Agreed with monks. I always thought it was incredibly odd that you gain access to that job so early on in the game. No other class is so balanced and capable of both offense and healing. They also have a pretty good speed rating. I am a big fan of just going out with an offensive onslaught in this game. I mean, magic can be fun, but the magic classes all suffer when it comes to regular attacks (minus the oracle, but I hardly consider them a true magical class in the first place- for me they're a second rate supporting magic class). Similarly, the most powerful attack-oriented classes (Lancer, Samurai, Ninja, Knight) all suffer if needed for any sort of healing or magical capacity. The monk is the one class that can excel at both attacking and healing.Originally Posted by Ansem
While it's true that they lack considerably in potency when given an offensive magical secondary skill class (like black magic or summon), it's a small price to pay for the fact that they can both beat the crap out of anyone and heal themselves and the rest of your party when their other weakness is exposed: their lack of good defense due to inability to wear armor.
Wanna have a TON of fun with a monk and see just how amazing they can be? Use the generic characters (the ones who all have basic skill as their base ability set and change appearance as you change class), make them a monk with basic skill as the secondary skill set. Then use accumulate the first two to three rounds of battle while your enemies close in on you. They'll have strengthened both their attacks and healing capacity by 30 or more points per round. And if you really want to have them destroy everyone, equip the two swords ability as well. This way they get two attacks for the price of one. This'll be enough to wipe out many enemies in one turn.
One of my personal faves when I'm really looking to embarass the enemy, or use the cheating technique of beating up on my own party after getting the enemy down to one chocobo or something, is to have a monk positioned in the center of a flat piece of terrain (one where he can heal people in three or all four of the surrounding squares using Chakra. I then position the rest of my team members around the monk, make sure each of them has a different job class, but that each of them will earn the 15% JP bonus acquired for each others' class when the Earned JP Up skill is equipped. I then wait for the enemy to come to me, and mow him down with the appropriate characters, using the monk to heal any damage that his teammates have suffered. If I have Ramza in the party I'll use his Yell skill ( I think it's that one...it's been a while, admittedly), and raise the monk's speed rating early on in the battle, as his healing ability will be more of a necessity while enemy numbers are higher (and while he's weaker from not using accumulate at all yet). After about four rounds of fighting like this I've got the enemy crippled and it's time to just mess around and level up. The key in levelling easily is to make sure you have a few of those weak attacking magicians in the party. It's most beneficial to have their secondary skill set to punch art so that they don't miss with an attack and thus waste their turn but also make it impossible for the stronger characters to act without killing a teammate. I'll place a time mage at the tail end of my + that I've formed with my team, and use Earth Slash every turn on the two right in front of him. I can then just go back and forth hitting my characters with the weak attackers and healing them with the strong until I'm satisfied with the amount of JP and experience they've gained. Do this and you can master your job skill sets in about 1/2 the time. Just make sure that each character has the ability to learn the job skills of the other characters you'll battle with, plus the Earned JP Up skill equipped.
Sorry that was so long everyone, but I've never posted under this game before, and figured some of you might benefit from that little trick. I didn't catch on to that short cut in mastering jobs 'til my thrid time through the game
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