[Discussion] IczR1's Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

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KFCrispy
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by KFCrispy »

heh, you're missing a TON of fixed runes.... Abizboah, Badeaux, Feather, Genshu, Jowy, Mazus, Miklotov, Mondo, Sigfried, Stallion, Tuta, etc
granted not all of them help a character do damage, but many of them actually do, and they can add another aspect to the character for defensive purposes.. Knight and Medicine Runes protect others from getting KOed, True Holy lets you run away 100% and zoom around the world map...

i think the Manly Attack is pretty useful for Amada/Rikimaru. they are average or subpar characters but this unite deals 2x damage to a column... so doing their unite doesn't *really* take away from their ability to handle large groups. if there are 4 or more enemies, they can unite to eliminate a column of 2 enemies. You could give them both Double Beat and Fire/Lightning/Rage/Thunder on their weapons to do more damage as well as get the chance to critical, but Rikimaru is particularly slow and can miss easily. This unite prevents miss/counter-hit and automatically deals 2x dmg from each character so it can be used on bosses as well. Also, the Cup of Promise seems to increase their unite dmg by 10%. Double-Strike or Fury is the optimal rune choice.
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rnoron
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by rnoron »

your ratings on magic users are way off. granted, physical damage is broken in this game, but magic is still the most effective damage dealer when it comes to bosses. a well mixed party will always trump a pure physical party.
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by KFCrispy »

magic spells are extremely weak compared to a simple Double-Beat + Fury combo with Lightning/Fire on weapon. even with an ATK = 300 and boss PDF of 100, you're looking at a solid 850+ dmg per turn with the chance of critical hits. (but of course some low-SKL characters can miss and even get countered). most characters will easily surpass 300 ATK by lvl 50s with their weapon and equipment. you can also easily substitute Fury for Double-Strike and use Battle Oath to berserk most of your teammates. Dbl-Strike/Dbl-Beat + Fire/Lightning on Weapon + berserk = ~1300 per round, or Fire Sealing/Dbl-Beat + Fire Lizard + berserk = ~1150 per round, no extra physical damage taken.

characters with good Lightning affinities will need a Thunder Rune to average better than 850 dmg since they will only have 1 or 2 level 4 spells. with Mother Earth, a decent magic user can also do better than the Double-Beat/Fury setup, but once you go beyond that simple setup such as the Double-Strike / Battle Oath tactic, physical attackers are going to be more effective.

you still might need some magic for battles such as group healing and other support magic, of course, but on average, you will get more damage with physical attackers with at least 2 rune slots and a weapon slot.
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rnoron
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by rnoron »

i wouldn't waste time with level 3/4 lightning spells at bosses. i'd simply go for rune unites, which deal over 2k to a single target, along with other effects.

for boss fights with multiple enemies, mother earth and blue gate will take care of them nicely. luc does 1200-1300 dmg against culgan & seed with earthquake, which is more than what the best 3 slotters can reliably do. also, there are hardly any bosses with resistance/immunity to earth. on the other hand, you run into fire/lightning resistant/immunes everywhere.

really, who needs more than 2-3 physical chars when the random battles are over so quickly? i'd rather fill the last few slots with mages and nuke the hell out of the bosses.
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by KFCrispy »

i wouldn't waste time with level 3/4 lightning spells at bosses. i'd simply go for rune unites, which deal over 2k to a single target, along with other effects.
Thunder Rune lvl 4 base = 1200 dmg, so barring affinities, that's 1200 per level 4 spell
Rune Unite such as Blazing Camp = 2000 dmg to main target, 1300 to other targets... if you're fighting 1 target, it's doing less than Thunder Rune since it costs 2 level 4 spells. It does have practical applications against the Beast Rune, but a well-balanced team is probably the best choice for an average player taking on the Beast Rune (no special tactics like godly setups or Violence Rune abuse, tricks like stat stone or Kindness, lvl 99, etc).
Also, on average, how many lvl 4 spells will your team have to produce magic unites? If you're LUCKY, Riou will have 2 level 4's, and he's probably slightly above average in terms of MAG.. Luc will be lucky to have 3 level 4's, and he has the highest MAG growth in the game.
for boss fights with multiple enemies, mother earth and blue gate will take care of them nicely. luc does 1200-1300 dmg against culgan & seed with earthquake, which is more than what the best 3 slotters can reliably do. also, there are hardly any bosses with resistance/immunity to earth. on the other hand, you run into fire/lightning resistant/immunes everywhere.
Luc is not an "average" mage. You're comparing the BEST mage in the game to ANY generic 2-rune+wpnrune fighter. He gets more lvl 3 spells than others, so he can abuse Mother Earth Rune and rune unites more than other mages. He, Mazus, and McDohl have superb spells to work with.

