WK does an FFV Let's Play?

[Wolf Kanno]

It's time to review the Earth Crystal Job Classes. I must say, next to the fire Crystal, this might be my favorite set of new classes in the game. Let's start with the oldest standby...
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Dragoons

The sneaky Dragon Knight returns

Stats
Strength: +18
Agility: +5
Stamina: +15
Magic: -12
Ability: Jump
Innate: None
Class Type: Take*
Weapons: Spears and Knives
Armor: Shields, Heavy armor and Helmets, Gauntlets, and Clothes.

Short Version: Dragoons are boring but really practical jobs to use.

Okay, here's the long version. Overall, the class is really solid, it has a pretty strong stat spread with a small but decent boost to agility over some other melee focused classes on this list. Jump is a really awesome move. It removes a character for a round in order to do unblockable damage that ignores row. If the character is equipped with a Spear, Man-Eater dagger, Twin Lance, Judgement Staff, or Staff of Light, they will do double damage instead. Rod weapons will still miss, and any weapon that doesn't do normal physical damage... like harps and the healing wand will always miss. Jump also ignores the sub-ability of a weapon so magic effects and such will never activate except for the Lilith Rod for some reason. Of course the big thing to point out here is that only Dragoons and the Freelancer class have the ability to use spears naturally. So Jump loses a bit of it's oomph from FFIV. It also lost it's "throw damage" status from FFIV so the weapon type doesn't get to do extra damage to enemies with the Flying status like Kain could. So in some ways, the class is a bit inferior to it's FFIV incarnation but still gets some benefits like not activating counters. Spears scale with strength so obviously you'll want use strength boosting gear and sub abilities. Dragoons are one of the rare melee focus classes where Rapidfire isn't really worth using with. Spears are pretty nifty weapons but their strength really comes with being used with Jump. And there my friend is the rub, like Monk and Ranger, Dragoons are a bit of an insular class.

The overall build is pretty perfect, and so they don't get as much from the sub-job system like other melee classes, likewise, their build really only works best when used together, so other jobs don't get as much of a benefit from their skills like other classes can. Lance is the exception, it's a pretty snazzy ability to give to a dedicated mage character you don't wish to sub a secondary mage job to. Great for long term dungeons so White Mages get some serious mileage from it. Sadly, Equip Spears is not really worth it without Jump, and while Jump has several advantages, its less optimal in most situations without spears. The best skills to give a Dragoon are either skills to maximize their damage potential or ones that take advantage of the classes survival skills. Doublehand and Dual-Wield are pretty good skills to give the class for better damage output. Though the class take a hit to magic, a high enough White Magic level can offset this issue and they make good healers. Time Magic and Blue Magic is also a nice choice since both don't bother with the magic stat much and skills like White Wind and Return can save a battle that's gone south. Another option is to give them the Chemist's Revive skill which makes the dragoon's habit of being the last man standing super useful. The class has options but you'll likely spend most of your time using the base class and not much else. So to reiterate the short version: Boring but practical.

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Dancer
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Defeat enemies with the mysterious powers of THE DANCE!


Stats
Strength: +5
Agility: +5
Stamina: -10
Magic: -5
Ability: Dance
Innate: Equip Ribbon*
Class Type: Give
Weapons: Knives
Armor: Clothes, armlets, robes, Ribbon*

I may have spoken too soon when I said the Ninja was the melee classes glass cannon, in truth, Dancers kind of have them beat. Yes, this is a melee class at heart, though their low magic penalty and access to certain elemental boosting gear can make them pretty decent mages if you want. Still the heart of their skill and equipment set is based around doing physical damage to enemies. Like Bard's before, this class has several weaknesses compared to other melee classes. They equip light cloth armor instead of any real defensive gear, they are the only melee class to have a penalty to their stamina, and even worse, said penalty is the biggest of all the available classes, so Dancers tend to have lower hp and defense than even some mage classes. Even their strength boost is pretty pathetic for a melee job. So you might be wondering why this class can even be worth using if I told you earlier that Bard's were a class you level up until you learn Sing and then never look back. Well truth be told, Dancers are the same way, this is a class whose skill sets are better served with other classes. But much like Dragoons and Rangers, there are certain perks to using the class by itself since many of their skills really work best with their build. It's imperative if you plan on using this class to give them gear and accessories that increase evasion. You don't want them taking hits so the Main Gauche and Elven Cloak are the best friend for this class.

Flirt is the vendor trash skill this class first teaches. It has a 50% chance of inflicting Charm but unlike the Bard song that does the same thing, it only affects one target and it can't work on any enemy with the Heavy status, which is basically the thing you want to charm in battle. On the flip side, most of the dancer exclusive equipment do increase the skills success rate, which is a perk, but something only a Dancer can utilize best and you would still have to waste their secondary slot on Flirt. It's final skill is Equip Ribbon which is a misnomer. Yes, this skill let's you equip Ribbons, which only Dancers and Freelancers can equip, and its one of the most useful helmets in the game; but what it doesn't tell you is that it also let's you equip any of the Dancer exclusive items such as the Rainbow Dress, Man-Eater, and Red Slippers. Ribbons are far more useful, but the Dancer exclusive gear are actually some of the best items statistically of their classes. The Rainbow Dress is the best cloth armor in the game that's not cursed, and the Man-Eater is the second best knife weapon in the game only behind the Chicken Knife and does double damage with the Jump command. Not to mention their stat boosts are nothing to scoff at.

