Battle Characters

[Raistlin]

Do you prefer story characters or generics to use for your main party? If you prefer story characters, which ones? If you prefer generics, are there any classes you always use?

I prefer generics, and it is largely aesthetic (generics' appearances change with their job). I sometimes use Mustadio (guns are awesome) and Orlandu, though.

For my party, I change it up a lot. However, I almost always have a Wizard/Time Mage hybrid, because I love magic. Also, in most of my games Ramza has a similar progression of jobs: Monk -> Ninja -> Knight (later in the game). My other characters can vary wildly. In some games I won't use Calculators, because they can use any and all magic abilities they learn, which I think takes away from the variety of a party.

Discuss your battle parties.

[Lawr]

In all Tactics games I always have the leader as a fighting class/healing class mix. Squire or Knight/White Mage or Chemist. In the sequel, Fighter or Paladin/White Mage.

As for preferred characters, I really like the generics but I've always had at least one story character. It progressed slowly though, I stayed with Agrias all the way until I recruited Orlandu.

And my party is also a pretty standard line-up.
BM/TM, WM/SM, KN/WM, STORY, LEAD

But in TA it's really varied. I make .rtf files planning the classes and growth of my party for entire playthroughs. You definitely want to have Vieras on your team. And also a Hunter/Paladin with Holy Blade and Sonic Boom will do you good.

[Bunny]

I always preferred the generated characters to storyline characters. I felt like I had more control over their overall development and it allowed for me, in the full glory of my complete nerd-dom, to create backgrounds and stories for each character within the game itself. Admittedly, that was only done with one or two characters, but it still occurred from time to time.

[Jiro]

I don't like that the story character sprites are standard. I don't feel they truly represent the class and so I always prefer the generic guys. Besides, you can make them cooler in your own head. Story characters say things, and sometimes those things are idiotic

[docta fizz]

Generics are awesome. I actually start the game and the first chance I get I recruit new characters that have maximum balance (zodiac signs compliment eachother), and is it strange to plan out your parties growth before you even start the game. I have beaten it 4/5 times but I just want to know what I'm going to use before I get started.

summoner/whitemage always in the party
wizard/time mage
squire/other ------------ramza
lancer/chemist
last characer varies greatly but usually magic inclined unless I need more tanks (knight/lancer)

(I also occasionally use beowolf sp?? because of his massive damage against bosses)

There are just to many good reasons to be a magic heavy player in this game.

Also next time you play, don't use t.g. cid. He nerfs the whole game With just him I killed 9 of those 3 headed dragons in deap dungeon. Utterly rediculous.

[Kyros]

My playthrough on PS I used Ramza, Beowulf, Meliadul, Orlandu, and Cloud (lol I liked using stop so I could use cherry blossom). On my current playthrough for the PSP version I use Ramza, Luso, Orlandeau (lol changing how names are spelled and some of the spell/skill names along with the dialog), Reis (best stat growth in the game she's awesome), and Beowulf. I really don't see how generics could compare with the story/special characters though I feel bad dropping them after using them for so long

[Raistlin]

Favoring generics is more about aesthetics and customization than thinking it's a significant advantage in battle.

[VeloZer0]

Favoring generics is more about aesthetics and customization than thinking it's a significant advantage in battle.

Absolutely.

A well thought out, balanced and twinked out party of generics will easily beat a party of special characters, but if you go to the same effort to twink out the builds of the special characters the generics have no chance.

[Wolf Kanno]

I play with the generics more now that I'm older. I still use Story Characters for story missions (at least in Tactics) but I generally stick to generics. In later playthroughs, its been fun actually trying to tweak out story characters that have disadvantages (OMG I use Cloud but I actually don't use Finishing Touch Oh My! ) but overall, in the original Tactics, I enjoy twinking out all the characters and using different party set-ups.

In the TA series its different, I actually don't care for most of the Story Characters and very few have good advantages so I'm genuinely better off using my starting unit cause Story Characters rarely have strong advantages and tend to be underleveled. Since TA series has also gone out of its way to make grinding not an easy thing to do, its generally not worth the effort to use a sub par party for dozens of battles just so they can slowly catch up to the main party I use.

[Skyblade]

The characters I use depend on how much I like them. I rarely use Seeq in FFTA2, because their map sprites are terrible (despite some, like the Lanista, having cool portraits). So visuals determine a lot of my generic use. Assassins are great for an excellent mix of good asthetics and great power.

Story characters I tend to use more often, because they usually have more development, and I feel more attached to them. I will take the effort to make them equal the rest of the team (not easy at all on some), because I just like the characters. Frimelda is always-always-always on my team, because she is too awesome to leave behind.

[Kyros]

A well thought out, balanced and twinked out party of generics will easily beat a party of special characters, but if you go to the same effort to twink out the builds of the special characters the generics have no chance.

I'm failing to see how this would be possible. I bet Beowulf could solo all of them via chicken, Orandu would one shot them with anything he could possibly do, Ramza is main character and his just awesome... The only special characters I think this might pertain to would be the crappy bro/sis that have the heaven/hell skills and maybe mustadio.

[VeloZer0]

I can create some extremely overpowered combinations of generics. Black Mage + Draw Out geared for maximum MA can take out most characters at a range of 8 panels. A ninja bare handed can easily do 600-800 damg, and have MP Switch so as to be 100% unkillable on the first attack. You get a whole party together with these and other tricks and it would slaughter a party of specials that are essentially equipped with the abilities of their base class.

I do concede that if you took the effort to set the specials us with thought out secondary abilities that synergize well they would be much better than the generics.

Or to put it another way, the first time I beat the game I had a party of specials. The second time I did it all with generics, but I knew way more about what I was doing and had a far stronger party. This was in turn eclipsed by applying the same knowledge to my specials in playthrough #3.

[Kyros]

Special characters can do everything the generics can do except they're simply better. They almost always have a much better class in place of squire, and they have better stat growth.

[docta fizz]

Yes special are generally more powerful than generics, but you can have a rediculously well balanced team either way. Generics you need to put thought into, whereas specials you just pound away with tg cid/beouw/etc. If your not on your first playthrough it's way better to use generics. It forces you to think about the next battle instead of just raining down orlandeus' next atack

[Saber]

I like to keep it with the story characters. I loved the new Dark Knight class in the psp release. It is sad though leaving all the recruits that you leveled up half way through the game. When I get ANY character with a magic sword ability I level them up right away.

This is how I end up setting up my characters in the deep dungeon.

agrias oaks as holy knight/white mage.
Ramza Beoulve as dark knight/Squire.
Count Cidolfus Orlandeau as Holy knight/mystic
Meliadoul Tengille as divine knight/summoner
Beowulf Cadmas as templar/monk.

I ever thought I would go out and master every job class again (not after doing it on the play station 1 version. But now that I'm really into the psp version... I just might have, only for my favorites this time.