There are like 5 boss battles with multiple enemies.. Luca (vs Viktor), Luca (vs Flik), Luca (vs Riou), Seed + Culgan, and Beast Rune. There are far more single-enemy boss battles...
Of course, Beast Rune is a very important battle to worry about, you can get beaten fairly easily if it's your first time :)
really, who needs more than 2-3 physical chars when the random battles are over so quickly? i'd rather fill the last few slots with mages and nuke the hell out of the bosses.
being able to Auto random battles and quickly end them is a blessing to most players. Having to manually enter even unite attacks is tedious and you have to wait for those long animations to finish.. you can still wipe out an enemy party with 3-4 strong fighters and leave room for your mages--many people do this when they take Luc and/or Mazus to the final battle.
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rnoron
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by rnoron »

KFCrispy wrote: Thunder Rune lvl 4 base = 1200 dmg, so barring affinities, that's 1200 per level 4 spell
Rune Unite such as Blazing Camp = 2000 dmg to main target, 1300 to other targets... if you're fighting 1 target, it's doing less than Thunder Rune since it costs 2 level 4 spells. It does have practical applications against the Beast Rune, but a well-balanced team is probably the best choice for an average player taking on the Beast Rune (no special tactics like godly setups or Violence Rune abuse, tricks like stat stone or Kindness, lvl 99, etc).
even if you run out of level 4s, using a rune unite and a level 3 will still net you more damage than using 2 level 4's. assuming A affinity to lightning, 2000+1400 > 1680x2. in fact i'm not even considering such a scenario because i usually end boss fights in a single round.
KFCrispy wrote:Also, on average, how many lvl 4 spells will your team have to produce magic unites? If you're LUCKY, Riou will have 2 level 4's, and he's probably slightly above average in terms of MAG.. Luc will be lucky to have 3 level 4's, and he has the highest MAG growth in the game.
the only mages i'd consider using are the best ones in the game, especially luc, and to a certain extent the chars with MAG stat in the 146-245 range at level 99, because these are the only one who get their second level 4 by the time they reach level 60. i am also partial to tomo, the only one other than luc with an A affinity to earth, which as i argued earlier, is an outstanding source of damage.
KFCrispy wrote:Luc is not an "average" mage. You're comparing the BEST mage in the game to ANY generic 2-rune+wpnrune fighter. He gets more lvl 3 spells than others, so he can abuse Mother Earth Rune and rune unites more than other mages. He, Mazus, and McDohl have superb spells to work with.
no. i'm comparing him to the BEST 3 slotters in the game. 1200-1300 damage to two targets equals 2500 average damage in 1 turn, way more than what killey would be doing normally.

you're right though, i'm not making a case for the average mages like millie or meg. the main thing is that 5.7 rating for luc, which is simply way off.
KFCrispy wrote:There are like 5 boss battles with multiple enemies.. Luca (vs Viktor), Luca (vs Flik), Luca (vs Riou), Seed + Culgan, and Beast Rune. There are far more single-enemy boss battles...
Of course, Beast Rune is a very important battle to worry about, you can get beaten fairly easily if it's your first time :)
that's 2 out of the 3 boss battles in the final dungeon. the endgame seems to be the point of focus for this ranking list, so i'd say these are THE key battles
KFCrispy wrote:being able to Auto random battles and quickly end them is a blessing to most players. Having to manually enter even unite attacks is tedious and you have to wait for those long animations to finish.. you can still wipe out an enemy party with 3-4 strong fighters and leave room for your mages--many people do this when they take Luc and/or Mazus to the final battle.
i usually have 2-3 chars doing nothing at regular battles, and that is with a party of hybrid chars, so i think 4-5 pure physical chars would be an excess... and yes, an auto-battle party is an important consideration for me, because i am a very impatient player :)
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by KFCrispy »

assuming A affinity to lightning, 2000+1400 > 1680x2.
first of all, Thunder Rune's lvl 4 = 1200. an A affinity deals 1680 not 2000. the lvl 3 is 1000, which is 1400. Keep in mind this that this is the best single-target offensive magic besides unique runes.

secondly, let's list all the A affinity Lightning magicians, shall we? Killey, Mazus, Meg, Millie, Sierra
so you're obviously overgeneralizing the power of mages. there are only 5 exceptional Lightning magic users. it's not like this is a common trait. the B-users will deal 1440 with a lvl 4 and 1200 with a lvl 3

