Shocking? Hardly. The population has dwindled to nothing, and SoJ’s treatment of non-JP players as fourth-class citizens (we don’t even rate as second class) has been the primary drive toward the destruction of the game. Hilariously, Sega’s pushing MAG+ now – really? People are going to farm a mission knowing with absolute certainty that it will be meaningless a mere two months later?

Oh, the rants I could spew here. Pointless, though – everything that has needed to be said has been said by the player base. I’m sure Sega will pay no attention to that, however.

Well – PSU was a damned huge improvement over the remedial Diablo that was PSO. Here’s hoping the next PS* game manages to get things right. Third time’s the charm, yeah? Sadly, it’s been ten years – I have little faith that Sega will ever understand the need for regular content releases on multiplayer games.

But Sega – if you’re listening?

Get Sonic Team away from Phantasy Star. They should’ve never gotten control of the franchise in the DC/post-DC era in the first place.

Overworks (pardon, WoW Overworks) is the only team that can do justice to the memory of Algo.

The level cap has increased again, joy of joys, now I have to suffer through even more levels of Wartecher. There’s a number of new S2 missions, which pretty much demand higher levels or paying detailed attention. Detailed attention is fine; it should be paid when running in groups, but being on the PC/PS2 servers, there are no groups.

Still no supplemental update. That’s going to be a mixed bag when it hits. Wartecher is getting a significant boost, purportedly – but so are other types. Nothing will change in the Wartecher vs. the world arena – however, more ATP is always a welcome thing.

Shops are barren of good stuff; my kingdom for an Igg Crown. Did pick up a few low-end (~20-28%) Serafi-Senbas – figured it was about time, because Whithill Wings are out. I haven’t been waiting for this unit eagerly so much as it’s easy to get and/or cheap to buy, makes one nigh on invulnerable to Megid, and has HP regen. And isn’t the hideous Puyoment Aura. ;D

The Innocent Girl mission it comes from… Is *the* mission now, end of story. It’s terribly difficult until you know what enemies to take out first (Wikkos), know where to stand to avoid overpowered laser death traps, and comes with at least 200% increased experience points. To say nothing of dropping Olpads, polymers, and Par Walna like goddamned candy. Did I mention the MAG badges? Probably easier to wait for MAG+ (coming real soon now(tm)), but it’s an added bonus if you need to hit the new cap. It’s also a good wealth generator – meseta drops easily, and always in 1k+ packages.

The nice thing is you don’t need to complete the mission to get a decent reward – the last fight may be a bit difficult due to the fact that if you move, you’re likely going to eat laser death. Dying there will get you Rank A, and plenty of bonus boxes once you progress the storyline of the mission enough.

Definitely a mission you want the following for:

• High % Light Weapon
• High % Ice Weapon
• Dark Armor
• Fire Armor
• Endurance bonus unit

There’s a room which ends up with a number of those… Man, I can’t remember the name – the weird megid shooty Hive things. I can only imagine the piles of Masterclass bodies that litter the field from that room. Female numan endurance + Whithill wing == megid invulnerability, though – I’ve pretty much sat there for five minutes eating megid, with no ill effect (other than needing to cast resta :p)

It’s a fun mission; I’m usually sick of missions after the first few runs, and yet I’ve run Innocent Girl a few dozen times already. The scenery changes from block to block, and it’s got just the right blend of easiness vs. instant death to make it exciting enough to not fall asleep to.

Not to mention, it’s Wartecher friendly. The big stuff is melee friendly, there’s some small stuff if you really just have to use techs, and the Wikkos make you feel like your decent MST score is worth something. (Still, watch out for the Foi/Diga combo; you will likely not survive it.)

