Phantasy Star Online 2 - Classes / Characters

A list of classes in Phantasy Star Online 2. In this game, each character can pick an individual main class and later a "subclass" that allows them 20% of their stat distribution, skills (with a few exceptions), and access to photon arts for their subclass if they can equip said weapon.

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Basic Classes

Hunter

Standard Striking Class. Close-combat operatives boasting high striking power and defenses, making it versatile and easy to pick up and play. Their high survivability makes them suitable for taking on fights on their own.

An Adventurer Is You: The Blademaster, in part of wielding a gigantic sword to inflict heavy damage. With Guard Stance, though, they can also play Meat Shield Tank when situations call for it.
Attack! Attack! Attack!: Encouraged with the Sword's focus system. Hitting enemies repeatedly will increase the effectiveness of their Proton Arts. "Fury Stance" also increases damage output at the expense of defense.
BFS: The Sword by default. Some of the Partisans are this visually as well, though they're much more slender.
Canon Name: Ash for the default human male hunter and Sue for the default newman female hunter.
Combat Medic: Hunters can serve as impromptu healers in a pinch with their "Charged Parry" and "Healing Guard" skill. The former provides up to two seconds of Perfect Guard frames while charging a Photon Art, while the latter heals the Hunter and all allies around them upon a successful Perfect Guard. Combine them against a multi-hit attack with allies nearby to rapidly heal yourself and them.
Combo: Bossing with Partisans lives and dies by the use of "Volgraptor". On its own, it does nothing but attach a sticky projectile to the first enemy it hits. But over the next few seconds, any damage the user deals to the stickied part will be repeated. This leads to massive burst potential, but requires keen timing to make the most of it.
Counter-Attack:
- Encouraged by the "Charged Parry" skill, giving them Perfect Guard frames for 1.5 seconds while charging a Photon Art. This lets them charge straight through an enemy attack before unleashing the Photon Art at close range.
- "Blaze Parry" normally does middling damage for a PA, but if the Hunter times a Perfect Guard in the middle of the animation just right, the attack's range, power, and speed dramatically increase, making it a staple for aggressive endgame boss fights as the most powerful tool in a Sword-wielding Hunter's arsenal.
Determinator: "Stalwart Spirit", which grants temporary invincibility and a massive S-ATK buff for a limited time after "Iron Will" activates. It's even called "Never Give Up" in Japanese.
Difficult, but Awesome:
- The "Perfect Guard" mechanic requires perfect timing to pull off, but with the appropriate skills, it can effectively nullify any kind of oncoming damage from any direction, heal a Hunter's allies, and even boost the Hunter's damage to levels comparable to Fury Stance.
- "Blaze Parry" is one if not the most difficult counter-attack to use, even when compared to Scion classes. However, it also hits the hardest.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: Along with Fighters and Bouncers, they are Fighter Classes, being considered striking classes.
Grapple Move: Wired Lances specialize in this, taking hold of smaller enemies and flinging them. Sword-wielding Hunters can join in on the fun with "Merciless Throw" which impales them first before throwing them.
I Can Still Fight!: Embodied by their "Iron Will" skill, which gives a Hunter a chance to survive an otherwise lethal attack with 1 HP while giving them a window of invulnerability to heal up and get back in the fight. More daring Hunters can take the "Stalwart Spirit" skill to gain a damage bonus during this window, potentially eschewing safety in favor of dishing out as much hurt as possible.
I Shall Taunt You: Hunters can get the "War Cry" ability that draws the enemies' aggro to them, in addition to getting a damage buff for each aggroed mook. This is good since Hunters have a much easier time aiming for enemies that aren't frantically chasing someone else, or can just be a very effective tank while their allies lay waste to their oppressors, both cases usually leading to huge amounts of monster corpses in the vicinity.
Improbable Use of a Weapon: "Ride Slash" makes you ride your sword like a hoverboard.
Laser Blade: "Cross Cut" makes the blade of the Sword even larger, while "Sacrifice Bite Zero" extends the weapon range for each attack. The Buildup Photon Art "Imperial Cleave" is an even bigger one that makes "Cross Cut" look like a toy knife by comparison.
Last Chance Hit Point: "Iron Will" gives a Hunter the chance to survive a lethal attack with 1 HP.
Limit Break: The Buildup Photon Art "Imperial Cleave", exclusive to Swords. The sword forms a huge Laser Blade to unleash a giant blue Sword Beam towards the enemy. It costs the most out of all Buildup Photon Arts alongside Knuckles' "Fatal Knockout" (3 BPA Gauge), but also inflicts the largest DPS.
Mighty Glacier:
- Played with; Hunters don't move any slower themselves, but their main weapon, the Sword does prioritize damage over speed. The Wired Lances and Partizans are also this to a lower extent. That said, they're a lot more durable than other classes, and can block with all of their weapons. Though they don't get any slower, using Étoile as a subclass increases their durability even more.
- The Hunter's propensity for taking hurt also makes them one of the most popular subclasses. "Iron Will" and "Auto-Mate Halfline" provide a safety net for those still getting the hang of a difficult and squishy class like Gunner or Fighter, while "Fury Stance" and "Perfect Attack Bonus" give unconditional damage multipliers welcome on every physically-inclined class, turning a Glass Cannon into a Lightning Bruiser.
Simple, yet Awesome:
- Sacrifice Bite Zero is just an energy-absorbing doesn't just give you an increase in range (which is nice, but not a game-changer), it also gives you a much lengthier and faster dash attack, turning the hunter into a Lightning Bruiser.
- Heavenly Drop picks up the target and throws them back to the floor, dealing a hefty amount of damage on the second hit. But what makes it awesome is the fact that if you take All Guard, you're completely invulnerable while using it, allowing you to lay on the hurt while being completely immune to oncoming damage.
Skill Gate Characters: Hunter is arguably the simplest class to play in the game, making it relatively easy to survive and deal decent damage. But to keep up and survive tougher enemies they have to get their Perfect Guard game down pat and know how best to use their weapon types. Partisans in particular are trickier to use due to Volgraptor's mechanics, but they can deal impressive burst damage when used properly.
Spin to Deflect Stuff: Partisans use this as their blocking animation.
Sword and Fist: Downplayed, the sword dash attack is normally a kick when the Sacrifice Bite Zero buff is not active.
Sword Beam:
- "Sonic Arrow" is a ring-shaped one for swords, and "Speed Rain" for Partisans.
- Swords' Buildup Photon Art, "Imperial Cleave", unleashes a giant blue crescent-shaped shockwave.
Stance System: Hunters can use "Fury Stance" (increase attack while decreasing defense) and "Guard Stance" (increasing defense while decreasing offense). Maxing either stance will completely remove the demerit for using them, but they can't be used simultaneously.
Throw the Mook at Them:
- The grapple-based Photon Arts usually takes the poor sap and bowls over other enemies with them, letting the normally single-target attacks be useful for some crowd control.
- Both "Merciless Throw" and "Zenith Throw" also grab enemies and throw them at the others with Swords and Partisans respectively.
Whip Sword: Well, Whip Spear, but the intent is the same with Wired Lances. The "whip" part is especially pronounced, as the lances are often used to make Instant Knots around foes to grapple them around.

Fighter

Specialized Striking Class. Much like the Hunter, they're close-combat operatives with high striking power. In contrast to them, however, they forgo heavy defenses in favor of speed and life-or-death play.

An Adventurer Is You: The Scrapper, with a touch of The Berserker, in contrast to the Hunter. Hitting their targets quickly in succession is the name of the game for the Fighter, and in some cases, live dangerously in the battlefield by fighting in critical condition.
Boxing Battler: Fighting with Knuckles gives you moves that are very boxer-like including jabs, uppercuts, and swerving to dodge.
Close-Range Combatant: Many of their weapons don't have particularly good melee range.
- Double Sabers tend to not have very sweeping melee attacks, but they have some Photon Arts with more reach. If it involves throwing the weapon or creating a cyclone, then it has a wider area of effect than usual.
- Knuckles have the least range, but they can benefit from Skill Ring that lets their normal attacks on the ground follow locked-on targets. They also have Photon Arts that can close gaps, "Advancing Charge" and its Zero version, and "Heartless Impact".
- Twin Daggers are the least hampered by this. Though they still have paltry reach, the swift and PP-efficient Photon Art Raging Waltz homes in on any targeted point, even if it is high in the air. Symphonic Driver is similar but more of a hit-an-run attack. And like Knuckles, they too can get a Skill Ring that makes their normal attacks close in on the target.
Crippling Overspecialization: Twin Daggers excel at bossing with their ability to stick to fast-moving targets with Photon Arts like "Symphonic Driver" and "Raging Waltz" as well as having plenty of guard frames and high DPS. But their short range and how necessary it is to be in the air at all times makes them much less suited for mobbing.
Critical Status Buff: Fighters excel in this, with a myriad of powerful buff skills activating when their HP or PP falls below a certain threshold, or they are afflicted with a status condition. Limit Break can invoke this directly by dropping the Fighter to 25% maximum HP temporarily, and as it counts as a status condition, this can activate at least half of the buff skills on the tree at the same time.
Difficult, but Awesome: "Slayer" skills in a nutshell. They give a hefty power boost, but they rely on having dangerously low HP to even take effect. A bad Slayer-build Fighter will be eating dirt constantly, but with the right dodging skills, they can rip and tear through bosses with ease in spite of having just a sliver of HP.
Double Weapon: Double Sabers, naturally. Some Twin Daggers also appear to be double-sided.
- Some Double Sabers resemble Fuuma Shuriken, making them technically quadruple weapons.
- For a first-time Inversion in the series, some Weapon Camos allow the Double Saber to instead resemble a single-sided sword.
Dual Wield: Twin Daggers. But, like the previous games, they avoid the weapon's usual connotations. Especially here where they're designed to excel at aerial combat and gain power by avoiding the ground.
Extremity Extremist: The Knuckle moveset consist mostly of punches.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: Along with Hunters and Bouncers, they are the Fighters, being considered striking classes.
Flash Step: Facet Folia assaults the target so swiftly, the player character temporarily vanishes and gains invincibility frames.
Glass Cannon: Invoked as the reason to make this your class; Fighter weapons are much faster to compensate for their lower natural defense skills compared to Hunters. This goes to the logical extreme when Limit Break is activated, lowering their max HP to the point that a single stray hit from a high-level enemy can kill them, but when the other status buffs are leveled, their damage can skyrocket.
Ground Punch: "Quake Stomp", one of Knuckles' Photon Arts, has the Fighter slam their fist into the ground to damage and stun nearby enemies.
Injured Vulnerability: The "Chaser" archetype of skills boost damage done on enemies suffering from status ailments, and possibly bind them in place via Chaser Bind.
Lightning Bruiser: Add on Étoile as a subclass and Fighters are much less glassy than they normally are. The tradeoff is that outside of Limit Break, the "Slayer" skills are harder to deliberately invoke.
Limit Break: Fighter has two different instances:
- The aptly named "Limit Break" ability, which dramatically increases offensive abilities in exchange of reduced max HP for a short time. In addition, Fighter has several abilities that benefit from the reduced max HP, such as the Deadline Slayer and Halfline Slayer, thus increasing the capabilities even further.
- The Buildup Photon Art "Fatal Knockout", exclusive to Knuckles. The PA launches two wide attacks, followed by a powerful slam that emits damaging shockwave. It costs 3 BPA Gauge, similar to Sword's "Imperial Cleave".
Megaton Punch: "Decimator" is a Megaton Backhand that can fling smaller enemies back.
Power Fist: Knuckles are often big and beefy fist covers. All the better to demolish enemies at point-blank range with.
Prestige Class: The class previously had to be unlocked by reaching Hunter level 30.
Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: A Knuckle Fighter's MO. Their attack speed increases with the amount of focus they have. This is best exemplified by their Photon Arts. Burst Infinity is a flurry of incredibly fast punches, Pendulum Roll has the Fighter bob and weave as they punch their opponent and over, while Flicker Jab sends out three punches simultaneously.
Stance System: Fighters can use "Brave Stance" (increase damage inflicted from the front while decreasing damage inflicted from behind) and "Wise Stance" (increase damage inflicted from behind while decreasing damage inflicted from the front).
Theme Naming: Twin Dagger photon arts have a music theme; "Raging Waltz", "Terror Fugue", "Wild Rhapsody", to name a few.
Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Turbine Toss, Baleful Circle, and Dark Scherzo all involve this.
Weapon Twirling: The weapon action for both the Twin Daggers and Double Sabers involves twirling, with some of the photon arts doing this as well.

