Favorite & Least Favorite Incarnation of Each Job/Class

This can be for games with a Job System or a designed Class.

For example....

The Best Red Mage is FF3's. I played through the whole game with it. It can keep up in terms of damage with most everyone else but can also supply healing and has better defense than the other mages.

Meanwhile, I think FF3 has the worst Dark Knight. Souleater is nice and all but losing 200 HP to damage a boss is guaranteed death if the boss uses a magic attack on your DK. And other than Souleater, they don't bring much to the table.

Here's Mine (bear in mind I don't remember 3 very well)

Best Knight: FF9
Worst Knight: FF5

Best Dark Knight; FF10-2
Worst Dark Knight: FF4

Best Dragoon: FF7
Worst Dragoon: FF5

Best Thief: FF7
Worst Thief: FF9

Best Ninja: FF7
Worst Ninja: FF6

Best Bard: FF10-2
Worst Bard: FF4 (needed to get Edward off my chest there)

Best White Mage: FF9 (Eiko not Garnet)
Worst White Mage: FF8 Magic

Best Black Mage: FF9
Worst Black Mage: FF8 Magic

Best Summon: FF7 (by far the best)
Worst Summon: FF9 (you call that power? Some guardians you are)

Best Blue Mage: FF7 Enemy Skill
Worst Blue Mage: FF9

Interesting thread, thanks for this :-D

Phhhf

Final Fantasy I
FAV Knight - They are just my idea character who on his own couldn't do much. With help this guy really shines. In many battles I focus on everyone building this guy up. He is my Hero of Light.

Worst Monk - I use to love this job class for this game. He was least expensive and dealt better damage in my first level challenge using all characters. He has no magic and upgrading him from black belt to monk tarnishes him. He has no special ability except he is a cheap damage dealer.

Final Fantasy III
FAV Thief - It is the only class that actually holds its own throughout the upgrades. This and monk both really help out although monk gets an upgrade. I agree with you FL on the dark knight but I also don't care much for Paladin either.

Worst Scholar - I don't know if this is the game where at one point you have to use this class but it is total trash. I don't even need to say much but to me every job class in the game is better... even a low leveled freelancer.

Final Fantasy IV
FAV Dark Knight - Yes unlike Final Fantasy III I loved Cecil as a Dark Knight. If only there was a way to bring him back to the dark side. Sure Paladin is stronger but many battles were easily won by Souleater.

Worst Engineer - I like Cid quite a bit. I love his fall into the underworld saving millions of lives. I just don't see his handiness other then making me ships. His battle statistics aren't bad but even Edward can become better then him. In fact Edward can become the biggest damage dealer in the game.

Final Fantasy V
FAV Red Mage - Yeah you're gonna say they aren't so great. I just want to point out why I like them... Double Cast works for White Magic, Black Mage, and SUMMONS! This late game ability makes many battles a Leviathan double cast WIN!

Worst Berserker - I do not like losing control.

Final Fantasy VI
FAV Edgar (whatever job class he may be).
Worst Relm (I don't even count Yeti for Berserker will always be marked down)

Final Fantasy VII
FAV Ninja - She rocks my socks off. She steals, she morphs, she throws,,, wait... every character can do that. However she was plenty of good limit breaks and doom of the living is one of my favorites.

Worst - Gambler. Cait Sith only gets used to bust me out of Junon when I need it. I might as well learn slots but stay with dice.

Final Fantasy VIII
FAV - Beastmaster Rinoa with her dog Angelo. This has helped me more then Quistis' Degenerator ever did. Sure Q has a one shot kill but it's not that hard to kill enemies without a overpowered move people SPAM. Angelo helps a lot sometimes. She is also one of the Berserkers I actually like... I'm talking about the White Wing.

Worst gunner - Irvine can't even shoot a single shot at one point in the game. Squall is sitting there yelling "It doesn't matter if you miss! Just Shoot!!" Irvine uses ammo which is really why I don't like him. He isn't overpowered in any way. Zell can use two moves over and over again to cause more damage then lionheart, squall has lionheart, selphie has "The End' and "Raptor", Quistis has Degenerator, and Rinoa has Wishing Star. Irvine has 10 shots at the most.

Final Fantasy IX
FAV - Dragoon. Let me tell you, I've never seen a dragoon so badass that it stays in one jump and rains spears down on you. If every dragoon could do this they would be onion knight or better.

Worst Knight - Without the help of Vivi, Steiner would be good for one thing.. ATTACK. Sure Shock is great but really he doesn't have that much MP and even his trance makes him a pure attacker. Although with Vivi he becomes much more enjoyable.

Final Fantasy X
FAV White Mage/Summoner - Yes Yuna ends up being the best character in the game. You want to fight ok, listen to this. She has more then 8 overdrives where others have 1. Every character can learn everything but that 1 fact makes her the best. She can take damage off of many bosses if used right. No wonder she got to star in Final Fantasy X-2. She is badass.

Worst Black Mage - Lulu can do one thing... attack elementals. Her fury has broken my controllers for very little damage, I think the most I can get is 5 spells. The main problem I have with her is all her spells are single casts. You can not attack all. That to me is unforgivable.

Final Fantasy XI
FAV White Mage - You aren't gonna get far in this game unless you can heal. This job is the only reason other jobs get by. I only played this game for 30 days and while Ninja can provoke and transparent himself, a white mage makes any job look better.

Worst Monk - Yeah I aimed to be a monk in this game and got to like level 50 when people wouldn't even let me in their parties anymore. They lost the effect. I had to go and train a warrior in order to get my hidden job classes unlocked.

