Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age job system. What to do? Read this before picking the jobs for your party.

This guide is not here to tell you what to do, but rather to help you make an informed decision when choosing your parties' jobs and whatnot.

Disclaimer

Before we move on...
I will start with a disclaimer.. I am not fond of the zodiac job system. I don't like it really, that's why I decided to insist on playing this game and really pour my mind on this job system thing, even though I prefer the legacy License board from the PS2 version of the game.

Disclaimer over.

Considerations

I still occasionally see a post on what job to pick for what character, and, I'm not a fan of, and neither am going to, tell you what to do. But I'll explain to you what my thought process was for the jobs I picked for my party on my actual playthrough. Whether you follow in my footsteps or decide to do something different, it's up to you and I'm just happy to help.

Let's start with:

CHARACTERS BASE STATS:

These stats were taken from the character at level 55, with no gear on, no license board perks or anything. It's important we understand that. Only the relevant stats will be considered

VAAN
HP 2.800
Strength 53
Magick power 50
Vitality 44
Speed 31

BALTHIER
HP 2.721
Strength 52
Magick power 43
Vitality 43
Speed 32

FRAN
HP 2.608
Strength 49
Magick power 47
Vitality 46
Speed 30

BASCH
HP 2.829
Strength 54
Magick power 44
Vitality 35
Speed 29

ASHE
HP 2.601
Strength 50
Magick power 54
Vitality 41
Speed 30

PENELO
HP 2.529
Strength 47
Magick power 51
Vitality 43
Speed 30

Now, before we move on, I'm gonna ask a couple of rhetorical questions just to make my intentions clearer: If you were to pick one of them to be the tank of the party, you would pick the one with the highest amount of HP, right? The same would be for your spellcaster, you would choose the one with the highest Magick power, correct? Moving on... But to drive the point home....

Here are some TOP 3s

• Top 3 Strength: 1 Basch, 2 Vaan, 3 Balthier.
  
• Top 3 Magick: 1 Ashe, 2 Penelo, 3 Vaan.
  
• Top 3 Vitality: 1 Fran, 2 Vaan, 3 Penelo.
  
• Top 3 Speed: 1 Balthier, 2 Vaan, 3 Fran/Ashe/Penelo
  
• Top 3 HP: 1 Basch, 2 Vaan, 3 Balthier.

It's a Top 3 since parties consist of 3 members, so there's no point in doing a top 5.

But now that we got this info, we can move on.

JOBS

Now here is a summary of what each job entails, if anything, hopefully you'll find this section useful.
P.S.: LB stands for License Board. What you can find most interesting there, and "Occasional" are those licenses floating in the void, separated from the body of the license board, accessible only through Quickening, Summon, or a second LB. + HP is always the sum total. HB stands for Hand Bombs.

RED BATTLEMAGE Weapon: Mace Equip: Mystic Armor, Shields. LB: +570 HP 12 Magick lore White, Green, Black, Arcane and Time Magick Occasional Greatsword (Ultima Blade, Ragnarok), Heavy Armor, +665 HP	MACHINIST Weapon: Gun, Measure Equip: Light Armor LB: +1.360HP, Remedy lore Occasional Green, Time Magick, Makara, HB3, Magick lore	UHLAN Weapon: Spear Equip: Heavy Armor LB: 11 Battle lore, 4 Magick lore, +1.710 HP Occasional Black Magick, Battle lore, Magick lore, abilities	WHITE MAGE Weapon: Rods Equip: Mystic Armor LB: 15 Magick lore, White, Green Magick Occasional +540 HP, Greatswords 1 & 2, Daggers 5, Battle lore	SHIKARI Weapon: Daggers Equip: Light Armor, Shields LB: +2.100 HP, 5 Magick lore, 6 Battle lore Occasional Ninja Sword, Guns 5 & 6, White Magick, abilities	BUSHI Weapon: Katana Equip: Mystic Armor LB: +1.330 HP, 6 Battle lore, 12 Magick lore Occasional Battle lore, Sword, +1.240 HP
BLACK MAGE Weapon: Staves Equip: Mystic Armor LB: Black, Green Magic, 15 Magick lore Occasional +1.120 HP, Heavy Armor, Makara, HB 2 & 3, Telekinesis	ARCHER Weapon: Bows Equip: Light Armor LB: +1.360 HP, Remedy lore 1, 2 & 3 Occasional Magick lore, White Magick, abilities, Heavy Armor, +435 HP	FOEBREAKER Weapon: Axes & Hammers, HB Equip: Heavy Armor, Shields LB: +1.710 HP, 11 Battle lore Occasional Magick lore, +390 HP, Battle lore, Abilities	TIME BATTLEMAGE Weapon: Crossbow Equip: Heavy Armor LB: Time, Green Magick, 9 Battle lore, 9 Magick lore Occasional +650 HP, Battle lore, White Magick, abilities	MONK Weapon: Poles Equip: Light Armor LB: +2.600 HP Occasional White magick, abilities	KNIGHT Weapon: Swords Equip: Heavy Armor, Shields LB: 9 Battle lore, +1.360HP Occasional abilities, Battle lore, White Magick, telekinesis

Hopefully you'll find this small section useful, or at least better than having to sift through the license boards in the game in order to decide which to pick.

