broken: hybrid classes

[ViciousXUSMC]

Before I had the game last week my only knowledge came from this board and I did alot of reading, part of that was finding out about the new "class" system where your able to change your job at anytime between a hunter/ranter/force and the brand new hybrid classes.

This struck me as awsome! However now I have beat offline mode, and started online today I can tell this isnt going to work so well....


Let me explane


My vision of the Hutecher (think thats the one... Hunter/Force) would be my good ol' Hunewearl from PSO:BB Pretty good at meele combat but able to cast pretty good with lvl 20 techs.

I figured this will probably be my end game class as I like force and hunter the most (ranger feels way too easy/cheap for me)

Then before I even had the game I realized... forces no longer learn there spells but rather attach them to weapons to use them... severly limiting the spells you can use at once and your overall effectivness as a force. Yes you can carry multiple weapons but even still it hurts you badly and you cant carry enough weapons for all the spells.

Now that leads to the next problem... A hybrid Hunter/Force will be using a meele weapon most of the time not casting.. So there is no way to Meele/Cast at the same time like I used too... (pretty much what I did was tagged everything with rafoi for xp, then used meele while keeping s/d/ up and j/z in harder areas)

So that means the perks of the class are gone already, no casting resta to heal yourself in the heat of battle, no casting a spell to tag enemies then running in meele without a weapon swich. I dunno it seems like a really bad idea... pretty much only thing I can find a use for the class is self casting shifta and deband when you want to solo.

One more thing to add insult to injury is the limit on skills, I dont mean level limit I mean number limit. Seems there is a cap of 36 (i think) skills you can have total this includes weapon skills, techs, bullets. All 3 classes go together in 1 pool of skills, if you get more than 32-36 you are forced to delete a prior skill and unlearn it and reset it to zero!

Imagine sombody trying to play a ranter/force hybrid!

So anyways looks like I will be deleting my human character and making a character for each class to specialize instead of trying to do it all in one with a hybrid.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ViciousXUSMC on 2006-11-05 21:22 ]</font>

[manlai]

I don't think the introduction of hybrids was meant to be a "do it all in one" by any stretch of the imagination. It's just having new classes that bear some resemblance to the original ones. It forces you to pick and choose between proficiencies in choosing which later hybrid class you want. Hybrid classes are about being something new, not being an all-in-one, or several-in-one even.

It certainly seems annoying but they are going for a much more challenging use of techs than before. PSO was way too easy to nuke to the point of being really dumbed down. If you add fewer weaps to your palette you can switch, cast, switch, swing/shoot in fairly short order. I'm not sure why the empty slot is there on the palette since I can't see any practical use of being weapon free... I don't think it's broken but more that it was just trying to correct an overly easy system from before.

That being said, 2 techs per weap is extremely limiting since you're responsible for healing as well as attacking. Linking techs to a wand stronger in that element is a great idea to me, as that's how I played mages in other games setting up macros with a wand/staff switch immediately preceding a spell cast. I don't really like playing forces so I haven't fully explored how cumbersome this game's system might be. I'm not nuts about that but it is what it is.

The 36 limit does seem crazy, but I can understand the logic. Thinking about it generally, it doesn't make sense that a hybrid force/ranger would have access to the same depth of skills that a pure force or ranger would. If that was the case, there'd be 0 incentive to play a pure class character. You're sacrificing some pure proficiency for some variety. A potential problem area would be new techs added later on and if the pure force player has all 36 techs already. It wouldn't be fair to ask a pure force to sacrifice one tech for another, but that's a problem for another day.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: manlai on 2006-11-05 23:02 ]</font>

[AlphaMinotaux]

i change weaponsin the heat of battle without thinking. just press 2 buttons and magic i changed weapon. i guess contrller helps ?

[KiteWolfwood]

PSO=/=PSU. Also you are only limited to 6 weapons on your pallet. You can always bring others in your inventory. Also if you have to you can take 10 seconds to switch what spells you have on your wands that are on your pallet. It is really really really simple to change weapons in battle, as a Ranger I am switching between plasma shotgun, ice rifle, burning twin handguns, and my spear all the time. Also most mobs in a zone will usually have 2 -3 elemental weaknesses so you can prepare before hand.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: KiteWolfwood on 2006-11-05 23:22 ]</font>

[ViciousXUSMC]

The 36 limit does seem crazy, but I can understand the logic. Thinking about it generally, it doesn't make sense that a hybrid force/ranger would have access to the same depth of skills that a pure force or ranger would. If that was the case, there'd be 0 incentive to play a pure class character. You're sacrificing some pure proficiency for some variety. A potential problem area would be new techs added later on and if the pure force player has all 36 techs already. It wouldn't be fair to ask a pure force to sacrifice one tech for another, but that's a problem for another day.


You didnt think the pure characters have higher stats for that area and higher lvl techs. A pure force can have lvl 30 techs, while a hybrid is cut at lvl 20 so thats your incentive to be pure force/ranger/hunter for the stats and higher lvl skills.

The hybrid is just that a partial pick from both sides. I think you guys are kinda off topic abit from what I was getting at.

I use 2h weapons most of the time, but I guess if you had a saber in one hand and a wand in the other thats one way to play a hybrid :/

[Randomness]

Wands are main hand. But really, you can switch out a wand, resta, and switch back to another weapon fairly quick. I do it all the time switching to and from my healing rod.

[_Deliverance_]

You can't be a hybrid and still have the best of both, or even all 3 worlds. wtf are you thinking?

[Alpha-Hunter]

that he/she wanted the 100% benefit of both classes, lol. def understandable, but totally unreasonable. not to mention unbalanced.

