Solo FO Advice?

[Dracozombie]

I want to make a Force that's completely self-sufficient. Most of the advice I see to do that seems to be to either make a melee or nuking Force, which is why I chose a FOnewm (plus you can't go wrong with a spell-casting clown). Since I'm only level 15 with that character, I figured it wouldn't be a waste if I decided to scrap him for a character better suited for what I want. Problem is, I'm not sure what I want.

I'm torn between making a melee or nuking Force. I'd like a character who could do both at any given time, but the stat requirements might mean I can't have it both ways... unless I raise two different mags, but raising one is expensive enough. I'm afraid that focusing on both melee stats and nuking stats means stats in both will be poor, since they're stretched too thinly. Is it possible to, say, solo in Ultimate with such a build, or does it really need to be melee or nuking? And remember, I'd rather not raise two different mags if it can be avoided.

I'm currently using a saber to augment my currently shitty TP pool and early-game poverty that makes buying Fluids (for myself and my mag) a hassle. Melee seems kind of fun when paired with my normal techs, but I'm basing that opinion off the enemies in Forest and a bit of the Caves. For all I know my attitude could very well change down the line when I'm playing Ruins on Very Hard. Lord knows how I'll fare on Ultimate. Is melee even worth it, or should I just stick to blowing things up by nuking them as a FOnewm?

I guess I just need some opinions/advice on how to build a melee or nuking Force, and whether or not I can make a character that can do both. The objective truly is a Force that can take care of itself.

[Stark 1]

tbh man you cant go wrong with either

I personally like Nuking things with my FoNewm, also if you get your hands on a hylian shield you can pretty much handle yourself ALMOST anywhere, of course with proper gear. focus on hp mats by the way , they really lack hp >.> they suck at low lvs but you'll get there

[Fyrewolf5]

Hi there, I main forces mostly and can probably help you out with builds.

A truly self-sufficient force isn't impossible to build, but it is difficult. There is a lot of specific gear that a force will need to acquire for all roles, and it wouldn't hurt to consider creating another character first in order to hunt those things. However, the good news is that all forces are actually expected to use both melee and spells, even if some of them need high levels and good gear to excel at it, so you technically don't have to choose. When you play with a team, nuking with spells is rather niche in use, as it can cause a lot of damage cancel and bugs for other players, so in teamplay forces are more expected to stay with support spells and support melee, but solo runs nuking can be useful.

I hate to break it to you, but there really isn't any way to get around having 2 mags for fonewm and fonewearl, the strongest nuking forces. Newman's just have ridiculous base to max differences, especially the >60 ata needed. You can raise some very simple and easy mind mags for relatively cheap though, as a console mag cell (kit of mark3/master system/genesis/saturn/dreamcast), elenor mags (ashura cell) and the currently dropping ultima mag can become 195 mind feeding difluids at +27 each (the later 2 can have 1 pb if evolved at lvl 10 with the cell). If you want to neglect raising the mind mag until later, that is an option, as MST is actually a very weak stat due to high resists (5 mst is 1 damage on spells before tech boosts and resists are applied, or 2 mst is 1 more resta hp). The tech boosts matter far more than the mst, so it is possible to leave on a pow mag and nuke without dampening your nuking power that much, many times it will be same number of spellcasts to kill regardless.

