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Hey, all. I haven't actually been here in ages, but I ran aground of this place and a few other Final Fantasy-related places recently, and I figured there'd be no better place than this to ask. I'm working on a project to classify Final Fantasy jobs, and to complete that project, I need some help.

For instance, Status Effects. This is a Final Fantasy class concept. There's really not much of a Tank / DPS / Healer trichotomy, so I got to thinking, "How are jobs / classes classified?" And I mean across all games. Here's a few that I've come up with, but I'm wondering if we can't get them all.

Status Effects (Oracles, Green Mages)
Terrain (Mog from FFVI, Geomancers, Lancers to an extent)
Elements (Black Mage, Geomancer, Air, Earth, Light, Dark damage)
Physical Melee Damage (Steiner from FFIX, Knight, Ninja)
Jump (Kain from FFIV, Lancers)

These could be as broad as the concept of HP or the concept of Bravery, or as narrow as Calculator's "Mathematics" concept. Just wondering if we can get all Final Fantasy Classes boiled down into a set of concepts. For instance, White Mage is generally Multiple-Target Healing and Buffs, whereas Time Mage is generally Buffs *and* Debuffs, but even that doesn't really classify what they do well enough. So if anyone has any suggestions, that'd be rad.

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Head Administrator, Lead Developer, and Official Proposition-Master of Heroes of Ivalice.

Quote (Kablizzy @ 16th May 2013 00:58)

There's really not much of a Tank / DPS / Healer trichotomy, so I got to thinking, "How are jobs / classes classified?" And I mean across all games.

I see two problems. First is that in the games with jobs I think it is possible to boil them down to tank, DPS and healer. Knight, Black Mage and White Mage are obvious, and then for the less obvious ones, such as Blue Mage, you put it with whatever role YOU set that character, eg my Gau was a DPS through and through because I used his high damage Rages. But then in FFVII the character I had with Enemy Skill was basically a Blue Mage and I relied on them for White Wind as my best healing spell. Second is that I think the FF jobs kind of are already classed. Quina is a Blue Mage because Quina uses Blue Magic. Classification comes from the skillsets and equipment rather than the effects, environments, or enemies the character is fighting. It's already mapped out.

If we're going to force the issue and make more fundamental classification than the existing jobs, I've got an idea. The objective of battles is to win fights by not taking the amount of damage that kills you and dealing enough in return to kill the opponent (except for certain battles such as those in FFX). Things like saving MP by physically attacking, causing status effects, and healing in an easier battle is just to deal more damage or take less damage in future, that's not an objective. Also learning Blue Magic and stealing or morphing items is just to make you do more damage or take less damage in future. One final qualification is that a status spell that ends the battle, such as Death or Break, is essentially a damage attack for the purposes of what I'm saying here.

So with this objective the three classes I would lay out are Deal Damage, Receive Damage, and Manipulate Damage. Deal Damage is DPS, that's all. Receive Damage is tank, sure, but also 'receive' in the sense that healers need to act on it. And Manipulate Damage is to cause status effects and put up barriers, haste and so on. To be honest this is kind of pointless because it could apply to any game like Final Fantasy. I think though that because in MMOs the status casters tend to be mixed up in the other classes, but in FF they are given their own specific class, these three make a bit more sense for FF.

I should probably add a little list to help. Now this is what I think these jobs predominantly do. I know Bards can heal and Geomancers can sometimes Mime Choco/Mog into Hero War if they're on a hallucinated island in the GBA version, but it doesn't count as a 'status caster' if all that character does is use haste at the beginning of one or two fights then spam attacking magic for the rest of the entire game. I may have Bard wrong but I think they're mostly for status. Also should add that I know Warriors and Knights spend a lot more time attacking than using Guard or Defend or something, but their HP is actually what is being used a lot more than their damage, I would say.

Deal Damage: Monk, Red Mage, Black Mage, Blue Mage, Ninja, Summoner, Beserker, Geomancer
Receive Damage: White Mage, Warrior, Knight, Chemist,
Manipulate Damage: Thief (yup), Time Mage, Orator, Bard

This post has been edited by sweetdude on 16th May 2013 02:31

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

First and foremost, thanks!

Secondly, I actually did this part (Tank, Healer, DPS) myself, and the only reason I wish to boil it down further is this - Let's say Monk and Black Mage are both in the 'Deal Damage' classification. That's a good start, but I'd go so far as to say that Black Mage and Monk are very unequal. And that's why I wanted to delve a bit deeper - I want to classify 'why' they're different. For instance, taking Black Mage and Monk in-kind. Monk has a smaller range, is physical, and has the capability of healing, whereas Black Magi can cast at a range, use MP, and deal Elemental damage. It's these differences that intrigue me, but I'm far from conceptualizing things like Squire and Chemist and Ark Knight and some of the classes form FF4 and so on.

This post has been edited by Kablizzy on 16th May 2013 04:35

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Head Administrator, Lead Developer, and Official Proposition-Master of Heroes of Ivalice.