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Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity added the new feature to invite the player's other characters into the player's party. Which, of course, ends up being a horrifically broken feature, and here's a guide for how exactly to break it in!

Support Characters Overview

"Why are we bothering with this", you ask? Well, simple!

Support characters are greatly useful at just about any stage of the game. With customizable palettes and type abilities, they are much more effective than Partner Characters, and can be built to fit multiple combat roles, the most effective being Chain-building and Damage dealing. Even at a low level without a lot of investment, Support characters can still provide a lot of chains and various utility. A well-invested support character adds chains much more effectively, is effectively untouchable by enemies, and deals great damage to boot. Since they keep their levels, they can help a new character or a freshly rebirthed character easily coast through difficult missions for free EXP.

Support Characters Concerns

There are a number of things that can massively impact the performance of an AI party member:

1. Durability

Now, the problem with durability isn't that AI party members can't survive. AI party members takes like 10 seconds to revive with full HP, so whether they are good at surviving doesn't really matter all that much. The problem is that, when AI dips below a specific threshold of HP (usually 40%), they will stand still, swap to their healing weapon (usually a wand for Partner Characters, and keep casting Resta until their HP goes above a specific threshold (usually around 60%). This causes a multitude of issues:

• They stand still the moment they decide they want to heal, often times right in front of the enemies. This usually results in the AI party members being locked into a loop of Resta-getting hit-Resta-getting hit, until they eventually die, if the enemy's damage outpaces their healing. This happens especially often during boss fights, especially one with massive hitboxes or one in a small room.
• A lot of partner characters heal for a miniscule amount, since a lot of them heal off low-rank Wands and aren't Forces. Once again, they will heal from below 40% until they hit a specific threshold. Since they don't heal for much, it would take them multiple casts, which can span dozens of seconds for them to start attacking again. The fact that they have four to five times normal HP does not help. By the way, for the duration of this entire Resta period, they will stand still in the same spot, and prone to any attacks, especially the same looping problem as mentioned before.
• AIs are also prone to immediately swapping to Anti in order to remove any status aliment afflicted to them or the player. This includes aliments that are completely inconsequetial to them, such as Burn, Poison, Zalure, and to an extent, Jellen. This will cost several seconds for them to swap into the weapon, cast, swap back to their original weapon.

We need to improve the durability of a partner character not because we worry about them dying, rather, we want them to spend as little time casting Resta as possible, in order to maximize their attacking time.

Note that we can't avoid this by not giving them access to Resta. In Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity, all AI party members, regardless of what type they are, will bring out a Wand (not the weapon category, the 1* GRM wand) to cast Resta, if they don't have access to one normally. They will bring one out even if their palette was empty, even if their palette was already full. In other words, giving them access to basically any TECHNIC weapon with Resta is better than not, and we need to bring the most healing TECHNIC weapon to minimize Resta time.

It is, however, possible to not give them access to Anti. Note that without Anti, they can't restore the player or other members of the party out of other potentially problematic statuses, such as Stun or Confuse.

2. Various Lags

The AI is slow at various places:

• When the AIs encounter enemies, it takes them a few seconds to register the enemies exist, and actually run over.
• AIs will stand in place for a second or two when swapping weapons.
• When AIs are using a weapon that can Guard, they will hold Guard for multiple seconds at random intervals.
• Even when AIs are using weapons with adequate range (such as a Ranged weapon or a Slicer), sometimes they will still need to run up to enemies before firing.
• AIs does not fire off ranged weapons as fast or as often as they probably could.
• While AIs are generally decent with triple-casting projectile-based TECHNICs, sometimes they have issues with other TECHNICs, such as spamming Zalure (to no extra effect), or using Sazonde once and then standing still until it expires.

Of course, we want the AI to have as little time standing around as possible. This may involve utilizing R-mags, and equipping them with as little gear as possible.

3. Targeting

Generally, an AI party member would focus on a single enemy at a time, and they won't attempt to line up enemies for either piercing or multi-targets. This makes their multi-lock weapons much less effective, especially ones that are sub-par against single targets, such as Whips or Grenades. The same issue applies to Photon Arts and Charge Shots as well.

4. Chain Breaking

The most notorious parts of an AI partner, they are prone to using Photon Arts or Charge Shots at seemingly random intervals. Now, chain breaking from AIs is not necessarily an issue, especially for smaller mobs that would die within a chain break or two anyway. Except, the AI has multiple issues with that:

• AIs inherently have a damage reduction of 75%.
• Chainbreaking is poor if the weapons utilized is not great, which is very common on Partner Characters. Special shoutout to Ursula who uses Machine Guns to break while being a Newman Force, and Nagisa who uses Sabarta to break while being a Deuman Hunter.
• AIs don't really have the sense to keep chain up or to hold onto a long chain, which is a significant issue for bosses and more difficult enemies. This is also especially an issue for Rangers, as Charge Shots takes a bit of time to charge, and the chain may expire before the charge shot lands.

