how did you plan out and build your characters?

[mindfray]

So right now I'm not sure how I'm going to level my characters. I have fran with white and black magic, everyone else has white magics. vaan with katanna or ninja sword, balthier with guns, and might get basch on two handed swords.

i have the official stragety guide, but i'm still not sure how exactly i should plan them out, they are all level 8 or 9 now.

[Jessweeee♪]

I just kind of gave them whatever was most convenient. For the most part they were the same, there were just minor differences like Balthier and Penelo typically having poles and Fran, Vaan, and Ashe tended to learn spells before anyone else.


Tip: Fran's base stats are the lowest all around when everybody is at high levels. Ashe's are the highest. There isn't a very large difference though.

[Roto13]

Katana's do more damage with higher magic power so Vaan probably shouldn't have one. The ladies do better with katanas than the men.

I end up guiding everyone towards the quickenings as early as possible and then going from there. :P

I also just picked three party members and built them up while using the remaining three to kind of explore the license board so I knew where everything was. xP

[Depression Moon]

Try placing the characters in job roles that should make things fun. For info and tips, check out this thread.

http://forums.eyesonff.com/final-fan...e-playing.html

[Roogle]

I based my characters off of their default weapons. The character with the most varied weapon sets was Penelo, as I used her to experiment with weapons like Staves and Measures.

[Vermachtnis]

I gave Ashe 2-handed swords and Heavy armor. I had Baltheir with Spears and Light armor and Penelo with staves and light armor. Penelo got the Black and White Magic too and Baltheir got the support magic and Ashe got the skills. Of course that only lasted til Old Archades when I ran out of license to buy so I started buying whatever.

[Crowseye]

First time through I just got everybody everything and used whatever seemed best/convenient. More recently I've tried to loosely fit the zodiac job system to my characters in the original version, blending role-playing "jobs" with the practical concern of who has a comparative advantage (to use a term from Economics 101) in a given weapon type or skill.

Role-playing wise, I blended my own vision of the character with others' visions, such as from Revenant Wings.

So I started with something like: Basch = knight, Ashe = time mage, Fran = archer, Balthier = sky pirate/machinist, Penelo = white mage, Vaan = ninja/thief

Then I add a second "zodiac job" that corresponds to weapons or skills that the character is relatively good at compared to the others from a purely statistical perspective. So Ashe += samurai (katanas) and Balthier += breaker (axes & hammers), then Vaan += black mage and Fran += red mage, since they are the next two most-powerful magic users after Penelo and Ashe, who are casters in their "primary" roles. That leaves Penelo += monk and Basch += dragoon/lancer

[Remon]

Vaan - Samurai Healer
Penelo - Black magic Gunner
Ashe - Knight Buffer (greatswords + buffs)
Balthier - Barbaric thief (Steal, swords and a few technicks)
Fran - Forest Ranger (items + crossbow)
Basch - Godmodder (zodiac spear + berserk)

Penelo the Black magic gunner is my favourite. The gun suits her so much :3

[Roogle]

First time through I just got everybody everything and used whatever seemed best/convenient. More recently I've tried to loosely fit the zodiac job system to my characters in the original version, blending role-playing "jobs" with the practical concern of who has a comparative advantage (to use a term from Economics 101) in a given weapon type or skill.

Does the Zodiac Job System imply who is best in what role? For example, does Balthier start out on a default job class or is everything set manually at the start of the game or upon character recruitment without any default options?

[leader of mortals]

I based everything on the character's stats, and I only really used Vaan, Ashe, and Balthier, the other characters were just strong enough to revive the main party.

Vaan was a warrior, and was given the Zodiac Spear as soon as I got it. He learned Green Magic, but never really used it.

Ashe was a white mage, and used Katanas. She would be my primary white mage and, with her magic, she could deal some pretty good damage with the katanas.

Balthier had a bow, and used items and some white magic. While Ashe's gambits would be maybe Hp<70% Cura, his was HP<50% Hi-Potion, so we wouldn't get overwhelmed as easy. At some more hectic times, Ashe and Balthier were both healing constantly, while Vaan was the one doing all the damage(The Gilgamesh battle comes to mind).

[Wolf Kanno]

I just started a new file so I'm pre-planning a bit now.

Vaan is going to specialize in Light Armor, so his jobs will be Thief (Daggers), Monk (Bare-handed and Poles) and finally Ninja. Once I get the better equips for speed, I'm twinking him to Ninja.

Penelo is going to be a sage, specializing in Black and White magic. I may change this and make her a pure white mage or a white mage Green Mage combo. She'll stick to Mystic armor.

Balthier is going to be a ranger/machinist, so he'll get some 1-handed swords and a few shields but will specialize in guns, crossbows, explosives, and possibly the bow. He'll also be using a ton of the skills in the game. He'll use low level Heavy Armor and mostly Light armor.

