GIVE ME A CHALLENGE!

So I did this years ago with FFVIII but I was a horrible liar and human being and never actually went through with it.

But I'm back and reformed and ready to take your tips.

That's right, I'm gonna replay this game - specifically the Origins version - and I intend to conquer it this time.

Rather than just making everyone do everything, I feel like I want to redo what I did with XII and VIII and make my own "Classes" or "Jobs."

That's my intention anyway of how to start. Can't guarantee how it will turn out.

But I'm open to any suggestions you guys might have on how to "limit" each other to their designated role. I've only really played through this game once, at least I beat 99% of it. Others here probably know more than me and can offer guidance.
Or if you have any other things to offer about making the game a bit more complex and fun.

Honestly the game does it for you, if you equip a character in the gear needed for a class you'll find it will naturally alter your stat growth as you level up, only if you consciously try to level up a stat will you wreck the job class element of the game.

Firion has the highest Spirit so he's a natural for White Magic so I would choose either White Mage or Paladin for him

Maria has the highest Intelligence so Black mage is a go for her.

Gus is more melee focus so Warrior or Monk is a good bet for him

Most of the other characters already slide into a class or at least some dynamic of it. The biug thing here is how you equip them, if you want a monk, choose unarmed and either light weight gear or no armor and you'll find their strength, def, evasion, and HP will skyrocket while the rest of the their stats plummet.

Black Mage? A Bow with some light armor and focus on using magic a lot will raise the right stats.

Warrior? Heavy armor and no magic makes sure their MP and Magic stats never rise and will beef their melee and and defensive stats.

So simply put, if you want to change jobs just equip them like you would in other FFs. Hell as long as you restrict magic and don't hand it out to everyone equally you can even technically change jobs naturally to some degree as starting Firion as a Paladin and then turning him into a White mage will progress naturally as long as you play them properly.

I had already figured I'd make Firion a Paladin. I just can't make him a WM because the "main hero" has to wield a sword. It's just how these fantasy things go. Should he have a shield too?

I like the idea of Maria as Black Mage and Gus as Monk.

Although I wanted someone for Buffs/Debuffs... I would use Character 4 for that but most of them don't last long enough to make it worthwhile to level up their status magic.

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Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

I had already figured I'd make Firion a Paladin. I just can't make him a WM because the "main hero" has to wield a sword. It's just how these fantasy things go. Should he have a shield too?

I like the idea of Maria as Black Mage and Gus as Monk.

Although I wanted someone for Buffs/Debuffs... I would use Character 4 for that but most of them don't last long enough to make it worthwhile to level up their status magic.

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Give him a shield, it's fine and I always felt cure magic wasn't as adversely affected by the equipment handicap as bad as Black Magic is. Leon is probably your best bet for debuff magic and just let Firion have the buff magic. I built Leon as a FFX-2 style dark knight in my last playthrough.

Sounds like a plan. Thanks for the suggestions.

Although I'm not going to have Leon for A LONG time. They really should have put him in your party sooner or given you a bit more to do after he rejoins.

That's true about Leon, they kind of botched his character if you ask me but I still like him cause he's not as completely useless as most of the mid-game fourth party members.
I
f you want, you can have Maria use some debuff spells though I found they were never quite as useful.

Yeah I never used Debuffs either. I was mainly thinking of Buffs like Haste or maybe Blink. I guess giving Firion stuff like Shell and Protect fits though. I don't think Cecil had those in FFIV but maybe other Paladins do.

But I just thought of something. I started the game and began teh necessary grindage so our HP isn't total crap and I realized...how does Maria's HP go up if she's always in the back row? If I'm going to make her a Mage she has to be in the back row.

In the DS version, Cecil gained the shell and protect spells making him infinitely more useful with magic.

Technically mages are not suppose to have high hp, if you want to do a traditional Black Mage, you're just going to have to let her take her punishment naturally.

True but if her HP never rises at all she will die from one hit eventually. Low HP is fine and all but not even being able to take a single hit? Being stuck with 20 HP?

I guess that would indeed be challenge... Hell, I'll just try it and see what happens. Maybe magic-using enemies later will help her increase her HP....

She'll get hit, trust me, back row doesn't protect as much as people would like.

Heh, you were right, she's definitely been hit. Not nearly as much as Gus and Firion though. I think being completely unarmored must make the enemies attack you more because Gus gets pummeled all the time compared to my other party members.

