New Expert Block Requirements

During the recent PSO2 Station, it was revealed there’d be an additional requirement to enter Expert blocks:

A new title will be added which requires you to have 12* rear, leg and arm units grinded to +10 and equipped. This title will be required to enter Expert blocks from the 7th of June

So to recap, all the requirements will be:

• Clear floors 1-5 of Heaven and Hell
• Have a +35 13* weapon or lv120 pet
• Have +10 12* units

This new requirement has created quite a stir, possibly more-so than the weapon requirement. But why?

Getting 12* Units

With a few exceptions, getting 12* units is entirely down to luck. There are no collection files for them so if you’ve been unlucky so far you might not have a full set of 12*s even if your gear is otherwise solid.

But as I said, there’s exceptions to this rule and I’m gonna go over the main ones.

2017 Badge Units

I know, these units are absolutely terrible and no one in their right mind would wear them into a quest. However, they are a pair of units that are guaranteed to get. You’ll need 50 Weapons Badge 2017 for each one.

If you want a unit that’s not absolutely terrible, you could head to PVP and farm Battle Coins to get yourself a Shine Red or Shine Blue unit. These units aren’t actually that bad, with Blue focusing on HP/PP and red on Attack.  However, these items are, for whatever reason, only temporarily available. You have until the 9th September to pick em up, which is plenty of time but it still feels arbitrary to me.

This will cover your Leg and Rear units so now you’re just short an Arm unit. I’m afraid the arm unit is going to be a might trickier to get…

Gix Arm Unit

As far as I know, this is the only 12* arm unit you can “work” towards, though this may be difficult for most people gearing up to get. To get it, you’ll need to clear Ultimate Amduscia in less than 7 minutes. This is no small feat, particularly as most of the people who will be going for this title are people who don’t have great gear in the first place.

You could argue this acts as an effective choke point for people attempting to get into expert blocks on face value; Clear this difficult quest with an S-rank and you gain access! But in practice I doubt it’ll work like that, because really it’s effectively RNG. Instead of the RNG being on the drop it’s going to be on the quality of the other 11 people who happen to be running the quest with you. As hard as you could try, you’re not S-ranking this quest on your own.

You also have the added difficulty of finding 11 other people to run the quest with in the first place…

You could get lucky in your attempts and obtain a 12* Deadlion Arm but don’t count on it.

Itsuki and Rina Arm Units

Most people who ran recent seasonal quests probably have a stockpile of these units as-is. If you don’t, you might find this is the first 12* unit you get, because they seem to be given out at a pretty decent rate whenever you come across an Itsuki x Rina or Itsuki x Soro E-trial. However, this is still RNG and probably not a viable farming target, I just figured it’s worth mentioning because you may already have some.

Itsuki’s unit (blue) is a pretty decent defensive unit, providing 150 HP. It’s good for all classes, really.

Rina’s unit on the other hand is geared more towards ranged types, so I only really advise Rangers and Gunners invest anything into it.

So aside the complications of obtaining 12* units in the first place, the next issue is the same as the one that plagued the +35 NT weapon requirement:

My Current Gear is Better!

Currently, Saiki, Austere and Orbit units are perfectly viable at end-game and for the large part are more effective than 12* units. For players who invested a lot of Meseta into their affixes, they’ve felt no pressure to go and upgrade to a full 12* set.

Add to this that 12* unit drop rates are so abysmally low that they might not have found any yet and this requirement seems set to bar players with exceptionally good gear in favor of those who just picked up whatever crap they found or just plain Xie units.

This is why it’s the same problem as the weapon requirement; a player with a crappy +35 Revolucio weapon is let in while a player with an exceptionally well affixed Austere weapon (which is still solid at endgame, though is now beaten out by Zeinesis/Qliphad and Fornis alike) is barred from entry! Heck you could just raise a pet to lv120 and enter an expert block with any old shit.

This is what makes these Expert block requirements run counter to their own purpose: They encourage cheap shortcuts for entry rather than enforce an effective test to separate novice from expert.

Thoughts

This is a difficult problem they’re trying to solve; they want to make harder content and for that they need a better measuring stick for player performance with which they can tune said content. It’s particularly difficult in a game where player performance can vary so hugely due to so many different factors (class loadout, skill trees, gear, affixes, Mag stats, access to Team Tree buffs and of course skill).

I think the main concern with this is your progress could be halted by RNG and the idea that your worth as a player is measured by the roll of a dice isn’t a comfortable one. For now, getting a 12* Arm Unit is pretty much entirely luck unless you happen to know 11 other people you can run Ultimate Amduscia with.

However, this is really just under the conditions we have currently. We don’t know what content they might add down the line that might make meeting these requirements easier but then that has the danger of running into another issue; If the expert block requirements are too easy to meet, then are they really an effective barrier to keep novices out?

I am starting to wonder if segregating the player-base like this was really a good idea in the first place. One effect it may have is to put off returning players from returning at all, because they may not meet the expert block requirements yet and to do so will require them to put up with a potentially painful grind in the regular blocks which struggles to pass the content required to get the gear they need to get.

 

Rideroid Quests

The Vegas update added a brand new type of quest, which is essentially a “score attack” mode. As the name suggests, it heavily involves the Rideroid vehicle so you’ll need to become familiar with using them. I’ve written up a short guide on how to ride your ‘roid here.  In this post I’m going to go over the basic mechanics and general advice for doing well in this new quest type.

Overview

---

 

You’ll need to score as high as possible, as your score directly influences the rare drop boost at the end of the quest. You have 10 minutes from the end of the teleporter countdown to get as many points as you can. Kill enemies and clear E-trials to score points.

During the quest, you’ll get events called “Emblem Time”. During these, collecting emblems will boost the % number next to the score. This number is your score multiplier, so the higher it is the better. This % is not your drop rate boost, that’s all on the score. 

You can also raise the score multiplier by killing rare enemies  (+25% each) and rare bosses (+100% each). The maximum boost limit is 9,999%.

There are six variants of the Las Vegas Rideroid quest; 3 each for night and day. There’s not really a significant difference between them aside layout and the song being played. These variants are rotated on a daily basis.

Scoring

---

 

The following chart is a direct translation from the one present on Swiki:

Diff.	Enemies	Miniboss	Boss	Etrial Clear (Max)
N	10 20	100 200	200 400	1,000 20×Kills
H	20 40	200 400	400 800	2,000 40×Kills
VH	30 60	300 600	600 1,200	3,000 60×Kills
SH	50 100	500 1,000	1,000 2,000	5,000 100×Kills
XH	100 200	1,000 2,000	2,000 4,000	10,000 200×Kills

Red numbers are for rare variants. All scores are before bonuses are applied.

As you can see, completing E-trials is by far the greatest way to get points, with killing being the only other way to get them at all. The first priority would appear to be to kill enemies to spawn E-trials and then clear those E-trials as soon as possible.

You’ll still need at least one person collecting emblems of course, as this will scale your score multiplier.

Emblem Time

---

 

Emblem times occur at set times during the quest:

• Bronze emblems will appear at 9 minutes remaining
• Silver emblems will appear at 6 minutes remaining
• Gold emblems will appear at 3 minutes remaining.

Additionally, Rainbow emblems will appear from time to time. One at 8 minutes, one at 7 and one at 5. They can then start appearing randomly from 1min30s onward, with their frequency greatly increasing at time ticks down. While their locations are randomly chosen, the locations themselves are pre-defined. With enough practise, you can learn where these emblems can spawn which will greatly speed up acquisition.

Rainbow emblems are marked on the radar as above. It will not tell you their vertical location however!

Collecting them will raise your score multiplier by the following amounts:

• Copper will raise the bar by 1 point
• Silver will raise the bar by 3 points
• Gold will raise the bar by 7 points
• Rainbow will raise the bar by 50 points

It’s advisable to have very few people dedicated to collecting emblems (as few as 1 even) outside of Emblem time, as killing enemies to trigger E-trials is very important for racking up a score. So you need most of the MPA killing at all times. This is especially important in the final minute of the quest as this is when your multipliers will be their highest.

E-trials

---

 

Where the big scores are! Clearing E-trials as fast as possible is the main priority if you want a good score.

Attack/Duel

Just kill the enemies, straightforward. Includes T-15 Tanks, Devils Trailers, Night Gears, Train Ghidoran, Vegas Illusia and Cougar NX for bosses/minibosses. Typically it’s one boss or two mini-bosses. There is of course also the killing regular enemies kind.

