Braver questions!

[RubyVixen]

*Disclaimer: I'M PLAYING BR/TE. I AM 100% AWARE OF BETTER SUBCLASSES. I DID MY HOMEWORK ON THAT MATTER. I PLAY MOSTLY SOLO, OR WITH PERSONAL FRIENDS. HAVING A SUPER OPTIMIZED MOAR NUMBERS CHARACTER ISN'T THE END GOAL.

Couple of things:

What PAs are people using for Bow, and Katana? For mooks? For bosses? For TD, and AQs, etc. I'm lost on this. I watched some BR/TE footage and mostly saw Sakura-Endo, but realized this was prior to Shunka, etc. Getting the hang of Shunka is making me gravitate towards it at least for single-target damage.

As for Bow PAs, I'm not quite sure what I prefer yet. I like Master Shot for single-target damage, and I like Piercing Arrow, and Gravity Point/Arrow Rain for general mobbing. Not sure what to do. Banishing Arrow, and Final Nemesis are cool, but I don't know how to effectively use them. Final Arrow seems to have lower DPS than Pierce and Master Shot. Confirm or Deny.

As for spells. I'm cycling between Zanverse, Zondeel, Megiverse, Shifta, Deband, Resta, and NaGrants. I'm not sure if there's anything else I should use. Also is there a way to switch subpallets on the fly? Being a ragnarok online player, I'm used to having 4+ subpallets full of shit. and being a PSO1 player, I'm used to having a quick menu that allows me to swap between armor, weapons, and spells at the drop of a hat. Pso2 seems... highly limited in regards to having a swiss army-knife of useful utility.

What armor should I be focusing on? Currently using an unextended Jagd set, nd is investing in melee wand skills worth it? I REALLY like the idea of using Wand Gear+Zondeel for mob clearing, and Katana/Bow for single target damage/Just Guard.

I went the braver mag route. Going Female Human with a Dex/T-Attack Mag.

[WildarmsRE5]

Katana PAs: Hatou - Rindou (make the shockwave hit, not the wave slash, great single target DPS)
Kanran - Kikyou (mobs)
Shunka Shunran (All purpose PA)
Sakura Endo (When too close to Hatou and too lazy to shunka)

Bow PAs: Master Shot (Single target DPS)
Gravity shot (Mob pull, but zondeel with talis works better)
Penetrating shot (lane sweeper)
Kamikaze Arrow (Best Single Target DPS, only close range)

as for the Banishing Arrow, once it hits, it stays for 10 secs telling you to start accumulating damage. when you even hit once, the timer will change to 5 secs, all the damage dealt within those 5 secs will stack and blow up the arrow dealing the same amount of accumulated damage. (multipliers multiply this)

so, Banishing + Final Nemesis for one hit wonders.
otherwise, Banishing + Charged Kamikaze + x2 Un-Charged Kamikaze. or Banishing + Master Shot for distance.

[Triple_S]

Okay so first thing's first, you can switch weapon palettes easily. If playing with Keyboard/Mouse, use the Number Pad (you can also change it to use the top row of number keys in the options, apparently, but I don't feel the need to myself).




Katana is basically Shunka and... what was it... Hatou something I think. Katana Combat is important to abuse as well. As for Bow, well, Master Shot is just too good for general damage. If you have the opportunity though, Final Nemesis is incredible burst damage on a single point (and it does have piercing, though the hitbox is thin) and is absolutely frightening when paired with Weak Stance on a weak point affected by Weak Bullet. So much pain. Maybe it has less DPS than Master Shot, I'm not entirely sure. As for Banishing Arrow, just plop it on an enemy and hit that spot with strong attacks. Remember how I said to use Final Nemesis on a Weak Bulleted weak point with Weak Stance active? Yeah, if you have the chance to plop Banishing Arrow on that spot before nailing it with Final Nemesis and it gets to explode before Weak Bullet fades... Yeah that's really scary.

The problem is that, in my experience, Katana is just better than Bow pretty much all the time. Like, almost insultingly so. It's a melee weapon safer than a ranged weapon and with more damage and CC ability! Argh! As for crowd control, Wand+Zondeel does beat out everything on certain builds... not sure about Br/Te. Probably not. For spells to cast, you'll probably want to stick with stuff that helps you without relying on damage to do so. Zanverse, Megiverse, Resta, Zondeel, that sort of thing. Shifta and Deband kinda suck, sadly, so I wouldn't really bother with those.

