Nikki's general PSO:BB guide.

Nikki

Nikki

meh...
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Nikki's general guide to PSO gameplay and meta

[WARNING/Disclaimer] This guide is very VERY long, contains many gameplay "spoilers" (in that I'm holding your hand). It is meant for struggling, new, or long returning players. There is also some harsh criticism so you've been fairly warned on that. I'd suggest not wasting your time if you're just here to complain as I'll ignore it. Realize that most, if not all of this is my opinion and from my experience so take it as such. I do not wish to rule how you play, only give you guidance.

This thread/Guide is not for you if:
-You know enough about pso and its general mechanics to play without my assistance
-You like figuring mechanics of gameplay and tricks out on your own
-You cant take criticism in order to better yourself
-You're looking for outright builds/equipment suggestions.
-You're looking to troubleshoot running the game/crash/connection issues. Please take those to Ephinea's technical support section, NOT TETH SOFTWARE.

This thread/guide IS FOR YOU if:
-certain enemies keep killing you and you don't have a solution
-You get stuck in enemy groups
-You get blamed for the failure of your party
-You have trouble dealing with certain mobs
-You want to know more and expand your knowledge on the game
-You have no idea why people say you "play your class wrong!?!"

PLEASE PLEASE IF I MISSED SOMETHING or said something incorrect, tell me! I'm not perfect or above correction and if something is wrong, I'll correct it. :D There's always new stuff to learn in this game and that's why we keep going after all these years.

Also, this guide is ctrl+f friendly so if you wanna find something please just search it. Like "Olga flow" or "Dorphon" or "Megid" by example. =)
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---=Info and terminology key for this guide and general gameplay=---

NT: No target, when a enemy has spawned with no target-able interaction from the player. This happens due the enemy being targetted too early or the targets not loading at all. Re-entering the room to trigger the interaction usually fixes this.

s/d/j/z: shifta and deband/Jellen and Zalure, people asking you to buff them and debuff enemies. If you're the highest buff or debuff in the party people shouldn't have to ask, yes even if you're a HUmar.

FT: Freeze trap , for dangerous mobs, or mobs with high evasion. Freezing an enemy helps them become easier to hit as it lowers evasion, essential for some classes like Melee FO's who want to help out with demons. When a enemy is Freeze trapped do not try to unfreeze them, just hit them.

CT: Confuse trap, for exp tagging or dangerous mobs which you can confuse and run out of the room to let them kill eachother. Do not use these in groups of baranz/garanz, ilgil, and especially deldepth or any mobs that people have been frozen, it will unfreeze them.

DT: damage traps. Useful for killing slimes over their spawn point or tagging enemy groups for experience. Can also break rappy spawns if the trap explodes over their spawn point while they're in the air, causing the next wave to come before rappy is killed. Never saw this before ephinea so im not sure if its a bug specific to this server or something that's known. They're also useful to spam inbetween attacks on lizards to increase the total DPS and clear them out faster.

pipe: Telepipe, almost self explanatory but some people dont get it. Most of the time people are asking for you to put a telepipe down so they can join you.

RM: remake room, usually due to bugged joining process, invisible players, or if someone d/c

RES: This means the room is reserved for players ahead of time. I will encourage you to please use passwords for your games ahead of time to avoid unnecessary drama. If you have someone invading your passworded room because you said it in the lobby, inform a staff member or blacklist them.

CK: Combo kill, the ability to kill a single enemy or group of enemies in 1 combo chain.

PB: Photon blast (mylla and youlla), estlla, golla, farlla, pilla, and Leilla):

When you have 100 PB in your photon blast gauge, you can call for a chain Photon blast which will give you a boosted shifta and deband when combining Mylla and youlla with other PB's. Photon blast chains can be donated to by hitting your emote key/button and donating 10, 20 or 30 pb points to the chain. Each press of the emote key adds 10 from your gauge, 30 being of more effect than 20 and so on. Chains with twins+2 other PBs/2 or 3 donates gives you super s/d. Keep note that in the PB chain you cannot chain twins back to back, there has to be another photon blast inbetween them for it to work with dual twins.

EFR/EIC/etc: Elemental resistances (fire, ice, lightning, light, dark) you might need to survive certain things like Epsilons rafoie, wizards megid and grants, or opts gizonde.

split: Someone calling on you as someone with techs (human/newman) to cast rabarta and split blue slimes to search for red ones. This is most common on Redria so keep an eye for the ID so as not to randomly damage trap slimes and anger people. You can also split slimes on every 3rd attack of your weapon if you have no rabarta. You can do a trick by cancelling your attacks hitbox by opening and closing menu quickly twice, then hitting with the 3rd attack only. Your combo can still be continued after the menu is opened and closed, and The timing for attacks is lenient but this takes some practice. Alternatively you can use a very low ata weapon and miss with specials until the 3rd attack comes out.

Reduced: The effects of a weapon's special are reduced. Effects for hell, chaos, blizzard, storm, and burning are reduced when on a Diska, shot, sword, mechgun, and partisan. They all suffer reductions to efficiency. Casts cannot effectively use demons either, and suffer a class reduction. Most likely due to having traps available.

boosts: contrary to reductions, certain classes get a boost to things. Casts have naturally better arrest, freeze, confusion activation in ult. While classes like the forces have their own tech boosts. No class gets a boost to demons or Hell, just to note. Noteworthy are FOmarl and FOmar's grants boost, Foney's si tech boost, Fonewm's gi tech and ra tech boost, and Fomars gi tech boost.

activation: After a special attack connects, it has a chance to activate the special. Having hit on your weapon only increases the chance for the attack itself to connect, the special itself still has to activate. V501 and V502 specifically boost activation of specials. It's usually good to have a plan that encompasses using these if you're a RA/HU. Keep in mind that v502's main difference from v501 is that v502 boosts hell more. V501 is still valuable in its own right, and neither boost demons.

SNS: A bug with attacks which makes the first special attack take the accuracy of a normal shot if you do the normal shot just before the special hits. Mostly used with SOF (slicer of fanatic) by Fomarls because of their attack animation, though any class can do it.