These will occasionally change over into rare enemy kill trials. You have a certain amount of time to kill as many of these enemies as possible. Enemies will continuously respawn in this time.

Repel the Unidentified Organisms

This is the one where Jellyfish will spawn all over the place. You’re meant to just plough your Rideroid into them, but if you have Forces in the right place you can actually use TPS teching to destroy them instead (as a few techs when aimed this way have infinite range). Despite their huge resistances to anything that isn’t a Rideroid they have very low HP even on Extra Hard. The issue with this approach is that the Jellyfish may be hiding behind buildings or otherwise out of line-of-sight for Forces, so you’ll want to spread out or get on a very tall building to do this.

Destroy the Floating Fortress!

It’s essentially a static version of the Jellyfish E-trial. Slam your Rideroid into the blue shield generators (the blue pillars pictured above) and then slam it into the exposed core a bunch of times until you win. The shield generators are displayed on the map so refer to that if you get lost.

Beware that the barriers and laserbeams will damage your Rideroid and can fairly easily destroy it if you’re being careless.

Smash yourself into the core a bunch of times once it’s exposed to win!

Unlike the jellyfish, the generators have a lot of HP so you’re better off slamming your Rideroid into them than abusing infinite range Techs. Note that their HP is high enough that one hit from a Rideroid might not be enough to destroy them but it usually is. Similarly, the core will require at least 10 hits to destroy it.

 

Thoughts

---

 

It’s a fun enough type of quest though to do well in it you’re going to have to get good at using the Rideroid, which can be a bit of a learning curve in its own right. It’ll also get easier to get high multipliers as you learn where the emblems can spawn. The rest is kind of random and while bad luck won’t cheat you out of getting a good score it may cheat you out of breaking 2 million+.

Personally, I find the quest very irritating as a melee class. For one thing, enemies have lowered HP and are very spread out. This means that enemies are likely to be long dead before you can get in range to contribute much in the way of kills. That said, melee can contribute a good deal of punishment to mini-bosses and bosses still. As killing speed is the most important thing however, I feel like this is a quest there Force/Techers once again shine strong.

It may also suffer from being a 12-man quest, as finding full groups for it may become difficult to impossible down the line. While you can run it in a smaller group you are at a major disadvantage if you want the higher scores. This alone may prevent future groups from settling for say, 8/12 but who knows. This community can be unpredictable.

Anyway I hope this post was helpful enough and good luck getting those top-end scores. Let me know if there’s anything I got horribly wrong or if you have some information that I don’t.

 

 

Rideroid Controls

With the introduction of the Las Vegas field came an entirely new vehicle; the Rideroid. Aside sounding remarkably unpleasant (I mean your character stands on it kinda like they have another kind of roid…) the controls were a bit of a shock to a lot of players, especially those expecting the vehicles to control like AIS.

This is gonna be a quick post going over the Rideroid controls. You’ll need to get used to these if you want to score well in the Rideroid quests for obvious reasons.

Official Video Guide

---

There’s actually an official video guide here:

While it is all in Japanese, it’s got a fairly comprehensive visual demonstration of what not to get the most of your ‘roids.

 

Controls

---

A lot of people’s first thoughts when getting on a Rideroid was “how the heck do I actually move forward?”. It’s the first button on your action palette: the X button if you’re on a 360 controller or left-click on a mouse. This is the big thing to get used to in my opinion; your normal controls for moving forwards and backwards on foot will move you up and down on the Rideroid. This can be a bit jarring at first but you should soon get used to it.

Gettin on your Roid:

Simply walk up to an orange terminal and interact with it. You’ll immediately get on a Rideroid. Getting on one will switch you to a separate HP and PP bar just for the vehicle; your own HP and PP won’t change. If your Rideroid runs out of HP then it’ll explode and you’ll be forced to dismount. If it runs out of PP you just won’t be able to perform any actions on it but it can still move around.

Fly through the green rings to restore 60% of your HP and PP.

These rails will move you along at max speed along a pre-determined track for free. You can exit at any point by simply hitting jump and a direction. You can actually enter these tracks at any point as well; any ring along the way will attach you to the track.

Steering

To steer, use your Camera controls (or your general movement controls if you’ve switched from TPS mode). This is the right analogue stick on controllers or by moving the mouse. Note that getting on a Rideroid will automatically switch you to TPS mode.

Going Forward

Hit action 1 to go forward, hit it again to go forward faster which will drain PP at a slow rate (around 2PP/sec). Hit it a third time to enter a “braking” state. While in this state, your turn angle is considerably tighter so consider using this to turn around quicker!

Dodge

Hit jump while holding a direction to dodge in that direction. Doing so will cancel your current movement state, so you’ll need to hit action 1 twice again to carry on moving. This costs 5 PP to execute.

Quick Turn

Hit shift-action 1 to do a 180 degree turn. Again, this will cancel your current movement state, so you’ll need to hit action 1 again to move. Costs 5 PP.

Dismount

Hitting action 2 will dismount from the Rideroid. If you’re a clumsy fool like me you’ll do this accidentally a bunch. Note that dismounting will switch you to free camera mode if you’re still in TPS mode.

Dealing Damage

Simply flying into things will deal a small amount of damage (greatly enhanced against E-trial targets like Jellyfish and shield generators). You can deal a larger amount of damage by dismounting, as it’ll hurl the Rideroid forward after you jump off.Aiming with this is a little fiddly I’ve found.

That’s it! It’s not a terribly complicated thing but regardless it’s different enough from the rest of the game that you’re going to need some pointers at least initially. Let me know if there’s anything I missed out on.

Vegas Update: Skill Rings

A bunch of new rings were added with the Vegas update. This post’ll just gather as much information as I can about them. Most of the information here is based on the swiki page, so credit to the people updating that data firstly and secondly said data is incomplete as of writing this post so expect things to change over time.

---

Wand Element Change

Lilipa Rock x3, Lapis Lazuli x1

Changes your wand’s element if you fully charge a tech with it. Finally, Techer wand mains can get away with having one wand instead of 6! There is the very important drawback however of the fact that Zanverse, Megiverse and Zondeel will also change its element. If you can live with that, this could save you an incredible amount of grinding. If you already have rainbow wands then you can just skip this I guess.

Shifta, Deband, Resta and Anti will not change your element. Namegid and Nabarta are also excluded.

This ring works with Wand Gear Element, which means the status effect you could inflict changes with the element of the last charged tech. Nifty.

Swapping weapons will return the wand back to its original element.

Has an 80% element conversion rate at Lv1, capping at 100% at lv20.

---

L / Standing Sign

Vopal Rock x3, Tourmaline x6, Lambdagrinder x15

De-mystifies Standing Snipe. That’s it. Not recommended as you can just let other people finally work out the nuances of Standing Snipe then forget this ring even exists.
Two things it’s confirmed so far are that the end of Grim Barrage is enough to set up Standing Snipe. PAs after Heel Stab and Shift Period will also gain Standing Snipe.
Reverse Tap breaks Standing Snipe in its final frames.

Essentially, use this to get used to Standing Snipe but once you’ve gotten a handle on its nuances you can just discard it. As a result, I wouldn’t invest any materials beyond the initial purchase.

There’s seemingly a rumour that Standing Sign doesn’t work properly on conveyor belts, but I haven’t had the means to confirm it myself.

---

L / Another Launcher Mode

Earth Rock x3, Las Vegas Diamond x1

Changes the Launcher basic attack to a parabolic curve; mimicking the Grenade weapon from PSU. It also increases the damage and splash-damage radius of normal attacks.
Judging from video footage, it seems like the skill may have been intended to be used in first person only. It seems particularly awkward to try to use normally or with lock-on.

It boosts damage by 101% at lv1, caps at 110%
It boosts splash damage radius by 102.5% at lv1, caps at 150%

---

L / Short Mirage

Vopal Rock x3, Tourmaline x6, Lambdagrinder x15

Shortens the duration of Mirage Escape. That’s it.

---

L / JB Element Keep

Earth Rock x3, Las Vegas Diamond x6, Lambda Grinder x15

Allows Jet Boots to keep their current element even if you use weapon actions. Using this ring will effectively disable Elemental Burst.

---

L / Bullet Bow Homing

Vopal Rock x3, Tourmaline x1

Causes charged Bullet Bow normal attacks to home in on targets.

I have no idea what the numbers mean, but er..

“Induction” is 30 at lv1, caps at 150.
“Induction time” is 0.1s at lv1, appears to cap at 1s at lv10.

