Whats the bread and butter dps rotation for the katana and rifle now? I've been away for 3ish months (?) and I'm lost, I have no idea what rotations i should be using. Tried finding some good Ph katana/rifle usage (I need katana the most) but i don't know whats considered good and 90% of the vids i look at are people using the rod.
Pls assist.
Spoiler!
I just came back last week too.
I tried all of Ph's weapon and rod seems to be the most straight forward.
However, I would also like to know Ph's BnB's or how to use the class "optimally".
I searched through pages and pages of this thread, looked for Ph guides, looked for youtube vids explaining stuff but there're none.
I mean I know that there's a "Phantom Just Attack" that allows you to do their "Shifted PA" versions... and aside from just seemingly spamming random stuff I would like more "structure" to my playstyle.... (yes... I know how to do quick cut for Katana)
Like what Moffen said, if someone could spare a little bit of their time to quickly list some PA rotations for the various Ph weapons, that'd help a bunch.
Thanks.
just listing quick notes than actual detailed answers on katana/rifle but should still help you get byOriginally Posted by Will_2_Power
Katana : Specializes in bossing with some mobbing utility. Wolken has pretty mediocre damage but a nice area of effect and a stun effect which can be nice if you're solo.
Bossing PAs consist of mainly Folter Zeit (obvious sationary big damage PA) and Rose shwertz (less damage but lets you close the gap to be in Folter range). Quick Cut is key for Katana usage as it allows you to keep sustaining PP until you get the big refill from Mark detonation. quick cut into shift Wolken is decent DPS and very sustainable, so you can just loop it. Quick cut into Rose is a bit harder to use and less damaging but also contributes a lot more to marker accumulation, so you might want to use that on stationary targets to get your things going. Quick cut chases incredibly well and can actually make Katana close, or even better than rod on some particularly mobile non-light weak bosses !
Rifle : The main draw of rifle is easily the ability to headshot, and get extra damage from it. Kugelstrum is the most obvious mobbing PA, so whenever mobs have a head multiplier, just jump over them and go for Kugel > Kugel > 3rd normal to wreck them all. Rifle also builds marks insanely fast on mobs, and marker detonation is a piercing shot, so try to line up the mobs to instantly refill your PP with a level 1 mark kaboom whenever needed. shift Nachtangriff is also a very solid way to open your tango as it's insanely good damage for a gap closer !
Bossing is not rifle's forte, but it can still perform decently, especially on bosses with lots of targetable parts. Using shift Verbrechen into Strafe into 3rd normal basically sets lots of DoT that will vastly increase your marker accumulation and damage. Once those are set, try to get headshots with shift nachtangriff, Kugelstrum or shift kugelstrum (that one is the worse of the bunch but is also the most accurate so can be nice to headshot some hard to hit heads) into the usual 3rd normal. If you keep track of and periodically refresh Strafe and shift Verb DoT while doing your rotations and getting counter shots in, you'll see that rifle can very easily loop max level marks at an insane speed on that kind of boss, which gives the extra PP/Damage push to make rifle's bossing comparable to Rod on those !
Last edited by Zephyrion; Aug 31, 2019 at 12:52 PM.
Anyway this opinion is created after the Phantom buff took in.
In general, you need to counter a lot with Phantom, always, unless you have a reason not to, like for spamming or catching up with timing. You also want to detonate marker whenever you can when the mark gets to purple by holding shift and release until there's a sound/effect that you can do so. Also, since you have this amazing Attack Jellen skill, you may enjoy Phrase Decay affix on your weapon for 5% extra damage.
Katana is great at bossing, with a condition that the boss allows you to counter most of the time for more damage and PP, else you'll dry out. Greatest example is like Omega Masquerade, Deus Hunas, etc. In this situation, the most common PAs used are Schmetterling, Folter Zeit, and Rose Scwhert. Schmetterling is how you get close to an enemy, immediately (or not immediately to get height and last hits of Schmetterling, depending on your situation) followed by Folter as your common rotation. Rose Schwert if you need an immediate hit to replace those two in certain situation, for example, when Phaleg jumps after her break, or when masq teleports, because Rose Schwert animation can follow up right after. The downside is, Rose Schwert animation takes quite long, though I believe there's quite enough iframe for you to do things. You will end up using Rose only when you know the enemy enough on when to properly use it.
As for mobbing, it's good in most likely around close range mobs or multi bosses, and this is where the shifted PAs and Quick Cut are mostly used. Quick Cut is highly essential to keep your PP high and it also gives quite damage to the enemies. At this point, mostly used PAs will be shifted Schmetterling, and shifted Folter, maybe sometimes Wolkenkratzer and shifted Rose. Shifted Schmetterling can gain you a good positioning, you can also follow it up with shifted Folter if you are in good position. The thing is, Rod has taken care of this most of the time, if not, rifle. However, that doesn't mean Katana is weak in any way at all.