Course the real reason to bother with this class is their main skill, Dance. Dance activates one of four skills when used. Tempting Tango casts Charm/Confusion on one opponent and doesn't have the restrictions that Flirt does. Mystery Waltz will drain one opponent of their MP. Jitterbug drains a percentage of HP from an opponent. And finally, Sword Dance causes 4x physical damage against an opponent. Yes, you read that right, 4x the classes normal damage. Dancers are average fighters but in the hands of something like a monk or knight... yeah you get the picture. Granted, there are some issues here. Tempting Tango doesn't always work and if you're up against undead, the drain/osmose skills do damage to the Dance user instead; and FFV has a lot of dungeons with undead in them. Another big issue is that Dance does not ignore Row, so if you want to really see the hurt this skill can do, you're going to need to put the user in the front row or suffer a penalty to all their moves by playing it safe in the back row. On the other hand, if you equip the Rainbow Dress, Red Slippers, and Lamia Tiara on a Dancer, the Dance skill drops Tempting Tango for a second Sword Dance, effectively doubling your chance to perform their best move. If you give the class Barehanded or Equip Sword with a strong weapon, you'll see why this is classified as a melee class. Dance is a pretty snazzy skill. The drain skill can be useful for mages though I would stick to the better Lance skill. Yet a class like Mystic Knight or Red Mage can really get some mileage from this skill set as they have pretty good strength boosts, can equip better weapons, and can always benefit from having some extra HP/MP. Overall, master the class for the skills, but if you like funky builds and don't mind living a little dangerously this class is the one for you. Fun fact, this is Sakaguchi's favorite class.

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Samurai

Eastern warriors who try to end conflict with a single blow.

Strength: +19
Agility: +2
Stamina: +19
Magic: -12
Ability: Zeninage (Gil Toss)
Innate: Shirahadori (Blade Grasp)
Class Type: Give and Take
Weapons: Katanas and Knives
Armor: Shields, Heavy Armor, Heavy Helmets, Clothes, and Gauntlets.

Meet one of my other favorite classes in this game. I often feel like Samurai get overlooked too often by the fans in this game. I get it that knights, dragoons, and Ninja are kind of idiot proof, but honestly the samurai is a deceptively good class with several advantages over their melee contemporaries. Their stats are slightly higher than most other melee classes, but they do fall short to Monks and Knights, but make up for it with either slightly better agility and a lower magic penalty. This is despite the fact they get to wear all the same stuff as knights. Still, their average at best among melee classes. What really sets this class apart from the others are three factors:

First, they can use katanas. Katanas are on par statistically with most sword and knight swords with certain exceptions, but they lose out on being incompatible with spellblade abilities which is why they don't get as much love in the end game. Instead, katanas are the only set of weapons in the game besides unarmed to be able to perform critical hits. Even better, they have the highest crit rate factor over unarmed and only specialty weapons like the Rune Axe or Rune Bell have abetter rate and they need mp to work. So even though samurai have lower strength and katanas can't utilize spellblade magic for better damage, katanas are on par thanks to their higher output of critical hits. There are also a few really cool katanas like the Wind Slash katana that trades it critical hit rate for randomly casting a group hitting Wind Slash skill and the Masemune which gives the bearer first strike as an innate ability and casts haste when used as an item.

Second, the class has the shirahadori skill as an innate ability, this skill gives the class an extra 25% chance to evade all physical attacks that come there way, this is in addition to being able to wear heavy armor, meaning this class has a pretty good survival rate. This skill is also a learn-able ability and transfers to freelance and Mime when learned, which alone makes this class worth using for a little while.

Third, and finally, the class's main skill in Zeninage or Gil Toss to people familiar with the older translations. This skill allows Samurai to be the only melee class besides Ninja to have a group hitting attack without relying on specific weapons (which this class also has) and this version is pretty much the most bulltrout version of it in the series. Gil Toss does damage based on the character level, which also raises the amount of gil used. Getting money in this game is actually not terribly difficult but even better, there is a fun cheat if you want to abuse this skill in a low level run. See the damage formula is a bit weird and calculates the gil used by the current level of the user, the damage formula on the other hand is based on the current level. If you use either the Hero Rime Bard song or the Chemist's Drink command to consume Hero Drink's to artificially and temporarily raise the user's level, the skill will consume a lower level characters amount of gil, but do damage based on a character of a much higher level.