I’ll change this if I find out the significance of these numbers later on.

---

L / Mate Lovers

Lilipa Rock x3, Topaz x1

Increases the speed of consumption and the amount of HP recovered of mate items. This is a very powerful ring, turning mate usage into a much more practical endeavor at higher levels of the game. It’ll scale better with higher HP builds.
It only boosts healing amount from lv12 onwards, adding a multiplier on top of the Mate item’s inherent multiplier. For example, at lv12 it’s 102%, which when multiplied onto a Monomate’s default 30% this becomes 30.6%.
It dooes not affect Automate Halfline at all! It only changes the power of manually consumed mate items.
It does stack with Braver’s Quick Mate skill, making for extremely fast self-healing.

Boosts mate usage speed to 110% at lv1, caps at 160% at lv11.
Boosts the portion of health recovered by mate items to 102% starting from lv12, unknown cap (110% at lv16)

---

R / Heal Share

Earth Rock x3, Las Vegas Diamond x1

Shares a portion of the healing you recieved with other players.

Works just like the Bouncer skill, though curiously it seems to double-stack for Summoners. If you use Resta on both yourself and the pet, the pair of you will share a portion of your healing with other players. This effect apparently scales with Pet Sympathy.

Shares 1% of healing recieved with other players. Unknown cap (6% at lv6).

Cannot be used by Bouncer main or sub.

---

R / Just Reversal Recover

Earth Rock x3, Las Vegas Diamond x1

Recovers HP on a successful Just Reversal. A very good effect as it effectively cancels a portion of the damage you just took after being knocked back. Assuming that damage didn’t kill you of course.

Starts at 5% of your max HP. Unknown cap (10% at lv11)

Cannot be used by Braver main or sub.

---

R / Adrenaline

Vopal Rock x3, Tourmaline x1

Extends the duration of recieved pulses from Shifta and Deband. Like the fighter skill, unless you were hit by a Techer using Extend Assist (or you have that yourself) you’re still capped to 1 minute. This ring can make maintaining self buffs much easier.

Cannot be used by Fighter main or sub.

Starts at +10s per pulse and caps at +30s per pulse.

Thoughts

---

So yeah, Ranger’s still kind of getting the short end of the stick here. That said, they did add some interesting rings this time around which is generally nice to see. The likes of Bullet Bow Homing, Another Launcher Mode (as awkward as it may be) , Wand Element Change and Jet Boots Element Keep are all game-play altering things which is the kind of thing I’d prefer to see out of this system. Granting access to class skills is still interesting enough, mind, it’s just if you’re going to have a system like this which changes up how the classes play then gameplay altering things are going to have a much longer lasting impact than say “20% more damage on normal attacks”.

Going into the future however, as more rings get added I wouldn’t mind the addition of a command that lets you change between Skill Rings quickly.

Let me know if I got anything particularly wrong or if you have more data to share.

 

Ring System Release Info

This is just gonna act as an information gathering spot for ring abilities and what their numbers and requirements are. As information is still being found out, expect the contents of the post to change dramatically throughout the coming days.

Feel free to share any information and to let me know if there’s anything wrong in this post.

Let’s just hope that this system doesn’t get abandoned like Photon Art customization I suppose!

Gathering 

---

• Gathering is the only way to get materials for both cooking and ring crafting/upgrading. You’ll typically need planet rocks and a specific gem to craft a ring.
• You get 100 stamina for Fishing and 100 stamina for Mining per character.
• Each action consumes 10 stamina from their respective bars.
• The stamina is only consumed once you actually get the item. If you’re interrupted for whatever reason, you won’t lose any.
• There’s a small chance for a “One More” to occur. This is RNG giving you a free gathering attempt.
• The bars take roughly 5 hours to fully recharge, meaning you can get 3 free gathering attempts per character in a given 10 hour window of time.
• This amounts to around 30 Mining and 30 Fishing attempts per day for free. 10 more if you’re willing to push to 15 hours.
• You can restore Stamina through the use of “Stamina Drinks”, which can be obtained in-game and bought for Arks Cash
• Levelling up either gathering skill restores 100 stamina for them. This can overfill, so no excess stamina is lost this way.
• The cost of a Stamina Drink via Arks Cash increases wich each purchase. The first two cost 50AC. The ninth costs 350AC and the tenth onwards costs 750AC each. The price resets at midnight JST.

 

Fever

---

Each gathering attempt has a chance to trigger a Fever. Each time you gather increases your “combo” meter, which increases the chance of triggering a Fever. If you hit 25, a Fever is guaranteed.

During a fever, a gathering node will not expire. You’ll also get more materials per attempt and have a greater chance at rare materials. Attempts still cost Stamina, however.

Fever combos can be built via either fishing or mining.

Given it costs 10 stamina per attempt you have a total of 20 attempts in which to trigger a fever per session. As it requires 20-25 to stand a good chance of getting a fever, you’ll often either be out of Stamina or very low on it by the time you actually trigger a fever. It’s arguably the most irritating part of the system’s design.

Due to the above, t’s recommended that you drain your fishing bar before you start mining. This will give you the best chance to trigger a fever while mining, which is preferable as you’ll need rare mining materials for rings.

Naturally as those spending Arks Cash can get higher combos, they’ll have a significant advantage with regard to getting rare materials quicker. As such, they’ll also be able to max out their rings faster than non-paying players. While annoying, it has yet to be seen how significant a time advantage this is. Let’s just hope the whales share data on the skill rings they rushed to max out so the rest of us can learn which rings are terrible and which aren’t.

Ring Material Costs

---

• L / JG Sonic Arrow –
  • Naberu Rock x 3, Ruins Amethyst x 1, 30000 Meseta
• L / JG Heavenly Fall
  • Vopal Rock x 3, Coast Sapphire x 1, 30000 Meseta
• L / JG Rising Flag
  •  Earth Rock x 3, Tokyo Opal x 1, 30000 Meseta
• L / DS Whirlwind
  • Earth Rock x 3, Tokyo Opal x 1, 30000 Meseta
• L / TD Air Chase
  • Naberu Rock x 3, Forest Emerald x 6, Lambda Grinder x 15, 30000 Meseta
• L / Knuckle Chase
  • Naberu Rock x 3, Ruins Amethyst x 6, Lambda Grinder x 15, 30000 Meseta
• L / Front Stylish Roll
  • Earth Rock x 3, Forest Emerald x 1, 30000 Meseta
• L / Katana Gear Guard Release
  • Vopar Rock x 3, Coast Sapphire x 1, 30000 Meseta
• L / Tech Charge Parrying
  • Earth Rock x 3, Forest Emerald x 1, 30000 Meseta
• L / Recast Reverser field
  • Earth Rock x 3, Tokyo Opal x 1, 30000 Meseta
• L / Hunter Gear Save
  • Naberu Rock x 3, Forest Emerald x 1, 30000 Meseta
• L / High Time Keep
  • Naberu Rock x 3, Ruins Amethyst x 1, 30000 Meseta
• L / Short Combat
  • Naberu Rock x 3, Ruins Amethyst x 6, Lamda Grinder x15, 30000 Meseta

Right Rings

• R / Massive Hunter
  • Vopar Roxk x 3, Coast Sapphire x 1, 30000 Meseta
• R / Crit Strike Striking
  • Earth Rock x 3, Tokyo Opal x 1, 30000 Meseta
• R / Crit Strike Ranged
  • Vopar Rock x 3, Coast Sapphire x 1, 30000 Meseta
• R / Crit Strike Tech
  • Naberu Rock x 3, Ruins Amethyst x 1, 30000 Meseta
• R / Killing Bonus
  • Earth Rock x 3, Tokyo Opal x 1, 30000 Meseta
• R / Perfect Keeper Striking
  • Naberu Rock x 3, Ruins Amethyst x 1, 30000 Meseta
• R / Perfect Keeper Ranged
  • Earth Rock x 3, Tokyo Opal x 1, 30000 Meseta
• R / Perfect Keeper Tech
  • Earth Rock x 3, Forest Emerald x 1, 30000 Meseta
• R / Photon Flare
  • Vopar Rock x 3, Coast Sapphire x 1, 30000 Meseta
• R / Attack Advance
  • Earth Roxk x 3, Forest Emerald x 1, 30000 Meseta
• R / Ele PP Restore Field
  • Earth Rock x 3, Tokyo Opal x 1, 30000 Meseta
• R / Boost Slayer
  • Earth Rock x 3, 3000 Meseta

Ring Ability Information

---

Information on this section is still coming out.

