New player looking for advice (lengthy post)

[Shiloh]

Hello! I'm Shiloh, nice to meet y'all.

To keep introductions short, I'm a long time fan of the Phantasy Star series. Spent my younger years playing episode I & II a ton, and was a pretty big fan of PSU. I was sad to see it go. All is well though, I have this awesome new sequel to play, but I'm lost in most directions, and I need a ton of advice. I thank any of you able to see this post through to the end.

1) I suppose a good place to start is with my job set up. I'm currently running as a Hunter/Force, looking to sub class as a Techer. Now my first question is: Is running a Hunter/Techer combination worth while in terms of combat efficiency, and synergy? Truthfully the answer(s) won't affect my goal, because I'm dead set on that as my primary focus. Also how does Braver/Techer sound, any good? I really wanted to delve more into that now that I've tried the new class briefly.

2) As a Hunter, primarily, I'm assuming its worth it to reach out for more of the defensive skills in the tree, yes? There are so many branches though. Would I have enough points to keep a healthy balance between an Iron Wall, and a Glass Cannon?

3) Would anyone be able to explain to me what some of the skills/terms do/are in the skill tree, such as: What is a "Just Attack"? And what exactly is the purpose of Step attack. Is Just Guard as valuable as I think it is?

4) Should I worry about how much damage I'm doing yet? I suppose It wouldn't truly matter until later levels in appropriate gear. I like to think as long as I can clear the hard mode bosses, and other obstacles that I'm fine.

5) Enough about my character, I have questions about that new Crafting feature. So I know literally nothing about it, and after skimming through menu's, I've noticed that the weapon extensions have preset values, and as the rarity goes up, the hard value of attack goes down. My first question: does the lower initial value suggest it has better grind scaling?

6) Now, I notice you can commission another player to craft something for you, so this leads me to ask: Is there any point in me going through the process myself?

7) Maybe a question about some of the more exclusive features of the game. Do any of you actually pay for the game? Like purchase arks cash or the premium membership? I really like the game, and depending on pricing, I might be willing to sink a little money into it.

I think thats all I have for now, but I'm sure I'll come up with plenty more. Thanks if you have anything to contribute.

[strikerhunter]

1.) Turn that setup to Te/Hu <hunters are terrible as a main class later in the game>
2.) No unless you want to play tanky otherwise go pure left tree aka Fury Stance.
3.) Just Attack is perfect timed attack which grants you damage boost. Other info on skills you can find here http://pso2.cirnopedia.info/class_1.php#nav
4.) No, never. Early on not really, later on not really since things are going to die quickly because of MPAs (multi-party areas) zerg festing mobs down, even bosses. But only worry bout it when you solo bosses.
5.) Lower rarity items have higher extending scale and are easier to grind but higher rarity are usually better because some have set bonuses along with hidden bonuses.
6.) If you do it yourself, you won't have to pay someone else extreme mounts of money.
7.) Only once (going to be twice) but you can survive being freeium since you can buy much things from AC scratches aka costumes and accessories through via-auction hall aka player stores with in-game money that you worked for instead of reall $$$$.

Oh and if you want to experiment on skill trees I suggest using this simulator so you can figure out your build. http://ryuhiroshi.ry.funpic.de/pso2/skillcalc.php

[TehCubey]

Regarding hunter defensive skills:

I run around with Iron Will and Never Give Up, because I'm a noob and get hit often and those saved my ass plenty of times. But I'd definitely max out Fury Combo Up before even looking at those.

By the way:
Crafting is really good for you. If you can't find a 10 star drop, craft up a 1-3 star weapon as high as your stats allow you to equip and use that instead. It's easy to grind up to +10, too. If you can't craft yourself, find a friend to do it for you.

[Shiloh]

Thank you, both. I got a nice sum of feed back from both of you.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

the problem with crafting is it will never make a weapon remotely as good as a half decent 10* Crafting strips a weapon of all unique qualities including hidden bonuses to your damage range. Basically rare weapons aside from "red" weapons(such as a red wand) have a hidden minimum damage cap that scales with your max damage. what this means is rare weapons are guaranteed not to hit for below a certain percentage of your maximum damage, so while a crafted weapon may even have higher base attack than an 10* weapon, the average damage from the 10* will be better. There are exceptions to this, but they exist only in certain class combinations and builds that rely on critical hits and lose out somewhere else.