The rest of the class skills are not so great. Mineuchi is bugged and doesn't actually do what it's suppose to do which was paralyze an opponent they hit. Oddly enough though, the attack doesn't count as an actual hit so it won;t remove the charm or confused status when used on someone afflicted with either status. Ianuki is a good skill on paper. It has an 85% chance of killing all opponents on the field, but there are some minor details you need to know first. First, it calculates magic levels in its hit formula instead of physical so sometimes it misses when it feels like it shouldn't. It also will not work on enemies with the Heavy status such as bosses and a large portion of end game enemies making this skill only useful for trash mobs at best. Considering it's the final skill of the class and the absurd amount of ABP needed to master the class, it just doesn't feel like it's worth the effort.

Gil Toss and Shirahadori are great skills to pass onto other classes and even the equip katana isn't a bad skill to hand out if you want to take advantage of those crit rates. As for skills to give to them, the standard melee three are not bad choices so Double Hand for when you first get the class, duel wield once that's gained, but more than other melee classes except maybe Mystic Knight, Samurai get the best advantage with Rapidfire since it will raise the probability of critical hits. Their survival skills also makes them useful for healing magic and the Revive skill. It's a shame this class always gets changed around between entries, but FFV might have one of my favorite incarnations of the class.

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Chemist

Proving that science is the best weapon.

Strength: +2
Agility: +3
Stamina: +6
Magic: -3
Ability: Drink
Innate: Pharmacology
Class Type: Give
Weapons: Knives and Staffs
Armor: Hats, clothes, armlets, and robes

Next to Blue Mage, this is the other class that separates the casuals players with the really bored and calculating ones. How you view this class and its worth really tells what kind of a player you are. On the other hand, unlike Blue Mage, this class actually has something for every player despite skill level. To get the bad out of the way, this class has ho-hum stat upgrades so they don't really excel in any direction like other classes. Their equipment pool is mostly bad though they do get access to a few elemental enhancing items for magic builds and they have exclusive access to the Angel Robes which are not nearly as cool in this entry as they are in other FFs, but still neat. Yet their gear is on the light weight side, so don't expect this class to do or take much physical damage without some sub job to take up the slack. Drink is also not their best move, and it kind of sucks that its the classes default move. On the other hand, this skill actually can change a lot of what I just said about the negatives above if used right. There is one other negative, but we'll ouch on that one later...

So onto the positives, this class may be the only non-mage class where every skill learned is actually a really good skill when used properly. Pharmacology is the simplest to understand, it doubles the effects of healing items and this class gets it as an innate skill as well so double bonus. This skill will also become an innate skill for Mimes and Freelancers once the class is mastered as well.

Drink is a bit of an odd skill. as many players will notice, lots of monsters drop special items like Strength or Speed potions that show up in your inventory but can never be used. Drink is the command that lets you use them, and as you can gather by the item titles, these items raise stats for the duration of the battle they are used in. With a few potions popped, a Chemist can actually do some reasonable damage despite their stats. Yet the skill is even better when used by a specialist class to raise their damage output. So this skill has some good potential uses. The issue with the Chemist having it as a default id that the class doesn't excel anywhere so it may take a few rounds before you see some serviceable results.

Recover, for those who remember this skill in FFVIII works about the same. Its a group hitting Esuna spell that costs no MP to use. Yes, you read that right, it affects the whole team and costs nothing to use but a sub slot. Pretty useful when dealing with certain status flinging bosses or if you don;t want to deal with acquiring the Ribbons for the whole team.

Revive, again like FFVIII, is a group hitting, no mp cost Raise spell. I don;t feel I need to explain why this one is cool, and why I kept mentioning it for Dragoon and Samurai builds.

Finally, we have Mix, which is the classes best and most frustrating skill that is at the heart of why some players hate this class and others praise it. As seen in future installments, Mix allows a chemist to take two consumable items or alchemical items from the party inventory and combine them to get a specific result. Mixing normal healing status removal items can net you effects that do both healing and status removal. Hell, using an Ether and a Hi-Potion together will actually restore a characters full MP so you can really see how this ability can strethc your healing items. Some combinations can also raise a character's level temporarily by a dramatic amount, others can significantly raise magic power to game breaking levels. Three alchemical items are very noteworthy and the key to some of the game's best moves. Turtle Shells, Dragon Fangs, and Dsrk Matter. Dark Matter is especially important because most of the classes offensive abilities like Shadowflare and Dragon Breath are linked to this item, so acquiring it is important. there are roughly 57 different item effects and even more combinations for some of them. This now brings me to the other issue and why this class is kind of controversial. In additon to being a resource heavy class, you will verly likely need to use a guide for all the recipes to get the most out of this class. This class is easily one of the most time intensive classes in the game, maybe even more so than the Blue Mage in order to really get out their full potential. Most causal players will not want to put in that effort and while some of their recipes are truly interesting and game breaking, they really only get their full milage from challenge runs as the game have enough options that optimal focused players can largely ignore this class. If want some real fun, a Job locked or low level challenge will allow you to really appreciate what this class has to offer. In amny ways, this class was a precursor to a similar issue with Gau in FFVI. It's not a surprise this class doesn't show up much, especially since they tend to be game breakers when they do.

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Not counting the GBA exclusive classes, I only have two more classes to review, but I'll wait until we acquire Mime to discuss both of them. So what classes shall I use for the next section of the game?