What should I aim for?

[omgwtflolbbl]

Returning player after a year, blah blah blah.

I no longer have any idea what I equipment I should be aiming for, if my mags are decent, what kind of content I can handle, etc. Hoping to get a decent idea of where to go/what to do.

I used to mainly play Ra/Hu, Gu/Ra, Hu/Fi, and Fi/Hu. All 4 are at 50-55 except for Fi which is 45. My current skill trees for them are http://ryuhiroshi.funpic.de/pso2/skillcalc.php?06fbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIk0lbkI qoGSbn4QjcAfGA000006ebrbGBbnGFIbcA00006dBwdJ29k000 00IbeD52cFbncDGA00007b000000lb0000000Ib000008. Are these still okay? They seem to at least match up well enough with the all class info sticky. I have like 5 tree reset passes from who the heck knows what, but I'd rather not use them if I'm still okay.

Weapon wise I have a few of the (normal) AQ weapons at +10 and a few of the Lambda all class for Fi/Hu at +10. My Surukurai TMGs are only +5 but at 50 element for some odd reason. I'm thinking that's going to be something I'm going to regret since it seems like AQ stones are still useful but the Surukurais themselves are not that good anymore. For right now I'm thinking I'll probably mainly use Fi/Hu or Hu/Fi and Ra/Hu (I don't know why I find sneak shot so amusing), with mainly Knuckles and Sword or Partisan on Fi/Hu. For right now I'm going to kind of ditch my Gu. What items are realistic to hunt for/which quests can I do to get a decent weapon of these classes?

I used to regularly do AQs, but I have no idea what this "super hard" mode is or what these extreme quests are. Could I tackle any of those with my current equipment and still be useful? What about super hard tacos? Is Falz still important to run whenever the EQ comes up?

My character is a female newman, and I have one 150 helix proi with 110s/40sdef, ajax proi with 145ratk/3rdef/2dex (no idea why i have it like that, probably screwed it up), and a ketos prio with 100tatk. Are these mags still okay, or will I have issues with equipping gear later? I heard the cap for mags was increased to 175, so that's a relief at least.

What equipment abilities are still really valuable? I have a bunch of stuff with Mizer soul and whatnot when the prices for those were kind of high, as I remember I was preparing a vardha set back when that thing was actually good. And on that note, what are decent units now to aim for now? I think I mainly just use a PP heavy setup at the moment since I never really took hits to begin with, but I have no idea what is good now.

Is it worth looking into crafting? Since it looks like I'm probably going to have to switch to ship 10 (while all my friends are at pretty low levels, there's like 6 of them and 1 of me, and they seem to really not want to change for whatever reason), I was thinking about desynthing a bunch of my fodder gear that I won't have room to take over.

TL;DR - I'm really lost, and need some help figuring out what I should be doing lol.

[Hobu]

Hu/Te, go full tank and heals.

[omgwtflolbbl]

Wow, sounds like things have changed a ton. What happened to Fo/Fi, Ra/Hu, and Gu/Ra?

[Sanguine2009]

they are still things, just not as popular as shunka spam and flip 2 win because they require more effort

[SociableTyrannosaur]

Just so we're clear Hobu is trolling. And Fo/fi doesn't take more effort it takes significantly more money and multiple skill trees to get the same effect as half way trying with Br/Hu and Gu/Hu.

Ra/Hu I think is on its way back. Satellite Cannon is stupid OP and lvl 16 PAs do solid damage. Only downside is having to stand still to get a chunk of the boosts where Gu/Hu does heavy damage and remains mobile.

Gu/Ra is still viable. Just Hu gives more accessible bonuses than Ra does and people consider the loss of WB a reasonable trade-off although it's not very party friendly. You still need someone to WB for the quick kills, so Gu/Ra still has a place. Unfortunately for ranger, the biggest hole in Gu's game, namely AoE has been fixed, so It's a bit too well rounded for being such high DPS.

