Maybe we should do a build sticky?
Ok so now that I've had some time, this is at least going to be the start of the proposed sticky. I'll remake this later to be a bit more official looking but for now, this is what I'm doing. Basically The purpose of this is to offer a list of builds and recommendations for people looking for help in an attempt to consolidate the questions into one thread and at the same time reduce the number of redundant or repetitive threads asking for build advice, build ratings and and general skill tree information.
I will be adding to this as information is made available and as the game progresses. Not all builds are my own and I will do my best to give credit to the people who post builds that I move to this OP. Please bear in mind that not all builds will make it here. The main reason for this is that some builds may be WIPs or simply not something that most people will benefit from. It's my hope that we can eventually get all class combinations on here with at least one viable build for each.
So to start things off -
My Fo/Te build
Spoiler!This is more or less what I would say is the best universal build for Fo/Te. This build is assuming that you're playing newman or human as the recommended armor is not easy to equip as a cast and requires putting extra points into T def or trading a large amount of your Mag's T atk for T def. For this reason, there is a secondary armor you can take instead which I'll get to later. This build assumes you are starting your skill tree from scratch and are looking ahead if you're lower leveled - NOT trying to build for the "right now". Furthermore It can be argued that fire tree is all you need to do well, however I'm noticing that some(very few as of now) enemies have extremely high fire resistance, and others are very weak to other elements, so it's not in your best interest to put all your eggs into one basket as of now.
On the otherhand, aside from Amduscia and rare rappies, everything is weak to either Fire or lightning. This makes these two trees quintessential. As an added bonus, they also offer some of the best multi-purpose damage buffs we can get as Fo/Te, so these trees are most important and these techs will be your bread and butter. Avoid the ice tree at all costs. This tree in its current state adds nothing to your damage potential without taking away more than it gives. The ONLY thing worth doing on this tree is putting one point into Ice Mastery 1 for a 5% damage boost to ice techs when you DO use them.
Support in this game as it has been is not nearly as important as it was in previous installments. Shifta and Deband only affect your base stats, meaning only the stats you get from your level, your mag and any skills you've taken (such as T Atk Up 1) are affected by S/D so if your base T atk is 600 and your Weapon's T atk is 1400, even though your total T atk is 2,000, only the 600 is affected by shifta. Worse still is the fact that S/D's gains are below 20% and only gain a tenth of a percent at every level. That means that the gains of shifta 30 over shifta 20 is only an extra 1% to your base stats. This makes these spells far less important than they used to be and they take a back seat to raw output.
The prime advantage of subbing Techer as a Force is for the buffs to PP regen. Due to Techer's lack of adequate support boosts through its skills, Techer does not offer enough in any other place to make this class worth while compared to Fighter which gives massive universal damage boosts when using stances. Essentially if we're talking about truly being an asset to your team, PP restorate and PP Convert are musts or you may as well sub fighter.
Also as a general rule of thumb, skill trees change once in a while as sega raises the level cap, so if you're thinking about using your SP for something you dont really want, here's a friendly tip: Don't. It's better to hold onto your SP for the next update so you can get more points into that skill you'll actually use.
Lastly: because of the damage formula, the damage you get from boosting your stats with skills is minimal. Unless you need points to equip gear (like a cast), you ONLY should be putting points into stats when you need to in order to move to the next tier on your tree.
So with that, onto the build:
Spoiler!This is designed to give a solid damage boost to fire techs and a fair one to lightning techs while giving full access to what makes them very good outside of their general use due to enemy weaknesses. While Fire Techs gain the ability of cutting charge time in half, Lightning techs become incredibly cost effective and can be used almost endlessly due to PP Restorate. Note that I didn't put the last point into Flame Mastery 1 and instead put it into Flame Mastery 2. What you'll notice about the Mastery Skills in general is that the first point shoots damage up by 5%, which is a great conversion rate for SP. These gains diminish from there very quickly and dont really pick up again until the end of the tree where the last point gives an extra 4% damage.
