Though he was in three games as an antagonist, you never actually get to fight Yuber until Suikoden III. Yuber's a very battle-heavy character. We know so little about him since he basically serves to show up and be a boss fight or to just be one more obstacle during Army Battles. Even fighting-wise, Yuber is different from other characters.
Weapons
Runes
Army Battles
One-on-One Duels
Party Battles
Berserk Mode
Stats
Yuber's been in three games, and in each game, his sword seems to be a little different. Some people debate that he consistently changes swords, while others believe he can change his sword's appearance.
Yuber wields Crimson swords, a special type of sword which is claimed to harness the power of runes. Not much else is known about it otherwise. For the first two games, Yuber was seen brandishing a sword similar to a bastard sword. However, in Suikoden III, Yuber suddenly switched to wielding two, extremely thin swords by the same name. Some speculate Yuber actually turned his old sword into two swords between the course of Suikoden II and Suikoden III, which would account to why they are so thin. Judging from the ratio of the swords to his body, each sword seems to be between 3' - 3'5" in length; pretty damn long. The length seems to add to the mystery of where the hell he pulls the damn things out of.
He is often seen throughout Suikoden III without his swords in hand. However, at a moment's notice, he can flick his arms and have his swords appear in his hands and ready to fight. It seems they fall from his sleeves, which would make the blades possibly retractable, but he moves his arms quite liberally for him to have two sword hilts up his sleeves. One can also note that in Suikoden I and Suikoden II art, Yuber doesn't seem to have a sheath of any kind, even though other characters tend to have such. One could just dismiss it as being the magic of Suikoworld and be done with it, but Suikoden III seemed to make a point of always showing Yuber take his swords out for each battle (sans the one-on-one duel).
Yuber's sword is named King Crimson, the same name of the sword the Black Knight Pesmerga possesses. Some fans believe Yuber somehow managed to get Pesmerga's sword, possibly even killing him. It's unlikely that something as major as Yuber killing Pesmerga would have gone on between games without any coverage at all. It could be that Crimson swords are the commonly used weapon for Black Knights, though the Crimson swords seem like more of a rarity than something mass-produced and handed to a group. Black Knights don't seem to be in high population, either, but I digress.
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We have yet to see it in action, but it has been officially stated by Konami that Yuber possesses one of the 27 True Runes, the Hachifusa Rune, which most people have translated to the Eightfold Rune. It's commonly misunderstood to translate to the Eightdevil Rune, but in actuality, the Eightdevil Rune is another rune entirely that Yuber is also believed to possess. That would make the Eightdevil not a True Rune, since one can only possess one True Rune. It's believed that the Eightdevil rune could possibly be a child rune of the Eightfold (just as a fire rune is a child rune of The True Fire Rune). Yuber also possess a lightning rune, which he uses on occasion to attack all enemies.
Yuber's battle expertise is physical power and speed. His magic is decent, but not anything massively threatening. The only magic he uses is his lightning rune, which is mostly comprised of attacks that will cause moderate damage to your entire party. He seems to prefer using physical attacks to magic, so he doesn't use his lightning rune often.
Also, Yuber's ability to "chant" is fairly weak, so if you attack him enough, you should be able to prevent him from casting a spell. The only exception to this seems to be in the fight with Yuber in Chris's Chapter 3, where if he were chanting he would deflect any physical attack aside from projectile. In any case, if he stops his physical assault to use magic, it can easily be considered a lucky break.
Yuber actually has an attack called Eight Devil in which he seems to enter a misty dimension, create two replicas of himself, and attacks a single opponent with a unite attack with all three. Though it's under the Rune command, this is not really a rune attack. All rune attacks are magic and require chanting, even True Runes. Since Yuber doesn't need to chant in order to perform this move, it's more of a special ability. Should he perform this attack, it almost guarantees a K.O. or very close to it. It is a very powerful attack. Thankfully, he doesn't use it too often.
Eight Devil is extremely similar to an attack done by a monster rightfully named Mirage, who also replicate itself into three copies and attacks a row of your party. The monster Mirage also looks similar to Yuber's appearance in Suikoden I and II. Some use this similarity as proof that Yuber is a creature similar to Mirage, though what that means, I'm not sure.
Most people believe the Eight Devil attack doesn't in any way reflect what the Hachifusa Rune is supposed to be capable of. Regardless, the Hachifusa Rune's true power has yet to be revealed.
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This was the only way you "fought" against Yuber in Suikoden I and Suikoden II. For the most part, when battling against Yuber's unit, there was very little damage that could be done if you were lucky enough to do any at all. Your greatest hope against beating Yuber's unit was to use distance attacks, such as bombarding him with arrows where he couldn't retaliate, or using strong magic. In Suikoden II, magic would often serve no effect against him at all (rather irritating). In Suikoden III, using magic is your safest bet, but once his HP is at about half, magic doesn't affect him at all, and you have no choice but to face him in combat in order to take him down. In Army Battles in Suikoden III, Yuber is usually one of the first of the enemy army to move and always heads straight for you, as opposed to other units who might have the tendency to hang back. In all games, your best bet is to avoid fighting him unless you have to in order to advance. Good luck with that since he tends to chase.
