A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

A forum to ask questions if you are stuck in the The Gate Rune Wars; or wish for more clarity on the gameplay systems.
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ninjaluc79
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by ninjaluc79 »

Okay, no penalties, but still. With the Rune Pieces incredibly difficult to find, it would kinda suck if the best DD in the game gets penalized because his element is not the most common enemy weakness. And like I said, it depends on the enemies and the area involved. This is why I'm wary about including weapon elements in my criteria. After all, you will only get the bonus damage if the enemy is weak to your weapon element.
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Punkaiser
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by Punkaiser »

ninjaluc79 wrote: The problem with Double-Beat is that it's not so readily available (only one in the whole game IIRC)


It's true, so i'd rather not letting anyone else equip this db rune but Viktor since we are forced to use him and without db on him, he will be rendered mediocre which means we fail a team member. Clone rune might even be worse than normal hit since Viktor with average modifier from his critical rate could inflict more damage than using clone rune.
ninjaluc79 wrote: It's surprising that Pahn can outdamage EVERYONE, even Killer rune users. So much for the bare-fisted monk.

How so? You forgot modifier from unites? or Ronnie Bell?
ninjaluc79 wrote: So, I came up with this criterion for DD's: Highest Potential Damage AND Hit Rate.

Agree, i just want to remind you that skill runes and unites never miss...never cri as well...
ninjaluc79 wrote: Fire Piece, there's only one in the entire game, and Wind Pieces (Earth in the game) are said to be incredibly tedious to farm.
i'm with KFC on this, let's just count on it to rank characters with almost tied score.
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ninjaluc79
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by ninjaluc79 »

ninjaluc79 wrote:How so? You forgot modifier from unites? or Ronnie Bell?
For some reason, however, Ronnie didn't rank so high in my book (prolly b/c her hit rate sucks but Hate always hits tho). Methinks I'll check my table again for reference.

As for elemental weapons, yes, you can use it as a tiebreaker but it's situational. It depends on the opponents.

Unite attacks. Hmm... How do you rate it? By the character's DMG contribution to the unite or by the total damage of the unite attack?
Because if it's the latter, Tir and Kai would rank pretty high alongside Flik, Alen, and Grenseal.
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Punkaiser
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by Punkaiser »

Oh, are you ranking pahn and ronnie base on their stats and gear alone? It'd be best if you imagine what you'll do if you were to use that character in party. I could see myself spamming Hate rune every single turn while depend on situation i would use boar rune or normal hit, but apparently Ronnie should be way better since shes has 100% hit and 300% damage every turn while Pahn who has same str/weapon growth but depends on damage modifier(from now i will call it DM...)from critical attack and also risks with his existing miss rate, boar rune isnt optimized in term of offence, same logic with viktor's clone rune.

About unites, i'm thinking to update the list first since many infos are inaccurate (especially x3 from beauties or x3 from martial artists). To simplify, why not just consider unite as DM for each individual? like varkas,sydonia,anji,kanak,leonardo,kage,fuma,kasumi... are those who have 2.5x DM with 100% hit rate. While the old geezer unites fukien,liukan,kai just obtain Dm of 1.5 (due to uncurable unbalance status except for liukan).
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ninjaluc79
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by ninjaluc79 »

So should I rank DDs based on damage potential, then? Including unites?
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Punkaiser
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by Punkaiser »

You stated that you will be ranking on damage potential and hit rate for DD, didnt you? And i totally agree with that.

If we want to avoid confusion i'd convert hit rate into damage modifer as well but its more like a negative DM
<eg. character has 80% hit rate => 80% to deal damage and 20% to deal 0 damage=> DM from this hit rate=0.8>

*damage potential = base power * damage modifier
*base power= strength stats + weapon stats + bonus from equipment(some characters has certain gear fixed)
*damage modifier= A*B*C
<A is modifier from unique rune/unite or else A=1 if that was normal hit >
<B = Damage modifier from converted critical rate if A=1, otherwise B=1 since no critical occurs for rune/unite>
<C = Damage modifier from converted hit rate if A=1, otherwise C=1 since rune/unite don't miss>

Exemple : Ronnie Belle
base power= 200 str + 170 claw + 40 pair of power rings= 410
A= 3, B= 1, C =1
Dm= 3*1*1=3
Damage potential= 410 * 3 = 1230 pure damage

But our problem is...we don't know formula to calculate hit rate from skill stats, so might have to estimate, but one thing for sure that no character could use normal attack to outdamage an unique rune bearer or a good unite participant.
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by KFCrispy »

hit rate depends on the enemy's evasion rate, so it's hard to come up with an exact average damage score based on accuracy.
i'd recommend 'normalizing' the strength level and skill level (hey, we already know the growth rates) and giving them points to make them more meaningful--- so you wouldn't be able to calculate damage for regular attacks, but you'll be able assign weights of importance between ATK and SKL and compare the characters against each other.

For example, the top ATK character gets a 10 in ATK, weakest gets a 1. Top SKL gets 10, worst SKL gets 1..... now you can make up formulas depending on how important you think they are to combine them together......
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by Punkaiser »

yea, I just want to minimize number of the estimations as possible. It's true we don't have a formula to calculate % accuracy yet, so just have to estimate by giving them a certain %hit rate base on their skill stats and our observation. Because if we evaluate them base on a 1-10 points system, litteral it's just doing the same thing as below but not making it available to advance the final result 's calculation.

