"Jobs" with different Materia setups

[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.