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Been replaying FFIII DS as I try to max my parties HP out with the Blackbelt trick. Going back through the job classes though I was curious to know what people felt were the best Job Classes, which ones you wish were better, and which ones just had no hope.
I've played through the game once on the DS version, so I can't speak authoritively. An unfortunate drawback of the importance of class levels is that I didn't get to give all the classes a fair try, like in FFV.
GOOD:
Dragoon - Dragoons are my favorite FF class ever, so I was going to have one in the party weather they sucked or not. It actually turned out to be a very powerful and useful class. Though I virtually never had a use for jump Dragoons were itemized very strongly and consistently stayed near the top in damage, not to mention could keep themselves up with Blood Lance.
Red Mage - OP at the start of the game. (I think this is common knowledge). I ended up keeping a Red Mage in my party all the way to the last crystal, and because of the fact that her job level kept increasing she did damage on par or higher than my melee characters in most cases.
Dark Knight - Hurt by lack of armor selection for most of the game. Souleater was sucky when I first got the class, then became incredibly useful, then began to decline into uselessness by the time I got the the final crystal.
BAD:
Warrior - Kind of a disappointment that this class didn't do anything better than the Red Mage in any way.
Ranger - I only tried this out as soon as I got it, and it was terrible. Can't comment on scaling.
UGLY:
White Mage/Devout - Not much to say, did his job for the entire game.
Knight - A little underwhelming, the Knight just felt like the Dragoon but not as good.
The Good:
This is a long list really cause I only found a few classes sub-par or terrible. I also have only played the DS version.
Monk - Ungodly powerful as long as you remember to use them with FFI rules (no weapons) then they quickly out damage everything for ages. They have a decent special ability as well and help keep your HP levels high.
Red Mage - Are smurfing broken, basically combine the Warrior/Black Mage/White Mage but remove most of their weaknesses and you have the Red Mage. They have incredibly longevity in terms of usefulness.
Geomancers - Are terribly overpowered in this game. Most of their abilites either do high damage or cause instant death magic and Dark Flare is just awesome. My only gripe with this class is when you bring them into water areas where enemies are either immune to their spells or your left with using instant death which doesn't hit as often as I would like.
Knights - Knights are weird, they start off sub-par thanks to having mediocre attack power, crappy magic and a silly character design (yes, I went there) but the fact is that as long as you keep them equipped right, they seriously don't take damage which makes them invaluable tanks with their Cover ability. Throw in the fact that they can use some of the games most powerful weapons which offset their low attack power (Excalibur anyone?), you have a mean end-game class. Even better is that unlike D.Knight and Ninja, Knights don't suffer from low defense when not equipping a shield, thus you get a more balanced fighter who specializes in survivability.
Dragoons - Duel Wield Lances (Gungnir plus Blood Lance = WIN) enough said.
Devout - Its like a white mage except has access to high level white magic spells and has incredibly high physical and magical defense. Seriously, my Devout takes a quarter of the damage from Particle Beam in comparison to the other classes. Excellent MP pool is also a plus.
The Bad:
Its not that these classes are terrible as much as their usefulness is painfully limited (imo) or they are lacking in some quality that keeps them in the game.
Viking - Great defense, great ability to utilize that defense, and is excellent when you combo them with a Dark Knight and Bard. Regretfully, they have terrible attack power and they are slow so you better hope any flimsy members of your party survive that first round before the Viking can use Provoke (and hopefully land it). The problem is that beefy classes like Knight can pretty much do the Vikings job as well and also participate as mainline fighter as well. Devouts, Sages, and Summoners also don't need as much protection as the regular mages or Bards.
Bard - When equipped with the right Harps, you have one of the best healers and support units in the game. Their only weakness is that they don't have the high defensive stats of the Devout otherwise I would have used them until endgame.
Black Belt - They are incredibly powerful and the key to getting Max HP for completionist, only problem is that they appear incredibly late in the game which is pretty much the fundamental weakness of every class made available by the Earth Crystal. Its not that class is bad but they come off terribly weak when you first get them when comparing them to Dragoons, Monks, and Dark Knights you've been using up to this point. Having to gain all those job levels to make them useful can be somewhat annoying...
