[Rhapsodia] Character tactics anyone?

[Tyrantblade]

I've been playing this game to death, and so far I've found myself using some tactics every battle, without even realising it. Having said that, I'm curious to see how everyone else here goes about their battles. Do you send in your mages to lay down positive tiles? Send Lazlo in alone? Let's hear it. Personally, these are my general tactics in battle.


Kyril: I have him act as a support attacker more than anything, but his Swallow Rune comes in handy when I need to murder distant enemies. His reluctance to kill fishmen actually helps me level up my weaker members.

Andarc: My primary mage. He spends most of the battle in reserve, but whips out a Raging Blow against tough enemies.

Seneca: Surprising strong, she softens up enemies while standing on her element quite easily. I mainly keep her for her two unites with Kyril and Andarc.

Lazlo: My front man. Battles usually begin with Lazlo baiting the enemy to attack him. He's kitted out as a melee fighter, with skills to match. He's normally 2-3 levels higher than the rest.

Snowe: Why not? He's actually very strong, and acts as a great Kangacorn rider when needed. He also has a crazy unite with Lazlo. He's usually my man for killing off weakened enemies.

Kika: Stands with Lazlo in my frontline, but I try to keep her behind him, if only because of her HP. Her Falcon Rune has destroyed a great many enemies for me. My strongest pure fighter by any means. Her unite with Lazlo can clear out enemies scarily fast.

Trishtan: My wall. His high HP and Defence make him perfect for luring enemies toward him. He isn't amazingly strong, but that isn't why I keep him. He's my meat shield.

Eugene: Amazingly, Eugene is something special here. Sitting on a Kangacorn, and with good armour, he lures enemies away from weaker enemies and NPC's. He can also gamble on some high damage with his Kangacorn Rune, as well as powering himself up.

Rene: For a lot of easier maps, I keep Rene around to contantly dig, building her levels. If I get lucky she'll get something nice. Having her equipped with movement and dodge skills make her a nippy little thing.

Cedric: I await the day when I can upgrade his True Godspeed skill to an S rank, becuase Cedric is funny to use. If I need to skip the first level or two in the Obel Ruins easily, or reach a difficult chest, I use this maniac.

Noah: My third support character, Noah's steal skill makes her vital for quest items. Like Rene, she's kitted out with movement and dodge skills, making her hard to pin down.


My battles usually revolve around laying down positive elements, luring enemies to me with Lazlo and Trishtan, then nailing them with my power hitters, before mopping up with Snowe, Eugene and Kyril. All while trying to get myself into a position to nab chests without exposing my weaker members. I'm constanly in a defensive position now, since I've been blindsided by enemy reenforcements on more than one occasion.

The only time this tactic proves difficult is when NPC characters are involved. Some seem intent on killing themselves, such as Charlemagne, or are just idiots, like the Nay Kobolds. Katarina gets my top points by constantly casting fire spells on fire enemies, putting herself in direct danger from attack almost every time.

[Equus]

Hrm...I usually use Kyril, Kika, Seneca, Flare, Hero IV, and then randomly put people in depending on where we are. Usually it's Mizuki just because she doesn't get hit very often any more. I'll usually put a mage in to change elements, but it usually eventually becomes a slug-fest with Hero IV, Seneca, and Flare killing most of the enemies unless they get close enough for Kika to go off on them. The archers are crazy strong with Berserker Belts and strength gear.

In general, I also use mostly story characters because I'm too lazy to want to think to hard about keeping non-story characters alive. :P
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I can run faster scared than you can mad.

[Taleria]

If you think Mizuki rarely gets hit, wait til you level her skills to s rank. All attacks will have a 0% chance of hitting her from any angle. Magic excluded, of course.
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In nomine domini sabaoth sui filique ite ad infernos

[Equus]

Oh I am totally looking forward to it! I just got to a point where I could level folks up to S rank, but I haven't had a chance to go into battle with it yet since I leveled up right before I headed off to bed last night. Now I have to wait until after work to try them out. Only...ummm...four more hours. Dang.