Final Fantasy XII - Everyone is the same. End of story. I never played IZJS

Final Fantasy XIII
FAV Commando - Without this class you really won't keep a stagger up or deal damage when your ravager does stagger. Sab is nice but come in third place when you see the game as COM/RAV/RAV

Worst Sentinel - Only good for taken damage. It's nice if you like to use them but they are only good for a few battles. I'm talking about grand pulse... Long Gui if you need it spelled out to ya.

Final Fantasy Tactics
FAV Sword Saint - Yes Cid is overpowered. I demand the weapon dup glitch to be brought back. Chaos and Excalibur is his gear. He doesn't need it.

Worst Soldier - Yes Cloud. He doesn't really do much damage with his buster sword and his limits take too long. Even the twins with their random casts beat this Final Fantasy icon.

That is all.

Alright, this is going to be a doozy. To make this easier on me, I'm only going to use games that have job systems. Games where characters have defined roles will not really count because it's easier on me, some characters are actually multiple roles rolled into one, and some roles kind of get OP in the titles with party members in predetermined class roles. Case in point is the Thief class, which is a useful class in of itself but is damn near game breaker in VI, IX, and X since Locke and Zidane suffer main character syndrome allowing them to take and receive damage like more traditional warrior style classes, and Rikku is obviously a mix of Thief and Chemist and the second job makes her OP. So let's begin:

Knight
Best - (Final Fantasy) As long as you grind to keep them in top gear, the Knight is a pretty OP class in FFI and largely regarded as the best class in the game bar none. They have decent magic ability and can cast better than future incarnations of the class as well.

Worst - (Final Fantasy V) Boring but practical, the Knight doesn't really teach any useful skills except maybe Doublehand, which is all but useless once Dual-Wield becomes available. Most of their wear armor skills are useless in this game as opposed to having some merits in FFTactics; and Guard and Cover are not nearly as useful as their FFIIIDS incarnation. It doesn't help the class is stuck in a game with some of the series best melee classes.

Thief
Best - (Final Fantasy Tactics/Tactics Advance) Yes it's two different games but their skill sets are not terribly different from each other and they are both invaluable in their respective games, getting you great gear at no cost much earlier than you really should. Especially useful in TA where gear teaches skills to your jobs. Not to mention stealing said items severely weakens your opponents as well so even if the enemy doesn't have some unique gear, it's nice to cripple them by stealing their armor and weapons.

Worst -(Final Fantasy) There is nothing to say really, the Thief has no real strengths in this game that are not better covered by another job. They don't have the steal command and they lack any good gear, stats, or abilities. The only reason to bother with them is to acquire their awesome job upgrade of Ninja. They are the dead weight of FFI.

Monk
Best - (Final Fantasy Tactics) Let's combine great damage potential with a skill set that makes them excellent backup healers and dramatically increase their damage range and you've got one serious powerhouse at your disposal. They might be a bit flimsier than their earlier incarnations but they make up for it with one of the best skill sets in the series.

Worst - (Final Fantasy 4 Heroes of Light) just to clear something up, there is a class in this game called monk, but is entirely different from any incarnation in the series, being a mage class focused on powering up when killed. The actual "monk" class is called Fighter instead. It's not a bad class in itself, mostly focusing on moves that raise critical hit rates and double HP, but the class is trapped in a game where there is a heavier emphasis on mages, party teamwork, and support classes. Being a pure solo melee class makes it nice when you first acquire it, but the class quickly gets overshadowed by the game's heavier emphasis on team dynamics.

Black Mage
Best - (Final Fantasy 4 Heroes of Light) Easily one of the best classes in the game. The game's game mechanics remove MP from the equation so the class' Achilles Heel is gone and the mechanics of the game make this the best magic damage dealer bar none. Most strategies involve buffing the class through it's unique job skills and support classes like Shaman to allow the class to perform insane damage without resorting to random and rare Psyche power ups to perform group assaults, even with the psyche power up, two mages hitting an elemental weakness will generally trump a full team melee build up. I feel it's safe to say the game's mechanics were built around making the Black Mage finally the star player.

Worst - (Final Fantasy NES/Famicom) The fact most of the game's bugs involve the Black Mage is probably why it often gets a bad rap from veteran fans who cut their teeth on the original. The class is much better in the remakes to say the least but having bugs making several of your support skills useless, and the INT bug allowing Red Mages to do equivalent damage with the same magic just made this version of the class look bad in comparison.

White Mage
Best - (Final Fantasy III) A great combination of healing and support magic including the useful Haste spell, combined with better battle flexibility with the Aero spells and Holy makes this an ideal support class. The fact it's packaged in one of the sturdier incarnations of the class is just an added bonus.

Worst - (Final Fantasy Tactics A2) Being stripped of all support magic and even holy to give to more novelty classes, leaves this class as just a plain old healer, in a game where several classes can be built for group party heals and be excellent fighting/support units leaves this class incredibly lacking in versatility.

Red Mage
Best - (Final Fantasy III) The last incarnation of the class to still be the right combination of abilities to make them excel at everything, the class can be a beast and carry you quite a ways into the FFIII, especially the DS incarnation that has expanded equipment and MP range from it's Famicom counterpart. They may not hit as hard as black mages and fighters but they do it well enough you won't care.

Worst - ( Final Fantasy V) The true "jack of all, master of none" incarnation of the class. Even having Doublecast as an ability can't save them from their lackluster stats and equipment pool. It doesn't help the whole sub-class mechanic alone pretty must trivializes what made this class great in the first place, so it quickly lost it's place in the whole mix up. There is a reason future incarnations make the class have some form of specialization or built around using double cast.

I'll do advance classes later.