Rate classes you have FINISHED the game with x/10

[Lebe Frei]

Please don't rate half-way, or even up to the boss. If you haven't finished, don't rate it please.
I think there is a lot of "I dislike x... but I am 5 hours in" going on. I'd like to see something different. Please do out of 10, the standard.

I have finished with
Monk 10/10 has low-moderate damage and survival in the beginning, but really ramps up into an end game killing machine. Has the durability to take hits from the final boss, and does amazing damage. If I had to do 4 of any class, this would be it

Knight 9/10 Always useful. Good damage, not amazing, but easily the most survivable. Can taunt, scales well in stats, has debuffs, all around good.

White Mage 7/10 Always useful, beginning to end. Amazing buffs. She buffs a lot of stats, and her hp/mp buffs make each +250%. That's crazy. Huge increases. She is an incredible healer, able to do over 15k to each ally every turn. Nothing can out-damage that healing. HOWEVER she is nearly worthless on turns that she doesn't need to heal or buff.

Thief 6/10 Starts well, stays useful for a while. Stealing isn't that amazing, but it gets you two more of the best rings. Has pretty good debuffs, can hit multiple enemies. Near worthless against the final boss, and damage drops off dramatically overall near the end.

Things to keep in mind: How useful was the character at the beginning? The middle, and especially the end (keep in mind we are getting an expansion, and I assume we can use the same characters. This might make this post EXTREMELY useful for that!). What makes them stand out? What makes them weak or frustrating?

Please, again, don't mention classes you haven't completely finished with. If you don't have the achievement for it, don't mention it.

[Hampooj]

10/10 for Monks for sure. My only complaint about them is that while going back to older content I hadn't done, it was actually annoying using him for regular attacks since it takes so long to wait for him to do 7 attacks. I'd just end up guarding and skipping his turn.

8/10 Engineer was really crappy to start with before I really got used to it. Then I really started to love it. My main use for them was bombs. I'd buy 30 of each type of the 300hp bomb and just use those attacks for groups of enemies. It was crazy expensive and my total gambling winnings were well over $2 million for that reason alone. I just went back and gambled every time I ran out of cash from buying bombs - but it was fun and a fast way to do battles. The tunnel shortcuts weren't a big deal for me. I started out thinking the xp bonus buff they got was passive, so I thought it was gonna be great, then I realized it isn't, and with only a 10% bonus I found myself never using it because I found it was a waste of a good turn. Overall the bomb and item-usage bonus the Eng gets is awesome and well worth it.

6/10 Hunter. Honestly my main use for them was the Moa early on. During serious fights my Hunter usually just ended up using tonics and scans to buff my Monk and items to heal my other characters. I'm still giving it a 6 because the scan buffs are amazing and the Moa gimmick is nice to save time, but overall not as strong a character as I'd hoped.

4/10 Thief. As many others have mentioned, Thief feels very underwhelming in the mid-to-late game. Picking locks without consequences is nice and all, I suppose, but so what? Stealing items is also nice, but a lot of those items are useless in the end-game unless you're planning on doing a new game on the Reborn setting. Their damage is also pretty trivial compared to Eng bombing or Monk multi-attacks. My main use for them was clearing old areas, using smoke bomb with them and my hunter to quickly kill groups of monsters. But even the damage on smoke bomb is low since it's mostly just to blind.

I picked this party because I wanted to try all the fun gimmicks that they all had. The Knight and the mage classes seemed to be very standard rpg trope characters. But overall I felt a bit disappointed.

In conclusion:

The Monk gimmick is multi-attacks, and is outright amazing to deal damage with.
The Engineer gimmick is an item and bomb usage bonus, and that makes it a great support class for healing or dealing damage with bombs and fish and items.
The Hunter gimmick is the Moa travel system, and not related to combat at all - and while it does make the travel much, much better, I personally felt that it needed something more to make it a unique class during battles.
The Thief gimmick is both in and out of combat, which is good, however I don't feel it's enough of a perk to actually merit taking the Thief over other, more useful classes. Opening chests without consequences is honestly not that big of a deal, and stealing stuff also doesn't really matter much beyond a certain point unless you're gonna do a NG+ on the Reborn setting to set your new characters up with extra gear.