Anyway Hu/Fi is kinda out of style thanks to SH, but aside from that, not THAT much has changed I think.

[omgwtflolbbl]

Are knuckles any good at the moment? Paired with a decent mobbing weapon, of course. They weren't very good when I used to play but I thought they were the most fun of the melee bunch.

[Zipzo]

Returning player after a year, blah blah blah.

I no longer have any idea what I equipment I should be aiming for, if my mags are decent, what kind of content I can handle, etc. Hoping to get a decent idea of where to go/what to do.

Well you're in luck, things are pretty straight forward these days, and you can handle the current content with pretty much any combination of the "high grade" stuff current available. That includes 10* equipment.


I used to mainly play Ra/Hu, Gu/Ra, Hu/Fi, and Fi/Hu. All 4 are at 50-55 except for Fi which is 45. My current skill trees for them are http://ryuhiroshi.funpic.de/pso2/skillcalc.php?06fbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIk0lbkI qoGSbn4QjcAfGA000006ebrbGBbnGFIbcA00006dBwdJ29k000 00IbeD52cFbncDGA00007b000000lb0000000Ib000008. Are these still okay? They seem to at least match up well enough with the all class info sticky. I have like 5 tree reset passes from who the heck knows what, but I'd rather not use them if I'm still okay.

Ra/Hu is receiving a pretty hefty buff soon so it's like it will be popular again, but we can't know for sure until the buff hits, until then it is overshadowed completely in performance by Gu/Hu except for the fact it has weakbullet (which could be considered a huge benefit to a group, so it's not like Ra/Hu is invalid). Fi/Hu is considered "balanced" as a melee DPS, but currently is overshadowed performance-wise by Bravers or "Undercover" Bravers (maining Hunter with a multi-class Katana). Fi/Hu has contestable options available to it to match most situations with their weapons, such as Deadly Sarabande (twin dagger), Deadly Archer (double saber), & Backhand Smash (knuckles), but in the long run falls behind the current very popular Katana setups.

Gu/Ra is not very useful unless you're in an organized group that needs a WB that desperately. Hu/Fi is currently not in a good spot unless you're using multi-class Fi weapons, in which case you only become as effective as a Fi except with more HP. This is because right now hunter weapon PAs are in desperate need of love, as they are falling way behind in performance compared to the Katana and even the Fi weapons. Their gear acquisition is also lacking in comparison to the competition.


Weapon wise I have a few of the (normal) AQ weapons at +10 and a few of the Lambda all class for Fi/Hu at +10. My Surukurai TMGs are only +5 but at 50 element for some odd reason. I'm thinking that's going to be something I'm going to regret since it seems like AQ stones are still useful but the Surukurais themselves are not that good anymore. For right now I'm thinking I'll probably mainly use Fi/Hu or Hu/Fi and Ra/Hu (I don't know why I find sneak shot so amusing), with mainly Knuckles and Sword or Partisan on Fi/Hu. For right now I'm going to kind of ditch my Gu. What items are realistic to hunt for/which quests can I do to get a decent weapon of these classes?

The best advice anyone can really give is to be online for Tower Defense and Falz EQs and cross your little fingers for good 11* weapons, and when those aren't happening, running the appropriate Advance Quest (in Super Hard mode) for the according 10*/11* weapons you are searching for.

If you're premium, then you can just buy some quality 10* weapons, as not only are most 10* weapons cheap now, but many 10* equips are still considered optimal for a lot of situations. You should really be looking mostly at latents when choosing your weapon, as that generally tends to determine a weapons price and value as an equip. You want latents that increase your damage in as many situations as possible, some folks with the money and dedication will get a whole collection of weapons in order to have weapons available to suit the area they're running, but it's not really necessary, just a min/max desire.


I used to regularly do AQs, but I have no idea what this "super hard" mode is or what these extreme quests are. Could I tackle any of those with my current equipment and still be useful? What about super hard tacos? Is Falz still important to run whenever the EQ comes up?

