Quote Originally Posted by Depression Moon View Post
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.