What team/formation are you using? Battle system tactics thread

[Himuro]

Title says it all. What party/formation are you using? What are some good formation tactics and battle tactics in general? What has everyone found out? Do you use certain characters/formations depending on situation?

I've found arrow stance to be possibly my favorite formation. If you put a tank as the lead (like Belcoot) you'll be pretty hard to top.

My party currently consists of:

Belcoot
Ferashe (hero)
Lyon
Lorelai
Zerase
Josephine

In support I have:

Cornelio
3 Doremi's
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[Cyrus]

mhm let me see, I use the crescent formation and the members of my party at this point are...

Richard
Belcoot
Miyamoto(Hero)
Lyon
Jeane
Zerase

Support:
Egbert
Marina
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[Skooboi]

Belcoot(s)
Dinn(s)
Lyon(m)
Hero 5(m)
Zerase(l)
Siahleeds/Lorelai(l)

Entourage:
Murad(Heals after battles)
Marina(Heals during battles)

Seriously Belcoot is a beast. I have them all in a crescent formation. Dinn and Belcoot take around 5 damage at most, while 90% of the time parrying their attacks. Dinn is probably one of the best critical hitters behind Georg. Belcoot is very very very good. Zerase is self-explanatory with his extremely high magic defense and attack. Basically I have the magic summoners in the back as their PDF is low, only archers can get to them. So the melee fighters can't even get to the weaker end. Finally Marina heals me during battles as a sort of extra defense. And Murad heals after battles to keep my HP from leaving its high. Belcoot and Dinn also have a pretty good unite attack, it attacks down a column doing a nice bit of damage.

Anyways yea that's the ideal formation, 2 short range in from. 2 Mid range in middle and 2 longe range in back. I'd also like to add that Zerase also has a pretty good attack damage, not great but really good for a mage. Anyways, let me emphasize how great Belcoot is. Later on you have a mission to create different parties, I just stuck Belcoot in one with a bunch of other weaklings that I knew would die in the first round. Guess who survived without even getting damaged once and took care of the fight? Belcoot. Also George deserves honorable mention, the guy can seriously hit an enemy at like 3000 damage. 1000 Damage was the most damage I saw in the first Suikoden. 2000 was the most I saw when combining magic in the second. But an unprecedented 3000 damage from a single-strike, and the guy isn't even at a high level.

[bbsting120]

I've been switching it up quite a bit, but lately i've been using the Sorcery formation w/:

Belcoot in front
Hero
Lyon
Sialeeds
Lorelai
zerase/Jeane

Cheap as hell, but makes trudging around the suiko world hoping to find some new recruits a bit easier/faster.

[Skooboi]

Looks like we all have the basic formations and the same goals. :) Belcoot for everyone!

[Sophita]

Going from memory, but I have the crescent formation right now, in this order:

Belcoot (S) - Tank extrodinaire

HeroV/Zartosht (M) - Fills in as both defense mage and a fairly good attacker on his own.

Lyon (M) - She's coming whether I like it or not, but she's speedy as hell and both my fastest attacker and my fastest healing mage (though she's not a great magician).

Lorelai (M) - Treasure Hunter + Whip + LORELAI!!! = Win. Her drain rune keeps her HP up, too, so that's a nice bonus.

Zweig (M) - Treasure Hunter + glasses = Win. He's cute, and I like treasure hunter, yes I do.

Zerase (L) - She'll be replaced soon, but her rune is so helpful and her knife attack isn't bad, so I can't help but keep her there for now.
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[Forum Poster]

Not for everyone, but I use the True Men formation from time to time, especially during certain boss battles, where the formation skill, Elegy, can lay some serious hurt on the enemy party. This attack can often take out most of the enemy boss party at once. Make doubly sure your guys are tough enough to survive a round of enemy attacks, though.

[Scott]

currently:

Faylon (strike back rune + tank is fun)
Kuma (hero with fire rune and sunbeam)
Roy(Cyclone)
Lyon (Sheild)
Zweig (Ressurection)
Zerase (star and alert)
Using some kind of arrow formation. The second one you get that looks like an arrow pointing at the enimies.

Wait 3 truns and zerase kills anything in seconds in this form. Faylon seems to work as a good tank for now, ands Zweig with Ress. Rune is hella unfair. Also, Roys "Rape you" eyes are awesome.
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[fuji]

I love the Arrow Stance formation. I used it for the majority of the game. If you stick someone untouchable like Hakuzi (the samurai chick), or Georg, or any tank character it works great. Belcoot and Din spent a lot of time in that up front slot for me.

