s-rank rifle and related questions

i finally decided to go ahead and try to get an s-rank weapon. i'd like an s-rank rifle with the hell special, i think. now, my RAcaseal has been using an s-beat's blade in offline ep2 and she's had great success with it. most of the enemies crumble immediately, so she's able to make good time. however, she struggles more online (not a big surprise) and she cannot seem to insta-kill the ep2 mini-bosses. i figure a rifle with the hell special will allow her to wreak havoc from a distance and make life a little easier, but i'm not completely sure. so, my questions are...

1. does the hell special on an s-beat's blade operate with the same success rate as the hell special available for s-ranks? (may seem like a silly question but i want to make absolute sure.)
2. is it at all possible to insta-kill ep2 mini-bosses?
3. am i insane for thinking an s-rank rifle with the hell special is a good idea?
4. in regard to increasing my RAcaseal's effectiveness online, would the demon's special make more sense in terms of success rate and ability to affect ep2 mini-bosses?

forgive me if these questions seem silly. any help greatly appreciated. (and please do not suggest that i get an s-rank shot and give it the zalure special...i've already considered this idea and dismissed it.)

(note: i couldn't decide whether this belonged in item discussion or c-mode discussion. i seem to remember that most s-rank related questions get moved here, so i figured this forum was the better place to start. sorry if i guessed wrong.)



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: jspacemunkey on 2004-12-24 22:51 ]</font>

(keep in mind i dont really like to rely on specials)

hm, afaik, hell ult online is kinda a waste, especially if youre in a quick team with a force.

sure, bot-megid is an interesting idea, but i think hell works best in non-ult.

demon on a rifle would work pretty well in tower.

a zalure shot / needle is only good for offline mode or an allbot game (at bosses like falz for example), so if youre not needing one, forget about it.

hm...


best you wait until kef, ibuki, ryna or someone else with more knowledge about specials answers here..

Quote:

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On 2004-12-24 22:50, jspacemunkey wrote:

1. does the hell special on an s-beat's blade operate with the same success rate as the hell special available for s-ranks? (may seem like a silly question but i want to make absolute sure.)
2. is it at all possible to insta-kill ep2 mini-bosses?
3. am i insane for thinking an s-rank rifle with the hell special is a good idea?
4. in regard to increasing my RAcaseal's effectiveness online, would the demon's special make more sense in terms of success rate and ability to affect ep2 mini-bosses?

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1. S-rank works better. S-Beat's Blade would get reduced, naturally.
2. Possible, but really hard I think. I couldn't recommend this.
3. It's possible to find a Hell Laser with nice hit percentage.. And S-Rank Needle and Shot could get the same special with multiple hits, un-reduced as well. While for Shots and Needles normally the special would have been reduced, unlike for Rifle-type weapons. So I would say this choice isn't a great idea. For S-rank specials, in general you should just go for the multi-target hitting weapons.
4. Another likewise Special... The effectiveness of a special is really dependant on the type of weapon you are planning to use it with. But either way, again... I can't recommend this against the mini-bosses. As far as I know, the nasty ones (Meri) have 100 ESP. Wouldn't that make them immune to this?

rena-ko sussed out my plan. my goal is to get a ranged s-rank that will allow my RAcaseal to hammer enemies from a distance in east and west tower on ult difficulty. in other words, i'm not really concerned about a multi-hit weapon. generally i'll be taking enemies on in small groups or one at a time, so power is more important than number of hits per combo. i guess i'm wondering more whether i ought to get a set of s-rank mechguns as opposed to the rifle.

tycho states simply what i was mainly interested in knowing: are the mini-bosses immune to dark and hence immune to hell and demon's, or will those specials work against them once in a while? (those specials are affected by dark resistance, i believe.) obviously, some tower enemies have exceptionally high dark resistance so perhaps i'm taking the wrong approach. would i be better off getting an s-rank rifle and giving it the zalure special? i would assume that special will affect every enemy i encounter in the towers (except maybe epsilon).

btw, thank you, tycho, for pointing out that specials are not reduced on multi-hit s-ranks. i feel foolish because that is all stated at the bottom of the s-rank elements page. that leads me to a question though: are s-rank twins also unreduced? if so, i may have two s-ranks i'm interested in obtaining.