Ranger

Standard Ranged Class. The classic ranged attacker that, while not excelling in power, brings utility to their allies by marking weak points and exploiting them with pinpoint shooting skills.

An Adventurer Is You: The Archer, funnily enough, considering Braver's existence. Their power isn't much to write home about, but their Assault Rifles fire rapidly. In the case of the Launcher though, they're The Nuker, focusing on blowing up crowds of enemies.
Attack Its Weak Point: Rangers can make weak points via "Blight Rounds", increasing how much damage is inflicted when anyone strikes it. They also have a passive skill that boosts how much damage they can inflict on weak points. Combine both for destructive results.
BFG: Even the more tame-looking Launchers are rocket launchers as large as the ARKS ops using them, while the larger ones look like a scaled-down version of a gun belonging to a Humongous Mecha.
Boom, Headshot!: The Ranger's preference for hitting enemy weak points means that they'll be aiming at heads a lot when dealing with humanoid enemies.
Bottomless Magazines: Played With. While there is a reload animation every three shots, the wielder is simply loading more photons into the weapon. As photons are in excess, they technically have unlimited ammo.
Canon Name: Giliam for the male cast Ranger.
Charged Attack:
- The Ranger's most powerful damage PAs, "Positron Blast" and "Satellite Cannon" require a lengthy windup to charge. But aimed properly, they can deal colossal damage to bosses.
- "Divine Launcher Type-0" can be charged to up the damage and explosion radius even more to obliterate a crowd of enemies.
Death of a Thousand Cuts: Assault Rifles deal less damage per hit compared to other weapons, but they make up for it by hitting over and over. Combined with their pinpoint accuracy and long range, they're perfect for whittling enemies down from a distance and sniping enemy weak points to take down bosses and armored foes.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: Along with Gunners and Bravers, they are the Thieves, being considered ranged classes.
Gatling Good: The Complex Photon Art for Launchers, Prominence Assail, turns it into a rapid-fire plasma cannon before unleashing a powerful finishing shot with a large AOE.
Glass Cannon: Their defense is low compared to Hunters and their mobility options are fairly limited compared to Bravers and Bouncers, but they make up for it with the ability to abuse weak points like no other class and obliterate weaker mobs with their Launchers.
Gun Fu: One of their skills allows them to shoot immediately after a dodge roll, skipping the initial pause to keep attacking. They also have Photon Arts like Impact Slider and Parallel Slider-0 that allow them to shoot and slide around at the same time.
Herd-Hitting Attack: The intent of Launchers, who can mow down entire crowds of enemies with heavy AOE damage. But their slow projectile speed and fire rate make them ill-suited for handling faster, aggressive enemies or hitting small weak points on bosses.
Kill It with Fire: While not actually fire-element damage, Rangers can indulge with "Flame Round", temporarily turning their Launcher into a flamethrower.
Kill Sat: "Satellite Cannon" is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, bringing down a giant laser from the sky to deal massive damage at a target area. But the lengthy charge time to deal maximum damage, unwieldy aiming mechanics, and being unable to move while aiming can render this Awesome, but Impractical if the target is moving.
Limit Break: The Buildup Photon Art "Prominence Assail", exclusive to Launchers. The PA Launches the player onto the air before unleashing barrages of bullets towards the enemies, ending with a massive blast. It costs 1 BPA Gauge for every use.
Long-Range Fighter: "Sharpshooter" incentivizes staying as far away from your enemies as possible by giving a damage bonus when you're outside of point-blank range.
Look Ma, No Plane!: Ever tried flying with your launcher? With the photon art "Rocket Rodeo" you can achieve that for just a couple of seconds, and the Zero version makes it last as long as your photon points can last.
Mighty Glacier: Only with Étoile as a subclass. Ranger's most powerful attacks may be slow and require them to stand still, but Étoile's defensive skills mean few things can stop their Satellite Cannon or Positron Blast from charging up.
One Hit Poly Kill: Some Assault Rifle PAs like "Piercing Round" and "Positron Blast" can pierce right through enemies, striking weak points hidden behind armor or wiping out multiple enemies in one hit.
Painfully Slow Projectile: "Cosmos Breaker" fires a ridiculously slow moving homing projectile that detonates in a huge radius upon making contact with an enemy or a surface. The super armor and multiple hits makes it useful for stunlocking crowds of troublesome mobs, but projectile's painfully slow speed makes it best used at point-blank or aimed at a wall or the floor to hit enemies with the splash damage.
Pistol-Whipping: Launcher whipping, rather. "Wild Wallop" lets you use yours as an improvised bludgeon to smack enemies that get too close away from you.
Short-Range Long-Range Weapon: "Contact Blast", in which you stick the launcher up an enemy's face to blast them point-blank.
Skill Gate Characters: Ranger's long range and simple skillset makes them easy to pick up, but they'll get mauled in more difficult content should players not learn how to properly position themselves, carefully aim at weak points, and utilize "Blight Rounds" for maximum effect.
Simple, yet Awesome: The humble "Blight Rounds" simply marks a target for increased damage, indicated by a red crosshair. It isn't flashy, but when everyone is able to take advantage of it, it's a welcome sight for boosted raid damage and doesn't need any extra frills.
Situational Sword: Their main damage-boosting skill only rewards them for hitting specific weak spots on enemies, making it more niche when compared to other passive bonuses. But they deal far more damage when striking those weak points than just about any other class.
Trap Master: Rangers are the only ones that can utilize traps, and can see other traps in the area.
Unrealistic Black Hole: "Gravity Bomb", a skill that gives the Ranger essentially a black hole in a grenade. It doesn't do damage, but it keeps enemies pinned down for crowd control.
Useless Useful Spell: Most of a Ranger's special rounds besides "Blight Rounds" are considered fairly useless in the long-term. While status conditions are nice, the vast majority of the bosses in the game possess Contractual Boss Immunity, and it's generally much more efficient to simply blast away mobs than try to whittle them down with crowd control abilities. The one exception to this rule is "Blinding Shot" against Dark Falz Luther, as the blind will open his clock to expose a giant, easily exploitable weak point.
Wave-Motion Gun: "Photonic Laser" turns any Launcher into this, firing a laser in the direction the Ranger is facing until they let go of the trigger or they run out of PP.

Gunner

Specialized Ranged Class. A high power front-line attacker that marries the range of a Ranger's firearms with the high-risk burst damage of a Fighter. While they have the ranged utility of their Ranger bretheren, they lack the means to use it as effectively, requiring Gunners to get up close and personal to be within range.

An Adventurer Is You: The Archer with a side of Avoidance Tank. All the damage pumping out shots as much as possible adds up, and with Showtime, they could draw attention away from their allies while using their acrobatics to avoid getting touched.
Bottomless Magazines: Unlike Assault Rifles which they share with their Ranger brethren, their Twin Machine Guns have no need to reload.
Bullet Time: Three consecutive evasions will cause the user to flip in slo-mo. What makes this a very strange case is that only the user is subject to this; everything else flows like normal. Alternatively, the Photon Art "Chronolapse" gleefully invokes this, making the user spin and pop bullets as if they're in The Matrix.
Close-Range Combatant: You'd think otherwise, but Twin Machine Guns themselves don't have a lot of range for what they're classified as. The class also has skills the boost damage the closer to a target you are.
Difficult, but Awesome: Gunners are able to put out some truly ridiculous damage numbers with their "Chain Trigger" ability on top of having excellent in-combat mobility, arguably the best dodging ability in the game in the form of "Stylish Roll", as well as strong mobbing and bossing options. This comes at the cost of requiring pitch-perfect play, as getting struck will dramatically reduce their Focus Gauge and will likely deactivate "Perfectionist", greatly reducing their damage output. In addition, "Chain Trigger" requires a lot of setup to use, and a variety of things can instantly waste it, whether the target moves too far away to activate it, the part struck becomes invulnerable or is broken, or the target simply moves around too much to hit it enough times for maximum power.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: Along with Rangers and Bravers, they are the Thieves, being considered ranged classes.
Fragile Speedster: Their acrobatics make them highly mobile, but they're going to need all of their movement options to avoid getting torn to shreds in one or two hits. Gunners are encouraged to not get hit at all, as the "Perfectionist" skill grants more power when HP is above a certain threshold.
Full Health Bonus: The Gunner class's Perfectionist skill offers a whopping 20% bonus damage at maximum rank for as long as the Gunner's health stays above 75%. But given that Gunners are Glass Cannons whose health drops like a rock after taking a single hit, it might as well be a "do not get hit at all if you want to keep this" skill. Their High Time skill also rewards them with gradually increasing damage for not getting hit while Showtime (which causes the Gunner to Draw Aggro) is active.
Glass Cannon: When in their groove, Gunners are capable of piling on immense damage, provided nothing touches them. The Gunner/Fighter combo is infamous for its high damage output, but also combines two of the squishier classes. Downplayed with the Gunner/Hunter combo (stronger defenses but losing enough HP still means losing their damage multipliers.) Notably, they are the only Ranged class who cannot escape this by using Étoile as a subclass. Étoile's lack of a Stance skill means the two classes lack the same synergy as Gunner/Hunter or Gunner/Fighter.
Gun Fu: They specialize in dancing around the enemy with a flurry of acrobatics all while unloading a constant stream of bullets into their foes.
The Gunslinger: Gunner-class players can fight with Twin Machine Guns, hoping around and popping off shots like a John Woo character.
Limit Break: The Buildup Photon Art "Calamity Bullet", exclusive for Twin Machine Guns. The PA fires series of bullets before ending it with two concentrated shots. It costs 2 BPA gauge per use.
Marked to Die: "Chain Trigger" allows a Gunner to prep for massive burst damage by marking a specific point on an enemy and then repeatedly shooting that spot with their normal attacks. Under ideal circumstances, they'll be able to hit it 100 times (50 with the appropriate skill) for the maximum damage bonus, turning the next Photon Art used into a ridiculous spray of giant numbers. Even better, they can do start the process all over again, as there's a skill that reduces the cooldown of Chain Trigger proportionately to how high the chain went before it's unleashed.
No Range Like Point-Blank Range: Although Twin Machine Guns can be used from afar, the "Point Blank Bonus" skill encourages Gunners to stand as close to their enemies as possible for maximum damage.
Recoil Boost: "Bullet Hail" has the Gunner kick themselves up into the air and keep themselves there by firing a barrage of bullets straight down into their target.
Prestige Class: The class previously had to be unlocked by reaching Ranger level 30.
I Shall Taunt You: Gunner's "Showtime" Skill vastly increases their Hate Accumulation Rate while the Skill is active, allowing them to draw enemies' attention much easier than their allies.

Force

Standard Tech Class. Through control of photons to create the elements at will, the Force mends and maims through techniques, plowing through mobs of enemies while healing their allies of damage or dispelling status ailments. Though their versatile kit makes them a welcome ally, their defenses are much to be desired, making frontline combat a dangerous place to be in.

