I've got a Job for you! - Let's Play Final Fantasy V!

Now we have our Job rundowns. Note that ! before an ability indicates that this is a battle command; anything missing that is a passive ability.



Freelancer - Unspecialized fighters who can equip any armor or weapon.
Pros - Can equip 2 command skills at once instead of 1, gets ALL learned passive abilities from mastered classes
Cons - No skills to learn, quite literally only as strong as your learned skills and abilities allow
Equipment: Anything
Native Skills: Whatever you've learned in other classes
Learns: Nothing



Knight - Valiant warriors who protect allies low on HP.
Pros - Strong as a titan and high on HP
Cons - Not much MP, horrible versus large groups
Equipment: Daggers, Swords, Knightly Swords, Shields, Heavy Armor
Native Skills: !Guard, Cover
Learns: Cover (10), !Guard (20), Two-Handed (50), Equip Shields (100), Equip Armor (150), Equip Swords (350)



Monk - Masters of hand-to-hand combat who intuitively counterattack.
Pros - Brokenly strong early on, auto-counterattack, great abilities
Cons - Basically no MP to speak of, groups eat them for lunch
Equipment: Light Armor
Native Skills: !Kick, Barehanded, Counter
Learns: !Focus (15), Barehanded (30), !Chakra (45), Counter (60), Max HP+10% (100), Max HP+20% (150), Max HP+30% (300)



Thief - Expert bandits who espy secret passages and foil back attacks.
Pros - Fast, can steal items, can dash in the field, can see hidden passageways
Cons - Pitiful attack power, meh defense, not combat-competent
Equipment: Daggers, Special Weapons, Light Armor
Native Skills: !Steal, Find Passages, Sprint, Vigilance, Artful Dodger
Learns: Find Passages (10), !Flee (20), Sprint (30), !Steal (50), Vigilance (75), !Mug (150), Artful Dodger (300)



White Mage - Priests who use white magic to heal and protect allies.
Pros - Great MP, can heal allies en masse and with ease
Cons - Pretty much negative attack power, paper defense, useless for anything but healing
Equipment: Staves, Light Armor
Native Skills: !White
Learns: !White Lv1 (10), !White Lv2 (20), !White Lv3 (30), !White Lv4 (50), !White Lv5 (70), !White Lv6 (100), Max MP+10% (300)



Black Mage - Wizards whose powerful black magic strikes fear into enemies.
Pros - Top-notch MP, can mow down groups as long as MP remains
Cons - Useless when MP runs out, virtually no HP, slower than molasses on a cold winter's day
Equipment: Daggers, Rods, Light Armor
Native Skills: !Black
Learns: !Black Lv1 (10), !Black Lv2 (20), !Black Lv3 (30), !Black Lv4 (50), !Black Lv5 (70), !Black Lv6 (100), Max MP+30% (450)



Blue Mage - Mages with the ability to learn monsters' special skills.
Pros - Arsenal increases as enemies use specials on them, very balanced abilities
Cons - They excel at nothing, and thus are very middle-of-the-road
Equipment: Daggers, Swords, Rods, Medium Armor, Shields
Native Skills: !Blue, Learning
Learns: !Check (10), Learning (20), !Blue (70), !Scan (250)

What shall we start with? We have four allies, so pick four Jobs and we'll roll with it! You can pick more than one character in a given Job, of course; whatever suits your taste. All mixes are accepted (except THAT ONE; you know what I'm talking about), though I will hate you quite a bit if you stick me with certain nasty combos. Make your selection!

Current Party:
Bartz - Level 5, Unmasked (no skills or abilities yet)
Lenna - Level 5, Unmasked (no skills or abilities yet)
Galuf - Level 5, Unmasked (no skills or abilities yet)
Faris - Level 5, Unmasked (no skills or abilities yet)

Next time: Disaster at sea and a graveyard of ships!

You might at least mention that it's an ATB tutorial boss in the vein of Mist Dragon, Whelk, and Guard Scorpion.

Trim the sails and roam the sea!
would that be All-Freelancer? All-WhM? (Seriously, I don't know. Which? Though I'd lay money on All-Bare)

...you can't learn Kick? booo.

