Some questions about forces and techniques

Hi. I am fairly new to Phantasy Star in general and even though I have played around enough to vaguely understand what is what I still have a few questions.

I know that the strength of an attack technique is based upon the level of the technique and the mental strength of the user. Rests appears to be the same way. However, what of the support techniques like Shifta and Deband? Are the bonuses they give fixed based on the technique level or does mental strength play a part there as well? Also does your attack accuracy play a role in your attack techniques? So far they seem much more accurate than other attacks to me.

I know that rods, wands and slicers deal damage based on mental strength instead of attack power which is why they are great weapons for forces, but this leaves me wondering that if I am playing a non force character like a Newman hunter then how do I best maximize the effectiveness of my techniques to supplement my melee attacks? Do I just add more mental strength to my mag to compensate for the lack of it on my weapon?

I like my FoNewm that I have, but I realize a FoNewarl in many ways appears to be the better choice. It has greater attack accuracy which forces lack in generally as well as having greater evasion, mental strength, photon points, and that 30% bonus to rests which I am sure all come quite in handy. However, before I go scrapping the FoNewm that I have to switch for one what play style will best play to the strengths of my FoNewm? I know it gets a 15% boost to it's attack techniques which it can further couple with the boost from a good wand for some really nice technique damage. Alternatively I could take a rod and place multiple attack techniques in my pallet to switch between different techniques all with somewhat equally boosted strength. Though the latter would leave less room for support techs.

I know slicers seem to work really well in boss fights since bosses are nice big targets that are hard to miss and have multiple points to hit on them..I also know wands are great for boosting tech damage as they seem to be the only weapons that get tech element modifiers. However, what is the main benefit of a rod? It does seem to get the highest mental strength but lowest accuracy of the three. I suppose the high MST grants better resta healing and possibly better support techs if MST affects their level.

I think I will shut up for now as I know I have asked a lot of questions here already.

S/D/J/Z have no variance from your MST values, only its Technique level affects its bonus/debuff effect rate and range (for the Al- AoE variants, in S/D's cases). ATA is not applicable to Techs, they hit guaranteed.

Honestly, using attack techs as a non-Force is pretty much a no-no. Nothing but Forces are good at it, and every enemy has a physical weakness to exploit over an elemental one for Hunters, be it Range or Melee. Gurhacia/Paru/Arca/Dark Shrine are all mostly melee-weak, and Rioh/Ozette/Makara are all mostly Range-weak.

FOnewms have a bonus to all Attack Techs, while having a considerable drop in Resta strength (offset by their low HP, in single player, it won't make any difference; you'll max-heal yourself most always no matter what). FOnewearls have a bigger boost to Megid strength, and Resta, but nothing else; the slightly higher MST and ATA is not as noticeable over FOnewm's Attack Tech damage bonus, except in Megid's case, which FOnewearl's specialize in. FOnewearls are one of the best Forces, though, since with their highest MST value in te game and biggest Megid damage, they can do the Gimegid + Magical Sign spam the best, which is a Force's greatest asset in terms of damage.

As far as what the MST-based weapons' specialties, that lies in what their uses are. For example, Wands have fairly lower MST compared to Rods, so while they might have those damage bonuses to specific Tech types, overall, Rods will do better damage in regards to general Tech usage and Resta healing. Slicers have utterly terrible ATA, making Super Hard usage of them without prolific spamming of Zalure unwieldy, but their range and damage is pretty superb, especially if they have the PA Bright Sign.

Thank you for the info. I do have one more question regarding techniques and other damage types. How can I tell the weaknesses the enemies have?

So far I recognize that machines appear to be weak to lightning techs and native and beast seem weakest to fire. Except for the dragon which is the only thing I have found weakest to ice.

I have not even seen any indication yet if weaknesses to melee or ranged damage.

Here's topic with a list of all enemies listed with their resistances on all difficulties (as it does change between them):

http://www.pso-world.com/forums/show...ghlight=resist

Each number in the sections for their resistances are equivalent to an amount that they resist said element by, so something with a 20 means they resist that by 20%, meaning attacks of that type will only deal 80% of their potential damage. 100 means completely immune, and 0 means they have no resistance to that element (basically a "weakness").