In Arrow Stance I put either Killey or Zerase at the very back. I do switch it though and stick them off to the side if I face a lot of column attacks. I've found only a handful of M range units to use in this, so my outside flanks are with S range characters mostly. Hero and Lyon taking the two middle slots. I used this formation for pretty much the whole game. I would freely switch that personnel grouping to the Striking Arrow which is a more attack oriented formation as they transition well and my members remain in good positions.

Crane Wing is good, stick two tanks up front and let Killey and whomever else I want in the back row tear it up. This stance has no negatives which is always good.

Tiger was great when I first got it, a real good formation for bosses. However, after enemies started getting area of effect attacks, I quickly abandoned the idea of a tightly grouped unit. That was also the downfall of the Crescent formation for me as well.

One of the best things from new game+ is that you can keep your formations, so I get to use Arrow Stance pretty much the whole game now with Georg up front right at the beginning.
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"It's enough"

[HOTACTIONDAN]

i have a question....how come no one uses george i thought he was supposed to be really good? sorry if this is a dumb question as i am not that far in the game right now

[fuji]

Georg is a kickass character no doubt, but sometimes he's needed to do other story-related things. Some people may not use him because he's so good they want to challenge themselves by running around with Logg up front too.

As you play you'll realize why Georg is left off many people's lists.
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______ "We're still flying"

___ "That's not much"

"It's enough"

[melange]

I never really have a 'set' party cos I'm always switching in lower ranked characters to 'train' them up, but the Prince, Lyon and Norma, Egbert are always in the party and I always have one of the many mages or mage capables around. Norma is decked out with all the potch increasing equipment, a fortune rune and a prosperity rune, potch finding skill at SS... she's my money making machine :mrgreen: Also a skunk rune so she doesn't get hit by attacks while wearing the low defense potch+ equipment.

In my first playthrough I also used the Crescent formation, until I got to the final dungeon and the monsters there loved ripping out area or rank or file attacks which hurt a lot.

In my second playthrough I settled on the Sorcery formation often and abusing the double-cast ability of it is great for ending random battles quickly and sparing the lower ranked characters from having to endure too much fighting.

Though it must be said I think that the formation system is best when you switch flexibly between the formations for different situations. Say you meet an enemy who likes attacking down a file, switch to True Men and only one character gets hit at a time. Then when you meet an enemy who attacks in ranks, switch to Tiger etc... Sometimes I switch to a formation just to use its special ability (Circle Formation to stun the enemies and keep them off balance) then switch back to my normal one to finish off. Or switching to a formation that has a fast group attack to knock out one of the more troublesome monsters at the beginning then switching back to kill off the easier monsters at leisure.
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Anyone else notice that Lyon's weapon = overglorified switchblade?

[Himuro]

Well I'd use Georg if he wasn't always out and about.
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[fuji]

That's interesting Melange, I did that at times, but not as active as you were. I did find that as your levels increased, the formation special stat bonuses were less and less of a factor (-5 DEF? who cares right). I should have been more active in changing my formations to avoid rank and file attacks. Especially since you don't waste a turn making the change.
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______ "We're still flying"

___ "That's not much"

"It's enough"

[Aile]

As often as i could have them in, my mainstays were HeroV (obviously), Lyon, and Zerase. Everyone else sort of just came and went, though i made as much use as i could out of Kyle, Killey, Dinn, Miakis, Galleon, Georg, Rahal, Roog, and Lorelai. I neglected to recruit very many Stars on my first runthrough of the game, so in the end i didn't have many people to choose from.

By the endgame i think my party consisted of Kyle, Galleon, Lyon, HeroV, Zerase, and Killey. Zerase was like a Godsend as soon as she showed up; the Star Rune is pure magical insanity. I used Killey in a similar capacity; had him bust out his heavy magic attacks when necessary, but he was pretty damn good when it came to physical attacks as well. Kyle was much the same, in all honesty. I think i gave him a Flowing and Mother Earth Rune and had him help Lyon (who had a Shield Rune, too) with the healing when necessary. The rest were pretty much relegated to attacking or absorbing damage (as in Galleon's case).

I didn't fiddle much with formations on my first play; i'm getting much more use out of them in my New Game+, to be honest. If i remember correctly i stuck with Tiger and Circle formation a lot, and by the end i just kept them in Standard.
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