how many rare bosses do I need to kill?

[IIKookaburra]

Is finding a 10* off a rare boss completely hopeless? I think I've killed about 30-40 of them and nothing ever drops, I've been hunting for weeks

[ashley50]

It's RNG.

You'll get used to it.

[BIG OLAF]

Finding anything of value in this game is just about hopeless.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

I want my flame visit =(

[IIKookaburra]

so what's the point of having rare bosses if the drop rate isn't any better? :-?

[Xaeris]

X.

Let X = any non-imaginary whole number between 1 and ∞.

The drop rate is better. It's just that 1 in 1x10^3413434 isn't particularly distinguishable from 1 in 10^3412424. (I pulled those numbers out of my butt.)

[Seravi Edalborez]

so what's the point of having rare bosses if the drop rate isn't any better? :-?

To keep you playing the game.

Or

To make you buy rare drop+% tickets to make you keep playing the game.

[gigawuts]

The droprate is not necessarily better. Look at the actual drops for demo comets and then the other 3 gwana weapons.

How many bosses? That varies. I have killed in excess of 150 gwanahda neros. That's usually in a full party, but sometimes with as few as two. Let's round that way down for simplicity's sake, and say an average of three people were there for the drops. 450 neros' worth of drops; 0 demo comets accounted for.

The point of the rare enemies? People liked them in past games, so they added them. They just didn't add what made them good in past games - better rates of items.

[Coatl]

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here."

My take on obtaining rare weapons from rare bosses.

[Yunfa]

Took me 817 Quartz Runs to find my Avenger. My girlfriend is at 1025+ Quartz Runs, and no Avenger.

You can start complaining after 1000 boss rush runs. >8D

[MetalDude]

Yeah, rare enemies basically suck. They have none of the benefits that they did back in PSO (like providing far more reliable rates for 12*'s like Lavis Cannon and Psycho Wand). The number of Neros killed over a Demo Comet is practically comparable to a Mil Lily P-Wand hunt; it's asinine.

[IIKookaburra]

But i see lots of other players walking around with rare boss 10 star weapons (1 or 2 in every VH MPA/Falz ) so thought it would be possible to get one :-(

[Xaeris]

Like any lottery, someone is winning.

[MetalDude]

Seriously? I rarely see Demo Comets or Avengers or pretty much any of those, especially Imperial Pick and Sacred Duster.

[Dnd]

Took me 817 Quartz Runs to find my Avenger. My girlfriend is at 1025+ Quartz Runs, and no Avenger.

You can start complaining after 1000 boss rush runs. >8D

Its to my understanding, that zerging boss runs actually reduces the chances of decent drops from the boss. Going into a boss room with s-rank in kill-points gives the best chance of good drops from the boss.

My real issue with rare bosses, is their spawn rates - the quest counter has consistently shown a 1/12 - 1/13 appearance rate for the nero in desert free field, yet my personal rate is 1/32 since the buff -.-

I have a fear that i'll never, ever get anything decent weapon wise on my hunter for a long time, a rikas claw would make my day tho :3

However, I've seen MANY demo comets/blade dance/imperial picks and the like - which just adds to the frustration :s

[IIKookaburra]

Took me 817 Quartz Runs to find my Avenger. My girlfriend is at 1025+ Quartz Runs, and no Avenger.

You can start complaining after 1000 boss rush runs. >8D

Is she still looking? I can help :-D

[Seravi Edalborez]

Its to my understanding, that zerging boss runs actually reduces the chances of decent drops from the boss. Going into a boss room with s-rank in kill-points gives the best chance of good drops from the boss.

I can't speak for drop -chances- but it seems to just be a matter of more drops in the boss crystal. People probably feel better about running 2 boss runs in 10 minutes than 1 with S-rank increasing drops.

[Syklo]

I can't speak for drop -chances- but it seems to just be a matter of more drops in the boss crystal. People probably feel better about running 2 boss runs in 10 minutes than 1 with S-rank increasing drops.

