HUcast/Guide

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HUcast is an android Hunter with the highest ATP in the game. While not immediately intuitive, HUcast is the best Hunter for both multiplayer and One Person mode, as his tremendous ATP makes him have the highest damage potential in both modes. Along with his access to traps, this gives him extremely powerful crowd control with the power to mow down any spawn.

In comparison to the other Hunters, he is almost always better in every situation, with only HUnewearl having an advantage in regular play with her access to useful support techniques.

HUcast is good for both beginners and advanced players, although beginners who are not familiar with how to avoid enemy damage may struggle with staying alive due to only being able to carry up to 10 of each healing item.

Pros and cons

HUcast is a master of close-range damage. If positioned well, he can deal the most damage of any class in the game in most situations. His access to traps and boosted paralysis activation chance makes him among the most capable at crowd control, as well.

In many situations, it is optimal to play HUcast at less than 12.5% HP in order to enable Dark Flow's special. This can be a pro or a con depending on personal preference, and is not a mandatory part of playing the class.

Pros

• Highest ATP - Large combo kill potential
• Access to traps - The most powerful crowd control tool in the game
• Hunter arsenal - With options such as Dark Flow, Vjaya, Diska of Braveman, and L&K38 Combat, hunters have some of the most efficient answers when prepared for a spawn
• Good at both single- and multiplayer - Level 3 Shifta is enough to give HUcast more ATP than any other class can achieve in a singleplayer game

Cons

• Lower ATA - While mostly compensated for by freeze and paralysis, HUcast can struggle with lower Hit gear
• Limited effective range - HU's arsenal is much less effective if they are not positioned for a spawn

Section ID choice

As HUcast, any ID is a good choice, as HUcast is an optimal damage dealer in any area. Below are some recommendations for HUcast, but there are no wrong choices if another ID is desired to hunt a specific item.

Finding items for HUcast

Skyly

Skyly has access to many essential HUcast items and an increased rate of finding sword-type weapons, which is important in the early game and for finding Hit Caliburs later. Items include Daylight Scar, Sealed J-Sword, Zanba, Red Ring, and Lame d'Argent.

Finding items that HUcast hunts well

Viridia

Hunters are potent boss killers, and Viridia is ideal for hunting bosses, as Red Ring and Parasitic Gene "Flow" are coveted drops which only drop from the bosses at the end of Episode 1 and Episode 2. L&K38 Combat is also an item that can be hunted while hunting bosses.

General good ID

Whitill

Whitill is a powerful ID that gets many coveted and valued items in almost every area in the game. Whitill is the most unrestrictive ID, giving players the freedom to play any content and still have the chance of scoring something big, in contrast to more restrictive IDs such as Bluefull, which focus players into certain areas. Whitill finds many good items such as V502, Heaven Striker, Diska of Braveman, Frozen Shooter, Slicer of Fanatic, and more!

Material and Mag plans

Important Stats Only - Maxes important stats as early as possible. Recommended for leveling.
Min-Max - Maxes as many character specific stats as possible by level 200 using the minimum number of slot units. Recommended at level 200.
Max Stats - Attempts to max all stats at level 200. Ignores any sort of equipment efficiency. Not recommended.

With V101

Plan	Mag	Units	Shield	Materials
				Power	Def	Evade	Luck	Unused
Important Stats Only	5/133/62/0	V101	Red Ring	122	-	-	28	-
Min-Max	5/133/62/0	V101	Red Ring	106	16	-	28	-
Important Stats Only*	5/133/62/0	V101	-	112	-	-	38	-
Min-Max*	5/133/62/0	V101	-	106	6	-	38	-
Max Stats	5/139/56/0	V101, Centurion/Ability	Red Ring	85	25	15	13	12

The ISO* and Min-Max* plans disregard Red Ring as a means of maxing the LCK stat, allowing for swaps to other barriers such as Kasami Bracer without losing out on crit chance.

Without V101

Plan	Mag	Units	Shield	Materials
				Power	Def	Evade	Luck
Important Stats Only (-3 ATP)	5/130/65/0	-	Red Ring	115	-	-	35

HUcast has no Max Stats plan without a V101; it would still require two units, so it's better to use a plan that includes V101 to allow for more equipment usage.

Equipment progression

Early Ultimate essentials

Heavenly/Battle: 40% battle speed is borderline mandatory for handling monsters in Ultimate. This will make everything else more effective.

Smartlink: Removes the ranged accuracy penalty Hunters suffer from.

Berserk/Charge Raygun: Necessary for trapshooting and any situation where you need to quickly deal damage at a distance. Faster and better range than mechguns, more accurate than L&K38. 50 hit common weapons can be acquired through events that feature the scavenger, and can often be bought from other players for 1pd each.

