One Shot, One Kill (A Comprehensive Ranger Guide/Discussion)

[Superia]

Yeah, those features are what make it the powerful Time Attack class that it is since it can focus on utility due to not needing huge damage to deal with something like XH mobs/bosses.

[LonelyGaruga]

Its just lame to see a self-righteous biggot trying to hijack a thread they didnt even create, with their narrow-minded opinions on playstyles they have NEVER TRIED THEMSELVES.

What prompted the Ra/Te vs Te/Ra talk:

anyone got a techer skill tree for ra/te?

Wow. Ordy answers one question and elaborates on the reasons behind the choice and gets accused of hijacking the thread. Nice. You know what? I'm glad Ordy posted because they at least understood the Techer side of things, both for Ra/Te and Te/Ra. Unlike the other people that replied to the question.

Fair enough (I forgot about the PP stuff). Still, they're used for different roles, I don't think it's fair to just say "Ra/Te does more damage and that's that". At least now I can see the appeal.

Ordy did affirm that Te/Ra has superior support, it's just that the support is made irrelevant by other Techer players, and the only thing that really matters is Shifta Strike anyway, which every good Techer main has, so most of the time a Te/Ra is pretty irrelevant unless they're really the only Techer main player in the whole MPA.

[illidelph]

Wow. Ordy answers one question and elaborates on the reasons behind the choice and gets accused of hijacking the thread. Nice. You know what? I'm glad Ordy posted because they at least understood the Techer side of things, both for Ra/Te and Te/Ra. Unlike the other people that replied to the question.

Incorrect. Please go to page 11 of the thread and read all the posts from the one where Ikon asks for a Ra/Te tree.
-Ordy gives a Ra/Te tree to Ikon, all is well.
-My Te/Ra post that follows makes no attempt what-so-ever to compare itself to Ra/Te or any other class combo, except for a brief overall mention of Ra and its common subs in the sharpshooter discussion towards the bottom of the post. Perhaps a bad post placement on my part sure, but there was no way to space the Te/Ra post from a similar looking previous Ra/Te post save waiting an indefinite amount of time.
-If by that point you didn't like the Te/Ra idea, that's totally fine, its not for most people as I later state, yet after an unrelated cluster bullet question, Ordy attempts to (out of nowhere imo) to correct me on the usefulness of Ra/Te over what he calls "lol_support_lol" which I assume was a remark towards Te/Ra and how its too silly to be in a serious One-Shot Ranger guide, even though the name of the thread specifically states: COMPREHENSIVE guide, comprehensive meaning: "including or dealing with all or nearly all elements or aspects of something."
-In my following comment I attempt to break down their main similarities and differences and challenge the idea that if we filter the thread with an "op stuff only" mentality then any questions aimed at less-than-optimal subs should be promptly discarded and the question's owner pointed to a different thread. On the other hand if a more comprehensive approach is taken then Te/Ra must have a place in this thread, however small and niche it may be, if only to discuss the merits of having 4wb and shifta strike in 1 char. However I ultimately concede that they are just too different to compare directly and best left on their own terms. I receive no reply to this post and assume that its resolved thus: for those who have Ranger main trees subbing techer would be best and those rarer people with ranger sub trees and r-atk mags could play around with an idea of maining techer.

-At a later date Hrith asked for the reasons a person might choose Ra/Te instead of Te/Ra since on paper techer main skills looked more appealing to him than sharpshooter alone. -The reply was that Ra/Te equips better guns. No argument there, they each do their thing and were never meant to be compared directly remember? But all is well still, no harm done since Hrith specifically said that he doesn't play either combo and so was just analysing both sides' strengths.
-On page 13, though, Ordy brings the topic back yet again, reiterating the importance of 13's, going right back into directly comparing the two incomparable class combos, leaning heavily on personal Ra/Te preference and again clowning on Te/Ra for being vested in support.

Self-righteousness: is a feeling or display of (usually smug) moral superiority derived from a sense that one's beliefs, actions, or affiliations are of greater virtue than those of the average person. Self-righteous individuals are often intolerant of the opinions and behaviors of others.

Bigot: a person who is intolerant towards those holding different opinions.