I'm still not believing this whole "S-rank boost drops" fananza.

I've S-ranked every gwana hunt I have done, and 87% of them resulted in 4 mesetas from the crystal core, others yeilded 5, 6, even 8.

There's gotta be other factors..

[Dnd]

I'm still not believing this whole "S-rank boost drops" fananza.

I've S-ranked every gwana hunt I have done, and 87% of them resulted in 4 mesetas from the crystal core, others yeilded 5, 6, even 8.

There's gotta be other factors..

It is before stepping into the boss room, remember, the quest rank at the end includes the boss and any spawns in the boss room (which, for most maps, as at least 70/700 pts afaik).

To be honest, however, all that I knows been confirmed is the more points you get up to and including the s-rank means more stuff will drop more often from everything you kill. Ever wondered why you get flooded with drops towards the end of a quest?

[Syklo]

It is before stepping into the boss room, remember, the quest rank at the end includes the boss and any spawns in the boss room (which, for most maps, as at least 70/700 pts afaik).

To be honest, however, all that I knows been confirmed is the more points you get up to and including the s-rank means more stuff will drop more often from everything you kill. Ever wondered why you get flooded with drops towards the end of a quest?
By breaking parts??

[Dnd]

By breaking parts??

Well, yeah, of course, but everyone knows that and I skipped adding it because I was referring to the mobs on the field, not strictly bosses only with my second statement.

ill run a test using the quartz dragon in a bit, and see what the true difference is - but I assure you, getting the 700pts for defeat ranking before a boss room increases the number of drops/quality of the drops - for a boss such as quartz dragon or banthers, it might not be that noticeable, considering the large number of breakable parts

[SociableTyrannosaur]

My understanding is that

A the extra drops come from getting a certain number of kills. This number of kills is at minimum the number of kills required to get an S rank. This ranking system does not affect interrupts.

B the extra drops are not pulled from the same pool. Lets say that the first 4 can pull from rank 6 drops and below. the extra drops will only pull from rank 5 and below - something like that.

C Breaking parts adds to drops, but I'm unclear if these drops are like the first 4 or the second 4.

D Certain bosses can only drop certain items if certain parts are broken - on those bosses the rares in question will only come from the drop(s) added by breaking that part.

[Dnd]

C-rank, only killing the quartz dragon in the boss room - breaking all 4 parts aswell
(8 items total - 3 meseta - 5 weapons)
[SPOILER-BOX]http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/7856/pso20130111044528000.png[/SPOILER-BOX] Its safe to assume that breaking a quartz dragon part is a 100% drop for a weapon/unit

S-rank, first picture is a dragon that appeared on the field, the second in the boss room. Again, breaking everything however, both quartz dragons kill below did have the orb boosted status (stage 1)
(23 items total - 11 meseta - 8 weapons - 1 unit - 2 grinders - 1 disk) - field dragon
(25 items total - 10 meseta - 7 weapons - 1 unit (rare) - 1 grinder - 6 disks) - Boss room dragon
[SPOILER-BOX]http://imageshack.us/a/img18/6807/pso20130111050740001.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img546/97/pso20130111052106002.png[/SPOILER-BOX]
I know what I'd rather spend time doing, personally. S-rank tripling item drops on average for this example, I imagine with the banthers its the same effect. The gwanahda/rockbears might be a completely different matter, due to the lack of breakable parts (Do the Gwanahda bits count as 'breakable' parts after killing enough of them? That might be the cause behind the inconsistent with drops from it?)

[SociableTyrannosaur]

Yes but if 66% of the item drops are going to be junk anyway and the other 33% are what you want and rushing to the end still gets you that 33%...why would you want the other 66%?

Pretty sure that's why people boss rush. that 66% is all throwaway..you get the good stuff no matter what.

[Syklo]

still doesn't explain how

-majority of my Desert free s-ranks result in 4 drops of end gwana.
-Some A ranks, even B ranks (not killing to the 700pt mark) result in 8 drops of end gwana.