Super Hard mode is just the next difficulty level up past Very Hard. The differences are few aside from most enemy (including bosses) animations being a little quicker and bosses having a different priority on their abilities, for example the Vol Dragon powers himself up to golden mode in the beginning of the fight in Super Hard. Most things still die relatively quickly, despite these small improvements to their AI, generally because player character power has scaled to dwarf these improvements anyway.

Extreme quests are your ticket to easy 11* weapons not reliant on RNG. It's just a 50 floor tower, each floor having a few waves of enemies (sometimes with bosses intermixed in the fray, multiple occasionally as well). You pick up stone items while doing them, and once you get a lot of stones you can trade them in for an 11* weapon of your choosing. In a lot of cases the current 11* trade in weapons (the Bio series) are the best of their aforementioned weapon category...so many folks are currently indulging in Extreme quests in order to line out their gear sets.


My character is a female newman, and I have one 150 helix proi with 110s/40sdef, ajax proi with 145ratk/3rdef/2dex (no idea why i have it like that, probably screwed it up), and a ketos prio with 100tatk. Are these mags still okay, or will I have issues with equipping gear later? I heard the cap for mags was increased to 175, so that's a relief at least.

Fish is really the only PB worth having on any mag for most any general situation, but these days the only truly maximized mags are pure mags (IE, 175 S-ATT/175 R-ATT/175 T-ATT). These values sometimes tinker up or down for certain setups in order to allow them to use certain specific pieces of equipment, for example Fo/Te or Te/Fo right now likes to use Elysion, but without a smidgen of S-ATT on their mag they can't equip it, so their mags are something like as much striking as they need to equip Elysion, then the rest is T-ATT.

You'll need to observe which pieces of equipment you plan to use in order to know if your mag needs some tinkering of that nature.


What equipment abilities are still really valuable? I have a bunch of stuff with Mizer soul and whatnot when the prices for those were kind of high, as I remember I was preparing a vardha set back when that thing was actually good. And on that note, what are decent units now to aim for now? I think I mainly just use a PP heavy setup at the moment since I never really took hits to begin with, but I have no idea what is good now.

Right now the most valuable and effective affix setups are ones that give you ATT + PP. That means Mizer Soul, Elder Soul, or Quartz Soul are the most popular souls. The reason why is in combination with similar affixes on your armor, it's possible to reach anywhere from 130-150 PP. This allows you an extra one (or two) extra casts/PA uses before you're finding yourself needing to string in a few hits to recover it. The reason why this is currently popular is because of how quickly mobs currently (still) die.

If you want some basic guidelines for affixing up to 3 or so, in order of priority I would go Soul, then Soul + ATT, then Soul + ATT + Ability III/Spirita Boost/Spirita III/Stamina III (depending on what you feel like you need).


Is it worth looking into crafting? Since it looks like I'm probably going to have to switch to ship 10 (while all my friends are at pretty low levels, there's like 6 of them and 1 of me, and they seem to really not want to change for whatever reason), I was thinking about desynthing a bunch of my fodder gear that I won't have room to take over.

For weapons, it's only worth it to craft if you do not currently use a 10* weapon. This is because when you craft a 10* it actually loses damage in the form of a wider hit variance. 10* weapons are variance capped, crafted weapons are not.

Armor can be OK when crafted because it gives you very decent base defense stats, if you've no other options, but you lose things like resists (strike, ranged, or tech resist, elemental resists).

Pick your armor first based on the set bonus. You should be going for a set bonus that provides you with at least 60 of your main att stat. Everything else under that is preference determined by your playstyle (the resistances on it and what not). More importantly, pick a set bonus that also gives 10 PP as well, to help you reach that PP threshold.


TL;DR - I'm really lost, and need some help figuring out what I should be doing lol.

You're welcome.

