Most Overrated Job Class (again...)

[Wolf Kanno]

The "again" is cause I'm certain its been done to death but due to the release of the PSP port I feel its time to re-evaluate the job classes. Now I have always been impressed with Tactics cause the job class system has always been fairly balanced overall, granted the PSP version kinda smurfs this up due to Dark Knights and Onion Knights being horribly overpowered but they are off-setted by both needing steep requirements in order to get access to them.

Regardless, this is a series where everyone has their favorite party combinations and lord knows a few of us disagree when people swear upon the uber-godliness of certain classes; but let's face it. Some classes are not nearly as good as people say they are.

My two choices are Calculators/Mathematicians and Ninjas. The first one has easily the worst stats of all the classes, yes their abilities are useful cause its instant casting with no mp cost but the work needed to make sure you don't nuke your own party or worse, heal and buff the enemy party is not worth the stress IMO.

Ninja's are another class I don't care for, weak weapons, lousy hp and defense making them glass cannons. Their only plus is their speed and an d a few abilities that once again are better served in other classes. Like the Cal/Math, I feel its a class you jump into so you can get a few useful abilities and then you never look back unless you need a real thief (unless you have Balthier then its not worth it).

An honorable mention goes to Summoners but luckily its easy to offset their weaknesses so its only a minor hassle...

[BG-57]

No argument about Calculators as a class, although their Math Skills are one of the prizes in the game. There are plenty of ways to avoid self-damage, particularly with Holy. It's my secondary skill of choice.

The useless part of Ninjas for me is that most of the Throw commands go unused except for Throw Shuirken and Throw Ball. I'm not gonna hurl a spare Excalibur at my foes unless I'm in the endgame.

As much of a fan-favorite Cloud is, I find his Limit skill is hampered by the time limits placed upon them, not to mention weapon restriction. Even a Bard has more weapon options. Although Finish Touch has some nice status effects I usually have him use secondary Math Skills rather than go for a sword strike.

I also don't have much use for Geomancers. It's not that they can't do damage, but the status effects depend on terrain too much. I like having more control.

[Karellen]

Knights are pretty lame without Two Swords.

[VeloZer0]

If you twink ninjas out they are probably the most overpowered class in the game outside a caster with Math Skill.

By mid way through chapter 3 you can get a +2 PA armor and hat, giving a ninja about 14 PA total. With 97 Br, 14*14*2=392 damage per hit, as a base line. After this you could equip Martial Arts to bring the total to 588, a bracer to bring it to 578, or both to have your lv30 ninja do 867 damage.

If you want to twink out for mobility you can equip Germanias Boots and Move +3 to give a ludicrous move of 8 and jump of 5, all while still being able to one shot anything that awaits you when you get there.

Survivability, as you mentioned, is the main weakness of the ninja. Once your ninja one shots everything it touches the picture changes a little bit, since you don't have to worry about counters or having them attack you back next round. Additionally the game possesses some very powerful defensive abilities, namely Blade Grasp and MP Switch. We all know how awesome Blade Grasp is, seeing as it reduces 80% of the damage you are liable to take in the game to a scant 03% chance to hit.

Lesser known is the power of MP Switch. Since ninjas have such low hp, the total mp is usually consumed on each hit, however with Move MP-UP you regenerate a token amount of MP each time you move, meaning you would get one free hit every turn. And if you are setting up any of your characters to get pile driven with multiple attacks every turn, I don't think its the classes you are using that’s the problem.

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So ends my defense of the mighty ninja. As for my vote for useless classes, I'm going with Calculator (obviously) and Samurai.

The reason I list Samurai is that other than the skills you can learn from them (which are quite good) the class itself has little use. Weak physical attack, no shield and an action command that doesn't see its full strength unless equipped on a magic class. Other than to learn the skills there is really no reason to every use them. (unless you want to take advantage of the sword from Deep Dungeon since you only have a limited supply of uber weapons).

[feioncastor]

Ninjas are only really great for their Two Sword ability. Once I get that, I just use it for other jobs. Their "Throw" command is silly. It doesn't do nearly enough damage. It's good for situations when an enemy is almost dead but you can't reach him with a regular attack, but there are other skills that would be better.