For Right-rings, be aware that if your main or sub-class has the ring-skill, the ring’s effect will not apply.

Some of this data was obtained through data-mining and may not match the numbers shown in-game. The numbers themselves should however be accurate. This is particularly relevant to the Crit rings as there seem to be rounding issues with the displayed numbers.

L / Twin Dagger Air Chase

• Twin-Dagger normal attacks and some PAs will chase the currently targeted enemy as long as you’re mid-air

L / Knuckle Chase

• Knuckle normal attacks and some PAs will chase the currently targeted enemy as long as you’re on the ground

L / Front S-Roll

• Allows you to perform a front Stylish Roll with Twin Machineguns

Power	101%	102%	103%	104%	105%	106%	107%	108%	109%	110%
	111%	112%	113%	114%	115%	116%	117%	118%	119%	120%

L / JG Rising Flag, Sonic Arrow and Heavenly Fall

• Activates a PA on a successful Just-Guard
• Swords get Sonic Arrow
• Partizans get Rising Flag
• Wired Lances get Heavenly Fall

PP Consumed on use	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11
	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	0
Power	175%	176%	177%	178%	180%	182%	184%	186%	188%	190%
	192%	194%	196%	198%	200%	204%	208%	212%	216%	220%

L / Hunter Gear Save

• Reduces the gear loss rate of all Hunter weapons
• Fury Gear’s conditions must be satisfied for this to work
• Sword Gear takes longer to decrease. Wired Lance and Partizan consume less gear.

Gear Loss rate	75%	74%	73%	72%	71%	70%	69%	68%	67%	66%
	65%	64%	63%	62%	61%	60%	59%	58%	55%	50%

L / Double Saber Whirlwind

• Certain Double-Saber PAs will have a chance to activate a whirlwind
• Bound by the whirlwind limit.

Probability	5%	10%	15%	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%	45%	50%
	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	95%	100%

L / High Time Keep

• Has a chance to prevent a single hit from deactivating High-Time’s bonus.
• It won’t protect from additional hits.
• If you get hit at all, it won’t preserve your eligibility for One More Time

Activation Chance	5%	10%	15%	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%	45%	50%
	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	95%	100%

L / Tech Charge Parrying

• Nullifies incoming damage for a period of time while charging a tech with a Rod, Talis, Wand, Jet Boots or Tacts.

Duration(s)	0.03	0.06	0.09	0.12	0.15	0.18	0.21	0.24	0.27	0.3
	0.33	0.36	0.39	0.42	0.45	0.48	0.51	0.54	0.57	0.6

L / Katana Gear Guard R

• Allows you to activate Katana Gear by holding Guard for 3 seconds
• Gear loss rate is increased if activated this way
• Gear gain rate is massively reduced if activated this way

Gear loss rate	300%	290%	280%	260%	240%	220%	200%	180%	160%	150%
	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%
Gear gain rate	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
	1%	2%	3%	4%	5%	6%	7%	8%	9%	10%

L / DB Snatch 

• Adds damage to DB’s movement shift actions

Power (Unsure of notation)	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
	13.5	14	14.5	15	15.5	16	16.5	17	17.5	18

L / Recast Reverser Field

• Reduces the re-cast time for Reverser Field

Recast time reduced to	70%	69%	68%	67%	66%	65%	64%	63%	62%	61%
	60%	59%	58%	57%	56%	55%	54%	53%	52%	50%

 

R / Massive Hunter

• Makes you immune to flinch, knock-back, knockdown and launch while active
• Also reduces incoming damage
• Cannot be used if Hunter is your main or sub-class.

Active Time (s)	15	15	15	15	15	16	17	18	19	20
	20	20	20	20	20	21	22	23	24	25
Recast (s)	120	118	116	114	112	100	100	100	100	100
	100	100	100	100	100	95	94	93	92	90
Incoming Damage Reduced to	99%	99%	99%	99%	99%	99%	99%	99%	99%	99%
	95%	94%	93%	92%	91%	90%	90%	90%	90%	90%

R / Perfect Keeper Strike, Range and Tech

• Boosts damage as long as your HP percentage is above the border
• Skills that reduce your Max HP such as Limit Break and PP Convert will not break this skill as long as your HP percentage is above the border of your new Max HP.
• Cannot be used if Gunner is your main or sub-class

Damage Boosted to	101%	101%	101%	101%	101%	102%	102%	102%	102%	102%
	103%	103%	103%	103%	103%	103%	103%	103%	103%	103%
HP Border	100%	99%	98%	97%	96%	96%	95%	94%	93%	92%
	92%	90%	88%	86%	84%	82%	80%	78%	76%	75%

R / Killing Bonus

• Restores PP for each enemy that dies within range
• The data lists this as 5 units. I don’t know how big a unit is in-game.
• Cannot be used if Ranger is your main or sub-class.

PP Gained	1	1.2	1.4	1.6	1.8	2	2.2	2.4	2.6	2.8
	3	3.2	3.4	3.6	3.8	4	4.2	4.4	4.6	5

 

R/ Critical Strike Strike, Ranged and Tech

• Increases critical hit damage and critical hit rate
• Cannot be used if Fighter if your main or sub-class

Critical Damage boost %	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	1	1
	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	3
Critical rate increase %	1	1.5	3	3.8	4.8	5.8	7.8	8.8	9.8	10.8
	11.8	12.8	13.8	16.8	17.8	18.8	19.8	19.8	19.8	19.8

R / Boost Slayer

• Increases damage dealt to and reduces damage received from boosted enemies.

Damage boosted by	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%
	3%	3%	3%	3%	3%	3%	3%	3%	3%	3%
Damage reduced by	1%	2%	3%	4%	5%	6%	7%	8%	9%	10%
	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	19%	20%

R / Photon Flare

• Increases T-ATK for a limited time
• Cannot be used if Force is your main or sub-class

T-ATK boosted by	150	150	150	150	150	150	150	150	150	150
	155	160	165	170	175	180	185	190	195	200
Recast (s)	100	95	90	85	80	80	80	80	80	80
	80	80	80	80	80	74	73	72	71	70
Active Time (s)	20	20	20	20	20	21	22	23	24	25
	25	25	25	25	25	26	27	28	29	30

R/ Attack Advance

• Increases damage of normal attacks
• Cannot be used if Braver is your main or sub-class

Normal Attack Damage boosted by	1%	2%	3%	4%	5%	6%	7%	8%	9%	10%
	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	19%	20%

R / Element PP Restorate Field

• Activates a field that increases PP recovery for hitting an enemy with their elemental weakness
• Cannot be used if Bouncer is your main or sub-class

PP Gain	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
	1.2	1.4	1.6	1.8	2	2.2	2.4	2.6	2.8	3
Active Time (s)	20	20	20	20	20	25	26	27	28	29
	30	30	30	30	30	35	36	37	38	40
Recast (s)	120	118	116	114	112	100	100	100	100	100
	100	100	100	100	100	90	88	86	84	80

 

R/ PP Convert

• Decreases Max HP and increases passive PP recovery rate while active
• Cannot be used if Techer is your main or sub-class

PP recovery rate	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
	1.1	1.2	1.3	1.4	1.5	1.6	1.7	1.8	1.9	2
Max HP set to	75%	75%	75%	75%	75%	75%	75%	75%	75%	75%
	74%	73%	72%	71%	70%	70%	70%	70%	70%	70%
Recast (s)	130	128	126	124	122	120	120	120	120	120
	120	120	120	120	120	118	116	114	112	110
Time (s)	10	10	10	10	10	11	12	13	14	15
	15	15	15	15	15	16	17	18	19	20

Upgrading your Rings

 

---

To upgrade your rings you’ll need to do two things:

• Get EXP to raise the soft level-cap on your rings (to the hard cap of lv20)
• Take your ring to Dudu with materials, grinders and of course your meseta.

Rings gain 5% of any EXP you get. You’ll need around 31M EXP to max out a single ring (which translates to about 1.6M Ring EXP). Note that the Ring EXP display doesn’t update live. You will need to change area in order for it to update.

Upgrade materials match whichever materials the ring required you to gather to create it in the first place. If it needed Earth Rocks and an Opal to make, it’ll need those materials again to grind it.

• Lv1 – Lv5 require 3 x Rocks and 5 x Grinders
• Lv5 – Lv10 require 3 x Rocks, 1 x Gem and 5 x Grinders
• Lv11 – Lv20 require 3 x Rocks, 1 x Gem, 5 x Grinders and 3 x Lambda Grinders
• All levels also cost 30,000 Meseta per attempt (except R / Boost Slayer)
• Materials are lost on failure.

