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Posted: 11th January 2017 17:28

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Onion Knight
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Guys I need help deciding what to do with my units. There really arent that many jobs to choose from that appeal to me in the slightest, but this game is about gaining tactical advantages on the battlefield and holding them until your enemies are no more. I'm going to need tricks, and I'm not sure if the tried-and-true ol' fashioned meat and potatoes approach will be good enough.

This problem came about roughly 10 minutes ago when I started changing my 5 master squires' jobs after they all had reached their special milestone. I know roughly what I want for my physical attackers, but on the other side of the job tree I'm really only interested in Black, White, Time, and possibly later in the game I'll try Summon magicks. My problem is that magical classes are a large investment in JP generally and I'm not sure which are worth using, and what secondary skillsets compliment certain main classes.

First of all, I thought I wanted to make a White/Black mage. Then I got to thinking: Is there anything I ought to know about combining them? I think if I use a White mage, his/her MA is probably going to be lower than a Black mage and I won't be able to use rods to increase effectiveness, so I don't know if it's worth it. I think if I was to use Time magicks as a secondary skill for a white mage, it would be a better choice since status effects (as far as I can tell) don't have intensity affected by player stats. If that's not the case, what would suffer by using it as a secondary? % chance of successful casting?

Obviously there's a lot to know and I'm new to this. The choices you make at the beginning of the game to me, feel like they'll have far reaching effects if your chosen soldier starts down the wrong road. What are some of your guys' favorite units in terms of usefulness, practicality, and reliability? I want to know what definitely works. I don't want fat on my Final Fantasy Steak.

This post has been edited by Mister Beoulve on 11th January 2017 17:29

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Posted: 16th January 2017 08:17

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I haven't played FFT, but you're reminding me of how I kept track of skills learned by my characters in my FFTA clan...on a spreadsheet.

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Post #211926
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Posted: 24th January 2017 21:37

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Onion Knight
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Ended up going with:

Monk (Ramza)
-To eventually become a Dark Knight/Monk or Squire (for Mettle skills. Is this a terrible idea late game?)

Black Mage (Generic)
-To eventually become a second Dark Knight/Monk.

Black Mage (Generic)
-To stay Black mage with "items" ability, or eventually become a Gunner-Chemist/Black Mage.

Monk (Generic)
-To eventually become a Knight/Monk.

Archer (Generic)
-To eventually become Ninja/Thief. (Dedicated to stealing story mission items and running errands.)

I also have Ladd and his friends now. Ladd might end up as a Gunner-Chemist/White Mage. I think I'll put Alicia and Lavian on secretary duty until their cutscene comes up. Their stats aren't very good and I have organizational issues within my army's ranks.

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Posted: 25th January 2017 17:08

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Quote (Mister Beoulve @ 24th January 2017 15:37)
Ended up going with:

Monk (Ramza)
-To eventually become a Dark Knight/Monk or Squire (for Mettle skills. Is this a terrible idea late game?)

Black Mage (Generic)
-To eventually become a second Dark Knight/Monk.

Black Mage (Generic)
-To stay Black mage with "items" ability, or eventually become a Gunner-Chemist/Black Mage.

Monk (Generic)
-To eventually become a Knight/Monk.

Archer (Generic)
-To eventually become Ninja/Thief. (Dedicated to stealing story mission items and running errands.)

I also have Ladd and his friends now. Ladd might end up as a Gunner-Chemist/White Mage. I think I'll put Alicia and Lavian on secretary duty until their cutscene comes up. Their stats aren't very good and I have organizational issues within my army's ranks.

Ramza's Mettle never gets old. There are always uses for it. Monk remains a decent class for most of the game as well, especially if you can up his Move stats through equipment and abilities, and can tank him up further with Equip Armor.

I have to warn you that gun-toting characters suffer quite a bit through the middle of the game. The most powerful guns can't be bought and are hard to acquire until late game. They're good for applying limited damage from relative safety, particularly on flat maps or maps where you can take high ground, but in other cases, including battles where the enemy can make up large swaths of ground due to being high-move classes or ranged attackers themselves, you'll likely find that they'll take a beating.

