Job level disscussion

[Isaac Cahn]

so I have been wondering but what does job levels do for each class. i know in the 3D one, maxing them out allows you to get special equipment but is there any bonuds to getting most job levels to 99 in this game?

[the_atolm]

At the very least. job level informs the base damage with equipped weapon, as well as the number of possible hits per hand. Job level is also factored into the damage and healing calculations of the character's skills, such as magic, etc., as well as success rates. In brief, the higher the job level, the more melee damage the character will do, and the more effective their specific skills. Whether the actual equations are the same as in previous versions, I don't know, but I don't think there is any special bonus (apart from maybe a Steam achievement) for getting any jobs to 99.

[Elgroscriss]

Unlike lets say FF5, higher level jobs simply increase the effectiveness of its skills/attacks/magic. You do not gain new skills besides the Bard who unlocks a couple of new songs till level 20 I think. From 20 to 99, the song's bonus only get better because theres a formula like for any other skills based on the job's level.

This version do not have the legendary smith, so no special weapons besides those found in Eureka. So going for a "all jobs to level 99" is kinda pointless unless you want to personally accomplish this achievement.

[Shyao]

Job level increases numerous things. For melee classes, it can increase your damage, number of hits, and accuracy. For magic, it increases your magical power, multiplier, and your accuracy. Yes, magic can miss in this game. Moreover, high job levels increases the current job's special ability, if it has one. This is especially important on Thief, because you can only steal the best stuff with a very high job level and your chance to steal raises with your job level. You get a job level per five actions a character takes as their current job, so it can be very easy to max out your jobs, if you draw out fights or continuously fight large groups of weak enemies.

The only reason to take a lot of jobs to job level 99 is to be more powerful in certain situations. For example, if you job level Dragoon to 99 before fighting Garuda, you'll curbstomp a normally dangerous boss. And getting any of the mage classes to high job levels before the infamous rat boss at Nepto's Shrine can trivialize that fight too. High job level Monks can also carry you for a good portion of the game, until Black Belt becomes available which, if leveled up, can carry you until Ninja shows up.

So, in short, job level is massively important. It's more important than your normal level, I'd argue, until the endgame, when you need to have a metric ton of health. Simply picking the right jobs for the right situations can make this game a smooth sail and picking the wrong jobs can make this game a massive pain in the butt.

[Epicmask]

Other then bards getting new songs with every 10 job levels. It barely matters at all. Lvl 1 jobs can still easily do the endgame as long as you can survive an AOE like meteor, quake, or particle beam. A job lvl 50 will do a few hundred more each attack than a job lvl 1.

Switching someone to a lvl 1 Devout for the last few bosses has no problem out healing anything they can do unless you get screwed by the random ass turn order this game has and end up taking 2 attacks between a heal.

Dont bother unless your really bored and love to grind for some reason, cause theres not much point game play wise.

Also unrelated to the question, but notice it in someones example.. i dont get why people still say Garuda is a difficult boss in this. 2 wind spears and jumping with lvl 1 dragoons each do around 2000. unless your not using at least 3 dragoons for some reason, you will kill him before he can kill anyone. Hes one of the quickest, easiest, and most boring boss fights in all of final fantasy.

[Shyao]

Originally posted by Epicmask:

Other then bards getting new songs with every 10 job levels. It barely matters at all. Lvl 1 jobs can still easily do the endgame as long as you can survive an AOE like meteor, quake, or particle beam. A job lvl 50 will do a few hundred more each attack than a job lvl 1.

Switching someone to a lvl 1 Devout for the last few bosses has no problem out healing anything they can do unless you get screwed by the random ass turn order this game has and end up taking 2 attacks between a heal.

Dont bother unless your really bored and love to grind for some reason, cause theres not much point game play wise.

Also unrelated to the question, but notice it in someones example.. i dont get why people still say Garuda is a difficult boss in this. 2 wind spears and jumping with lvl 1 dragoons each do around 2000. unless your not using at least 3 dragoons for some reason, you will kill him before he can kill anyone. Hes one of the quickest, easiest, and most boring boss fights in all of final fantasy.

Because Garuda is intended as a beginner's trap. If you go in with only one or two dragoons, it's entirely possible to die to him. Also, due to the way the turn order works, it's also possible to get nuked before your dragoons can jump. Also, if you've been leveling as a lot of low stamina classes, your dragoons can even be so fragile that a single attack from Garuda kills them.

It also feels like a lot of bosses are more fragile in general in this version, so that could be a factor. In previous versions of FF3, Garuda was always a problematic boss for the unprepared.

[Epicmask]

Yeah true. In the famicom version he was somewhat of a threat, but there were many hints you needed dragoons as well.
What i ment was i still see people saying that hes hard in this version, but like you mentioned, most bosses in this have been nerfed.

In this version once i got the water crystal I decided to use a party that would have had no chance at all in the old version and never change it. Dragoon, Viking, Geomancer and Bard. Garuda couldnt even kill the bard..

I didnt even use a dark knight for the splitting cave in this and had no problem.
Its super weird to me people still say this one is just as hard.

