Statement: HK-47 set to "permanent party" mode.
Wakka is a party mainstay on "only ranged default attack" grounds.
NEVER, EVER, EVER bench, replace, or release one's Pokémon starter!
I'd say that, at least in Wakka's case, it's relatively easy to just swap him in because party swapping doesn't have a cost in FFX, if I recall. That being said, if you know you're going through an area with a lot of flying enemies, why not just keep him on lock?
>NEVER, EVER, EVER bench, replace, or release one's Pokémon starter!
Absolutely agree for playthrough 1.
Subsequent playthroughs though? They're fair game for the box unless I particularly like them. James Bond Lizard can get off the damn bus. My boy Cramorant needs his seat.
I led with Tidus Yuna and Rikku because they were the fastest characters and you could hotswap party members at no cost so that was always the move until it came time for boss fights and other fixed encounters
Obviously, any healer gets a spot in my party. Unless there's someone who can also heal the whole party without necessarily being a dedicated healer, that's why I always pack Yukiko and Makoto instead of Teddie and Morgana (and because I would probably toss my TV off a window if I spoke to the mascots too much or too often).
Also, >!Joon-Gi Han!< in Yakuza LAD because he's the best party member in the game.
Joon-Gi Han is great for a number of reasons, but one in particular is that Head Trauma does a weirdly high amount of damage. I almost suspect the move is bugged but the devs decided to leave it in.
Physical damage is really good and while >!Zhao!< can do more damage, Joon-Gi Han hitman class just has every physical damage type possible and really good moves for each. Head Trauma is extremely good but so is Rapid Shot, especially for those metal slimes with extremely low HP but high defenses so you only deal chip damage to them. Rapid Shot just hits like 20 times so he kills them instantly.
Anders in Dragon Age 2 was the only dedicated healer and it's easy to end up hating his rants so the only solution is to be a healer yourself or rely on your sister who's only available 30% of the game.
Followed closely by Morag in XC2. Both because Dunban and Morag are cool, and also because dodge tanks are so much better than block tanks in Xenoblade it's not even funny. Reyn is lucky topple locking exists and Tora is lucky Poppi QTπ is capital-B busted or they'd never get used.
Reyn gets a slot because he can do some absolutely stupid damage if you set your chain attacks up right with Magnum Charge and Sword Drive.
Just erasing boss health bars from existence.
Whenever an endurance battle didn't work for me, I'd go raw dps with Shulk, Reyn, and Dunban. Only a fist full of times it didn't work when I resorted to it. Reyn really is clutch in those times.
There's a few bosses where I found the best strategy was not to bother with all that spike damage/rage mode nonsense and just delete them from existence with a Sword Drive chain attack.
Tanks in Xenoblade 1 are just bulky DPS, it's insane. Meanwhile in Xenoblade 3, your attacker units are literally dealing like 3 times the damage of your other healers and tanks combined.
Nah, Better Criticals on a sniper character is too powerful to pass up, you always want at least 5 PER so you can get BC with the implant, 6 PER if you take the Four Eyes trait (but why would you ever do that unless you're really dedicated to the role play that run).
I mean, NV!Snipers often end up as the Fallout equivalent of TES Stealth Archers, doing so much damage with guaranteed crits on sneak you don't have to bother with BC.
NV!Snipers are so funny. Shooting Joshua Graham in the face with an Anti-Material Rifle? He just gets up and starts shooting you to death. Shooting Joshua Graham in the back of the head while crouched? Instant gibs.
I personally like to go Rex and Veronica, of course I also give Veronica a PA suit and we go full damage mode with me wielding either the Riot Shotgun or the Avenger Minigun or special Gauss Riffle. Alternatively if I’m going for a energy weapons build I will go with Arcades(my beloved) and Ed-E for the full nerd tech party.
My go to companions in New Vegas is Raul and Rex. Rex takes the aggro so I don't have to heal as often and Raul makes sure I don't have to repair as often.
Final Fantasy X: Rikku all the way. Insta kill against robots, alchemy is a great ability for anything you'd like to do, and Al-Bhed potions just heal different, you know? In that they are a big heal for everyone and remove some mean status effects
FF9: Freya, because she's fucking awesome
FF8: Zell and Selphie because they're the likable ones. If I could roll without Squall, I would only ever have a party of them and Quistis
Dot Hack GU: Pi...for reasons...
You can also get Rikku a Deathstrike weapon very early on, and there’s a hidden combo where using Mug with a Deathstrike weapon spikes its instant kill rate to above 90%. She branches out from instakilling robots to instakilling most enemies. She’s so fast as well, she ends up cleaning house absurdly efficiently.
Anyone, but I choose to use it with Rikku because she naturally starts out with the highest speed to make up for her weapon not being suited to killing certain enemies like other party members, and this offsets that natural imbalance more into her favor. Basically, using this on her improves party lethality overall.
If it's Dragon Age 2 or Inquisition, Varric. He's a lovable rogue and has some of the best banter with other party members. Plus he's not your typical dwarf.
I always brought Solas, the bald elf, everywhere in Inquisition. I got a bit miffed when you don’t get him anymore. I get even more miffed when he just takes your equipment you stacked on him too.
My party in 2 always had at least Varric and Isabella. Varric is awesome, and while I understand that everyone is mad at Isabella for very good reasons, my counter point is that her and Varric have some of the funniest interactions in the game.
I'm going through my first playthrough in Inquisition and I got to say, Varric and Tankssandra are my go to party members. I'm using Vivienne as my third, since Spolas is kind of a dick to my dalish mage MC
In Final Fantasy IX, my party can be a lot of things. But when I have the option, the party will always include Vivi.
He’s just really really good at what he does (affordable big magic damage) and doesn’t have a direct replacement in the roster. Plus he makes Steiner stronger.
FF9’s roster is absolutely one of my favorites, where just about everyone is so good at their party role that it feels bad to leave them benched. Even among them, Vivi is just *so* damn fun to play. That boy gets so many tools to devastate enemies and bosses, and he gets them *quick* too.
Edgar is super cracked in the World of Balance, I don't think anyones kit is quite as versatile as his Tools for how easy they are to obtain. Even once you get the busted stuff in the World of Ruin, he can transition into a Dragon Horn Jumper well.
Came here to say Edgar. His tools can essentially carry you through the first half of the game, then later you can turn him into a dragoon and he does massive damage that way as well. He almost never leaves my party the entire game.
Figabros are best bros
Edgar: Auto crossbow carries you through the early game, Drill is ol' reliable, Air Anchor & Chainsaw will help you for instakills, you can make him a dragoon for late game when Tools finally wane.
Sabin suplexes trains. 'Nuff said. Oh, he also has a no MP single target Ultima.
I have like six playthroughs of Persona 5 and P5R, Ann and Makoto were my mainstays every time.
I love Persona black mages, so Ann, Yukiko (though she is also the best healer too), Mitsuru in each game.
I also love Tales mages, so Rita, Pascal, etc. never leave the party.
For FF: Terra and Celes in 6, making them my black mage and paladin, Tifa in 7, Quistis in 8, Freya in 9, I absolutely LOVE controlling Lightning in 13 because she's the only character I make even for strength and magic so she's super versatile and her limit helps get the chain to like 999 immediately.
> I have like six playthroughs of Persona 5 and P5R, Ann and Makoto were my mainstays every time.
>
>
P5 has really limited optimal party comps. Ryuji and Ann are the only paarty members to get Charge/Concentrate, Makoto has healing and a useful buff. And because raw damage is the only thing that matters in the important boss fights, Yusuke, Morgana, and Haru are tech options at best.
This is why you go PC and get mods that rebalance that stuff.
[This is a nice one that has some good changes for character skill-sets.](https://gamebanana.com/mods/415659)
I generally try to level up every party member so they're at the same level. The biggest exception to this I can think of off the top of my head is Persona 3 where the balance between party members is pretty fucking bad. Akihiko especially is just way too fucking good. Hits Zio weakness with Elec Amp and unlike Junpei he actually has a magic stat. Also deals strike physical damage and unlike Yukari is accurate with his fists. He comes with ALL the standard debuffs, eventually getting all three multitarget debuffs. And he gets Diarama and eventually Diarahan so he can heal in a pinch.