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Posted: 28th January 2017 03:17

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Onion Knight
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I don't know what else to do with my units to be honest. I'll probably keep Mustadio as a Machinist with "item" ability or as a Machinist/White Mage secondary. I really like Chemists so I'll probably make an effort to keep one or two active just for my own personal entertainment. It seems like this game absolutely barrages you with named story/errand characters so I think my only limitation is whether or not the named characters will need all of my attention once they show up.

I'm still working things out so I appreciate the discussion.

EDIT: Further now. I've just reached chapter 3. This is what I've got so far:

- - - - - -

- Ramza is still eventually going to be a DK.

- Generic Monk/Thief (Dedicated story items unit. Usually has about >50% chance of a successful theft from behind by time he reaches his target. Candy from babies.)

- Generic Archer/Monk (Not the best healer, but having a ranged unit with healing and close range attacks feels like you're some kind of jack-of-all-trades-commando. Love this unit so far!)

- A generic is eventually going to be my other DK. Just grinding for now.

- Generic White Mage/items

- Ladd is going to be my Black Mage/items unit.

- Alicia is a knight. (I'm probably going to give her Martial Arts as well, but I'm not sure yet.)

- Lavian is an archer. (I'm also not sure about what sort of secondary. Martial arts as a utility has been an infallible secondary skill so far.)

- Mustadio is cool. Haven't done anything with him yet. Suggestions?

- Agrias can stay a holy knight. No plans for her yet, either.

- - - - - -

I mostly use Alicia, Lavian, and whichever unit I don't need to grind currently for errands. That seems to be the only benefit to being forced to have like 10 dudes minimum.

- - - - - -

So those are my units. My physical melee characters get First strike, and the rest have Auto-potion to keep my supporting backround units (I consider archers support units) alive while they do their job. It's been working fantastic so far.

I honestly can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm thinking of restarting the game again. I sort of want to stick with only named story characters. I don't know if this will mess me up or not. Everything is going smooth right now, but I regret not making the most out of some of my named units. (Br/Ft doesn't matter in the long run since you can alter it as soon as you have a Orator unlocked.) Mostly Lavian and Alicia. Ladd is fine as a black mage.

Let me know what you guys think!

(Also how long is this game? The first 2 chapters absolutely FLEW by. I want to unlock DK for Ramza before the end.)

This post has been edited by Mister Beoulve on 6th March 2017 07:39

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Posted: 10th March 2017 17:55

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Onion Knight
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Sorry for the double post, but I've already edited my last one and other things have come up. I feel like I've finally settled on a final team until whichever story characters I've yet to aquire become available. I've made some cuts but the units I dismissed took it very well surprisingly. They left gracefully.

http://i.imgur.com/6Uqxhmi.jpg

Ramza: Still on his long road to becoming a DK.

Ladd: he's now my new candidate for second DK.

Generic male Archer/Monk

Generic male Monk/Thief

Generic female White Mage/Items

Alicia: Dragoon/Knight

Lavian: Archer/Monk

Mustadio: Ninja/Machinist

Agrius: Holy Knight/Items

Notice there's only 3 generics now. I plan to eventually phase them out. Mustadio will master thief to replace my current Monk/Thief (switching skills accordingly when there's story items to be stolen.), Lavian is going to Master Martial arts and replace the generic archer of the same build, and at some point in the story I'm sure a suitable replacement will most likely come along and fill in for my White Mage. If not, just having one generic to babysit won't be so bad.

EDIT: Let me know what sort of armies you guys have. I'm on my first playthrough so I'm still learning new things as I go. This thread was meant to be a discussion about what works for each of you and any criticism you can give me to help me improve. I feel like I have a good handle on things now but I know there's people that have played this game front to back ten times over who surely have a tip or two.

This post has been edited by Mister Beoulve on 11th March 2017 00:25

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Posted: 3rd April 2017 02:41

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Black Mage
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An interesting question: Here's some of my setups.

