Rapid Shoot [Rapid Fire] For 60 seconds, bullet bow Normal Attack fires three shots instead of one, in exchange for lower damage per shot and slower interval. The skill has 110 seconds cooldown.

This is an “Active Skill”. Put it on your subpalette and activate it, just like how you use skills in other MMO games. It serves two purposes: faster PP Recovery and temporary damage boost. Firing three arrows means that you gain triple the amount of PP back and learning extra skill related to Rapid Shoot grants you a massive amount of range damage increase.

Remember to use it when it is ready. Otherwise, hold if necessary in certain situations. Rapid Shoot always has around one second activation animation, so you never get the full duration regardless of reasons. If you are flinched during it, you will lose the skill effect. However, switching to any weapons does not deactivate the skill.

The following skills further enhance Rapid Shoot.

• Rapid Shoot Up 1 & 2 [Rapid Fire Up 1 & 2]: During Rapid Shoot, gain up to +500 R-ATK while equipping Bullet Bow. “Rapid Shoot Up 1” gives up to 200 R-ATK while the “Rapid Shoot Up 2”, however, gives up to 300 R-ATK. Both skills stack additively. They are added after stats calculation from enhancements like Shifta and Team ATK buff.
• Rapid Shoot Mastery [Rapid Fire Mastery]: Gain damage bonus while equipped with Bullet Bow and Rapid Shoot is active.
• Rapid Shoot Advance [Advanced Rapid Fire]: Reduce the Rapid Shoot’s cooldown and increase the amount of PP recovered from normal attacks. It reduces Rapid Shoot cooldown to 77 seconds from 110 seconds, resulting in around 17 seconds downtime. The PP recovery boost is significant. When combined with other bonuses, a charged Normal Attack recovers a large portion of your PP bar.

There’s a trick you can do. If you properly time your attack when Rapid Shoot expires, you should be firing triple arrows with the damage equivalent to your regular charged Normal Attack. It takes time to be consistent.

Charge Shoot [Charged Shot]: With Bullet Bow equipped, your charged normal attack deals more damage and its projectile travels faster. It doesn’t turn your arrows into Assault Rifle’s bullet, but hitting the enemies quicker means the damage and PP recovery occurs much quicker.

Bullet Bow Charge Bonus [Bow Charge Bonus]: (MAIN CLASS ONLY) When equipped with Bullet Bow, your chargeable PA has reduced charge time and PP consumption. It reduces the PP Consumption of those PA by 5, applying AFTER any percentage reduction from other sources. Besides, charge time reduction is noticeable the more you play with the weapon.

Katana Gear [Katana Focus]: Learning the skill grants “Gear/Focus Gauge”, accumulating the Gear/Focus resource as you attack with the katana. As the resource increases, the higher the damage you do with it. Gathered enough, a successful Counter releases it, adding extra effects.

As stated above, the skill has two mechanics that you should know.

Gear/Focus Level

When learned, the Gear Gauge () appears above your weapon palette when equipped with a katana. Aside from setting your regular counterattack (Katana Just Guard) power to 250, each level of the Gear/Focus provides damage buff to ALL katana attacks.

Level 1 grants 35% Damage Buff.

Level 2 grants 38% Damage Buff.

Level 3 and above grants 40% Damage Buff.

You always start a quest with max level of Gear/Focus. However, there's an unresolved bug that resets the gauge when performing multi-block matching for a quest. Re-matching should fix the problem though. Adding to that, Gear accumulation is a lot faster if your katana attacks hit multiple targets.

Gear/Focus State

When your Katana Gear/Focus level is at level 3 and above, countering any attacks will release it, granting extra bonuses for a fixed duration.

• A purple flame engulfs your character.
• Retain the 40% Damage Buff.
• 30% increased total S-ATK [MEL Power], excluding the base attack stat of your equipped katana.
• Gain +50% to your Critical Strike Chance while equipping a katana.

By default, the released state of Katana Gear persists for 15 seconds. However, accumulate Gear value further past level 3 and filling the small bars will extend the duration a second per bar, up to 20 seconds (). It is impossible to maintain the state indefinitely, depleting as you use the weapon.