Gizonde/needle or "I'll lock": Someone calling that they'll take care of volopt's screen phase by either gizonde or spread needle locking opt in place to damage him behind the screen. Which means DO NOT WRECK THE SCREENS. Let them do it. If they screw up or cant do it then you can take over. Sometimes because of desynch pillars will spawn anyways, in which case just kill the red pillars to control opt.

DMC or Damage cancel: which means you're cancelling a higher damage someone is doing out effectively making it like they never attacked, or replacing their damage with your lower damage. If you're spamming a weapon or tech that is damage cancelling someone, JUST STOP. You're NOT HELPING. The easiest way to tell is if a enemy is living far longer than it usually should while you're attacking. This is one of the biggest peeves among players and will generally make people ignore or even blacklist you if you're persistent with it. Please don't be afraid to attack enemies or play with others, but realize that if you're dmc'ing someone that you should stop.


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The first thing I'm going to go over is a general description of classes and whats expected of you to do and not do. Whether you want to deal with it or not there are certain things that are expected of you as you play your class. the game is otherwise very open ended. But these are a few key things people look for you to do.

I WILL NOT BE COVERING:
-giving Mat plans
-giving Mag plans
-Stat growth formulas
-armament/equipment suggestions beyond some necessities, and vaguely at that.
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--=CLASSES=---

I'm going to go down classes each from their own group down a list.
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----===HUNTERS===----

HUmars: 2nd strongest class in the game which isn't to be scoffed at. HUmar is often seen as the "noob" class because upon starting many people choose it as their comfort zone pick, but is generally very useful once geared. You can use up to lvl 15 techs, included in that and most useful to you of the bunch are Jellen, Zalure, Gifoie, Gizonde, and Rabarta. When there are no classes with lvl 20 j/z or higher in your game, it falls on you to debuff. Most people don't expect it of you as your range is short and the effects of lvl 15 j/z are only really "OK", but most people really do appreciate it! The debuffs DO HELP when nothing higher is around.

Duties include:
-Taking out high priority targets quickly (minibosses like Gibbles, Hildetorr/blue, anything big and tanky looking)
-Drawing crowds to yourself to have them controlled in a tight group
-J/Z when no one else to do the job is around
-Gifoie when no one else is around to stop Zu swoops/Dorphon spawn charge
-Rabarta to freeze certain enemies or split slimes
-Using demons
-using gizonde with a weapon saber weapon that has machine on it to kill opts screens

DO NOT:
-Spam techs mindlessly, while some of them help...the others aren't that powerful.
-Kite enemies around, if you cant control them take them to the group.

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Hunewearl: Huney is often peoples pick for Soloing. lvl 20 buffs and debuffs are great for solo, and makes them useful as a replacement FO sometimes. They have a good potential for spirit usage with the highest non FO MST in the game, granting them more uses of it. Their accuracy is ok, and once you get a red ring equipped their usefulness opens up. They also have decent EVP which makes Estlla very useful for polishing off Saint million's crystals. Keep in mind your mag synchro has to be in good condition to do any real damage.

While in a group however, they're in many ways most likely the worst HU class. They're impossible to REASONABLY max stat, and don't have comparable power to throw around. They also suffer from the newman material use cap despite being a HU, have extremely slow ATA growth and often times need high end units like adept to open up unit usage. They cant even max one of their most useful stats (mind) most of the time. Unless you're determined to solo, or like a uphill struggle/number crunching, I'd strongly recommend avoiding it.


Duties include:
-Buffing and debuffing if a FO isn't present
-Crowd control if a cast/FO isn't there
-Keeping enemies concentrated on you (you're still a HU)
-Using demons (slicer of fanatic or Demon's raygun with hit recommended)
-Gizonde on OPT screens with a high atp weapon, preferably with v801+Excalibur for the quick animation.
-Taking down straggler groups of enemies


DO NOT:
-Spam techs that you dont need to.
-mindlessly spam last swan
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HUcaseal: Hucaseal boasts the highest ATA among the HU classes, putting her in ranger accuracy with a red ring. Their general accuracy+trap usage makes them one of the best classes to play for a beginner HU, or even into advanced play. They may not have the strength of HUmar, Racast, or HUcast but they're still a great asset to teams.

Duties include:
-Paralyzing big and dangerous enemies
-using freeze traps on high priority enemies such as delbiter/Deldepth/Gibbles
-damage trapping slimes spawn points for quick kills (understand that some people will
want to split first)
-Quick takedown of mobile enemies such as Zu/deldepth
-Accurately taking down groups/single target enemies quickly

DO NOT:
-Damage trap slimes if players are actively splitting them, please be patient you're not the only person playing.
-Confuse trap frozen enemies

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HUcast: Hucasts are one of the most popular classes, for very obvious reasons. They have the highest atp in the game, beating out HUmar by hundreds of points of ATP. Their only counter measure is having the lowest ata in the HU class. This is easily circumvented by some equips which boost ata past its natural cap. This class has not only the highest killing power, but also has access to traps which help neutralize enemy evasion. HUcasts power and early access to accuracy boosting armaments makes them ultra versatile and means they can handle multiple situations better than most classes. They're the best of the best.

Duties include:
-Paralyzing big enemies like dorphon or girtabluru
-using freeze traps on high priority enemies such as delbiter/Deldepth/Gibbles
-damage trapping slimes spawn points for quick kills (understand that some people will want to split first, deal with it.)
-Taking down large groups of enemies quickly
-Taking down heavy hitter enemies quickly
-Controlling the flow of battle by helping rid the field of general nuisances quickly, I consider this a bit different because their ability to quickly rid the play field of big enemies is invaluable.