Agrias: After picking up Equip Sword, I like to unlock Geomancer and Ninja with her. Geomancer can thorw on Attack Up while Ninja has crazy offense as well when high WP flails become available so she may spend some time moonlighting in Ninja with Equip Sword. Later in the game, I'll move her back towards Knight with Holy Sword secondary.

Mustadio: Ninja Mustadio is fun. Double the chances to Arm Aim or just kill outright. I'm also partial to him as a Thief with Equip Gun for variety and that Thief's strongest attribute synergizes well with his unique skillset.

Rad: I use him to unlock Mime eventually with lots of help from proposition JP. He's not particularly effective, really.

Alicia: I tend to make her my Summon Magic specialist, even using an ally Mediator to raise her Faith to 65. Picking up Short Charge and Meteor is my long term plan for her.

Lavian; I'm taking down a mostly physical path. Monk skills are my eventual goal. Secondary varies, sometimes Steal, sometimes Dance, sometimes whatever. With some game-breaking equipment, she's my support unit since her damage isn't going to be impressive.

Other builds:
High brave male Monk: He picks up Chakra first for use in a couple of story fights. His job is to keep up Ovekia and Alma's MP for MBarrier goodness. Ramza might fill this role depending on what I do with him.

Female magician with Math Skill: A long term project character for sure. I won't use her in every fight but it's convenient to have someone around when I want to utterly crush the opposition.

I don't have much in the way of set plans otherwise. I do plan which abilities I want for specific fights and aim to acquire JP for them along the way so that I have them when I want them without specifically grinding. Concentrate is important for most of my physical units. It's quite significant in Chapter 3 with many enemies packing noteable evasion. Magic Attack Up is a key skill for my magical attackers and healers. Just about everybody likes Move +2 or Teleport. Secret Hunt is my most used support ability in randoms but that's just my personal style (and it does sometimes give me gear early before it becomes buyable, even before considering some equipment is poaching esclusive).

Other units from later in the game to be discussed later.
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Posted: 5th April 2017 00:15

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Onion Knight
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It sounds like this is your first playthrough as well? I'm doing a certain rooftop battle.

I was always a big fan of physical characters. I like medieval more than medieval fantasy, but that sort of opinion is definitely not in the spirit of Final Fantasy. I hear some of the magic classes are practically game-breakingly good though, so it's definitely a smart move to have a few.

Here's my current team. All except Ramza/Ladd are sitting in their final classes.

http://imgur.com/gkAAfCh

Also everyone says archers suck. While I admit that they're a little weak, they fit a support role amazingly while still being a fairly versatile attacking unit capable of fitting into practically any strategy as their attack is ranged, arced, and fully charged if enemy turns permit. Just thought I'd mention that. Archers get far too much guff from what I've seen.

Ramza: Still going to be DK Samurai/Fundamentals currently.

Ladd: Still going to be DK. Ninja/items currently.

Generic Archer/Monk. (Still getting rid of him.)

Generic Monk/Thief. (Still getting rid of him.)

Generic White Mage/items. (Probably keep her until a unique named story replacement comes along.)

Luso: Haven't touched him. He has crazy good health for his level though so I'll figure something out. He could be a very good melee class or candidate for my new White mage with proper training. Suggestions?

Alicia: Dragoon/Knight.

Lavian: Archer/Monk.

Mustadio: Bounces between Ninja/Machinist and Thief/Machinist as needed for stealing story mission items.

Agrias: Holy Knight/items.

I love my team, they're working out great so far. I dread every time I get a fresh story character though. If I get even one more I literally won't know what to do with him/her.

I was wondering why you train Agrias in ninja. Do you do it so that she can learn dual weild and debuff twice a turn with knight rend abilities? Does that work? I like shields on my knights for the extra block chance but knight's rending abilities would be sooo worth dual wielding for!

Also thanks for responding. Things got a little boring counting the tumbleweeds rolling through this forum. At least I had Final Fantasy Tactics to play in the meantime.