Berserk/Charge Vulcan/M&A60 Vise: Very high single target damage. 50 Hit Berserk or Charge Vulcans can be rarely found at the Arms Shop or bought cheaply from other players. ATA is generally a much higher priority on mechguns, as they provide a marginal amount of ATP no matter what.

Diska of Braveman and Thirteen: Powerful multi-target ranged damage that can be hunted or bought early. Even with low Hit and HUcast's poor accuracy, this combo can allow Diska of Braveman's special attack to reliably hit using the accuracy glitch. Thirteen is not essential, but it substantially boosts Diska of Braveman's accuracy and damage.

Twin Blaze: Casts low level Gifoie. The lingering attack can be useful for detonating traps instantly and stopping enemy charges (e.g. from Dorphons, Delbiters, or Zus).

Next tier

V501: Boosts the effectiveness of instant kill and paralysis specials.

Arrest Raygun: Fast, accurate, ranged paralysis. Extremely important when dealing with enemies that can't be frozen (Dorphon, Girtablulu).

Hell Raygun: Fast, accurate, ranged instant kill. Less important on HUcast because his high ATP means dealing regular damage is always a viable option, but Hell is still the fastest way to deal with many Episode 2 enemies.

S-Parts ver2.01: Barrier that provides 15 ATA. Generally the best barrier available to HUcast before level 180.

Excalibur: Can increase ATA if paired with Proof of Sword-Saint. Fast, high-DPS weapon that hits up to 3 targets. Best used on frozen foes that are close together (e.g. jumping Sinows, rushing Delbiters, etc) with a high potential of being killed in a single combo.

Vjaya: Highest multi-target damage weapon in the game whose special attack has hard attack accuracy. While being a costly weapon to use, it is the best choice to safely kill multiple high-HP enemies in a single combo. To give an idea of its potential: with high-level support techniques, most minibosses in Episode 2 can be killed in one combo. With the right sphering, it can kill weaker enemies in one swing.

Next tier

V502: Doubles the effectiveness of instant kill specials.

V101: Heavenly/Battle with stat bonuses attached.

Hell ES J-Cutter/ES Slicer: Multi-target, ranged Hell. With the accuracy glitch, this is one of HUcast's most accurate multi-target Hell options.

Arrest ES J-Cutter/ES Slicer: Multi-target, ranged Arrest. Particularly helpful for groups of moving Dorphons or flailing Girtablulus (slicers aren't affected by manual evasion).

Dark Flow: Strongest single target, spawn-killing weapon. Special attack has hard attack accuracy, but high Hit is required for safe usage. Have to stand against an enemy in order to stack all 5 waves of the special attack. Hard attack can be used to one-hit kill Ob Lilies (A.Beast% required most of the time). Dark Flow's special also has infinite vertical height, making it useful against flying monsters/bosses. It also has the unique property of killing foes before the targeting reticle even appears, on the very first frame of their spawn (video example).

Red Ring: Barrier that provides 20 ATP and ATA as well as great defensive stats. Outside of specific situations, this will be HUcast's best-in-slot barrier.

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 heavy attack can also be safer as it pushes the enemy back more than normal/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 frozen time.
• 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.

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.

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.

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.

Recommended endgame equipment

Melee

• 10 Targets: Vjaya, Yunchang, Zanba, Tsumikiri J-Sword, Red Sword, Dark Flow (No Combo)

• 3 Targets: Excalibur

• 1 Target Multi-Hit: Black King Bar, Daylight Scar, Jizai, Double Cannon, Musashi

Ranged

• 4 Targets: Diska of Braveman, Charge Diska

• 1 Target: Raygun (Charge, Berserk)

• 1 Target Multi-Hit: Vulcan (Charge, Berserk), M&A60 Vise, L&K38 Combat (No Combo)

Specials

• 4 Targets: ES J-Cutter / ES Slicer (Arrest, Hell)

• 3 Targets: Slicer of Fanatic

• 1 Target: Raygun (Arrest, Hell), ES Gun (Zalure)

• 1 Target Multi-Hit: ES Mechgun (Demon's)

Special Purpose

• Lavis Blade, Girasole

• Kunai, Syringe

• S-Red's Blade

• Tsumikiri J-Sword, Berdysh

• Twin Blaze

• Drill Launcher

Armors

• Thirteen, D-Parts ver1.01, Dress Plate, Blue Odoshi Violet Nimaidou, Stealth Suit

Shields

• S-Parts ver2.01, Red Ring, Anti-Dark Ring, God's Shield "Kouryu"

Units

• V101, V502, Smartlink, Proof of Sword-Saint