4
7. Lancer
So the choice I think is between Lancer and Squire. Squire lets you get to the good part of builds a little faster. Lancer makes the game easy as soon as you get to chapter 2.
I cheated a bit and went back to look at my previous logic on this, cause I remember going Lancer that time, and yeah, I do think the logic I came up with still holds.
Ninja builds don't care that much if Squire is banned--they get to Ninja a bit slower, but don't care after that, and would rather have someone like a Lancer carrying the party while they unlock Ninja.
Monk builds don't care that much if Squire is banned, because unironically they just grab Equip Armor from Knight, and then they get to help the party through Chapter 1 by spending more time on Knight (chapter 1 has from testing been shown to be probably the hardest chapter once this many bans are in play) and using equip armor means Monks also get to not suck in chapter 2 (sucking in chapter 2 is the usual state of monks in the chapter).
Samurai builds obviously crumble without Gained JP Up, but I think by the time Samurai builds are rolling, the game will be fairly easy. Oracle builds obviously care about Gained JP Up, but I'm not sure that's enough to offset how much 200 HP 100 damage lancers can carry chapter 2.
And then long-term Lancer builds are only a thing if Lancers aren't banned, and Lancer builds themselves are pretty decent.
8. Squire
I don't think there's anything obviously attractive that isn't heavily hurt without Gained JP Up anymore.
9...
So...I'm definitely eyeing Oracle primarily for three reasons.
Paralyze is going to be a popular secondary to slap on just any old physical character who hasn't trained a good secondary skillset yet. It's got range, it's got infinite vertical tolerance.
Life Drain just trivializes most of the hardest fights in the game.
They hit pretty hard in Chapter 2, which might be a problem chapter.
Defense Up is good.
What are the other candidates?
There's...Knight, that would be targeting early chapter 1 difficulty. Although I'm not really feeling it. You don't care too much in late chapter 1 when you get geomancer unlocked. Even just monk in chapter 1 is acceptable early on.
There's Ninja. Ninja is probably where a lot of characters will end up. Ninja obviously has damage for dealing with zodiac fights like oracle does, but also damage that's more effective for cleaning up regular fights since they can use concentrate attacks and usually one-shot generic enemies.
There's monk--it has healing and revival, and unlocks early.
There's Geomancer. I think Elemental can fill a very similar role to Yin Yang magic as something for ranged characters to do when out of range. And attack up is good, although with Life Drain around the value of any damage stuff is dubious. And Geomancers are one of the few classes that can make good use of the cracked MA gear in chapter 2 (just to boost elemental).
Alright, hold on, let me think about this, I was about to declare "oracles use MA better", but I'm not sure that's true. Level 8 oracles still have 6 MA, so with triangle hat wizard robe that's 9, and a 7 WP Battle Bamboo makes that 63 damage. A male geomancer will have 6 PA, and 4 MA. Triangle Hat Wizard Robe makes that 6 PA 7 MA. The formula ends up being 4*7 = 28 damage, but it's at range 5 with potential AoE and never misses. Meanwhile geomancers have 4 move, and their weapon attack deals 48 damage (unless they learn attack up, then it's 64). They could, of course, opt for headgear to deal 56 attack damage and 24 elemental damage. The Oracle stick damage is of course at range 2, but geomancers have 4 move (also better HP and shields, so they feel more comfortable going into melee).
Mmm...in terms of a class to carry you through chapter 2, I think Geomancer is making a better case for Oracle here, and elemental provides reasonable competition for paralyze as a secondary.
That said...28 damage elemental is good, but you could just be a mediator, or anything with equip gun, really and deal 36 damage at longer range. You would lose the rushdown potential of geomancer, though--one of the strengths of geomancer over mediator is being able to deal melee level damage when they need it. Mediator doesn't feel that exciting though cause it's kind-of a dead end.
For other options...there's...Dancer.
Is there actually a world where dancer is the right choice? I...hmmm...think it's at least worth considering? The logic would go like this: whether it's with life drain or attack up ninjas, you can deal with zodiac fights and assassination missions. Nameless Dance probably is the single best "smash the mooks" plan available, with the possible exception of draw out. Speaking of which, dancers can pretty painlessly get lots of Samurai JP, and are female for the higher MA to make draw out good. They don't mind using dance to grind Thief JP for Move+2 either. Also Geomancer is still legal, so move 6 or move 7 with red shoes draw out user on a high MA class is on the table.
There's...actually a case that a dancer ban is what would hurt Chapter 3 and 4 the most. Makes mook fights harder than any other one ban, and doesn't leave an obvious path to Samurai.
Still not really sold on a Dancer ban cause you can get Ninjas with Move+2 and Concentrate before you can get dancers, and like...you're probably out of the woods once you have Ninjas with Move+2 and Concentrate.
So...ok...
