Ragol.co.uk - Phantasy Star Online - A Guide to Central Dome Fire Swirl for Hunters and Rangers

Okay, I'm finally doing this. I would like to thank Kisanzi for his help on this. He hasn't been around in a long while. Wonder where he wen't? Any way this guide centers on the Quest:Central Dome Firl Swirl, which is a quest that can only be played on Phantasy Star Online: Episodes 1&2

Walkthrough: After you’re ready go ahead and take the teleporter down to Forest 2. As soon as you reach the surface you'll notice large fires all over the place. Your first priority in this quest is to put these fires out. You do so by targeting them just as you would an enemy and firing repeatedly until they are extinguished. Do take note that this can only be done by using a gun-class weapon, so if you're trying to use a melee weapon for any reason it will be ineffective. Depending on the size of the fires they will take anywhere from three to nine shots to extinguish.
After extinguishing the first two fires that are in front of you, you'll notice that underneath one is a collapsed hunter. The second priority of this quest is to rescue the many victims of the fires that are stranded in the forest. Most of the victims you'll find after extinguishing more fires, but others are a little trickier to find as the quest progresses. Approach the collapsed hunter and toggle the "speak" option on him. After some grunts and warnings you'll be presented with the option to "SET COORDINATES", select this option to rescue all of the victims you come across. After confirming this selection the hunter will be teleported back to Pioneer 2 in a swirl of sparkles. Now that you've saved your first victim there's only nine more to go. Proceed to the fire that was on your right when you started and after putting it out you'll find a switch to open the door to the next room.
Enter the next room to the south direction on the map and you'll come across numerous fires all around the room. Extinguish the six separate fires to open the door blocking the other half of the room. Inside this small section you'll find your next victim who was briefly shown to you when you previously entered. Speak with her, "SET COORDINATES" and after she disappears proceed back to the room that you started in. As you run to the other locked door in this room you'll see a small fire to the left of the door. This fire conceals the unlocking mechanism for the door, so extinguish it and move along. Take notice of the large metal cylinder blocking your way to the overhang of this room, as you'll be returning to it shortly.
As you enter the next room you'll encounter your first group of enemies. Although just harmless bartles, the many scattered fires in the room provide annoying decoy targets to draw your fire. Try to concentrate your aim to take out the enemies and retreat back up the ramp you entered on to avoid damage. I would strongly advise against blindly running deep into the room. The many enemies and fires make it very difficult to freely move around and if you accidentally run too close to a fire it hurts you with a burst of damage. With no techniques and limited healing items it would be best to play this as you would if you were a low level ranger. A strategy involving a fire-and-retreat method is a safe plan to use and don't be afraid to exit the room in case of an emergency. The distance that you put between you and the enemies is the ranger’s most effective tool in this quest. I found that the best tactic for this room is to enter slowly and shoot from the farthest distance possible. This way you attract less attention and if you can position it right, then most of the enemies will get hung up on the walls of the ramp you come down. After killing the three spawns of enemies in this room, then proceed to put out the fires. Underneath the last fire in the furthest part of the room you find a ground pad to access. By stepping on this pad you move that large metal cylinder in the previous room out of the way.

Backtracking to the last room you were in, you'll find another switch behind the moved cylinder. Access this switch to raise the bridge in the room you just came from. It may seem like a lot of wasted effort to run back and forth between switches, but it can't be avoided. After making your way back to the other room you'll find that the bridge has now been raised. Although it seems that nothing is on the other side, proceed to the device across the bridge anyway. Once you've reached the other side you'll notice that the "speak" action is enabled, access it to trigger a conversation with a victim who is hiding behind the large device. After he shows himself speak with him again to send him back. Once you've saved the first three victims, Chris Paton will contact you and confirm that you've secured Area 1. After a brief cut scene the doors that were previously locked will be opened. Proceed to the newly unlocked door on the side of the room and into the long, open section of this map. As you run past, take note that the two doors on your left are both locked. If you approach the second door on your left you can choose to speak with a hunter who has locked herself inside refusing to leave until her "Bogarde" is safe. If you insist on teasing her by remaining silent when accessing the speak option then you'll just be rewarded with a small, confused expression from the girl within the room. Please note that this conversation is completely optional and doesn't have to be accessed to progress with the quest.
After finishing with the locked doors, proceed further into the room. You'll notice a few fires in the distance, but before you can reach the furthest one you'll be surrounded from front to back by enemies. As stated before it is always a good idea to give yourself a place to run to, so if you can do it quickly enough then try to sneak behind the tollaws at your rear and retreat back towards the door that you came in at. By doing this you can easily re-enter the room and pick off the enemies one by one with your rifle-class weapon. After finishing with the first wave of enemies, a second consisting of gulgus' will emerge. Repeating the same tactic and putting a good distance between you and them can easily take the gulgus down without one getting close to you. Once the gulgus are defeated then the third wave will emerge, and this time it's a mix of aggressive enemies and passive enemies. Again repeat the tactic used for the past few waves by retreating back a distance and taking down the enemies one at a time. It is easily noticible by now that rangers are truly effective when provided with "range" to use. After defeating the last wave of enemies the door near the center of the room will be unlocked. Make sure to extinguish the fires that might still be burning in the room then proceed through the opened barrier to find the next victim to rescue.
Extinguish the fires that burn around the fallen ranger and save him. Before he is teleported back, he will ask you to save a girl named Anna. If it didn't click right away, Anna is the hunter who locked herself in the previous room. Once the ranger disappears return to the locked door where the Anna was and speak with her, telling her that you're "Here to help". She'll ask you to save Bogarde again, but after realizing that you already have then she'll unlock the door. Talk to her one more time to teleport her back to Pioneer 2. Now make you're way to the southern most door in the long room, this will be the only one left that is unlocked until you save the victims within.