Oh...forgot another one of the fun things I have set up on Seneca. She also has a Balance rune so she can use the abilities out of her Hawk rune (I think that's the archery one :?) without getting unbalanced. With everything else on her, it dishes out quite a bit of damage.
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I can run faster scared than you can mad.

[Noot]

My main party consists of Kyril, Andarc, Seneca, Kika, Lazlo, Corselia, Snowe, Maxine, and Trishtan. Any other open spots available, I will usually add Hervey, Mizuki, or Katarina.

My main strategy for any story-battle map is to fan out my characters a little and sucker the enemy in. I'll start with some long-range attacks from Maxine, Andarc, Lazlo, Corselia, and Katarina, then rush in with melee characters to finish them off. I like leading out with Mizuki because, as Equus mentioned, she rarely gets hit (although with the enemies getting stronger, it's getting harder to avoid taking damage). I never have my characters chase down enemies to put them in danger, and I'm always cognizant of reinforcements showing up. I tend to keep them close to the entrance because it's just easier to set up the elemental tiles and trap my enemies.

Once I've taken care of the majority of the enemies, I'll start switching out people for some of my scrubs to get them some experience. I also use Cedric to run down near the chests that would take too long to walk to.

On a normal battle map, like in Collanbal or Terana, I tend to just throw my lowest leveled members in there, regardless of who it is, to try and catch them up. I use those battles for that purpose primarily because when I do the story-battles I tend to ignore them. Then the only problem becomes having enough money for weapon sharpenings and armor upgrades and having enough skill points to boost everyone up. (I only recently realized what a valuable skill "Battle Lust" is, and I'm about 35 hours into the game.)
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~~Harmonian Tenhei Star~~

It's hard to bargle naudle zauss with all these marbles in my mouth.

[Beecham]

I tend to balance out all my party member's level regardless of their usefulness, except Reinbach and Charlemagne. (Anti-narcicism here)

But for favouritism, Kyril, Seneca, Hero4, Kika, Millay, Jeremy, Mizuki, Flare all tend to be used. Millay and Jeremy with a high level of Battle Lust can hit 3 times, dealing tremendous damage. Battle Lust and Critical hit are tend to be give to everyone as to deal great damage every turn. Hero4 does 5 swings per turn and Kika 4.

Mizuki is a great character to use. Even in the final battle, she actually gets hit 0% of the time, except against magic and arrows.

[spoiler]And for those who eventually get Roget, the guy is one of the best mages around, together with Maxine they have a unite that is deadly. Great combo. [/spoiler]

Also, I tend not to use the owls until needed, since it lowers PDF, which can get irritating.

[Parallax]

I'm not far enough into the game to have made too many definitive tactics - or to have recruited too many characters, for that matter. I don't have Hero 4 or Snowe yet... and I hate Snowe, so I know I won't use that guy...but I hear Lazlo is pretty good in Suikoden Tactics. Anyway, I typically use Kyril, Seneca, Kika, Trishtan, and Mizuki...and sometimes Flare. My main strategy involves abusing the hell out of element tiles. I spend about half my battles elementing up to make Kyril, Kika, and Trishtan into killing machines. Typically, I make small groups and keep them together, usually keeping Kyril and Seneca together (despite their opposing elements) and using her ranged attacks to soften them up for a killing blow, or to pick off an enemy that Kyril has beat the tar out of.

I dunno...I like the element tiles quite a bit...so I spend a lot of time working with those.
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He's a victim - not a perp - and I'm choosing to let him go.

[Tendou Souji]

Main Attackers: Kika, and HeroIV.
Attackers: Kyril, Andarc, Maxine, Rita, Seneca, Mitsuba, and Reinhold.
Speed Units: Trishtan on Kangacorn, Rita.
Support: Maxine, and Corselia.

[Archpark]

My general tactics were based in a "buddy" system.

