Why are the Warrior and Knight so bad?

[SC_Nikki]

I don't remember them being nearly so useless in the original. In the early game, there's basically no reason to use a Warrior instead of a Monk (or two). And even the Ranger's versatility with elemental arrows is a more effective alternative to the Knight's thoroughly mediocre damage output.

In the endgame, a Ninja wielding Ragnarok and Excalibur deals significantly more damage than a Knight equipped just the same. I suppose this is to be expected, seeing as the Ninja is supposed to be the ultimate physical damage-dealing class... but I find literally no reason to ever use a Knight (or even a Warrior) over anything else.

What happened?

[Jairoe03]

in FF3 the classes were definitely tiered, you were supposed to continuously upgrade to the next classes for the most part because they were better in general. It's not like FF5 where it encouraged more mixing and matching and the classes weren't tiered to be better than its predecessors aka 1st crystal jobs are just as useful (roughly) as the 4th crystal jobs (sometimes more useful *cough* Dragoon *cough*)

[Zsrai]

Warrior is bad because it's just a worse Knight, not because it's just a bad class. Knight is actually pretty solid for the entire game after you unlock it; even if it's not always the best you always have some decent armor and swords for it, and rocking a high Job Level gives you extra attacks which can make it better than swapping jobs too.

Also, the Ninja is better than every other physical job, and is so on purpose, so saying it's better than Knight isn't saying much (and is a bit disingenuous).

[SC_Nikki]

Originally posted by Zsrai:

Also, the Ninja is better than every other physical job, and is so on purpose, so saying it's better than Knight isn't saying much (and is a bit disingenuous).

Originally posted by SC_Nikki:

I suppose this is to be expected, seeing as the Ninja is supposed to be the ultimate physical damage-dealing class

I did stipulate this.

But I guess the answer is that I didn't stick with the Knight long enough to raise its Job Level to the point where it becomes a viable damage dealer. Still, my point stands, that being I remember the Warrior being a lot better in the original. It seems like it got nerfed in the Pixel Remaster.

[Zsrai]

Originally posted by SC_Nikki:

But I guess the answer is that I didn't stick with the Knight long enough to raise its Job Level to the point where it becomes a viable damage dealer. Still, my point stands, that being I remember the Warrior being a lot better in the original. It seems like it got nerfed in the Pixel Remaster.

Nah, Warrior was always pretty bad. Monk did (much) more damage, Red Mage did more damage (that Wight Slayer) and was basically just as tanky early on (before you... don't want a Warrior for the Mini sections so you keep the Red Mage anyways). It gets a bit better when Red Mage starts to falter post Nepto Shrine, but it's more of a safe option as a "tanky DPS" than a super strong option when compared to Monk or Red Mage (before being 100% replaced by Knight).

Maybe Knight feels a bit worse because it was always "good" (not great) and some of the other classes got bumped up from "average/mediocre" to "good" as well? I know they added some extra Viking weapons, changed some stat growth for a bunch of classes, etc. so that could certainly change the job landscape and have people choose something "exotic".

[SC_Nikki]

Makes sense.