DO NOT:
-Damage trap slimes if players are actively splitting them, please be patient you're not the only person playing.
-Confuse trap frozen enemies

Note: Their High atp basically turns most weapons they use into a kill solution so using something like charge raygun is like using heavenstriker for them. Literally no need for master raven, especially since its combo locked here.
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----===RANGERS===----

SPECIAL NOTES for Ranger:
DO NOT!!!!!!:
-Keep spamming Frozen shooter after the enemy is frozen, move to another item for DPS
-Keep spamming it on high priority enemies if the people you're playing with are strong enough to CK the enemy you're trying to freeze, you'll only damage cancel them.
-waste your time trying to para delbiter unless you're a cast, it's possible but then the chance is very low and you're just wasting time really.
-Freeze gibbles too early, you'll cause NT(notarget) and generally frustrate other players.
-Spam needle at opt if you're with someone who can gizonde the screens efficiently, you're unlocking vol opt by doing so.
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RAmar: In my opinion the most versatile ranger and boasts the highest ata in the game. This class simply doesn't need hit on some weapons, especially after equipping a red ring. They're slightly handicapped by lvl 15 s/d and no availability to debuff without a srank, but that is by no means a factor that gimps them, especially in a party. Their high accuracy means that them having access to sranks or good demons items breaks certain parts of the game for them. They can easily freeze and take down groups of enemies that hunters would have trouble even hitting in some situations.

Duties include:
-Buffing when no higher s/d is in the room
-Crowd controlling enemies with shots/needles
-taking down or freezing high profile or lines of enemies
-using demons/hell for groups of straggler/easily hellable enemies that could cause a nuisance
-using arrest items in some situations where a cast is not present
-Using bazookas to blast off boat worms (del rol, and barba ray) or to get flying gal gryphon.
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RAmarl: Pretty much a Ramar with slightly less accuracy but more soloability due to them being a ranger with lvl 20 s/d/j/z. Often called "Solomarl" Ramarls are used to hunt items in rooms alone due to their buffs and access to ranger items.

Duties include:
-Buffing when no higher s/d or j/z is in the room
-Crowd controlling enemies with shots/needles
-freezing high profile enemies
-using demons/hell for groups of straggler/easily hellable enemies that could cause a nuisance
-using arrest items in some situations where a cast is not present
-Using bazookas to blast off boat worms (del rol, and barba ray) or to get flying gal gryphon.
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RAcast: The Beast of the RA class. They have the 3rd highest ATP in the game, access to traps, have paralysis/freeze buffs, and have high enough ata to be really viable. They have the lowest ATA of the ranger classes but even still they're a great asset to a team and can really help wipe out enemies fast.

Duties include:
-Arresting groups of nuisance enemies or high profile arrestable enemies
-Wiping out enemies with charge shot weapons
-Crowd controlling enemies with shots/needles
-freeze trapping or confuse trapping SOME high profile enemies or groups
-using hell for groups of straggler/easily hellable enemies that could cause a nuisance
-Using bazookas to blast off boat worms (del rol, and barba ray) or to get flying gal gryphon.

DO NOT:
-Damage trap slimes if players are actively splitting them, please be patient you're not the only person playing.
-Confuse trap frozen enemies
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RAcaseal: This is the "status effect" class of PSO, best used for her cast boost to arrest coupled with her good accuracy. While not too strong she has a higher atp cap than Ramarl, at the loss of soloability in a lot of areas. You cant ignore that shes a cast and a RA which automatically makes her an asset to any party.

Duties include:
-Arresting groups of nuisance enemies or high profile arrestable enemies
-Taking down single target high profile enemies
-Crowd controlling enemies with shots/needles
-freeze trapping or confuse trapping SOME high profile enemies or groups that can be frozen
-using hell for groups of straggler/easily hellable enemies.
-Using bazookas to blast off boat worms (del rol, and barba ray) or to get flying gal gryphon.

DO NOT:
-Damage trap slimes if players are actively splitting them, please be patient you're not the only person playing.
-Confuse trap frozen enemies

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----===FORCES===----
I'm making a special note here for people who do not support while they FO. If you think you don't have to support the party because "LOL IMA NUKE FO" you need to think again or try another class.

Each FO class is expected to buff, debuff, crowd control, and resta. You become a nuisance to the average party if you cant perform these. No one cares about how much damage your Rafoie, grants, or Gifoie does if it doesn't help the party progress. You're not helping, you're just being a burden.

Your order of operations for FOing should go as such:
>Enemies spawn
Debuff
>is it eps 4
Then make sure gifoie is out first, then when enemies are stunned/stopped debuff.
>are there OHKO (lilys/Mericarols) or charging enemies/Zu's
Cast a crowd control tech like razonde, or hit them with a tech to reset them if a cast/ranger hasn't already frozen them
>are your party members healed
if not heal them
>are the party's buffs fresh
if not refresh them, eventually you'll get the timer down for each spell level.

A couple of other notes:
-Do not Jellen Gal Gryphon. When he's not jellened he can knock down players, which is what you want in this case. If he's jellend he tramples high DFP players without knocking them down instantly killing them most of the time.
-If someone is splitting slimes, don't gifoie until the party's leader is ready to kill the slimes. You can help by casting rabarta.
-Unless its Episode 4 and you think you can really help, do not join a game with a FO already in it. 1 FO can care for a party alone. If you dual FO MOST of the time you're wasting a slot.
-Do not Resta low HP Dark Flow users unless the party is at risk. DF users for the most part know that they can be resta'd and will deal with it. They also like to control their HP pool to setup for invincibility triggers. Leave their HP alone unless you're sure they'll die otherwise.
-Please don't panic during gameplay, this is a bit of a personal annoyance but this is the single biggest problem I see in new Forces. It's a game, unless you play HC there's no reason for it. The party relies on your ability to take care of them

You should be checking each one of these mentally each time you come across a new wave of enemies or if the wave is large enough. I know to this seems like a lot, but you should at least support well enough that you're not sacrificing your party's ability to play well. They're reliant on YOU playing your !!!!!!SUPPORT!!!!! class.

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FOmar: This class has the lowest ata in the game, but at the same time also being the physically strongest FO class, when you get decent hit gear they can really output some good damage. They're very hard and/or very expensive to equip in a meaningful way.

