Lets talk jobs

[Lust]

Because this amazing game will be out in less than two weeks I started reading about the jobs and combinations to plan what I'd like to do in my first re-playthrough.

From what I've been reading it seems Black Mage/Monk and Red Mage/Archer are being hailed as the two best job combinations from a sheer numbers point of view, but what about lesser known amazing job combinations?

I haven't really seen many people discuss combinations that are great besides these two, both of which are pretty much magic focused which I don't have an issue with, but what about melee combinations and the like?

Do any of you have specific character/job combinations in mind already? And if so do tell! :)

Have a peachy day y'all!

[Cyiel]

Red Battlemage/Archer is good but not amazing (the combo Ardor + Flaming Bow is nice on the paper but not so great in reality. Too many bosses are weak to Holy and some to Dark but none to Fire.

I'll try a RBM/Ulthan or RBM/Bushi. Knight/Monk maybe... in fact i'm not so sure.

[Lust]

If you want to focus purely on Holy damage Monk/Black Mage is the best job combination.

A lot of bosses may not be weak to fire, that class setup is mainly for all the trash mobs minus bombs of course.

There really is just so many options and everyone can do everything pretty effectively. A lot of people seem to pick character jobs based on lore but doing that pairs up a lot of characters with the slowest attack animations (mainly Balthier as MCH and Fran as an Archer).

[Cyiel]

It's also because it takes too much time to cast Ardor than a Firaga but yep you can play any combo it will work. There are some good physical and melee combinations. Sooo many experiments incoming ! \o/

[oda.iori]

Let's clear something first. These job combinations aren't as nearly as good as people make them look like.

Black Mage/Monk

Black Mage is the best magic damage dealer focusing on elemental spellcasting and negative status magic such as Sleep/ga.

Monk on the other hand is a rounded job that can act as average physical attacker, tank because of its massive HP and a half-decent healer.

When combined Black Mages provides high MAG and MP for the Monk to cast the white magics got from espers, and Monk provides more HP for the black mage. However Black mages doesn't need more HP, they need to stay at maximum HP or critical HP which makes them one hit kill target for most enemies, so high HP is not needed at all.

That leave the boost on MAG and MP given by Black Mage. In this matter Time Battlemage and Red Battlemage are far better choices because unlike Black Mage they don't need to focus on offense only during combat and they still provide great MAG and MP for the white magics.



Red Mage/Archer
Burning Bow + Ardor, bla, bla, bla, Burning Bow + Ardor, bla, bla, bla....Ardor is found in the second to last dungeon in the game, has a slugish animation which will allow enemies to notice the party and attack before it hits decreasing the damage from Serenity or killing the unity if the player is trying to make use of the spellbreaker. Firiga is more practical as it has a much faster animation and will make use of Serenity everytime dealing the same damage as Ardor without Serenity.

As the weakest job in the game Archer goes with everything adding lots of HP and items lores, but Red battlemage is way better if paired with Shikari, Monk, even Uhlan and Knight.

[Lust]

"Best" is entirely subjective. I'd argue that doubling up on mage jobs is a terrible idea unless it's White Mage/Time Mage for a pure support character. Maximizing holy damage is a much better use of Black Mage than giving it access to entirely too many spells for one character to make use of.

Machinist is objectively the worst job in the game even more so than archer, however that's just my personal opinion. Every person has their own opinion of what is good or bad.

[Scarlet Crusade]

I apologize for the length, here, but tl;dr, I suppose, is that I have played every incarnation of this game, the original, IZJS, and TZA already, so I am mixing experience with knowledge to explain my past and future plans.


IMO, as long as you have each character with full Swiftness, you're doing it right. So five characters will have one each of these jobs: Shikari, Machinist, Archer, Bushi, and Time Battlemage, and then the last will have either Monk or Foebreaker paired with the Ultima Esper. There isn't much of anything in this game that isn't completely steamrolled by having two jobs, since it was balanced around the idea of having one job only.

On a related note, there's no specific reason to have any particular character take a job over any other character. Yes, minmaxing is possible, but unnecessary. Penelo makes a fine physical fighter and Basch makes a fine magic user as far as the game is concerned, because most of the power comes not from the character's base stats, but the job board/s and equipment.


