How to Force Basically

General Gameflow

A type that relies on Technics for attacking and providing support. The type's high TEC and MND make it adept with Technic weapons. For advanced players.

"haha Sazonde go BRRRRRRR"

Termology

Casting Time / Casting Speed: The amount of time between pressing down the button and the Technic coming out.

Tri-casting: By casting multiple Technics in succession, the casting time of the Technics past the first one is shortened. Can apply to a maximum of three presses (hence tri-casting). Applies to Rods and Wands, but does not apply to Tech-Mags. Some Technics are incompatiable with Tri-cast.

Strafing: movement while holding L. Some weapons can be used while moving this way, such as Handguns, and, more importantly for us, Wands and Tech-Mags. Only the Technic on Square is usable, though. Some Technics are incompatiable with Strafing.

Strafe Casting: A glitch that allows the the player to basically skip the casting time, and quickly spamming Techinics, by casting while alternating between strafing and not strafing (pressing and not pressing L). Applicable to both Wands and Tech-Mags, but can only be used with Square.

[Attribute] Hi-Speed/Advance: Abilities which enhances Technics of the mentioned attribute. Hi-speed shortens the casting time of those Technics, and Advance provides a high damage boost.

Empower Attribute: Instead of Status effects, Technic weapons have Empower [Attribute] abilities, which provides a flat damage boost to Technics of that attribute.

Damage Multiplier: The TEC % on Technics.

Technics

Technics are the centerpiece of a Force strategy. Choosing the right Technics is more important than using the right weapons, even.

Technics are separated by elements, and can be loosely categorized based on their effect:

	Fire	Ice	Lightning	Ground	Light	Dark
Projectile	Foie	Barta	Zonde	Diga	Nagrants	Megid
Midrange AOE	Rafoie	Rabarta	Razonde	Radiga	Grants	Ramegid
Close-range AOE	Gifoie	Gibarta	Gizonde	Gidiga
Hold for Damage	Damfoie	Dambarta		Damdiga	Damgrants	Dammegid
Hold for Tracking			Noszonde	Nosdiga		Nosmegid
Hold for AOE				Diverse		Megiverse
Persisting Damage	Foverse	Sabarta	Sazonde			Samegid
Support	Shifta, Jellen	Deband, Zalure			Anti, Resta

Note: despite the naming convention, Foverse works very differently from Diverse and Megiverse, and is more akin to the Sa-spells.

We will discuss these Technics from two angles: Attributes and Effects.

There's a few reasons Attributes are very important for Forces:

Empower Attribute

Unlike Melee and Ranged Weapons, Technic Weapons does not have attached Status effects, and instead have Empower [Attribute], which boosts the damage of offensive Technics of that Attribute from the weapon. The boost is a flat boost, and applies regardless of enemy attribute. Since each weapon only Empowers one attribute at a time, ideally we want to fit multiple Technics of that attribute onto that weapon to maximize the damage boost.

Attribute Based Type Abilities

Forces gain 16 Abilities related to Attributes: Hi-speed and Advances for offensive Technics of each Attribute, Resta, and Support Technics. Hi-speed shortens the casting time of Technics of the designated attribute, while Advance provides a sizable damage boost to all offensive Technics of the designated attribute. Bringing every attribute ability is not realistic, since we don't have the room to fit all the abilities. Instead, we want to focus on a few Technic schools, so we have more room to stack bonses and damage.

Attribute Bonus

Attribute Bonus is a rather big part of damage. By matching up the correct attribute, the player can gain a hefty bonus to their weapon ATK. Unlike other weapons, Technic Weapons has three stages of attribute bonus stacking:

1. the attribute of the Technic used is matched with the attribute of the enemy. If the attributes match correctly, the weapon gains a 30% attack boost.
2. For each Technic equipped to the weapon that has the same attribute as the Technic used (including itself), a further 5% is added.
3. If the attribute of the weapon used is the same as the attribute of the Technic used, the % of the weapon is also added.