First, they try to pawn it off on having a low job level. So sorry, nobody forced you to switch classes. And job level has nothing to do with it – I’ve seen a good level 1 Masterforce rape everything that got near her, courtesy of her taking the time to level her techs to 41. Really, look at the stats – job level really has little to do with the power and survivability (or lack thereof) of masterclasses. Next, they try to pawn it off on, “Well, my techs/PAs/bullets are low!” This is the actual truth – these classes are completely pointless if you haven’t put the time in to raising your techs/etc. However, random parties are not the place to bring your newly masterclassed butt in with level 20 PAs and techs. You know what I did when the masterclass patch hit? I started a buff party. A buff party that lasted long after I left – it was still up and running the next night.

Now, here’s my problem. I took responsibility for myself and levelled my buffs. I had then at 20 long ago, even though I only ‘needed’ them at 11 due to how buffs work. Conversely, I raised them all to 30 this time, even though I only ‘needed’ 21 – and I even took the time to level up another set of discs for an alt so that the AFs and GTs in the group could count on my body to help their experience gains. Anyway, I took the time to do this. The Acrotechers and Guntechers and Wartechers in my group took the time to level their techs.

Everyone expects AFs to have top-of-the-line buffs. Everyone now expects me to have top-of-the-line buffs as well, too. Well, except for the players that haven’t yet heard that Wartechers are now more useful than store-bought items. :p Fair enough – it doesn’t take much effort to level most techs, or most PAs, or even most bullets. However, if I’m expected to have my techs and PAs levelled, then the n00bclasses better have their’s as well. Otherwise, yes, I’m going to be rolling my eyes and making smarmy comments, and damned be the elitist trash who’s feelings get (butt) hurt as a result.

I make exceptions, really. I don’t expect Masterforces to have all their techs at 50 over night. Primary attack techs, though, should really be at 41 – there’s not much of a point to the class otherwise. I expect Fighmaster to have decent weapons and decent PAs, and not throw mobs all over the goddamned block. I expect very little out of Gunmaster, to be honest – Gunmasters are the ‘worst’ of the masterclasses, so to speak in terms of their capabilities. Not in terms of ‘awesomeness’ mind you, but whereas there’s still compelling reasons to remain as a Fortefighter, an Acrotecher or a Fortetecher – Fortegunner has little going for it compared to Gunmaster. ‘sides, if you can spew out level 31+ rifle bullets at an increased speed, that’s good enough for me. Then again, I am biased toward loving gunners.

But if you come into a party with level 20 attack techs as a Masterforce; if you run around as a Gunmaster with level 8 lasers; if your solution to everything as a Fighmaster is lolbroga, then yes, I’m going to be irritated. Not irritated enough to boot you; certainly not enough to insult you personally. I try my hardest to avoid spreading the elitist trash disease that infects even the PC/PS2 PSU servers. But yeah, I’m going to be snorting and rolling my eyes. Deal with it.

And another thing – no, it’s not acceptable to die to the point of using up ten scape dolls per block in a party, except in very rare (megid related) circumstances. Lying face down waiting for Giresta or a Moon Atomizer is not helping the party, no matter how much you’d like to believe it is. Megid’s an exception – sure, I’ll buy that. Masterclasses have absolute crap for endurance. But if you think switching to a masterclass – which was your decision, and then dying constantly is being fair to your other party members; if you think that doesn’t give, say, Wartechers the right to make smarmy comments; most importantly, if you think that the rest of the playerbase owes you something because you chose to suddenly become a mastergimp, then piss off. You have no clue.

Rant over. Now, on to the awesomeness:

I’ve finally breached 120. This, combined with level 30 support has turned Wartecher from ‘Meh’ into ‘Meh?’ Survivability continues to be epic – I soloed Scarred Planet S2 at ~118 – before the new support level. (Let’s see a mastern00b try that!)

But the combination of S2-level mobs, support 30, and the disappearance of the Fortetecher class has called for some changes to my palette and play style.

