The metagame, a guide for better play.

Ceri0n

Ceri0n

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Hi everyone, a new episode of one of my (in)famous posts. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

This time I’m going to talk about the metagame. First and foremost, I’m not going to state that I’ve got it all figured out but I think I know the biggest part of it. This post is mostly for new(er) players since the veterans have probably their own style of play and can deviate effectively from what is underneath, both skill and wealthwise. Anyhow, this is where the real post begins.

I’m going to talk about all the classes that are in PSO, the hunters, rangers and the forces in this specific order as well.

So first of all I will start with the hunters. They do high damage but sometimes lack a bit of accuracy to use firearms. That is why you need a smartlink for them. Besides that, a charge gun with 50% hit or more is wise to use as well as charge mechs with 50% or more. Especially the charge mechs are important to do a lot of single target damage. For multitarget you can use a sacrificial slicer (Charge slicer or Diska of Braveman) and/or a sacrificial sword like a charge caliber (don’t see them a whole lot unfortunately) Zanba or Yunchang.

For me, this is probably the most effective gear if you are starting out as a new hunter on our server and you are about level 90/100. I prefer accuracy over power but you can do whatever you like .
- Charge Mechs 50 hit (Vulcans) 1pd
- Charge Gun 50 hit (Raygun) 1pd
- Charge Slicer 50 hit (1pd)
- Charge Calibur 50 hit (1pd)
- 4 slot armor (I don’t mind which one)
o Heavenly/battle (1-3pds)
o Smartlink (1pd)
o God/heavenly arms x2 depending on your build
o Heavenly Power maybe, depending on your build
- Kasami bracers (S-Parts ver2.01 for HUcast or HUcaseal if you are lucky, 15 pds but perhaps more right now)
- A decent mag with power/dex.

When you are a more experienced Hunter then you know you can easily deviate from this with a Dark Flow, Black King Bar, Vjaya and Excalibur so things are not set in stone. It is one of the most basic needed gear though for hunter.

The 2nd classes are naturally the Rangers. They have very good accuracy but can sometimes lack the power of a hunter (bar RAcast and RAmar to a lesser extent).

This is probably the most common setup, and certainly the most wanted starting out.
- Frozen shooter (for freezing Baranz, Gi Gue, Ill Gill and more strong mobs that can be frozen).
- Charge Mechs 50 hit (Vulcans) 1pd
- 0’d Heaven Striker (3-6 pds)
- Charge Gungnir 50 hit (1pd for ep4, lizards)
- Demons Laser 50 hit (1pd)
- Charge Arms 50 hit (1pd)
- Arrest Raygun/Laser 50 hit (1pd) for Dorphons in ep4
- 4 slot armor (I don’t mind which one)
o Heavenly/battle (1-3pds)
o V501 (2-5 pds) but less important on ep1/4
o God/heavenly arms x2 depending on your build
o Heavenly Power maybe, depending on your build
- Rangers Wall (1pd or get it yourself with button mashing game in gallon’s shop. 300 points are needed)
- A decent mag with power/dex/(mind for RAmarl perhaps).

You can also deviate from this build once you are more experienced. Hence, the s-ranks are not even mentioned here as well as the hell weapons for ep2. They will come in later however once you have gathered enough pds, through grinding or through trading.

PS: spread needle can suck in multimode because it still causes a lot of DMC. They are still viable for crowd control and single mode however.

The 3rd and last classes are the forces. For relevant gameplay they need the least amount of armor. Sounds crazy right? All they need is a good level Shifta and Deband and also Zalure (and Jellen to a lesser extent).
The gear that is needed however is:
- Glide divine (for increasing jellen/zalure range)

The rest is optional but I’m going to name them now anyway

- Ignition Cloak (5pds)
o V801 (2-4pds)
o Wizard/Devil or God technique just in case
o 2xHeavenly minds (1pd )
- Red/Gifoie Merg (3-5 pds)
- Mind mag

As with the other classes, when you are an experienced fo you can easily deviate from this. Every fo bar the FOnewearl can be used as a battle fo. You will need a Pow/Dex mag then as well of course. Since it is more of a beginners guide I let out the high hit charge/spirit mechs, adept and bringers rifle. Thirteen and DoB can be used on Fomar and Fomarl as well and FOmarl is an expert user of the Slicer of Fanatic as well when you glitch your Special/Normal/Special your attack.

You can also check this thread when you are a bit further in terms of wealth to push you in the right direction. Those are probably the best weapons for every class, period :) .

For now, this is all but suggestions are more than welcome of course! Thanks for all the feedback :) .
 