IczR1 did a pretty good job in "calculating" this stuff out.



it definitely sounds like you want to give more importance to the final battles, which are multi-target battles. this can change how to value characters, but Iczr1 didn't follow your method.
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rnoron
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by rnoron »

KFCrispy wrote:
assuming A affinity to lightning, 2000+1400 > 1680x2.
first of all, Thunder Rune's lvl 4 = 1200. an A affinity deals 1680 not 2000. the lvl 3 is 1000, which is 1400.
you realise i was talking about a rune unite and not a level 4 spell?
KFCrispy wrote:Keep in mind this that this is the best single-target offensive magic besides unique runes.
the best single-target spell is the Thor rune unite. i don't know how much of this you actually remember when you're updating those guides...
KFCrispy wrote:secondly, let's list all the A affinity Lightning magicians, shall we? Killey, Mazus, Meg, Millie, Sierra
so you're obviously overgeneralizing the power of mages. there are only 5 exceptional Lightning magic users. it's not like this is a common trait. the B-users will deal 1440 with a lvl 4 and 1200 with a lvl 3
and the point of this? rune unites don't even factor in affinities
KFCrispy wrote:it definitely sounds like you want to give more importance to the final battles, which are multi-target battles. this can change how to value characters, but Iczr1 didn't follow your method.
hmmm, he uses level 99 stats/slots in his calculations. what other point of the game could he be referring to?
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by KFCrispy »

the best single-target spell is the Thor rune unite. i don't know how much of this you actually remember when you're updating those guides...
how so? that's 2 level 4 spells and no affinity. that's a flat 1000 per spell. of course you get the full party recover, but that's not the point. many characters will have to unite with another character, so it can cost 2 characters' turns and 2 level 4 spells.

obviously i was talking about the Thunder Rune spells, since it averages MORE damage than Thor. even the Rage Rune can average more than Thor with a decent affinity.

what other point of the game could he be referring to?
please READ his topic. he is not talking about any "point" or particular battle..
IczR1 wrote:I based every stat on the average stat growth (can be found here) since Suikoden 2 level-ups can be quite random at times. It wasn't all that hard to rank the different stats since the stat growth is very linear on paper.
The most important part for the ranking was of course how much damage a character can deal (i compared different possibilities how to deal damage with that specific character and which is the best way in the long run), taking important stats like tech, speed, luck and open rune/weapon slots into account (a fast and/or skilled character CAN outdamage a character that has one rune slot more). The defensive stats influenced the ranking too, although they are not THAT important in Suikoden 2, same goes for magic. I ignored the kindness rune trick for the tiering, since that would make the whole thing a little boring, since everybody would have the same ATK and therefore the differences in the base damage stat would be ignored.
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by rnoron »

KFCrispy wrote:
the best single-target spell is the Thor rune unite. i don't know how much of this you actually remember when you're updating those guides...
how so? that's 2 level 4 spells and no affinity. that's a flat 1000 per spell. of course you get the full party recover, but that's not the point. many characters will have to unite with another character, so it can cost 2 characters' turns and 2 level 4 spells.

obviously i was talking about the Thunder Rune spells, since it averages MORE damage than Thor. even the Rage Rune can average more than Thor with a decent affinity
i already said i'm only considering chars with 2 level 4 MPs. that should be fairly obvious i'm talking about one-person rune unites.

anyway tell me, how does ANY level 4 spell average more than Thor when you get 2k damage from ONE casting?
what other point of the game could he be referring to?
please READ his topic. he is not talking about any "point" or particular battle..
IczR1 wrote:I based every stat on the average stat growth (can be found here) since Suikoden 2 level-ups can be quite random at times. It wasn't all that hard to rank the different stats since the stat growth is very linear on paper.
The most important part for the ranking was of course how much damage a character can deal (i compared different possibilities how to deal damage with that specific character and which is the best way in the long run), taking important stats like tech, speed, luck and open rune/weapon slots into account (a fast and/or skilled character CAN outdamage a character that has one rune slot more). The defensive stats influenced the ranking too, although they are not THAT important in Suikoden 2, same goes for magic. I ignored the kindness rune trick for the tiering, since that would make the whole thing a little boring, since everybody would have the same ATK and therefore the differences in the base damage stat would be ignored.
[/quote]just tell me at what other point of the game do you have level 99 stats/slots and all available rune/equip options? he obviously had the endgame in mind, and i'm simply going along with it.