 

Sources

 

Where possible I’ll link sources. Some information is skimmed from forums and chatrooms and some is from in-game observations. Other information still is from data-mining.

Bumped.org Gathering Mini-Guide

Fulldive.nu – Skill Ring Info

Swiki page on Skill Rings

Extremely Lonely: Solo XQ

The somewhat anticipated Extreme Quest update is here and it’s just a 10-floor solo quest. All I’m gonna do here is summarize the floors and briefly write my thoughts up on it. This should act as sort of a guide, but I’ll link some others I find towards the end of the post if I find any.

Each run costs 5 Extreme Passes and you’re allowed up to 5 clears per week per ship. Clearing stages 1-5 counts towards this limit, so at most you can only do 4 runs of 6-10 this week. The quest doesn’t “clear” like the other Extreme Quests, so you only need to unlock 6-10 once.

The Quest!

Stage 1:

---

 

Stage Order: Don’t take damage for 30s.

Enemies: ALL the Nyaus

Consider kiting them if you’re not confident a stray hit won’t get you.

---

Stage 2:

---

 

Stage Order: Defeat 3 enemies from the front

Enemies: Knight Gear -> Dragon Ex -> Gigur Gunnegam.

Nothing much to say about this. Just defeat the bosses as they appear. Their HP is lower than normal, so they should die pretty fast.

---

Stage 3:

---

 

Stage Order: Break 3 parts of Diabo Igrithys

Enemies: Bird Darkers -> Nove Ringadarl and Agnis -> Diabo Igrithys

Don’t kill all the birds at the start, or you’ll have to deal with both Nove Ringadarl and Diabo at once. Kill the Bird Darkers first. When Ringadarl spawns, simply break its rings then burst it down via its weakspot. Then kill the Agnis to spawn Diabo. Beware that Diabo has its un-nerfed AI so its much faster than the variant you’ll find in Ultimate Naberius. Try to break its wings and horn to clear the stage order, though it can be tricky with some weapon types.

---

Stage 4:

---

 

Stage Order: Defeat 5 x Bonta Bearahda via their weakspot

Enemies: 6x Bonta Bearahda, Toy Darkers and various Kuronites

A very easy stage order. Simply tap a bear to make it turn around and show you its weakspot then smash it. You even get an extra bear so you’re allowed to make up to one mistake.

---

Stage 5:

---

 

Stage Order: Defeat 1 Rappy in 60s

Enemies: ALL the Rappies and Gryphon Gels

The Rappies can actually be tricky to keep an eye on with an angry Gryphon running amok. Consider using Nifta to gather all the Rappies in one place to take them out. This’ll make hitting them again when they get up significantly easier.

And you’re done with the first part! Nothing too horrible here, as long as your gear is OK you should have no issue clearing these five floors. The next 5 ramp up the difficulty…

---

Stage 6:

---

 

Stage Order: Defeat 2 enemies via weakspot.

Enemies: 3 x Catadran and 1 x Vol Dragon

A potentially hectic floor if you don’t keep your calm. I find it’s easier to focus down Catadrans to kill them via their tails or out-stretched bodies. Just keep an eye out for Vol Dragon’s fire breath, though you could consider breaking his tail or freezing him to reduce the chaos a bit.

---

Stage 7:

---

 

Stage Order: Don’t die.

Enemies: Bug Darkers, Fish Darkers and Bird Darkers with Decol Malluda and Wolgahda. Defeating Wolgahda and Fish Darkers will spawn Elder’s avatar, defeating that will spawn Falz Hunar. Defeating Bug Darkers will spawn Apprentice Doppleganger. Defeating Decol Malluda and the Bird Darkers will spawn Loser Clone, which will spawn Falz Angel on defeat.

There are a few very dangerous enemies on this floor, so the main aim is to spawn the Falzes in a controlled manner. I suggest going Apprentice -> Hunar -> Angel, as Apprentice and Hunar both have low HP and can be burst down fast. Angel can be a bit more awkard and has considerably more dangerous attacks, so killing everything else before him will make things considerably easier. Loser’s Clone is the least dangerous avatar, so clearing out all the birds then leaving him til after you’ve defeated the others is a potential strategy.

Interestingly, Elder’s Avatar will attack Darkers and other Dark Falzes as seen here. It has little strategic value but it’s fun nonetheless!

---

Stage 8:

---

 

Stage Order: Do not heal for 100 seconds.

Enemies: Naberius and Ult Naberius Trash. Defeating Oodan etc will spawn Rockbear and defeating Rockbear and will spawn Bayaribbles. Defeating wolves will spawn Snow Banther/Banshee and defeating them will spawn Falka Leone/Leopard. Defeating Malmoths will spawn the ultimate variety.

This can be an extremely hectic floor, but most enemies here have significantly reduced HP so they should die fast. Consider breaking Falka parts to keep them stun-locked.

---

Stage 9:

---

 

Stage Order: Do not take any damage for 60 seconds.

Enemies: Matoi and Persona (Sword)

Both enemies have very low HP, but you may want to kite them around for a minute before you engage just to clear the stage order safely. If you’re technical enough, you could burst them down before they get the chance to attack but its a considerable risk as failing the order will make Stage 10 difficult to impossible to clear.

---

Stage 10:

---

 

Stage Order: Defeat Profound Darkness from the front

Enemies: Casra, Claris Claes, Huey and Regias. Anga Fundarge, Dio Hunar and Profound Darkness.

This is where shit gets real. This stage is significantly harder than the rest, so brace yourself.

Ideally you want to burst down all four NPC enemies at once, but if this isn’t possible then prioritize Casra and Claris as they’re by far the most dangerous. Beware that both Huey and Regias can both lock you down. Consider using Nifta at the start to group them all up and AoE them down.

Those guys are already hard, it just gets rougher from here. Anga Fundarge spawns next and you will want to DPS it as hard as you can. It absolutely needs to die, and unfortunately for you it seems to have considerably more HP than any enemy in the quest. If you can’t kill it fast enough, Dio Hunar will spawn during the fight which will make things significantly more difficult. Anga lacks its weapon-resist ability, so you won’t have to worry about that.

If Dio and Anga are up, keep prioritising Anga but beware of Dio’s attacks as they can hit extremely hard. Also beware of doing too much damage to Dio as if you accidentally send her to Phase 2 things may get impossibly difficult. Consider using a photon blast during Dio’s nuke if you’re not confident you’ll dodge it. Once Anga is dead, defeat Dio by breaking her arm cores then bursting her down while she’s stunned.

After Dio is defeated, Profound Darkness will spawn. It’s the solo-part of the raid fight, only with higher HP, slightly altered attack pattern and a massive boost to damage. Beware that if Anga still isn’t defeated by this point you’ll be fighting both of them at once. The Profound Darkness needs some caution, as their over-end attack comes fast and will deal around 1300 damage if it hits you. Don’t ever sit still! Keep moving and DPSing as best you can and you should clear it.

This stage is so much harder than all the others that I’d say it’s a little overtuned. The bosses deal too much damage and Anga has way too much HP I feel. It’s refreshing to have such a challenging encounter in PSO2, but Phantasy Star Crew may want to consider reducing the difficulty somewhat or increasing the rewards to offset this significant challenge.

---

Overall:

---

 

Ranger is going to have the toughest time here, as Weak Bullet is jammed throughout the entire quest. Some enemies also lack a weak point, meaning Weak Hit Advance won’t apply.

High durability builds and HP recovery builds may have an easier time staying alive, but don’t sacrifice too much DPS. Hunter main and subs are going to manage this quest a little easier with Automate or Iron Will (don’t take both) as even if you’re usually amazing at avoiding damage it can be tricky to keep track of the number of highly aggressive enemies present in the later floors. Braver / Hunter may be the most reliable class for this quest with its access to Katana Combat invulnerability.

As usual, a well-played and well-geared Force shouldn’t find this quest too hard. Force brings by far the highest damage to this quest at the cost of durability and life-saving skills. Use your cool-downs and compound techs wisely and you should be able to burst down any enemy before they become a major problem (even Anga). Light and Ice are particularly powerful here. Beware however that being hit by even one attack may set you up for being stun-locked to death, which can easily happen with a badly timed charge.

