User:Sam6555/Force
Force Guide
Force Role Predominantly every Force's role is to support the rest of the teams damage supplementing them with Shifta and Zalure to increase damage dealt to the enemies, and Deband/Jellen to decrease damage taken. That's not to say you can only buff and wait for the next wave, there's numerous other things you can be doing at the same time, whether it's attacking with weapons, using Demon's, or using damage techs/stacking Gifoie.
Support Techniques
At level 30, Shifta provides a 47.7% ATP boost and lasts for 5 minutes and 30 seconds, Deband has the same numbers, but affects DFP instead. It should be noted that Shifta doesn't boost the entire ATP stat, instead it only boosts the base ATP of a class (for example 1639 of a HUcast) as well as the 'variable' ATP of a weapon instead of the full ATP. So if a weapon states it's ATP as 220-270, then it's just the 50 variable that gets the boost. Either way, Shifta should always be active. Coincidentally Jellen and Zalure both share the 47.7% and 5m30 stats, but for the inverse on enemies.
Demons
Demon's is a weapon special that is particularly potent on very high HP non-boss targets, and also doesn't require you to have good ATP. On any non-cast it was cut an enemies HP by 75% of it's current max assuming the hit doesn't miss, and the special attack activates which has a 50% chance of happening. A Girtablulu has 17068 HP in multimode Ultimate, getting Demon's to hit just once will deal 12801 damage to it, leaving it with 4267 HP left over, another hit will deal 3200 damage leaving it at 1066. Which could then be finished off by a lot less damage from any other player, or yourself. Demon's can be incredibly destructive on the correct targets; Episode 2 minibosses (Gibbles, Gi Gue, Mericarol, Merikle, Mericus) and Epsilon, Episode 4 Dorphon, Girtablulu. These should be your primary targets for using Demon's, though unless you're busy with another action, Demon's can be useful everywhere.
Gifoie
Gifoie is a primary technique for Forces in multimode play. Many players will suggest to stand in the middle of a room and to spam Gifoie until the room is complete, but don't say why to do it. Gifoie itself does two main jobs; it can hit stun enemies which will not only stop charging enemies such as (Dark Bringers, Delbiters, Dorphons, and Zu), but it can also disrupt certain enemies attacks, such as a Zu that's about to roam out of bounds, or even just to stop the swing of an enemy that's about to hit another player who's already on low life, though this should not be relied upon. Sometimes group will prefer to 'group up' packs of enemies that charge in, for example Dorphons. You want to stop casting Gifioe when they are going to turn up so as to not hit them at max radius, then when the time is right, either use a last moment Gifoie, or use the special attack of Mercurius Rod.
Secondly, damage. A number of enemies in the game have a certain weakness to stacked Gifoie. Every time you use Gifoie it will release a fireball or two that will slowly spiral out from your character, subsequent casts of the technique will stack on top of each other, which can result in up to 5 overlaps nearer the caster. Assuming capped MST, and with the correct technique boosting equipment and character positioning, many enemies can be spawnkilled, or at the very least be on incredibly low HP by the time they present themselves. On top of this Gifoie can deal a respective amount of chip damage to regular grunt enemies that don't take damage on entry. Here's a list of enemies that take entry damage from Gifoie, Episode 2 is left out due to Hell being superior for everything: Episode 1; Mothvist, Gulgus, Gulgus-Gue, El Rappy. Ob Lily, Pofuilly Slime. Canadine, Sinow Blue, Sinow Red. Darvant. Episode 4; Sand Rappy, Satellite Lizard, Yowie. Merissa A.
Finally, Gifoie spamming should be avoided in areas where either above enemies don't exist, don't exist in enough quantity, or where hit stunning could be a detriment, such as on Dark/Death Gunners in the Ruins.
Resta
Resta provides a substantial heal to both the caster and everyone else inside it's area of effect. Keeping characters alive through it's use can be key to ensuring no fatalities happen during party play. However there are two situations when Resta is undesirable. One is in Episode 2, generally during Tower where a character may try to trigger temporary invincibility from their mag. They need to take at least 20% of their health, and drop below 10% for a chance to trigger their Mags invincibilty, generally they will manage their own health using personal healing items to hopefully get where they want to be. The other instance is when there is a Hunter using Dark Flow.
Dark Flow is a sword that when the Hunter using it is below a threshold of 12.5% HP, the special attack turns into a wave that shoots from the sword as 5 beams in an arc. When in close proximity to a target, all 5 beams can hit the same target dealing massive damage. Each beam deals Hard attack damage, most enemies in game can be 1 or 2 shot using this. Many Hunters are particularly skilled in not being hit, and remaining at very low health for long periods of time. During which it's advantageous to not use Resta, as they will have to lower their health again. If you're in need of healing yourself, personal heals are available, or Resta out of range of the Hunter classes. Despite this, you're playing the game, don't let other players demand what you do.
Damage Cancel
Damage Cancel or DMC. The basic idea is that if two or more packets of information on a target are going to be sent to the server, some of that information will be straight up lost. A packet can be any damage number, even 0, and any status such as; Jellen, Zalure, Arrest, Demon's, Hell, Freeze, Confuse. This mechanic is why sometimes it's best to just Zalure a spawn, and then do nothing until it's finished. Nuking with techniques can oftentimes be a detriment to a parties damage as your 250 damage will cancel out their 1000+ crits resulting in far less damage being dealt. This is also a reason as to why it's not always a good idea to Jellen and Zalure everything. Zalure should be used on anything that would generally last more than a combo, Jellen should be avoided unless that target is going to cause significant damage to your players, notable mobs could include Goran Detonators, though most groups would have them frozen and killed as primary targets. There are spots in the game where spamming Rafoie is a good idea, but they aren't all too often.
Death/Dark Gunner
These are a tricky enemy in which they are invulnerable to regular attacks when they are sparkly, but they can be damaged by techniques and Demon's. However damaging them in this way will make them get up and move around the room, making them refresh their invulnerable timer, making them generally last much longer. Making them move around should be avoided unless you know you can finish it off in one or two casts, otherwise let someone else either freeze or arrest it.
Beginner strats
As a fairly new player, even if you only manage to keep up Shifta and Deband buffs, and throw out a Zalure every now and then on tougher mobs, no-one would ever complain. It's the bare minimum that is expected from a Force, and the amount of damage and comfort contributed to the team as a whole just with those four Techniques is invaluable. Another thing to note is communication. If you ask players "What more can I do?" A lot of the time more experienced players will try to help as someone seems to have an interest in trying harder to be better.
Intermediate strats This is where you might start to be a bit more offensive through the use of Demon's weaponry and Gifoie stacking depending on the enemies being faced and what rooms you're in. For example there's some rooms in Desert quests where there either isn't enough spawns, or the final few spawns are devoid of any Lizards, Rappies, or Merissa, so Gifoie is less valuable. If the rest of your party is competent, a simple Zalure to let them handle everything may suffice better. That way you could be moving towards the next room to prepare for the first few spawns.
Advanced strats Weapon damage Gunners Merge swapping
Character Material Plans