Final Fantasy jobs and classes - preparing for the final interview / exam

So currently there is a Top 21 list for Numbered Final Fantasy games being ran by Positronic Brain. As companions to that list I will be creating some Final Fantasy discussion threads that I have been wanting to create since TT 2.0 . This is the first of those threads.

Now a job, class or job class system is a game mechanic that has been included in many Final Fantasy games starting with the very first one. And there have been many different classes available in all of those different games/systems. So let's discuss the following about the Final Fantasy jobs / classes in this thread:

• What are your favorite Final Fantasy jobs/classes? (This isn't for an official Top X list so feel free to post as many or as few as you want and don't stress about ranking them.)
• What games have your favorite versions of those classes?
• In games with characters with unchangeable classes - who is your favorite character in those classes?

Blue Mage is never good but I have always enjoyed it when it showed up. I'm sure someone who is much better at min/maxing can make them amazing.
I am not that person. I think my fav Blue Mage is Quina from FF9, just such a weirdo:

I’m a fan of the Mystic Knight from FFV. Being able to deliver black magic spells via a sword chop is just a cool feature.

Patrick said:

I’m a fan of the Mystic Knight from FFV. Being able to deliver black magic spells via a sword chop is just a cool feature.

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I loved the idea but iirc I didn't end up finding them very useful, which I remember being very disappointing. Maybe if I ever play the PR I'll try them out again.

I have to say Summoner is still one of my favorites. It's a caster, but summons are such iconic FF features. Even from a purely mechanical standpoint, you get such a wide variety of cool spells as a summoner, and typically quite powerful ones.

The Blue Mage is definitely a favourite. Such versatility, if you put a bit of effort into them. The one in V was a ton of fun to use. Summoner is also a favourite of mine. Something about summoning powerful beings really appeals to me.
Art-wise, I really like the dragoon, but don't really like using them. They always feel too one-note (which is weird, because I don't mind using a knight. And, aside from Freya, I don't like them personality-wise. Freya, though, is one of my favourite. Love her design, love her personality, love her everything. Also the dude from FF II, who accompanies you inside Leviathan, he was cool. Just not really like a later dragoon, their signature move would only start being a thing in FF III.

Aside from Freya, I count Celes as a Dark Knight gone Paladin, and enjoy her a lot. And Quina is a great Blue Mage, just from their...dunno, everything. Love them. And I will never forget FF IIs Josefs sacrifice. Oh, right, Vivi is, of course, the best Black Mage.

I do love the Black Mage. The original design for them is iconic and Vivi's portrayal of them in 9 is iconic. Look at this cute little guy! And I love how cohesive the design for black mage has been throughout the franchise.

Yeah Black Mage is a real got-it-in-one sorta deal. Both visually and come to think of it in terms of having an ability set that doesn't ever seem to need a major overhaul to fit in a weirder game. And especially impressive back in FF1 where playing with just a pair of 3 color palettes for characters we manage to get some cool hat shading going on.

Also always been a huge fan of the Red Mage look.

Just, the fanciest of hats. And one of a handful of rare "hybrid" classes in anything that are legitimately really good.

Geomancer: the job you really wanted to love but couldn't, because it was bad -- and not just a little bad -- and then FFT came along and redeemed it. FF3DS made it one of those jobs that did crazy damage if you did a bunch of grinding or just stuck with it the entire game, too.

Black Mage and DRG. However, I do wish FF14's BLM had the same spell portfolio as in FF11. Most of my time in the latter was spent casting DOTs and debuffs, because Firaga make BLM go squish. With 14's better aggro control, I'd love to cut loose with the Ancient Magic spells I worked so hard to obtain, and Stone III's dramatic spike of death.
As for DRG, I also miss my FF11 wyvern buddy in 14. Thanks to the former's dual class feature, your winged friend's breath attack could just as easily be a healing mist as well as a flaming strike.

Mogri said:

Geomancer: the job you really wanted to love but couldn't, because it was bad -- and not just a little bad -- and then FFT came along and redeemed it. FF3DS made it one of those jobs that did crazy damage if you did a bunch of grinding or just stuck with it the entire game, too.

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My first playthrough when I was a wee TRPG player and didn't know what I was doing in FFT was to step on rock and hope the RNG stoned enemies. Much love for Geomancers.

As a kid, my only experience with job "classes" would have been FF1. Back then, I really didn't know how the magic system worked, but just purely on style, I gotta agree with Purple and Falselogic, the BLM and RDM from FF1 have such iconic looks and great hats.
Today, I gotta say I do really like like BST from FF5 and FF11, wearing the sheep suit. I also really like the green bandana worn by the THF.

For characters with unchangeable classes, I gotta agree with Falselogic again about Quina and Vivi. Freya doesn't have the iconic Dragoon look like Kain, but i really like the red color scheme.

I see most of my favorites have already been mentioned.

Blue Mage
I think 5 really did have the best mechanical implementation of this class and the artwork had a ton of style. As for my favorite Blue Mage character I think it's tied between Strago and Quistis.

Dragoon ( / Dragon Knight / Lancer)
Has an interesting base mechanic in the jump command and a lot of visual style. Most of the FF games I have played either leave them with only that mechanic or give them other skills that don't add all that much. I think they're generally never a bad choice but there are usually always much better classes that can be used in those games. My favorite Dragoons are a tie between Freya and Edgar/Mog with the Dragoon Boots.

Lokii said:

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Geomancer

Mogri said:

the job you really wanted to love but couldn't, because it was bad -- and not just a little bad -- and then FFT came along and redeemed it.

