Any "line" based tech that isn't named Diga or Foie isn't anything spectacular, Zonde included, Zonde's SE is Shock, not paralysis, it's also the lowest level of Shock of the Techs.
Early game you should boost your EVP as much as possible (Units, Deband, Tenora Armor), this way Rod usage is more viable. Although before A rank, all enemies can be staggered so you wont really have to worry about getting interrupted while Teching once you get your move off. After you get to a high enough level and get lvl 21+ Deband, you won't have to worry about EVP slots anymore, but keep the Tenora based armors.
What I did to start my Force off, was change to Braver at about lvl 15, and leveled it up to get the first PP boost ability, gives you the small boost you'll need until you get other, more important abilities. After that, I hunted, and hunted, and hunted for a select few lvl 11 Techs, these techs are the best for a Force.
General things about Teching
Spoiler!Never build a chain higher than 7 exclusively with techs, the only time Forces should build chains with their techs are the following...
Against a crowd of enemies, using Ra/Dam/Gi techs.
Against a single target large enemy with a lot of HP that can be stunned or knocked down, with Nosdiga.
Against bosses that are very mobile and wont give you time to chain with a melee weapon then switch to Rod/Wand for a finish, with Nosdiga or Damgrants.
Otherwise, all of your chain building should be done with Twin Daggers/Twin Sabers/Twin Claws, then activate a quick PA, then switch to Rod/Wand for a higher damaging finish.
Do not. I bask in redundancy DO NOT use your Triangle techs for general damage or at a very low chain, unless you want to troll your teammates. A chain breaking Force who just wants to see a single high number doesn't actually contribute to anything except for making me impatient. Unless said chain breaking actually kills the enemy instead of sending them 900 ft away.
Spoiler!Foie - Ice enemy finisher, not enough Ice enemies are vulnerable to Magic so this can wait in favor of the one right below it.
Diga - This is THE finisher spell for single targets for a Force. Most of the enemies who happen to be the "Large" type and only have one target to hit happen to be Lightning element, which helps you out big time here. Nothing much to say here, it's one of the most useful Techs in the game. You can build your chain with Twin Daggers or the next Tech for more safety.
Noszonde - This move is just amazing. Tired of playing whack a mole with worms? Hit em with Noszonde and keep em down then zap em with a few Zonde. Mog Boggo you don't wanna get close to? Noszonde em to the ground and then zap em with a few Zonde. Flying enemy being a buzz kill? Hit em with Noszonde and laugh as they pathetically hit the ground. Dimma flying away or in the air at all? Track em with Noszonde. Hell, anything you want to sit down and shutup? Zap em with Noszonde, although Nosdiga may do that a bit better. Shock lvl 5 by the way, which is amazing.
Nosdiga - Never use this as a finisher, but use it as a Chain builder and non-chain breaking damage dealer for the "Large and single hit box" enemies. It's generally very useful for 3 quick chances at causing Stun, interruption, and causing damage. The only enemy I recommend not using it on are Jeris, element change ruins that. This move is the absolute bane of a Bag Degga's existence as well, let a Bag Degga use its area shock attack, and before it finishes hit it with Nosdiga, and then Diga spam it. This is also great for that one, annoying enemy who manages to escape the next technique I'm listing.
Radiga - There isn't much bad I can say about the Ra Techs (with the exception of Rammegid and its extremely broken aimingalong with Light enemies never sitting the hell still, but I'll save that for later), hits 4 targets, high damage modifier, and can be casted from a very safe distance. Most lightning mooks like to pack together, so this is a godsend. The only enemies who are annoying with this are the Sharks, because of their leap attack.
Razonde - Hits 4 targets like all other Ra Techs, and it knocks enemies into the air. My main beef with this move is, a lot of Earth enemies who get sent flying up also roll away once they hit the ground. So this tech is a rare case of a Ra Tech that belongs on a Finisher Slot as opposed to a Chaining/General damage slot.
Rabarta -Spoiler!Very slow casting speed, amazing, amazing effect. Hits 4 targets, and again, Fire enemies have a tendency to pack together. The amazing, amazing effect is...Knockdown mixed with a possible freeze. If you time this spell perfectly, you can keep groups of enemies pinned on the ground until they die, or while you inch closer to finish them off with Gibarta. I never get touched by a Vanda because of this, which makes me smile. A devious smile. The proper way to use it and make sure they stay pinned is...
