Characters you find yourself overly reliant on.

^ Oh yes, Lawson...

Is there any decent reason to not rely heavily upon her?

Does Killing Floor count? If so, I find the Sharpshooter and Medic perks to be my most favorite.

Peach is pretty much a total game breaker with Lazy Shell armor. I usually just let the rest of my party die. [[Raine]] is pretty much necessary in Tales of Symphonia, and Arche is so broken it's not even funny.

My Viera Assassin and Bangaa Dragoon (game breakers extraordinaire) in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

In Disgaea 1, I rely on a Green Skull/Centorioun Combo.

Maybe not a characters example, but I will confess that in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2, I'm almost always using one of a handful of guns:

• My pistol is always the Colt ICQB, basically a modernized M1911 .45-cal. Sometimes I use it suppressed.
• My assault rifle is always either a Crye Associates MR-C(Going loud!) or a Beretta Rx4 Storm Suppressed(Going quiet.). Both have selective fire and two setting scopes. They're also both rather accurate.
• My LMG is always either a Mk. 48 or an A-556, depending on whether I feel like wielding the 7.62x51mm power of the Mk. 48 or the light weight and high accuracy of the A-556. Of course, the Mk. 48 is also pretty damn accurate.
• Unless I'm using the ZEUS-MPAR for anti-tank duties, my grenadier rifle is either an MR-C(Going loud!) or an M468 Suppressed(Going quiet.). Always.
• My marksman rifle is either the M-556SL or the SR-25 Suppressed. I like both for their large magazine capacities, 30 for the M-556 and 20 for the SR-25.

edited 24th Sep '10 8:24:32 PM by rallyfan9000

Orlandu could probably single-handedly beat every single other character listed in this thread. It was no surprise I relied on him a lot. Though, I think I relied on Ramza even more, mainly due to him being the main character, and thus in every battle in the game (it helps that I made him a Calculator).

edited 24th Sep '10 8:23:41 PM by DYRE

Let's see here.

Ryu & Ken - 90% of ALL Street Fighter games

Dedede - Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Lloyd - Tales of Symphonia

edited 24th Sep '10 8:53:28 PM by Mr.Pastry

I've been trying to beat the campaign to Halo:Reach on harder difficulties, and I've realized that I've become very relient on using my allies as support. Even though the Marine AI is still rock stupid, the Noble Team AI is pretty compotent, and capable of taking out enemies that I can't hit without putting myself at risk, while at the same time never having this risk themselves, due to being basically indestructable. On the few missions where I don't have any Spartans to rely on, there are usually so many Marines nearby that it balances out.

Tales of the Abyss: Guy, Tear, Jade.

Fallout 3: Not characters per se, but I constantly rely on the Nerd Rage, Lawbringer, and Commando perks, {mostly because I'm a rifle nut} as well as the Repair and Small Guns skills.

Mass Effect: Wrex, Liara, and Tali in the first, Tali, Miranda {mostly because of her party bonuses}, Grunt {best tank and badass charge}, and Samara {best biotic}. Also, my Shepard is usually an Adept or a Soldier who specializes in Assault Rifles.

Final Fantasy: Any character/job that specializes in Black Magic. Heck, mages in general for any RPG.

Street Fighter: Chun-Li, Zangief, Sakura, Guy, and C. Viper.

^^^Love your avatar!

edited 24th Sep '10 9:57:05 PM by joerc45

Jagged Alliance - It used to be Scope, since her sniper skills were ungodly good (effortlessly blow someone's head off on the far corner of the map), but they've nerfed her AP. Now it's a reliance on Lynx (his M14 requires less AP readying than my best sniper rifle).

I always take Gus along - great in everything but speed, and he bags a ton of kills most of the time.

Magic used to get a lot of kills with the OICW, but with the AICW, it's a lot less...

In Dawn of War 2, I think I brought Tarkus on every single mission. I could make arguments about how his squad was the most well-rounded and versatile, and that's true, but I think my reasoning is more because he had the most agreeable personality of the bunch. He had rational thought and emotional stability that approached that of a normal human being, or at least as much as can be expected of a space marine.

HK-47, but I think everyone did that. He was especially fun once I found a droid attachment that gave him a wrist-mounted flamethrower with unlimited charges.

In any Fire Emblem game, my Cavaliers->Paladins and Mage_>Sages. Mercenaries->Heroes are often at the top of my list, too. Basically, anything that can take a hit or five and dish it back twice as hard. If I get them before level 10, that's a bonus. Wyvern Riders->Wyvern Lords are favorites, too (except in PoR, didn't care for her).

