Anyone up for a Character Usage Manual?

[ninjaluc79]

Title says it all.

Not actually a walkthrough, but rather a guide on how to bring out the potential in each and every Suikoden 2 playable character, even the ones that most people hate and don't use often. I have already figured out that much, but I will need more time to accomplish it.

I strongly believe that in CRPGs, there's no such thing as a "useless" character, but it depends on whether you KNOW how to use it. Believe me, I have found a way to increase Tuta's usefulness despite HIS pitiful stats and HP.

But just in case you want clues: Flowing Rune and Sacrificial Jizo.

I also believe that there are always ways to make use of a character to its full extent as long as you really love to use it. It's like, you still want to form that party no matter what other people say, and I mean that you don't care if they call your party "weak" or "imbalanced" for as long as you love the characters so much.

I for instance, loved to use Fliktor and the circus trio (Eilie, Rina, and Bolgan) in my first ever S2 playthrough, and after several playthroughs, I decided to try different party setups for every possible situation. I mean, I don't want to depend on Fliktor for physical damage anymore, or Luc for magical damage, or create an imbalanced setup which will most likely break my game, such as the DB/DS/Fury/Kindness rune set-up.

I have decided to try this because I don't want to recommend game-breaking parties which will frustrate some people to no end, as the Suikoden games are said to be too easy compared to other RPGs out there, and S2 is no exception. I should say, it gives people a different kind of challenge for this game, such as using characters they didn't use before in the next playthrough, or something like that.

Side-note: I prefer to set-up parties which involve Unites, exceptions being Humphrey/Futch. It is because some characters improve their usability with their companions. Take for example, Meg and Gadget. Both of them alone may not be enough for my party, but both of them TOGETHER works wonders with the right equipment.

[Isiolith]

I'd definitely be up for it.

[KFCrispy]

yeah that would be cool. i haven't seen someone finish an actual "character guide" that was in depth. if you don't feel like talking about every single character, you're welcome to start some discussions here! i'd like to see what you have to save about Tuta...

[Nikisaur]

I promised myself that next time I play through Suikoden 2 I'm going to use characters I dislike/never use. Especially Tuta.I'm playing through 3 at the moment and he's all "I fought in the Dunan Army, you know" - Not in the million times I've played it, buddy.

Betcha if I loaded my data from 2 he'd say something about how he swept floors or something :p

[ninjaluc79]

Well, about Tuta, final equipments are already a challenge with 3 accessory slots. Sure, you would want to make use of his Medicine Rune, but you would also want to factor in the defense in his equipment, as we know that he has pitiful HP. Definitely you can't set him up as a damager as he already is a glass cannon.
So there are only two ways you can use him: 1) as a Medicine caddy, and 2) as a Water Mage.

#1 is probably your best bet for a non-magical party, but you need more slots for his Mega Meds for the setup to work. First off, elemental resistance is a given since he has low defense and HP. We can start off with Wind Hat/Mole Helm + Robe of Mist + Fire Emblem + Mega Medicine + Sacrificial Jizo. This leaves Tuta having too low DEF, so make sure you don't make him attack every turn, so sorry, no Auto Battles. For the Runes as a Med caddy, Sunbeam on his head slot usually works wonders for him, in addition to the Jizo's revive-at-full-or-half (?) HP ability. And don't forget the Mother Earth Rune on his weapon for additional DEF.

#2 is a little bit difficult, since you don't have Sunbeam anymore. While Tuta does have an A affinity in Water, his MP sucks so much you don't get to use Mother Ocean with the Flowing Rune if he's not level 99 anyway. Maybe you can try Water Rune on him and then the Flowing Rune on his weapon instead. You can have the same equipment as #1 or you can replace the RoM and the Mega Meds with the Master Robe and the Thunder Amulet, respectively, if you plan to use him for Rockaxe Liberation and/or there isn't any RoM available. If you don't want to use Jizos, have somebody hold a Resurrection rune for whenever he dies.

So the final equipments for our Medic:

RUNES

H *Sunbeam or *Water
Rh *Medicine (permanent)
Lh ------------------
WPN *Mother Earth or *Flowing

EQUIPMENTS

Mole Helm
Robe of Mist
Fire Emblem
Thunder Amulet or Mega Medicine
Sacrificial Jizo or Mega Medicine

I think that's all for Tuta. Hope you find this useful.

Writing for the other characters now. But IMO, Hero2 is the most versatile guy in this game. With his support-oriented True Rune, high overall stats, and free Rune Slots, you can set him up anyway you like, be it damager, mage, or support character.