Ability Mixing: Forces and Techters have the exclusive ability to fuse two different Techniques into a single, new Technique, often with devastating effects.
An Adventurer Is You: The Nuker, in classic Phantasy Star Online fashion. Their ability to blast through mobs and bosses is bolstered by exploiting elemental weaknesses, which almost every enemy has.
Canon Name: Lupica for the female newman force.
Charged Attack: While all classes that use Techniques can charge them, Force has several skills that offer bonus damage for a charged Technique.
Death Dealer: The Talis weapons are thrown cards. Heck, there's a Weapon Camo that is an actual deck of cards.
Discard and Draw: Using Étoile as a subclass makes Force significantly more durable. The tradeoff is that the more convenient and infinitely usable Resta and Megiverse no longer work as intended, so they have to use Mates and Star Atomizers instead.
Elemental Powers: Their modus operandi, able to cast Techniques of fire, ice, lightning, wind, light, and dark.
Elemental Weapon: Barantsion forms two swords out of light and ice to slash the target repeatedly for heavy single-target damage.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: Along with Techters and Summoners, they are the Mages, being considered tech classes.
Fire, Ice, Lightning: While all the elements are at their disposal, they have skills that power up the damage of those elements.
Fragile Speedster: The Force/Phantom combo turns them into this. They can move just as quickly as a Phantom when charging up techs, their tech charge times are just as low, and they also benefit from Force's unique ability to slide while activating techs in the air. The result is a Force that can easily bombard the target with techs even while dodging and repositioning.
Kamehame Hadouken: Formelgion combines fire and dark Techniques to unleashes a damaging beam that can be slowly aimed. The user can't be knocked back during use and it can deal massive damage to mobs. But its slow turning speed makes it ill-advised to use on aggressive bosses.
Limit Break: Forces and Techters have exclusive access to "Compound Techniques", extra powerful Techniques that combine two elements for a Yin-Yang Bomb. They require the Force or Techter to charge up a gauge to use and have a long 90 second cooldown, but their raw power more than makes up for it.
Magic Knight: Not usually a viable way to play Force, but there have been at least two niche builds in the game's history that involve this:
- During Elysion's heyday, it was viable for Forces to mainly wield a Wand (though it required a very different skill set from the traditional Force skill tree.)
- There was a moment in the game's history when using Quelle Neigea as a Force/Hunter was a viable playstyle. Simply upgrade and affix the weapon, upgrade the A Rod Shoot Mode to max level, and keep swinging the weapon to bombard the enemy with unusually powerful Rod blasts.
Magikarp Power: The Force class is rather infamous for having the weakest early game out of each class, but once you learn how to make custom techs that boost damage significantly, they can easily become one of the most damaging classes.
Power Gives You Wings: Zandion combines wind and lightning to soar on wings of wind and leaving a storm of lightning in their wake.
Squishy Wizard: Classic example of having high damage in techniques, but inversely proportional resilience. Force/Techter is the most enduring combo for this playstyle.
Super Mode: "Photon Flare" is a temporary buff that grants a chunk of T-ATK to the Force. At level 85, it's further upgraded to "Photon Flare Short Change", drastically decreasing the charge time of Techniques while for a massive increase in damage output while it's in effect.

Techter

Specialized Tech Class. While they have the power of techniques like Forces, they're able to empower their wands with the elemental damage and engage in close combat more reliably. Their supportive techniques also have increased effectiveness, making them useful as a support class.

Ability Mixing: Forces and Techters have the exclusive ability to fuse two different Techniques into a single, new Technique, often with devastating effects.
An Adventurer Is You: A hybrid between Nuker, Healer Classic, and Buffer, though Nuker is downplayed in comparison. Techters share the same technique damage properties as the Force, but they're capable of having stronger buffs and heals.
Awesome, but Impractical: A fully-charged Heavy Hammer will deal tremendous damage to anything it hits. But it takes so long to charge and has such a short range that it's rarely worth it unless you time it to hit a beefy target as it's coming toward you or while pre-charging against a boss that was temporarily unreachable.
Blow You Away: Has a skill tree dedicated to boosting wind damage techs.
Boring, but Practical: They only have one weapon Photon Art, but it covers a lot of situations relatively well without sacrificing a lot of damage. The charged version, on the other hand, verges on Awesome, but Impractical instead due to the lengthy amount of time it takes to boot it, but does INSANE damage.
Carry a Big Stick: Wands as a weapon tend to look more like one-handed maces than traditional wands. This is okay, as this allows them to smash enemies to submission when they get close.
Casting a Shadow: "Dark Mastery" greatly improves the power of their Dark-element Techniques.
Close-Range Combatant: Techters that want to use their Focus gauge to the fullest will focus almost exclusively on melee attacks and support Techniques. Techter/Hunter takes this to a bigger extreme as the Hunter subclass lacks damage multipliers for Techniques.
Combat Medic: The Techter class' skill tree focuses on giving an extra kick in Resta, Shifta, and Deband, but this certainly does not stop them from hitting the front lines. They have skills (Wand Gear, Wand Lovers, and Wand Reactor) that aid in their close combat ability, and the class statistically have more striking power and defense when compared to the Force.
Cool Sword: If the wand doesn't look like a bludgeoning stick, there's a good chance it's this instead. Elysion is one of the more famous examples.
Death Dealer: Shares this with Force, being able to equip Talises as well.
Discard and Draw: "Wand Lovers" discards the Mirage Escape sidestep used by Forces in exchange for the melee classes' sidestep, improved melee damage, and locks the Focus gauge to maximum charge.
Elemental Powers: Able to cast techniques of fire, ice, lightning, wind, light, and dark much like Forces. They, however, specialize in wind, light, and dark instead.
Elemental Weapon: Barantsion forms two swords out of light and ice to slash the target repeatedly for heavy single-target damage.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: Along with Forces and Summoners, they are the Mages, being considered tech classes.
Foil: They're more magic oriented as opposed to the Bouncers, which are more physical fighters.
Fragile Speedster: Played with for the Techter/Phantom combo. Their melee attacks are no faster than any combo but they cast Techniques significantly faster.
Glass Cannon: Techters may have better melee offense and defense than Forces, but they still have the low HP of a Force and offer no defensive boons outside of "Deband Cut". Techter/Fighter lacks the durability of the Hunter and Étoile subclasses. Its individual Techniques are beefier than Techter/Phantom, but can't be fired as quickly.
Having a Blast: Wand Focus causes elemental explosions matching the Wand's current element to appear at the point of impact, dealing heavy damage and creating a slight AOE effect. As a result, the Techter's general-purpose mobbing strategy is to pull in everything around them with Zondeel before letting loose with a few smacks from their Wand. The overlapping explosions will deal huge damage to the clumped up mobs.
Hitbox Dissonance: Nowadays it's ZigZagged due to some of the Wands being long enough to reflect its reach, but before then, it was a balance-necessitated case as the Wand's reach was abysmal during its debut period.
Kamehame Hadouken: Formelgion combines fire and dark Techniques to unleashes a damaging beam that can be slowly aimed. The user can't be knocked back during use and it can deal massive damage to mobs. But its slow turning speed makes it ill-advised to use on aggressive bosses.
Light/Darkness Juxtaposition: Their skill trees involve boosting the effectiveness light and dark techs.
Magic Knight:
- Techters were designed with this in mind, but with more Magic and less Knight. Most of their skill tree focuses on boosting Support Techniques and elements that the Force tree doesn't cover; but with Wand Gear, Techters can augment their physical strikes with elemental bursts, making them no slouch in close combat.
- As mentioned in Close-Range Combatant, Techter/Hunter is more Knight than Magic.
Mass Resurrection: Techters have the special honor of having their own revive skill in "Reverser Field", which casts a field that revives fallen party members you touch. It's got a long as hell cooldown (ten minutes!) and a measly uptime of at most fifteen seconds, but if you're quick on your feet, you can avert a disastrous Total Party Kill without using up your precious Moon Atomizers.
Prestige Class: The class previously had to be unlocked by reaching Force level 30.
The Red Mage: They're not as hard-hitting in melee combat as a dedicated melee class nor will they put out as much magical damage as a Force, but they can dish out both in equal measure while having unique skills that enhance their supportive Techs.
Support Party Member: The closest the game has to one. Techters are the only class with abilities that improve the effects of Shifta and Deband on others as well as greatly increasing the range of their supportive Techs. This makes them the ideal support-focused party member, but they can still dish out plenty of damage with Techniques and Compound Techniques or simply a good wand smack.
Useless Useful Spell: "Reverser Field" revives nearby fallen allies with a field centered around the caster. While this might sound useful, the skill is burdened with a painful ten minute cooldown. Given that everyone can pack Moon Atomizers to accomplish the same effect, "Reverser Field" rarely sees use.

Braver

Striking/Ranged hybrid Class. Wielders of the katana and bow, their ability to fight with contrasting weapons gives Bravers a fast, yet powerful offense. The class was introduced in EPISODE: 2.

Abnormal Ammo: "Kamikaze Arrow" loads the user as a projectile for the bow and launches them at a bunch of enemies. Unfortunately, it doesn't deal much damage or cover much distance, landing it firmly in Awesome, but Impractical territory.
An Adventurer Is You: The Jack of All Trades, though with a lean towards Scrapper and Archer. The Katana is quick, but middling damage, and their Bullet Bow fires quickly but also with middling damage.
Attack Its Weak Point: Precision Stance does more damage on weakspots but is decreased elsewhere.
Awesome, but Impractical: The regular version of "Volcanic Carnation" deals huge damage, but the animation is so lengthy that mobile bosses can simply jump out of the way by the time it actually strikes. The "Type-0" version remedies this by allowing it to go off immediately for lower damage or be charged for additional damage.
Bow and Sword in Accord: Bravers are able to wield both Katanas and Bullet Bows, and the Braver Combination Level 85 skill encourages the use of both, as it allows the Braver to use the Katana Focus Gauge's released state with a Bullet Bow for 100% critical rate and bonus damage indefinitely so long as the Braver doesn't switch back to their Katana.
Canon Name: Hyuga for the male braver and Nagisa for female braver.
Charged Attack: Though the others have chargeable Photon Arts, Braver has the distinction of having skills that power those up, as well as having an extra twist with katana arts. Chargeable Katana Photon Arts also has a timing window for when to strike, indicated by a ring that shrinks and turns red, much like how normal attacks turn into perfect attacks.
Combo: Bullet Bows' "Banishing Arrow" Photon Art attaches a sticky projectile to the target that lasts for ten seconds. Once that sticky area is struck by a Bow attack, a three-second timer starts where the Braver is encouraged to load on as much damage as possible. Once those three seconds are up, the projectile will explode, dealing the percentage of that damage again. This is critical to a Bow-wielding Braver's bossing rotations.
Counter-Attack: Katana-wielding Bravers can use their weapon action to block much like a Hunter. But if they time it perfectly, they will perform a quick counter attack. Skills like "Counter Edge" and "Counter Bonus" add additional power to these attacks, which can do as much damage as another Photon Art. In addition, countering while the Katana Focus gauge is full will temporarily increase the Braver's damage and critical hit rate.
Diagonal Cut:
- "Volcanic Carnation" has the Braver strike a pose where they slowly move their katana in a circle before bringing it down in front of them for huge damage. The "Type-0" version skips the prepping animation in exchange for allowing the Braver to charge it instead.
- The "Katana Combat Finisher" has the Braver slice a wide area around them for massive damage. But the damage is only dealt after the blade is sheathed.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: They are the Thieves alongside Rangers and Gunners, being considered ranged classes.
Glass Cannon: Choosing Fighter or Phantom as a subclass means dodging and Katana parries are the only things between the player and a swift death, but they're also capable of extremely high DPS both up close and at range.
Gun Kata: The dash attack for Bullet Bows uses a kick, and the "Kickshot Combo" attack is a furious barrage of arrow shots and kicks.
Iaijutsu Practitioner: Bravers always sheath their katana between attacks. Unfortunately, this also means that a lack of inputs will result in a lengthy Weapon Twirling animation, encouraging the Braver to cancel it with a sidestep.
Jack of All Trades: Unlike the Ranger or Gunner, Bravers can also work as a melee class.
Lightning Bruiser: They become this with the "Katana Combat" skill (in tandem with "Combat Escape") making them invulnerable to all damage while also strengthening their Perfect Attacks. And they get a powerful finisher to top it all off. Using Hunter (mainly for Katana-focused Bravers) or Étoile as a subclass lets them be somewhat durable all the time.
Limit Break: Braver has two instances:
- "Katana Combat" is Braver's Super Mode, with the option to end it by pressing the ability once again to unleash "Combat Finish", a powerful Finishing Move that deals more damage depending on how much attacks you land during the duration.
- The Buildup Photon Art "Cerulean Ballista", exclusive to Bows, and costs 1 BPA gauge per use. There are two variants of this:
  - Without directional input, the PA launches a single, focused shot on top of the enemy.
  - With directional input, the PA unleashes wide attack in a fan pattern. The attack has wider range, but also weaker damage compared to the non-input version.
Mascot: Of EPISODE 2, being the highlight of said EPISODE, along with the then-newly added Deuman race.
More Dakka: "Million Storm" fires a continuous barrage of arrows in a targeted direction. But the individual damage per arrow is weak, making it more useful for clearing groups of weaker enemies than as a bossing attack.
Multishot:
- The skill "Rapid Fire" allows them to shoot multiple times in rapid succession, while the Photon Art "Million Storm" fires a constant stream of arrows like a machine gun. "Master Shot" fires five arrows that will spread out without a lock-on target or home-in when a target is designated.
- "Cerulean Ballista", the Bow's Buildup Photon Art, fires a barrage of arrows either into the sky to converge on a single target or straight ahead in a fan pattern to cover a wide area.
No "Arc" in "Archery": Zig-Zagged. The Bullet Bow's basic attack is subject to gravity, but charging it reduces some of the arc, and their Photon Arts defy it altogether one way or another.
Playing with Fire: "Eviscerating Bloom" has the Braver drag their sword along the ground in front of them to unleash a trail of fire for a short distance.
Purple Is Powerful: Upon activating "Katana Focus", the user ignites in a fiery purple aura.
Rain of Arrows: "Torrential Rain" unleashes a barrage of of arrows that rain down on a small area for a period of time. Charging the attack significantly increases the number of arrows fired.
Samurai: The class was renamed to this in the SEA servers.
Stance System: Bravers can use "Basic Stance" (increases damage in general, though not to the same degree as other stances) and "Precision Stance" (increase damage inflicted when exploiting an elemental weakness or striking a weak point while decreasing damage to other parts of the body).
The Straight and Arrow Path: Bravers have exclusive access to Bullet Bows in a world where ARKS is armed to the teeth with assault rifles, rocket launchers, and twin machine guns. The necessity to charge attacks for maximum damage gives them a lower rate of fire than the latter while boasting less raw damage than the former, but they possess far superior mobility and a plethora of Trick Arrows to tip the scales.
Super Mode:
- "Katana Focus" charges the timer for said super mode, and is activated upon successful Perfect Guard. When active, the Braver receives hefty bonuses in melee power, critical hit rate and even PP regeneration.
- There is also "Katana Combat", which powers up Perfect Attacks while active, and allows the Braver to quickly and automatically close gaps. With "Combat Escape", they're also invulnerable for the first 20 seconds.
- For bow-wielders, they get "Rapid Fire". Though it dials back their power a bit, it turns their regular shots into 3-way triple shots, greatly improving PP recovery. Acquiring the appropriate skills will also give a 15% damage bonus and a 500 bonus R-ATK buff.
Sword Beam: The "Counter Edge" skill adds a bladed shockwave to the end of a counter to pile on additional damage at slightly longer range.
Throwing Your Sword Always Works: "Soaring Camellia", which throws the katana in front of you and boomerangs back to the user.
Trick Arrow:
- "Strike Bomber" has the Braver jump backward while shooting an explosive arrow that detonates on impact.
- "Gravitic Vortex" creates an Unrealistic Black Hole that sucks in all nearby enemies at the point of impact.
- "Banishing Arrow" absorbs a percentage of all Bow Braver damage dealt to the struck area for three seconds and deals it again.
Unnecessary Combat Roll: "Master Shot", "Penetrating Arrow", and "Banishing Arrow" all have the Braver spin to the side after firing with a movement input. This spin has a large chunk of i-frames akin to a sidestep, allowing Bravers to use it to dodge and attack at the same time.