[Dnd]

Yes but if 66% of the item drops are going to be junk anyway and the other 33% are what you want and rushing to the end still gets you that 33%...why would you want the other 66%?

Pretty sure that's why people boss rush. that 66% is all throwaway..you get the good stuff no matter what.

For this example. I'd be willing to bet that s-rank enables two weapon/unit drops per broken part of the dragon, I'm far too tired to continue this tonight and get more data (Lets face it, a sample of one true comparison isn't valid, no matter how you look at it).

The boss room yielding 6 PA disks was something I've never seen before, either and in the past I've gotten 12+ weapons from the boss during that same scenario (In fact, its due to this you see me holding that double saber :P).

The fact is, s-rank points increase the amount of drops, its just a matter if they increase the amount of useful chances of a 10* weapon/unit appearing or not. (Which, again, my money would be betting for this, by at least twice, if not 3 times). I still would spend 15-20 mins in a field farming s-rank points before a 5 min boss fight, instead of spending 5-10 mins running to a boss, then spending 5 mins to fight it, for a dragon/banther drop anyway.

Edit: Do the Gwanahda bits count as 'breakable' parts after killing enough of them? That might be the cause behind the inconsistent with drops from it? just a guess

[MetalDude]

Midbosses really tend to do whatever the hell they want. They don't seem to apply to the rule of kills at all.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

still doesn't explain how

-majority of my Desert free s-ranks result in 4 drops of end gwana.
-Some A ranks, even B ranks (not killing to the 700pt mark) result in 8 drops of end gwana.


I don't see how that can be right. In my experience it's the exact opposite.


Midbosses really tend to do whatever the hell they want. They don't seem to apply to the rule of kills at all.

Correct. Rank has no effect on them.


For this example. I'd be willing to bet that s-rank enables two weapon/unit drops per broken part of the dragon, I'm far too tired to continue this tonight and get more data (Lets face it, a sample of one true comparison isn't valid, no matter how you look at it).

The boss room yielding 6 PA disks was something I've never seen before, either and in the past I've gotten 12+ weapons from the boss during that same scenario (In fact, its due to this you see me holding that double saber :P).

The fact is, s-rank points increase the amount of drops, its just a matter if they increase the amount of useful chances of a 10* weapon/unit appearing or not. (Which, again, my money would be betting for this, by at least twice, if not 3 times). I still would spend 15-20 mins in a field farming s-rank points before a 5 min boss fight, instead of spending 5-10 mins running to a boss, then spending 5 mins to fight it, for a dragon/banther drop anyway.

Edit: Do the Gwanahda bits count as 'breakable' parts after killing enough of them? That might be the cause behind the inconsistent with drops from it? just a guess

I'm not in a place to argue this. I'm telling you what I've read here (many of them were translations from questions supposedly asked of the people in charge) and on the JP Wiki. none of my information on this one is first hand. hence the disclaimer "my understanding".

Anyway if you want particular drop and if my information is correct (again not saying it is) 5-10 mins vs 15-20mins is doubling your chances to get what you want while your method is spinning your wheels for half the run. Worst case if my information is wrong you're spending about the same amount of time for 33% more drops (8x2 vs 12)

[Syklo]

Oh that's probably why im getting my scenario.......gwana is a midboss..technically.
Now it makes sense.

[Seravi Edalborez]

On that note, anyone ever attempt to reason out how many kills needed exactly for S-rank (or if different, extra boss drops) per quest? Or is it assumed to be variable / enemies worth different values?

[MetalDude]

Not sure. I'm guessing what someone would have to do is kill one of a particular enemy, complete the quest, kill two of that enemy and then take the difference out of them to see how many points they give.

[Syklo]

The rule i use (which may be false, most likely):
Use the same point allotments used in the "survey" quests where you gotta earn points (one monster yields 2, another 3, another 4, etc).
multiply by 5
and there's your point worth per kill.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

On that note, anyone ever attempt to reason out how many kills needed exactly for S-rank (or if different, extra boss drops) per quest? Or is it assumed to be variable / enemies worth different values?