If you haven't figured it out already, the 5% from mastery 2 is better than the 4% from Mastery 1 and in addition, the bonus from Mastery 2 is calculated after Master 1 which leads to a little extra damage from there. We can always put that last point in later on, but for now, we're trying to squeeze everything we can out of our SP. I've taken a point and put it into Ice Mastery 1. For a 5% gain on ice damage, I feel it's worth it, but putting anything more into it is a waste.
PP Charge Revival is not a recommendation, it's a requirement. This skill alone is the most important difference between non-stop teching and having to melee every 6 seconds. This skill allows you to regenerate PP while charging your techs. PP regenerating effects from your mag, photon blasts and skills all work while charging techs when you have this skill and it's a passive so you never have to activate it. it's just there. For only 1 SP you're crazy to pass this up. and since it leads us to another good skill, you're probably getting it whether you're aware of it or not.
We are maxing out charged tech advance 1&2. This nets you a 21% damage boost to all techs when charged - not just fire techs and really, there's rarely a reason NOT to charge a tech, so these skills will be in effect constantly. We're also starting into Tech JA Advance. Like Charge Advance, this skill affects all techs, not just lightning techs and adds 10% bonus damage to any tech that you successfully cast with a just attack. Just attacks already multiply damage by 130% so with JA Advance this becomes 143% with charged techs, this now becomes 73% bonus damage regardless of element just for charging your techs like you should be anyway and having good timing. Avoid Normal Tech Advance. This goes into that bag of useless skills thanks to the overwhelming difference between charged and normal techs.
Also, I'm not taking Just Reversal on Fo, but instead on Te. If you already took Just reversal on Fo and dont want to get a new tree, then take that one point out of Ice Mastery, because you wont be using it much anyway. Te has a few more points for us to play with since shifta advance adds less than 5% of your base stats to your pool when maxed. In fact the only reason we're taking it is to allow this build to use wand gear when you switch off to Techer when it needs to be leveled. if you prefer talis or have a good universal rod like Umbila Stick, you could skip this side of the tree entirely, freeing up even more points. As I stated earlier, PP gain is the main draw of this sub, so our priorities are to get PP restorate maxed out for bonus PP regen at all times and to get PP convert which gives you burst PP regen at alarming speeds.
Many people will tell you that 3 points in this skill are enough, but I find that you don't really get the full benefit til you reach 6 points. This is the difference between 30 seconds of nonstop SaFoie every half second and having to pause every 4 seconds for your PP meter to stop having conniptions. This skill gets better in increments so in going from 3 to 5 you're only doing yourself harm. only go past 3 if you're going to go to 6 and only go past 6 if you're aiming for 9.
Additional skills, recommended equipment and mag coming soon.
Credit goes to Seravi Edalborez for this section:
This covers information for GU/RA (2 variations) and RA/TE. Many elements overlap so until you hit a specific linked build, all sections are tailored to some part of each build. Open to questions, criticisms, suggestions, or pointing out anything obvious I might have missed.
Update 1 - Jan 30th 2013: Added section to skills noting which are not worth investing into.
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Photon Art / Tech breakdown
Spoiler!Recommended weapon palettes
Spoiler!Why use PA x3?
You don't want to use the wrong PA by mistake, or have to do 1-2 filler attacks before you can get to your desired PA. You can adapt what's listed below to something that works for you, but typically you only need to switch palettes for a short time so it shouldn't be too big of a problem.
GU/RA
Entries without * are optional and can be subbed out for situations you may not need the specific use for.
1* - TMG: Elder Rebellion x3 - General use for most situations
2* - Rifle: One Point, Sneak Shooter, (your preference) - Emphasis on single-target damage while spacing out Weak Bullets
3* - Launcher: Cluster Bullet, Divine Launcher, Rodeo Drive - Medium + long AoE
4 - Gunslash: Additional Bullet x3 - Medium range frontal cone AoE, specifically for most Natives/Dragonkin
5 - TMG: Bullet Squall x3 - Situational close range AoE and for hovering in midair
6 - TMG: Infinity Fire x3 - Better than Elder when you can afford to do the whole thing or when you don't want to launch enemies.