Bouncer

Striking/Tech hybrid Class. A highly mobile class that can easily swerve around enemy weak points while providing passive support to team mates. Alongside their speedy playstyle is the ability to weave in techniques with their photon arts without skipping a beat. The class was introduced in EPISODE: 3.

An Adventurer Is You: The Scrapper, with a side of Buffer for Jet Boots. Speed and mobility are their crux, and if they have techniques in tow, they can weave in Shifta and Deband to give their allies the respective power and defensive buffs without the need to charge them.
Armed Legs: Jet Boots are equipped to the feet, giving a Bouncer the ability to double jump even before they hit Level 40 and allowing them to imbue their kicks with rocket-powered speed on top of elemental damage.
The Artifact: The Jet Boots' unique Double Jump ability. Prior becoming a passive unlock at Level 40, you needed to wear Jet Boots if you wanted to double jump. Nowadays, it's become redundant, serving as a way to use it early.
Combos: The Jet Boots' weapon action allows them to perform various maneuvers depending on the last attack used, such as spin kicking with boosted mobility for normal attacks, or a ground-stomping axe kick following Strike Gust. In the case of their Photon Arts, the moves are accompanied by a free cast of Shifta, Deband, or Zanverse.
Double Jump: Jet Boots formerly had exclusivity to this ability, but wielders are able to perform this at any level. With "Jet Boots Focus" charged up, consecutive jumps leave a pulse of elemental energy, allowing the user to hurt enemies in a strange Goomba Stomp fashion. This is also encouraged with "Encore Jump", with grants another jump after a successful attack.
Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Jet Boots-wielding Bouncers can abuse this like no other class in the game, as they can imbue all of their attacks with a specific element by charging an attack Technique of the corresponding element. So charging "Megid" will turn a Jet Boots' element into Dark while "Foie" will turn it into fire. This is also encouraged by the Elemental Stance skill, which dramatically ups the user's damage when striking an elemental weakness.
Extremity Extremist: Jet Boots' moveset consist mostly of kicks. Overlaps with Kick Chick towards any female Bouncer wielding these.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: They are the Fighters alongside Hunters and Fighters, being striking classes.
Flechette Storm: Soaring Blades Focus enables the user to launch smaller photon blades with their arts or even in their evasive maneuvers.
Foil: They're more physical oriented as opposed to the Techters, which are more magical fighters.
Fragile Speedster: One of the most mobile classes in the game, but their defenses are so-so. Their Weapon Actions give them invincibility frames when their respective skills are leveled, encouraging Bouncers to not get hit at all by using it to dodge and keep up the assault. Bouncer/Fighter and Bouncer/Phantom (as well as other more niche combos) embody this trope more than any other combo. Downplayed by Bouncer/Hunter and Averted by Bouncer/Étoile, as the subclasses' skills are able to toughen up the Bouncer a bit.
In a Single Bound: "Grand Wave" sends the Bouncer soaring into the target and adjusts altitude to make this happen if necessary. This allows Bouncers to melee enemies that are too high to reach normally, like Infected Campships and parts of Magatsu.^note
Kick Chick:
- Bouncer's poster girl wields Jet Boots in contrast to the poster boy who wields Soaring Blades instead. Any female Bouncer who wields Jet Boots can also become this.
- Averted with Katori, one of Bouncer's Class Trainer. Despite Katori wearing outfit identical to the Bouncer's poster girl, she refuses to use Jet Boots, claiming that it will show her "overexposed legs" and instead wields Soaring Blade.
Limit Break: The Buildup Photon Art "Tempest Raid", exclusive to Jet Boots. The PA unleashes two rounds of bladed shockwave before finishing with a larger, more powerful shockwave. There's also a variant if Weapon Action is pressed before the final hit, which changes the final attack into a single powerful uppercut kick towards the target. It costs 2 BPA gauge per use.
Limited Move Arsenal: Jet Boots only have a mere four Photon Arts to use. This is compensated by the Weapon Action providing additional effects per Photon Art, doubling the effective arsenal.
Magic Knight: The ratio between Magic and Knight can vary vastly based on your equipment. While both Jet Boots and Soaring Blades can use Techniques, Soaring Blades users place less emphasis on their Magic and more on Knight. Jet Boots, however, use Techniques to change their weapon's element, striking and casting simultaneously. Some specific Jet Boots have Potentials that dramatically buff their Technique power, making them more Magic than Knight.
Mascot: Of EPISODE 3, being the centerpiece of that season.
Powerful, but Inaccurate: "Jetsweep Kick" is the Jet Boots' most powerful Photon Art for bossing. Its power scales with the Focus Gauge, dealing a whopping 420% of the listed damage percentage at maximum focus. However, it has a lengthy windup time that gives bosses plenty of time to move out of the way if used carelessly, draining the entire Focus Gauge for nothing. What makes this fall shy of Awesome, but Impractical is that the setup is quick enough to justify the risk of whiffing your attack. Aim carefully, Bouncers.
Power Floats: They hover above the ground while wielding the Jet Boots. Many of their Photon Arts lift them off the ground as well.
Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Well, rapid-fire kicks, but "Grand Wave" has the Bouncer kick their opponent rapidly after closing the distance.
Rocket Boots: Jet Boots combined this trope with Armed Legs for high-speed combat and elemental mayhem.
Spam Attack: Photon Blades are Soaring Blades' weapon action, shooting out a pair of blades made from photons at foes. What turns them into this is Photon Blades Fever, which doubles the number of blades sent. This allows a Bouncer to rapidly recharge their PP while continually dishing out damage, encouraging them to use it frequently to cancel attack animations to barrage foes with blades.
Spell Blade: Not their actual blades, but with "Jet Boots Focus", casting a technique causes the Jet Boots' normal attacks and Photon Arts to take on its element, allowing the Bouncer to easily target any elemental weakness.
Stance System: Bouncers can use "Break Stance" (increases damage inflicted on breakable body parts while decreasing damage inflicted elsewhere) and "Elemental Stance" (increases damage from exploiting elemental weaknesses; also increases damage when not exploiting elemental weaknesses, albeit less so).
Super Mode: They have one super mode for each weapon. "Rapid Boost", greatly decreases the charge time of a Bouncer's Photon Arts and slightly reduces the charge time for Techniques to allow Bouncers to assail their foes with a flurry of attacks to set up "Jetsweep Kick" for huge burst combos. "Photon Blades Fever" doubles the number of Photon Blades launched by a Weapon Action while greatly ramping up the damage per blade, turning a Flechette Storm into a veritable Storm of Blades to deal massive DPS. The downside of this is that a Bouncer's damage output drops significantly when either skill is on cooldown, encouraging them to alternate between the two to keep up their damage while the other skill is on cooldown.
Storm of Blades: "Kestrel Rampage" and its Zero counterpart end with the Bouncer dropping a huge number of giant Photon Blades on the target. However, these lack tracking, making it easy to miss most of the damage if the target moves.
Theme Naming: Soaring Blades have bird-themed Photon Arts. e.g. "Kestrel Rampage", "Justice Crow", "Starlings Fall"...

Summoner

Though not equipped with conventional weapons, the Summoner fights in tandem with Pets to control the battlefield. Their Pets come in various fighting styles, practically giving them an answer to any situation if they have right one in tow. The class was introduced in EPISODE: 4, but reverse-engineered into EPISODE 3 for the NA release.

