PSO2 Episode 5 is shaping up to be a controversial one. Right at the start, some huge nerfs and buffs changed the gameplan of some classes completely. The new class, Hero, despite the fancy “advanced class” moniker, has the most idiot-proof playstyle of any class by far.
Heroes are kind of OP
That distribution is perfectly normal for a new patch, the question is whether it’s going to stick. I’ll probably hold on doing a guide, since Hero’s basics are very basic, and the advanced quirks are still being discovered.
At this point I seriously don’t know what to say about Hero other than “take any skill that looks useful in the first 5 rows, then spam whatever feels broken”. The class practically plays itself. Using Twin Machineguns’ normal attack all the way, and reloading when necessary is a viable way to play. Hero’s skill floor is kind of low too. Hero Counter doesn’t feel as tight as Dive Roll or Gunslash dodging, while being much more rewarding.
…at least they don’t have as much raw DPS as Fighter or Gunner, even if they have way longer range, instant projectiles and faster than Orbit regen right?
Old classes
I tried to make Bullet Bow work. The Banish nerf is hard to recover from though. It’s still not stellar against mobs, and now it’s very inefficient on bosses. A single Banish – Sharp Bomber – Nemesis combo sets you back by 122 PP. That’s a lot of buffed Asagiris. I’ll probably focus on Katana more on my Braver now.
I feel bad for Techer. In one swoop, it lost Banish, Maron and had its compounds put on a timer. TeFi can Tech Arts JA Ragrants with the buffed Brilliant Ilgrants at least. Nothing to write home about though.
Gunner is actually much better at low Chain counts now, but worse at high Chain counts. The cooldown reduction is nice too. Feels like a slight buff, but business as usual.
Force has a lot of potential that I want to try. Dual element Fire/Ice or Lightning/Ice is possible, which opens up a lot of Tech Arts JA options for FoFi. Ice has always been a balanced element. Its weakness is its main boss killer, Ilbarta, which needs 175PP to do any real damage. Something like Lightning with an insanely buffed Nazonde can do a lot of “right here, right now” damage for very little PP. There’s huge buffs to Ice and Lightning in general, so FoFi with PPC ring has potential to be very strong.
Three years of balance passes have largely forgotten about Bouncer. I feel kind of bad for it.
Overall, I’ll probably play FoFi and Hero more this episode. Hero’s brain-deadness is admittedly a bit of a turnoff though.