7 - TMG: Dead Approach x3 - Air movement.
RA/TE:
1* - Rifle: One Point, Sneak Shooter, (your preference) - Emphasis on single-target damage while spacing out Weak Bullets
2* - Launcher: Cluster Bullet, Divine Launcher, Rodeo Drive - Medium + long AoE
3 - Gunslash: Additional Bullet x3 - Medium range frontal cone AoE, specifically for most Natives/Dragonkin
4 - Rifle: One Point, Diffuse Shell, Grenade Shell - Setup for regular enemies
Rifle PAs
Spoiler!Sneak Shooter: Best tool for burst damage with Rifle. Lie prone and fire a slow-ish shot. This does less damage than usual Rifle attacks, but if it hits a weak point it does greatly increased damage. Can be held to crawl, but this is not very practical and eliminates the bonus of Standing Snipe. Enemies need to be holding still to hit reliably with this. Don't try using this in manual aim.
One Point: Fire 10(?) rifle shots rapidfire. Takes slightly longer to execute than Sneak Shooter, but you can move while shooting if needed.
Homing Emission: Hold the PA button, highlight enemy body parts to paint a target on them and release to fire one homing shot at each target. Seems to be a limit of ~10 seconds before the PA automatically stops without firing, so be quick about acquiring targets. On bosses with a lot of "parts", this has some respectable damage potential.
Impact Slider: Slide forward a short distance, shooting 4(?) times, ending with a sweeping kick (knockdown). The kick isn't very important. The main use of this is to chase enemies and then JA into something else.
Diffuse Shell / Grenade Shell: Short range shotgun blast and grenade launcher, respectively. Diffuse does knockdown, Grenade launches upward. Both operate as decent crowd control, but Launcher/Gunslash can usually do so with more flexibility to hit weak points.
Piercing Shell / Glorious Rain: Nothing special.
Launcher PAs
Spoiler!Divine Launcher: Long range situational crowd killed. Launches a more powerful shot that has larger AoE and launches enemies straight up. Has an advantage over Cluster Bullet in that it can be fired at longer ranges, but is otherwise inferior.
Cluster Bullet: Great medium range crowd killer. Aiming this is a bit weird. You fire a shot a little ways above of where you're aiming. This explodes and rains shrapnel down in a cone below (limit of 1 hit per enemy). This is cheaper than Divine Launcher, does about the same damage, can cover a wider area, and tends to hit "high" weakpoints like heads and Desert Mech cores. The downside is that the distance this PA can travel is limited.
Rodeo Drive: Fast, medium-distance, powerful PA that requires some practice to use effectively. Ride your launcher forward a set distance, then drift in a circle. Has the potential to score a lot of very damaging hits if you can eyeball the distance you need to "drift" into enemies. Can cancel into Dive Roll at almost any point of the animation, and you should always do this. If you cancel before the drift, this makes a good movement tool (limited by PP). If you cancel after, you eliminate the ending lag of the drift.
Zero Distance: It's fast for a Launcher PA and inflicts knockdown. Not usually worth using over the above 3.
Everything else: Another weapon does it better and/or it's not worth using.
TMG PAs
Spoiler!Elder Rebellion: The go-to PA for 90% of situations, and the remaining 10% you could still get away with it. Launches 9 quick and powerful hits; the last 3 hits have longer range, a small AoE, and launch enemies up and away.
Infinity Fire: Has higher damage potential than Elder and builds TMG Gear very fast, but takes ~twice as long to execute. Rapidfire barrage that lets you move and shoot at the same time. Mash the PA button for more hits; you should be able to get 5-6 shots per "burst." After 5 bursts you deal 4 hits with longer range and a small AoE.
