Returning player with loads of Force aka"magic" Questions

[deusalkaiser]

Hello i recently came back and started fresh in pso2 and i am currently level 68 braver, 52 hunter, 45 fighter Cast( I also made 200 pure stats mag for S-R-T-attack according to what people used to tell me 2 years ago).

I was very curious to give a magic class a try in pso2 after i finish maxing out my braver soon since it will be different than going melee mode like i have been the past month i have been playing on pso2.

Intro out of the way my questions are as follows:

1)How good is a FOcast anyways? only thing i purchased with ac so far was 2 mags so i can have a total of 3 each into pure stats as was recommended 2+years ago when i used to play ( is this still the same?),and have leveled one of my mags to 200 T-attack. Will i have any difficulties equipping things or doing good damage?

2)I apologized if its been asked to death but considering i don't plan to get extra skill trees, which element is considered the "best" or to reword it "meta, aka the more efficient one"? More or less what do you guys recommend for single element? Also what about sub class and skills? back almost 3 years ago people used to use hunter sub only

3)To follow up previous question what is a generic skill build i can use for force with all the "must have" skills before i decide on a element? Any suggestions or guidance on a proper force build is appreciated. Do people generally still pick 1 single element tree to max or do they do hybrid nowadays? last time i played everyone only used lightning techniques and almost no one used ice from what i remember. Is talis weapon worth the effort also btw? it looks super weird to me

Any tips, guidance or information is extremely appreciated.

P.S- is there any kind of guide out there for force? or somewhere where stuff such as are covered?

-gear
-best spells per element or what situation to use them
-etc

[schnee4]

magic

pso2

maybe committing sappuku????
is not calling magic
please back to runescape!

[GHNeko]

Hello i recently came back and started fresh in pso2 and i am currently level 68 braver, 52 hunter, 45 fighter Cast( I also made 200 pure stats mag for S-R-T-attack according to what people used to tell me 2 years ago).

I was very curious to give a magic class a try in pso2 after i finish maxing out my braver soon since it will be different than going melee mode like i have been the past month i have been playing on pso2.

Intro out of the way my questions are as follows:

1)How good is a FOcast anyways? only thing i purchased with ac so far was 2 mags so i can have a total of 3 each into pure stats as was recommended 2+years ago when i used to play ( is this still the same?),and have leveled one of my mags to 200 T-attack. Will i have any difficulties equipping things or doing good damage?

2)I apologized if its been asked to death but considering i don't plan to get extra skill trees, which element is considered the "best" or to reword it "meta, aka the more efficient one"? More or less what do you guys recommend for single element? Also what about sub class and skills? back almost 3 years ago people used to use hunter sub only

3)To follow up previous question what is a generic skill build i can use for force with all the "must have" skills before i decide on a element? Any suggestions or guidance on a proper force build is appreciated. Do people generally still pick 1 single element tree to max or do they do hybrid nowadays? last time i played everyone only used lightning techniques and almost no one used ice from what i remember. Is talis weapon worth the effort also btw? it looks super weird to me

Any tips, guidance or information is extremely appreciated.

P.S- is there any kind of guide out there for force? or somewhere where stuff such as are covered?

-gear
-best spells per element or what situation to use them
-etc

FOcast is subpar by minmax standards. But like you wont be losing sleep over it if you're not trying to compete with minmaxers. The difference in stats across species is not so substantial that you'll notice it in regular gameplay.

If you're planning on avoiding extra skill trees, Fire/Dark are probably your safest bet for Force/Techer. If you're skipping Techer sub, than either Fire would probably be preferable. Sub classes would be Te, Gu, Br. Maybe Fi as well. FoSu is something you'd have to talk to someone like me about off the record.

If you're looking for skill trees, check force discussion. Though basically, you get JA Advance, Charge Advance, Tatk High Up, Elemental Mastery 1/2 as a base iirc.

Force discussion thread should have most of what you need in regards to gear, best technics, and etc.

This should be enough to get you started.

Oh and...for you sake...

maybe committing sappuku????
is not calling magic
please back to runescape!

ignore this guy. he's a troll lol.

[TehCubey]

Answers from someone who is not a Fo expert - I just like to think myself as decent at the class. Some people may disagree.

