How do I get better?

[RibbonSoft]

I've noticed the forums suddenly dripping with elitism recently and have found it rather offensive (good example is this thread). However, instead of moaning and whining and telling everyone to go to hell, I do generally want to get better. So I have several questions I want to ask and get some specific advice. First, let me explain my character a bit so for anyone who wants to answer, they have a better idea on how to answer.

1). I am a solo player and i generally don't play well with others nor do I like playing with others. However, this does not mean I will not ask for help on how to play the game. Just don't expect me to do runs with other people because it will never happen. Of course if I only play solo, then why do I care about the elitism here? Because not everyone is trying to be a dick online and are actually trying to get better but don't know how to proceed. Having collective, specific knowledge in one place would be very helpful.

2). My character is a level 51/27 FO/BR female newman. I just recently solo'd Lilipa and Amduscia TACO's on VH. While I still got S-ranks for these, the times were quite slow compared to videos I have seen (Lilipa over 20 minutes and Amduscia over 30). I also attempted to solo Raging Dark Arms and Elder himself but failed because my DPS sucks. I had thirty seconds left when I beat the Falz Arms and I had only depleted half of Elder's health when I had only five minutes left (it was the first time I attempted an EQ). Additionally, I watch many videos to see how other people solo many of these quests and they are doing insane amounts of damage. That's one of the things I want to know is how can I be able to do that sort of damage. The most I have ever done was just recently a Namegid for over 24,000 (that was with a dark PSE effect active however). My average damage is usually around 3000 (up to 6000 on weak points with Weak Stance active). My T-ATK is currently around 1300-1400 with my Talis of choice on.

3). For my weapons, I almost always use a Talis because that is the weapon that clicks for me. I have a Rosa Crane +6 with lightning on it. Rods are okay but I don't use them very well nor do I like them. I tried bows but they are too awkward to me. For me, Talis works wonders. I would like to do crafting but the system makes no sense to me. I've found items that have interesting abilities on them but I can never add them onto my weapon so I just end up selling it. I understand grinding to +10 and unlocking potentials (haven't done it yet because my chances of success are usually less than 10%) but how do I grind or add attributes like ice, fire or EXP III or Ability II?

4). Another question, how do people get such high PP counts? Is that also equipment? The most I have ever seen any piece of equipment give is +5. I am already at 115 but in videos people are usually around 140 to 160. That is a large pool to be casting from.

5). While TACOs are nice for making some meseta, I have never broken 2 million when it comes to collecting meseta. I do not purchase ARKS Cash because I live in poverty even though somehow I still have access to internet. I am trying to turn my life around so I can have some semblance of economic stability. PSO2 is one of the very few outlets I have left to occasionally escape the joke that is my life. Anyway, is the player shop the only way to make money in this game?

Sorry about the wall of text, but I genuinely do want to get better at the game. I just don't know how and am looking for specific advice on how to do it. If I wasn't clear on something or you need more info, please ask me and I will answer to the best of my ability. I thank anyone willing to actually provide clear and concise answers and not this vague stuff that I keep seeing on the PSU blog and other forums. Again, thank you.

[Sizustar]

Participate in this topic.
http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=229049

Record a gameplay of yourself playing, and post your skill tree and gear to boot.
For recording, you can use Fraps, MSI Afterburner, Dxtory, bandicam, or Nvidia Shadowplay, if you have a Nvidia GPU that supports it.