I would recommend having at least a 12* or at least a decent 11* fully grinded (+40, preferably damage-boosting potential), affixed and 50% element and a full set of top-end or at least special Ex8 crafted 11* armor before attempting this quest. Preferably affixed with at least 100 attack, durability affixes are still optional but they might help. This quest is tuned for end-game geared players, so having less than this may make things significantly harder though it probably is still possible to clear it. You’re also going to need to play well and play smart for this one, particularly in stages 7, 8 and 10. Bring a Half Doll as insurance, 5 passes is a lot to lose to a mistake and one mistake is all it will take on Stage 10.

---

Loot

---

 

So what do you get for your five extreme passes and clearing this reasonably challenging quest? Not a whole lot, really. You have a small chance of getting Toranas, Lambda Grinders and Photon Boosters which is nice but really their quantities are quite small for the investment. You get a decent amount of Tier 2 Extreme Quest stones of all flavours, which is a considerably faster way to acquire them than running the regular Extreme Quests. You also seem to have a decent shot as Nox weapons as well as various 10-11* weapons and units.

Like the other Extreme Quests, enemies do not have their usual loot tables and thus you won’t be able to get things like Ares Stones, Caligulas etc.

There is a small chance that Profound Darkness will drop a class sticker upon defeat. Yeah, despite the challenge you’re even subject to RNG to be recognised for overcoming it… Though I suppose you could also just wear the title for clearing it!

Like the other quests, you’re limited to a choice of 3-5 of whatever drops depending on how many stage orders you failed.

---

Other Guides

---

I’ll link some other guides here as I find them. Let me know if you have any guides.

Fulldive.nu

PSO-World Guide

---

Thoughts

---

It’s a quest that could use some fine-tuning. It’s a refreshing challenge, especially as the upper end and I do like the selection of enemies they chose for the quest. But due to the steep entry cost and level of challenge it presents, the rewards are really underwhelming. I’m also not convinced that Stage 10 is properly balanced at all, as the damage the enemies deal out there as well as Anga’s durability just seems too harsh compared to the other floors. It’s right that the final floor should be the hardest, but  it’s so much harder than the previous that it almost feels like a mistake. I’m not sure if I’d prefer them to reduce the difficulty there or raise the rewards instead, though the best result may well be a mixture of the two.

Is it worth running? If you want quicker access to Tier 2 Extreme Quest stones and Photon Boosters it actually might be. It’s actually pretty generous for both of these items. For anything else? No, it isn’t worth it.

Wet Bingo 2015 – Reverse Side

A continuation of the previous post, this will act as a guide through the reverse side of the Rainy 2015 Bingo card.

Guaranteed

---

• D-4: Speak to Claris Claes: I know, you really don’t want to. I don’t blame you. Do it though. Just put up with this annoying little shit for 5 seconds. You need an Episode 3 Mater Board active in order for her to show up.

Client Orders

• A-1, E-5: Complete Hans’ client orders: Armored Baptism and Pack Beasts. You should have this already, if not you can complete this by either killing everything in the first block of Time Attack Quest: “Marathon Training: Naberius” or by clearing the first room of Time Attack Quest: “Marathon Training: Naberius II” 3 times.
• A-4: Complete Hans’ Client Order: Giant Enemy Crabs. This one nearly qualifies as “awkward” as it requires 10 Krabahdas. There are no guaranteed packs of Krabahdas that I’m aware of, so you might need to grind it out in Arks Quest: “Wolgahda Extermination” which appears to have the highest spawn-rate of the enemy.
• E-4: Complete Hans’ Client Order: Spinning Black Tops. This requires 25 Ol Micda kills. The Time Attack Quest “Marathon Training: Amduscia” has a total of 7 in the first area (2 at D-4 and 5 at B-1). Once the Micdas at B-1 are dead, trigger the quarantine event at C-1 to see if any additional Ol Micdas spawn. If none do, you’re likely better off restarting the quest.

Enemy Kills

• A-2, E-2: Defeat Rheo Madullard and Nepto Cassadora (lv51+). Complete Free Field: Facility Exploration on Very Hard or above. Just rush to the boss.
• B-2: Defeat a Nab Rappy (lv1+): Trivial. A very common enemy in any of the Naberius Forest quests. There is a guaranteed spawn right at the start of the Time Attack Quest: “Marathon Training: Naberius”.
• B-1, B-3, B-5, D-1, D-3, E-3: Defeat Fang Banther, Dark Ragne (lv51+), Fang Banshee, Rockbear, Wolgahda and De Malmoth. Run the Time Attack Quest: “Marathon Training:Naberius II” on Very Hard+ (Hard+ for thelv20s). You will need to restart this quest multiple times.
  1. After clearing the enemies in the first room, go north for De Malmoth, east for Wolgahda and west for Rockbear. You will need to restart twice to cover all three.
  2. After clearing all enemies in the tundra area, go west for Fang Banther and east for Fang Banshee. You will need to restart once to cover both.
  3. Clear the rest of the quest to get Dark Ragne.
• C-5: Defeat Snow Banther (lv20+): Rush to the boss in Free Field: “Tundra Exploration” ..
• D-5: Defeat Zeshraider (lv20+): Rush to the boss in Free Field: “Ruins Exploration”.
• C-1: Clear Girard’s client order:Rare Rappy Species: Clear floor 21 of Extreme Training: Sylvan Wyverns.

Chance

---

• A-3: Clear Girard’s client order: Nyau That’s a Rare Species!: There is no guaranteed way to get Nyau to spawn. It seems to have a high spawn-rate in the “In the Driving Rain 3” Emergency Quest.
• E-1: Clear the Emergency Trial: Aircraft Defense: As far as I know there is no guaranteed way to spawn this Emergency Trial.
• D-2: Clear the Emergency Trial: Gift of the Storm: Requires you to clear the Umblla Emergency Trial. There is no guaranteed way to spawn this at all and to make matters worse its a fairly rare event.
• B-4: Clear the Emergency Trial: Baize Destruction: There’s a guaranteed one in Episode 1 Chapter 8: “Beginning of the End”. Choose the 1st dialogue option when meeting with Echo and Zeno. It’s a fair way into the quest, but by the end of Area 2-C one will trigger. If you have the third path unlocked, just choose the 2nd option after jumping into the telepool. This way involves having the story unlocked, however, which may be too much of a chore to do. You’re dependent on pure luck otherwise.

Note that all the Emergency Trials on this Bingo do have a chance to spawn during the “In the Driving Rain 3” Emergency Quest, but they’re not guaranteed to spawn.

Requires the Emergency Quest

---

• C-4: Clear the Emergency Quest: In the Driving Rain 3: Self explanatory.

Awkward

---

• C-2: Obtain Matter Board Ep3-4: Requires you to grind your way through the first three chapters of the story. A chore if the story doesn’t interest you (and kind of a chore if it does, frankly).

As with the other post, please let me know if any of this information is wrong or if you think you know of more efficient ways to complete nodes.

Wet Bingo 2015 – Front Side

It’s time for more bingo! This post will mostly just serve as a guide for people to complete the bingo as quickly as possible. More experienced players likely won’t need this guide, however it should be useful for those considering running through the bingo on their alts. I’ve split the nodes up into three main sections: Things that are guaranteed, things that are up to chance and things that require the seasonal Emergency Quest, “In the Driving Rain 3” to be up.

Most of the nodes are likely to be cleared during a single run of the Emergency Quest, so for the most part this post will share ways of completing the nodes while the Emergency Quest is absent.

All names in this post are matched with the English Patch where possible.

If you spot any information that’s wrong or know of any more efficient routes to clearing the Bingo, feel free to share in the comments below.

The guide for the reverse side can be found here.

Guaranteed

---

• D-1 – Complete Client Order: Native Plague!? – Run Free Field: Naberius Exploration
• B-5 – Complete Client Order: Fear of Encroachment. – Run Free Field: Ruins Exploration

By running these two nodes, you have a good chance to clear a number of the other nodes as well. Keep an eye out for green containers (node C-4).