Bullet Squall: Jumps slightly forward and does a downward kick (knockdown), then spins in midair while shooting downwards, and propel yourself slightly upward on the last bullet. Mash PA button for more hits. The damage per hit is somewhat low, but this has some niche uses:
-The downward shots have a small AoE; rain death from above while you're safe-ish in the air.
-Can be used to gain a small amount of height, either Shift immediately or do so after the ending shot "pop-up"
-Amazing hitstun; non-boss enemies continually being hit by this are essentially frozen in place for a few seconds.
-If you're desperate for knockdown but don't want to shoot, just Shift after the kick.
Dead Approach: Charge forward whether in the air or on the ground. The charge launches enemies sharply up and away, but this is more useful as a situational fast aerial mobility tool.
Satellite Aim: Does 2 hits at close range, both hits launch straight up. Executes significantly faster when done in the air. This is the quickest way to unload all of your PP when using TMGs. Sometimes worth considering on bosses with very small windows of vulnerability (Ragne, Gwanahda)
Aerial Shooting: Cheapest TMG PA. Moves forward a bit when used on the ground and the kick launches enemies. Can be charged to do a followup rising kick. When used in the air you fall sharply. Dead Approach has more universal use.
Messiah Time: You will never hit anything with this, but it's invincible for most of the animation. Mash PA button for more hits during the "spin around shooting" phase. Pass.
Reverse Tap: Anytime you might want to use this, you could instead use Bullet Squall for a little less PP and a little more safety.
Gunslash PAs
Spoiler!Additional Bullet: Fantastic crowd killer. Kicks forward (striking damage, minor knockdown + launch), then shoots 3 times in a wide cone in front of you (shooting damage). What makes this unique is that these behave much like the last shots of Elder Rebellion and Infinity Fire. They will hit the closest body part possible. Many Natives and Dragonkin face you with their heads as the closest body part. You can't lock on to their heads, but they take weak point damage to bullets.
Thrillsplosion: Takes a step backwards, then throws a grenade in front of you and shoots it. Does several hits and hits tend to prioritze weakpoints in radius. An odd quirk is that you can change your facing before you hit; this can be used to face "backwards" (moving towards enemies), then face "forwards" (you are now hitting enemies further forward rather than taking a step back). Try it out.
Aiming Shot: Charge this to fire a more damaging shot. Typically your other weapons are better for single target damage so this PA is somewhat outclassed.
Rage Dance / Ein Raketen: Both of these start with slashing hits, but end with a wide cone shot that has decent range and good damage. Rage Dance has decent stunlock ability and Ein Raketen launches on the slash hit. Usually not worth using for damage purposes.
Slash Rave: Slashing damage, but worth mentioning as it has grab properties; it will pick up and combo even knocked down enemies and reset their "knockdown time". Like Rage Dance and Ein Raketen, ends with a decently powerful shot. Typically not useful though.
Tri-Impact / Serpent Air: These suck for the purposes of shooting classes.
Useful Technics
Spoiler!Zondeel: Enemies inside the effect field will be vacuumed to the center of it. This will affect most regular enemies and some minibosses. Can be detonated with another thunder elemental tech to make a damage field, but you're really doing this just to bunch up a lot of enemies for some kind of AoE PA.
Zan: Fires large wind blades forward; they will "boomerang" back to you if they don't hit a wall. I'm mainly noting this for its ability to cut grass in Forest/Ruins.
Deband: If you have Deband Cut, this is a worthwhile defensive buff. If you don't, forget it exists.
Shifta: Think Weak Bullet but at a much smaller scale; the more people you have the more "worthwhile" it is to buff their offense. The difference is that Shifta's bonus is relatively small and, to get the full duration, people need to stand still for a few seconds. Don't worry too much about this.
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Weapon/Unit choices + affixes:
Spoiler!Note: Until you get to a point where you can afford/equip these weapons, it's usually more cost-efficient to use the best Alva or Vita (2/3/5/6 rarity) weapons you can equip and grind them to +10.
