That's a good thing! That's one less ridiculously overpriced UV ticket you have to get from the gremlin the the Bazaar. ;)

Thanks! Glad to see some interest in this thread again.

Tier 3, after playing Tier 2 for a long time (such is the case with most F2P's), is an _extreme_ step up in difficulty. Don't worry, you definitely aren't the only person who had trouble adjusting.

Fire or shock? Honestly, both can be devastating, depending on the situation. As a solo'ist, however, I think I can say that shock is the more devastating of the two. As you mentioned, you get swarmed very quickly when you're having spasms every few seconds, and have no one to cover you. Fortunately, most items that come with shock resist come with fire resist as well. The Divine Veil/Mantle gets fire and shock resist, as well as Shadow and Elemental (the two most dangerous damage classes).

The Skelly line is great for Fiend strata, which can be a major headache for anyone without sufficient Shadow resist. However, its usefulness doesn't really go anywhere beyond that. Don't get me wrong, it isn't a bad shield. It's just that the Grey Owlite Shield has great type coverage for FSC (the main reason why it is the better shield) and can be used in any situation with a Piercing or Shadow UV.

Hope that helped!

-Tri

So, just to start this is my current set up. Keep in mind for my first 5* set of gear I wanted probably a mostly well-rounded set before I go making specialized gear for specific areas.

Miracle Hood (Medium Shadow UV)
Ash Tail Coat (Low Elemental, Low Stun UVs)
Mighty Defender (High Normal UV)

Sealed Sword
Heavy Pulsar or Antigua

Now uh, my plan was to upgrade to Divine Veil, and either a Vog Cub Coat or Skolver Coat but I hadn't made up my mind yet. At the moment I'm still working on completing my 4* set. I want to note that the option of Attack speed or damage bonuses aren't relevant to me because if I want speed I'll just UV up my sword at the ticket vender till I get one.

I considered an Ironmight Shield but with that High Normal UV my Defender series shield will be just as strong with more Pierce Defense (I think.)
Later I will probably work on a Grey Owlite once I find a 2* Owlite that has a good UV to pick from in the Auction House.

First of all, you say you aren't getting a "specialized" set, but at this point your goal needs to be preparing a set for the end game. FSC is the most profitable of any area in the game, and by the time you reach 4-5* stars it is where you'll spend most of your time. That being said...

Upgrade the Miracle Hood to a Divine Veil. The extra Shadow resist from your UV will be handy, as most everything in FSC deals Shadow damage. The other options, Chaos Cowl and Grey Feather Cap, aren't ideal because the Chaos Cowl is weak to every status condition and the Grey Feather Cap is weak to stunning.

The Vog Cub Coat outdoes the Skolver Coat in almost every instance. It has fire resist, which is almost a requirement in FSC. It has elemental resist, which is far more useful than the Skolver's piercing resist, and the attack speed bonus is far more useful than a bit more damage. A good ASI UV is a lot harder to come by than you might think. Save your UV rolls for a CTR bonus.

I'm going to have to tell it to you straight, unfortunately. The Defender line is the most useless shield in the game. It's simply a Barbarous Thorn Shield without the attack bonus. Piercing resist's uses are limited and you can get better Normal defense on a Plate Shield, if that's what you're looking for. I would get either a Volcanic Plate Shield (for FSC purposes) or a Grey Owlite. The Grey Owlite is an extremely versatile shield, so it should definitely fit your "well rounded" bill. Get it a Shadow UV and it's set for FSC as well.

When running two weapons, you really need to have enough weapons to cover different situations. For FSC, for example, a Divine Avenger and Argent Peacemaker is one of the better two weapon sets. The Argent Peacemaker isn't redundant, simply because everything in FSC is weak to Elemental/Piercing, so running DA and AP is perfectly fine.

I plan on getting a Divine Avenger, as I find my bane is mobs, getting cornered, etc. I often find myself in arenas for extra money and challenging fights as well. I'm well adjusted to the swing style of the heavy swords so I can melee with it no problem, and I don't really care for Fausts's curse downside however I may get one in the future just to have as an option.

Along with the sword I refuse to have anything but a gun as my secondary weapon as I like to be adaptable to situations and I can't imagine not having ranged weaponry to compliment my melee. Right now I'm having a Toss up between the Pulsar and Antigua series.

Kiting will fix most of your cornering problems, especially in arenas. If you ever get in trouble, start shield tapping out of the mob group. It's your best bet. Divine Avenger is a great choice, however. So many monsters are weak to elemental damage (especially in FSC) that it can find a use in any situation. Faust only curses when its charge attack is used; many Faust users will never use its charge to avoid that problem.

As a two weapon player a sword/gun combo will always be best. The Heavy Pulsar will probably be fine for most situations; level Argent Peacemaker to use in FSC.

My Pulsar is going on the Normal damage route as my preferred choice, however I had wanted to give the antigua line a try because I do miss the high velocity bullets I had before buying a pulsar. And even then, which path to choose? Personally I want a Sentenza but the typical response to that is that it's terrible and I find myself 2nd guessing my choice. I kinda felt like the Argent Peacemaker would be redundant while using a Divine Avenger. I like the idea of picking off healer gremlins who avoid battle with it while being able to stay out of mobs in the center of the room and Gremlins in general, plus Alpha Wolvers who I always dread, sure these two enemy types dodge a bit but hey, I'm out of range to be hit while they're still taking damage no matter how much it is, I'm still safe.