As you enter the room you will come into contact with three more fires, put them out from a distance then run to the other end of the room. The first wave of enemies in this room won't emerge until you've gotten across about 3/4 of the room. As the first group of gulgus' jump out it will seem that your escape route is blocked off. But luckily with the passive nature of the gulgus' it's very simple to get back into position and eliminate them from a safe distance. The second wave of this room is a harmless group of rappies. With ease feel free to snipe the small birds and make them flee. If you want the easy experience then start by shooting the closest rappy to you at the entrance and they'll all slowly come into range. After the rappies comes the third wave, a group of 4 gulgus-gue. Although they aren't hard to take down from a distance, they jump in so close together that it is easy to get stuck right in the middle of the group. If this happens you can try to shoot your way out, but by doing this you most inevitably risk taking a few hits. If possible try to get a little distance toward any side of the room available and dispatch them with ease. The next wave is the last and consists of a combination of rappies and gulgus'. If you stay close to the entranceway of the room it will make eliminating this wave extremely simple. Since the rappies march forward slowly and the gulgus' try to circle you, the slim entranceway is a sniper’s haven. Once the enemies get to the slim portion of the entrance they'll become bunched up and stuck, making them effortless to take out. Once all the enemies are defeated, extinguish any remaining fires and proceed to the back part of the room that the large metal cylinder was blocking. Within the small revealed room you'll find a hunter waiting to be rescued. Speak with him, "SET COORDINATES" and await the message from Chris Paton. After she confirms the safety of Area 2 then the door back at the other side of the long room will be opened. Backtrack to the other side of the long section of the map and enter the door.
As you enter the room you'll see a bunch of fires across the way, as well as two sets of laser barriers. Make sure to extinguish all the fires from the center of the room before proceeding to the barriers. Once you approach the closest laser barrier that was surrounded by fire you'll trigger the first wave of the mass amounts of tollaws to be fought in this room. In this situation two tactics can be observed. You can remain where you are and use the slim hallway with the laser barriers as your cover or retreat to the safety of the doorway before the many tollaws converge on you. Either tactic is good, but if you want things done faster then just remain where you stand and prepare for battle. Just begin firing away at the nearest tollaw until they converge on you. Luckily the slim nature of the corners of this room provides excellent crowd control. By carefully timing your attacks and taking a step back to evade every once in a while, the masses of tollaws can be taken down one at a time without getting rushed or overwhelmed. Prepare for three large groups of tollaws before the waves of enemies stop. In case you find yourself in a dangerous position then always remember that a doorway is your best friend. Mistakes happen and you don't want to have to backtrack all the way from the beginning again because of a stupid mistake or fluke death. As the masses of tollaws bunch together and continuously get caught on each other, simply gun them down to the very last one. Once all the enemies are defeated then the laser barriers will deactivate. Even though the teleporter near the upper level is a lot closer, make sure to go to the one in the back east side of the room first. This for two reasons; there are fires there still to be put out and the teleporter located in the small room back there leads to the bottom of the well area next to the central dome. Immediately after entering the teleporter you'll confront a HUcast who is on fire. Shoot him multiple times until his flames go out and then speak with him to send him back. Now that you've gotten this detour out of the way you won't have to backtrack later and waste time. Return through the teleporter and now enter the one at the base of the platform in front of the central dome. Make sure you're ready for a big battle because once you enter this teleporter there will be numerous large waves of enemies to fight.