This post has been edited by Mister Beoulve on 5th April 2017 00:16

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Posted: 5th April 2017 19:03

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From what I can remember from my first games, I'd say having a fully abled monk is a must have, for so many advantages :

- High attack power for a starting class, and no need to rely on a powerful weapon for damage, fists scale with Attack and Brave
- Can attack from any distance (close, middle and long)
- Can heal, cure and revive (provided you're on the same Height, usually quite manageable)
- Can be carried into middle/late game: wait and see what happens with a high Att Monk with Dual Wield fists...
- Move set is a must have as a Support: Chakra refills MP, which is incredibly useful once you start using high MP consumption spell, Revive and Stigma help tremendously as well

The other attacker was usually more versatile, dabbing into a little bit of everything, usually turning out as Ninja/Monk or Ninja/thief.

One of my mages turned into a classic Black/Summon user, the other one in a White/Time user. Both ended up having Math Skill as soon as possible.

Then again, when all is said and done, TGC lives...

This post has been edited by Mr Thou on 7th April 2017 17:36
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Posted: 6th April 2017 11:33

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Onion Knight
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Yeah monks are awesome. Martial Arts as a secondary support skill is a great way to round out a specialized unit. I did that with with my archer. I had no idea you could dual weild fists though. That's a great tip, so thanks!

EDIT: So now I'm in chapter 4. Ramza's armor looks so dang beefy and cool. Unfortunately FFT decided to poop out another 2 story characters. At least this time they're close to my level. I can't believe how many people they expect you to "care" about. I managed to snag Ultima off of the last fight in chapter 3 though, so my next step is to have Luso teach it to Ramza. Very excited for chapter 4, but this is the point where I'll have to start grinding errands and treasure hunting for those hidden super weapons which isn't much fun.

This post has been edited by Mister Beoulve on 6th April 2017 12:22

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Posted: 8th April 2017 22:59

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You reminded me that I often make use of a Ninja with Knight's break skills. Knights themselves I also prefer shields, especially with Ninja Abondon/Reflexes reaction for really high evasion. I find gunners, archers, or ninjas to be better users of the break skill than Knights themselves.

When I want a Ninja with break skills, I use a generic. Agrias will make use of the setup with Secret Hunt in randoms but I'm specifically referring to setting her up with Equip Sword with a Morning Star in the top hand and a sword in the bottom and slaughtering things with her sword skills. This is very much a trading defense for offense setup.

My other go-to when I'm looking for physical damage is Lancers. Jump hurts things nicely midgame.

As you've reached Chapter 4, I'll share some of my thoughts on the new specials.

Rafa's skillset works best with high magic power. I favor either White Mage or Time Mage for her depending on which skillset fits my team better. Black Magic is redundant and as a Summoner, I'd just use Summons for reliability so Truth would waste a command slot.

Malak I struggle to do anything with his unique skillset. I end up treating him like a generic in which case an actual generic from the start of the game is more effective. Oracle is a quirky setup where he slugs things with a stick while still getting decent magic power for his skillset. It does sacrifice his primary slot though since any of the Magic skillsets are not really effective with his 31 Faith. I have minimal use for low faith units in general given my playstyle though that's just me.
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Posted: 9th April 2017 15:16

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Onion Knight
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EDIT: Editing my post a bunch for research reasons. Trying to make sure I had a fair understanding of the way these characters work in WoTL version. I think they got some quirky buffs that still didn't do a fantastic job of making them viable.

Rapha's Sky Mantra skills rely only on MA, ignoring faith, and Marach's rely on inverse faith and MA. That makes him a great tank if you want to sacrifice a bit of MA and still have some semi-reliable spells to cast. (That is if you consider randomly striking aoe spells reliable...) I was going to make Rapha a white mage (also my designated treasure hunter with her insanely low brave.) to replace my generic white mage and use Sky Mantra skills for cost effective offence. Also I'll make Marach a dragoon who can deal Nether Mantra spell damage. Unfortunately I hate both of them, but I feel like they're tied too closely to the story to let them gather dust. It bothers me that random chance attacks will be factored into my strategies, but the mantra spells are potentially insanely strong; or at least they are right now. I hear you need to jump through hoops in order to get a decent damage output from their mantra skills, but I don't know if that's just those min/max deleveled lvl 99 crazy people just being complainey babies. Time will tell.