Hit them with the spell, while your character is recoiling from the spell, and don't cast it again. Instead, while the animation is finishing, hold forward a bit and the moment you see your character move, cast it again. It will go off once the enemy if fully standing and if you timed it perfectly they'll fall again AND you'll have your chain started. Wash, rinse, and repeat until you're close enough to finish them with...
And in a party, this helps them out big time because the enemy wont be able to really do anything before they get finished off. This is so effective I would even go against my own personal code and use it against enemies that aren't even weak to Ice. Its that useful. Easily one of the top 5 techs in the game.
Spoiler!Rafoie - For the few enemies in the game that are weak to Fire and NOT resistant to techs, this is awesome. In the Ice caves this is my favorite tech easily. Lvl 3 Burn, great range, decent power, good casting speed. Just a good tech.
Gibarta - lvl 1-10 this spell is absolutely worthless, but once you get it to 11+ its tolerable, but its speed, area coverage and damage is awesome. Used after a Rabarta locking, it will pretty much kill whatever group of enemies you're fighting. It's also my favorite spell to deal with De Ragan and Onma, build a chain up with Twin Daggers, Renkai, switch and spam triangle. There's a huge chunk of life gone from Ragan and a most likely dead Onma since it's HP is so crap.
Gizonde - This spell is pretty easily the best Lightning Tech, right after Noszonde. For the Earth elemental bosses, it ruins their day. For basic lightning enemies it ruins their lives. Very large range (even at just lvl 11), high Shock level, quick casting speed, and seems to always flawlessly combo with Razonde (with Razonde as the finisher). For some reason, Razonde wont ignore the enemy right in front of it while you're casting Gizonde, so that's why I said Razonde is better as a chain ender. Also because none of the other lightning techniques are good at building chains. So set this to square for enemies, and to triangle for bosses. For the Earth bosses, I put Nosdiga (Obviously not the optimal choice for damage, but its quick and does its thing of getting the chain up) on Square, and Gizonde on Triangle. All you need is a chain of two for Gizonde to work its magic on the Earth bosses. Reason I do that is because the Earth bosses all seem to move around too much for normal Melee to Tech chaining. For the Robot Earth boss however, keep Gizonde on Square, and melee the core when it falls.
Gidiga - Radiga is like Razonde, in that its targeting doesn't ignore the enemy right in front of it. So you can easily build the chain with Radiga (while causing possible Confusion SE), then finish off with one or two Finish Radiga's. But really, this can work as a general attacker or a finisher, I prefer it as a Finisher because most Lightning enemies clutter together when attacking.
Dambarta - This move was great in PSU and it's great here. High Freeze chance, nice range, decent damage, good for building chains on those huge crowds of little Fire foes that like to gather around. It can hit 6 targets total.
The other Dam techs (Damgrants excluded, will explain soon) - Can be useful, I don't use them much though. Really depends on the type of enemies I'll be facing, if they're the run all over the world type, I use Dam-->Gi. If they're the type to huddle together for a joint attack, Ra-->Gi or Gi-->Ra is infinitely better...And most enemies who are weak to Techs in the first place are the latter.
Rammegid - Aiming problems aside, this is the best distance attack for the Light foes who are weak to Techs (Very few, that huddle up that is.), also has a nice SE attached to it. It's hitbox is pretty stupid though.
A few notes on Light enemies, and why I don't really bother using Techs on them much.
1. Too many light enemies are Tech Resistant, and with Darkness Spells already being whacky to begin with it doesn't help.
2. The majority of Light enemies that are actually weak to techs like to strafe all over the place and generally be annoying. So casting spells at them absolutely will leave much to be desired.
3. Megid is no longer an Incapacitation Technique, so it doesn't make matters much better. If it were, I'd be spamming it on every crowd I saw, Light or not.
Now back on track...
Damgrants - This move gets too much credit to be honest, drains PP insanely fast, and a low damage modifier. However, with a nice chain (usually 7+) this move will absolutely trash everything in its path. And if it doesn't, it'll be sleeping for a while (level 4 Sleep SE, along with hitting very fast, and spells not waking enemies up makes this amazing.), I actually use my Rabarta Lock trick-->Damgrants for my Darkness enemy woes. So while it does have its shortcomings, it is absolutely a great Technique.
Deband - Boosts your Evasion. Can give you invulnerability if you have enough EVP against a lot of enemies. Nuff said.
Shifta - Boosts your damage, but in this game its a lot easier to boost your damage than it is your survivability (early on), so put focus on Deband first.
Zalure - This is by far one of the most useful techs for your team in the mid game range (lvl 80-150), when no one can hit anything and you see 0's all over the place. Cast this a few times and make live easier for everyone.
