Giresta

[Hiero_Glyph]

The larger radius and faster casting time of Resta makes it invaluable during boss fights like True Darkness and even White Beast. Sometimes a quick Resta will save a teammate from a tail whip or from a meteor strike without having to find them and relocate yourself close enough so that Giresta will heal them.

The bottom line is that you can use or not use any photon art you want. Resta has a unique purpose just like Giresta and although they do overlap they are not meant to replace each other. A true support AT knows that Resta is mandatory while a fighter AT may not have the slots required to use both effectively. There is no right or wrong answer, it is just a matter of being more efficient.

I use both and advocate Giresta as a buff. Giresta lasts for 4 minutes at level 31-40. Each tick (a tick is ~5 seconds) heals 3% of a player's total health. This equates to a maximum of 144% total health recovered during those 4 minutes. Every time Giresta is cast it resets this buffer for everyone within the casting radius, not just the players that have taken damage. Resta will heal any player that has taken damage but not reset the buffer.

The difference is that for a player that is taking heavy damage using Giresta as a heal makes no difference as they are normally unable to build up a large amount of buffer before taking additional damage whereas a player that avoids taking damage has the buffer to instantly heal them in the event that they get hit by a technic or are unable to avoid an attack. If Giresta is cast as a heal for the player taking damage it negates any positive effects on the player that is avoiding damage. This means that any techer casting Giresta will not only overwrite the previous Giresta but they will also reset the buffer for every player within the casting radius.

Using Giresta as your only healing technic is like using a neutral weapon all the time. Sure it works, but it is not the most effective tool for the job in most cases. For newer players this may be considered acceptable but for veteran players it just makes them look inexperienced.

EDIT: To anyone saying that the benefits of Giresta are greater than those of Resta lets take a quick comparison. Giresta has a slower casting time, higher PP cost, smaller radius, adds a regeneration effect and also revives fallen teammates. So that is 3 negative things and 2 positive ones. Let's look at the 2 positive aspects in more detail. First, it adds a regeneration effect which as has been stated is entirely negated if you cast Giresta again. So this positive has now become worthless if a player continually casts Giresta to heal others. Regarding the ability to revive fallen teammates, how often does a player not have a Scape Doll on them? Unless you can cast Giresta the instant a player takes a fatal hit and have them within your casting radius you will not end up reviving them before the Scape Doll takes effect. So once again the positive becomes a null issue. So that leaves Giresta as having 3 weaknesses and 2 rather pointless advantages. If you can only pick one then why even bother with Giresta? Resta is by far the superior choice for healing. Also note that once level 41-50 support technics are released these margins will further widen as Resta's PP cost will decrease and its radius will increase; wheras Giresta will cost more, provide a 4% regen effect and possibly have a small radius increase, although as it is considered a buff I do not think it will increase much if at all (from 21-30 to 31-40 the radius barely moved on all the buffs).

[Vercix]

Ya I have no plans of replacing resta, and never did...it was just that I was unaware (I guess) that its regen stacked over time...after taking the time to notice this, it seems like a valuable buff...and only a buff...oh and I guess a revive tool...

[Pillan]

I’ll respectfully disagree on the efficiency statement. Using Resta and Giresta has more in common with making use of all aspects of a class than increasing efficiency. In certain circumstances, it will increase efficiency, but the overall effect is generally either zero or a decrease in efficiency.

Of course anyone who says you should use just Giresta assumes that the party is close together. If you actually compare the range, it’s something on the order of 90-95% that of Resta at the same level. I’ve never had trouble healing the entire group in any real situation as WT and all my initial Giresta/Resta AoI comparison tests were as a GT in True Darkness S2 (which I would say cancels the argument there). The reason I can almost always heal everyone during the meteor attack is simply because everyone in the party is near the previous location of Fakis’ tail. Under the condition that I can’t, Resta is equally useless because the other guy thought it was a good idea to use a rifle from the opposite end of the arena as everyone else. The same is true of White Beast.

And, of course, if you’re using Giresta, you should have a / Quick unit. These are not hard to acquire whether you pay the 3-5 mil for a Har / Quick or just spend a day or three in Rare, Dancing Bird A or S. Now I don’t remember the exact comparison, but it’s something on the order of less than 10 extra casts per minute in favor of Resta after using a Har / Quick (on the order of 50-60 casts for both). You really shouldn’t be healing more than 20 times per mission, so that’s not even enough time to add in a single combo of any photon art. Of course, the difference between 20 Giresta casts and 20 Resta casts plus 2-3 additional Giresta casts during buffing actually adds up to more of a slowdown than Giresta alone. If you double or triple those numbers, it will lean in favor of Resta.

The disadvantage of the removal of instantaneous gratification by healing is kind of silly. Let’s take the same scenario used against Giresta: the Fakis meteor shower. Once it hits, everyone receives damage beyond that of Giresta’s auto-recovery because it will have been less than 2 minutes into the battle and because it hits all targets. In this situation, there is no disadvantage. So you’ve gone and reset the already spent recovery for all parties, which is really no loss for anyone. In addition, you’ve reset the counter to four minutes rather than waiting on the two remaining.

