No shut the hell up, the Scholar is awesome

[ReloadPsi]

Most underrated class ever. Yes, even more so than the NES version of the Bard, whom people try to admit is capable of being useful. The very first time I played the NES version of this game I switched to the Scholar in order to beat Hyne just as the game suggested. I proceeded to kick its ass, but thanks in no small part to the fact that I had this dude pounding him in the face with dictionaries whose elemental properties just happened to match his weakness.

The Scholar does good melee damage and its defence doesn't entirely suck for how strong the enemies are (or aren't) at that stage in the game either! I actually think that until you get your next kickass set of Jobs courtesy of the water crystal the Scholar really pulls its weight in combat and frankly is just awesome for the amazing novelty of clubbing things to death with dictionaries. The pen truly is mightier than the sword.

Now let's all talk about how excellent the Scholar is and how hasty people are in casting the poor sod aside.

[Alpha2099]

Around that time I was running out of inventory space, so I only used the Scholar for the battle with Hyne and then dumped all of his equipment at the first opportunity.

[Laddy]

The Scholar is essentially Pike, a pile of information hitting you with books.

But Pike is more fun.

[Evastio]

I remember in my NES runthrough (my only completed FFIII runthrough) my Scholar was doing as much (if not more) damage as my Knight for whatever reason, which supposedly shouldn't happen (they were both dual wielding weapons). I changed my Monk into a Scholar, but I don't think that's supposed to boost the scholar's damage. Anyone else besides ReloadPsi and I had any similar experiences? Maybe it was the books hitting elemental weaknesses, but if that was the case, everyone else would've been experiencing the same sort of Scholar damage output as we did.

[Wolf Kanno]

It might be a glitch in the programming of the original. The early games are notorious for that cause I know in the DS version the Scholar hit's for shit. Though the DS version gives them a few modifications that make them more useful if a bit time consuming to truly make them great.

[ReloadPsi]

What? Poppycock, I find that the Scholar hits well in the DS version too. A bit of a glass cannon and an acquired taste, yes, but I've rotated Arc between Thief and Scholar throughout the game.