These two words seemed like the perfect way to describe the tone of Ordy's posts, where any support-oriented class combo or anything else anyone might wish to discuss is the immediate target of unfounded and often profane ridicule, based on nothing more than personal preference of a more numerically damaging ideology. Furthermore instead of clarifying the fundamental differences of the two class combos and squashing this already misguided and fruitless debate, his post goes on to make unrelated(because why are the still comparing them!!) and unproven statements such as: "RaTe hits harder than TeRa, period" Really? 100% of the time? Where is the proof? In any case we are going from many options for any player to play the game and find their favorite playing style, down to 1 option deemed superior by a handful of people who prefer it for personal reasons and unwilling to see the benefits of the other side, going purely on "support is useless, high r-atk is king" point of view. I find this repeated and misplaced targeting of Te/Ra's damage output being compared to an unrelated Ra/Te build enough grounds to call something a hijacking.

One of the definitions of hijacking: take over (something) and use it for a different purpose

Also what is this "Techer side of things" that you and Ordy seem to understand so well that alludes me and any others who don't share your point of view? Where does Ordy give credit to or even mention anything positive about a Te/Ra build or support in general? How is support "made irrelevant by other Techer players"? What if you are the only techer player? What if there is no WB? What if there are WB wars and extas are needed? What about a Techer player with 4wb and full deband skills as well? Since you are not a big proponent of deband skills yourself, does that mean anyone who likes to use or receive them as support is wrong by definition alone? Since these are unknowns isn't there just as much chance for good as bad? What about the positives? The positives that CAN be guaranteed with Te/Ra with certainty and regardless of personal investment are: 4WB, full s/d and zanverse all at most discounted prices all wrapped up in a single mpa member. Whether you see that as useful or not doesn't change the fact that its the only class combo to offer that skill-set. Te/Ra will be relevant with some part of its support most of the time. And why are people ignoring the fact that weak bullet is an mpa support skill as well and working directly with shifta strike? I'm sure we've all heard the saying: "WB is the only real support in PSO2," but support is like a bad word around here.

Its like: most of the good aspects of Te/Ra are brushed under the rug, while its weakest part: its weapons, are being compared to some monster 13* of Ra/Te, a class it was never meant to compete with, that's primarily used for sh tacos...? Yeah maybe you're right and I don't get your techer side of things. And it gets clowned on for being support? What if deband cut/toughness saved you at some crucial point? We just ignore that and it because its not a part of some die-hard dps dogma? If 1 person can almost single-handedly ensure a random mpa success on xh magatsu because they bring every support skill needed to allow everyone else to dps their ass off as well as doing fairly decent damage themselves, this should be shunned instead of discussed or at least be allowed to be mentioned without constant ridicule?

In the pre-shifta-strike days of Ep2 where everything died in 1 pa, yeah sure screw support. But now in XH loser, Magatsu and upcoming ult lilipa where hp and defence gimmicks matter more than ever, and ranged damage is nerfed left and right, we still cant spare a single person to max out on ALL support skills because of the less than a 1/12th loss in overall damage output that shifta strike and extra 4 wb cover up anyways? Besides don't they teleport in photon turrets and let you ride AIS for dps now on almost every significant eq and ult?

I understand if people want to pledge all their resources and time to super-specialized, most-damaging builds ever for each different situation, but to say that everything else plain sucks and people shouldn't have their version of fun by trying different things is just plain lame and imo doesn't belong in a forum where a fact-focused discussion is to take place. You like massive dps at the expense of everything else? Fine! Guess what? I do too. All of my builds are selfish glass cannons. But to shit on something just because you don't like it only invites more shit to come your way.

[Dephinix]

The name was cool for this thread, but I think that it was also the reason for it's downfall.

[LonelyGaruga]

Oh boy...

Spoiler!

Incorrect. Please go to page 11 of the thread and read all the posts from the one where Ikon asks for a Ra/Te tree.

Right here is where you make your first mistake. First, I read those posts when they were posted. Just because I don't play Ranger doesn't mean I don't lurk every thread in this section. Second, I reread those posts going through them again when I quoted that. So I read them twice already. What do you think having me do this a third time is going to accomplish? You even missed one of the posts I was referring to. The one right after Ordy's.

Shifta Advance increases your damage by a very negligible amount, Resta Advance would make a much bigger difference in your gameplay. Super Treatment is definitely worth getting on any TE tree.

This genius advocating Resta Advance. Needless to say, when I read this, I was sorely tempted to post, but decided it wasn't worth it, since it would be the same reply as always, randomass ad hominems.

