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FF9: Steiner useless?

Posted: 9th May 2007 03:49

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Has anyone else noticed that Steiner could very well be the most useless character in the game? His Swd magic is only accessible when Vivi's around, and his Swd art is largely a bunch of useless techniques.

Darkside damages Steiner in order to work.
Minus Strike requires that Steiner already be damaged to be of any use
Charge! requires party member/s to be near death to work, and will do nothing if those n/d member don't have strong attack power.
Power, Armor, Metal, and Magic Break could be useful, but I rarely used them because whenever I tried, they all failed.
Iai Strike can be useful, but the Doom spell does the same thing.

Only at the end of the game is it possible to get any useful Swd arts, but by that time, everyone else has such good abilities that it doesn't matter.

If I might be blunt...he sucks thumbdown.gif
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Posted: 9th May 2007 04:24

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If you aren't using Vivi, don't bother using Steiner... but why aren't you using Vivi!?

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Posted: 9th May 2007 04:37

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Steiner hits hard and is hard to kill; he can equip some very high-powered weapons and most of the strongest armor in the game. If you have both Steiner and Vivi on your team, then you have the best means of elemental offense in the game. Late in the game, Steiner's Shock attack guarantees straight nines without having to go through the effort of to stealing every battle, catching 99 frogs, or slaying 100 dragons.

I think that the cast of FF IX is pretty balanced. Aside from specific comparisons (i.e. Eiko is clearly a better healer than Dagger, etc.) it's hard to judge which characters are better or worse, except for maybe identifying Zidane as the game's best attacker (high strength, high speed, great weapons, main character syndrome...). Steiner is useful as a damage magnet and physical attacker. That's not such a bad role to play.

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Posted: 9th May 2007 07:03

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Sword Magic? Sword Art? I never used that. And he still dealt more damage than Zidane. And he was the last to stand on his feet when everyone else was already KOed. I don't think Steiner is useless at all.

And he's cool too ;)

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Posted: 9th May 2007 07:31

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He's the tank, for CoN's sake. The meat shield. He's supposed to take the hits for the rest of the party and slash away with his weapons regularly.
Sword Arts? Use them WHEN the posssiblity/need arises.
He is not useless.

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Posted: 9th May 2007 07:38

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I Agree Steiner is pretty usless. In The Beginning of the game i never even used him because he sucked that much. But after he became one of my strongest characters. Even stronger than Zidane. sleep.gif

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Posted: 9th May 2007 07:38

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I wouldn't say he's useless -- he's just a hand that drives the sword like most knights. He's physically strong, once he gets Darkside he can do 1000+ per attack (not to mention it costs no MP), and Stock Break on through Shock are all great damage-dealers. His trance is mediocre but still plays off his strengths. Sure he can channel Vivi's magicks through him for even better offense, but he's not too shabby as a standalone. It's just too bad his MP isn't outstanding for his magical abilities...but that's to be expected.

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Posted: 9th May 2007 21:05

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Steiner is only useless if you only use skills/abilities and never fight. And only in the beginning of the game. Otherwise, he is easily the most powerful character in the game.

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Posted: 9th May 2007 21:38

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Even though this is my favorite character, I'd consider Quina more useless than Steiner. Even without Vivi, he has some of the most powerful skills and he's a real powerhouse. At a high level with a strong Knight Sword, he could hit for 9999 without having to be in Trance.

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Posted: 9th May 2007 21:44

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Quote (FabulousFreebird @ 9th May 2007 17:38)
At a high level with a strong Knight Sword, he could hit for 9999 without having to be in Trance.

That reminds me of something. At medium-low levels with whatever sword is appropriate at the time, he hits for 9999 in Trance. I don't know the algorithms, but based on observation, Steiner gets a better boost from Trance than the other characters. Everyone's attack doubles when in Trance, but Steiner gets something like 4x

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Posted: 10th May 2007 00:34

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I think Steiner's alot more useful than most of the characters. He was better than Freya IMO because he was stronger. He's one that can keep attacking throughout a battle and this can prove useful when you need someone to deal good consistant damage.