I had a friend who LOVED Samurais, and I don't know why. They don't do much physical damage and they can't use shields. Their draw out skill isn't good except for a few of them (I like that one that does Protect and Shell, and the one that heals allies).

And, finally, Lancers. Their "Jump" skill is too unpredictable. You can never know if your target is gonna go before you land until after you decide to jump. You can use the CT gauge to determine, but it's not set in stone. Also, they do less damage than other physical classes. And Jump doesn't get useful until the later skills, which are kind of pricey.

[Flying Mullet]

Summoners can be godly with Quick Charge. The're one of the few classes that can cast area damage spells that only target enemies and not allies.

I agree that Samurais are worthless, especially since they're considered an advanced class. I've never liked the amount of money you have to spend on weapons to use them. They're like a hybrid of a magic user and a physical attacker that loses the advantages of the two classes and gains all of the disadvantages.

Sadly, I think a lot of the classes are only good for their abilities. Once learned, there are better classes that those abilities are suited for.

[Ziekfried]

Ah! screw ninjas. there are plenty of classes that top that power with better range, the only blessing ninjas got is some new items from the PSP port make then more usable, like a ninja sword with 30 PA and the brigands gloves(good for everyone) to add haste making them hit much harder and faster. Still I probably wouldn't use them.

hmmm, lessee, overrated eh? Dark Knight. I know call me crazy and all but that HP and speed sacrifice ain't too much worth it. They do have some great abilities I make use of though. Also their fell swords suck, I know you don't have to use them but they certainly don 't add any appeal to the class.

[Wolf Kanno]

Anything can be tweaked to a killing machine in this game (hell its half the fun in the system) but I'm with others on the fact that Ninja's are only good for getting Dual Wield and to a lesser extent, Vanish and Reflexes, but overall I feel their are better classes suited for its abilities, especially when Mana Shield fails cause the AI decides that character needs to die NOW!

I actually like Samurai and at high levels they are pretty good with the right set up but like Ninja's they are more useful for abilities than as a class. I just feel Ninjas are not so great as a class cause they have apparent flaws and even with a good set up it can't keep them safe like other classes with a similar set up. All Ninjas really have going for them is speed. Their weapons are not really good compared to Greatswords and Katanas.

[MadeOfApples]

Ninjas are LETHAL and I can't see how they can be viewed as overrated (Not my favorite class but one of the most effective killing machines).

A ninja equipped with a Thief Hat, Secret Clothes, Sprint Shoes, and has the Move +3 ability equipped can throw a 'Morning Star'* at a range of 7 spaces and at 240 damage (assuming your total speed is 15).

Not bad at all.

With a range of 7 spaces, you can easily keep out of range of the more powerful, non-ninja, melee strikers (far to slow with to low of a movement range) while still taking down high HP foes in 2-3 throws.


Not over rated in the least.


I find that newer players tend to overrate summoners. Useful class in the early game but I don't think I've ever used them past the second chapter (Besides all summoner attempt... which I couldn't beat).

[Wolf Kanno]

I only say Ninja's are overrated cause they have low hp and even with their speed and evasion it only takes one good hit from a monster (any of them) or a strong melee class to wipe them out. Their throw command is also useless since it requires money and at the end of the day; dual-wielding Greatswords/Katanas does more damage. My other reasoning is that people swear upon the ungodliness of their team of 3 Ninjas and Dragoons with Monk sub class. :rolleyes2

[MadeOfApples]

I only say Ninja's are overrated cause they have low hp and even with their speed and evasion it only takes one good hit from a monster (any of them) or a strong melee class to wipe them out. Their throw command is also useless since it requires money and at the end of the day; dual-wielding Greatswords/Katanas does more damage. My other reasoning is that people swear upon the ungodliness of their team of 3 Ninjas and Dragoons with Monk sub class. :rolleyes2

The Ninja isn't a defender class. They're intended to get close to your enemy and to know them out in a single strike. Using them for anything else will just make them disappointing. I like to think of them as Wizards with swords.

I don't even use ninja's after I learn 2-Sword. Usually only learn that and two throws (Ball, Hammer), only learn those since it makes my Ninja more useful while training.

I'm more of an Oracle type of guy.

Also thought the dragoons/lancer was a useless class.

[Bambiko]

I dont have a favourite class. Just favourite skills.

