

I've been reading this thread the entire time. >_>

Doesn't really matter who started it. Neither side should do it.

How about everyone just drops it and focuses on the topic?

I'd say that's a good idea.

Eggobandit

May 2, 2012, 02:15 AM

Ohhhhhh. Okay.

Well, Mr. Dinosaur, if you were actually not being a meanie, then completely disregard my little poem there.

It had terrible meter anyway

----
----

Im just saying, there is a big difference between 14% and 20%, especially when comparing it to other abilities, and that counts double since abilities stack on the beta. So if you want to discuss useful options and possibilities for Rangers or Forces, you might want to know if the skill abilities you were talking about have a 6% difference in damage.

I only brought this up because i see people, on multiple occasions, assuming the abilities only scaled at 1% when i personally noticed that one did not. Which gives a GOOD chance that Ice and Lightning didn't either, which gives a GOOD chance other skills similar are the same way. This makes sense, because the they start to scale higher around the time you begin to add points past unlocking requirements.

Im going to ASSUME that most people figure they only scale that way because they skipped the extra 4-5 levels to get the abilities under it. This makes tons of sense, seeing as most people wouldn't really care to max out a skill that seemingly only gave 1% per skill point when you could get a completely new skill right under it for the same cost.

Which also makes perfect sense why they would stop scaling at 1%. :V

jmanx

May 2, 2012, 03:10 AM

FO needs to have their uncharged techs completely reworked, and a boost to their out-of-PP damage to help them keep up with HU/RA damage in longer engagements such as bosses.

FO's defense is fine, and their burst damage on creeps is great (if not the best). However, the moment their PP bar runs out and they have to regenerate, their DPS falls behind HU/RA by a significant margin. Proven simply and by example: a Launcher's normal attack does roughly the same damage as Rafoie, but doesn't cost PP to use and has a shorter "charging" time.

Do not misunderstand: FO being limited by their PP is fine; all that is necessary is for their damage between several PP rotations to be put on the same level as HU/RA rotations. FO deserves their damage just like everyone else.

TL;DR: Buff FO. Yes, really.

your suppose to mix in normal atks to regain PP when I played as FO it was really rape. Didn't have a PP problem there

Eggobandit

May 2, 2012, 03:20 AM

You can't really...buff forces. There's nothing wrong with them. They have their moments but unlike other games they dont have too many weaknesses now. Their biggest weakness is their PP bar, which is exactly how it should be. You're a nuclear missile silo with a full PP bar, and useless without it. before beta ended i was able to quickly drop entire groups of mobs in single casts from crazy ranges. I can pelt weakpoints on bosses while other classes have to weaken it first. I can freeze dragons and set rockbears on fire.

Force is fast, it's efficient, it has range, utility, survivability, elemental exploits, easy status effects, and ridiculous damage potential. I run out of PP pretty fast, but by the time im out of PP at least one swarm of monsters is either dead or 1 rod whack away from dead. Not to mention i can dish out a constant stream of high damage completely out of danger of the enemy. They need no buffs at all. They feel just how they're supposed to feel: limited only by their energy pool. If anything, they should actually nerf mirage dive. I think the only class that really catches up to Force in terms of raw damage output is Ranger, simply because weakshot is completely OP. Hunter naturally does wonderful damage and they should, but under good conditions and excluding weakshot i dont think any class is really going to outdamage a force, not through sheer number and most definitely not through splash damage.

A powerful hunter's 3 hit combo probably does about 260+ per Just Attack, my Cruel Stab sometimes got up to 500-600 damage, even more on enemies using Fury Stance. My charge Rafoie was doing 640 something per Just Attack, 940 and the very occasional 1000 something on weakpoint strikes vs. Fireweak monsters with lv 10 Fire Mastery. Gibarta had 200+ damage ticks with ice mastery. Techniques are NOT slow and almost all of them splash damage. And depending on how you used the skill tree, the PP Charge skill drastically increases the number of casts you get.

Launchers were very very powerful, but never ONCE has a launcher done more damage than my Rafoie. Maybe on dragon enemies, but you shouldn't be using Rafoie on them anyway.

