Is weapon switching actually encouraged?

[~Frostbite~]

I've only played the game for very few months and always thought weapon switching is encouraged. Am I actually wrong about that? I know each weapon has their own strengths and weaknesses and because of that some are great for bosses, some for clusters of mobs. But does that really matter in builds like mine that's pure damage min-maxed? I always use my soaring blades (Etoile) because there's 1k difference of pwr between it and the other weps I have.

What I'm wondering is do you guys, vets, just think "screw it" and use the most dmg weapon most of the time until a different approach is needed. Or do ya'll actually switch around because "this is for bosses, this for mobs, this for long PP battles etc."?

[AN BIFFED ELF!!!!]

Hero class has some photon arts that are just literally weapon switching after an attack, so yes

PSO1 would later on allow quick weapon equip for switching in situations so it's been encouraged for almost decades now.

[~Frostbite~]

Originally posted by AN BIFFED ELF!!!!:

Hero class has some photon arts that are just literally weapon switching after an attack, so yes

PSO1 would later on allow quick weapon equip for switching in situations so it's been encouraged for almost decades now.

I see, guess I'll just grab some better weps so all of them are on the same level somewhat. This makes me glad cause I do like the weapon switching dynamic instead of just spamming the same 4 photon arts lol

[ZEARTH]

Originally posted by ~Frostbite~:

Originally posted by AN BIFFED ELF!!!!:

Hero class has some photon arts that are just literally weapon switching after an attack, so yes

PSO1 would later on allow quick weapon equip for switching in situations so it's been encouraged for almost decades now.

I see, guess I'll just grab some better weps so all of them are on the same level somewhat. This makes me glad cause I do like the weapon switching dynamic instead of just spamming the same 4 photon arts lol

This is only really exclusive to Hero though. Most people simply build around a singular weapon type so they don't waste Skill Points on weapons they rare use. For example, Jet Boots and Soaring Blades have quite a few skills that ONLY benefit boots or blades. So, a lot of people just say "screw it" and dump everything in one or the other and then only use their preferred weapon.
Other classes like Hunter which only costs 3 points for all gears don't mind mixing and match though.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by S k E L L _ :

This is only really exclusive to Hero though.

Not any more. A lot of the new scion classes run a form of weapon switching mechanic.

[ZEARTH]

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Originally posted by S k E L L _ :

This is only really exclusive to Hero though.

Not any more. A lot of the new scion classes run a form of weapon switching mechanic.

Haven't played Lu because grinding before NGS drops sounds painful but I believe it.

[Nope]

Originally posted by S k E L L _ :

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Not any more. A lot of the new scion classes run a form of weapon switching mechanic.

Haven't played Lu because grinding before NGS drops sounds painful but I believe it.

All Scion class aside Hero doesn't need weapons switching, you can use whatever weapon you want and stick to it. Though each of them have a different strong point
Etoile for example
Dual saber: consistency damage and very sticky, easy to play, all you need is to keep an eye on attack and a sticky, trigger happy finger on weapon action key (bind it in setting)
Soaring blade: fast weapon with highest damage potential, sticky and a bit harder to manage than dualsaber
Wand: just lock-on and spam PA, very good at mobbing

Luster are the same as Phantom and Etoile, just rather than weapons, it's weapon element

[Xaton]

and i noticed some the photon arts on new classe slike etoile and stuff are some the old weapon arts from portable 2 and 1 series like the double saber slice dice on etiol where its ring of blades. think it may been that or twin sword which i think most got moved to double blade or soaring blade.

[Moon Rabbit]

The only classes that benefit from weapons switching, that I know of, are Hero, Bouncer, and Luster.

For hero, weapon switching is part of the job design. You have three photon arts that are literally made for smoothly switching to different weapons. It's the only way to build hero time efficiently.

Bouncer also benefits because they get enough skill points to spec into both weapons. Soaring Blades are good for mobbing, Jet Boots are good for bosses. Though personally I tended to stick with JBs.

