Author Topic: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis  (Read 13927 times)

Meeplelard

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Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« on: June 05, 2015, 03:52:06 AM »
Before we get started, yes, I am completely attention whoring here so let's just get that on the table.  Got that?  Good, now that you're all aiming various murder weapons at me, let's get started!

The idea is simple...except it's not...but it is! Ok, enough of the silliness, this is something I wanted to do for a while.  I look at a class/job, elements, etc. that are consistent through the Final Fantasy franchise and assess how it's evolved.  For all that Final Fantasy is quite the evolving franchise, it does tend to reuse a lot of the same elements that it makes it an interesting analysis.  To be clear, here's how I'm looking at things!

First off, I'll be looking at the series as a whole...as the best to my knowledge.  There are some holes (FFD since I haven't played it is the most blatant one), and if someone wants to follow up and fill in those gaps, I encourage you!  Naturally, feedback is worth something too.  I am purposely skipping FF4HoL, however, simply because that game is so different in that it seems to purposely not follow FF Conventions.  No, seriously, it'd fit better in a Dragon Quest style comparison.   That and I don't think anyone really cares about FF4HoL anyway.  I'm also skipping FFTA and FFTA2 since I don't feel confident about those games, and there's a lot of variations of one job, so someone else if they want to field that, feel free.

And if it's not obvious by the above, yes, Spin Offs count.  I'm also going to be factoring in characters who are functionally this role, like from FF4, FF6, etc. but that should go without saying.  There's a few oddities here and there, which you'll see what I mean when we get to them.  On top of all that, I will be including Bravely Default in this.  Yes, it's not a Final Fantasy game, but Bravely Default very clearly took a lot of cues and design ideas from Final Fantasy (as well as started as a Final Fantasy game early in development), so it definitely feels relevant to this.  That is the only Off-Franchise I will be including.  Going outside of that, suddenly standards and mindsets are going to change.

Lastly, FF10-2 will be included despite having a lot of unique Job Names.  This is because a lot of FF10-2 Jobs are renamed for stylistic purposes (eg Gun Mage is just FF10-2's version of the Blue Mage), though my analysis may not be great there because I don't claim to be an expert of 10-2, but I'll try my best!

I am NOT giving jobs ratings, because numerical aspects will cause me to go crazy when different standards.  I'll simply be giving vague descriptions of how good/bad they were, etc.  This is of course leads to some misconceptions and will lead to me requiring to clarify myself, but that's part of the fun now isn't it!?

I should make it clear that for someone to qualify as a class/job/etc., they have to have something more than just a few vague similarities.  Yes, Tidus gets Haste and Slow, but he's not a Time Mage since there's more to a job than just a handful of spells.  No, factors I will be thinking about are skillset as a whole, equipment, general role, stats, etc.  Not everything is going to match 1 to 1, of course.

As for what order I'm going in...doing it by ear.  I was thinking of going chronologically but that's going to probably waste too much time, so I'll just do it in whatever I can.  As far as what I choose...that's pretty arbitrary too!  But enough of that, NEXT POST IS THE ACTUAL START OF THE ANALYSIS!  Why not here?  Because this is a garbage intro post that would be messy.

I think you guys get the basic jist of this and yes, at some point I might expand into other things like Weapons across the franchise!  But until then...let's go into the first one!
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> so Snow...
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> Sonic Chaos
[21:39] <+Hello-NewAgeHipsterDojimaDee> That's -brilliant-.

[17:02] <+Tengu_Man> Raven is a better comic relief PC than A

Meeplelard

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2015, 05:55:27 AM »
Knight




We'll start at the very first job offered in the series, and one of the most classic.  Knight has classically been identified as a high defense, solid physical offense job that uses Swords, Heavy Armor, Shields, and often has other defensive perks be it limited White Magic, the Cover Skill, what have you.  Sometimes it's capable of using more than Swords in games that let it. 

There have been some variations on the job.  Variations I will be including here are:

Fighter/Warrior: Often a precursor to Knight, though there have been cases where it branches off, not common enough so I'm including them here.
Paladin: Generally speaking, Paladin is pretty much just a rebranded Knight in game's it is in, notably FF4 and FF14; worth noting neither game has Knight.  It's often interchange-able.

With that said...ONTO THE GAME BY GAME ANALYSIS!

Final Fantasy 1 (NES/Origins): ...go figure we start off with I think many will agree the best example of the job.   The Fighter starts off clearly better than every other job from the outset.  Can use the best weapons, hit's harder than those using the same weapons (Thief and Red Mage), has clearly higher defenses, and none of this ever really changes throughout the game.  Having an excellent weapon choice, game best defense by a long ways, access to various resistances to elements and status before available for really any other class save Ninja (who has to promote to get it.)  Knight ends the game with over twice the defense of any other character in the game, save for Ninja who is not THAT far behind but has significantly less HP.  Oh yeah, insult to injury?  He gets low level white magic and has game best HP, because why not?  There's a reason that the best teams in FF1 tend to have multiple of these guys; they're that freaking good.

Final Fantasy 1 (Dawn of Souls/PSP): Ok, so after being disgusting in the earlier versions, Dawn of Souls tried to balance things out a bit.  Knight actually didn't change fundamentally that much; he's still very much the exact same job he was before.  He is, however, relatively worse than he was in the original versions because everyone else got buffed.  Thief, for example, hits more times than him, and White Mage got a nice HP buff.  Also, the game has an actual Magic Defense stat that's meaningful, and Magic Defense in this game is split into two: Fighters and Mages.  Fighters take about 50% more from magic than Mages when all is said and done.  On top of that, Ninja can use a lot of the same extra-dungeon gear Knight has, so his tankishness is compromised.  That said, he's still a very solid choice and by no means bad, he's just not the disgusting "Everyone else sucks compared to me" level good he was in the original incarnation.

Final Fantasy 3 (NES): Fighter was your go to physical fighter/tank in this game for the first half, because you really had nothing else during that arc.  Your options were a bunch of Mages and Monk otherwise, so Fighter was somewhat necessary if you didn't want to die.  Dual Wielding Swords meant it's damage is better than you'd expect too.  Knight pretty much was just an extension of Fighter, though now gaining actual competition.  At first, yeah, he's just better than everything, but then Dragoon and Viking get actual armors and weapons, Dark Knight decides to stop sucking at Fargabad, etc., and Knight seems less required.  He also goes through a segment of the game where he doesn't upgrade weapons much, namely everything from after the Floating Continent until you get the nautilus, so he's compromised here.  Thing is, outside of that stretch, he's pretty much solid and always a good choice, when FF3 isn't being gimmicky with you.  Cover is a nice perk, if not something to rely on.  Come endgame, it's one of the only jobs that can wield some of the Forbidden Weapons, giving him a huge offensive push over every other physical job save Dark Knight, the other one who can wield it (and given neither can use ALL 4 weapons, you'll want to use one of each to take advantage of all 4 weapons.)  Not as good as FF1o, but still a very solid choice throughout the game, just now having actual competition for the niche it had in FF1.

Final Fantasy 3 (DS): Ok, so we reach the first point where Warrior and Knight are completely different so let's split them up!

Warrior: Pretty much the go to armored physical fighter the entire game, Warrior generally has solid armor the entire game sans one stretch where right when you get off the Floating Continent I believe until you get Diamond Stuff.   It's available early so lot's of Job Levels, and Advance is a great ability giving him excellent offense.  He's also got higher speed than you'd expect, and if he's slower? Advance literally loses it's penalty given how it works.  Weapons aren't a problem since Axes exist and generally cover the brief stint where Swords don't really get any better.  Come end-game, it can use Ragnarok+Dual Tomahawk for end-game weapons making it a very viable choice the entire game.

As a reminder, all physical jobs can't take Magic hits worth a damn, so compared to other physical jobs, this isn't really a flaw, which is why I left it out.

