@AndrlCh What is the range on the slashing attack? Not sure I've ever had that kick in outside of melee range, and running out of PP is a very common occurrence for me when playing pure Phantom, but I tend to hang back quite a bit when casting.

And maybe it's just perception but it seems like Phantom's Ilgrants spawns a few less "seekers" compared to Force or Techer as well. Maybe that's why it never felt all that effective to me, and why I'd often forgo using Phantom as a "caster class" and focused mostly on PAs and melee attacks with the Rod.

@AndrlCh Odd that FoTe fell behind FoPh in the first two but excelled with Ilgrants. Light mastery boost perhaps? But then pure Ph shouldn't have been nearly 200k higher without that skill.

Also odd that pure Ph did nearly 600k more than FoPh in Ilgrants as well. Does using it as a subclass really diminish it that much?

Heh, I swear I will never figure this game out. Thanks for the figures. Seems FoPh excels with Fire and Lightning (makes sense with mastery skills) but Techer's Light mastery apparently loses out to Phantom's raw proficiency.

After getting my Force up to 80 I swapped over to Techer to do the same. I am immediately reminded why I prefer Force now. They are much more nimble than Techers when it comes to casting. Specifically, when using Techs like Ilgrants or Megid, both can move about freely while charging, but no matter what you're doing Techers must stop in order to actually cast the Tech, whereas if you are jumping a Force can "drift-cast" and maintain constant motion. I believe even Phantoms have to halt their motion when casting, even while airborne, which makes Force the most nimble caster of the three.

While for the sake of completion I will put in the time and effort to grind all classes to 100 eventually, I don't see myself choosing Techer as my main "mage class" at any point. FoTe was definitely a powerful combination, in some ways even better than Phantom; the combination of PP recovery while charging AND at a much faster rate when standing still while being able to manually recover PP from a distance using Talis or Rod Shot were a huge bonus and while Phantom's "Sprint casting" makes it easier to move around while charging up a Tech, I'm not entirely sure it's the better subclass overall. I don't know if it's "bonuses" are sufficiently higher compared to Techer to make it worth the sacrifice.

Would anyone happen to know the rough figures on that? Does a FoPh's stat bonus and shorter casting time make up for the reduction in potency (the "balance" of the speed casting skill) and the significantly longer "downtime" compared to the FoTe that will be slightly slower in casting but Techs will be at full potency plus the two PP recovery skills keeping you in the fight longer with shorter downtime? Like, say you have a 15-second window to DPS. At full PP which combo will do more damage in that time just spamming the same Tech?

@Milk That is one sort of "complaint" I have about PSO2. Everything looks way too....pristine. Aside from that one set of weapon camos that looks like it was pulled out of a torture dungeon. Kinda wish there was more stuff in the game like that, and I'd like to see that in NGS as well.

@AndrlCh I'll be honest, I never really tried playing Phantom as any kind of caster. Haven't even really worked through all the PAs to see if I liked any others. Just the AoE one, the one that puts a ring of constant damage around the player when you use it after a Weapon Action. When I use Rod, that's pretty much all I use. Throw out the ring, then charge in and use regular attacks until the combined damage procs a marker. Probably the absolute least efficient way for a Phantom to use the Rod I imagine, and a complete departure from my preference of avoiding melee fights. Still have that obsession with using a scythe, though. The ring of damage does seem to stun a lot of enemies and keep me from getting swamped, which are the two main elements of why I avoid close-range, but DPS is probably in the toilet.

I probably should try a more Tech-focused approach for a bit. Take advantage of those abnormally long -frames more often. So far I've pretty much only been using them to cast Shifta or Resta, not offensively.

Like many aspects of this game, I wonder if I'm approaching them all wrong. At least from a "getting the most out of it" point of view.

@AndrlCh And even as a main class trying to make Phantom a "pure caster" is kind of a complete waste of its potential, isn't it? Although part of me wonders if the reduction in Tech power that comes with the reduction in charge time may actually make Phantom a detriment to a pure Tech class.

I tend to default to Light techniques, specifically Ilgrants for its fairly long range and homing ability, and Gigrants if I get mobbed (works pretty well for clearing Tokyo Key missions) so maybe Techer would be the better main class in that regard. I'm just not a fan of its reliance on melee combat for PP regeneration. That and because Force and Phantom both use rods I figured there must be some small bonus to using that over a Wand or even Talis (which I know Techer has almost no bonuses for and Phantom's only "Talis" bonus is limited to a class-specific PA).

I really like this whole class and subclass concept but it's seeming like it's not nearly as flexible and intuitive as one might hope.

Since getting Hero and Phantom up to at least 80 on all my characters (Etoile is still dead to me because I don't like Melee classes) I've finally started going back and building up some of their "original" classes (the ones I felt best fit the "vibe" of the character) and I've hit a bit of a conundrum.

