That and her unique Rune is everything but a wasted turn. Getting access to a free Rage/Hyper-state is invaluable, especially on someone who hits as hard as her. Unless there are runes (Like in Suikoden 2) that put you in a perma-state like that I wouldn't dismiss that so easily. Francesca definitely is a handful, keeping her alive is a challenge by itself so you want to get her HP-increasing gear ASAP but it's possible.
Plus, she's got a great Strength stat for a healer, is M-range so she can attack the front row from the back (so her risk of taking physical damage is reduced), AND can break armor with her blunt weapon and has a chance to stun enemies. Plus she's just fucking hilarious. I love Francesca.
yeah but if you need two healers, you will run out of HP if you cannot keep up with the bosses attacks. And she's so slow, most of the time she died before even healing they party lmao. Isha is best, until then just use Falward/Zabi. 1 healer is enough and I play with all restrictions on
@@adrian-iw7gm you don’t need both Francesca and Falward built towards healing to access the combo. Francesca is probably the more logical one to build towards offense. You are right about her fragility though.
Let's be honest boys, anybody who dare say any bad words, about our goddess Francesca gonna face our eternal rage, no question why video receive almost same amount of dislikes :D
francesca has low hp but with a 100 hp accessoire shes fine but yeh her health is rlly bad but ive been having her in my group the entire game so far and had 0 issues so far
She's in my A team at level 17 right now and the only HP buffing stuff I've seen thus far is based off % growth, which isn't good for somebody whose max HP is that low . Buffing her defense is where it's at. Just keeping her armor prioritized with a Topaz ring made a world of difference for her survival. The only HP buff I've seen so far is an HP rune, but with her max HP at 82 right now, it would only add 12 HP, which is a moot point because she doesn't have any Enhancement rune slot yet. If they have equipment later on that's a flat boost instead of % growth, that would change things.
@@bludgeonstickog youll find an accessoire that goes well for her but i could see her not being a good choice playing on hard her low def and hp are big flaws for sure
@@bludgeonstickog You'll get rings (with different tiers) that boost HP by a flat 100 and more later throughout the game; definitely a good choice for Fran.
@@EtherealRune That's good to hear, cause right after I made this comment having *just* gotten my HQ, I noticed a huge difficulty spike and enemies that were previously dealing 1-5 damage per hit against her were now doing 20-30 per hit. Not only that, but I've noticed that flying enemies (bats/wyverns) can hit the back row and their AI is good because they seem to only target Francesca cause they know she'll go down easiest. I was contemplating benching her, but I still need two healers until I can get to a town to upgrade my armor and sharpen my weapons.
I totally disagree about Francesca. She isn’t being used properly, because there’s a reason her Hero Combo partner comes stock with a Light Rune, and her Defense command is literally called “Shield.” Have you tried using it? It absorbs damage equal to about 30% of her max HP, and you only need to use it once-it will remain active until she takes damage. Add an HP boosting accessory on her, and her HP + Shield amounts to more tankiness than most other casters. Not to mention her Luck stat is ridiculous, which makes her more like to dodge and crit with physical attacks than most characters. In tough fights, Falward has a light spell to nullify one attack from a single character. Use shield with Francesca for insurance, then cast Sacred Shield on her, and you will easily survive long enough to get 3 SP. Her 5 SP skill Calm Fury seems to add her Magic Stat to her Physical Offense, and her DPS becomes absolutely insane for three turns. Only issue is it’s pretty much impossible to stack her Hero Combo with Calm Fury, for obvious reasons, but if you have a character with a fire rune equipped, you could boost her attack the same turn as Calm Fury and she will hit harder than the other 5 characters in your party, combined.
no, the real problems are she is too slow and has low HP. Which means you need to sacrifice either one. Most of the time, your other character/she will die first before even she got to heal because she is just too slow. If you equip SPD, you sacrifice DEF/HP/MGC. vice versa. If you unlocked higher level runes, high chances are you will have probably unlocked better character such as Isha....and Isha.
no, the real problems are she is too slow and has low HP. Which means you need to sacrifice either one. Most of the time, your other character/she will die first before even she got to heal because she is just too slow. If you equip SPD, you sacrifice DEF/HP/MGC. vice versa. If you unlocked higher level runes, high chances are you will have probably unlocked better character such as Isha....and Isha. I am playing all restrictions on, so no items and double mp/sp consumption. good luck getting 5sp to heal moderate hp
@@adrian-iw7gm Well with all restrictions on… Then there won’t be many viable party members to begin with. High def and speed for everyone, and one person with a healing set-up for the worst case scenario. That wouldn’t be fun for me, I like switching out all party members as much as possible, except for a few that really suck-like Wyler and his sister. Does Leon become OP at end-game levels? I feel like he’s supposed to be weak until either his Sword eventually starts to scale with his Magic Attack stat, or his Physical DMG stat scaling suddenly shoots up. It’s just ridiculous how unviable he is, even in normal difficulty. Nearly level 40 with 80 Strength, less than 150 HP with an HP Rune equipped, and one of the lowest Defense stats of any character available. He’s ridiculously weak because his magic stats literally serve no function with him being a Front Row fighter. If he’s targeted with physical attacks during any level-appropriate battle, he’s dead. It’s that simple. There’s no point in keeping someone in my party, if all they can do is Defend every turn until we get to the boss where he can briefly shoot off magic spells until his eventual death.
The fact you have to do ALL that to keep her alive just to do average dmg just shows how bad she is😂 Dont get me wrong i love franceska but lets be honest here
i agree with you about Mio. i think she's a cool character, and she's one of my favorites. The problem with her is her status, but the other day, i was fighting a boss one of the early ones after the first war, and i used her rune skill, and she dealt 750 dmg while the rest of my characters barely reach 100 i was shocked when she one shot the boss
@@IzumiSafi The instakill doesn't but her skill hits VERY hard, especially once her attack stat starts to pick up in the mid-late game. Several characters with "meh" looking stats at low levels start to take off 40+ and end up pretty bonkers 60+.
What surprised me about Mio is the fact that she’s a spellcaster. Her magic actually surpasses her attack stat. Francesca is a glass cannon. She is decent offensively, BUT her health and defenses are abysmal. Once I got a less squishy healer, I swapped her out immediately.
Francesca is a classic case of a "build around" character. She needs Falward in the same party (which is not a big loss, Falward is great) and the Malachite Brooch (nobody else really needs it) and in return you get access to the best hero combo in the game: a nearly full party heal AND damage boost. Her magic defense with the brooch is high enough to make her quite survivable in most encounters (unlike someone like Lian) and Falward will cover her a lot when there are rare physical attacks targeting the backliners. Is the build-around worth it? I believe so, especially if you are playing with no item usage in battles.
I've been using both Francesca and Mellore in my team since the early game because I like their character designs and personalities more than most of the recruitables, but now I see why I was having such a hard time haha
Sometime later in the Game, after visiting the Treefolk Village, you get a certain item out pf a random chest... And for Francesca its an essential item so unless you dont get that she cant be on the A Team anymore after a certain point. I admit i forgot where i found it, but you need to find a malachite stone that gives one character additional 100 HP. It should be found either in the Treefolk ancient ruins where you solve the puzzle or on the way to Euchrisse before you get spewed down by a plant in the trees on your way in the South Woods. Then it would be a silver blue chest.
I just got my HQ at level 18 and I've been using Francesca the entire time. I think she's just a character that wasn't built for hard mode because she hasn't come close to dying once with me. Her physical attack is hitting as hard as Garr and Kuroto, and they both have Power Runes (she has a water rune). So I just attack with her and heal on the rare occasion that I ever need to. Assuming she gets an Enhance slot later, gotta stick with Defense over HP boosts cause % boosts on HP doesn't do much when her HP is already that low. "STAY THE HELL DOWN!!!!!!" is just icing on the cake. I wouldn't touch her with a 10 foot pole on hard mode though.
One thing I noticed in your videos of the strongest and weakest characters is that you don't consider combos much and don't worry about improving their weaknesses so that what makes them stronger really shines. You just focus on the obvious weak point, but not the overall character. Mio alone is not good, but she is flexible and very good with her "rival" shinobi. Mellore, for example, is a good Healer, but you didn't notice that. One important thing to remember: the most important thing in Hard Mode is to have fast characters since attacking before enemies guarantees healing.
I've never cared about character's stat. I just use any character that I like based on their characteristics or appearances. For this game, I will definitely gonna bring along Lian in my party no matter what is her stats. Because she reminds me of Nanami. I love nanami!
Cannot fix Leon by giving expanded reach accessory? You get it so early. From what I saw magic become quite powerful later in the game. Can whipe trash packs in one cast and just drink mp pots in between
its just not viable imo. mp is to high cost when doubles and mp recovery items are to infrequent plus you dont get a chance to use them when in the hero trials at the end game. He can be used he is just bad. if you like him feel free to use him though
Yume is way better then you realize. She scales into a extremely high stat character because she is a two slot, its never going to be two characters of stats combined exactly because that would be broken from a formula point of view but she is probably one of the highest overall scaling stated character in the game because she is two characters. Yes you lose one action, and yes that is the worst part about her, but in return for giving up one action you now have what is probably one of the best tanks in the game holding down TWO rows by herself, that is completely unique for a tank, the enemy HAS to get through her before they can even think about touching anyone behind her, and she is TANKY. Yume also gets a very decent attack rune with Friend attack its damage is very respectable for a 4 SP rune. I play with Yume as one of my tanks a lot and when I see multiple enemy's forced into focusing into her or another heavy tank I find the action loss acceptable. Specifically because I am now forcing the enemy to chose between two tanks instead of three. This heavily reduces healing juggling and save a lot of action economy through that alone to make it nearly worth losing that action.