Using Follow Shift from Quick Order can prevent the partners from breaking chains altogether, which can help significantly.

5. Lack of ability to chain

To put simply, there aren't a whole lot of weapons in the game that can accumlate chains very quickly. Especially for AIs, to whom applying both Deband and Shifta is a foreign concept. We need to set one up especially for it to chain well, instead of having it flail around ineffectively.

General Goodies

Partnership

Slots onto the player character, and significantly increases the damage of AI party members. Really helpful for all the reasons you would think it is.

Unnecessary for chain-only builds, though.

Friendly Defense

Slots onto the player character, significantly increases the defense of AI party members. The damage reduction is massive, and stacks with Damage Resist and Photon Barrier for even more insanity. However, 2 slots can be a tight fit on some builds, and defense is not really necessary on a lot of areas.

HP Restore Rate

Slots onto the support character, restores 10% of HP every 10 seconds. Since player's other characters have 4 times normal HP, which stacks with HP increment abilities and rebirth bonuses, and that level is kept, HP restore rate can get to some very ridiculous rates. How much HP they get back is just a portion of its usefulness, however. Where HP restore rate really shines for AIs, is that, since it passively recovers HP in-between waves, and heals by percentage, it massively reduces the amount of time that AIs spends on Resta spamming, making it one of the biggest factors that puts player-made characters over Partner Characters, even one that is comparatively significantly less leveled.

Combined with the fact that this ability is very easy to get, this should be the first thing to shoot for when building a support character.

Photon Barrier

Slots onto the support character, and negates all damage taken that is below 3% of max HP. You may recall that other characters have 4 times normal HP, which means it's 4 times more effective than when the player uses it. It allows ignoring damage from traps and obstacles, attack from small mobs, and specific enemy attacks (such as Orga Angelus's poison pool attack). Reducing damage to 0 also negates the flinch that comes with getting hit, which allows them to spend more time attacking.

Not really necessary when equipped with HP Restore Rate, since it also helps ignoring chip damage, but they compliment each other fairly well.

Damage Resist

Slots onto the support character, and reduces damage taken by 10%. The reduction isn't much, but it stacks with Photon Barrier and Friendly Defense, and indirectly improves the effectiveness of HP Restore Rate.

Not really necessary, but it compliments Photon Barrier and Friendly Defense.

Wild Blast

Slots onto the support character, and hastens the charge rate of Blast Gauge. Especially useful on a support character that wishes to use Blast often, such as Beasts or Deumans with their transformation blasts to deal massive damage.

While useful, 3 Slots can be tight fit for some setups, especially a Force outfitted with Technic Hi-Speeds and such.

Various Resists

Stun, Sleep, Shock, and Freeze are as much a pain for AIs as they are for players.

It may also be a good idea to protect against Poison, Burn, or Zalure. While these statuses don't really do anything against AIs, it stops the AI from obsessively scrambling to Anti at the thinniest paper cut.

Potential Builds

Budget Builds

Somebody has carried me through Gurhal Heroes exactly twice, and I'm now at Type Level 6, Level 50-ish, no rebirths, and not a whole lot of gear. What to do?

Baseline

This should be considered for every character, regardless of build.

Palette

Weapon	Photon Arts
Rod	Zalure, Resta (Lv10+), Deband, Shifta

Abilities: HP Restore Rate, Damage Resist / Wild Blast, HP Boost

It only takes Vanguard Lv3 to get HP Restore Rate. You can also put on Damage Resist (Vanguard Lv2), or HP Boost (Initial). Reaching Vanguard Lv5 unlocks a fifth slot, which allows fitting all three of these abilities.

You can also replace Damage Resist and HP boost with Wild Blast, dependent on the race and Blast Types of the character.

Since we cannot avoid the party members bringing Resta, we might as well get them the best Rods we can to maximize the heal amount (Wands and Tech-Mags have a much lower TEC score so they are worse).

Easily accessible cheap Rods includes:

• Shijima Akatsuki (Lv1), DLC rod, has empower healing, a stupidly over-the-top amount of TEC.
• Clarita Visas I (Lv1), a password item, has empower healing, and accessible from Lv1. Is also very cheap to Upgrade using meseta for a huge TEC boost.
• Clarita Visas II (Lv15), received for free from Emilia, with a good TEC score and empower healing.
• Clad Bastone (Lv20), a DLC rod, has empower healing, and a respectable TEC score.
• Clarita Visas III (Lv40), received for free from Emilia, with a good TEC score and empower healing.

