Your best defensive strategy

[Mikain Clan King]

What is your favorite/best/most useful defensive strategy? And describe why it is your best strategy.

-arrow stance (if Suikoden 5)

One person has a Wall rune (frontliner if S5), Firefly rune and a Fire Sealing rune with Mother Earth on weapon, other party members have a Mother Earth, Flowing and Medicine runes. And for pure defense everyone (but the one with wall) has a Cyclone rune on their weapon.

Reasons:
Damage taker/Tank: Firefly to take all physical damage away from allies....and a Wall rune to add defense to keep him alive for a much longer span of time. Fire sealing so he can be healed by water runes for 2x healing, and Mother Earth on weapon for more defense and a healing bonus at end of turn.

Everyone else: A few people with Medicine runes so they can auto heal the tank, Mother Earth to add to his defense and keep magic attacks from them, Flowing to heal and Cyclone on everyones weapons to add to magic repeling.

Oh yeah and pop in a few Barrier and Hazy runes to the non-tanks.

[KFCrispy]

for Suikoden games in general, the best defense is having a great offense. defeating random battles in 1-2 rounds is the best and fastest way to go.

[highwind44029]

Stock everyone who have three rune slots with any combo of Boost/Crazed/Power/Double-Edged, and use True Men Formation Skill. 9999!!!

[Mikain Clan King]

That sounds more offensive, but what does skill actually do anyway?

[highwind44029]

I think it's 1.5x damage to all enemies.

[KFCrispy]

it's just 1x dmg to all enemies, but the True Men formation gives everyone a +20 ATK boost so it often ends up stronger than the other formation attacks.

[highwind44029]

Yeah, it definitely makes the game too easy.

[Mikain Clan King]

I have no clue what you guys are talking about, I meant the skill stat...to me it sounds like you guys are talking about a unite, but its probably still the formation...or the formation's unite.

[oops]

Stock everyone who have three rune slots with any combo of Boost/Crazed/Power/Double-Edged, and use True Men Formation Skill. 9999!!!

I'm sure I did that but if I remember correctly I stopped doing it. I found out that it does less damage as it maxes at 9999 and in most cases you get attacked 1st doing that formation.

[highwind44029]

I have no clue what you guys are talking about, I meant the skill stat...to me it sounds like you guys are talking about a unite, but its probably still the formation...or the formation's unite.

Oh you mean the SKL stat? It determines accuracy and critical hit rate. I thought you were asking about the True Men Formation Skill.

Stock everyone who have three rune slots with any combo of Boost/Crazed/Power/Double-Edged, and use True Men Formation Skill. 9999!!!

I'm sure I did that but if I remember correctly I stopped doing it. I found out that it does more damage combined and in most cases you get attacked 1st doing that formation.

I never got attacked first with this formation. That is exactly why I thought it made the game too easy. Probably always went first because I picked speedy characters for my party (Miakis, Shigure, Norma).

[KFCrispy]

I'm sure I did that but if I remember correctly I stopped doing it. I found out that it does more damage combined and in most cases you get attacked 1st doing that formation.

there are times when you get a free first turn, and there are times when enemies get a free first turn. there is a small message in the lower left part of the screen that's hard to see due to the color of the text that tells you when these happen.
later in the game you get more chances to get a free first turn, which is the only reason enemies don't move when you use the True Men atk. It does always go last. If you use it on the second round of every battle, you'll see that the enemies will always get their attacks off.

[Mikain Clan King]

Oh you mean the SKL stat? It determines accuracy and critical hit rate. I thought you were asking about the True Men Formation Skill.

Thanks, been wondering what that did for a while, the Tenkai always seems to have a high Skill stat.

[highwind44029]

Lazlo's the first to break that tradition!

A Firefly Rune on a tank could help out if you feel like you get beat up too much because of the True Men formation.

[Mikain Clan King]

Oh yeah It was the firefly rune that I had on the tank...thanks for reminding me. And about Lazlo...keep on forgetting about number 4, it was fun at parts but if your not really thinking it is easy to forget its a Suikoden sometimes, that game changed alot of what Suikoden already had.

[ubitendo]

Hold up -- you can affix a rune to a weapon? I unlocked the final dungeon in this game, AND I NEVER KNEW THAT...LOL!

This is my first time playing the game though, so is it a New Game + feature or something?