License Board, Equipment and Gambit's Oh My!

Been replaying FFXII lately and this game never ceases to amaze me. While it is certainly not the most simple of games, all of its customization elements work together so well to make this game an enjoyable experience. I mean, I am seriously sitting down with a guide book and planning out how I develop my characters and the prospects of Gambits and equipment set-ups I can use allows me to create some awesome job classes. I have Vaan working as a Monk/Thief, Basch is a Paladin/Dark Knight, Fran is a Red Mage/Green Mage/Ranger, Ashe is a Time Mage/Samurai, Penelo is my Black/White Mage, and Balthier is working towards being a Blue Mage/Gunner/Ninja. In my development.

I am just very impressed with how well thought out the combat, customization, equipment system is in this game, and how far ahead of its time this game really is. It's no wonder that Dragon Age, Xenoblade Chronicles, and The Last Story are borrowing elements of it. Matsuno may never have finished the game, but he really left us a gem of a title. What are your thoughts on the License Board, Gambit system, and customization?

How well does the job classes work for you? A while ago I had a thread regarding how this was working out for me, back when my PS2 was still working, but I found it difficult for some classes to be used. I had Vaan as a Thief too, but only in the beginning of the game.

As far as Ranger and Gunner's go what makes them as such in this game other than just using bows and guns? For Fran I made her an archer too, but basically made her like a Rosa since I couldn't find any abilities that would go with arching. With Balthier I just gave him Technicks as a gunner, but most of those techniks suck.

My classes were set as this last time I believe

1st quarter

Ashe: White Mage/Summoner (Equips: Mage Hats and Armor Rods)
Basch: Knight (Equips: Heavy helms and armor 1 handed swords and shield) Bonecrusher, Shear, Addle
Balthier: Pirate (Equips: Heavy helms light armor guns) Numerology, Steal, First Aid, Horology
Fran: Archer/White Mage (Equips: Light hats mage robes Bows Crossbows) First Aid Limited white magic
Penelo: Red Mage (Equips:Light hats magic robes 1 handed swords and shield) Limited white and black magic
Vaan: Thief (Equips: Light hats and armor daggers)

Ashe as a summoner didn't work out at all since Summons suck in this game.

2nd quarter.

Vaan: Black Mage (Mage robes Staves) Black magic Shades of Black
Ashe: White Mage
Penelo: Red Mage
Balthier: Green Mage/Tactician (light armor guns/handbombs) Green magic all technicks
Fran: Monk (light armor unarmed) bought every license that increased unarmed power
Basch: Berserker (heavy armor two handed swords, hammers and axes,) self berserk gambit

3rd and 4th quarters

Vaan: Ninja/Black Mage (Ninja equipment was light with ninja blades)
Ashe: Paladin (1-handed swords light armor magic hat) white magic
Penelo: Red Mage/Monk (Gave her a pole to act as a monk of somewhat)
Balthier: Green Mage/Tactician
Fran: Jack of all trades / Also switched her to being a time mage at one point.
Basch: Dark Knight (1 handed swords, axes heavy armor magic hats) arcane magic with the status stuff from green.

Really love this game's battle system, I really thought this was the direction RPGs were heading in the next console generation, sucks that we were wrong.

Only faults were that technicks suck, not to mention the way you progressed with them wasn't such a great idea, meaning that you shouldn't have to be a "technick" character in order to get the later ones. I also feel like the point at which all your characters master all of the top half of the board comes way too early for a game with such a breadth of side quests. Lastly, I think it was bad that you need to buy Gambits and more in-depth ones unlock as you play the story. They all should've been available at the beginning, no reason not to really.

But other than that I loved the possibilities it brought to party composition. I think I had Ashe as a Dark Knight with Heavy Armor, maybe a Mage hat, one handed sword with a shield, and dark magic. I think I would have black mages assume time magic and white mages assume green magic. Damn I really want to play this game again.

You guys know that in the IZJS version, the characters do have jobs, right? As well as all the Gambits being available for buying right after Barheim Passage.

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Originally Posted by Bolivar

Really love this game's battle system, I really thought this was the direction RPGs were heading in the next console generation, sucks that we were wrong.

Only faults were that technicks suck, not to mention the way you progressed with them wasn't such a great idea, meaning that you shouldn't have to be a "technick" character in order to get the later ones.

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You're right. They did suck. The only real useful ones were Libra and I think Telekinesis which you couldn't get til end game. Also don't forget that the useless of summons was also another fault. The summoner class in this game is bottom tier.

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Damn I really want to play this game again.

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I miss my PS2.


Also Wolf Kanno, how did you make a blue mage in this game? I don't recall there being any techniques similar to enemy materia in this game.

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Originally Posted by Karifean

You guys know that in the IZJS version, the characters do have jobs, right? As well as all the Gambits being available for buying right after Barheim Passage.

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never got it, and didn't like the way they laid out the jobs anyway.