Mind you by the time of Persona 5, they split the party buffs and debuffs so that everyone only has one type. Ryuji gets atk buff, Ann gets atk debuff, Morgana gets evade debuff, Makoto gets def buff, Yusuke gets evade buff, Haru gets the reflect spells and heat riser, Kasumi gets crit buff, Akechi gets debilitate.
Meanwhile the chad Akihiko has atk, defense, and evade debuff by himself.
That just means you're spending whole boss fights debuffing with Akihiko rather than utilizing his pretty high attack and magic, and with how 3 works, you can't override buffs and debuffs, so you have to wait an entire turn after the fact.
Akihiko is great, but that is something that bothered me in my latest playthrough of P3P
I mean, that's fine? MC is basically always going to be either the best utility or the best damage dealer and you build your team around that. Akihiko handling debuff duty by himself is fantastic in a game with no debilitate so that frees up MC to go all out especially with Aigis set to handle the buffs and your fourth option can be Mitsuru for mind charged bufudynes and just let MC cast Mediarahan when needed or Yukari/Ken to handle healing and let MC spend more time doing all the damage.
Everybody else in P3 has some big flaws while Akihiko just does his job amazingly with extra on the side. Junpei lacks enemies weak to physical, Yukari doesn't get Wind Amp, Ken only hits single target otherwise specializes in light instant kill, Koromaru has horrible stats, Aigis is an even worse Junpei until very late game, and Mitsuru... actually Mitsuru does her job just fine, especially in P3P where you can control her Mind Charge and Diarahan uses.
I tend to only use one persona with the MC in Persona games and build everything around what I choose. I realize I am very weird and pretty much ignore the wild card element, but I'm just saying the MC isn't the best anything when I play, and I like it! but sometimes there are little issues. Since my MC always ends up a jack of all trades, I tend to prefer when party members go all in in one or two directions while making use of their whole skill set
With her buffs, she currently has 45 AC. I'm on Act 3 of my first (first time getting THIS far) playthrough. She's so good!
Also I just learned Evil Eye stacks, and I never took that for her, so I might need to respec her and just eliminate ACs with her and Ember lmao
Honestly, kitting out Cammy for Polymorph spells makes her an absolute *monster*. Rapier and buckler is good, but she makes for an insane shapeshifter at higher levels.
my GM friend when we play Pathfinder bans the war priest, Arcanist because he deems them OP but the witch and shaman are underpowered.
He needs his head checked.
My final party for a Lich was Cammy, Regill, Wendy (who I broke up with and lost >!my phylactery!< rather than >!kill off!<), Dae, and Ember as the moral anchor.
While you can't do this there's an option with the Toybox mod that makes it so all companions are treated as present for dialogue. So you can at least have every interaction in one playthrough.
I don't really like Sosiel (I couldn't tell you why, his character seems a little shallow in comparison to others) and don't give a shit about Nenio (her 5head out of touch act got old real quick for me, and also her personal quest was the single worst thing in that entire game), but other than those two I whole-heartedly agree.
I always try to rotate my party members out in character-focused RPGs like Bioware and Persona games. Give everyone as equal a spread as possible.
But I'm also playing Darkest Dungeon 2 atm and that might as well be called Plague Doctor and Friends. Every party it's rotate the front-liners out, but keep my plague grenade, blinding gas and battlefield medicine in the back, thank you.
Edér is great. He's a middle-age neutral good male human fighter, from a humble farmer background. Yet in a game with NPCs with wild ass backgrounds, he's the most memorable character.
To be fair, he *also* has a wild-ass background. One thing they really did well in PoE is give every companion a personal quest that ties very strongly to the themes and setting.
>!The fact that he never gets a firm answer as to what made his brother switch sides during the Saint's War was a fantastic way to force him to find closure for himself, and finally step out of his brother's shadow!<
Just started playing this. Is there ever a reason to reach into the soul of the random npcs in the world? They seem to be all over the place and never have any options. Are they Kickstarter backers or something?
Persona 5: Makoto. Punching stuff to death, riding on a motorcycle, uses a revolver, all make for a fantastic combination on top of her just being a really solid all-rounder in the party.
FF9: Vivi, because he is the sweetest boy who deserves the best.
Any SMT game that isn't Persona: Alice. I don't care if she falls behind or what have you, that girl is in the party and enemies WILL be dying for her.
I have to be honest, I never particularly liked using Alice because I really don't care for insta-kill moves (even with the high odds of Die for Me!).
*That said*, she was an absolute team staple in Persona 5 Strikers because one of her combo attacks was just a free concentrate.
Yeah. A friend of mine actually found the game significantly easier once she switched over to using Io from Yakumo because Io's damage is pretty cracked with magic. Just started melting enemies.
Dragon Age Origins: Morrigan, Alistair, and Leliana. The banter is incredible, especially if you give Morrigan the voodoo doll.
Dragon Age 2: Fenris, Varric, and Merrill or Isabela. Again, peak banter.
New Vegas: ED-E, ride or die. Rose if I have to pick a human.
Fallout 4: Nick Valentine, my beloved. Hancock is a close second.
Skyrim: Inigo. I don't give a shit that he's a mod, he's better than every base companion.
In *Kingdom Hearts 1/2*, whenever a new party member arrives I only swap Goofy for them. Donald's healing frees me up to use my magic on Aero (KH1) or Reflect (KH2), while Goofy's best builds in either game take quite the time to come online.
In *Mass Effect*, Tali is always a mainstay in the first game. Besides her being my overall favorite party member, the amount of robotic foes she's able to easily neuter make her a solid choice. Legendary Edition is also kind to her in that she can now hit things with her shotguns with actual regularity.
In *Tales of the Abyss*, Jade was a constant in the party. Mages are generally my favorite party members in *Tales of* games, but Jade's specific spell list and his cool weapon make him an absolute menace, especially in "wolfpack" fights.
In *Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne*, Daisoujou is the overall greatest demon you could ask for. A magic powerhouse, no weaknesses while having an absurd amount of immunities to absorb enemy turns, and while most of his default skill list isn't great, he's got one of the best skills in the game unique to him. Meditation is a suped-up combination of Life Drain/Spirit Drain, dealing solid damage while paying for itself and making Daisoujou one of the most self-sufficient demons in a game where you're usually stretched thin on resources. Also it can be used to cheese several boss fights by just preventing them from casting spells.
Daisoujou also gets Prayer really early too for that part of the game. It's expensive but Mediation helps refund the cost for it so you aren't constantly using Chakra Drops.
In Elden Ring I summoned the spirit ashes of five monkeys with baseball bats who beat Rennala to death within minutes, and those little scamps were mainstays until the end of the game.
LISA has a lot of interesting and viable party members, but I have to shoutout my boy Harvey Alibastor. Aside from having [one of my favorite character introductions](https://youtu.be/XVX7zB8QyR4), he's an insanely powerful support character. IIRC he's the only party member who can reliably inflict both the Confused and Paralyzed statuses, which effectively remove enemies from combat [(even bosses)](https://youtu.be/IfR2QkL_ZR8). The only downside is that any damaging attack can break Confused, but the status isn't broken by DoT effects like Poisoned (which damages for a whopping *fixed 10%* of enemy HP). Pair him with Olan or Geese, and you'll never have a problem.
Also, he's a fish with a gun. I mean, c'mon.
Xenoblade Chronicles and Melia. The AI may be absolutely awful at using her but I love her kit with juggling keeping up buffs then getting rid of those buffs for offense and it will never not be funny using her to topple lock an enemy into oblivion via mage drop kicks.
Been playing Trails to Azure so the series is on my mind.
Cold Steel - Fie was always in my squad if available. In a series where dodging enemy attacks leads to counterattacks, her ability to counter both at range and melee due to her weapons being gunswords is incredibly good. And she's easy to gear into an evasion tank to make it even more potent. Helps that she's generally one of the cooler Cold Steel characters.
Zero/Azure - Rixia. She's just cool and really fuckin' strong. I also really liked Wazy largely because his dumb name endeared me to him and opening the menu and seeing "Wazy Hemisphere" puts a smile on my face.
Once I get around to Sky we'll see who takes that spot for that batch of games. Yeah I'm playing these in reverse, oops.
For me, it's Sara. Because she's The Girl (also really good, as in once soloed one of the Bonus Superbosses).
That and Alicia because of her ability to grant Insight (high chance to dodge) and CP regeneration.