The thing I like to do is torture the enemy. And so for me the best class is Oracle. Mediators r fun too. Kinda sux that magicians die so fast, but thats if the enemy reaches them :P

[NeoTifa]

id say calculators and samurai. i could never get my samurai to work :(

[Fate Fatale]

I agree. Samurai were potentially powerful but I never got much use of them. I never really cared to learn though. I suppose it's my loss.

[BG-57]

For me the main weakness of the Samurai is the best katanas with the best Draw Out effects are hard to get. At least in the PSX version you can duplicate them easily.

[VeloZer0]

The biggest weakness about Samurai is they are a PA class and their skillset is based on MA.

[NeoTifa]

pa and ma?

[Fate Fatale]

physical attack and magic attack methinks.

[NeoTifa]

i coulndt get ramza to even use any #$%&ing skills!

[MadeOfApples]

The biggest weakness about Samurai is they are a PA class and their skillset is based on MA.

Even with the Samurai's fantastic PA, they are fairly slow, have limited move range, and they can't equip shields.

Draw-Out is a great ability set though, stick it on a Wizard :)

[NeoTifa]

ill stick it on you, behbeh ~_^ jk

we should make a most underrated job thread, cuz chemist ftw

[MadeOfApples]

ill stick it on you, behbeh ~_^ jk

Well... Woah... O_O

Never had someone threatening to unleash their katana on me in such a flirtatious fashion...


As for most underrated.

Oracle. Easily.

[Wolf Kanno]

we should make a most underrated job thread, cuz chemist ftw

Who in their right mind badmouths the Chemist? They are my main source of healers since I'm too lazy to make a Calculator/Mathematician and White Mages are pretty useless, especially when you need to heal on the fly. The fact they equip guns make them pretty useful all-around.

I will second the Oracle/Mystic class as well as add Samurai. Samurai may not be the most elite class but they get overlooked constantly despite being fairly good. Geomancers are another class I feel gets overlooked despite being fairly awesome. Counter Flood is a pretty uber counter move.

[NeoTifa]

i always pair geomancer/monk. i always have a geomancer/monk. he'll tie you up with his vines then punch you in the face for 999 hp! awesome. <3

chemists are amazing. especially since they can throw. i wanna spend more time getting the ninja ability throw weapon, so they can throw bombs and potions with an amazing range.

im also a huge fan of archers. i just wish thier charge times were shorter. especially archer/kinghts. theyll break your equipment all teh way on the other side of the board. i just love the diversity of the classes and how you can customize them. this game is full of win

[Lynx]

i find summoners, black and white mages quite useless. i dont have time for long charge times. bards are useless to me as well. i dont have time for the long charge times of mages and summoners and bards attacks are annoying to calculate and their accuracy is usually about 85% or less but it seems more like 15% with how often they miss.

i see a lot of badmouthing for samurai's. they can be useful. when you have the charjarden or whatever its called your attack is well above average. and if you use there iadoe abilities masamune can regen and haste your team which is quite useful. kikichimoji can hit for some good distance. and using the chrajarden iado was shockingly powerful kinda cool looking too. oh i realize i probably spelled a lot of things wrong in there but you should be able to get the hint.

i find calculators/mathmeticians useful too in when just about everything else is mastered. but if your more of a close range type of fighter yeah they suck.

[Esjay]

A lot of you are very seriously misinformed. Ninja being called overrated? A male Ninja with high brave and martial arts is the most lethal physical generic in the entire game. No question.

Also, I see Wizards mentioned in the post above me. Is this a joke? The Wizard SCC is one of the easiest you can do. Wizards completely destroy the first 2 Chapters of the game, probably the first 3.

[NeoCracker]

Casters don't become that scary unless you give them short charge. That makes any caster class vicious. Especially Summoners.

And I don't think Calculators are overrated, I just don't have the patience to utilize that damned Math skill.

And Geomancers are vicious man. VICIOUS!

[the AJman]

I personally sit at the same camp that considers the ninja overated. Estay I have to argue that a ninja can be the ultimate physical generic class. I would say a knight with the two sword ability later in the game could out damage and out live the ninja.