1. Not an optimal choice - but a playable one. Racial stat differences aren't really that big. You may have to wait a few more levels than other classes before being able to equip that fancy 12* rod that just dropped, but that's it. Especially since you already have a pure t-atk mag, which is good.

2. From my experience, light is best, followed by very useful fire and dark, somewhat less useful but still good ice, and then lightning and wind which I found of limited usefulness (except zanverse and zondeel of course). If you have only one skill tree and won't buy more, I advice against a single element build. Instead a generalist build + more focus given to 2-3 elements should serve you well. Once again, not 100% optimal, top meta, etc. But perfectly serviceable.

The standard no brainer sub for force is te. Br and fi are also encountered. The times of hu as a subclass for everything are long over. Now it's a good subclass for "only" 50% of the game's classes instead.

3. For a skill tree, something like this.

Rod and Talis specific skills depend on which one of them you prefer more. I'm not sure how good photon flare is - you'll need to ask someone better at Fo than me. Flame Tech S Charge is worth getting if you use any fire techs at all. Not sure how many SPs into bolt mastery is worth it. From my experience just that one but others may disagree. Once again, not an expert.

[Kyras]

For an exact build you can work your way backwards from the last page on the force discussion and find a posted build but the general idea is to play Force/Techer. Force only has enough points to specialize in one element (fire or ice) and Techer can specialize in two elements(light+dark is the most popular combo). The 'Meta' build is Fire/Light/Dark because these elements have good techniques and they cover most areas in the game. Ice is an okay element but people with one skill tree will usually skip it in favor of fire.

In terms of which techniques to use
Fire-Rafoie for general nuking, Gifoie for bursting grouped up mobs.(should craft gifoie for faster casting speed), Shifta for buffing attack
Ice-Illbarta for boss killing(very situational if you don't build for ice), deband for buffing defense
Lightning-Zondeel when you need to force enemies to clump up(It creates a field that pulls enemies into the middle of the cast point. In Ultimate Lilipa you can use a talis to safely group up enemies and Gifoie them)
Wind-Zanverse for bosses that require high party dps (It makes a field that copies a portion of the damage that you and anyone standing in the field does to an enemy that is also standing in the field. )
Light-Ragrants for Short/mid ranged dps(must craft for faster casting speed),Illgrants for long range sniping,Resta for healing, Anti for curing status effects.
Dark-Gimegid for single target dps(should craft for faster casting speed).
Compound-Fomelgion for aoe , Bartasion for single targets.

Some of the techniques i didn't list have their uses but i only listed the core techniques you need.

[Achelousaurus]

Random fire / dark / light build I pulled out of my ass.
For foie bossing use Ilfoie (big damage but roots you and has a delay between casting and hitting) or Nafoie (good damage but unless it hits exactly the dmg is very low).

At the moment each element has its pros and cons. Just one thing to keep in mind are compound techs and you really want at least one that's boosted by 2 elements.
Fire + Dark, Light + Ice, Lighting + Wind.
Light is kindof a must have for every build because of darkers

Lighting is quite good with zondeel > sazonde to ignite (will stop pulling enemies and deal dmg) > rapid zondeels so they keep igniting each other on mobs.
On bosses you can do Sazonde > ignite with Zonde > spam more Sazonde until out of pp as they'll continue igniting each other.
Unlike the other elements, Sazonde is strongest when cast uncharged.
Lightning tends to have low numbers, but a lot of them, adding up to strong damage over time.

Of the support techs Zanverse / Megiverse are fiels with a 4 second effect to everyone inside them.
Zanverse is ~20% damage boost (raised by a few things like wind skills on your tree) and Megiverse (dark) makes you heal a part of the damage you deal.

I don't really do ice so I can't say much about it, but Ilbarta is still great for bossing. Just need the pp to be able to get 7 casts off in time, if you are too slow the combo ends and you don't get the big damage boost for the 7th Ilbarta.

Dark kinda got nerfed a lot cause it was OP in episode 2. Namegid can be used for bossing but it's not that great anymore and with Compound techs (50 photon spheres per disc) it's usually not worth it anymore but on occasion still decent.
You can use Ilmegid on mobs, it's still pretty good for that but many people still have bad memories from ep 2 times when it was OP as hell and everyone spammed it nonstop.