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The OP of that thread is wrong, though. x) SmartLink doesn't add bonus ATA as you get farther away from an enemy: it prevents that ATA from being removed by the distance penalty and allows you to attack with 100% ATA from any distance, as is the case with Rangers by default.
 
Spread Needle with Hit is typically better for android Rangers than Arrest Needle.

For human Rangers, Arrest Needle is better than high hit Spread Needle.
 
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iddqd said:
This is the point where I lost interest. My biggest fear is that people actually take notice of this stuff, try to meet these 'minimum requirements' and stop just having fun.
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Some things are standard. The items I named are cheap and relatively easy to get (there are still better weapons out there but these items are pretty much the default for players starting out). The better the play the more fun in my oppinion but you are free to use whatever item you prefer. Some people still prefer a Dragon slayer above a Charge Calibur with 50% hit even if the latter is cheap and way better than the former. But that is okay I guess.
 
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Aleron Ives said:
The OP of that thread is wrong, though. x) SmartLink doesn't add bonus ATA as you get farther away from an enemy: it prevents that ATA from being removed by the distance penalty and allows you to attack with 100% ATA from any distance, as is the case with Rangers by default.
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Odd but he did give an example of an impossible hit hitting with smartlink on though.
 
Ade said:
Spread Needle with Hit is typically better for android Rangers than Arrest Needle.

For human Rangers, Arrest Needle is better than high hit Spread Needle.
Click to expand...

SN is only better (on a cast) when enemies have high EVP & low ESP and it still requires decent hit to outperform the Srank. Here is a guide which goes into detail covering what %hit SN would outperform Arrest Needle during certain combos in these situations. Very informational read by @Melirei .
 
Spuz said:
SN is only better (on a cast) when enemies have high EVP & low ESP and it still requires decent hit to outperform the Srank. Here is a guide which goes into detail covering what %hit SN would outperform Arrest Needle during certain combos in these situations. Very informational read by @Melirei .
Click to expand...

I've found the vast majority of the time the activation rate is high enough that SN is better in almost all cases. I have a 45h SN and an Arrest Needle and I've tested both. This chart doesn't take increased strain such as manual evasion into account.
 
Ade said:
I've found the vast majority of the time the activation rate is high enough that SN is better in almost all cases. I have a 45h SN and an Arrest Needle and I've tested both. This chart doesn't take increased strain such as manual evasion into account.
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Well, that is true, SN is better to compensate against manual evasion. I actually carry both SN + AN on my RAcast/caseal and switch depending on the enemy. 45h yeh; that's a decent SN!
 
zelda16h said:
And I still have a 5% one :0 oh well I still paralyse them occasionally because of V502 :p
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Just make sure to stick to NNS since low %; this gives the special the best chance of success.
 
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Rune said:
Odd but he did give an example of an impossible hit hitting with smartlink on though.
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As originally discussed in that thread, he was using the first hit of his combo, so he probably just glitched the attack by mistake. Besides, he's using the purei calculator, which is not a reliable source of information. It's possible that the original chance to hit was not 0% in the first place.

Ceri0n said:
The general conception about the smartlink is that you don't get the range penalty you usually get when playing a hunter of force that rangers don't.
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It's not a general conception. The game has been disassembled to see how the distance penalty works and that SmartLink removes the penalty:

https://www.pioneer2.net/community/threads/quick-question-quick-answer.306/page-4#post-3370

Ceri0n said:
This actually does mean that the ATA on ranged attacks does get an increase with the smartlink and it also means it does not get an ATA penalty you usually get without.
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That's not the same thing. That post says that being farther away makes you more accurate than being close, which is false. There are only two possible situations:

  1. Rangers and SmartLink users: ATA is equal at all distances
  2. Hunters and Forces: ATA decreases as distance increases

A third option of "ATA increases as distance increases" is not a thing.
 
Aleron Ives said:
As originally discussed in that thread, he was using the first hit of his combo, so he probably just glitched the attack by mistake. Besides, he's using the purei calculator, which is not a reliable source of information. It's possible that the original chance to hit was not 0% in the first place.


It's not a general conception. The game has been disassembled to see how the distance penalty works and that SmartLink removes the penalty:

https://www.pioneer2.net/community/threads/quick-question-quick-answer.306/page-4#post-3370


That's not the same thing. That post says that being farther away makes you more accurate than being close, which is false. There are only two possible situations:

  1. Rangers and SmartLink users: ATA is equal at all distances
  2. Hunters and Forces: ATA decreases as distance increases

A third option of "ATA increases as distance increases" is not a thing.
Click to expand...

Nice source! I can't compete with reverse engineering so I guess you're right and I'm wrong. Just curious how that thread got his information though. It sounded credible enough.
 
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