What will they turn slicers into now?

[Niloklives]

well they didn't kill slower, they killed large groups. most weapons had a limit to the number of targets they could hit and required you to reposition to keep from getting hit. a slicer let you just hang back and take out swarms of enemies at once. I found they actually killed enemies faster overall of you're talking about kills/time and not just how fast they could kill taking them on one at a time. that's the whole point though, slicers were never about killing a single target, they were about slaughtering groups.

Hell the rainbow baton cause confusion. that made the enemies bunch up and hit eachother AS you damaged them. Absolutely if you took on a single enemy with a slicer they were pretty much pointless, but large groups and bosses rarely died faster than what came from a good slicer.

[Akaimizu]

Hard to say. A slicer PA on one person still did like over 9000. Good luck getting even some gunners to do that with a *close range* shotgun blast. For which that amount of power was meant to happen only at close range because the ranger then took a bigger risk.

[Niloklives]

The slicer's OP status in PSU was one of the hunter-breaking things I definitely noticed. It really broke convention with what a Hunter was supposed to be, and their stats. For a class with extra HP, lots of Strength, and basically hardy characters it just seemed like they really went backwards for the game. It's not only the aspect of giving them a long ranged weapon that could eat Lasers for breakfast lunch and dinner, it gave them a *safe* ranged weapon that could do rediculous amounts of damage. Precisely the thing SEGA did not want to give to Rangers. But somehow, that rule slipped their mind with Hunter classes. Hmmmm. Really?

Never knew what went through their heads in allowing that. Given that, from conception, the rangers having a rule to try to limit damage for weapons that reach far. The real backwards thing is breaking convention from the typical mantra of hunters. It's supposed to be a risk reward thing. Simple game balance mechanics anybody making a warrior-style class should follow in any action RPG in existence.

If something makes you go in close, have a long startup and maybe vulnerability at the end, it should do more damage than something for which you can be out of range with, shoot from afar, and even ignore certain barriers guns couldn't. It just seemed wrong making Swords do way less damage than Slicers on a fighter class. So actually, the worst part of it wasn't exactly the idea of the possible imbalance to rangers. If we took the Ranger equation completely out of this point, it certainly broke the hunter weapon balance even if just considering what it does to the Hunter alone.

I agree. Early AoI slicers made just about any other weapon for hunters pointless.

[Akaimizu]

They still make the decision to even decide to choose Swords (Whose main aspect is to hit a group at close range) a decision based on style, but not effectiveness. Where's the hunter balance consideration?

[Niloklives]

Right. why get close in and hit 3-4 targets while risking life and limb when you can hang back and cleave entire group in twain with the screen filling laser of death? worse still the vertical hit box was ridiculous.

It was like selecting to nerf yourself to go with a sword. I remember doing winter festa with all the robots on the train and clearing out the room with one timed attack on the highest difficulty. This was with an 8* slicer and a lvl 100/10 Male beast FF. The PA wasn't even out of its 20s yet, but you can bet I capped it before the event was over.

[•Col•]

well they didn't kill slower, they killed large groups. most weapons had a limit to the number of targets they could hit and required you to reposition to keep from getting hit. a slicer let you just hang back and take out swarms of enemies at once. I found they actually killed enemies faster overall of you're talking about kills/time and not just how fast they could kill taking them on one at a time. that's the whole point though, slicers were never about killing a single target, they were about slaughtering groups.

Hell the rainbow baton cause confusion. that made the enemies bunch up and hit eachother AS you damaged them. Absolutely if you took on a single enemy with a slicer they were pretty much pointless, but large groups and bosses rarely died faster than what came from a good slicer.

I'm basing my judgement on both PSO and PSU. They limited the amount of targets a Slicer could hit (I believe it was only 3)... And Chikki was obviously a mistake. But again, what I'm trying to say is, slicers COULD be used as a primary weapon to kill stuff, but it is my opinion that they shouldn't be designed that way.

[r00tabaga]

Swords in the teaser video look to have their PSO attack speed back from the looks of it, so that'll balance out some of the negatives. Slicers were great complimentary weapons.

[Niloklives]

I'm not sure about the limitation on hits. the PA certainly didn't suffer from it. you're right though they were never intended to be uses for a single target nor should they be.

[•Col•]

I'm not sure about the limitation on hits. the PA certainly didn't suffer from it. you're right though they were never intended to be uses for a single target nor should they be.

Yeah, the PA's didn't have the limitation for some reason.... Which... Kinda makes me upset now that I think about it. They should've made it the other way around; have the normal attacks hit all enemies in the line, and limit the Photon Arts only hit 3-4 enemies. :/

[Akaimizu]

That would have been much better. The Slicer would retain the tagging status, wouldn't make Rangers feel pointless. (Or more so, all that extra HP and resilience seem pointless. If you can tank a bit, you should be required to use that ability. Not treat your Hunter as a powerful ranger. They clearly made a similar mistake (but with weapon selection) in PSZ. It was the Cast Hunter being a better ranger than Cast Ranger that was the last straw to get PSP2 to change the main damage statistic for guns) Still, it wouldn't be enough to solve the Sword Issue. Technically, they should've treated swords like mini axes. No PA quite a powerful as Jabroga or anything, but definitely with some strong general attacks that makes going in and using such a risky weapon worth it. Kill the enemy limitation on regular sword attacks too.

In every other game I've even come across, they make taking such a risk for a short AOE weapon you need to run in for, completely worth it. They also kind of needed to make the slicer not do a bit more damage on melee-resistant enemies than a laser does on bullet-vulnerable ones. Just little things to deter a hunter from becoming a 90% slicer user.