Flavor vs. Usefulness

[Raistlin]

How do you decide your party? Is it because of arbitrary personal preferences (flavor) or the usefulness of that class?

I tend to be a practical person in my game playing and choose the "best" party. I like Fighter/Fighter/Black Mage/White Mage because of its overall usefulness: badass physical fighters up front, and badass magic users in the back row.

So by what standards do you chose your party?

[VeloZer0]

Preference comes first, or more specifically dislike. I weed out any classes I have too strong a dislike of and then go strictly on usefulness.
This is one of the reasons I can't get into games where you have to pick your class/stats right at the start. You are supposed to pick based on what flavor you want your character to be, but I only care about usefulness. Which at the create character menu screen I know nothing about.

[Crowseye]

I tend to pick for different reasons each time I play. Last time through I wanted to be able to make use of every item in the game so I went with F, Th, WM, BM.

The time before I went with the NES default party just to try it out -- knowing where I was going certainly helped make it easier to play and I had a lot of fun with it.

I guess I would say that in general I do aim for versatility in my party combination which means a Fighter and at least a decent degree of healing and buffing as well as elemental damage.

[Xaven]

Flavor before anything! Weird parties are the best parties. :D Standard parties are boring~!

Doesn't playing the standard way feel so trite and abused? There is so much to be explored in the ways of whacked out party dynamics and in the challenges of lacking typically critical elements.

[Book]

I tend to pick based upon which looks the coolest and then I try to convice myself that my party is the best party in the world. Sometimes it works.

[bipper]

I go for variety and create characters I can see a story with in my head. Every time I play the game I constantly have a different story going on in the back of my head. I complete the game objectives, but the real experience and fun is how the characters interact in muh head.

[Hot Shot]

I tend to pick a ery unconventional party consisting of Fighter/Monk/Red Mage/White Mage. The odd thing i, when i first started playin FF I, I looked for a guide cos I was stuck and I found a guide based on my favourite party!

[No.78]

Go by default, then mix it up on the 2nd playthrough.

[*Laurelindo*]

Flavour comes first for me.
I would always choose Fighter/Thief/White Mage/Black Mage because it is very balanced and fun to use, but I've recently started to like the party Fighter/Fighter/Fighter/Red Mage.
I like how the whole party is basically a bunch of fighters where the slightly weaker fighter can use lots of magics as well.

[Saber]

I always went Fighter, Black mage, White mage, Monk. Reading this thread though makes me think fighter, white mage, black mage, thief is the best set up since you can use all the items and well they all get good with the class upgrade. Black belt to monk isn't all that special.

[*Laurelindo*]

I always went Fighter, Black mage, White mage, Monk. Reading this thread though makes me think fighter, white mage, black mage, thief is the best set up since you can use all the items and well they all get good with the class upgrade. Black belt to monk isn't all that special.
Fighter/Thief/White Mage/Black Mage is great, the only annoyance is that Thief completely blows at everything except Running from battles.

That is, until you do Class Change and they all become super-gods -then your Knight and Ninja alone will be powerful enough to kill everything on their own.
As a matter of fact, I personally tend to let the wizards spam Heal Staffs and Heal Helmets full-time after Class Change, with some occasional status spell every now and then.

[Saber]

I always went Fighter, Black mage, White mage, Monk. Reading this thread though makes me think fighter, white mage, black mage, thief is the best set up since you can use all the items and well they all get good with the class upgrade. Black belt to monk isn't all that special.
Fighter/Thief/White Mage/Black Mage is great, the only annoyance is that Thief completely blows at everything except Running from battles.

That is, until you do Class Change and they all become super-gods -then your Knight and Ninja alone will be powerful enough to kill everything on their own.
As a matter of fact, I personally tend to let the wizards spam Heal Staffs and Heal Helmets full-time after Class Change, with some occasional status spell every now and then.


Yes and with the items that cast magic you can go ahead and forget the spells on your white mage / black mage. As long as you can do the spell you won't need multiple ways of doing it. Heal 2 is the best example. Go ahead and forget it and get something else on the empty magic slot.

Sadly though I don't run away from a battle unless I'm in a hurry or tired.