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Posted: 10th May 2007 00:36

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Quote (Jlombardi13 @ 8th May 2007 23:24)
If you aren't using Vivi, don't bother using Steiner... but why aren't you using Vivi!?

yeah why arent you using Vivi?!

but Swd Art useless???? one word. Shock

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Posted: 10th May 2007 00:40
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I used Steiner almost all the time when I played through FFIX. Shock took down Kuja so fast I couldn't believe he was the final boss. Besides that, he has good HP, defense, and attack. Characters aren't completely made by their specials.

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Posted: 10th May 2007 01:21

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...Vivi is useful? smile.gif

I used to keep Steiner around because of his high physical stats. He hits hard and soaks up damage like a tank would.

I never used Vivi despite this - I felt he wasn't serious enough of a character (storyline aside), like Quina. I rather liked the final team I had and unfortunately for the former two, there was no room for either of them.

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Posted: 10th May 2007 18:59

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Steiner is great. I didn't manage to level him up as much as I should have but he was still a huge help.
I almost got wiped out in the final battle of the game (Believe it or not I had no healers in my party, crazy I know).
I used his charge ability moments from losing and defeated the last boss. It was a pretty sweet way to win.

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Posted: 10th May 2007 20:58

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Quote (fatman @ 10th May 2007 14:59)
I almost got wiped out in the final battle of the game (Believe it or not I had no healers in my party, crazy I know).
I used his charge ability moments from losing and defeated the last boss. It was a pretty sweet way to win.

Similar circumstances on my last playthrough - I had no healers either, just Auto-Regen. Steiner's high HP kept me in the final battle, and a trance early on, followed by Shock later, took down Necron without much difficulty.

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Posted: 12th May 2007 08:18

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Quote
Everyone's attack doubles when in Trance, but Steiner gets something like 4x


It's 300% increase, IIRC, but even if that only raises damage to 9999 later on, it's not too bad of a Trance.

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Posted: 12th May 2007 19:23

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A 300% increase is equivalent to 4x the original. tongue.gif

3x + x = 4x :: ie. math sucks, especially when converted into English. Did you mean the attack power triples?

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Posted: 30th May 2007 19:52

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Steiner is awesome! He and Vivi never left my team. I found Quina to be more useless than anyone and I never got much use out of Amarant either.

I had absolutely no trouble beating the final bosses, and Steiner, like for everyone else, saved my skin. No one disses ol' Rusty and gets away with it.

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Posted: 30th May 2007 23:42
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steiner is great i never used sword arts just regular attacks and its awesome, my party consists of zidane amarant vivi and freya i think, they were all uber i got on disc 4 and my game stopped working. i was in terra at the part where you have 40 seconds to do something near that guy with the ship.
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Posted: 8th June 2007 02:00

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As much as I love Steiner (and Vivi), I usually switch them out for Freya and Quina/Amarant. I actually used to think Steiner was teh utter awesomeness until I started levelling up all of my characters simultaneously and using players like Amarant and Quina to a fuller potential.

That's how I found out:

Frog Drop/Autolife = TeH SHIZNIT!!
Chakra/Revive = TeH SHIZNIT!!

And so forth.

Steiner is awesome when everyone is at lower levels (even without Vivi), since he deals out such high physical damage and has good HP and defense, and he's faster than characters like Quina (who is slow as molasses).

But Freya and Zidane always end up being my powerhouses. I often get Zidane's HP almost as high as Steiner's by the end, and I also count on the fact that he and Freya can deal out consistent damage using Dragon's Crest and Thievery -- and for low MP to boot! -- rather than Steiner's physical attacks, or Climhazzard or Shock, which can suffer if he's ever mini-ed or his attack power gets somehow screwed.
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Posted: 10th June 2007 00:54

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steiner isn't usesless...

well, he the problem about him is that he doesn't have anything special about him.

he does have really good defense though, and good attack

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Posted: 10th June 2007 23:37

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Hmm, well Zidane and Freya are the best attackers. With a little bit of work they can cause 9999 damage without much loss of MP (I always needed Quina to kill of the Grand Dragons, though. Thievery is easy to build up). Steiner's not bad, though, and despite the usefulness of Amarant to infinitely heal up the party's MP, I think I might consider him the worst character, or maybe Dagger...yes, I'll go with Dagger. Eiko is much more well-balanced and complex, Carbuncle's effects can be changed with various accessories, Fenrir can be either wind or earth damage, Phoenix heals up dead characters as well as attacking, and Maduin is a heavy-hitter on par with Bahamut. Throw in Eiko's better healing magic and you got a character far better than Dagger, who despite nine minute cinemas still only causes around 6000 damage towards the end of the game. When you have characters causing 9999 without much effort, she really pales.