[brightshieldrune]

love the Tuta setup, suits him perfectly.

how about using chaco and sid? i never usually use them but they can be a great team. Their unite attack does 1.5 damage with about 30-40% chance of poison.

how about this setup.

CHACO
HEAD Resurrection
RH Hazy
LH Skunk
WPN Poison

SID
HEAD Darkness
RH Waking
LH Firefly
WPN Poison

Both equipped with the following

wind hat - N/A - robe of mist - wing ornament - fire emblem - thunder amulet

sid has a B affinity with dark and chaco has a B affinity with resurrection plus the firefly will target sid to activate his waking rune and the skunk will help chaco not to be targeted instead of sid, it kind of makes sense that the two have opposite runes (resurrection-darkness & firefly-skunk) as the two are opposites of each other, sid is a creepy dark character and chaco is a happy little sprite (even if sometimes annoying ) . I also added poison runes to their weapons but don't know if this will stack with their unite attack. Also they both have to have the wing ornament, i mean who else is gonna use those handy little accessories

[ninjaluc79]

In my manual, I made up four different roles for players to assign their characters, namely: Fighter, Tank, (Offensive) Mage, and Support(ive Mage). Each character is ranked from E to A by the effectiveness of doing each role. For example, Millie has a better Mage rating than say, Viktor, who will have a higher Fighter rating than her. The criteria for the rankings by each role is as follows (not necessarily by order of importance, as some people will value rune slots more than stats):

Fighter - Rune Slots, overall physical stats (HP, STR, TEC+LUK, SPD), weapon growth
Tank - Rune Slots, HP, PDF, MDF, and armor class
Offensive Mage - Rune Slots, Affinity to Attack-Type Magic Runes (Fire, Lightning, Wind, Darkness), MAG stat (affects MATK and MP)
Supportive Mage - Rune Slots, Affinity to Support-Type Magic Runes (Earth, Wind, Water, Resurrection), MAG stat (affects MP)

Hmm.. Let's see.. According to the Suikosource's official stat growth table for Suikoden 2, Chaco and Sid will have the following average stats by level 60 (not 99, as it is not possible in a normal playthrough, i.e., without leveling tricks):

Name / STR / TEC / MAG / SPD / PDF / MDF / LUK / HP // MP
Chaco / 125 / 125 / 105 / 145 / 125 / 160 / 160 / 500 // 7/4/2/1
Sid / 125 / 125 / 105 / 145 / 145 / 145 / 145 / 550 // 7/4/2/1

@brightshieldrune Your Chaco/Sid setup is nice, but if you want to make Sid your Firefly bearer, you may want to equip him with a Dream Robe, but it will remove his Water Resistance, which is important if you're going to use him for the Beast Rune. OR you may want to improve his Defense stat if he is to get hit often due to the effect of the Firefly Rune. The back row is always the best position for Chaco and Sid, as both are M-ranged fighters and have low DEF. Then you can have Tanks and S-ranged Fighters at the front row. The set-up is like this (Rockaxe first, then L'Renouille):

Helm - Wind Hat / Mole Helm (can be won from the Whack-a-Mole mini-game of your castle farmer, Tony)
Armor - Dream Robe / Robe of Mist
Accessories - Wing Ornament, Fire Emblem, Thunder Amulet

Of course, the Double-Beat/Double-Strike/Friendship rune combo is the best set-up for any Fighter, but you may want to reserve it for your main Fighters, considering that they are too rare to become truly useful.

Chaco. Hmm... Hey, Hazy + Skunk is overkill! Replace one of them or even both of them, with another rune! So Chaco gets 1.5 times evasion, and he can't also be targeted? Well, sad to say, Hazy does not work on area-effect attacks, only single-target attacks. I think you should replace Hazy OR Skunk with either Mother Earth OR Double-Beat.

It is actually a good thing for Chaco and Sid to have affinities to completely opposite elements, but the point is, Runic Magic isn't that useful anymore in the late stages of the game since you can just Auto-Battle your way through normal mobs. But it doesn't hurt to waste MP on normal mobs since you won't use magic against bosses that much anyway. All I could say about their MP is: They have enough MP when they need it. Just ask Nanami. Besides, you would probably leave the magic damage to Mages, anyway.

As support mages, well, the Wingers aren't that bad, but sad to say, they only have average MP and affinities to Support-Type Runes.

So my verdict for this one:

Chaco
BSR's Setup : B
Fighter: B
Tank: D
Mage: D
Support: C

Sid
BSR's Setup: B
Fighter: B
Tank: D
Mage: C
Support: C

[KFCrispy]

yeah i don't see a point of giving Chaco so much defense, especially if you're teaming him up with Sid... Sid with Firefly automatically takes the majority of the attacks, and Chaco will probably only get hit by special attacks that hit all or multiple characters - these can't be dodged anyway! i would want to power-up their unite (and it's nice they can spam it every turn).

