"Jobs" with different Materia setups

[ReloadPsi]

(Why the hell does this thread have a winking icon?)

I'm pretty sure almost everyone that's played this game has tried this at some point, but normally now when I play this game I make each character into a specific "Job" similar to the older games in order to make it more interesting and force some limitations on myself in terms of power. Well, until I finally make someone a Blue Mage anyway, whereby I'm then tempted to ban them from my party because Enemy Skill makes the game too easy, but there's another active thread about that.

ANYWAY.

So I've come up with a fair few jobs for this game's Materia system and was hoping people could make some other suggestions beyond my usual lot that can actually last a fair amount of the game and be useful. Or you can read this thread and be all "Oh I haven't tried this idea yet. Imma go replay it this way." Obviously your suggestions don't have to follow this exact format, I'm just being anal. So here goes.

Time Mage: (As some of you know, my all-time favourite class. I get very narked off with some of the neglect this one faces throughout the franchise.)
Main:
Time-All
Gravity-All
Comet
Exit
Optional:
Restore-All (for Regen; in FF5 it was Time and so I still regard it as such even now)
Earth (FF8 classed Quake as Time Magic)
Seal-All (simulates that Mute spell from FF5 somewhat)
W-Magic (simulates Quick)
W-Item (also simulates Quick)
Double Cut (you get the idea)
Quadra Magic-Comet (makes Comet2 even nastier)

White Mage: (Fairly self-explanatory. It can be a little hard to make a White Mage that has crap attack power in this game though so it can be a bit unrealistic.)
Main:
Restore-All
Revive
Heal
Seal
Transform
Mystify
Barrier
Destruct (for DeBarrier and DeSpell)
Full Cure
Optional:
All (to any of the above)
Added Effect (on the armour with one of the statuses)
Shield (though it's so late in the game and isn't really all that useful by the time you get it)
Sense
Magic Plus
MP Plus
Final Attack-Revive

Black Mage: (Yeah. I guess I went there.)
Main:
Lightning
Fire
Ice
Earth
Poison
Destruct (for Death, though FF3 did also class Dispel as a Black spell)
Contain
Ultima
Optional:
W-Magic
Magic Counter on your favourite
Sneak Attack-Ultima
Added Effect-Contain (on a weapon for Petrify, Confuse and Stop)
Mystify (for Toad; some games class it as a Black spell)
Gravity (some games class these as Black)
Magic Plus
MP Plus
An Enemy Skill Materia with only Magic Hammer on it (simulates Osmose)
HP/MP Absorb (most likely on Ultima; simulates Drain or Osmose)
Elemental (on either weapon or armour)
Quadra Magic (oh-so fun)

Summoner: (For me this is never not Vincent due to his Limit Break playing a lot like one of these. In all likelihood by the time he's run out of summons or MP earlier on in the game his limit gauge will be charged.)
Main:
As many Summon Materia as you can fit. By the time you meet him this should be all six of them, and with any luck he'll gain slots faster than you gain summons.
Optional:
MP Plus
HP<->MP (more useful than you'd think; he's always in the back row and you can also use...)
Elemental (on either weapon or armour)
Added Effect-Hades/Odin/Choco-Mog (either on weapon or armour)
Final Attack-Phoenix (yeah baby!)


As a side note I always make Aeris a sage (any of the above Magic or Summon Materia plus whatever Support I feel like) since she's only in the party for the first disc and is an exceptionally good magic user. Basically she becomes Tellah. Excellent.


Thief/Ninja: (Making a character just one of these makes them a bit useless most of the time so it's best for the sake of giving incentive to keep the character in the party to combine the two)
Main:
Steal
Throw
Morph (basically Poach)
Double Cut (simulates dual-wield)
Pre-Emptive
Gil Plus
Optional:
Long Range
Enemy Away

Blue Mage: (I usually put this on a character I'm unlikely to use to balance out the sheer brokenness of Enemy Skill in this game. In other words, Cait Sith.)
Main:
Enemy Skill
Sense (well you get two of them and some Blue Mages come with this ability so...)
Optional:
HP Plus
MP Plus

Tamer/Mimic: (Combined with the Mimic to make sure it's useful in more than like eight battles.)
Main:
Manipulate
Mime
Optional:
Mystify (gives it something to play around with)
Transform (ditto)
Seal (")
EXP Plus (I kinda liken this to a Gambler sort of class for some reason. No idea why.)
Gil Plus (Same again.)