Note that switching to other weapons during the release state or dying will revert the state back to normal, while resetting the entire bar. However, the normal state remains the same regardless of the weapon you use. To prevent depletion during the released state, you must learn the skill called “Braver Combination” first and equip a bow after getting level 85.

Katana Gear also has additional skills that further enhance katana gameplay.

• Katana Gear Boost [Katana Focus Boost]: (MAIN CLASS ONLY) Increase Gear Accumulation and PP Recovery (Attack PP Recovery and Natural PP Recovery) only when equipped with a katana, regardless of Katana Gear/Focus state.
• Counter Edge: Adds a shockwave-like slash to your counter. Counter Edge pierces enemies but can be blocked by pillars and alike. Also, the shockwave travels quite far. You can counter enemies' projectiles and still be able to deal damage back.
• Counter Bonus: (MAIN CLASS ONLY) Further increases the counters’ power, and grants PP recovery effect to both normal counter (5 PP) and Counter Edge (20 PP). The PP Recovered from both counters are unaffected by the Attack PP Recovery bonus from other sources.

Katana Combat: For 20 seconds, katana attacks are greatly enhanced. Pressing the skill again to perform another attack to all nearby enemies. Only usable while equipped with Katana. The skill has 180 seconds cooldown.

This is an “Active Skill”. Put it on your subpalette and activate it, just like how you use skills in other MMO games. It allows you to chase enemies, also aerial ones, and move through them while giving Guard Frames on activation. At max level, the cooldown is reduced to 90 seconds. The circle around you indicates the timer and turns red when it reaches 3 seconds. The effect also ends immediately if you switch to any weapon but katana.

While active, it accumulates hits you’ve made with Katana Attacks, up to 50 hits for maximum damage of Combat Finish. It has a two-part attack. First is a short-ranged, low-damage slash that recovers 5 PP. The second is a wide slash toward all nearby enemies, recovering 50 PP per enemy hit, and granting a JA circle afterward. PP Recovered from the attack is affected by any Attack PP Recovery bonus.

Kanata Combat has a couple more skills to enhance its effectiveness.

• Combat JA Bonus: Grants damage bonus for every attack that is performed with Just Attack during Katana Combat. The bonus applies to Techniques as well. However, Combat Finish is unaffected because using Katana Combat again ends the skill.
• Combat Finish: Further increases the damage of Combat Finish, up to three times the regular damage.
• Combat Escape: (MAIN CLASS ONLY) Grants invincibility for the entire duration of Katana Combat. You cannot Guard with katana during the effect, preventing you from launching counters.

Braver has access to 2 Stances intended to be used based on the current situation.

Average [Basic] Stance grants you permanent damage increase regardless of conditions. The stance becomes your passive skill; always active until you hit Weak Stance.

Weak [Precision] Stance grants a huge damage bonus only when you are hitting the enemy’s weak point (area with site multiplier value higher than 1.15x). It is an active skill that you can toggle to enable it instead of Average Stance.

Both stances also have three more of the same skills ( and ) to boost their effectiveness.

• Stance Up: increase the damage granted by the Stances further.
• Stance Charge: increase the damage of the CHARGED attack when the stance is active.
• Stance Critical: increase your Critical Strike Chance while active.

We ignore the Stance skills during early levels, as Rapid Shoot and Charge Bonus are more vital to bullet bow. Stances become relevant after reaching VH difficulties or higher. The enemies are more resilient, and your attack values from gear can use additional multipliers.

At the current state of the game, regardless of the server, you should go DUAL STANCES. The reason is simple: the opportunity cost while using those stances when fighting enemies with various weak points.

• During Average Stance, every hit you make on enemy weak points deals a minimum of ~17% less damage, compared to Weak Stance.
• During Weak Stance, you may not get any multipliers at all, whether you miss your shots that often or not, or the weak points are extremely difficult to find.

