Post by Phant on Apr 18, 2007 19:10:50 GMT -5
With a lot of interest in Challenge mode at the moment and some c-mode groups made entirely of c-mode newbies I thought I’d write a quick and accessable guide for anyone attempting Ep1 Challenge C1 through C9 without any prior experience.
To avoid overcomplicating any one topic I will try and reveal my reasoning in layers. Therefore, if you see a statement without backup, please trust me, it will be explained later. If you find this is not the case on any point, please let me know and I will improve the guide accordingly.
Maps are here www.pso-world.com/sections.php?section=Challenge+Mode&op=viewtopsection
Right! Let’s get started!
Contents
Party Overview
How to play your -insert character class here-
- THE FORCE
- THE HUNTER
- THE RANGER
Playing the game
Item distribution
How to fight
Stage overview
- Stage C1
- Stage C2
- Stage C3
- Stage C4
- Stage C5
- Stage C6
- Stage C7
- Stage C8
- Stage C9
Avoiding crashes
====
PARTY OVERVIEW:
Guess what! You don’t have to c-mode as your primary character! You have 4 slots and you genuinely don’t need them all for the main game. So if you normally play a HUmar or a RAmarl, don’t worry, I’m not going to judge you. If you don’t have an appropriate class available, just make one!
Your party should ideally start out with:
1 Force, ideally FOnewearl or FOmarl
HUcast
HUcaseal
It is important to have all these classes in your group. Android hunters are SO much better than human hunters for a myriad of reasons, but primarily because of traps. Traps are an amazing resource in c-mode and should be exploited fully. I don’t care if you’ve never played with traps before; if you’re going to be a hunter, be an android.
Your last slot is optional. A second android hunter is fine. Android Rangers are also fine, despite their C-Mode stigma. While not usually optimal for time attack, they turn the mines from an absolute nightmare into a much easier run, and are alright in the ruins too. They also have traps. Have I mentioned that traps are good? I like traps. I would not recommend a second force for a newbie team, but if you do take one along make sure that one is a FOmarl.
I would say that your optimal fourth character for a newbie team is a RAcaseal.
====
HOW TO PLAY YOUR -INSERT CHARACTER CLASS HERE-
The Force:
Your job as force is to support the team. Your are not primarily a nuker. When you have Resta 3 and upwards, your first priority is to keep the team healed. Don’t waste TP, but if someone could die to a single hit from any monster, heal them. Otherwise your main priority is to keep shifta up as much as possible.
Beyond this, the force is often required to retrieve items and hit switches. Items for other classes should be left in the exit doorway of whichever room everybody is fighting in. Because of their play-style, forces make good team leaders, and should familiarise themselves with the map before they begin. If they are leading, they should also run the game windowed with a map in the background. Forces are in the best position to run out of a room and check where to go next as, unlike hunters, they will not be caught up in melee.
Finally there are times when you can let rip with your offensive techniques, and so you should know your resistances. In particular it is useful to: Barta Nano Dragons and Delsabers. Zonde high-flying Canadines and aggressive Sinow Beats. Foi Sinow Gold. It’s okay to xp-tag certain monsters with Foi, but slapping them with your stick is often more efficient.
A quick note on TP management: do it. When you do run out of TP you can burn Scape Dolls to refresh yourself (as you will often have to in the later stages) but don’t go mad unloading on every monster, or you’ll run dry real quick.
The Hunter:
The backbone of the c-mode team, you do most of the donkey-work. You’re there to rip through the enemies as fast as possible. You should also avoid getting hit where possible. To this end your primary combo should be Light/Heavy. The heavy attack usually causes knockback, and a third would require considerably more recovery time. The third hit is for when you’re absolutely positively definitely killing something. Light/Heavy/Re-position. Light/Heavy/Re-position.
Fortunately this is about all you have to do. Your force will collect items for you and deposit them nicely in the exit doorway. Don’t stop and hit boxes and look for goodies, leave that for someone else. You’re a warrior, tall and proud. You’re above that. Go kill something! Yeah!!
As hunter, if you’re leading, you probably should have run c-mode through before, as you have the least opportunity to check your map.