The 4 forces all have their own strengths and weaknesses in each of the 3 roles that forces play (support, melee, nuke). Fomar has the highest atp of all the forces by a wide margin (1101 max i believe), but has a crippling lack of ata without the event armor Godric's Cloak (summer event), which gives them a massive boost to ata but is not very defensively strong. With that armor can hold his own very easily, but he has the least magic power. Fomarl has access to a wide range of great female only gear including the incredibly powerful Rambling May gun (christmas event with stats or in a questline with all 0s), and although is on the low end of accuracy, kroe's sweater armor can make up for it somewhat, and safety heart can add extra ata to rambling may (seriously that gun is the only weapon fomarl needs it's that good on her), she has support boosts and a strong grants boost. Fonewm gear is very specific and more difficult to acquire and since he doesn't have access to female gear, i.e. he has to get girasole instead of vivienne, but he can still do good damage with an excalibur with good %s, and has strong attack magic boosts. Fonewearl has almost no atp at all, but has the highest ata of the forces (sans godric's cloak fomar) which is a pretty huge thing, but a lot of her melee offense is pigeonholed into demon's special (-75% current hp attack), still is the best support force with that high ata for demon's attack and support boosts and great heal power, and high mst to have almost as good attack magic as fonewm. Solo with Fonewearl still isn't impossible, but your hand is forced a bit more than other classes.

For each role there is a lot of gear that you would need to acquire. Dealing damage with spells really isn't an option without strong tech boosts, from both weapons like psycho wand / psycho bridge and shields like hylian shield / three seals. Support spells can get boosts too like glide divine giving +100% debuff range (very very useful and important), striker of chao for buff range, tyrell's parasol for for buff and resta range, etc. Melee will need demon's gear like bringer's rifle and slicer of fanatic, and high atp weapons like excalibur, ultima reaper, master sword, vivienne, girasole, rambling may, and some utility weapons like gal wind to trigger mag invinicibility and mahu to steal tp, holy ray to arrest things, etc.

I didn't want to go into huge amount of depth here because i didn't want to write a full guide, so i stuck to brief overview of things, but i'll also refer you to these two guides:

Zynetic's very excellent force guide

http://www.phantasystaronline.net/forum/index.php?/topic/3437-playing-a-good-fo/

Chuk's general force guide

http://www.phantasystaronline.net/forum/index.php?/topic/3087-chuks-general-forceguide/

[Dracozombie]

Whew, thanks for taking the time to type all that up! So it's not either-or and Forces actually need to do both? That was another suspicion I had, since elemental resistances are supposedly brutal in Ultimate, and Forces who can't do some melee will get mauled. Well, I guess I can't get around two mags if that's true. I might just stick with a power mag for the time being and make the MST one later. My Force's natural MST should be high enough where I can focus on getting him physically meatier.

My only hangup is that I don't know when/if I'll have access to all those super-duper equipment you listed. It's a mindset I see floating around PSO communities in general, where [X rare equipment] is the only thing standing between you and certain death. Is specialized equipment really that critical? I'm playing by myself and at this point I'm more interested in functioning over excelling. Those seem like (very) late-game concerns to me since my two other characters are only in their 50s.

_{... How... do I transfer items among characters? Otherwise it'd be no problem for my stronger characters to raise a separate mag for my Force.}

[Kyadytim]

I hope I'm not violation a rule about reviving threads...

Anyway, Dracozombie's concerns and thoughts about endgame Forces and what the community opinions are doesn't mesh with my experience on the Gamecube version, where I played a solo FOnewearl with a generic +0 wand for casting speed and a +Mind mag of some sort, whatever level appropriate storebought Frame and Barrier, and a bunch of General /HP units because that's what I had and I getting one-shot on Olga Flow on Ultimate somewhere between level 110 and 120. I was working on raising as close to a +200 defense mag as I could at the time I stopped playing.

My playstyle was to walk into rooms, nuke everthing, and town portal when I ran out of TP. It worked for me through the entire game. Some time around Ultimate, I didn't even have attacks on my command palette, I used techs to break boxes. Considering that Dracozombie plays a FOmarl, with bonus damage to AoE stuff, nuking should work. Carry weapons with high accuracy and TP steal to prevent running out of TP and fluids on bosses, I guess?

tl;dr

To the best of my knowledge, Dracozombie should be fine just raising a mag for MST. If someone with more experience with differences between this server and the GameCube version or Episode 4 wants to come in and correct me, I'd appreciate it.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Kyadytim