Techer skills: Basically, if you're gonna mob-clear with wand smacks, it'd probably be worthwhile to invest in things that improve that.

[WildarmsRE5]

here is a vid showing how you can Bow Br.

5 hits in total.

[deahamlet]

Banishing Arrow + NaMegid is super nice. In general you're a techer, dark NaMegid, wind Sazan, should be high on your list of spells to use. If you use weak stance and have taken weak hit boost or whatever it's called on techer tree (increases damage of element that the mob is weak too) you need to vary your spells based on the mobs you are fighting. Honestly some spells are still super nice regardless of element weakness or lack of force tree:

1. Il Foie is powerful though it freezes you in place while charging. For a fire weak boos you could Banish Arrow + Il Foie or NaFoie. Other fire spells might not be worth it for you since you don't boost damage or charging. Il Foie is also very good at mobbing with a talis... Zondeel and then Il Foie = DEAD.
2. NaMegid is strong. Stronger on dark weak bosses but still good overall. Combining it with Banish Arrow is really good. Bad mob spell.
3. Sazan. There are some mobs that are wind resistant, but in general it is a great spell at level 16 with good damage and low cost. Can decrease cost by 9-10 PP by crafting technique, making it even more spammable. If you have wind damage increase on your techer tree or using it on mobs weak to it = amazing. Sazan with Elysion at latent 3 is a lot of fun. I personally find as a fo/te that Sazan is not always the best boss killing spell... I have better techniques.
4. Zondeel is just always good. Blowing it up not so good especially since you're not a force with lightning PP reduction or damage increase.
5. NaGrants, Zanverse, Megiverse are support spells for party use. By yourself you're better off using Resta than Megiverse and not sure Zanverse is worth casting unless you use mostly using your katana/bow (cast and use weapons instead of spells).

Katana... If surrounded by mobs, Kanran is better especially if solo. It flips enemies over. Alternatively you are br/te so you could Zondeel and Shunka the clustered mobs. It is much much better than sakura since you can provide yourself Zondeel. Be careful if doing so on a mob that is charging stuff at you (Signo Guns charging their attack and you zondeel three and they all shoot you in the face kind of situation). Katana on bosses... wait for the right moment and Shunka. During katana combat if you have invulnerability you can choose Kanran or Asigiri to get the max katana finisher (based on number of hits during katana combat not damage) or Shunka for maximum damage during combat and meh finisher damage. Up to you to decide which. Forgot the name, but the wave katana PA is also good with bosses that have multiple hit areas (think Banther with face and 4 legs); also since it's a wave you can be at a safer distance hitting Banther's face during roar.

Bow... Banishing + Kamikaze Arrow is the real killer. Especially on a hybrid since part of Kamikaze is s-atk based and other other part r-atk based. It's dangerous, must be well placed, but rewarding. Banishing + spells are also an alternative while using the Vibras bow (has t-atk) so you don't waste time swapping weapons.
Master Arrow is still very good and mobile, I find it overall more rewarding than Final Nemesis but then I'm not pro at being still, I'd rather Kamikaze if I'm going to be careless anyway.

I'd suggest katana for mobs, not bow. I find rain to be disappointing in contrast to zondeel+shunka or kanran or even just shunka. Rain+zondeel might be best for machines since their weak points are on their heads (I assume weak stance is what you have).
Bosses you can katana + katana combat, if not dead, move to bow (or bow+techs). Can choose what to use also base on your party and what element the boss is weak too (example Tranmizer might be best to just Kamikaze when he opens up his weak spot than Namegid).

I don't use wand gear so cannot give any advice here other than I heard Sazan refills wand gear fast.

Swapping subpallets: I use the mouse scroll to open weapon swap, press G and then pick subpallette. Honestly I rarely do so on the fly, but I tend to have 5x rod/wand/talis weapon pallettes with actual spells on the and leave subpallette for buffs+heals+support+PP-convert, etc. Best to have subpallettes based on type of areas and swap to the one best useful for an area when you start... like a fire/wind/support one for Forest, support/dark for Caves, etc.