[Stickboy]

Are knuckles any good at the moment? Paired with a decent mobbing weapon, of course. They weren't very good when I used to play but I thought they were the most fun of the melee bunch.

knuckle has RNG based PA now

[TaigaUC]

Knuckles are much faster (less hit pause). Itemization still not great.
They just got this silly chargeable PA that's kinda clunky to use but has a random chance to do insane damage.

Zipzo has probably already covered everything else.
Some other random stuff that may or may not have been said:
- Mag PBs are getting "buffed" soon.
- Ranger's new PA Satellite Cannon is amazing. Cosmo Breaker is okay, too.
- Ra/Gu is pretty decent, if you have the right gear (eg. Guld Mira).
- 11 stars are sorta attainable now. If you're lucky.
- The Sholded lucky drop unit set is amazing for survival. Purchasable with EXPcubes.
- It's easier to level past 45 now.
- Use Tower Defense for EXP (including orders) and stocking up on 10 stars (for EXPcubes or spheres, whichever you prefer).

[Dammy]

- Use Tower Defense for EXP
please dont

[Vampy]

they are still things, just not as popular as shunka spam and flip 2 win because they require more effort

I take offense on flip 2 win because I actually try to diversify my pallete not just flip and IF for easy spam. Gunner requires a good amount of skill to get the most damage out of it especially when you start using messiah time mistime it and expect to get punished severely. Shunka is a joke it never should have been added since even the dumbest of people get higher dps than the rest of the classes.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

I take offense on flip 2 win because I actually try to diversify my pallete not just flip and IF for easy spam. Gunner requires a good amount of skill to get the most damage out of it especially when you start using messiah time mistime it and expect to get punished severely. Shunka is a joke it never should have been added since even the dumbest of people get higher dps than the rest of the classes.


Use all the PAs you want, flipping first is double damage and not doing it for the sake of diversity is just gimping yourself.

[Sanguine2009]

^ exactly, while gunner definitely uses a good variety of PAs(4-5 see regular use which is more than most other classes can say) you cannot deny that flipping before them is a good idea considering the ridiculous multiplier for it

[Vampy]

I flip for that reason but it bothers me how people take the flip as this godly thing. Without it gunners damage is joke. But that was not what I was getting at because what I got from their post is all you need to do is flip and you are good to go. Sure IF is good and all but it has such limited uses and most "gunners" only spam IF. It bothers me because the flip only helps improve gunners damage but isn't the only reason it's so strong it has big pool of PAs to choose from. I am a main gunner and have seen it go from a laughable class to a really good one. I just feel there is a lot of bias against gunners just because we have an "OP" flip my mag is maxed and run a decently affixed set. Yet I still struggle sometimes when a force or braverae around at times part of it has to do with builds the other is how good the player is. I don't want gunners SrollJA to be nerfed because that may severely criple it next time we get a difficulty increase. My issue is these idiots that only know how to just do one button press to plow through enemies should not have to affect us who do play the classes to their fullest extent. I will say shunka is ridiculously strong and should have been weaker from the start. The srollJA should remain as is and if in ultimate it still puts gunners at an unfair advantage then it should be nerfed then not before since that is where a good amount of damage is coming from.

Seeing how force got the short end of the stick for most of SH I don't want that to happen again with any class not just gunner. I'm not saying nerfs are a bad thing but in a series like this I feel it's best plan ahead and play test every aspect of the game before buffing or nerfing.

[TaigaUC]

please dont
Oh, yeah. Sorry.
Only use Tower Defense for EXP if you're powerful/skilled/effective.
I've been using it to level Ranger from 50 to 60, and I usually feel that I'm making a pretty significant difference.
WB, one-shotting bosses, preventing bosses/enemies from humping walls, etc. I have good gear too, so that helps.
I hate feeling useless in TD. Makes it boring as hell, too.