Rifle
10*: Elder Rifle or Avenger - Best 10* Rifles, same power so doesn't matter which
Substitutes: Lambda Strauss (7*), Lambda Schwann (8*), Lambda Tigredor (9*)
Launcher
-Ranger
10*+: Flame Visit or SSPN Launcher - Flame Visit is a 11* from Falz Elder and obscenely rare. SSPN is the realistic option.
Substitute: Lambda Saint Kilda (7*), Lambda Verethragna (8*), Lambda Adrastea (8*), Craft Procyon (10*)
All-class Launcher (for GU/RA)
10*+: Flame Visit or Craft Procyon - Flame Visit is a 11* from Falz Elder and obscenely rare. Craft Procyon is a very distant second but the best you can get.
Substitute: Love Rappy Cannon (7*), Fury Viper (9*)
Twin Machineguns
Yasiminkov 9000M - best 10*
Mizer Bullet - second best 10*, has a set bonus with Vardha units
Lambda Radiegle - relatively affordable 9*, can compete with 10* if Immediate Strike potential ability is unlocked
Lambda Aresvis - currently only all-class option for Ranger. Makes a good substitute + budget option.
Gunslash
Karakasa Jikomi, Dagunslash, Vraolet Zero - Best 3 10*s for shooting, from best to worst and also rarest to "least rare".
Lambda Twizzler - Great 8* that can substitute until you get a 10*.
Units
Black Wing set (Rear / Luxe Soir, Arm / Luxe Ende, Leg / Luxe Nero)
-Unit set designed to have a lot of PP
Requires: 360 DEX
Stats (per unit): PP+5
Set Bonus: DEX +40, HP+50, PP+10
Total stats (including set bonus): DEX+40, HP+50, PP+25
Vardha set (Rear / Vardha Pack, Arm / Vardha Arm, Leg / Vardha Legs)
-Unit set has more survivability than Black Wings and trades some max PP for more power. Complements Mizer Bullet TMG.
Requires: 489 R-DEF
Stats (per unit): HP+55, PP+1
Set Bonus: All ATK+30, PP+3
*Set consists of any 3 of: the 3 units and Mizer Bullet. Having 4 doubles set bonus
Total stats (all units + set bonus + Mizer Bullet): HP+165, PP+9, All ATK+60
Calvaria set (Rear / Calvaria Wing, Arm / Calvaria Toll, Leg / Calvaria Fin)
-A middle option you can start wearing in the 30s
Requires: 374 R-DEF
Stats (per unit): HP+25, PP+3
Set Bonus: PP+10, Fire Resist +10
Total stats: HP+75, PP+19, Fire Resist +10
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Affixes - Apply to weapons and units
-Mizer Soul, Fang Soul, or Ransa Soul (preference to Mizer)
-Shoot III
-Spirita Boost
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Skill breakdown
Spoiler!Mechanics of major Ranger skills:
Spoiler!Weak Bullet: Turns your normal Rifle attack into a bullet that paints a weak point on an enemy body part; any attacks there do ~3x damage, even if it was already a vulnerable point. Only one Weak Bullet may be applied to an enemy at any one time, but you may
-Apply the effect to different enemies
-Switch weapons and keep the Weak Bullet effect on any enemies for the remaining duration
Do note that some enemies have body parts that cannot be locked on to but can be hit with Weak Bullet; use manual aim for these. Body parts that are "broken" will also "break" the Weak Bullet effect. Example: Dark Ragne's legs have 3 state: Whole, half-broken, and fully broken (Ragne is stunned in this state). When the leg changes from one state to the next, Weak Bullet must be reapplied.
Weak Bullet's cooldown begins when you load the bullets, not when they are depleted. Due to this you can "pre-load" and have a full set of 3/4 bullets with the next 3/4 immediately ready.
