Most overated class combos

[Nezkeys]

Black Mage/Monk?
Archer/Red Mage?
Shikari/Foebreaker?

I mean black mage is a beast on its own as just nukes♥♥♥♥♥♥so aside from hp bonuses and 3 swiftness i really dont see why monk is paired with it. I honestly feel like blm should just focus on nukes and therefore think that rdm would be a bettee combo and would 2 swiftness even matter

Getting burning bow on archer is pretty difficult at low levels and fire staff isnt (and does more damage?). I mean sure the monk makes the blm a lot tankier but at the expense of not having spells like ardor and death etc.

Foebreaker seems to just add battle lores and hp because the breaks look far away. Shikari/breaker is such a boring class too imo that just steals on 90% of the games enemies lol (the random enemies). I mean after stealing on bosses it can tank and do decent dps but its not the highest imo.

[SenMithrarin85]

monk gives the black mage some useful white magics like curaja for example. alone, it gets none (ashe and penello start with cure though) with espers you can also add protectga etc so its not completely overrated.

archer/red mage is purely for boosting ardor with the burning bow weapon as you said and you can get one easier than grinding for it, plus ardor comes stupidly late, so grinding for one early game is pointless. you certainly don't need the damage boost lol. game is hardly easy.

[Sakhari]

Considering how often I've seen it ripped from the sticked GameFAQ's thread, Shikari/Foebreaker. Easily. The merits of this combo are based on outdated information (namely, the notion that Genji Gloves are best for Ninja Blade damage) and it isn't even the best option in the one fight where Shikari stands out as a damage dealer.

It's 'ok' if you're determined to do a 12-job run for some reason (simply by virtue of Foebreaker not having much else to work with) but otherwise, Shikari has several far better options available.

Black Mage / Monk gets a lot of attention as some kind of top-tier combo as well which I think makes it a bit overrated but as long as you're just taking it for backup healing and a bit of extra health to work with (and not because you're expecting Holy/Staff of Magi to be worthwhile), it's much easier to make an argument for.

[SenMithrarin85]

Originally posted by Sakhari:

Considering how often I've seen it ripped from the sticked GameFAQ's thread, Shikari/Foebreaker. Easily. The merits of this combo are based on outdated information (namely, the notion that Genji Gloves are best for Ninja Blade damage) and it isn't even the best option in the one fight where Shikari stands out as a damage dealer.

It's 'ok' if you're determined to do a 12-job run for some reason (simply by virtue of Foebreaker not having much else to work with) but otherwise, Shikari has several far better options available.

Black Mage / Monk gets a lot of attention as some kind of top-tier combo as well which I think makes it a bit overrated but as long as you're just taking it for backup healing and a bit of extra health to work with (and not because you're expecting Holy/Staff of Magi to be worthwhile), it's much easier to make an argument for.

holy doesn't hit undeads for much more than curaga does. plus, the cast time is long.

monk is probably the best job to pair a black mage with. red mage gets the darks and death (ardor is far too late to be really useful), but is limited to cura as an AOE healing spell which doesn't cut in when bubble is active. pairing with a white would put too much strain on mp having them heal and deal damage too.

[Sakhari]

Originally posted by SenMithrarin85:

holy doesn't hit undeads for much more than curaga does. plus, the cast time is long.

monk is probably the best job to pair a black mage with.

Yes, Holy is a bad reason to decide on the /Monk combo. That was my point.

Backup healing and added health (and speed) are better arguments for it and /Monk is a perfectly acceptable choice. I only say it's 'overrated' because quite a few threads over the last year have treated it like it's a must-have (often touting the gimmicky Holy/Staff synergy) and it really isn't.

[Hinnyuu]

Shikari/Foebreaker and Monk/Black Mage to be sure. I don't think Archer/Red Battlemage is overrated, because it does exactly what it says on the packaging.

[Nezkeys]

Was actually gonna mention Shikari/Foebreaker but had to go to work. Yup for sure literally all ive done is steal and that isnt even anything to do with foebreaker. Still no access to breaks yet and even tho it brings battle lores and heavy armour i can get that from other classes.

Also about blm/monk i dont want to heal with it when i have a whm lol. I just wanna nuke ♥♥♥♥ thats it, and i just feel like its a complete waste of monks potential with poles. I mean sure theres an argument that its more convenient to have a versatile character so you dont have to switch in something else but honestly i feel these are better if doing the 12 job run...

Monk/Foebreaker
Monk/Archer
Monk/Time
(Id include monk/bushi but i heard its not good to put these two together on a 12 job party because you have two of the best weapons in the game on the same character?)

Blm/Rdm

[Nezkeys]

Considering im only using 3 characters anyway lol i could have just done this...

Blm/Rdm (pure mage)
Whm/Time (pure support)

Monk/Foebreaker (beserked melee)
Or
Knight/Bushi (beserked melee) tbh i dont really see why this is good either but ive not used him once lol. Basically just done the whole game with blm and whm/time and someone stealing (could have been anyone to be fair because all the evasion and shield block stuff on shikari is pointless if tye black mage is the one constantly being attacked caise youre stealing lol)

[Eltia]

Black Mage / Monk biggest selling point is Holy. In another words, your Black Mage has just become an undead slayer as well as the strongest Holy user in the game.

