Ha ha ha, er, okay. This is getting closer to PSO's class structure now, which a lot of us welcome. It's also in the style of PSU's classes. Where to start here...
In PSO1 all casts could use traps, while all humans and newmans could use techs. Newmans tended to be better with techs (this was expanded on in later versions of the game).
When you go into classes as well, the race/class combination was effectively a subclass option. A HUcast wasn't just a male cast with slightly stronger atp and hp, it was the hunter that laid traps (HUcaseals also did this after the GC version). A HUnewearl wasn't just a female newman with slightly worse atp and hp, it was the combat support hunter that regenerated TP (Only newmans did this). Humans lay in between as they do now, not having amazing techs but also not having the worst hp and atp.
There was no RAnewearl or FOcast. The RAmarl was added in the gamecube version, and acted as pretty much a gun-oriented HUnewearl.
This added a layer of complexity and numerous options, plus let you customize your playstyle as you saw fit. It was a subtler way of adding subclasses in a semi-realistic way (as real as scifi fantasy gets anyway). A female newman wouldn't be relegated exclusively to being force, and wouldn't just forget how to use techs when going hunter. The race/class combos were chosen for mainly balance reasons, giving choices of some unique takes, but kept it to a minimum. HUnewm didn't exist, for instance, and FOcast/RAnewearl would be so bad at their roles (ZERO MST for casts, and the worst ATA for newmans) that they weren't even available. That's why some of us are so giddy at the idea of playing these combos, we were denied them and now we finally have them in our grasp.
edit: To expand on why having less-than-the-best techs on a hunter is good, there's a few reasons. First, and most important, there were no PA's. Take your ordinary swing on your weapons - and leave it at that. Second, and still important, tech damage was calculated very differently from regular damage. There was no s-atk, r-atk, or t-atk; similarly, there was no s-def, r-def, or t-def. There was DFP, then elemental resistances. If an enemy was only taking 1 damage from your Handgun +1, you could get Foie and hit for some percentage reduced of what you'd normally hit. If your Foie did 100 damage, and the enemy had 25% fire resistance, all Foie hits did 75 damage. Due to the nature of the damage formula, shifta and deband plus jellen and zalure, (what is now weak bullet and jellen shot) were all available on a HUnewearl or RAmarl, whereas normally only forces had all four. These combined took enemies down considerably.
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