I have her at 99 and her stats are not thst much higher of at all over some other tanks. Also this is directed at early game characters and she is really bad in the early game imo
someone mentioned somewhere that Mio one-shot the Golem boss for him if her one-shot mechanic works against bosses then you give her hp and luck and gamble for the cheese kills i think. she is to weak as a normal fighter.
Francesca is good if you patch up her abyssmal hp and utilize her hero combo with Welryn but otherwise bad on her own. Kinda in a simular situation with Lam and Riufan; Lam is amazing on her own and Riufan is mediocre-bad but their row attack combo is nice. Sometimes you might compromise if there is good hero combo to gain and I like that.
I think Gieran is, 20% lower cost on spells and good mag to use the aoe heal (water) and aoe damage + heal (wind) and he can use 2 elements so you can either double up on more supportive options or give him something to deal more damage with.
Its a toss up between a fast mage with 2 magic slots or Francesca for team heal. Gieran gets a spot so it kind of depends on if Kuroto + mage is better than Francesca + Falward unless another buff backliner shows up.
IMO Francesca is probably one of my top characters but her HP is a bit low. She really does need that +100 HP accessory, tho having that item locked on her is kinda annoying too. But she brings enough to the table that I put her in my A team most of the time. Honestly I also find all front-line mages to be meh. I make do giving them shields with that one ring you can purchase, but overall I'd actually rate Perry under Yume simply because of how much I dislike the front-line mage archtype. I also give Mellore a pass since increasing her accuracy lets her hit her 3rd rune hit like truck. Another great thing about her is that her Lyrical shot only costs MP and is of Light element, making her one of the few people you can a) get a no MP cost light damage spell like Carrie, and b) have an early full enemy party light damage spell (as long as you hit all the hits...).
Yes, but Isha totally mullers both Francesca AND Falward. Admittedly my A team are all early 80's. But every stat my Isha has is at a base of at least 300 or at worst only "slightly" shy of it. And she has more than 450 MD. [Her PD is north of 300] Even when mobs do hit her they struggle to land for more than 50 HP or so. My Francesca and Falward are both only 10 levels off that or so but neither will catch Isha. Falwards speed "might" catch her but she's part of both the 6 group super team and a member of CJ's gang from "rising", and she's far more than just a 2 minds in 1 brain, archytype... unlike Francesca. [Her magic stat by the way is considerably NORTH of 450... with only a 2 star rune of high magic on]
Seriously. The other bad characters can still have a role to fill in combat; unlike Faye, who is the worst character in the game, second, maybe, to Dr. Corque.
I'm a big fan of melee/mage hybrid characters AND I love the platinum hair/purple eyes combo so I really wanted to love Leon but he's so bad it almost feels like something is broken. I've heard someone say he gets better in the 70s somehow but it's gonna be a while before I invest in him that much to find out haha. Your idea about fixing him by having him in the back row performing magical taunts is quite fun, that does sound like a unique and interesting character archetype.
Only have 50% less heroes than on this video, so I will prop change later on. My team: Yume, Faye,Falward, Leon & Carrie. Funny fact is that all 5 Allies on this video is what I did run before changing to that team I have right now :P I find Leon and Yume to be my best heroes so far, they do good damage and can take many hits before dying, depending on the gear and runes you have. Got 115 armor and A Armor shield on Leon and are only lvl 33. It is always nice to hear what other people think about heroes, whether they think they are good, bad, or anything else :-) For me, I always choose characters I like over stats, no issues yet with something being hard... =)
You may as well replace those 2 with just Garr on HIS OWN up front. [He'd be more effective] Have Leon "taunting" or whatever, and that silly kid crying whenever her bear takes a whack or whatever, in the second row... Garr will do all the work. If somehow with the way your going about it now you manage to find a way to unlock Reina once you get to the sand area's [not that you will with Leon up front and even in your team for that matter] then replace Garr [even though he is awesome] with her. Because she's so tanky it''s just not fair, and she'll protect that silly girls teddy bear. Or, you could ditch the joke characters? Leon IS a Joke, because, even though he does have phenomenal magic stat, most his other stats are below mid tier, and his PD is dreadful. Besides which many other mage character's have better overall stats, and can hit from the BACK ROW, with auto non MP spending spells. And he never catch Momo for sheer MA anyway. Momo will ALWAYS be better than Leon and generally has far superior overall stats. Beside which you have great mage's such as Isha and Milana and arguably Mellore. Yume is a joke because, she's mid tier stats for a 2 slot character. She may "pick up" somewhat in the latter game, but never enough to make up for being 2 of your presumably front row. Garr trounces her, defensively, throughout. And he's just a "good" character, he's not really the top tier. You will see what I mean if/when you manage to get Reina. [You got to get her first, good luck doing 500 damage to her per turn to hit the 1500 damage you NEED to do in 3 turns to impress her, with your current set up]
I'm still early game but can't relate to Iugo being broken. He has to be on the frontline or else he cant do normal attacks, and his taunt counter defense command doesn't even work 75% of the time. He's not sturdy enough to tank so he just dies. I'm slightly just past the Kogen fight in the mines. I had to grind to overlevel to survive Hail of Flails being used back to back on enemies that only gave 150 exp per fight. And I'm on normal with no restrictions.
That's what I've been thinking too. Iugo seems great at first stat-wise but his lack of actual 'Defense' hurts him in the long run. It feels like an absolutely wasted Ability that doesn't work (if you get attacked it's purely by chance), and the counter is a rare occurance, too. So he becomes a pure attack-bot with a skill that usually wants to charge up until 5SP at least, which doesn't happen during normal fights. Overall I don't think he's that great compared to other, more reliable options.
early game Yusuke is better, mid-late game Iugo is better due to his runes. You use SP conversion Mighty Power and also other Mighty Power runes. He hits hard at 5 SP, just keep it at that and maybe use Slash when the boss is at yellow/red. Don't use taunt counter, just keep hitting lmao. Yusuke has runes that are locked with him so you cannot boost stats to make him any stronger which is why he doesnt scale well later on. During kogen fight, yes, just use any front liner that could defense since Iugo will die to that attack.
I can honestly say Lugo has never fallen when I've used him. Nowa has. I'd say Lugo is more tanky than Nowa and only hits for slightly less on a regular attack. Nowa is one of my 80+ guy's but I have a feeling Lugo would muller him stat wise if he had the extra 10 or so levels. On a "tank" note. Garr "was" my tank. I unlocked the mysterious room and managed to clear to the first checkpoint, but ALL of my other guy's except for Garr got wiped [scratch that, Lugo got wiped in that event] and Garr throwing the proverbial hail Mary got a HUGE payday of getting levelled up to 99. He was just "broken" after that, being at least 40 levels above everyone else. And then I eventually got around to getting my favourites to a high enough level to crush Reina's "test", and I have to say she is a FINE tank indeed. Nothing hits that woman, and when they do they're lucky if they get away with 1 HP and NOT a sword to the face, and she's regularly hitting for 150 to 200 damage on a counter, and she saves her comrades more often the lower their HP get's. She's like a bristly moving wall.
Unfortunately with all of these characters they don't have linear stat raises. They all skyrocket their stats around the lvl 60-70 mark. Mio for instance absolutely smacks, I got her to have over 900 attack with a few mighty runes. Mixed with her speed, high crit rate and the fact that her rune has a chance to instakill non boss enemies is just crazy. My personal endgame team was Nowa, CJ and Leene up front and Mellore, Momo, and Isha. Midgame was Nowa, Marissa, and either Lian or Lam up front, Mellore, Marin and Milana Early game is literally whoever you feel like using because everyone is pretty mid at that point so I'd just fill my party with anyone that filled a role.
I have Francesca in the party and i haven’t let her out of it Nust put some trinket for health and mana and she does ton of magic damage also the rage mode is op too
I'm running 4 mages on hard and I'm at the last area of the game. Isha one shots a row for now mp. And has my highest single target boss damage with inferno rube. Milana is beefy enough to be on front line . Mellore I use as main healer. Momo and Isha dps. Nothing in this game is hard enough to warrant benching someone honestly
the dragon is probably bad as well however its not really early game I wanted to keep this more applicable to people not as far as I am yet. I will probably do final lists once I beat the game
Late game dragon/Chandra maxed attack and speed of 498 without equipment highest hp in the game at 940 max of both magic and regular defense of 452 has best compatibility with fire which increases her unique heavy fire attack and has 1 sp hero combined with noah she's broken late/endgame
Apparently, some characters like Mio and Mellore have way higher growths in later levels compared to early levels. So like from level 1-40, they get way fewer stats than from 41-80.
Not sure why everyone is hating on the magic users. They can normal attack just as well as the average physical unit. Im playing on hard with all restrictions too and im at the last place in the game. I run 4 mages. And they wipe maps so easily. I havent had any of my lvl 60 physical damage characters beat out momo or isha in single target damage using inferno rune. Tbh i dont think this game is hard enough to warrant benching anyone u like. I have never wiped out using milana mellore momo and isha pretty much at all stages of the game that they can be recruited in
Guessing these are with all the difficulty modifiers turned on? Seems to really imbalance characters even more with the increased SP costs. Didn't think it'd be this bad, though.