Here's my estimated number:
top skill growth group (Camille, Clive, Kirkis...166-255 skill) with 100% accuracy as we almost never see them miss
2nd group (Tir, Juppo,...147-245 skill) with 95% accuracy rarely miss
3rd group (Alen,Anji....88-188 skill) with 80% accuracy, fairly accurate hitters
4th group (Viktor, Pesmerga...69-167) with 70% accuracy ....chars in this group usually should wield mangoshes instead of power rings unless they have unite attack.
5th group (only Fusulu, Hellion 30-128 skill) with 50% accuracy but we dont really have to calculate for these two since Hellion will fore stand in bottom of the DD list while Fusulu doesnt care about hit rate in his unite.
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gildedtalon
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by gildedtalon »

What is DD?
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I already closed gildedtalon, my old account
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Pyriel
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by Pyriel »

I'm guessing "damage dealer".
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ninjaluc79
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by ninjaluc79 »

DD = Damage Dealer, alright.

I guess one way to redeem characters with low hit rate or final parties composed of more than three S-ranged characters (including Fliktor) is to involve them in Unite Attacks. With this Fuu can shoot up his potential damage without getting punished by low hit rates unless the Unite Attack unbalances him anyway.

I discovered two ways to get around the Unbalance status which some of the Unites inflict on the participants: the Turtle Rune on the affected character (which you cannot use on characters with permanent runes) or fielding in a Water Mage with low SPD.

I prefer to use Turtle if I plan to spam the Unbalancing Unite Attack and if I don't make one or more participants the party DD's. But of course one must plan ahead and place a Holy Rune on the one party member you won't use often unless you take Stallion with you or can handle slow dungeon runs. I recommend using this on the tank participant (in this case, Fuu, since he has decent HP and DEF).

The flaw in fielding in a slow Water Mage is that slow characters usually have low MAG, and there are only quite a few people in Suikoden 1 who have 141 MAG (good for a level 4 MP slot), so you can only bank with characters with 96 MAG or higher. Pretty much the best one you can have for a slow Water Mage is Mina (125 SPD, 165 MAG), but you need one fast Unite participant for this setup to work. Otherwise, she will heal the Unbalanced party member BEFORE the unbalancing Unite is performed.

Another option is Sarah (101 SPD, 126 MAG) if you want a slower one, but don't expect high MP from her.

Some options I had in mind are Sergei (96/83) and Kamandol (98/95), but the problem is that almost no one bothers to use them because they have high numbers in the wrong stats (in other words, they suck as party members), crappy weapons, and poor armor options.
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Punkaiser
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by Punkaiser »

It's alright to use turtle rune for taiho/yamkoo pair but water rune doesnt heal unbalance status. And I once tested the unite magic Thor since i saw description on site as "status recovered" to optimize the goal cure status+offence at same time but then got same negative result, guess there's no other cure for unbalance.

I've updated the unites list, you could check it here in order to do the ranking:
http://www.suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewt ... =8&t=12930
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ninjaluc79
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by ninjaluc79 »

I see then. I remembered that in S2 Water Runes heal Unbalance. Not so much in S1, I see.

I guess you can use the Turtle Rune on characters who would be Unbalanced from performing Unites so you can spam it. The only thing that stops you from doing so is if the character has a permanent rune attached.
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Punkaiser
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by Punkaiser »

Well, in short, only Taiho and Yamkoo benefit from turtle rune since the elves dont need it :D
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ninjaluc79
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Re: A Proper Suikoden Character Analysis Guide

Post by ninjaluc79 »

Okay, so how about Unites?

For example, the best 2-person Unite in the game, the one with Ronnie and Pahn. At level 60 and level 16 weapons, Pahn has ~400 base DMG, Ronnie has ~375. The Unite (3x DMG) can deal ~2.3k damage in one turn (of course, using up both Ronnie and Pahn's turns).

Pahn's contribution to the Unite damage is ~1.2k, Ronnie's is ~1.1k. But Pahn can't attack in the next turn b/c he's Unbalanced, while Ronnie can launch an attack from her Hate Rune (3x DMG) in the next turn for 1.1k damage.

Therefore, Pahn's DD contribution for 2 turns is 1.2k, Ronnie's is 2.2k. Therefore, Ronnie has better DD potential than Pahn.

Or the Pretty Girl Attack, consisting of Camille, Tengaar, and Kasumi. At level 60 and level 16 weapons:

Camille and Kasumi have ~330 ATK, Tengaar has ~290. Unite deals 2.5x DMG, for a total of (330 + 330 + 290) * 3 = 2850 DMG.

Camille and Kasumi contribute 990 DMG each in that turn, Tengaar contributes 870.

Kasumi is Unbalanced the next turn (perma rune attached, same predicament as Pahn), and Camille has a maximum normal DMG potential of 990, Tengaar has 290 * 3 * 1.5 (if enemy is weak vs her Wind Element WPN) = 1305.

In two turns, Kasumi contributed 990 DMG, Camille 1880, and Tengaar 2175.

Am I doing this right?
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