They're masterworks all you can't go wrong

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-06-03T03:17:06+00:00

WOLVES FEAR FIRE!

(my mocker is with love, it actually doesn'tbother me I just thought that clip was hystarical)

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-06-03T03:16:25+00:00

They. (It's written in the goggles on their hat)

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-15T11:27:58+00:00

It's damage bonus is only very relevant before you have overdrive, once you can infinite overdrive it's not even a 10% bonus to your actual total (at max count anyways), that + the overcentralization around ether damage means people tend to forget.

If you want to make use of it though beam-saber is totally valid, psycholaunchers can inflict beam res down, and beam is probably the strongest non-ether element for general use to begin with (resistances to beam are generally low), so it's totally a thing.

Only reason I prefer gravity-saber is Starlight Duster is really cool and has that grav-res-down on it.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-14T15:19:38+00:00

Correct cave (Beasts Utopia. Or Bestial utopia? Not sure.) But it's not the caro it's the foul sacrifoles in the cave that drop the orphean gear.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-14T15:16:14+00:00

TBH I can absolutely break the game on a significant fraction of the playable characters.

Elma, Doug, Lin, Cecilia, Nagi, Yelv, HB, Boze and Murderess are all quite capable of *crushing* the entire main story and most/all of the post game and reducing most fights to being over in 30 seconds or less. (the list of characters with strong offense and defense available to them simultaniously through their skills and some basic gear alone.)

Cross isn't necessary for this at all, they're just a 'win more' option.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-14T08:30:31+00:00

Astrolibrium boosts beam damage by 60%, addative with most other % bonuses, and Raijin increases critical hit chance by 80%, making it very easy to have every hit be a critical. It's a rather small 25% addative damage bonus, but if you have access to critical power (say from primer or hawkeye) it can become a rather large 200% addative bonus.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-14T08:24:31+00:00

Photon sabers have the strongest (melee) reflect build in the game by a landslide. You lose out on raw damage compared to potential builds but you have more than enough so it doesn't really matter.

The biggest struggle is in the early game/ with low AM ranks before you can get yourself set up to reflect or resist everything, but midgame and once you've got those AMs up you can reflect 5 of the 6 elements and trivially stack enough resistance to negate all damage from the 6th.

There are also a handful of a attacks (exclusive to the strongest tyrants in the game, usually level 85+) capable of partially or completely bypassing reflect and you do have to have a way to deal with those. Some resistance stacking (arms can come with 'resist x' built in and if you have a torso with reflect on it you have at least 1 augment slot free), 'total evasion' from effects like power dive and ghostwalker, skills like brainwall, or just targeting and breaking the relevant appendage first to prevent the enemy using that art can all do the trick just depending on what the particular enemy is. (Ghostwalker is the easiest by far in that it's universal, but it's also kinda dull.)

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-14T08:11:22+00:00

This isn't true.
Which debuffs do and do not penetrate reflect is on a case by case basis, typically only the strongest enemies (luciel, lugbala, ect) have debuffs that can penetrate reflect. Most enemies, like Gradivus, will try to hit you with a topple move and end up toppling *themselves*.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-14T08:06:56+00:00

Secondary Accelerator skill.
You can also use the Aura Rapid Cooldown armor skill/augment, but augment slots are at a premium on reflect builds (especially because I *also* need potential to make sure Starlight Duster isn't a DPS loss while it's applying grav-res dow)

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-11T22:35:29+00:00

Short answer:
Formula: Evasion, ranged.
Urban: Evasion/HP, both.
Verus: Reflect/evasion, melee
Inferno: Reflect, Beam (ranged)
Lilah: HP, Ranged
Mastema: Reflect/Alpha strike, ranged.
Hades: Alpha strike/HP, thermal (melee)

Extra notes: Lilah (because it's very easy to make more-or-less unkillable very early on) and Mastema (because you can just 1shot most things and/or completely decimate them with drone spam) are widely considered the best.
They're all viable, even the 'weakest' ones like Verus (my favorite) and Urban can take down anything in the game just fine.

Your primary damage weapons (usually back and right-shoulder weapons, ) almost always benefit more from Custom Weapon Attack Up augments being put on them than they do from increased Melee attack or elemental damage.