Anyway, FF2 is weird. I had a couple Game Overs in the Snow Cave because I was being stingy with my items. We hadn't gotten much Gil up to this point and I wasn't going to waste it on Potions or whatever. But after those two Game Overs I went back and stocked up on 25 of them and 2 emergency Hi Potions. Ended up using pretty much all of it by the end of the dungeon. They just won't leave Guy alone.

Anyway, why the game is weird, Firion with his amazing set of Armor and sword could do 0 damage to the Adamantoise while it did 100 damage to him in one shot. Firion only had about 120 HP so two hits and he was down. I guess I should be glad the thing didn't hit Maria - she only has 75 HP and would be killed in one hit more than likely. Meanwhile there was Gus and Josef, completely unarmored and with bare fists, able to do about 50 damage to the thing while it could only do about 60 damage to them. Gus almost had 300 Hp by this point so what did that matter.

So Firion decked out with the best equipment was totally useless while Maria with her Ice Magic and the other two saved the day. I guess if i ever have to fight a giant monster turtle, I should just punch it to death instead of trying to grab a weapon.

Now it's onto Kas'Ion and Gordon. Finally have a respectable amount of Gil though so I bought Firion a Life Scroll straight away. Probably going to need that.... Also Maria can finally actually be a Black Mage now she has Ice. We haven't been able to get any other attack magic up to this point that I know of so she has just been kinda worthless with her bow attacks.

Oh and I forgot to mention my second Game Over was because I was thinking "okay, I'll get most of the treasures and a lot of Gil from random encounters then Warp out and go heal." So i get all the way to the Ancient Sword and then guess what happens. Gus is down, Josef is nearly dead and I figure it's a good time to leave now I have that. Only...Warp won't work. What the hell. I can only assume I have to level it up? i didn't count on that crap. While trying to run from the dungeon I died because Flee is absolutely useless in this game.

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Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

So Firion decked out with the best equipment was totally useless while Maria with her Ice Magic and the other two saved the day. I guess if i ever have to fight a giant monster turtle, I should just punch it to death instead of trying to grab a weapon.

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Pretty much. Last time I played I unequipped everyone's weapons and their stats actually increased, sans Gus. I learned you were better off NOT putting Maria in the back row. Her stats raises quicker when she's in the front row and being unarmored increase their evade so they'll dodge more.

Oh, but you wanted a challenge. So just keep doing what you're doing.

Well the real challenge is I totally missed Altair having a Magic Shop. I remembered the Weapon and Armor Shops but not Magic. I could have had Fire, Ice, Bolt and Cure ages ago but I totally spaced on it and just left for Fynn and the story.

Goddammit.

I remember the first time I entered the magic shop.

"The prince for magic is too damn high!"

The price for most everything in this game is too damned high. You don't get good Gil rewards from fights until the Snow Cave. I was horrified by the 1500 price tag for the magic in Salamand but now I can afford that relatively easily.

Gonna be a long time before I can start buying Elixirs or Ethers though.

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Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

Heh, you were right, she's definitely been hit. Not nearly as much as Gus and Firion though. I think being completely unarmored must make the enemies attack you more because Gus gets pummeled all the time compared to my other party members.

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Yeah, I feel the A.I. is pretty smart in this game.

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Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

Anyway, why the game is weird, Firion with his amazing set of Armor and sword could do 0 damage to the Adamantoise while it did 100 damage to him in one shot. Firion only had about 120 HP so two hits and he was down. I guess I should be glad the thing didn't hit Maria - she only has 75 HP and would be killed in one hit more than likely. Meanwhile there was Gus and Josef, completely unarmored and with bare fists, able to do about 50 damage to the thing while it could only do about 60 damage to them. Gus almost had 300 Hp by this point so what did that matter.

So Firion decked out with the best equipment was totally useless while Maria with her Ice Magic and the other two saved the day. I guess if i ever have to fight a giant monster turtle, I should just punch it to death instead of trying to grab a weapon.

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There are several enemies in this game who have incredibly high physical defense so you always need at least one mage. Depending on what you're magic level is, it's possible to one shot that boss but it sounds like you're doing a more natural progression. Bare Fist is brutal in this game but later weapons and armor start granting stat bonuses and other bonuses that make them ideal, as much as I harp on Lances being useless in this game, the Holy Lance is actually a really good weapon. Piece of advice, weapons can be used as items to cast powerful spells but with the exception of the Wind Drake Key Item, all the other times you do this will make you lose the weapon so be careful about that.

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Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

Now it's onto Kas'Ion and Gordon. Finally have a respectable amount of Gil though so I bought Firion a Life Scroll straight away. Probably going to need that.... Also Maria can finally actually be a Black Mage now she has Ice. We haven't been able to get any other attack magic up to this point that I know of so she has just been kinda worthless with her bow attacks.