What I did for IZJS originally:
Balthier - White Mage
Ashe - Bushi
Penelo - Foebreaker
---
Vaan - Monk
Fran - Red Battlemage
Basch - Archer

This party I made after a few trials and is a balance of what I thought fit well for each character along with a mix of my personal preferences of favorite characters and somewhat following the "meta" of the time, I'll admit. Specifically, the party Monk/Red Battlemage/Archer was pretty big, because it's basically unkillable in most cases. This was functional, but a bit cookie-cutter, but I still enjoyed it. Things I learned while playing, I was going to do another run but I would make Penelo a Knight and Vaan an Uhlan, but things kept coming up and I never got around to it, so...


What I did for TZA on PS4:
Balthier - White Mage / Foebreaker
Ashe - Bushi / Black Mage
Penelo - Knight / Shikari
---
Vaan - Uhlan / Time Battlemage
Fran - Red Battlemage / Machinist
Basch - Archer / Monk

Same idea as before, but with the changes I had in mind for my IZJS replay. I refused to fall into the "meta" a second time, since I wanted to do my own thing. My philosophy was basically that the character would use their primary role for 90% of their character and that their secondary role filled in gaps to make them a bit better at their role with the last 10%.

White Mages get bored in this game, so tossing out breaks and sometimes Shades of Black and even still other times bashing something with a hammer made Balthier less bored. Bushi is a bit of a technical fighter, and Shades of Black is cool, but late game, just being able to cast what you want instead of leaving it to fate is a nice perk. Shikari makes up for Knight's shortcomings and makes for a very fast physical attacker and allows it to get Telekinesis without Ultima.

Time Battlemage gives Uhlan something else to do than just attack all he time, since its own Black Magick leaves a lot to be desired. Temporal buffs are nice. Red Battlemage is perhaps my favorite job overall, and Fran is already better at it than everyone else, and Machinist with Famfrit Esper gets some good Time Magicks to be even more versatile. Archer picks up some more HP and Power and support ability from Monk.


What I'll be doing on TZA for PC:
Vaan - Shikari / Black Mage
Balthier - Machinist / Uhlan
Fran - Archer / Red Battlemage
Basch - Foebreaker / Bushi
Ashe - Knight / Time Battlemage
Penelo - White Mage / Monk

Something entirely different, yes? I'm finally breaking away from the two-party system made popular by IZJS which was partially out of necessity and organization due to lack of versatility per character and so you really needed each character to fill in weaknesses of other characters. That's not the case anymore with each character having two jobs, so I'm just going to let each character do their own thing and swap people in and out freely and be less structured.

Why I picked these jobs, though, is that it is, as far as I can come up with, the most "canon" setup possible while also not using any job more than once. It also just happens to factor in the full Swiftness for each character requirement and yes, I'm finally using one of the infamously "OP" combinations in the Archer / Red Battlemage.

But I'm not just going to spam Firaga and Ardor, since that just sounds incredibly boring to me. I'll just use the two jobs to help each other out, with the focus being on Archer for once, since I'm still using my philosophy of the primary job for the majority and the secondary job to make the primary job a bit better and more versatile in most cases.

The exception to that will be Basch, where Foebreaker is where he gets his starts to develop into a Bushi and then use what he got from Foebreaker to make the Bushi more technical and offer shields for endgame. Somewhat also true for Penelo in that I'm recreating her "Dancer" job from Revanant Wings.

I am fully aware that Shikari / White Mage would be leagues better than Shikari / Black Mage, but the reason I'm giving Vaan Black Mage is because his Quickenings bear a lot of resemblance to Black Magicks, as well as giving justification to his natural magical ability and it offers a neat duality with Penelo.

Ashe is also pulling inspiration from Revenant Wings, where she is a Time Battlemage, and this also pairs very well with her base job, Knight. Why she is the Knight and not Basch is because of the story putting greatswords into her hands to make the big decisions, so it just feels right. Basch is still able to be a "Knight" during his time as Foebreaker with his Mythril Blade. I won't be using axes and hammers at all. But his long-term goal is to be a Bushi which is still a Knight, just in a different way. His shaking off the armor for a lighter wear supports Bushi over Knight for him.

As far as Balthier is concerned, well, obviously he uses a gun, so there's that, but the Uhlan comes from his prior training, if you know what I mean. His ability to use spears is supported by Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, as well as being symbolic of the Dragoon, master of the skies. And he is a Sky Pirate, after all.