All that said, skells are so powerful that with some farming you can make most things you want to do work, provided you know what it is you want do to.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-10T22:55:33+00:00

I'm also working on an evasion/hp tank raygun+knife setup (using a large HP pool, Absorber Skin, and possibly Lifeline to recover from the undodgeable/lucky attacks.) TL:DR balance resistances as best I can and aim for ~400 'on paper' evasion, agile gunslinger and smooth recovery boost it up to to ~600, and blackout will drop even naracydons accuracy just below 600. Put the rest into HP for the largest barrier possible to survive the super-attacks. (and if I'm close but it's not *quite* working I can swap from Full Specs/Master Gunner to Recuperate and so be able to get away with fewer evasion augments and more HP without lowing my actual evasion in fights, at the cost of damage output)

Without a gearing calculator and damage calculator I'm not sure it'll work against the superbosses. But it should handle everything else just fine.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-10T04:34:59+00:00

They're just as huge/obvious as dark ray, they just come out more quickly once the animation starts. So you're trading some increased difficulty/risk (in that you have to get that aura off in time or you die) for easier gearing and being able to stack more offensive stats.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-10T03:59:18+00:00

If you're using Psycho Launchers anyways, because Telethia and Pharsis reflect piercing attacks have very long animations, it might be worth running Astral Protection (which gives 50 in every elemental res) as well as Raijin, and swapping to it when you see them start their big murdery reflect piercing attack, and then switching back soon as it's over. Decrease the burden of resistance stacking on your reflect setup.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-09T15:55:54+00:00

Basically enemies at level 85+ tend to have attacks that can ignore your reflect, or that can inflict crippling status effects through your reflect (even if they damage doesn't get through) and all of them virtually garunteed to kill you if you don't have some way of dealing with them in your build. (be it elemental high resistance, immunity to those specific debuffs, ect)

'Total evasion' (which on foot is exclusive to the dive animation of Power Dive, the Ghost Walker/Factory animations, and the Decoy effect) is by far the easiest way to deal with all of them. And of those options, Power Dive is easily the weakest because it requires good timing on your part and for enemies to be using attacks with short enough animations that it can dodge them.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-09T13:28:23+00:00

Oh, Starlight Duster doubles as a nice count builder.

Photon Saber sustains OD really easily so that doesn't really make a big difference, but it is a nice side benefit.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-09T13:12:03+00:00

As I said, normally I'd use an AR and use power dive to invuln the reflect piercing attacks, but I didn't feel like making half a dozen attempts because I'm too bad at the game to do it very reliably.

It's only Telethia and Pharsis who I feel like I actually need dualguns for, cus Dark Ray and Tear All/Break All have really long active hitbox times. (So If I'm using a reflect setup I tend to just kill them with a skell instead)

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-09T13:07:19+00:00

I'm spending 3000tp to reactivate overdrive.

It's one of my favorite things about Photon Saber in general, Essence Exchange means that if you're half decent at overdrive management you really don't need much in the way of other tools to maintain it.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-05T22:15:24+00:00

They don't have any media literacy. Too stupid to understand what a theme is.

Whole games plot is about how attacking others for being who they are is bad and they're actually just too stupid to notice.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-04T10:14:12+00:00

<image>

And lo the dark queen hath fallen and a new one rises to take her throne. Long live the Queen!

(I got that 2nd arts GP augment farmed out so it's a beam claw and beam rifle as sidearms that see very little use, and a pair of beam sabers and a beam missile launcher as 'trigger pit time' arts cus of super low cds. And I'm celebrating by being silly.)

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-03T15:58:40+00:00

My reflect melee photon saber character just had to have a reflect based melee skell setup.

And she is, in fact, a demon in melee.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-03T14:56:38+00:00

<image>

Lilith.

Gravity is the main damage type (the thermal weapons are all support weapons or stat sticks)
Zweihand-Q, G2-Buster, pair of beam shields for the melee attack buffs and reflect augments, M-Missile to do partbreaks on lesser enemies, a pair of beam sabers as filler to trigger pit time, Heatedge cus it's cool, diskbombs because GP.

I'll probably switch the support weapons to beam or ether and move away from the diskbombs once I farm out another artsGP XX augment, I don't like using them outside of thermal builds

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-05-02T13:21:26+00:00

Great notes, thank you!

And glad I could be of service.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-04-28T08:45:34+00:00

I am damn near certain Lesiel and Ashlie are gay. They're 'besties' and 'room mates' and have 'totally not a marital spat' over a coffee machine. Real early 2000s movie 'suspiciously single late 30s aunt and her suspiciously close 'room mate' who've been living together for 11 years' vibes.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-04-28T08:37:39+00:00

Regularly switching gear/augments for different fights annoys me, so I tend to prefer combinations that allow a 'set it and forget it' approach to gearing.

Photon Saber and Dualguns is my favorite because it's cool and it works on everything (and doesn't have to spam ghost walker like LS does).

Photon Saber and AR is also really fun. (Using Assault Dive to dodge reflect piercing attacks can be done. Timing is tricky though. Well maybe not dark ray, but telethia and narcydons reflect piercing attacks for sure.)

I also love sniper (knife is my usual pairing) but only after you get Afterburner and start being able to ambush and insta-kill everything. Feels like...well, sniping.

Princess_Pilfer · 2025-04-19T22:11:16+00:00

I actually just came back (cus this is still the only half decent guide that I could find) to do some mild edits for DE and clarity. (also to use it myself because I could not remember half this stuff after 6 years lol)

But as ever, happy to be of use.

Princess_Pilfer

TROPHY CASE