Good Characters in Suikoden II

[Marshmallow]

So we've all heard about how Rina, Sheena, Killey and Pesmerga are good characters. What I want to know is if anyone else has made a different character into a total powerhouse, and they want to share the method. (This is basically like the Suiko 3 rune setup thread, but for Suiko II instead)

Also, on the Rina thread, someone stated that Bob could become the single best attacker . . or something along those lines. How is this? Is it just because of his rune? I use Bob every game, but if I can power him more, he'd be even better.

[Leb]

Sierra's pretty good if you know how to use her. A few rune additions and attack power-boosting equipment, and you get a second Flik. And since I don't like him, I'll take her any day. The same goes with Zamza (though, Zamza's magic can never catch up to Flik's), despite his extremely annoying comments.

I don't remember if Bob's second Rune slot opens up, but Killey would still be stronger with his three. He can probably deal some great damage with a double-strike and fury in werewolf form, but it shouldn't be enough to compare.

[Aurelien]

I don't really think that there are other characters (at least those who don't have any unique rune). I mean, practically anyone with 3 open rune slots could achieve similar (but probably weaker) damage as what Killey/Sheena could if they use the same setup and in the same condition. So that goes to Sid, Chaco, Rina, Hai Yo, Gantetsu, and probably other 3 open rune slotters that I forgot to mention.

As for Bob, I'm not sure how exactly to achieve that ultra high damage, but it probably goes with something like Violence Rune berserk, Exertion at its fullest (fifth turn), enemy is sleeping, turn him into the werewolf form and hope to get critical attack. That would definitely pump up his damage for sure. It shouldn't be that useful though because it's simply not practical at all and it only serves as something to do for fun.

A character that I would like to mention is Bolgan. No, he is not a powerhouse at all, but he could be useful because he is a part of two strongest unites. One being the strongest on single enemy which is the Servant Attack (along with Bob and Sierra) and the other being the strongest on all enemies which is the bald unite thingy that I forgot the name (along with LC Chan and Gantetsu). So if your party consist of Bolgan, LC Chan, Gantetsu, Sierra, Riou, and Bob, it could be a very useful party. Use Kindness Rune trick on Bolgan to boost his ATK, then put Double Strike and/or Fury on others and voila! you'd get a versatile party that could be used depending on the need to attack single or multiple enemies.
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~City-States of Jowston and Tinto Republic~
06.06.2004 - 20.01.2008

[Kobold]

Basically to me, a character is good if he can hit relatively well, survive relatively well, and is able to blast magic relatively well.

Flik and Rina are such characters. Zamza can reach such a standard as well with a fire sealing, Sierra can as well with a little physical boosting.

Viktor can be a good physical damager, at least good enough for a rather easy game like Suikoden 2 with a much less complicated set up to Killey/Sheena's. A double beat, fury and friendship can make Viktor an effective damager that is sufficient for Suikoden 2.

I don't favour the seemingly tankers like Georg and Pesmerga simply because they're not the best damagers, and they take magic like a wuss. Neither do i favour the super magicians like Luc and Mazus because a pillow can take better hits and deal more damage as well, thus making them useless in random battles.
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Kobolds are great!

[Shabadoo]

Kahn is another Good character, he has three open rune slots and is good at dealing both physical and magic damage.

[sybillious]

these are my non magical based choices: even though he's not a magic user or blessed with rune slots, miklotov is a tank when equipped with good armor and a double beat; he can hit up to four times, do around 500+ dmg each hit and takes relatively low damage in return.

humphrey is much the same, except he has got to be the slowest character available; the only way to make him really useful is to give him a gale rune.

as far as magic users go, rina rates high, due to three slots and having good magic affinity, camus is decent with the right rune to compliment the rage rune he has and good armor. flik also rates high; his damage/magic deal some decent damage.

i'm not fond of the 'super customizable' characters others favor; it makes the game less of a challenge if you have 'super soldier x' killing off everything during his/her attack round.

[Leb]

Instead of giving Humphrey a Gale Rune, why don't you give one of your faster party members (Nanami's a good one) a Spark Rune?