An Adventurer Is You: The Beastmaster, gameplay-wise. Though they're named Summoner, they fight alongside one pet at a time and can switch between them.
The Beastmaster: They command their pets to fight.
Cartoon Conductor: Harmonizers resemble a conductor's baton, and the Summoner waves them like one to direct their pets.
Difficult, but Awesome: Summoners are just plain bizarre, essentially playing by their own set of rules separate from virtually every other class in the game and requiring players used to typical character gearing and gameplay to effectively rebuild all of their knowledge from the ground up. In addition, Pets being their own distinct entities means that one player has to do the job of managing more than one character in combat, a task made even more difficult by how finicky and non-intuitive Pets have the capacity to be. They also just straight up aren't designed to handle certain content, making excelling with them that much more challenging. All of this is made up by the fact that a well-informed and skilled Summoner player is one of the most disgustingly powerful classes in the game, on par and potentially exceeding Scions, as their capacity to dish out nuclear levels of single-target damage while being nigh-unkillable and being able to ignore half of the game's mechanics makes them boss-slaying demons.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: The mages alongside Forces and Techters, being considered a tech class. Their pets are their main focus, but the Summoner can also cast techniques to support them.
Inventory Management Puzzle: How the pet Sweets Box works. A Summoner can only cram in so many sweets at a time to boost their pet's stats, and the box layout for each pet makes it crucial to plan out the ideal arrangement. While you can upgrade the sweets to downsize them and remove caramel blocks to make room, there's a hard limit of how many of each type can be put in, as well as blocks that cannot be removed.
Mascot: Of EPISODE 4.
Mechanically Unusual Class:
- Since it's their pets that do the fighting while the Summoner does the commanding and support, their bonuses come not from their weapon, but from the candies in the pet's boxes.
- By extension, the use of Pets means that Summoners don't necessarily have to play by the same rules that other classes do. Many attacks that would otherwise be a problem for other classes can be ignored by Summoners in certain cases if they play their cards right, and in a handful of cases can even be used to their advantage.
Mighty Glacier: While the class is a Squishy Wizard backed up by Pets on paper, endgame Summoners lean more into this role. The class fights comparatively slower than most other classes due to the inherent clunkiness of Pets and Pet mechanics, but they hit very hard and don't always have to deal with the same mechanics that other classes have to deal with, and thanks to skills like Dear Master and Alter Ego Harmony, if played correctly Summoners are among the hardest characters to kill in the entire game, only rivaled by even tankier class combinations like Hunter/Étoile.
The Power of Friendship: Invoked with certain skills, one of them, for example, has the pet Taking the Bullet should an attack prove to be fatal to the player.
Sigil Spam: The Pet Sympathy emblem, an eighth-note with a face on it. Not only does it appear on the Pet Sympathy element itself, it also appears somewhere on every Pet, typically in the form of an accessory. Wanda/Jinga's collar has it, Trim/Aero wears it as a locket around its neck, Sally/Popple have it on their scarves, Marron/Melon have it on their headphones, Viola wears a necklace with the emblem, Synchro's "sash" has it as a fastener, Redran has a chain on its leg with the emblem attached, and Herbie has it on the front of its book. Vulcan is the only Pet who has the sigil directly emblazoned onto its body via the backs of its oversized arms, and Rappy lacks the sigil out of faithfulness to its iconic design.
Squishy Wizard: Zig-Zagged. The player character is far from durable... but the enemy's attention is usually on the pet instead. The pets themselves range from frail to ridiculously durable.
Synchronization: The Alter Ego skill gives pets a significant power boost, but while it's active the Summoner also suffers any damage they take.

Tropes associated with Summoner Pets

Action Bomb: Marron and Melon, a pair of cat-rabbit-like pets that explode when thrown like a grenade and become more volatile as they take hits. You better throw them at your soonest convenience when they're at their largest, or they'll explode on you instead.
Action Pet: Well, duh? They're half the point of Summoners.
Awesome, but Impractical:
- Sally/Popple has the unfortunate distinction of being among the least useful Pets. Their niche as a long-ranged mobbing Pet with tools such as a vacuum PA and a Damage Over Time field looks good at a glance, until you realize that Redran does exactly what they can do but with vastly superior options and better Sweets to go with it. Combine with the fact that they're Squishy Wizard territory means that they pretty much don't do anything that other Pets can't do.
- Herbie is designed to be a bossing-oriented counterpart to Redran, who is designed to be a mobbing Pet. However, Herbie inherits all of Redran's PAs, most of which are definitely not designed for bossing, and it also inherits Redran's bulk. The result is a Pet that struggles to succeed in both bossing and mobbing, while Redran at least has a niche.
Badass Adorable: If the pet isn't cool-looking, then they're on this end. They aren't any less capable of wiping swathes of monsters either way.
- Special mention goes to the Rappy pet. In the wild, they are the only completely harmless enemy. But alongside a Summoner, they can easily go toe-to-toe with bosses. It also counts as a non-villainous example of Redemption Promotion.
Bespectacled Cutie: In the original Japanese, Herbie is named "Glass" after the large glasses it wears, and it takes the form of a cute book-wielding Pet.
Boring, but Practical: Amusingly, one of Rappy's most popular builds is an "auto" build that capitalizes on the Spirited Parfait's normal attack boost. Rappy happens to boast one of the shortest normal attack strings among Pets since it only consists of two pecks and doesn't link into a combo, meaning its base damage is higher than average to compensate. Stacking a Spirited Parfait and a Super Spirited Parfait lets Rappy peck enemies to death with +110% peck damage.
Cap: Their level cap is affected by the rarity of the egg they came from. Additionally, until Limit Broken by Pietro, they'll stop at level 100.
Crippling Overspecialization: Vulcan has high stats in other categories but has an abysmally low DEX stat, meaning both the damage it deals and the damage it takes are skewed unfavorably by default. Its Personality, "Aggressive", is designed to offset this by boosting the damage of Critical Hits (thereby ignoring variance) and granting it massive resistance. Incidentally, this also invalidates most of the utility it would gain from inheriting Synchro's Personalities, as it relies heavily on Aggressive's buffs to be effective.
Dark Is Not Evil: Vulcan is certainly the most dark and evil-looking of the Pets, but is still just as heroic as the rest of them.
Edible Theme Naming: Marron and Melon, after foodstuffs commonly used in Japanese desserts and confections. Marron is the Japanese word for "chestnut".
Evolution Power-Up: Wanda, Trim, and Sally are capable of evolving into their stronger forms Jinga, Aero, and Popple respectively.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: Between the first three pets, Wanda is the balanced and durable close-combat Fighter, Sally is the long-range and supportive Mage, and Trim is the speedy but frail Thief.
Glass Cannon: A common theme for a number of Pets. Trim, Aero, Synchro, Redran, and Herbie are all very frail but can dish out damage in combat.
Gratuitous Japanese: In the original Japanese, Synchro, being based on a kitsune, shares with Katanas the quirk of having PAs with Japanese names as opposed to having Gratuitous English, such as Synchro Zan (meaning "cut") and Synchro Ken (meaning "fist"). Funny enough, Vulcan, Synchro's Evolution, inherits all of these names despite not being Japanese-themed.
Mighty Glacier:
- Viola is a Moveset Clone of Wanda/Jinga with one key difference: it has the unique Viola Transform PA, which, when activated, causes Viola's eyes to open and large energy wings to grow out of its back. While Transformed, PP regeneration slows down to a crawl, but all of its PAs become slower and much harder-hitting versions and its DEF stats inflate by a whopping 60%.
- Vulcan, being the Evolution of Synchro, is superficially similar to Synchro, but boasts much higher HP and DEF than its Glass Cannon pre-Evolution, and its unique Personality "Aggressive" boosts it to nigh-unkillable levels by slapping an extra 70% passive damage resistance on top. Its PAs take much longer to execute and are thus more difficult to use, but hit like a truck and boast more multi-hits and other beneficial properties that make Vulcan more suited to fighting strong enemies like Luminmechs.
Noble Bird of Prey: Trim and Aero are thematically based on falcons.
Non-Lethal K.O.: When a pet takes enough damage, they're simply stunned and unable to fight for a few seconds. Summoners need to avoid this, however, as their abilities are heavily neutered without an active pet.
Oddball in the Series: While many of the Pets are varying degrees of cute and cool, Vulcan sticks out for not resembling a Pet at all, having a design more in line with a Dark Falz and having very brutal and high-impact attacks.
Palette Swap: Many Pets have an "S Egg" that is considerably rarer than normal but gives the Pet an alternate color scheme, such as Wanda/Jinga becoming an austere shade of blue and Synchro having a color-inverted palette. Only Rappy and Herbie lack S Eggs, and Vulcan initially did so until Vulcan S was introduced by Mother (Christmas) during the Christmas 2020 event.
Personality Powers: A pet's personality is a passive, additional bonus. For example, a "Sunny" Wanda would gain a power boost under clear weather, while a "Resolved" one has a Last Chance Hitpoint chance.
Promoted to Playable: While players have been able to use Rappy-themed weapons and wear Rappy suits well before Phantasy Star Online 2, the debut of the Rappy Egg introduced the first player-controlled Rappy to the series.
Stone Wall: Marron and Melon are both ultra-tanky Pets, but have different attributes that make them so. Marron has high HP but very low DEF, while Melon has very high DEF but low HP. Their damage outside of Strike is very lackluster and typically can't compete with other Pets, but if they get Strike charged they can dish out massive burst damage.

Scion Classes

In General

Scion Classes are advanced classes that are unlocked through special means. These classes are proficient in all forms of combat, but require significant investment to unlock; furthermore, due to their power, they are unable to equip a subclass. Although their weapons are shared with the basic classes, they act differently in various ways and have different Photon Arts.

Difficult, but Awesome: Scion classes are so far divorced from the base classes and mechanically dense, that learning how to use them properly is a hurdle in itself. Scions are also a "what you see is what you get" deal, forcing players to play within the limitations as they're locked out from taking sub-classes to expand their repertoire. If you're able to surmount the learning curve, then you're going to be a force to be reckoned with.
Limited Move Arsenal: The classes's weapons have only four Photon Arts per type, though that doesn't stop them from doing some ludicrous things. This is especially noticeable with Étoile, which cannot use Techs, limiting them to their Photon Arts and a single active skill in "Over Drive" while putting emphasis on utilizing their Weapon Action to maximum effect. The Phantom, however, is a subversion; despite having only four arts per weapon on paper, their Weapon Action changes the behavior of their next art, doubling their arsenal in practice similar to a Jet Boots Bouncer.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: All of the Scion classes have wildly different takes on the weapons they wield, utilizing them in unique ways detailed in their respective sections. One thing they do share is that their Photon Arts are all hard-coded into the class, no discs required.
Prestige Class: In order to even use these classes, your character needs to have two of the base classes at level 75+, as well as clearance of the associated Client Order. When Hero was initially released, it was unlocked by getting a striking class, ranged class, and Technique-using class all up to level 75.
Purposefully Overpowered: They're meant to be the successors to the main classes, and on release, Hero was by and far away the most powerful class in the game. While the basic classes were eventually given buffs to bring them up to par, the Scion classes still possess an unmatched level of freedom of movement and flexibility in combat.

Hero

Possesses superior offense and agility beyond all others, with the ability to harness the powers of Striking, Ranged, and Technique damage all at once and transition between them seamlessly to handle any situation. The class was introduced in EPISODE: 5.