Weapons they use IMO at least need 40 hit minimum to be truly useful to them without red ring. They have a great Gi tech boost and are useful for stacking gifoie to clear out lizard packs and can barehand cast very fast with gizonde to clear out babootas/other zonde weak mobs. Unfortunately like all males they lack Resta range which can make supporting a bit harder, but we have resta range boosting equipment like resta merge to remedy this.

Duties:
-s/d/j/z/resta and reverser
-Crowd control with Gifoie for speedy enemies like Dorphon, delbiter, Zu and such, or if a RA or Cast isn't in the party freezing high evasion enemies with rabarta.
-Demons with SoF, Bringers rifle.
-Clearing crowds of nuisance enemies like Lizards or falz darvants with gifoie.

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FOmarl: Boasting some very unique animations for weapons. FOmarl has a slightly higher ata than FOmar, has good resta range, and a Slicer animation that helps make up for her still poor ata. She has a nice grants boost that can make shorter work of Dorphons and Zu. Since she's also a decent melee FO, she can make great use of spirit weapons in her arsenal. Fomarl's unique slicer animation makes great use of the SNS glitch with slicers and j-cutters, making it so most of the time she can be effective with lower or no hit. The SNS glitch is described in the key above. They also have the best shot animation in the game, making rambling may very useful on them.

Duties:
-s/d/j/z/resta and reverser
-Crowd control with Gifoie for speedy enemies like Dorphon, delbiter, Zu and such, or if a RA or Cast isn't in the party freezing high evasion enemies with rabarta.
-Demons with SoF, Bringers rifle.
-Taking out high priority targets like dellily and ob/mil lily quicker with SNS SOF.
-Clearing crowds of darvants at falz with gifoie
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Fonewearl: FOnewearl is, in my eyes the quintessential SUPPORTER. They can nuke well enough when needed, but their potential demons is their true best asset having the highest FO ata. Having the highest MST as well they have the best resta in the game. Their major glaring flaw is newman growth and low ATP meaning they're a struggle to reasonably equip without using 2 mags or a very specific plan/build. They're also the only FO people will play in Cmode most of the time.

Duties:
-s/d/j/z/resta and reverser,their resta which can even keep up with HUcast/Racast/Racaseal HP.
-Crowd control with Gifoie for speedy enemies like Dorphon, delbiter, Zu and such, or if a RA or Cast isn't in the party freezing high evasion enemies with rabarta.
-Being the main source of Demons with SoF, Bringers rifle if a RA or Hu isn't present with such.
-Taking out high priority targets like dellily, gibbles, ilgil, and ob/mil lily quicker with SNS SOF.
-Clearing crowds of darvants at falz and lizards/yowies with gifoie
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FOnewm: Fonm is easily the best pure nuking class. They boast what are imo the best tech boosts a Solo FO could want. They have a Gi boost, a Ra boost, can wear mothergarb+ for TP saving/grants boost, and generally are used for solo subdesert hunts. Not to say these guys arent useful in the field, what they lose in support range, they make up for in ability to help clear enemies out to make the run faster. Like FOmar their barehand casting is faster, especially with v801. They can also use excal and demons weapons relatively well having the 2nd highest FO ata, so in general they're pretty versatile.

Duties:
-s/d/j/z/resta and reverser,their resta while short range is still pretty decent to my memory (someone correct if wrong)
-Crowd control with Gifoie for speedy enemies like Dorphon, delbiter, Zu and such, or if a RA or Cast isn't in the party freezing high evasion enemies with rabarta.
-Being a secondary source of demons if needed
-Stacking gifoie like FOmar to clear enemies out when they spawn and control darvants like the other FO's.
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-===-==ENEMY SPECIFIC INFORMATION AND GUIDES===-===-

I'm going to try to be straight to the point in this section but..I probably wont. There's lots of ways to handle this games enemies, and no one correct solution. I'll be going over the many ways you can handle enemies. I'm not going to cover rappys because of their simplicity.

I'll be bouncing around the enemies a bit as I think of them so if you're looking for a specific one just ctrl+f.
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Generic walk and slash/punch/slap enemies:
The most common enemies in the game. This includes boomas, sharks, deminians, gilchich/dubchich, squids, boota types, and a few others. These enemies are generally only dangerous in large numbers, even with just 3 they can pin you and wack you to death so be careful. At low levels regardless of HU or RA most likely for these enemies you're going to be using a sword, shot, or partisan. Your best plan of action is 2 strikes/swings and walk away until you're sure they're in kill HP range. These enemies are simple and will walk and bounce off of eachother to try and get you surrounded so they can beat you to death. You can abuse this by making them bounce off eachother in ways that only group them better or makes them walk against walls. They're very rinse and repeat and dont require much thought at all. Special note for gilchich, be careful with ult ones as they do not fall down easily, can slow you with their punches, and will randomly 420[mlg]kw1ksc()pe laser you if you try and run. If you're under equipped and/or without traps your best bet is to doorway duck (abuse resetting them by running out of the room) and slowly widdle them down.

For FO, if you're teching (which most low level or unequipped FO's will be) attacks can stun them and slow them down, making them try to reposition to try and get around you. This is abuseable by simple staying in their face within your cast time (time it takes to get the technique out and recover from the casting animation) then doing a 180 quick turn rinse and repeat until they're dead. The 180 turn can be essential with Si techs, as it lets you duck in and out of their range quickly while taking no hits. It takes some practice but its really worth learning if you plan to be techs only. I will make a special note for some types though.

-Baboota, if you cant handle groups of them, try to draw them 1v1, they're very weak to Zonde and they have a veeeeeeeeery big detection range, meaning they can see you from very far away. You can abuse this to draw them 1 at a time. It's not worth dealing with the frustration of constant group foie pelting.

-Squids in seabed, some of them will freeze you in place with a screech attack, and theothers dash back making grouping them very hard unless you can know this ahead of time.

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Heavy hitter walk and punch(Gibbles, hidelt, astark): For Hildebear type in general, unless in large groups they do not need special attention. You should be able to control 2 at once. For hildebears just stay out of their range or dip in and out and make them punch and hit them when they miss with a single target weapon. For more than 2 position yourself so the other two are walking into the back of the first one so they're held back.