So my parties usually consisted of Zidane, Steiner, Vivi, and Eiko, OR Zidane, Freya, Amarant, and Quina, or combinations thereof. And Dagger got used somewhat, too, I'm just saying that Steiner can easily cause 9999 damage towards the end of the game with Shock or what have you, even if it costs a lot of MP, but Dagger really can't. And Darkside was a really useful and powerful tech early on. And Magic Sword is nothing to sneeze at.

So while Steiner isn't the best character, none of the characters are useless, and there are worse characters than Steiner.

EDIT: Oh, and Steiner had this attack where he could order all the characters who were in near-death status to attack all in a row regardless of ATB, I thought that was neat! Charge, I think it was called...probably mentioned before.

ANOTHER EDIT: Yes, it was, the first post even.

I will point out that the strategy with Steiner early on is to use Darkside until he gets lower on HP, and then start whaling away with Minus Strike. Heal him up before he dies and begin the process again.

This post has been edited by Baramos on 10th June 2007 23:43
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Posted: 11th June 2007 00:16

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Quote
Throw in Eiko's better healing magic and you got a character far better than Dagger, who despite nine minute cinemas still only causes around 6000 damage towards the end of the game.


...really?? I tend to get Dagger doing quad-9 damage across all of her Eidolons by the end of the game. Do you not charge up your Eidolons by collecting gemstones, or do you tend to keep Dagger at lower levels, and is that why they don't do so much damage? blink.gif

Bahamut's biggest advantage over Madeen is that he's non-elemental. Nothing worse than using up a buttload of MP to find out Madeen's holy attack gets halved or absorbed.... wink.gif

Going back to Steiner, I'll tell you where he came in the handiest for me -- that was when I was doing the Excalibur II quest. Which is FOR him, anyway, so darn straight he better make himself useful! Hehe. wink.gif His swords arts come in a lot handier at times like that, when I end up in the yellow a lot.

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Posted: 11th June 2007 00:48

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i thought that eiko and dagger were the worst in FF9.

but then again, i never use summoners/healers. ever. in any game.

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Posted: 24th June 2007 21:48

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Have sombody hear about Shock! and Tabula Rasa ? I hear about that and someone says that this moves are quite strong to defeat ozma even without the friendly monsters..

This post has been edited by Mr.Vercetti on 24th June 2007 21:49

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Posted: 25th June 2007 08:43

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You can deep-six Ozma without completing the Friendly Monsters sidequest, but most people prefer it as doing so also makes the boss shadow-weak and Doomsday the prime magic to throw. What's this "Tabula Rasa" thing?

This post has been edited by Shotgunnova on 25th June 2007 08:43

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Posted: 23rd July 2007 18:50

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most speed players and power gamers consider Zidane, Steiner, Vivi and Princess peach to be the ultimate match up!

I like Freya, Quina and sometimes Amarant to be in my team though cause they are often neglected and in my opinion some of the most interesting!

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Posted: 24th July 2007 12:47

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Steiner was my second-strongest character throughout the game, losing out only to Zidane. He got me out of a lot of the harder battles in one piece, and he was so endearing character-wise that he ended up never leaving my party unless it was essential throughout the game. The same applied to Vivi, and,of course, if you stick the two of them in the party together, there's the magnificent matter of Sword Magic...

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Posted: 25th July 2007 14:38

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Quote (Thief Of Navarre @ 23rd July 2007 18:50)
most speed players and power gamers consider Zidane, Steiner, Vivi and Princess peach to be the ultimate match up!

I like Freya, Quina and sometimes Amarant to be in my team though cause they are often neglected and in my opinion some of the most interesting!

Princess Peach? O.o

My first time through was Zidane, Eiko, Vivi and Garnet

My second and subsequent times it's Zidane, Vivi, Freya and Eiko/Garnet
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