Melee base with Tech utility/damage suggestions.

[Scientician]

I love the effects that many Techs can contribute, however I don't really care much to just sit back and nuke away.

If possible I'm looking for a viable build that would, for instance, group up enemies with Tech for efficient melee use, or throw out some persistent Tech damage that does damage over time while I attack in melee range.

Maximum mobility is also a huge plus.

Unfortunately I am not all that familiar with class combination strengths at the moment, so I can't really mention any ideas I have for this yet.
What I see usually either focuses on buffing one aspect (melee/tech) or the other, and I haven't found one that fuses the two effectively.

For mindless nuking, I may use a FO/FI, so I suppose those build requirements can be kept in mine, but it's not really something I'd like to use all the time.

Essentially, an effective Melee primary build with Tech for utility and damage as seamlessly as possible.
Something meeting those requirements where at the same time I won't be laughed at for using it in high-end content if I play it well enough, and nothing where I'm just needlessly gimping myself.

To give at least a little reference, I enjoy using tactics such as Zan in conjunction with melee even though I am sub-30 FO atm.

Challenge, high-skill cap, and style with respectable damage.
I don't want to just faceroll everything.

Any and all suggestions will be welcomed and considered, just be kind. :P
Long-time PSO player, new PSO2 player.

[Arada]

The TE/HU combination looks like what you're looking for.

TE has access to techs and HU to big boosts of melee attacks.

Combined, the give you a pretty good class that has the ability to do some support and buff yourself consistently as well as use the powerful and useful techs like Zondeel or Zonde.
When Wand Gear is charged, you also get a free 1/3 bonus to your melee damage with a wand.

My hits with a Wand can hit at around 5 to 6k all things considered (-> Fury Stance, Just Attack bonusses, Fury Stance Up, Fury Combo Up, Wand Gear) without a Weak Bullet which make the melee part quite ok (not the best, but ok).

The versatility of the class is also very enjoyable since you can melee and take advantage of your position to buff/heal your teammates whenever it's useful.
During some fights, you can also sit back and do ok damage with techs (but you'll be far from the top tier in this area). I'm thinking of the Quartz Dragon fight for instance since the Dragon has high mobility and trying to hit it with your wand and without PAs is tedious.

You will clearly not be the best all around but you will have a great deal of survivability and will be able to do very respectable damage and be a good support for your team.

EDIT: And also don't forget All Class HU weapons which can give you access to, notably, Swords and the powerful PA Overend.

[Scientician]

Thanks for the info so far.

Considering that Fo/Fi was one of the options I was looking, Te/Hu would be easy to optimize along side it.

Basically, looking for something to add some flash to my gameplay when I'm not exploding things instantly with Fo/Fi.

Are there any non-wand alternatives, or are they too weak?
Something like using a few damage over time techs from the subpallet and then proceeding to play as a normal melee class with that added damage, refreshing as needed.

More utility and damage would be welcome from the Tech side, but support is useful too.

If these ideas are pretty much low-tier joke builds, just let me know. I want to avoid that kind of thing as well haha.
I was just kind of drawn to how Zan worked with mobile melee attacks afterwards, maximizing the hits on it while I regained PP to cast more.

[Arada]

To use Wand Gear, you have to use charged techs anyway so they have to be part of the playstyle of TE/HU.

The classic opening is going into the group of mob, use Zondeel to regroup them, launch Zonde to trigger Zondeel's DOA and whack the rest with melee attacks. Your Gear should be full and ready for the next group or couple of groups of mobs.

If you really want to get rid of wand, then either go FI/TE or HU/TE so that your main class is a full melee class and you use TE's skill tree to enable a few things like PP Restorate (to enable faster PP recovery) or Territory Burst (for better support but most notably a Zondeel with a larger range).

In the case of a HU or FI that wants to use techs, TE is the prefered subclass as it has higher base S-ATK and S-DEF and has a skill tree that is overall more useful to HU or FI (even if it's not very useful).

As I said in my first post, also don't forget about the All Class weapons which enable you to use some HU Photon Arts in the case of a TE/HU and sometimes let you deal very nice damage when techs or wand gear cannot do the job.

In my opinion, as TE/HU, you're not a low end joke but that's just me.

[gigawuts]

Maybe consider a Court Edge, Madame's Umbrella, or Court Edge D. They're swords that require TATK to equip and offer a decent amount of TATK (for when they were new, anyway, the CED is still new but rather expensive). The main reason behind doing this is that you can use just guard, since you have hunter in the mix. This would probably work better with FO/HU than TE/HU, as TE/HU has wand gear to promote meleeing (which can add up) while FO/HU has PP Revival to promote casting (which will be a strength of the TATK swords).