For Hidelt it can be a bit more tricky, because they have gizonde which can shock you regardless of class. If you know you're going against large groups of them it's handy to have a cure/shock on hand because the situation can go right into the toilet if you get shocked vs more than 3. If you have traps+ a multihitting ranged sacrificial weapon it'd be a good idea to use both FT+that in conjunction to get rid of them, otherwise the previous strategy works well. With fleshies you can simply try to freeze one and deal with the one that is still active. Make sure to debuff these to make your life easier.

-Astark, there's no immediate great way to handle these that isn't covered above in normal through very hard. Once you get into ult it's best to avoid them until you're a decent level or you have a frozen shooter or traps or are very lucky with rabarta. With ult astarks your best bet is to debuff them as quick as possible as they do hit pretty hard. Try to get them to stack in a line or even get them to walk behind rocks while you deal with them 1 at a time. Don't let them fluster you, they're annoying, not unbeatable. If at all possible, try and lure them out of groups of lizards. The devs/map designers use them as bullet shields for astarks intentionally so its best to separate the 2 if possible.

-Gibbles, they're found in bunches of places in eps 2. They're slow but easily the hardest hitting. Gibbles while similar to the other 2 has the most unique mechanics. When spawning they can be fast to stand up, or slow. They can insta jump you as soon as they turn (and their jump hurts) or sometimes they'll take a few steps before trying to jump pound you. If you're close to them they can shoulder shrug your attacks while giving you a nice falcon punch, or do the standard 3 hit combo that hits VERY HARD. Your best bet is to have a mechgun with a sacrificial on it, or some type of demons weapon. Unless you're a hucast or Humar you are most likely not CK'ing a gibbles without a 3 or 4 way PB chain. If by chance you're in tower, gibbles like most enemies in tower aside dellily can be safely abused by keeping them behind a fenced border and shooting them to death. You can also abuse the side fence railing thing if you're around a slide bend from them. Their AI wont be able to path you out.
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Assasin manti, relatively straightforward in both respects and usually only dangerous in a group. They'll attack from the backs of other enemies locking you in place making you easy target for cackling lilys or a beatdown by slappers. The assasin enemies can freeze/or web you in place. Just kill them from the side and move on.

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Dogs/Gibbons(walk around types): These are a peeve of mine and honestly are very annoying enemies. The dogs will often spawn in groups with high priority enemies like hidelts in forest or baranz in spaceship and will walk in front of them to take hits for them while the main target attacks from behind. In ult, The gibbons are their own order of irritation. The gray ones having gizonde which shocks you repeatedly and the purple ones like the red dogs having paralysis. The unique mechanic of these differs between the species. Killing the red leader dog results in the pack getting a "morale debuff" making them weaker overall, however killing any purple gibbon in a pack gives them S/D making them a nuisance if not taken out quickly. my personal suggestions:

-make them chase you so they line up, you can hit them with slicers, or shots easier this way
-hell the dogs when possible in spaceship so they dont block baranz spawns
-Freeze trap or rabarta freeze them in forest to get rid of anything they're protecting first
and
-make sure to have the zap gibbons under control as they'll just reek havoc if not kept in check
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Satellite lizard/Yowie: The enemies are completely immune to ranged attacks from the front, and will turn intangible on bullets and slicers hitting them until they physically walk up to their target, so do not shoot them unless you have a clear line of sight to their back as you are NOT damaging them whatsoever. You have to either get behind them with your ranged weapons, or switch to melee. These enemies have 2 variants of each, crater areas and subdesert. their subdesert variants gain slightly more Evasion stat, and if I remember right, a bit more HP. The best ways to take these out are wide reaching attacks like swords,partisans, melee hell weapons, or excalibur, and make use of the traps of casts in the room. Confuse traps can group the enemies together as they'll attack eachother in 2's and sometimes group into 3's, and freeze traps can make groups of them easier to hit in subdesert. The primary way you'll deal with them in multimode, or if you're a FO in single mode is to have several layers of gifoie casted as they're wide reaching, have wide hitboxes, and stack upon them spawning.

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Dark Gunner: These enemies can go invincible after being attacked, scatter wildly after being hit, and generally are a nuisance to most players. The primary way you'd deal with these as a beginner is spam freeze traps or your arrest/freezing weapons on them spawning and quickly take them out before they get free. They can also be hit by srank paralysis weapons and weapons with unreduced blizzard. It's recommended to have a cast around or someone with a unreduced arrest or blizzard, as these enemies have decent resists and take a long time to kill with techs. Do not confuse trap them as you only make them more annoying to deal with.

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Baranz/Garanz: These enemies are a new player trap. Their missiles outright kill you by hitting you repeatedly before you can do anything. Over 1000 HP or so, you stop getting knocked down by their missiles regardless of buffs or debuffs, it's a set HP value as far as I know. When damaged heavily their armor casts off, and they throw out 3 times as many missiles, and start planting land mines as they move.

Baranz/Garanz however can be useful. Using confuse traps they can infight very effectively with other mobs. Circling them with your menu up very effective in dealing with their missiles. Most of the time though, you'll either want to combo kill them, hit them with demons from far away, or frozen shooter/mechgun CK them if they're a danger to the party. Memorization of the spawns of these enemies really helps in dealing with them before they become a real threat. keep in mind confuse trapping them can also kill your party, don't be that person.

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Zu/Pazuzu: These are generally an all around annoyance but can be easily controlled in various ways. Each time you do a single hit to Zu, it changes its flight path towards, or away from you. Each times its struck it changes direction. Zu's swoop can be stopped by tech that does stun, primarily people will use gifoie as you dont have to time it, it will catch multiple Zu's, and while they're stunned and readjusting their flight path, you can do other things such as resta/mate, debuff, or whatever is needed. In enclosed rooms, Razonde is best for controlling them on spawn. Please if you're a FO make sure you prioritize controlling Zu's flight path, you'll make life a lot easier for your party.
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Girtablulu: It is highly recommended before going into subdesert that you have a paralysis or demons item, as it makes the Girta much more manageable. Girta's main way of confronting the player is to do a sand suck attack which draws the closest player to it. This can leave you walking in place, but it can be easily corrected with a attack. If you're a force dealing with this enemy, grants is your best friend, or if dealing with a group of them watch the color they turn as it indicates their elemental weaknesses.