Armor:

No major changes here, though I have started buying elemental armors. 20%+ is fine. Anything more is a waste. At ~120, only five things could kill me:

• Not paying attention
• Batteries falling out of my controller
• Megid
• Attacks capable of delivering 3k+ damage (Hi, Ma Brain’s power arm!)
• Go Vahra orgies

Armor does nothing for the first two. For megid, the only thing that’d help would be an extra slot, and my thoughts on those will follow. For the last two, higher elemental percentage won’t do squat. If Ma Brain is capable of smashing you, a few measly percent won’t make the difference. And you should never leave yourself in a position to receive four simultaneous attacks from leaping Go Vahras. (And if you do, armor again will be unlikely to save you.)

Slot types remain unchanged – head, arm, body. For megid, I had pondered an extra slot just for more endurance against S2-level SEED, but the mastern00bs have ensured that dying constantly is perfectly acceptable. Given that a female WT character is already fairly immune to megid compared to a great many characters, combined with instant-masterclass death to megid… I still see no need to waste outrageous amounts of meseta on armor along the lines of a Serafi Senba.

Head, I’ve actually swapped out – I had removed my +TP unit for a Har / Quick during my buffing party run and completely forgot it was in there. I still prefer +TP over Har / Quick for day to day use – Noszonde and Nosdiga are slow as all hell and Har / Quick does not make enough of a difference there to be worth sacrificing damage. It’s insanely useful for Diga, however, which has become my new best friend during this GBR.

Arm, I’m still using +ATP/-ATA. I intend to replace it with a Lumirus / Kaos Knight as soon as I find/buy one. (In terms of buying, I’m waiting for post-GBR, when prices will inevitably fall a la Paradi.) Moving to fighting level 150+ creatures at level 115 has given me more zeros than I would like; however, the increase in support tech levels pretty much nullifies the difference. As I’m now approaching level 130, I believe I can swap in an L/KK with no ill effect.

Body remains the general purpose anti-effect slot. Currently, I don’t leave home without Freeze and Stun resists. Freeze is the general purpose here – all four of the GBR missions have freeze-capable creatures. Stun is swapped in for Grass Assassins and Ma Brain. (I’m tempted to swap it in for SEED Ardites as well, but since they can freeze *and* stun, it’s really a toss up.)

Weapons:

I’m finding myself using single claw/Shato and Tesbra/Shato combinations more and more. This has to do with the disappearance of the Fortetecher class, and the comparative rarity of Acrotechers – Wartecher has certainly taken on a much greater support load. The Shatos usually have a combination of Resta and Giresta. In the case of the Tesbra, it alternates between Diga/Nosdiga and Nosdiga or Noszonde and a debuff for tagging. I generally go with the Noszonde/debuff for Illusionary Shaft – I’m polite and don’t feel the need to instantly kill low-HP creatures that are providing 500% experience before my party members have a chance to hit them.

Twin Claws are still my mainstay, with Renzan remaining my PA of choice. Renzan is useful in any situation, from crowd control to spike damage to singular large targets. (Especially since it’s capable of multi-hitting on those.) Despite the increased support workload, I find a level 30 Giresta still allows plenty of time for twin claw action, once you learn to let the constantly dying masterclasses fend for themselves.

I’m also considering upgrading my buff equipment from the current… purple something or other TCSM and Magical Wand. Purple is good, and the Magical Wand is hideous; but as much as I love the combination, level 21+ buffs eat through PP far too quickly. Pity we still haven’t gotten the single-photon-charge-charges-both-weapons fix.

Techs:

I’ve finally picked up Giresta, as at level 30, it finally makes sense to own. Took all of fifteen minutes to raise to level 30, too – no excuse for not having it there. Since I’m now finding myself in parties without any other support character, healing is now falling to me. I’m happy to say that level 30 support is up to the challenge.

To quote that annoying iPod commercial that I still haven’t gotten out of my head, Diga is my hot, hot sex. For day to day use, I still prefer Nosdiga, but Diga is glorious on large, slow-moving targets such as Grass Assassins and Ma Brain’s arms. The latter is most important, because if you’re soloing or dualing Ma Brain at the S2 level, at level ~120, you really need to take out an arm to be able to deliver the damage necessary to win. Especially if you’re partnered with a Fortegunner instead of a tech using class.