The other case, of course, is more like the Alterezugoug in which one or two parties take damage and the others dodge. Other than the tail and the stomp, nothing the boss can do deals significant damage unless you’re wearing light armor when he uses dark attacks and vice versa. (Even those above mentioned attacks do very little damage when you use proper element armor.) If the rest of the damage is assumed insignificant, the 3% recovery every few seconds will take care of it. (This is true for me and my party as level 40s fighting level 75 enemies in A runs.) If you’re mad because you can see a difference between your current and max HP for a few seconds while the De Ragnus clone is ignoring the battle and shooting its breath in the opposite direction of the entire team, it is no longer my problem. And, odds are that the people who were not hit were outside of Resta or Giresta range anyway in this specific case. So, once again, there’s really no difference.

As far as PP cost decrease, I don’t think anyone would use Resta if the cost didn’t go down after 31. The reasoning for this seemed to be to gain additional incentive to use an otherwise unnecessary tech. But, obviously, a widening gap does favor Resta more. My argument will remain that if it doesn’t drain the weapon completely in the mission, the cost is insignificant. If PP is such an issue, I advise staying away from the Master classes.

So, yes, three disadvantages to two advantages. But number does not equate to weight. I would say those three disadvantages equate to nearly nothing in ever circumstance of my long-winded experience as a support techer on every techer class. During which I’ve received nothing but compliments on how well I played the role. But, as mentioned before, you’re free to do both. I would recommend trying both initially and then trying just Giresta for a while afterward (assuming the techs are equally leveled and you have a Har / Quick). Base your conclusions on that.

[CelestialBlade]

Agreed to everything Pillan mentioned, plus throwing in a couple more things.

Assuming one has a Har/Quick (not difficult anymore after a few Dancing Birds runs), the difference in cast time between Resta and Giresta is nearly meaningless. I have never, ever had someone die on me because I couldn't get a Giresta off fast enough but could have gotten a Resta off. If you want to be anal about speed, carry around Star Atomizers in extreme situations because that difference is actually significant.

As far as Giresta costing more? Charges are 500 meseta a pop, you get 2-3 of those with every meseta drop in S/S2 missions. Insignificant disadvantage.

Giresta may technically have a number of disadvantages compared to Resta, but they're so easy to work around that I don't feel they're worth considering.

[Inazuma]

Typheros, are there any attack techs that you feel are useless and not worth getting, such as regrants, megiverse or nosumegido?

[panzer_unit]

Now, let’s say some how you enter the regime of the imaginary third case where one person receives significant damage and the rest of the party receives insignificant damage later.

You mean the "your gunner's using boma duranga" scenario? The stored-up regen is incredible, at full damage I'm taking myself down in 4 shots currently (not quite lv30) but with a good Giresta buffer I can throw ~6 good shots down before I start taking real damage. Either it saves valuable trimates so I don't get caught empty, or it gives the techer a chance to get into the fight a bit before they switch to life-support mode.

[Vercix]

First of all...I did 13 runs of dancing birds and didn't get one har/quick...so I don't even want to hear that...secondly, I'm probably a better acrotecher than half the people out there with giresta, so replacing my already leveled resta was out of the question...feels like I've said that a billion times... If anyone thinks giresta is necessary, then invite me to your party...and I promise if you don't intentionally play stupid, you'll never see your hp go below 10%...and omfg, all these drawn out posts say the same thing everytime, that I remind you people have said in like 1-2 sentences, so please stop wasting your time...question answered...

[darkante]

I think that the only reason that Giresta is most looked down that we are in a big easy mode here in the game so those positive things really is not needed.
I think that 10 automatic revive items is overkill.

Take away all those Scape dolls and take away those regen resets if reused and buff enemies a bit and then it actually got a big big purpose.
It would beat Resta anyday then, but that is just wishful thinking.

Also only reason i prefer Giresta anyway is because i´m to fricking lazy to level a other healing magic with no extra benifits besides maybe range?

[Hiero_Glyph]

Of course anyone who says you should use just Giresta assumes that the party is close together. If you actually compare the range, it’s something on the order of 90-95% that of Resta at the same level.

90-95% on a circular effective radius huh? Your location says MIT so I assume you know the simple formula for the area of a circle. So if Giresta has 90% of the effective range of Resta the radius increase would be negligible (if Resta's radius is 10, the radius of Giresta would be slightly less than 9.5). This is not the case. Resta actually has a >25-30% effective area over Giresta and as I stated before this will likely increase further at level 41-50.

[CelestialBlade]

Typheros, are there any attack techs that you feel are useless and not worth getting, such as regrants, megiverse or nosumegido?

Depends entirely on the class, I say. On my Guntecher I have Foie, Diga, all the Ra-technics, Nosdiga, Regrant, and Megiverse. I'm not really a big fan of the Gi-technics anymore since their range got nerfed and Ra-technics are really shining now, but there's nothing wrong with them in and of themselves.

I consider Barta, Zonde, and Megid (sorta) useless on my Guntecher because I have Laser Cannons. I say "sorta" on Megid because of the incapacitate effect, but then again I have Killer Shot. I don't see a need for Noszonde or Nosmegid because I have so many ranged weapons, and I don't use any Dam-technics because I have Crossbows and Machineguns for group-DPS, and Dam-technics are better used on Rods. Like I said, in my opinion, the usefulness of a given Technic depends entirely on the class.