Knight: ...and while Warrior is great, Knight is...less so.  First off, Job Levels matter more and Knight joins after you've already plugged a bunch into Warrior, it's primary rival.  Knight's lack of offense is immediately apparent, getting fewer hits than other jobs, and this doesn't really fix itself either, as unlike Warrior who can supplement with Axes for a while, Knight's stuck with crappy weapons until Defender pops up, and those start to fall behind too.  It does have high defense out of the gate with high Vitality (for Armored units) and Knight ARmor being best armor...but then even that falls behind what other armored units get.  Knight is also very slow, so it can't try to blitz things the way Warrior can.  What good qualities does it have?  Well, having high Vit, whenever it does have real armor, which is when Diamond stuff pops up, it's actually pretty good defensively, and it has Cover as an added bonus.  Knight can also use level 1 White Magic for...uhh...battery...healing...look I'm trying ok?  Also, Knight does finally get real legitimate offense...in the very end of the game, where it can use Excalibur and Ragnarok, and is the only job that can use both weapons.  Seeing as both weapons have high attack and +5 to like every stat, that is a pretty big deal.  This makes Knight a pure Investment; you're struggling with a clearly inferior Job for most of the game to get Job levels for something that might pay off in the final dungeon.  Overall, I don't think it's worth it; you're better off sticking with something more consistently useful, like, say, it's Warrior brother listed above!


Final Fantasy 4 (2D): Cecil when he becomes a Paladin is functionally this.  He has low level White Magic, gets all the heavy armor and swords and such, has Cover like FF3 Knight, and...let's face it, he's a Knight in all but name.  I guess he can also use lot's of White Mage-style gear to differentiate him, which lets him get some more magic defense but who really does that!?  ...don't answer that.  We all know the drill with Cecil in any event; he's a nice solid tank with decent free damage from his physical, and having Cover lets him take the brunt of damage that you want to avoid on someone like Rydia.  Additionally, Cecil has the perk of manual Cover so you don't have to hope a character nearly dies first before Cover kicks in leaving them susceptible to Magic.  Cecil's a very solid character, as we all know.  Flaws?  Well, I guess just that he's very limited in what he can do but then that's how FF4 was structured; characters were given specific niches to fulfill, and Cecil does a pretty darn good job at his niche, which is all we can ask for.  Oh yeah, he can also use Bows because Metallic Cave! Feel free to continue to forget cecil being able to do this, because his ability to use staves is WAY more important! No it's really not.


Final Fantasy 4 (3D): Cecil is...very similar to how he was in 2D versions though some key differences.  First off, Magic Defense matters more, and Cecil's like the only one who has a combination of decent magic defense AND good HP, so his tankishness stands out more.  The existence of Draw Attacks means Cecil can now literally front ALL damage, and the Counter Augment means he can smack people back along with it.  He also gained more White Magic, most notably Protect and Shell which are now improved, and healing mechanics are way better so Cecil's Cura can be meaningful in battle now.   Is he better than his 2D self?  Well, not necessarily, a few new flaws arise.  First off, remember how Paladin Cecil joins at level 1?  In 2D FF4, it didn't matter beyond "look at Cecil level up a crap load of times!", since his stats were so good for a level 1, it was an upgrade to Dark Knight anyway.  This version?  The stats are still there but now level factors directly into, well, everything, it compromises his effectiveness until around Zot; you really notice Cecil lagging a lot on offense.  Also, Cecil wasn't simply gimped in the Metallic Cave, he's flat out WORTHLESS in that dungeon, since they removed his ability to use Bows in favor of useless elemental swords.  He can't use his weakness hitting weapons as well either, since weakness is nerfed as well, and to make matters more annoying?  Well, his Ultimate Weapons being Holy Elemental is a downright penalty in this version of the game since most of the final dungeon resists it...for some stupid reason.   We'll call this an overall lateral shift; he's better at the tanking, but compromises it with a significant loss in offensive worth.

Though, relative to the rest of his party, 3D Cecil is probably more useful than 2D Cecil since every other character got hit hard in some other way.


Final Fantasy 5: First game that won't be done twice, YAY!  *ahem*  Knight is your early game tank class in a game that shoves a lot of Antiphysical set ups for you, so this doesn't mean a lot.  That doesn't make him bad because he exists BEFORE these anti-physical set ups exist.  In fact, Knight's straight up fantastic early game because high defense, high physical damage, and any flaws he has don't manifest themself early game due to the nature of it.  He's got good weapons the entire game, can naturally equip shields which is a perk, and has a bunch of late game swords only he can use because Knight Swords are a thing now (well, they were a thing in FF4 as well, because fuck Kain.)  One of Knight's nice perks is the Cover + Guard combination; ability to use Cover to guard near dead characters, while immuning physical damage as well.  Another boon he gained was the Double Grip ability; this makes a lot of physical fighters a lot more viable just because it boosts their damage notably.  Equip Sword allows for some variety on a handful of jobs who have shaky weapons, and boosts strength to Knight level as well, which is pretty high.  Overlal, I'd say Knight is a fairly well balanced Job; it's decent for what it is, but not amazing either. 


Final Fantasy 9: Steiner is basically the Knight of this game.  For a Final Fantasy Knight, Steiner's skillset is quite a bit more diverse than others.  He has stat lowering moves (that suck), a damage = HP loss move (that sucks), a move that lowers his HP to do more damage (That is alright if you get it ASAP but sucks eventually), high damage moves that are awesome (...on paper but suck because they cost too much, large enemy groups stop appearing that late, and he's doing similar damage with his basic physical using weapons that give him that anyway), and some gimmicky moves you'll never use.  So really his skillset is nothing to write home about.  What qualities does Steiner have going for him then?  Well, his physical is strong enough in most cases that the lack of Skillset can be overlooked, and he's your most durable PC in the game by a notable amount (highest HP and defensive stats, especially if you nab Tin Armor.)    He's slow but this is FF9, so "whocares/10."  The problem with Steiner?  Well, it's partially that for all that FF9 characters are distinct, the 4 physical fighters all ultimately end up very similar by the end of the game.  They have skillsets you won't use much because their basic physical does so much damage (MP Attack + Bird/Demon/Beast slayer is all you need) that it's kind of pointless.  He's not bad but also very replace-able.


Final Fantasy 10: Auron, for intents and purposes, is built like the FF knight.  Yes, he uses Katanas, but that's just to distinguish his weapons from Tidus', as well as giving him a Ronin-theme design wise.  Gameplay wise, he's very much the FF Knight.  High physical stats, a sluggish, gets Cover as well as Breaks (something Steiner and FFT Knights established.)   Anyway, Auron's got two primary purposes in FF10.  One is to kill Armored enemies, the other is to use Breaks to make them suck more.  When not doing that? He's generally your highest physical damage dealer but arguably not by enough to make a huge difference and Tidus/Wakka catch him eventually too, he's slow so not a good lead off character either.  He gets his jobs done, and isn't bad by any means, but also not this stand out amazing character.  FF10, by nature, does a generally good job at making everyone feel meaningful, and Auron is no real exception here.


Final Fantasy 12 Zodiac International Job System:  Having not played this version in full, I'm going to have to do this one on paper.  It gets Heavy Armor meaning it gets lots of strength and high defense, it gets Swords and Great Swords meaning it'll have high evade early game thanks to Shields, and raw offense late game because Excalibur and Tournesol (...if you're crazy enough to get one like I was!)  I guess it gest the job done as a tank role, but yeah, screw it, no one cares do they?

Final Fantasy 13: This is super controversial, but shut up, Snow counts here.  Yes, Snow punches things, and you'd think he goes in with Monk, but when you look at his qualities, Knight fits more.  His Attack stat is merely "Good" instead of "top tier"; "Good" is what Knights have, "Top Tier" is what Monks have.  Shut up if that's an arbitrary distinction.  His HP is game best, admittedly, but this is a game with no real defensive stat.  No, the thing that stands out most about Snow = Knight is his main purpose: you use Snow for tanking.  Snow's the best defensive character in the main game, since only one other character, Fang, has Sentinel unlocked early, and Snow's better suited for defending simply because of the HP edge.   Otherwise, he's basically a lesser Lightning in Ravager and Commando Roles due to lower offensive stats, and yeah, if you're using him, it's because of the game best HP + Sentinel combo.

Final Fantasy 14 A Realm Reborn: Paladin is the game's Knight.  Warrior is not, but I guess I'm obligated to cover them anyway?  Bah, I hate you all!