Man, that was an epic fight.

NPCs (hah):

The next installment of the story line missions allows one to gain Karen Erra and Ethan Waber’s partner cards. Do it. Ethan massacres hordes of small to medium creatures, as does Karen. Karen’s a bit on the fragile side, but as Sega ripped off my PSO character when designing her (seriously, all that’s missing are S-Beat Blades – speaking of which, Sega, can haz S-Beat Blades in PSU nao k thx?), she’s the logical choice for a partner NPC when soloing.

That said, I still prefer the Tonnio/Leo combination when dealing with… annoying enemies. Sleeping Warriors, for example, with the three Svaltus fight at the end. As I doubt the melee-on-large-humanoids bug will ever get fixed, I find it far less annoying to merely spam Diga/Nosdiga and Resta whilst two nanoblasted beast NPCs tear the living shit out of the Three Annoyanceteers.

In General:

So far, I’m liking the current batch of changes. WT support levels at 30 were long overdue. With the time and money I spent getting a full palette of 40%+, decently-ground claws during the MAG rewards, my melee is… acceptable. Still meh, but once I throw an L/KK in, I should be good to go. The death of Fortetecher as a class and rarity of Acrotechers combines with increased support levels to give Wartechers a very solid role in a party. It’s the equivalent of Rika vs. Raja – sure, everyone loves Raja, but he’s really not that necessary to have in your party when you already have Rika. Unless you need very bad puns, then Raja wins hands down.

My big fear here was that WT would get level 30 support and… it’d be completely pointless, as FTs and ATs can do support better. Masterclasses, for all the idiocy involved therein, have pretty much ensured this isn’t the case. Hopefully, the mass exodus of FTs and ATs won’t turn into a mass exodus from MF. I’m doubting that, though – unless a player is a complete putz, MF’s insane numbers should be very attractive… And force HP was always something to sneeze at, so the lower HP of MFs shouldn’t make too much of a difference.

I’m actually very happy with Wartecher now. I’d still like S-rank single claws, but as it stands, Wartecher has finally become something similar to Nei and Rika – which is what it should have been from the start.

My primary character became a female newman wartecher. This is natural, given my primary character in PSO was a HUnewearl, who was based off a character of mine from a Cyberpunk game. (Combined with two parts epic win due to the influence of Nei and Rika, of course.) I’ve grown to love my wartecher, despite the fact that the class does nothing well. What it can do is, everything.

Tips for surviving as a female newman wartecher:

Armor:

Make sure you have a head, an arm and a body slot. Extra slots are for gimmicks – and you can wait to play with gimmicky crap until you have a Serafi Senba. Prior to that, you want a head slot to increase your casting ability. Your tech damage is far more impressive than any other wartecher – but it’s still got nothing on a full blown techer’s ability. (Which in turn, will still suck in terms of damage output.) A cheap unit will boost your tech damage dramatically.

Your arm slot should be reserved for the best ATP unit you can afford. I’m currently using a +ATP/-ATA unit, and I do see more 0′s than I’d care to. People like to insist that you won’t see 0′s unless you’re fighting something far too high level for you – well, that’s kind of the point of playing a wartecher. However, it’s a tradeoff. I think the higher ATP makes up for it. (And I’m jonesing for the release of Lightning Beasts S2 so I can pick up a Lumirus / Kaos Knight.) At any rate, this is where your money should primarily be spent in terms of armor units – melee will be your primary method of attack, so get the best unit you can afford.

Your body slot will be used for the resist of choice for the given mission you’re running. You want to eliminate the possibility of your being frozen, put to sleep, paralyzed or otherwise disabled. Wartechers have great defense, but they don’t have hit points to spare. If you’re incapacitated, chances are, you’re dead. If everyone else is incapacitated and you’re not, you can either laugh at them or be nice and use a Sol Atomizer or three.