Monk/Knight/Archer hybrid: (This one takes a really long time to get good but is worth it later on. It's another case of just one of the classes alone not being represented well enough)
Main:
Cover
Counter Attack (as many as you can get!)
Double Cut (simulates Rapid Fire somewhat, more so when it gains 4xCut)
Slash-All (simulates Rapid Fire somewhat, also becomes that instead death-to-all ability from FF5 that the Samurai gets... forgot its name. Damn. Obviously you don't want both this AND Double Cut; this overrides it.)
HP Plus (lots of them)
Deathblow
Luck Plus (more critical hits)
Optional:
Long Range
W-Item (some of FF9's melee fighters could learn Chemist; this somewhat simulates it)
Speed Plus (might as well, eh?)
Enemy Lure

Berserker: On my last No Materia run I made Tifa this (minus the Materia of course) with the Premium Heart equipped and a full limit meter. It was awesome.
Main:
Equip the Fury Ring accessory and never remove it. This is absolutely mandatory.
Optional: (Be sure to put these on the weapon; that Gigas Armlet prevents Materia growth.)
Equip the Gigas Armlet for +30 Strength. You win one from Demon's Gate and they can also be stolen from the Gigas on the first visit to the northern crater.
Counter Attack (I forget whether or not this activates under Berserk. If it doesn't then forget it.)
Long Range
Speed Plus
Enemy Lure
HP Plus

[Raistlin]

I usually only have three "jobs" with materia: Black Mage, White Mage, and Summoner. In my standard party of Cloud/Tifa/Cid, Cloud is my black mage with the most powerful magic materia, Tifa is my white mage with the healing materia, and Cid has most of the summon materia. There's obviously some overlap, as, for instance, I'm not giving Cid all of the summons, but that is generally the division. I distribute command materia and others as-needed, with everyone getting a Magic Plus and Enemy Skill.

Your classes are very interesting and well thought out. The physical-only classes will suffer early on in the game, but later will be way more powerful than the ones with only magic materia. Maybe I'll change things up on my next playthrough.

[VeloZer0]

I usually go with some sort of Caster + Tank + Attacker set up. Caster is in the back row bogged down with materia but has a big MP pool, Tank has the cover materia and Fury to use lots of limits. When not curing uses curing and support materia. Attacker specializes in physical attacks, uses deathblow, added cut, double cut in the order that I get them.

Now that you have gotten me started, I must think up a few more classes.

Samurai
Slash-All (upgraded to Flash to simulate the 'Slash' attack from FF5)
Deathblow
Luck-Plus
Added-Effect + Destruct (on Weapon)
Final-Attack + Leviathan
Enemy Skill w/ '????'

Dragoon (only Cid obviously )
Deathblow + Added Cut
HP Plus
Bahamut
Contain + Elemental (in armor)
Enemy Skills w/ 'Dragon Force'

Temple Knight (Beowolf from FFT)
Contain + Added Effect (on Weapon)
Hades + Added Effect (on Weapon)
Transform
Mystify
Seal
Luck Plus
Luck Plus
Long Range

[Rostum]

It'd be nice if you could switch characters in during battle, then this could be a much more interesting mechanic. Otherwise I never really bothered to give each character a set job.

[ReloadPsi]

It'd be nice if you could switch characters in during battle, then this could be a much more interesting mechanic. Otherwise I never really bothered to give each character a set job.

Yeah. Usually I just rotate them throughout the game.

Dragoon (only Cid obviously )
Deathblow + Added Cut
HP Plus
Bahamut
Contain + Elemental (in armor)
Enemy Skills w/ 'Dragon Force'

Ooh, that's a good one, I'll have to try it out (I'm only up to Costa Del Sol on my latest run so I've plenty of time to play with any other suggestions that come up.) Shame Dragon Force is so late in the game though. The Deathblow + Added Cut combo is interesting; I couldn't really think of any other way to simulate the high physical damage output of a Dragoon. I liked some of your class-specific summons too; I'll have to play around with some of those.

Anyways, here's a few more.

Red Mage: (Cloud only, given the weapon choice; mostly based on the magic pool of FF5)
Main:
Lightning
Ice
Fire
Restore
Transform
W-Magic
MP Absorb (on whichever elemental you're casting most often at the moment so it works a little bit like Refresh from FFXI. Hey, just because I didn't like it doesn't mean I don't know any of its abilities!)
Optional:
Barrier
Elemental
Power Wrist/Champion Belt (negates the strength debuffs caused by all those greens)

Ranger: (Vincent or Yuffie; or Barret - long-range weapons only)
Main:
Double Cut or Slash-All
Choco-Mog
Shiva
Ifrit
Ramuh
Optional:
HP Plus

