Masters of Magic

[qwertysaur]

What type of Magic is your favorite?

White Mage: First appearing in the original Final Fantasy, controls holy magic to heal, damage undead, and cast holy, all while wearing white hooded robes. (Cat ears optional)

Black Mage: First appearing in the original Final Fantasy, controls the elements to do damage or obliterate the target with their pointy hats and often obscured faces.

Red Mage: First appearing in the original Final Fantasy, combines both White and Black magic, for a more rounded mage. Also not squishy and can take a hit or two. Comes with a stylish red cap.

Time Mage: First appearing the original Final Fantasy V, manipulates time and space to support the party, weaken the enemy and wear conical hats.

Blue Mage: First appearing in Final Fantasy V, these mages take a unique approach, they study monsters and use their abilities for many effects. They have a blue hat, but it's exact shape varies. Capes or Domino masks may substitute or supplement if needed.

Green Mage: Picking a fine color, these mages focus on Strengthening their allies and weakening their foes with status effects. First appearing in Final Fantasy XII. They like to wear berets.

Summoners: First appearing in Final Fantasy III, summoners call powerful beings to aid their fight. Often supplemented with another type of magic, summoners forsake hats for their own headgear, a horn.

My favorite is the Blue Mage personally.

[Flying Arrow]

Blue. I ALWAYS try to work an enemy-skill user into my party in every game. In my last play of V, my final party included Bartz as a Blue Mage backed up with Time abilities. Awesome. My last play of VI involved my first ever use of a beefed-up Strago in my final party (I was going for a 3/4 magic-using party). In VII, I usually turn Tifa into a physical powerhouse equipped with a nearly maxed-out Enemy Skill materia. I keep green materia off her too to make sure her STR stays as high as possible. She's always my most efficient killer. When I do play VIII, I use Quistis because a) she's hot, and b) I like the very simple way of acquiring Blue magic. For that same reason, I don't really use Quina in IX. Hate having to reduce the enemy down to minimal health and then eat. Annoying.

But yeah, blue magic is great because it usually includes Black, White, Green, Time, etc somewhere in its library. None of my parties are complete without a blue guy.

[Jessweeee♪]

Tough choice between Time Mage and Black Mage. I especially loved the time magic and stalling techniques Tidus had in FFX. Blue mages tend to be useless for most of the game, and completely broken in the few situations they are worth using xD

[Hollycat]

I stick with brute force, and sometimes magic

[ChickenHeart]

A tossup between the green mage and the blue mage.

I like the way green mages buff up allies and inflict status effects but, blue magic is just so much better and stronger.

[Depression Moon]

There isn't any Red magic in the series only the job which is a mix of black/white and warrior. I wonder why they never called it a Gray mage. I guess it doesn't sound as cool.
I think they gave Green it's own category first in XII and I hope maybe that a future game can have a character specifically for that class. In XII I thought it was a little weird that they had status ailments. I was thinking it would make more since if the magics were set up like this:

Black Magic:All elemental spells + Flare + Ultima
White Magic: Scan + Restorative spells + Life, Full-Life + Status removers + Holy
Blue Magic: Mighty Guard, Magic Hammer, White Wind, Aqua Breath, etc.
Time Magic: Haste, Hastega, + Slow, Slowga + Stop, Stopga + Gravity Spells + Teleport + Float + Comet + Meteor
Green Magic: Protect, Protega, + Shell, Shellga, + Reflect + Bravery, Faith + Nulblaze, Nulfrost, Nultide, Nulshock, Nulbreeze + Dispel
Arcane Magic: Status inflicting + Dark, Darkra, Darkga + Drain, Osmose + Death

[VeloZer0]

I like Red Mages, but mainly for their sword and armor abilities, so I guess that is kind of cheating.

I like using blue magic in principle, but it is such a chore to learn about it in each entry the only one I ever bothered with was FF7.

So I am going to throw my lot in with the White Mages provided that a) they know holy, b) they don't have any !#$^ing cat ears on their robe.

[TrollHunter]

-cough- on tactics A2 the best is Illusionist/seer/dual wield (or paladin/seer/dual wield)
or doublecasting summoner
on the normal ff though I love me some green mages.

[Wolf Kanno]

Toss up between Blue Mage and Time Mage. Especially FFV/FFT Time Mages, they are just brutal. Blue Mages can be a pain to get their skills until you really learn where they all are. I don't even use Green Materia in VII, the Enemy Skill Materia is just superior and by the end of Disc 1, you'll have most of the broken skills.

Quina is also a beast but sadly you need to know your enemies well. Though by Disc 3 it'll have access to spells like Tornado and Quake which do some serious damage. I think Quistis is my least favorite Blue Mage but its because her skills are outclassed by everyone's limit breaks. Strago is surprisingly powerful once you get most of his Lores and FFV Blue Mages are just plain mean.

XI's Blue Mages sound pretty frightening as well.

[Jiro]

I like Red Mages, but mainly for their sword and armor abilities, so I guess that is kind of cheating.

[qwertysaur]

I like how Blue mages are winning.

[Fynn]

Guess.

[Depression Moon]

I never really answered the topic of this thread. I think I might have to go with Blue Magic. Its a bit harder to obtain all the Blue Magic spells for a Blue Mage compared to others, but they're more varied overall. I would have to place Summons to tie with it, because they're just so cool and story wise I believe that they're supposed to be the most powerful form of magic.

Wish this poll was multiple choice.

[Mercen-X]

Blue Magic... it's a kind of poetic justice for fiends to be taken down by their own fiendish powers.
But, I gotta have my very own monsters too. It's a form of poetic justice in its own right to summon a monster roughly the size of the enemy you're fighting (if not bigger) to fight for you.

[Kyros]

Ive never liked blue mages, and I voted for white mages. It can vary from game to game my favorite caster, but overall if I could only have one in a game I would probably choose white since heals are really nice (regen is often overpowered).