Is the ban Ninja? Eh, Dancers still smash mook fights, and life drain destroys boss fights, feel like a Ninja ban doesn't add much difficulty to early chapters where the party is weakest, and the party can still cover everything real well once past that point.
Is the ban Geomancer? That feels like the ban that would probably hurt specifically Chapter 2 the most, and they're nice-to-have although not essential in Chapter 1.
Is the ban Oracle? I've come to the conclusion that they're worse than Geomancers in Chapter 2 (and chapter 1). They're definitely better than Geomancers once we're getting to fights like Altima and probably Velius, but I think you are super out of the woods by that point. A dedicated oracle giving everybody defense up by spillover is cool, but I don't think that comes online by the end of Chapter 2.
9. Geomancer
10...
So...one pattern my brain does remember is that once Geomancer goes (and squire is already gone) suddenly Knight is a serious candidate. Banning Knight will unironically spike difficulty in Chapter 1, and honestly Chapter 2 at this point.
Although...Oracles do keep the Chapter 2 reliance on Knights somewhat in-check. Oracle sticks hit harder than Knights, with 2 reach. Knight is still no joke, though, since they get to have almost double the HP of an Oracle for a bit--and realistically we're probably talking about an Equip Armor Monk by this point, so it's not like it's a dead-end job that's not gaining relevant JP (although being in monk does make them hit a little bit less hard even than a Knight--although once they get wave fist, they can hit from rage 3 through walls--they do need to equip a power wrist to maintain any semblance of serious damage with wave fist, though--60 damage with power wrist, 40 damage without power wrist, so 1 less move than the oracle).
So...ok, at very least Oracle is not blowing away Knight/Monk setups in Chapter 2, and honestly it looks like Knight/Monk setups can be pretty nice for the HP.
Yin Yang for Paralyze is obviously still quite good--especially now that it has no competition from elemental. Just gives range option to what is going to be for the first couple chapters a party of many melee fighters. If they have easy access to it, probably everyone's secondary. But also...I don't think people will purposely rush to unlock oralce for it--Paralyze is nice, but it's not like haste, it's not the end of the world to delay it.
Oracle obviously brings some highly relevant tools to later chapters.
Samurai is looking pretty dead thanks to the Geomancer ban.
I guess I need to take a serious look at Ninja damage to make sure it still murders zodiacs and thus life drain isn't a big deciding factor.
A level 20 Ninja has 8 speed, and 8 PA, admittedly just missing their 9 speed and 9 PA point. Thief Hat Power Sleeve gets them to 10 stat. So...130 per sword swing (260 total).
Granted, you can use Equip Sword from Knight to boost that damage. Same setup would be 280 with Equip Sword, or 336 if you used Equip Sword with twist headband. I guess I should check unarmed damage with martial arts too. With Twist Headband Power Sleeve that's 288, so Equip Sword is better.
I mean, it's fine if you catch the zodiac charging. If you don't life drain does kill faster. So ok, banning Yin Yang has a non-negligible effect on killing zodiacs later on. I also think it has a non-negligible effect on mook smashing. Like...yeah, dance does mook smashing better than yin yang, but the dancer wants to set Defence Up. Defence Up is also what the draw out user wants to set at this point, if you try to make Draw Out work.
Mmm...but on the other hand, break up the Knight/Monk voltron, and Monks become a lot less attractive, and it's not like they offer nothing at later stages of the game either (the one remotely reasonable revival left). Although nothing stopping you from training monk to get revival later on, you'd probably just delay it cause they're bad in chapter 2.
Banning Monk would close off that option. Although I don't think it would do much to stop people from leaning on Knight if needed to ease the difficulty in Chapter 1 and 2. A couple of Knights with Agrias and Gafgarion's old equipment using Paralyze while other characters unlock good jobs like Dancer and Ninja. Yeah, sure, Knight JP isn't useful. But to use a fire emblem term, Knight just becomes a Jagen. Although...honestly, I would definitely try to beat that fight with that character in oracle first before I switched to Knight with Yin Yang. They have a better attack, they just can't soak 200 HP worth of damage.
I guess one other complicating factor is when equipment shows up. Like...one spare copy of armor is available for Barius Hill and Zaland Fort City (presumably you use the other armor on Agrias), but also only one Wizard Robe is available for those two fights. For Goug Machine City, Barius Valley, and Execution Site you can have up to 5 people with Wizard Robes, and also the equipment you got from Gafgarion and Agrias is no longer so advanced--gold armor and gold helmets are buyable now. Gold helmet is 60 HP compared to Green Beret's 48 HP, so Gold Helmet is honestly now a downgrade--speed+1 is almost always worth losing 12 HP. (Cross Helmet is 70 HP, you still have one copy of that).