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Firion will catch up once you get farther into the game and access to more specialized gear. There are not actually that many attack spells in the game to be honest (not counting instant kill spells, there are only seven offensive spells, two of which are White Magic) so Maria actually has most of them, the one spell I will recommend getting and leveling though it Toad, very few enemies have immunity to it and if you raise its level high enough it works more efficiently but in this game its basically an instant death spell.

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Oh and I forgot to mention my second Game Over was because I was thinking "okay, I'll get most of the treasures and a lot of Gil from random encounters then Warp out and go heal." So i get all the way to the Ancient Sword and then guess what happens. Gus is down, Josef is nearly dead and I figure it's a good time to leave now I have that. Only...Warp won't work. What the hell. I can only assume I have to level it up? i didn't count on that crap. While trying to run from the dungeon I died because Flee is absolutely useless in this game.

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Warp will take you back to a previous floor for every level it has and if there is not previous level it takes you outside. Interesting thing I just learned, it doesn't work in five locations in the game, namely places where story events occur, so Snow Cave, Bafsk Sewers, Dreadnought, Coliseum, and Castle Palamecia.

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

Bare Fist is brutal in this game but later weapons and armor start granting stat bonuses and other bonuses that make them ideal, as much as I harp on Lances being useless in this game, the Holy Lance is actually a really good weapon. Piece of advice, weapons can be used as items to cast powerful spells but with the exception of the Wind Drake Key Item, all the other times you do this will make you lose the weapon so be careful about that.

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I didn't know anything about this. That's pretty awesome. I haven't been sure what Items to give my characters. I sincerely recall nothing about this weird Item System in Dawn of Souls. I guess I just always used Magic to heal in battle.

I also don't remember the Inventory being so small....

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Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

Firion will catch up once you get farther into the game and access to more specialized gear. There are not actually that many attack spells in the game to be honest (not counting instant kill spells, there are only seven offensive spells, two of which are White Magic) so Maria actually has most of them, the one spell I will recommend getting and leveling though it Toad, very few enemies have immunity to it and if you raise its level high enough it works more efficiently but in this game its basically an instant death spell.

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Yeah doesn't it even work on some bosses? I've heard about how broken it is. I'm not sure if it counts as Black or White Magic though.

EDIT:

Progress Report Time.

Just destroyed the Dreadnaught. Guy has like 1,000 HP while Firion and Gordon, the two with the next highest HP, only have about 300. It's kinda absurd.

I think Gordon is about to leave us soon anyway if I'm remembering right.

The real way to get Gil is to fight those Ogre Mages. They have a high probability of dropping Berserk Scrolls which go for 5,000 a pop. I kept one to teach it to Maria and sold about 6 or 7 more. That plus all the Gil enemies are dropping now got me up to 80,000 or so. Back down to 60K because I bought a couple Cottages and about 8 Ethers just so I'm on the safe side.

Oh and I'm noticing a pattern here with how I have to play. I go into the dungeon, I collect most of the treasure, gain levels and Gil, theN i have to run the hell out of said dungeon and go restock items and heal. I did that with the Snow Cave, Kas'Ion and now the Dreadnaught. Guy just eats up my Hi Potion constantly and I keep running out of MP.

I think now is a good time to stop and do some magic level grinding. Maria has to get her Fire and Bolt up to level 3 to join her Ice and also i want to get Berserk up a level or 2 because I hear it's really good. Also Guy can't do anything except Attack so Berserk on him seems like a smart move. Firion meanwhile has to train up Shield and Shell.

I wonder if I should scrap my challenge or at least give Guy another Job because holy hell, boss fights are proving way too easy. Basically all Firion and Maria do is buff him up with Shield and Berserk and then he kills the boss in a couple turns. That's how the Chimera and Fake Princess bosses have gone anyway. I'm fine with him being my main damage dealer but he does TOO MUCH damage

Maybe give him a dagger or something but keep him completely unarmored. The odd thing is tht I remember boss fights being harder in Dawn of Souls but regular encounters were easier. I think magic did more damage in DOS... Or maybe the Gigas enemies had less HP. I remember distinctly because I grinded attack spells for the Gigas encounters in Deist Cavern because weapons were pretty much useless. But even my level 3 Bolt/Ice/Fire do nothing to the things in Origins. I think I grinded them up to Level 5 in DOS though so maybe that's why.

But yeah, the Fake Princess was a bitch in DOS. She had Level XVI Blink I believe. Here? She died after two attacks from Guy. It's kinda disappointing.