[Kejebra]

9/10 Knight. Early game not so much to this character yet still very solid in both defences and attack. Late game becomes the absolute best with his ultimate 5-hit attack. Couple his double hp buff with a white mages buffs + some nice fish and can easely get this guy up to 99999hp.

7/10 Black Mage. Very squishy early on with mana issues and will rack up only mediocre damage at best, as well as always one of the first to die during hard battles. He more than well makes up for it with incredible aoe spells that by the end can oneshot almost any group of mobs in one hit which made grinding levels really easy. Especially if you stick him with some +PRE rings so he always attacks first. That and the Godlike ability is your physical fighters best friend and in my opinion one of the best, if not the best, buff in the game.

5/10 White Mage. Put the white mage a lot lower on the list mostly due to fish being overpowered endgame. Theres only a handful of spells she can cast that there isnt a fish for. Early/midgame she is awesome for the most part but loses her utility with the endgame fish renderering her a bit superflous (unless you are like playing on legendary difficulty). Also does amazing god-be-with-you damage vs undead.

3/10 Thief. Saw very little usage with this guy. Saves you a lot of cash and trouble if that is something you'd consider trouble (which I dont). Has barely any group utility. There are some very nice items you can steal that you'd otherwise have to live without. If it werent for those items id probably rank him even lower.

[Lebe Frei]

Thanks for the post so far guys, everyone has rated a class except Gray Mage now. It looks like my disappointment with the Thief was actually an overestimation to the average, so far! Seems like the least liked class, let's see how long that keeps up.

[N-Sign]

Knight - 10/10 - An absolute monster, from start to finish. He outpaces most of the other classes damage-wise, has loads of HP, can soak damage, and has a great selection of skills. End-game he was my main damage dealer, doing 40K Devastations on the Dark Lord's Second Coming was amazing. His only noticeable flaw that I can think of is his low initial MGD, which is easily fixed (Especially with Dark Ward).

Engineer - 8/10 - Really, really bad early game. Once you get money and fish, however, he turns into a beast. He was my primary damage dealer mid-game, however he falls off at the very end due to the Superbosses having no elemental weaknesses. He still manages to be useful, however, with a combination of uber-fish, easy enemy-clearing with bombs, and Stronghold. Non-ele fish were doing 6K crits on the Second Coming.

White Mage - 5/10 - She is great early game, especially if you waltz into the Dread Woods because of her holy damage. As time goes on she becomes more and more irrelevant, at the end of the game only still standing good because of Giant. Lacks absolutely any utility if you don't need healing, however, so she just takes up space when you don't need her.

Thief - 4/10 - Good early game, meh middle, terrible end. Aside from not having to fight guards every chest you open, his usefulness is nonexistant. While hilarious to steal from the superbosses and end up equipping two Amaranthine rings to nearly ever character, it isn't really viable to drag him along the entire game. A potential utility lay in the Vanir Sword, which he can use as a Ninja, and it can apparently inflict every status. With his go-first skill and an AOE, he can riddle the entire enemy team with status effects at the start of a battle...but by the time you have a Vanir Sword he will just murder them all the first shot regardless.

[tvance52]

1) Monk - 10/10 - Slow to start, by mid-game the monk was my best party member. At the end, I left damage to the monk and handled other issues with the rest of the party. With a Mercurial Ring (+50 CRT) and passive skills, it was pretty easy to get CRT to 100 without using too many AP. With 7 critical hits per turn on a high-STR class, he was pretty nigh unstopable.

With a passive skill that regenerates HP, a passive skill that gives an automatic first attack (don't spend points on PRE), and innate status immunity...he was a fun character to have.

2) Hunter - 7/10 - I like the Hunter. She was my best character in the early game, and was pretty good in the mid game, and was still pretty useful by end game. Her ability to wear Heavy Armor, high PRE, and buff/debuffs made her a great partner to my monk. The only area she fell short was damage, but her Scan and Hamstring abilities meant my multi-hit monk got multiple benefits from them. A Blue Moa is a huge timesaver, as well.

A passive skill that regenerates HP and high defense meant I rarely had to heal her. She was always useful, and didn't become a true "support" character until late in the last dungeon when her attack couldn't keep up.