Dancer: (best suited to Tifa end game because of God's Hand's accuracy)
Main:
Added Effect-Mystify on weapon
Luck Plus (and use every single Luck Source obtained on this character to boost critical hits)
Elemental-Fire on weapon (some human enemies in the game are weak to fire so it's the closest thing to Man Eater I guess... if only all of them had a consistent weakness like they did in FF8)
MP Absorb-Deathblow
Ribbon
Optional:
Chocobo Lure (boosts luck if there's room)

Onion Knight (Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aeris and Red XIII only... well, pretty much)
Main:
This can only be equipped with, and let's be a bit fair here, any equipment up to what can be bought in Kalm. This also means none of the carbon bangles stolen from the Moth Slashers nor any of the stronger weapons you can steal in the early stages. After this, that character may only equip their ultimate weapon and the Mystile. The crap equipment early on and the awesome sudden upgrade at the end reflects the weird sudden growth an Onion Knight gets at the highest levels. Essentially this is some kind of ridiculous challenge class :P
Optional:
As for Materia, it depends on which Onion Knight you're imitating. I'd go for any green Materia (referencing their magic repertoire in FF3 DS) or none at all.

Poking around the Final Fantasy Wiki procured this interesting tidbit.

The characters of Final Fantasy VII were originally to have job classes. However, this idea was dropped during development. It is unknown if this would have actually affected gameplay. Cloud was intended as a Mystic Knight, Barret a Gunner, Tifa was a "Shooter" (a Monk based on Shootfighting), Aerith was a Geomancer, Red XIII was a "Beast", Cid was a "Pilot" or Dragoon, Vincent was a "Horror-Terror (Horror Researcher)", Yuffie was to be Ninja or Assassin, and Cait Sith was a "Toysaurus", a type of Beastmaster. Even if the jobs were removed from the final product, some of the characters still retain traits of their intended classes.

I wonder if they were gonna limit who could use what kinds of Materia, or if this was what they had in mind before they brought Materia in to replace it outright? I can see what they mean about retained traits though: there's Cait Sith's megaphone and the way he comes packing the Manipulate Materia. Tifa's fighting stance really does have shootfighting written all over it, and Cloud does indeed start off packing some elemental spells, and then there's everyone's Limit Breaks too; I especially love Cid's allusions to Kain Highwind of FF4. Damn, what coulda been eh? I'm glad they went with Materia in the end though.

[Mercen-X]

Dragoon (only Cid obviously )
Deathblow + Added Cut
HP Plus
Bahamut
Contain + Elemental (in armor)
Enemy Skills w/ 'Dragon Force'

Shame Elemental doesn't provide defense from the elements Contain'ed within that materia.

[VeloZer0]

I never remember which one it is that you equip for the best elemental defense. Possibly Kjata?

[ReloadPsi]

I'm under the impression that there is no single Materia that can bestow multiple elements when paired with Elemental. Anything on Added Effect with statuses gives all it's got available, but not elements.

[Alpha2099]

I never remember which one it is that you equip for the best elemental defense. Possibly Kjata?

Nope. Kjata does some sort of three-elemental attack, but if you notice in the Materia menu screen, it doesn't have an element under its name like Choco/Mog or Shiva. That one doesn't work.

[Mercen-X]

I never remember which one it is that you equip for the best elemental defense. Possibly Kjata?

Nope. Kjata does some sort of three-elemental attack, but if you notice in the Materia menu screen, it doesn't have an element under its name like Choco/Mog or Shiva. That one doesn't work.

The opposite of what you've just said.


Different jobs, different look?

[Jiro]

That's a pretty neat picture! I would love to see all the characters wearing different outfits. Cloud should be in Aeris' dress just once so he can say he did

[ReloadPsi]

Seeing Cloud in a Red Mage pimp hat would really add something to the Don Corneo sequence wouldn't it?

[slayerzack1]

these are the Materia that i got Destruct,Odin,Gravity,Lighting,Heal,Restore,Restore,Shiva,Ice,Fire,Fire,Kjata,Bahamut,Sence,Steal,Co ver,Counter attack,Chocobo lure,MP plus,Ramuh,Ifrit,Choco/mog,Luck MP plus,All,Time,Posion,Elemental,Deathblow,Earth,All,Restore,Mystify,Lighting,Revive,Morph,Added Effect,Transform,


i still need more to get

my party is Cloud,Tifa,Vincent

what job setup should i do

[ReloadPsi]

Whatever you want; I just do it to emulate the older FF games and add a bit of self-imposed challenge; giving each character the most powerful setup possible at any given time makes the game too easy.

[slayerzack1]

i still need help picking