Fighter Discussion

[Remz69]

Could anyone give me some tips for some boss fights I'm having trouble with during my VH AQs (solo w/npcs).

Caterdran & nsa / Vol Dragon / Banthers

I am level 51 I have +10 9 star double sabers and fists and an extended +10 dagger with a dragon slaying potential. I'm trying to farm some 10 star gear.

For some reason I have much less trouble with quartz than I do with vol

cater:
always stay at its center in brave stance with knuckles and fit backhand smashes on their weak spots whenever you have a chance to, in-between backhands regen pp with normal attacks
if you're center it should never do any of the moves they do if you're near the tail an none of its frontal attacks should hit you.
the only thing you have to watch out for is the spinning attack, when you see them about to do it, jump and alternate shift&normal attacks to float and dodge it, then come back down with a step attack and backhand it

vol:

1)
break its tail with Twin daggers and symphonic drive (wise stance), then switch to brave and backhand the head for a 1st stun (when it's stunned fit in normals to regen pp), break the horn (back hand) for a 2nd stun and then aim for the head again

2)
if you lack the damage to stunlock him, break the tail then aim for the horns starting from the one on its back (with symphonic drive). Re-break the tail it has time to fix it.

also if you use the pp regen photon blast on your mag, feel free to activate it immediately after breaking the tail

3)
if the fight goes well, you should be on your twing daggers whenever it can attacks, so you can always parry the hits
when breaking the tail, mind the double tail sweep (it screams and has a noticeable start up), on the top horn you're safe, on the head or head's horn watch out for fireballs ( it tilts its head back before spitting one)

banthers:

always focus the banshee till its dead
if you have the damage, backhand a claw to stun it and then aim for the head
if you don't have it, stay around their center mass (still in brave stance) and aim deadly archer for the (back preferably) claws to stun them and then aim for the head

when you're around their center mass none of their sweeps will connect
when you're at a distance, expect them to jump at you and strike down, they can do several jumps in a row even if they've already closed the gap to you (and they also have this sequence: jump-sweep-jump i think they tend to do that when their HP is low), and the hitbox is so outrageous that if you stand anywhere near the banther when it jumps, you'll get hit. The jumps are usually easily evaded with a step

their other attacks are predictable, dodge or dagger parry them

NB: symphonic drive sub 11 is weak, 11-15 is good, 16 is strong

[Cai]

Thank you Remz, that information is extremely helpful.

[milranduil]

And don't use twin daggers. It's weak. : X

10/10 troll would laugh again.

[SakoHaruo]

And don't use twin daggers. It's weak. : X

[Stormwalker]

For what it is worth, my preferred Banther tactic these days is very straightforward: Use Facet Folia, and go for the head. If you're too far away for FF, use Raging Waltz or canceled Symphonic Drive to close the gap.

Watch the timing of your FF's so you can be invulnerable during his attacks. Especially watch out for the roar. Be ready to parry if needed.

Stay on him. Be in melee range as much as possible, both to maximize on-target time and limit his jumping around. Dashing is recommended here if you can.

Breaking claws is not required but may be useful for stuns if your damage is not sufficient to stagger him with FF headshots.

EDIT:

OK, I just read some of the previous posts.

Twin Daggers, weak? That was once true, but it certainly isn't now.

Daggers are my preferred arsenal for Vol Dragon as well. My standard approach is to break the front horn first (Bloody Sarabande is best for this, but Facet Folia offers superior invulnerability if you're concerned about surprise fireballs), then when he staggers do a quick Raging Waltz to get up to the top horn and lock on. Getting this lock-on is actually the hardest part of the fight. Once you lock the top horn, you can ride the Facet Folia train to victory. Be sure you squeeze in some regular attacks to maintain your PP so you don't get stranded. In VH, you most likely won't even need to break the tail at all - if he doesn't to his full armored form (where the horns are armored), don't bother with the tail.

In SH, where he goes to full armor really quickly, you'll have to break the tail every time he does it, which requires increasingly more effort. I like Raging Waltz for this, honestly. Facet Folia is good if he stands still long enough. Deadly Archer of course works well on the tail when it's low enough, and if his tail is near ground level you can Backhand Smash it for monster damage (but that's not easy to accomplish without getting smacked, so be careful!).

But really, you should spend most of your time in this fight in the air above Vol beating on his upper horn. Facet Folia has excellent tracking on the final hit - even better than Raging Waltz many times - and therefore it's great for this job. When you're up there, the only one of his attacks that can even hit you at all is the flame pillar, and he doesn't usually summon that underneath himself - just keep your eyes open for it.

Beyond that, the key to effective dagger usage is maintaining your gear. This means staying in the air as much as you can, and when you do have to touch the ground be sure to start your combo with a quick parry for an extra bar of gear before you attack. If your weapons are already drawn, jump -> parry -> RW is instant full gear. If not, it only gets you two bars but that's still a good start.

[Cai]

@Stormwalker - Thank you for the detailed reply. Boss fights have been tremendously easier. I have now moved on to trying to deal with ex dragon on super hard. However, I think I'm slightly under geared and outleveled at level 56.

I have a question about gear:

I think I am going down the right path by unlocking the potential on my amber seekers and pretty much investing everything into them to replace my extended vol wings.