The Ranger:
Oh the ranger! The maligned, misunderstood C-Mode class. You might feel a little underpowered in the early stages but don’t worry, they’ll be singing your praises come the mines. In the early stages, get a Saber or Brand when possible and use that as your primary weapon. There are some nifty little tricks you can pull as RA. In particular you are excellent at clearing traps (assuming you actually read my earlier section and didn’t make a sodding RAmarl. “OMG BERET AND COMBATS…. KAWAIIEEEEEE!!!!”)
Starting with a handgun, you’re also the best at setting off traps! Shooting your own traps is a GREAT tactic for instant freeze, confusion, or even for damaging a slime that thinks it’s safe, slithering along the ground. Once you find a better single-shot weapon, you can usually give your starting weapon to another class.
In combat your primary objective outside of hardcore Time Attacks (where you don’t belong anyway) is to support rather than to kill. A succession of light attacks will keep a monster stunned while an overextending hunter recovers, and thus you stop them getting hit. This is a good thing.
Perhaps the best thing about having a Ranger in your party is their MAG. It starts with lots of dex, so if you swap with a HUcast, they miss a lot less and you get more powerful. There are stages where you cannot afford to do this (c9 for example, where you need the extra ATA to use Railguns) but it is generally a good tactic.
Oh, and don’t get hit too much. In ruins this might be unavoidable, but stay back - YOU’VE GOT A GUN FOR GOD’S SAKE! Rangers also make fine leaders due to their non-intensive role in the party.
====
PLAYING THE GAME:
Challenge mode is INTENSIVE. While you are playing you should not be doing anything else.
Before you begin:
- Go to the bathroom.
- Get a drink.
- Tell someone else to deal with the phone, or ignore it if alone.
- CLOSE INSTANT MESSAGING PROGRAMS AND CHATROOMS. (I actually played challenge with a 13 year old girl the other day, who kept lol’ing at people ‘bothering her’ in an AOL chatroom.)
Elect a leader. This is the guy with the most knowledge of/best access to the map. Follow him and listen to his directions. It helps if he’s a fast typist.
You REALLY want to play windowed with a map in the background, even if you’re not leading. This is very much easier.
====
ITEM DISTRIBUTION:
Sabers: HUcast
Swords: HUcast
Handguns: Best to Ranger, then next best to HUcaseal
Daggers: HUcaseals
Mechguns: HUcaseal, then Ranger if 2 with good % drop. Otherwise Rangers are better with other guns.
Slicer: HUcast (Weaker animation than HUcaseal but they lack the ATP to make these effective. Slicers are particularly good for setting off your own traps.)
HP Mat: Force on boss stages (1,4,6,9); HU on other stages.
TP + Mind Mats: Force
Def Mat: Generally HU
Pow Mat: Hunter (unless RA needs ATP to equip Brand, Buster, etc)
Grinders: To best % weapon. Hit% Mechs are especially good to grind.
Note that mats are much more effective in cmode. All mats give +10 instead of +2.
While this should not need to be stated, SHARE. This is a team effort, one guy hogging 3 % weps whilst no-one else has upgraded slows the whole thing down.
====
HOW TO FIGHT:
A detailed guide to combat is beyond the scope of this guide. However, there are some basic things you should know. You should first read the 'How to play a hunter' section and understand about light/heavy/dodge.
Dodging - To dodge effectively you need to disable weapon targeting. This is best accumplished by bringing up the ctrl-menu, the 2nd action palette, with no attacks or agressive techniques mapped to it. You move much more slowly when you're targeting something (including traps, and turning off targeting makes dodging traps far easier too.)
Flanking: By turning targeting off and encircling or sneaking up on your target you can land a full combo without presenting yourself as a target. This is related to dodging and much of the time the two are the same thing.
General Positioning: It is best not to bunch up, as it is faster to engage enemies one-on-one. This is for a number of reasons that include Damage Cancelling, and having someone covering every point for the next spawn. It also keeps the monsters spread out and more manageable. For each room, think of yourselves as a sports team on a pitch. No-one ever won by putting their entire team together at one end of the field.
Re-Freeze Glitch: You have probably seen this but don't know how it works. It it caused by 2 or more players beating on a monster as or just after it unfreezes. This is useful for taking down dangerous enemies like Chaos Bringers, and is one of the few times I advocate 2-on-1 or 3-on-1 combat.
Combos (applied to saber combat) - LH and LHH are not always optimal. For example, against Claws in the Ruins most hunters should use LLH, as H causes massive knockback on claws and your third attack will miss. If you're doing 200 damage in two strikes LH is fine, but otherwise LLH usually kills them.