Fran Falward is strong. But needing 3 SP early game before things like CodeL support etc come in is hard. You can get Dmg buff easier from Shixeen or Perielle and healing with water runes is fine. It’s so easy to get money that you are better being aggressive with her space. Isha is broken as the magician slot with a rune of currents for healing.
her stats are not better than other characters but maybe the OHKO is more viable end game is level 60 though anything beyond that is post game and there is not much post game content sadly
@@purplatypus7405 I wasn't expecting it, honestly. The Suikoden games have never really had any super hard endgame stuff and I'm okay with that. I was just reiterating what some people were saying. Didn't actually mean endgame in that context lol.
I really hope that since you made this video, you've gotten a better understanding of the game's mechanics. The stuff you overlooked or plainly don't understand is brutal. Leon is absolute dogshit, you're right about him, but the others? Not even close to being bad from a technical perspective.
i find Francesca decent when she has her shield up. It still takes a hole turn to set up, and from what i have seen i think it takes arround 50-60 damage. And even still I agree that she just dies in random encounters when enemies decide that she is the target for 2-3 attacks.
Try level Mellore to level 99 and see. (She is at least a high tier character). As for the rest, most of them are average tier at the end game. (lv 99)
I'm more than halfway through the game and Francesca is literally one of the best characters so far. Just add the 100hp boost. I haven't removed her from my party yet. I run Nowa Francesca and Marisa in the back (Marisa is probably my favorite) and I run Yusuke, Iugo and Reyna up front. Sometimes I'll swap someone out for seign or yuffaris. But for the most part this is a phenomenal team.
Would you place her instead of a similarly levelled Reina for your main tank, though? Somehow, I doubt it. Yume's trying to be a goofy "tank" character, but the aesthetic and the end result don't mesh up.
It's true they are worse by their own. The cool thing of the game is you become strong by balancing the party. I often see people with x6 power houses that combine really bad and in the end are not so effective. But it's not a super difficult game, you can go with anything really.
After seeing the endgame Mio video this made me laugh lol. I was wondering why her stats were weighed how they were, but then she becomes a crit machine with proper gearing. This game's been a ride so far.
I see Francesca in the thumbnail and already know this is going to be absolute nonsense. :D But lists like these are purely for entertainment anyway.^^
Yeah I agree all. Except Mellone. She was essential in Hurstwine fight hard mode to damage backrow. If you defeat front row too early, the fox mask just spams Death's Lullaby putting everyone to sleep. In traditional Suikoden, all recruited starter characters eventually fizzle out. I had her equip Rune of Earth. But she unusable before entering Hishahn. I don't get what's Mio's deal, by far intentionally the worst statted character in the game.
Francesca is not bad, why? -Good Pwr and magic wich makes her hit like the better characters if you use a magic enchant damage, like god of fire sword for example -Yusuke, the real protagonist of the game, becomes enraged when she dies, how could be bad she has low hp? All pros bro.
from what I've seen so far in my own playthrough I disagree with all of your choices. all the spellcasters all seem pretty strong/good. & I've seen 2 characters possibly worse than these ones. Faye & Galdorf. Faye I made grow to LV 31 & yet she doesn't seem to be gaining any stats & still has the lowest stats of all my characters. while Galdorf I've had in the front line with Yume multiple times & they wear similar armor sets but she would take barely any damage while he was still getting hurt by around 50 or more & when you're a front liner with low HP that tends to knock him out quickly.
Francesca is a glass cannon mage. You build around that and she'll be fine casting destructive spells from the back Edit: playing with all the restrictions seriously nerfs magic characters since MP cost is doubled AND your mages are relegated to healing bots
Yeah this is one of the reasons I don't like these types of restrictions in games, either player enforced or in game options. Because like, why take away gameplay mechanics? I get it for player enforced restrictions on super broken things like TG Cid Orlandu in FFT. Luckily none of the achievements are tied to those restrictions so the only reason to use them is replay value or self challenge. Therefore these opinions being based on those restrictions actually hold less weight to me.
I am the opposite I dislike player restrictions but I do want to use all the built in restrictions for rpgs. The idea is that this is another way the developers designed the game to be played thus being like a new mode and forcing you to think outside the boss to progress. I will say this hard mode to me feels particularly not well done though. The restrictions are not that fun and the balance feels like a bit of an afterthought given some points in the game where they force characters on you or wont let you leave areas
Mellore is a lot better than you think she is. In fact, she's probably one of the best characters in the game. Some characters are great early game, some are great end game. Mellore is an End-Game character. She is a reverse S stat growth. At around level 40+ is where you'll start noticing the change. Mellore actually ends up with like one of the highest magic stats in the game. Level 40 is the point where those that have slow growth early on, pick up, and those with high growth early on, start to slow down. There are some AMAZING characters early game, that just fall off a cliff Post 40. And other characters who were trash Sub 40, who become God Tier post 40. Francesca? You're right. An HP Accessory fixes her squishiness, but she does fall off. Isha is absolutely BONKERS and you should replace her with Isha the moment you get her. Mellore can easily swap to your healer character and be great at that all game. Leon is trash, but the 'elemental' buffs you can cast on yourself scale off the magic stat, so you CAN salvage him to some degree. That physical defense is problematic though so ya, trash. Yume is another with a Reverse S growth. She starts trash, and becomes a lot better later on. Unfortunately she never really ends up being equal to 2 characters. I do agree with most of your list, I just don't agree with Mellore. if your 'opinion' was that these characters are terrible early game, you have a point, but Mellore changes post 40. That's when her stats start scaling a LOT faster. By the time she gets her last rune slot and your levels start approaching 60, you'll find her hitting a lot harder than most other mages. Also, you should get Faye to level 40 and check out her stats. Faye is on a level of her own. From my understanding, from what I've been told, she has the LOWEST stat total of all characters, early, mid and late game.
I've recently made this point too. Faye is just... the "Faye" tier according to any realistic game site with a character tier list for 100 Heroes. She is quite literally a joke character with the joke appallingly missing.
Prunella is another candidate. She is kind of tanky, but she's slow and attacks using her horrible Magic stat. Note that all normal attacks that are elemental use MAG. She won't even be useful to pull items.
I wanted to use Francesca but she kept getting double targeted and dying in a single round so I dropped her from the party before I got to the point where you get that 100 health accessory people always mention. It's annoying my party is all males.
If only magic can be more valuable in this game, character who rely on magic would be good. even if they're squishy like Fran, they will still useful from longer run. In the end game, character that is a great magic user are just Momo and Isha. Milana is great too in the end game, if only her rune lens slots are more flexible. I think that's all, the rest are only good for support magic.
I just don't get what they were thinking with Magic in this game. Sure healing and some utility is obviously nice. But the damage spells seems really underwhelming. And they cost MP that is super limited and you don't even get it back when you get to a save point. Magic SHOULD do alot more damage for what you are paying. But it's not the case Physical characters that attack for free usually do the same amount or even more damage.
I still confuse why the developer put Mio as weak character, she's like one of important support character in the main story and has a really cool design, such a waste.. 😢
Francesca is fine, health isn't great at early levels so best to slap on her a HP boosting item STAT, but in later levels her HP growth increases dramatically. Plus as several folks point out the combo skill she gets early on is great, easily one of the best ones. Also I think she has the highest MP...at that point in the game...? She's the one who usually unlocks Maureus, who is a melee beast. Mio is...eh. I thought she'd be more like a high damage/low defense type, but instead she's a weird...high evade/luck build. She likes to crit a lot. But crits aren't *that* damaging in the final build of the game. Best part about her is her unique skill, which can one hit kill (even bosses). She's a...I guess you'd call a character that has to grow. She's a good candidate for the Knight rune, making her into a true glass cannon. That and having a combo with Hagukin (who in my playthrough, is probably one of the best physical long range attackers) is a plus. Both of them having high speed usually results in their combo coming up pretty fast too. Yumi is just adorable. I don't use her that often, and yes I don't think she's worth it in the earlier parts of hard mode, but good combos, doing smash damage, and she is a *late* grower, when at the higher levels her stat growths go out the window. Only character without runes or buffs hits 900+ health. Also all of her slots are 4 star, meaning she can slot just about anything into them. Do I think she's worth two characters? No. Is she and Friend adorable? Yes. Mellore I don't really have much to say, besides for me, speed is king, so a high speed healer/mage is always good. I tend to switch her out, but she always ends up coming back into my lineup sooner or later. From my experience she tends to have more HP than other mages, and having the shield defensive action means she can use it when you have a lull to make sure some jerk boss doesn't try and snipe her. Carrie is the bamf person. I always carry the bamf person around (always took Viki with me). Her escape ability is kinda useless, but she's a four star caster with more balanced stats, probably needs some more MP. I use her all the time and don't have issues with her. She also has a 1 sp skill to cause smash damage, which is helpful to destroy a units armor. Also her high speed and evade defensive act means she can...well. Evade damage completely. Leon *is* terrible though, I agree. He's more useful than Perrielle, but that's not saying much. Just use a normal mage, some (like Carrie) have special abilities to deal physical attack anyways. Only reason to use him is to pull out the Kids combo, which is good.
The biggest issue with Francesca(If you use her as a healer) is that she is slow. And usually don't get to heal until after the enemies turns. And it's not like you are going to heal the first turn until you take damage. But by the time the enemy attacks you twice sometimes a character would already be dead. Before she can get the heal off.
