Ok, I hit like 14 yesterday and my MST is like 160 or so now, and no I can use like all the lv one spells. Theres so much crap I dont know where to start. And the worst part? THERES ONLY 6 FOOKIN BUTTONS to hotkey.
As a force should I have maybe just one Attack key up, Fluid, heal or Mate, then what three spells should I use? I supose if im mostly soling I should have offensive spells up, and with group have my defensive buffs up?
Mist my Force friend, hooks a shortie up
Heh, I know how you feel. I am now a lv 80 force, and I have been frustrated more than once w/ lack o spell hotkeys. Anyway, here is my advice;
I usually have my controller layout like this
Row one
Fire Spell Ice Spell Lightning Spell
Row two
Resta fluids (changes) usually attack.
Now, the way I suggest you go about this is as follows... Find a fire spell you like. I personally love RaFoie, and that one is usually always on my keylist. For Ice, I am very partial to Gibarta. And lightning is Gizonde. I find it is good to have a mix of high casting time (i.e. rafoie) spells w/ quick (gibarta/zonde). In the early levels, I actually never used my weapon. It doesnt do any damage and you gotta get on the front lines to hit usually.
For the suppost spells (i.e. shifta and deband) the duration of these spells is a decent amount of time, so when I need to cast this, I just use the start menu/techniques/support/select spell method. Same thing w/ Reverser, since you are (hopefully!) not reviving all the time. I think it just comes down to you finding spells you like and having those in. I like have 1 of each 'group' because it makes sure that I have the right spell to combat a monsters magic resistances, gauronteed.
Good luck w/ your Force! You can now have the pride of not looking like most of the people online! Woo Hoo!
If you ever need help or anything, look me up, I am usually in Ophelia 10, with a character w/ Mun-KEE in the name somewhere (all my characters have this distinction).
Nice topic...always good to get some FORCE discussion in every day!
I agree that the lack of buttons can be a huge frustration to Forces who have something like 17 or 18 spells at their disposal. Like the person before me said, you sort of have to pick your favorites go with them.
Here's my lineup as of right now (level 76):
FIRST ROW: Fluids/Attack (variable)/Resta
SECOND ROW: Razonde/Rabarta (Grants for bosses)/Reverser
Here's my lineup when I was at low levels:
FIRST ROW: Fluids/Foie/Resta
SECOND ROW: Razonde/Shifta/Deband/
I only starting using an ATTACK button since I got to the higher levels. I found attacking to be rather pointless for my Force when she was a low-level character...unless she had a gun.
RAZONDE has been my favorite spell for quite some time because it allows you to "tag" all of the monsters on the screen and thus get the experience points. This bugs some Hunters/Rangers, but it's a fact of life for a Force.
When I was at a lower level, I did cast SHIFTA and DEBAND quite a bit because everybody needed it. I don't really do this much anymore when playing with high-level characters because they are already strong enough.
One other thing to think about...don't feel to bad that you are ignoring certain spells. To be honest, SHIFTA is the only reeeeeally good Support spell of the bunch. MEGID is quite useless unless it's a high level version, so don't bother.
You'll also find yourself getting pretty proficient at finding spells under your Techniques library that aren't pre-programmed. My best example is ANTI, which I never have programmed, but I can get to it fairly quickly when it is needed.
Yeah, mostly agreed, I'm usually-
Resta attk nuker1
fluid nuker nuker
Anti jumps in nuker1 slot if confuser enemies. As above, shifta/deband from menu.
Also points out how little one uses Jellen/Zalure. ie.. umm.. never.
You should be happy with one in each element.
I'm mostly agreement with Munkee, although my spells are Rafoie, Gibarta, and Razonde.
Zonde and Foei come out in particular cases where I don't need area effects but used on express targets. I don't have light/dark spells high enough to bother with them much, but I could see they could be swapped in for case as well. Personally I'm not a fan of gifoei nor gizonde once the ra's got to be of reasonable area effect (now they're rather large) - for now though you might really enjoy gizonde for example. Unlike the above though I regularly pick my best guns, have modules boosting ATA to use better ones quicker, pick element boosters to where I'm hunting, have them grinded, and switch to a power mag - my weapon is nice steady no cost dmg, real nice too when monsters needed just that extra bit.
There are cases though (which Munkee has likely hit) even all that might not be worth it.. I experience that when I play vhard and just go all spells (my added spell is usually ressurrect with some shuffle.. I don't like ressurrect on the 'pickup' button, as you'll often loot the one you want to save lol).
Real nice about the weapon side though is the very little tp I use blasting through lower quests or normal, and it's a worthy assist on hard. But yeah, very hard really shows up the class differences, where we just don't deal enough damage. Oh and don't even think about a melee weapon. You won't survive two hits of pretty much any monster for a long time on vhard (well I'm not long into vhard, but that's my distinct impression heh).
get armor with 4 slots.. I'm a fan of evade, hitpoints, and defense, depending on the situation. And of course I add the ata when needed too.. it's a lot more efficient to get the ata from modules than from a mag.. you can get atp easier from a mag, ata easier from modules.
why am I not talking about MST? Because one normally has atleast a reasonable mind mag. Note MST *does* add to spell area of effect and damage. But also note both effects are slow going. For starting off I personally suggest a heavy mind mag though and ata modules to grab better guns early.. atp modules if you're desperate for a little more gun damage (and can be a nice add for those repeater style weapons). But once you can get general or better evade, hps, defense.. that's good stuff for the heavier work you'll be doing.. I use the first two the most. Evade for tough regular fighting, and hps for bosses (since they'll hit you when it's time no matter what). Of course mix with resistances to taste too.