• A-1, A-2, A-4, B-2, E-2, E-4 – Run Time Attack Quest: “Marathon Practise: Amduscia”. Kill all enemies up until the first Sil Sadinian spawn, you can abandon after you’ve killed the Dahgash there.
• B-4, D-2, D-4 – Run Time Attack Quest: “Marathon Training: Vopar”. Clear out the first spawn then follow the jump pads to the outer islands, killing anything that spawns there. You can abandon once you’ve killed all the trash Darkers. This method will additionally cover nodes A-1, A-4 and E-4.
• A-3, A-5, C-1, C-5, E-1, E-3 – Run Time Attack Quest: “Marathon Training: Naberius II”. Kill all enemies in the first room. You can abandon afterwards.
• B-3, D-3 – Buy 2 junk weapons with an element on them.Grind one and then attribute grind it. If you need to know how to do this, Bumped has a guide here.
• D-5 – Clear Xie’s Client Order: Purple Flowers in the Rain. This doesn’t unlock until you’ve cleared all her other Client Orders, and one of them requires the emergency quest. You need to collect 5 items from Frog Rappies. A guaranteed way to make these spawn is in “Extreme Training: Sylvan Wyverns”, Stage 21. This spawns 3 Rappies, so this may require at least 2 Extreme Passes. I don’t yet know their spawn rate in the “Emergency Quest: In the Driving Rain”.
• C-2 – Talk to Faina. She’s the futhest-west counter attendant in the Gate Area of the Arks Lobby.

Up To Chance

---

• C-4 – Destroy a green container. As far as I know there are no guaranteed areas to get a green container, however they are relatively common. One area that comes to mind is Block 2 of Arks Quest: “Rare Ore Mining”. This area spawns an unusually high number of containers for a quest, so it shouldn’t take long to find the container here.

Requires the Emergency Quest

---

• B-1 – Clear Xie’s Client Order: Forest Checkup. Requires you to run the Emergency Quest: “In the Driving Rain 3”.

About The Blog

---

Also it’s been a while! For most of the last year I’ve been dealing with my final year at university. The last year was not like any other year, the level of intensity was such a sharp increase it was kind of a shock. To make it work, I had to cut back a lot of hobby-time including working on this site. Now that that’s essentially over, I’m giving the site another shot. There is a metric shitload of news I’ve missed and I can guarantee I’m not going to go over all of it. I may make commentary on some of the more significant pieces of news though, which is a fancy way of saying “shit I have an opinion on”. We’ll see. Writing this blog has been enjoyable in the past so it’d be nice to have it going again.

Vopar Time Attack

It sure has been a while since we got a new Time Attack quest. With the changes to Time Attack Client Orders ensuring that new ones won’t go and destroy the economy, I hope that there’ll be more down the line. That said, how is it?

All these Hydras are giving me Guild Wars flashbacks…

Area one is a straight-up kill-fest. There’s a slight mechanic with having to go around the outer islands to clear out smaller waves of mobs in a couple of laps, ending on 2 mini-boss encounters and then a boss. Beyond that is just a room with more buttons than I think I’ve ever seen in a Phantasy Star game, with various buttons either gating spawns or gated by spawns. It’s a relatively chunky quest in terms of mob density but geographically I think it’s by far the smallest Time Attack yet. In terms of how long it takes to complete? It’s a little early to judge, as we’ve had months and for some years to practice them. Give it some time for people to get used to the run.

It’s a quest that’s more in the vein of Naberius 2 and Sanctum, as opposed to the more puzzle-like nature of Naberius 1 and Lilipa. The quest will appeal to players who want a more traditional-style dungeon run. It’s not bad, I just kind of wish we could see a return to the more puzzle-like style of Time Attacks for at least a couple of any future ones. As far as I can tell, there are no short-cuts but it’s early days, they may just not have been found yet. There is a chain killing shortcut at the start, akin to one present in Naberius 2, however.

Enemy Counts

---

Time Attack Quests are good for certain Client Orders, as they offer fixed spawns of enemies that may be annoying to find in the wild. This information may be helpful if any suitable Daily Orders or Team Orders come up.

Vid Gilos 

• Amount: 4
• Where and when: In the very first room! Spawns after the Aculpus are defeated.

Decol Malluda

• Amount: 1
• Where and when: After clearing the outer islands to a certain point, one will spawn on an outer island.

Wolgahda

• Amount: 1
• Where and when: After clearing the outer islands to a certain point, one will spawn on an outer island.

Zeshrayda

• Amount: 1
• Where and when: After defeating both Decol Malluda and Wolgahda, one of these will spawn in the first room.

The orientation you encounter the switches in, Closest summons mobs. Left and right each summon an Org Blan. Furthest summons Biol Meduna.

Org Blan

• Amount: 2
• Where and when: They’re each tied to their own giant button at the end of the quest.

Biol Meduna

• Amount: 1
• Where and when: Spawns after pressing one of the giant buttons at the end of the quest.

Others, but not including all types of monsters.

• Gul Solda: 7 total. 2 in area one, 5 in area two.
• Deue Solda: 7 total. 2 in area one, 5 in area two.
• Blundarl: 3 total. 1 in area one, 2 in area two.
• Strahda: 6 total. 4 in area one, 2 in area two.
• Tyraluda: 2 in area two.
• Doluahda: 5 in area two.
• Dicahda: 4 in area one.
• Predicahda: 1 in area one.
• Coast Oceanids: 36. All Oceanids in area one count.
• Seabed Oceanids: 36. All Oceanids in area two count.

Applicable Client Orders

---

Here I’ll list which Client Orders can be completed in a single run, as well as anything else of note. I’ll only list Client Orders which are available at all times.

Hans

• 暴威をまとう海の王 / Tyrants of the Sea: Defeat 2 Lv50+ Org Blan. Reset: 22 hours. EXP: 13,000
• 甲殻を持つ三つ首 / Three-Headed Shells: Defeat  3 lv60+ Vid Gilos. Reset: 22 hours. EXP: 13,500
• 強鋏の海獣 / Marine Pincers: Defeat a Lv60+ Biol Meduna. Client: Hans. Reset: 22 hours. EXP: 14,500
• 火弾を放つ黒甲 / Black Shells and Fire: Defeat a Lv60+ Zeshrayda. Reset: 22 hours. EXP: 14,000

Ravelle

• ブラッディ・スカフォード・Ⅲ / Bloody Scaffolds III. Defeat 1 lv47+ Wolgahda and 1 Zeshrayda. Reset: 22 hours. Exp: 20,000
• イレイザー・レポート・Ⅳ/ Eraser Report IV: Defeat 1 lv50+ Luda Sorceror. Reset: 22 hours. Exp: 9,000
• ファナティック・キリング・Ⅲ/ Fanatic Killing III: Defeat 1 Lv60+ Decol Malluda. Reset: 22 hours. Exp: 12,000

Rubert

• ヴィド・ギロスの部位破壊を！ / Destroy the Vid Gilos parts!: Defeat a lv50+ Vid Gilos after breaking the middle head. Reset: 22 hours. EXP: 11,000
• グル・ソルダの弱点は！？ / Gul Solda’s Weakness!?: Defeat a lv60+ Gul Solda via its weakpoint. Reset: 22 hours. EXP: 11,000
• デコル・マリューダの弱点は！？ / Decol Malluda’s Weakness!?: Defeat a Decol Malluda via its weakpoint on its head. Reset: 22 hours. EXP: 13,000
• ビオル・メデューナの部位破壊を！/ Destroy the Biol Meduna’s parts!: Defeat a Lv60+ Biol Meduna after breaking the tail. Reset: 22 hours. EXP: 13,000

Sadly I feel the various Darkers throughout the run aren’t numerous enough to support Ravelle’s Client Orders. All three of Hans’ area-based Oceanid Client Orders can be over half-done, so you may want to consider taking them and then finish them off elsewhere.

Of course there’s a TACO for it. Like the others, it’s on a 166 hour reset timer (so weekly). Unlike the others, there’s only one and it counts for any difficulty of the quest. It awards 160,000 Meseta and 10,000 exp, so not bad. If you play your cards right and complete all the above orders in one run you’ll net yourself 144,000 EXP before the TACO.

Franka

As her orders require items from enemies that may or may not drop, these are more suggestions. I feel like there’s not much point counting area two’s monsters given that I don’t think its especially practical to fight your way to the 2nd area if youre going to farm for things for Franka.