For the most part 11* elemental rods are still pretty good. But for some techs uncharged is also an option and then you can use Elysion (fo equippable wand) cause it boost's uncharged techs by 70% (I got one for lightning).

[milranduil]

ilfoie is not a bossing tech at all, please do not use for such things.

For fire-weak-only bossing, you should use nafoie or safoie. Nafoie is slightly better dmg for more pp, and safoie is a little less dmg for less pp and better at building compounds. Ultimately, you should be killing most bosses with compounds rather than actual techs.

Sazonde spam doesn't even come close to comparing to zanverse + fomel/barantsion on basically any boss, even lightning only weak ones like vardha.

Namegid should only be used with elysion 9/10 times. If a boss is stunlocked, gimegid is great due to high dps and pp efficiency. Ilmegid mobbing even on dark weak only frankly still can't compare to talis zondeel ragrants.

[Flaoc]

Random fire / dark / light build I pulled out of my ass.
For foie bossing use Ilfoie (big damage but roots you and has a delay between casting and hitting) or Nafoie (good damage but unless it hits exactly the dmg is very low).

At the moment each element has its pros and cons. Just one thing to keep in mind are compound techs and you really want at least one that's boosted by 2 elements.
Fire + Dark, Light + Ice, Lighting + Wind.
Light is kindof a must have for every build because of darkers

Lighting is quite good with zondeel > sazonde to ignite (will stop pulling enemies and deal dmg) > rapid zondeels so they keep igniting each other on mobs.
On bosses you can do Sazonde > ignite with Zonde > spam more Sazonde until out of pp as they'll continue igniting each other.
Unlike the other elements, Sazonde is strongest when cast uncharged.
Lightning tends to have low numbers, but a lot of them, adding up to strong damage over time.

Of the support techs Zanverse / Megiverse are fiels with a 4 second effect to everyone inside them.
Zanverse is ~20% damage boost (raised by a few things like wind skills on your tree) and Megiverse (dark) makes you heal a part of the damage you deal.

I don't really do ice so I can't say much about it, but Ilbarta is still great for bossing. Just need the pp to be able to get 7 casts off in time, if you are too slow the combo ends and you don't get the big damage boost for the 7th Ilbarta.

Dark kinda got nerfed a lot cause it was OP in episode 2. Namegid can be used for bossing but it's not that great anymore and with Compound techs (50 photon spheres per disc) it's usually not worth it anymore but on occasion still decent.
You can use Ilmegid on mobs, it's still pretty good for that but many people still have bad memories from ep 2 times when it was OP as hell and everyone spammed it nonstop.

For the most part 11* elemental rods are still pretty good. But for some techs uncharged is also an option and then you can use Elysion (fo equippable wand) cause it boost's uncharged techs by 70% (I got one for lightning).

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


op dont listen to this guy instead listen to above poster (and the wall of text below this)

.........

alright time to play nice now and actually put in real info

for starters if you do not have anyway to get ac get a fire/light/dark build here is a cookie cutter build with leftover points in the fo tree

http://tinyurl.com/zwozt6e

also ice tree works the same way just put points into ice mastery instead of fire mastery i mean duh right?

edit: ok also throwing in a couple optional things you can do with the trees

put the rest into bolt pp save for illzonde travel
put the rest into photon flare (and put 1 point in afterburst ice tree gets more points to work with here)
Talis fast throw has niche uses and can be thrown into above builds have to get used to turning it on and off but useful when good with it.

Fire techs:

Get blazing craft for all fire techs except illfoie with that one either dont craft it or get concentrated as for shifta get multi tick

Foie: good for clipping mobs in a line by aiming a little bit above their heads and letting it pass through hitting everything in a line
Gifoie: the bread and butter of fire mobbing 360 aoe and decent mobbing dps also builds compound fast and good in zondeels as well
Rafoie: infinite range (if tps) and decent damage and hits instantly good for weakspot nuking on mobs or a fast moving enemy like a running goldra
Safoie: 2nd best fire dps and builds compound fast range is pretty short
Nafoie: Best fire dps but projectile is kinda slow and eats up pp very fast
Illfoie: niche use pa mostly a spawn nuke

Light techs:

Ragrants get concentrated Anti get concentrated Resta get Brilliant

Ragrants: high DPS but also eats pp up like no tomorrow the primary light tech good for both bossing and mobbing.. even off ele the dps is very high for a tech like mil said above talis ragrants >>>>> mobs pierces enemies in a line and has some width to it
Illgrants: really just used for inflicting panic on enemies like vibras dps is not very good and generally only hits a single target
Resta: Heals yourself and people nearby. simply tap for a quick heal as well
Anti: cures status effects and also procs super treatment easily.