Example cases:

	Weapon Used	Technic Used	Enemy Attribute	Result
Example #1	Wand (Neutral 0%) Barta, Foie	Barta	Fire	Barta is the correct matchup against a Fire enemy, thus providing a 30% weapon attack boost. Since there's 1 Technic equipped with the same attribute as Barta (Barta itself), it gains a further 5% boost, for a total of 35% boost.
Example #2	Wand (Fire 25%) Barta, Foie	Barta	Fire	Same reason as above, for 35% boost. The attribute of the weapon used is not checked if it's not the same as the Technic used. Even if it's the same as the enemy's.
Example #3	Wand (Fire 25%) Barta, Rabarta	Barta	Fire	Barta is the correct matchup against a Fire enemy, thus providing a 30% weapon attack boost. Since there's 2 Technic equipped with the same attribute as Barta (Barta and Rabarta), it gains a further 5x2% boost, for a total of 40% boost.
Example #4	Wand (Ice 25%) Barta, Rabarta	Barta	Fire	Barta is the correct matchup against a Fire enemy, thus providing a 30% weapon attack boost. Since there's 2 Technic equipped with the same attribute as Barta (Barta and Rabarta), it gains a further 5x2% boost. Since the Wand has the same attribute as the Technic used, the weapon's % is added, for a total of 65% boost.
Example #5	Wand (Ice 25%) Barta, Rabarta	Barta	Ice	0%. Attribute boosts does not apply if the matchup isn't correct.

In other words, for optimal damage, we should aim to strap Technics onto Rods of the same attribute, and then match it up against the correct enemies. While it's beneficial to have a lot of Technics with the same attribute for that 5% bonus, it comes up too little and increases so little that the damage is barely noticable, so don't feel obligated to use only one attribute on one Rod.

With these, building Technic Setup is fairly straight forward: pick an attribute, fit Technics onto a Rod that empowers that attribute, and equip the appropriate Hi-speed and Advances.

Which attribute do we pick then? Technic Schools are not born equal. Some attributes have very good Technics so strong that you'd use them on every enemy, while others either have nothing notable, or barely have one half-way decent one. It's not really worth gimping yourself just to hit Attribute weaknesses, and, if you need to use a specific Technic often, you want to avoid bloating your palette with Technics that you wouldn't usually use.

Another thing to mention, is the importance of PA levels for Technics. Technics gets a huge upgrade at Lv11, and another at Lv21. Besides the usual improved damage, they also gain improved range, improved pp efficiency, improved hitbox coverage, and in some cases, improved hit count. This is a big reason why Technics are so much more devastating in the hands of a Force than other types. Obtaining high Lv PAs, then, is incredibly important, and directly affects the viability of many Technics.

Anyway, let's first look over the effects of each technic category and see how they work out.

Projectiles

Projectile Technics, in general, throws a thing straight for a very small PP use on press. However, there's a lot of distinct differences between each Technic, which results in them having different uses.

Barta, Zonde, and Megid all goes in a straight line and pierces enemies. However, all three of them has low damage multiplier, so they aren't great for damage output. While they are in theory useful for putting chains on multiple enemies, there're plenty of Technics more efficient than 1 chain per press. Especially for Megid, which casts slower and flies slower than the other two, further hindering its efficiency.

Nagrants is one of the Technics more efficient than 1 chain per press. Nagrants fires 3 shots, each with piercing, and has an incredibly long range. Nagrants is one of the better Technics for chaining, and can be safely spammed from very far distances. However, Nagrants has a steeper pp cost than most Technics, which means it needs a bit more workaround than others to spam long term.

Diga and Foie does not pierce. Instead, they have sky high damage multipliers. Diga in particular has the highest on paper multiplier out of all Technics, making it incredibly good as a single-target chain breaker. It also knocks down enemies it hits, giving it additional utility value. However, it casts slowly and flies slowly. It also flies in a projectile motion curve as opposed to a straight line, which gives it a shorter and weirder effective range than other technics. Foie has lower damage than Diga (still quite high), but is much easier to use, with faster casting, longer range, and a more predictable straight line flying path. It's a more reliable chain breaker if you prefer long range combat.

Midrange AOE (Ra-)

Ra-spells in general hits a short to mid-range away, and has 3 locks. Generally they have middling damage multipliers, and average casting speed. They are fine but nothing to write home about, basically. Since they have 3 lock, they can do decent work against enemies with multiple targets (Boss creatures) or groups of enemies. But due to being 1 hit per lock, it's not great against single targets.

Damage-wise, Radiga has a slightly higher multiplier than other Ra-s, while Rabarta and Grants have slightly lower multipliers.

However, Ra-spells also has issues with connecting with enemies closer to the player than the default range. The L lock-on is recommended. Notably, Grants, unlike other Ra-spells, can hit enemies even at melee range just fine.

Close-range AOE (Gi-)

Gi-spells in general takes a longer casting time, but hits up to 4 targets within a short range centering the player. They usually have respectable damage, and works well against groups of enemies. However, it being 1 hit per lock makes it not great against single targets. While being theortically good against enemies with multi-locks, such as Boss creatures, it being close-range and requiring a longer casting time can make it risk to use, especially against Dragon-Type bosses.

Note that, prior to Lv21, Gi-spells have very small range that makes them quite poor to use. A below Lv21 Gizonde, in particular, has the chance of whiffing its hitbox even if the player is right up to the enemy.