I just got another 3 characters ffs. Construct 8, Beowulf (New badass favorite!), and Reis. I don't think this game intended you to keep any generics whatsoever, or even train every one of the unique story characters. They just shower you with party members. It's ridiculous.

This post has been edited by Mister Beoulve on 9th April 2017 15:31

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Post #212533
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Posted: 19th April 2017 22:21
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I've been playing FFT for many years and using the Caves of Narshe as a resource for awhile, but never made an account until now. Thanks for giving me a reason. thumbup.gif

At this point you have *most* of the story characters. You'll still collect a few more here and there, at least one of whom is just deliciously broken. But there's no rule that says just because they're in your party you have to use them. I don't think I've ever used Marach, for example, and I used to dismiss him immediately once he joined up, but no longer. Be aware that a couple plot characters obtained later essentially make earlier ones obsolete;
Possible spoilers: highlight to view
Orlandeau has all of the swordskills in the game, making Agrias, Meliadoul, and any Death Knights you're training redundant, and Balthier has Mustadio's Machinist skills plus Thief skills in his basic class.


There are basically two reasons for this: one, I tend not to use monsters much at all, so there's not a lot of need for lots of extra party space, and two, the maximum roster size has increased from 16 in the PS1 version to 24. That is exactly enough for all the story characters, Boco, Ladd, Alicia, Lavian, and your starting 6 generics. So don't feel like you must dismiss people just to keep your party size managable. In fact, I'd recommend keeping several lesser-used characters around for when you send generics on errands, or want lower-level characters so as to not make a random battle more difficult, or just when you feel like dabbling around in Orator (or whatever) without disrupting the advancement of your "main" characters.



As for your original question:

All the jobs are perfectly usable, they all have their strengths and drawbacks. There are no truly useless classes, although obviously some are a little harder to use effectively than others. Some also gain much better (or worse) stats upon levelling, although if you've been searching enough to know about the lvl 99 min/maxing you already know that.

So it comes down to what is your preferred playstyle? Some people hate dabbling in the magic side of the tree, whereas I usually have 2 or 3 generics go for Mathematics as soon as is reasonably possible, then earn JP through errands because they suck to actually play as. thumbdown.gif Many people love monks and ninjas because they can hit hard, but you're by no means required to use them. If you like AoEs, consider raising a Geomancer/Samurai. If you like having a difficult-to-hit forward strike force, use Dragoons and keep them airborne as much as possible, supported by a few rearguard characters. Like to magically toy with your opponents? Get two Mathmaticians with a full complement of known spells (preferably in the BM job to raise MA as high as possible) and you can Toad/Stone/Immobilize/Disable/whatever your enemies to make every battle a cakewalk.

When you come right down to it, you directly control the game's difficulty yourself, through your tactical choices, both in and out of battle. If you want an easy win, I've just described at least a couple ways to go about it. On your second or third or fifth playthrough, you may choose to play with some of the lesser-used like Mystic or Orator, and that can be fun too. Maybe recruit some monsters to your side and play around with their special abilities by pairing them with a Beastmaster. There's almost no end to the choices available to you, so the game tends to throw the question back in your face: how do [/I]you[/I] want to play?

And I'm sure you've discovered these by now, but a few heads-ups for anyone else picking up this game for the first time:

1) You can, and should, attack your own party members to gain extra JP/XP from battles, when safe to do so. Try to always have your characters take some sort of meaningful action every turn; use the wait command as little as possible.

2) If you have the patience for it, try to milk fights long enough to pick up the chests and crystals dropped by enemy units, ESPECIALLY the humans. You can pick up free abilities this way, which can help cut down on a lot of grinding. It's also necessary if you eventually want a death knight.

3) Random battles scale with your level, but plot battles do not. If you're having trouble with a plot battle and want to make it easier, go out and do several random battles to gain some extra levels (and JP) before trying again. And on that note...

4) ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP SAVE IN A SECOND SLOT. There are several places in the game it's possible (even easy) to get stuck in an unwinnable fight and have to start over from the beginning. cry.gif Always keep an up-to-date save putting you on the world map whenever you decide to go hit a major plot battle, and save the game when it prompts you in the other slot. Soooooo many people have learned that one the hard way, especially at Riovanes castle! rolleyes-straight.gif

Hopefully that helped somewhat, even if I didn't give you many specifics as to party composition. wink.gif
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Posted: 20th April 2017 20:53
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And now for some specifics. tongue.gif

I've always kinda liked Archers too, although they're a bit harder to use than some other physical classes. Mustadio and Balthier both make great archers with their unique skillsets, and once I've mastered them in archer I usually swap out Gained JP Up for Poach and let them pick off monsters in random battles.

Rapha makes a good caster (WM usually) and Treasure Hunter due to her low brave. I usually park it down in the high single digits to give a decent chance of rare items but not have to worry about losing her permanently if she happens to get hit with a Foxbird or whatever. Marach I don't use at all, but YMMV.

Agrias is very nice initially, but eventually replaceable. It's fun getting her DK just for the jedi/sith thing, but her abilities become somewhat obsolete later in the game. That being said, she's a decently powerful attacker and being female, can equip quite a few extra goodies that might extend her usefulness. Not my personal favorite, but I can also see a case for keeping her in the party right up to the end.

Beowulf is just all kinds of banana pancakes awesome. His faux-mystic skillset is pretty darned handy, especially Chicken, and Shock can be very powerful if you make a build to capitalize on it. He's one of the most unique characters of the entire game. wink.gif

Reis feels like she should be more powerful than she is; you definitely have to work at making a build specifically to make the most of her. She's definitely meant to be paired with a dragon, so get her beastmaster and a companion of your chosen color if you want to play around with her; otherwise I don't feel like you're missing out on anything critical if you choose to not go her route.

Worker 8 is a weird but nice change of pace, a good mix of ranged and melee attacks, and totally immune to magic to boot. But, he damages himself with his own attacks. Of course that means you'll need to devote a character or two to Items to keep him healthy. Up to you whether that offsets his usefulness or not.

The last three you haven't mentioned yet so I'll Spoiler tag them just in case:

Possible spoilers: highlight to view
Cloud is the end result of the Beowulf/Reis sidequest. I hope you chose to buy that flower from Aeris. He starts at level 1 (yikes!) and doesn't reach his full potential without the Materia Blade found on Bervenia Volcano. Even with it he's not the game-breaking monstrosity he rightfully ought to be after putting in all that work. He's fun, but personally I don't invest much time into him.

Possible spoilers: highlight to view
Orlandeau definitely breaks the game. He has Gafgarion's and Agrias's and Meliadoul's sword skills (even before you get Meliadoul!) and comes equipped with Excalibur right off the bat. He's fast, hits hard, and can easily heal himself while doing it! No wonder he's earned himself the nickname of Thunder God Cid!

Possible spoilers: highlight to view
Meliadoul feels like she's obsolete right out of the box, given that by the time you get her you'll already have Orlandeau. Like Agrias, she's female and can equip ribbons and perfumes and such, but I don't feel like that's enough to save her.


And of course, you're free to do whatever you like with your generics. Some of my favorite combinations:

WM/BM with Mathematics. Strictly speaking, once you have the full Mathematical skillset, it almost doesn't matter which caster class you pair it with, but I like White Mage for stat levelling (well-rounded, almost as good as Geomancer) or Black Mage for raw MA during critical battles.

Ninja with Martial Arts (and Brawler). I probably don't have to explain why these guys rock. Ditto Monk with Items or Fundaments and Dual Wield - they're almost the same thing but sometimes you'll want one over the other.

Geomancer with Iaido and Arcane Strength. Great ranged attacker who can equip some good gear and wade into the fray with strong AoEs. Good all-'rounder.

Summoner with Bardsong. This is an oddball, but one of my favorites. He can either hang back and sing, or get close enough to drop AoEs. If you want raw Summon power, try a Black Mage with Summon and Arcane Strength with all the MA-boosting equipment you can muster.