[emeraude]

1). You're gonna have to play with other people regardless during EQ
2.) Post skill tree and gear
3). find a better talis (buy off the shop if you have to) and grind it to 10, unlock pot if you have cash. for affixing look at this
4). soul with pp/spirita boost/flict/fever
5). your tacos with your xqcos net you north of 1.5million a week. do your daily orders. get both of your chars to a level that can do both. outside of that the real way of making cash is playing economics star online with the player shops. you don't need to actually buy ac for a shop, once you start running EQ like magatsu you'll get more excubes than you'll know what to do with. turn cubes into fun, draw 3 day shop ticket, sell stuff

btw if you look around you'll find answers to your questions (e.g., the force discussion thread, acceptable equipment), just look around a bit more

[RibbonSoft]

Participate in this topic.
http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=229049

Record a gameplay of yourself playing, and post your skill tree and gear to boot.
For recording, you can use Fraps, MSI Afterburner, Dxtory, bandicam, or Nvidia Shadowplay, if you have a Nvidia GPU that supports it.

I don't know anything about video recording so this will not happen. I will attempt to post the skill tree when I get a chance.

1). You're gonna have to play with other people regardless during EQ

I disagree. I have seen people solo these so I know it is possible.

2.) Post skill tree and gear

Will get to this as soon as I can.

3). find a better talis (buy off the shop if you have to) and grind it to 10, unlock pot if you have cash. for affixing look at this

This looks quite useful. Looked all over the Internet for specific advice and never saw this. Thank you.

EDIT:
So I am reading this, and I am having the same problem as before: vague info and a bunch of number crunching that doesn't tell me how to set this up. What is an affix? How do I get one? How do I add an affix? How do I add more slots? Where do I get souls from? I understand the concepts but there is no how to on any of this. When I tried doing an ability like Ability II on a weapon, it only allows me to have one slot. It reduced my slots from four to one. I don't understand any of this. Is there a step by step guide on how to do this?

4). soul with pp/spirita boost/flict/fever

Thank you.

5). your tacos with your xqcos net you north of 1.5million a week. do your daily orders. get both of your chars to a level that can do both. outside of that the real way of making cash is playing economics star online with the player shops

I am not strong enough to complete the XQCO's yet. As I said before, my DPS is terrible, hence I am trying to figure out ways to increase it. The crafting guide may help. I have also started trying to level my Technique Customization skill as well.

[Fluff]

Hi! I have a Fo/Br that I like to play, so I'll try my best to answer some parts of your questions. I may make mistakes here and there, so thank you in advance if someone corrects me or elaborates on something I've said.

1) For starters, being a somewhat solo player myself as well, EQs are a must if you want to level up efficiently and quickly. Of course, there's probably other ways to level (Advanced Quest spam, relying on quests...), but those are not as nearly as good as EQs. This means you have to play with other players to get as much EXP as you possibly can in the 30 minutes you're given. People aren't generally too bad, but you might get bad experiences here and there. However, your good experiences working as a team will overshadow these bad experiences, so don't worry.

2) People do a lot of damage mainly because of their skills, equipment, and their skill tree. If you post your skill tree here, members of the forum can evaluate it and point you into the right direction.
Fo/Br relies on Weak Stance from the Braver skill tree and Element Conversion as their trump cards, focusing heavily on element weaknesses. Fo/Te is easier to use because of easy PP regeneration with PP conversion and PP regeneration up our whatever it's called and is good to consider using for leveling up. However, that's a different topic. What element do you plan on building on? This is an important question because it dictates what skill points you'll be using in your skill tree. Generally for Fo/Br, you want to emphasize fire, ice, or lightning. If you want to deal more damage with dark, wind, or light, Fo/Te would be a good option as well because you still retain Element Conversion while also picking up the respective masteries as well. I'm not saying that you MUST play one and only one, but rather that you could play one or the other depending on the dungeon to maximize as much damage as possible.

3) Talises are awesome... depending on the situation and skills you're using. Of course, the talis damage boost in the force skill tree is an absolute must. 120% damage just for throwing a talis is great! You'll have to figure out when to use a talis and what skill to use it with on your own, but generally realises are used specifically for that damage boost and keeping yourself safe when using a skill (e.g. Gifoie). Affixing is a lot to explain, but I'm not at my computer atm so I can't link a guide. I'd rather focus on what it means to be a force.
Because you're a force, you should aim for a rainbow set. This means that you should have a weapon that has a specific element and a potential that boosts that element for every element. For example, Seimei Kikami's potential boosts dark damage, so naturally you want your Seimei to be a dark element. You should also aim to get that element to 50.