Edit: you know, some of those numbers may be off. But the only gameplay video i have of my force is at Lv10. Charge foie around 253 on forest enemies. 400 on weakpoint dagan. So yeah im about 90% positive they aren't, but they could be by a bit.

Spellbinder

May 2, 2012, 03:45 AM

I hate to stray away from Ranger talk, but as far as Force goes, I think they simply need to do something to give incentive to non-charged attacks since nobody uses them. Reduced PP for non-charged techs has been a popular idea on the closed beta forum last I checked, but I wonder if there's anything else they can do.

Hrith

May 2, 2012, 04:02 AM

What really cracks me up is people saying rangers are too strong because of launchers, while rifles have a higher DPS in all situations.

Rifle should be nerfed a bit, especially the range of some of its PAs; being able to fire a grenade at rifle range is kind of silly.

Zyrusticae

May 2, 2012, 08:49 AM

lower invincible frames (or ADD uncancelable frames on the end of) the dodge moves

LOL NO.

If you include "hunter step" in that list of dodge moves, it would have no invincible frames AT ALL. The damn move's been nerfed so hard it's basically useless in boss fights unless you pour points into the skill tree - it barely has any movement whatsoever and the invincibility lasts all of maybe three frames! You have to be a Street Fighter-level parrying monster to consistently dodge boss attacks with how small the damn window is! (Fun fact: it won't even work on boss attacks where the impact frames are greater in length than the dodge frames!)

Now, if you were talking specifically about ranger and force dodge moves... nope, can't agree with that, either. Ranger dodge suffers from the same problems as hunter step, the only reason they aren't really noticeable is because ranger play style involves being out of range of hard-to-dodge attacks in the first place. Mirage step, on the other hand... It IS very easy to use, and it IS basically a get-out-of-jail free card, but y'know what? That thing is slow. It is terribly slow. It has the longest animation out of all the dodge moves, and for that reason, I think it damn well deserves to have the longest invincibility frames out of all of them. Not to mention Force kind of needs the help since they actually often have to be in melee range just to build pp efficiently...

Cayenne

May 2, 2012, 09:14 AM

This thread is like watching a dog chase it's own tail.

Ark22

May 2, 2012, 09:27 AM

Man this thread is entertaining. So many lols I made reading this.

NoiseHERO

May 2, 2012, 09:46 AM

Rath-Kun

May 2, 2012, 10:31 AM

I guess I'm a street fighter level parrying master too, I dodge just fine with hunter step...

Infact I still with it was actually a challenge to dodge. Well I'm sure soon it WILL be if harder modes speed up monsters.

Is THAT why people were making the PSO2 Street Fighter references. I had no idea how they compared haha.

Now if only PSO had a focus attack.

Dabian

May 2, 2012, 10:35 AM

Wonder what would happen when everyone shows up with a launcher in PVP...

I'm sure those that just want PVP aren't concerned though. Nope, they just want to shoot em up.

Seriously though, it's Beta. I'm pretty sure if we could get this riled up over Rangers, think about the JP CBT forums burning with passion. Balance isn't done yet. Sky isn't falling.

NoiseHERO

May 2, 2012, 10:36 AM

Is THAT why people were making the PSO2 Street Fighter references. I had no idea how they compared haha.

Now if only PSO had a focus attack.

I actually have no clue on that joke I was going on what zyru said, but yeah I found using all three of the dodges to be eas-

Wait... I actually found the rangers dodge to be a little tricky, because I'd get this delay before using it, not sure if it was just me or if it WAS designed that way, so that you had to be extra careful and see your enemies coming when you dodge(you ARE a long range fighter after all) but yeah, ranger's dodge left me a lot of close calls compared to hunter, and of course force's is godlike.

Dabian

May 2, 2012, 10:53 AM

I actually preferred ranger roll to force fairy step. But looking at the skill trees I can see why the basic versions of the evasion moves for the classes are so.

We're supposed to invest points to beef up and tweak them.