Dragoon with Dance (or Fundaments) and Attack Boost. Similar to the one above, it gives the Dragoon something else to do when not driving spears through the skulls of her enemies. Or if you want to eschew subtlety in favor of raw damage, just Focus until you're close enough and then let 'em have it. A Dark Knight with Dance can be pretty nasty too, once you eventually get her.

Time Mage with Mystic Arts. There's always something for this character to be doing, whether buffing your team with Haste or debuffing enemies with everything else. I typically use this setup up until I get access to Mathematics, then rely on that.

Orator with Items (or Aim) and Beastmaster. Meant to recruit and support monster allies. Some of their abilities, particularly the hidden ones, can be interesting.

And of course there's always more.
Post #212595
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Posted: 21st April 2017 12:52

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Onion Knight
Posts: 33

Joined: 5/1/2017

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Member of more than five years. Celebrated the CoN 20th Anniversary at the forums. 
I think you might be my FFT kindred spirit. Most of the things you said are things I do already. I've been avoiding generics, but I still use Ladd, Alicia, and Lavian as errand runners. They're the only 3 units in my roster that aren't level 48-50. I'm currently training them specifically to bridge that level gap.

I'll probably stop using Rapha, Marach, and Reis. I like Beowulf but once him and Reis are finished with their quest I probably won't use them anymore.

I'll be making use of whichever characters I feel have the strongest personal reasons for helping you on your quest.

Agrias still does decent damage and it's nice having a ranged MA/melee class that hits reasonably hard but can also tank. She doesn't quite have the punch she originally had but she doubles as an item user on my file.

This post has been edited by Mister Beoulve on 21st April 2017 13:00

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Let me just edit this post a few more times...
Post #212597
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Posted: 30th April 2017 06:47

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Black Mage
Posts: 170

Joined: 13/7/2006

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Celebrated the CoN 20th Anniversary at the forums. Member of more than ten years. Member of more than five years. 
Random battle enemy levels are based on the highest leveled character on the formation screen. This does count Guests. So letting someone fall too far behind can be troublesome.

Summoner with Sing is a setup i like. Summoners have bad speed and burn lots of MP. Bard skills can address both weaknesses. There's also a song to boost magic power to compensate for using a male. There's always something productive for this unit to do.

Something unique to do with Luso is to give him Attack Boost, Dual Wield, or Doublehand (depending on your preference) to pair with his innate poach skill. Against humans, he's basically a Ramza clone except probably worse magic power.

Beowulf is awesome with some weaknesses to keep him from being overpowered. He is vulnerable to getting swarmed since he can only target a single unit at a time. A suitable ally can really help out. Low Faith enemies and magic evasion also crimp his effectiveness. I occasionally will run him as a Black Mage or Summoner with Equip Sword for variety (and gain JP for Half MP); this does leave him quite vulnerable to harm of course.

The Holy Dragon has really high magic power growth. Also absorbs Holy though the only way to really make use of this is with an ally with a Holy Lance.

Rafa's Thunder skill gets a chance to shine in one of the multiplayer exclusive missions.

Dragoons have the worst MA amongst all the generic classes so Nether Mantra will not do much damage when it hits. Unlimited vertical range and evasion ignoring gives it some utility even then though.

This post has been edited by DragonKnight Zero on 1st May 2017 23:54
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Posted: 3rd May 2017 00:04

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Onion Knight
Posts: 33

Joined: 5/1/2017

Awards:
Member of more than five years. Celebrated the CoN 20th Anniversary at the forums. 
I like Luso but he feels tacked on. He 'is' basically a Ramza clone who I use when I want to raise a unit's Brave during random battles. Even Beowulf and Reis I feel ought to be doing their own thing so I prefer to not use them even though Beowulf's skills rule. The only person I literally don't touch now is Marach. He's really tough to fit into a tactical niche. My dragoon plan like you mentioned in your post is totally flawed. He may as well be a generic unit because his damage calulation for his Nether Mantra skills make his skills practically redundant in battle. He needs low faith so changing him to a Black Mage to boost his MA will still result in mediocre Black Mage spells, and most enemies have medium or higher faith so they resist his Nether Mantra as well.

