Ethan as a Force?

[DavityKale]

Hi Guys!

I'm at the beginning of Chapter 3 which is the first time that you can switch your class (i.e. hunter, ranger, force -- I'm not sure what it's called). I am interested in possibly pursuing Ethan as a Force and I was wondering if anyone has any experience (positive or negative) with Ethan as a Force and could tell me where to buy things (like weapons and TECHNICs) for Ethan to learn as a Force, since I cannot find them in any store.

Thanks!!

[Zack Bc7]

You are not looking at the right counter then. You can buy TECHNICS for Ethan (or an extra mode character) at any of the three planet's main shops, and in the weapons store at the colonies as well. You can buy wands or rods at these places too... I can't believe you have not noticed before, just scroll down to the bottom of each store's supply list. You might find some good ones from Bruce... but I prefer Nuedaiz the most.

Also Maya will give you a TECHNIC if you take her on certain free missions and get an S-Rank

[reynard]

You may want to avoid it actually, mainly because in Story Mode all weapons have massively nerfed PP and you will run out of PP so fast all the time it's frustrating. Ya you can buy Photon Charges but those cost lots of $$$ especially early in the game. About the only point of Force in Story Mode right now is to see all the TECHNICS we don't have yet :\

[Zack Bc7]

You may want to avoid it actually, mainly because in Story Mode all weapons have massively nerfed PP and you will run out of PP so fast all the time it's frustrating. ;
have found that this can be remedied by simply using rods instead of wands. They do cast slower, but have significantly higher PP and higher PP regeneration as well. Of course for this to work smoothly you need to carry at least 2-3 high quality rods aroud at all times, but I find it worth it if you like playing as a force.
In extra mode a have FOnewearl in the upper levels that I am very happy with. Just go earn some money with cheapy wands then buy 2 or 3 of the 50k meseta rods from Neudaiz. It is not like getting meseta is hard offline, you can quite easily make 100k + in and hour once you hit about level 30.

[Zack Bc7]

Hi Guys!

I'm at the beginning of Chapter 3

Oh shoot... I missed that the first time. It is possible that the weapons and discs are not yet available to you (as more of these become available as you progress within the main story). I don't really think my strategy will help you as long as you are stuck in chapter 3. Sorry man, but what I suggest only works well as you become much stronger.

For an easy force, wait till you are stronger
For a slight challenge, persue one as soon as you can, and try to keep up


Sorry if I am not helpful

[halikus]

I would put off turning force until the decent techs are in the shops, chapter 3 has hardly any unlocked and makes it very hard for you to s rank the trials. id stick at a hunter untill the good techs show.

[DavityKale]

thx!!

so, can u guys recommend when u think is a good time to switch to a force?

[Earthsunderer]

Chapter 6 or 7. Everything else is a tiny bit too early, in my opinion.

[Obe-Ith]

Im not turning force till i can get much further on in the game, when things become cheaper.

Though if you do look in the book they say playing a Force is Advanced :P

So makes sense for it to be harder than playing the standard, "lets hit everything with my sword" style hunter.

[MasterofDeath135]

yeah, i made the mistake of switching to FO as soon as i could =/ First few missions were a pain with the low pp count but doable, especially if you dont care about s-ranks.but once i was able to pick up a few rods. it became alot easier. Techs in offline do about 3-4 times as much damage as online.

[Somniloquy]

I restarted Story mode after ch4 and trying Fo in extra. The tech damage is very high offline (one shot kills ftw!).

Basically, as Hunter every free mission s-rank takes more effort, i hate to think about doing it as Ranger.

Get Rods asap and buy the techs you know you will need and use.

Photon charges drop all over the place, PP is never a problem. Get a good bow too for shooting stuff in the air and rods all the way, grind em a bit too cos it all helps.