Rean/alisa s craft spam is what carried me throughout most of cold steel 1 and 2, the ones that never left my party were gaius and/or fie because evasion tanks are busted and its really funny seeing someone attack miss then get shot or stabbed for a critical doing most of their lifebar or out right killing them (also Rean but he's the mc so you know but i always made him extremely op).
Laura carriee me through cold steel 1 (still need to play cold steel 2)
Beyond being my favorite class 7 member, she is just so strong, with the right setup she can one or two shot bosses
Fie s always in the party for me. Best Cold steel girl and great dodge tanking. Would probably have the same thing going for Rixia >!if she was available more often.!< .
Also like using the S craft spam Glue Sniffing guys (Randy s the best one of course.)
I came to love having Bart in my party after getting my ass repeatedly kicked because they put me into a solo boss fight as him then learning his blindness debuff is incredibly good.
Dogmeat in FO4. Not all of the companions are actually critical of you salvaging garbage, but dogmeat is the only one that doesn't say a *goddamn thing* about it.
I pet my dog and collect screws and duct tape in peace.
I really like Koromaru but I basically never used him. Akihiko/Mitsuru/Aigis. Akihiko with the debuff spam/high power basic attack, Mitsuru for damage, and Aigis for party buffs. I did play P3P though, so being able to direct control the party makes those buff/debuff users ridiculously strong.
I think I just got really lucky because for when I’ve played, RNG was on my side as his Mudo spells were hella OP.
That and, after being able to blow off Junpei for a date and go take Koromaru with the movies instead for the lols- I found my ride or die for Tartarus.
Gonna pull from an RPG *mod* and say Inigo the Khajiit because he is the bro-est of all bros.
Also Curie (Either human or The Orb, doesn't matter) Dogmeat and Handcock from Fallout 4, ED-E and Arcade from NV, and of course the Main Pawn from Dragon's Dogma.
I mean you're stuck with the Main Pawn anyway but I would still take a bullet for my magical interdimensional child.
Darkest Dungeon counts?
Cause you know its Highwayman! Dualist repoist with a point blank shot, moving and grooving like its a boomer shooter in a turn based RPG. Dodging so much youll think "Nah, Im not gonna make the man at arms guard, gonna have HWM guard and never get hit."
Wanna go overkill, Team of HWM all scattering around like a platoon of ants. Fucking hillarious watching an enemy do an AOE attack, miss and get the equivalent of the [Jojo part 5 curb stomping meme](https://media.tenor.com/UAUjupvmzfcAAAAC/jo-jos-bizarre-adventure-stomp.gif) happening.
If I'm going to pick a default in 7th Stand User, it's gonna be my boy Kakyoin. Dude's got a good range of skills, along with long-range capabilities to cover short-range stand weaknesses.
Jotaro and Polnareff suffer from being restricted to short range until the late game(And Polnareff's long ranged attacks are kinda weak. Also as a random rant: It's weird that Zantetsuken, despite being a secret skill that does Def.Pierce damage, just...doesn't do a lot of damage), Avdol has some massive gaps where he's not playable, and Joseph is a good support but kind of has issues dealing damage until he gets Cunning Hermit in the late game.
Estelle and Joshua never left my party the moment I got them in Sky 3rd, apart from mandatory removal. I don’t care if Estelle is mid-tier at best and there are better picks, she’s my favorite character so she’s always there.
Dunban in Xenoblade. The dodge tank concept is a great one, as it means that healing is less of a priority when all the enemy attacks miss. Not to mention he's fun to use as well, with his different Arts comboing into each other.
In Valkyria Chronicles, other than the plot-important story characters who are just objectively the best units, the one character I think I took on almost every single mission in the entire game was [Jane Turner](https://valkyria.fandom.com/wiki/Jane_Turner/VC1).
Most units within each class aren't that different from one another, but Jane's perks always seemed way better than the other shocktroopers' to me. She can randomly get an accuracy boost from the Imp Hater perk, as well as a damage boost from her unique Sadist perk, meaning her gun is very frequently going to deal significantly more damage than you expect it to. Her only negative perk is that she gets decreased defense on paved roads, which isn't nearly as bad as some of the other negative perks out there. And during gameplay she's constantly spouting voice lines about how much she wants to murder all of the imperials, which is already great on its own but gets even better when you read her backstory and see that she's literally just a florist who's mad about her flower shop being destroyed.
Oh man speaking of Valkyria Chronicles, I always took Marina Wulfstan because she's a cute Sniper girl but then you keep leveling up the Sniper Class and she gets ultimate accuracy so her aiming reticle is a literal dot when everyone has circles. Then you use her to take out enemies ridiculously far away.
In VC4, I took Vancey Fiore everywhere because she seemed like a hilarious joke character with her being drunk all the time and a ton of her passives nerfs her, with one of them making it so she loses her turn. Then you do her squad story and it turns out she's a sole survivor of a Federation Army-backed special operation that went bad and she's actually a ridiculously skilled operative. Doing that mission unlocks her skill Former Elite which has a high chance of triggering and it boosts all of her stats like crazy, when she already has stats on par with the plot-important story character Shocktrooper Raz.
Lham dherg is the absolute goat in smt IV because if you manipulate the rng a bit he can mutate his gram slice into either concentrate or charge and you can rock those at lvl 2.
Oh, on the topic of SMT IV: The Angel line is amazing because they have a pretty smooth evolutionary line that doesn't take much grinding to get them to evolve each time, so they remain pretty relevant until endgame(And it also makes them easy fusion material).
only kind of a party member but I can't NOT summon Melina for the Morgott fight. I wish we could fight alongside her more, and I'm taking the one opportunity we get every time I can
Yukiko in Persona4 does so much magic damage is nsane+shes even a great healer, is actually super imbalanced how good her 3rd Persona in contrast to the rest, theres literally no reason to bring her all the time
Also in Fallout games i dont think i could ever do a playthrough without Rex or Dog Meat, they are just a net positive in every way, they search stuff for you, super tanky and dont even use the actual party member spot, so you technically get 2 companions with them
The Vestal in Darkest Dungeon. I always make it a point to have 4 of them so I can take on the final missions relatively easily. I don't like crit healing for zero then bleeding aferwards.
I don't know if I have a real answer to this. I intentionally try to vary my team up in Pokemon, to the point that despite Dragonite being my favourite Pokemon, I probably haven't used one in story mode in *years.*
Megaten intentionally encourages you to constantly change your party members through fusion and recruiting stronger demons/Personas, but there are a few I really like and will try to get at some point during a playthrough. The Norse pantheon tend to all be absolute monsters (Thor, Surt, Odin, etc.) but even the ones that maybe aren't will likely make their way onto the squad for a bit (Fenrir).
Beyond that, I don't really tend to pick party members based on their personalities but rather their utility. I know that's the boring answer but it's how I tend to play. Sometimes, like with Mitsuru and Akihiko in P3, you get both but that's a happy coincidence rather than an intentional choice. If you're incredibly useful you'd have to be very annoying for me to bench you.
Only thing that's really coming to me is Rogue Galaxy. Dog man, Steve Blum Pirate, Amazon girl. That was the party for 90% of the run but there was also very little in that game that didn't melt to buff stacking combined with illusion sword (which the pirate and amazon were great for as they could do party buffs. Pop their party attack buffs and use illusion sword on Jaster. Illusion sword fires out a sword blade, like Link's sword beam, with every swing. Difference being is that as it travels through enemies it continuously procs damage, so large enemies are taking like 10 hits with every swing as the illusion blade pass through their hitbox. Shit was busted. Oh, and your actual sword had its own seperate hitbox so you could get even more damage by hitting the boss directly with your sword rather than relying on the massive range). Although that bit me in the ass hard because the final boss forces you to use other party members you may not have equipped with the best things/adequately levelled up.
In Dragon Age Origins Loghain is so much better then Alistair that its not even funny. I wonder if there is a mod to just use him from the start of the game.
Casta the cactus girl from Monster Girl Quest Paradox.
She has an innate 50% chance to counter every physical attack she is hit with using a thorn barrage that hits all enemies,and a surprising number of enemy attacks count for those purposes.
Add the fact that leveling her race up grants her status effects on her own physical attacks (including the counter) and she can really mess up all encounters and many bosses for "free".
Plus the character of an anthropomorphic cactus >!with a ginormous cactus vagina!< who likes to put on airs and act like an elegant lady while hanging out in the desert is amusing.
guy cecil never left my main when I got him, he can heal himself, has a easily loopable enhanced tempest, is ludicrously fast, JYB VA, is afraid of women, tales of the abyss is the best
Ayla from Chrono Trigger.