In terms of armor itself, I prefer high EVP over high DFP. The reason being, EVP is already ridiculously high; it seems stupid not to take it to the extreme. Of course, EVP means you have a higher chance of photon arts being interrupted – this merely means you can’t be a mindless button-mashing tool. Let the window-licking fortefighters attack from the front; use even an ounce of tactics and you’ll never suffer interruption of your PAs.

Weapons:

First, get a cheap but not terribly bad wand and TCSM. These are for your buffs. As a WT, nobody will want your buffs – yet. We’re supposedly getting support raised to 30, at which point, they’ll potentially be worth stopping to cast. Until then, you should cast them whenever you’re soloing – you might as well raise them as you go, rather than trying to raise them from nothing once the change hits. They’re also better for soloing than item-based buffs. Wartechers might be able to solo anything in the game, but they do it slowly.

Pausing to cast buffs adds little time, especially compared to using four separate items. You can’t afford to waste that many palette slots on buff items, so you’ll need to open your menu if you use buff items, or use megastarides. I dislike megastarides, due to the hp drain effect. I’ve remained standing during some boss fights simply because I don’t use megastarides – with a sliver of health that would be eaten by the hp drain.

Get a decent bow. Pistols are far more awesome, and bows will make people scream, “LAWL SPACE ELF!” at you – but pistols suck in terms of damage and range. A decently grinded Ulteri is ideal and cheap.

The rest of your pallete should consist of a mix of twin weapons and single weapons paired off with a TCSM or RCSM.

I don’t use RCSMs that much; however they are useful in a few situations. TCSMs are a must. You are not a techer, despite the deceptive type name of ‘wartecher’. Pulling out a wand is asinine in all but one situation – fighting machines. When fighting machine-type enemies, your tech damage will almost always surpass your melee damage. In that case, and that case alone, a wand is acceptable. (And I recommend an Uransara – they should be much cheaper in the immediate future thanks to the Neudaiz GBR.) For general melee-resistant enemies, you’re better off pulling out your bow than relying on your techs.

For TCSMs, grab decently-ground Shatos. These are where resta, debuffs (if used/useful for the mission in question) and a general purpose offensive spell or two will go.

Twin weapons are what you’ll primarily use in melee. You have a choice between knuckles, claws and daggers. Spears are for chumps. Go with claws, or you’ll make Nei and Rika cry.

For twin claws, go with Tenora claws. Your twin claws serve one purpose and one purpose only – massive damage. Conversely, you want Tenora vs. Yohmei out because Tenora claws have a much higher ATP. PP is of no concern with twin claws – they regenerate PP like nobody’s business. A couple of normal attacks and you can pull off a three-step PA.

Conversely, you might consider Yohmei claws for your single-handed weapon choice. The extra PP will come in handy here, since single claws do not regenerate PP nearly as quickly as twin claws. They do, however, look even uglier (if possible) than Tenora claws, and you really won’t be doing much melee with single-handed weapons regardless.

Make sure your PM is a melee type. You’ll be synthing a lot of melee weapons, and very little armor or tech equipment. It’s more cost effective for you to have a melee PM, since that’s where you’d be spending the majority of your meseta in terms of equipment.

Plan to spend a small fortune synthing high elemental percentage twin claws and single claws of every element. Melee characters get shafted when it comes to equipment – gunners and techers need merely succeed synthesis in order to have kick ass gear. Melee characters, however, have to synth over and over again, in an attempt to get high elemental percentages.

Fortefighters can get away with playing around with 30% elemental weapons – they do massive damage regardless. You don’t have that luxury. Plan to synth and synth and molest your PM until she delivers you 40% or higher weapons – you need as much damage output as possible, and the easiest way to get it is by elemental percentage.