In that case, two thieves and two blue magi, until you get !flee and Learning, then swap to get both for all. Mainly, just get Learning on everyone and at least one !flee. For more "fun", do monks instead of thieves until you get Barehanded, and equip no weapons forever. Or at least a while. (Is it a viable option?)

If you feel like being less uniform, Blue White Thief Black, respectively.

I would have, except that Wing Raptor's survival rate up to the first ATB lesson is about as likely as the Detroit Lions making it to the Super Bowl.

No mention of the fact that !Cover makes low level runs possible?

Make Faris and Bartz your physical fighters and have Lenna and Galuf work on Maging it up.

I admit nothing!

Nothing, I say!

It wasn't until you quoted the image that I noticed that the sprites brought with them a different shade of white than the rest of the image. arghh.

Bartz - Knight. That is such a snazzy outfit! Faris's Knight outfit is also nice, but that bright red armor of Bartz's just screams "Hit me!"
Lenna - Monk. The cute Chun-Li hairstyle deserves more attention.
Galuf - Blue Mage. Get Learning and then seek out every single blue spell in the game. I never have the patience for it so I want someone else to suffer through it.
Faris - Thief. He's a pirate so he should know the appropriate skills.

I did not know that staff was there.

Sexism in Final Fantasy: Girl white mages are required to cover their heads. I once edited Lenna and Faris's white mage sprites to free them from this rule.

And on that note, the purty bestiary has been updated; first 100 monsters are now complete.

Along with this update is a poll: should I include data not otherwise available in the bestiary? (I have a spreadsheet which includes Speed and Magic Evasion, see.)

This woman knows exactly what she's talking about. ~*adorable*~

I don't like the implications of those two statements...

This.

In addition:

White Mage Bartz
Knight Galuf
Thief Faris

Alternately, it means that the FF1 White Mage threw off the shackles of Sharia law when she Class Changed.

It's weird how Lenna's WM robes have a miniskirt, though.

I'm going to go with my mainstays:

Bartz - Knight
Lenna - Thief
Galuf - Monk
Faris - Blue Mage

Knight and one each of the three mages.

From those sprites it looks like she has an aversion to pants in general. Of course we could probably have a giant discussion about the sexism implications of the outfit differences between male and female in Final Fantasy games. (Which I was actually thinking of doing in the Final Fantasy Tactics LP.)

Four Blue Mages. Might as well get all of the mileage out of the Learning skill that you can until you can get the next 4 set of jobs. The first few aren't really the most interesting anyways, you're not missing much.

No wonder it blew from the stress of it all.

More info the better, I say.

Unless FF5A changed that, this isn't quite accurate. Freelancer only has the passive abilities of classes you've MASTERED.

Yeah, I guess I forgot to add that bit. Silly me.

Bartz the Knight, Lenna the Monk, Galuf the Blue Mage, Faris the Black Mage.

Eh, it's kind of a dull party, but:

Bartz - Knight
Lenna - Monk
Faris - Thief
Galuf - Blue Mage

I'll never understand why they dropped RDM from the classic initial six for that blue guy. Not that blue mages aren't actually cool/good, but it was such a good callback in III (and XI).

Maybe they didn't want you to unlock Dualcast too early? Who knows.

I would guess so you can start learning blue magic early on, the same reason I suspect Enemy Skill is so early on in 7.

I'm going to be a little different and suggest two jobs for each character because otherwise how are we going to show off all these Jobs otherwise?

Bartz: Knight for times where physical damage is needed, Black Mage for when you need a little magic.
Lenna: Start her off as a Monk until she learns Bare Handed and then switch her to White Mage so that she becomes a Kung Fu White Mage.
Galuf: Knight (someone has to take the role when Bartz is maging it up) and Blue Mage for delicious Blue Magic times.
Faris:I always gave Faris some of the more oddball jobs in the game and it's always served me well so I say Thief and Blue Mage for him.

I have to admit: The Zef-quote picture is not only awesome but also totally hot.

I did this the first time I played, but I felt it made the early going too easy.

So I have a question: Are there particular roles each character is better at? Like, is Lenna going to end up with way more Magic than everyone else as a freelancer, or is Bartz always going to be stronger? Or does it not really matter with this system?