TE/HU or FO/HU using a sword with TATK is a build I've wanted to try for ages, but it was never really affordable as just an experiment. If it's what you want for your main build, then absolutely look into it.

[UnLucky]

Force or Techer give little to no bonus to Hunter's melee, and Hunter doesn't give much of a boost to techs. It's almost like you're not using a subclass at all, but switching your class on the fly.

Hunter without Fighter is a lot weaker, and Fighter without Hunter is much much weaker.

But since Fighter boosts techs quite a bit, Fi/Fo has pretty strong techs with decent melee damage as well, though you'll need a good all-class Teching weapon.

A major problem I see with this playstyle, other than pure damage, is that any active tech stops working if you switch weapons. Buffs/heals/damaging fields/traveling fireballs, switch to a different weapon and poof, nada. This means you have to commit to a single role at a time, unless you use a special Striking weapon with high T-Atk and cast exclusively off of your main palette. But that is even weaker, not to mention really awkward.

The best thing that techs can do for your melee game is Zondeel, but wirelance gets their own mini version in the form of Other Spin. And trying to beef up your striking damage as a caster just gimps everything you do, so you're better off playing with close ranged techs instead.

It's not worth it for me, but others do enjoy that kind of build. Try it out to see if it works for you.

[gigawuts]

The main problem with it is for the most part things that benefit tech weapons don't benefit melee weapons, and vice verse. And by that I don't even mean just damage - but things such as mobility, grapples, flinching, pretty much EVERYTHING that makes melee viable doesn't really help techs, and things that help techs do nothing for melee. The benefits for one tend to be mutually exclusive to the other due to the weapons you use when casting/striking stuff.

This is techer's greatest problem. It's not mobile, it can't guard cancel, it has extremely limited range on its swings, it lacks step attack, etc. Melee weapons have things such as step attack, guarding, canceling during attacks, so on and so forth. There are some techs that benefit you in ways somewhat comparable to melee, but not many.

This is why I say to look into a TATK sword. They do benefit your tech damage, plus they have benefits of melee PA's, guarding, and generally better canceling during swings. The downside is that they tend to be pricey, because they're not exactly common. Both supply and demand are pretty low for them, so the market tends to just kind of sit there until people get into an undercut war (e.g. court edge D's fell from 30m to 10m in like 4 days, lol).

[holmwood]

Things that work for me.

Mobs of dicahda that can 2hko:
Gifoie > Zondeel > wand gear attack
*gifoie will flinch mobs and charge up wand gear. It will continue to flinch mobs if you pull off zondeel right after. This will be a safe way to deal with a large group of flinchsble mobs.
*gifoie can be replaced by nagrants when it comes out :P

Mobile enemies (far distance):
dash>assault buster > dash > jump > switch to wand and whack
*im not sure if you jump before or after the wand switch. You're basically animation canceling. It's been a while since i've done it. ^^;
*you can repeat dash> assault buster > dash > assault buster as much as you need to cover longer distances.

Mobile enemies (short distance):
Jump > mirage escape > wand whack
*Useful for banther and caterdan when you want to reach its butt. You'll be able to attack as soon as you land due to the lack of delay.



If you don't like wand, you can just go hunter/techer and make heavy use of overender.

Groups of enemies (dangerous ones like dicahda):
Gifoie> Zondeel > Overender
*have it on subpallete so the animation doesn't csncel
*you can replace gifoie with some of the other flinch techs when it comes out
Groups of enemies ( trash mobs)
Zondeel > Overender

Bosses:
Megiverse (charged) > Overender
*This is to account for the fact that overender locks you in animation (unless it has changed...). Megiverse will save your butt while you're stuck in overender animation.

[gigawuts]

You can guard cancel over end after the second swipe. The damage and range of OE are good enough that using it for only the first two swipes is actually a viable strategy, especially when low on gear. Good reach and very good damage for how far it'll reach while giving you hyper armor.

[holmwood]

You can guard cancel over end after the second swipe. The damage and range of OE are good enough that using it for only the first two swipes is actually a viable strategy, especially when low on gear. Good reach and very good damage for how far it'll reach while giving you hyper armor.

Ah :P. The bulk of the damage is in the third swipe, so being hunter/tech will allow you to make the most of that. :P You can always rely on halfline...:-D Yeah maybe not. It'll change your skill tree to reduce investment in attack passives.

[gigawuts]

Well, just generally smart location and timing of the attack will cover that. Stuff like waiting until the boss is beginning a stun animation, or you know where it will move for its next attack, etc.

[holmwood]

Well, just generally smart location and timing of the attack will cover that. Stuff like waiting until the boss is beginning a stun animation, or you know where it will move for its next attack, etc.

True. But a hunter/tech combo should allow you to pull off overender in more versatile ways. For instance, you would be able to pull it off in banther's face while it's doing its three swipe combo rather than have to pull it off on its butt for greatly reduced damage.