If you switch weapons you will "lose" any unused Weak Bullets. This is important because, as mentioned, WB replaces your normal Rifle attack. To preserve your remaining WBs you can only use Rifle Photon Arts and wait for PP to regenerate.
Weak Hit Advance: This improves ALL weak point damage done by RANGED attacks, not just those weak points created by Weak Bullet. This vastly outstrips any average damage boosting equivalent (Fury Stance or Brave/Wise Stance) unless the enemy has no weak points, which is pretty rare.
I emphasize "ranged attacks" because this skill does nothing for striking or tech attacks. It applies for any "gun" attacks with Gunslash, but not "slash" attacks.
Standing Snipe: Applies a damage bonus to attacks done while on the ground and not moving. This is mainly only going to apply to Rifles. TMG attacks almost all have slight movement so they don't benefit except for Infinity Fire > (Standing Snipe) Infinity Fire. Additional Bullet from Gunslash, for some reason, does get the bonus.
Mechanics of major Gunner skills:
Spoiler!Twin Machine Gun Gear: Fills with hits from TMG normal attacks and PAs to fill the gauge. The more full the gauge is, the more damage you do to a maximum of 130% total damage if the gauge is full. Getting hit lowers the gauge; small hits deplete it variably but getting knocked down or launched tends to empty it. Due to number of hits being the method of filling the gauge, Infinity Fire or Bullet Squall are quicker ways of filling it than just Elder Rebellion.
Attack PP Restorate: This increases the PP generated by your normal attacks by the listed percentage. So doubled PP at rank 10. Here's the catch: it only applies to the first bullet in each burst for Rifle and TMG. The effect it small for Rifle and Launcher, okay with TMG, but a pretty significant boost for Gunslash.
Chain Trigger / Chain Finish: Chain Trigger makes your next normal attack (with any weapon) paint a Chain counter onto one enemy body part. This counter increases with any NORMAL hits done by you or ANY hits done by party members (but not people outside of your party?).
When you hit with a Photon Art, the Chain count number will turn gold and "finish" the chain; for the next ~3 seconds your PA damage will increase greatly. Note that this bonus only applies to you. The Chain Finish skill improves the final damage bonus, but you still get a "finish" effect from just Chain Trigger. Until you "finish" the chain, you need to keep hitting to build the chain counter. If the Chain Count doesn't get raised within a certain number of seconds, it just wears off.
Chain Count == Seconds before chain expires == PA Damage Bonus
1-8 ===== 5 second == 200%
9-18 ==== 4 second == 270%
19-28 === 3 second == 300%
29-38 === 3 second == 320%
39-48 === 2.50 sec == 340%
49-58 === 2.25 sec == 360%
59-68 === 2 second == 380%
69-78 === 1.75 sec == 400%
79-88 === 1.50 sec == 425%
89-98 === 1.25 sec == 450%
99-100 == 1 second == 500%
Zero Range Advance: This increases shooting attack power at close range. How close? Basically touching-them close. If this seems silly, it's because Gunner itself was introduced before Elder Rebellion and Infinity Fire existed, so it was a glorified "melee range shooter." It is still useful with Elder and Infinity since many bosses have vulnerable periods where you can get the extra damage at no risk.
Automate Deadline: This gives you a chance of healing yourself with a -mate, with a 100% chance at rank 10. The advantage of Automate over just using the mate yourself is that there is no animation; you can immediately continue attacking. Toss all of your Monomates in storage. Keep only Di and Trimates on you.
Mechanics of major Techer skills:
Spoiler!Deband Cut: This reduces incoming damage to a fixed % while Deband is active. At max value this is 85%; you take 15% less damage.
Territory Burst: This improves the effect radius of Zondeel and healing/support technics, making them ~50% larger. More ranks improve the effect duration, but by very small amounts.
PP Restorate: Improves passive PP regeneration; specifically improves the rate of PP gain. You will see the bar tick up by +1 faster than usual. Remember that PP doesn't regenerate while charging techs (without FO's Charge PP Revival) or using PAs.