So far, my team of Nowa, Yuske, Yuferious, Milana, Francesca, and Falward wrecks! I took that team into the hidden room at like level 42ish or so, and though the first wave was hard, with charge x2 and one Hero attack from Francesca and Falward, Yuske and Yuferious destroyed what they attacked, and I just AoEed with Milana's AoE SP user. It's a really good team. Not gonna lie, Francesca was a bitch to keep alive until that 100HP accessory, but after that, she's a good tank with her shield ability, and a great healer if you give her the Rune of Currents. Not sure Francesca should be on the list. While I do know she starts out a bit rough, in later levels she's invaluable. Who should be on there? From the (albiet and admitted limited) amount of time I've used him... Pohl! I took him into the room to get him some levels for the Altabaren area quests where you have to use him and even leveled up, geared, and "sharpened" to LV12, he hit for like 70 points of damage (in the LV 50 range!), and his rune attacks SUCK. Unless I'm using him wrong, he is AWFUL!
Chandra is a broken 2 slot characters she has highest possible attack stat at max level with no equipment 498 maxed out speed 498 452 in both defenses and thw highest hp stat of every character by a WIDE margin of 940 also has best level compatibility with fire element and a unique fire rune rune that does heavy level damage but actually does extreme level damage because of her compatibility with fire her combo attack with noah is also realy good too costing 1 sp she's BROKEN late/end game
I put an armor rune on her and she only ever takes like 1 or 2 damage from physical even after her armor breaks she still takes barley any damage and she has soo much ho that it's honestly not fair 😂
Yeah, it's tough. That hero combo she has with Falward is really really good. It says medium heal, but I feel like it scales or something, it heals more than the medium water party heal for instance. You def need an HP accessory on her. Something else, her attack is helps breaks shields so there's that too. A lot of the time you are just auto-attacking through the game anyways, but yeah it's tough. That hero combo is so good...
I love her as a character in a video game. Very entertaining. But, as a wife? He'll no. Fun ONS, maybe. Francesca is literally a bi-polar schizo and as someone who was raised by one, no way I'd want that roller-coaster every day of my life. I juat simply can't hack it.
@@Strawhat_Pirates3D2Y There may be some people who think Francesca is hilarious, but I found myself wishing I could mute her post-battle dialogue because it got really annoying and old quickly. Maybe I'll switch the audio over to Japanese so that at least I don't have to understand what I'm hearing. That's too much rudeness for me.
Well you weren't wrong. But not for why you think. First of all, neither Francesca or Carrie are too bad, in regard to their stats and their character specific runes. Leon, from what I've heard you can work around his weaknesses. Yume is a dreadful character, because she takes up 2 slots and literally has middle of the pack stats, and only 4 runes to boot. That's not bad enough to be "worst" however. I could easily compile at least 10 characters WEAKER than Yume. And the WORST of the bunch has to be Faye. So, why did you not mention Faye? Her stat growth is appalling. Most of my characters are early to mid 60's because I've been using the castles "Mysterious room". It's essentially a dungeon where you complete 3 fights including the 3rd being a boss fight. First time I tried it most my team got wiped but Garr [damn legend] survived and levelled ALL THE WAY to 99 in one fell swoop. [But that's another story] Anyway, WHY Faye? A, she's extremely annoying, but far worse than that is that without exception her stats are 50 to 100 weaker than anyone whether they're at her level or not. If anything I had characters 15 to 20 levels LOWER than her or more than that, and they had 30+ stats on her in EVERY category. I would actually bet money on it that if you went to the trouble of getting all your cast to the same level, Faye would be 50 to 100 stat's weaker than even "average" rogue like characters. [she's supposed to be a sort of treasure hunting kid rogue] Where even most my "mid" cast are in the early to mid 200's, Faye is struggling to even GET TO 200 with her best stat. And she only has 4 runes, and one of those is a weak attack. And did I not mention she's ANNOYING as all hell? Sure, Yume's bad because she's mid tier for stats and takes up 2 slots, but FAYE is far worse than that.. She's a joke character only the joke never was funny to begin with, I mean come on, if it's a joke AT LEAST make me smile even if you can't make me laugh.
I'm still only in the prologue: Character-wise- Francesca is hilarious... But yeah battle-wise I think my biggest issue with her is she almost always last to take her turn even over the enemies, making it hard to plan my heals or having my speedy heavy-hitters waste their turn to heal. Although maybe because I'm playing on normal difficulty and have a topaz accessory on her, she hasn't gone down yet. Yeah I'm constantly healing Mallore and will be taking her out of the party when I get a better magic user. It's too bad that Yume takes two spots since Friend is only a little larger than Garr, but I like this character enough to maybe use her for non-main quest stuff.
I'm going to have to point you in the direction of Galdorf. I really wanted him to be good, but unfortunately his only redeeming quality is his defense skill (Charge Up) that he can't even use to it's full potential because how bad everything else is about him. He has probably the worst base stats in the game, he has the worst rune options (all his rune slots are level 2), he's short range so he has to be in the front which is bad because again his stats suck, he has negative magic elemental affinities (hidden stat). I originally turned my attention to him because he's the second character you get with Charge Up, and the more I looked into him the more disappointed I was.
Easier to do than you may think. Just rotate one of them into ONE of your slots if a floor requirement asks for them. I would do this with your STRONGEST team and try and replace your weakest of those. Or, in regard to a situation like Yume maybe pair her up front with Reina, cause Reina would look out for her. Go in with plenty of 150 HP group heal items, alternatively just a bunch of 300 single heals and just have Isha or I guess Momo if you got him [I hear Momo's quite good] pop a group heal and just throw the single heal pot on your squishy build up if mobs are focusing on them. The problem there is, if, as I stated you got Isha around... you really want to be doing her 3 SP Icicle move. [It really does clear rows...] You don't really want to be healing with her despite her high magic stat if she's got 3 SP's to burn...
I don't care what other updates they do, but they HAVE to fix this. Even if it's some lazy, across the board numbers boost, magic cannot be so awful that there's no reason to use it.
@@shadowparkzgaming 10? The max runeslots is 8 and only 2 people get that. Markus and Leene. And several slots are filled by unremovable command runes.
I'm running 4 mages on hard on my team and I'm in the final area in the game. No issues. I'm using both magical girls Isha and Milana. And Isha consistently wipes a row of trash turn one and on bosses she still has the highest single target damage using an inferno rune
she was the first character I spoke about putting her as a dishonorable mention. She might deserve to be on the list officially over someone else though
Francesca in isolation isn’t great, but her hero combo with Falward ups her value a lot due to it being a potent aoe heal that doesn’t cost MP.
Exactly. I have a REALLY hard time managing mp because most newer rpgs don’t make you do that anymore.
That and her unique Rune is everything but a wasted turn. Getting access to a free Rage/Hyper-state is invaluable, especially on someone who hits as hard as her. Unless there are runes (Like in Suikoden 2) that put you in a perma-state like that I wouldn't dismiss that so easily.
Francesca definitely is a handful, keeping her alive is a challenge by itself so you want to get her HP-increasing gear ASAP but it's possible.
Plus, she's got a great Strength stat for a healer, is M-range so she can attack the front row from the back (so her risk of taking physical damage is reduced), AND can break armor with her blunt weapon and has a chance to stun enemies.
Plus she's just fucking hilarious. I love Francesca.
yeah but if you need two healers, you will run out of HP if you cannot keep up with the bosses attacks. And she's so slow, most of the time she died before even healing they party lmao.
Isha is best, until then just use Falward/Zabi. 1 healer is enough and I play with all restrictions on
@@adrian-iw7gm you don’t need both Francesca and Falward built towards healing to access the combo. Francesca is probably the more logical one to build towards offense. You are right about her fragility though.
Let's be honest boys, anybody who dare say any bad words, about our goddess Francesca gonna face our eternal rage, no question why video receive almost same amount of dislikes :D
francesca has low hp but with a 100 hp accessoire shes fine but yeh her health is rlly bad but ive been having her in my group the entire game so far and had 0 issues so far
She's in my A team at level 17 right now and the only HP buffing stuff I've seen thus far is based off % growth, which isn't good for somebody whose max HP is that low . Buffing her defense is where it's at. Just keeping her armor prioritized with a Topaz ring made a world of difference for her survival. The only HP buff I've seen so far is an HP rune, but with her max HP at 82 right now, it would only add 12 HP, which is a moot point because she doesn't have any Enhancement rune slot yet. If they have equipment later on that's a flat boost instead of % growth, that would change things.
@@bludgeonstickog youll find an accessoire that goes well for her but i could see her not being a good choice playing on hard her low def and hp are big flaws for sure
@@bludgeonstickog You'll get rings (with different tiers) that boost HP by a flat 100 and more later throughout the game; definitely a good choice for Fran.
@@EtherealRune That's good to hear, cause right after I made this comment having *just* gotten my HQ, I noticed a huge difficulty spike and enemies that were previously dealing 1-5 damage per hit against her were now doing 20-30 per hit. Not only that, but I've noticed that flying enemies (bats/wyverns) can hit the back row and their AI is good because they seem to only target Francesca cause they know she'll go down easiest. I was contemplating benching her, but I still need two healers until I can get to a town to upgrade my armor and sharpen my weapons.
I love Francesca. But the only problems I have with her is she has low HP and she’s slow. If I have her healing, she always goes last.
