Editing HUcast/Guide (section)

== Strategy ==

===Comboing safely ===
When close to an enemy, it is often necessary to delay your second and third attack in order to stagger the monster. Hitting a monster when it is recoiling from a previous hit will not add any duration to its recoil animation, so if you attack as quickly as possible, it can often hit you after your second attack.

Some weapons leave you unsafe after the third attack: you will want to use a two attack combo unless you are certain the third attack will kill. This varies based on your battle speed, the enemy, and positioning, but this issue is particularly glaring with swords. Ending on a {{Attack|heavy|l}} can also be safer as it pushes the enemy back more than [[File:Normal Attack.png|16px|middle|link=Attack#Normal attack]][[Attack#Normal attack|normal]]/[[File:Extra Attack.png|16px|middle|link=Attack#Special attack]][[Attack#Special attack|special attacks]] (with a few exceptions).

You can feint an enemy to swing at the air, leaving his side/back safe for you. It is extremely useful against fast-moving monsters such as [[Melqueek]] and [[Del-D]], or a [[Delsaber]] that you want to hit in close combat. Know your safe combos and which weapons are efficient against which monsters.

=== Trap usage ===
[[Traps]] are an extremely powerful tool given to androids and effective usage can be the difference between struggling and efficient play.

There are a few common ways to use traps:

* Trap shooting: set a trap and immediately detonate it by shooting it, typically with a handgun but possible with some other weapons. This is the fastest way to detonate a trap if unprepared, with the downside of being in the middle of a handgun animation when the trap is detonated, wasting some of the effective [[Freeze (status)|frozen]] time.
* {{Sword|rare|Twin Blaze}}: the lingering {{Gifoie}} from Twin Blaze will instantly detonate any traps set in it. This is a little slower to set up but lets you immediately attack after setting the trap.
* Timed: traps have a set amount of time to arm, after which they will detonate immediately when something (player or monster) comes within range. Leaving traps where monsters will spawn soon gives you flexibility of positioning.

{{Trap|Traps#Freeze traps|Freeze traps}}: guaranteed area-of-effect freeze. This buys your team four seconds to safely deal with a wave, in addition to reducing the enemy's EVP by 30%. It's hard to overstate how powerful freeze traps are; freezing the right waves can make everything easier for your whole team. It might not always be ideal to freeze waves immediately as they spawn – allowing monsters to group together can make them easier to take out.

{{Trap|Traps#Damage traps|Damage traps}}: moderate damage to monsters with low EFR. On Ultimate difficulty, damage traps are most commonly used to kill Slimes and scare Rappies. Detonating a damage trap where a Slime spawns will instantly kill it. Detonating a damage trap where a Rappy is dropping in will cause it to drop to the ground and run immediately, but this is prone to desync.

{{Trap|Traps#Confuse traps|Confuse traps}}: Area-of-effect [[confusion]]. This is a powerful effect when monsters' damage is higher than the players'. It can also be useful to cause enemies to cluster around each other. On Ultimate, confuse traps are generally considered disruptive because they override the more powerful freeze effect and can cause monsters to behave unpredictably, but they still have their uses.

===Spawn knowledge===
The best way of being effective in ''PSO'' is to memorize the monster spawns per quest, along with the monsters' behaviors. This applies to any class. It seems tedious and difficult at first, but it is a Hunter's keystone, as their area of effect is very limited and their effectiveness relies on knowing what is happening next. The easiest way to learn a quest is to run it several times, remembering the most important waves first (e.g. iconic monsters' positioning, dangerous enemies, large amounts of enemies), then filling the gaps with the minor ones. It allows you to read what your partners are intending to do once you are comfortable with the quest. You can assume that an experienced player going in a certain direction means that they will deal with the enemies spawning in that area, leaving the others to you. This is why following someone and attacking the monsters they're prepared to deal with likely isn't helpful and can be dangerous if nobody takes care of the remaining ones.