I just picked up Balthier who is basically a Mustadio with +%10success thief skills slapped on top of his machinist abilities. He's so awesome. It means I can dedicate Mustadio full time to being a Ninja/Machinist when I'm not spread too thin on story battles. I'm about to pick up cloud and swap Holy Dragon Reis for Human Reis. I hear Cloud isn't particularly overpowered but I feel like I may as well give him a fair shot.

I don't know who else I can pick up but I still haven't developed any interest whatsoever in magic classes yet. It pains me but I think maybe that's sort of the way the game was designed. Each class seems like an abuse of a variable in a battle. Some are stepping stone classes to even greater abusers.

-Chemists are the only class that can use the items obtained.
-Black Mages deal MA damage.
-White Mages reverse damage done, or buff allies to prevent it.
-Archers arch shots over physical obstacles.
-Thieves steal equipment.
-Knights break equipment.
-Time mages mess with CT.
-Summoners are widespread AoE experts.
-Ninjas are glass cannons who get to attack twice in a turn.
-Dragoons ignore physical elevation.
-Geomancers use the terrain to attack.
-Mystics affect status effects.
-Orators affect stats.
-Mathematicians use height equations to target foes at any range.
-Bards/Dancers are a more dedicated status effect dealer.
-Mimes copy any action at all with wreckless abandon.

There's a few oddball classes like Monk and Samurai that aren't particular abusers of any single specific variable, but they're more or less a mix of classes. (IE: Monk is melee+healing and Samurai is melee+ranged summon magic.)

I feel like you just pick a style and choose what you'd like to abuse. It's very freeing knowing strategy in this game is so flexible.

This post has been edited by Mister Beoulve on 5th May 2017 12:43

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Let me just edit this post a few more times...
Post #212625
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Posted: 25th May 2017 12:54

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Onion Knight
Posts: 33

Joined: 5/1/2017

Awards:
Member of more than five years. Celebrated the CoN 20th Anniversary at the forums. 
I don't like double posting but I feel like this topic has cooled off enough to just go ahead with it anyway.

I've finished the game, though I skipped Midlight's Deep because it just seemed like a long boring looking dungeon scouring for pointless loot and switches in the dark. What little story elements still left inside Midlight's Deep, I begrudgingly left for my next playthrough. There's some changes I wanted to make in the NG+, which leads to the reason I'm posting.

This topic has more or less turned into a chronical of me figuring out how to play the game. I started not knowing which classes were "worth using". Once I got a good feel for teams I picked which type of units I thought immediately useful (not job, but function. Support, tank, healer, etc.), I worked things around until I had a well rounded team, found final jobs/subjobs for the units I liked, trimmed the fat (redundant or particularly poorly utilized generics from my roster down to just Ladd, Alicia, and Lavian.), started fine tuning the final setups.

Something special happened after that; I realized that even though I'd developed units that worked for me, I found strategy sort of takes a back seat to a properly-leveled or over-leveled team. Level is the deciding factor, and units are the flair.

Then I think something even more special or delusional happened. I was freed of higher-level grinding. This time I want less story characters which I don't use for anything other than grinding them up to the levels of my other guys in case I do want to use them for some sort of RP headcannon for certain story missions. (I prefer to motivate the action with applicable character attachment. I try to group Orlandeau/Ramza/Agrias/Mustadio, Reis/Beowulf, Lavian/Alicia/Ladd, etc with missions that make sense for them to be participating in.) I'm going to use those extra slots to have a fairly large group of errand runners. (Thinking 3 groups of 3.) I want to try to keep my unit levels down, fights fair, and errands run (before 20 more pop up after each mission.)

I've also toyed with the idea of using chocobo calvalry. It's costly and fairly worthless, but if I could have a couple hard hitting chocobo-knights doing hit and runs, I think that would be a lot of fun.

This post has been edited by Mister Beoulve on 26th May 2017 07:50

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Let me just edit this post a few more times...
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