[VeloZer0]

If we are just going by raw damage output, at lv 99 (on my save) they both have 18 PA. I'm comparing a ninja unarmed with max brave, vs a knight with two swords, total damage done.

NINJA
Ninja w/o martial arts: 648
Ninja w/ martial arts: 972
Ninja w/o martial arts, +4 PA (gear): 882
Ninja w/ martial arts, +4PA (gear): 1323
Ninja w/o martial arts, +7PA (gear+bracer): 1250
Ninja w/ martial arts, +7 PA: 1875

KNIGHT
Rune Blade/ Rune Blade: 504
Rune Blade/ Rune Blade, +3PA: 588
Excalibur / Ragnorok: 810
Excalibur / Ragnorok, +3 PA: 945
Excalibur / Chaos Blade: 1098
Chaos Blade / Chaos Blade, +3 PA: 1680

As you can see, only with knight swords do knights come even close, whereas ninjas are using gear available before the completion of chapter 3. And the top end for ninjas is much higher, and with a few accumulates will increase exponentially in combat.

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As for living longer, that is something that is debatable.
The knight will undoubtedly have more HP (~600 w/ store gear, ~700 w/ rare gear) than the ninja (~330). However, HP is not the only factor in living long. At the end of the game it is not uncommon for enemies to hit for over 600, so the extra HP can often end up being negligable and by dual weilding the knight gives up any advantage it had with a shield. Additional, deaths often come from status ailments in the end game.

All in all, avoiding damage entirely is the best strategy for survivability. The best method is typically killing enemies before they can act. It is well established that a knight with sufficient gear can instantly kill any threat, however a knights speed is considerably less than a ninja, meaning the kill rate will be sufficiently less, (unless an excalibur is equiped). Additionaly a knights move is considerably less, making target options considerably smaller. Even with move+3 equiped a Jump of only 3 will seriously limit mobility, and a bracer must be forgon in favor of boots.

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Take for instance:
Ninja w/o martial arts, +4 PA (gear): 882

You could equip this Ninja with Concentrate ( which is unatainable for a dual weild Knight), and Boots & Move +3, for a total of a Move of 8 and a Jump of 5. A ninja that could move anywhere on the map, hit through all evasion/block affects, and instantly kill (almost) anything is completely out of the ballpark of anything a Knight could be set up to accomplish. And with four accumulates, the damage would be enough to deal max damage even with a -25% zodiac penalty.



(I will agree ninjas non twinked out with unarmed attacks are overated.)

[the AJman]

I stand corrected.

[VeloZer0]

That's not what I wanted to hear :(

Lets get some debate going, I'm just getting started.

[Shotgunnova]

Knights, definitely. They seem fine when they're first unlocked, being the first unit that can equip gobs of heavy armor and whatnot, but their flaws become more apparent as chapters go one: (1) lame speed growth, and can't equip SPD-boosting Thief Hats later on (2) poor base move & jump (3) attack skills have no range. Knightswords help redeem them a little, but they're generally out of the picture for me by chapter 2/3.

[the AJman]

Sorry VeloZer0, at the time I posted that I didn't have anything else to say to that, its tough arguing against a good arguement.

However I did go through my saved data and did a little experimenting myself, and your right the ninja with martial arts does more damage than a knight with two knight swords. Now I don't have a lvl 99 character with max brave, but I do have a lvl 81 Ramza with 97 brave and these are the results I came up with.

Ninja with Martial arts and bracer- 570 per hit ( over 1000 all together)
Knight with Chaos Blade and Excalibur w/ bracer- 440 per (about 880 all together)


So the ninja clearly out did the knight in damage, I completely agree with you on that issue. However, I also checked both on the other points you made, the ones regarding evasion, speed, and moves.

I'll address evasion and survivablity first

Base evasion for a knight without shield- 10
Base evasion for a ninja- 30

This looks like a massive difference, but when I put both of them into a conflict the ninja's evasion percentage wasn't much better than the knight's, not even very noticable. I counted out of six times the ninja was hit, it only dodge one attack. The Knight out of six hits didn't block any. Thats not a big difference in evasion at all and the fact that the knight had at least 200 more hit points meant that he was still able to endure more hits than the ninja. And this of course was without giving the knight a shield.