Ice:
ice fang for most of these rabarta get multi sabarta idk ask someone else lol

Barta: ground based fast moving projectile with high freeze rate and pierces in a line
Gibarta: very wide wall of damage with decent range as well.. dps isnt that high but its the primary mobbing tech for ice
Rabarta: 360 aoe with high freeze rate but the aoe is pretty small
Illbarta: Ice main bossing tech 7 hits to blow up the seal, gets stronger on the 4th? hit 7th hit is very powerful should always full charge unless either a. only fo in the mpa or b. playing solo (for a faster illbarta build with uncharged but do the last few hits with charge) if there is another fo in the area do not use uncharged. uncharged 7th hit very bad. also talis is far superior than rod for this. recommended you get a maihime at the very least for this

the other 2 are niche and have their uses im not on ice much so someone else would know better than me.

Dark:
gimegid should be crafted concentrated the rest umbral

Megid: not sure if this has much of a use but projectile that blows up for small aoe and okish damage
Gimegid: primary dark tech for bossing or heavies like the kuron centaurs can work somewhat in a zondeel. in general it also has accuracy issues if anything moves just due to how the tech works in general since it doesnt track.
Ramegid: idk lol apparently the dps is decent but having trouble finding a use
Namegid: primarily used with elysion or boots of seraphy while under PP convert
Illmegid: how about no?! unless you can one shot on ele enemies with it (read vh or some of sh)

Lightning:
uhhh just worry about zondeel here for now and craft it with fierce so it gets 1m more range (optionally craft sazonde for speed)

Zondeel: magnetic field that pulls enemies in and is boosted by territory burst. makes the mpa happy makes you happy learn to love this tech.
can be detonated with a lightning tech but do not do this unless you are trying to inflict shock on an enemy (see gal gryphon for example) best to detonate with sazonde.

Wind:
Nazan get concentrated Razan get multi sazan im not 100% sure here if you get windslicer or pp save zanverse get concentrated illzan get wide

Razan: as of ep4 wind mobbing became a thing outside of ta this will be the primary wind mobbing tech.. treat it like a wind rafoie as it has infinite range and the aoe is actually okish for what it is and the damage is decent. also can activate the switches you have to hit in 1 use (good to know for tacos)
Nazan: short range but high dps for a wind tech but be warned it does send things flying pretty far if they live and were lightweight enough to be flung.
Sazan: used with boots of seraphy or elysion for uncharged spam probably the highest dps for wind but eats pp up quick too
Zanverse: a certain fraction of damage done in the field whether its by you or other players will be done to the enemy. im not really sure of the actual numbers here though.

NOTE: do not use zanverse if you know a dedicated zanverse is in the mpa (this is more for organized mind you) examples include: te/ra te/gu gu/te te/su

ok with that done for gearing up i honestly have no idea as im spoiled by 13* rods and talises that can act as a rainbow on their own but the general idea i guess is to get a rainbow set of weapons 10/11* rods and talises until you get a 13* rod or talis.

advisable 13*
Ares rod: pb based latent 4-8 % lvl 1 6-10% lvl 3 can act as a rainbow rod on its own but to a lesser extent than austere. recommended for fire ele
Ares Talis: same as rod but light ele is more favorable here though fire is pretty good as well

you are in luck with these ares weapons though as there will be an ultimate boost soon and people will be running ult again. anga fundarge can drop these weps but you can also get a 60 ele wep via 180 stones that anga drops (or dio hunar in certain eq's) by far the easiest 13* fo wep to get thats worth it and 2nd best overall series for fo (i might be wrong there idk)

