[Character Discussion] Lilly Pendragon

[ninjaluc79]

Which pretty much depends on which elements Reed and Samus have strong affinities for.

[eldrasidar]

you can use magic scrolls while stunned.

magic scrolls are always cast however as if you had no ranks in the relavent skill, so even if you have an S in lightning magic, using a scroll to cast soaring bolt will be horrendously slow.

[ninjaluc79]

Heh. But at least scrolls still come in handy whenever you can't do pretty much anything else.

[Punkaiser]

Using support scrolls as clay guardian isnt bad idea but using offensive scrolls really is.

[ericm]

So I'm reading through this and then I remembered something written earlier; Ninjaluc, are you saying you haven't even played suikoden 3? I'm just really curious how this whole discussion just occurred without you even having played it.

[ninjaluc79]

Just saw somebody playing it. Then I watched video walkthroughs. Then it picked up from there.

[KFCrispy]

Soaring Bolt scroll deals 900 damage, doesn't get interrupted, and doesn't harm your allies... so what does it matter if the attack comes at the middle or end of the turn? vs a tough boss you're expecting them to survive and get an attack every round (unless you do too much planning) so it doesn't matter when the 900 damage comes in.

The only reason we don't spam scrolls with character that get unbalanced often is because we probably are trying to command the buddy who is not unbalanced to do some really powerful attack.

[Punkaiser]

Just paring them up with an auto physical attacker will solve the buddy command issue. We may be satisfied with 900 base spell damage but the real problem is about their casting time Soaring bolt i.e requires 205 mov, which means the unbalanced character needs 3 turns to cast it. I can't think of anything else useful that a stunned character can do other than using lv1 support scroll or healing items.

[eldrasidar]

@ KFCcrispy, using the unite is a really bad idea if you don't expect it to do end the fight in one turn, as there isn't a single damaging spell worth using that can be cast in a single turn on a scroll. Because of this, reed and samus will lose at least 1 turn of doing damage. Over two turns reed, samus and lilly will do substantially more damage by just attacking, than by using their unite. This is true of pretty much every Unite. pretty much none of them are worth doing for a long battle. They are designed to end a battle quickly. If they don't, you take a penalty for it.

of course, none of the fights in this game are all that hard, so it's not really a major issue.

[KFCrispy]

i don't think you guys have tried magic scrolls. they activate just like ITEMS - there is no casting time involved. they are instant spells that will activate the very round they are used. that's why i recommend using them in Mounted Pairs as well--the rider auto-attacks and you command the beast to use the scroll for an additional 900 dmg in 1 round.

the battle would go like this--
Round 1: Tinto Unite
Round 2: Lilly attacks (or activates magic sword + attack), Samus deals 900 with Soaring Bolt, Reed deals 900 with Soaring Bolt (unless they were buddied up, then only 1 could cast)
Round 3: Reed and Samus have recovered and are free to act.

[eldrasidar]

I've used them, they have a casting time.

[KFCrispy]

wow i'm going to have to take a picture for you guys.

[KFCrispy]

happy now? please check things if you are going to dispute it so stubbornly! also, Samus was not unbalanced from the Tinto Unite thanks to his Fighting Spirit skill.
i'm surprised y'all didn't tried this with a mounted pair as i had advertised in the in-depth article... free extra damage in the beast's accessory slots that have limited usage. there is no item or scroll that takes more than 1 turn to execute.

[Aerolithe Lion]

It's better to use Lilly without her subordinates, as burning two extra slots just so she does a little more damage isn't worth it.

Ultimately, she falls into that grey area with every other one-handed swordsman in the game: Percival, Reed, Samus, Beechum, Jimba, Fred, Borus, Queen, Chris, Melville, Elaine, and Geddoe without his TLR.

They all get to 2-3 swings, some have Heavy Damage but are poor with magic, some have high armor, others high health, other high parry/repel. Some are like Chris, where they excel in many of these areas, but are terrible in others. (Okay, the two FC candidates are overall superior to the rest of this list, but the point is made).

Ultimately, you can add any combination of runes/skills/over leveling to anyone on this list and they'll become quite a force. None of them will ever be a Juan or an Estella, but that's okay... At least they're not Thomas.

Sidenote: I really like Sword of magic, as its a great rune to use offensively before DS or Fury are available. However, it's worthless unless you max that character's skill in it. Also, I don't think anyone has mentioned yet that the reason it's far less impressive than Fury is that it burns a skill slot on top of the rune slot. Especially for Lilly, you're giving up something good to use that.

[ninjaluc79]

I guess I'll just have to go with Fury/Thunder for Lilly when I do get to finally play S3.

I'm still trying to figure out how to make my emulator work.