FF 7: Kent, Sain, Lowen, Heath, Erk, Hector, Lyn FF 8: Forde, Kyle, Franz, Lute, Artur, Cormag, Ross, Ephraim, Gerik

In KOTOR 1, I usually took along either Carth, Canderous, or Bastila. Wasn't really that good at maximizing their effectiveness back then, I cared more about the extra remarks or dialogue they had. It was the second time through that I realized how powerful Jolee and HK-47 were.

For KOTOR 2, it was mostly Kreia, Mandalore, or Visas. I ended up settling mostly on Visas and Mandalore near the end, though.

In Mass Effect 1, it was usually Tali and Ashley (I was a Vanguard), sometimes Liara if I knew I might need to throw somebody across the room really hard.

In ME 2 it actually took me a while to settle, but on the second playthrough I started using Miranda and Grunt almost exclusively. Only time I would switch Miranda out was if the mission required a lot of long distance shooting or crowd control, like the Reaper IFF or Thane's recruitment.

In most of Eastern-RPG (well, in most of the RPG in general), always a Staff Chick and The Hero (or your starter Pokemon).

Though, since Final Fantasy VI is a bit of a subversion, in that there isn't any character clearly stated as the Hero, I just love to use Locke thanks to his good speed and decent strenght.

In the Super Robot Wars series, I always try to put either Kyosuke (great firepower and armor for a real robot) or Amuro (extremely good sniper, coupled with the Newtype ability, which makes him untouchable and hard to dodge).

Chrono Trigger - Been years since I played, honestly, but I remember always using Lucca whenever possible.

Dragon Quest III - I usually make one character as The Hero's childhood friend and keep them in the party all the time, even while mixing up the rest of the lineup as needed.

Etrian Odyssey - Whoever I establish as my 'Guild Head' is always in the main party. I like to mix-and-match the active members to whatever suits my needs at the moment, but the 'leader' is always there.

Pokemon - I tend to overuse my starter and at least one Eeveelution. Beyond that, my party is usually pretty well balanced, but it's highly unusual for me to take my starter out of the party. Eevees are the only pokemon I tend to spend any time breeding, so...

Suikoden V - Shigure. Get him once I impress Oboro enough, and then he rarely leaves my party. Nice and strong when you get him, and stays a solid member.

I always bring Akihiko from Persona3, because he de-buffs, has decent strength both physically and magically, can get single-target full-heal, is generally a likable character, and that I like having at least one other person be close level to Minato/MC.

As for Fire Emblem, like others ITT, I bring several Cavaliers.

Wynne again . She's the only consistent party member for the final battles with all my characters.

Interestingly, I've also been playing Final Fantasy XIII lately and I've come to overly rely on Lightning and Hope, and haven't thrown them out of the party for some time. Call me stupid, but the fact that Hope is a Squishy Wizard doesn't really bother me, I just make up for his lack of HP with items and get a Sentinal in to help with tight battles.

• Super Robot Wars : Quattro Bajeena + Turn A Gundam = cannot be hit

• Final Fantasy Tactics : Orlandeau. He's the reason that Chapter 4 is so easy. I used him in every battle. He's almost as much a Game-Breaker as Shirahadori. Almost.

• Fire Emblem : In Shadow Dragon, Sedgar and Wolf are simply unstoppable. They're the only reason a no-casualty run for me was remotely possible. Mostly 'cause I suck at games.

In Etrian Odyssey 1, even though I have one of every class, I HAVE to have a Medic for immunize and healing, and a troubadour for Relaxing. They really do feel necessary.

In just about any fighting game, I always use the joke characters to humiliate my friends when I beat them (I always do). It gets to the point where I can only use joke characters. :/

edited 2nd Oct '10 1:00:42 AM by MidnightVelvet

Charizard... just Charizard.

^ You must hate Stealth Rock . . .

Leliana in Dragon Age as she's both my male mage warden's love interest and the best lockpick in the group as Zev's already kitted out for rogue melee better than utility.

My starter and first balanced team from Pokemon.

Tali from Mass Effect (electronics skills = gear).

Garrus of Mass Effect 2 as a sniper goes well with a Vanguard.

Toon Link, Pikachu, and Sonic in Super Smash Bros Brawl.

Lucas, naturally. And Ness and Mewtwo in Melee somewhat.

edited 3rd Oct '10 4:44:58 PM by todbot1