Fighter, Red Mage, Black Belt, White Mage

[Lavarn]

This party seems very strong. The fighter and red mage have strong enough defense to take the first two positions. The red mage starts to fall behind defensively later on in the game, but the white mage can heal/protect him to a certain extent. We have no black mage, but with a fighter and a black belt, we are still quite good offensively. The red mage is there to use black magic but only when it is really needed. The white mage can use HARM which really comes in handy in those big undead battles.

All in all, it seems like this party has everything and strikes the perfect balance. However, there is still one glaring weakness that becomes apparent when you try to push the party to its limits. This party can't run, at least not consistently. In an earlier post I made, I was talking about how it is important to be able to run from "two Crawl" battles in the Marsh Cave. I still believe it is good advice in general, but I just can't recommend it with this party because it isn't good enough at running. So I guess, at this point in time, I still think Fighter, Red Mage, Thief, Black Mage is stronger.

And I still think Fighter, Red Mage, Thief, White Mage is too weak offensively...while Fighter, Red Mage, Black Belt, Black Mage is too weak defensively.

[ValiantKnight]

Fi, BB, WM, BM

Fi, BB, WM, RM but switch RM to BB while he has better armor.

You get some of black mage's strength(group damage), with a little slower growth in charges, and lack of Nuke/Flare....
But RM is enough of a BM to fill the role, and the armor and weapons are sooo much better.

/nod... it's a good party.

[ljkkjlcm9]

fastest group possible

Fighter, Fighter, Red Mage, Red Mage

by far the fastest clear time

THE JACKEL

[ReloadPsi]

fastest group possible

Fighter, Fighter, Red Mage, Red Mage

by far the fastest clear time

THE JACKAL

I'll definitely vouch for that!

[Sefie1999AD]

Fighter, Red Mage, Black Belt and White Mage is a good party, and putting the Red Mage on the 2nd position increases the chances of the Black Belt staying alive, especially when you combine that with the Red Mage's extra healing.

My favorite combination is still Fighter, Red Mage, Thief and White Mage, though. That one is also good for running away in battles, and since Red Mage shines at the beginning of the game and Ninja at the end of the game, those classes support each other pretty well. Not to mention you'll have 3 white magic users and 2 black magic users at the end of the game. I didn't think the group is weak offensively. My game style is quite defensive, and this group does a pretty good job of staying alive. As for physical strength, you'll have Fighter, Thief and Red Mage, so how can the group be weak offensively with 3 physical attackers?

[Martyr]

fastest group possible

Fighter, Fighter, Red Mage, Red Mage

by far the fastest clear time

THE JACKAL

Fastest Group Possible:

F/F/T/RM

Replacing the RM with a Thief enables you to get 100% running chances where your second RM in it's place becomes extremely worthless in the end, seeing as the Ninja can FAST anyway, wear better armor and use a Katana.

At the End the second RM is swinging the Defense, and maybe carrying a Gold Bracelet. which just doesn't compare.

[Lavarn]

Fi, BB, WM, BM

It seems like a good party in theory, but in practice, the BB can't hold the second position. That is my experience anyway. I've also experimented with Fi, TH, WM, BM which does a little better, and will definitely shine late game. But early on, the Fi, RM, *, * parties seem to be better.

fastest group possible

Fighter, Fighter, Red Mage, Red Mage

by far the fastest clear time

Sort of a brute force party but it's certainly good - I need to experiment more with this one and see if it performs better than Fi, Fi, WM, BM. I'm most concerned about late game with this party once the red mages start to fall behind. Fwiw, I think other brute force parties (such as Fi, Fi, Fi, Fi....or Fi, Fi, RM, TH) would be weaker. Do you mean fastest as in minimum number of battles, minimum steps taken, or something like that?

My favorite combination is still Fighter, Red Mage, Thief and White Mage, though. That one is also good for running away in battles, and since Red Mage shines at the beginning of the game and Ninja at the end of the game, those classes support each other pretty well.

I have to agree - it seems that Fi, RM, TH, * is sort of the natural progression. Either a WM or BM belongs in slot 4, but which is better? I've always thought the BM is a better choice here, so the RM can focus on white magic (a lot of which is used outside of battle so the RM isn't torn between attacking and casting magic as much).

I should have asked this in my above post - how would you rank the following parties?

FI, RM, TH, WM
FI, RM, TH, BM
FI, RM, BB, WM
FI, RM, BB, BM

[ValiantKnight]

I was merely saying it was a modification of the FI BB WM BM party, but replacing BM with RM.. which you usually can do because most people don't miss the extra charges of a BM or NUKE.

[Sefie1999AD]

Fi, BB, WM, BM

It seems like a good party in theory, but in practice, the BB can't hold the second position. That is my experience anyway. I've also experimented with Fi, TH, WM, BM which does a little better, and will definitely shine late game. But early on, the Fi, RM, *, * parties seem to be better.