Rifle, most of its PAs are pretty useful. For DPS you may wanna stick with Nachtangriff, shifted Nachtangriff, and normal attack 3 (N3), with shifted Verbrechen and Strafe turned on for every 12 seconds only whenever you can for more damage, marker and gear accumulation. Nachtangriff is your best bet when you have a chance, but it's pretty situational to aim with it, so you may end up sticking with shifted Nachtangriff + N3 depending on the situation you are in. Kugelstrum is pretty instant and at the very least decent. I'm pretty sure the folks who have S4:Vampiric Strike in their rifle love to use it. shifted Kugelstrum is good when dealing with tons of hits, preferably weak targets or when you have such short timing to do other PAs such as mother's cube, breaking weak parts, or maybe help your Gu in your party to boost their chain. The DPS is not that bad either but don't rely on it for all things. Side Verbrechen isn't bad either for mobbing (which again you may just wanna use Rod instead). N3 is something you shouldn't miss cause its damage is just that huge, and N1 and N2 damage shouldn't be underestimated either, though you shouldn't rely on it.
Rod... sadly Rod PAs are pretty much not useful right now, cause they're overshadowed by its capability of using techs. Maybe Scwarze Katze for jump-to-target purposes, but very very very situational. Holding Voelkermord can also deliver good DPS, but it takes a while for it to reach the higher damage (10 hits? I forgot). so it's also situational. The next one is shifted Voelkermord, which is nice to turn on only if you're waiting for the next target or there's nothing else to hit yet. However, it's not that mandatory to turn it on.
Soo, you will be mostly using techs. Due to Tech Short Charge skill, your tech is at best with Brilliant craft, if not, multi craft for some techs like Rabarta. Charging tech with it is also an advantage tool (in general, not just rod), because you are invisible for 1s due to Stealth Tech Charge skill. You can cast Resta so fast, and being invisible while at it. Tapping Megiverse is still useful tho if you're in the middle of doing combo. There's not much to say here about Rod cause it's almost like playing Fo in terms of tech usage, the only difference is you must not forgot to Counter, Detonate, use Phantom Time Finish, and turn on your Ramegid in often many situations to take advantage of Ambivalence skill as much as you can. Rod detonation is also strong, strong enough to detonate weak mobs to death once or twice even without marker, which may be useful if you do time attack or maybe endless quest.
I think that's all I can remember. Also just an additional note, you may wanna get your Mag with Grants/Megid (Probably Megid best, not sure) and use Mag Excite ring. This is an additional damage you can rely on. Iirc it works best with T-ATK build and also works with Phrase Decay (Can someone confirm this?)
@Zeph & Steve:
THANK YOU!
I now know which weapon takes precedence when it comes to bossing/mobbing, which PAs (and their follow-up PAs) to use, plus general tactics for each of the weapons.
Thanks!
@Zeph & Steve:
Also Thank you! I came back from a long Hiatus was wondering what PA's should I use for Phantoms
What's other people's take on S4 raising pursuit on atra vs lightstream for rod?
Despite the cost reduction, and the slash generating pp on hit, I notice Ph could still go empty if they go a little tech spam heavy with ilgrants, or something else similar in cost.
Before that, my opinion is theoretical cause I don't have one... You can have both Atra ex and Lightstream Rod of you like. Burst your damage with atra ex that triggers the pursuit then switch over to LS to take advantage of it being activated after. Anyway, maybe having Pursuit in Katana ain't that bad as well either cause it can burst damage after mark detonation with it (or simply roses).
Thanks for all the help guys, i'm getting more used to the dps rotations now and it feels a bit more natural again.
Is spread noodle with the boosted potential worth using at all?
Spoiler!
Alright... just a quick comment coming through based on my observations.
So after trying out Ph for several days, and from watching some Ph Endless Runs (ぴょんす's run/explanation of how to do Endless on youtube) for reference, to better myself, it appears that in general:
Rod > Rifle > Katana
And yeah, like what Steve said, with rod, it's best to just be mainly using Techs.
So the "optimal" playstyle is to basically/mainly play like Fo while occasionally using Rifle for quick mobbing (Kugel), precision/head-shots (Nacht or Shifted Kugel) in TPS mode
Katana, it seems, is the weakest link of the 3 weapons, and kind of superfluous; whatever it can do, the other two weapons can do it better.
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