Another example is the Dimentian series of monsters. Versus Dimentians head-on you should use Light *pause* Heavy. The pause is important as a fast LH will not knock back a Dimentian and you will get hit. Pauses are useful elsewhere - LH *pause* H will sometimes let you get three safe strikes in against some creatures head-on if the distance is right (but judging the distance requires practice.)
The last example I will give is for fighting hordes of Gillchics and Dubchics. Often LLL will knock all threatening chics down without presenting yourself as a target, whereas LH will get you hit before you can dodge or land a third blow.
There are many more examples of things like this but they are best learned by experience. Once you are aware that things like this make a difference you begin to learn them yourself, so take this on, and go out there and improve your game.
====
STAGE OVERVIEW:
This section is NOT intended to replace a map. Just a few hints for each stage.
Stage C1
Surprisingly not the easiest stage; Hildebears and The Dragon are both problematic. Use Freeze Traps on Hildes and do NOT dither in front of them.
When fighting the dragon it is imperative that you DO NOT GET SAT ON (or landed on). The dragon has a large posterior, and it is mostly fatal. You should attack it’s feet to bring it down, then the hunter with the strongest weapon attacks the head whilst two others attack each foot. The force should Barta the tail (or Zonde, if you don’t find Barta. If you don’t find either you’re not much help here - just don’t get sat on!)
Some force classes can equip a saber on C1.
Stage C2
An endurance stage. Forces are HIGHLY potent nukers on C2 as they level very quickly, restoring TP each time. Someone else should fetch and carry on this stage. Throughout the Caves, Forces should take out Nano Dragons with Barta, but on C2 the Force can nuke just about everything. The inexperienced shouldn't go nuts with nukes as TP management on C2 is a fine art, but the time-attack party for C2 includes 3 FOnewearls, and this is for a good reason!
Other C2 advice: do not miss the illusionary north wall in the second room of the second stage; it leads to boxes and a significant shortcut. There is another illusionary wall in area 7, behind the warp to area 8. This wall leads to a box room containing many shields, useful for a switch in the final area.
Stage C3
Puzzle heavy, map familiarisation is essential. From this stage onwards there are booby-trapped switches. Therefore, from hereon in, if you don’t know what it does FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T TOUCH IT!
Stage C4
The first area is a nightmare and takes an age. This is another puzzle heavy stage. It’s also where you fight De Rol Le.
Your strategy for the boss is thus: Hunters should have 1 scape each. Ranger 1-2, the force gets the rest. If you don't have enough the hunters can do without. The spike-bombs can be fatal to non-hunters so bunch up in one corner and let the hunters melee-destroy the near spikebomb. When 3 surround a non-hunter he’s actually just dead; leave him alone. If someone loses their last scape, someone with 2 donates one.
When De Rol Le clamps onto the raft, hunters should attack the TAIL with their SWORD. The tail is the long wavy bit at the back of the boss; the sword is the ridiculously large photon blade that hits multiple targets. The tail is NOT the bit at the front with eyes and a mouth, and similarly the sword is NOT a single-hit photon blade, a pair of photon daggers or even a handgun, for goodness sake.
Amazingly, lots of people make this mistake no matter what you tell them.
If you’re lucky enough to find Gifoi or Gizonde the force spams it at the tail. Anyone else attacks the head with whatever they’ve got. When De Rol Le isn’t clamped on you can nail him with handguns, and when he’s alongside the raft you can actually still hit multiple segments with a sword.
Stage C5
Ahh mines. Turn off BGM in options before playing, as it is linked to a warp-crash bug here. Otherwise C5 is an easyish endurance stage. No dubchic, no garanz, quite a lot of traps though. Crashing aside, Sinows are your biggest problem - trap them. Don’t waste freeze or confuse traps on anything else, but damage traps can bring down Canadines if no RA or FO is about.
Stage C6
Welcome to hell. This is by far and away the hardest stage in all of C-Mode. It’s the last stage the Force doesn’t start with Resta and it drops only rarely. Meanwhile the Sinows are as big a pain as they were in C5, George “Doubya” Chic slows you right down and Garanz is outright lethal. To top it all off you have a boss fight to contend with. The only redeeming feature is that there is only one puzzle, and it’s easy if you’ve got the map.