-My Te/Ra post that follows makes no attempt what-so-ever to compare itself to Ra/Te or any other class combo, except for a brief overall mention of Ra and its common subs in the sharpshooter discussion towards the bottom of the post.

You say this, but your post makes constant comparisons.

te/ra:

http://pso2-skill.pwnedgalaxy.net/sk...008doIb0000008

since any combination of ranger and techer will do less damage than any standard combination of ranger and braver or ranger and hunter or even ranger and gunner, it seems better to focus on the support skills that techer affords, after all why else go techer if not for support? (or wands/techs but thats not the case here anyways)

that means te/ra will have access to better support skills like shifta strike and deband toughness, as well as long time assist. shifta strike wont close the gap that losing sharshooter will create, so to counter-act that you have to stay in close range with weapons that boost close range damage, such as evarecasa, welt bucanneer or arao slash. im not sure if there was a buff to the "close range" potential, but its at 16% on jp wiki and is pretty strong considering it works for all pa's. to close the gap between you and the enemy use impact slider or any other gap closing pa(or even ilzonde) then just attack out of it at point blank range.

if shifta strike can afford 12 people a 110% boost that is much better than 120% boost only to yourself, especailly since you wont do a dedicated ranger build's worth of damage anyways.

bio rifle can be a option if not enough loser stones or whichever crafted ranger wep you prefer, so long as there is a rainbow minus wind to work with elemental weak hit in every scenario. camos will serve well here. can even use the expensive pso'es weps like hurio snowty and welt bucanneer. sure te/ra wont be able to equip all the amazing endgame weapons but ra/te with those weps would still suffer greatly in damage comparing to ra.hu/ra.br and wont have the full support that a techer can provide so best to focus on one aspect since te/ra has just as many if not more support skills as any other techer class combination. as long as the weapon has a good % damage modifier that can be applied a lot, it will be better than other potentials, other then a select few

the thing that i always think about is that sharpshooter and killing bonus never get along so by always staying in melee range you are enabling your wep potential, killing bonus, and every support tech since they do no good from afar and negating the loss of sharpshooter when compared to ra/br, ra/hu or ra/te in the same situation.

Yes, at no point you made any comparison besides the last paragraph in this excerpt. Uh-huh.

-If by that point you didn't like the Te/Ra idea, that's totally fine, its not for most people as I later state, yet after an unrelated cluster bullet question, Ordy attempts to (out of nowhere imo) to correct me on the usefulness of Ra/Te over what he calls "lol_support_lol" which I assume was a remark towards Te/Ra and how its too silly to be in a serious One-Shot Ranger guide, even though the name of the thread specifically states: COMPREHENSIVE guide, comprehensive meaning: "including or dealing with all or nearly all elements or aspects of something."

You say "out of nowhere", but Ordy replied the very next day you made that Te/Ra post in the first place. Not even 12 hours after you made it! It's not like he took a fucking month to get to it. Geez. And the problem was that the build, the premise, the advice, everything you gave out, was terrible. The very premise of your reasoning was flawed, never mind the fallacious connections between things like "no Sharpshooter" meaning "playing at close range is optimal". Let me make this nice and easy for you.

since any combination of ranger and techer will do less damage than any standard combination of ranger and braver or ranger and hunter or even ranger and gunner, it seems better to focus on the support skills that techer affords, after all why else go techer if not for support? (or wands/techs but thats not the case here anyways)

> Illidelph
> People usually go RaTe for the TE tree "utility skills" and access to Techs, not for the support power. A Ranger can afford to sub a TE when a BR/HU would be overkill and you'd like the extra regen, mobility, zondeel to speed things up. That's also why you want to max wind element.

If the player wants to play a lol_support_lol then it has nothing to do in a "One shot Ranger guide" where you usually want to optimize your offensive power, just my opinion.

Here Ordy is explaining that there are reasons outside of support to take Ra/Te, when the entire premise of your post was that support was the only reason to use Techer. Ra/Te is a perfectly valid way to maximize Ranger's abilities, is what Ordy's getting at, and you don't need to be shafted into playing a support role just because you have Techer as a class. Even as a support class, a lot of the stuff you brought up in your post was a suboptimal way to play Te/Ra, though.