Red Mage / Archer. Perhaps you got something backward: you first pick Red Mage as a job, then you pick Archer to amplify its damage in late game (when you finally get Ardor). By the time you have Ardor, you should have gotten Burning Bow from one of the hunts. Meaning for early game, your Red Mage will be serving as a general purpose mage. But in late game, it will serve as another DPS unit like your Black Mage. I have to double check but I believe Red Mage / Archer comes with Oil. Ardor is powerful enough on its own. But if Oil sticks on your target, well, the damage is impressive.

[Nezkeys]

Originally posted by Eltia:

Black Mage / Monk biggest selling point is Holy. In another words, your Black Mage has just become an undead slayer as well as the strongest Holy user in the game.

Red Mage / Archer. Perhaps you got something backward: you first pick Red Mage as a job, then you pick Archer to amplify its damage in late game (when you finally get Ardor). By the time you have Ardor, you should have gotten Burning Bow from one of the hunts. Meaning for early game, your Red Mage will be serving as a general purpose mage. But in late game, it will serve as another DPS unit like your Black Mage. I have to double check but I believe Red Mage / Archer comes with Oil. Ardor is powerful enough on its own. But if Oil sticks on your target, well, the damage is impressive.

Yes rdm/arc gets oil and i guess me starting with archer on that combo was a mistake then. Well holy sounds good but couldnt it just use curaga motes on undead or whatever white magic the /rdm would be supplying the blm? Literally all i do is oil with the whm and then the blm uses fira. Nothing lives even enemies that take half damage from fire lol..the natural extension of that late game would be oil+ardor? Do i really need holy and if i do couldnt i just have it on the whm or the knight instead?

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by Eltia:

Black Mage / Monk biggest selling point is Holy.

Common misconception, and one of the biggest reasons the combo is overrated.

Holy is an absolutely terrible spell, plain and simple. It is single target only, has an animation time about the length of the LotR trilogy, and deals less damage to undead than Curaja (which is faster and hits multiples).

That's not to say that Monk/Black Mage is completely useless, of course. It still has a lot of things going for it. But not Holy. Anything but Holy.

[Nezkeys]

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

Originally posted by Eltia:

Black Mage / Monk biggest selling point is Holy.

Common misconception, and one of the biggest reasons the combo is overrated.

Holy is an absolutely terrible spell, plain and simple. It is single target only, has an animation time about the length of the LotR trilogy, and deals less damage to undead than Curaja (which is faster and hits multiples).

That's not to say that Monk/Black Mage is completely useless, of course. It still has a lot of things going for it. But not Holy. Anything but Holy.

Im assuming monk or whm are the only ways a blm gets curaja? Or an esper? And since blm/whm sounds terrible i guess thats why monk is cited but heres the thing...wont oil boosted ardor or firaga from a blm with flame staff do comparable damage to undead as curaja would lol? I mean the white mage can obviously use curaja on that trash too?

[Sakhari]

Originally posted by Nezkeys:

Do i really need holy and if i do couldnt i just have it on the whm or the knight instead?

No. You don't. At all. It's a slow casting spell that only hits a single target and your standard Black Mage kit or Ardor if you go the /Red route (which I also generally recommend for an offensive caster) will do the job against undead just fine. Especially if your party also has a knight with Excalibur in it.

Again, Holy is more of a gimmick than an actual provider of value and shouldn't influence the decision.

[Nezkeys]

Right so yeah so if ardor is aoe i so wish id have gone with blm/rdm now. Tbh even shikari/time sounds better than shikari/foebreaker lol.

[Sakhari]

Originally posted by Nezkeys:

Right so yeah so if ardor is aoe i so wish id have gone with blm/rdm now. Tbh even shikari/time sounds better than shikari/foebreaker lol.

Shikari/Red is probably my favorite combination in the game but I like /Time too. The latter is hard to seriously recommend since it's more 'convenient' than actually 'good' but yeah, I'd much rather run that than a /Breaker.

Against theoretical undead enemies with high magic defense, Curaja does roughly as much damage as a staff/burning bow-boosted Firaga (healing spells ignore defense as I recall) but the lower that defense number goes, the better your fire spells will perform. With Oil involved, it's no contest. And Ardor will generally pull out ahead regardless.

[SenMithrarin85]

Originally posted by Nezkeys:

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

Common misconception, and one of the biggest reasons the combo is overrated.

Holy is an absolutely terrible spell, plain and simple. It is single target only, has an animation time about the length of the LotR trilogy, and deals less damage to undead than Curaja (which is faster and hits multiples).

That's not to say that Monk/Black Mage is completely useless, of course. It still has a lot of things going for it. But not Holy. Anything but Holy.

Im assuming monk or whm are the only ways a blm gets curaja? Or an esper? And since blm/whm sounds terrible i guess thats why monk is cited but heres the thing...wont oil boosted ardor or firaga from a blm with flame staff do comparable damage to undead as curaja would lol? I mean the white mage can obviously use curaja on that trash too?

yeah. monks get curaga on their own, but need an esper for curaja.