The bigger issue is that different missions have different requirements. For example you can kill maybe 10 enemies or less for Subdue the Za Oodan and get an S while to get an S on Forest Exploration is considerably more.

[Stormwalker]

I had to kill something less than 100 Rogbelts for my Yasminkov.

Probably 70 or 80, but I didn't keep an exact count. I know I had killed 10 in the last two days alone before it dropped.

That's just Rogbelts, mind you, no telling how many Rockbears I killed and how many more i abandoned on.

The drop rates on a rare boss *are* better. They're just not LOTS better.

At any rate, the JP swiki site has a fair amount of information about drop mechanics (apparently taken from an interview one of the PSO2 developers did with a Japanese gaming magazine). Suffice to say that yes, kills do matter.

Basically, if my understanding is correct (if it isn't, blame google translate):

A boss drops four items at a minimum. He has a chance to drop 8 items. The chance to drop 8 items is increased by killing more enemies on the way. Furthermore, killing more enemies actually increases the drop rates of all enemies in that mission as well.

Of those 4 (or 8 ) items, 1 (or 5) has a chance to be the rare drop. Yes, that's right, EVERY one of the bonus items has the potential to be the rare drop. Thus by getting your kills, you're multiplying your chances by at least 5. Of course, the drop rates are so damn low that even with that, nobody I know has ever seen a boss drop more than one rare item. Whether that's even possible (it might be that once a rare item has dropped off a given kill, it can't drop another one for you), I don't know.

Beyond that, breaking parts adds additional items. for some bosses, this is one item per broken part. For other bosses, you get lots (see: Banther, Ragne).

That's my understanding of what I read, if you want to get a better idea, go check it out for yourself. You might be better at translating Google-translate into real English than I am.

The only thing I can tell you for sure is that everyone I've personally talked to who's gotten a drop off a rare boss has been killing enough enemies for S-Rank along the way. It worked for me, too, so until someone comes up with hard evidence to the contrary, I'm going to keep doing it.

(Now: If you want to complain about drop rates? Talk to me and my 3000+ Gulfs killed and still no Stag Cutlery...)

[Coatl]

Of those 4 (or 8 ) items, 1 (or 5) has a chance to be the rare drop. Yes, that's right, EVERY one of the bonus items has the potential to be the rare drop. Thus by getting your kills, you're multiplying your chances by at least 5. Of course, the drop rates are so damn low that even with that, nobody I know has ever seen a boss drop more than one rare item. Whether that's even possible (it might be that once a rare item has dropped off a given kill, it can't drop another one for you), I don't know.




I've had 2 vader units drop for me at the same time a couple of times.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

Google translate and I need to have a sitdown.

Anyway there's a thread here where someone who can actually read japanese translated that interview. While the number of drops do increase with the number of kills, the extra drops from kills are not pulling from the same pool. This is also explained in another article. lastly I think you're reading into things too much. The added chances from extra kills simply means statistically you're more likely to get something the more stuff that drops.

[Darki]

@Stormwalker: as far as I know, drops that come from breaking monster parts have their own set of drops, which may or may not contain the rares you're looking for.

For example, all the drops gained through breaking every single Vader parts will count towards getting Vader units, but if I remember correctly, it doesn't affect other rares like Black Bellow, Vader Cannon or Vader Bit. To increase the chance for those items all you can do is killcount.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

yeah I knew there was something weird about breakables

[Meji]

Rare
/re(ə)r/
adj. rar·er, rar·est

(of an event, situation, or condition) Not occurring very often.


Just suck it up. These items aren't called rare for nothing.

[Skye-Fox713]

@Stormwalker: as far as I know, drops that come from breaking monster parts have their own set of drops, which may or may not contain the rares you're looking for.