For an "All elements" caster (swapping weapons or simply Technique pallets to focus on a target's weakness), it use to be a simple matter of mixing Force (Ice, Fire, Lightning) and Techer (Light, Dark, Wind) with a handful of stat points thrown into each "Mastery" to boost overall damage for every elemental type. Simple, straight forward, if a bit costly when it comes to SP.

But now I have Phantom as a potential subclass and I'm wondering which makes the better "All elements" main-class caster, Force or Techer? I do like the Force's ability to regain PP even while charging, but the Phantom's sped up charge skill takes away some of its utility as I no longer spend so much time charging (and I'm sure if I were to invest in the Flame Tech Short Charge fire techniques would have nearly imperceptible charge times, further rendering this skill unusable). On the other hand is the Techer's increased PP recovery rate (which when combined with Force's PP skill makes for an effective "stationary magic turret" build), but that benefits most from staying still and Phantom's Tech skills are about mobility and quick casting, so you're not as likely to remain stationary when using this as a main or even sub class.

Both Force and Techer are limited to only three elemental "proficiencies," meaning neither one on its own can truly "master" all six elements. Which then is the better option to pair with Phantom? And when I inevitably have to get my hands dirty to recover expended PP, which one better benefits from Phantom's boosts, i.e. does Techer receive a significantly disproportionate boost to make it worth surrendering Force's longer range "Rod Shot" for regaining PP?

Or does Phantom just not really work well for an all-element build and I would be better off going back to a FoTe build entirely for that particular goal?

@Dziki94 Honestly I've seen no reason to use the "set up" traps, myself. I play the ranger as (crazy thought) a RANGED class. Charging in close enough to set up and make use of a "proximity-fuse" trap is completely contrary to how a ranged class should work. At least in my opinion. I did invest in the Grenades, though. Those can be useful, especially if you get swarmed by fast mobs or run out of PP and need to recover it quickly. I toss them both during stunned/DPS phases as well if I'm close enough. Although honestly I've more or less forgotten to use them quite frequently since returning to Ranger after cycling through several other classes to level them up (still considering whether I might drop Ranger for the more nimble Hero with a focus on TMGs to maintain ranged combat options).

But yea, other than throwing the occasional grenade when I play ranger I play the long-range game. I hang back as far as I can without losing the ability to lock onto a target. I stick with Steady Shot and Slide Burst (for evasion/re positioning) when using rifle and Divine for the Launcher, with Cosmic Breaker set aside for stun/DPS stages, and THAT is the only time I "break class" and get in close. CB is useless at long or even medium range, so when there's an opening I rush into "I can smell what you had for dinner last night" range, pop a CB, dive-shot to recover some PP and break the animation lock at which point the CB round has made contact (you don't want to fire another one before the previous one hits or it will cancel it out) and I launch another, followed by another dive-shot. Rinse, repeat, run like hell when the boss gets back up, then hop into the air and spam Perfect Attacks from a safe distance and use Divine Launcher if the boss holds still long enough.

So with my play-style (and from the sound of it yours as well) "laying traps" is a waste of time. Sure, it has a certain purpose in certain, very situational, scenarios. I've never seen any reason for it. Manage your PP well enough and you won't have any need for them anyway.

@Yggranya Not just multiplayer or MMOs, but even "older" RPG games like Skyrim, the higher level gear was ridiculously "flashy/ornate." And then going back a few years more to the Final Fantasy games, looking at the "Ultima" and the other "top tier" weapons for each character in FF9 for example, they were ridiculously gaudy and overblown. It's like there's no thought of "streamlined design" being an indication of improvement. The "stronger" the weapon is, the more pointless ornamentations and protrusions need to be tacked onto it. Like the Trailblazer weapons and units in PSO2, and the various "stages" of weapons leading up to them. They're ridiculous. It seems like somewhere in the 10-12 star range is where the weapon designs are the best in overall appearance with a few exceptions in the lower tiers (like the 7-star Yasimov AR, or the Gunblade Zero) and just about everything 13-star and up is just....ridiculous.

It's the main reason why I like the weapon camo system so much and wish the weapon transmutation process wasn't so freakin' expensive (material-wise at least, needing 150 aux passes to create one transmutation pass and no reliable way to farm them in quantity). So I am definitely all for having a simple "directory" of weapon appearances and being able to essentially apply our best available stat set to the "form" we want to use.

@ZeeHero9271 I do like this idea, as in a lot of ways weapons become "fashion accessories" in their own right but become extremely limited in their "utility" in that regard as we progress.

For real is there some unwritten rule among devs of this type of game which states the higher "level" the weapon the more absolutely ridiculous it has to look?