-In my following comment I attempt to break down their main similarities and differences and challenge the idea that if we filter the thread with an "op stuff only" mentality then any questions aimed at less-than-optimal subs should be promptly discarded and the question's owner pointed to a different thread. On the other hand if a more comprehensive approach is taken then Te/Ra must have a place in this thread, however small and niche it may be, if only to discuss the merits of having 4wb and shifta strike in 1 char. However I ultimately concede that they are just too different to compare directly and best left on their own terms. I receive no reply to this post and assume that its resolved thus: for those who have Ranger main trees subbing techer would be best and those rarer people with ranger sub trees and r-atk mags could play around with an idea of maining techer.

You're mistaking comprehensive for "we cover every idea including godawful ones". Ra/Te is perfectly valid and even the most optimal Ranger setup in some areas of gameplay. Te/Ra's only advantage over Ra/Te is being a better support bot that is easily made irrelevant by an actual Techer, who optimally uses Shifta Strike at the very least and should use Deband Toughness if they're Te/Hu. They lose nothing doing this, while you lose all the perks a Ra/Te has access to by going Te/Ra just by the presence of a Techer. You're also mistaking a lot of the things you brought up as relevant, when it's really just irrelevant, but I'd be doubling this post's length just by going through that.

-On page 13, though, Ordy brings the topic back yet again, reiterating the importance of 13's, going right back into directly comparing the two incomparable class combos, leaning heavily on personal Ra/Te preference and again clowning on Te/Ra for being vested in support.

"Incomparable". OK, you know what, that first post I quoted wasn't egregious enough of a contradiction to this premise. Let me go through the last post you made in that timeframe then.

-zanverse is great and all but is only a big help uclose when everyone can get in on it. if you have to charge and/or cast it before shooting anything how does that speed things up? wouldnt it just allow enemies time to close in on you, taking away your sharpshooter? i also specifically said that you can easily get full wind with te/ra.
-pp regen is always good but is same for te/ra and ra/te. if anything, losing sharpshooter affords you with extra sp for bullet save, reducing costs
-mobility im not sure what you mean since i dont see how subbing techer specifically adds more mobility than other classes, i assume you mean ilzonde tho. even so if you're closing into melee range then that would negate sharpshooter anyways and if your putting distance between you and enemy or dodging with ilzonde then it would again be the same for ra/te and te/ra
-zondeel also negates sharpshooter putting you square in melee range where deband skills matter more when you get hit inside the zondeel cluster. this is where close range potential weapons shine as well. rolling out of zondeel wouldnt give you sharpshooter back fast enough and if you ilzonde out of the cluster then why not use pp-free grenades in the first place?

i understand that if you use ranger main and especially if you dont like/use killing bonus there is no reason not to use ra/te. my point is that ra/te doesnt do any more damage than any other ranger-main combination and its techs are also weak. te/ra has the same damage output problem, but at least it has the best support techs and is geared to exploit its skills in more situations where it always maintains close range for specific launcher and rifle pa's and always takes advantage of killing bonus

What was that you said earlier?

However I ultimately concede that they are just too different to compare directly and best left on their own terms.

Gonna have to point that out to me, because I didn't see you saying anything like that. And don't be a smartass about me cutting parts of your post, I only did that to save room, and anyone could click the shortcut to the original post and point it out and make fun of me for it if I deliberately cut it just to say it wasn't there.

Furthermore instead of clarifying the fundamental differences of the two class combos and squashing this already misguided and fruitless debate, his post goes on to make unrelated(because why are the still comparing them!!) and unproven statements such as: "RaTe hits harder than TeRa, period" Really? 100% of the time? Where is the proof? In any case we are going from many options for any player to play the game and find their favorite playing style, down to 1 option deemed superior by a handful of people who prefer it for personal reasons and unwilling to see the benefits of the other side, going purely on "support is useless, high r-atk is king" point of view. I find this repeated and misplaced targeting of Te/Ra's damage output being compared to an unrelated Ra/Te build enough grounds to call something a hijacking.

Wow, OK, that Ra/Te hitting harder than Te/Ra...you really need proof? Seriously? How about you prove otherwise, that Te/Ra can out-damage a 13* wielding Ra/Te with the junk crafted or Techer equippable weapons it has access to then. And I'm not getting into the complaint about comparing them when you've repeatedly done so yourself, as has been demonstrated.

One of the definitions of hijacking: take over (something) and use it for a different purpose

Something Ordy never did. Stop projecting.