To deal with Garanz one character should encircle the big robot with targeting off (by bringing up some kind of menu) thus making the missiles crash into the Garanz and nearby robots. Only one character should be in the room while this is going on, as multiple targets make the missiles move in unpredictable patterns, and before you know what’s going one your poor runner gets a face full of high explosive.
Vol Opt is really easy IF EVERYONE DOES WHAT THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO. Do not attack the screens at all. Instead, shoot down the central unit, and when the face-towers pop up, attack ONLY the red one, and attack it quickly. If you attack a blue-faced tower before destroying the red one, or if you dither for too long, Vol Opt will blast you with Gizonde, and then you’re really in trouble.
Stage two isn’t too hard. Use multi-hit weapons at first then move on to single-hit when it becomes hard or impossible to strike more than one target. Turn off targeting and run to avoid the stampers (don’t lead them onto your unwitting teammates please) and if anyone gets caught in the rock-cage, break them out of it fast. If you do all this correctly the only thing that will damage you at all is a few light missile strikes.
Stage C7
A cakewalk. Welcome to Restaville. The only truly difficult enemies here are Delsabers, trap or Barta them. Belras are annoying but you can avoid their attacks pretty easily, and they drop eventually, so trapping them is usually unnecessary. Zalure and Zonde are effective against Belras. DO NOT CONFUSE BELRAS. They get terribly upset and shoot all over the place. Chaos Sorcerers are a bit of a pain, eliminate them as a matter of priority. If you don’t think you can take them down in time, you might be able to eliminate their offensive Bee (on the left as you look at them) thus neutering the threat.
Stage C8
Harder. Chaos Bringers (or “Hellhorses” as I lovingly refer to them) are a massive pain between confusion charges and TP drains. Forces steer WELL clear. There’s an early shortcut requiring a 4-weapon sacrifice; it is usually worth taking it. Your force doesn’t need a weapon at all, and someone else can sacrifice if necessary; you’ll find another soon enough, and hunters are surprisingly effective in hand-to-hand combat.
Stage C9
Oh dear. Well it’s not C6 (you’ve got Resta at least) but this is a difficult one. All the enemies from C8 are present and you have Falz to contend with. Falz is not that difficult in himself, but his Heaven Punishment attack is fatal to anybody with less than 144hp (Read: Forces) Therefore Forces MUST raise their HP above this figure, or could require up to seven or eight Scapes in the final battle if things go badly. Concequently if the HP mats aren’t dropping and your force isn’t a FOmarl (who only requires 1 HP mat - assuming she levels twice – a FOnewearl needs 3) you cannot afford to burn scapes for TP here. As a matter of fact you can’t afford to do that much anyway as between confusion, gibarta, critical hits from Delsabers and Belras and Bringer shooting you in the back, people can and will die on C9. 1 Scape each for Falz, with all others going to the Force. If anyone dies the Force can donate, but if the Force runs out, THE OTHERS MUST DONATE, even if it means leaving them with no scape.
Random minor sidenote: If a Star Atomizer drops, give it to a non-force and use it if your force gets Frozen.
====
New - How to Avoid Crashes!
Thought I'd post this here for everyone's information, as c-mode crashes are extremely irritating. These measures won't protect you 100% but they can help a lot.
Break boxes slowly, one at a time:
Do not use multi-target weapons or techniques on boxes. I believe barta and slicers are sigifnicantly less risky than say gizonde and swords as they break the boxes individually, but all the same it's best to stick to sabers, handguns, unarmed attacks and FO weapons.
This is because of what I call the 'cursed item' bug, where an item gains the property of disconnecting anyone who tries to pick it up. It only seems to happen when multiple items spawn to the ground at exactly or almost exactly the same time.
Do not drop items as fast as humanly possible:
For the same reason as above. I once disconnected my entire team with my FOmar by dropping a bunch of items including what became a cursed Trigrinder, right in front of the C9 boss warp.
If you get regular warpcrashes, turn BGM off:
Warpcrashes are when you take a cmode warp between areas, and your client quits with a fatal error. If you suffer from these regularly you should try turning off background music, as there seems to be a link between the two.
Avoid the major ships:
A fairly minor point, but an emptier ship seems to be ever-so-slightly more stable. Nip off somewhere quiet for your cmode games, or even go to the c-mode ship! ...whatever it is.
These are the main ones that spring to mind right now, I'll add any more workarounds that I remember / come across, or that anyone wants to suggest.