Average Stance keeps your damage multiplier to be at least 1.15x, while Weak Stance will sky-rocket your damage if you manage to hit the enemy weak points consistently. With newer enemies introduced now and then, along with their annoying mechanics, going a single stance may not be enough.

Toggling between both stances requires you to not be locked in any attacks or animation. You can potentially lose a lot of damage by spending too much time switching between the stances.

“But, what actually counts as weak-points?” Theory wise, you can check JP wiki for that. But, in general and more mundane ways...

• Head of most enemies; easier to identify for humanoids one.
• Parts that can be locked on are often weak points, breakable or not.
• Any parts or areas on the bosses that are colored-coded (commonly in red/blue) or structured so clear that you can recognize immediately.

Apart from above, just do trial and error with Stances. If you deal less damage than you usually do with Weak Stance, that location on the enemy should not be a weak point. Otherwise, try watching different Bow Braver gameplay videos to see how other players approach it, or hit up the JP sWiki for the exact numbers on site multipliers.

Rare Mastery Braver Arms Enthusiast: Braver]: (MAIN CLASS ONLY) Gain damage bonus when equipped with a weapon of 10* rarity or higher. It’s pretty straightforward: use better weapons, and you deal more damage.

Attack Advance [Enhanced Attack]: Increase the power of your normal attack. Other attack types are unaffected. It applies to all types of weapons.

High-Level Bonus Br: Gain a bonus to all damage dealt. You need to be level 80 or higher in order to learn it.

Braver Combination: (MAIN CLASS ONLY) Grants +50% Critical Strike Chance while equipped with Bullet Bow or Katana. Switching to the bow now maintains the current state of Katana Gear. Furthermore, the bow also receives additional Critical Strike Chance (+50%) during Katana Gear release state.

No one has expected SEGA to keep the old version of this skill. After hitting level 85, while other classes are struggling to cap their Critical Strike Chance, Braver instantly caps crit (100%) on releasing Katana Gear. Well, if you choose to go this route. We will be dealing the maximum amount of damage while being able to fully abuse Critical Strike Damage SSA. Besides, the flame color changes from purple to blue when equipped with a bow! It’s a free cosmetic by the way.

Just Reversal Cover [Perfect Recovery Heal]: Recovers a portion of your HP when you perform Just Reversal. Regardless of situations, spending at least a single point in this skill can negate certain attacks from the enemy.

Step Advance [Advanced Dodge]: Extends the invincibility duration of Step. It does not affect the bullet bow's special move when using certain PA. Most players will invest just 3-4 points on this skill based on your subclass.

Quick Mate: Use mate items faster. It affects all “-mate” items in the game, which are Monomate, Dimate, and Trimate. The time it takes to drink for the healing is cut in half. To be precise, it’s ~62% faster.

Snatch Step [Sidestep Tackle]: Step now deals damage. You can’t cut grass with it. Slashing weapons and a rifle called “Spread Needle” can do so. Also, Snatch Step recovers PP. The amount recovered is affected by the Attack PP Recovery bonus from any sources.

Braver MAG: Gives one point of S-ATK and R-ATK per one point of DEX on your MAG. The skill stacks on top of the other class skills, which are Phantom MAG and Bouncer MAG.

For the stats increase skills, you can max out Shooting Up 1 [Ranged Power Up 1] if you want extra R-ATK for more damage. Attack stat from skill tree is added to your character’s base attack stat, affected by Shifta, so the net value becomes higher than the value shown. Leave Dexterity Up 1 & 2 as it is not worth your skill points. Also, we don’t take Striking Up 1 [Melee Power Up 1] by default, but things will change when you go Hybrid.

For the mobility/utility skills, they are Step Jump, First Arts JA Addition, Air Reversal, J Reversal JA Combo and Next Jump, You should learn it whenever possible. These skills increase your quality of life when it comes to combat maneuvers and moving around in general.

In the [EN Server], they are [Sidestep Jump, First Art Perfect Attack Addition, Air Reversal, Perfect Recovery and Attack Combo, and Double Jump]. Thanks, Microsoft translation team.