I totally disagree about Francesca. She isn’t being used properly, because there’s a reason her Hero Combo partner comes stock with a Light Rune, and her Defense command is literally called “Shield.” Have you tried using it? It absorbs damage equal to about 30% of her max HP, and you only need to use it once-it will remain active until she takes damage.
Add an HP boosting accessory on her, and her HP + Shield amounts to more tankiness than most other casters. Not to mention her Luck stat is ridiculous, which makes her more like to dodge and crit with physical attacks than most characters.
In tough fights, Falward has a light spell to nullify one attack from a single character. Use shield with Francesca for insurance, then cast Sacred Shield on her, and you will easily survive long enough to get 3 SP. Her 5 SP skill Calm Fury seems to add her Magic Stat to her Physical Offense, and her DPS becomes absolutely insane for three turns.
Only issue is it’s pretty much impossible to stack her Hero Combo with Calm Fury, for obvious reasons, but if you have a character with a fire rune equipped, you could boost her attack the same turn as Calm Fury and she will hit harder than the other 5 characters in your party, combined.
oh the shield last until depleted. thanks for this
no, the real problems are she is too slow and has low HP. Which means you need to sacrifice either one. Most of the time, your other character/she will die first before even she got to heal because she is just too slow. If you equip SPD, you sacrifice DEF/HP/MGC. vice versa.
If you unlocked higher level runes, high chances are you will have probably unlocked better character such as Isha....and Isha.
no, the real problems are she is too slow and has low HP. Which means you need to sacrifice either one. Most of the time, your other character/she will die first before even she got to heal because she is just too slow. If you equip SPD, you sacrifice DEF/HP/MGC. vice versa.
If you unlocked higher level runes, high chances are you will have probably unlocked better character such as Isha....and Isha.
I am playing all restrictions on, so no items and double mp/sp consumption. good luck getting 5sp to heal moderate hp
@@adrian-iw7gm Well with all restrictions on… Then there won’t be many viable party members to begin with. High def and speed for everyone, and one person with a healing set-up for the worst case scenario. That wouldn’t be fun for me, I like switching out all party members as much as possible, except for a few that really suck-like Wyler and his sister.
Does Leon become OP at end-game levels? I feel like he’s supposed to be weak until either his Sword eventually starts to scale with his Magic Attack stat, or his Physical DMG stat scaling suddenly shoots up. It’s just ridiculous how unviable he is, even in normal difficulty. Nearly level 40 with 80 Strength, less than 150 HP with an HP Rune equipped, and one of the lowest Defense stats of any character available. He’s ridiculously weak because his magic stats literally serve no function with him being a Front Row fighter. If he’s targeted with physical attacks during any level-appropriate battle, he’s dead. It’s that simple. There’s no point in keeping someone in my party, if all they can do is Defend every turn until we get to the boss where he can briefly shoot off magic spells until his eventual death.
The fact you have to do ALL that to keep her alive just to do average dmg just shows how bad she is😂 Dont get me wrong i love franceska but lets be honest here
i agree with you about Mio. i think she's a cool character, and she's one of my favorites. The problem with her is her status, but the other day, i was fighting a boss one of the early ones after the first war, and i used her rune skill, and she dealt 750 dmg while the rest of my characters barely reach 100 i was shocked when she one shot the boss
the one shot chance works on bosses?
@@IzumiSafi The instakill doesn't but her skill hits VERY hard, especially once her attack stat starts to pick up in the mid-late game. Several characters with "meh" looking stats at low levels start to take off 40+ and end up pretty bonkers 60+.
Since I play normal mode, I like whichever character I like. But if I ever play hard mode, this is good knowledge.
Francesa makes me laugh so much with her outbursts so I keep her on now and again
What surprised me about Mio is the fact that she’s a spellcaster. Her magic actually surpasses her attack stat.
Francesca is a glass cannon. She is decent offensively, BUT her health and defenses are abysmal. Once I got a less squishy healer, I swapped her out immediately.
Francesca is a classic case of a "build around" character. She needs Falward in the same party (which is not a big loss, Falward is great) and the Malachite Brooch (nobody else really needs it) and in return you get access to the best hero combo in the game: a nearly full party heal AND damage boost. Her magic defense with the brooch is high enough to make her quite survivable in most encounters (unlike someone like Lian) and Falward will cover her a lot when there are rare physical attacks targeting the backliners. Is the build-around worth it? I believe so, especially if you are playing with no item usage in battles.
I've been using both Francesca and Mellore in my team since the early game because I like their character designs and personalities more than most of the recruitables, but now I see why I was having such a hard time haha
I don't care how bad Francesca is. She belongs in my team forever.
Francesca was a violation! Defo not in the 5 worst 😂
I love that you know you're wrong yet trying to convince yourself in the first 5 mins lol
Francesca is one of my favorites just for personality
Sometime later in the Game, after visiting the Treefolk Village, you get a certain item out pf a random chest... And for Francesca its an essential item so unless you dont get that she cant be on the A Team anymore after a certain point.
I admit i forgot where i found it, but you need to find a malachite stone that gives one character additional 100 HP. It should be found either in the Treefolk ancient ruins where you solve the puzzle or on the way to Euchrisse before you get spewed down by a plant in the trees on your way in the South Woods. Then it would be a silver blue chest.
Does anyone know if the performance issues on Switch has been fixed?
I just got my HQ at level 18 and I've been using Francesca the entire time. I think she's just a character that wasn't built for hard mode because she hasn't come close to dying once with me. Her physical attack is hitting as hard as Garr and Kuroto, and they both have Power Runes (she has a water rune). So I just attack with her and heal on the rare occasion that I ever need to. Assuming she gets an Enhance slot later, gotta stick with Defense over HP boosts cause % boosts on HP doesn't do much when her HP is already that low. "STAY THE HELL DOWN!!!!!!" is just icing on the cake. I wouldn't touch her with a 10 foot pole on hard mode though.
One thing I noticed in your videos of the strongest and weakest characters is that you don't consider combos much and don't worry about improving their weaknesses so that what makes them stronger really shines. You just focus on the obvious weak point, but not the overall character. Mio alone is not good, but she is flexible and very good with her "rival" shinobi.
Mellore, for example, is a good Healer, but you didn't notice that.
One important thing to remember: the most important thing in Hard Mode is to have fast characters since attacking before enemies guarantees healing.
I've never cared about character's stat. I just use any character that I like based on their characteristics or appearances. For this game, I will definitely gonna bring along Lian in my party no matter what is her stats. Because she reminds me of Nanami. I love nanami!
Cannot fix Leon by giving expanded reach accessory? You get it so early. From what I saw magic become quite powerful later in the game. Can whipe trash packs in one cast and just drink mp pots in between
its just not viable imo. mp is to high cost when doubles and mp recovery items are to infrequent plus you dont get a chance to use them when in the hero trials at the end game.
He can be used he is just bad. if you like him feel free to use him though
Early game for francesca i put all hp, because yes, she's so fragile. And the combo is insane, but if you can manage her alive to waiting her turn.
Yume is way better then you realize. She scales into a extremely high stat character because she is a two slot, its never going to be two characters of stats combined exactly because that would be broken from a formula point of view but she is probably one of the highest overall scaling stated character in the game because she is two characters. Yes you lose one action, and yes that is the worst part about her, but in return for giving up one action you now have what is probably one of the best tanks in the game holding down TWO rows by herself, that is completely unique for a tank, the enemy HAS to get through her before they can even think about touching anyone behind her, and she is TANKY. Yume also gets a very decent attack rune with Friend attack its damage is very respectable for a 4 SP rune. I play with Yume as one of my tanks a lot and when I see multiple enemy's forced into focusing into her or another heavy tank I find the action loss acceptable. Specifically because I am now forcing the enemy to chose between two tanks instead of three. This heavily reduces healing juggling and save a lot of action economy through that alone to make it nearly worth losing that action.
I have her at 99 and her stats are not thst much higher of at all over some other tanks.
Also this is directed at early game characters and she is really bad in the early game imo
Listening to you is actually funny af, I like your videos
someone mentioned somewhere that Mio one-shot the Golem boss for him
if her one-shot mechanic works against bosses then you give her hp and luck
and gamble for the cheese kills i think. she is to weak as a normal fighter.
yes, her instant ko works on some bosses, but not all.
Francesca is good if you patch up her abyssmal hp and utilize her hero combo with Welryn but otherwise bad on her own. Kinda in a simular situation with Lam and Riufan; Lam is amazing on her own and Riufan is mediocre-bad but their row attack combo is nice. Sometimes you might compromise if there is good hero combo to gain and I like that.
Yume is like a 2 slot version of Tuta from suikoden 2 💀
Hahahahahha 😂
XD
question who do you think the best healer is?
Falward
I think Gieran is, 20% lower cost on spells and good mag to use the aoe heal (water) and aoe damage + heal (wind) and he can use 2 elements so you can either double up on more supportive options or give him something to deal more damage with.
@Namorat yeah I've been using fal too because his speed is so high
Its a toss up between a fast mage with 2 magic slots or Francesca for team heal. Gieran gets a spot so it kind of depends on if Kuroto + mage is better than Francesca + Falward unless another buff backliner shows up.
IMO Francesca is probably one of my top characters but her HP is a bit low. She really does need that +100 HP accessory, tho having that item locked on her is kinda annoying too. But she brings enough to the table that I put her in my A team most of the time.
Honestly I also find all front-line mages to be meh. I make do giving them shields with that one ring you can purchase, but overall I'd actually rate Perry under Yume simply because of how much I dislike the front-line mage archtype.