All S-ranks are unreduced. But non-multi hit weapons are never reduced, so you might as well get a non-S-rank one.

By the way, about EDK. If I recall correctly... All enemies in Ultimate Towers online have 100 or even more (some 110) EDK, with two exceptions. Del Lily has 70, Recobox has, I don't know, 55? I'm not sure about Recon, but... At least this makes it less bad I don't have a decent level Megid.

Even so, when you are going for rough power, you should consider this is somewhat related to number of hits per combo. For a RAcast, a Yasminkov 9000M should serve you quite well. Even a Monkey King Bar may be nice (but maybe not for Towers), or a good Spread Needle, and the must-have Frozen Shooter or Snow Queen. If you really want to, replace Yas9KM with Guld Milla or 50H Ch Vulcs (both not recommended, you'll wanna shoot from a cheap distance).

That's about it I think... Oh, and traps can be nice too, and maybe a fast gun to set it off. And don't bring too many weapons or switching will be annoying. >.>

It's good in CCA, normally. Ohterwise, no, don't use it.

Tycho -- thanks for all the advice. my RAcaseal is currently using a frozen shooter combined with a red handgun to tackle tower enemies (handgun is necessary for ill gill as her atp is low enough that they barely take damage from her with the fro sho). yas 9k is on my list of items to get in the near future. as for combo versus power and all that, you're absolutely right about these two issues being related. anyway, due to tower enemies' EDK resistances being high, i'm thinking zalure would be a much better option for an s-rank rifle. reduce their dfp so they take more damage, right? zalure shouldn't miss because it's a tech, and i can cast it over a huge distance with the rifle's special. i think this is probably the best way to achieve what i want to achieve. what do you think?

Skorpius -- i'm not sure what your post is in reference to... do you mean that my choice of specials is not great for tower runs? or is the s-rank rifle a bad idea? just curious. i'd like as much feedback as i can get. i don't want to mess this up.

anyway, all of this matters very little if i can't find a cmode partner (or two). any psox players out there want to run through cmode for s-ranks a couple times? i hate just wandering around the lobbies looking for help because there are so many people on psox who are not worth talking to.

Well...

Personally I would say try to get a good FOrce.. But I suppose if you are going to solo it, you'll need to Zalure everything yourself.
Normally a multi-hitting weapon would be good for this (by the way, for Zalure accuracy does not matter, it just works whenever the bullet animation hits the enemy).
But in this case, if you're soloing and are planning to stay on a distance and kill everything with the Yasminkov9000M... I suppose the rifle would be good, since it's the only S-rank with equal range as far as I know. x.x

I'm on xbox and I enjoy c-mode, so look me up: Sitka Blue D - usually Dav 10, lobby 2.

As for the s-ranks, so far I have shot, needle, twin, mechguns and rifle. I have zalure on the shot, needle and rifle, gush on the mechguns and hell on the twin.

I prefer using the zalure rifle when running solo in quests where I will have to fight Falz, Flow, the Ep. 2 shrimp or tackling tough enemies like Baranz. I prefer the distance. I particularly like using the zalure rifle against Falz due to the great range and it does make the fight go much quicker.

If I'm running with a good team, I usually always bring the zalure shot and occasionally the zalure needle as I can hit so many enemies and the zalure almost never misses. It's also awesome against multiple hit bosses, but doesn't work against Vol Opt or the Ep. 2 dragon.

For a Racaseal, I like using the zalure shot/needle, zalure rifle, snow queen/frozen shooter, gush mechguns (baby Guild Millas) and the Yas 9000. If you are good at switching weapons and you are willing to risk FSOD, carrying shot/shooter/mechs works pretty well with almost every situation including the TTF, REspective Tomorrow and the Tower quests.

Anyway, that works fine for me. PM me or look me up if you want to try for some c-mode runs. Warning: I'm pretty damn rusty on the maps, but I love running it.