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FF9: Steiner useless?

Posted: 25th July 2007 23:13

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Princess peach = Princess Garnet...

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Posted: 11th October 2007 14:28

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I think Steiner is great. As mentioned, his physical attack and defense are really strong. But this is not all! He becomes super strong in trance, he has abilities that can lower the enemys defence, and later on he learns the strongest abilities in the game.
And I think that Minus Strike is quite nice. If Steiner has high max hp, this will kick ass.
With Vivi in the party he becomes a goddamn monster^^

How can anyon say that a character is useless anyway? I've found that every single character can be really useful. That even includes Quina: P



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Posted: 16th October 2007 03:22

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I find Steiner useful when I'm forced to use him. With the Iron Sword stolen from Baku, he mows down random battles on disc 1. He dishes out heavy damage on disc 2 relative to everyone else, and Blood Sword parasitic healing is great then. He probably is the worst of the permanent characters though far from useless.
His handicap late game comes from that everything he does (Charge!!! excepted but that's really situational) someone else will do better. Zidane, Freya, and Quina all beat Shock for lower MP costs, being effective even if Mini'd, and the ability of their skills to avoid defense. Sure, they take time to build though it does take less time to accumulate 100 dragon kills than the time spent with Chocobo Hot and Cold to find the Ragnarok. He has no multitarget attacks until disc 4 by which time, they're nearly pointless (as mulittargets). Every random encounter in the last dungeon is with a single enemy. For the one boss with multiple targets, only one of them actually attacks. To add insult to injury, he has no unique Support Abilities. Replacing him with Freya or Amarant makes very little difference in most cases.

Defensive stats are determined solely by equipment. This hurts his status as a tank. His magic defense will always lag as well. The Tin Armor comes too late to be a real factor plus it requires sacrificing a one-of-a-kind item to obtain.

In spite of his weak points, I like using him. Chemist (Dagger and Freya also have this) has its moments, such as Oeilvert. He's really economical in terms of MP use and has the only Trance that doesn't take MP. Excalibur is the strongest conventional Holy element weapon and that is fun to use. Excalibur + Rebirth Ring + Devil Killer = Lots of pain for Lich with just the Attack command. He happened to be one of my party members in my very first Ozma victory; only later would I learn Amarant is far superior for that battle.

This post has been edited by DragonKnight Zero on 8th November 2007 04:07
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Posted: 24th October 2007 21:24

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After viewing The Incredibles, I remember adding Steiner back in via a
late-save and going through the end, because he was like a Crono lost
MrIncredible. Otherwise I was always a fan of Vivi, Eiko, Garnet, and
Zidane! I felt they had the best reasons to stick together to the end.

Beersteinr's a good guy. He'd deal with being poised-to-go in the back-
ground.

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Posted: 18th November 2007 17:04

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to be honest, I always used Steiner. A strong fighter with high stats and health is always useful. I tended to not rely on offensive magic in FF9 though.. my typical lineup is Zidane, Steiner, Freya, and Eiko

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Posted: 3rd December 2007 01:38

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He's good just for his normal attacks and his damage-soak-ness.

It also depends on your party. Assuming you use Zidane (duh) and Vivi (of course), it depends from there. If you use Garnet/Dagger, she has a lot of elemental stuff already, so you might want to use Freya or Amarant for the added support abilities. But if you use Eiko, she lacks attacks that hit a lot of weakness, so Steiner is a better choice.
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Posted: 9th January 2008 07:33

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Quote (Frozen_Aura @ 9th May 2007 03:49)
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

Get MP Attack, Counter (Maybe Eye 4 Eye, too) and Steiners best weapons. Shock and Climhazzard dealt regular 9999's when I took on Trance Kuja. Hell, I didn't even touch Magic Sword attacks.

Spend a good amount of time training with the Grand Dragons and LV5 Death trick (I learnt it from Whale Zombies on the shore of that island with Esto Gaza, Fire Shrine and the Shimmering Island). About level 60 should do, but feel free to go to 75, or even the full haul to 99.

You should find that Steiner becomes a LOT more powerful by then.

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