While we are at it, we can bring some utility TECHNICs as well, such as the buffs and Zalure. All of these TECHNICs are easily accessible from Secret Society, and can be passed between characters via the Shared Storage.

Chain Build 1

Palette

Weapon	Photon Arts
Twin Daggers	N/A
Rod	Zalure, Resta (Lv10+), Deband, Shifta

If you don't have a Photon Arts linked, you can't break any chains!

Twin Daggers are the fastest chaining striking weapon in the game as well, and even faster in the hands of an AI, since they don't have hitlag. However, the AI may hold guard on twin daggers. Picking Melee Shift from Quick Orders can help reduce the amount of time they choose to Guard.

Easily accessible cheap Twin Daggers:

• Twin Kunai (Lv20), a DLC twin daggers with pretty good ATK and absurdly high ACC, allowing it to deal damage far above its level.
• Play Blu Edge (Lv20), a password twin daggers with pretty good ATK and ACC.

Chain Build 2

Palette

Weapon	Photon Arts
R-Mag + Dagger	N/A
Rod	Zalure, Resta (Lv10+), Deband, Shifta

R-Mags attacks automatically without the input from the user. Which means that it bypasses the AI's various issues: lag to actually recognize enemies, time spent running up to things, and they can't Guard while equipped with one. Some good R-Mags can also provide a large number of chains.

Easily accessible decent R-Mags:

GRM lines, such as Yactdike and Galdike: Buyable from shop, provides 2~3 successive shots on fire, averages to 1 shot per second. Good for chain building, but they fall off fairly quickly due to low-rank R-Mags not having a lot of ACC.

Easily accessible decent Daggers: Kunai (Lv20): a DLC dagger. Similar to its twin dagger counterpart, it has good ATK and absurdly high ACC, and good for use for a good long while.

Variation:

Weapon	Photon Arts
R-Mag + Ga-Misaki	N/A
Rod	Zalure, Resta (Lv10+), Deband, Shifta
Shield-weaves
Ga-senba

Ga-Misaki and Ga-senba makes a set bonus, that provides 140 ATK and 60 ACC, on top of the 40ATK from Claws' category bonus, and the category bonus from R-Mags. This bonus is quite hefty and can help a lot with damage, and the ACC boost also works nicely with improving R-Mag damage and allows the character to hit enemies across a higher Level gap.

Since the damage provided can be quite good, feel free to equip Ga-Misaki with a Claw Photon Art of your choice for them to provide chain break damage.

Chain Build 3

Weapon	Photon Arts
R-Mag + Wand	Sazonde / Sabarta / Nagrants (Square), Jellen / Zalure / Resta (Triangle)

Turns out some TECHNICs are super OP for chaining. Thanks SEGA!

Here's some differences between the TECHNICs of choice:

Square:

Sazonde: deals 5 hits per cast. Launches the enemies hit, and thus provides the player a lot of safety. However, an enemy being launched can cause hitbox to not connect with the enemies, ridding the player of chains and potentially significant damage. This issue applies for most Striking Weapons, some Ranged weapons, and not at all TECHNICs. Therefore, avoid Sazonde if playing on Hunter, or to an extent, Ranger and Vanguard. Also, the AI isn't keen on triple-casting Sazonde, so its effectiveness isn't as significant as they are on the player. Furthermore, importantly, bringing three Sazonde casters, and with Sazonde flying everywhere, can cause Animation Cancel, which would render many TECHNICs and attacks completely useless. Avoid capping out on Sazonde AIs as Force.

Sabarta: deals 5 hits per cast. Only flinches the enemies hit, instead of launching them. More helpful for Hunter, but less useful for Force and to an extent, Vanguard. The damage from Sabarta is lower than Sazonde, so it falls off earlier compared to Sazonde. Also, the AI isn't keen on triple-casting Sabarta, so its effectiveness isn't as significant as they are on the player.

Nagrants: deals 3 hits per cast. Also pierces, which makes it quite good against large mobs, and the AI is much more keen on triple-casting Nagrants than the other two. Has a much longer cast time, however.

Triangle:

Jellen: Reduces attack of all enemies in range. The attack reduction is somewhere around 5 to 7% if Jellen is below Lv21, which is pretty pitiful, but can still be helpful if you are really concerned for your safety. You can also bring a character with Jellen in combination with a character with Zalure to easily hit both effects. (Besides, it's not like two zalures stack with each other).

Zalure: Reduces defense and evasion of all enemies in range. The reduction starts from 21%, which is quite massive, and a great help towards player's damage. It's also quintessential when fighting enemies above player level, since it reduces evasion and allows attacks to connect easier.