:-? Eh, I tried. Im personally a wand wacking fan. Acro-cane ftw.

[gigawuts]

That is true, plus you get a lot of survivability from 1 point in extend assist and 10 in deband cut, then stacking and refreshing two debands.

[Zipzo]

I love the effects that many Techs can contribute, however I don't really care much to just sit back and nuke away.

If possible I'm looking for a viable build that would, for instance, group up enemies with Tech for efficient melee use, or throw out some persistent Tech damage that does damage over time while I attack in melee range.

Essentially, an effective Melee primary build with Tech for utility and damage as seamlessly as possible.

To give at least a little reference, I enjoy using tactics such as Zan in conjunction with melee even though I am sub-30 FO atm.

Challenge, high-skill cap, and style with respectable damage.


Bolded and isolated the important points that are relevant to my post.

Look no further than to TE/HU. You group up enemies using Zondeel, and then kill them off by swinging your wand. When things are rough, melee range is dangerous or the boss has created distance, you cast spells in the interim. You can also weave in spells while you melee to both replenish your gear and do decently placed damage.

Zan is one of your main tools, because it builds your wand gear the fastest. You will learn how to properly and most efficiently use this single spell over any of the others.

It is challenging because you lack step and block, yet you're a melee class. Since your main class is a casting class your main form of dodge is mirage escape. This can make some bosses incredibly challenging because while mirage escape has an OP invulnerability window, you'll find that it's not the best suited ability for opportunist melee players. You will find yourself getting hit a lot until you learn the ropes and pick up all the visual cues of the enemies so that you can use mirage at the best times, avoid using it where it doesn't positively affect you, and maximize your melee damage.

Another shameless plug simply because it's relevant...here's a video of the game play, by yours truly. All the bosses, no damage. You'll see a bit more dark techs than you will Zan in particular here because the dark techs are better for bossing in general. I'll be making some solo TA videos soon and you'll easily see the use of Zan everywhere in those.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA39jDmhaD0

Hope I helped a budding TE/HU.

[Scientician]

Could you explain some of the mechanics behind what makes TE/HU work well?
Which class skills or attributes work well together for example (or even a build if you have one available.)
What makes it superior to something like TE/FI?

Also, regarding what someone else mentioned regarding a build using a T-Atk sword, does anyone have any additional information on that?
What kind of build would I be looking at in that regard?

Just want to lock in my endgame intentions so I don't butcher my builds.

Thanks for all the helpful information so far.

[Quattrochi]

Everyone else in this thread has already explained the advantages of Te/Hu and why it works well so I'm going to go into Te/Fi a bit.

Te/Fi works a bit differently. Your stances and abilities are not as consistent as Fury Stance. Brave/Wise Stance isn't as directly strong as Fury Stance. On the flipside, all types of damage are boosted by Brave/Wise Stance, so subbing Fighter is for the person who...

-Favors using Techs, but likes using Wands and wants to strengthen both
-Doesn't mind positioning/finds positioning fun

And as an additional bonus, Chase Advance has good synergy with techs.

Those are the three biggest points off the top of my head. So if you want to get a good bonus off of both Techs and Wands, you might want to use Fighter. If you want to max out the power of your Wand (and mix it up on occasion with a sword, I guess), though, Hunter's Fury Stance and bonuses are better.

Edit: According to one of the JP wikis, apparently Fury Combo Up boosts all types of damage, so if true this means /Fi only has a 20% magic advantage over /Hu instead of 40%. Capitalizing on offensive techs and Chase Advance is even more important to keep up with /Hu.

[Sandmind]

Everyone else in this thread has already explained the advantages of Te/Hu and why it works well so I'm going to go into Te/Fi a bit.

Te/Fi works a bit differently. Your stances and abilities are not as consistent as Fury Stance. Brave/Wise Stance isn't as directly strong as Fury Stance. On the flipside, all types of damage are boosted by Brave/Wise Stance, so subbing Fighter is for the person who...

-Favors using Techs, but likes using Wands and wants to strengthen both
-Doesn't mind positioning/finds positioning fun

And as an additional bonus, Chase Advance has good synergy with techs.

Those are the three biggest points off the top of my head. So if you want to get a good bonus off of both Techs and Wands, you might want to use Fighter. If you want to max out the power of your Wand (and mix it up on occasion with a sword, I guess), though, Hunter's Fury Stance and bonuses are better.

Conserning TE/FI, I remember someone's post on this forum about him liking his choice of sacrifing 5 point in both stance to max out chase bind. Since Wand Gear seem to apply SE from weapon AND chase bind, he liked it proc'ing after gathering with zondeel.

Which imply that TE/HU would be more of a damage build and TE/FI for control/utility/balanced damage I guess.