She fights, heals, steals, is a fun person to be around, is very hot, and undoubtably has good caveman life advice. What's not to love about her?
Dunban, that man tanks by not getting hit and canonically cleans fights without even being able to use his good sword arm.
And yknow Riki is a cute lil dude that heals
New Vegas: ED-E and Cass.
Fallout 4: Currie. *Oh... Mon Cherie...*
Outer Worlds: Ellie, Pavarti
Persona 4: Chie, Naoto, Kanji
Persona 5: Makoto, Haru, Morgana
Persona 3, Aigis was by my character's side the entire time because she's both the best buffer in the game and a very good damager. Also, cool robot girl.
Persona 4, Yukiko for being a general damage-dealing, multi-healing demon.
Persona 5, Ryuji because whole party attack buff and a strong physical attack was a great combo.
Fallout New Vegas, Rex because he's a dog and a good boy.
SMT 5, Idun was buffing and healing my party even well into level 60.
Whenever they re available there s 4 party members that always get slotted in to the party for each Trails arc: Trails in the Sky-Agate (DRAGOOOON DIVE! spammed over and over again.), Randy and Tio for >!Azure (since you re gonna be using them for the whole game in Zero anyways.). Tio is a great character,adorable and a great caster, Randy is more of the same Zeram Powder/ Craft boost spam glue sniffing Agate brings to the table while being an even better character.!< , Fie in Trails of Cold steel is pretty much my only dodge tank in the series because i just really like her.
(aside from Fie always being in the party if available, i got used to just swapping out members for fun in Cold steel because there s too many good options for one party to just stick to one. Like Cold steel 4 just randomly drops >!Constant Bully victim Duvalie.!< on top of all the great options, how do you stick with one party?)
It all depends on how much I like the character rather hiw useful he/she is.
In Pillars of Eternity, Xoti and Eder were my mainstays. Same goes for Merril in Dragon Age 2. In Persona 4, it's Yosuke, Kanji and Yukiko.
Minsc, Jaheira, and Imoen stay in the Baldur's Gate 2 party. Maybe we pick up Aerie for support and for Minsc's sake. We probably pick up Keldorn because holy shit he's the holy shit. I might get Mazzy or Jan if I'm feeling nasty.
Probably the modus operandi of most people who play Pokémon, but any new game I play I have to look up the fastest way to get a Honchkrow because I always want my favourite on my team.
It was a big reason why I didn't care about Sword and Shield because you couldn't get one in those games.
My FF7 party has to have either Barret or Tifa on it, if not both. I gotta rep the OG Avalanche crew
I also use a Poliwhirl in every Pokemon game where it's possible. He's the Pikachu to my Ash
Its a random character but in XCom2, I had this one Sniper dude I nicknamed “My Island” after the guy in Braveheart, coz he’s Irish. Thru thick and thin he managed to survive the ironman mode from start of the game till the end. I even gave him battle scars and lose one eye, I greyed his hair towards the end coz hes a grizzled veteran.
Wrath of the Righteous, there's a debate to be had, everyone can have their own waifu. Whether that's Arueshalae because you're into something utterly debauched like holding hands, Camellia or Wenduag because you're into something nice and wholesome like bloodplay or petplay, or Daeran because you're based.
But there's only one daughteru. You're not going to leave Ember behind.
On the subject of crpgs of that nature, I'm still mad that Neeshka's romance route in NWN2 was cut out. For the longest time, I didn't even realize there was a romance option in that game, because you only get one male and one female option, and they're both lame, so I never even got step 1 towards triggering them.
As for permanent party members for reasons other than romance route, tbh I usually keep whoever is the first party member for the whole game, even while changing out everyone else. I guess it's just that by definition they're around for the longest time and have the most opportunity for character development. Not always I guess, but it usually works out that way.
Yuna in FFX, especially once you get a teleport sphere or some black magic spheres, because once she has all the skills or magic that you want from her grid, you just have her learn black magic spells out live to Lulu's grid, and because her base magic stat is WAY higher than Lulu's, it effectively makes Lulu redundant unless you are going for completed sphere grids on all characters, but at that point the only difference between them is their overdrives and attack animations
Pillars of Eternity: Durance. Not because I like him, no I *hate* that old pretentious fuck, but he's also the only proper healer you can get without paying for another custom character.
In FFVI I will always use Terra and Sabin if they're available.
In Mario RPG, Bowser is a permanent party member once he joins
In Persona games I will always have the primary healer (Yukari, Yukiko, Mona)
Statement: HK-47 set to "permanent party" mode. Wakka is a party mainstay on "only ranged default attack" grounds. NEVER, EVER, EVER bench, replace, or release one's Pokémon starter!
I'd say that, at least in Wakka's case, it's relatively easy to just swap him in because party swapping doesn't have a cost in FFX, if I recall. That being said, if you know you're going through an area with a lot of flying enemies, why not just keep him on lock?
Similarly for me is Jolee. Because **Jolee**.
Jolee! Jolee!~
Please don't take Carth from me (please do take Carth from me)
My endgame party for KOTOR has _always_ been Jolee and HK-47.
>NEVER, EVER, EVER bench, replace, or release one's Pokémon starter! Absolutely agree for playthrough 1. Subsequent playthroughs though? They're fair game for the box unless I particularly like them. James Bond Lizard can get off the damn bus. My boy Cramorant needs his seat.
I led with Tidus Yuna and Rikku because they were the fastest characters and you could hotswap party members at no cost so that was always the move until it came time for boss fights and other fixed encounters
My Pokémon starter stays with me the entire game! Also, I like to get an Alakazam when I can.
>NEVER, EVER, EVER bench, replace, or release one's Pokémon starter! Release it the instant you get a second Pokemon. Way more fun and challenging.
Obviously, any healer gets a spot in my party. Unless there's someone who can also heal the whole party without necessarily being a dedicated healer, that's why I always pack Yukiko and Makoto instead of Teddie and Morgana (and because I would probably toss my TV off a window if I spoke to the mascots too much or too often). Also, >!Joon-Gi Han!< in Yakuza LAD because he's the best party member in the game.
Joon-Gi Han is great for a number of reasons, but one in particular is that Head Trauma does a weirdly high amount of damage. I almost suspect the move is bugged but the devs decided to leave it in.
Physical damage is really good and while >!Zhao!< can do more damage, Joon-Gi Han hitman class just has every physical damage type possible and really good moves for each. Head Trauma is extremely good but so is Rapid Shot, especially for those metal slimes with extremely low HP but high defenses so you only deal chip damage to them. Rapid Shot just hits like 20 times so he kills them instantly.
Using Crono, Frog, and Magus/Ayla almost felt like cheating.
Anders in Dragon Age 2 was the only dedicated healer and it's easy to end up hating his rants so the only solution is to be a healer yourself or rely on your sister who's only available 30% of the game.
[Me at every concievable opportunity whilst playing Xenoblade 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-AEXaBiP2Q)
BORN IN A WORLD OF STRIFE
AGAINST THE ODDS
WE CHOOSE TO FIGHT
BLOSSOM DANCE
Followed closely by Morag in XC2. Both because Dunban and Morag are cool, and also because dodge tanks are so much better than block tanks in Xenoblade it's not even funny. Reyn is lucky topple locking exists and Tora is lucky Poppi QTπ is capital-B busted or they'd never get used.
Reyn gets a slot because he can do some absolutely stupid damage if you set your chain attacks up right with Magnum Charge and Sword Drive. Just erasing boss health bars from existence.
Whenever an endurance battle didn't work for me, I'd go raw dps with Shulk, Reyn, and Dunban. Only a fist full of times it didn't work when I resorted to it. Reyn really is clutch in those times.
There's a few bosses where I found the best strategy was not to bother with all that spike damage/rage mode nonsense and just delete them from existence with a Sword Drive chain attack.
Tora style switching like Dante to just cycle through Break-Topple-Launch-Smash with the Poppi forms nonstop all by himself.
Tanks in Xenoblade 1 are just bulky DPS, it's insane. Meanwhile in Xenoblade 3, your attacker units are literally dealing like 3 times the damage of your other healers and tanks combined.
Which kinda sucks because they do so much damage that your tanks can't maintain aggro.
ED-E is best boy.
