Best Whip PA?

[NER0]

thinking about switching to whips and was wondering whip PA disc I should go after. Thanks

[Alexandria]

Good question. I tried 'em out, and personally, they all kinda suck. You need a 20+ chain just to get all the hits out without JAing :/

[Akaimizu]

I like the one that *says* it's a 1 hit combo. Forgot the name, but it's the one where you call forth the Symbol rings (kind of like a Mirage Blast) before you do a 3 whip combo.

I don't use it everywhere, but it isn't bad against medium (high HP) Bullet-resistant monsters. Effectively used, it's a Drua Gohra killer though when solo, it works best if you can use a ranged weapon to drive up the combo, switch to the Whip and hit the monster 1 time normal (to continue the hit) and immediately try to Just Attack the PA.

[Tyreek]

Vivi Dezza.

[Akaimizu]

Thanks. Oddly enough, PA names are getting harder for me to remember, these days.

[BIG OLAF]

I really, really want to like whips, but they're so weak, and hit so many zeroes, they hardly seem worth it to me. I guess I was used to PSU's Acrotecher class, and the speed they incorporate into the whips. When I tried using the PAs (all three of them) they were so slow, and I could barely get the full move off before getting nailed.

[Akaimizu]

It's kind of tricky, at first. It's kind of like you have to get used to the distance the whips can hit, and the movement limits of your enemy, to not get knocked out of the move. At the right distance, and around the side of some enemies, you'll be within range to do the damage, and outside of the range for them to smack you before the move is over.

It's one of the reasons I don't like to combo with them much, unless it's against a group of small enemies for the quick PP recovery.

Getting the whips down, in this game, kind of remind me of Kyo Kusanagi users getting used to CvsS2 after playing KOF 96-98. He loses much of the frames of auto-parry in his punch combos, which makes things trickier for him to medium/close range brawl without getting punished before he finishes the combo. Similar case here. Much of the whip PAs don't stun much at all, and the mob can often still move while it is going. So it takes a bit of a different strategy and approach. I would say they would've been a lot worse, if it wasn't for the reach of those PAs actually being a saving grace for them.

If the distance was shortened more than they are now, their usefulness wouldn't went south rather quickly. Also, take note another saving grace for them are Perfect Block attacks. Those savvy with Perfect Blocks open more opportunities to work in attacks while invulnerable.

Alas. I wouldn't recommend using whips as a primary weapon. It was a situational weapon, in the past. Even more so, now. Considering how easy it could've been to make them broken, this is one case where one could see how hard they worked on balancing them in.

[Sio]

Solo, whips are very inefficient and not very effective mainly cause they don't flinch the monsters at all with the normal combo usually. It makes it hard to pull off a lot of the PAs to be handy IMO. Multiplayer is where whips excel greatly cause the monsters aren't all ganging up on you and you support the party by using the whips status effects and building free chains on a bunch of enemies at once for everyone to take advantage of.

[Quebe_Lae]

I use whips to get hits in while I heal, buff, and debuff. It's also nice since I don't have to get in too close and risk getting squashed to tag, but also don't risk getting zeros that guns afford me most of the time.

(Used with Force and Vanguard.)

[Hrith]

I'm sure it's been said, but whips are good for their SEs, not their damage (although they can do well on some bosses).

There are a couple you should particularly look after:
Gigas Spinner, which has Stun Lv3.
Griena Cracker, which has Shock Lv4 (and can be extended to Stun Lv4).

Those two whips are really tremendoulsy helpful, and can be even in solo modes.