As for speed,

Knights base speed without equipment- 10
Knights speed with equipment and no speed access.- 10
Ninjas base speed without equipment- 13
Ninjas speed with equipment and no speed access.- 15

For the Ninja out of the first thirty moves in the battle, the ninja got six turns. The knight out of the first thirty moves got four, however there was about two or three more enemies in the battle using the knight. I'm not sure if the amount of enemies has much to do with how often a character gets a turn, if it does than I'd say that the ninja only gets about one extra turn to the knight, but if it doesn't than the ninja gets about two turns more than the knight. If the ninja only gets one extra turn, I'd say that the real speed advantage the ninja has is the fact that they can go first in every battle.

As for how far they can move,

Ninjas move stat -7
Knight move stat- 6

Both characters had move +3 ability
Its a single square difference, its not exactly a big advantage.


So I guess in conclusion, The ninja with martial arts will out damage just about any knight, I still stand by my arguement that the knight has greater survivability though. And ninja's with out the martial arts ability as far as I can guess (though I'm sure someone with bring in a set up to prove me wrong) is still sub par to a knight.

And just for fun I did use the item dupping glitch and made two Chaos blades and threw those on Ramza as a knight with the bracer. He did 999 points of damage per hit, I know its cheating and it really shouldn't be considered part of this arguement, but I thought I'd throw it in there anyways.

[RedPouch]

My two choices are Calculators/Mathematicians and Ninjas. The first one has easily the worst stats of all the classes, yes their abilities are useful cause its instant casting with no mp cost but the work needed to make sure you don't nuke your own party or worse, heal and buff the enemy party is not worth the stress IMO.
I have to highly disagree. Using a Black Mage with the Calculator's math abilities made it ridiculously easy to get through the last part of the game. It's been a really long time since I've played this game, but I remember they made it extremely effortless due to how fast they could kill all enemies in a rather short amount of time [like 1-2 rounds?]. I also never had a friendly-fire issue, as there were always ways around it. They made the entire end-game so easy that it was actually very boring and quite unchallenging. My other times going through this game without them were a lot more fun considering combat lasted longer than 1-2 rounds.

As for Ninja Knights, I felt they were awesome, but they hardly even got the chance to do anything in battle due to how quickly the Calculators killed everything. Oh and for the record, I'm calling them Calculators because I've played played the PS1 version of this game, which was several years ago. But I remember it so distinctly. Ajora was a joke as well!

[Wolf Kanno]

The Calculator ability is extremely overpowered, but the work towards getting one and learning its abilities (unless you spam the JP trick you cheaters :p) is too much of a pain in the ass in my opinion.

Course I do have a bias against mages. For me, its more fun trying to build evil party configurations without resorting to Duel-Wield and Mathematics, so I don't necessarily have any love for the abilites and I find their classes have very little to offer without them. Course Ninja does have some things but Calculator's are just terrible across the board statistically. You make one, learn his abilities and then never use the class again. No one means to say Calculators are good, they just like their abilities and quickly move them to a class that can use them better.

Besides, it just feels rewarding being able to swiftly move your party towards the enemy and annihilate them without warning and not resorting to magic or long range. ;)

As for the Final boss, Ultima is a joke in this game (XII on the other hand...). In fact a chemist could solo the boss, all you have to do is keep Alma alive and the boss constantly targets her. Not only does she heal herself, she also makes sure to be next to the boss when Ultima casts All Ultima on her. I won the game the first time on accident cause the boss targeted her and got caught in its own attack :D

[RedPouch]

Well now that you explain it that way, I do actually agree with everything you said. The way you worded your first post made it sound entirely different. I do agree because [as I said in my first post] I feel that the Calculator abilities made everything extremely boring by removing any smidgen of challenge the end-game had. I haven't played the remakes, so I don't know anything about Dark Knight or Onion Knight [though Dark Knight sounds cool, I've always loved classes like this].

By the way, what's your avatar from? He's cute.

[Wolf Kanno]

Dark Knight is pretty broken, but fun to use. They are like Gafgarion except with more abilites (Souleater :cool:) and some solid stats. They're a pain to unlock though. :eep:

True Onion Knight is even more broken and damn near invincible in their Onion gear. Unfortunately, they work like the Mime in that you can't give them a sub class, reaction commands, or movement abilites so they get really boring, really fast.