Depending on where you encounter them, you can put objects between you and it and tip the encounter in your favor greatly. In subdesert 2, you can put the giant holes or laser gate posts between you and the monster, or in subdesert 3, even some rocks/boulders will make it not able to sand suck you in, because of this it will keep trying and you've essentially got it locked down. This is a huge advantage to Forces as they can grants it to death.

If it locks you in ice, spam ASDW on your keyboard as keyboard breaks you out faster than a controller joystick.
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IlGill:
You have a few basic options with ilgil, as they're definitely tough and can beat any class/race's butt to a pulp if you dont know what you're doing.

I recommend the following:
-A demons weapon
-have traps on hand
-Have a frozen shooter
-Use rabarta until frozen.
-Be ready to Jellen and Zalure him after hes frozen, or a zalure Srank (if you're racaseal/racast you have no ther choice really since you have no s-reds. Good with hucl and huct too tbh)
-If you're a cast that can use it, use s-reds.

The most basic option against an ilgil is to use the walls of tower. If you're on a curve, and against the fence-line, ilgil most of the time cannot get to you. This is abuseable for everyone. This is where you either shoot him with frozen shooter, spam rabarta, debuff him, or exploit your many options to debilitate him. If you do not have the option of demons or cannot debuff him, you're literally stuck widdling it down slowly.

If by chance you're stuck out in the open against Ilgil, you can dodge its attacks by running diagonally to its charge, works pretty much everytime until it closes in. You can rabarta just as its about to charge or freeze trap, but beware as it has complete intangibility just before and during the start of its charge, so you gotta time it.
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Mericarol/Merikle/Mericus:
I'll cover each one as they have some very slight variations to them. I'll try to give detail because of some reason people struggle with these guys immensely.

GENERAL notes on them:
-If they get hit, sometimes they'll charge you, usually after getting hit by a attack that halves or quarters their HP like demons or a really strong sacrificial.

-If you're right against them they will put their neck up, when they do this, FREEZE IT or RUN. This is a insta kill move that cannot be survived.

-If you hit them sometimes they will put their head up and screech, this is a full TP drain. Try to avoid it if at all possible. This is a random attack after you stun them. If you have an adept it will save some of your TP.

-If you're behind a fence with a gap inbetween you and the Meri, its spirit spit CANNOT hit you through the invisible walls (unless the quest is made specifically otherwise).

-The meri spirit spit has a pattern regardless of which it is. It's always fired at the same intervals unless interrupted, and it can be easily avoided forever. You have no reason to get hit by it aside you getting caught in firing animation or someone being an asshole and leading it into you.

If you're a FO, abuse razonde to keep them stunned while your party deals with them. In groups of them larger than 2 please dont bother to try and help people attack, you're just making yourself a burden. I wouldn't recommend solo foing them if you're a tech only FO as they have stupidly low damage caps.

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-Mericarol(pink) It doesn't have a very large HP pool so it can be easily Kill combo'd without much effort. Don't give them too much respect, the longer they live the more dangerous they are. Only freeze them if you're playing with people new to tower/CCA or who dont know better. If you're weak they're easily the most paralyzed in the group of Big plants, as well as the lowest evasion so they're more easily susceptible to Demons.

-Merikle(blue), these are the tricky ones, as they have the most evasion. You'll get most spirit spit kills from these as you get stuck in animation of firing/hitting them and missing. Freezing these is your best option if you're not good with dodging.

-Mericus(yellow), these ones are the tanks of the meris. They have the highest DEF stat, are hard to para, and have a decent HP pool. As with the others Freeze the sucker and blast it to pieces.

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Lilys:

Depending on your difficulty you're playing in, they'll either spit poison or piercing megid. Just like with the meris these spit in a avoidable pattern that you shouldn't get hit by as long as you're cognizant of their active timing (when they noticed you or were in a neutral state). Lily are very weak to slicers, because when their head is down, it gives you two hitboxes, making them fodder for slicer of fanatic or even rifles. Rangers should take note, that dellily in tower is more easily killed when its in a down state. Dont worry about missing the first shot with SSS with your frozen shooter, as the second or 3rd will connect and freeze it where its head is down, which is what you want.

If you see or hear a poison, nar,mil, or ob lily screeching, and you're a fleshy you can easily spam anti really fast as soon as you hear the screech start and anti yourself before the paralysis takes your control away. it's also worth noting that with poison and nar lily, the poison can remove/replace your paralysis.
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Chargers (Dorphon/Delbiter)

These guys can cause lots of headaches, they take off large chunks of HP or can outright 1 hit kill some.
Dorphon: Carry a paralysis weapon with you and demons, as they're the best ways to contain them after their charge has been stopped. Once paralyzed they're easily to demons, which takes their large HP pool down to 1/4th of its original number at a time. If you're a FO, and you have no demons your best bets putting a rock between you and them and rafoieing(multiple) or grantsing(single) them to death if you dont have others in theparty with you.

Delbiter: They attack twice as fast as dorphon, charge in a even shorter time frame, Walk faster and are quicker to laser. You need to be quick when dealing with these. Freezing them quickly and debuffing are your best options, both if you can. If you're up against multiples it's best to use doorways and their limited detection range to your advantage.

Notes specific to this class of creature:
-Dorphon eclair can be helled/megided

-Their lasers damage eachother, so if you're literally playing the fight on your back put them across from eachother and eventually they'll kill eachother.

-If you're in tower delbiter can be held back by fences.

-If you're in seabed delbiter can be held back by ramps, careful if they're lined up with the ramp because they can go straight up it.

