Flavor vs. Usefulness
How do you decide your party? Is it because of arbitrary personal preferences (flavor) or the usefulness of that class?
I tend to be a practical person in my game playing and choose the "best" party. I like Fighter/Fighter/Black Mage/White Mage because of its overall usefulness: badass physical fighters up front, and badass magic users in the back row.
So by what standards do you chose your party?
Preference comes first, or more specifically dislike. I weed out any classes I have too strong a dislike of and then go strictly on usefulness.
This is one of the reasons I can't get into games where you have to pick your class/stats right at the start. You are supposed to pick based on what flavor you want your character to be, but I only care about usefulness. Which at the create character menu screen I know nothing about.
I tend to pick for different reasons each time I play. Last time through I wanted to be able to make use of every item in the game so I went with F, Th, WM, BM.
The time before I went with the NES default party just to try it out -- knowing where I was going certainly helped make it easier to play and I had a lot of fun with it.
I guess I would say that in general I do aim for versatility in my party combination which means a Fighter and at least a decent degree of healing and buffing as well as elemental damage.
Flavor before anything! Weird parties are the best parties. :D Standard parties are boring~!
Doesn't playing the standard way feel so trite and abused? There is so much to be explored in the ways of whacked out party dynamics and in the challenges of lacking typically critical elements.
I tend to pick based upon which looks the coolest and then I try to convice myself that my party is the best party in the world. Sometimes it works.
"Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine."
I go for variety and create characters I can see a story with in my head. Every time I play the game I constantly have a different story going on in the back of my head. I complete the game objectives, but the real experience and fun is how the characters interact in muh head.
I tend to pick a ery unconventional party consisting of Fighter/Monk/Red Mage/White Mage. The odd thing i, when i first started playin FF I, I looked for a guide cos I was stuck and I found a guide based on my favourite party!
When we dance, it looks just like Fire.
When we sing, it sounds the same tone.
Go by default, then mix it up on the 2nd playthrough.
jkhkjg
Flavour comes first for me.
I would always choose Fighter/Thief/White Mage/Black Mage because it is very balanced and fun to use, but I've recently started to like the party Fighter/Fighter/Fighter/Red Mage.
I like how the whole party is basically a bunch of fighters where the slightly weaker fighter can use lots of magics as well.
I always went Fighter, Black mage, White mage, Monk. Reading this thread though makes me think fighter, white mage, black mage, thief is the best set up since you can use all the items and well they all get good with the class upgrade. Black belt to monk isn't all that special.
Marcus
"No cloud, no squall shall hinder us!" - FF9
Games completed - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, 10-2, 12, 13, 13-2, 13-3 Tactics, Tactics Advanced, Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, KH, KH2, And played 11.
Fighter/Thief/White Mage/Black Mage is great, the only annoyance is that Thief completely blows at everything except Running from battles.Originally Posted by sora_lion_heart
That is, until you do Class Change and they all become super-gods -then your Knight and Ninja alone will be powerful enough to kill everything on their own.
As a matter of fact, I personally tend to let the wizards spam Heal Staffs and Heal Helmets full-time after Class Change, with some occasional status spell every now and then.
Fighter/Thief/White Mage/Black Mage is great, the only annoyance is that Thief completely blows at everything except Running from battles.
That is, until you do Class Change and they all become super-gods -then your Knight and Ninja alone will be powerful enough to kill everything on their own.
As a matter of fact, I personally tend to let the wizards spam Heal Staffs and Heal Helmets full-time after Class Change, with some occasional status spell every now and then.
Yes and with the items that cast magic you can go ahead and forget the spells on your white mage / black mage. As long as you can do the spell you won't need multiple ways of doing it. Heal 2 is the best example. Go ahead and forget it and get something else on the empty magic slot.
Sadly though I don't run away from a battle unless I'm in a hurry or tired.
Marcus
"No cloud, no squall shall hinder us!" - FF9
Games completed - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, 10-2, 12, 13, 13-2, 13-3 Tactics, Tactics Advanced, Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, KH, KH2, And played 11.
Little girls first, then whoever else I need to balance the party.
Last edited by Necronopticous; 04-09-2010 at 09:06 PM.
I never use HEL2, but HEL3 is actually worth getting - it's pretty much like a CUR2 on every character.
INV2 is a great spell, but you can use it for free all you want if you keep the White Shirt (personally I like to keep both Shirts for the sake of completion).
If I just feel like playing through the game then I'll go with Fighter, Monk, Red Mage, White Mage. This party has everything you need. It's an incredibly fast and easy way to play through the game.
If I'm feeling adventurous I'll change it up. In the line-up I mentioned I replaced the Monk with a Thief once and it really sucked.
Fighter, Fighter, Red Mage, White Mage is interesting.
Pretty much I don't use the Black Mage or the Thief because I find them useless. A White Mage is the only character I consider mandatory but it could be interesting to try the game without one.
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