Moving on...

DAMAGE TYPES

Now for this part of the guide, I will simply link the damage formula wiki page[finalfantasy.fandom.com] in case you are interested in knowing in detail how the damage works, but for simplicity sake, I simply ask some questions:

What uses Strength? Swords, greatswords, spears, rods, crossbows do.

What uses Magick power? Katana, staves, Maces* do.

What uses Vitality? Axes & Hammers, hand bombs do.

What uses Speed? Daggers, Ninja swords, bows do.

Now with all this information, we can start putting together which job goes to whom and what party can we make with our guys.

PARTY NECESSITIES

Even though we are very close to figuring out the best jobs for our characters, we still need to ask one last question: What do we need to have in our party, preferably at all times?
Well, we need a tank, a healer, a support, and if possible a ranged unit.
Now here starts the problem because we need 4 things and the party can accommodate only 3 members... Well, technically the ranged unit is optional since it can be substituted by an offensive spellcaster... it would just be nice to have a ranged unit.
And also, thankfully, characters can have 2 jobs, just like Americans...

So the optimal party would consist of a tank, a healer, and a support. Tank and healer are pretty straightforward, just the support is a bit of a question mark, what kind of support? That will depend on you (Depending on the kind of support you pick (spellcaster), you undo the whole need for a ranged unit, even though a ranged unit is a support itself)

I'm droning on already...

Finally linking the stuff... Some examples

Now that we got our top 3s, the jobs well laid out, the damage types are known and the party necessities are laid out as well, we can start making some inferences.
Per example, for Tanking jobs, we could pick Uhlan, and Knight, and Monk as well, depending on preference. And the characters that could fit best as tanks (Vaan doesn't count because he could be anything), we would have Basch and Balthier.

Balthier doubling as an Archer to have a ranged unit for backup, since he got the best Speed stat, he would be the best fit for Archer.

Penelo could be a Bushi, or a Red Battlemage, however that doesn't mean she should since she got the least HP out of all of them. You can compensate with the LB HP buff but a Penelo Bushi would be weaker than an Ashe Bushi, or a Vaan Bushi (Maybe not in damage output with a Mace as a Red Battlemage because Maces don't use strength in their damage formula, only magick power, but overall she would still be weak).

For support we could have people with Magick power, Vaan as versatile as fck, could be a DPS and a support, a Bushi a Red Battlemage, he could even be a Mage, although it would be a waste of his potential focusing only on his Magick Power.

Hopefully this was enough to help you a bit choose your party's jobs and what not, and in case you are curious, I'll upload a screenshot of my party.

Cheers.

[Nordeck]

Once again, thnx for the guide, there are not much of those out there, which would be easy to get right while playing (though guys at FAQ.com will be legends forever).
Cheers!

[Nordeck]

(reached letter limit) 2nd part

...Just make sure two things: your Shikari should be able to use Yagyu Darkblade and 1h Masamune for Bushi is a must. These two have the best damage output (vs the strongest boss)

Overall this setup makes sure you have 1 Damage Dealer, 1 Support and 1 Tank on your party all the time without constant juggling your party members (except for buffs ofc, those are a little bit of hassle, but Gambit system helps to automate it for quite much

[Nordeck]

That's an interesting combo you have there.
Let me add personal recommendation for party setup (tested with Double Job system).
'Cos once you see those damage numbers for Shikari, with 12+ combo hit and for Bushi with 10+ combo hit...Man, there is no way back, use' em every playthrough.
So, the list of Jobs and Summons:

Vaan: Samurai (Bushi) + Shikari (for Omega fight use Bushi + Foebreaker)
Balthier: Hunter (Shikari) + Bushi (for Omega fight use Shikari + Foebreaker)
Fran: White Mage + Time Mage
Basch: Foebreaker (or Monk ) + Bushi
Ashe: Black Mage + Bushi
Penelo: Red Mage + Knight

Summons (not a strict order, just an optimal way for the best gear; tweak it as u see fit)
samurai - Exodus, Zodiark, Belias
hunter - Zalera, Cuchulainn
White Mage - Shemhazai
Time Mage - Adramellech, Zeromus, Mateus
Monk - Hashmal, Ultima, Chaos, Famfrit