Overview
How to not suck at PSO2 NGS. ‘the things the game never told you.’
Guide:
1. Read everything in the tutorial segment. I’m not repeating any of those.
2. Do all daily quests and weekly quests every day.
3. Attend every UQ you can.
4. Mobs in battle zones can drop PSE Level Down in addition to PSE Level Up. The chance of Level Up is higher for E/T marker areas and the chance of Level Down is higher for unmarked mob groups, so avoid hitting mobs which aren’t at a E/T marker at all costs even if you have to take a detour to do so, and abandon all mobs to switch to the next area the moment the E/T disappears from your current area. PUG players not efficiently hitting PSE groups can screw over a battle map’s chance of ever hitting a PSE Burst, so don’t be That Guy. The insidious thing about this is that a E can hop even before all the mobs in its group have been killed, so watch the number below it and dash away once the number becomes three digit.
6. Sell every weapon you have that doesn’t have a Fixa affix, isn’t a Silver/Gold Sword, or a Resurgir. Reason being that it’s cheaper to buy Silver Swords off the player shops, grind each other with those until Lvl 20, and then grind your weapons with 5x Lvl 20 Silver Swords plus the login bonus’ +10% Great Success Rate item than to use normal weapons for grinding. On that note, use your own Silver Swords for grinding, dumping in the Storage when you have no active weapon to grind. Gold Swords on the other hand are used for obtaining +10% augment rate items from the exchange shop.
7. Skills that declare ‘Main Class/X Weapons only’ require the Main Class condition to be met. So you can’t Photon Flare on a Techter/Force even though the slash in the game tooltip seems to indicate you can. It’s a trap. And obviously, anything that declares Main Class only is Main Class only.
8. Subclasses take an unconditional 10% malus to damage, and . If you’re intending to main a weapon, consider making that the main class unless you really need a main class skill in the other class. Shifta/Deband on Techters (5%) can partially cover for this and might be worth it if nobody else in the party is a Techter, but it doesn’t work very well for solo.
9. You can only multiweapon weapons of the same series name, not rarity. So for a lot of combinations, you can only multiweapon ☆☆☆★ at if you use Resurgirs. This is the main reason the Resurgirs cost more, not their potential as some jokers indicate, because…
10. You should try to iFrame (escape with invulnerability frame) attacks with weapon actions instead of dodging as they generally activate faster, often deal damage, sometimes regenerate PP, and most importantly, generally don’t move you out of position. The worst thing to do when a boss aggro is on you is spin the boss like a madman as this will screw over the damage from any aerial combatants, your Rangers trying to hit their weak spots, and your Forces trying to hit their weak spots. If you absolutely have to dodge, try to do it forwards or backwards rather than sideways if the aggro is on you.
11. Make sure you’re constantly at full personal mag rare drop bonus by using the regional mags. Prioritise the one which also gives rare drop bonus for the whole server and when that’s full, prioritise those your ingredients have point bonuses on for the day.
12. Make sure you’re constantly food buffed. In general, you want one of each of the Crisp and Rich fruit, and 4 pieces of Crisp and Rich meat each.
14. Aim for Fixa Attack/Fatale Lvl 1-3, the Note corresponding to your Attack type, the Soul corresponding to your Attack type, the II augment corresponding to your Attack type, Alts Secreta II and a level 3 potential unlock. This will tide you over all current content efficiently, while you can start saving resources for better affixes in the next gear tier.
15. Feed every ☆☆☆ or higher armor piece without a Fixa intrinsic to your ☆☆☆★ armors. The ones you get from the break-all-red-chests quest. Those give +1% damage potency each, which sounds weak, but… are the strongest armors currently in existence for damage potential without importing from old PSO2. The ☆ armor pieces don’t justify the cost of grinding. The ☆☆ is a your-mileage-may-vary thing depending on prices of the other armors in player shops (if Theseus costs 3000 or below, it’s cheaper per xp, and if tier 4 armors cost 8000 or below, it’s cheaper per xp). And the pieces with Fixa intrinsics are for selling to other players.
16. Swap for a different subclass once it hits 15 while training your main class, as it stops getting XP, until all other classes you ever intend to play as mainclasses are at 15, then swap to training all mainclasses to 20 one at a time. While class Excubes are needed for Lvl 4 potential, the potency increase is minor (and the weapon will eventually be obsolete) while the levels will never be obsolete. Swap back to Excube farming after you’ve maxed out every class you ever intend to play as a mainclass. Unlike PSO2 the subclasses don’t appear to contribute stats to the main class and there isn’t a stat bonus for maxing the classes yet, so it’s not imperative to max them all out, but swapping classes early will let you class-switch and keep your armor units equipped if you pre-grind your next main class to 12 (or even 15) before you actually play it.
17. Tech specific – charging every tech is lower dps for some techs than spamming the techs and regaining PP from rod attacks, or in the lightning/ice trees, doing the 6 uncharged + 1 charged rotation. Uncharged Zonde in particular hits a ton of targets and can wipe out a group faster than exploiting elemental weaknesses one by one.
18. Dashing and gliding wipe out PP regeneration. This may or may not ever be relevant as it’s still faster to dash and then normal attack to recharge rather than just run normally, but just be aware of it. In particular, natural PP regeneration is worth a lot less than it looks, because most of the time that you aren’t actively using PA/techs, the PP you get back from attacks is a lot more than the basal regeneration. Rod Forces are an exception as they can natural-regenerate in the middle of charging with the skill taken.
19. It does not appear to be possible to Double Jump once the game client is aware that the ground below you is lower than the ground at the point which you jumped. There’s a bit of lag to this effect, but essentially if it’s height you need, jump earlier further from the edge of a cliff so that your second jump is permitted before you’re forced to glide instead. One of the Cocoons will screw you over trying to get a ★★★★★ rating if you’re not aware of this as it actively penalizes gliding, but this is also relevant for cliff scaling for your daily Trinite mining.
20. Don’t die.
That’s it. If you want to be good, I’m afraid I can’t help with that as I’m not exactly a top-line player (if anything, it’s unlikely that any one player can write an expert-level guide for more than one main class), but these will ensure you’re not a liability, at least.