4) Special abilities on equipment, equipment themselves (mostly units with set bonuses, but this can also include weapons), and crafting. I'm not too well-versed in creating, but specific crafts on units can give you +10 PP (that's a lot!) However, this changes your units defenses to a default (?) and removes hidden stats units can have.

5) Shops can get you quick money, but for now you should improve yourself to do TACOs as fast as possible and do daily orders. At first, money comes in slow, but after a while, you'll feel so rich! My Shops can be very rarely gotten from FUN scratches, but you should only use it if you have something (extremely) valuable to sell to use your shop efficiently. Focus on improving yourself first, and then all the goodies you want can come later.

Hopefully I've answered some of your questions, but I'm tired now and would like to sleep. Again, I can't link anything right now, but cirnopedia and the Japanese wiki for PSO2 are good references.

[Kelwine]

Mmm. Keep in mind that in a lot of those videos you see with people doing a lot of damage and soloing high end things, the people doing it already have quite a bit of high end units and weapons.

Equipment they probably got from doing EQs with others, first. Just doing it entirely solo, from the ground up, will be quite difficult. But you may be able to buy enough off the shop if you've got AC to spare on passes, I am unsure. I've never been much the buyer.

[emeraude]

>I disagree. I have seen people solo these so I know it is possible.

You can solo, but it won't be efficient. I don't think you will be able to solo XH Phase 1 Magatsu (64mil+ HP) in a reasonable amount of time for you to have good drops. This is a co-op game, you will need to run with other people. You don't need to party with them, just run the same instance with them.

You've probably watched videos of people soloing with high-end gear with very good affixes. You'll need to get said gear and cash to affix; it's very hard to do this without running multiplayer quests.

>What is an affix? How do I get one?

You pick up a weapon or unit. You see it has Power I and Spirita I. Power I is an affix.

>How do I add an affix? How do I add more slots?

That unit of yours with Power I and Spirita I. You want to add Shoot I. Find another 2 slot (2s) unit with Shoot I and any other affix. Go to Dudu/Monica, select Add Ability, select your Pow1/Spirita1 unit, then select your Shoot1/Junk fodder. Select Power 1, Spirita 1, and Shoot 1 (this will use the Extra Slot, which lowers the chances of all your affixes succeeding), then hit OK.

If all of them succeed, you just transferred Shoot 1 (added it to your base unit) and you just upslotted (added one more slot to your 2s base).

>Where do I get souls from?

They drop from bosses and special enemies.

You will get a feel for this the more you affix things. Experiment on junk you find. consult the swiki/the guide I linked you. Play around in the sim.

For your PP needs some unit sets give PP bonuses (the Saiki set gives +25pp for instance). Special RDEF crafting gives you 10 pp per unit piece.

[RibbonSoft]

You can solo, but it won't be efficient. I don't think you will be able to solo XH Phase 1 Magatsu (64mil+ HP) in a reasonable amount of time for you to have good drops. This is a co-op game, you will need to run with other people. You don't need to party with them, just run the same instance with them.

lol. Funny you mention Magatsu. Magatsu and others like Mining Defense I probably will never do. Ultimate on the other hand looks crazy but is still soloable from what I've seen.

You've probably watched videos of people soloing with high-end gear with very good affixes. You'll need to get said gear and cash to affix; it's very hard to do this without running multiplayer quests.

Then so be it. I welcome the difficulty. I am not one of those where I need to be min/maxing instantly. For me part of the fun is the journey getting there and I can't savor the game if I am too busy rushing to get to the level of proficiency with my character that I want. I've played Guild Wars and FFXI as well so I am not unfamiliar with MMOs. I still solo'd them too.

