Best party combo?

[advkow]

I was thinking of starting to play this game this weekend and am curious. What's a 'good' party that won't be too difficult to play around with?

[gamblingpoet]

Each class is viable and brings something to the overall party strength. Some classes excel in early game but fall off towards the end, some classes excel in end game but struggle early on.

A useful party is one of balance, honestly. Two physical dealers, two magic users is usually the most popular choice. Fighters are great because of their high HP, high DEF and high damage output, but they need support from other classes to buff them up and can't do any AOE damage. Black mages deal a lot of elemental damage but suffer on boss fights, where their role is dedicated to buffing the physical attackers with spells like haste and temper. White mages heal, heal, and heal, and are useful early on to deal with swarms of undead due to spells like Dia (even the level 1 spell can clear a 9 undead encounter fight). Thief struggles early but gets faster and thus hits harder later on. Red Mage is a jack of all trades, master of none, but brings a lot to the party. Monk punches things in the face (don't equip him with any weapons). Just pick 4, make sure you have everything covered (single target, aoe, heals, buffs) and you should be fine.

[Koby]

I went with a Fighter, Monk, Red Mage, and Thief for the first round.

Party did great, magic attacks were rarely ever needed and usually the Red Mage would do more damage with physical than magical for me. There was only a few times where things weren't fully smooth and that was solely due to a lack of good party heals.

So imo if you want an even easier time, you might swap out the Red Mage for a White Mage in order to get those party heals.

Most of the game is really easy regardless of party build though. Warmech and Chaos is really the only thing that will give some parties a run for their money if not prepared properly or overleveled.

[BaronCappuccino]

Warrior/Thief/White/Black is the baseline party to compare all others to, and wouldn't be a bad first party for anyone. I'm a big fan of symmetry in my parties, and war/whm and blm/thf pair off better than anything. I'm currently using the same party that Koby talks about, and it was the default party on the original NES run. That said, I think the new default party is probably the way everyone should go first. At the very least, don't duplicate any classes on your first round. Before making changes, you'll need to know what you don't like, and Warrior/Thief/White/Black gives you a sampling of everything.

[MaGicBush]

I did Fighter, Monk, White Mage, and Black Mage. It doesn't really matter to much. Just play what sounds fun. Unless you do all White Mage or something crazy, but even then you can win since max level is so high.

[Hobo Elf]

I highly recommend taking a Warrior, if only because they are capable of wearing most of the items you find in this game. It might end up feeling pretty anticlimactic when most items you obtain are unusable by your party if you don't have one. Sure the RDM and NIN have access to some of the same equips, but not all. Diving into dungeons and using the stuff you find is a big part of the fun for me and most equipment found in this game is Warrior loot so keep that in mind.

[Vambran]

Black Mage + White Mage + 2 Melee DPS.

Black Mage uses Mage Staff ( Or Blackrobe / Gauntlets ) White Mage uses healing staff. The Melee DPS are on Attack. Now turn on auto battle and you can grind up to lvl 99 watching you-tube. When you hear the victory music move the gamepad a bit till you hear combat starting again.

[bonebrah]

Fighter - Red Mage - White Mage - Black Mage was my first playthrough. White Mage/Blackmage obviously do their intended roles, while the Red Mage can supplement with some buffs/healing and dish out some melee. Buffed Fighter is king.

If it was 10 y/o me again I'd be doing fighter fighter fighter fighter

[Atomic Kid]

Like said above 3 warrior like classes and 1 mage or 2 warrior like classes and 2 mages is good...depends on how much damage you want to do esp since spells fall off in some fights but mages wipe the floor with random encounters.

