Weapon Rune discussions

[Lourde Incarnadine]

The all time awesome team!

Zamza Hero Viktor
Ellie Luc Sierra

The trick with Zamza is that having his own Fire Lizard rune along with a Fire Dragon rune gives him unbilievable attack power. Yes, the rune damages him but that's easily fixable by giving him a Fire Pendant as one of his accessories, which nullifies all fire magic including his own...

Wait, does the Fire Lizard Rune affect special-attack Runes, or does it only effect normal attacks?

::EDIT:: - On a similar note, does the Fire Dragon Rune's damage output benefit from Zamza's Fire affinity? Are command Runes affected by affinity in any way?


split from Member Recommendations topic

[Runemaster]

Hmm.. on that team, I see no reason why Riou should be in front and Sierra should be at the back..

Oh yeah, defense. But hey, her Thunder-embedded weapon would be put to waste,,

[KFCrispy]

Wait, does the Fire Lizard Rune affect special-attack Runes, or does it only effect normal attacks?

::EDIT:: - On a similar note, does the Fire Dragon Rune's damage output benefit from Zamza's Fire affinity? Are command Runes affected by affinity in any way?

Fire Lizard Rune only affects normal attacks and maybe counter attacks (i don't remember), but definitely not specials/unites.
The Fire Lizard Rune doesn't benefit from one's fire affinity whatsoever, however you can wear fire resistant armor to reduce the damage taken from attacking with Fire Lizard.


Sierra in the back means she can still use magic which is going to be way more powerful than her normal attack, but of course she won't be useful in the quick random battles. Riou can be in the front because he's one of the best dodgers/tanks/counter-attackers in the game.....

[Lourde Incarnadine]

Wait, does the Fire Lizard Rune affect special-attack Runes, or does it only effect normal attacks?

::EDIT:: - On a similar note, does the Fire Dragon Rune's damage output benefit from Zamza's Fire affinity? Are command Runes affected by affinity in any way?

Fire Lizard Rune only affects normal attacks and maybe counter attacks (i don't remember), but definitely not specials/unites.
The Fire Lizard Rune doesn't benefit from one's fire affinity whatsoever, however you can wear fire resistant armor to reduce the damage taken from attacking with Fire Lizard.

Damn, thought so but you'll forgive me for wanting to be wrong. Zamza is, for whatever reason, a favorite of mine so I would have liked to pump him up a bit. As it is, it sound like the only weapon runes that would help boost his Fire Dragon damage output are Friendship, Kindness, and the Exertion Rune that Valeria could make so much better use of... Maybe I ought to just give him an Earth or Water Rune in his weapon...

Is Valeria's Falcon Rune the only command Rune that can critical, or can others do it? And in either case, would a Killer Rune help increase command Rune crits? I've also noticed Zamza sometimes (but not always) taking 25% blowback damage from Fire Dragon instead of 50%, even though we're just in Muse area before getting the Shield/Sword Runes so there's no fire-resistant gear available. Critical hit?



::EDIT:: After some more experimentation, it seems like it's always certain enemies that Zamza only suffers 25% blowback from hitting--I guess that exploiting a target's weakness to fire simply doesn't increase the Fire Dragon damage that HE takes. Kind of disappointed that it isn't FD criticals, though; FD + Killer with Fire Emblems was looking mighty tempting. I just wish there was something I could do to power him up without killing him, and use some Rune other than the Fire Sealing Rune on him... I guess all I can do are Fire Emblems + Double-Strike/Fury, or give him a Fire/Rage Rune as backup for fishkills. Also can't ever seem to hit Sickles with FD, wonder if it's because they're aerial or if they're fire-immune?


Still like to know if Killer + Falcon works, though.

[highwind44029]

A possible reason why he was taking 25% damage was because he was equipped with a Fire Emblem.

*Fire Dragon's accuracy seems to be also affected by TEC aka hit rate, just like any normal attack. I think it also does criticals, but I am not sure.

[KFCrispy]

Is Valeria's Falcon Rune the only command Rune that can critical, or can others do it?

The White Tiger Rune will critical based on remaining HP. it's the same animation as the LC Chan + Wakaba unite. http://suikosource.com/games/gs2/guides/runes.php

Still like to know if Killer + Falcon works, though.

yes it does, i believe Falcon Critical did testing for this. it's somewhere in the forums....

no other attack runes can critical. Swallow and Viper Runes have their chances of instant death, but i doubt Killer Rune will affect it. critical hits for special attacks were in their infancy in this game, they're nothing like Suikoden V where special attack is basically just a regular attack with all the chances of crits and multi-hits but with more damage.

[Lourde Incarnadine]

A possible reason why he was taking 25% damage was because he was equipped with a Fire Emblem.