3) Engineer - 8/10 - The Engineer has big swings in usefulness. Early game he was very weak and probably my least useful character. He slowly became pretty good as a defender (I leveled his DEF stat like a front-line character) and finished the game as my highest DEF and MGD character. I left him mid-row, however, as he didn't regenerate HP like the Monk and Hunter.

I wasn't until late-game that I figured out fish...and once I did he became a powerful healing unit. I didn't mess with bombs much due to a high damage monk and multiple regenerating units. I would say he was my best healer until the end game. Oh, and through out some Intensive Study during boss fights or when you're going to rest soon and you reduce the need to grind for experience.

4) White Mage - 6/10 - I didn't need the White Mage much, but when I did she came through big time. Once she got Regen I was frequently using it, but most of the time she was there mainly to prevent disaster by keeping the monk in good shape.

Late game, with the hat that regenerates MP, she really took off. With high MP, she was regenerating more MP that my best spells and I started using her a lot since I didn't need to go back to town to rest. I also don't want to spend time fishing, so she was also a big timesaver.

[LoVe)Ly]

Monk 10/10 - Makes for a story-plausible main character imo, which I really liked. Insane damage compared to the other classes (that I beat the game with) starting at about level 25. Died a lot at the beginning since I played on very hard and didn't spend my first few stat points well. The monk probably benefits more from grinding out a few levels than any other character, because there are limited ways to get his defense up. He's got great "ultimate skills" and if you put in the effort to really boost his CRT he's amazing. I even like his flaws (hard to increase ATK early game and very costly CRT boost) as they seem appropriate. My only complaint is that fists of fury make all his other skills pointless. I'd like to see FoF give an extra attack for each 75 ACC, but have his other skills add status effect bonuses like 5% chance of confusion or debuffs.

Thief 7/10 - Definitely above average. He was both my main tank all game, and my main damage dealer through the first 20 levels. I found the upgrade to Ninja, which allowed him to use a bunch of weapons none of my other characters could (like swords), revitalized his utility. His greed skill also helped out a lot up until I could get to the casino, as I found early game grinding for money challenging on this difficulty level. Later on, his high PRE and AGI gave me a lot of free turns, and I loved his debuffs. His CRIT levels up fairly easy too, making him very solid all-around. Also, picking locks without fights early game was verrrrry helpful, although irrelevant after say level 10. I think anybody playing on legendary on a first play-through may value the thief more than any character for their early-game utility. End game the thief was nothing special, but as I plan to go legendary on reborn, I'm loving the items he was able to steal for me. In the end, party composition matters a tonne for a thief's value. If you pick a strong early-game team with a Knight and Grey Mage, the thief will be nearly useless. Pick a team like mine, and he's your priceless tank.

Engineer 6/10 - Not bad damage. Lots of great whips/bows early on (like the protector or debilitating whip or the weakening bow) made him more valuable than I expected. He was my only "magic" based attacker, which was only moderately useful. Once I got in to fish and bombs he became much more useful, and I turned him in to my "item guy" for all items. I generally just horde items in games and never use anything expendable, so the engineer really challenged me to broaden my play style. Tunnelling was pretty much useless, and I wish he had a passive EXP skill, rather than an active one. Heck, I'd rather a passive EXP buff than the free level up. His stat increases were comparatively poor, which forced him down the INT route (if I'd embraced that earlier it would have probably been better). His choice of weapons leads to a decent PRE rating, so I was almost always able to get off a buff with him and my WM before the enemy's first turn - against bosses this was invaluable. He was my only character that I could have done without, and the one I'm most likely to not use again.

White Mage 7/10 - In an attempt to make a solid party I tried to grind out a few levels at the very start and get everybody to have a "10" in every base stat. This was a terrible idea. Let nobody else make the same mistake of trying to pump the white mage's CRT to 10 from the start. I was able to correct that mistake with a bit more grinding, but either way the white mage is a very weak early game character without enough mana to be useful in every battle. Since in most random battles all that's needed is attack spamming, the WM spends the majority of the game as the weakest and most useless character. A bit later on you're able to throw a prickling cloak, ogre ring, and staff of power on her for random battles which is awesome, and how she spent a good 10-ish levels! Then switch them out for INT and PRE pumping items for the boss fights. That doesn't last, as eventually her ACC and such start to really fall behind too. Still, she's got great defensive buffs, does great damage to undead, and eventually can get enough MP for prolonged usefulness. I think a non-fish buffer is necessary at higher difficulty, and a white mage seems as good a choice as any. Oh, and I can't imagine the early-mid game on legendary without the ability to resurrect.