Best units are probably boss units with s/r/t-atk boosts rather than the s/r-atk or s/t-atk 2 unit sets everyone generally prefers. Or go for the max PP setup but that only boosts s-atk and t-atk I believe.

Good luck.

[RubyVixen]

Okay so first thing's first, you can switch weapon palettes easily. If playing with Keyboard/Mouse, use the Number Pad (you can also change it to use the top row of number keys in the options, apparently, but I don't feel the need to myself).




Katana is basically Shunka and... what was it... Hatou something I think. Katana Combat is important to abuse as well. As for Bow, well, Master Shot is just too good for general damage. If you have the opportunity though, Final Nemesis is incredible burst damage on a single point (and it does have piercing, though the hitbox is thin) and is absolutely frightening when paired with Weak Stance on a weak point affected by Weak Bullet. So much pain. Maybe it has less DPS than Master Shot, I'm not entirely sure. As for Banishing Arrow, just plop it on an enemy and hit that spot with strong attacks. Remember how I said to use Final Nemesis on a Weak Bulleted weak point with Weak Stance active? Yeah, if you have the chance to plop Banishing Arrow on that spot before nailing it with Final Nemesis and it gets to explode before Weak Bullet fades... Yeah that's really scary.

The problem is that, in my experience, Katana is just better than Bow pretty much all the time. Like, almost insultingly so. It's a melee weapon safer than a ranged weapon and with more damage and CC ability! Argh! As for crowd control, Wand+Zondeel does beat out everything on certain builds... not sure about Br/Te. Probably not. For spells to cast, you'll probably want to stick with stuff that helps you without relying on damage to do so. Zanverse, Megiverse, Resta, Zondeel, that sort of thing. Shifta and Deband kinda suck, sadly, so I wouldn't really bother with those.

Techer skills: Basically, if you're gonna mob-clear with wand smacks, it'd probably be worthwhile to invest in things that improve that.

I don't want to switch weapon pallets. I want to switch my SUBPALLET. As in the 0~9 pallet with spells, etc.

Also what's wrong about Shifta/Deband? Especially because the Deband skill gives +15% damage reduction. o.o

Thanks for the info~

[Triple_S]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF9DUqClN8Ahere is a vid showing how you can Bow Br.

5 hits in total.

Br/Ra yes (currently my lulzy main), but Br/Te no. Plus again that's like all we can do well :<


EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot about Deband Cut. Deband is alright. Shifta doesn't give enough of a bonus to really bother casting that much... but I guess if you're subbing Techer you need all the extra damage you can get, heh. Oh and Sazan 16 is apparently the best thing in the universe or somethin'.

[UnLucky]

I don't want to switch weapon pallets. I want to switch my SUBPALLET. As in the 0~9 pallet with spells, etc.

Also what's wrong about Shifta/Deband? Especially because the Deband skill gives +15% damage reduction. o.o

Thanks for the info~

One of the keys (R/F/G/H) will switch your subpalette. You can look it up in the options.

Shifta/Deband are just really minor boosts and don't last very long for how difficult they are to stick on people. Deband Cut is the biggest bonus since it's flat damage reduction, but when most of the endgame is getting oneshot or untouched, it's unnecessary.

There are better alternatives than gimping yourself immensely for measly little buffs and fancy party tricks to entertain your enemies all day long.

[RubyVixen]

One of the keys (R/F/G/H) will switch your subpalette. You can look it up in the options.

Shifta/Deband are just really minor boosts and don't last very long for how difficult they are to stick on people. Deband Cut is the biggest bonus since it's flat damage reduction, but when most of the endgame is getting oneshot or untouched, it's unnecessary.

There are better alternatives than gimping yourself immensely for measly little buffs and fancy party tricks to entertain your enemies all day long.

I am aware there are better alternatives. I don't particularly care about them. I said that in the OP.

[UnLucky]

I'm aware that you're aware, but if I don't mention it you might think it's acceptable.

If you're really going this route, you should get a katana+bow of every element to make use of EWH and Zondeel+PA for mobs and something like Banishing Arrow+Zanverse+Kamikaze/Master Shoot on bosses.

Your offensive tech damage won't be that great even with a powerful all-class rod (Bio Rod?) unless you go full Weak Stance, but then your katana attacks would be even worse. Perhaps you could try Penetrating Arrow on Zondeeled mobs and hope for all the headshots?