[Necronopticous]

Little girls first, then whoever else I need to balance the party.


http://www.necronopticous.com/upload/shopkeepersquest01.gif

[*Laurelindo*]

with the items that cast magic you can go ahead and forget the spells on your white mage / black mage. As long as you can do the spell you won't need multiple ways of doing it. Heal 2 is the best example. Go ahead and forget it and get something else on the empty magic slot.I never use HEL2, but HEL3 is actually worth getting - it's pretty much like a CUR2 on every character.

INV2 is a great spell, but you can use it for free all you want if you keep the White Shirt (personally I like to keep both Shirts for the sake of completion).

[theundeadhero]

If I just feel like playing through the game then I'll go with Fighter, Monk, Red Mage, White Mage. This party has everything you need. It's an incredibly fast and easy way to play through the game.

If I'm feeling adventurous I'll change it up. In the line-up I mentioned I replaced the Monk with a Thief once and it really sucked.

Fighter, Fighter, Red Mage, White Mage is interesting.

Pretty much I don't use the Black Mage or the Thief because I find them useless. A White Mage is the only character I consider mandatory but it could be interesting to try the game without one.

[Realm25]

White Mage is far from mandatory. My current play through is my ONLY play through to use a White Mage, and I'm actually finding it harder this time around.

The easiest team I've EVER used is a Knight Knight Knight Red Wizard. Your three Knights are going to be huge tanks, strong attackers, and light buffers/healers. The Red Wizard will play backup buffer/healer and throw in those nifty elemental spells and so on.

This team is almost cheating it makes the game so easy.

Now I've heard that a FULL Monk/Master team can be devastating. I know a bare naked Monk can be the hardest hitter in the game, but they also take damage extremely badly, and with no spells I just cant see how somebody would play this team.

[theundeadhero]

Nah, it's pretty easy. I played through with four monks a while ago. The monsters die so fast they never have a chance to hit you.

[Chris]

Flavor before anything! Weird parties are the best parties. :D Standard parties are boring~!

Doesn't playing the standard way feel so trite and abused? There is so much to be explored in the ways of whacked out party dynamics and in the challenges of lacking typically critical elements.
I agree with this post one-hundred percent. Standard parties are only worth trying out the first time around, afterwards, it only becomes mind-numbingly repetitious. :p

[Garland]

I usually build my parties around a theme or logic. My current party, the first I've played in over a year, is Fighter, Thief, Black Belt, Black Mage, because I wanted the four most damaging classes without doubling up. The other rule for this game is that I never run from battles, but I never stop to level-raise. Always have lots of metagaming going on.

[black orb]

>>> Flavor, I can beat the game with pretty much anything..:luca:

[Crossblades]

I'm the type the person who always like to use a balanced party composed of a tank, healer, nuker, and a powerhouse. So a Warrior/Monk/White Mage/Black Mage combo always works for me.

[Laddy]

There's six classes with the custimation of Glenn Beck. Hardly what I call flavor.

[Sefie1999AD]

I usually go for usefulness, but in a biased way. :p Even though I try to make a party that works well, I often restrict my character choices by not allowing two of the same class, and I clearly use my favorite classes (Fighter and White Mage) the most, and my least favorite class (Black Belt) the least.

[Draniei]

I only played through it a couple times, but the teams I used were as follows:

Fighter, Thief, W. Mage, B. Mage.
Thief, Thief, Fighter, Fighter.
W. Mage, W. Mage, W. Mage, W. Mage. (This one was HARD!)
Fighter, Monk, W. Mage, B. Mage.
Fighter, R. Mage, W. Mage, B. Mage.
Monk, Monk, Monk, Monk.

[Mage_of_Fire]

How do you decide your party? Is it because of arbitrary personal preferences (flavor) or the usefulness of that class?

I tend to be a practical person in my game playing and choose the "best" party. I like Fighter/Fighter/Black Mage/White Mage because of its overall usefulness: badass physical fighters up front, and badass magic users in the back row.

So by what standards do you chose your party?

I either pick the 8-bit Theater party or by preference (or challenge). I hate Black Belts thanks to Dr. Unne, so I never use one of those. I've never been a fan of Red Mages since I love using the most badass, highest levels spells in any game where I play a caster.