Resta: Saves the character from bringing a Rod, and thus saves the character from spending time swapping weapons, providing more time for attacking and chaining. However, no access to Shifta / Deband / Zalure / Jellen means a lot more work from other characters and the player. Also note that since Wands heals for less than Rods, which can result in longer HP restore period. Can be remedied via HP Restore Rate and other defensive abilities, but may require more investment than otherwise.

Cheap easy Wands:

Lapis Lazuli's Ordeal (Lv20): a DLC wand with a great TEC score, and empowers Light for more damage on Nagrants.

Magic Focus (Lv50): Obtained via the title Super Hero. Empowers Lightning for Sazonde, and comes with a good lightning %. Also looks quite nice.

Full Power Builds

Wow, somebody actually decided to get their bot character to Level 200, fully rebirthed, and Type Level 50 everywhere? You've come to the right place!

Races & Types

Before builds, let's talk about the benefits from different Races.

Newman: Highest TEC score, thus highest damage from TECHNICs and Mirage Blasts. The Mirage Blast Canna adds 12 to 13 chains to all enemies in the room when used, is vastly useful for chaining purposes and for cleaning out rooms with Blast Rechargers.

Human: Highest DEF scores (which doesn't mean much). Has access to Mirage Blast Canna like newmans, but also has access to Kun'ne, which provides a general attack speed boost. It helps immensely with melee chaining, but doesn't help much with TECHNIC chaining.

Cast: Has the lowest TEC score, thus lowest damage from TECHNICs. Has access to a few notable SUV Weapons: Exusia Fluge: heals full room, revives anybody dead (potentially includes the player), and is the only source of Tier 5 buffs in the game; Eternal Cataract: deals 6 hits to all enemies in the room, and almost always freezes all of them; Rafal Burst: deals 10 hits to all enemies in front of character for respectable damage.

Beast: Has the highest HP, thus gets the highest effects out of the type abilities previously mentioned. ACC issues are negated since TECHNICs does not check for accuracy. Nanoblast doesn't chain well, but can do a shitton of damage. This allows for using Blast Charge to hold nanoblast, and throw them at difficult enemies or bosses via Blast Release. Nanoblast is invinicible too, so they just thrash and trash with reckless abandon. Note that specific Nanoblasts may enter Rage Form, which will damage the player once entered.

Deumans: Has the second highest TEC. Having the lowest defensive capabilities does make them a bit more painful compared to other races, but the combination of various defensive type abilities and 4 times normal HP is so strong that they aren't much worse in that aspect. Infinite Blast does a stupid amount of damage, especially on Hunter or Force. Unlike Nanoblasts, though, Deumans are prone to flinching, which may lower their damage output on particular bosses who likes doing a lot of attacks or step on things.

Baseline

Palette

Weapon	Photon Arts	Abilities
Rod	Zalure, Resta, Deband, Shifta	HP Restore Rate, Photon Barrier, Damage Resist (6 Slots)

The Rods set up hasn't changed, but the Rods itself has:

Caduceus (Lv90): Traded for from Secret Society after clearing Episode 1 Hard Mode, the Caduceus is the highest level Rod with inherent Empower Healing, and the Rod with the highest Empower Healing multiplier.

Divine Amaterasu (Lv160): Can be extended for Empower Healing, and becomes the Best Healing Rod once done so.

Chain Build

Weapon	Photon Arts	Abilities
R-Mag + Wand	Sazonde / Sabarta / Nagrants (Square), Jellen / Zalure / Resta (Triangle)	Lightning/Ice/Light Hi-Speed, Technic Hi-speed +, Lightning/Ice/Light Advance

Notable R-Mags:

Elenor (Lv150): 3 shots per 2.5 seconds and Piercing gives Elenor the best chain rates out of all R-mags, and especially useful on groups of mobs.

Clad 6 Shag (Lv160): 3 shots per 2.5 seconds just like Elenor, but trades Piercing for more damage. Significantly worse than groups, but better on single targets. Also has Stun.

Eye of Rykros (Lv150): 2 shots per 2 seconds is a worse rate than the other two, but it has Incap. Granted, the rates is incredibly low.

Opa Opa (Lv80): 3 shots per 2.2 seconds is a faster rate than the others, but a low level means an Extend is required for the R-Mag to keep up with higher leveled enemies. Also the highest level R-Mag to have access to Zalure special effect (If Ice), and the Taunt special effect (If Ground), which can provide additional utility depending on build.

Dark Falz Dust (Lv160): 1 shot per 1 seconds is a worse rate than the others, but it deals the highest damage out of all R-Mags. Reflect damage is negligible.

Janky Elemental Builds

Weapon	Photon Arts	Abilities
Frost Shot	Long-Range Shoot	Elemental Hit, Freeze Resist, Rifle Advance

Weapon	Photon Arts	Abilities
Poron Poron	Long-Range Shoot	Elemental Hit, Longbow Advance, Charm Strike