For example, all the drops gained through breaking every single Vader parts will count towards getting Vader units, but if I remember correctly, it doesn't affect other rares like Black Bellow, Vader Cannon or Vader Bit. To increase the chance for those items all you can do is killcount.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

TBH i'm really glad that they put some good 10* weapons on common bosses like the Mixer Bullet and the Vardha drops. Though I swear if Sega just let us Trade 10*'s i'd have the full vardha set by now because i've gotten about 7 arm and leg armor drops but no back piece. Yet I can look at the item records and it will show 5k plus varhda back armor drops in the last 7 days. This is with going for kill count and breaking all his pieces.

I think the theory about boss breaks was that they have a higher chance to drop items with their sol on them.

[gigawuts]

How the JP's have worked it out it so far as I know, and it clicks 100% with my own few hundred hours of boss farming experience:

1. There are two non-visible point values. Both of these values are raised by kills. One is for S-Ranking, the other is for boosting boss drops. The srank value is shown when you finish the quest; the boss drop kill points are not. These two stats are separate.
2. Each boss killed consumes a portion of these kill points to give you your extra drops. How much? I don't know. This is why every vol dragon will have boosted drops from "sranking," but not every gwanahda - they probably consume the same quantity kills which requires many more kills than a mere srank for all 3 gwanahdas.
3. Breakable parts count as ENTIRELY SEPARATE enemies. They have their OWN drop tables. A broken fang banther front leg will NEVER drop a mehrenennka. Not breaking any front legs will NEVER result in the loot crystal giving you a fang banther arm unit. They are not the same drop tables. This is why you can find two arm units off one banther: It has more than one front leg.
4. The extra points boost only the core drops of the boss. Nothing from breakable parts benefits at all from the kill point boost. You cannot find more than 2 banther arm units by racking up kill points or doing anything else, ever. Ever. The kill point boost will give you more chances for a mehrenennka.

Some more facts:
Bosses without breakable parts can have boosted "kill point" drops, disproving breakable parts being the only way to boost drops.
Bosses with breakable parts can have non-boosted "kill point" drops, but this is lost in the noise from breakable parts.

So it's called "sranking" because people in threads like these get told wrong or conflicting information, and just call it what other people call it. Srank is not the prerequisite. Kills are the prerequisite. You can die, go to campship, lose srank, and still get the kill point drop boost.

If someone has better information I'd be interested to hear it, but to the best of my knowledge this is the consensus of the in-the-know JP players.

[Meji]

So it's called "sranking" because people in threads like these get told wrong or conflicting information, and just call it what other people call it. Srank is not the prerequisite. Kills are the prerequisite. You can die, go to campship, lose srank, and still get the kill point drop boost.

If someone has better information I'd be interested to hear it, but to the best of my knowledge this is the consensus of the in-the-know JP players.
Still unsure about this part.

Why? Here's the reason.
When you kill Dark Falz Elder, there isn't really any way to "boost" the amount of drops, except from destroying all of his parts.
One thing I noticed though (this might need more research, but this is what happened to me); when you normally kill Falz (with or w/o hands, doesn't matter), he drops a lot of items, and when you return to the Camp Ship, you're given a message that the mission has been S-Ranked. Simply put, you only need to kill 1 enemy to get those remaining 700 points to tick your total up to 1000.

However, if you're dead during the time Dark Falz dies, you'll end up with a C-Rank instead. This happened to me twice, and the loot I got this time was minimal (only about 12 drops, or so), despite all arms being destroyed.
Same thing happened with Pahsy once. She had returned to the Camp Ship to stock up on Moons (since everyone else was out), and Falz Died. Her loot was extremely minimal compared to ours when we broke the loot sphere.

Then again, this might go with the theory that...

If kill ≧ 1, then loot = lots.
If kill < 1, then loot = less.

...which, once again, means S-Ranking does't affect the loot at all.
But, yeah, everything you've put into words makes a lot of sense. Everyone should read it. Kudos to Gigs.

Other than that, this once again proves that items in loot spheres spawn upon breaking it, not upon the boss dying.