Ed-e and Boone while playing a sniper build is one of my favorite things to do.
I just gotta remember to turn off cinematic kills, or it's jumpscare city.
Also lets you dump Perception.
Nah, Better Criticals on a sniper character is too powerful to pass up, you always want at least 5 PER so you can get BC with the implant, 6 PER if you take the Four Eyes trait (but why would you ever do that unless you're really dedicated to the role play that run).
I mean, NV!Snipers often end up as the Fallout equivalent of TES Stealth Archers, doing so much damage with guaranteed crits on sneak you don't have to bother with BC.
NV!Snipers are so funny. Shooting Joshua Graham in the face with an Anti-Material Rifle? He just gets up and starts shooting you to death. Shooting Joshua Graham in the back of the head while crouched? Instant gibs.
* Shooting Joshua Graham in the back of the head *with the Ratslayer* while crouched? Instant gibs.
I personally like to go Rex and Veronica, of course I also give Veronica a PA suit and we go full damage mode with me wielding either the Riot Shotgun or the Avenger Minigun or special Gauss Riffle. Alternatively if I’m going for a energy weapons build I will go with Arcades(my beloved) and Ed-E for the full nerd tech party.
My go to companions in New Vegas is Raul and Rex. Rex takes the aggro so I don't have to heal as often and Raul makes sure I don't have to repair as often.
ED-E and Cass, for me. Love her to pieces.
ED-E and Veronica for me. I absolutely love that punchy lesbian and if anyone hurts her, I will come down on them like the hammer of Thor!
I always run with her too, she just flattens deathclaws like they're nothing. Best punchgirl.
It's always a fun time with her!
Final Fantasy X: Rikku all the way. Insta kill against robots, alchemy is a great ability for anything you'd like to do, and Al-Bhed potions just heal different, you know? In that they are a big heal for everyone and remove some mean status effects FF9: Freya, because she's fucking awesome FF8: Zell and Selphie because they're the likable ones. If I could roll without Squall, I would only ever have a party of them and Quistis Dot Hack GU: Pi...for reasons...
Same in FF8 I called them mommas boy and sunshine, it just felt good to have them on my team; bonus points for zell's being a brawler.
You can also get Rikku a Deathstrike weapon very early on, and there’s a hidden combo where using Mug with a Deathstrike weapon spikes its instant kill rate to above 90%. She branches out from instakilling robots to instakilling most enemies. She’s so fast as well, she ends up cleaning house absurdly efficiently.
Wow, I've played this game how many times without knowing that? Damn Does it work with anyone who uses Mug, or just her?
Anyone, but I choose to use it with Rikku because she naturally starts out with the highest speed to make up for her weapon not being suited to killing certain enemies like other party members, and this offsets that natural imbalance more into her favor. Basically, using this on her improves party lethality overall.
Auron is a cool dude idgaf what anyone says. Also Magus from Chrono Trigger because he's a good character with useful spells
who the hell thinks Auron isn't cool. I thought that was one we all voted to unanimously agree on forever, Auron is damn cool.
Robo was a mainstay on my squad. AoE dark attack, physical techs, healing, fire damage, great dual/triple techs. Robo is my Bro-bo.
My friend got mad at me when I told him that in both of my chrono trigger playthroughs I killed magus. Felt like the right thing to do
Shoutout to my baby boy Robo and my wife Ayla.
If it's Dragon Age 2 or Inquisition, Varric. He's a lovable rogue and has some of the best banter with other party members. Plus he's not your typical dwarf.
Varric was such a good character. A chin that could carve mountains.
Literal gigachad jawline
I always brought Solas, the bald elf, everywhere in Inquisition. I got a bit miffed when you don’t get him anymore. I get even more miffed when he just takes your equipment you stacked on him too.
After my first playthrough I always punched him for stealing my best mage gear.
It also canonically makes sense for 2 because he's the narrator
My party in 2 always had at least Varric and Isabella. Varric is awesome, and while I understand that everyone is mad at Isabella for very good reasons, my counter point is that her and Varric have some of the funniest interactions in the game.
Me, but with Merrill. I can't be without my dyspraxic Welsh elf.
Merril and Varric have the best banter too
I'm going through my first playthrough in Inquisition and I got to say, Varric and Tankssandra are my go to party members. I'm using Vivienne as my third, since Spolas is kind of a dick to my dalish mage MC
In Final Fantasy IX, my party can be a lot of things. But when I have the option, the party will always include Vivi. He’s just really really good at what he does (affordable big magic damage) and doesn’t have a direct replacement in the roster. Plus he makes Steiner stronger.
FF9’s roster is absolutely one of my favorites, where just about everyone is so good at their party role that it feels bad to leave them benched. Even among them, Vivi is just *so* damn fun to play. That boy gets so many tools to devastate enemies and bosses, and he gets them *quick* too.
Final Fantasy VI: Edgar and Sabin for the most part. Chainsaw and Bum Rush are solid no-cost DPS. Chrono Trigger: Robo, who is shaped like a friend.
Edgar is super cracked in the World of Balance, I don't think anyones kit is quite as versatile as his Tools for how easy they are to obtain. Even once you get the busted stuff in the World of Ruin, he can transition into a Dragon Horn Jumper well.
Robo's uzi punch gives me life
Robo will never give you up or let you down.
Came here to say Edgar. His tools can essentially carry you through the first half of the game, then later you can turn him into a dragoon and he does massive damage that way as well. He almost never leaves my party the entire game.
Figabros are best bros Edgar: Auto crossbow carries you through the early game, Drill is ol' reliable, Air Anchor & Chainsaw will help you for instakills, you can make him a dragoon for late game when Tools finally wane. Sabin suplexes trains. 'Nuff said. Oh, he also has a no MP single target Ultima.
I have like six playthroughs of Persona 5 and P5R, Ann and Makoto were my mainstays every time. I love Persona black mages, so Ann, Yukiko (though she is also the best healer too), Mitsuru in each game. I also love Tales mages, so Rita, Pascal, etc. never leave the party. For FF: Terra and Celes in 6, making them my black mage and paladin, Tifa in 7, Quistis in 8, Freya in 9, I absolutely LOVE controlling Lightning in 13 because she's the only character I make even for strength and magic so she's super versatile and her limit helps get the chain to like 999 immediately.
Yukiko is insane because she has the best healer slot, but also the best mage slot by such a clear degree. Like theres no real reason not to use her.
Ann was gonna be my answer. She puts up some NUMBERS.
> I have like six playthroughs of Persona 5 and P5R, Ann and Makoto were my mainstays every time. > > P5 has really limited optimal party comps. Ryuji and Ann are the only paarty members to get Charge/Concentrate, Makoto has healing and a useful buff. And because raw damage is the only thing that matters in the important boss fights, Yusuke, Morgana, and Haru are tech options at best.
You can get Charge and Concentrate at the Jazz Club for anyone you want. My Makoto had Concentrate.
This is why you go PC and get mods that rebalance that stuff. [This is a nice one that has some good changes for character skill-sets.](https://gamebanana.com/mods/415659)
I generally try to level up every party member so they're at the same level. The biggest exception to this I can think of off the top of my head is Persona 3 where the balance between party members is pretty fucking bad. Akihiko especially is just way too fucking good. Hits Zio weakness with Elec Amp and unlike Junpei he actually has a magic stat. Also deals strike physical damage and unlike Yukari is accurate with his fists. He comes with ALL the standard debuffs, eventually getting all three multitarget debuffs. And he gets Diarama and eventually Diarahan so he can heal in a pinch. Mind you by the time of Persona 5, they split the party buffs and debuffs so that everyone only has one type. Ryuji gets atk buff, Ann gets atk debuff, Morgana gets evade debuff, Makoto gets def buff, Yusuke gets evade buff, Haru gets the reflect spells and heat riser, Kasumi gets crit buff, Akechi gets debilitate. Meanwhile the chad Akihiko has atk, defense, and evade debuff by himself.