BFS: The Hero's personal weapon skin for their Swords is simply massive, easily being as long if not longer than the Hero is tall.
Boring, but Practical: Hero Talises lack most of the flashy effects, acrobatics and flair of Swords and Twin Machine Guns, but they can pump out more single-target damage than any other weapon available to a Hero. In addition, the Photon Arts animations don't have lengthy animations that leave the Hero vulnerable and they're able to dash after every normal attack, making them ideal for bossing.
Bottomless Magazines: Notably averted. The Hero's Twin Machine Guns cost PP to fire, and their weapon action reloads them to restore it.
Canon Name: Silfa for default female Hero.
The Cape: Their armor even invokes the imagery of a Knight in Shining Armor.
Charged Attack: Sword-wielding Heroes can fire "Spirit Bullets" with their Weapon Action. While these can be fired rapidly by tapping the button, holding it will charge it for a stronger piercing attack with guard frames on release. The Aura High Charge skill lets them charge it even longer for a powerful AOE attack.
Counter-Attack:
- With "Hero Counter", using a Step Attack immediately after dodging through an enemy's attack unleashes a powerful strike that significantly boosts the Gear gauge. The "Starfire Squall" Photon Art for Twin Machine Guns is also powered up if used under the same circumstances, but it does not boost the Gear gauge or fill up "Hero Boost".
- In addition, many of the Hero's Photon Arts possess guard frames on activation, allowing a quick-thinking Hero to charge straight through enemy attacks to keep up the assault.
Death Dealer: They can wield Talises, and unlike the caster classes, are more focused on this aspect rather than spellcasting.
Difficult, but Awesome: Though mechanically uncluttered, Heroes still have challenges to overcome to be a good Hero.
- Heroes possess incredible mobility and deal naturally high damage thanks to multiple unconditional damage multipliers, but are required to use it effectively due to being a Glass Cannon. Though they can survive one fatal hit with Hero Will, they only get one use out of it unless regained through Hero Refresh, which costs precious Focus meter to start Hero Time. On top of that, their passive bonus is a slow burn that resets on hit.
- Additionally, while extremely versatile and fluid with its unique weapon swapping ability, this class demands the player to master all of the weapons they use, as opposed to focusing on one like the other Scions. Focusing on one weapon for too long causes diminishing returns on building Focus, which, in turn, means less opportunities for Hero Time.
Early-Installment Weirdness: The Hero is the only Scion Class that can't be used as a subclass, as it was explicitly designed to replace the roles of other classes until a major Episode 5 rebalance.
Flash Step: A Hero's sidestep dodge maneuver while using Twin Machine Guns has them vanish from sight before reappearing a short distance away.
Flechette Storm: The bulk of Hero Talis' bossing damage comes from rapidly throwing sharp projectiles at the enemy. (Even if the Talis' projectile is blunt, the Photon Arts' visual effects add extra sharpness to them.)
Fighter, Mage, Thief: The strongest mix of all three of these in comparison to the other Scion Classes. But its fast, evasion-reliant gameplay makes it lean toward Thief.
Fragile Speedster: Between having multiple gap closer Photon Arts, access to Techs, and a teleportation ability built into their Talises, the Hero's freedom of movement is nearly unrivaled. But a Hero's gameplay also punishes them for not using these tools to outmaneuver their opponents, suffering damage penalties when getting hit and only having a single charge of "Hero's Will" as a saving grace.
Fuuma Shuriken: "Jet Wheel" has the Hero throw an extra large Talis in a circle around them, sucking in nearby enemies and continuously dealing damage even if the Hero switches to another weapon.
Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: The Episode 5 opening has a downplayed case with both a male and female hero capable of both, but male Hero uses the Sword more while female uses Twin Machine Guns more.
Glass Cannon: It has an outstanding amount of offensive power and versatility, to the point of being able to solo entire raids. However, it can't take many direct hits without losing substantial damage and has only two defensive skills, a Flash Guard clone and a It Only Works Once Last Chance Hit Point.
Gun Fu: "Final Storm" has the Hero jump and flip around while fighting their Twin Machine Guns all around them.
Gun Twirling: The Hero indulges in this constantly when wielding Twin Machine Guns. Their reload animation is just spinning the guns repeatedly.
Hand Blast: Instead of blocking, Sword-wielding Heroes can fire these, dealing striking damage and restoring PP at range. It still has guard frames in use, but only when firing off a charged shot.
Herd-Hitting Attack: The Hero class is specifically designed to take on large groups of enemies. Their Sword attacks in particular have a very wide range.
I Shall Taunt You: Hero has a War Cry/War Brave pseudo-clone called Victory Cry, which doubles their Hate Accumulation for 30 seconds, as well as restoring PP for every enemy in the immediate vicinity when it's activated. Unlike War Cry, Victory Cry does not reset Hate, so you still have to start inflicting damage to get your enemies' attention.
Knight in Shining Armor: Stratos designed the class with this in mind, a fast, powerful combatant who can rush in to save many people. Despite the use of futuristic weaponry, a Hero is expected to take on large groups of enemies on their own so others won't have to, and the standard Hero uniform is the Kratos Ares or the Helios Dilua set, which are both designed after a suit of armor.
Light Is Good: Official art has both Heroes in white/red armor.
Limit Break: Upon activating "Hero Time", which requires a lengthy charge time that can be filled faster by attacking enemies and performing counters, Heroes can reactivate the ability to end it prematurely and unleash a "Hero Time Finisher" a special attack whose damage scales with the number of hits dealt during Hero Time. At maximum power, the damage multiplier is absolutely colossal, dealing up to 15,000% of your normal damage in a relatively large area, making it great for both bossing and wiping out tougher mobs.
Magic Knight: More Knight than Magic (even their Talis is used more like a throwing weapon than a Technique-slinging weapon), but Heroes can make good use of utility Techniques. In addition, their unique "Hero Mag" skill causes any S-Atk, R-ATK, or T-ATK on their currently equipped mag to be applied equally to all three stats, turning a 200-stat mag into a 600-stat mag able to use all three of their weapons.
Mascot: Of Episode 5, being depicted as the leaders of the ARKS team in the opening.
Mechanically Unusual Class: As a Scion Class, Heroes have their own set of Photon Arts that they know innately without needing to learn or upgrade them from discs. Some of these Photon Arts allow them to switch to a different weapon if the button is held. Their weapons also work differently from their base class versions:
- Hero Swords are a lot faster than their Hunter counterparts, but cannot be used to block; instead, their weapon action produces energy blasts that deal striking damage and can restore PP like a normal attack. They can be fired rapidly or charged up for a single stronger shot.
- Hero Twin Machine Guns are powerful, have long range, and can be fired continuously... at the cost of PP. Their weapon action reloads the guns to quickly recover PP.
- Hero Talises are more of an actual weapon than the spell focus they normally are. You can't cast Techniques through them the same was as Force and Techter, but they have a three-hit normal attack combo and their own Photon Arts. Some of them continue their effect even if the user switches to another weapon. The weapon action tosses out a marker whose location the Hero can instantly teleport to upon a second use.
More Dakka: Unlike Gunners whose normal attacks fire their Twin Machine Guns in bursts, Heroes can simply hold down the trigger for as long as they have PP to spare, gunning enemies down with a spray of 13 shots per second.
One-Handed Zweihänder: Heroes wield the Hunter's massive Swords with one hand. Hell, they can swing them faster with one hand than a Hunter does with both!
One-Man Army: Stratos explains that she designed the class with the idea that a single operative can take on large swathes of enemies on their own. In-gameplay, most of the Hero's unique photon arts and attacks hit a large area and are highly mobile to take down groups of enemies very quickly.
Precision-Guided Boomerang: The Talis' normal attack and many of its Photon Arts have homing properties, locking onto enemies and pursuing them.
Real-Time Weapon Change: While any character can switch weapons mid-fight by swapping palettes, Heroes make an art of it, having Photon Arts that allow them to transition seamlessly between them. Hero Gear charges more quickly when you vary up your weapon usage than if you just stick with one.
Red Is Heroic: The Hero class' official art has red armor, red weaponry, etc.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: The bombastic, flashy red to the Phantom's stoic, calculating blue.
Showy Invincible Hero: Gameplay-wise, the class incentivizes being one of these. The attack animations are flashy, one of its core skills powers up your damage if you get hit as little as possible, and its powerful counterattacks reward players for dodging in the nick of time.
- Downplayed after an EPISODE 6 update added an alternative way to build Hero Boost: each counterattack adds +20% towards the maximum possible boost percentage. While flawless dodging is still the best way to stay boosted, it became easier for Heroes to restore their boost and get back in the zone.
Super Mode: "Hero Time" can only be activated once the Hero's Focus Gauge is maxed. Upon activation, the Hero will gain +50 attack power every time they deal damage, stacking up to a maximum of 999, pushing their damage output to the limit. Their PP is also topped off on activation, allowing them to get a jump start on wreaking mass carnage. When Hero Time is deactivated manually, a finisher is evoked, each weapon carrying a different effect on deactivation.
Sword and Gun: Heroes use both Swords and Twin Machine Guns on top of Talises, and they can instantly swap from Swords to Twin Machine Guns mid-attack with their "Vapor Bullet" Photon Art.
Sword Beam: "Brightblade Buster" includes a wide-reaching energy slash should you hold down the button before releasing.
Teleport Spam: The Hero's Talis Weapon Action allows them to mark a location or an enemy and teleport to them by tapping the Weapon Action again. While a mark is only good for one teleport, the "Come Again" skill allows them to do it twice.
Walking Armory: More-so than any other class, Heroes possess the unique ability to swap weapons mid-Photon Art, allowing them to chain together combos with Swords, Twin Machine Guns, and Talises that other classes can only dream of.

Phantom

An advanced class that favors consecutive single target damage by chaining Photon Arts along with their weapon action. Nimble and calculating, Phantoms also specialize in marking their enemies, then executing them with their weapon action. The class was introduced in EPISODE: 6.

Attack Drones: The Phantom's unique Assault Rifle Photon Arts emphasize the use of remote drones to both directly attack enemies and assail them with Beam Spam while moving around to dodge enemy attacks.
Badass Longcoat: Male Phantoms wear this in their class-specific layering wear to show their Dark Is Not Evil credentials.
Beam Spam: A Phantom's unique Rifle Photon Arts involve using bits to assail foes with a barrage of lasers.
Blue Is Heroic: They wear blue as their secondary color in contrast to Hero's red.
Canon Name: Shizuru for default male Phantom and Helga for the default female Phantom.
Combat Pragmatist: As per Kyokuya's own words, a Phantom cares not for the means, only the ends. As a result, they'll lower themselves to dirty and unfair combat if it means accomplishing their goals. This is reflected in their ability to seemingly vanish from sight and reappear for a sneak attack, which is reflected in gameplay by their "Stealth Tech Charge" skill, rendering a Phantom invulnerable for 1 second while charging a Technique. Phantoms also inflict gratuitous amounts of Jellen to enfeeble their opponents, reducing the damage their enemy's damage output for the sake of the whole party.
Counter-Attack: Dodge Counter Shot allows them to fire a cluster of Photon Bits at an enemy after successfully dodging an attack with Phantom Step. Unlike Hero, a Phantom can wait to unleash it until their next attack.
The Cowl: In contrast to The Cape that The Hero class sports, the Phantom class invokes a darker image.
Critical Hit Class: "Critical Stream" grants bonus critical hit rate and damage depending on how much PP the Phantom has. It maxes out at 300 PP, providing a whopping 60% crit rate as well as 5% bonus crit damage. This makes Phantoms crit hard, and a Phantom subclass can make classes with their own crit skills like Bouncer and Braver crit even harder and more often.
Dark Is Not Evil: The Phantom class's artwork has them wearing black, but they're no less heroic than the Hero class.
Death Dealer: While they can't use Talis weapons, one of their Rod Photon Arts tosses out a card that functions the same way.
Death of a Thousand Cuts:
- Phantoms have a skill that drastically cuts the amount of time to charge a Technique in exchange for reduced damage, allowing them and those using Phantom as a subclass to assail foes with Techniques while staying on the move. This is especially noticeable with Bouncer, as this skill stacks with their Jet Boots Short Charge ring to charge a Technique nigh-instantly.
- "Lord of Thorns" inverts this, lowering the number of markers procced with their Photon Arts in order to greatly increase the damage of the final detonation.
Difficult, but Awesome:
- Phantoms have access to essentially 10 Photon Arts per weapon at any given time due thanks to their unique Shift Weapon Action mechanics, high mobility, the ability to deal great DPS and burst damage through their markers, and the ability to fight effectively at close and long range. But juggling all these mechanics can be difficult, especially due to the aforementioned Weapon Action mechanic. In addition, Phantoms have no safety net skills like Damage Balancer or Iron Will nor do they have the ability to block attacks, meaning that they have to time their sidesteps well to avoid eating dirt.
- This is most exemplified with Phantom Katana. Katanas lack the range and marker production of the Phantom Assault Rifle or the gratuitous I-frames and PP regeneration of a Phantom Rod. The Katana's short range also puts the Phantom in incredible danger, forcing them to rely on brief I-frames on their Photon Arts and their sidestep to get by. But the trade off is the highest potential DPS and marker damage of all of the Phantom's weapons as well as excellent ability to reposition mid-combat.
Drone Deployer: Rifle-wielding Phantoms can deploy Photon Bits for various purposes, from seeking out enemies to acting as a stationary turret to blowing them up as land mines.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: Leans more towards Mage than its counterparts. Even Rifle and Katana-focused Phantoms can get decent mileage out of Zanverse and utility techniques.
Flash Step: With the Quick Cut skill, performing a weapon action the moment the katana is sheathed after an attack will have the Phantom instantly close in on the nearest enemy.
Fragile Speedster:
- Variant when it comes to magic; they have a skill that increases speed cast and lowers photon needed, but lowers the damage.
- Like Heroes, Phantoms are rewarded with extra attacks by dodging perfectly. Unlike Heroes, they don't have an Iron Will-esque skill to keep them alive should they get hit.
Gangsta Style: Shifted Kugelsturm has them do this with an assault rifle. While hovering. And it just keeps unloading bullets at the enemy until you cancel it or run out of PP.
Glass Cannon: They have superb single-target damage, but little in the way of defensive skills, on top of having a lower all-around defense stat.
Gratuitous German: All of their Photon Arts have German names.
Life Drain: "Marker Heal", which aptly heals the Phantom's HP when detonating a max-level mark.
Limit Break: Like Heroes, Phantoms have a finisher attack that can be activated to end Phantom Time prematurely, unleashing a powerful wide-ranged attack that will obliterate anything short of a boss.
Magic Knight: Where the Hero leaned more heavily on the Knight aspect, Phantoms have more of the Magic side, possessing several skills focused on improving their ability to charge techniques and inherently getting a brief invincibility period when they do so. Rod-wielding Phantoms also automatically dish out an extra attack whenever they cast a Tech, recovering a small amount of PP.
Marked to Die: The Phantom Markers, which adds to their ridiculous burst damage. Phantoms mark enemies they attack, indicated by a spiked white circle and hazy aura that can be stacked. These marks can then be set off with a charged Weapon Action, spiking the enemy for immense damage and restoring your PP.
Mascot: Shares this with Étoile in Episode 6.
Mechanically Unusual Class: Besides the weapon changes from their basic counterparts, the Phantom's unique mechanic lets them accumulate markers on a foe by hitting it with attacks before detonating them with a weapon action for massive damage and PP restoration. Their Photon Arts also behave completely differently when used immediately following a weapon action.
- Katanas cannot block like their Braver counterparts, but their rapid attacks and Photon Arts are ideal for racking up markers. Their weapon action allows the Phantom to attack while dodging, and with the Quick Cut skill they can Flash Step between enemies if they time their attacks right, giving them impressive mobility.
- Assault Rifles have a flashy 3-shot combo that deals large damage with each hit rather than the rapid sustained fire of a normal rifle. Their weapon action deploys Photon Bits to seek out the enemy.
- Like the Hero's Talises, Rods have Photon Arts of their own, consequently functioning more as a legitimate hybrid weapon than a mere spell catalyst. Phantom Rod Photon Arts allow it to serve as a hybrid ranged and melee weapon to deal continuous damage over time as well as act as a pseudo-Talis for tech-casting.
No Shirt, Long Jacket: The male Phantom uniform goes barechested to show off his tattoos.
One-Hit Polykill: Every shot in the Phantom Assault Rifle's three-hit combo can pierce enemies, allowing them to shoot down rows of foes all at once. Kugelsturm and the shot from Shift Nachtangriff also pierce enemies.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: The stoic, calculating blue to the Hero's bombastic, flashy red.
Sinister Scythe: Their signature Weapon Camo turns Rods into a photon-bladed scythe.
Squishy Wizard: While the Phantom Rods' Photon Arts encourage users to take advantage of its ability to act as a melee, ranged, and casting weapon, it's popular to simply play Phantom in a manner skin to a faster Force, taking advantage of the increased charge rate and safety with "Phantom Stealth Charge" to constantly sling Techs while weaving through enemy attacks. Phantoms also have the advantage of having unconditional multipliers on all their Techs compared to the Fire, Ice, Lightning of Force and the Light, Dark, and Wind specialty of Techters. The main downside of this playstyle is Phantom's inability to use Compound or Simple Compound Techniques.
Super Mode: "Phantom Time", which can be invoked when the Focus Gauge is at least half-full. The Phantom is invulnerable for the first 5 seconds upon activation, extends sidestep invulnerability, lowers PP costs by 20%, and accelerates marker gain. Like the Hero, ending Phantom Time manually evokes a finisher that does different effects depending on the active weapon.
Sword Beam: "Quick Cut", the Phantom Katana's weapon action, sends out a slash that cuts the first enemy it collides with.
Teleport Spam: A Katana-wielding Phantom with good timing can use their weapon action after a specific point on every Photon Art and basic attack combo to instantly teleport to a target and attack them.
Useless Useful Spell: Lord of Thorn reduces your Marker gain in exchange for boosting Marker Detonation damage. However, you lose DPS for every point you put into it after 3 SP, and putting too many points into it makes building Markers on mooks extremely difficult as they will typically die before you hit max Marker. Not to mention that the prevalence of damage capped content prior to Divide Quest makes boosting Marker damage meaningless after a certain point as you will waste extra burst after 999,999 damage. It's one of the few Skills on the Phantom tree that isn't considered mandatory in terms of Metagame.
Weapon Twirling: Many of of a Phantom's Rifle animations involve them twirling around, such as their weapon action and the startup and ending of Shift Kugelsturm. These animations are actually invincibility frames that can be used to dodge attacks, allowing a Phantom to flashily evade while continuing to hit back.