====
---THE END---
That’s all for now. If you’d like to suggest amendments and additions, feel free to post them below. I hope this is of use to some of you!
To avoid overcomplicating any one topic I will try and reveal my reasoning in layers. Therefore, if you see a statement without backup, please trust me, it will be explained later. If you find this is not the case on any point, please let me know and I will improve the guide accordingly.
Maps are here www.pso-world.com/sections.php?section=Challenge+Mode&op=viewtopsection
Right! Let’s get started!
Contents
Party Overview
How to play your -insert character class here-
- THE FORCE
- THE HUNTER
- THE RANGER
Playing the game
Item distribution
How to fight
Stage overview
- Stage C1
- Stage C2
- Stage C3
- Stage C4
- Stage C5
- Stage C6
- Stage C7
- Stage C8
- Stage C9
Avoiding crashes
====
PARTY OVERVIEW:
Guess what! You don’t have to c-mode as your primary character! You have 4 slots and you genuinely don’t need them all for the main game. So if you normally play a HUmar or a RAmarl, don’t worry, I’m not going to judge you. If you don’t have an appropriate class available, just make one!
Your party should ideally start out with:
1 Force, ideally FOnewearl or FOmarl
HUcast
HUcaseal
It is important to have all these classes in your group. Android hunters are SO much better than human hunters for a myriad of reasons, but primarily because of traps. Traps are an amazing resource in c-mode and should be exploited fully. I don’t care if you’ve never played with traps before; if you’re going to be a hunter, be an android.
Your last slot is optional. A second android hunter is fine. Android Rangers are also fine, despite their C-Mode stigma. While not usually optimal for time attack, they turn the mines from an absolute nightmare into a much easier run, and are alright in the ruins too. They also have traps. Have I mentioned that traps are good? I like traps. I would not recommend a second force for a newbie team, but if you do take one along make sure that one is a FOmarl.
I would say that your optimal fourth character for a newbie team is a RAcaseal.
====
HOW TO PLAY YOUR -INSERT CHARACTER CLASS HERE-
The Force:
Your job as force is to support the team. Your are not primarily a nuker. When you have Resta 3 and upwards, your first priority is to keep the team healed. Don’t waste TP, but if someone could die to a single hit from any monster, heal them. Otherwise your main priority is to keep shifta up as much as possible.
Beyond this, the force is often required to retrieve items and hit switches. Items for other classes should be left in the exit doorway of whichever room everybody is fighting in. Because of their play-style, forces make good team leaders, and should familiarise themselves with the map before they begin. If they are leading, they should also run the game windowed with a map in the background. Forces are in the best position to run out of a room and check where to go next as, unlike hunters, they will not be caught up in melee.
Finally there are times when you can let rip with your offensive techniques, and so you should know your resistances. In particular it is useful to: Barta Nano Dragons and Delsabers. Zonde high-flying Canadines and aggressive Sinow Beats. Foi Sinow Gold. It’s okay to xp-tag certain monsters with Foi, but slapping them with your stick is often more efficient.
A quick note on TP management: do it. When you do run out of TP you can burn Scape Dolls to refresh yourself (as you will often have to in the later stages) but don’t go mad unloading on every monster, or you’ll run dry real quick.
The Hunter:
The backbone of the c-mode team, you do most of the donkey-work. You’re there to rip through the enemies as fast as possible. You should also avoid getting hit where possible. To this end your primary combo should be Light/Heavy. The heavy attack usually causes knockback, and a third would require considerably more recovery time. The third hit is for when you’re absolutely positively definitely killing something. Light/Heavy/Re-position. Light/Heavy/Re-position.
Fortunately this is about all you have to do. Your force will collect items for you and deposit them nicely in the exit doorway. Don’t stop and hit boxes and look for goodies, leave that for someone else. You’re a warrior, tall and proud. You’re above that. Go kill something! Yeah!!
As hunter, if you’re leading, you probably should have run c-mode through before, as you have the least opportunity to check your map.
The Ranger:
Oh the ranger! The maligned, misunderstood C-Mode class. You might feel a little underpowered in the early stages but don’t worry, they’ll be singing your praises come the mines. In the early stages, get a Saber or Brand when possible and use that as your primary weapon. There are some nifty little tricks you can pull as RA. In particular you are excellent at clearing traps (assuming you actually read my earlier section and didn’t make a sodding RAmarl. “OMG BERET AND COMBATS…. KAWAIIEEEEEE!!!!”)