For a new ppl a fighter and white mage will make it easier esp since int works proper and healaga is one of the best spells in the game for boss fights and only white wizard can do that. Otherwise you'll have to kill the enemy before they kill you which only happens in boss fights but enemy hp is really low across the board so you can burst most things down before they drain your hp and red mage cannot repalce a white mage as the team healer. White mage is kinda bad early game and pays off later but throughout they can wipe undead with dia line including lich who is another undead who gets wiped out by fire and dia line.

fighter/warrior is good despite their lower then avg damage, esp as your team tank and theres 1 Excalibur and once he gets that he will match your other dps but if you have multiple of this you will notice them losing out dps wise to other combos and his spells arent that good. He loses out to ninja and master in dps without his ult weapon so at most if you want a tank take only 1 or take none as ninja and master out dps him later on. But fighter does serve his purpose as the best tank in the game and taking 1 is fine (i wouldnt recondmend more then 1)

if you lack a black mage like char you cannot buff late game so either a ninja, red mage/red wizard or black mage/black wizard, if you field a theif to get buffs later you do need something for lich as hes super tanky without haste and temper so if you have a white mage he will be one of your best dps options with dia and others hoping for crits to bypass defense...but a team without a black mage/red mage is fine if you have a thief since a ninja can replace a black mage once he promotes. Ninja prob is the best of the options cause his damage is really good and he has all the spells that matter but has the worst start of the 3 choices so its up to you if you want a char whos good outta the gate (red mage) or good later (ninja) or best random encounter wiper using item with spell attached (black mage)

if you have a master you pretty much won the game once hes in the 50s+ he does so much damage that he 1 shots trash and he kills bosses fastest in the game by lv20 hes prob already outdpsing everyone else and it stays that way rest of game, hes not even bad in the early game. He does get better with buffs so a black mage like char is recondmended and protecting him is recondmended too so the first ribbon should be on him and maybe pro ring...prob the most broken op char in the game esp since his early game isnt bad anymore. I sometimes took 2 and they wiped the floor with the game lol though they needed a white wizard for healaga to not die in boss fights and a buffer so my front line was a red mage (whos fine as your tank until mid game) once the monks got to 50+ they just killed everything.

[SC_Nikki]

Long ago, a friend recommended a party of two warriors, a red mage, and a black mage. That was the most fun I'd had with the game in quite some time.

[Pack 4 Potatoes]

No matter what anyone else says, the classic party is Warrior, Thief, White Mage, Black Mage.

You can't go wrong with this team.

[advkow]

I decided to start recording for the youtubes, and went with Fighter, Red Mage, White Mage, Black mage. It's pretty fun!

[Zsrai]

Basic builds are built off of Tank (Fighter), Melee DPS (Thief, Monk, Red Mage, second Fighter), Magical DPS (Black Mage or Red Mage), Healer (White Mage or Red Mage).

You can always go 2x Melee DPS or 2x Magical DPS and skip the other (Red Mage + Black Mage is good here for magic heavy + some decent melee), but if you start skipping the Tank or Healer you're getting into "advanced" party builds (as advanced as they can get in FF1, anyways).

[Aleddra]

My first group was: Red mage - Thief - Monk - White mage.

The Red mage tanks early game. Thief and monk deal enough damage so that the fights don't last very long and the White mage can keep up with the damage well enough.

It works very well for the first part, until the class change. There's a bit of a speed bump around the ice cave. Once you get the class change, the Ninja gets shields and all kinds of armors making it a better tank than the Red mage. Which is still a solid 2nd tank. Monk is a Monk. Mostly.

Problem now is finding a group which isn't just a spin off this one.

EDIT: reading the post above i would considering dropping a role for one more of another. I already am with the fighter.

[Demon of Elru]

two fighters, red mage, black mage. Light on healing but its there plus potions. And at class change the fighters can heal.

[Paratech2008]

I used fighter, thief, white &black mage. Near the end I did a class change and had knight, ninja, red mage, and another mage.

They were level 71 when facing Chaos and the fight was long, ninja nearly died a few times, I had to use him to give items to my mages so they could cast more spells. The lvl 8 light spell was the one that took Chaos out. I have no idea how many times he did full hp cures but I swear it was a couple. I also sped up my knight to do up to 16 attacks at a time and used the invisio spell to protect everyone. I also used the protection from death spell.