Paladin: Paladin is a tank job; it exists to yell "COME AT ME BRO!" while flashing itself and getting every enemy to pile on top of it and oh wow this became NC-17 rated pretty fast didn't it?  Anyway, Paladin's main thing is about damage mitigation.  It gets a bunch of damage reduction moves, it has Cover to aid a party member immediately, Flash can blind enemies helping lower damage further, it's main damage combo adds strength down, Shield Oath, it's defensive stats, lowers damage by 20%, Shields exist to randomly reduce damage by more because that's how FF14 shields work and...you get it, Paladin exists to make damage numbers look smaller.  Downsides are Paladin kind of struggles at DPS in general; while a very steady tank, it's damage dealing capabilities leave something to be desired.  Back to the good stuff, Paladin also has Provoke, which admittedly can be transferred to other jobs, it's kind of essential for multi-tank situations since being able to transfer aggro on the fly can pull some weight off the other tank. 

Warrior: The OTHER tank of FF14, this one really doesn't fit the usual Knight/Warrior mold, but it's named that way so I'll cover it.  Warrior is about having more HP than others, using Overpower, being able to use parasitic healing to boost HP further, hits things with Overpower, he gets angry and hits things harder sometimes in Defiance, generates Aggro with Overpower, can boost his damage with Maim...did I mention he has a move called Overpower?  Warrior despite how he looks and feels, is actually another Heavy Armor job like Paladin and can use a lot of the same gear. 

The two aren't exactly interchange-able; reading into it, sounds like their roles are Paladin = Main Tank, aka the guy who pulls in the initial wave and works on that.  Warrior = Off Tank, the guy who runs after the adds and takes care of them.  They're both good at their jobs as tankings and you want both in your team so...good job there.


Final Fantasy Tactics: What the hell, game?  Knights have been consistently decent at worst, awesome in some cases, and at least projecty in FF3DS' case.  Then we have...this game.  Knights, you suck.  Ok, you're fine early on when you're basically Squires with higher offense, HP, and shields, but that's a low bar there.  Other jobs show up and you stop caring.  Weapon Guard is a reaction you'll get early I guess, so that's something but not enough.  Breaks are cool on paper, but unreliable, only really worth something with a Gun or Bow.   One thing that kills them is low move + inability to equip any clothes, meaning they can't boost PA or Speed, so they're kind of bone.  Knight Swords...are both good and bad at the same time.  See, they're good because they often have high WP and some cool special effect...but they're partially brave based which means they're damage isn't as high as you'd like, at least on Generic Knights.  Yeah, not exactly a good showing at all. 

Final Fantasy 10-2:  Warrior is the game's functional Knight here.  They have Breaks, high defense, solid physical damage, iffy speed, a defensive move in Sentinel, and Assault which...you know, that has nothing to do with Knights does it?  They also have a bunch of elemental strikes named after various FF Mainstay weapons (Icebrand, Excalibur etc.)  as an added perk, which is mostly there to round out a skillset.  Overall, Warrior is kind of...generic.  It's an early game physical job that gets the job done, but doesn't really stand out beyond that, and there's other jobs who can do similar roles just as well with more intresting perks.   I guess Warrior's biggest thing is the high physical durability early game.

Final Fantasy 4 The After Years: Cecil...what happened to you?  Oh right, you got mind controlled and then un-mind controlled, went slightly insane and thus had crap stats and level for a large part of the game.  The problem is, even when caught up, he's not all that good.  He's usable when caught up, but now his gimmicks aren't as good as they were.  High Defense isn't meaningful in FF4TAY anymore since enemies hit hard; tanking comes from Blink if anything.  His White Magic is not improved at all either, and there's other characters who can use his weapons and heavy armor and such (Kain and Ceodore namely.)  The one niche I feel he has here is you can use Cover + Blink to require one less character to apply it too, but honestly that feels like an ultra specific application, you may as well just keep recasting it.  Either way, he's still going an entire decently lenghted dungeon both Underleveled with garbage stats, so you aren't going to use him until the final dungeon making the underleveled thing only compounded further.

I considered putting Ceodore here, but he feels very...hybrid-like.  Not just because more White Magic, but his stats don't really reflect a Knight's either, and he lacks things like Cover.


Bravely Default: Covering Knight and Templar here since Templar is very much an extension of Knight taken in a specialized role.

Knight: Knight is your 2nd physical job and first one with notable defensive qualities.  It's a pretty effective JOb for a large stretch of the game too, all things considered.  Between the S in Shields, A in Armor/Helmets, it has a firm defense score.  It has an S in Swords as well as As in Axes and Lances insuring it'll always have a good weapon available without using a skill-slot, and it's skillset is better than expected.  Notably, Stomp is a good "Go to" skill early game, Ironclad works as a means to keep defenses up while using Brave if you don't mind losing one round of offense, Protect Allies can be a life-saver in some fights, and it even gets an ability that lets you dual-equip Shields, which is invaluable in some cases.  Knight does slowly lose it's steam over time, but it never becomes downright bad, and it's skills are stuff you're likely to make use of throughout.  Oh yeah, it also gets Double Grip, so it can boost other jobs damages if you don't mind dropping a shield.

Templar:  When I look at Templar, I see a job created because "Crap, we have more skills we wanted to give Knight but can't fit them on, better make a new kind of similar job to cover that!"  Templar's thing is being Knight taken in some more extreme directions.  It gets some anti-physical things and has the game's S in Armors, it boosts Default, it gets some offensive tricks of varying use, but the offense is a bit disappointing all things considered, or forces usage of Brave which means the offense is limited.  It's a job that exists for shear tanking, and that's what you're best using it for.   Another problem Templar kind of has is it's gotten late, and shortly after it you get Dark Knight which...well...yeah.  Granted, you'll want some of Templar's Tricks like Rampart, so it's not worthless.


I think that mostly covers Knight for now; note that I'm writing this now late and thus starting to think incoherently and want to go to sleep and might edit things in later based on what others say!
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> so Snow...
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> Sonic Chaos
[21:39] <+Hello-NewAgeHipsterDojimaDee> That's -brilliant-.

[17:02] <+Tengu_Man> Raven is a better comic relief PC than A

074

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #2 on: June 07, 2015, 09:00:09 PM »
I'd think that, given Knights' increasing focus on swords after FF4o, Warrior in XIV would fall more into the berserker/viking/other-axe-user category to be honest?  But I suppose that's a bit of nitpicking on that point.

I suppose in regards to FF5 Knights, the only thing I'd have to add is that the antiphysical setups largely exist in a few points(the ones that come to mind are Byblos, Puroboros, Omniscient, and some of the enemies in the Undersea Trench, Istory Falls and the Dimensional Rift--and Puroboros is less antiphysical and more anti-ST).  I suppose optional bosses are also a matter, but you're going to be cheezing them out anyway.  I suppose it's my experience with 4JF talking, but I've found Knight to be one of the more effective jobs in general play courtesy of knight swords and Doublehand among other things.
<+Nama-EmblemOfFire> ...Have the GhebFE guy and the ostian princess guy collaborate.
 <@Elecman> Seems reasonable.

Meeplelard

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2015, 09:40:08 PM »
Warrior does fit more with Berserker in FF14, but the Berserker job is so rare in FF games, I just said meh and tossed it up there.  Axe wielding jobs have been all over the place in Final Fantasy games.  Because it's kind of with the topic, I'll just do a quick demonstration!


FF1: No one specialized in axes, though Fighter/Knight and later Ninja can use them.  There weren't a lot of them.
FF2: while this game lacks jobs (sans one character), Guy is associated with Axes, and he's the "Big, primitive wild man" character.
FF3: NES version, Vikings were the Axe users.  FF3DS, Warriors were added in, being Swords and Axes.
FF4: Cecil, Kain and Cid all had Axes.  That's Knight (or equivalent there of), Dragoon, and...well, Cid's kind of his own classification.  His job is Engineer, but his role is closer to Viking.
FF5: Berserker.  I guess Gladiator in later games but Gladiator had a lot of weapons, so...next!
FF11: Looking here, they're used primarily by Warriors and Beast Masters.  Sounds like other jobs can use them but these are the jobs specializing in them.  Warrior in FF11 seems similar to it's FF14 self, fwiw. 
FF12: No one associated with Axes.  The ZIJS puts it on the "Breaker" job, which is...uhh...new.  Looking at Breaker's License Board it seems to functionally be FF11/14's Warrior, namely an Axe wielding physical powerhouse Job.  I'm reading this right, it's skillset seems to focus on FF-style breaks (hence then name), which I don't know how they work in FF12 since I don't think they were in FF12 original.
FF14: Used by Warriors, etc.

