Lazlo: Flowing Rune / Rune of Punishment / Killer (Killer was just me saying "lol i need a quick, cheap rune to fill a slot!)
Kika: Double Strike / Falcon
Wendel: Warrior/ Lightning/ Cyclone (conserving my thunder rune for the next run...)
Maxine: Cyclone/Lightning/Flowing
The most unique member of the party was probably Wendel. Crazy versatile character due to her high magic growth, high skill and speed growth, and acceptable speed. I basically speced her to be a magic user, but all I had to do was plop a Warrior Rune on her and she also had very nice attacks. Not the best by any means, but decent enough for someone devoting all her equipment to boosting her magic and speed. Her main weakness is that she's a bit squishy, but I didn't find that to be much of a problem in that final fight. Her affinities aren't superb either, but she's more than good enough in Lightning and Wind, and Lightning at least is pretty important. Definitely a jack of all trades, master of none, but I always like really versatile characters who can fill two jobs at once, especially in a game with only 4 party slots.
Because hero was basically on full healing duty, this setup lacked physical damage dealers, other than Kika (who, quite frankly, is enough of a physical damage dealer by herself to carry the team). The goal here wasn't for me to burst the enemy down, it was for me to play safe and have a variety of options at hand. And to see pretty magical effects!
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
Also, while he's pretty useless for the final boss, I found Eugene to be pretty amazing for random encounters and the Killer Golem. I know you're not supposed to use tanks in Suikoden, but I found the Firefly invaluable in a game where you don't have a formation system and your mages are on the front line. Definitely recommend him whenever you're using characters that might be a little squishier than you'd like.
first post on this forum btw, sorry if I rambled on a little bit.