Lol well I got far afield but hope this helps.
Note most bosses have sweet spells to use on them.. but I just deleted my tips as that is going a bit far
DCKaz
edit - had something in brackets not showing up, also saw Moraine got a post in.. yeah I agree about anti, unless I'm fighting confuse type monsters or on quests, where you might want anti up. In particular mines sbeats and ruins.. those shield warrior types. Otherwise yeah, anti off the menu is fine, you can drop the antidotes. *But have antiparalysis on hand in the caves!* And yeah razonde is great for the 'touch', though don't be fooled by Rafoei.. it's actually can have a lot more range than the nuke cloud shows. With experience you'll find the mix you love!
<font size=1>[ This message was edited by: DCKaz on 2001-03-02 19:03 ]</font>
Haha -
You know, DCKaz, I have talked with you about Forces a couple times now... one of these times we should hook up and play a game. =-)
I also want to add this... Since I have become high level, I have started to change my character focus (it started w/ a thread made by JJ a bit ago). I use the Soul Eater as a weapon (until I can find Soul Banisher!). And I use it alot... on the front lines. What, am I crazy?
Hear me out.
I started making a purely attack mag (like most power, and Def as secondary att), and have filled my armor w/ God/Powers (untill I can find 4 God/HP which I need). With this setup, and my mag only w/ power lv. 24 I have like 780 atp (w/shifta cast). So now, I am doing decent damage (80 w/ weak 160 w/ heavy) and hit pretty often. and I still got almost 200 atp to add from my mag (once it is fully grown). So I will be able to do almost as much damage as a buff hunter, with the advantage of having my spells for backup. This saves big time on the fluids (rarely have to go back to get more). and now I am actually doing damage I can be proud of (and actually have growth potential, as opposed to my maxed mst and spells... no chance of anymore damage there). Just wanted to give you food for thought for a possible direction/change at a higher level. I wish I had thought of doing this at an earlier level, as I could have started a 2nd mag feeding it mates and moon atomizers (cuz I NEVER use those, so it would be easy). Then I would have a power ready mag now.
Oh, and the reason for the Soul EAter? it is decently strong, pretty quick, and hits multiple enemies. the hp suck is pretty small, and I usually have to heal from getting hit in battle more than from hp suck. Hey, good luck!
something I wanted to quickly point out...
It appears all the forces seem to be Long-Winded. =-)
You know, I'm not even a force, and I have a problem with the button setup!
Why in God's name do I need a second chat button that CANNOT be remapped!!?? What were they thinking?
And I can't count the times I've hit R+x to use a moon atomizer to revive a fallen comrade, only to WASTE A PHOTON BLAST when my mag is charged!
Aaaargh! This damn controller NEVER had enough buttons! Analog triggers? BAH! when the hell do you need those- Racing games? Let the damn racing fans buy a special controller! Give me a default controller with 4 digital triggers like the PSX dual analog. (sure, that system is dead, but they got the damn controller right!)
whew!
Good topic indeed. I had that exact same problem with my Force when I started,I am level 43 now, I had all these fun spells and only 6 slots. Not even 6 when you think about it because 1 slot goes to Healing(Resta or Mates) and one is Fluid and probably 1 slot to an attack. So you have 3 slots and bunch of spells to use, thanks Sonic Team
My layout is usually dependant on what level I am fighting in. The forest I will stick with 2 fire(usully Foie and RaFoie) and 1 Lightning(usually Zonde). In Caves I use almost same layout but change RaFoie for GiBarta(for dragons). Mines I use all lightning attacks since that works best there. And the Ruins that is place to have all different types of attacks. The buffing spells I don't use much in solo and even online most people don't really need the buffs except maybe before a boss.
I use the Soul Eater since its pretty high powered blade weapon, we Forces don't get to use those much
Lastly for your MAG mind is good especially in the early going, but later you might want to beef up the POW some so you can use some of the better weapons, Forces can use quite a few weapons but it takes a LOT of ATP. And as it is you should gain around 5-7 MST every level anyhow. Hope this helps if you ever need help I am usually in Ariel-16, short yellow Newman named Raxx
*bounce*
WOW, Ryiko tank you nice forces for teling her pointers and help. Me like magic and wuv to BWAST STUFF!!!
I left for lunch and to be honest didnt expect many replys but again my thanx to you guys, you helped a bunch. I guess simply put I need to sort my items in a way I can easily access them when i need them. Master the menu I must
I just wants to thank Munkee for his excellent advice.
After the other day when i was really po'ed about how weak my lamer force was in general, he (i think) suggested the all power mag. So, i have been lvling one up, its at l00 or so now and my force is kicking! And, i don't have to use the same old spells anymore.
As for button layout neojin:
my front row is always rabarta (whadda spell)
attack (double saber, soul weps, etc)
megid / grants / etc...
my back row is almost always
revive
heal
anti
if i play alone, its different, but thats usually the case.
in the early stages, its important to learn which spells are effective for which stages, that will minimize the total # you need at any time. And of course, stick with lightning, because you dont' have to face enemies giving you less chance of gettin capped in the middle of dropping yer bomb.
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