-delbiters laser and stomp have vertical range so you still have to be careful even on ramps.
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Sinow (all)

Sinow blue/beat: They can split themselves, go invisible, have intangibility frames during leaps, and they can hit hard to add to it if not debuffed, or in worse cases, buffed. These are generally more dangerous in groups which is why they're mostly spawned that way. If you're not a cast, I suggest trying to freeze one and slowly pick them off if you're not well equipped. Make sure to debuff as well. If you're a cast or RA freeze them or one and create a wall with it so the others cant walk past and widdle them down. Don't be afraid to use confuse traps with these if you have no FT left, as they brutalize eachother decently well.
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Sinow red: reds can buff themselves and enemies around them with lvl 15 s/d or so (I think) and can resta. In groups of multi sinows these are the higher priority target because they can make everything around them a problem. Their priority is only superceded by Baranz.
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Sinow Berril: These guys are kinda generic but they have a LOT of EVP to make up for it. Their basic abilities are simply vanish, foie attack, and punch. not too exciting but they generally hit pretty hard. Just have Demons on hand and/or the means to freeze them, debuff, and destroy them. They can also be hell'd but it's not too reliable unless frozen.
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Sinow Spigell: Another red sinow, that means Hell fun~. These guys are a bit more dangerous than most, as their buffs cant be remove unless you're a FO with above lvl 21 j/z. Like berill they have a bit more EVA than average but nothing you cant handle. Just make sure they dont stay buffed or you're gonna have a punch induced headache.
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Sinow Zoa: These are, IMO the real headache among the sinow. They have rather extreme amounts of EVP to the point where freezing is a complete necessity to hit them at all for some classes. They have decent EDK which coupled with the EVP means you're better off straight brute force killing them or SNS glitch SOF'ing them. These guys command respect because even without S/D they pack a wollop and can kill you with their pounce alone if you have poor HP.

If at all possible get rid of them fast because they can make most situations unwinnable if you're unknowledgeable. Freeze traps, or Frozen shooter are quite debilitating to them. Then you can use charge mechgun weapons or if you prefer some kinda melee weapon. Debuffing these is a absolute necessity IN MY OPINION as it just makes life easier for everyone.

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Sinow Zele: Another red sinow, another hellable bot. This imo is the best way to get rid of these, so I'd strongly recommend having Hell available with decent hit. Otherwise you're gonna have another buffing robot on your hands which in seabed produces nightmares. If you have no hell available at least have demons or a really high hit multihitting single target weapon and dispatch of them with the usual methods, aka freeze, debuff, and murder.


SPECIAL NOTE for Eps 2 sinows: When they're up in your face, if you hit them at all they WILL vanish and reposition themselves. This not only makes freezing them harder as freeze traps cant hit them when they vanish, This leads to headaches for everyone in parties so try to group them well otherwise you'll just make it harder for yourselves and others. If they get close, make them punch at you and have them miss then/or just reposition yourself.
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Deldepth

This enemy gets its own section as it frustrates a lot of players, and often times there's no good way to deal with them. They have high HIGH evp, refuse to group properly sometimes, have freeze traps, and a killer megid. This is all offset by their low HP (something like 1200/1500?) making them fodder for single target weapons.

The absolute methods of dealing with these guys are frozen shooter or freeze traps. Their EVP needs to be dealt with as its the major hindering factor in killing them. Rabarta is MOSTLY unreliable in most cases as if it misses they just go back to the floor, start scurrying around and completely ruin your enemy grouping. If you have no other option then go for it.

Thankfully due to their low HP you can NNH or NHH attack them WHILE FROZEN, otherwise you'll want to SSN to keep them floating and be able to keep attacking. They're actually quite fragile. For packs larger than 2-3 of them, and if you're alone it's recommended to abuse doorways and make them reset or abuse their detection range if you know the spawns well enough. keep in mind they'll also despawn if they go in walls so this is abuseable as well.

Special note(including needles/shots)
In multimode, and for the first shot on them in single mode, deldepth resets its floating animation timer when attacks miss them. Meaning their timer before they do megid/traps resets until they're hit. This means if you got a hell needle or any multi target weapon you can endlessly spam SSS until it connects and kills one, or abuse SSN for low chip-away damage. It's literally the safest method of dealing with them aside freeze traps.
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-----------=====BOSSES=====---------------
I'll only cover the actually "difficult" ones for new players to not waste time and space.

De Rol type: Norm-VH it doesn't jump on the boat first, you'll need a slicer/shot/bazooka/techs to hit it. When it flips on the boat, procede to stack your damage on the head if you got zalure+sacrificial mechguns, or attack the multi sections on its belly. Be aware the tentacles that come down are on a set timer for each difficulty. If ult abuse your mags invincibility if you get it, and attack as fast as possible with sacrificials. Keep in mind you'll have to dodge the tentacles at a even shorter interval.

Barba ray is pretty much the same, only it shoots the pig rays at you. Keep in mind if you get paralyzed the poison from its tentacles from the bottom of the boat can remove the paralysis. It leaves the boat faster so be aware.

Note: DO NOT STAND ON OTHER PLAYERS IF THEY'RE USING BERSERK.
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OPT: First note, he cant be debuffed. 2nd, you have 2 options in most situations. Lock the screens with a spread type weapon, or gizonde attack stack damage on the screens. If you cant do either, make sure to stay out of the center of the room as the tech damage is strongest there. If you dont have those options Kill the red pillar as fast as you can and rinse and repeat till form 2.

Form 2 avoid the ceiling pillars, and use your strongest attacks to take him down as fast as possible. If he turns his face towards you, put up your menu after he shoots the orb and run tight perfect circles until it goes away. Keep in mind he can repeat this.
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Dark Falz: I'll cover ult here as normal-vh is insultingly easy and pretty much is just an HP check. Keep in mind you can run around darvants with your menu up, dont get caught in the Darvants attacks. If you start getting hit just run to a open space.