• ヴィド・ギロスの肉の調達 / Supplying Vid Gilos Meat: Get 5 items from Lv60+ Vid Gilos. Reset: 166 hours, EXP: 12,500
• セヴァニアンの肉の調達 / Supplying Sevanian Meat: Get 15 items from lv60+ Sevanians, Reset: 166 hours. EXP: 11,500
• タグ・セヴァニアンの肉の調達 / Supplying Tag Sevanian Meat: Get 10 items from Lv60+ Tag Sevanians. Reset: 166 hours. EXP: 11,500
• タグ・アクルプスの肉の調達 / Supplying Tag Aculpus Meat: Get 10 items from Lv60+ Tag Aculpus. Reset: 166 hours. EXP: 11,500
• 活発なアクルプスの肉の調達 / Supplying Healthy Aculpus Meat: Get 25 items from Lv60+ Aculpus. Reset: 166 hours. EXP: 11,000
• アクルプスの背びれの調達 / Supplying Aculpus Dorsal Fins: Get 5 items from lv50+ Aculpus. Reset: 166 hours. EXP: 8,200.
• セグレズンのもも肉の調達 / Supplying Seglez’n Thigh Meat: Get 10 items from lv50+ Seglez’n. Reset: 166 hours., EXP: 7,000

That’s all I can pick out for now. If there are any Client Orders that I’ve forgotten about, particularly any that can be one in one run of it (preferably lv40+ enemies) let me know.

Burning Rangers!

For the final 2 weeks of the event we gained an emergency quest (Arks Ship Fire Swirl) and a “2nd” Bingo Card. One that actually isn’t all that difficult to fill out, I’ll give a general guide shortly to the things you’ll need to do in order to complete it.

It’s helped move us along by a fairly neat amount! Blasting straight through the EXP +100% panel and closing in fast on the Puyo Mag Device.  In less than 3 days, roughly 800,000 points were gained. Of course, everyone only got the one card so I expect that to slow down considerably over the next few days. Will enough points be earned to gain a slight bonus to Dudu related activities?

---

The New Bingo Card

I could write up each node in a chart, but I think it’d honestly be more useful to just have a list of things that will guarantee completion of the card. Most of it you have some control over, so that’s good. I’ll address the things you can do any time first.

• Defeat a Krahda [C-5]
• Defeat a Dargash [D-5]
• Defeat a Cyclonehda [A-3]
• Defeat a Predikahda [E-3]
• Defeat a Breeahda [B-5]
• Defeat a Gwanahda [B-2]
• Defeat a Dark Ragne [D-2]

These nodes can all be filled out by simply doing a run of Marathon Training: Naberius II. In the first block, take the south path to fight Gwanahda. Beyond that you can complete it anyway you like, as you’re guaranteed to face all of the above monsters in it.

• Defeat a Micda [D-5]

This one can be completed in a number of places, but the most guaranteed way is to defeat the first spawn in Marathon Training: Amduscia. Once you’ve defeated the Dagacha and Kartargots, simply take the left path and a Micda should spawn.

• Defeat  a Kuklonahda [B-1]

There is unfortunately no guaranteed spawn of this monster. Your best bet is to do the first Ruins Arks Quest, “Ruins Infestation Survey” (遺跡侵食度調査). Kuklonahdas can spawn there as part of fairly common Emergency Trials.

• Defeat a Wolgahda [D-4]
• Defeat a Zeshrayda [B-4]

Both of these can be completed by simply running the quests each of them is the end boss of. “Wolgahda Extermination” (ウォルガーダ殲滅) for one and the Ruins Free Field “Ruins Exploration” (遺跡探索) for Zeshrayda.

• Complete Jan’s Client Order “Attribute Grind your Favorite Items!” (愛用品の属性強化を！) [E-2]
• Complete Jan’s Client Order “Add Abilities to your Favorite Items!” (愛用品に特殊能力を！) [A-4]

These are very easy to fill out. You’ll first need to complete a different Client Order if you haven’t already, namely “Grind Your Favorite Items!” (愛用品の徹底強化を！). Grind any item once to complete it. Then for “Attribute Grind your Favorite Items!” simply go to the weapon shop and buy 2 items there which have an element. Then synthesize them and you’re done. For the final order go to the units or weapons shop, buy two of any item that has an ability on it. Then synthesize them (result doesn’t matter, nor does the item need to succeed).

If you don’t know how to grind or synthesize items, Ricardo has a good guide on it over at Bumped.

• Complete Revelle’s Client Order: “Black Slaugher II” (ブラック・スローター・Ⅱ) [D-1]
  • Defeat 12 Kartargots.
• Complete Revelle’s Client Order: “Black Slaughter IV” (ブラック・スローター・Ⅳ) [C-4]
  • Defeat 40 Dagans, 20 Krahdas and 15 El Ahdas.  Enemies must be Lv.16 or higher
• Complete Revelle’s Client Order: “Mild Mild Murder II” (マイルドマイルド・マーダー・Ⅱ)[B-3]
  • Defeat 20 Krahdas, 15 Dagans and 8 Kartargots.  Enemies must be Lv.34 or higher
• Complete Revelle’s Client Order: “Mild Mild Murder III” (マイルドマイルド・マーダー・Ⅲ)[D-3]
  • Defeat 20 El Dagans. Enemies must be Lv.34 or higher

Revelle’s orders will either be easy to do or a real problem, depending on how much she likes your character. She’s rather notorious for being difficult a character to raise your friendship level with and you’ll need it at a certain level in order to her to even give you these Client Orders in the first place. If they’re not available for you yet, the best advice I can give (assuming you’ve unlocked all the Free Field quests and have Hard Mode unlocked) is to just make sure you complete as many of her Client Orders as you can per day.

As for the Client Orders themselves, they can all largely be completed by just running the Ruins Free Field quest although some enemies are less common. If you’re having trouble finding Kartargots, Marathon Training: Amduscia spawns 2 of them right at the start of the quest. Start it on Hard difficulty and just abandon once you’ve killed them. If you also need El Ahdas and El Dagans you may wish to press on through the quest. About halfway through the first block two Breeahdas will spawn. DON’T KILL THEM, let them spawn El Dagans and hopefully you’ll get enough of them to complete Mild Mild Murder III in one run.

• Complete Xie’s Client Order: “Because of the Darkers” (元凶はダーカーにありっ！)[E-1]
• Complete Xie’s Client Order: “Natives in the City!” (どうして！市街地に原生種の怪！) [A-1]

These two can be completed at any time by running the Border Breaking Chaos event quest. The first one can also be completed during the Arks Ship Fire Swirl Emergency Quest. Regarding which, the following things can ONLY be completed during the Emergency Quest:

• Complete the “Burning Angels” Emergency Trial [E-4]
• Complete the Emergency Quest “Arks Ship Fire Swirl” (アークスシップの災禍) on Hard or above[C-2]
• Complete Xie’s Client Order: “Burning Hearts” (Ｂｕｒｎｉｎｇ　Ｈｅａｒｔｓ)[A-5]

Completing the last item on the list there will unlock a new Client Order needed for a node, namely:

• Complete Xie’s Client Order: “Border Breaker” (境界を破壊するもの)[E-5]

To complete this all you need to do is defeat Cougar three times on any difficulty.

Finally:

• Break a red container [A-2]

There is no guaranteed way to make a red container spawn as far as I know, so you’re depending on pure luck for this one.

If I’ve forgotten any nodes, please let me know. I hope this is at least helpful.

---

Arks Ship Fire Swirl

The new Emergency Quest sees players running through the City area of the Arks Ship rescuing civilians from fires. You’ll be issued with a Rescue Gun for this purpose, which comes pre-loaded with the “Burning Hearts” potential at level 1. This potential allows the weapon to deal more damage to fires than other weapons (by a significant margin). Like other weapons, you can grind it to +10 to further unlock the potential up to level 3.

You will want to use the Rescue Gun exclusively when fighting fires. A part of the fire may flare up at some point (as it is doing on the right in the above screenshot), shoot it to deal higher damage to the fire. When the fire is out, speak to the civilians in order to rescue them. I shouldn’t really need to say it but, remember, fire is hot! Don’t go touching the fire, it will hurt you.

If you’re a gunner you have the additional option of spamming Infinite Fire. All hits from the gun seem to do the same damage, so using rapid-hit Photon Arts is the best way for Gunners to fight the flames.

The Burning Angels E-trial is extremely common in the quest and can dish out a fairly amazing amount of EXP at that. The regular version will net you 6250 EXP and 4582 Meseta, whereas the red version of the e-trial will get you 13,750 EXP ad 10.174 Meseta. This means you can go into the quest right from Lv.40 and just complete the E-trials for some significant EXP. Just ignore the monsters and farm the trials.

Outside of the E-trial, the quest seems to have a decent chance of spawning rare versions of a number of enemies, including Mi Micda, Predikahda Nero, and Dargash Nero. It can also spawn the usual lineup of Darker bosses (Gwanahda, Wolgahda, Zeshrayda and Dark Ragne) but I’m not sure if they have boosted odds of spawning rare variants or not.