R00t prep! (At the request of Kcam)

Essential preparation for r00t phase killing is a must! Without it you will take much longer to kill phases and increase your chance of dying much quicker!

If its your first time doing r00t phases, then I suggest going and beating the one sin (twice I might add and once more to drain it) before doing any others! Its not overly difficult, though higher actual difficulty than some of the others, but for the price of 500 stamina you get 100 attacks, which is more than enough to kill it!

Things youll need:
Ryo - lots, youll want to juice up as much as you can with Drain and Tonics of which you always want to try and make a whole number (buy 2,4,6,8 etc at a time and not singly). Depending on your max limit, try to stay no more than 3 juices past your tolerance, so you only lose 15 stamina the next day, which is no big deal. Although, the hangover will only really bother you if youre not doing r00t related stuff the next day!

Bloodline - Preferably Legacy as you get an extra life against phases, lives are key, the more you have the better!

Allies - Smokey the bear level 2 and Sporty 2, both easy enough to get and together give you a total of +250% damage against phases plus +5 drain edge (see explanation at bottom). The team is called detective duo! Very useful!

Sponsorship item - The 555 phone, gives +1 drain, you want that, it helps, so why not use it!

Bits - Now youll want lots of these before fighting your first phase. The minimum for phase fighting is 20,000 bits, 10k for Aromatic Grass (+5 drain edge) and 10k for Tri-Edge (+50% damage on phases) but you may as well get another 10k for the +25% core item!
There is also the Bit Shop 2. To get here, just go to the same place (Blaring Hairy Parking Lot) but with Doughman 2/3 in your team. This opens a new bunch of abilities you can use (til dayroll) and the item Wired Reflexes, that gives +10 Edge (for 75k bits but doesnt loop unfortunately)
R00t fu - 3000 bits +2 successes against phases
Digital Endurance - 6000 bits -25% Focus costs
Bullet Time - 10,000 bits -1% DC at max push

Core - Again, youll want SHITLOADS of this stuff! Thats right kiddies, its what makes the world go round in r00t! On the day you fight your phase/s youll want to spend 30k of it in Dimly Lit Crumbling Dealers Room, 20k for an extra +5 drain (for the day) and the other 10k for an extra +10 drain edge (for the day). For hacking (see below) I usually try to have about an extra 240k core saved (in addition to the above) up cos I like to turn up to a knife fight with a gun!

Hacking - This gives you +1 Strength per hack against fighting phases. You only need to have a strength of 1 less than the difficulty (Phase info can be found here). Assuming you have got the field keys Cursed Filthy Noodle Shop. Here you can hack people for extra strength against phases (one thing to keep in mind, while it says it costs 50 stamina to hack someone, it costs 20 stamina to get to that field and 20 stamina to get back!). My usual course of action is instead of to just get all 3 info keys, yes it costs a lot but they last 24 hours so its worth it, especially if youre fighting multiple phases per day! Something that may help those with lower averages with their daily stamina is doing all you hacks pre-dayroll if you can get on around then and if not make sure you do them as late as possible but fight the phases as early as possible the next day!. This way youre saving as much possible stamina as you can, which leads me to my final point!
Note: There is a greassemonkey script which will keep the core costs down to a minimum (ive added this in at the suggestion of Eriason as it can be very useful, provided you keep an eye on when the location was last updated!). It can be found here. The explanation of it is on the link page.

Stamina - Lots of it! If you just fighting phases for the drop, a few buy-ins might be needed. If youre draining, youll need more since after you drain the phase, it corrupts you, as if youve lost! Corruption is a pain in the arse, cos its just stamina you can wave goodbye to!

Other things to consider
Mkai drop - Time Reversal Cube - 11% chance to dodge death by phase, thats pretty good!
Mkai drop - Goodbye Kitten Pink Taser - +2 attacks per focus, I could have saved a lot of stamina had I got this much sooner!
K-Belt - 10% chance to survive a successful phase attack, again, the more chance you have of not dying, the better!
Storm Favours - If you get down to your last life fighting a phase, it can be useful popping a favour for the extra life
Mahjong - Zawa Zawa life for 30k MJXP. This can be used on multiple phases, provided youre doing more than one in a day (they only last til dayroll). They will be useful on later phases I imagine (since ive not needed one in the first 4 lost weapons)
11 Tailed Fox - When fighting this badass to finish r00t, theres 2 things to think about, it will start at 11 days alive, meaning an extra 11% DC, right from the off! Plus if it hits you, its gonna take 2 lives away from you at a time!
Drain Strength - If you have achieved the rank of r00t, you get 2 Drain Strength. If you have the Epitath of the Twilight, you get 2 Drain Strength and Villages with the upgrade Skull Throne provide 1 Drain Strength.
Boomstick - Obtainable from Zombjas for 12 Z-Rewards, get it, it gives you +2 drain levels!

Simple obvious points to consider
Use your summon, twilight guardian. The extra life is awesome, just remember to only summon it as you go into a phase fight, not when youre doing some last minute core farming or whatever, cos youll probably lose it for the day, along with that life youll need!
High Season. About 10+ should be fine. Yes you hear reports of people completing it in season 4 but honestly, why bother, just make it easier for yourself and do it later on!

Ive purposely left overtures out for now since you wont need them early on, at least not for the 1st 4 lost weapons (cos I didnt need them). You might need them for the last 2 lost weapons and the 11 tailed fox however, but since im not there myself yet, ill have to get a second opinion on that!

If ive missed anything, let me know and ill fit it in where it needs to be! Thank Eriason for all this info since its only what I was told in bits earlier on before I started phases for myself!

Strategy is a different topic altogether though, I normally just go max push all the time, but this also increases death chance. Some people say go low push, which takes longer and costs more stamina overall, but is the low-risk approach, others do what I do (or vice-versa). So do what you feel comfortable with!

How Edge Works: +X Edge gives X% chance for a success to generate an extra temporary level. Levels you get with edge can themselves edge up to a maximum of 50 extra levels from edge.