Characters who Knockdown/Critical more often

[Hxc Flavor]

I haven't played SII in a while, but reading some of the posts on here has brought up a question I've thought of before: do some characters just inherently deal more Knockdowns and/or Criticals than others? I've noticed Millie gets a lot of Knockdowns whenever she is attacking, and that Eillie seems to get a lot of criticals/extra hits even though her stats are all somewhat average (compared to Clive and Nanami.) Do certain weapon types create more Knockdowns?

[ninjaluc79]

From my own experience in Suikoden 2, critical hits almost always cause Knockdown. However, critical hits that overkill the enemy don't cause Knockdowns.

Let's take Riou (Hero 2), Eilie, and Millie. Riou actually has the highest critical hit rate in the game (11.25%, tied with Shilo and Shin) but even without the DB/DS combo his physical damage is so high he overkills enemies often, so he doesn't get any Knockdowns on critical hits.

In comparison, Eilie and Millie have 8.91% and 8.44% critical hit rate respectively, but they usually deal physical damage so low that they appear to deal critical hits AND Knockdowns often. The best way to check how often a character inflicts Knockdown with critical hits is to inflict Boost on him, which lowers his ATK rate enough to make sure he crits without overkilling the opponent. You can do so by using Kobold Pie on that character. You can buy it from the Kobold section of Two River City.

So yes, it kinda depends on the character and the weapon s/he uses.

The formula for critical hit percentage is (TECH + LUCK) / 32. These characters have critical hit rates of 10% or above at Level 60:

- Riou, Shilo, and Shin (11.25%)
- Meg and Viki (10.78%)
- Jowy, Long Chan Chan, McDohl, and Tsai (10.63%)
- Georg Prime and Hoi (10.16%)
- Gabocha and Wakaba (10%)

Hope this helps.

[Hxc Flavor]

That really helped me out, thanks!

[Hxc Flavor]

Two other questions: Since the Down rune gives a 30% chance to Unbalance, is it possible to get a Knockdown without a critical attack? Also, the critical hit formula; (TECH + LUCK) / 32, does this also take into account the enemy's speed and or defense?

[ninjaluc79]

Critical hits do not take speed into account and do not bypass defense but deals 3x the normal damage for players, 2x damage for enemies.

It is possible to inflict Knockdown on an enemy with just a normal attack with a Down Rune equipped on a weapon as long as the enemy is not immune to it. This will prove to be very useful in defeating the Beast Rune since some of its parts are not immune to Knockdown, especially the heads once you get rid of the Rune Orb and the legs.

[Hxc Flavor]

Down runes are my best friend in playthroughs, especially when using non-uber character setups.

[highwind44029]

Basically critical hits that don't kill targets can cause knockdown. I believe there's a small chance of inflicting knockdown via critical hits on bosses as well. I've seen it done on Poison Rat, Luca Blight, Lucia, Culgan, Seed, and parts of the Beast Rune.

Speed only affects multi-hits.