Phantom, you can do everything with Rod.

Not sure about Etoile.

Luster benefits from switching to different gunblades that have different elements.
Fire/Dark are good for melee/bosses, Ice/Light is good for range/defense, Wind/Electricity is for AoE and mobbing.

[Rogue]

Only real purpose for weapon switching? PP batteries. One weapon to deal damage and the other focused on super fast PP regen.

[Kossy]

It's situational.

Using the now dated examples of Anga and Phaleg, they're designed to encourage you to use multiple weapons/elements or suffer reduced damage. While many classes don't NEED different weapons at all times, you'll still generally WANT multiple weapons to be effective.

This is especially true for older classes as their weapons are designed to have glaring holes and specific roles covered by other weapons. Hunter partisan, for example, has the highest damage potential out of all Hunter weapons but relies heavily on combos and eats PP like Google Chrome eats RAM. Ranger rifle is utter trash at mobbing compared to launcher, yet rifle is so good at bossing that ignoring one or the other is an absurd thought. Knuckles, TDs, and Double Sabers all have their unique best times to use them and trying to play Fighter without knowing when and how to use each of them is gimping yourself. Even Forces will generally weaken themselves if they don't use thrown talis well but you also won't always be in situations where throwing the talis is viable and rods provide a stronger power for your compound techs.

Contrast Gunner, where you'll never actually touch rifle because playing at mid/long range is the exact opposite of how the class is designed or Phantom where Ilgrants go brrrrrrrr. It's not always something you'll need to do but having more tools is normally going to be a far better idea than having less.

[VanillaLucia]

The only class who actively encourages weapon-switching if you wanted to maximize damage is the Hero because each of their attacks and photon arts have a decay on how much meter is built for the Hero Gauge. When the Hero Gauge is maxed out you get access to their signature skill (Hero Time) which puts them into a buffed state and a state where you can boost their power further (up to about +999 for each stat if I recall) and also activate Hero Time Finish for massive damage. In order to build the gauge efficiently you are encouraged to swap weapons and cycle through your photon arts but because this isn't fully committing to games like Devil May Cry (the Hero Gauge works similarly to how the Style gauge is built up in that repeating attacks does not contribute to the gauge) you don't have to fully go ham on using each photon art once and then swapping weapons just to keep things moving. The Hero can definitely get away with using two weapons (or just one if you use the Sword) but their overall access to Hero Time is significantly faster if you utilize all three weapons.

Of the original classes the only class I can really think of that "encourages" multiple weapons and splitting your skill tree investment into them are the Bouncer and Braver who are both hybrid classes. They each have active skills that buff their weapon and boost your capabilities on a time-limit but upon those expiring you do "normal" damage (which is not optimal for those weapons) so you are forced to switch weapons or stall around until those skills are available again. For example, the Braver has "Katana Combat" which grants invulnerability for a period of time and allows for the Braver to access a finishing attack after building up enough slashes in that duration while greatly increasing their ability to track enemies. They also have "Rapid Shoot" for the bow which turns all normal shots into a triple shot which is effectively how you maintain your photon points with the bow and restore your photon points without a PP battery. Using the bow without either of these is extremely lacking when you have to shoot three times as many shots restore your photon points manually and is so much slower than having a quickly-charged triple shot netting you back around 50 photon points when it normally only gives back about 10-15 photon points. The Bouncer has similar skills in the form of Rapid Boost (increases the Jet Boot's Power for a period of time) and Photon Blade Fever (doubles the number of photon blades cast when shooting photon blades). Subclasses like the Luster being played well (as in maintaining voltage on their combo counter) can negate these cooldowns entirely.