FFT Axes can be used by Squires, and Geomancers only.  Equip Axe is on Squire.
FFTA2 has Vikings but they're nothing like FF3 Vikings. 
Bravely Default, it was primarily Pirates, who are...closest to Breakers looking above (axe wielder who focuses on stat breaks.) 


So really, Axes have been kind of all over the place.  Often given to tankier Jobs, granted, but really doesn't like a point in having Berserker section; Axe users as a whole doesn't seem meaningfunl since they all have different focuses, contrast to Knight (and brethren) where in the focus has been generally the same.
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> so Snow...
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> Sonic Chaos
[21:39] <+Hello-NewAgeHipsterDojimaDee> That's -brilliant-.

[17:02] <+Tengu_Man> Raven is a better comic relief PC than A

Reiska

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #4 on: June 10, 2015, 06:36:27 AM »
FF12: No one associated with Axes.  The ZIJS puts it on the "Breaker" job, which is...uhh...new.  Looking at Breaker's License Board it seems to functionally be FF11/14's Warrior, namely an Axe wielding physical powerhouse Job.  I'm reading this right, it's skillset seems to focus on FF-style breaks (hence then name), which I don't know how they work in FF12 since I don't think they were in FF12 original.

They were in the original game, though IIRC IZJS (significantly) buffed them.  (FF12 IZJS breaks are really, really, REALLY good.  Like gamebreakingly so.)

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #5 on: June 10, 2015, 10:25:43 AM »
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Technicks

Searching for armour break on the wiki listed these, Expose in FF12 lists reduce armour by 10% and the other version lists it in a way that suggests it stacks.  Assume consistency from there and it being shit in the original being why you wouldn't know about it.
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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #6 on: June 10, 2015, 03:52:30 PM »
The IZJS versions of those four skills are as follows:

Wither: Target's STR is reduced by 30% + 1.
Addle: Target's MAG is reduced by 30% + 1.
Expose: Target's DEF is reduced by 10% + 1.
Shear: Target's MDEF is reduced by 10% + 1.

In IZJS, no enemy in the game is immune to stat breaks, including all bosses.  In the original version, most bosses were immune.  All four skills stack multiplicatively and infinitely; you can, with patience, whittle any enemy in the game down to 1 in all stats, including Yiazmat.  You can actually kill IZJS Yiazmat in like 15 minutes.

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #7 on: June 13, 2015, 10:28:17 PM »
It occured to me I left off WoL from the Chibirhythm games...screw it I am not going back to do that now, because we have MORE IMPORTANT MATTERS!!!

BLACK MAGE



Yes, the font is inconsistent with Knight but shut up.

Black Mage probably has the single most iconic "classic design" in the franchise, proof of this goes back to how they made a whole point of making Black Mages look like that in FF9!  Yet Modern Square-enix likes to pretend that isn't a thing and they smell as a result.  Also none of that is relevant other than "This is why I'm choosing Black Mage!"

Black Mage has historically been identified by one very simple thing: Casting the Spells that make the people fall down.  Also known as Black Magic.  If Final Fantasy has a Job system of sorts, there's no question Black Mage is going to be there somewhere.  It's a job with a very straight forward purpose, and immediately recognizable in what it does, to the point where it's one of the few FF4HoL actually couldn't try to pretend it wasn't a thing and had to put it in straight up!  Anyway, onto HOW THE CLASS HAS BEEN THROUGHOUT!

Naturally, just having offensive magic doesn't qualify as a Black Mage, so the games where Magic is a universal skillset or a character falls under just a general Mage (as in, someone who uses all kinds of magic) like, say, FF13's Hope do not apply. 

Final Fantasy 1 (NES/Origins): If Knight started off with the best, Black Mage starts off with the worst it's ever been.  Black Mage's primary purpose was casting MT Spells to kill things in groups, and having some status as well as the offensive buffs.  Fast/Haste works in all versions and it's great, Temper only works in Origins and is useless otherwise.  It also gets Sabre (also bugged in FF1NES), which is...kind of pointless on the Black Mage seeing as it can't do physical damage and you wouldn't use it for.    So what are Black Mage's problems?  Obviously, it can't take hits, but that's a given.  No, it's real problem is there's never a good reason to use them over the Red Mage.  Red Mage casts Black Magic almost as good as Black Mage for most of the time, and the MP difference isn't large enough to care.  Add in Red Mage has actual weapons to conserve MP wish and can use White Magic, it's just kind of a slaughter.  Later on, you can item cast MT Fire 2 and similar spells which sounds cool in theory, but then remember everyone can do it just as effectively since Int is ass in this game, so not really a point in Black Mage's favor...if anything it HURTS his use because it means everyone else can do that to some degree, and Black Mage just has a few shots of stronger variants.  So yeah, sorry to say but Black Mage kind of sucks here.

Final Fantasy 1 (Dawn of Souls/PSP): Now this is a much different story!  A few major things kicked in making Black Mage a lot better.  First of all, going with an MP System instead of a MP Charges means Black Mage has that much more ammo, and thanks to Ethers, he never really runs out, so you can be more spell sling happy than before.  That of course doesn't help against the Red Mage, who has the same advantage, but other things helped Black Mage here as well, most notably, Intelligence now does something and it's a very notable impact.  Black Mages magic damage is way higher than Red Mage's the entire game, and with the new MP system, he can actually use Flare late game on more than 2 fights to get reasonable crowd control.  Add in Haste and Temper being extremely useful on bosses, and suddenly Black Mage looks like a viable class.  It still has durability issues of course (...ignoring FF1DoS' nerfed difficulty) and has a crap physical, but the fact that it has legitimate advantages, not superficial ones, suddenly makes it a way better job.

Final Fantasy 3 (NES): Lumping Black Mage and Warlock together because one is blatantly an upgrade of the other and meant to replace it, just like Fighter -> Knight.  Black Mage is somewhat of an under-appreciated job in FF3.  It's useless at first since there's no real Black Magic and yeah, just wasting your time, but once it gets Black Magic, it's decent at it for all that it's ammo is limited.  The game really wants you to use them during the Mini parts, because Magic damage is your only way to hurt things.  True, Red Mage can be used, but Red Mage vs. Black Mage is a meaningful difference on damage, with the latter being way higher and has nearly double the MP.  Once you get off the Floating Continent, Red Mage all but useless, but Black Mage has a new rival: Conjurer.  How does it compare?  Well, Black Mage has a few notable advantages on Conjurer.  First off, consistency; Conjurer's only way to do consistent damage is Titan which is ST; Black Mage can do MT damage and do it 100% of the time.  It also has higher MP than Conjurer.  It also can use status whenever you want, Conjurer's status competes with ST damage.  This means that Black Mage may not be as strong as Conjurer, but it's a lot more reliable.  It's damage is sadly lacking around now, even with level 3's (which it can only use a few times), though, a different use perks up in the form of status.  Black Mage's status, if you've been using one consistently, is actually very good (especially the Shade spell), especially the Shade spell.  This becomes extremely valuable in the Cave of Darkness where status can prevent enemies from splitting, as well as making the dungeon less strenuous.

Warlock is an extension of Black Mage, but it's harder to defend, as it's main rival, the Summoner, is a huge step up from Conjurer.  It still has more MP and has status but when Summoner can murder entire battle fields with spells like Titan or Leviathan, Warlock's hard to justify.  The best use you'll get out of Warlock is a strategy of using it's excess MP it has compared to Summoner, then swap to Summoner, thereby artificially inflating that character's MP. 