Starting with a handgun, you’re also the best at setting off traps! Shooting your own traps is a GREAT tactic for instant freeze, confusion, or even for damaging a slime that thinks it’s safe, slithering along the ground. Once you find a better single-shot weapon, you can usually give your starting weapon to another class.
In combat your primary objective outside of hardcore Time Attacks (where you don’t belong anyway) is to support rather than to kill. A succession of light attacks will keep a monster stunned while an overextending hunter recovers, and thus you stop them getting hit. This is a good thing.
Perhaps the best thing about having a Ranger in your party is their MAG. It starts with lots of dex, so if you swap with a HUcast, they miss a lot less and you get more powerful. There are stages where you cannot afford to do this (c9 for example, where you need the extra ATA to use Railguns) but it is generally a good tactic.
Oh, and don’t get hit too much. In ruins this might be unavoidable, but stay back - YOU’VE GOT A GUN FOR GOD’S SAKE! Rangers also make fine leaders due to their non-intensive role in the party.
====
PLAYING THE GAME:
Challenge mode is INTENSIVE. While you are playing you should not be doing anything else.
Before you begin:
- Go to the bathroom.
- Get a drink.
- Tell someone else to deal with the phone, or ignore it if alone.
- CLOSE INSTANT MESSAGING PROGRAMS AND CHATROOMS. (I actually played challenge with a 13 year old girl the other day, who kept lol’ing at people ‘bothering her’ in an AOL chatroom.)
Elect a leader. This is the guy with the most knowledge of/best access to the map. Follow him and listen to his directions. It helps if he’s a fast typist.
You REALLY want to play windowed with a map in the background, even if you’re not leading. This is very much easier.
====
ITEM DISTRIBUTION:
Sabers: HUcast
Swords: HUcast
Handguns: Best to Ranger, then next best to HUcaseal
Daggers: HUcaseals
Mechguns: HUcaseal, then Ranger if 2 with good % drop. Otherwise Rangers are better with other guns.
Slicer: HUcast (Weaker animation than HUcaseal but they lack the ATP to make these effective. Slicers are particularly good for setting off your own traps.)
HP Mat: Force on boss stages (1,4,6,9); HU on other stages.
TP + Mind Mats: Force
Def Mat: Generally HU
Pow Mat: Hunter (unless RA needs ATP to equip Brand, Buster, etc)
Grinders: To best % weapon. Hit% Mechs are especially good to grind.
Note that mats are much more effective in cmode. All mats give +10 instead of +2.
While this should not need to be stated, SHARE. This is a team effort, one guy hogging 3 % weps whilst no-one else has upgraded slows the whole thing down.
====
HOW TO FIGHT:
A detailed guide to combat is beyond the scope of this guide. However, there are some basic things you should know. You should first read the 'How to play a hunter' section and understand about light/heavy/dodge.
Dodging - To dodge effectively you need to disable weapon targeting. This is best accumplished by bringing up the ctrl-menu, the 2nd action palette, with no attacks or agressive techniques mapped to it. You move much more slowly when you're targeting something (including traps, and turning off targeting makes dodging traps far easier too.)
Flanking: By turning targeting off and encircling or sneaking up on your target you can land a full combo without presenting yourself as a target. This is related to dodging and much of the time the two are the same thing.
General Positioning: It is best not to bunch up, as it is faster to engage enemies one-on-one. This is for a number of reasons that include Damage Cancelling, and having someone covering every point for the next spawn. It also keeps the monsters spread out and more manageable. For each room, think of yourselves as a sports team on a pitch. No-one ever won by putting their entire team together at one end of the field.
Re-Freeze Glitch: You have probably seen this but don't know how it works. It it caused by 2 or more players beating on a monster as or just after it unfreezes. This is useful for taking down dangerous enemies like Chaos Bringers, and is one of the few times I advocate 2-on-1 or 3-on-1 combat.
Combos (applied to saber combat) - LH and LHH are not always optimal. For example, against Claws in the Ruins most hunters should use LLH, as H causes massive knockback on claws and your third attack will miss. If you're doing 200 damage in two strikes LH is fine, but otherwise LLH usually kills them.