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The FFT Geomancer did have some issues but overall I felt it was a solid if not spectacular class choice - especially for all of the sword magic characters. Since I think Mog technically qualifies as one then that makes him my favorite.

Red Mage
A stylish and iconic character with markedly different utility from game to game. Final Fantasy 1 probably had the most powerful and versatile version of this class. Other games did give them their distinct Dualcast ability but I feel like that was often better used by giving it to a caster with more raw magical power (and better spell selection).

Mystic Knight
The other class that mixes might and magic (not the game series) or swords and sorcery.

And here are a couple of my other favorites that haven't been mentioned yet.

Monk
Another class that has existed in one form or another since the very first game. The Black Belt / Grandmaster from 1 could just output insane amounts of physical damage (especially when FASTed by a Black / Red Mage / Wizard). Their attacks are so powerful that Kenshirō tells them "Hey buddy - maybe you might want to try pulling your punches there." Other Monks throughout the series have been of vastly varying utility and power. I think the Monk from Tactics had the best balance of power and utility without being too ridiculous. Yang is my favorite FF Monk.

Ninja
And yet another class from the very beginning where it served as your reward for schlepping around a Thief for the entire game. Usually a strong physical attacker but often lacking in defense but able to supplement their attacks with their skills. I think 5 & Tactics had good implementations of the class but even those still had some issues. Shadow is my favorite FF ninja.

Mog is a Geomancer/Dancer/Berserker, much as Gau is a Beastmaster/Berserker.

NIN is a good one to mention! FF5 Ninjas are great. Dual Wield, Throw, Image. Shadow is great!

FF11's NIN is a strange one. They made it a tank class. It gets a bunch of elemental spells it can cast using a consumable, but all of that is completely ignored for using Utsusemi, which is the Image spell (absorbs some attacks) so you can blink-tank

nataeryn said:

FF11's NIN is a strange one. They made it a tank class. It gets a bunch of elemental spells it can cast using a consumable, but all of that is completely ignored for using Utsusemi, which is the Image spell (absorbs some attacks) so you can blink-tank

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This is potentially opening a can of worms, but I would argue that the devs didn't "make it" a tank class, that's just how the meta game developed to optimize parties and EXP farming. I think FF11 Ninja is the most powerful a Ninja has ever been in a FF game; it can do a whole lot of stuff on its own even before throwing subclassing into the mix.


Dark Knight was the first FF job I ever fell in love with, because FF II SNES was my first real FF game. This is extra funny in retrospect because as we all know, the US version of that game removed the Dark Wave command from Cecil's capabilities. So honestly the only unique thing about Dark Knight Cecil there was access to Dark swords and his sprite (which is the actual important piece). When I first got into RPG Maker, I spent so much time doing palette edits of DK Cecil (and Kain too, but). I love that sprite so much, but especially his battle animation for performing Dark Wave.

Overall I don't think there's been an incarnation of Dark Knight that I like more than Cecil. FF14 is probably 2nd place for me; I love that they made it a Tank job and I'm always a sucker for that jobs' aesthetic. I so very wish FF5 had a Dark Knight too, because the sprite would've looked great, but alas, though I'm sure there's ROM hacks out there that add one. In FF11 it was the only combat class worth using a Scythe with, so that's neat. And I loved Dark Knight so much that even in the RPG I made with my friend, 1 of the 6 classes was Dark Knight-inspired (we called it a Peacebringer).

Oh, forgot the Red Mage. I never use them, because I'd rather have a class with a clear focus and the RM never seems worth it. But their fasion sense is glorious, and whenever I will play XIV, that's the class I want to use. They look so great.

I also forgot Geomancer, which is such a fun concept, and which I found pretty useful in III, at least for some time (despite the risk). I really like the basic idea of this class, and had fun with Mog in VI, as an interpretation of it.

Give me whatever class has got the Mix command. Always a fun time.



Oh! It gives the Gullwings goggles. Excellent class. No notes.

I'm also a big fan of Blue Mage. The mechanic is pretty fun in (almost?) all of its iterations and all the B'mages are great design-wise.

I love the Red Mage's style but I rarely find them satisfactory to use. Shame such hot drip is tied to class who's defining feature is mediocrity. It's pretty great Freya's design borrows more from Red Mages than Dragoons despite her not having any Red Mage qualities at all.

And then of course there's the one job class that stands heads and tails above the rest

love a Time Mage when it's available. I tend to go support roles when im role playing and mechanically haste/slow has always been almost necessary in ff games. I guess Ashe in Revenant Wings is the only real representative for it, and that's a good rep. Really wish they had more development. Aside from meteor, their only real damage stuff is gravity which is often underwhelming. Still cool.

Also echo blue mage love. I think the appeal to collections is a big part of the draw.

And samurai style classes are always fun because how unique their abilities tend to be. Added evasion is great (evade tanks are usually my favorite kind of builds if available), throwing gil is a classic. It just ends up being a really standard seeming class that has a lot of tools

I'm also a Blue Mage enjoyer, especially in FFV, where they're one of the best jobs throughout the game if you seek out their abilities as soon as possible. Quina is my favorite Blue Mage, but Lenna also deserves a mention because of her cool hat:

YangusKhan said:

This is potentially opening a can of worms, but I would argue that the devs didn't "make it" a tank class, that's just how the meta game developed to optimize parties and EXP farming. I think FF11 Ninja is the most powerful a Ninja has ever been in a FF game; it can do a whole lot of stuff on its own even before throwing subclassing into the mix.

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You are absolutely right. The can of worms can remain sealed.

One of the reasons I love Beastmaster and I think Blue Mage gets to go in this category too, is getting to use the abilities of your enemies and throw it back at them.