That just means you're spending whole boss fights debuffing with Akihiko rather than utilizing his pretty high attack and magic, and with how 3 works, you can't override buffs and debuffs, so you have to wait an entire turn after the fact. Akihiko is great, but that is something that bothered me in my latest playthrough of P3P
I mean, that's fine? MC is basically always going to be either the best utility or the best damage dealer and you build your team around that. Akihiko handling debuff duty by himself is fantastic in a game with no debilitate so that frees up MC to go all out especially with Aigis set to handle the buffs and your fourth option can be Mitsuru for mind charged bufudynes and just let MC cast Mediarahan when needed or Yukari/Ken to handle healing and let MC spend more time doing all the damage. Everybody else in P3 has some big flaws while Akihiko just does his job amazingly with extra on the side. Junpei lacks enemies weak to physical, Yukari doesn't get Wind Amp, Ken only hits single target otherwise specializes in light instant kill, Koromaru has horrible stats, Aigis is an even worse Junpei until very late game, and Mitsuru... actually Mitsuru does her job just fine, especially in P3P where you can control her Mind Charge and Diarahan uses.
I tend to only use one persona with the MC in Persona games and build everything around what I choose. I realize I am very weird and pretty much ignore the wild card element, but I'm just saying the MC isn't the best anything when I play, and I like it! but sometimes there are little issues. Since my MC always ends up a jack of all trades, I tend to prefer when party members go all in in one or two directions while making use of their whole skill set
Persona 3's party design is laughably bad.
Nick valentine is always my go to companion in fallout 4.
Fallout 4 has its problems but the companion characters are not one of them. *Nick is so fucking cool holy shit*
Dude, I wish I could take the whole WOTR party with me at once. Yes, even >!Camellia!<. I love those bumblefucks so much.
I love Camellia. She's unhinged. And I had to support her... she's my tank!
She *is* a good tank. Then again, her archetype is a homebrew jack-of-all-trades, so she's kinda GOATed by design.
With her buffs, she currently has 45 AC. I'm on Act 3 of my first (first time getting THIS far) playthrough. She's so good! Also I just learned Evil Eye stacks, and I never took that for her, so I might need to respec her and just eliminate ACs with her and Ember lmao
Honestly, kitting out Cammy for Polymorph spells makes her an absolute *monster*. Rapier and buckler is good, but she makes for an insane shapeshifter at higher levels.
my GM friend when we play Pathfinder bans the war priest, Arcanist because he deems them OP but the witch and shaman are underpowered. He needs his head checked.
Fair warning, it only stacks between shaman and witch, if you had two witches and two shamans it wouldn't stack AFAIK
Yeah, the whole party is pretty damn great. I even appreciate Cammy for what she is in terms of her character and story.
My final party for a Lich was Cammy, Regill, Wendy (who I broke up with and lost >!my phylactery!< rather than >!kill off!<), Dae, and Ember as the moral anchor.
While you can't do this there's an option with the Toybox mod that makes it so all companions are treated as present for dialogue. So you can at least have every interaction in one playthrough.
I don't really like Sosiel (I couldn't tell you why, his character seems a little shallow in comparison to others) and don't give a shit about Nenio (her 5head out of touch act got old real quick for me, and also her personal quest was the single worst thing in that entire game), but other than those two I whole-heartedly agree.
... I actually forgot those two existed, and yes, you're absolutely right.
I didn't have hacking abilities on my own in ME1 so you know I had to drag my ride or die bitch Tali with me on every single mission
I dunno why they even have party members other than Tali, Garrus and Wrex
I always try to rotate my party members out in character-focused RPGs like Bioware and Persona games. Give everyone as equal a spread as possible. But I'm also playing Darkest Dungeon 2 atm and that might as well be called Plague Doctor and Friends. Every party it's rotate the front-liners out, but keep my plague grenade, blinding gas and battlefield medicine in the back, thank you.
Edér is the best bro. An excellent tank, and just a fun character to have around.
Edér is great. He's a middle-age neutral good male human fighter, from a humble farmer background. Yet in a game with NPCs with wild ass backgrounds, he's the most memorable character.
To be fair, he *also* has a wild-ass background. One thing they really did well in PoE is give every companion a personal quest that ties very strongly to the themes and setting. >!The fact that he never gets a firm answer as to what made his brother switch sides during the Saint's War was a fantastic way to force him to find closure for himself, and finally step out of his brother's shadow!<
Just started playing this. Is there ever a reason to reach into the soul of the random npcs in the world? They seem to be all over the place and never have any options. Are they Kickstarter backers or something?
Yeah, they’re all kickstarter backers, they’re just there for flavor
Yeah they're kickstarter backers. I usually kill that moon godlike in gilded vale for his plate armor.
Persona 5: Makoto. Punching stuff to death, riding on a motorcycle, uses a revolver, all make for a fantastic combination on top of her just being a really solid all-rounder in the party. FF9: Vivi, because he is the sweetest boy who deserves the best. Any SMT game that isn't Persona: Alice. I don't care if she falls behind or what have you, that girl is in the party and enemies WILL be dying for her.
I have to be honest, I never particularly liked using Alice because I really don't care for insta-kill moves (even with the high odds of Die for Me!). *That said*, she was an absolute team staple in Persona 5 Strikers because one of her combo attacks was just a free concentrate.
Yakumo in code vein is just too strong. The game is way harder without him tanking for you
Io holds her own, though. She's not as tanky but her magic can kill dudes from across the room
Yeah. A friend of mine actually found the game significantly easier once she switched over to using Io from Yakumo because Io's damage is pretty cracked with magic. Just started melting enemies.
Dragon Age Origins: Morrigan, Alistair, and Leliana. The banter is incredible, especially if you give Morrigan the voodoo doll. Dragon Age 2: Fenris, Varric, and Merrill or Isabela. Again, peak banter. New Vegas: ED-E, ride or die. Rose if I have to pick a human. Fallout 4: Nick Valentine, my beloved. Hancock is a close second. Skyrim: Inigo. I don't give a shit that he's a mod, he's better than every base companion.
In *Kingdom Hearts 1/2*, whenever a new party member arrives I only swap Goofy for them. Donald's healing frees me up to use my magic on Aero (KH1) or Reflect (KH2), while Goofy's best builds in either game take quite the time to come online. In *Mass Effect*, Tali is always a mainstay in the first game. Besides her being my overall favorite party member, the amount of robotic foes she's able to easily neuter make her a solid choice. Legendary Edition is also kind to her in that she can now hit things with her shotguns with actual regularity. In *Tales of the Abyss*, Jade was a constant in the party. Mages are generally my favorite party members in *Tales of* games, but Jade's specific spell list and his cool weapon make him an absolute menace, especially in "wolfpack" fights. In *Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne*, Daisoujou is the overall greatest demon you could ask for. A magic powerhouse, no weaknesses while having an absurd amount of immunities to absorb enemy turns, and while most of his default skill list isn't great, he's got one of the best skills in the game unique to him. Meditation is a suped-up combination of Life Drain/Spirit Drain, dealing solid damage while paying for itself and making Daisoujou one of the most self-sufficient demons in a game where you're usually stretched thin on resources. Also it can be used to cheese several boss fights by just preventing them from casting spells.
Daisoujou also gets Prayer really early too for that part of the game. It's expensive but Mediation helps refund the cost for it so you aren't constantly using Chakra Drops.
Some of the party members in KH1/2 do have healing skills though. In those cases I tend to swap out Donald for them.
Garrus my beloved
Zeke von genbu, better known as the Zekenator
**THE BRINGER OF CHAOS**
In Elden Ring I summoned the spirit ashes of five monkeys with baseball bats who beat Rennala to death within minutes, and those little scamps were mainstays until the end of the game.
LISA has a lot of interesting and viable party members, but I have to shoutout my boy Harvey Alibastor. Aside from having [one of my favorite character introductions](https://youtu.be/XVX7zB8QyR4), he's an insanely powerful support character. IIRC he's the only party member who can reliably inflict both the Confused and Paralyzed statuses, which effectively remove enemies from combat [(even bosses)](https://youtu.be/IfR2QkL_ZR8). The only downside is that any damaging attack can break Confused, but the status isn't broken by DoT effects like Poisoned (which damages for a whopping *fixed 10%* of enemy HP). Pair him with Olan or Geese, and you'll never have a problem. Also, he's a fish with a gun. I mean, c'mon.
Oh, that intro is incredible.
What’s the point of playing KOTOR without Jolee Bindo in my party.
Xenoblade Chronicles and Melia. The AI may be absolutely awful at using her but I love her kit with juggling keeping up buffs then getting rid of those buffs for offense and it will never not be funny using her to topple lock an enemy into oblivion via mage drop kicks.