But that was not what I was getting at because what I got from their post is all you need to do is flip and you are good to go.
Yeah. It's more than just flipping.
Gunner is easier to be effective than other classes, but that doesn't mean that people won't still play like crap.
Like those weirdos who still juggle everything in the sky, so that nobody else can assist.
That's partly SEGA's fault for bad game design, though.

[UnLucky]

The srollJA should remain as is and if in ultimate it still puts gunners at an unfair advantage then it should be nerfed then not before since that is where a good amount of damage is coming from.

Seeing how force got the short end of the stick for most of SH I don't want that to happen again with any class not just gunner. I'm not saying nerfs are a bad thing but in a series like this I feel it's best plan ahead and play test every aspect of the game before buffing or nerfing.

RIP 50% Talis Tech Bonus

Absolutely unnecessary in VH, sorely missed in SH

But all an SRoll nerf would do is put more focus on ZRA+PK again.

[TaigaUC]

What I don't like about the Stylish Roll is it effectively limits other ways to play Gunner.
There's virtually no point in having more than one PA per slot, for example. Or using PAs outside of flips.
It just feels like terrible game design.

Well, the game is filled with stuff like that, though.
They need to add decent alternative paths.
For example, to counter Standing Snipe, they could give players a skill for massive damage boost to headshots done whilst moving.
But it still feels like they're desperately trying to add gameplay depth by rewarding players for jumping through hoops.

[omgwtflolbbl]

Can the newer PAs be bought at all? I can't find them in through the item search, but I don't know if there are any under the rarity limit. I was looking for any rank of Satellite Cannon/Backhand Smash/Bloody Sarabande just to try them out. I've been told that nearly nobody uses Sneak Shooter anymore, and I have no idea which PAs on Launcher are still decent.

On the TD thing, the first thing I did when I had logged in was a VH TD. I thought why not try it lol. Wasn't pretty, no clue what I was doing and I died more than I'd like to admit... since then, I've been sticking to using Ra/Hu for now in higher level EQs while I learn to solo again using Knuckles on Fi/Hu.

[Zipzo]

Can the newer PAs be bought at all? I can't find them in through the item search, but I don't know if there are any under the rarity limit. I was looking for any rank of Satellite Cannon/Backhand Smash/Bloody Sarabande just to try them out. I've been told that nearly nobody uses Sneak Shooter anymore, and I have no idea which PAs on Launcher are still decent.

On the TD thing, the first thing I did when I had logged in was a VH TD. I thought why not try it lol. Wasn't pretty, no clue what I was doing and I died more than I'd like to admit... since then, I've been sticking to using Ra/Hu for now in higher level EQs while I learn to solo again using Knuckles on Fi/Hu.

Uh, yeah, you can pretty much find any PA up to lvl 10 on player shops.

Also...learning to solo with knuckles? Did you read anything I typed? O_o

[omgwtflolbbl]

On the solo Knuckle thing, it's mainly to learn timings and boss moves again. When I use a weapon that can block to learn I find it makes me way too lax with my timing and positioning for when I take a weapon without a block. Since I feel like Knuckle sway has the tightest requirement on its invuln (and I find them fun in general), I'd learn timings again using that. I shouldn't be having troubles doing things like swaying Quartz or stepping through Wolg or turtle if I used to be able to do it, and I can't anymore and my sense of timing is really bad in general now. It's not like I am going to disregard every other weapon, I just want to learn to stop sucking and not get hit by everything again lol. I don't want to be someone who is dependent on getting carried by their gear setup. I used to be a really heavy Monster Hunter player so I have the mindset of "don't get hit, hit it 'til it dies" pretty ingrained in me, and I'm kind of failing at the "don't get hit" part and its frustrating.

I read through your whole post (multiple times actually) and I'm really thankful you took the time to write it out.

On the PA thing, I went to the jp wiki and copy/pasted those names and found the PAs. Before I was using the english and japanese names on Cirnopedia, which while it works for some things like costumes doesn't seem to for others like the new PAs (at least, the ones that Cirnopedia has listed).

