CHARACTER CLASSES

Character Classes

Here is the basic breakdown of the 6 classes which you can start with
in Final Fantasy. (Yes I know there are 6 more once you get your class
changed but I’ll include those below the lower class since you can’t
start with them in the beginning.)

1. Fighter

Advantages: The Fighter class is perhaps the strongest class to begin
with early in the game. His HP and strength ratings are very high,
allowing him to be the workhorse of your party. He can equip most
weapons and armors, adding greatly to his combat potential. As he
levels up, he’ll start to multi-hit in which he can get 2 or more
hits on his foes while fighting, greatly increasing his damage. His
defensive powers come mostly from the heavy armors which he can use
reducing the damage he takes as compared to the rest of the party.

Disadvantages: While the Fighter excels in combat, he does need the
support of others outside combat. His high HP means he needs several
potions or spells cast upon him to be fully healed compared to the
other classes. Another disadvantage he suffers from but addes to his
advantage is the cost of keeping him upto date on weapons and armors.
This can rapidly drain your gold supply especially if you are the type
which likes to bring along the added strength of a second fighter.
Fighters can be left alone as far as upgrades go for a while, but if
you want to get the most from them, you’ll need to keep them well
equipped.

1a: Knight

Advantages: The Knight is nearly the same in all aspects as the
Fighter, but can now use a few simple White Magic spells up to
level 3, including Cure and Cur2 (Cure 2). He can know equip all
the strongest weapons and armor in the game, which the Fighter
class prevented him from doing. His strength also increases faster
(I think) and thus the amount of damage increases slightly faster
than that of the plain Fighter.

Disadvantages: Again the Knight suffers from the same problems as
the Fighter, mostly that of depending on others for healing him. His
HP grows so fast that using all of his magic upon himself will only
heal a small fraction of his HP. Be sure to keep a full supply of 99
healing potions on hand if he gets hurt too bad, or pray that you don’t
have to use Hrm3 or Hrm4 much on undead with your White Mage or White
Wizard incase you need to use Cur3 and Cur4 on the Knight.

2: Thief

Advantages: The Thief’s main advantage is his agility. He is quick
enough to avoid a lot of foes attacks, (at least I think a high agility
rating is part of how the game computes your evade and hit % besides
weapons and armor) and allows him to be fairly accurate when attacking.
He also attacks faster than the rest of the party, so he can be useful
in giving out heal potions if someone is in immediate need of a potion
and you don’t want to risk using a slower member to heal them. He can
use a fair selection of weapons, but is not nearly as strong physically
as the Fighter. He can cause more damage than any of the Mage classes,
so he should be used mostly for fighting. He does gain a fair amount of
HP, so he should remain up front in the line to try to take some of the
hits for the weaker members.

Disadvantages: The Thief’s main weakness comes from his lack of decent
armors available to him. This means he will get hit harder than a
Fighter, and will probably need to be healed more often. The best armor
which is available to him cheaply is the Wooden Armor which can be
bought in the first town, but it becomes obsolete very quickly. You can
buy him bracelets to increase his odds of survival, yet the Mages need
the bracelets and spells more, so if you want to spend a little extra
time earning some gold or not, that is really up to you to decide.

2a: Ninja

Advantages: The Ninja is far more capable than the Thief was, yet
retains most of the same advantages. He is now able to equip better
weapons and armor, not the strongest to be found but they are near
the top in quality. He can also now use up to level 4 Black Magic
including all the basic combat spells up to Fast and the 2 attack
spells (Fire, Ice, Lit).

Disadvantages: The Ninja suffers much like the Fighter and Knight in
terms of weaknesses. He requires others to heal him during and after
combat. His HP though it increases while he is a Ninja isn’t all too
high because of the time spent as a Thief. For some reason or another
he seems to suffer badly towards the affects of spells, and takes more
damage than everyone else. I can’t quite explain how this one happens
as there is no stat for defense against magic except maybe for a low or
hit INT rating, but if that was true, the Fighter/Knight and Black
Belt/Master should suffer the same way.