Étoile

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/etoile_header.jpg

The second scion class of EPISODE: 6, introduced in Winter 2019. In contrast to the previous two scion classes, the Étoile cannot cast Techniques and is mostly a Close-Range Combatant by comparison. Coupled with their close combat prowess is their stalwart defenses, making them unparalleled tanks.

Awesome, but Impractical:
- Full Connect can deal a truly staggering amount of damage, but its lengthy startup animation leaves the Étoile vulnerable until the actual swing. In addition, its massive damage multiplier is stymied by the damage cap in all but the toughest quests, meaning that you can probably deal more damage simply by staying on the move and attacking normally in the time you'd spend using Full Connect. That said, using the Surefire Connect ring to pre-charge a Full Connect during a phase where the boss is out of reach can allow for a devastating preemptive strike.
- That said, in Ultra Hard content like Divide Quests, VR Armada, and the True Final Boss, Full Connect is essential for pumping out maximum DPS with Soaring Blades, as the lifted damage cap means that you can finally make full use of it to do tremendous damage.
Bifurcated Weapon:
- The Étoile's signature Weapon Camo always appears as Dual Blades when sheathed. They attach together to form a Double Saber. (Wands simply take the form of only one of the swords.)
- The Connect weapon action for Dual Blades merges the Edges together with the blades before delivering a powerful combo; it can then be chained into Full Connect, which fuses those into one massive sword.
Call-Back:
- The Double Saber Photon Art called Saber Destruction is highly reminiscent of Phantasy Star Portable 2's Blade Destruction.
- The class in general seems to be one towards the saber line weapons in PSO1 and the PSU era games; namely, the saber, twin saber, and double sabers.
Canon Name: The female human Étoile is named Shess.
Charged Attack: Keeping the Wand's shield up for long enough charges a powerful explosive attack to be unleashed once it's dropped.
Close-Range Combatant: Unlike the other Scion classes, the Étoile is exclusively a melee class specializing in brawling with foes in close quarters with their superior counterattacking options and durability. That said, they also have numerous mid-range attack options.
Combat Medic: While they can't cast Resta, their Over Drive skill restores the HP and PP of the user and nearby allies.
Counter-Attack: The Double Saber and Dual Blades both allow the wielder to deliver a powerful riposte after blocking an enemy's attack. The Double Saber also has the Step Guard skill, which automatically performs a counter if you successfully avoid an enemy attack by Stepping into it. Wand Photon Arts also have guard frames at a certain point on every animation, allowing an Étoile with good timing to simply shrug off an attack and hit back.
Crippling Overspecialization: The Full Connect mechanic of Étoile Soaring Blades lets them put out massive burst damage, but all of their Photon Arts have lower damage multipliers to compensate, meaning that they'll underperform if Connect and Full Connect aren't used regularly.
Deflector Shields: The Wand's weapon action surrounds the user in a transparent spherical shield that blocks incoming attacks. While it only lasts a moment by default, it can be prolonged by consuming Focus, and they can continue moving while it's active. It proves essential during the final leg of Episode 6's story, as it's the only thing stopping Varuna from destroying the altar required to create Sukunahime's barrier on Omega to limit Shiva's power.
Difficult, but Awesome: Étoiles possess unrivaled tankiness and the ability to put out loads of both single-target and AOE DPS with their Photon Arts. But their inability to be healed by anything but their own skills and items can make them a liability if they fail to use their defensive options properly to build up focus and keep their damage up.
Discard and Draw: Étoile's "Damage Balancer" is the single strongest defensive skill in the game, cutting all damage taken by a maximum of 70%. The drawback is that an Étoile using it will have all sources of healing besides Mates, Atomizers, and the Étoile's own skills reduced to 1. So while most sources of damage will be reduced to Scratch Damage, that damage can pile up over time if the Étoile is careless.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: The Fighter of the three scion classes, being a full striking class without access to techniques.
Flash Step: Similarly to the Phantom's Quick Cut, the Double Saber Quick Take skill allows the Étoile to nigh-instantly approach a locked-on enemy if they attack with perfect timing after using a Photon Art.
Flying Weapon: The Dual Blades' moveset uses flying blades called Edges for both attack and defense.
Gold-Colored Superiority: The default look of the class is golden, and the season 6 opening has the Étoile being far physically stronger than both Hero and Phantom.
Gratuitous French: The class's name means "star" in French.
Half the Man He Used to Be: This is the intent of "Distortion Pierce", which causes the Étoile to stab their Soaring Blades into an area in front of them before pulling the swords apart. Meanwhile, the Edges sweep in from the sides to cut them in half again.
Heroic Second Wind: Étoile Will, the class's Level 85 Skill, not only lets the user survive a killing blow once per Quest but refills their HP, PP and Gear gauges to enable a renewed offensive.
Light 'em Up: Many of the Étoile's Photon Arts and other abilities involve attacking with golden light.
Lightning Bruiser: The Étoile class boasts unrivaled defense, impressive damage output and exceptional mobility in-combat. In addition, Étoile can be used as a subclass to add Damage Balancer's damage resistance to shore up another class's defenses. A Guard Stance Hunter/Étoile is infamous for being nearly impossible to kill.
Limit Break:
- If an Étoile uses their Soaring Blades Weapon Action three times in a row, they'll combine their two sword into a BFS that deals a massive amount of burst damage at the cost of a lengthy windup and the entire Focus gauge.
- Similarly, Wand-using Étoiles can hold down their Weapon Action to expend Focus to create a powerful barrier around themselves. If enough Focus is spent in one use, it can be unleashed as a powerful Counter-Attack that deals massive damage to all enemies around them.
Magical Girl: Despite lacking the ability to use Techs, wand-using Étoiles have this esthetic, daintily floating around and striking foes with their wand before unleashing torrents of energy to wipe out swathes of enemies.
Magically Inept Fighter: Unlike the other Scion Classes, the Étoile cannot use techniques under any circumstances. Quite ironically, Étoile is one of the most used subclasses for Tech-focused main classes, as the defensive bonuses it provides go a long way toward patching their Squishy Wizard status while its non-conditional power bonuses greatly improve the damage of their Techs in a way that a Hunter subclass can't.
Mascot: Shares this role with the Phantom in Episode 6.
Master Swordsman: All of their weapons are swords, and they're powerful enough to deal large damage with each hit, yet have enough finesse to move around and parry.
Mechanically Unusual Class: Even compared to the other scion classes, they are quite unique. For one, they have three separate weapon gears rather than sharing one, and can block with all three weapons that their basic counterparts cannot. Their innate float also frees them from the step animations of their attacks, allowing the Étoile to freely strafe around enemies without needing to dash.
- Double Sabers lose some Area of Effect damage, but make up for it for superior single target damage with its weapon action.
- Étoile Wands, even more so than the other Scion Classes' Tech weapons, are not designed for casting, since the Étoile can't use techniques at all. They compensate with a suite of ranged Photon Arts and a very powerful shield that blocks all incoming damage, can be sustained over time using Gear, and can explode and damage nearby enemies after being held long enough. The Photon Arts can be changed into Focused variants with a well-timed weapon action, reducing their range in exchange for greater damage. Finally, unlike any other weapon, the Étoile's Wand allows for full freedom of movement even while attacking or blocking (in fact, staying in motion charges its Gear).
- Dual Blades have higher burst damage rather than the sustained version from Bouncers; their weapon action also deflects damage, but can also be used to unleash a very powerful Limit Break attack requiring full gear rather than the cheaper Flechette Storm. The parry is notable in that it doesn't interrupt other actions, allowing the user to block attacks while staying on the offensive.
Multi-Melee Master: Étoiles exclusively use melee weapons: Double Sabers, Soaring Blades, and Wands.
Power Floats: They constantly hover above the ground as long as their weapons are drawn.
Shaping Your Attacks: "Blade Destruction" shapes photons into a sword that the Étoile will then kick into their opponent for huge damage.
Spin Attack: "Connect" causes the Étoile to spin around with their swords to cleave a single target for heavy damage.
Sword and Fist: The normal attack combo for the Dual Blades includes two kicks between slashes.
Sword Beam:
- "Light Wave" causes the Étoile to shoot off multiple arcs of energy from their Soaring Blades that pierce foes before finishing with an x-shaped attack.
- "Luminous Flare" shoots a powerful laser from the tip of the Étoile's Wand to deal huge damage over time. The focused version trades this for a single short-ranged blast for a large amount of burst damage.
Teleport Spam: Double Saber-wielding Étoiles can perform a "Quick Take" by using a normal attack or weapon action after specific points on their combos, counters, and Photon Arts, teleporting directly to a locked-on enemy and attacking them. Wand-using Étoiles can also teleport short distances and fire a ranged projectile afterward by holding down and releasing the weapon action after a short period.
Unrealistic Black Hole: Étoile Wand's "Black Hole Rapture" causes a gravity well to open up at the target location, sucking in enemies similarly to Zondeel before blowing up to deal continuous damage. The focused version has less range, but a longer duration and 2.5 times more damage.