[gigawuts]

It may be that you don't get breakable part drops at all when dead, or it may be that falz is a special case. I don't think the two are connected, however, as you can get an Srank and a reasonably small circle with few arms broken or an srank with every arm broken and way more drops.

Either way, a simple srank alone does not merit the full amount of drops, and aranking can still get you all the drops if you die and hit campship.

[Yunfa]

How the JP's have worked it out it so far as I know, and it clicks 100% with my own few hundred hours of boss farming experience:

1. There are two non-visible point values. Both of these values are raised by kills. One is for S-Ranking, the other is for boosting boss drops. The srank value is shown when you finish the quest; the boss drop kill points are not. These two stats are separate.
2. Each boss killed consumes a portion of these kill points to give you your extra drops. How much? I don't know. This is why every vol dragon will have boosted drops from "sranking," but not every gwanahda - they probably consume the same quantity kills which requires many more kills than a mere srank for all 3 gwanahdas.
3. Breakable parts count as ENTIRELY SEPARATE enemies. They have their OWN drop tables. A broken fang banther front leg will NEVER drop a mehrenennka. Not breaking any front legs will NEVER result in the loot crystal giving you a fang banther arm unit. They are not the same drop tables. This is why you can find two arm units off one banther: It has more than one front leg.
4. The extra points boost only the core drops of the boss. Nothing from breakable parts benefits at all from the kill point boost. You cannot find more than 2 banther arm units by racking up kill points or doing anything else, ever. Ever. The kill point boost will give you more chances for a mehrenennka.

Some more facts:
Bosses without breakable parts can have boosted "kill point" drops, disproving breakable parts being the only way to boost drops.
Bosses with breakable parts can have non-boosted "kill point" drops, but this is lost in the noise from breakable parts.

So it's called "sranking" because people in threads like these get told wrong or conflicting information, and just call it what other people call it. Srank is not the prerequisite. Kills are the prerequisite. You can die, go to campship, lose srank, and still get the kill point drop boost.

If someone has better information I'd be interested to hear it, but to the best of my knowledge this is the consensus of the in-the-know JP players.

So what you're saying is that I should not break any parts after killing a large # of mobs, or else the unit drops will decrease my chances of getting the core drop that I want?

[gigawuts]

No. Not at all, I'm saying the exact opposite: Breakable parts are entirely unrelated and separate from core drops. They just drop from the same crystal, making it look like it's all from the same single entity. It's not.

Breaking a fang banther front leg does not reduce chances of a mehrenennka dropping.
Breaking a fang banther front leg does not increase chances of a mehrenennka dropping
Having zero kill points prior to killing the boss does not increase or decrease the chances of a fang banther arm unit dropping.
Having max kill points prior to killing the boss does not increase or decrease the chances of a fang banther arm unit dropping.
Mehrennenkas come from the "core" drops, which always drop and can be increased with kill points.
Fang banther arm units come from the front legs, which only drop in addition to any other drops if you break the front legs.

Just think of each breakable part as a literally separate enemy. When you're killing banthers, does ANYTHING you do to the banther increase the odds of a gulf dropping a rare? No. Does doing ANYTHING to a single gulf decrease your odds of finding a mehrenennka? No.

For cases like falz, it may be that arms also raise the kill point counter, or merely being alive at the end counts as a max kill point counter.

edit: To help simplify, how about we do this. This is an example, not the actual numbers, but it might help some people. This is the gist of how the system may be set up to get the same results we see:
Items A-H are core items.
A-D always drop.
E-H require extra kill points to drop.
J-K are Front Leg 1.
L-M are Front Leg 2.
O-P are Back Leg 1.
Q-R are Back Leg 2.
S-T are the Face.
U-V are the Rear.

Triggering drops E-H has ZERO effect on J-V. Activating S-T has ZERO effect on E-H.

[Dnd]

For cases like falz, it may be that arms also raise the kill point counter, or merely being alive at the end counts as a max kill point counter.

For falz, even if you break off 2 arms you get max (700) points for defeat rankings, if your not dead when he dies, of course.