The second you teleport up the fight begins. The first wave of enemies isn't composed of anything terribly threatening, but the large fires in the center of the room can make this fight real ugly if not properly taken care of. Try to ignore the enemies and extinguish the fires because the waves only get worse from here and you don't want to hassle with running into fires as well as dealing with the masses of enemies. If you noticed, the fires on this platform are much larger than those previously extinguished and if you try to put out the first one in front of you then you'll die for sure due to the fact that it can’t be extinguished at it’s current size. Unlike the previous fires, there's a trick to putting these ones out. Observe each fire and find the one that seems smaller than the others. While evading enemy attacks, extinguish this fire and once you do the remaining fires will shrink as well. Again, find the smallest of the remaining fires and extinguish it. Once the second fire is put out then the rest will die out as well. Now prepare to take care of the hordes of pesky enemies.
Unfortunately due to the layout of this room, there is not an advantageous spot to stand and snipe from. It is still a good idea to try and remain close to the teleporter pad in case things take a turn for the worse. One thing that comes to mind while fighting the enemies in this room is to use a shot-class weapon. I would only advise that people with a strong proficiency with shots attempt this strategy. It's true that shot-class weapons provide superior crowd control, but the major downside is the stalling time after firing. One missed shot or misfire could result in a lot of damage and could give the enemies a wide-open chance to surround and pummel you. While this strategy is possible, I'd advise anyone who isn't good with shots or has no strong shot-class guns to adhere to the strategy covered in the next paragraph.
As I stated earlier, the layout of this room is not very good for a ranger. Since it's round, open and easily cluttered I suggest a run-and-gun tactic. This is accomplished by gathering up the enemies into chasing you and by putting enough distance between you and the closest enemy so that you can pull off a quick three shot combo. While it seems time consuming and slow, if you are patient and careful this tactic is the best way to minimize the risk of taking large amounts of damage. The first few waves of enemies in this area are a dangerous mix of bartles and gulgus'. They come in large amounts from all angles making it very easy to accidentally end up trapped or pinned. Try your best to keep the main portion of the enemies in front of you, but it will be difficult with the gulgus' always trying to flank you from behind. If you pick your shots carefully and keep track of the positioning of your enemies, then this can be done with minimal damage and danger. The next spawn of gulgus’ is a bit of a rest period for rangers. After eliminating all gulgus’ from one corner of the room, then the rest can be sniped with from the vacant corner. The next wave is the most annoying of all. A vast mix of bartles, barbles and tollaws will spawn and quickly begin encroaching on you. Due to the large number of enemies, the run-and-gun technique will fail in this case, but there is an alternate way to deal with this. If you want to keep honest then you can use the teleporter and continuosly teleport back and forth, shooting one enemy each time. But there is a much easier, although shady, tactic for this wave and the ones after it. If you actually run past the teleporter while fighting to the tip of ledge overlooking the ground teleport pad the enemy’s detection area will be broken. It's the same trick that can be used in the caves. As you stand on the edge of the platform the enemies will stand still as if you weren't there. You can't shoot them from this position but this spot makes it much easier to take a few steps in, get a few combos off and then run back and wait for the enemies to return to their waiting positions. Whichever way you chose to do this is up to you, but either way will take some time. There will be one more wave of gulgus' and rappies after this one and once those are defeated then the last wave will trigger. The last wave is a horde of tollaws but fortunately there's nothing to worry about. They all spawn at the other end of the room, away from the trick sniping point and there's so many of them that it takes a long time for them to stop bumping into each other and get to you. A threatening spawn like this is probably one of the easiest defeated if the tactics presented are used. Once all the tollaws are dead then the door in this room is unlocked.

Head through the doorway and extinguish the flames trapping the force in front of the dome entrance. Once this is done, speak with her to send her back and make your way to the teleporter at the far end of the room. This teleporter will take you to the last locked room where a hunter is seen burning on the ground. Extinguish his flames and speak with him to send him back and congratulations, you've completed what seems like the end of the quest. After receiving a message that confirms the safety of the dome you can return to Pioneer 2. For the impatient people, here's where a telepipe comes in handy. Otherwise just run back to the beginning teleporter. But if you use a telepipe, make sure you unlock the door to the room you're in before heading back because you'll need to come back to this room again.
Once back on Pioneer 2 you can talk to the people there and get praises for your work, or just go straight back to Chris Paton. After talking to her again, she'll inform you that you're work isn't done and ask if you wish to finish this quest out. The obvious choice is to accept, but if you really want to refuse then that's your choice. Once she is finished speaking then head back down to Ragol. Take notice that you are once again able to use techs again wich makes this last section much easier. After you're done sighing with relief, return to the room where the last fire victim was and you'll find a Newman force there now. When you attempt to speak with him he’ll panic and run away. He can now be found in the room on the opposite side of the map, just use your area map and find the green arrow to locate him. After entering the indicated room the camera angle will zoom out, revealing many fires on the ground. Since you can’t put them out, ignore them and rush to the force's aid. After speaking with him, head to the center of the four fires and await a confrontation with four disgruntled hidelts. If using a human class then remember that you can use techs again. Dash out of the room for a quick buff and then re-enter and attack. Besides the annoyance of short-inducing blasts of zonde, the hidelts won't really be able to get near you without coming one at a time. Make sure to stay close to the doorway to disable their jump attack and you should emerge unscathed. After the hidelts are killed the force will confess to his genetic experiments and the quest is now complete. Ryuker back to Pioneer 2 and collect your meseta!

(This is Kisanzi's portion, I finally got this up after about 2 1/2 months, jesus......I will get up my HUnter portion soon, when I can get the time....)