Luster

The fourth Scion class and third introduced in EPISODE: 6. In stark contrast to the other three Scion classes, Luster specializes in one weapon and nothing else. To compensate for the limited arsenal, the Luster employs three different fighting styles.

All Your Powers Combined: Fittingly for the last class to be released, Luster derives many of its mechanics from the other classes.
- Like Hunters, Baran Style Lusters can Perfect Guard through attacks with a well-timed Normal Attack, whereas Hunters do it with their Weapon Action or Charged Parry.
- Much like how Forces must charge their Techs for maximum damage, Lusters must expend their entire Focus bar to do maximum damage with their weapon actions. Luster's weapon styles are also styled after the elemental combinations used in Compound Techniques.
- Like Fighters and Techters, Lusters benefit from increased uptime per tic of Shifta and Deband.
- Like Rangers, Lusters can attack while dodging in a manner akin to Dive Roll Shot.
- Like Gunners, Lusters benefit from constant aggression and need to watch a special gauge (Chain Trigger for Gunners, Voltage for Luster) to squeeze out their maximum performance. They're also both Fragile Speedsters who rely heavily on dodging for survival.
- Like Bravers, Lusters can attack in both melee and ranged combat and possess a high critical hit rate.
- Like Bouncers, Lusters are able to jump multiple times and cast support Techs like Megiverse and Zanverse with a special action.
- Like Heroes and Phantoms, Lusters can unleash a powerful melee Counter-Attack after a successful sidestep. Lusters also have a special Super Mode skill and use Attack Drones like Phantoms on top of a powerful finisher attack by reactivating their respective Time skill. Zandi Style Lusters also get buffs for dodging, much like Heroes.
- Like Double Saber-wielding Étoiles, Lusters are able to change the behavior of their Photon Arts by choosing or choosing not to use movement inputs while using them. They're also able to instantly teleport to a locked-on enemy in a manner akin to Quick Takes, with the major difference being that they can also teleport away from their target.
Armor-Piercing Attack: Weapon Resist Rule Out lets them bypass weapon resistances, letting them whale on Phaleg, Anga Phandaj, and Omega Masquerade with impunity to make up for Luster's inability to use Techs on command and its sole weapon.
Attack! Attack! Attack!:
- Luster's playstyle is hyper-aggressive, rewarding players with Voltage for constantly remaining on the attack. Voltage offers damage and defensive bonuses, as well as a free Shifta and Deband, on top of complete status immunity when maxed, but the Voltage meter resets in seconds, incentivizing the Luster to keep attacking until everything on the screen is dead.
- Furthermore, the Luster's version of Iron Will only resets upon hitting maximum Voltage. As a result, the best defense really is a decisive offense, as constantly attacking will refresh your Last Chance Hit Point.
Attack Drone: Some of their attacks are supported by automated weapons. Notably, one of the drones available in Fomel Style can inflict Jellen.
Blade Spam: Luster attacks extremely quickly, especially in melee. It's easy for them to dish out dozens of attacks in the span of a few seconds with Brand Extension. Luster Time Finish in particular has them move like a blur as they instantly slash a target a dozen times over before finishing with a powerful thrust.
Close-Range Combatant: Fomel-style specializes in staying close to the enemy and taking them on at close range. Its special ability grants super armor and knockback immunity, and its stabbing weapon action and Quick Shot encourage the Luster to stay right in their opponent's face to maximize their damage.
Counter-Attack: Similar to Hero, dodging an attack and immediately following up with a normal attack allows the user to counter with a high-power slash. Uniquely, the class packs multiple counter methods:
- You can also evade with the Evade Shoot Weapon Action and execute a follow-up without losing altitude.
- Learning Step Guard adds two additional moves to your arsenal, an advancing multi-slash and a retreating homing projectile, which automatically activate if an attack connects with your hitbox while you're Sidestepping forwards or backwards respectively.
- The class's Level 95 Skill, Quick Shot, enables Zandi and Baran Styles to follow up a successful Sidestep evasion with a Weapon Action; Zandi can activate Quick Shoot if Sidestepping to the side, while Baran can activate Quick Shoot by Sidestepping forwards or backwards (and even combines with Step Guard).
Difficult, but Awesome: If you thought the other three Scions were complex, Luster makes those three look simplistic in comparison, with nary a holding hand to get you started. If you can master the class's extreme learning curve it's also one of the most powerful classes in the game.
- Each of the Luster's Photon Arts has a Stationary^notePA with no directional input., Mobile^notePA with directional input., and Enhanced^note version, giving them triple the arsenal out of the box and grants special effects depending on the style in-play. Being able to utilize every single art and variant can be overwhelming to fledgling Lusters, but it gives unparalleled mobility and versatility.
- Additionally, the Voltage mechanic requires players to stay on the offensive to maintain uptime, while not getting hit to not lose Voltage, as it grants power bonuses the higher it is. Masterful use of dodging is required to hang on to Voltage, but it has great returns ranging from auto-casting Shifta and Deband, increased Critical Rate, boosted damage, and PP Recovery.
- Enhance Combo is one of the most obtuse skills to use effectively. By learning it, you can chain an Enhance PA into another Enhance PA without stopping or consuming PP by holding the PA's button before the Perfect Attack circle for the PA you're currently executing appears, causing the player to perform the second half of the next PA at the cost of one bar of Focus. It's quite difficult to get used to since you must condition yourself to not wait for the Perfect Attack circle like for other classes, but as Fomel Style can Quick Shoot off an Enhance Combo you can become a DPS machine with proper execution.
Discard and Draw: One of their default skills is Elementless, which negates the damage bonus you get for matching the Gunblade's Element to an enemy's elemental weakness but increases the RNG Pwr of the Gunblade by 70%.
Double Jump: They learn a skill that allows them to continuously jump into the air so long as they hold the jump button down while in the middle of an attack input.
Dual Wielding: "Brand Extension" has the Luster form a second blade out of energy to slash the target over and over.
Elemental Powers: Similarly to Force and Techer, they focus on the three mixes of elements found in Compound Techniques. These three combinations change the properties of their attacks and Photon Arts.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: The most straightforward Thief of the Scion Classes, attacking at a variety of ranges with breakneck speed. The Voltage meter's counter incentivizes rapid, relentless assaults.
Fragile Speedster: They have a faster attack speed than any other class but lack defensive bulk aside from the small damage resistance buff and Deband provided by Voltage and their Luster Will skill. Their very high number of hits, however, means they benefit greatly from Life Drain Augments/Potentials, while their extreme mobility and freedom of movement makes it possible to quickly reposition yourself to dodge attacks.
Limit Break: Like Hero Time and Phantom Time, Luster Time can be followed up by the powerful Luster Time Finish attack, which ends Luster Time and triggers an extremely powerful combo attack that rends apart anything in your way. As a bonus, it also triggers your Style's unique ability.
Magically Inept Fighter: Downplayed. Lusters cannot cast Techs on command the way Heroes and Phantoms can, but they can cast support Techs like Megiverse and Zanverse with certain inputs. Even then, though, it's situational based on how much health the Luster has remaining.
Master of None: Style Purge doesn't confer any special benefits besides an average-power autofire that eats Focus and has no skill support from the Skill Tree, making it significantly weaker than normal Styles. The activation of Style Purge is a powerful burst damage attack, however, so it can be strategically activated before Luster Time to squeeze out a bit of extra damage.
Mechanically Unusual Class:
- The main gimmick of the class is a unique mechanic called "Voltage", where repeatedly landing hits on enemies causes the Voltage counter to rise. Having more Voltage boosts your damage, and if you have the appropriate Skill, reaching 500 Voltage triggers High Voltage, where you gain a Crit Rate boost, damage reduction, halved Active Skill cooldowns, status immunity, and refreshed Luster Will if you've used it. The downside of this mechanic is that the counter resets if you take too long to hit enemies, but you can also learn a skill that restores HP and PP when your Voltage resets. Unlike most Scion gimmicks, Voltage can also be inherited by other Classes if Luster is subclassed, allowing regular Classes to gain the same benefits.
- Unlike all of the other Classes in the game, the majority of its core skills are level-locked but are also free to take, much like the generic quality-of-life skills and Level 85 Skill that other Classes get.
Mighty Glacier: Baran Style leans more into this role compared to the other Styles, as it boosts the range and effectiveness of Stay Arts, its unique ability grants the user damage resistance and the ability to block attacks with its Normal Attack, and its Weapon Action is an extremely powerful burst damage shot that takes a long time to charge up.
Mix-and-Match Weapon / Morph Weapon: The undisputed masters of Gunblades. If the Gunblade falls under the latter, it switches between forms extremely quickly during combos.
Power Gives You Wings: Zandi Style's unique ability manifests as wings, much like the actual Zandion Technique. The Weapon Action for Baran Style also causes a single wing made of ice to grow from the Luster's back until the Charged Attack is fired.
Power Up Letdown: Zandi Style's unique ability causes crystal wings to emerge and cause any normal attack or PA to hit the target with darts that deal damage and refill Focus. However, as the effect is triggered by dodging an attack, it's typically not very usable outside of boss fights with the exception of a specific S-Grade, and the darts don't add a meaningful level of DPS and have a very short duration for what it's worth.
Red Is Heroic: The official Luster outfit is primarily red and black, and as ARKS operatives, Lusters fight Falspawn and other Eldritch Abominations that threaten life across the universe.
Slide Attack: By double-tapping the dodge button, they can enter a slide for extended invincibility frames along with dealing a small amount of damage to anyone in their path.
Start My Own: In-universe context and the lack of a Class Trainer compared to every other class implies that the Guardian designed Luster themselves, basing it off of their vast array of experiences over the course of the entire storyline.
Status Buff: Gains Shifta and Deband through an even more unorthodox method than Jet Boot-wielding Bouncers. Reaching 100 on the Voltage meter's counter activates the buffs.
Stance System: Instead of switching weapons, they swap between three different Styles with the same weapon. Fomel Style is focused on offense, Zandi Style improves mobility, and Baran Style is more defensive.
Super Armor: By chaining two Photon Arts together with a Perfect Attack within the first few frames possible while using Fomel Style, you can activate Fomel Style's unique ability, which temporarily summons laser bits around the user that deal Scratch Damage to nearby foes and grants immunity to stagger and knockback.
Super Mode: Luster Time bestows a potent damage reduction effect and reduces the user's PP consumption while active as well as immediately triggering the corresponding Style's unique effect. It's nowhere near as potent as Hero Time or Phantom Time, but Luster Time isn't tied to a Focus Gauge and only has a cooldown, which can be synergized with High Voltage to shorten the intervals in which it can be used.
Tutorial Failure: Despite being the most input-intensive class in the game, Luster is the only class without a tutorial mission, forcing players to puzzle out its mechanics on their own from sparse skill descriptions.
Weapon Specialization: Unlike the other classes who have multiple weapons to choose from, Lusters stand out for having only Gunblades as their weapon choice. That said, they specialize in Gunblades to a masterful degree to make that limitation moot.

Characters / Phantasy Star Online 2 - Classes

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Characters / Phantasy Star Online 2 - Classes

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