3: Black Belt

Advantages: While most people don’t consider fighting with your hands
as an advantage the Black Belt can put most critics to rest about this
method. The Black Belt is almost as strong as a Fighter in terms of
physical power, yet he doesn’t benefit from the use as weapons, and
thus he takes a while to get on the same level. However, the Black
Belt is still a powerful part of the party should you decide to bring
one with you. His HP is very good, but his defense also increases as
he levels up, meaning you won’t have to spend much money on his armor,
because after a certain point, equipping armor actually takes away from
his defense and evade %. Weapons will also take away from his damage
and hitting %, yet they last slightly longer before this effect starts
to come into play.

Disadvantages: The main disadvantage to the Black Belt could be his
lack of being able to wear armor and weapons. Of course he will make
up for it eventually, you must spend time levelling him up to outgrow
this problem, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. He will probably need
the most healing at first out of the three basic fighting classes.
He also cannot use magic so he requires the assistance of others for
help. Other than these mishaps, I can’t think of anything else that a
Black Belt lacks in, almost like the other classes are in weaknesses.

3a: Master

Advantages: The Master is a vast improvement over the standard Black
Belt, in both damage and defense. He gains much more HP than before,
and his accuracy is much improved, and fighting is almost as if you
have that fourth member unlike before. His multi-hits are much better
(even as I’m writing this walkthrough I have a level 24 Knight
averaging 4 hits while my Master is averaging 6 hits) so his damage
potential can be much better than any other class before or after the
class change. Another strong point for him is that he requires little
or no space for weapons and armor, so he can hold special affect items
like the Mage Staff which uses Fir2 in battle, or the Heal Helmet which
uses the Heal spell, when others might be carrying too much to keep
them.

Disadvantages: One of the most costly disadvantages of the Master is
once again the fact that equipping armors reduce his defense. There is
only one piece of armor which must be equipped on all party members at
all times is the ProRing, which will make the Rub spell completely
useless, but it will reduce his defense quite a bit, and it will take
some time to earn it back, unless you have an extra 50,000 gold pieces
to buy him a Gold Bracelet to go along with the 20,000 gold for the
Ring. He also doesn’t gain the use of any magics unlike the Knight and
Ninja, while this doesn’t take away from him, it doesn’t add to his
offense (a Master with a Fast spell to use on his own or even an item
which he could use for it would be sweet *sigh*).

4: Red Mage

Advantages: The Red Mage has a unique advantage over the other classes
in the fact that they can use decent weapons and armor, and both White
and Black magic. While they cannot use every spell in the game or class
restricted magic (Harm is probably the most noteable of these spells)
or any of the level 8 spells, they can be a vaulable addition to any
party. His fighting power is equal to a Thief more or less, and with
the addition of two types of magic, you can make him either a healer
or an offensive type of character.

Disadvantages: The first and foremost disadvantage to using a Red Mage
is the cost of keeping him up to speed with both weapons and armor
along with his spells. While he can use both types of magic, he can
only use 3 of the 6 spells (6 only if they aren’t spells he can’t
use or level so trying to decide on how to make him better fit
into your current party can be time consuming, and you cannot remove
a spell if you don’t like it, so try to decide wisely. While he is
the strongest of the three mage classes, his HP is rather low, and
he will need to be taken care of either by himself or anyone else
who has healing spells. Another downside is the fact that he doesn’t
gain spell levels as quick or as fast as the pure mage class will.

4a: Red Wizard

Advantages: The Red Wizard finishes what the Red Mage couldn’t. He can
now equip better weapons and armor, and can now use the higher level
spells. His HP increases slightly, allowing him to be used more as a
full fledged combat character rather than one to be used when healing
isn’t required. Since he is restricted to several of the various other
weapons which can’t be bought nor can he equip, he has plenty of space
in his inventory (at least 3/4 empty slots) for which he can hold the
magic casting weapons which he can use in combat while conserving his
magic and helping the other magic users conserve as well.

Disadvantages: The Red Wizard suffers from many of the disadvantages of
the Red Mage, though not as extreme. He can use better armor now and
requires less healing than before, plus he can use his own spells to
heal himself. Another problem deals with what to equip him with. He
can now use helmets and gauntlets, and while these are somewhat
defensive in nature, the ProRing lessens his defense and removes
one of this items so you’ll have to decide whether you’ll want him
immune to the Rub spell, or have a higher defense and evade rating.