Final Fantasy 3 (DS): Black Mage in the first half of the game more or less is unchanged, outside of having a competent physical thanks to early game bows being quite good, so overall refer to the above.  2nd half is a different story...Black Mage kind of sucks.  Magic damage doesn't scale as well as Physical damage, and it's limited.  Status is nowhere near as good as it was in FF3o, and MT damage isn't as meaningful since you only fight 3 enemies at a time (FF3o could have you fight up to 8, which made splitting enemies that much worse to boot.)  This extends to Magus as well, who has to compete with Sage that gets everything he gets and almost as good at it (though, less MP on higher level stuff), but can also Heal and use Summons.  I hear Magus is the one case where Status is worthwhile, and it's good for that, and while I don't deny it, I do question it's long term uses up the Crystal Tower and World of Darkness, if those JLevels would be better spent somewhere else.  Overall, Black Mage has a good start here, but weak end.


Final Fantasy 4 (2D): Palom is the only actual Black Mage in the game, though I think many will agree I need to evaluate Rydia so I'll get to her in a bit.  In the original versions of FF4, Palom existed just to be a token offensive spell caster during Mt. Ordeals, to kill off pesky Zombies that Cecil couldn't kill, and nuke things at MT.  He also murders Milon in 2 hits with Boast, but Milon is awful so who cares.  When Tellah gets his OP spell selection, Palom still has the advantage in having an actual MP score, and does more damage with Aras than Tellah does (Tellah does have Agas granted, as well as Bio), so he's now more your cost efficient Mage.  He works, though he can't take hits to save his life.  FF4a gives him a bunch of gear that mostly just ups his stats to the point where he can compete with Rydia.  Compared to Rydia, he has lower MP, negligibly higher HP, considerably better defense, and does Black Magic better than she does, at the cost of not having Summons.  It's a pretty even trade and the two are mostly interchange-able, because while Rydia is probably technically superior, the parts where it's important Palom pulls his weight well enough.  In fact, you could probably get away with using both if you wanted to murder things fast!  Also Flare is a pretty awesome spell because it's fast and hits really hard, gotta toss that in!

As far as Rydia goes...well, I'll be looking at her as a Black Mage, not a Summoner.  If she didn't have Summons, how would she be?  Honestly not much different than she is.  She'd mostly lose out on MT damage for the mid-game, until she gets Agas and Quake, but otherwise, she can sling Bio around for a fast, cost effective damage move, with Aras to hit weaknesses.  Her status rates are pretty good too...except FF4 makes like half the enemies immune to it and has stupid status mechanics so meh.  She CAN be twinked for physicals thanks to Minerva + Bow, for all that it's not worth it, but hey, that's neat for a Black Mage right?  Basically, yeah, Rydia's about what you'd expect, even without Summons; Summons make her better, make no mistake, but she could have just been a Black Mage and gotten away with them.  In fact, her primary form of offense during the Child Arc is her elemental spells (Chocobo mostly just a Boss spell.)


Final Fantasy 4 (DS):  Why does the DS versions of games despite Black Magic?  Ok, so early game it's just as effective as it was, but only because Tellah's stats are high for the time and stats are that meaningful.  Palom doesn't really feel particularly special since now the situation is reversed; Tellah does more damage with the same spells, Palom just gets Aras earlier (which is a perk) and has more MP (also meaningful!)  Rydia?  She absolutely needs her elemental summons now since the Aras don't last nearly as long as they use to, Flare got nerfed so hard it's not really a great spell it use to be, doing now less damage with an actual charge time...and it's the only end-game spell worth using.  It says something that Rydia literally joins with all her end-game gear save the Stardust Rod, which gives a lot of magic boosts, and her magic still feels lackluster.  The summons help mid-game, but they don't last, seeing as the elementals are just Aga level spells, while the high end ones take too long to be feasible.

Final Fantasy 5: You get Black Mage, it's starting spells are worse than Blue Mage's Aero...well that's silly!  Also not a huge deal since Black Mage has higher magic to lessen the gap and can hit a lot more weaknesses than Blue Mage can, which comes up fairly often, so that aspect is not a huge deal.  Black Mage is a job I kind of feel bad for in this game.  It's actually good at what it does, and doesn't have any real major issues as a glass cannon spell caster in and of itself.  It hits notably harder than Red Mage with the same spells, elemental boosts exist to make the damage stand out, has the resources to make it manage-able, etc.  The problem?

Summon exists, and in most cases does the same thing better.  As soon as Summoner gets Ifrit, Shiva and Ramuh, you really have little reason to use Black Mage, and then Summoner learns Titan and it's kind of a one sided slaughter.  Black Mage only finally feels meaningful again when it gets the Agas which crush anything Summoner can do on ST, as well are capable of hitting flying enemies, but that only lasts until Summoner gets Syldra, which is basically the best Attack Spell in the game (complimented with Leviathan hitting weaknesses in the final dungeon, and Bahamut in case the rare Wind Immune pops up.)  To make matters more insulting is Summoner has game best Magic (...Oracle aside...but Oracle sucks), so there's little reason to invest a large amount of time in Black Mage.  so outside of the brief early-game window where Summoner is limited/doesn't exist, and the Moore -> Pyramid window, there's really little reason to use Black Mage. 


Final Fantasy 9: Remember how I said that FF9 has really 4 distinction of characters?  No? ...well I did now retroactively and you're wrong if I didn't!  Anyway, Vivi's distinction is...well...Vivi.  Vivi really is a unique character in FF9 because he's the only dedicated offensive spell caster from start to finish.  Until Garnet gets Ramuh, he's also the only character capable of legitimate MT damage (Zidane's Trances don't count), immediately noticeable in early dungeons when he's your screen clearing character.  He also has the MP to support all this too.  Vivi's use is kind of a Sin Curve overall...well, ok, more of a Cos Curve since he starts high.  He starts off really good because he's your cannon, with Zidane and Steiner being your ST damage and Garnet being your healer.  His damage starts to taper off when weapon upgrades happen and such near the end of Disc 1, then he gets Aras and Bio and shoots up again, especially if he can hit weakness.  He won't really improve much until he gets Agas, so he slowly gets worse until that point, especially since Garnet learns Ramuh and Eiko pops up with Fenrir (admittedly, that can't do crap against flying enemies) , so his MT isn't as needed.  Also enemy hordes of the "large sacks of HP" start popping up too, and fighters are starting to outclass him at ST.  Focus helps of course so that's a boon!  Agas are a similar boost in worth, but unfortunately, that's about where Vivi's use caps off; Fighters start doing too much damage, and even with Flare, it's basically Vivi using more MP to do a similar result.   The other problem is that Garnet and Eiko match him in magic damage come end game, and they can do a heck of a lot more (like, say, Heal), so it's hard to justify him.

He also gets status, but FF9 status is kind of unreliable.  Double Black would be a great trance since breaking the damage limit, unfortunately, Trance is the least reliable thing ever, kicking in when you don't need it.  Overall, I think Vivi qualifies as "well balanced" but in kind of averages sort of way.  He has his highs, his lows, and his medium points, and overall we have a character who works for what he is, even if it's not all the time.


Final Fantasy 10: Lulu is outright called a Black Mage by Wakka here, so any arguments about her not fulfilling this will get you smacked.  Not that I think anyone would argue this in the Normal Sphere Grid since Lulu's entire purpose is nuking things with offensive magic.  Good thing Lulu's good at it too!  Her flaw, first of all, is that she's slow; she makes a poor character to open with.  Otherwise?  She's got crap tons of MP, does a lot of damage with her spells, is basically the only one who can kill large number of enemies thanks to FF10s RPS style combat.  Honestly, there's really not much more to say; Lulu's good at what she does, and that's all we care about.