Fran was originally going to be a Green Mage using bows and Hammers but since she already starts with some black and white magic, I may end up making her a Red Mage, she'll stick to some light armor and mystic armor but I'll limit her from getting the high tier stuff and I'm not letting her use shields and swords.

Basch is going to be Cecil Harvey... so basically a Dark Knight/ Paladin combo depending on what is needed. He'll get some white magic and maybe a few arcane spells. He'll have a gambit set up for Soul Eater unless it becomes troublesome like Steal gambits are and I have to use him manually. He'll equip some light armor for Paladin but mostly will be using Heavy Armor. He'll use Shields and 1-handed swords until Greatswords become available. His last single handed sword for Dark Knight will be the Blood Sword.

Ashe, will be a time mage in the beginning with a few black and Arcane magics as well. Once Samurai swords become available, she'll become my Samurai character though she won't be able to equip the highest tier Heavy Armor but I may make an exception for Mystic Armor. Genji Armor will be exclusive to her.

I haven't quite decided how I want to do summons just yet. I know Belias will go to Ashe no matter what cause it works for the story. I need to experiment with them a bit in my other file and do some research before I give them a good partner. That's the plan at least.

[Depression Moon]

Huh? both of us had Vaan for a Thief and Ninja. I didn't like himas a ninja though, probably because I made the switch too late in the game. Shortly after I made him a ninja he came across a lot of enemies that absorb shadow damage. I never understood why they put the shadow element on all the ninja weapons. It would make more sense for a dark knight class.

I see you're going to have Ashe as a samurai. What do samurais do exactly because I was going to make Basch one one time, but I had no clue what kind of abilities he should focus on.

[Wolf Kanno]

Huh? both of us had Vaan for a Thief and Ninja. I didn't like himas a ninja though, probably because I made the switch too late in the game. Shortly after I made him a ninja he came across a lot of enemies that absorb shadow damage. I never understood why they put the shadow element on all the ninja weapons. It would make more sense for a dark knight class.

My main beef with Ninja blades is that they do appear rather late in the game and they are not so useful in some of the final dungeons. My main goal is to build him for speed so I can farm better and besides, his naturally high stats offset some of the weaknesses the Ninja blades have. I'll just switch him to a monk or thief build when I get to Giruvegan or try my hand at the Prenumbra for the Shadowseer Mark.

I see you're going to have Ashe as a samurai. What do samurais do exactly because I was going to make Basch one one time, but I had no clue what kind of abilities he should focus on.

The main thing to realize with samurai swords is that they work like Tactics' version of them which means your Magic stat is more important than strength though strength also helps. If you are using Basch, you need to give him some parts of the Mystic armor so he can raise his low MA stat. Luckily, one of the final Heavy Helms gives a great Magic Power boost so that's a possibility as well. For Ashe, it's the opposite, she needs strength which makes the Genji armor perfect for her cause it raises strength naturally. If you plan on using a Samurai, the biggest "must have" item is the Genji Gloves. It raises the chances of performing multi-hit attacks which Samurai weapons have the highest percentages of doing. They are basically combo experts. With critical condition hp, the Masemune, the Genji Glove and berserk status; you raise the chances of performing a double digit number combo attack sky high and basically have the best DD in the game thanks to the power/speed boost that Berserk gives. I used this to take down Yiazmat without the Zodiac Spear, and its because of this that I feel fans have blown that little Easter egg out of proportions for its notoriety cause it's not really the best weapon in the game.

I don't plan on giving Ashe much in the way of magic beyond Time Mage stuff which may put a damper on keeping her in high damage market since berserk makes her an ineffective mage. Its more of a reason to make Fran a Red Mage and let her dabble in all the spells. In terms of skills to give her, I may give her some of the debuff skills like Shear since I can't see the other classes having these type of skills but right now I'm also debating about making Balthier a Blur Mage so he may end up using all of the skills.

[LunaRaven]

Well, i'm not as strategic pre-game as a lot of other players seem to be. I've never really taken the time to sit down an plan who will take what role. I'm more of a, "adjust to the ingame obstacle" sort of player. For my part, my main party is always Ashe, Basch, and Penelo. Ashe somehow always manages to be my highest leveled character, usually beating her fellows by three or four levels. This amazes me sometimes, because I try to keep my characters equally leveled, and unlike FFX(where I loved Auron so much[he's my favorite FF character, by the by] I had a tendency to use him to the point where he overshot all my other characters by a mile level wise), I actually paid attention to all of my characters in this game. Penelo, Ashe, and Fran usually come out top magic wise, but near the end of my game almost all of my players can use every spell and every category of magic. I think Fran and Balthier are my most versatile characters(suiting their roles as pirates). When the situation calls for it, Fran can use a hard-hitting axe or a high-level bow, and her MP is pretty consistent. Balthier is the same way.

I'm just a go with the flow sort of gamer, I suppose. Especially with FFXII, which offers you the freedom to switch between classes very easily unlike other installments in the series, which restrict you to certain job sets.