Kyril and Maxine were my Fire pair:
Maxine would sit at the back of my fire platform and cast over Kyril, the tank.

Hero4 and Kika were my Wind pair:
I would sit the Hero4 and Kika wind platform in front of the fire platform to soak up hits, Punishment Rune people from afar, and if enemies gathered up, Unite.

Andarc and Seneca were my Thunder pair:
I used Thunder God Garb on Seneca so they could share the thunder platforms, they would be off to the side away from most everyone shooting and casting, and if enemies gathered on them I set up their Unite.

Corselia and Flare were my Water pair:
I just set up Coreselia in the back and healed people if they REALLY needed a heal, otherwise I just let people stay on their platform, I used Flare because I could hit with range, Unite with Corselia, and I also had her mounted a lot so she could go get treasure, the bow range was convenient for that.

I didn't really use any Earth people, which made the end kinda hard. Last battle woulda been easier with Earth element, but I just spread ANY element and then rushed up there with Kyril on fire and used his level 3 Swallow Rune and it was basically a one hit kill on the last boss.

[Hawk Thanatos]

Kyril - Useful rune, good attack, decent defence and HP plus he's compulsory for a lot of battles.

Gretchen - Where I'm up to in the game I'm able to afford one Platinum set of armour, which I've equipped on Gretchen and now it's rare that anything does damage in double figures to her. Also thanks to her Berserker Belt and Battle Lust Skill she's my strongest physical attacker.

Lazlo - We all know how good this guy is, his weakest stat is his defence but he can kill anything that gets near him anyway.

Jeane or Simeon or Maxine - Jeane's a great magician (Lightning and Fire) but in case I need a different element I'll swap her out for Maxine (Fire and Wind) or Simeon (Water and Earth).

Coop - In Suikoden Tactics this guy is the only Great Sword user I can stand but he's cool (even if he does look like an ancestor of Sanchez), I liked Mitsuba in Suikoden IV but not so much in ST.

For the other three I swap between Andarc, Millay, Jeremy, Snowe, Seneca, Kika, Noah, Rene, Rita, Gary and any other mage (Roget may get a permanent position once he joins me though). I'm tempted to use Mizuki but I hate Akaghi so I'm having a tough time bringing myself to include someone who's close to that idiot.

[Elzamine]

I tend to have a basic 1st wave rush, while my mages and long range follow behind. support in the very back if I take them. Most of my characters are wind based so I spread that around a bit, I use roget so his cyclone 4th spell to hit all enemies on wind and heal all allies.
I use Simeon and Roget as my constant mages, and bring in Jeane sometimes.
Hero IV as my multi hitter and support with punishment.
Kyril, and Hervey for basic offense. Sigurd to pair with Hervey for pirate attack, but Sigurd also has 3 runes, one being eagle rune which I use him to snipe with.
Selma is my great sword user, and can take a decent bit of damage.. she hits for the most as far as I've seen, and is also wind element for my team. Trishtan is my tank, because he's just so damn tough. I also have him mounted on a Kangacorn.

If I'm allowed more than 6, Kika, Eugene, Paula, Seneca, Ameria, Jeane and Ornela get pushed in. I'll take Rene to treasure hunt new areas.
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-My DeviantArt-

[Admiral Ackbar]

Coop with three sword strikes is simply insane. He deals more damage with normal attacks than anyone in my game.

I've also found that the two Nay-Kobolds are pretty well-rounded in stats and lack weaknesses.

Who have you guys assigned to the mounts? Here are my mounted characters:

Kangacorn - Rachel
Armored Kangacorn - Busk
Armored Kangacorn - Trishtan

Giant Owl - Flare
Giant Owl - Ameria
Armored Giant Owl - Frederica
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[Hawk Thanatos]

Coop's good strength wise but his accuracy sucks. I still use him though. :D

For me Jeremy is almost always mounted on my Armored Kangacorn as his defence, strength and health are all good enough for him to keep useing Rush and still survive a few hits. Other than that I mainly use the mounts for moving around.