New Force Player -- Some Questions

[Ririko]

Hi, I finally decided to jump into PSO2 and sticking to what I liked best from the first one, went with a Female Force Newman as my first character. I'm level 23 now and having quite a blast with the game. The forums have helped out a fair bit with the skills and what not but, still, thought I'd drop by to ask some questions that have been bugging me!

First, my skill set so far (http://ryuhiroshi.ry.funpic.de/pso2/skillcalc.php?03fbdIkbdIkbdIkbdIkIxIkbdIk0lbIn0000 00ib00000ib00000ib0000GBI2dS00009b00000f)

Basically, I messed up because T.Atk Boost seemed incredible when I first got to the game, so I spent all of my points there. I noticed the recent trend is shifting more towards the Fire/Thunder Tree, so I was wondering... how should I proceed, now? I was thinking about maybe leaving Flame S Charge at 5 and losing a couple points in Bolt PP Tech Save, just so I could still get Tech Charge Advance and Tech JA Advance. Would that be acceptable, or would the faster casting of my techs end up outdoing the increased damage from Tech Charge Advance?

Also, regarding subclasses, I've noticed that people have mainly been 'torn' between Force/Fighter and Force/Techer. Could someone give me a quick breakdown of what one class offers over the other? Just in terms of gameplay here, I'm liking the tech-spam so far with Force, but sometimes I kinda wish I had the versatility in changing weapons like in the original PSO, where every other FOnewearl walked around with a Slicer or a Chaos Rifle for some specific occasions. Would Fighter by any chance add such possibilities? Or it's more of a "the skills can help with the techs" kind of thing?

Last but not least... regarding MAGs... is a Tech-Attack oriented the recommended way to go? I got 10 Ability on mine, and the rest so far is all T-Atk. Should I add some T-Def, too? I read it can be useful for armor pieces.

I... guess that's it, for now, lol. Quite a bunch of questions in the end, haha. Thanks in advance for any help, and good luck out there!

[SociableTyrannosaur]

Force fighter is better damage than force techer. force techer has better sustainable damage. That's the difference. weapon set is no different.

Forces dont need dex for their armor. I have two mags for my Fo/Te. The extra dex on one for old armor that I dont feel is relevant anymore. on a female newman force, I feel the best possible mag is 130 t atk and 20 T def, but losing 10 T atk or T def to dex isn't going to change much.

I'm sure Unlucky will pop in with his thoughts on your skill tree. if not I'll take a look in about an hour.

[Ririko]

Oh, such a fast reply, haha. I think I'll be going with Force/Techer, then, simply because it won't make me level up a Ranger right now, haha.

As for the MAG, noted that. 120 T. ATK, 10 DEX, 20 T. DEF it'll be! As for the skills, no problem, I'll wait! Thanks a bunch, once again.

[Link1275]

This would be my suggestion. I'm sure someone else will have a better one though.
http://ryuhiroshi.ry.funpic.de/pso2/skillcalc.php?03uDbdIkbdIkbdIkbdIkbdIkbdIkjcqIkluI bIn000000ib00000ib00000ib0000GBbk2XcK00006kbdqldI2 J20000

[SociableTyrannosaur]

Here's what I would do (http://ryuhiroshi.ry.funpic.de/pso2/skillcalc.php?03bIbdIkbdIkbdIkbdIkbdIkbdIk0lbIn000 000ib00000ib00000ib0000GBI22SIxjbncAIu0007b00000f)

You lose a little casting speed on fire techs and 3% global damage, but everything else will be the same. The side effect of slower fire charges is more PP per charge due to wait time. so without mass pp regen, fire techs are actually more sustainable this way.


Rumor has it we're getting skill tree resets soon. If that's true, you can fix it properly at that point. As of now you'll only notice a slight difference between this and other more optimal trees.

[Ririko]

I see, that looks pretty fine, mostly in-line with what I was imagining if I could make an optimal build, except sacrificing a bit on JA Tech. I suppose the PP saving from Bolt Tech ends up being prefered over the small boost on damage? Makes sense!

While we're at it, and here I'm actually treading completely unfamiliar territory -- what would be a good way to go around building the skillset for the Techer subclass? I'm under the impression Shifta and Deband aren't all that great in this game (or support buffs, in general), so I'm kinda curious on what exactly do people take when building their Tech.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

Go look at the build thread. I've posted a Fo/Te build there that I think optimizes techer for current end game.