At this point in your post, I have to start taking things into smaller bite size paragraphs, because the thread-hijacking, intolerant rant that you go through is just so colossal that what should have been six paragraphs is three instead.

Also what is this "Techer side of things" that you and Ordy seem to understand so well that alludes me and any others who don't share your point of view? Where does Ordy give credit to or even mention anything positive about a Te/Ra build or support in general?

Want to be the buff bot of your MPA: go TeWhateverTheFuckYouWant

Ergo, Te/Ra. Because being a buff bot is the only thing Te/Ra excels at compared to any other permutation of Ranger, Techer, or Ranger and Techer. It's worse at everything Techer mains can do and worse at everything Ranger mains can do. It's so blaringly obvious I don't understand how you don't see that. You're just as bad as Terrence's rants about Te/Bo's awesomeness.

And if it's too difficult for you to understand, your point of view is wrong, which is why I say you don't understand Techer. Your arguments later on in the post just further this perception.

How is support "made irrelevant by other Techer players"? What if you are the only techer player? What if there is no WB? What if there are WB wars and extas are needed? What about a Techer player with 4wb and full deband skills as well? Since you are not a big proponent of deband skills yourself, does that mean anyone who likes to use or receive them as support is wrong by definition alone?

A Te/Hu, Te/Fi, or Te/Br can provide everything Te/Ra can do with Techer skills without sacrificing anything, because that is the most optimal way to play them. A Ra/Hu, Ra/Br, or whatever else can do everything Te/Ra can do with Ranger skills without sacrificing anything, because that is the most optimal way to play them. Te/Ra does nothing optimally. That is why it's made irrelevant. And quite frankly, putting SP on Deband skills as a Te/Ra is a complete waste when there are Shifta skills and even PP Up to take. Deband is a 10-20 SP investment, and there are better skills available. This is like investing in Guard Stance as a Ra/Hu.

Since these are unknowns isn't there just as much chance for good as bad? What about the positives? The positives that CAN be guaranteed with Te/Ra with certainty and regardless of personal investment are: 4WB, full s/d and zanverse all at most discounted prices all wrapped up in a single mpa member. Whether you see that as useful or not doesn't change the fact that its the only class combo to offer that skill-set. Te/Ra will be relevant with some part of its support most of the time. And why are people ignoring the fact that weak bullet is an mpa support skill as well and working directly with shifta strike? I'm sure we've all heard the saying: "WB is the only real support in PSO2," but support is like a bad word around here.

Ra/Te gets all of that stuff, except its Shifta/Deband are 1m 15s per use instead of 3m. Every single tech user in an MPA has 1m 15s buffs and Zanverse. Every Techer has 3m buffs and Shifta Strike. Every Ranger has 4WB and can lower its costs through the use of PP Save Bullet if it wanted to. There is nothing unique or really advantageous about going Te/Ra here beyond "I can Shifta Strike and Weak Bullet at the same time", which is about as logical as going x/Ra for any other main class in the game. Great for you, you can Shifta Strike. One Techer in the MPA can do the exact same thing, so now all you are is extra WBs. So what's the point of going Te/Ra over Ra/Te again? Right.

Its like: most of the good aspects of Te/Ra are brushed under the rug, while its weakest part: its weapons, are being compared to some monster 13* of Ra/Te, a class it was never meant to compete with, that's primarily used for sh tacos...? Yeah maybe you're right and I don't get your techer side of things.

Brushed under the rug is a funny thing to say, because it implies there are good aspects to Te/Ra besides being a support bot that can't do anything better than a dedicated Techer and Ranger could do.

And it gets clowned on for being support? What if deband cut/toughness saved you at some crucial point? We just ignore that and it because its not a part of some die-hard dps dogma? If 1 person can almost single-handedly ensure a random mpa success on xh magatsu because they bring every support skill needed to allow everyone else to dps their ass off as well as doing fairly decent damage themselves, this should be shunned instead of discussed or at least be allowed to be mentioned without constant ridicule?

Deband is completely irrelevant to the ability to defeat Magatsu...its attacks are easy to dodge and don't even do that much damage when they do hit. I can survive most things it does before the first wall as a Fo/Te with merely 540 HP. If you can't take that kind of hit, you should really stop playing...And again, a dedicated Techer and Ranger fulfills everything a Te/Ra can do in addition to pulling their own weight and contributing to the Magatsu kill far better than Te/Ra could. I'd rather not have a Te/Ra in the MPA at all if it could be helped. If an MPA actually needed Deband to clear Magatsu, they suck. Plain and simple.