5: White Mage

Advantages: The White Mage is the most defensive class in the game.
Focusing mostly on healing and defensive magic, the White Mage is
almost essential to the success of any party. Able to use all the
healing magic to be found, the White Mage can heal even the most
weakened of your party just a little at a time (Cure), to full
(Cur4) with one spell. The White Mage also excels in combat vs
the undead with the Harm group of spells, which hit all enemies
at once, but are ineffective against others, but if you wish to
save your Fir2 and Fir3 when fighting undead, go for Harm instead.

Disadvantages: The White Mage suffers severely in terms of combat
ability and defense. The White Mage can only use one weapon for
the longest of times, until you reach Crescent Lake to buy a Silver
Hammer (I tend to use the Iron Hammer over the Wooden Staff or Power
Staff for my weapon of choice), thus limiting offense badly. The White
Mage also doesn’t gain much HP per level, and with the lack of very
protective armor, it won’t take many hits to take down a White Mage, so
you’ll need to be careful and keep them near the back. You’ll also have
to watch the remaining magic available to the White Mage, as a magic
user without any remaining magic points available are not much use to a
party either on the field or during battle.

5a: White Wizard

Advantages: The White Wizard doesn’t have many advantages over the
White Mage other than the fact that they can now use the remaining
spells which the Mage couldn’t. A few new weapons are available for
the White Wizard to equip, or use in battle such as Thor’s Hammer
which uses Lit2 when held in battle, or the Heal Staff which uses
the Heal spell. Various new armors are also available increasing
defense to a more managable level, but not as much as needed.

Disadvantages: The White Wizard even with new found abilities still
cannot compete with other classes in combat, and with the lack of a
true offensive spell which will hurt all monsters instead of undead
only means that the White Wizard will have to depend on other classes
while fighting in order to succeed. The White Wizard still retains the
HP problem that the White Mage had, but with a few healing items
available that shouldn’t remain much of a problem other than the fact
that they can only be used while fighting.

6: Black Mage

Advantages: The Black Mage is the ultimate when it comes to attacking
foes in battle with his magic. Though limited in nature, the damage the
mages spells can do far exceeds the damage that an ordinary weapon
does. (At low levels this is mostly true, especially if you can find a
monster weak to a certain spell where is damage is increased.) The
Black Mage can use various types of Black Magic, ranging from the
standard offensive (damage) spells to combat reduction spells such
as Slow and Dark, to the immobilization spells like Hold and Stop.
Any one of these can give the party a decisive advantage, yet care
must be given when using these spells as not to eat away the remaining
magic points of any level as you may need them at a later time.

Disadvantages: The Black Mage is almost non-existant in terms of
offense and defense once his magic has been used. In this case it
almost seems that you are fighting with a party of 3 (or less depending
upon how many Black Mages or other Magic Users you have without magic).
The Black Mage has horrible HP, and has very few weapons to choose from
to fight with while you try to conserve your magic or he has run out. A
few magic using items are available, but not till much later in the
game, so it would be best to save up your magic for foes which are on
the verge of defeating your party. He doesn’t react well to hits, so
you should spend your gold on armor for him before his magics, as a
weaker attack spell will be more use to you than a dead magic user
which amounts to no spells at all.

6a: Black Wizard

Advantages: Now that the Black Mage is now a Black Wizard a few more
advantages open up to him. He can now use all the spells without
restriction (other than the fact that you can only buy 3 per level
and up to 9 times) and he now has a new weapon available for him. Upon
reaching Gaia, you can purchase him a CatClaw for the one-time price of
65,000 gold. While this costs more than a level 8 spell, it soon pays
for itself. The weapon greatly increases his attack power over what it
was, he can now damage enemies in battle without the use of magics.
(Well low level magics that is, its not like we’re talking the power of
a Knight, Ninja, or Master here.) A few new armors are available for
his use, adding a few precious points to his absorb rating.

Disadvantages: The Black Wizard is not much different than the Black
Mage in terms of disadvantages. His HP is not very high, almost to
the point of pointless where he could have 1 HP would not be much
different than 250 HP (ok so I lied but sometimes I wonder what
the point of him even gaining HP is considering the amount of
damage that some of the later monsters can inflict in one hit) when
you may take several hundred damage from a physical hit and most
certainly a spell like Nuke or Nuclear (shakes his fist @ Warmech)
which can even down a Knight at full health. Again once he expends
all his magic he is not much use to your party unless you have the
magic using items (see further below in the walkthrough for a full list
of these items) it would best not to expose him to harms way.