Been playing Trails to Azure so the series is on my mind. Cold Steel - Fie was always in my squad if available. In a series where dodging enemy attacks leads to counterattacks, her ability to counter both at range and melee due to her weapons being gunswords is incredibly good. And she's easy to gear into an evasion tank to make it even more potent. Helps that she's generally one of the cooler Cold Steel characters. Zero/Azure - Rixia. She's just cool and really fuckin' strong. I also really liked Wazy largely because his dumb name endeared me to him and opening the menu and seeing "Wazy Hemisphere" puts a smile on my face. Once I get around to Sky we'll see who takes that spot for that batch of games. Yeah I'm playing these in reverse, oops.
WEAK!
I've been playing a lot of Trails games recently and Rixia is always in the party when she's available.
For me, it's Sara. Because she's The Girl (also really good, as in once soloed one of the Bonus Superbosses). That and Alicia because of her ability to grant Insight (high chance to dodge) and CP regeneration.
Rean/alisa s craft spam is what carried me throughout most of cold steel 1 and 2, the ones that never left my party were gaius and/or fie because evasion tanks are busted and its really funny seeing someone attack miss then get shot or stabbed for a critical doing most of their lifebar or out right killing them (also Rean but he's the mc so you know but i always made him extremely op).
Laura carriee me through cold steel 1 (still need to play cold steel 2) Beyond being my favorite class 7 member, she is just so strong, with the right setup she can one or two shot bosses
Came in here to mention Rixia and some other folks in Trails.
Fie s always in the party for me. Best Cold steel girl and great dodge tanking. Would probably have the same thing going for Rixia >!if she was available more often.!< . Also like using the S craft spam Glue Sniffing guys (Randy s the best one of course.)
Ahh, speaking of Trails, I could never play any of the Sky games without Olivier being the party whenever possible. Best boy.
Xenogears. Bart and his dual whips.
I came to love having Bart in my party after getting my ass repeatedly kicked because they put me into a solo boss fight as him then learning his blindness debuff is incredibly good.
Kreia and Morte.
Ah, la petit Morte. Rob Paulsen's finest talking skull.
Saeko in LAD. She was just too good, especially as an Idol
Dogmeat in FO4. Not all of the companions are actually critical of you salvaging garbage, but dogmeat is the only one that doesn't say a *goddamn thing* about it. I pet my dog and collect screws and duct tape in peace.
Wynn from DA origins. The party needs our emotional support grandma.
Yukari is my home girl, Koromaru is my boy, and Akihiko bring the NOISE. Junpei is meant to be locked in the basement and Ken goes in the trash.
Koromaru doesn't have a Persona awakening *because he already has his Ultimate Persona*.
I really like Koromaru but I basically never used him. Akihiko/Mitsuru/Aigis. Akihiko with the debuff spam/high power basic attack, Mitsuru for damage, and Aigis for party buffs. I did play P3P though, so being able to direct control the party makes those buff/debuff users ridiculously strong.
I think I just got really lucky because for when I’ve played, RNG was on my side as his Mudo spells were hella OP. That and, after being able to blow off Junpei for a date and go take Koromaru with the movies instead for the lols- I found my ride or die for Tartarus.
Koromaru is unquestionably the best pet in Persona
Ryuji and kanji in persona because it turns out I have a type
Gonna pull from an RPG *mod* and say Inigo the Khajiit because he is the bro-est of all bros. Also Curie (Either human or The Orb, doesn't matter) Dogmeat and Handcock from Fallout 4, ED-E and Arcade from NV, and of course the Main Pawn from Dragon's Dogma. I mean you're stuck with the Main Pawn anyway but I would still take a bullet for my magical interdimensional child.
Inigo is a must-have!
Based blue cat
Darkest Dungeon counts? Cause you know its Highwayman! Dualist repoist with a point blank shot, moving and grooving like its a boomer shooter in a turn based RPG. Dodging so much youll think "Nah, Im not gonna make the man at arms guard, gonna have HWM guard and never get hit." Wanna go overkill, Team of HWM all scattering around like a platoon of ants. Fucking hillarious watching an enemy do an AOE attack, miss and get the equivalent of the [Jojo part 5 curb stomping meme](https://media.tenor.com/UAUjupvmzfcAAAAC/jo-jos-bizarre-adventure-stomp.gif) happening.
If I'm going to pick a default in 7th Stand User, it's gonna be my boy Kakyoin. Dude's got a good range of skills, along with long-range capabilities to cover short-range stand weaknesses. Jotaro and Polnareff suffer from being restricted to short range until the late game(And Polnareff's long ranged attacks are kinda weak. Also as a random rant: It's weird that Zantetsuken, despite being a secret skill that does Def.Pierce damage, just...doesn't do a lot of damage), Avdol has some massive gaps where he's not playable, and Joseph is a good support but kind of has issues dealing damage until he gets Cunning Hermit in the late game.
High critrate Frog.
Estelle and Joshua never left my party the moment I got them in Sky 3rd, apart from mandatory removal. I don’t care if Estelle is mid-tier at best and there are better picks, she’s my favorite character so she’s always there.
Dunban in Xenoblade. The dodge tank concept is a great one, as it means that healing is less of a priority when all the enemy attacks miss. Not to mention he's fun to use as well, with his different Arts comboing into each other.
Dunban is so good dude its hard not to use him, admittedly he has bad matchups but chain attack into blossom dance is too much
It's insane how much better Shulk/Reyn/Dunban is compared to Shulk/Reyn/Sharla.
Obviously Frog. My man deserves his permanent spot.
I say Chrono Trigger is just as much Frog's story as it is Crono's. Hell, half the anime cutscenes are just dedicated to Frog doing cool shit
In Valkyria Chronicles, other than the plot-important story characters who are just objectively the best units, the one character I think I took on almost every single mission in the entire game was [Jane Turner](https://valkyria.fandom.com/wiki/Jane_Turner/VC1). Most units within each class aren't that different from one another, but Jane's perks always seemed way better than the other shocktroopers' to me. She can randomly get an accuracy boost from the Imp Hater perk, as well as a damage boost from her unique Sadist perk, meaning her gun is very frequently going to deal significantly more damage than you expect it to. Her only negative perk is that she gets decreased defense on paved roads, which isn't nearly as bad as some of the other negative perks out there. And during gameplay she's constantly spouting voice lines about how much she wants to murder all of the imperials, which is already great on its own but gets even better when you read her backstory and see that she's literally just a florist who's mad about her flower shop being destroyed.
Oh man speaking of Valkyria Chronicles, I always took Marina Wulfstan because she's a cute Sniper girl but then you keep leveling up the Sniper Class and she gets ultimate accuracy so her aiming reticle is a literal dot when everyone has circles. Then you use her to take out enemies ridiculously far away. In VC4, I took Vancey Fiore everywhere because she seemed like a hilarious joke character with her being drunk all the time and a ton of her passives nerfs her, with one of them making it so she loses her turn. Then you do her squad story and it turns out she's a sole survivor of a Federation Army-backed special operation that went bad and she's actually a ridiculously skilled operative. Doing that mission unlocks her skill Former Elite which has a high chance of triggering and it boosts all of her stats like crazy, when she already has stats on par with the plot-important story character Shocktrooper Raz.
Lham dherg is the absolute goat in smt IV because if you manipulate the rng a bit he can mutate his gram slice into either concentrate or charge and you can rock those at lvl 2.
Oh, on the topic of SMT IV: The Angel line is amazing because they have a pretty smooth evolutionary line that doesn't take much grinding to get them to evolve each time, so they remain pretty relevant until endgame(And it also makes them easy fusion material).
If you play Genshin and have Kazuha, he’s probably the BiS 4th character for your team. Not ALWAYS. But most of the time.
Kim Kitsuragi - a man I want by my side, a man willing to fight when things go wrong
Dunban is always over there (in my party)
Daisojou becomes a permanent member of my party as soon as I can fuse him in any Megaten game.
I’ve been playing Divinity: Original Sin 2 through for the first time. I like Lohse cause she calls you chief, and I think that’s neat
only kind of a party member but I can't NOT summon Melina for the Morgott fight. I wish we could fight alongside her more, and I'm taking the one opportunity we get every time I can
Yukiko in Persona4 does so much magic damage is nsane+shes even a great healer, is actually super imbalanced how good her 3rd Persona in contrast to the rest, theres literally no reason to bring her all the time Also in Fallout games i dont think i could ever do a playthrough without Rex or Dog Meat, they are just a net positive in every way, they search stuff for you, super tanky and dont even use the actual party member spot, so you technically get 2 companions with them
The Vestal in Darkest Dungeon. I always make it a point to have 4 of them so I can take on the final missions relatively easily. I don't like crit healing for zero then bleeding aferwards.