In the pre-shifta-strike days of Ep2 where everything died in 1 pa, yeah sure screw support. But now in XH loser, Magatsu and upcoming ult lilipa where hp and defence gimmicks matter more than ever, and ranged damage is nerfed left and right, we still cant spare a single person to max out on ALL support skills because of the less than a 1/12th loss in overall damage output that shifta strike and extra 4 wb cover up anyways? Besides don't they teleport in photon turrets and let you ride AIS for dps now on almost every significant eq and ult?

This "HP and defense are important" bullshit has to stop. People really need to fucking learn how to play if they're still railing on about this. I'm sorry that you must be a godawful player to be insisting that XH Loser, Magatsu, and UQs make Te/Ra useful. Maybe you should learn how to not get hit. Maybe the people you play with need to learn how to not get hit. These things really are not that difficult, they're just the most difficult content implemented in the game, and certainly, some people didn't handle the content very well when it was new. That's not even close to saying that it's content that requires high levels of defense and HP just to survive, just that it took longer to adapt to. Probably because it was, you know, new. And lol, Photon Turrets and A.I.S., really? If you can't pull your own weight without either of those, there's something wrong with you. And they don't even exist in UQs anyway. A.I.S. are only in TD3 (Magatsu phase 2 is irrelevant because your class is irrelevant there), and Photon Turrets shouldn't need to be used in TD1/2 or Magatsu unless your MPA is pretty average. A good XH Magatsu run ends around Magatsu's first crossbow sealing, if not before then. Definitely ideally before then, because you're not looking at a very reliable quad dip otherwise, especially if you switch characters to get multiple shots at phase 2.

I'll reiterate the relevant stuff: Shifta Strike is better done by a Techer main. Weak Bullet is better done by a Ranger main. By trying to do both, you do neither well and compromise yourself. Stick with what you can do optimally, please.

I understand if people want to pledge all their resources and time to super-specialized, most-damaging builds ever for each different situation, but to say that everything else plain sucks and people shouldn't have their version of fun by trying different things is just plain lame and imo doesn't belong in a forum where a fact-focused discussion is to take place. You like massive dps at the expense of everything else? Fine! Guess what? I do too. All of my builds are selfish glass cannons. But to shit on something just because you don't like it only invites more shit to come your way.

"selfish glass cannons"

What was that about intolerant, self-righteous hijacking? This paragraph fits that description better than anything I've read in this entire thread. Nice job. Goddamned hypocrites.

And if you have any intention of making a reply, please try to condense it. I spent hours to write this reply. Hours that should have been spent running CQs when I should have only had to take 15 minutes out of my day at the very most. Do me and yourself a favor and think very carefully about what you want to get across so you don't have to waste more time than you have to replying to me, and vice versa for myself. Thank you.

[Hrith]

usual poppycock

Absolutely crappy advice. Once again proving your ignorance of PSO2 game mechanics. Aren't you tired of always being wrong and never stopping yapping? Quit, really.

[milranduil]

randomass ad hominems.

Absolutely crappy advice. Once again proving your ignorance of PSO2 game mechanics. Aren't you tired of always being wrong and never stopping yapping? Quit, really.

Some things never change

[RadiantLegend]

This has been bugging me for a while adios.

My SC on Rodos only does about 250k per hit without team buff. Just shifta drink and shiftaride. Using bio rifle. Your ideal rifle was doing 400k+ per hit. Is the gap between ideal and bio that huge?

[milranduil]

This has been bugging me for a while adios.

My SC on Rodos only does about 250k per hit without team buff. Just shifta drink and shiftaride. Using bio rifle. Your ideal rifle was doing 400k+ per hit. Is the gap between ideal and bio that huge?

In short, yes. Team buff + weak drink is so cheating for extra damage though... it's like 25% more damage for free over no team buff + shifta EX drink. 140 units + 145 rifle helps too.

[Arkios]

In short, yes. Team buff + weak drink is so cheating for extra damage though... it's like 25% more damage for free over no team buff + shifta EX drink. 140 units + 145 rifle helps too.

Can you explain what team buff + weak drink is VS no team buff + shifta EX drink?

It would be good to know if there is certain prep I should be doing before quests/boss fights.