[Z-0]

For Falz:

His arms are just treated in the same manner as Banther's legs; they just drop a few additional items. The rares from the arms are just units, also. It's not actually critically important to break his arms, or "plan" your shocks or anything like that, unless people in your party do actually need/want the units.

And yes, when it comes to increasing drops, it's just a number of enemies which is required; rank means nothing. S-Ranking is just the name as the number of enemies required will usually end up giving you an S-Rank, so it's basically used a gauge of sorts. This gauge depends on the enemy, I do believe. For example, Falz only needs 1 enemy specifically (himself; the arms aren't counted as separate enemies, but for drop purposes they are), while other bosses might need 5, 20, 100, who knows.

People just break his arms because he's a limited boss though. If I could farm him outside of the EQ, I'd just 'zerk his core everytime because I already have a unit set (just need a leg for a second, lol).

[Heat Haze]

Too bad every time anyone mentions "S-Rank" doesn't determine the amount of drops, but instead is determined by an invisible kill point counter, they're given the scornful look of "naw u crazy." So far, most boss hunting parties I've been in only killed the minimum amount for S-Ranking and they complain why there isn't much loot. Didn't know about each part counting as separate loot tables though; learn something new everyday.

Wonder how far the rareception will go. Rare Area, Rare Enemies.. what next, rare EQs?

[The Walrus]

Rare enemies that can only appear in Rare Areas that can only happen in Rare EQs that only happen on Feb 29th

[gigawuts]

The kill point thing is pretty easy to demonstrate in action, I even noticed it before the JP's said anything about it.

Go do a 4 player gwanahda run, get loads of kills. Do not kill krahdas in the boss room. Kill one gwana, loot items. Kill the next, loot items. Kill all the krahdas, now kill the last boss and loot the items.

If you do this a few hundred times (like, I don't know, me), you might notice the boss killed after you wipe out all the krahdas virtually always drops more items. I chalk the times it doesn't up to just another RNG tripping everything up in this game.

Being that I've done upwards of 2000 gwana runs, this is something I've seen in action and find it hard to disagree with.

edit: Actually maybe not gwana, I'm not sure what effect the tentacles have on kill points. Rockbear, cata, etc. should be better if you really want to check it out.

[Cyclon]

The kill point thing is pretty easy to demonstrate in action, I even noticed it before the JP's said anything about it.

Go do a 4 player gwanahda run, get loads of kills. Do not kill krahdas in the boss room. Kill one gwana, loot items. Kill the next, loot items. Kill all the krahdas, now kill the last boss and loot the items.

If you do this a few hundred times (like, I don't know, me), you might notice the boss killed after you wipe out all the krahdas virtually always drops more items. I chalk the times it doesn't up to just another RNG tripping everything up in this game.

Being that I've done upwards of 2000 gwana runs, this is something I've seen in action and find it hard to disagree with.
All this information should be stickied somewhere. Even though I knew about the points system, I was unaware that each boss that you'd face would consume points individually upon looting. Is it also the case for the ones that spawn during emergency codes? Is it detrimental to actually fight those? Because I thought they would GIVE points, not take them.


Other than that, this once again proves that items in loot spheres spawn upon breaking it, not upon the boss dying.
How so?

[gigawuts]

Well, much of this is hearsay that I find my own experience backs up to the T. Before making a sticky I'd want to do decently extensive testing on exactly the things you mentioned - random bosses in the field, code captures, all of it.

Sometimes I notice a randomly encountered boss dropping 4 items despite having killed enough for srank in a1, but the boss room bosses drop their expected amount as if I hadn't killed any bosses at all. Sometimes I get all the drops I'd expect from the boss in the field, which does impact the boss room.

This seems to be covered in great detail on swiki, but I can't read japanese so can't hazard a guess at the finer details of it all. I've typed up the gist of it here, however.

[NoiseHERO]

How so?

I THINK if you die right before the boss does, you'll get the same drops you would've gotten originally if you're revived before the crystal is broken.

