Looking for Recomendations on a Rune setup

If you are stuck in the Dunan Unification Wars; or wish for more details on the gameplay systems, this is the place.
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knight85
Posts: 123
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:24 pm

Looking for Recomendations on a Rune setup

Post by knight85 »

I'm making plans for a rune setup for my current and future playthrus for the final boss and also for general battle

i've already set things up so that i'll have at least 1 of each of the higher order runes + 3/4 blue gates

my battle party after the fight with luca will always consist of:

the hero
tir mcdohl
jowy atredies
georg, pesmerga humphrey or viktor(to be decided)
rina
killey or kahn

my general objective would be to set the hero and jowy up so that they match tir in terms of damage

so i'm thinking
Hero- head- blue gate, left hand- cyclone
Tir- head- blue gate, left hand- not sure mayb a fire rune
Jowy- left hand- rage, head- mayb a flowing rune
Rina- head- blue gate, right hand- thunder, left hand- flowing or mother earth
kahn/killey- i'm not really sure (looking for suggestions)

any suggestions?

my philosophy for rune magic in suikoden is simple Maximise Magic Damage

so during the course of a normal playthru my normal method would be:

hero- left hand- fire (to cover multi target attacks), head- cyclone (to put the hero's level 2 magic at a damage level to match tir's)- but i might just change things now to match the final setup

Jowy- left- fire, head- wind

nanami- right- fire, left- earth

Rina- head- blue gate, right- fire, left- lightning (but i gave her a flowing rune after i killed luca on my current playthru)

luc- head- blue gate, right- wind, left- fire or lightning

killey/kahn- head- blue gate or lightning, right- fire, left- mother earth

Tir- left hand- fire, head- wind (so that i can make use of tir's level 3 mp in a boss fight)

for all the other characters i plan to use during the fights with luca, the runes are just padding to get me thru the fights, especially now that i've stopped planning my parties just for combos the way i used to.

any suggestions to alter my plan?
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wataru14
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Re: Looking for Recomendations on a Rune setup

Post by wataru14 »

So you're only looking for magic Rune setups? There are some support Runes that will really help with your overall damage output. You also don't need to overload every caster with three magic Runes. Two should be fine. I find myself never using the third Rune's spells anyway.

For Killey, don't bother using magic at all. Yeah, he had A affinity with Fire, Lightning, and Darkness, but he's better suited to using Fury/Double-Beat/Double-Strike and a Rage or Thunder Rune on his weapon. Load him up with Strength-boosting gear (Master Garb/Power Gloves/Power Ring/Fire Emblem) and he will outclass any mage in terms of damage with just normal melee attacks. Sheena, Kahn (minus the weapon Rune), Chaco, Sid, and even Hai Yo can do this as well (anyone with three open Rune slots).

For Nanami, don't bother using magic either. She's a terrible mage. Below-average MGC stat and bad affinities. For random encounters, give her Gale/Double-Beat with a Down Rune on her weapon. She will multi-attack all over the place. With so many hits, the Down Rune will succeed more often. For boss fights, Double-Beat/Fury, Double-Beat/Killer, or Double-Beat/Balance (for her unite with Riou) can all work well.

Wizard Runes on Jowy and Rina can help their damage output a little as well, just be sure you have a healer ready against magic-using enemies.

For mages, use the Rune Affinity table on this site to see who is best with which Runes. Affinity affects damage on the higher-end spells more than the MGC stat does. Use Blue Gates on Tir (for the level 3 spell - the Soul Eater's level 4 is the strongest in the game besides Riou's) and Rina (with a Flowing Rune as backup). Jowy would be good with Rage or Thunder for the level 3 spells (B affinity with both). Luc should have Blue Gate (he's the best in the game with it) and Cyclone/Darkness (since he has an A affinity with both). Just make sure you have someone throw a full heal in the same round he uses Empty World. He can really hurt your party members with that (especially if someone is using a Wizard Rune).

Riou only has C affinities in everything, so I usually go with the Double-Beat/Fury on him and use him as a fighter and have him heal when needed.

Hope that helps.
knight85
Posts: 123
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:24 pm

Re: Looking for Recomendations on a Rune setup

Post by knight85 »

i know that riou and nanami's affinities are in the toilet but i've been using cheated stones of magic to boost their magic to get them up to code with characters like Tir and Jowy.
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BrucePrintscreen
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Joined: Sun Dec 15, 2013 2:58 am

Re: Looking for Recomendations on a Rune setup

Post by BrucePrintscreen »

If you can cheat, then why don't you just do cheat further and make the characters the way you want?

I still fail to see the point in looking for the ultimate party members when the game is actually so easy. Last time I played I have completed it using only the lowest characters and I practically didn't take any damage at any point. Why do you guys always need so much building is something I will never understand.
knight85
Posts: 123
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:24 pm

Re: Looking for Recomendations on a Rune setup

Post by knight85 »

i'm not trying to make a super mage. i tried that the last time i cleared this game and all the rage runes i had nuked the beast rune back to the dark ages

i'm just using the stones of magic to PAD the magic stats for riou and other warrior mage type characters
KFCrispy
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Re: Looking for Recomendations on a Rune setup

Post by KFCrispy »

use our elemental affinity chart to figure out how to maximize damage, but also remember that Wind/Cyclone have terrible damage output and Earth/M.Earth only have 1 offensive spell, Earthquake, limited to lv 3 or 4-- so your caster better have high MGC. Also, unite magic is not affected by the caster's affinities.

http://www.suikosource.com/games/gs2/gu ... nities.php
http://www.suikosource.com/runes/unitemagic.php

I'm not going through all the characters, but i'd recommend a different setup for Hero2. Like I said, Cyclone/Wind is very weak, and Cyclone's lv4 Shining Wind spell isn't much better than the lv4 Bright Shield spell, so I don't think it adds much value for him. I like giving him Darkness Rune for clearing random encounters (yes, I'll agree Cyclone Rune's lv2 is good for clearing randoms, but it doesn't guarantee a kill and the other spells are all pretty bad) and either Thunder or Flowing. Thunder Rune is simply for pure damage against bosses, while the Flowing Rune adds a great lv2 heal spell.... for me, the major benefit of Thunder/Flowing or even Lightning/Water on Hero2 is that he's pretty tanky and is likely one of the last characters standing in case you need to revive the party (Thor unite magic). Obviously the Bright Shield already has a similar spell, but Thor revives party members while Forgiver Sign cannot.
Another thing you can consider is just an Alert Rune, so Forgiver Sign's base is a whopping 3000 points.. but there are definitely other candidates for using Alert Rune.
knight85
Posts: 123
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:24 pm

Re: Looking for Recomendations on a Rune setup

Post by knight85 »

i'm quite aware that shining wind is weak but that's not what i'm after with the cyclone rune. it's The Shredding that i seek.

my general idea was to give riou and jowy runes that would give them a level 2 spell to match the soul eater's black shadow spell
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