[ninjaluc79]

Which is why it is imperative that Chaco and Sid are placed at the back row unless you have other M or L range characters in your party. If you have Sid with *Firefly, the focus is on increasing his evasion since you can't improve his PDEF any further by normal methods, i.e., no stat stone tricks. Either replace *Darkness with *Hazy or switch between Dream Robe and Robe of Mist when dealing with physical/single-target damage and magic/multi-target damage, respectively.

But the good thing is Wingers have above average MDEF, so dealing with magic attacks is not a problem with both of them in your party.

Next, I'm going to talk about Millie, and her "cute" pet Bonaparte. Or is he?

Her level 60 stats are as follows:

STR / TEC / MAG / SPD / PDF / MDF / LUK / HP // MP
85 / 105 / 125 / 125 / 105 / 160 / 180 / 500 // 8/5/2/1

She has 2 free rune slots and 1 fixed rune slot (Groundhog).

1. Bonaparte, Maximize!

I found a way to maximize the Groundhog attack, especially that you can only use this once per battle.
If that's the case, you might as well pump up her attack power gradually until the time is ripe to unleash hell with Bonaparte!

The runes required: Violence, Double-Strike, Exertion

Well, the problem with Violence and Exertion is you would probably reserve these runes for a better damage dealer. So how about a little test?

Setup:

H * Violence
Rh * Double-Strike
Lh * Groundhog
WPN * Exertion

Helm Wind Hat OR Mole Helm
Armor Robe of Mist
Accessories Power Gloves / Thunder Amulet / Power Ring


Level 99 Millie with level 16 weapon vs. a 0 DEF opponent, Violence (x3 DMG), Exertion (x2.2 DMG at the 7th turn) and Battle Oath (x1.5 DMG) effects activated:

(105 STR + 140 ATK + 15 STR from Power Gloves + 20 STR from Power Ring) * 3 * 1.5 (Double-Strike) * 1.5 * 2.2 * 2 (GH Damage) = 8316 damage!

Now, how about a level 60 Millie with the same equipment, but this time, against the Beast Rune (90 DEF)?

(85 + 140 + 35 - 90) * 3 * 1.5 (Double-Strike) * 1.5 * 2.2 * 2 (GH Damage) = 5049 damage

Enough to take out a Beast Rune part in one turn, but you have to wait until BOTH Violence and Battle Oath effects connect AND stack.

The problem with using Groundhog all the time is that with Millie's low TECH, there is no guarantee that Bonaparte can connect, and it can only be used ONCE per battle. You can invest in a Thunder Amulet for a Hit rate bonus and Lightning resistance, or replace Power Gloves with the Skill Ring if you think that Groundhog still misses a lot.

2. Millie as Damage Dealer

As a damager, she only has 85 STR at level 60 and her level 16 weapon has an attack power of 140, for a total of 225 ATK. Pretty low for a real DD, but it's good enough since you can boost her physical damage with the DB/DS/Friendship combo. Her damage per turn vs. an 80 DEF opponent is calculated as thus:

(225 + 55 - 80) * 1.5 [DS] * 2 [DB] = 600 damage per turn, 300 per strike, 900 critical damage.

Now, with a Thunder Rune in her weapon:

(225 - 80) * 1.5 * 1.5 * 2 = 652 damage per turn, 217 + 108 per strike, 652 + 326 critical damage.

As I have stated above, her damage as DD is lower compared to the real damagers like Viktor, Georg, and Pesmerga, all of them S-ranged.
But Millie is L-ranged, consisting of below average STR and Weapon Attack Damage.

2. Millie as Offensive Mage

Another alternative for Millie is to make her an Offensive Mage. With her average MAG and high Fire and Lightning Affinities, she can make a back-up magic DD for your main mage such as Luc or Mazus.

However, since she can't do a Rune Unite on her own unless she's level 99 (for a low chance), you can have your main mage sacrifice one Level 4 MP for her to make it. BUT, if you want Millie to cast the Rune Unite, she must have higher SPD than your main mage. For this reason, Mazus is better suited than Luc as her Rune Unite partner since she can catch up to Mazus's SPD with equipment. Otherwise, you can have Luc cast the Rune Unite with her, anyway.

Nonetheless, her high magic affinities are a great help early game, esp. Sindar Ruins, Highland Recon, and Greenhill Rescue, where you have to battle large groups of enemies. In these situations, the Fire Rune is suitable for her. She's good with the Lightning Rune, as well, but her average MP puts her off for boss battles where you need to have high level spells ASAP, in which Rina and Tengaar are more suitable despite having lower affinities to attack-type magic.