PP Convert: For 30 seconds, improves passive PP regeneration at the cost of lower max HP; specifically improves the amount of PP regerated. Every time your PP would tick up by +1, it instead will tick up by +2 (at rank 1, with another +1 each at ranks 3, 6, 9, and 10). 120 second cooldown, so it's 90 on, 30 off. Remember that PP doesn't regenerate while charging techs (without FO's Charge PP Revival) or using PAs.
RA and GU skills that are bad and why you should not invest in them:
Spoiler!R-ATK Up / Ability Up / R-DEF Up / HP Up: You need to max these to get any value; +50 to the stat at rank 10. This is not a meaningful investment of skill points and damage percentage modifiers are preferred. Only consider these if you can't fulfill a weapon/unit's equip requirements. Only invest in them if you have to do so as a pre-requisite to a better skill.
Traps: This covers Tool Mastery (improves trap damage) and all 3 of Ranger's traps. Reasons to hate traps:
1) Slow arming time means that anything worth using these on is either dead, already moved, or is otherwise an inferior use of time than simply hitting it with your weapon.
2) Traps take physical inventory space. You can only hold 10 of each at a time.
3) Stun Grenade and Poison Trap require a lot of points down the wrong side of the skill tree.
Trap Search: This isn't totally terrible if you have bad reflexes and hate traps. What this does is allow you to see floating mines and snare traps before they activate. What this does not let you see are floating mines hidden in boxes. If you really hate Standing Snipe you could divert some points into this, knowing it does not improve your damage in any way.
Bind Bullet, Panic Shot, Jellen Shot, Mirage Shot: These behave similarly to Weak Bullet. "Bullet" is for Rifles, "Shot" is for Launchers. We're ignoring them because they are all on the wrong side of the skill tree and not worth diverting in to. Jellen Shot is worth a mention since the effect will even work on some bosses, but at rank 1 the effect is too small and although the effect is a little better at rank 10 there is no use for the excess shots, your PP generation takes a massive drop, and Launcher PAs are generally not good against bosses.
Showtime: Effect lasts 30 seconds and has a 60 second cooldown. Increases TMG Gear's increase rate and increases the amount of hate you generate. TMG Gear increases fast enough without this.
Aerial Advance: Increases damage dealt against airborne enemies, whether they are being launched or just fly naturally. Only really sees use against normal enemies who die quick enough as it is. Zero Range Advance or Chain Finish have more universal applications.
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Build 1 - GU/RA Automate Deadline
Spoiler!Required:
Gunner side: TMG Gear, maxed Attack PP Restorate.
Ranger side: Weak Bullet 6 or 10, max both Weak Hit Advance 1 and 2.
There is little reason to skip these. They are the largest and most regular boosts to damage you will get for GU/RA. Weak Bullet 6 vs 10 is a matter of 3 bullets vs 4 bullets: see below.
Reasons for other investments:
-Chain Finish is maxed to provide the highest bonus at +135%. If you're tight for points for some reason, you can drop the 10th point for only a 5% drop (+130%). Dropping the 9th point lowers you to 120% and is not recommended.
-Zero Range Advance 1 is maxed; you already have to invest 5 to reach Attack PP Restorate. The value only increases from there (105% at rank 5, 115% at rank 10) and is a worthwhile investment even when you can't always be in ZRA range.
-Automate Deadline: This is optional, but the points remaining in this build aren't sufficient enough to reach meaningful numbers with the alternative (Zero Range Advance 2) and this makes for a decent "lazy all-purpose" build. You need to raise this to 9 (80% activation) or 10 (100%) if you plan on investing in it. Anything less is a waste.
-Chain Trigger: The remaining points are dumped into Chain Trigger to lower cooldown and make Chain Finish's investment more worthwhile.