Scholars - Okay lets ignore their obvious flaws such as their low MP pool, their ability to only equip up to tier three magic, and their abysmal Vitality that makes leveling up as one means you may have permanently screwed your chance for getting max HP with the Black Belts, or even the fact that their special command Scan is more of a novelty than a practical ability. The only thing this class has going for it is that they have ungodly high INT and SPR stats which makes their low level spells almost on par with other mage classes level two variants. They also get the Chemist/ Item Potency ability which when used with all those Magic effect items the game loves to shove into your face means they can use high level magic and generally better than their traditional mage counterparts.
If you love using magic, or just love using a challenging class, Scholar is one of the best in this game but most would agree they require more effort than most people would care to put into it. Not to mention that you are at the mercy of serious item management and whatever magic items the game gives you through treasures and enemy drops.
The Ugly:
Warriors - Red Mages can equip the same gear (and a bit more), do the same damage outside of the Warrior's special ability, and use White and Black magic as well as his mage compatriots, not to mention Monks can out damage them and take better damage with less gear? Seriously, everyone can do their role better.
Black Mage - Except for their spiffy way of dressing, B. Mages don't offer anything a Red Mage can't do. Red Mages also have the added luxury that they are more versatile, have better defenses, and can replace useless status magic with useful white magic.
Thief - Crap damage and defenses, and most enemies don't carry anything useful, so steal is a bit of a waste unless you need an inexpensive means of acquiring potions without paying for them and you refuse to use mages with healing spells. About the only thing Thief is useful for is acquiring Gungnir from Odin and that still requires leveling the job class more than you would care to do...
Evoker - You get two different effects per summon and both are usually really crappy with the exception of Ifrit. Throw in they have mediocre MP pool which makes spamming a spell until you get the effect you want undesirable especially when traveling through long dungeons. Just ignore them and wait for the Summoner class.
Rangers - A warrior with the ability to sit in the back row and do front row damage, this is all the class really has going for it. They are decent when using them to kill single targets but Barrage is a waste cause it does mediocre damage to groups and does the same amount of damage to a single target as if they hit them with a normal attack except now you have used 4 arrows instead of one. The game also constantly throws you upgrades and usually a terribly small amount of new arrows until they become available at the shop. Your spending more than I feel they are worth, if you want a cheap and powerful job class that can sit in the back row and destroy groups of enemies, just use a Dark Knight.
I started playing this game about a month ago. I'm at the crystal tower right now. So...yeah job classes.
The Good
Black Belts - Due to getting this class so late in the game, it really is a pain to think about leveling them up when you have lvl 70 Monk. But I like the way they look. =/ Plus Black Belts are faster - which won me over. I mean 9999 damage is 9999 damage, but faster agility is faster agility.
Dragoons - Every gaming cite I went to said this class was useless, but I found that dragoons still hit hard.
Geomancers - These guys rock! Every cast Shadow Flare (which casts somewhere between 3000-6000 damage) on your third attempt to kill bird man with Allus crying over daddy behind you? It feels good.
Ninjas - As a principle I am a ninja. They are fast, they are cool, they are, they are...(excuse my bad use of the english grammar, I just get so excited about ninjas.) Anyway, ninja's throw some serious damage at an enemy. Gotta love that.
Devout - C'mon, the best costume in the game, the most essential job in the game. You gotta love em.
The Bad
Dark Knight - these guys look cool, but that souleater was a pain. Better to just stick with the regular knight.
Black Mage - Black Mages are awesome - don't get me wrong - but I'm tired of them right now. These guys get killed so easily and so I passed on this class.
The Ugly
Bard - What exactly am I gonna do with a spoony bard?
Scholar - I don't really hate this class, I just think it was a waste. So much more could have been added to this class, but at the end of the day, this job doesn't stick out and is really worthless sadly.