For Force, the expenses are lower imo, you can skimp on armour and dont need to have the BEST weps or anything. Besides, money is just not an issue, the Techs are not expensive and they are way easier to level up than online, too. Hunter is so gear dependent (*sigh*)

maybe it's cos I have l always favored Fo in PSO (and this game too).

[Milranduil]

I started a FO as Ethan in Chapter 3 forthe second time today. if you are looking for a challenge and want to try, go to Parum and buy a bunch of the staffs and foie, barta, zonde, and resta along with a stable saber and handgun. if you use your photon charges that you pick up wisely enough you can barely get through without completely running out of everythings PP. however, i think once in chapter 4 its a bit tough because you don't get a charger or Photon charges for a while but you can do it. i did it today and in chapter 5 you can go get rods on neudaiz and just kick the stupid GRM staffs to hell. from there its pretty easy cheez. what i did was buy 4 staffs from GRM in chapter three and have 1 cane for each element. i could pretty easily kill most stuff in 2-3 techs the whole time (although the Rogues in chapter 4 suck up PP if you aren't careful, especially the gunners -_-). Good luck!

oh and PS: once you get diga, spam it like mad and see what happens to it at lvl 21 :3 that diga never gets old :P

[Rilith]

IMO It's not worth it until the Dam- level spells are available, it's difficult much beofre then, and YES buy Rods and not canes...

[sefiros]

i can't imagine why anyone who is a force would use canes and not rods anyways. when was the last time a secondary fire shot helped you out? if you needed a gun you'd just use a bow anyways...

[tlbww]

I didn't bother being a force in SM. I mean, any class can use a rod anyways (1 handed casting tool since perhaps I'm wrong if it's either rod or wand). I was going to disagree with techs doing much dmg but then I played a Focast for 45 lvls. (well maybe 35, I waited a few lvls b/c I wasn't able to even use the most basic of rods). Anyone but a cast will do solid dmg as a force. I suppose 300+ dmg is good (on a wa d with an untrained Diga on the boss machines in the lvl on Parum in the linear liner [the 3rd lvl availible I believe])

In any case I didn't want to make SM harder 4 me so I stuck it out with Ranger (which is my favorite class) and hunter in the more confined lvls. If Resta had more range (as well as the buffs) and aiming wasn't a joke (why no fps aiming or target aiming?) I would have played ethan as a force. But S ranks came a lot as a ranger.

As a Focast, I played like a buffed ranger more than anything else. It was an.......experience, but I'm glad I did b/c once I maxed job lvls in force I was at and above the required lvl of tp to equipt the basic rod on any class. So I switched and was able to cast buffs that I lvled and so on and so forth. I even made sure to keep using my bows and saber/pistol combo since many of them were in high teens and above.

I do suffer the lvl pp count (again) as I had to use the staffs instead of my rods. I spent a few meseta and ground them up to passable. I don't want to waste so much time and money grinding C rank wpns when I hope I will have enough tp as a Racast to equipt the better B rank ones. It's not looking to good being lvl 5x and still with a weak 40 something tp. Hunters get more tp than rangers....wuddupwitdat?

At least I fight 100% better as a Racast than a Focast. I fight the exact same way, I'm stronger, and can equipt higher rank wpns of the exact kind I was using b4 when I was a force. It was kinda of like playing with a handicap for most of the game. Mind you, I was still able to get S ranks, but it would take a couple or more tries to remember mob patterns, element types, and have a general flow. We all the npcs don't help so you have to be on point if you play a Force and only snipe. I bet it's a bazillion times easier if you were a neu or Hume force and casted away with those good techs. But tech lvling is such a pain. I miss the old way, just buying ur way up to fame =).

I would have rather had a Technic skill that lvls up as you use them. This skill would increase pp regen, casting speed (even the slightest bit helps), ovarall dmg increase, and various other factors. While this would disrupt the PSU way of lvling up stuff, I hate having so many good spells to lvl up to greatness. Such a pain. I would even settle for every time you used a spell of a certain element, all the spells in that element gained some xp. Anyone feel me on that one?