I am still using an extended vol set, and am not sure if I need to upgrade this and if so to what.

Is the preference vol or quartz soul for gear? What are the priorities for gear with the other abilities such as power, ability, mutation etc. I still have to learn about adding abilities. it seems daunting.

Again thanks for all your help

edit: @ Remz - I wanted to add that I managed to pick up symphonic drive lv. 16 in the Chaotic Tranquility EQ a few hours ago. I was pretty excited, but still have not used it on vol dragon yet

[Stormwalker]

At level 56, any SH boss fight (aside from pushovers like Rockbear and Wolgahda) is going to be pretty tricky simply because you're going to be short on damage relative to the boss' health and short on HP relative to the boss' damage. This doesn't make it impossible, but it means you have much less margin for error - one slip-up can be fatal, and due to poor damage output you have to go for a longer time without making that mistake.

The choice between Vol and Quartz souls depends on a few factors.

First of all, how much PP do you have already? While there's some disagreement on how much PP you need to have, most players seem to agree that there *is* a threshold you need to reach to really be effective. Your choice of units is a major factor here, as some units provide significant PP bonuses and set bonuses. My personal experience is that having ~135 PP helps a lot in terms of being able to sustain my damage output.

Second, how much HP do you have? At level 56, I'm sure the answer is "not enough", but when affixing for the long term be sure to consider what you're going to have at 65/65. Affixing is expensive, after all. If you're just two-slotting something as a temporary measure, you can think for the short-term, but when you're preparing the unit set you intend to use at the level cap you want to plan for the stats you will have when you get there.

I would say that you need to have enough HP to take two hits from typical boss attacks, without dying. This leaves you a little bit of margin for error when you get hit and have to heal. Of course, the non-typical attacks will still be very dangerous. Similarly, you should have enough HP to not be one-shotted by the really big hitters.

At level 56 that may not be practical. I don't recall if you said what race you are playing; casts don't need quite as much HP affixed, whereas a newman will need more (especially a female newman, as they are very deficient in this area). Again, you need to plan for the HP you will have later.

Those two factors pretty much cover it for units.

When you get to weapons, there's also the additional question of whether you are planning to affix a status effect to your weapon. If you're a Chase Advance build, you'll almost certainly want to do so. Vol boosts the chance of adding Burn when affixing, Quartz boosts the chance of adding Panic (a useful status effect in TD2), and there's a third option ... Gwana Soul boosts the chance of adding Poison (particularly useful on Quartz Dragon and the Cater types).

[Cai]

I play a male cast. I am currently sitting around ~110 PP. It doesn't feel like enough. Whereas my HP (with 4 vol souls) is closer to ~780, but feels comfortable in super hard. I also went the PP Slayer route as I figured it would be the more consistent poor man's choice.

Are there distinct advantages to using 10* units over extended units like there are for weapons? I do have 2/3 pieces for a vibras set, but I'm not sure I could give up the 4 vol souls stat + double set bonus currently.

edit: As far as potential on daggers (or weapons in general) how does enraged stance fair? Which potentials are favorable? Are the % types better. I know I am a ways off from a Kamui but it does seem in-line with the skill build I chose.

[Stormwalker]

The main advantages of higher * units are simply that you get more stats - be it more defense, more HP, more PP, better set bonuses. Extended units do fare pretty well in the defense department, I hear, but I haven't experimented much with armor crafting yet (in the process of levelling my crafting, actually). I believe the current theory on extending units is to extend them as T-DEF for extra PP, but it might be harder for a male CAST to meet the equip requirement, not sure on that.

I'm presently using a Resan (10*) set, affixed with Quartz Soul, Power III, and Spirita I on two of them and Vol Soul, Power III, and Stamina Boost on the other (this is a temporary state until I can afford a Spirita Boost and another Stamina Boost). In this state, I have 135 PP.

As for dagger potentials, there's not any one that just bowls me over like you see on some other weapons. Immediate Strike is good, of course. My current daggers have the Brave Stance boost potential; I forget the name of it. It seems to serve fairly well, since I spend most of my dagger time in Brave Stance anyway.

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

Are there distinct advantages to using 10* units over extended units like there are for weapons?

That depends on the unit.

For example, many units have elemental resistances (which are mostly irrelevant anyway), and a type of damage resistance (usually striking, which is great). Extended units never have those qualities. Chances are if you're extending some units, it's because the def/hp/pp it supplied was outdated for your needs. With many 10*+ units, their def/hp/pp would be up to par without extended, and you can have the elemental/damage resistances they come with.

Also, extended units have hp/pp benefits picked from one of 3 templates. Other units may have a different spread of hp/pp benefits you can't get from extending, like 20hp/3pp on each unit of equest XQ 11* units.

http://pso2.swiki.jp/index.php?%E3%8...8A%B9%E6%9E%9C

edit: As far as potential on daggers (or weapons in general) how does enraged stance fair? Which potentials are favorable? Are the % types better. I know I am a ways off from a Kamui but it does seem in-line with the skill build I chose.

Enraged stance is only 3% at lvl3.
How good a % is depends on how much.
Kamui > all other twin daggers still because of the potential's large spike of S atk.

http://pso2.swiki.jp/index.php?%E3%8...82%AC%E3%83%BC

The values of weapon potentials should be up to date.