Edit: Is there any way to save weapon palettes yet (for when you swich classes and stuff)?

[Zipzo]

.

Edit: Is there any way to save weapon palettes yet (for when you swich classes and stuff)?

Nope. :(

[UnLucky]

It saves your last edited palette for each weapon type.

If you want more than that, you'll have to swap out the slot with one that your new class can still equip. Not that it helps if you actually wanted that slot for your new class's weapons!

[Chdata]

All sega needs to do to fix that is save a few numbers indexed by your class/palette.

04
0 -1 00 00 00
1 00 01 02 03

Force
Weapon slot 1: normal attack | first tech (foie) | first tech | tech01
Weapon slot 2: tech00 | tech01 | tech02 | tech03

and there's all sorts of ways you can condense those numbers if needed. Not that disk space really matters for a game that's already so many GB big.

[omgwtflolbbl]

Well, while I'm sad that Sneak Shooter is no longer that great, I'm having a ton of fun with Satellite Cannon. Most of my friends are playing Br or Fi mains, with nobody going ranged. I also really value weak bullet (actually, even if players have power creeped to crazy levels, I'm still pretty surprised by how little weak bullet I see used in the EQs I've done so far), so I'm leaning more towards gearing up as a Ra/Hu instead of a Gu/Hu. Thing is, while I have a 50 element surukurai, I only have... a red rifle for AR.

IIRC, the red weapon series were a bunch of really cheap to obtain weapons that could easily be grinded up to 50 element and had really crazy raw damage, but also had a "hidden" negative where the weapons had a really large min-max damage variance, which caused a lot of debate on if they were any useful or not. After looking at Cirno and through some weapon stores I see that there are now blue weapons which are also pretty cheap and also seem to boast some pretty high raw damage numbers, just like the red series. I also have enough fire stones saved from when I used to play to just buy the Divularbus (3 large stone version) without doing anything. The Dios Strauss also seems to be fairly cheap right now, and I could grind one up to 50 element +10. Would it be worthwhile to actually grind up any of these weapons (not doing any crazy affixing though) to use while I farm for an 11* weapon, or should I just go straight for an 11* while doing SHAQs/EQs and cross my fingers?

Edit: Also, I don't have premium, which means I can't get 10* trading passes and thus can't buy 10*s, right? I stopped not too long after the 10* trading stuff was introduced and I assume that is what Zipzo was referring to in his first post about buying a decent 10* weapon.

[UnLucky]

Yeah, might as well grab something, anything that isn't red/blue/crafted. Unless the only thing you're doing is WB and going AFK while your friends kill everything.

I liked Sneak Shooter too, but Satellite Cannon is a lot more reliable. It's still useful for a fast, somewhat ranged, and powerful attack, but there's less room for a PP dump on a rifle since WB locks you out of normal attacks for PP recovery.

Impact Slider and Diffuse Shell, both at lv16 or not at all, do that job a lot better, so if you're only dedicating one palette slot for your rifle that's your loadout right there. Homing Emission for some bosses, and like One Point for whenever you want that I guess, could go on a second rifle slot with Sneak Shooter.

[omgwtflolbbl]

Did they change the attribute grinding system? Just using one weapon as sacrifice fodder now can boost from 33>50? I thought it took quite a bit more than that in the past.

[Zipzo]

Did they change the attribute grinding system? Just using one weapon as sacrifice fodder now can boost from 33>50? I thought it took quite a bit more than that in the past.

Using an identical weapon of identical element as a material gives a 1:1 increase to your target weapon (literally just adds the material weapons element to your target weapons element).

You can only use similar rarity, same weapon types otherwise and the gains are minimal.

[TaigaUC]

I don't like Sneak Shooter, it's too slow.
I hate that bullets in these games move like molasses.
You don't see people casually strolling out of the way of high-powered sniper rifles in reality.

Anyway, you can exchange a single photon crystal for a single new PA.
Don't go and buy level 1s from player shops.