All Gi-spells knocks down enemies, which makes them quite good against groups of enemies, allowing safe tri-casts or running away in a pinch.

Hold for Damage (Dam-)

Dam-spells are supposed to be continuously firing attacks. They have a few important properties:

• If the player flinches or gets knocked down during the casting, the Technic cancels.
• The player needs to hold the button for the attack for continue. If the player only presses the button once, the attack will appear for a second or two and then go away.
• The Technic cannot be triple-casted, and cannot be casted while strafing, even when used with single presses.
• While holding the attack, the player cannot move, use items, guard, or evade.
• While holding the attack, the player can use the analog stick to move the attack's hitbox in a fairly sizable range in front of the player. However, the player cannot change its direction.
• PP is consumed every second, and will be consumed as long as the attack persists. The hit rate of the attack is irrelevant to the consumption of PP.
• If the player is knocked down, the attack will be cancelled.
• The attack will automatically go away after being held for a certain period of time.

Dam-spells are...unwieldy. Their hit rates aren't great, their range is short and wonky, and there's a lot of ways to whiff with it. The pp cost can also quickly stack up for races with lower PP regen rates. They can be useful for chaining or breaking in some situations, since quickly stacking up hit count is always good, but they are generally overshadowed by vastly better Techs (especially the Sa-spells).

Out of these ones, notably, Dambarta has a decent freeze rate, and has a fairly wide hitbox, even able to hit behind or besides the player sometimes. It can be fairly useful for crowd control purposes. Damgrants has a much longer hitbox than others, and has a higher hit rate and faster casting time, but has issues connecting with enemies right up to the player, which is very problematic.

Hold for Tracking (Nos-)

Nos-spells track enemies while the button is held down. They have a few important properties:

• If the player flinches or gets knocked down during the casting, the Technic resolves but goes into the ground (thus fizzles).
• The Technic cannot be triple-casted, and cannot be casted while strafing.
• The attack fizzles when it hits an obstacle or stage element, such as a wall.
• During the attack, the player cannot move, use items, guard, or evade.
• During the attack, the player can use the analog stick to move the weapon in their stance, similar to Dam- spells. This doesn't do anything.
• If the player is knocked down during the attack, the attack fizzles.
• The attacks used will automatically attempt to track enemies, and can go a whole different direction, including behind the player.

Noszonde and Nosmegid shoots an orb which tracks enemies. They have similar properties:

• When casted, an orb will automatically track the nearest enemy, and can be detonated to deal damage and launching them when it reaches that enemy.
• The player is unable to switch the target of the orb.
• The orb can track enemies regardless of Z axis. It can track enemies down the stairs, or into the air, or up platforms, or even outside of player accessible areas (such as outside of an Onmagoug arena), as long as there's no walls in the way.
• If the Technic is used by pressing the button once, the orb will fizzle after some distances. It will automatically detonate upon coming into contact the enemy. It will also not detonate anywhere else, including at the end of its travel distance.
• If the Technic is used by holding the button down, the orb will persist an incredibly long distance. Long enough to follow Onmagoug around the entire arena a few times. The orb will also only detonate when the player lets go of the button. If the player does not let go of the button, the orb will simply spin around the bottom the enemy.
• If the Technic is used by pressing the button once, while no enemies are in range, the orb will fly a long straight line before automatically detonating.
• If used by holding the button down, while no enemies are in range, the player can remotely detonate the orb by letting go off the button, but it can only be detonated after passing the automatic detonation distance.
• When used on a enemy closer to the player, the orb will spin under the enemy for a bit before detonation. This occurs regardless of automatic or remote detonation. The closer the enemy is to the player, the longer period of time it spends spinning.

Nosdiga, on the other hand, works far differently:

• When casted, three explosion beams will automatically track the nearest enemy, dealing damage and launching them on contact.
• The three beams fan out in a wide shape at the beginning. If any of the beams hit an obstacle, it will fizzle, while the others will persist.
• It's possible for each of the beams to hit a different enemy.
• If the Technic is used by pressing the button once, the beams will fizzle after some distances. If the Technic is used by holding the button down, the beams will persist a longer distance, but not much longer.
• The beams are able to travel up or down stairs and slopes, but they are unable to go into the air.

Nosdiga has a quite high damage multiplier and three hits, which totals up to incredible amounts of damage in a single cast. It's also usable at a longer distance than others, and can be used from a variety of angles. It has potential both as a chainbreaker (due to high damage) and a chaining tool (due to high hits per cast).