It's common belief that Yuber is not a very effective leader since he seems to lack strategy. His 'strategy' seems to be, "Everyone, run in and fight until they die." However, there is one maneuver he does seem to like pulling off when he has several units under his command in Suikoden III: Whenever possible, he like likes to have all of his units surround one group so there's nowhere to run, then have them go in for the kill.
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There has only been one one-on-one duel with Yuber in the Suikoden series, that being in Suikoden III. Truthfully, the duel is completely rigged. There's no way to beat him. Yuber's power level is completely above yours and will take you down in one hit unless you defend, in which case about 60% of your HP goes down, and then he'll take you down next turn. Yuber will choose whatever you choose for an attack: Choose Attack, and he'll do the same. Choose Special, and he'll use Special. Good to note that regardless of whether you defend or not, Yuber never defends. He's always on offensive. Yuber's speed is also above yours, so he'll get to hit you first. It'd be nice to fight Yuber in a non-rigged duel, but since he's pretty damn hard to fight in regular combat with six people, this is probably a pretty accurate portrayal of how it would go anyway.
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Firstly, he has incredible offensive capability. Each hit he delivers has an often overwhelming amount of power behind it; at his least impressive, somewhere around 100 damage per hit. Wielding two swords allows him to deliver two hits per attack, so all together, can inflict anywhere between 160-300 damage to a character in one assault. If this doesn't K.O. a character, they will be close to the danger zone at this point. And with his high agility, he will either be the first in battle to strike or one of the first.
Next thing to worry about, and the main issue people have fighting him, is his high dodge rate. Unless you've made a conscious effort to build up your characters' accuracy, Yuber will dodge just about every physical attack you throw at him, and even then, hitting him is never a guarantee. The only exception to this seems to be projectile weapons, like arrows and throwing knives. He doesn't usually dodge these (though he does on occasion), but he does sometimes deflect them by swinging his sword in time to whack away the shot. As far as I have noticed, Yuber is the ONLY character in the game that does this.
Though he doesn't deflect nearly as much as he dodges, he does do it with both projectile and sword attacks. As rare as deflecting is, there's about a 1/3 chance that deflecting will result in a short, one-swipe counter attack. If he does this, there's a good chance his next assault will be on whoever he countered to finish them off (if they didn't already collapse). He deflects swords a lot more often when in Berserk mode.
Yuber also has decent defense, though not as impressive as his offense. During your first encounter with Yuber in Hugo's Chapter 2, you would be very lucky to do 100 damage with a physical attack. Unless a character is a well-trained offensive-heavy character, this is about the amount of damage you can expect. With a well trained character, you can possibly get somewhere around 250 damage.
He doesn't seem to be picky as far as who he targets. In most cases, he simply attacks whoever is the closest. If there is no one in particular who is closest, he tends to attack whoever is directly in front of wherever he is facing.
One of the problems players face when fighting any of the Destroyers is their tendency to use monsters in their battles. Being that the other two battle-capable Destroyers are mages, they tend to stay in the back row and cast spells while the monsters fight up ahead and prevent any kind of physical assault on them. Yuber, however, tends to run all over the place in battle. He will never be the kind of character who simply stands by in the back row. He always charges straight into the fight, monsters or no. It's in this respect, he seems to fight 'alongside' monsters, rather than simply using them.
Looking over all this information, Yuber seems almost unbeatable. Yuber's main weakness, however, would be magic. Magic is the only kind of attack, aside from unite attacks, that Yuber cannot dodge. In addition, his magic defense is not impressive at all. In order to take Yuber down, a strong magic assault is necessary.
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When a certain amount of Yuber's health has been depleted, he automatically goes into Berserk Mode. When in Berserk Mode, everything that makes Yuber lethal gets even worse. His attack increases drastically, and is now able to inflict around 300-450 damage in an assault. In the final battle against Yuber, he sometimes will be able to hit you more than twice in an assault after entering Berserk Mode, getting three or possibly four hits in a turn. He deflects sword attacks more often than he normally does, and the chance of a counter attack with his newfound offensive power increases as well.
How much damage he takes before entering Berserk Mode seems to decrease as the game moves along, but general opinion seems to be when he is somewhere between 50%-75% of his maximum health.
Berserk Mode is not unique to Yuber. Many characters have the ability to go Berserk under certain conditions, such as a character they are close to story-wise collapsing. Equipping certain items and performing certain moves can also result in characters going Berserk. Yuber, however, is the only character who goes berserk without the aid of items, attacks, or other people. He is also the only one of the Destroyers who goes Berserk.
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HP: 4500
This is how much hp Yuber has at the end of the game, ie at his best. This is certainly not anywhere nearly as bad as past monster bosses, but you will have to work pretty damn hard to inch down that 4500 hp. This is also a lot more hp than the other Destroyers have.
Unfortunately, though you get Yuber in your party during the Bonus Chapter, the game isn't nice enough to give you the amount of hp any of the Destroyers have in their boss battles. In the Bonus Chapter, Yuber starts out at Level 42 with 380hp.
Skills
ATK: | 324 | 197 | 138 | ||
DEF: | 120 | 112 | 83 | ||
REP: | 66 | 22 | 20 | ||
MOV: | 25 | 20 | 20 |