That said, don't invest TOO much into crafting weapons unless you have something very specific in mind. Armor on the other hand can have some good results if you know what you're doing ahead of time and there are certain techs that benefit greatly from crafting.

Also I don't entirely agree with strikerhunter. The attitude that the MPA will cover you for lack of damage is the reason it's hard to find good mining defense teams at times and why some falz encounters take 3 minutes and others take 9. It's the same attitude that has some people I have the misfortune of playing with on a regular bases expecting me to carry them in SH and VH TACOs. "He's going to kill everything super fast anyway, why bother optimizing my build or even learning JA timing?" Yes, I actually know people like this and it infuriates me to no end.

EDIT: best case they're leaching, getting money, exp and loot by just following me and worst case they are actually slowing me down, making me wait for them to finish their area or aggroing something and pulling it away from the AoE I'm about to do that will kill them outright. This same person is taking the spot of someone who could be a much better asset in the MPA by contributing real damage or zondeeling for quick kills or WB to significantly increase the group's DPS.

That doesn't mean you should drop everything and go Br/Hu, Gu/Hu or Ra/Hu, but it does mean you should be looking to get the most out of the class combination you've decided on and look for a combination that is not only fun but can hold its own and synergizes well. Te/Hu in this case is a much better combination than the reverse late game, but be aware that you're going to be looking less at tech damage in most cases and more at wand melee damage with wand gear, wand reactor and wand lovers.

The reason for this is that hunter does (almost) nothing for tech damage, is unable to regenerate PP while charging techs - something only force can do and you're polarizing your mag for either S Atk or T atk as splitting it down the middle will make it impossible to equip any of the top end wands aside from Elysion - an 11* wand that will be difficult to get your hands on without a lot of luck or premium. This means if you decide you don't like the class combination down the road and want to go in a different direction you will have to purchase another mag with AC and raise it from scratch.

with all that in mind, if you decide that Te/Hu is the way you want to go, then go for it, I hear a lot of people are really enjoying it with the changes recently made to wand lovers. If this doesn't appeal to you though, you should probably tell us what you're trying to do, but I'll warn you now, that solid melee with a little support doesn't really exist as support in this game needs to be completely reworked to be viable. for example, shifta does less for you or your party than just subbing Br or Fi as a hunter and resta is not viable for group healing as the range is short and requires you to charge it for it to have any range at all. By then most people have already healed themselves or have run out of the AoE. you can heal yourself this way easily enough but it's at a significant cost when it comes to your DPS.

Anyway I've gone on long enough, so Tl;DR:

Damage output is only unimportant if you're in the upper ~30% That other 70% is holding everyone else back. Pick a class combination that has good synergy and is fun to use.

[Great Pan]

Go for Braver. You can't go wrong with Shunka-shunran.

[Ratazana]

Go for Braver. You can't go wrong with Shunka-shunran.

Simple is best

[strikerhunter]

Go for Braver. You can't go wrong with Shunka-shunran.

Simple is best

OP was asking help for Hu and Te, don't go around saying play Braver when he/she asked bout Hu Te. Keep it to the asked question.

[Ratazana]

OP is clueless. If a kid asks how to kill someone with a spoon you don't tell him were to stick it, you tell him to get a fucking gun or at least a knife. If the guy is really serious about his spoon fighting he can think about the details himself. Really, just keep it simple.

Besides, what kind of advice is "don't worry about dmg, someone will carry you". I mean, really? Have you no shame?

[strikerhunter]

Of course he's clueless, that's why he is asking questions about the classes he wants to play. Telling someone to go play another class isn't helping, as for the don't worry bout damage I did said "don't worry about damage until in the latter levels" because everything is just paper whether you have good affixes or not you will melt everything down unless you are using 1* uncrafted/affixed/grinded crap.