On 2006-11-06 08:40, _Deliverance_ wrote:
You can't be a hybrid and still have the best of both, or even all 3 worlds. wtf are you thinking?

[KirinDave]

The restrictions are there so that no one character can become perfect at every job. PSU is different in that it lets you switch jobs on the fly, but they also clearly didn't people who could function perfectly in every capacity for a quick 100m charge.

So the result is that most people will focus on 1-2 classes. Protransers are going to be incredibly rare.

But if you consider it, 32 techs really is quite a lot. I have every tech online, some weaponskills I use, and I still only have 10 techs in total. Even if I bought more elements for my bow, got 3 more spells, I'd still be at barely half my capacity with one class.

I don't think it'd hurt hunter/force hybrids. What's going to hurt is ranger/force hybrids. Yeouch.

[Zakuro]

If you are soloing it is easy to switch weapons for things like buffs and debuffs and then go back to your melee weapons, even if it means running around for a whlie. In parties you may not need to switch as often as you may have someone better suited (Fortetecher) there or perhaps you could split them with another hybrid there. Once we get the advanced classes there will probably be a decent amount more tech users going around than there are forces right now.

The limit isn't really that bad. It forces you to think about what you want and how you want to play your character. Wartecher is probably going to be one of the hardest to deside PAs on, but even for them I seriously doubt you'll use every tech, so you'll likely be able to fit in all your melee PAs without much trouble. Just find out what each tech does beforehand and find the ones you really like and stick only with them until you know you have spare room or not to add more.

Planning your character ahead of time can save a lot of headache in the future as well as keeping you from leveling PAs that you may have to get rid if you are short on room. Hybids will be just fine, you just can't do everything with them. There is still plenty of room for versatility and Force hybrids will likey be one of the classes that differs the most from person to person as each person picks what would benefit their playstyle the most. Some may focus on melee, some on techs, some may be split evenly, and thats not even counting what techs each decide to take. Some may focus on buffs/debuffs, some may go after some of the AEs or techs that are most likely to cause status effects, etc.

[Kent]

I carry weapons other than casting ones on my Force, and I have no problem switching between them in the midst of a battle.

Once you get used to how your weapons are layed out (and stick with one setup), you can effortlessly go to the opposite end of your weapon palette, without thinking (this is using a controller, at least). For example, I have my Spear in the second slot, and my Wand with Resta and Reverser in the sixth slot. If I'm in, say, Hakura Temple, and come across those Force enemies, I'll use my Spear, because the damage is much more efficient than nuking. When they hit people, or I need to remove status effects?

Hold B, press RB three times, release B. Now I'm ready to heal and remove status effects. Three pulls of the right trigger while holding B, and I'm back to my Spear. It's not hard - really easy, in fact.

Of course, the problem with this, lies in that War/Guntecher can only use Wands, and not Rods. If they were able to use Rods, the number of spells they could have on the palette at once, would effectively double. So, you just have to work around this, and you'll do just fine.

[Nayla]

As for the whole not-having-enough-slots-for-ur-techs thing, Rods can have 4 techs bound to them, so if u carry enough weps u should be able to have all the techs u need close at hand. I carry 2 Rods and a Wand myself, so I have a total of 10 techs that I can use quickly. Yes, it does take time to switch weps to cast, but no more time than it would take to use a tech from the quick-menu in PSO. I don't see it as a problem, just a change in strategy.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nayla on 2006-11-06 10:21 ]</font>

[Shinomaru]

ALSO some hybrid classes are better then the pure because they get exculsive Weapons. for example Only Figunner can have Double Saber while Pure hunter cant. also some hybrid classes have better ranks in weapons that a pure mite not.

[Nayla]

Shino - True

And of course, no Expert Class is forever. As long as u have the requirements, u can change to any one of them. So at least ur not stuck when u find out the Expert Class u picked doesn't suit ur playing style.

[panzer_unit]

GunTecher comes close to having the best of both worlds. Good levels on bullets and techniques, and you can dual-wield all manner of awesome guns and wands.

Beast WarTechers seem like an easy choice... high ATP, and the option of using spells that hit regardless of bad ATA and enemies with high defense stats. For Newmans it's probably nice to be that much tougher and able to do your own crowd-control against mobs with a powerful Twin Saber photon art.

[Pentence]

I hear that i am finding that at the least with the Wartecher class i get my favorite wepons claws both types ,and as im not a big swordd fan and prefer the spear im content with the selection i have.As for lack of spells at once well with the limited elemental types and smaller mobs in psu i find myself just useing two elements a lvl anyway.Also since wartechers have no rods i have grown used to this already and have found the best way to balance that is rely less on tech tagging(mainly cause you can only hit 3 enemys no matte what anyway)and use the bows to balance it all out i have 2 bows always on me.Once you find your niche it will likely work out for you but it may take a bit so dont just give up try it out and then switch classes later if you want,thats what PSU imo is all about finding YOUR place and what your comfortable with.

[Talin]

I wasn't aware that there was an actual cap on how many Photon Arts you can learn (it's probably right on the screen and I just look right past it...), but if there is one, it certainly makes you have to plan out your character more than I had been.

[Sexy_Raine]

As a female newman I can honestly care less about the hunter/ranger hybrid crap, there is just no point of going for those two classes as my atk power sucks. Those two classes are useless, and have no intention to waste my time leveling them. I'm going staight for level 30 techs. It's not like sega actually cares about making race exclusive weapons that's really worth going for other classes.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sexy_Raine on 2006-11-06 16:42 ]</font>