Strongest Character

I haven't posted on here for a while so heres some food for thought.
In light of the introduction of new classes, items, and characters can Orlandu really be called the strongest character anymore?

I'm everyone knows by now that Balthier is the prime challenger for the title of strongest. I personally am in avor of Balthier but Cid has got some pretty wicked setups with all of the new game content.

Your thoughts please.

I haven't played the PSP version yet, but Balthier would have to have some wicked skills to beat out Ol' Thunder God.

Orlandu can do tremendous raw damage per strike, but he's not always the most useful character. Beowulf has a lot of Temple Knight skills that come in handy when you want to incapacitate foes instead of killing them (like for teaching Zodiac or finding the exits to Deep Dungeon).

Naturally with stat manipulation you can make other characters more powerful than him, but he comes naturally with high stats that complement his Holy Swordsman attacks.

Honestly, Orlandu seems to have quite an unfair advantage in combat. He can do tremendous amounts of damage, and if you're using Night Sword, he'll be healing himself the entire time. Plus, he comes with Excalibur equipped, adding Haste.

Basically a friend of mine and me have tested a setup of Balthier against Orlandu. Balthiers speed and range advantage pretty much kills Orlandu before he can even get in range of Balthier.

And Baltier does have some wicked skills. The most wicked being "barrage" which cannot be blocked by anything. It repeats an attack four times and each strike does half the normal attack damage, it quadruples the chance of a critical hit too.

I think initially Orlandeau is slighltly stronger than Balthier.

But my hypothesis is that if you max them both out, Balthier will be stronger. Barrage does around 300 damage. Orlandeau does around 400 for me atm. But Orlandeau is slightly slower, even with haste, and he hasnt got as much range. But he can heal himself with shadowblade. The again, he doesnt have abilities such as arm shot and leg shot. And Balthier's plunder abilities make him the best thief in the game.

Once Balthier starts learning his best abilities, he's a more useful character IMO.

I like Balthier especially with Arts of War.

But one of my strongest is my Zodiark Summoner with Tynar Rouge or Septieme, the 'haste perfume', if someone else has Tynar Rouge.

Also, I like how Ninjas can be better, being able to Move ranges of 8.
They can Throw stuff practically across the battlefield!

Anyone else use barrage with other weapons? I tried with Unarmed, Knight Sword, and Bows. And obviously guns.

And who still uses Mustadio? I use Mustadio AND Balthier, covering more ground and more chances to disable/immoblize.

I believe that Balthier is more powerful than Orlandu based on my inclination to favor faster characters with longer range.

Well for a more specific reference take into account this setup.
Balthier as Sky Pirate with:
Jump skill
Reflexes
Attack Up
Teleport

Javelin II
Echutcheon II
Thief's Cap
Lordly Robe
Brigands Gloves

Now with this setup my Balthier has a Speed of 18 and is Hasted, an attack of 18 with attack up, 99% evade on almost all attacks and Wall, and can move almost anywhere on the battlefield fast. Against an enemy with no added damage modifiers Barrage will do 360 damage per hit, which will kill any enemy save some bosses. His Jump will do 810 damage and at his speed he can jump and land 1-2 turns quite often even against other hasted opponents(I have done this against my friends Orlandu who is quite formiddable). You be the judge.

It depends what you mean by "strongest" Overall I think both Balthier and Cid are monsters in their own classes but I feel both are hindered by being so dependent on their default classes. Both have damn good stats though but I feel Ramza is just way better overall since he has a greater level of versatility especially stat wise. I mean if you ever need to know how good a class is, just make Ramza into that class.

Then again, its due to Ramza being made not to have a true default class. Cid and Balthier are incredibly good in their own rights but who in their right mind would transform Cid into a heavy mage (and remove all traces of his original class) or transform Balthier into a Mime? Its not that Cid can't be a good mage and with Balthier's stats he would make a damn good mime but most people go through the other classes to help build on their default class not to exploit their good stats. I know Ramza's Squire class is anything but fair but even with its strengths its not enough to overlook other classes *dreams of unlocking Dark Knight...*

Cid is still the best when dealing with multiple opponents but Balthier is more effective in making sure a specific enemy dies this round. Barrage is powerful but its mostly a one target deal unless you set it up right Hallowed Bolt is everyone's friend. :) Then again Cid is a killing machine whereas Balthier's Sky Pirate class is overall useful and broken (an evil mix of Squire, Thief, Machinist, and Ninja) so your options in battle are plenty...

Basically:

Balthier = Highest damage to single target
T.G Cid = Highest damage to multiple targets
Ramza = Overall versatility

Well said Kanno. Not many people look to Ramza as the strongest character but I would say that he is mine. If I went over all of the details it would take so long to type out but I have unlocked Dark knight on four characters, Ramza, Cid, Agrias, and a generic, still working on Balthier; I have noticed what you are saying is quite true of course if anyone does the grinding and maxes out all of their characters that truly changes the game, although I'm not sure any of us are that patient. In any case I've done so many different things with them I'm just looking for other players views on how they play the game so I can begin to find new strategy and of course tactics to use or consider at least.

Ramza does seems stronger than generics at most jobs. Like Ramza as a monk does more damage than a generic monk of the same level. Ramza also seems to have higher success rates on things like Break Techniques and Stealing. I don't know if this is because of his Zodiac sign on my game or what, but it almost always is true.

In a 1 on 1 fight to the death, a mastered Holy Swordsman Orlandu with his Excalibur would beat any configuration of Ramza that I can think of. Ramza wouldn't go first, and Orlandu would begin the fight by breaking Ramza's equipment and then when Ramza did do damage to Orlandu, he'd just use Night Sword to make up for it. Ramza would dead in no time.

Yeah, but if you remove Excalibur from Cid its a bit of a different story. If I remember correctly, Ramza has way better speed than Cid. Also, I would say the Dark Knight Class changes things as its horribly broken...

Well, first I would note that if Ramza and Orlandu started far enough apart they wouldn't meet for a turn its not hard to imagine a generic character winning.

As for a melee duel, if we take end game stats they can both one shot each other easily, so it is basically whoever can get to the other first. Their speeds are almost identical, and even if you equip Orlandu with Excalibur, who's to say Ramza doesn't get one too? It would then all boil down to the crap shoot of who is on the tile that the game prefers in the tie breaker of equal speeds.

However, Ramza can equip Secret Clothes and Orlandu can't, thus allowing Ramza to win regardless of who goes first.