[UnLucky]

Now I pretty much have to post a build (http://ryuhiroshi.ry.funpic.de/pso2/skillcalc.php?03bdbdIkbdIkbdIkbdIkbdIkbdIk0lbIn000 000ib00000ib00000ib0000GOI22XdFjbncAIs0007b00000f) , thanks a lot ST ^^;

Anyway, the utility stuff (Flame S Charge/Bolt PP Save) are far and away better than slightly more damage, which is a real shame that Techer gets no such modifiers for Wind/Light/Dark. The PP stuff does compliment very well with Force's Flame and Bolt skills, with PP Restorate making Zonde essentially free, and with PP Convert up to at least lv6 you'll have a hard time burning through that much regen even with twice as many casts.

Personally, I would prefer to level a Techer with a talis, so Wand Gear isn't useful to me, but maybe you can convince yourself the S-Atk based damage (talis deal T-Atk for their normals) and the occasional flashy explosion are worth the slower casting animation.

Fo/Fi has better damage overall, but with anything other than bolt tech spam, they have no good PP managing skills from their own trees (mag trigger, PB and regular hits can be plenty, but it's never enough).

You can check out some predefined builds for either, as you'll be making either Techer or Fighter from scratch anyway.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

Lol well I said you'd pop in if I didn't get back in time. Didn't mean to put you on the spot.

I still place wand gear there since some people really enjoy wand and it's really a useless weapon without the gear. if someone were to decide against using wand entirely, they can save some SP and avoid that side of the tree entirely.

That aside, without the PP regen of techer, a full flame tech S charge will sap PP so fast it will make your head spin. So the question is less sustainable fire tech DPS vs slightly more global damage. That's why I favor mine.

Either one is completely viable.

[UnLucky]

I should really get into the timing, but I feel like 4 flame casts and 6 gunslash shots in the air beats out 3 non-fire/light techs either spaced with a melee or followed by one volley of gunslash.

But I have to justify my Fo/Fi choice somehow

And light techs do (still) charge longer, right? Feels more than bolt, but again, I should time things properly.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

Last I checked they did. Unless something changed in the last two weeks, yeah they charge slow compared to other common use techs.

There are mag skills listed in the wiki that I guess haven't been implemented yet, but supposedly there are less frequent/longer lasting versions of PP Recovery J. getting all those on your mag may really may Fo/Fi brutal.

[Ririko]

@ST and UnLucky -- Awesome, thanks for all the advice. I'll give it a look at the other thread for Techer stuff. Now all that's left is actually get there. 16 levels to go, haha.

----

Bumpity bump. Getting close to level 30 now, and started wondering yet another thing, lol. Basically, my skill set is about the same as it was when I first linked this thread and I've been saving the points. Should I focus on getting the Fire tree finished first, or is it worth adding points into Bolts but not completing any right away? I ask because I imagine skill points later on will take a longer while to acquire, so yeah.

Also, rambling about my experiences, I totally wish Techer had at least a Wind Tree for them to build on, lol. Zan and the whole boomerang effect is really fun, and in some cases it can be pretty damn useful. It's probably one of my favourite techs visually, too, given how neat it is to see those green flashes flying around me and hitting tons of enemies, haha.

[SPOnion]

The charge time of Ragrants is 1s instead of the normal 1.2s (for the light techniques). My only complaint is the range is actually shorter than the visual effect so sometimes it is possible to miss the target because you thought you can hit it.

Also, as for wind tree, currently you can go for the 2 masteries and then spend the rest for PP Res or Convert, then use a FO with Tech Charge1/2 and JA ADV as your main. Also as a sidenote, when all three windslash hits a target (usually at close range), the damage is higher than the multiplier says.

For skill trees, bolt is strong currently because Zonde has an innate multiplier (likely 1.4 for the direct hit, or 1.5 if you are higher). That said, even with the multiplier gone, with PP Save and PP Res 1 (and 2 in the future) and the new 10* rod with its hidden ability (That's basically 11 PP/s with PP Res 2), you can still spam Zonde almost as your normal attacks, which I consider a good thing anyway