It looks like people's party choices really influence their affinity for certain classes. Having redundant classes in your party will always make one of them look really bad. For those that didn't like the engineer, try him in a party without a black mage. For those that didn't like the thief, try him in a party without a knight or grey mage!

[sabijnus]

no i have not completed game yet but im posting a pre thing. basically im doing a hard setting grind mode with save anywhere(for obvious reasons ill state). im doing a NO level up run. meaning whatever my chars get in skill ups for stats and synthing gear is it. i just finished the first chapter and got my ship(did both relics and the hermit guy) about to start the open world. im using all the chars people dont care for much......my main tank is thief,second atk is hunter,then engineer and white mage. i chose party for these reasons.
thief is great for the stealing,greed,and hamstring/other debuffs he lays out first.
hunter saves me a lot of time with tunneling and debuffs/scans
engineer is really fast and is actually my best aoe dmger with double bomb dmg and my best healer with double healing.
white mage is the hardest choice i took cause mage sadly gets NO stat skill ups but oddly enough shes got more defense then any other class i have due to synthing and my thief stealing 2x def rings. sadly she will be at 30hp entire game but so far ive had no problem with her dying she stays in the back row and barely ever gets hit. with her low mp pool she is basically a one/two cast supporter and the other 3 do all the work.

[BoogieMan]

10/10 Knight
Did the most damage overall (mage had to conserve MP at times) and had the best survivability. Dark Knight skills are pretty sweet. Many of his melee skills were rarely used once other ones were attained.

7/10 Black Mage
Keeping MP up is kind of painful for extended grinding sessions until certain items are found but his damage and utility was a great help, once you get access to a lot of the skills. Early game he was nothing but dead weight. Top tier spells rendered 90% of his skills obsolete. And not quite so much that they are just too powerful, but the others seemed underpowered. Perhaps if there were more enemies that elemental weaknesses were more attractive to go for it would be different.

6.5/10 White Mage
The powerful heals and buffs were very useful when they were needed, however, having such low offensive ability was an issue in griding sessions and when lots of healing wasn't needed. The more powerful my party got as a whole, and the farther into the game I got, the less useful she became.

4/10 Thief
Getting the nice rings in abundance and often much earlier in the game was quite useful, as was the debuffs. However, his ability to cause damage was sorely lacking and seemed worse the farther I got. Even after I dumped many points to try and improve his damage, it didn't help much. The last 20% of the game his output wasn't enough to even alter battles so he was simply used as a debuffer. I will probably never take a thief with me again. If he couldn't get you the rings from stealing, I'd give him a 2.

[BahamutKaiser]

It's been forever since I played, I was wondering how people fared with healing in the Abyss, with Engineers and White Mages.

[jt.eyolf]

I've finished the game on varying difficulties with all the classes, so here we go.

Knight: 8/10 - I used him primarily to tank. Decent damage and excellent tank. Has a nice array of skills for drawing attacks away from squishy mages, which is very helpful. I never really used him much for damage output, so he was only okay in that area. I could see him doing pretty good damage if built for it. Has great equipment options.

Early game: good
Mid game: still good
Late game: still good
Abyss: great

Monk: 9/10 - Wow, what a boss killer. Pretty much all his active skills are useless late game. Just attack. He is the master of single target physical damage. I can see why everyone likes this class. He does have a few weaknesses, such as equipment choices, early gameplay difficulties, and lack of AoE skills. However, he does what he's supposed to do extremely well.

Early game: iffy
Mid game: pretty good
Late game: That was a boss? Why did it die in one hit?
Abyss: pretty good

White Mage: 7/10 - Your typical buffer and undead killer. Oh, and healing, she does healing too. She's a great asset to your party, and far more useful than engineer in the abyss for support. Outside of the abyss, she only has a few benefits over the engineer, primarily in buff land. She's pretty useless on no heal/buff turns, but when you need some nice healing, she's a good person to have along. She is squishy, however, and can die easily if you're not careful. Gets access to revival spells. Her undead spells are extremely powerful - good for some of the target bosses.