[Vextor]

Valeria is pretty good. Her Falcon rune is a very good attack rune due to the fact that it allows you do to double damage for almost no penalty, and she is able to critical with that rune--meaning you do roughly x5-x6 damage.

Valeria unfortunately gets only one free slot at level 45. However, putting a Double Strike Rune in that slot, and giving her a kindness rune would allow her to do some truly righteous damage. I tested this out, and managed to do 6200 damage by just using the falcon rune. With a critical, the result was 15900 damage. I put the enemy to sleep, and as a result, Valeria did 29980 damage. Not quite 30000 but close enough.

Even without these extreme customization, Valeria would be able to do some incredible damage. It pays to be the producer's favorite character.

[Aurelien]

[Vextor]

[quote="Bugg"]

[Sualtam Lugh]

Toss a Fire Sealing on Riou, and he's invincible against Luca.

Toss a Blue Gate on Luc, and a Cyclone on him, and he does major damage. The lack of good spells on Cyclone will counter with the lack of good spells on Blue Gate, and everything will be good.

Georg, throw a killer or counter or double beat, or as many as you can, and he becomes a fucking machine. Killer and Double-Beat would work the best.

Viktor is strong, like Humphrey.

Mazus is a beast.

As for Tir....He's just a strong guy. Sharpen his weapon up, and raise his level a bit, and he's damn good.

- Pyro

[Aurelien]

Another character that I think could be dealing huge damage is Siegfried because he's the only monster type character with 2 open rune slots. Being a monster type would allow his STR to max at 999 (though only 700 at level 99). So in theory, with the power stone trick, he could achieve 999 STR so that he wouldn't need Kindness Rune trick to get 999 ATK. Here is my calculation:

999 (round to 1000 just to make the calculation easier) x2.0 (D.Strike) = 2000
2000 x 2.0 (Exertion Rune) = 4000
4000 x 3.0 (Violence berserk) = 12000
12000 x 2.0 (enemy sleeping) = 24000
24000 x 3.0 (critical attack) = 72000

If you don't want to use the power stone trick, but use level 99 trick instead, he would still be able to deal up to 50000 damage.
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~City-States of Jowston and Tinto Republic~
06.06.2004 - 20.01.2008

[Marshmallow]

Doesn't a double strike rune deal 1.5x the damage, not 2.0x?

For me, I use Riou with a rage and double beat rune. He's a fast character, prone to attacking multiple times (which is increased with a double beat), and I find that he's better as a physical attacker than as a magician.

I use Fire Sealing and Fire Lizard on Zamza quite frequently as well. This setup lets him deal 1.5x fire damage on his regular attack without taking any damage, and 2.0x fire damage with his rune attack without damaging himself. My only question about him is how the damage for *Fire Dragon is calculated. I assume it's based of of his attack stat instead of his magic stat, but I'm not sure, since there are characters with unique runes that use magic stats (Mel in Suikoden III)

Also, can Anita critical with a *Falcon too? I prefer to use Anita since you can get her relatively early, and if you use her as your Falcon character, you can pick up Kasumi and get Mondo and Sasuke early. I also tend to use a setup for Luc where I put a magician rune, a blue gate, and a cyclone on him so that he can heal and do good amounts of magic damage.

In response to Eggith Cyrene: I find suikoden II so interesting because I can customize so many characters so differently, while still letting them keep their individual "personalities", unlike in a game like FFVII or FFX where characters are very customizable, but they kind of lack a sense of identity or job class because they can be customized too much. Suikoden is great because you can customize the characters, but because of the different unites and special runes and individual pros and cons to each character, it becomes more original, and each character develops their own individual niche.

[Vextor]

Nope, double strike rune does x2.0, despite what the game claims. Try it yourself and you'll see.

As for Zamza's rune's calculation, the damage is based on his STR. With the Fire Lizard and Fire Sealing on him, do you know if the Fire Lizard increase of x1.5 is added onto his x2.0 from the Fire Dragon attack? I can't remember if I ever tried. It'd be interesting to combine it with Battle Oath, a sleeping enemy, and perhaps remove the Fire Sealing and replacing it with double strike (although he would surely kill himself!)

And nope, Anita can not critical with her Falcon rune. Apparently because she didn't take her training as seriously as Anita.

[Kobold]