Otherwise you have classes like the Hunter, Fighter, Ranger, Force, and Techer who can utilize multiple weapons and have use-case scenarios depending on player preference. The Gunner can also use multiple weapons but their main strength and skill tree largely supports the Twin Machineguns (and a Gunner without the Twin Machineguns is highly questionable to me because everyone else is better with everything else unless you had some sort of niche utility such as using a Rifle to pre-fire at enemies for something like the Endless Quests or Time Attacks). The other weapons you can use with these classes are more of the sort of flavor of combat you want to run and end up filling in holes that the other cannot fill so you tend to want to carry them around and swap to them where you can such as how the Hunter's Partisan can skip phases on certain bosses like Dark Falz [Double/Gemini] or how the Fighter's much more situational and restrictive weapons can be used for dealing with stationary or more mobile enemies (though the Fighter is not so great with mobility).

If you were able to get them at some point because the Global version is lacking some very big utilities, you may want to pick up the Genon weapons with S2/S3: Lucent Adversity as abilities installed on them. Each one (Lucent Adversity has an S2 and S3 version) restores 15% of your photon points upon taking damage of any sort. With two of them you will gain 30% of your photon points back upon taking damage. Genon weapons end up causing self-damage when you use photon arts or techniques so you can easily use very quick attacks to simultaneously restore your photon points without being stuck to using normal attacks or waiting for them to be restored. If you do not have a means to do so, you can also pick up certain Jet Boots that have Strike Gust pre-installed and usable without the Bouncer class so you can easily have a means to cast Shifta on yourself. Similarly but impossible on global as far as I know, you can pick up an all-class katana that has Asagiri-Rendan/Morning Mistreaver baked into it so you can zip around the map at high speed and at high-efficiency for photon point costs. This is an Old-Type weapon that was never released in Global as far as I know so Global players are missing on a very highly convenient speedrunning tool for Endless Quests and Time Attacks. I believe this si the same case for a series of weapons that facilitated very fast recovery of your photon points as long as the weapon was sheathed which came from Emergency Quests skipped in the global version.

[~Frostbite~]

Originally posted by Kossy:

It's situational.

Using the now dated examples of Anga and Phaleg, they're designed to encourage you to use multiple weapons/elements or suffer reduced damage. While many classes don't NEED different weapons at all times, you'll still generally WANT multiple weapons to be effective.

This is especially true for older classes as their weapons are designed to have glaring holes and specific roles covered by other weapons. Hunter partisan, for example, has the highest damage potential out of all Hunter weapons but relies heavily on combos and eats PP like Google Chrome eats RAM. Ranger rifle is utter trash at mobbing compared to launcher, yet rifle is so good at bossing that ignoring one or the other is an absurd thought. Knuckles, TDs, and Double Sabers all have their unique best times to use them and trying to play Fighter without knowing when and how to use each of them is gimping yourself. Even Forces will generally weaken themselves if they don't use thrown talis well but you also won't always be in situations where throwing the talis is viable and rods provide a stronger power for your compound techs.

Contrast Gunner, where you'll never actually touch rifle because playing at mid/long range is the exact opposite of how the class is designed or Phantom where Ilgrants go brrrrrrrr. It's not always something you'll need to do but having more tools is normally going to be a far better idea than having less.

I never realized older classes encouraged it more (except for obvious later class Hero). Never invested into the bow when I first started, starting with Braver, because my rng pwr was just not reliable since I min-max for mel. But yeah I can see that now, I tended to use the gunblade more often for mobs and then always bossed with the katana

[Kossy]

Yeah. It's a noticeable holdover from the game's earlier days that's still around to a varying degree even with the many buffs and changes the game's gone through since then.

For another example, look at skill trees. Ignoring Hunter's absurd 271 SP required to max out all their skills, Ranger has it pretty bad too at 215. Contrast the much more recent Summoner's mere 168 or Phantom which only would need 133 and you can pretty easily see a blatant shift from the old "large skill trees with many pitfalls that force you to choose carefully and make you burn SP on skills even if they're important" to the more modern "so yeah grab everything that isn't static +stat increases and don't worry about needing to dump too much SP to max out your skills".