Another example is the Dimentian series of monsters. Versus Dimentians head-on you should use Light *pause* Heavy. The pause is important as a fast LH will not knock back a Dimentian and you will get hit. Pauses are useful elsewhere - LH *pause* H will sometimes let you get three safe strikes in against some creatures head-on if the distance is right (but judging the distance requires practice.)
The last example I will give is for fighting hordes of Gillchics and Dubchics. Often LLL will knock all threatening chics down without presenting yourself as a target, whereas LH will get you hit before you can dodge or land a third blow.
There are many more examples of things like this but they are best learned by experience. Once you are aware that things like this make a difference you begin to learn them yourself, so take this on, and go out there and improve your game.
====
STAGE OVERVIEW:
This section is NOT intended to replace a map. Just a few hints for each stage.
Stage C1
Surprisingly not the easiest stage; Hildebears and The Dragon are both problematic. Use Freeze Traps on Hildes and do NOT dither in front of them.
When fighting the dragon it is imperative that you DO NOT GET SAT ON (or landed on). The dragon has a large posterior, and it is mostly fatal. You should attack it’s feet to bring it down, then the hunter with the strongest weapon attacks the head whilst two others attack each foot. The force should Barta the tail (or Zonde, if you don’t find Barta. If you don’t find either you’re not much help here - just don’t get sat on!)
Some force classes can equip a saber on C1.
Stage C2
An endurance stage. Forces are HIGHLY potent nukers on C2 as they level very quickly, restoring TP each time. Someone else should fetch and carry on this stage. Throughout the Caves, Forces should take out Nano Dragons with Barta, but on C2 the Force can nuke just about everything. The inexperienced shouldn't go nuts with nukes as TP management on C2 is a fine art, but the time-attack party for C2 includes 3 FOnewearls, and this is for a good reason!
Other C2 advice: do not miss the illusionary north wall in the second room of the second stage; it leads to boxes and a significant shortcut. There is another illusionary wall in area 7, behind the warp to area 8. This wall leads to a box room containing many shields, useful for a switch in the final area.
Stage C3
Puzzle heavy, map familiarisation is essential. From this stage onwards there are booby-trapped switches. Therefore, from hereon in, if you don’t know what it does FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T TOUCH IT!
Stage C4
The first area is a nightmare and takes an age. This is another puzzle heavy stage. It’s also where you fight De Rol Le.
Your strategy for the boss is thus: Hunters should have 1 scape each. Ranger 1-2, the force gets the rest. If you don't have enough the hunters can do without. The spike-bombs can be fatal to non-hunters so bunch up in one corner and let the hunters melee-destroy the near spikebomb. When 3 surround a non-hunter he’s actually just dead; leave him alone. If someone loses their last scape, someone with 2 donates one.
When De Rol Le clamps onto the raft, hunters should attack the TAIL with their SWORD. The tail is the long wavy bit at the back of the boss; the sword is the ridiculously large photon blade that hits multiple targets. The tail is NOT the bit at the front with eyes and a mouth, and similarly the sword is NOT a single-hit photon blade, a pair of photon daggers or even a handgun, for goodness sake.
Amazingly, lots of people make this mistake no matter what you tell them.
If you’re lucky enough to find Gifoi or Gizonde the force spams it at the tail. Anyone else attacks the head with whatever they’ve got. When De Rol Le isn’t clamped on you can nail him with handguns, and when he’s alongside the raft you can actually still hit multiple segments with a sword.
Stage C5
Ahh mines. Turn off BGM in options before playing, as it is linked to a warp-crash bug here. Otherwise C5 is an easyish endurance stage. No dubchic, no garanz, quite a lot of traps though. Crashing aside, Sinows are your biggest problem - trap them. Don’t waste freeze or confuse traps on anything else, but damage traps can bring down Canadines if no RA or FO is about.
Stage C6
Welcome to hell. This is by far and away the hardest stage in all of C-Mode. It’s the last stage the Force doesn’t start with Resta and it drops only rarely. Meanwhile the Sinows are as big a pain as they were in C5, George “Doubya” Chic slows you right down and Garanz is outright lethal. To top it all off you have a boss fight to contend with. The only redeeming feature is that there is only one puzzle, and it’s easy if you’ve got the map.
To deal with Garanz one character should encircle the big robot with targeting off (by bringing up some kind of menu) thus making the missiles crash into the Garanz and nearby robots. Only one character should be in the room while this is going on, as multiple targets make the missiles move in unpredictable patterns, and before you know what’s going one your poor runner gets a face full of high explosive.