Conversely, consider restricting yourself to A-rank weapons. Yes, you heard me. If you’re lucky, you might pull a 50% synth out of your PM on the first try. What’s more likely is you’ll go through twenty to thirty attempts before pulling out a pair of 42% twin claws. Unless you’re trading sexual favors to the Sonic Team staff, you really aren’t likely to have the meseta to try and do that with S-ranked weapons. And then there’s grinding – A-ranks are a hell of a lot cheaper to grind. The ATP difference between A and S-ranked claws is minimal, and you should already be ameliorating that by using Tenora claws.

That said, if you can get your hands on S-ranked twin claws with effects and a high elemental percentage, do it. The extra damage from a virus effect, for example, is very appreciable. Worry about getting high elemental percentage twin claws of every element first though. You’ll thank yourself when you can run any mission at your highest efficiency, rather than blowing all your money and being stuck running White Beast.

General Advice:

Use resta whenever you feel the need to. There are a great many bad techers out there who cringe at the idea of breaking their nails. Conversely, you and the rest of the melee group will often be out of range for healing by them. This is where you are full of win.

Always carry 20 Sol Atomizers. If you’re smart, nothing in a mission will disable you. You can then partake in the ignoble duty of freeing the mouth breathers of your party from whatever it is they’ve managed to get themselves afflicted with. While not the most entertaining way to spend time, you can turn yourself from, “Do we really want a WT along?” to, “Hey, it’s X! Quick, invite X!”

Always carry Star Atomizers. There are times when you really don’t want to whip out a TCSM in order to cast resta; when those times occur, you also generally do not want people dying to the right and left of you. Monsters tend not to waste time attacking dead fortefighters, rather, at that point, they’ll be attacking you.

Don’t mindlessly spam PAs. This should go for any class as well, but as a WT, you want to be reflected upon as skilled, not a n00b. Twin claws, for example – renzan whatever – it’s often beneficial to simply run through the first to second stages of the PA over and over again. Kozmali, for example, if knocked down/up/whatever, disappear and relocate. Rather than play hunt the monster, you can sit there hammering on it until it’s dead. If a techer in your party is laying down area-of-effect spells, or a fortegunner starts CHARGIN’ THAR LASA, you do NOT want to scatter creatures to the four corners of the map.

Understand your damage output. My fortegunner was, at level 60, capable of out-damaging my level 105 Wartecher. We’re talking a mid-level FG with low-level bullet PAs, here, vs. my WT with high elemental percentage weapons. Did this sadden me? Sure. Then I realized something: my FG does steady, regular damage. If and when the shit hits the fan, my WT will be cackling over the smoldering corpse long before my FG has even got the target to half health. Spike damage is almost always more useful than steady damage output – fights last seconds, rarely minutes.

Use offensive techs sparingly. Techs are near useless for anyone who isn’t an actual techer, and only acceptable for actual techers because their melee and ranged damage output sucks so completely. The main exception is, again, fighting machine-type creatures. The only other exception are mixed fights with ground and air creatures. In that case, pulling out your bow will gimp you versus ground targets. Instead randomly pop off Noszonde while continuing to engage the ground targets in melee.

Make a fortegunner as an alt. Even those of us who sneer at Sonic Team and utter the names Nei and Rika at them like curses get fed up with how bad newman wartechers are in terms of effectiveness. I find fortegunner to be the best diversion; you get to see how bad your damage as a wartecher is in general, but you also get to see how nothing equals the wartecher for sheer survivability and versatility. Fortefighter would also be an acceptable diversion, however, lasers are freakin’ sweet and can’t possibly be passed up.

Play in small, random parties as often as possible; you’ll have more fun that way. A tight-knit group that’s put together with specific classes in order to provide the maximum efficiency possible… Will simply not include a wartecher. It’s a sad fact of life. However, small random parties, where key classes are limited or completely missing are the most fun you can possibly have – simply because you’ll be doing everything and making the party wonder why they’re suddenly getting their arses handed to them after you leave.