that said, i would gladly make a case for magic at any other point in the game
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rnoron
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by rnoron »

i thought so.. it's probably too much to expect a decent discussion from any suikoden board at all. oh well :|
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by KFCrispy »

you can make your own ranking and rules, we'll gladly discuss. but you're trying to further define Iczr's general ranking guidelines just because you think something is more important than the other.

i'm not saying Iczr's table is perfect, but it's like saying the purpose of the dictionary is only to help people spell big words instead of understand the broader scope.

stop trying to define his rules. they are already define. you're trying to argue this and that are what he *should* have ranked, but he *didn't*. since you cannot understand the topic, you are not understanding his results.

i love in-depth gameplay discussions. post your ideas but quit trying to tell someone their work is meaningless just because you don't see its point.
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by rnoron »

no one's redefining his guidelines. i never said to base rankings solely off the final battles. i simply remarked that the final battles were of some importance. it's not like those are the only fights where magic can be used to great effect anyway, and like i said, a case for magic can be made at almost any point in the game. seems like you made a fuss over nothing there

he excluded magic in most of his rankings not because it is against his "rules", but because he *overlooked* it. i'm simply pointing out the flaws in his assessment. this is probably something YOU should read:
IczR1 wrote:when something seems horribly wrong, feel free to correct me.
i don't know what's more comical, having someone base an assessment of Luc as a fighter, or everyone else in here going along with it...

anyway, i'm done here :mrgreen:
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by zqrahll »

I'm going to have to come down on rnoron's side of the argument here-- way too little has been said about the power of magic in character rankings.

All of the arguments here are based around exploiting the crap out of this game-- level 99, tons of power/skill/etc. boosting equipment, infinite double beat, fury, double strike, rage, thunder, etc. runes.

I have beaten this game 7 times, & I have never gotten anyone to level 99. I have never gotten Hai Yo high enough to get his 3rd rune slot (65?), so obviously, for me, he is not nearly as powerful as all of you suppose.

Personally, one of the things that I think should be taken into account is how good people are for the entire duration fo the game, not just end-game ridiculous scenarios like people always suppose in situations like this.

In a normal play through of the game, it is fairly easy to get a fair amount of double beat runes, but fury is much more rare, as is double strike. I have been able to get 10 double beat runes in about 1.5 hours of leveling. In the same play through, after dozens, if not hundreds of soft-resets, I have been able to get 4 fury runes from the Muse rune shop rare items-- from my observations, the fury rune only pops up about 5-10% of the time that a rare item is available, which is not all of the time. Keep in mind, this is far from a "perfect" play through, as all the time spent trying to get these runes makes it nigh impossible to finish Clive's scenario.

All of this is to say that a party full of people with fury/double beat/double strike + rage/thunder weapon runes is fairly ridiculous. On the other hand, a decent mage's power is easy to observe during any play through. Luc is also available long before powerhouses like Sheena & Killey show up-- he even starts getting 4th level spells way before they show up. Sure, with the proper set up, Killey is a monster at the very end of the game. But what about the 95% of the game that doesn't fall under this category?

One last thing on Luc's behalf-- as a mage set up, his low HP/Def do not matter since he will be in the back row, taking mostly Magical damage, which is negated by his ridiculously high MAGDEF.
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Re: Suikoden 2 Character Rankings

Post by KFCrispy »

well that's the difference between a character ranking based on maximum average damage w/optimal setup/level versus "practicality" ranking.

sure, Fury and Thunder Runes are rare, but Double-Strike is easy to obtain with a Hunter Rune, Fury Rune is easy to get with save-reload, Gale Runes are a bit rare. giving a ton of mages Thunder and Rage Runes is even more rare though. you get 1-2 in a normal playthrough and hunting for them with a Hunter Rune is still difficult and tedious since you can't use the sleep trick.

but also, from a "practical" standpoint, you can collected a bunch of Double Beat, Fury and Gale Runes ALL before you even get your HQ, and you can pack them in your warehouse.
the Kindness Rune, Friendship, and Exertion Runes early, all which are pretty damn powerful when you put them on your active party members.
with the Matilda Trick, you can get tons of Fire Emblems and Thunder Amulets as well as the Violence Rune very early in the game.

in terms of magic, you have to wait a while, and by the time you can buy a simple Lightning Rune, you'll be spoiled by the Double Beat / Fury / (Gale) + Exertion/Friendship/Kindness combination.

if you've collected Fire Emblems, you can also use Fire Lizards pretty safely and build up on negative Kindness points at the same time to make a character have a negative Kindness value for the entire game.
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