1st actual form, zalure if you can, and if you're alone keep the spinners in check as they come out of the mouth. Spam the head with mechguns or w/e single target weapon you have until he melts into the 2nd form

2nd form: Falz's cone of rabarta and rafoie are based on the general party's position with his center field of view being the main focus. So that said, if 3 of you are on his left, and one of you on the right, the main cone of attack is gonna go left biased towards the arm hes casting from slightly. Knowing this takes a lot of pressure away from the fight.

final form, make sure to zalure right away before he goes in for the Smack. You need 811 HP bare minimum to survive it as its a set damage value that cannot be effected by deband and jellen, making them useless here.
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Gol Dragon: Like Volopt this enemy cannot be debuffed. He's rather tall so you have to position very carefully to hit the head. Pile all your damage into its feet if you're unsure or if you're a ranger, use a charge shot type or bazooka weapon as fast as you can. After losing enough HP, he'll go into 2nd phase and split into 3 dragons. It's a guess afaik at this point where he'll actually be so pick one and kill it, though I've heard that the real one always lands first. Keep sols with you, or a cure/shock if you're really not confident.
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Gal Gryphon: After the initial swoop (where you debuff, bazooka, flow, or TJS him) While he's flying he'll spit tornados that can kinda sap your HP out if you get caught in it. Next phase it will also swoop you, and go up into the sky at random and rain lightning on you shocking you. When its in the air its very susceptible to bazookas, and cards, even on its initial swoop.

When on the ground concentrate fire into its head. Be aware that when it shifts its body position it's gonna stomp, do its lightning attack, or its going to run around. While its running around use your camera to center your view as you try to run around to its butt. This keeps Gal UNABLE to hit you, it literally cannot catch you if you do this.
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Olga Flow: This boss generally is only ever a threat if your party is new or weak. The general idea is to have a handgun or rifle of some kind with you, or a heaven striker as this boss drifts out of range of physical attacks too often for it to be viable to use any melee weapons. During a fight there's a few attacks you'll commonly run into. 1st is a horizontal flow slash, 2nd is dark meteor shots. occasionally he'll do a flow special attack, and when he wants to he'll use a dark meteor beam that circles the stage. You can use the same tactic here of trying centering your camera and running towards its end that you used with gal gryphon.

2nd form is a different monster altogether. He not only has a OHKO sky attack, but his mags will randomly spit out monsters that can cause status effects. The main goal here is to keep the Gael Giel mags dead while you smack his feet. If you're having trouble avoiding some things you can hide behind the dropped pieces of ceiling that drop on the floor. If you're unfortunate, you'll get to see hyper olga where he turns gold/orange. This form can be only harmed by a random type of damage. Which randomly changes between Native, Abeast, Machine, or Dark so if you're weak make sure you got one of each or you cannot damage him to win the fight.
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--------------============ special general notes section/random stuff I remembered=======--------------------

I wasn't going to go into personal stuff but I feel with some of the hectic things the PSO community goes through, it's kind of a needed thing. I'll keep adding to this as I remember things.

-Most things I've mentioned are situational aside supporting/crowd control. Discovering the general flow of gameplay is unique to the individual and its up to you to find your pace. If you ever feel the pace of the games too much for you, you can always ask the party to slow down a bit. If they give a lot of hate for it just leave, it's not worth the drama.

-Do not take the hyperbole this community spits to heart, we're a bunch of assholes and bitches who are entrenched in their opinions and ways of thinking. This is literally the worst thing you can do. It's all PSO drama, and in time you'll learn what that means. If your best intents get ignored, dont try to brute force it, just move on and accept it...thats what maturity is.

-Don't expect too much of PSO, it's a relatively old game now. It is what it is. Expect crashes, freezes, missing items, disconnects, hackers, and booty bamboozled script kiddies with an axe to grind and a LOIC to use.

-You can get rappys drops by first hitting them with an attack, then another attack before they run away. this mostly happens with rafoie but can be done by anything quick enough. This however does not add to server kill counts, just keep that in mind as rappy are numerous. Keep in mind, you cannot get event items such as badges or presents this way, they HAVE to be killed.

-A lot of times with partisans and swords, it's better to take 2 swings and back off.

-With PSO the person who hosts the game or is oldest in the room determines the drops, not the ID but where the drop location from an enemy actually happens. So even if you see a Zu over land, for the host it might be over a pit or behind a rockface and if its killed there you get no drop or cant reach it. This goes for all enemies.

-Keep in mind also that you should not PB inbetween waves in mines (or anywhere for that matter) as a general rule as the enemies spawning inbetween can kill you outright. This is a rather large danger to HC as has been illustrated before.

-You can use menu to walk under traps and walk near enemies without being put in guard animation. This is one of the most IMPORTANT THINGS to PSO combat and having mobility to fight properly. You WILL have to use this and it is very important to know. Many new players find the game very difficult without this and this alleviates a lot of PSO's legitimate design flaws.

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I pretty much read the whole thing, but was surprised you don't have a section for Garanz/Baranz. A good tip for people who solo (and sometimes not), is to bring up the chat menu while near a Baranz and run circles around it so that it will kill itself.
 
It's something like 68 or 69 yeah. Del lily I think is upwards to needing 117 EDK or more? I'm sure someone has the actual numbers, though thats not what im tryin to cover here.
 
In reduction demons isn't mentioned alongside the other specials.

I haven't read it all yet but fair play man. This is a lot of time and effort you put in to this. I will be directing quite a few people here. Its very good and informative.

I have the actual numbers for EDK if requested and sources.
 
Awww Poo! When mew first saw this thread, she was half expecting some kinda Chibi 'Colette-chan's Corner' comic with fun facts and guides about Ragol. Was esp giggling at the description of the Rappies and Zus. Colette-chan would be 4th wall talking to us as the reader about Rappies, while in the background a Del Rappy is laying on the floor with his rappy clan peeking with one eye open...then sneaking away in a Solid Snake cardboard box...Colette-chan turns around to deliver the final blow, only to find them all missing......."SONOFA.....".... Or a PaZu taunting her from over a cliff or large rock....tongue hanging out in a raspberry like 'nanny nanny boo boo!'... XD!

"Generic Titty monster".....was about to complain....*glances down and squeezes together and bounces*...........nvm =P.

AWESOME INSIGHTFUL and Humorous read! Effort well spent!!! <3!!
 
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