However, it comes with a variety of issues: its inability to be triple-casted means it will be casted less times compared to the Technics that could, its automatic tracking can direct it to the wrong enemies, and it fizzles quickly in tight rooms (such as the corridor at the start of Maximum Attack Cross I). While being close to the desired enemy allows landing all 3 hits, the Technic fizzles out if the player gets hit during casting time. While Nosdiga can be very effective, it's a Technic that needs some practice and easing into.

Noszonde and Nosmegid, on the other hand, are not just more awkward to use, but also...doesn't really have a purpose. 1 hit per press along with a high flying time makes them very inefficient at both chaining and chain breaker. Not to mention that it takes them extra time to hit closer enemies (due to the spinny property), and it fizzles if you get hit. They can potentially stunlock groups of mobs, but that aspect is overshadowed by the vastly superior Sazonde. They do have a niche in being able to reliably track notoriously difficult to hit Boss Creatures, but since these situations are few and far between, Noszonde and Nosmegid are like the hook on a Swiss army knife. It exists, it could be useful, it's just that it's unwieldy for every other purpose.

Oh yeah, Nosmegid also has Rage effect for some reason, so uhh...Nosmegid Adverse Spirit build when?

Hold for AOE (-Verse)

Note: despite Foverse's naming convention, it function vastly differently from Diverse or Megiverse, and is categorized under Persisting Damage instead.

Megiverse and Diverse is a midrange AOE centered around the player. The player can hold its button to extend its duration, and while the Technic is up, it will deal damage (Megiverse) or steal PP (Diverse) from all enemies in range, once every other second.

Both Megiverse and Diverse has a few properties:

• When casted, the first hit takes a second or two to appear. The hits afterwards are significantly faster.
• If the player casts the Technic by pressing the button once, the attack will finish after the first hit.
• If the player hold the Technic by holding the button, the attack will automatically disappear after a long period.
• During the attack, the player cannot move, use items, guard, or evade.
• During the attack, the player can use the analog stick to move the weapon in their stance, similar to Dam- spells. This doesn't do anything.

Megiverse deals damage to all enemies within the area of effect, and ticks quite quickly after the initial hit. It can be a good chain dealer once it gets going, and potentially a good chain breaker too. The Drain Lv5 comes up handy sometimes too. It suffers from the same weakness as Dam-spells and Nos-spells, in that you can't move, evade, guard, etc, and you are vulnerable to getting your attack cancelled. Other than that it's a fairly competent Technic.

Diverse, on the other hand...

Let's discuss what "PP Drain" even is. Visually, it's shown as an enemy getting dealt PP damage (a purple number) while the player gains PP back. However, as of currently, no adverse effects for enemies have been observed: enemies that got their PP drained will attack all the same, including Technic attacks. In other words, this is a glorified PP recharger that costs PP per second, requires you to be standing still, while in range of enemies. It also deals no damage and thus doesn't flinch the enemies at all. Yeahhhhh.

Also, the amount of PP it drains/recovers is based on TEC score, so it will be even worse at lower levels or on worse weapons. Diverse also has a huge gap between its PA levels: at Lv21+, Diverse can drain PP from two enemies; at lower than Lv21, Diverse can only drain PP from one enemy, making it half as effective. See, you could put in that much effort for Diverse, or you can just use a slicer.

Persisting Damage (Sa-)

So, quick to the chase here: Sazonde is extremely broken, Foverse is less broken but still broken, and Sabarta is fine. Also Samegid is completely useless.

Sazonde and Sabarta both deal 5 hits per cast, with a maximum of 3 lock. Sazonde has range similar to Ra-spells, but it automatically tracks instead of requiring L lock-on. Once cast, Sazonde launches all enemies hit into the air, and stuns them until all 5 hits finish. Sabarta instead creates a persisting fan-shaped hitbox at the player's location.

Needless to say, 5 hits per cast makes Sabarta and Sazonde incredible chain tools, especially with Sazonde that can single-handedly stunlock enemies. On top of that, both of them can stack up to 3 times (15 hits in total in a triple-cast), and can be used in combination with other attacks for even more chains. While they have a high PP cost, there's a lot of ways to remedy that, which we will touch on later.

Chaining is not the only benefit to Sazonde, though. Sazonde is also incredible as a chain breaking tool, and absolutely shreds anything with more than 1 target: at 5 hits per cast (can be triple-casted for 15 hits), 3 locks, effectively you can have Sazonde damage resolve on a Boss Creatures, or a group of mobs, 45 times in a simple triple-cast combo. As a result, Sazonde is the primary Boss/Mob killer for Forces, while being a little too overkill for single-targets. a Sabarta theortically can work as well, but it has a much lower damage multiplier compared to Sazonde, meaning it's not as good.