I also give Mellore a pass since increasing her accuracy lets her hit her 3rd rune hit like truck. Another great thing about her is that her Lyrical shot only costs MP and is of Light element, making her one of the few people you can a) get a no MP cost light damage spell like Carrie, and b) have an early full enemy party light damage spell (as long as you hit all the hits...).
Yes, but Isha totally mullers both Francesca AND Falward. Admittedly my A team are all early 80's. But every stat my Isha has is at a base of at least 300 or at worst only "slightly" shy of it. And she has more than 450 MD. [Her PD is north of 300] Even when mobs do hit her they struggle to land for more than 50 HP or so. My Francesca and Falward are both only 10 levels off that or so but neither will catch Isha. Falwards speed "might" catch her but she's part of both the 6 group super team and a member of CJ's gang from "rising", and she's far more than just a 2 minds in 1 brain, archytype... unlike Francesca. [Her magic stat by the way is considerably NORTH of 450... with only a 2 star rune of high magic on]
What about Faye, though?
Seriously. The other bad characters can still have a role to fill in combat; unlike Faye, who is the worst character in the game, second, maybe, to Dr. Corque.
@@cjn0423 I haven't got around to him yet. But there really is only ONE entry in the Faye tier. [And it's the annoying brat of the same name]
Mellore is a powerful mage lategame
Momo
Milana
Isah
Are my suggestions for powerful mages equip them with inferno rune lens
I'm literally running all 4 and I'm having absolutely zero issues and the games almost over on hard xD
I'm a big fan of melee/mage hybrid characters AND I love the platinum hair/purple eyes combo so I really wanted to love Leon but he's so bad it almost feels like something is broken. I've heard someone say he gets better in the 70s somehow but it's gonna be a while before I invest in him that much to find out haha. Your idea about fixing him by having him in the back row performing magical taunts is quite fun, that does sound like a unique and interesting character archetype.
he gets tankier but never beats the master of magic momo
Only have 50% less heroes than on this video, so I will prop change later on.
My team: Yume, Faye,Falward, Leon & Carrie.
Funny fact is that all 5 Allies on this video is what I did run before changing to that team I have right now :P
I find Leon and Yume to be my best heroes so far, they do good damage and can take many hits before dying, depending on the gear and runes you have.
Got 115 armor and A Armor shield on Leon and are only lvl 33.
It is always nice to hear what other people think about heroes, whether they think they are good, bad, or anything else :-)
For me, I always choose characters I like over stats, no issues yet with something being hard... =)
You may as well replace those 2 with just Garr on HIS OWN up front. [He'd be more effective] Have Leon "taunting" or whatever, and that silly kid crying whenever her bear takes a whack or whatever, in the second row...
Garr will do all the work. If somehow with the way your going about it now you manage to find a way to unlock Reina once you get to the sand area's [not that you will with Leon up front and even in your team for that matter] then replace Garr [even though he is awesome] with her. Because she's so tanky it''s just not fair, and she'll protect that silly girls teddy bear.
Or, you could ditch the joke characters?
Leon IS a Joke, because, even though he does have phenomenal magic stat, most his other stats are below mid tier, and his PD is dreadful. Besides which many other mage character's have better overall stats, and can hit from the BACK ROW, with auto non MP spending spells. And he never catch Momo for sheer MA anyway. Momo will ALWAYS be better than Leon and generally has far superior overall stats. Beside which you have great mage's such as Isha and Milana and arguably Mellore.
Yume is a joke because, she's mid tier stats for a 2 slot character. She may "pick up" somewhat in the latter game, but never enough to make up for being 2 of your presumably front row. Garr trounces her, defensively, throughout. And he's just a "good" character, he's not really the top tier. You will see what I mean if/when you manage to get Reina. [You got to get her first, good luck doing 500 damage to her per turn to hit the 1500 damage you NEED to do in 3 turns to impress her, with your current set up]
Holy shit, if Gieran is best mage in the game then what does he think of Momo... probably the 6th entry on this list xD
Francesca with the 100 HP accessory is great though. The calm fury rune makes her do obscene amounts of damage during boss fights.
This Leon looks like a nod to the Leon from Tales of Destiny.
I'm still early game but can't relate to Iugo being broken. He has to be on the frontline or else he cant do normal attacks, and his taunt counter defense command doesn't even work 75% of the time. He's not sturdy enough to tank so he just dies. I'm slightly just past the Kogen fight in the mines. I had to grind to overlevel to survive Hail of Flails being used back to back on enemies that only gave 150 exp per fight. And I'm on normal with no restrictions.
That's what I've been thinking too. Iugo seems great at first stat-wise but his lack of actual 'Defense' hurts him in the long run. It feels like an absolutely wasted Ability that doesn't work (if you get attacked it's purely by chance), and the counter is a rare occurance, too. So he becomes a pure attack-bot with a skill that usually wants to charge up until 5SP at least, which doesn't happen during normal fights.
Overall I don't think he's that great compared to other, more reliable options.
Weird I'm on hard and he does not have this problem for me. He has good hp, mp and spd to support the party with the water rune.
early game Yusuke is better, mid-late game Iugo is better due to his runes. You use SP conversion Mighty Power and also other Mighty Power runes. He hits hard at 5 SP, just keep it at that and maybe use Slash when the boss is at yellow/red. Don't use taunt counter, just keep hitting lmao.
Yusuke has runes that are locked with him so you cannot boost stats to make him any stronger which is why he doesnt scale well later on.
During kogen fight, yes, just use any front liner that could defense since Iugo will die to that attack.
Iugo is the tankiest character in the game! He has a lot of HP, and great Magic and Physical defense. Until level 99 and stuff.
I can honestly say Lugo has never fallen when I've used him. Nowa has. I'd say Lugo is more tanky than Nowa and only hits for slightly less on a regular attack. Nowa is one of my 80+ guy's but I have a feeling Lugo would muller him stat wise if he had the extra 10 or so levels.
On a "tank" note. Garr "was" my tank. I unlocked the mysterious room and managed to clear to the first checkpoint, but ALL of my other guy's except for Garr got wiped [scratch that, Lugo got wiped in that event] and Garr throwing the proverbial hail Mary got a HUGE payday of getting levelled up to 99. He was just "broken" after that, being at least 40 levels above everyone else. And then I eventually got around to getting my favourites to a high enough level to crush Reina's "test", and I have to say she is a FINE tank indeed. Nothing hits that woman, and when they do they're lucky if they get away with 1 HP and NOT a sword to the face, and she's regularly hitting for 150 to 200 damage on a counter, and she saves her comrades more often the lower their HP get's. She's like a bristly moving wall.
Francesca with Falward is OP hands down…
Yes
Unfortunately with all of these characters they don't have linear stat raises. They all skyrocket their stats around the lvl 60-70 mark. Mio for instance absolutely smacks, I got her to have over 900 attack with a few mighty runes. Mixed with her speed, high crit rate and the fact that her rune has a chance to instakill non boss enemies is just crazy.
My personal endgame team was Nowa, CJ and Leene up front and Mellore, Momo, and Isha.
Midgame was Nowa, Marissa, and either Lian or Lam up front, Mellore, Marin and Milana
Early game is literally whoever you feel like using because everyone is pretty mid at that point so I'd just fill my party with anyone that filled a role.
I have Francesca in the party and i haven’t let her out of it
Nust put some trinket for health and mana and she does ton of magic damage also the rage mode is op too
Wonder if magic will be good end game. Physical good early game. I'm only lvl 20. And I have no reason to have mage.
Healing op. Damage its worse than physical so far
I'm running 4 mages on hard and I'm at the last area of the game. Isha one shots a row for now mp. And has my highest single target boss damage with inferno rube. Milana is beefy enough to be on front line . Mellore I use as main healer. Momo and Isha dps. Nothing in this game is hard enough to warrant benching someone honestly
If yume bad.
What about the black dragon?
the dragon is probably bad as well however its not really early game I wanted to keep this more applicable to people not as far as I am yet. I will probably do final lists once I beat the game
Late game dragon/Chandra maxed attack and speed of 498 without equipment highest hp in the game at 940 max of both magic and regular defense of 452 has best compatibility with fire which increases her unique heavy fire attack and has 1 sp hero combined with noah she's broken late/endgame
Apparently, some characters like Mio and Mellore have way higher growths in later levels compared to early levels. So like from level 1-40, they get way fewer stats than from 41-80.
Not sure why everyone is hating on the magic users. They can normal attack just as well as the average physical unit. Im playing on hard with all restrictions too and im at the last place in the game. I run 4 mages. And they wipe maps so easily. I havent had any of my lvl 60 physical damage characters beat out momo or isha in single target damage using inferno rune. Tbh i dont think this game is hard enough to warrant benching anyone u like. I have never wiped out using milana mellore momo and isha pretty much at all stages of the game that they can be recruited in
Guessing these are with all the difficulty modifiers turned on? Seems to really imbalance characters even more with the increased SP costs. Didn't think it'd be this bad, though.
Fran Falward is strong. But needing 3 SP early game before things like CodeL support etc come in is hard.
You can get Dmg buff easier from Shixeen or Perielle and healing with water runes is fine.
It’s so easy to get money that you are better being aggressive with her space.
Isha is broken as the magician slot with a rune of currents for healing.