Final Fantasy 12 ZIJS:  So as someone who actually bothered with Black Magic in FF12, I can only assume these guys are good.  Yes, that's right; there's ways to play FF12 besides just casting Berserk, hoping that spell hits, and watching one character kill things.  Black Magic actually kills things way faster if you bothered, and have the MP, etc. Murdering just about every enemy in Pharos with Firaga is fun and educational, you should try it!  That aside, looking at it's skillset, Black Mage seems like it's quite competent and reading up on it for others, they seem to agree.  Only people who seem to hate Black Mages are the "hurr durr physicals rule!" nonsense.     They're your primary form of Crowd Control who get good ST damage too.  They also are one of 4 classes to learn Steal, which if you've played FF12, you know how big a deal that is.  Another major thing that makes Black Mages good are, well, in FF12 one limiting thing is for spells like Scathe, they could only do 9999 limiting that's use (when Firaga can be twinked to hit that high...hmm...); there is no longer a 9999 damage limit in ZIJS, so that will make them quite viable end game.

Final Fantasy 14: The Black Mage (and their Thaumaturge earlier forms) basically exists as the chief user of AoE damage.  A neat thing about them is they always have some level of minimum offense.  Spam Fire spells til out of MP, Transpose, spam Ice Spells until up to maximum, throw a Lightning spell in the mix for added DPS during the Umbral Ice Phase.  For those who don't know, quick explanation on why you do this:

When you cast a Blizzard spell, you get Umbral Ice status.  Umbral Ice increases the rate of MP Gain (by an extremely notice-able amount; while in Umbral Ice, spells may as well be free.)
When you cast a Fire spell, you get Astral Fire; this increases the MP cost of Fire Spells, but also raises their damage significantly (25% per stack, up to 3.)  Astral Fire also stops you from regaining MP.

So Black Mage is shifting constantly between Big Damage and Modest but Unlimited Damage.   Because of Umbral Ice, it also allows it some utility use, like an emergency 2nd Cure caster.  It gets a bunch of buffs that let it make spells easier to cast by lowering charge times and such, and also gets a Sleep spell!  Downsides to Black Mage?  Naturally can't take hits, limited on Cross Class skills, and for ST DPS, it's a bit on the low side.  It's not attrocious to be clear, just most other DPS' beat it here.  Black Mage's primary purpose is blowing up mobs of randoms and killing adds and it does a pretty good job of that too!

Final Fantasy Tactics:  FFT decided to call this job Wizard because...it's FFT...except in the Class Introduction screen where it called it Black Mage.  Never change, FFT Translation...by the way, screw you WotL!  Remember how in FF5 Summoner beat Black Mage in most ways that matter?  Yeah, not so much the case here.  While Summons are the superior skillset, Warlocks have some key advantages, a big one now being they have Game Best MA, making them the best job for shear magic offense.  Sure, Summons might be better, but Summons on a Magus are better than Summons on any other Job, as well as skillsets like Draw Out, Math Skill and Un-Truth! ...you can choose it ignore that last one.  On top of that, Thaumaturges also get Magic Attack Up, which is extremely handy for downright nuking things regardless what Magic class you're in.  While it may not be the greatest job, particularly because Black Magic itself is,for the most part, a lesser version of Summons, the Vivi actually feels like it has a place and not simply a "worse version of this other more powerful job!" 

Worth noting that in War of the Lions, Summoner was notably worse in this making the Lulus better by extension.  I don't think it quite closes the gap entirely granted, and it does hurt Palom's use because that's one less strong skillset for them to use their game best MA with.

Final Fantasy 10-2:  You know, I played this game twice, and I remember Black Mages being a thing and doing Magic but I don't remember them being particularly special at it?  They did have MT damage which was harder to come by I suppose, and MP Drain means they didn't run out of resources.  Glancing at the stat topic, it seems their magic damage is not great end game, being somewhat below average and they have charge times.  I don't feel confident talking about them, so if someone else wants to field this by all means!

Final Fantasy 4 The After Years: First and foremost, No, Golbez doesn't count.  Got that? Good.  Palom is our primary Black Mage here with, again, Rydia as the Summoner/Black Mage hybrid.  Like in FF4, Black Magic is your main source of big damage, though one thing that hurts them I found is the Lunar Phase system.  Because of the way bosses work, most of them rely on big magic damage (a lot have Meteor) so you want to go in during the Anti-Black Magic phase.  This in turn means Black Mages are worse against most bosses (though Rydia can get around it with Summon.)   Otherwise, Palom's big thing is he learns the important Black Magic spells before anyone else, and has the stats to justify it; Rydia, by contrast, while getting them later, has more options in the long run, so overall better, but both are worthy of taking that slot.

There's generic Black Mages who assist Ceodore and Porom...but we don't care about them because they're Core Classes and Core Classes are awful! ...jokes aside, the generic Black Mages are pretty much exactly what you'd expect.


Final Fantasy 4 Heroes of Light: I'm making an exception here because I remember the damned job.  Black Mage existed to be able to cast Black Magic every-turn, as it's passive is "All Black Magic costs 1 less AP to use", with the basic spells costing 2, (1 = Basic Physical.)  It could damage magic damage which sometimes mattered because high defense, low magic defense things existed and...then you stop caring because FF4HoL honestly doesn't do a good job at distinguishing jobs after a point and basically wants you to only use later ones because the game is stupid.  Yes, I wasted your time, MWAHAHA!

Bravely Default: Good thing this game exists and disowned itself from the above, because Jobs are meaningful again!  Black Magic is your primary MT damage dealer until you get Valkyrie.  Magic Mojo is kind of useless you either use 2 Black Mages, or get others who learn Magic Mojo and equip it because it's a 1 slot skill that works for filler.  Black Mage has a good start but it slowly starts to taper off as things like Valkyrie show up, enemies get more health, etc.  It still has a few nice niches though.  It's best quality is probably Piercing Magic Defense, allowing any spell caster to do consistent damage regardless of enemy.  Arcanist showing up allows it it a compliment as well, since now it's status (which is actually fairly effective this game) can be used in combo spells like Sleep x3 + Twilight to murder an entire enemy team (or alternatively, Evil Gaia x3 + Dalek Catch Phrase.)  I guess Black Mage is a decent early-mid game job that tapers off, but still has it's niches later on is the best way to put it.


EDIT: Forgot 2 IMPORTANT GAMES!!! on this list...

Theatrhythm: A Black Mage in this game I'm definining by someone who focuses very heavily on using offensive magic, getting most of the elemental spells, and stats are clearly defined as Mage.  For this game, that would be Terra, Shantotto, Vivi and Rydia.  So let's analyze each!

Terra: One of the better characters in the game.  Trance makes her the strongest Mage in the game (if you don't suck), and she gets all 3 Agas and I believe all Aras so some flexibility, as well as her skill slots are well suited for her, so no problems there.  Another bonus she has going for her is her speed is passable enough; it's kind of average at base but she gets Agility Up, which pushes her to the point of "can regularly max reach the end of Dark Notes" which is all you need for an FMS, so she's good for leading a team of 3 dudes wielding Strength Up 2+3 which means they have no speed whatsoever.  She also gets Bluff but it's hard to use that alongside Trance and have room for something else.

Shantotto: A Terra variant; Shantotto gets Dualcast + Ancient Magic combo making her blow stuff up when a boss appears.  Her spells don't hurt as much as Terra's thanks to Dualcast < Trance, but Ancient Magic is probably good enough to make it roughly even.  She also has good speed so she's good at the FMS leader as well. 

Vivi: Is Shantotto w/out Ancient Magic.  He's solid, but kind of superfluous unless you really want a 2nd Mage.  He also lacks her speed so not good at FMS'.  That and this is Theathrythm; if you're not one of the starting 13, you might as well not exist.

Rydia: And here we have "how not to do a Mage."  Rydia's problems are two fold.  First off, she misses Dualcast AND Bluff, making someone like Lightning or Ashe (who one could argue is a Black Mage but I don't think she was a blatantly magical oriented) actually better at spellcasting.  The 2nd problem is she's 2 Pro-active, 2 Re-active, meaning she can only use 2 Spells at once, while the other 3 can use 3 spells if they want too (well, Terra's Trance takes up a Re-active slot technically, but it's so good that it's worth it.)    She gets all 3 Boost levels, and Mana's Paean is nice, but not enough to really save her.  She also has Vivi's problem of "isn't one of the initial 13."