Zyrusticae

May 2, 2012, 11:19 AM

I guess I'm a street fighter level parrying master too, I dodge just fine with hunter step...

It's completely trivial for regular monsters.

I'm talking exclusively boss monsters... and most particularly the damn caterdran or however you spell it, it is IMPOSSIBLE to dodge its sweeping stun attack with hunter step unless you're practically clairvoyant!

NoiseHERO

May 2, 2012, 12:02 PM

It's completely trivial for regular monsters.

I'm talking exclusively boss monsters... and most particularly the damn caterdran or however you spell it, it is IMPOSSIBLE to dodge its sweeping stun attack with hunter step unless you're practically clairvoyant!

Yeah,

still no problem.

Infact sometimes I just mash the dodge button and still get by untouched.

Zyrusticae

May 2, 2012, 12:03 PM

This I'd like to see.

With a video, preferably.

NoiseHERO

May 2, 2012, 12:09 PM

soulpimpwizzurd

May 2, 2012, 12:22 PM

hunter dodge is the best. it moves so fast you might as well say it has invincibility frames. considering you can roughly double the amount of space you gain if you just dash>jump>dash it makes it even better.

@rock i actually heftily enjoy how enemy mob attack hitboxes are so precise. it should stay this way. i don't want any BS super extended hitboxes, since it'd be far more aggravating to gauge distance you need to move to dodge. i like the fact that i can narrowly slip out beneath the rock bear body slam right before he hits me.

@col hunter can still stay in the face of rockbear to attack it's weak spot at all times and do damage. you have to learn his tells and try to just guard, since the delay from just guard can be canceled into a regular attack immediately. if you just guard, the enemy you just guarded takes damage.
btw it sounds crazy but you can block his grab. lolll. so anyway, i'm not gonna be a dbag and say "get good nub" but that's basically what you have to do here. also rock bear goes down pretty damn fast if you use sword gear gauge and charge whenever he whiffs and falls down like a doofus. i feel like your main point still holds water though, in a sense. while both classes can stay on rock bear's weak spot, hunter has a slightly higher learning curve in order to do so. pretty much anybody can stay on the rock bear's weak spot using a ranger though.

zyrusticae, the caterdran's sweeping attaack can be dodged but i think you have to dash>jump>dash to dodge it. i've dodged it a lot of the time. admittedly, it's tell is pretty hard to notice and you don't have that much time to react. generally, if you make sure to get to his mid section you can avoid the sweep attack too, cause i think it's hitbox shrinks. to be honest, each time i dodged it, i was always a little surprised that i managed to do so, because it was such a narrow escape.

and there's always guarding if all else fails. but the annoying thing i learned about guarding is that you don't actually guard in the direction the attack is coming. like for the dragon sweeping his tail at you twice, you'd think you'd guard in the direction the tail is coming at you, but apparently that can still get you hit sometimes. you're just supposed to guard straight. ex:

/ = tail coming in from the left.
\ = tail coming in from the right.

what you think you're supposed to do but doesn't work:
/ <- guard this way. sometimes you get hit, it's kinda silly.
-> \ guard this way. same result as above.

what does work i've found, with less chance of failure is:

/ ^ and ^ \. ^ = guarding forward. dumb? yeah i think so, you guard in the direction of the dragon's main body, not it's tail lol. but eh, i'll forgive.

Taitu

May 2, 2012, 12:54 PM

Priest

May 2, 2012, 01:21 PM

Blocking is random? I noticed sometimes my block wouldn't work but I figured that was because I was out of PP, which a block seems to need a big chunk of.

Taitu

May 2, 2012, 02:09 PM

Blocking is random? I noticed sometimes my block wouldn't work but I figured that was because I was out of PP, which a block seems to need a big chunk of.

I don't think anyone said blocking was random. As long as you block within the rules of their blocking system it works every time.

Eggobandit

May 2, 2012, 02:11 PM

Well I said sometimes! otherwise.. I think monsters could actually use bigger hitboxes... the only thing I've ever had trouble dodging was ragne's spinning red blades of death when you're in his line of sight.