...except that he wasn't wearing a Fire Emblem. We had no Fire Emblems nor any other pieces of fire-resistant equipment. Like I said, that was before getting the Sword/Shield Runes, and (though I didn't mention this next part) I wasn't doing a border glitch. So no Fire Emblems until the one in Two Rivers' sewers. Though now that I've gotten to TR he's wearing that one.

Like I said, I think it was just doing increased damage to fire-weak enemies without increasing the damage that he was taking. I don't know if the fire defense from Fire Emblems stacks, but when I get to Matilda I'll damned well find out...

::EDIT:: Apparently not; he takes about the same damage from Fire Dragon whether he's wearing one Fire Emblem or two. I guess the most effective way to use the Fire Dragon Rune is still Fire-Sealing, removing any chance of Double-Strike, Waking, Vio... waitaminute, Violence + a self-damaging Rune like Fire Dragon might not be the worst combination... <_<


Nice to know that Valeria's getting a Killer Rune, though.

[Hxc Flavor]

Out of all the WPN runes i see (besides Kindness), the most useful was *Poison, but they are hard to come by and *Downs have 30% chance of Knockdown (which was ultra useful in the Beast Rune fight, Hix and Humphrey knocked out both heads!)

I've never found Poison runes to be useful as they only inflict a a minimal amount of extra damage that doesn't usually make a difference. Something like 15 or so hp a round? I can't remember.

[KFCrispy]

i think Poison takes a % based on max HP, probably something simple like 5%. but i thought a lot of bosses are immune to various status effects so i never use Poison and stick with the damage+ weapon runes (Kindness, Friendship, Exertion, Rage, Thunder)

[Hxc Flavor]

I've used Exertion and found it useful, but your description of the Rune in the Runes section is making me think otherwise. It seems there are two sides to arguement of the usefulness of this rune.

[KFCrispy]

what, increasing damage each turn has a downside?

[Ohooh]

i think poison only deals 10 damage every turn (when poisoned)

[Raww Le Klueze]

what, increasing damage each turn has a downside?

Considering you start off with less than you'd have if you didn't have it equipped and you'd be forced to extend the battle to 10 rounds to get the most use out of it in a game that rarely has a fight last 3 rounds I'd say there is considerable downside.

[KFCrispy]

first of all, it's 5 rounds to get to +100%. round 1 starts you with +20% already.

Exertion Rune's boost is an initial 20% boost to ATK which can be applied to special attacks (not additional dmg limited to regular attacks like Fire/Lightning/Fire Lizard) and then it gradually gets significantly stronger.
'downside' usually means there is a drawback to using something like how Double-Strike increases the damage the user receives. The Exertion Rune's 'downside' you guys are harping on is coming from wanting the maximum boost immediately, which is understandable, but if you see it as a rune that starts you with a 20% ATK boost and increases 20% more each turn (until you're +100%), you won't perceive any 'downside'. Once you have all recruits, Friendship only gives something like +60 (it might be 54 (108/2) or could even be 65 because there are probably additional "friends" outside of recruits, i don't remember) in ATK which is 20% if your base ATK is 300..... Exertion will be better and better as your ATK goes up, while Friendship is really weak if you're playing a minimum recruit game or aren't focused on having all possible recruits at your point in the game.

now if you get a rare Rage or Thunder Rune and plan on using pure normal attacks, they are obviously going to pack a more significant punch. you can farm Thunder Runes late game as well. so sure, Exertion Rune is less useful for Double Beat characters, but it's still better for special attack users like Valeria or Wakaba+L.C.Chan.

another minor detail is that boosting ATK by 10% is better than boosting damage by 10%. The elemental runes boost damage while Friendship, Exertion, and Kindness (and maybe Fire Lizard) modify ATK. If your attack is 250 and enemy's is 50, your dmg is 200 and 10% of that is 20, totaling 220. Boosting attack by 10% gives you 275 atk so you'll deal a total of 225 dmg.

[ninjaluc79]

Wait, does the Fire Lizard Rune affect special-attack Runes, or does it only effect normal attacks?

::EDIT:: - On a similar note, does the Fire Dragon Rune's damage output benefit from Zamza's Fire affinity? Are command Runes affected by affinity in any way?

Fire Lizard Rune only affects normal attacks and maybe counter attacks (i don't remember), but definitely not specials/unites.
The Fire Lizard Rune doesn't benefit from one's fire affinity whatsoever, however you can wear fire resistant armor to reduce the damage taken from attacking with Fire Lizard.


Sierra in the back means she can still use magic which is going to be way more powerful than her normal attack, but of course she won't be useful in the quick random battles. Riou can be in the front because he's one of the best dodgers/tanks/counter-attackers in the game.....

Fire Sealing Rune works much better, since it reduces all fire damage to 0.
But if you don't want to waste rune slots, you're well off using that strategy. At least the damage he receives will be cut into half over and over...