GL with that in MPAs though...

[Vintasticvin]

My take on the matter is when one doesnt seek or desire an item it will drop for them when not expected. Meditate on THAT ;)

Then again that was then this now which I have yet to reach VH levels to see if my belief is still true in pso2

[RagolianHunter]

How the JP's have worked it out it so far as I know, and it clicks 100% with my own few hundred hours of boss farming experience:

1. There are two non-visible point values. Both of these values are raised by kills. One is for S-Ranking, the other is for boosting boss drops. The srank value is shown when you finish the quest; the boss drop kill points are not. These two stats are separate.
2. Each boss killed consumes a portion of these kill points to give you your extra drops. How much? I don't know. This is why every vol dragon will have boosted drops from "sranking," but not every gwanahda - they probably consume the same quantity kills which requires many more kills than a mere srank for all 3 gwanahdas.
3. Breakable parts count as ENTIRELY SEPARATE enemies. They have their OWN drop tables. A broken fang banther front leg will NEVER drop a mehrenennka. Not breaking any front legs will NEVER result in the loot crystal giving you a fang banther arm unit. They are not the same drop tables. This is why you can find two arm units off one banther: It has more than one front leg.
4. The extra points boost only the core drops of the boss. Nothing from breakable parts benefits at all from the kill point boost. You cannot find more than 2 banther arm units by racking up kill points or doing anything else, ever. Ever. The kill point boost will give you more chances for a mehrenennka.

Some more facts:
Bosses without breakable parts can have boosted "kill point" drops, disproving breakable parts being the only way to boost drops.
Bosses with breakable parts can have non-boosted "kill point" drops, but this is lost in the noise from breakable parts.

So it's called "sranking" because people in threads like these get told wrong or conflicting information, and just call it what other people call it. Srank is not the prerequisite. Kills are the prerequisite. You can die, go to campship, lose srank, and still get the kill point drop boost.

If someone has better information I'd be interested to hear it, but to the best of my knowledge this is the consensus of the in-the-know JP players.

I was doing some sky runs with some fellow forums users last weekend or whenever and got all three quartz units in one boss kill.

[Cyclon]

I THINK if you die right before the boss does, you'll get the same drops you would've gotten originally if you're revived before the crystal is broken.

GL with that in MPAs though...
If I haven't misunderstood what was said earlier, and if that's correct too, this would only be relevant if killing the boss actually gave points. And even then this would hardly make a difference from what I've seen. Otherwise, you dying wouldn't affect anything, and thus sadly, this wouldn't prove anything...

I actually ask because I want it to be true(the whole "loots are decided when breaking the crystal rather than when the boss dies" thingie), but fail to understand how any of what was said before could lead to that conclusion.

[Sealco555]

Boss crystal drops are definitely determined when the crystal is broken. I had the gunner subclass quest from Lisa accepted (where you have to get 50 darker cores, which only drop if you kill them with rifles or launchers). Before I finished that, I decided to go do some more Gwanahda Nero runs using FI/HU. When I found one, I broke its crystal using my Lucky Rise Bouquet Rifle (the boss was killed only using my Gwana Double), and it dropped a darker core for my gunner quest.

[goldwing]

On that note, anyone ever attempt to reason out how many kills needed exactly for S-rank (or if different, extra boss drops) per quest? Or is it assumed to be variable / enemies worth different values?

I attempted but was told values change based on how many ppl are in ur team. With noone to help me i scrapped the project. Tho im willing to start again solo runs tho.

[Cyclon]

Boss crystal drops are definitely determined when the crystal is broken. I had the gunner subclass quest from Lisa accepted (where you have to get 50 darker cores, which only drop if you kill them with rifles or launchers). Before I finished that, I decided to go do some more Gwanahda Nero runs using FI/HU. When I found one, I broke its crystal using my Lucky Rise Bouquet Rifle (the boss was killed only using my Gwana Double), and it dropped a darker core for my gunner quest.
Okay! Well then that's good to know. Thanks.