I think it's stupid that you can avoid any attack as long as the hitbox passes through your invincibility frames. If Dark Ragne stomps his whole body on you, you wouldn't be able to move fast horizontally and avoid damage. I think there should be some hitboxes on the game that ignore your method of evasion depending on what it is.

For example, Catadorian sweeping attack should have a spot that hits you no matter what if you try to Step or DodgeRoll through it, which would force you to block or jump it if you were in range.

Another example would be that flying explosion ball that Vol Dragon does with lv3 fire armor. It should have a hitbox that is impossible to guard against, regardless if it's a Just Guard or regular. It should also have a long enough lifespan that doding into it still guarantees you get hit. This forces you to escape out of range of the explosion. Dodge only works if you're using it to escape the edges of the blast radius, which is completely fair.

This is why i like Ragne's bloodwave attack thinigie. You can block it, but it's going to deplete all your PP in one shot. You can dodge it, but you'll probably be hit during recovery frames. So the most effective option is to simply jump over it, or get out of range. It gives you less options when he uses the attack, and makes it more dangerous of a move.

Its no fun when i fight a boss and just sit there for an attack because i know i can just guard it safely.

Taitu

May 2, 2012, 02:27 PM

Honestly the dodge/guard system for hunters seems like they are attempting to balance it in a way that both are necessary. Dodging is supposed to be an offensive form of damage avoidance while guarding is supposed to be defensive. I believe I have brought up before that Dodging can be performed off of any attack at any frame; however, guarding is not quite as lenient on its timing generally taking a few frames before it actually cancels a move.

If you have gained both the Step Attack and Just Guard skills, Step Attack will allow you to cancel your dodge into another attack. Just Guard will allow you to counter if you block a hit. This allows dodge to completely avoid damage while your DPS takes almost no hit at all. The downtime for the dodge itself is minuscule before you can cancel into an attack. The Just Guard sacrifices this speed for reliability in blocking. You don't have to worry about timing the guard exactly and can safely hold the button down to block all incoming attacks, but of course the longer you stand there guarding the more time you have wasted that you could be dealing damage. Of course the guard also takes a better defensive position against moves like Dark Ragne's discs which are active for far too long for the dodge to successfully avoid even if you were to dodge them on the first possible active frame.

Of course this is the way the system intends to work, whether they were successful at it and if they actually plan to mend the system is entirely up in the air.

Vashyron

May 2, 2012, 02:28 PM

I do find it silly how dodging is not dodging, but just giving you invincibility frames.

Peejay

May 2, 2012, 02:28 PM

This is why i like Ragne's bloodwave attack thinigie. You can block it, but it's going to deplete all your PP in one shot. You can dodge it, but you'll probably be hit during recovery frames. So the most effective option is to simply jump over it, or get out of range. It gives you less options when he uses the attack, and makes it more dangerous of a move.

The problem with this is the Interrupt events. If he comes out of nowhere to stomp your crap in, say, Naberius, he won't be too terribly effective because HE'S large and the terrain is uneven enough for you to be able to sit under the bloodwave in most cases.

When he's at home, though, it's definitely more restrictive.

Taitu

May 2, 2012, 02:30 PM

I do find it silly how dodging is not dodging, but just giving you invincibility frames.

This is the way all action games handle dodging, it's nothing new. Have you ever played Monster Hunter or Demon Souls?

Eggobandit

May 2, 2012, 02:37 PM

I do find it silly how dodging is not dodging, but just giving you invincibility frames.

I think its pretty impossible to create an effective dodge system without giving SOME invincibility frames, but the way the system is designed right now, it's way too easy to exploit them. Which is why i say they should probably remove the ability for invincibility frames to ignore hitbox collisions on some moves. Do the same with Guarding, and remove the ability for Just-Guard to negate all PP cost and damage.

This way, no one ability becomes the end-all of defensive moves, and the player has to learn when and where to dodge, block, jump, or just not put themselves in stupid situations.

PSO didn't have any dodge moves, but when Delsaber did a 3 hit combo or a Sinow Zoa went invincible and did that annoying bulldozer jump, you couldn't just mash block or evade and then keep attacking. You got your ass out of the way. Just because the game lets you block and dodge doesn't mean it should work for everything.