Haven't gotten her up there yet but I heard endgame Mio (lvl 90+) is pretty powerful.
her stats are not better than other characters but maybe the OHKO is more viable
end game is level 60 though anything beyond that is post game and there is not much post game content sadly
@@purplatypus7405 I wasn't expecting it, honestly. The Suikoden games have never really had any super hard endgame stuff and I'm okay with that. I was just reiterating what some people were saying. Didn't actually mean endgame in that context lol.
Francesca is a late bloomer. Her HP catches up to Nowa later in the game.
I really hope that since you made this video, you've gotten a better understanding of the game's mechanics. The stuff you overlooked or plainly don't understand is brutal. Leon is absolute dogshit, you're right about him, but the others? Not even close to being bad from a technical perspective.
i find Francesca decent when she has her shield up. It still takes a hole turn to set up, and from what i have seen i think it takes arround 50-60 damage. And even still I agree that she just dies in random encounters when enemies decide that she is the target for 2-3 attacks.
That's why I edited Leon's stats so he's viable to play.
Try level Mellore to level 99 and see. (She is at least a high tier character). As for the rest, most of them are average tier at the end game. (lv 99)
I'm more than halfway through the game and Francesca is literally one of the best characters so far. Just add the 100hp boost. I haven't removed her from my party yet. I run Nowa Francesca and Marisa in the back (Marisa is probably my favorite) and I run Yusuke, Iugo and Reyna up front. Sometimes I'll swap someone out for seign or yuffaris. But for the most part this is a phenomenal team.
A really honest thought. good
At end game yume is a beast. She tanks pretty welll and hits above average. I put her on radiance rune to give my party attack buff.
Would you place her instead of a similarly levelled Reina for your main tank, though?
Somehow, I doubt it. Yume's trying to be a goofy "tank" character, but the aesthetic and the end result don't mesh up.
I've heard that Mio has a glow up at end-game. Her stats skyrocket in the 90s
At lvl 99 Nowa has pwr 452 and Mio 451. She does catch up at the end
@@chasewaren8147 Nice, I'm glad Nowa's attack gets high too. I've found him a bit disappointing in the early game
Francesca is prolly the easiest/earliest way to recruit Maureus because of that monster MP stat.
It's true they are worse by their own. The cool thing of the game is you become strong by balancing the party. I often see people with x6 power houses that combine really bad and in the end are not so effective. But it's not a super difficult game, you can go with anything really.
After seeing the endgame Mio video this made me laugh lol. I was wondering why her stats were weighed how they were, but then she becomes a crit machine with proper gearing. This game's been a ride so far.
I see Francesca in the thumbnail and already know this is going to be absolute nonsense. :D But lists like these are purely for entertainment anyway.^^
Yeah I agree all. Except Mellone. She was essential in Hurstwine fight hard mode to damage backrow. If you defeat front row too early, the fox mask just spams Death's Lullaby putting everyone to sleep. In traditional Suikoden, all recruited starter characters eventually fizzle out. I had her equip Rune of Earth. But she unusable before entering Hishahn. I don't get what's Mio's deal, by far intentionally the worst statted character in the game.
Im still rocking Francesca from the start til now. Shes already lvl 56
Francesca is not that bad as a healer in the beginning game.
I used Fran my entire game upto the point i had the 6 main heroes.. Rising and HH mains
Francesca is not bad, why?
-Good Pwr and magic wich makes her hit like the better characters if you use a magic enchant damage, like god of fire sword for example
-Yusuke, the real protagonist of the game, becomes enraged when she dies, how could be bad she has low hp? All pros bro.
Yume doesn't even look big enough to count as 2 characters
Mio only shine when she is above lv 60
She crit everytime and her damage output is more than Iugo when she crit
Mio is the best mid-late game character, i did 3K+- damage in mid game while fighting a boss with my build and offcourse a buff
That's likely her 2 hit ko going off and not her natural damage. I assume that killed the boss but maybe not
from what I've seen so far in my own playthrough I disagree with all of your choices. all the spellcasters all seem pretty strong/good. & I've seen 2 characters possibly worse than these ones. Faye & Galdorf. Faye I made grow to LV 31 & yet she doesn't seem to be gaining any stats & still has the lowest stats of all my characters. while Galdorf I've had in the front line with Yume multiple times & they wear similar armor sets but she would take barely any damage while he was still getting hurt by around 50 or more & when you're a front liner with low HP that tends to knock him out quickly.
Francesca is a glass cannon mage. You build around that and she'll be fine casting destructive spells from the back
Edit: playing with all the restrictions seriously nerfs magic characters since MP cost is doubled AND your mages are relegated to healing bots
Yeah this is one of the reasons I don't like these types of restrictions in games, either player enforced or in game options. Because like, why take away gameplay mechanics? I get it for player enforced restrictions on super broken things like TG Cid Orlandu in FFT. Luckily none of the achievements are tied to those restrictions so the only reason to use them is replay value or self challenge. Therefore these opinions being based on those restrictions actually hold less weight to me.
I am the opposite I dislike player restrictions but I do want to use all the built in restrictions for rpgs. The idea is that this is another way the developers designed the game to be played thus being like a new mode and forcing you to think outside the boss to progress.
I will say this hard mode to me feels particularly not well done though. The restrictions are not that fun and the balance feels like a bit of an afterthought given some points in the game where they force characters on you or wont let you leave areas
magic in this game sucks anyway its poorly balanced magic attacks dealing less dmg on my caster then if they attack should never be a thing
Mellore is a lot better than you think she is. In fact, she's probably one of the best characters in the game. Some characters are great early game, some are great end game. Mellore is an End-Game character. She is a reverse S stat growth. At around level 40+ is where you'll start noticing the change. Mellore actually ends up with like one of the highest magic stats in the game. Level 40 is the point where those that have slow growth early on, pick up, and those with high growth early on, start to slow down. There are some AMAZING characters early game, that just fall off a cliff Post 40. And other characters who were trash Sub 40, who become God Tier post 40.
Francesca? You're right. An HP Accessory fixes her squishiness, but she does fall off. Isha is absolutely BONKERS and you should replace her with Isha the moment you get her. Mellore can easily swap to your healer character and be great at that all game. Leon is trash, but the 'elemental' buffs you can cast on yourself scale off the magic stat, so you CAN salvage him to some degree. That physical defense is problematic though so ya, trash. Yume is another with a Reverse S growth. She starts trash, and becomes a lot better later on. Unfortunately she never really ends up being equal to 2 characters.
I do agree with most of your list, I just don't agree with Mellore. if your 'opinion' was that these characters are terrible early game, you have a point, but Mellore changes post 40. That's when her stats start scaling a LOT faster. By the time she gets her last rune slot and your levels start approaching 60, you'll find her hitting a lot harder than most other mages.
Also, you should get Faye to level 40 and check out her stats. Faye is on a level of her own. From my understanding, from what I've been told, she has the LOWEST stat total of all characters, early, mid and late game.
I've recently made this point too. Faye is just... the "Faye" tier according to any realistic game site with a character tier list for 100 Heroes. She is quite literally a joke character with the joke appallingly missing.
Francesca is my best Healer and Magician so far the only issue i have with her is her LOW HP and her Her Combo takes 3 SP
Honestly, apart from Francesca, I hate all those characters and their personas! So glad to hear i don't need to use them.
Prunella is another candidate. She is kind of tanky, but she's slow and attacks using her horrible Magic stat. Note that all normal attacks that are elemental use MAG. She won't even be useful to pull items.
I agree. I tried her with str, dex luck even crit chance. Nothing work. She needs. Buff
I wanted to use Francesca but she kept getting double targeted and dying in a single round so I dropped her from the party before I got to the point where you get that 100 health accessory people always mention. It's annoying my party is all males.
For the record when Francesca hits her fucking damage is insane for a healer
If only magic can be more valuable in this game, character who rely on magic would be good. even if they're squishy like Fran, they will still useful from longer run. In the end game, character that is a great magic user are just Momo and Isha. Milana is great too in the end game, if only her rune lens slots are more flexible. I think that's all, the rest are only good for support magic.
I just don't get what they were thinking with Magic in this game. Sure healing and some utility is obviously nice. But the damage spells seems really underwhelming. And they cost MP that is super limited and you don't even get it back when you get to a save point. Magic SHOULD do alot more damage for what you are paying. But it's not the case Physical characters that attack for free usually do the same amount or even more damage.
I still confuse why the developer put Mio as weak character, she's like one of important support character in the main story and has a really cool design, such a waste.. 😢
I wouldn’t talk bad about Fran. She might flip a switch on you!
You're right my friend!
Francesca is fine, health isn't great at early levels so best to slap on her a HP boosting item STAT, but in later levels her HP growth increases dramatically. Plus as several folks point out the combo skill she gets early on is great, easily one of the best ones. Also I think she has the highest MP...at that point in the game...? She's the one who usually unlocks Maureus, who is a melee beast.
Mio is...eh. I thought she'd be more like a high damage/low defense type, but instead she's a weird...high evade/luck build. She likes to crit a lot. But crits aren't *that* damaging in the final build of the game. Best part about her is her unique skill, which can one hit kill (even bosses). She's a...I guess you'd call a character that has to grow. She's a good candidate for the Knight rune, making her into a true glass cannon. That and having a combo with Hagukin (who in my playthrough, is probably one of the best physical long range attackers) is a plus. Both of them having high speed usually results in their combo coming up pretty fast too.