[spoonygundam]

Garuda isn't a difficult fight, but it's a pretty annoying one. I went in with four Dragoons with one spear each because I didn't want to waste a bunch of money on weapons I'd only use on one fight, then Garuda killed me because he attacked before anyone Jumped on turn 1 and after everyone landed on turn 2.

I just bought the extra spears after that.

[Epicmask]

Originally posted by spoonygundam:

Garuda isn't a difficult fight, but it's a pretty annoying one. I went in with four Dragoons with one spear each because I didn't want to waste a bunch of money on weapons I'd only use on one fight, then Garuda killed me because he attacked before anyone Jumped on turn 1 and after everyone landed on turn 2.

I just bought the extra spears after that.

Lol exactly. That kinda thing is the only reason i ever have someone die in this. The way turn order priority happens seems completely random and sometimes it just screws you because you get hit twice before you can do anything about it.

Ive actually been trying all different things i can think to figure it out, agility has nothing to do with it, and i cant find any patterns at all. Sometimes my healer goes first before everyone and wastes my heal cause i wanted it to go after i got AOE'd. But then next round when I need to heal because of that damage, he will go last and cause me to die.

But some things are definitely not random about it. A viking using draw attack or a bard singing will always be the first action, but have them do anything else and thats not the case. If you do both sing and draw attack, they will switch off between the viking and bard going first and second but will still always happen before the others, including enemies.

Other than that though I have no clue, since its different every time and enemies just go whenever the hell they feel like it to prevent you from trying to plan anything around it,

Seems like the randomness is on purpose to artificially make it harder because you got unlucky and get hit twice in a row. I hate random factors you cant doing anything about in a game that is supposed to involve strategy. Thats why most rpgs have speed stats that determine priority.

If anyone can actually figure out how turn order works id love to know.

[spoonygundam]

Agility seems like it has some effect to me, but it has to be an absolutely massive difference for it to do anything. I did the usual two Ninjas (60-70 agility), two Sages (30-40 Agility) thing at the end, and Ninjas were reliably acting before the Sages. I do remember a couple times where a Sage acted first though, so the degree of variance is large enough that not even that is guaranteed.

Most endgame enemies seem to be in the Sage's Agility range, and I assume most other jobs are close as well, so turn order is just going to be completely random in most circumstances.

[Epicmask]

Im positive that what your character is doing that turn dictates the order the most. Since as i mentioned in the last post. A viking with the lowest agility stat of all classes will always go first when you use "Draw attacks" Even before ninjas or what your fighting.

If agility does effect ordering at all i sure as hell cant figure out how it does.

To test it i tried using a team with the widest differences in agility i could get for each person, removed all equipment just in case that might matter. Then have them all punch a boss with just normal attacks and every round was completely random in ordering.

[spoonygundam]

Some actions do have priority, yeah.

I just tested it for a few rounds too, with a Ninja, Thief, Sage, and Viking. Ninja or Thief always acted first, Viking always acted last. This probably won't always happen if you test it long enough, but it should usually be the case that jobs/enemies with extremely high/low agility will act sooner/later in a turn. Thief had 10 Agility lower than Ninja at my level, but was still acting first half the time, so the random factor is significant enough to overcome that difference regularly.

I'm guessing it's something like Agility plus or minus a random amount between 1 and 20, so a 10 point difference could swing either way, and even a larger difference could swing if the faster character rolled low and the slower character rolled high.

The problem is that there aren't all that many jobs or enemies with extremely high or low Agility stats, so turn order is effectively just completely random most of the time. And you'll still run into the occasional outlier even when high/low Agility is a factor. This seems to be what happened to me with Garuda, actually. His Agility is 1 in the bestiary, presumably with the intention of making the situation I ran into unlikely.

[Vambran]

I thought the onion knight gets a boost for every lvl 99 job you have. Maybe that was the 3DS version.

[Fusei]

Well gamer corner guides[guides.gamercorner.net] says :

Originally posted by Gamer Corner Guides:

Job Level :
- All characters begin at job level 1 for each new job he earns
- Each time a character executes a battle command, he will earn skill points (as indicated on individual job pages). These skill points only apply if the battle is won, meaning that use of the Run or Flee command will only earn skill points if the command fails and the party goes on to defeat its enemies. Once 100 skill points are earned, the character gains a job level and his skill points are reset to 0 after the battle. A character can only gain one job level per battle.
- Every 16 job levels gained adds +1 to a character's Magic Multiplier
- Every 4 job levels gained adds +1% to a character's Accuracy
- A Thief's job level influences the success rate of his Steal ability
-Every job level gained reduces the CP cost to change into that job from any other job by 1

Not sure if it's really accurate though, according to the guide the only benefit for melee would be accuracy.
However one my character who's got a monk level of 20 has 2 more attacks than a character that has no job level.

[spoonygundam]

That was for the original FFIII, this version is a weird mismash of the original and 3D remake, and Job Level seems like it functions more like it did there, where it played into number of hits and action success for more jobs and so on.

[Fusei]

Originally posted by spoonygundam:

That was for the original FFIII, this version is a weird mismash of the original and 3D remake, and Job Level seems like it functions more like it did there, where it played into number of hits and action success for more jobs and so on.

Yeah what I thought thanks.