-Standing Snipe: "There's nothing better." Though it doesn't really apply for most uses of TMG (only Infinity Fire) and Launcher (better used in the air), Rifle attacks are very inaccurate while moving, so this should almost always be in effect.
-Weak Bullet to rank 10: Rank 6 is 3 bullets with 98 second cooldown. Rank 10 is 4 bullets with 90 second cooldown. This is a matter of personal preference, flexibility, and how many "mistakes" you can make while aiming. 4 Weak Bullets is 3x damage for the whole party/area for a considerable amount of time. The more people you have, the more reason you have to use every bullet and the more damage everyone will do. Choosing to discard bullets should only be done in some solo situations or for fights that you know you can win within that remaining WB time.
-Just Reversal: This is useful to have but there's a reason we're not putting points into it on either tree: you don't have to. Having Gunner as a main or sub gives you Just Reversal by default. Why? Don't know. Enjoy it while it lasts if it's not intentional.
Build 2 - GU/RA High Offensive
Spoiler!Required:
Gunner side: TMG Gear, maxed Attack PP Restorate.
Ranger side: Weak Bullet 6 or 10, max both Weak Hit Advance 1 and 2.
There is little reason to skip these. They are the largest and most regular boosts to damage you will get for GU/RA. Weak Bullet 6 vs 10 is a matter of 3 bullets vs 4 bullets: see below.
Reasons for other investments:
-Chain Finish taken to rank 9 for the best point investment due to "competing" with Zero Range Advance 2; at 8/9/10 the bonus is 120%/130%/135%.
-Zero Range Advance 1 is maxed. ZRA 2 is at 9 to allow for Chain Finish to hit 9.
-Standing Snipe: "There's nothing better." Though it doesn't really apply for most uses of TMG (only Infinity Fire) and Launcher (better used in the air), Rifle attacks are very inaccurate while moving, so this should almost always be in effect.
-Weak Bullet to rank 10: Rank 6 is 3 bullets with 98 second cooldown. Rank 10 is 4 bullets with 90 second cooldown. This is a matter of personal preference, flexibility, and how many "mistakes" you can make while aiming. 4 Weak Bullets is 3x damage for the whole party/area for a considerable amount of time. The more people you have, the more reason you have to use every bullet and the more damage everyone will do. Choosing to discard bullets should only be done in some solo situations or for fights that you know you can win within that remaining WB time.
-Just Reversal: This is useful to have but there's a reason we're not putting points into it on either tree: you don't have to. Having Gunner as a main or sub gives you Just Reversal by default. Why? Don't know. Enjoy it while it lasts if it's not intentional.
Build 3 - RA/TE Dedicated Support
Spoiler!Required:
Ranger side: Weak Bullet 10, max both Weak Hit Advance 1 and 2.
Techer side: PP Restorate 10, PP Convert 10
Ranger side is necessary for maximum abuse of Weak Bullet and good for general damage regardless. Techer side is necessary for the entire point of this build: massive PP regeneration while using Weak Bullet, offsetting the usual downside to holding bullets.
Reasons for other investments:
-Standing Snipe: "There's nothing better." Rifle attacks are very inaccurate while moving, so this should almost always be in effect.
-Territory Burst: At rank 1 this is 90 second duration and 120 second cooldown. At rank 10, 110 second duration, same cooldown. 90 on, 30 off is already a pretty good investment for just "one" rank so that's all we use. Bigger radius to Zondeel helps gather enemies (your party will love you) and makes buffs easier to hit with.
-Deband Cut: "There's nothing better." The damage reduction is not dependent on your T-ATK at all so this makes Deband a good buff to throw out if you have nothing else to do.
-Just Reversal: Ranger has points to spare so we're getting it on that tree.
Alternatives:
-You can get rid of Territory Burst, Deband Cut, and lower Deband Advance to the minimum 3 and invest the rest into the left side of the tree (PP Up) as much as you can. At +1 PP per rank I don't feel this is worth it though.
-Element Weak Hit is not a significant damage boost.
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