I dunno--like...one issue with the Monk/Knight route here is that you really can't just add more of them. You can run two, one for each of Gafgarion and Agrias' armor, and then you're running on storebought trash armor. You can run five oracles if needed to make the fight easier--this isn't that exciting until you get wizard robes (granted, cypress rod shows up after Zirekile falls--with wizard robe we're talking 54 damage, but you only have one of those. Without we're talking 42 damage. 42 is pretty meh). That said, another reason to be interested in the oracle route after wizard robes show up is that it also gets you to guns (which...technically there's one fight between wizard robes and guns being storebought, but it's an easy fight). Once guns show up, gun wielders with Yin Yang sound pretty solid to me.
So...I think the breakdown works like this. Of the fights that matter in chapter 2, the Knight/Monk combo is cooking a little for Barius Hill and Zaland Fort City, and after that the oracle route just looks better.
Another interesting question is when do I think the Knight/Monk combo will have both equip armor from knight and wave fist from monk. Hmm...assuming 3 actions per fight, Knight unlocked in time for Sweegy Woods, no gained JP Up, no detours to unlock anything else, they should have 482 Knight JP by Zaland Fort City. So...yeah, the Knight/Monk combo is literally going to be there to slap on Gafgarion's armor, but they won't be packing wave fist for those fights.
Zaland Fort City is also like...the classic Silence Song fight to save Mustadio, so there's a case oracles bring more to that fight anyway, so like...we are really looking at just Bariaus Hill in Chapter 2 as a "Knight/Monk fight".
Yeah, I think it's Oracle. More and more they are just looking more valuable in Chapter 2. And more valuable for chapter's 3-4, for all that the challenge probably is not so much of a challenge by that point.
10. Oracle
11. Knight
With oracle gone, I think it's one of the Monk/Knight combo next. Knight clearly matters more in Chapter 1. If my calculations are right, you're not learning much punch art that matters before Chapter 1 is over even skipping Equip Armor. And it's the combination of them that lets you build a reasonable character in Chapter 2 that still works towards long-term goals while yoinking Gafgarion's gear.
Monks without the armor who just learn wave fist...they'll get wave fist in late chapter 1 or early chapter 2, so JP isn't an issue for Zaland Fort City/Bariaus Hill, but honestly they're not bringing that much to the party that an archer would not. Wave fist deals 36. An Archer with Headgear and a silver bow in Chapter 2 deals 30, but potentially with more range. And Archers are probably more durable too. Once you hit the PA point you can deal quite a bit more with wave fist by equipping power wrist, but at the expense of 3 move on a unit whose range isn't great.
And then guns kind of outmode everything if you bother with mediator, and then not long after that Ninjas unlock and are better than guns.
12....
So...
The argument for Monk is as follows: they punch for 36 in chapter 1. Archers are stuck with ass crossbows up through sand rat cellar, and those deal 15. Thieves get Mythril Knives at least, but those deal 20. 4 base move on thieves is nice though.
And monks bring some other nice things; healing revival.
The counterpoint to monks being important for chapter 1 is that once you get the Long Bow after Sand Rat Cellar, Archers are doing alright. 20 damage baseline, that you can potentially stack with charge. Becomes 25 with Silver Bow before the end of the chapter.
The argument for Ninja is like...all of chapter 3 and 4, just dealing with fights like Velius and Altima.
But Monks, while they are not Ninjas, surely they can handle Velius right? Like...power sleeve bracer is on the table at that point, 13 PA with level 15 Monks. That's...133 damage, 196 if you can get Velius to charge a spell. They can handle altima just fine thanks to revival, healing, status curing. And they're fine against balk, do the earth slash line. Picking up Move+2 at some point also is a nice boost compared to their SCC.
I think Charge+guns is also going to be doing pretty good pretty fast, and it helps that archers are fairly solid units in late chapter 1/early chapter 2, so you won't need to wait for guns for the character to be ok. Gun/charge unquestionably overtakes punch art after Mithril guns but pre-Bracer. It doesn't overtake Ninja, but I guess the argument would be you need to spend less time messing around with weird unlocks like thief. (Do still need to go through Chemist/Priest/Oracle to unlock mediator though--all banned classes, so you don't get anything out of the six or so fights it takes to go through those).
Is there a world where the ban is archer? Hurts the gun build. Hurts Ninja a bit cause no access to concentrate. But that said...maybe three characters do basically a Monk SCC where you send maybe two characters down the Ninja path early (specifically to get through theif early while thief damage is still passable) and let the monk spillover JP help with the Ninja unlocks for the ninja path characters (need 350 Monk JP to unlock Geomancer--spillover will finish that before you're done with Thief) and ehh...should be able to get Ninja before Golgorand I think.
So...if the Ninja ban doesn't hurt enough cause Monks can fill their lategame role well enough, and whichever you leave up between gun builds and ninjas cover the weak part of Monk's level curve between mid chapter 2 to mid chapter 3, I guess Monk just makes sense here.
12. Monk
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