Early game: great
Mid game: pretty useful
Late game: still useful
Abyss: Super useful

Hunter: 6/10 - Hunter does okay damage and her scan skills are pretty nice. She can let you ride Moas, which is helpful early/mid game. One thing I found most useful about her is her debuffs. Her AoE sleep and paralyze skills are actually pretty useful on higher difficulties. She's fast (well, she can be) so these skills can be used quickly to mitigate damage to the party. She also increases item drops, which can be useful for crafting things quickly. She's kind of all over the place, but she can be helpful. She can get a pretty high crit rate easier than most classes.

Early game: okay
Mid game: useful
Late game: useful
Abyss: useful (mostly for debuffs)

Black Mage: 8/10 - Ahh, blowing up enemies is fun! Has excellent offensive magic, both single target and AoE. In my legendary playthrough, he was my MVP. Boost his speed and watch him make random encounters trivial. I rushed through the final dungeon with ease due to this guy. However, he does have one very annoying issue - he's SQUISHY. Before I had the speed to quickly deal with enemies, he got killed a lot more than anyone. If you can keep him alive, he's a beast. Also has godlike and annihilation.

Early game: good
Mid game: great
Late game: What random encounters?
Abyss: Yes please!

Grey Mage: 9/10 - I really like grey mage. He won't have the element diversity of a black mage or as high int, but he has far better speed, crit, and survivability gains. Personally, I find making him a magic user the best way to raise him. He gets access to some nice spells from both schools of magic. He can revive early and has some okay healing skills. He also ends up getting some nice buffs. He shines in the AoE department. Like black mage, he can dish out good AoE damage. He might not hit the damage that a black mage can do, but if you up his crit he'll do a HUGE amount. Nothing is nicer than getting non stop crits mid game (double damage!). I haven't really used him as a physical character much, but I think he wouldn't do too well. Overall one of my favorite classes.

Early game: good
Mid game: great
Late game: great
Abyss: Very useful

Thief: 7/10 - Okay, I like thief. He's not the best at damage dealing, but if you're a person who wants to get EVERYTHING in a game, he's fantastic. Getting uber equipment from late bosses is nice. AoE stealing is quite nice for keeping an engineer stocked. Late game his AoE stealing also does damage, which is great for random encounters. Early game, he has greed and steal for keeping you good on gear (super useful on legendary). If you don't care about getting everything, then his usefulness is lessened. He doesn't really shine anywhere else in combat outside of stealing, though he's okay at damage.

Early game: good
Mid game: good
Late game: good
Abyss: ehh (if you have an engineer, he could be helpful)

Engineer: 9/10 - An item class done right. I love this class! Super useless early on, but once fishing gets going, you've got yourself an awesome healer. Got mages in your group? Use him to recover their MP and keep them going! Don't have mages? Use bombs for good AoE nuking! As long as you have items, he can be a huge help. Best of all, items are pretty easy to get (especially fish). If you have a thief, it makes restocking items easier. He's a bit squishy and his stat growth is kind of meh, but overall a fantastic character.

Early game: ehh
Mid game: Yay!
Late game: WOOO!
Abyss: maybe with a thief...

[BahamutKaiser]

Thanks a bunch JT.

[NeoDraconis]

Rated on a legendary run through both LD and LD:WU during beta testing. Taking into account Super Bosses.

Thief 9/10
LD LD:WU
Early game: Meh. Early game: Lovely.
Mid game: Decent. Mid game: Awesome.
Late game: Sweet. Late game: Oh thank heavens.

Personally I think the thief shines in harder difficulties especially for what you can steal. To be honest AOE Steal makes legendary far more enjoyable, especially being able to grind up revival items!

Hunter 7/10
LD LD:WU
Early game: Decent. Early game: Lovely
Mid game: Great Mid game: Decent
Late game: Awesome. Late game: Barely surviving.(Against Bosses and Super Bosses) Decent otherwise

Hunter's buffs and ability to scan actually synergize quite well with the Thief, however aside from those she is mostly just another item thrower when you get into the tougher bosses in LD:WU; although her ability to modify the encounter rate is lovely.

