Absolute Must Haves in Your Party

[Pike]

What jobs/classes are "must-haves" in FF3?

Tell me so I know what to look forward to/aim for as I play this game, because I'm still in the early stages

[Wolf Kanno]

I actually began writing up an overview of the classes for the DS version to help new players.
http://home.eyesonff.com/final-fanta...-overview.html

Sadly, it's half complete, because I'm lazy but it can at least give you an idea about the starting classes and second tier classes. Technically by the third and fourth tier, you're dealing with specialty classes anyway so any combination can be useful. My favorite classes are :

Monk
Red Mage
Knight
Geomancer
Bard
Dark Knight
Dragoon
Summoner
Devout
Magus
Ninja
Black Belt

[VeloZer0]

"they" say that you can get buy just fine without a White Mage, but that really requires you to know what you are doing. You will often find that at many times itimization drives your choices more than personal preference.

[Gamblet]

I used M.Knight, White Wizard, Lancer and a Summoner in my final party. They worked pretty well together.

Summoner is my favourite for random encounters.
M.Knight for massive damage, especially with "attack up" buff from White Wizard.
Lancer because of Blood Spear, he never dies.
White Wizard for buffs and some good healing.

[Alpha2099]

Don't know whether you're playing the DS version or the NES version, though it probably doesn't matter. When I played the NES version a couple months ago, I found that the game kinda sets you up to use certain combinations along the way, and if you deviate from that, you're going to be in trouble.

Fighters are a must at the start, and when you get the Knight class, swap out your Fighter for that. Dragoons come in handy eventually, as do M.Knights (particularly when you get to the splitting enemies). Of course, if you're playing the NES version, when all is said and done, you'll wind up using 2 Ninjas and 2 Sages for your final group.

[VeloZer0]

I'm guessing that M.Knight translates into Dark Knight is the DS version.

In the DS version I actually didn't find the fighter all the useful. Though truth be told I found three red mages and a white mage the best party until the second crystal.

I always have a Dragoon, they are one of the better classes but I don't know if I would call them a must have. I just love Dragoons.

If you plan on using one I would advise keeping a thief in your party right from the get go. There is an optional boss (Odin) that is accessible 2/3 of the way through the game which has the best lance in the game as a stealable item. Only catch is you need a thief of job level 79 to steal it. So you have a choice of playing regularly and grinding out all the job levels before you fight him, or keeping a thief in your party for the entire game.

It isn't as bad as you think though, because you keep one character as one class the whole way the job level will be really high compared to other better jobs. So your lv50 Thief can often out damage your lv15 Dark Knight.

[leader of mortals]

It isn't as bad as you think though, because you keep one character as one class the whole way the job level will be really high compared to other better jobs. So your lv50 Thief can often out damage your lv15 Dark Knight.

I was pretty surprised that, by end game, a job level 99 thief would hit easy 9999s, while my other characters were hitting about 4000-5000.

[VeloZer0]

Wow, I never even tried out a thief end game. I always switched out for Ninja as soon as I had my Gunganir.