The Basics

You'd better know these things...

While many would say "bow is a pretty boring class" or "this weapon is too easy", the actual mechanics of Bow Braver are a lot deeper than what most would expect. If you have known about all of these, then good, just skip this section.

Otherwise, take your time going through here and see what bullshit maneuvers Bow Braver can perform.

Speed Bow Strat

[1] Faster PA Usage

After performing any attacks, a red circle will appear and if you can time your next attack sync to the circle, it deals more damage. It’s called Just Attack [Perfect Attack] and it persists for a moment. Most bow PA can be executed very fast and newer players can’t react to it well enough. Your damage output will be lesser than expected!

It’s the same as playing those rhythmic games such as Cytus, Deemo, Osu!, Voez, etc. Just Attack is like “Perfect” note-tapping. Play the game long enough and you will use the PAs at the moment it appears automatically, hence, just attack! There’s no secret to it.

If you want to practice the muscle memory for it, google "Metronome" and set it to 150 BPM, then sync the fast PAs to the beat. Torrential Arrow, Master Shot, and Penetrate Arrow can be used for that. Although their execution frames and conversion math between BPM and FPS suggest 180 BPM, the JA window delay and game lag makes 150 BPM feels right at home for us.

[2] Perfect Charge

Recalling the Frame Data section, only for the chargeable PAs, the attack is charged when you fire it after the blue light has sparked and the sound effect during it has peaked. Look at the GIF for an example.

The complete animation is there to help newer bow players. The speed of doing it will increase the more time you spend with the bow. It’s you to decide when to charge. Note that overcharging (holding the PA longer than usual) doesn’t increase your damage.

Bow Maneuvers

Bullet Bow Normal Attack

Fires an arrow from your bow. It travels far in a projectile trajectory. Charge to do more damage; can also be fired in the air.

There are three things that you must remember about it.

1) Normal Attack recovers 6 PP when it hits an enemy, while charged Normal Attack recovers 18 PP instead. (3x)
2) While on ground, you can keep moving while also holding the charge. If it’s from the air, you will stay in the air until all are fired.
3) Natural PP Recovery doesn’t stop while you are holding the charge.

During Rapid Shoot, you instead recover up to 18 (6 x 3) PP for Normal Attack and 54 (18 x 3) PP for charged Normal Attack if all arrows hit the target. Furthermore, taking Rapid Shoot Advanced [Advanced Rapid fire] will increase the recovery by 40%, resulting in 25.2 and 75.6 PP recovered. I consider both values to be the “baseline” before applying any bonuses.

If your arrow cannot do damage to any enemy due to its mechanics, you can fire at it just to recover your PP! Some bizarre examples are the immune barrier of several bosses, teleporters, magnetic pillars, and even energy towers in base defense quests.

The unconventional way of PP recovery. It works.	~16k uncharged Master Shot VS ~19k Charged Shot.

Step [Dodge]

Pressing “X” (Mouse & Keyboard) or “Double Tapping” your movement key causes your character to dash into that direction it’s facing.

Step now grants you ~0.12 seconds of invulnerability on use, which is enough to evade most things in PSO2 if you time it right. You can Step to cancel many PAs and Techniques, too! Check the PA section on which can be canceled. For the techniques, supportive ones like Shifta and Resta are common, and you don’t have to always charge it.

The delay after Step animation is short but enough to put you in a bad situation. With the existence of “Step Jump”, as long as you press your “Jump” button after it, you won’t get the delay and keep on moving. Walking away from the attacks or keeping a good distance from the enemies are better sometimes.

Step [Dodge] Kick

Attacking after Bullet Bow Step will perform a kick in that direction and move the character a bit further. The kick deals striking damage

It is useful when you run out of PP to use PA at that moment or you just want to get that small distance for repositioning. The kick deals damage and recovers PP, affected by Attack PP Recovery bonus from other sources.