Austere Sorcerer: 12% unconditional damage boost with 10% boosted natural pp regen. highest t atk rod. has absolutely no issues with off ele tech usage at all but also the hard series to get. (recommend as light)
Austere Arm: same as the rod again go for light for sure here (or fire i guess but id take light)

Ideal Talis: Ice ele only the best illbarta talis and since illbarta is generally only used on bosses well there you go. (note maihime is within 5% of this and easier to get so this ones optional and up to you)
Nemesis Talis: 13% damage to regular darkers 15% to aberrations but pretty limited use as it wont work on non darker zondeel ragrants as well as others.
Ideal Rod: niche usage for rod bossing with compounds not sure what ele to get at all not really that advised to get modern day either.

final notes:

Rainbow 13* is powerful but very time consuming to get especially on austere and also eats up more slots of your already limited 6. whether or not rainbow 13* rods and talises are worth it is up to you. you will also need a ton of lambda grinders to pull this one off and i hope you are rich too as 13* grinding is not cheap. then comes affixing costs blah blah.

Compounds:

Fomelgion (uses fire and dark to boost it): Overall most useful of the compound techs. extremely powerful even off element but locks you in place during use and cannot be canceled. good on specific mobbing situations (especially in TD) and also possibly the bossing compound you will use the most.

Barantsion (uses ice and light): Fastest Compound and can be cancelled out of.. very high damage on single targets (or clustered up specific ult nab enemies). the primary compound used against light or ice weak bosses. when to use either this or fomel is something you will have to learn on your own. but i will say this: during boss eq the bosses have all been light weak so far so pretty much falzes, PD, Magatsu will be optimal for barantsion.. the only exception is dark falz apprentice gia where fomelgion can burn her but shes in TD4 where fire light dark is normally used anyway.

Zandeon (uses wind and lightning): niche usage but if you can get stuck against something the damage is surprisingly high also invincible the duration of the compound. ill give you one of the niche uses. in tokyo vs the tank after its stunned and the frontal weakpoint is exposed let it rip on the tank weakspot as it will get stuck on it.

Also using Zanverse before Fomelgion or Barantsion (or even zandeon if you can get stuck) will boost the damage of it due to how zanverse works

PP Regen: Queen Vera (80% regen on hits) fastest pp recovery weapon for fo if targets to shoot by far can leave at +30 potential 3

Orbit Talis (13*): essentially 3x natural regen when sheathed but regen halts when unsheathed leave at 20 ele and see vera for grind

Rings:
L ring should be tech charge parrying 0.60 parry window when charging techs at max level (+20) (fire techs for reference charge at 0.5 with tree besides illfoie)
R ring is perfect keeper which caps at 3% damage at +11 optional is getting it to +20 to relax the hp threshold requirement but not really needed on fo.

edit: teammate told me to throw in killing bonus ring which is also a R ring. works like the ranger skill. killing enemies that are close by will recover some of your pp up to 5 per nearby enemy killed depending on the grind. both perfect keeper and this ring should be used in the situations they are best for since you will have to swap between them.

zondeel + ragrants = rip xh mobs though its also a learning thing whether to gifoie or ragrants

welp i put wayyyy too much feel free to correct anything here or add to it. im better at executing than explaining things

[Kyras]

Block of text

Nice in-depth explanation. This should be appended onto the opening post of the force discussion thread or be made into its own separate guide for new forces.

[deusalkaiser]

thank you so much for the information guys i am EXTREMELY grateful so much info to sink in and guide me along the beginning truly thank you for your input here. And yes i really wish some people would post on class discussions first page semi or mini guide for people that would help a lot.

a few other questions if anyone doesnt mind answering for me:

-why is lightning so bad nowadays? back in episode 1 it was super powerful from what i used to see people use and what about ice overall isn't freezing enemy super useful aside from damage.

-what about techer do people play it only melee mode only? i used to love supporting in PSO BB shifta and deband was freaking godsend as well specially for us old cast. Can this class be played as a magician/support specialist instead or any way to max out every single support skill for shifta and deband atleast? almost all techers i see only wack with wand.

thank you

P.S- i remember watching friend play after i quit and only use Ilmegid for everything lol was this thign really that overpowered ( wasn't this the giant black hand that had aim bot? lol )