Fi/Bb/Wm/Bm is actually one of the basic parties used for beating the game, and just like Fi/Th/Wm/Bm, it's a perfectly acceptable party. I never enjoyed it myself, but what I enjoy doesn't equal to what works well.

fastest group possible

Fighter, Fighter, Red Mage, Red Mage

by far the fastest clear time

Sort of a brute force party but it's certainly good - I need to experiment more with this one and see if it performs better than Fi, Fi, WM, BM. I'm most concerned about late game with this party once the red mages start to fall behind. Fwiw, I think other brute force parties (such as Fi, Fi, Fi, Fi....or Fi, Fi, RM, TH) would be weaker. Do you mean fastest as in minimum number of battles, minimum steps taken, or something like that?

I know The Collector has beaten FF1 NES in 7-8 hours with Fi/Fi/Rm/Rm on a pretty low level. If you're not a fan of magic, like having characters with a good defence and everyone with some attack power, Fi/Fi/Rm/Rm definitely works well. So does Fi/Fi/Rm/Wm, which I've used for beating the game once. A problem with Fi/Fi/Rm/Wm was that it was very bad with running away from battles. 4 Fighters shouldn't be too hard, except you won't get Haste/Fast and Exit. Fi/Fi/Fi/Rm or Fi/Fi/Fi/Wm should make the game very easy too.

My favorite combination is still Fighter, Red Mage, Thief and White Mage, though. That one is also good for running away in battles, and since Red Mage shines at the beginning of the game and Ninja at the end of the game, those classes support each other pretty well.

I have to agree - it seems that Fi, RM, TH, * is sort of the natural progression. Either a WM or BM belongs in slot 4, but which is better? I've always thought the BM is a better choice here, so the RM can focus on white magic (a lot of which is used outside of battle so the RM isn't torn between attacking and casting magic as much).

I should have asked this in my above post - how would you rank the following parties?

FI, RM, TH, WM
FI, RM, TH, BM
FI, RM, BB, WM
FI, RM, BB, BM

Well, I play defensively myself, and I don't really care about black magic, so I just like the added bonus of having "1.5" healers (White Mage and Red Mage) early in the game. White Mage usually heals, casts defensive spells or Dia/Harm while Red Mage uses physical attacks, sometimes uses spells like Fire2/3 and Haste, and sometimes helps the White Mage with healing. By the time I get items like Zeus Gauntlet, Mage Staff and Black Shirt, I almost never use black magic except for Haste and Temper.

As for how I'd rank the said parties (note that these are just my opinions, not facts by any means), Fi/Rm/Th/Wm is my favorite, so of course I'm going to rank it the highest. Fi/Rm/Bb/Wm is probably the next because of my preference (WM > BM), and you have both Rm and Wm helping the Black Belt stay alive. It's a bit hard to decide between Fi/Rm/Th/Bm and Fi/Rm/Bb/Bm. The latter has more firepower, but the former is better with escaping from battles. I've only played the game with the latter party, and I think it did pretty well.

[Nerevarine]

Fi,RM,BB,WM
Fi,RM,TH,WM

dam straight these are easily the best to parties for any version

black mages are really overrated just cuz they can nuke

[theundeadhero]

The original thread party is my all time favorite. Strong offense, and a little black magic just for kicks. I still don't see why the whole world insists on running, there's no reason for it. Even then, why so many people fail at running without a theif. I consider theif the second-most useless class, black mage being the most useless.

[Sefie1999AD]

I run from enemies that give so little EXP that it's not worth it (loads of wolves), enemies that can poison you, enemies that can petrify you, enemies that can instantly paralyze and kill you (Sorcerers), enemies that are just plain deadly (Mages), enemies that are hard to kill (some Ooze enemies in the Marsh Cave, IIRC) and in situations when I need to save magic or make sure my party can survive. If I have a KO'd party member, I don't want him/her to fall behind in EXP, so I just keep running away from battles until I reach a Clinic/Church to revive that character.

In addition to those, I run away from most of the battles in Marsh Cave, Earth Cave and Ice Cave, and even after I get ProRings, I run away from some of the battles in the Castle of Ordeals and the Sea Shrine. During my four games of FF1 WSC, my parties of Fi/Fi/Rm/Wm, Fi/Bb/Wm/Bm, Fi/Th/Rm/Wm and Fi/Rm/Bb/Bm, only the Fi/Th/Rm/Wm party did a good job of escaping battles, and the other parties kept getting annihilated a few or several times in the Ice Cave. Based on that, I wouldn't call the Thief or running away from battles useless.

[Omega weapon123]

I used to use the Fi/Rm/Wm/Bm party till i saw that the only thing is that the Bm gets is nuke and thats it but now i use Fi/Rm/Rm/Wm party

[Crossblades]

I prefer this party

Warrior
Monk
Black Mage
White Mage

It's strong and balanced. I also tried this party

Warrior
Red Mage
Black Mage
Thief

It's good, but not better than I party above. The White mage's "Heal" spells are lacking

[Peter_20]

I always preferred the classic:

Fighter
Thief
White Mage
Black Mage

I simply like this party, not only in FF1 but in any RPG in general.
Therefore, I loved the first "full" party you get in FF9, because it has the thief (Zidane), the black mage (Vivi), the fighter (Steiner) and the white mage (Garnet).