Engineer 9/10
LD LD:WU
Early game: Meh Early game: Lovely
Mid game: Decent Mid game: Awesome
Late game: Amazing Late game: Oh thank Heavens.

Another class that synergizes well with the Thief. The ability to increase the effects of fish and healing/damaging items is very useful. Not to mention the really cool item based abilities unveiled in World Unknown allows one to survive against absurd odds.

Black Mage 10/10
LD LD:WU
Early game: Decent Early game: Awesome.
Mid game: Nice Mid game: Divine
Late game: Lovely Late game: Bloody Wicked

Ah my primary damage dealer, my lovely mp thief. The reason why I was able to crush the Super Bosses aside from my absurd supply of revival items. Nothing like defanging the enemy by wasting several hours to just drain them of their MP.

Honestly I don't see how effective a Monk would be on legendary, or a Knight but I sure as heck would not use a Grey Mage.

[TheQuestion]

DamageDAMAGE + more HP=stronger regen + Immunity = self sustaining boss killer + more awesome ♥♥♥♥


I have only done runs for achievements with other classes so I can't really speak for them.

[NeoDraconis]

Monk's regen can't keep up with the bosses that can inflict multiple DoTs.

[dsweet87]

Engineer: 10/10 Very weak early, you will need to grind money and fish to reach his full potential. But if you do, he can be like a black mage and white mage rolled into one, able to fully cure the party HP and MP every round. There's so much potential with this class it's ridiculous.
+Bombs require no stats and deal the same damage regardless of enemy magic defense, making him a huge time saver in Legendary speed runs, so you can focus on defense.
+High level ice fish with boosted crit can deal upwards of 20,000 damage per throw, another speed running time saver.


Black Mage: 9.5/10 Great early, can wipe out a full party of annoying lizards and be your best friend right away. Get his PRE up (especially the +150 ring from the Abyss) and he can 1 shot many groups, saving loads of time and party damage.
+Godlike cast on a Monk makes the Monk a super-ultra monk.
+Buffs and debuffs can turn the tide of a battle, making him useful even against magic resistant bosses

Monk: 9/10 A bit weak early, and if you grind the casino he can lag behind there too, but around the time he becomes immune to status effects he becomes amazing, and late game is massive damage dealer and nigh unkillable with buffs. 7 attacks per round, with attack up, crit up, enemy defense down, equals dead boss.
+Fastest character to speed run very easy with
+Pairs exceptionally well with Black Mage buffs



White Mage: 8/10 Strong throughout the game. However, 90% of battles she will sit there doing nothing, as most random encounters aren't a serious threat and require no healing, and any healing you do will be outside of battle. But on high difficulties she is very nice, providing rez, buffs, heals, all of which stack with fish and tonics.
+Giant, Balloon, Bubble, Tetra, HP Tonic, etc. All of these stack, making your measely 1k HP increase to 5000 or more.

Knight: 7/10 A solid class throughout the game. Very tanky and can use all weapons and armor. Can taunt an enemy to attack him, which is very good. However, the amount of tankiness isn't really needed and his high end damage isn't great but nevertheless he won't let you down.

Thief: 5/10 Average throughout the game, but after class change can use most weapons, including the Vanir sword. The main reason you want a thief is to steal from the super bosses, providing 2 Kali's Rings, among other things. But by then you won't really have a use for it.
+Useful for specific stealing strategies, able to steal some items earlier than you normally would be able to find them.

Hunter: 5/10 Average throughout the game. Basically a weaker version of the knight. However, scanning the enemy is useful for your first play through when you aren't sure which enemies are weak to what element, and the scan info stays through any NG+. Able to avoid random encounters via the Moa, but this isn't a big deal.
+Buffing through scans is more useful than it might seem

Gray Mage: 3/10 Below average throughout the game. If you try to make him a tank, he will be weaker than the knight in every way. If you try to make him a caster, the same thing happens. It is better to either take knight or black mage. In a 4-member party game, his versatility isn't worth the sacrifice.
+If you have no white mage, the Gray Mage can ressurrect until you are able to fish up the rez fish.