You can chain Step Kick to move around faster, especially in a hectic fight instead of using Asagiri-rendan [Morning Mistreaver] or techniques. Additional attack or PA after this will put yourself back into firing pose. Again, it allows you to be a bit more aggressive; getting up close and personal. Just be careful about where you are heading.

PA Step [Dodge]

Holding (or even momentarily pressing) a movement key while firing Penetrate Arrow, Master Shot or Banishing Arrow causes your character to “slide-spin” in a curve-like motion into that direction with a short invincibility.

Penetrate Arrow	Master Shot
Banishing Arrow	Air-row Ballet

The duration of invincibility is almost twice your usual Step. You can rely more on this maneuver in any fights, moving around while firing PA! Note that Banishing Arrow is a bit special as the JA circle appears FASTER when using it this way. It helps you set and follow up on the combo quicker.

Performing it “sideways” (left/right), regardless of your aiming mode, will take slightly longer to finish and cause the JA window to delay for a bit. If you are acquainted with Fast PA Usage, it's neglectable. Otherwise, use it sparingly or else it can delay the subsequent PAs to some degree.

The move also lifts you in the air for a moment, allowing you to perform "Air-row Ballet" as long as you have PP to spend.

Aiming Modes

There are two aiming modes in PSO2 and you can switch between it using the default key setting (“Z” key if it’s Mouse & Keyboard, and I don’t know what controller uses): Lock-on mode and Over-the-shoulder mode.

Lock-on mode	Over-the-shoulder mode.

Bow Bravers often switch between both aiming modes depending on what they are facing, the Photon Arts, and also personal preference. There are various things that you should know though.

The game will put the “lock-on reticle” to the closest targetable part of the nearest enemy based on your position and only when your character faces the enemy.

Hitting the “Tab” key for the mouse and keyboard will lock your camera relative to the target and you can cycle between the lock-on location with it. Your character movement direction is influenced by the lock-on mode as well.
Hitting the “Q” key will unlock the camera.
You can use the knowledge to help while using Final Nemesis or Sharp Bomb T0 [Zero Strike Bomber] for better control and maybe improved accuracy. Otherwise, use it to abuse PA Step while firing Penetrate Arrow, Master Shot, and Banishing Arrow.

The aiming mode you use also affects Braver’s movement.

Lock-on mode causes your Step Kick to plunge your character toward the direction of the locked-on target. Otherwise, it will follow your movement input instead.
Over-the-shoulder mode causes your Step Kick to always plunge your character forward. Keep this in mind.
The distance of Step performed in both modes are different! Get used to them, so you don’t accidentally lunge into an attack.

Combat Example with Lock-on mode.	Combat Example with OTS mode.


Using the lock-on to help with PA aiming.

Yes, it is possible to play the game using only a single aiming mode, especially the OTS mode regardless of your peripheral choice. Being able to switch between them gives you a greater degree of freedom and awareness in various fights. It’s not a new concept and everyone has his/her personal approach to the aiming when finding the enemy’s weak points or engaging a large pack of minor enemies. Take your time learning the ropes and search for online videos on how different Bow Bravers utilize it.

Keybind Notes

There are a couple things that you should keep in your mind when setting up the input. You can play bow just fine with the default control, except the wheel setting.

Here’s the deal for Keyboard & Mouse players. Left button, right button, and the middle (wheel) button are your default keys for using Photon Arts. I recommend removing the supplemental control from your middle mouse so you don’t accidentally switch weapons.

Apart from using “R/F keys” and clicking to confirm, utilizing the numpad, or finding the MMO mouse, there’s a trick you can do to handle weapon palette switching. Thanks to my friend Gunner (who also learned from another Gunner), you can bind the shortcut word with the weapon palette command (/mpal1 ~ /mpal6) on F1 - F10 keys. It works.

One more thing. As you will be spamming a lot of PA while playing bow, be considerate about which mouse input (or controller input) you want for things like Penetrating Arrow, Master Shot, and Torrential Arrow. Save your fingers, and be cautious when playing in a long session.

Archery