You pick up a weapon or unit. You see it has Power I and Spirita I. Power I is an affix.

>How do I add an affix? How do I add more slots?

That unit of yours with Power I and Spirita I. You want to add Shoot I. Find another 2 slot (2s) unit with Shoot I and any other affix. Go to Dudu/Monica, select Add Ability, select your Pow1/Spirita1 unit, then select your Shoot1/Junk fodder. Select Power 1, Spirita 1, and Shoot 1 (this will use the Extra Slot, which lowers the chances of all your affixes succeeding), then hit OK.

If all of them succeed, you just transferred Shoot 1 (added it to your base unit) and you just upslotted (added one more slot to your 2s base).

So wait, let me see if I understand this here. So in order to attempt to add something, it needs to have the same number of slots and then use the extra slot? Only when that is successful do I get an extra slot? How do I not lose abilities though? Say I have a weapon that has several abilities that I want to keep, how do I not lose them when I attempt to affix?

>Where do I get souls from?

They drop from bosses and special enemies.

Thanks. Does difficulty matter?

[emeraude]

>lol. Funny you mention Magatsu. Magatsu and others like Mining Defense I probably will never do. Ultimate on the other hand looks crazy but is still soloable from what I've seen.

Well, that's your playstyle, that's fine. I do think you're missing out on not playing those though - TDs are really good for EXP, and Magatsu is an excube dispenser. Also YMMV but I really like the Mining Base Def EQs, they're fun.

For Ultimate... solo on a Fo/Br might be doable, not my idea of fun but yeah you could go do that. I guess you won't be touching Challenge Mode either.

>Then so be it. I welcome the difficulty. I am not one of those where I need to be min/maxing instantly. For me part of the fun is the journey getting there and I can't savor the game if I am too busy rushing to get to the level of proficiency with my character that I want. I've played Guild Wars and FFXI as well so I am not unfamiliar with MMOs. I still solo'd them too.

Even endgame raids, you've soloed those? Uh... good for you I guess? Have fun.

>So wait, let me see if I understand this here. So in order to attempt to add something, it needs to have the same number of slots and then use the extra slot? Only when that is successful do I get an extra slot?

It needs to have the same or higher number of slots. You always have the option to use the extra slot.

>How do I not lose abilities though? Say I have a weapon that has several abilities that I want to keep, how do I not lose them when I attempt to affix?

You have a weapon with Quartz Soul, Mark Grif, and Spirita II.

If you want to keep Quartz Soul you need either (a) two more Quartz Souls for 80% transfer chance or (b) a Soul Receptor fodder for 100% transfer chance.

You cannot transfer Marks.

For Spirita II you can use another Spirita II fodder to keep it. There are +5/10/20/30% affix success boosters in game you can use to increase your chances of transfer. Again, play around in the ability sim to see your options.

>Thanks. Does difficulty matter?

For the number of slots/quality of affixes dropped, yes.
You're more likely to get a 4-slot boss soul on SH than H.

[Sizustar]

lol. Funny you mention Magatsu. Magatsu and others like Mining Defense I probably will never do. Ultimate on the other hand looks crazy but is still soloable from what I've seen.



Then so be it. I welcome the difficulty. I am not one of those where I need to be min/maxing instantly. For me part of the fun is the journey getting there and I can't savor the game if I am too busy rushing to get to the level of proficiency with my character that I want. I've played Guild Wars and FFXI as well so I am not unfamiliar with MMOs. I still solo'd them too.



So wait, let me see if I understand this here. So in order to attempt to add something, it needs to have the same number of slots and then use the extra slot? Only when that is successful do I get an extra slot? How do I not lose abilities though? Say I have a weapon that has several abilities that I want to keep, how do I not lose them when I attempt to affix?



Thanks. Does difficulty matter?

Read through these 2 first

Affix guide
http://www.fulldive.nu/2015/01/06/pso2-affixing-101/

Gear guide
http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227342