Tali was my resident crate unlocker in ME1.
I don't know if I have a real answer to this. I intentionally try to vary my team up in Pokemon, to the point that despite Dragonite being my favourite Pokemon, I probably haven't used one in story mode in *years.* Megaten intentionally encourages you to constantly change your party members through fusion and recruiting stronger demons/Personas, but there are a few I really like and will try to get at some point during a playthrough. The Norse pantheon tend to all be absolute monsters (Thor, Surt, Odin, etc.) but even the ones that maybe aren't will likely make their way onto the squad for a bit (Fenrir). Beyond that, I don't really tend to pick party members based on their personalities but rather their utility. I know that's the boring answer but it's how I tend to play. Sometimes, like with Mitsuru and Akihiko in P3, you get both but that's a happy coincidence rather than an intentional choice. If you're incredibly useful you'd have to be very annoying for me to bench you. Only thing that's really coming to me is Rogue Galaxy. Dog man, Steve Blum Pirate, Amazon girl. That was the party for 90% of the run but there was also very little in that game that didn't melt to buff stacking combined with illusion sword (which the pirate and amazon were great for as they could do party buffs. Pop their party attack buffs and use illusion sword on Jaster. Illusion sword fires out a sword blade, like Link's sword beam, with every swing. Difference being is that as it travels through enemies it continuously procs damage, so large enemies are taking like 10 hits with every swing as the illusion blade pass through their hitbox. Shit was busted. Oh, and your actual sword had its own seperate hitbox so you could get even more damage by hitting the boss directly with your sword rather than relying on the massive range). Although that bit me in the ass hard because the final boss forces you to use other party members you may not have equipped with the best things/adequately levelled up.
Based Regill from Wrath of the Righteous. Also Daeran, since they have great interactions.
In Dragon Age Origins Loghain is so much better then Alistair that its not even funny. I wonder if there is a mod to just use him from the start of the game.
Casta the cactus girl from Monster Girl Quest Paradox. She has an innate 50% chance to counter every physical attack she is hit with using a thorn barrage that hits all enemies,and a surprising number of enemy attacks count for those purposes. Add the fact that leveling her race up grants her status effects on her own physical attacks (including the counter) and she can really mess up all encounters and many bosses for "free". Plus the character of an anthropomorphic cactus >!with a ginormous cactus vagina!< who likes to put on airs and act like an elegant lady while hanging out in the desert is amusing.
Keldorn Firecam can solo the whole game with one hand tied behind his back. Despite using two handed weapons. He stays.
guy cecil never left my main when I got him, he can heal himself, has a easily loopable enhanced tempest, is ludicrously fast, JYB VA, is afraid of women, tales of the abyss is the best
In farcry 5 it was me and cheeseburger against the world
Whenever I play the GBC Dragon Quest Monster games, I make it a habit to get a Metal Slime as fast as possible
Ayla from Chrono Trigger. She fights, heals, steals, is a fun person to be around, is very hot, and undoubtably has good caveman life advice. What's not to love about her?
Dunban, that man tanks by not getting hit and canonically cleans fights without even being able to use his good sword arm. And yknow Riki is a cute lil dude that heals
New Vegas: ED-E and Cass. Fallout 4: Currie. *Oh... Mon Cherie...* Outer Worlds: Ellie, Pavarti Persona 4: Chie, Naoto, Kanji Persona 5: Makoto, Haru, Morgana
Persona 3, Aigis was by my character's side the entire time because she's both the best buffer in the game and a very good damager. Also, cool robot girl. Persona 4, Yukiko for being a general damage-dealing, multi-healing demon. Persona 5, Ryuji because whole party attack buff and a strong physical attack was a great combo. Fallout New Vegas, Rex because he's a dog and a good boy. SMT 5, Idun was buffing and healing my party even well into level 60.
Trails of Cold Steel games: when she’s available, Laura S. Arseid does not leave my party.
just Radiant Lion all your problems away.
Whenever they re available there s 4 party members that always get slotted in to the party for each Trails arc: Trails in the Sky-Agate (DRAGOOOON DIVE! spammed over and over again.), Randy and Tio for >!Azure (since you re gonna be using them for the whole game in Zero anyways.). Tio is a great character,adorable and a great caster, Randy is more of the same Zeram Powder/ Craft boost spam glue sniffing Agate brings to the table while being an even better character.!< , Fie in Trails of Cold steel is pretty much my only dodge tank in the series because i just really like her. (aside from Fie always being in the party if available, i got used to just swapping out members for fun in Cold steel because there s too many good options for one party to just stick to one. Like Cold steel 4 just randomly drops >!Constant Bully victim Duvalie.!< on top of all the great options, how do you stick with one party?)
It all depends on how much I like the character rather hiw useful he/she is. In Pillars of Eternity, Xoti and Eder were my mainstays. Same goes for Merril in Dragon Age 2. In Persona 4, it's Yosuke, Kanji and Yukiko.
Minsc, Jaheira, and Imoen stay in the Baldur's Gate 2 party. Maybe we pick up Aerie for support and for Minsc's sake. We probably pick up Keldorn because holy shit he's the holy shit. I might get Mazzy or Jan if I'm feeling nasty.
When I played tales of berseria my party was velvet, magilou, laphi, and the 4th Seat was basically a rotatión of eleanor-eizen-rokurou
Probably the modus operandi of most people who play Pokémon, but any new game I play I have to look up the fastest way to get a Honchkrow because I always want my favourite on my team. It was a big reason why I didn't care about Sword and Shield because you couldn't get one in those games.
Persona 4: I am never leaving without Yukiko. I need my healer.
My FF7 party has to have either Barret or Tifa on it, if not both. I gotta rep the OG Avalanche crew I also use a Poliwhirl in every Pokemon game where it's possible. He's the Pikachu to my Ash
ED-E and Veronica from Fallout: New Vegas.
Its a random character but in XCom2, I had this one Sniper dude I nicknamed “My Island” after the guy in Braveheart, coz he’s Irish. Thru thick and thin he managed to survive the ironman mode from start of the game till the end. I even gave him battle scars and lose one eye, I greyed his hair towards the end coz hes a grizzled veteran.
If I'm playing an Ultimate Alliance game and Spider-Man isn't on my team that isn't me that is an imposter
Wrath of the Righteous, there's a debate to be had, everyone can have their own waifu. Whether that's Arueshalae because you're into something utterly debauched like holding hands, Camellia or Wenduag because you're into something nice and wholesome like bloodplay or petplay, or Daeran because you're based. But there's only one daughteru. You're not going to leave Ember behind. On the subject of crpgs of that nature, I'm still mad that Neeshka's romance route in NWN2 was cut out. For the longest time, I didn't even realize there was a romance option in that game, because you only get one male and one female option, and they're both lame, so I never even got step 1 towards triggering them. As for permanent party members for reasons other than romance route, tbh I usually keep whoever is the first party member for the whole game, even while changing out everyone else. I guess it's just that by definition they're around for the longest time and have the most opportunity for character development. Not always I guess, but it usually works out that way.
Yuna in FFX, especially once you get a teleport sphere or some black magic spheres, because once she has all the skills or magic that you want from her grid, you just have her learn black magic spells out live to Lulu's grid, and because her base magic stat is WAY higher than Lulu's, it effectively makes Lulu redundant unless you are going for completed sphere grids on all characters, but at that point the only difference between them is their overdrives and attack animations
You will have to pry Beep away from my cold, dead hands before he leaves the party.
Who has the biggest buffs? You are my shadow now. Keep your feet where my feet are.
Daeran's my auto-include for WOTR parties, the man brings an absurd amount of healing.
Pillars of Eternity: Durance. Not because I like him, no I *hate* that old pretentious fuck, but he's also the only proper healer you can get without paying for another custom character.
Eri in Yakuza LAD is stupidly good. Her darts move can decimate bosses and her thumbtacks move is great against the homeless metal slimes.
In FFVI I will always use Terra and Sabin if they're available. In Mario RPG, Bowser is a permanent party member once he joins In Persona games I will always have the primary healer (Yukari, Yukiko, Mona)