Vol Opt is really easy IF EVERYONE DOES WHAT THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO. Do not attack the screens at all. Instead, shoot down the central unit, and when the face-towers pop up, attack ONLY the red one, and attack it quickly. If you attack a blue-faced tower before destroying the red one, or if you dither for too long, Vol Opt will blast you with Gizonde, and then you’re really in trouble.
Stage two isn’t too hard. Use multi-hit weapons at first then move on to single-hit when it becomes hard or impossible to strike more than one target. Turn off targeting and run to avoid the stampers (don’t lead them onto your unwitting teammates please) and if anyone gets caught in the rock-cage, break them out of it fast. If you do all this correctly the only thing that will damage you at all is a few light missile strikes.
Stage C7
A cakewalk. Welcome to Restaville. The only truly difficult enemies here are Delsabers, trap or Barta them. Belras are annoying but you can avoid their attacks pretty easily, and they drop eventually, so trapping them is usually unnecessary. Zalure and Zonde are effective against Belras. DO NOT CONFUSE BELRAS. They get terribly upset and shoot all over the place. Chaos Sorcerers are a bit of a pain, eliminate them as a matter of priority. If you don’t think you can take them down in time, you might be able to eliminate their offensive Bee (on the left as you look at them) thus neutering the threat.
Stage C8
Harder. Chaos Bringers (or “Hellhorses” as I lovingly refer to them) are a massive pain between confusion charges and TP drains. Forces steer WELL clear. There’s an early shortcut requiring a 4-weapon sacrifice; it is usually worth taking it. Your force doesn’t need a weapon at all, and someone else can sacrifice if necessary; you’ll find another soon enough, and hunters are surprisingly effective in hand-to-hand combat.
Stage C9
Oh dear. Well it’s not C6 (you’ve got Resta at least) but this is a difficult one. All the enemies from C8 are present and you have Falz to contend with. Falz is not that difficult in himself, but his Heaven Punishment attack is fatal to anybody with less than 144hp (Read: Forces) Therefore Forces MUST raise their HP above this figure, or could require up to seven or eight Scapes in the final battle if things go badly. Concequently if the HP mats aren’t dropping and your force isn’t a FOmarl (who only requires 1 HP mat - assuming she levels twice – a FOnewearl needs 3) you cannot afford to burn scapes for TP here. As a matter of fact you can’t afford to do that much anyway as between confusion, gibarta, critical hits from Delsabers and Belras and Bringer shooting you in the back, people can and will die on C9. 1 Scape each for Falz, with all others going to the Force. If anyone dies the Force can donate, but if the Force runs out, THE OTHERS MUST DONATE, even if it means leaving them with no scape.
Random minor sidenote: If a Star Atomizer drops, give it to a non-force and use it if your force gets Frozen.
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New - How to Avoid Crashes!
Thought I'd post this here for everyone's information, as c-mode crashes are extremely irritating. These measures won't protect you 100% but they can help a lot.
Break boxes slowly, one at a time:
Do not use multi-target weapons or techniques on boxes. I believe barta and slicers are sigifnicantly less risky than say gizonde and swords as they break the boxes individually, but all the same it's best to stick to sabers, handguns, unarmed attacks and FO weapons.
This is because of what I call the 'cursed item' bug, where an item gains the property of disconnecting anyone who tries to pick it up. It only seems to happen when multiple items spawn to the ground at exactly or almost exactly the same time.
Do not drop items as fast as humanly possible:
For the same reason as above. I once disconnected my entire team with my FOmar by dropping a bunch of items including what became a cursed Trigrinder, right in front of the C9 boss warp.
If you get regular warpcrashes, turn BGM off:
Warpcrashes are when you take a cmode warp between areas, and your client quits with a fatal error. If you suffer from these regularly you should try turning off background music, as there seems to be a link between the two.
Avoid the major ships:
A fairly minor point, but an emptier ship seems to be ever-so-slightly more stable. Nip off somewhere quiet for your cmode games, or even go to the c-mode ship! ...whatever it is.
These are the main ones that spring to mind right now, I'll add any more workarounds that I remember / come across, or that anyone wants to suggest.
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That’s all for now. If you’d like to suggest amendments and additions, feel free to post them below. I hope this is of use to some of you!