Vashyron

May 2, 2012, 02:37 PM

Yes, I would find it better if certain moves like the Dragon landing on you could not be "dodged" by using the invincibility frames.

This is the way all action games handle dodging, it's nothing new. Have you ever played Monster Hunter or Demon Souls?

Ok it's nothing new, but doesn't stop me from thinking how silly it is when like a given example of Vol Dragon landing on your character can be "dodged" even though it still landed on you.

Primobol

May 2, 2012, 04:26 PM

I think the most weird thing is that "dark electric shock field" from Dark Ragne not hitting if you're in mid air. Is that right? (you can check that on Sibladeko's video).
I mean, I was always running away from him when he was charging it because it was pretty clear all the area around him (this includes beneath him) should be affected by the attack.

A lot of the bosse's collisions are weird too:
- Most of the "stomps" are avoided if you jump.
- The not safe semiring area from the Rockbear's punch seems to be a little bit off away from him. Like sometimes you dodge away from the fist but get damaged, and sometimes them forearm gets harmlessly through you.
- The Catheherhedran (I spelled it right?) spin is avoided if you stand INSIDE his mid point.

Yeah and dodging exactly THROUGH something doesn't make sense unless they add some Kenshin's dodge style to the animation, like making u kinda invisible while the invincibility window is active. The mirage step seems like a ethereal form so going through enemies with that would make sense.

•Col•

May 2, 2012, 05:23 PM

Dark Ragne's lightning most definitely can hit you if you're in midair. I died to it once because I assumed it couldn't.

And stop complaining about the invincibility frames on the Hunter dodge. They need it. Besides, the Perfect Blocking system is just as ridiculous as phasing through attacks with the dodge.

And how the heck did this get so off topic? :l

Cayenne

May 2, 2012, 05:31 PM

It got off topic when everything that needed to be said, has been said but Ill put it back.

Launcher needs a nerf and ranger's roll should lose it's invincibility.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd go!

Quatre52

May 2, 2012, 05:34 PM

Launchers dont need a nerf, if they need anything(and I really dont think they need to change at all...) Just slow them down a bit. Its meant to be our power weapon, but, for the power we sacrifice our speed and mobility. Its a trade off.

Cayenne

May 2, 2012, 05:41 PM

A nerf could be anything from less damage to slowing something down so yes, a nerf...

Quatre52

May 2, 2012, 05:56 PM

Yea, but as I said, I see no need for any change..

Saotome Kaneda

May 2, 2012, 06:28 PM

Yea, but as I said, I see no need for any change..

Except speed and mobility doesn't matter when you have a faster first shot and no reload when jumping. Squeezing off like 6 shots in a single jump seems a little excessive to me, but what do I know!

Possible fixes:
1. Make the first aerial shot take as long to prep as the first ground shot.
2. Remove the hovering that occurs when you shoot, or replace it with a slow descent.
3. Add the 3rd shot reload/pause like all other ranged weapons.
4. Lower damage on air shots only(not much reason to do this because it doesn't fix the core problem, but it's a "fix")
5. Slow down ALL attacks from it.

Merely suggestions, pretty sure they've been all suggested at one point, let's try to get some pointed discussion I guess.

or ignore it I really don't care as long as FOs get some good things

sibladeko

May 3, 2012, 12:43 AM

Yes, I would find it better if certain moves like the Dragon landing on you could not be "dodged" by using the invincibility frames.

Ok it's nothing new, but doesn't stop me from thinking how silly it is when like a given example of Vol Dragon landing on your character can be "dodged" even though it still landed on you.

I think the worse part about this is the Vol Dragon literally has no hitbox coming down on your head except on its feet until it lands (and then an AOE low attack that can be universally jumped), so it is perfectly valid to JUMP UP INTO HIS STOMACH and attack him when he attempts to jump on you.

Someone actually told me I could have sped up my Vol Dragon run by like a minute this way.

Same with Ragne's jump as well.