Party Members you never bring along

Mass Effect: Kaidan, who doesn't really possess any impressive skills, and Ashley as soon as I could replace her shallow, boring bottom with Wrex. In the sequel, that would be Jack, Samara, Jacob and Grunt. I don't like crazy people, boring people, and a Wrex wannabe with none of the charisma.

In Neverwinter that would be the gnome illusionist in the first original campaign (I went around with the rogue, Daelan, or the evil monk dwarf), half-orc barbarian/sorcerer (Come on, seriously now?) in Undrentide, and the tiefling in Underdark (Stupid choice of favourite weapon. Epic 2-handed flails are the opposite of easy to come by, and crafting and enchanting that from scratch would cost me ten fortunes). Aribeth was really in my party only for the novelty of being a Paladin/Blackguard.

In Riviera... Cierra I guess. Serene / Fiaa / Ein or Lina / Fiaa / Ein worked pretty well. Cierra's just so incredibly, painfully slow.

edited 16th Nov '11 3:15:42 AM by thefran

Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword. I don't use Serra ever. She's extremely frail, will be outclassed by Lucius when she promotes and doesn't get the benefit of mounted movement like Priscilla. Also, even with low Resistance enemies (of which there are many), she has difficulty doing meaningful damage.

And I've learned to not take Eliwood for granted. Capped Strength at 20/6 (no boosters) in my draft run. He swept the other side pretty much by himself for a good portion of the game, because he was just as much a monster unpromoted.

Eh, Zevran can kill the High Dragon in 30 seconds. He's ridiculously awesome.

I seldom use Morrigan (because she's stuck with a crappy default Specialzation and Wynne has Vessel of the Spirit) and Sten (Two-handed sucks in Origins and Oghren gets two specializations)

Marle. You get a helm that auto-inflicts Haste, rendering her best tech useless.

In KOTOR 2, I never touched Atton. Then I got to the part on Nar Shadda where he had to do that solo fight. Which saved right before I could get in there. Yeah...

Final Fantasy XIII: Sazh, Vanille and Snow. Snow is only good for Sentinel, which is awful and should only be used, if at all, as a last ditch thing for as short a time as possible to heal up. Fang can do it well enough to cover the extremely limited use it will get. Vanille is only useful for Death, since she suffers death so damn often. Saboteuring is good, but Fang is just as good for it. Sazh just does terrible damage; he's completely outclassed by Hope. No, that little bit of extra survivability does not count for anything. Hope has the best DPS in the game, Lightining is a superb Combat Medic, and Fang does Commando and Saboteur sublimely. No need for the other three.

Baldurs Gate: Cernd is a total waste. Druids generally suck, Cernd especially so since he's limited to his shapeshifting; others can very easily outdamage that. Nalia is a poor man's Imoen or Jan. Imoen has far more levels in Thief, Jan outclasses her as a mage. And she's a whiny cow until TOB. Haerdalis is a Master of None. If you want a warrior - be or take a warrior. If you want a mage - be or take a mage. Bards don't cut it in the game, especially not his sort. Valygar - Stalkers are great if you like to hide in shadows and backstab a lot, but if you like to do that - why not be a thief? The only good Ranger class is the Archer, with Minsc doing just fine as a more warrior-like basic ranger.

Baldurs Gate, first game: Yeslick is found far too late to be of any value. Take Kagain if you want a Dwarven warrior type, and any of the other clerics if you want that. Tiax is annoying and crap. Branwen is mediocre in every way. Edwin precludes Minsc, though that's the only reason I don't take him. Though evil characters generally I avoid because I've always got a paladin who hates the good ones (Viconia being the prime example, Edwin the other).

Well, uh...

Final Fantasy VII: Cait Sith, Vincent, and Tifa. Not a fan of the weird Limit Breaks.

Final Fantasy X: Kimahri, but I don't think anyone used him.

Final Fantasy XIII: All of them. By which I mean, none of them.

I never bought Aerith along. She wasn't very useful along with what I knew what was going to happen.

In the time since I last posted here, I noticed another pattern: in games where you can only control who's in two of the party slots, I tend to become incredibly attached to one ability, meaning either that I consistently neglect a character who's less skilled at that ability, or else I consistently neglect characters who don't have that ability.

In the first Mass Effect, I used Tali to pick locks, so I didn't use the less-specialized Garrus.

In the second, I really liked instant-damage attacks that affected armored or shielded foes, so I ignored characters whose abilities only worked on unarmored, unshielded foes.

Avadon splits the difference, since lockpicking is necessary, but summon magic is stupidly broken—the only guarantee is that I'll never have a party that contains the thief ally*

edited 16th Nov '11 6:07:12 PM by feotakahari

In Kotor I only allow people badass enough to wield a lightsaber into my party.

edited 16th Nov '11 6:13:04 PM by Narmer

I never really used Zell Dincht much. If you thought Tifa's limit break was weird...

In Dragon Age II, Anders never goes anywhere that's not one of his quests, and I never use Aveline since I find sword and shield to be an inferior setup to two handed sword.

In Fire Emblem (not counting Radiant Dawn), prepromoted units are permanently consigned to the bench. Also, most cavalry don't get to go anywhere (Particularly in the GBA games. They're actually useful in the console games.). Their stat caps aren't high enough for my tastes and if you want the advantages for rescuing, I'd rather bring a pegasus or wyvern rider. Bards, dancers, and herons? Stay in the base you fragile fools. I'd rather have an extra actual unit than move one I already have again, provided that the dancer/bard/heron hasn't been left in the dust. As for the trainees? Legitimate play is all a matter of perspective, and as far as I'm concerned, anything short of a Game Shark is fair.

In Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri, I just never use the 'copter chassis. Less range than a needlejet, if they can't make it back (which is highly likely if they use their only noteworthy ability -attacking more than once in a turn- they're highly likely to automatically take 30% damage, and by the time I'd actually use them, I can just crank out gravships at a rate of 1 per turn per base.

• Persona 3: Everyone who isn't Yukari, Mitsuru, or Akihiko. That was the only team I ever used for the whole game. I guess I used Junpei and Aigis once or twice.
• Persona 4: Kanji and Chie got to do stuff early on, not so much in the later parts. Naoto never got to do anything ever because Naoto is useless. Useless, I say.

...oh, dear. I do believe that's everything. brb gonna marathon Digital Devil Saga.

Interesting. Why Mitsuru & Akihiko? Yukari's an obvious choice due to being the primary healer, but I've never really seen the appeal in Mitsuru or Akihiko. (And as I mentioned much earlier in this thread, Ken is the worst of the lot)

Balmung: Regarding Aveline, I'm curious as to how you arrived at that conclusion. I bring Aveline with me nearly everywhere on account of her being nigh indestructible and leave the damage output to the mages.

Mitsuru and Akihiko are really good party members.

• Mitsuru learns Ice (single and all), Single target healing Mind charge with a very high magic stat and with slash attacks,
• Akihiko gets lightning (Single and all), Single target heals and Debuffs with strike attacks.
• Yukari gets Wind (single all), Single target and all heals, status heals with pierce attacks.

• Leaving the MC to just cover fire, buffs, light and dark attacks (Light and dark are useless on bosses and having personas with these normally resist these for trash for no instant gameovers.)

It is by far the most balanced team (with Aigis, Ken and Koromaru coming in second.. the MC just needs to cover Wind and Ice.)

Marathon DDS? I think Risetteer might be nuts.

edited 17th Nov '11 2:49:32 AM by Raso

Personally, I still like my Yukari/Aigis/Koromaru, but I can see where its faults are. :P

What? Copters are the most overpowered chassis in the game, especially because they can attack several times a turn. So why use needlejets at all? Also, undamaged copters even have more range than a needlejet - both can go the same amount of fields a turn (exact number depending on reactor) - but needlejets can only stay two rounds in the air, while copters can stay three rounds in the air. Granted, they're 90% damaged then, but still.

More to the point, needlejets can attack only one time a turn, so you need masses of them. Copters, not so much. And gravships come way too late, my games practically never reach that phase.

Really, copters + drop pods (conveniently in the same technology) = every base on the planet is mine

I'm weird when it comes to Persona 3. I disliked using Akihiko, Mitsuru, and Yukari as much due to their weaksauce weaknesses. Koromaru, Ken, and Aigis had more obscure weaknesses, making them more reliable in my eyes.

Let's just say I dislike the Glass Cannon character trope and not just for RPGs, and leave it at that.

@ABNDT: Well, it's in part the fact that sword and shield doesn't seem as good for crowd control, also, I just prefer the 2H swords in game. Really it's that in the end, I prefer Fenris and don't see the need for two warriors.

@Octo: I know they can attack more than once in a turn, but once again, I'd rather not risk that "BAM 30% damage, now watch the enemy just whale on it" issue. Though I could have sworn I'd seen needlejets getting to go two squares further than a copter (without nanocells on either). Also, I usually try to avoid conflict until the late game, when I have an absolutely crushing technological advantage over my enemies. We're talking "I have singularity engines on my gravships, cruisers, and hovertanks with stasis armour and string disrupters with blink displacement and soporific gas pods while my computerized adversaries have 8-res armour (traded to them by me) and tachyon bolts, and nothing more advanced than a needlejet with a fusion reactor" crushing technological advantage. My rule is that when I get gravships, everyone else must kneel before me. Including Planet itself.

Oh right, I also don't really use missiles in Alpha Centauri. They take far too long to build for a one shot weapon, and it takes far too long to fill a boomer with 16 of them.

edited 17th Nov '11 9:49:41 PM by Balmung

I'm an RPG player, and I generally keep all my characters at the same level; sometimes you end up stuck with just certain caharcters, and it's suck being stuck just because you didn't level a character you don't like.

I mean, it doesn't stop me from not liking them, I'm just making sure all my eggs aren't in one basket.

That's a very grounded mindset. I actually try to do the same thing. When things get really sticky, though, I sometimes have to shuffle my party and certain characters get priority over others.

That's why I like games that level up all your characters no matter which actual party you use for which part of the game. Game mechanics should not hinder story choices.

Chrono Trigger: Marle. Robo outclasses her as a medic, Lucca outclasses her as a blaster, and a Haste Helm outclasses her as a buffer. Also, Robo outclasses Frog, period. Finally, in the late game, Lucca tends to lose her spot to Magus. She's still strong in the blasting department, but Magus can go physical when necessary, and he doesn't ask me to divert Speed Capsules from Robo.

Mass Effect: Kaiden Alenko. I felt for him and all, but he never really did anything 'big' in the story. Granted, that could be said about my second favorite team member Ashley, but atleast she had a personality where Kaiden never really did much.

Fire Emblem Awakening (Risen Maps): Anyone that isn't Lucina is benched. Even me.

edited 30th Sep '14 2:15:50 AM by Blueblur21