Resta - Yeah...You shouldn't be needing to heal your teammates much, but if you happen to have it set, might as well use it when they're in a pinch. If you're going the Support Force route, this will be on all of your Rod's I guess...
Now I'm going to bash some spells
Spoiler!Gifoie - I don't know what Sega was thinking making this once awesome Technique into a knockback technique, but that factor alone ruins any credit this Tech had. The only time I use it is on De Ragnus, and I fight him once every two months anyway.
Barta - You know, this is okay to finish off weaklings like Badira after Rabarta chains. Otherwise this move is better in the hands of Broken Pannons.
Grants - This move would be awesome if not for one fatal flaw. The range on it is absolute crap. You have to be pretty close to the enemy for this to lock onto them and connect, and against the majority of Dark enemies...which like to do one of the below...
A. Throw Barta's at you.
B. Charge at you like a mad bull.
C. Do an annoying jump attack.
D. Spew Dammegid when you're too close.
It's completely worthless, especially to only at most have a lvl 2 Sleep SE. Just use another Ra tech with a better physical effect and save yourself the trouble. Pretty looking move though.
Reverser - Waste of a slot unless you're in a mission where enemies can Freeze/Stun. Otherwise, let your teammates deal with their own Status effects. They wouldn't come Reverser-ing you if you had Poison or burn, so don't do the same for them.
There, no more bashing. The Techs I didn't mention are ones that are just mediocre and don't need any type of evaluation.
Now for Force's melee...Yes, I highly recommend mixing it up and meleeing as a Force, and not just to build chains or regain PP either. This fortunately isn't as complicated as the Techs. You'll want to use high ATA weapons with high ATA PA's of course.
Spoiler!Twin Daggers for chains, PP Regen and their good accuracy. I use the new PA for it because it looks cool and kills most of the two-hitbox enemies with a chain of 30+, so I don't mind it not being as good as Blade Destruction.
You can use Spears with Dus Skadd or Twin Sabers with Blade Destruction for your high high damage against enemies with two or more Hitboxes when you aren't using Techs or don't feel like switching. Twin Sabers are obviously quicker at getting a high chain, but some enemies only need a chain of 2 to be killed by Dus Skadd.
Fists are good for chains, damage, and their nice accuracy. Versatile PA's as well. Nothing much else to say.
Twin Claws can be good for Renzan's quick execution against single targets and its good damage. Souga Chou-sekka is cool looking and can be a cheap alternate to Resta/Mates against a boss with a lot of hit spots and you using an HP draining attack. Otherwise, I mostly use Twin Claws because they turn me on.
Double Sabers are excellent for PP Regen, its a low ATA weapon though, so consider the fact that you'll be wasting PP casting Zalure just to hit anyway. So save these for later on.
That's pretty much it, Two Handed weapons are obviously preferred for Melee as they can block without a Shield. The Single Handed Melee weapons leave you with TSCM's...TSCM's are useless outside of Buffs/Debuffs. Or they leave you with a Shield, or ranged weapons which we suck at. Up to you if that Trade off is good or not.
What my palette usually looks like?
Spoiler!
Early game?
Twin Dagger
Spear
Wand/Shield (Damage with safety)
Wand/Shield (Damage with safety)
Rod (Heavy damage with possible risk)
Rod (Buff/Heal rod)
later on down the line and a mission where there are no tech resistant enemies.
Twin Dagger or Fist (Most likely Twin Dagger)
Spear (Dus Skadd, obviously.)
Rod (Pure elemental) or another melee weapon, usually one that has a special physical property PA (i.e Knockdown/Knockup)
Rod (Pure elemental attacking rod)
Rod (Another pure attacking rod or it has this set up Zalure/Rabarta/Noszonde/Nosdiga)
Rod (Buff and Heal Rod)
For a mission where there are more tech resistant enemies than not.
Melee weapon
Melee weapon
Melee weapon
Rod (Pure attacking Rod, there is usually one type of enemy in these Tech gimping missions that get screwed over by techs.)
Rod (Zalure/Rabarta/Noszonde/Nosdiga)
Rod (Support Rod)
....Eh, I'm missing a lot of stuff, so just ask if you want anything. I'm thinking of writing up a gigantic guide (one that's a lot more in depth and detailed than this jumbled mess of a write up) or an FAQ for Forces and people interested in the class.
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Shock and 
status effect is called Stun.
Originally Posted by Shakuri
G.O.L.D./Female CAST/LVL 133/Hunter{20}/Ranger{16}/Force{1}/Vanguard{20} As of: 1/16/11
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