Support Character Mechanics: Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity

Hello, this post outlines the details of Support Characters within Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity. Dengeki recently released some intricate details on how Support Characters work. The post below is information that Shougai gathered mixed with Dengeki's information.

What are Support Characters? Anytime you download another person's characters, they are turned into Support Characters. In brief, Support Characters are your friends' characters, and Partner Characters are NPCs like Emilia and Yuto.

 

Support Character Modifications

When you download someone else's character and place them into your game several things transfer with them. However, characters undergo several stat changes which we'll outline below.

The characters appearance, auto word, stats, rebirth values are transferred over. Their ATK and TEC power is lowered by 30%. Their HP increases by an unknown amount.

Photon arts are transferred over as well, but only PAs that are linked with the weapon. This transfer only applies to weapons that are currently in your friend's palette.

Abilities are transferred over too but 25 specific ones are nullified.

If the friend character is wearing a DLC costume and the player has downloaded that particular outfit, then the friend character will wear that costume. Otherwise friend characters will wear a generic outfit upon transferring.

Weapons, line shield, units, are also transferred over.  Up to 6 weapons that are currently registered to the palette is transferred over.   Equipment set bonuses are applied with a corresponding line shield. DLC weapons are transferred with the character, but they don't show up if the player doesn't have it downloaded.  If a friend character does not have a wand currently equipped to their weapon palette, then the AI will forcibly equip a 1 star wand to them. This wand is automatically equipped with Resta.

As you know, your friend character's level is the same as the player's level. If their level is too low to equip a specific weapon, then the weapon is replaced  by a lower ranking substitute. Even if the weapon is replaced, the original weapon's status effect and element is kept in tact. For example a 14 Star Spread Needle with paralysis is replaced by a 5 Star Shigga Amza with paralysis. Normally Shigga Amza has no paralysis attached.

Line Shields can transfer over too, so with careful planning you can utilize  their set bonuses effectively. However, only one line shield transfers with the character. When transferring, it will take the top (最上段) line shield currently registered to the palette.

As for units; only blast units and aura units transfer over with the character. Any stat modifier units like (infinite / Legs) or resist units like (Ice/Resist) become nullified upon transfer. (In this circumstance, a friend character will get hit with  status effects even though they were supposed to have a resist unit equipped.)

 

Support Character AI

Support Character AI runs on three fighting styles. It's based on the ratio of weapons they have currently equipped. The three fighting styles are Striking, Ranged, and Force. For Example, Friend Characters with more melee weapons will choose the Striking fighting style. If a character has an equal amount of different weapons (2 in each of those three categories), then the AI style changes so that it will choose Striking > Ranged > Force. Simply, the AI will give more preference to the Striking fighting style than ranged or force.

Friend character's AI will give low priority to shortcut orders and give higher priority to their AI fighting style. In contrast, Partner Characters (NPCs) will give Shortcut Orders higher preference. With this concept, Friend Characters give three specific shortcut orders extremely low priority to where they are almost negligible. The three shortcut orders are, Free, Attack Shift, and Shoot Site. Friend characters will indeed follow the other remaining shortcut orders.

Some abilities are nullified if equipped on a support character. These nullified abilities are mostly PP based abilities and we'll explain why in a moment.

The following abilities do not exist on Friend Characters; PP boost, PP high boost, PP skill save, PP Bullet Save, PP Technic Save, PP Escape Save, PP Guard Save, PP restorate, PP aborption, Damage Convert PP, Technical Master, Sharp sniper, Burst bomber, Full burst bomber, Partnership*, Friend Defense*, Recovery boost, Recovery High Boost, Angel Breath, Auto Recovery Deadline and Half line, Escape Master, EXP Boost, Meseta Boost, Rare Item Boost.

It is pointless to transfer your character to a friend if you have any PP abilities currently equipped because all friend characters have infinite PP.

 

 Support Character Presents

Depending on the relationship you have with your friend character, they will give you Photon Arts disks based on your level as a mission clear reward. The highest cap for Photon Art disks appears to be LV 25. So as a Level 200 player, you have a chance to receive a LV23 ~ LV25 Photon Art Disk.

Through Friend Search, if you collect 10 characters of different genders and races you'll have two bonuses applied. The first bonus increases your chance of getting a clear reward by 0.5% with each character and race you have stored in Friend Search. Since there are a total of 10 different genders and races you can collect, you can increase the likelihood to get a reward by a maximum of 5%. In addition, with all 10 characters collected, the PA disk you receive will increase 5 levels above the original number.