Jobs do indeed help. As does equipment, and someone who can rebuild Norende quickly and farm for a little extra PG (not Gil! One of the few names changed from Final Fantasy) can get an incredible amount of good equipment early on. My whole team is running around in Rainbow Dresses (Ringabel has to look fashionabluh, after all) and Red Caps, which helps a ton (I got Rainbow Dresses shortly before Confusion entered the playing field as well, so I haven't ever been Confused). But only up to a point. Then the game decides you need more and better stuff.Originally Posted by maybee
Mastering Jobs also gives you a stat bonus when using that Job (one of the NPCs described it as increasing the Job's Stat Proficiency, though I don't know if the letters actually change), and that helps quite a bit. But even stats won't carry you in this game.
To anyone who played the demo, you should remember the Myconids (Mushroom enemies). They're a perfect example. I remembered them from the demo, but I was pretty heavily over-leveled at the time, so I figured I would try auto-attacking them. I killed something like 16, before the constant spawns wore me down and killed me (I had Healing Magic at the time, but no characters wielding black magic, nor did I think to use Sleep-Blade at the time). Until and unless you get powerful enough to one-shot them, you will need Magic to stop these guys. And you aren't likely to one-shot them until a return trip.
MP becomes a precious resource (at least, to someone like me, who never uses items). You have to use it, for healing to getting through certain encounters, and I've found myself monitoring it more closely than I have in any Final Fantasy game. I use Treat from the Freelancer to heal whenever possible, but between status effects and the amount of damage that enemies can do in a short time, you want to keep yourself pretty well topped off, and only Magic will heal out of combat.
This game also encourages variable Job use in a way that no game that has used the system thus far has. While the Job system itself is as simple and straightforward as ever, the actually Jobs are incredibly well balanced. Each has its use, and you can combine them in all sorts of ways. Every challenge can be overcome if you approach it the correct way. For example, most people would think to use magic against the Myconids, but a Spell-Fencer with Sleep can typically do just as well, for cheaper MP cost. Both White Magic and Time Magic each command an extra element (Wind and Earth, respectively), opening up some greater variability to the classes than just healing, buffing, and gravity.
I love how much I am having to plan through the fights, and I love how much the game rewards you for it. I do think a few of the bosses are a little ridiculous on the damage scale, but even then, when you figure out the puzzle of what you need to take them down, what strategy to use, what jobs to use, when to Brave, when to Default, it feels so very rewarding.
I also think it is worth another mention that, despite the difficulty, this game has no "right" way to beat a boss. I've searched through for a couple of strategies for bosses that I've already beaten (somehow, I have managed to avoid spoiling myself at all for this game, and I am very thankful for that). No two have been the same. I see tons of people asking for help with this boss or that boss, and the answers are always different. You have to play smart, but you don't have to play a particular way. This is not an easy task to pull off. They give you enough tools in the Job system, and the Brave/Default system, to take on a task, and then they just let you take it on. There are so many, many ways to combine those features that, while only a tiny fraction of them will work, you can find your own strategy.
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