Yumi is just adorable. I don't use her that often, and yes I don't think she's worth it in the earlier parts of hard mode, but good combos, doing smash damage, and she is a *late* grower, when at the higher levels her stat growths go out the window. Only character without runes or buffs hits 900+ health. Also all of her slots are 4 star, meaning she can slot just about anything into them. Do I think she's worth two characters? No. Is she and Friend adorable? Yes.
Mellore I don't really have much to say, besides for me, speed is king, so a high speed healer/mage is always good. I tend to switch her out, but she always ends up coming back into my lineup sooner or later. From my experience she tends to have more HP than other mages, and having the shield defensive action means she can use it when you have a lull to make sure some jerk boss doesn't try and snipe her.
Carrie is the bamf person. I always carry the bamf person around (always took Viki with me). Her escape ability is kinda useless, but she's a four star caster with more balanced stats, probably needs some more MP. I use her all the time and don't have issues with her. She also has a 1 sp skill to cause smash damage, which is helpful to destroy a units armor. Also her high speed and evade defensive act means she can...well. Evade damage completely.
Leon *is* terrible though, I agree. He's more useful than Perrielle, but that's not saying much. Just use a normal mage, some (like Carrie) have special abilities to deal physical attack anyways. Only reason to use him is to pull out the Kids combo, which is good.
The biggest issue with Francesca(If you use her as a healer) is that she is slow. And usually don't get to heal until after the enemies turns. And it's not like you are going to heal the first turn until you take damage. But by the time the enemy attacks you twice sometimes a character would already be dead. Before she can get the heal off.
Mio is weak. I don't know why her damage is only 109 at level 5 weapon. Some mages have more physical damage than her
I think you are right. She is just so damn cool though
Try late game mio at lv 90+
She hits like 1000-1200 without skill (Her crit is like 70%+)
Nowa on the other hand only hit like 700 with his rune skill
only still in the beginning area but frans been fine for me so far only lvl 17. Mio though….. she gets killed in 2 hits, shes like super glass…..
So far, my team of Nowa, Yuske, Yuferious, Milana, Francesca, and Falward wrecks! I took that team into the hidden room at like level 42ish or so, and though the first wave was hard, with charge x2 and one Hero attack from Francesca and Falward, Yuske and Yuferious destroyed what they attacked, and I just AoEed with Milana's AoE SP user. It's a really good team. Not gonna lie, Francesca was a bitch to keep alive until that 100HP accessory, but after that, she's a good tank with her shield ability, and a great healer if you give her the Rune of Currents.
Not sure Francesca should be on the list. While I do know she starts out a bit rough, in later levels she's invaluable. Who should be on there? From the (albiet and admitted limited) amount of time I've used him... Pohl! I took him into the room to get him some levels for the Altabaren area quests where you have to use him and even leveled up, geared, and "sharpened" to LV12, he hit for like 70 points of damage (in the LV 50 range!), and his rune attacks SUCK. Unless I'm using him wrong, he is AWFUL!
I used Fracesca my whole playthrough, she was't the best but she was fun to use
I don’t think Francesca is the worst though
I use them only for healing I set them up with a watter rune
i think 2 slots should have some kind of like built in charge up mechanic to balance the fact that u lose 1 slot.
Chandra is a broken 2 slot characters she has highest possible attack stat at max level with no equipment 498 maxed out speed 498 452 in both defenses and thw highest hp stat of every character by a WIDE margin of 940 also has best level compatibility with fire element and a unique fire rune rune that does heavy level damage but actually does extreme level damage because of her compatibility with fire her combo attack with noah is also realy good too costing 1 sp she's BROKEN late/end game
I put an armor rune on her and she only ever takes like 1 or 2 damage from physical even after her armor breaks she still takes barley any damage and she has soo much ho that it's honestly not fair 😂
Yeah, it's tough. That hero combo she has with Falward is really really good. It says medium heal, but I feel like it scales or something, it heals more than the medium water party heal for instance. You def need an HP accessory on her. Something else, her attack is helps breaks shields so there's that too. A lot of the time you are just auto-attacking through the game anyways, but yeah it's tough. That hero combo is so good...
I love her as a character in a video game. Very entertaining. But, as a wife? He'll no. Fun ONS, maybe.
Francesca is literally a bi-polar schizo and as someone who was raised by one, no way I'd want that roller-coaster every day of my life. I juat simply can't hack it.
the hero combo is probably the best skill in the game but maaaan she dies so fast. She routinely gets one shot vs bosses in my play through
@@Strawhat_Pirates3D2Y There may be some people who think Francesca is hilarious, but I found myself wishing I could mute her post-battle dialogue because it got really annoying and old quickly. Maybe I'll switch the audio over to Japanese so that at least I don't have to understand what I'm hearing. That's too much rudeness for me.
3 SP 🤣. If there's a battery character maybe
Well you weren't wrong. But not for why you think. First of all, neither Francesca or Carrie are too bad, in regard to their stats and their character specific runes. Leon, from what I've heard you can work around his weaknesses. Yume is a dreadful character, because she takes up 2 slots and literally has middle of the pack stats, and only 4 runes to boot. That's not bad enough to be "worst" however.
I could easily compile at least 10 characters WEAKER than Yume. And the WORST of the bunch has to be Faye. So, why did you not mention Faye? Her stat growth is appalling. Most of my characters are early to mid 60's because I've been using the castles "Mysterious room". It's essentially a dungeon where you complete 3 fights including the 3rd being a boss fight. First time I tried it most my team got wiped but Garr [damn legend] survived and levelled ALL THE WAY to 99 in one fell swoop. [But that's another story]
Anyway, WHY Faye? A, she's extremely annoying, but far worse than that is that without exception her stats are 50 to 100 weaker than anyone whether they're at her level or not. If anything I had characters 15 to 20 levels LOWER than her or more than that, and they had 30+ stats on her in EVERY category. I would actually bet money on it that if you went to the trouble of getting all your cast to the same level, Faye would be 50 to 100 stat's weaker than even "average" rogue like characters. [she's supposed to be a sort of treasure hunting kid rogue] Where even most my "mid" cast are in the early to mid 200's, Faye is struggling to even GET TO 200 with her best stat. And she only has 4 runes, and one of those is a weak attack. And did I not mention she's ANNOYING as all hell? Sure, Yume's bad because she's mid tier for stats and takes up 2 slots, but FAYE is far worse than that.. She's a joke character only the joke never was funny to begin with, I mean come on, if it's a joke AT LEAST make me smile even if you can't make me laugh.
Yeah, hot take on Francesca. Minus her permanent shield and massive AOE heal.
I'm still only in the prologue: Character-wise- Francesca is hilarious... But yeah battle-wise I think my biggest issue with her is she almost always last to take her turn even over the enemies, making it hard to plan my heals or having my speedy heavy-hitters waste their turn to heal. Although maybe because I'm playing on normal difficulty and have a topaz accessory on her, she hasn't gone down yet. Yeah I'm constantly healing Mallore and will be taking her out of the party when I get a better magic user. It's too bad that Yume takes two spots since Friend is only a little larger than Garr, but I like this character enough to maybe use her for non-main quest stuff.
I'm going to have to point you in the direction of Galdorf. I really wanted him to be good, but unfortunately his only redeeming quality is his defense skill (Charge Up) that he can't even use to it's full potential because how bad everything else is about him. He has probably the worst base stats in the game, he has the worst rune options (all his rune slots are level 2), he's short range so he has to be in the front which is bad because again his stats suck, he has negative magic elemental affinities (hidden stat). I originally turned my attention to him because he's the second character you get with Charge Up, and the more I looked into him the more disappointed I was.
Clearly, you haven't met Faye...
Ill try to use this worst lineup in the mysterious room and power them up to lvl 60 😂
Easier to do than you may think. Just rotate one of them into ONE of your slots if a floor requirement asks for them. I would do this with your STRONGEST team and try and replace your weakest of those. Or, in regard to a situation like Yume maybe pair her up front with Reina, cause Reina would look out for her. Go in with plenty of 150 HP group heal items, alternatively just a bunch of 300 single heals and just have Isha or I guess Momo if you got him [I hear Momo's quite good] pop a group heal and just throw the single heal pot on your squishy build up if mobs are focusing on them. The problem there is, if, as I stated you got Isha around... you really want to be doing her 3 SP Icicle move. [It really does clear rows...] You don't really want to be healing with her despite her high magic stat if she's got 3 SP's to burn...
Mellore gets better but who has the patience
For me the worst character is Jorhan, all the stat are bad, faye and ivy too
I do wish magic was a bit better in this game
its weird how attacking is just always better
I don't care what other updates they do, but they HAVE to fix this.
Even if it's some lazy, across the board numbers boost, magic cannot be so awful that there's no reason to use it.
Momo and Markus are powerful mages because of runeslots like maekus has 10
@@shadowparkzgaming 10? The max runeslots is 8 and only 2 people get that. Markus and Leene. And several slots are filled by unremovable command runes.
I'm running 4 mages on hard on my team and I'm in the final area in the game. No issues. I'm using both magical girls Isha and Milana. And Isha consistently wipes a row of trash turn one and on bosses she still has the highest single target damage using an inferno rune
Faye should have been on the list not Francesca
Mio shouldn't be anywhere near this list... she can literally 1 shot bosses.
@@PallasAthenian well, no. ive had her one shot more than 1 boss.
no Mio?
she was the first character I spoke about putting her as a dishonorable mention. She might deserve to be on the list officially over someone else though
Lmfaoo! Platy- Worst doesn't mean trash..
Worst list - Yay!
Platy - Except you Leon
Leon - awww