Samegid, on the other hand, is pathetic Samegid, when cast, generates a stationary ball where the player is, and deals damage to any enemy that touches it. In theory, this sounds potentially good. Except its hitbox is awfully small (so small that it flinches enemies away from itself), enemies can just go around it (which they will, they are very mobile in this game), and you can only have one of them up at a time. Oftentimes, you would need to run up to an enemy to cast it, and even then it only hits once or twice. For a hefty cost of 50 PP. (For reference, Zonde costs 8 pp, is easier to use, and somehow has higher attack than Samegid does). Theortically you can use it on a stationary enemy, but with a stationary enemy, even triple-casting projectiles is probably more efficient to use, compared to running up to it and casting Samegid.

Foverse is one of the most useful Technics in the game, regardless of level or type. It creates persisting fireballs around the player which deals damage to any enemy at close range. In other words, it's a Technic that passively adds chains, that can be prepared ahead of time, and can be stacked with other chaining methods. Forces get Lv30 Foverse, which makes Foverse chains significantly faster and persist significantly longer than other types. It can also stack with Sazonde or Sabarta, and works very well with Gi-spells.

Support (Others)

Buffs, Debuffs, Heal, and Aliment Restore. Not much else to say besides "Bring them with you!"

Once we understood how Technics work out, let's see how each school of attribute performs. Attribute is important to how we distribute Technic setups, weapons with Empower effects, and Attribute Advance/Hi-speed abilities, after all.

Fire

Fire, to put simply, is generally competent. Foie deals good damage to a single-target, Rafoie and Gifoie are slightly above average damage-wise, and Foverse is incredibly good. This is enough technics to round out a fire-based Rods, with good coverage on different types of targets. Gifoie combos well with Foverse too. All Fire Technics (except for Jellen and Shifta) also has a chance of inflicting Burn, which can complement its damage output.

Speaking of Foverse, note that Foverse provides an unique function and cannot be substituted; as such, Foverse will most likely be used against every type of enemy, including Fire ones. It may be a good idea to avoid placing Foverse on a Fire Rod, so that it will suffer less penalities against Fire enemies.

Ice

Ice, unfortunately, walks on thin ice. Across the board, Ice Technics suffers from lower than average damage scores. Sabarta provides good chains and combos well with Rabarta. Dambarta also can provide some uses in crowd control. However, Ice doesn't have a very competent chain-breaker, save for perhaps Gibarta. As such, building Ice for damage, even with Empower Ice and Ice Advance, seems underpowered compared to others. Between Zalure, Sabarta, and Dambarta though, it can be a good support attribute to focus around.

Ice across the board inflicts Freeze. Due to the fact that Freeze expires after taking three hits, it will most likely disappear during a triple-cast combo, maybe even the same one it was inflicted in, which severely limits its usefulness. Also Sabarta doesn't inflict any special effects for some reason.

Lightning

Sazonde must have a lot of backpain from carrying this attribute. Sazonde is nuts both as a chainer and a chainbreaker, thus Lightning Advance and Lightning Hi-speed are often used just to optimize Sazonde. The other spells are an afterthought in comparison.

Speaking of which, both Razonde and Gizonde are average, so they produce decent results as an extra on your Sazonde-focused builds. Zonde flies extremely quickly and can be used well when combined with Strafe Casting, but its damage is too low to be notable compared to other projectile Technics.

Ground

Ground is generally assumed to be the best attribute. It has access to huge damage dealers like Diga and Nosdiga, as well as above-average damage on Gidiga and Radiga. Overall it has good coverage, good damage, and can be used against most enemies. Since Ground is the opposing attribute matchup to Lightning, it also complements your Lightning Rods well.

Diverse? What's diverse?

Light

Light is good, but lacks enough Technics. Nagrants is very good, both Grants and Damgrants can be good in various situations. But they lack the utility or the coverage to be really good: the lack of a Gi-spell, and the lack of a good single-target breaker (Damgrants can fulfill this purpose but might be too risky due to requiring the player to be close up and standing still). The Technics themselves are individually good and can have good uses, but as a technic school it's difficult to build around.

Dark

Despite having a large number of Technics, Dark is, to put simply, quite poor. Megid is slow and low damage, Ramegid is only average, Nosmegid is too situational, Samegid is borderline useless, Megiverse is competent but risky to use, and Dammegid is Megiverse but almost strictly worse. Unlike Light which lacks some important coverage, Dark lacks basically everything.

It's a shame too, since so many high level Rods insist on having Empower Dark.

Weapons

Rods

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Wands

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Tech-Mags

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Longbows

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Cards

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