I'm going to have to give you the typical Sentenza is terrible response. Its uses are extremely limited, and unlike the AP it has no endgame use, making it almost unusable. AP will serve all your endgame needs, and the Pulsar should be fine for everything else.

If you have any other questions just ask.

-Tri

Sorry about the delayed response, Cat. Sort of forgot about this thread.

Your first problem is your gear. Frankly, the Cobalt Set's best use is as toilet paper. Essentially it is a Skolver Set without the Very High sword damage boost. After talking to you in-game it seems you are setting up to be a Gunslinger; pick up the Deadshot Chapeau and Nameless Poncho for full FSC coverage (ASI is pretty overrated; no need for full Nameless/Justifier).

The health regen machines on 26 and 27 heal you very slowly. Really they aren't useful during the battles unless you have Polaris to knock them back while healing.

As for your question about going down to 27... the Smoldering Steps (27) is the hardest solo depth in the game. Period. You really have to have a good knowledge of all the tricks to get through it without reviving, and even then you have to be very skilled. It isn't worth it unless you feel confident that you can do it.

My solo runs of FSC go all the way through Vanaduke. For an experienced Vanaduke runner the real challenge doesn't start until 27; I personally can run down to 27 only taking damage a few times. It's all about the player, though. There are some who would be content to get through 24 solo and some that aren't content until Vanaduke has gone down without the use of a Remedy, Health Cap, or revive.

About the gear, again, change it as soon as you can. For Gunslingers, I recommend (for FSC):

Deadshot Chapeau
Nameless Poncho
Grey Owlite Shield / Crest of Almire
Argent Peacemaker / Blitz Needle (use Callahan everywhere else)
Polaris (you can literally use this all the way down to 27 and never get touched)
Biohazard / Umbra Driver (for the Oilers and Blast Cubes)

Hope this helped,
Trihelix

Tyrelius basically answered your questions, but I'll just add what I've got.

The Cryo should be fine. Drivers are preferred over Polaris in team play at FSC; the freezing effect should be enough to keep mobs at bay when solo'ing as well (although not as consistent as the knockback of Polaris).

Callahan was not made for FSC. It is nearly useless against Vanaduke because of a low DPS and nothing there is weak to pure piercing damage. As Timanth said, everything in FSC is slow, so the Blitz Needle wait time is perfectly fine in most cases. Another plus for the Blitz: it absolutely murders Trojans. Charge an attack, stand in front of a Trojan, wait for him to start his swing, run around behind him, then unload your 200somthing x 15 hit into him for a quick kill.

Blitz is also known as the best Vanaduke killer in the game right now. Against phases 3 and 5 you can really rip him up with the 15 shot charge. As said earlier Callahan's 2 shots will do very little and it can be a struggle to get one through the fireballs in phase 5.

tl;dr
If you plan on running FSC on a regular basis, get a Blitz Needle.

The loadout I use for FSC is:
Divine Avenger
Strike Needle
Gigawatt Pulsar [I'm not buying CE to craft (I have over 300,000 crowns) these up to 5* until prices go down]

This is an extremely reliable set, and as long as you are running with a Shivermist, you have everything covered. To adapt this set to your arsenal...

Leviathan Blade (just as useful as DA; there are a few tricks that you can't pull off however)
Strike Needle
Hail Driver

If you are running two weapons remove the Leviathan and just go Strike/Hail.

That's a point I probably should bring up in the main post; aside from the Armor and Helmet, the upgrades from 4* to 5* simply aren't very noticeable. Exceptions include (but aren't limited to):

Avenger > Divine Avenger (3 beam charge is considerably more useful in FSC)
Blackened Crest > Crest of Almire (Added Fire/Shock resist)
Freezing Atomizer > Shivermist Buster (Without the upgraded range you can't freeze Vana's final phase)

Aside from these, as long as everything else you have is at 4*, you'll be perfectly fine. I have been running FSC with a Strike Needle and Gigawatt Pulsar for quite some time now; I'm perfectly well off with these as opposed to spending 800 CE getting a small damage boost.

The jump from 3* to 4* is pretty big in both upgrades and expenses. Unfortunately the upgraded damage doesn't really show up in Tier 2; you'll want to level everything else in your arsenal up to 3* before you focus on getting into Tier 3.

As for the money question, it seems that the best way to get money in Tier 2 is to run the Royal Jelly Palace over and over again. If you can, get into a guild that runs the Jelly King fairly often and hopefully you can jump in on parties that are already at depth 13 (the terminal). Then you only have to spend 40 energy and still get most of the profit and all of the Jelly Gems. At that rate you can afford to run several times daily and potentially make upwards of 15,000 crowns. That is all theoretical, of course, but if you are patient in finding a party and using your energy you should be able to get to Tier 3 rather quickly.

Hope this helps,
-Tri