Curtain Call: So...there's a lot more Black Mages this time around.  The same 4 still exist, but now we have a bunch of others!  I'll be briefer here as a result.  Terra and Shantotto are decent PCs who, if you take twinking into account, are apparently the undisputed best BMS PCs in the game, with Terra having the ludicrous 6x Multiplier on her spell (which makes Ultima so stupid strong you don't care it's OPB), and Shantotto having 3x w/ Ultima and Ancient Magic combo.  Vivi's better too since Dualcast is that much more meaningful, and Tornado is a unique spell to him that lets him fire off a near-Ultima level attack with only a 25 chain.  Rydia...gets Bluff and doesn't have the slot restriction, so that's better than before, but still not particularly great.

New Black Mages?  Well, Krile is basically another Rydia, a mage who gets Bluff and little else...also doesn't exist in the US because Square-enix is stupid.  Hope gets Faith meaning he boosts other Mages and gets a Limit...that is Physical damage...yeah, I don't get it either.  Ace is basically Hope except that Physical Limitis a Magical One, making him a hell of a lot better.  Yuna #2 looks fine on paper but then that Physical Limit pops up and you're banging your head against the wall.

So Black Mages are all over the place here, ranging from "Among the best PCs in the game" to "MEEEEEEEH."

I believe that should cover Black Mages.  Anyone want to fill in the gaps for things i missed from the franchise, be my guest!
« Last Edit: June 14, 2015, 01:17:04 PM by Meeplelard »
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> so Snow...
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> Sonic Chaos
[21:39] <+Hello-NewAgeHipsterDojimaDee> That's -brilliant-.

[17:02] <+Tengu_Man> Raven is a better comic relief PC than A

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #8 on: June 14, 2015, 12:05:00 AM »
Probably should have made a joke about the band.
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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #9 on: June 14, 2015, 03:40:34 AM »
We'll just call that a missed opportunity then!
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> so Snow...
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> Sonic Chaos
[21:39] <+Hello-NewAgeHipsterDojimaDee> That's -brilliant-.

[17:02] <+Tengu_Man> Raven is a better comic relief PC than A

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #10 on: June 14, 2015, 05:20:43 AM »
Since you asked, and since I'm inundated with them at the moment...

FFD: This game has two Black Magic using classes, and notably you're only going to want to bother with them on the Dark Warriors side, since they get the added benefit of actually learning the full Black Magic skillset, while the Light Side misses out on key spells like Meteor and Ultima. Overall, Black Mages have a pretty strong start as your MT elemental-weakness-hitting class. Other MT options pop up slowly, and Summons are limited by what side you're playing as. Really the only thing that replaces Black Magic's niche are Fusion Abilities, most of which require some level of Black Magic to be learned first. The Black Mage also learns nearly all the status spells, which have extremely high accuracy, plus two flavors of accurate ID if your target isn't immune. Black Mage also picks up the ability Magic Font, which increases all magic damage a flat 50%, which can be applied to other classes too. Really the main thing that hurts Black Mages and Magus in this game is that Magic. Is. Slow. As. Hell.
While your physical fighters will be gleefully pounding away at the enemy, Mages have to wait through a casting time, which roughly halves their DPS in comparison, especially with the myriad of physical twinking options lategame. Black Mage basically -requires- Red Mage's dualcast to keep up. Dualcast Meteor on a Magus is certainly still a force to be reckoned with by the final boss due to its multihit property being able to get around the damage cap, but it is outshone by physical DPS completely. Still, overall balanced if the enemy is extremely tanky, I suppose. Not the worst showing of Black Mage, but certainly not the best.

Final Fantasy Record Keeper: lol~
So Black Mage is a Core Class in this game, and Core Classes suck. But Black Mage at least has availability going for him. You get him as your 3rd or 4th PC in a game with a five-member party, and he's the only one who can cast the spells that... you know. Until you get your 6th or 7th character, then you'll be dropping him quickly. His Soul Break -is- your only source of Dark-elemental damage until much later when you can final make the spell "Dark". Still, once that's available, he has literally outlived his usefulness as other characters can just take his equips and skillset (literally) and use them better. His equipment was pretty limited to begin with.
However, he does have -one- slight purpose for existing beyond that (as do most of the Core Classes). IF you can suffer through getting him to level 50 and finding his Break Level Limit crystal, you can get access to Manafont I and II, which restore some MP charges at the beginning of every fight. THIS IS INCREDIBLY USEFUL (on another character) as skills are incredibly useful for making battles go more smoothly and there's no reliable way of recharging their uses otherwise. So... still awful, but not FF1o awful!

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #11 on: June 14, 2015, 06:50:06 AM »
If you're going to include Record Keeper, you might as well include characters who fall under that category too.  Vivi, for example, is straight up Black Mage through and through.  Characters like Terra, Rinoa and Ashe are a little more ambiguous, but it's obvious the primary purpose of them is Black Magic since they all have 5* Black Magic, and stats that support it (their other perks are there so a character like Vivi doesn't just straight up obsolete them, like Terra's ability to use Heavy Armor or Rinoa's ability to use Ranged Weapons.)

There are some ambiguous cases, but I'd at least make one requirement "character gets 5* in that kind of skill."  Alternatively, you can look at it simply from a "how viable are these kinds of characters in general?"  and work from there. 

From my understanding, going off Core Classes in Record Keeper is basically saying "we're analyzing garbage filler"
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> so Snow...
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> Sonic Chaos
[21:39] <+Hello-NewAgeHipsterDojimaDee> That's -brilliant-.

[17:02] <+Tengu_Man> Raven is a better comic relief PC than A

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #12 on: June 14, 2015, 09:21:08 AM »
I'd note that the Black Mage's ability to be a secondary healer is not really all that much there, courtesy of the stats a BLM and WHM would be working off of respectively; BLM spells work off of Intelligence, while healing (such as the cross-classable Cure and Physick) works off of Mind, which increasingly falls out of favor for offensive casting classes, so trying to use BLM as a clutch healer won't find use too often.

(Not to say it doesn't always.  It is viable in situations up to Aurum Vale.  Trying to do it in a post-50 dungeon will only lead to pain, however)
<+Nama-EmblemOfFire> ...Have the GhebFE guy and the ostian princess guy collaborate.
 <@Elecman> Seems reasonable.

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #13 on: June 14, 2015, 01:32:06 PM »
Black magic in Record Keeper starts off relatively unimpressive (hits weakness for medals, so still useful!) but scales up pretty rapidly lategame. This is because the INT on Rods scales up at roughly the same rate as Attack on physical weapons, but ability multipliers scale up much faster with magic. For instance Fire/Fira/Firaga Strike (the latter still unreleased in global RK) are 1.5x/1.8x/2.1x multipliers, whereas Fire/Fira/Firaga/Firaja are 1.5x/2.85x/4.875x/8.775x. Now, these can't be compared directly since the Spellblade moves are direct multipliers on a regular physical while the latter are pretty arbitrary outside of the exact damage formula, but you get a sense of how higher level BM scales up much quicker ability-wise.

(Incidentally, this means that -ga spells should be prioritized over -ra strikes and -ja spells over -ga strikes (when the latter are released) so long as your supply of the relevant Black Orb level are still limited)

This, along with a lowish soft cap for the attack stat (346) than magic/mind (~700) means that mage heavy parties are generally the best for DPS in the more advanced Japanese build of RK. Global hasn't reached this level of power yet, but the really high level people should be there in a month or two. The Manafont II Record Materia, as well as its White Magic and Summon counterparts, has a big part in this too, obviously. Right now you need physical attackers to clean up the waves of random enemies while mages hoard all their charges for boss fights, but that all goes away if you can use Quake + MT summon every single battle.

As for actual Black Magic users, I missed out on all the event ones besides Vanille who's a White-leaning hybrid, so I'd have to go mainly on theorymon. Also there's a whole bunch of them, especially counting Japan-only ones, and I don't feel like theorymonning them all right now.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2015, 01:35:34 PM by hinode »

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #14 on: June 14, 2015, 01:39:15 PM »
First off: pet peeve, it's IZJS, not ZIJS.  >_<   Moving on to actual content...