In the battle against Luca Blight, for example, Millie at level 35 has around 7/3/1 MP, while other mages like Rina and Tengaar already have 8/4/2/1 MP despite having lower Lightning affinity. Considering that Luca halves all magic damage, why would you settle for a single Bolt of Wrath at 300 + 40% damage when you can have two of them plus a 500 damage worth of Thor Shot for each 115 MAG character?

As I have stated earlier, Millie is more useful for clearing large mobs in areas where you're not expecting any bosses due to her high Fire affinity. However, as the game progresses to later levels, you don't need that much magic anymore in normal battles since you can just Auto-Battle your way through them. You can still use her as a back-up damager/mage/support though.

One thing that makes Millie stand out among ranged characters is her Head Rune Slot, perfect for a Blue Gate Rune. However, her E affinity in Water easily puts her off as a BG Rune User since she can backfire in high-level spells! Good news is, you can always have her bear a Thunder Rune for better magic skill vs. bosses. Using her level 3 and 4 BG spells is just plain suicide.

Setup:

H * Blue Gate OR *Rage
Rh * Thunder
Lh * Groundhog

Helm Mole Helm
Armor Robe of Mist
Accessories Wind Amulet / Thunder Amulet / Magic Ring


Final notes: I want to share a secret with you.

I modified setup #3 for an Anime reference:
Setup:
H * Double-Beat
Rh * Thunder
Lh * Groundhog
WPN * Thunder
Helm Mole Helm
Armor Robe of Mist
Accessories Wind Amulet / Thunder Amulet / Skill Ring


Guessed the reference?

Anyways, Millie's ratings are:

Damager : C
Tank : E
Mage : B
Support : B
Overall: C

Next discussions: Hix and Tengaar, Meg and Gadget, and the Kobolds.

[KFCrispy]

well i've never seen rune unites backfire, so she and Viki can at least safely reserve their level 4 MP for rune unite opportunities...

[ninjaluc79]

I haven't seen Rune Unites backfire as well. Since Rune Unites are not affected by affinity, the faster caster can always cast the Rune Unite safely.

I thought that pairing Millie up with a high-MAG, low-affinity mage (usually Rina and/or Tengaar with 06 MAG but average affinity to Fire and Lightning) as a good idea since Millie can use up her level 4 MP with the high-MAG mage, while the latter still has one more level 4 MP to cast whatever spells are necessary, such as Guardian Earth and Mother Ocean.

I was talking about Millie's E affinity with the Water element, which is the basis for Pale Palace and Empty World, the Level 3 and Level 4 spells of BG. E affinity has a 20% damage bonus, but a chance to backfire. So saving up for these spells is suicide for Millie and the party. That is why you can always equip her with an additional magic rune which high-level spells Millie can use safely.

[arhcamt]

this thread is really interesting! i'd like to hear your review about the squirrels and other non-human characters like shiro, feather, siegfried, and abizboah. i myself find it difficult to actually use them.

[R_C_Cola2001]

While I've never done stat checks and such, I can say that I've used Shiro throughout the game, and have never found him lacking in the offensive department. Give him a double-strike rune, and you wont be disappointed.

[ninjaluc79]

this thread is really interesting! i'd like to hear your review about the squirrels and other non-human characters like shiro, feather, siegfried, and abizboah. i myself find it difficult to actually use them.

Thanks, man.

Anyways, the animals aren't that difficult to use as long as you have the right party set-up.

Shiro always work best TOGETHER with his master Kinnison, with Shiro as the attacker with the Double-Beat Rune, and Kinnison as the buffer with the Mother Earth Rune.

I have discussed Shiro and Kinnison in this thread:

http://www.suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewt ... =9&t=12326

As for the large-sized animals, you can use two at a time, and they are best used TOGETHER with the castle beastmaster Badeaux. The usual set-up is Riou and Badeaux in one row, and then the two beasts. Just place Badeaux at the back if you don't want to have him attack the mobs. That way Riou and the beasts will do the dirty work for the party, and your beastmaster will be safe.

[CCByouknowme]

Actually Badeaux can give Shiro the Berserk status as well. His Howling rune can berserk all ally monsters. So if you use Badeaux with Shiro and Kinnison like I do it makes for a great party! Keep the Double Beat rune on Shiro and just give him the Berserk status from the Howling rune and Shiro's individual attack or unite attack becomes that much better! Just give Kinnison a Fury and Double Beat rune's and him and Shiro are a hell of a combo!