Sorry for the belated post. Actually my Blue Mage is a Technique Character and honestly, it hasn't been that bad so far. My Blue Mage is primarily a debuff character and its been working out pretty well,Horology is actually a really overpowered move early in the game and has made Balthier my primary "crowd control" character since I don't have any AoE spells just yet (I'm at the Dynast-King's Grave) and its been working out pretty well.

Here's my set-up so far:

Vaan - Thief/Monk - Uses light armor for HP boosts, when he's a thief, he uses a knives and only level 1 and 2 shields. As a Monk he fights either barehanded or with the Poles.

Penelo - Black Mage or White mage - Magical Equips, Rods as Black Mage, Staffs as White Mage, may end up giving her the Measures as well. I'm still debating about Maces...

Basch - Paladin/Dark Knight - Heavy Armor and some Light Armor. All Shields, all one-handed swords for Paladin with a few Greatswords, all greatswords for Dark Knight. Low White Magic as Paladin ending with Protectga and Shellga, but no Curaga, Arise, or Holy. All Arcane Magic as Dark Knight, and Souleater technique.

Fran - Ranger/Red Mage/Green Mage - Magic and Light clothing. Bows, Maces, and Hammers with some low level shields. Red Mage was an accident because she kind of starts that way... Now she's purely a Green Mage now that more spells have unlocked.

Ashe - Time Mage/Samurai - For now she's a pure Time Mage because I have not acquired any Samurai weapons yet. She uses Magic armor and some Heavy Armor. No shields, only Time magic, and she uses Rods for now.

Balthier - Gunner/Blue Mage/ Ninja - Mostly light armor, uses guns and bombs, some one handed swords and knives,he'll become a Ninja later, when the ninja blades unlock. He predominately uses Techniques of which, his debuffing skills work pretty well when combined with guns. ;) Horology is pretty broken in the early dungeons, and numerology.

I have three other jobs I plan to implement as well, mainly Summoner, Dragoon, and Chemist. I just haven't figured out who will do what or if I'll just ignore them this time around. I also allow everyone to use all accessories but I have been incredibly careful with Augments which is really the key to making this all work for me. Mages get Magic based augments and melee gets physical. Item based ones I was going to save for the chemist but as time went on and my healing was limited, I finally gave in to get the boost. I'm also strict about maintaining classes. Meaning that while I attach a couple of classes to each character I usually only strictly use one set-up and not some combo or the two. Gambits help this process immensely. So Basch is set up to acquire both Dark Knight and Paladin Skills but I equip him and set up his gambits for one or the other based on which I need, the only compromise I'll make is with the spell Decoy, which will be used by his Paladin set-up.

There are enough Gambit slots to set up two distinct job set-ups, I just keep one inactive until I realize I need to switch over. It's been really fun so far, as I find myself having to switch my party out to let my Time Mage do her job and having to build strategies that either stress using a dedicated White Mage or see if I can't keep her as a Black Mage and just hope Basch can keep the party alive with items and his weak white magic. I would have to look up my file to give you details on augments, but while I'm giving Basch some magic lore augments, he doesn't get as many as Penelo or Fran. Likewise Ashe is in the middle as well. I do imagine I'm going to have to break these rules when I get to the end-game Marks, but I still plan on trying to maintain the classes so their still be that extra challenge. ;)

I'm telling you right now that the Summoner won't work due to summons being ass in this game. Maybe, just maybe it would be a little better towards the end of the game when you can get top end summons like Ultima and Zeromus. I would like to see how you set up your Dragoon. I was trying to think myself what he would have other than just heavy armor and lances of course.

Chemist also sounds like it would be hard to do.

Dragoon I haven't completely thought through yet, amusingly, this is the playthrough I intend to get the Zodiac Spear but from the looks of things, I'll probably not bother using it. I'll see what I can do for summoner, I know the level 1 variants will have serious issues but as you mentioned Zeromus, Ultima, and Chaos are relatively sturdy and mean in their own right so maybe its a class I'll play with by end game.

I effing love FFXII's combat. I just... really love it. I wish more games had just half as much thought and care put into them as FFXII.

Hey Wolf, try making a mystic knight too.

^ That would be tough... probably stick to elemental weapons and shell but, I can't fathom beyond equipment and augments how I would go about it. :cry:

Basically I see a Mystic Knight as just a knight/black mage hybrid.

I'm thinking of the Mystic Knight from FFV. I don't think I would try a Warrior/Black Mage mix beyond a Red Mage set up, simply because it would be a bit unbalanced and would be too useful. For me, the fun part about job classes is trying to build a balanced party. I just see a Magic using warrior as being way too flexible, and a bit overpowered depending on the set-up of equipment/skills.

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Originally Posted by Karifean

You guys know that in the IZJS version, the characters do have jobs, right?

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Yes, but this ironically limited character customization a lot more than the original version. It's just better to have our characters' licenses likened to any generic job in the Final Fantasy franchise we'd want rather than stick with pre-developed "job" boards that were rather poorly made, in my opinion.