FF5 Black Mage does have one niche that Summoner can't cover, which is ST damage, and there is one boss in the game where this actually matters (the seal guardians in the Forest of Moore).  Trying to MT them is asking to be murdered since they all have brutal limit phases and they all have different elemental properties.

As for 12, you summed it up really well.  In vanilla FF12, damage magic is generally the best way to do damage in the game overall at most points; the speedrun, for example, never uses a physical attack again after about 40% of the way into the run, and kills almost all bosses via Reflect-bombing with MT spells.  Even without abusing Reflect-bombing though, FF12 magic is really good, only really held back by the damage cap (breaking 9999 on Firaga is trivial thanks to Oil status).  IZJS removes the damage cap, of course, so you can do full damage with Scathe (though it's such a slow spell, animation-wise, that it's often not worth using - this matters because its animation delays basically everything that isn't a physical attack due to the way FF14's animation queueing system works) and oiled Firaga (which is generally the money move if it's not resisted/immuned).  I ran Black Mage in my main party in my last run of IZJS and was not disappointed.

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #15 on: June 14, 2015, 02:25:01 PM »

As for Knights in Record Keeper, there's a subset of physical abilities specifically named "Knight", which helpfully lets us minnow down the endless list of armor wearing physical attackers. The only one available right now in global RK is Guard, which grants the user Protect. Considering everyone is limited to only two ability slots, this is basically never worth using or crafting.

Much more interesting is the currently Japanese only ability Taunt, which IIRC attracts all ST moves towards the user for a period of time. That's nice enough for protecting squishy party members, but the real fun part is combining it with the Samurai ability Retaliate, which gives the user perfect evade for about 2.5 turns and counters every physical aimed at him with a basic physical. Taunt+Retaliate redirects all ST physicals at a physical immune char who will promptly counter all those attacks, a really popular Japanese strategy only usable by the game's unofficial Freelancer and the recently released Gilgamesh (!!!)

Current characters who can equip Knight abilities:

Tyro- the aforementioned unofficial Freelancer, should be saved for whenever Meeple gets around to that class.

Knight- Core class, which means it is totally awful. As in, less HP and attack than dedicated healers like Aerith and Lenna. Doesn't even have a Record Materia out in Japan right now, so right now it is 0/10 and less useful than Jogurt.

Paladin Cecil- Has the stats you'd expect out of Cecil: great HP and defense, good attack, decent mind and resistance. Speed is low, but speed isn't very important in RK due to how it implements ATB. Great equipment selection, especially now that the update added axes. Skillset is Combat 5/Knight 5/White 2, which makes sense flavorwise.

Cecil's biggest selling point is that having one of the best default Soul Breaks in the game, Rampart, which temporarily increases defense and resistance for all party members. This stacks with every other defensive buff in the game and is obviously great for any boss that doesn't just roll over and die. His second soul break, Sentinel, is essentially a longer lasting version of the unreleased Taunt ability mentioned above. Getting the shield for it is notoriously difficult like every other 5 star gear, but in this case it's alright because it's really most valuable as a Friend Summon. Have a Retaliator use it for a fun time vs bosses who rely on ST physicals.

Sadly Cecil's an event character and thus latejoiners like me don't have him, but his event should be back in around a month or so.

Warrior of Light- Statistically, he's pretty similar to Paladin Cecil except... worse in pretty much every single stat apparantly. Same equips too, now that axes were added to Cecil. Man, the non-event chars were kinda screwed on stats aside from Cloud. First Soul Break is Class Change, which buffs his attack/defense/magic (lol)/resistance temporarily. Nice, but pales compared to Rampart. Best part is bringing out the 8-bit sprite. Second Soul Break is a big ST holy-elemental attack. Like all the 5 star character-specific Soul Breaks it's way stronger than a regular hit, but stupidly hard to get and not particularly valuable by those standards.

Looking at upcoming characters, the ones who can use Knight abilities are Edgar, Leon, Steiner, Golbez (!!), Gilgamesh, Seifer, and... wait, Zidane has Knight 3? WTF DeNA.

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #16 on: June 14, 2015, 04:48:11 PM »
FF5 Black Mage does have one niche that Summoner can't cover, which is ST damage, and there is one boss in the game where this actually matters (the seal guardians in the Forest of Moore).  Trying to MT them is asking to be murdered since they all have brutal limit phases and they all have different elemental properties.

Actually MT is very much one of the valid ways to blitz that fight. Set up all the crystals (or at least the three that don't absorb earth) to be just above 3000 HP, Titan them into oblivion. (Gil Toss/Zeninage also gets hype here for similar reasons, it's even better but more costly.) With good setup, two Titans cast back to back by different PCs will immediately kill the crystals in question. Summon also helps a lot in that fight if you have Golem, because it means you can pretty much mock the first phase.

Granted, Black Magic is safer at this same job (though it still needs two attacks to dodge the danger zone, it does so more solidly) but takes longer because you have to take out one crystal at a time instead of three. But Meeple already noted that Black Magic has more ST damage from Moore to the Pyramid. Most of the rest of the game, Black Mage doesn't even have more ST damage, though.

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #17 on: June 15, 2015, 04:42:33 AM »
Oh, one other issue Black Magic has in FF5 is that Spellblade is typically a more reliable way of inflicting Silence/Sleep/Break on bosses. Not having to make a magic evade/level-based accuracy check is almost always worth the tradeoff of not being usable turn 1 in-game. That just leaves Toad as a relevant status niche for Black Magic; thankfully it's more accurate than FrogSong, to make up for later availability.

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #18 on: June 15, 2015, 05:01:54 AM »
Honestly I feel the ability to use Break without a setup turn on randoms (Kuza Beasts, Wyrms, Blue Dragons) is fairly big. Yeah the accuracy isn't perfect, but it's notably above 50 which is all it needs to be to outperform Spellblade. It's certainly the black status spell I've gotten the most use out of (although you can argue Sleep vs. Atomos is the most important use). I definitely can't get behind hype for Black Magic Frog on the other hand... Frog (and Mini) just gets immuned by way too many things, and as far as bosses go I believe the only boss you can toad after getting the Black Magic variant is TwinTania's charging phase (whom you can wreck with a dozen other things anyway).

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #19 on: June 15, 2015, 05:20:30 AM »
This skill set is bad because it takes a turn or two to completely trivialise some bosses
#ff5problems
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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #20 on: June 16, 2015, 01:24:20 AM »
Wait, there are no Toad-vulnerable bosses after you get the spell? *checks* Aw man, I take it back then. At least Frog Song works on Galura.

I can't remember ever bothering with status vs randoms in a non-challenge run of FF5, and if I did it was probably Berserk for perfect accuracy+Golem mopping up the drawbacks. I did use Toad extensively on a Red Mage SSCC which probably skewed my kneejerk impression, but that's not a relevant experience to generalize from for a whole bunch of reasons.

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #21 on: June 17, 2015, 10:32:36 PM »
At the very least, Red Dragons are vulnerable to toad (...and are weirdly tagged as Undead).

...at least, for those who have issues with running from battles.
<+Nama-EmblemOfFire> ...Have the GhebFE guy and the ostian princess guy collaborate.
 <@Elecman> Seems reasonable.

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #22 on: June 17, 2015, 10:43:39 PM »
Red Dragons are in fact immune to toad. (Both the BMG and the GBA bestiary agree on this, so I've not known either to have errors in this regard.) The main status you might exploit against them would be Stop (short duration), Berserk, and Control, although with their three elemental weaknesses + Requiem vulnerability I find most parties can blitz them down with damage pretty well.

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #23 on: June 18, 2015, 04:36:26 AM »
Huh.  Thought it worked in reverse as displayed by the Alchymias in Istory Falls.

I look like an idiot then.  XD
<+Nama-EmblemOfFire> ...Have the GhebFE guy and the ostian princess guy collaborate.
 <@Elecman> Seems reasonable.

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Re: Meeple's Final Fantasy Class (and others) Analysis
« Reply #24 on: June 18, 2015, 05:03:27 AM »
... wait, Zidane has Knight 3? WTF DeNA.

Zidane does get a cover skill in FF 9 while Steiner doesn't, so it's not like there's 0 basis.
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