Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

[metroid composite]

My only minor comment is that I'd definitely be down for some Geomancer hype with the constraints you've set up.  If some light grinding is factored in, then sure, I'll take Monks or Samurai over them, but with the fairly strict "we are motoring through these story battles and not bopping each other while a survivor cowers in the corner" rules, Geomancer looks very appealing.  They come online extremely fast

Ehh...Geos don't really come online any faster than Monk.  By the time you could get a Geomancer, you already have 350 JP in Monk and thus have Wave Fist if you want it.  If you skip all elementals and rush for attack up from Geomancer you could have Earth Slash from Monk skipping everything else (600 JP).  Not to mention geomancy is not cheap--150 JP per geomancy adds up pretty fast if you want your geomancy to be relevant in more than one map.

Don't get me wrong, I'm critical of Monk's high JP costs compared to mages, but Geo is in a pretty similar JP bracket to Monk.  Not super expensive, but kind-of expensive.

Monk also has a higher damage melee attack than Geo in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.

Like...Geo SCC has a slightly easier time in Chapter 2 than Monk, thanks to some edges like they can wear hats and have 4 move, and it's a really good chapter for hitting two+ targets with elemental, but Monk and Geo aren't that far apart in Chapter 2.  Monk if they were to get Equip Armor from Knight for Chapter 2 would be stronger than Geo in Chapter 2 due to having the HP advantage.  (I'm focusing on Chapter 2 here, cause I assume by Chapter 3 you are going to have JP).

(Now Samurai on the other hand, yes, is in a much slower JP bracket than Monk or Geomancer; this makes Samurai very hard to place since they have the most expensive but by this point highest power stuff).

I'd be inclined to move 'em up to #10, ahead of Lancer, but that might just be me.

Lancer is a beast in Chapter 2 even with no JP.  Armour from Agrias and Gaffy can put you about 100 HP above clothes-users like Geomancers, and there's a 9 WP spear (best sword in the Chapter is 8 WP, so the 9 WP spear is effectively the best weapon in the chapter) and Jump is 50% more damage than a spear attack and it requires no JP to use melee range jump.  (And they have higher base PA than Geo, which matters in Chapter 2 cause Power Sleeve isn't out yet).

Again, focusing on Chapter 2, cause I assume by Chapter 3 you've actually gained some JP.

---

I dunno, I'm open to the argument of "why not get strong right away?"  But I'm not convinced that Chapter 1/2 Geo really has that much of an edge over Chapter 1/2 Monk or Lancer.  (Pretty big edge over earlygame Samurai, though, yes).

[metroid composite]

So...I decided to put the various ways of ranking FFT classes into a flowchart.

Consider this a first draft, since I don't actually know the SCC difficulty rankings all that well (apart from the half or so of SCCs I did myself).  Would love to hear feedback from people who've done more SCCs than I have (NEB?)



I also added a few lists that I should probably think about in more depth (carrier rankings and skillset rankings; kinda just spitballed those; if anyone sees seriously out of place classes in those let me know).

And I...slightly changed the rules of the "soft ban" list so that gained JP Up can't be banned and Invitation can be banned.  Moving Squire Down, Mediator up a bit, and justifying Samurai's position.

I guess the new soft ban rules can be formalized as...  "everyone can use 200 Squire JP and Chemist JP even if those two are banned (more than other classes cause those two unlock the whole job tree) and 150 JP from the immediately unlockable classes (Knight, Archer, Priest, Wizard).  Jobs with low unlock requirements can still be used as carriers."

[Dark Holy Elf]

That flowchart is amazing.

I may have more intelligent comments later, but for now, just had to put that out there.

[metroid composite]

Ok, actually writing down my thoughts on the carrier list.  This proved a lot less straightforward than I thought it would mostly because primary skillsets are (correctly) often factored in when considering how good of a carrier a class is.

1. Wizard is obvious

2. Ninja is obvious

For 3 and 4 I went back and forth between various options (including Priest and Geomancer).   I settled on Oracle and Time Mage for a few reasons.  They are very solid magic carriers (in a game where magic carriers are a lot more important than physical carriers) and they offer significantly better skillsets than black magic (or Geomancy, for that matter).  I'm...not sure Oracle over Time Mage is correct, though.

Oracle makes a decent carrier cause their stats and equipment are a little better than Time Mage's overall (better equipment, worse stats, but...overall better).  And they can refill their own MP with Spell Absorb, cast Pray Faith on themselves if they're carrying a faith based skillset, use Life Drain in the many situations where Life Drain is good.  They are probably better at doing supportive actions towards Summon Magic, for example (Pray Faith when that's good, Spell Absorb when out of MP, Life Drain against Zodiac bosses so Summon doesn't need to bother with Lich).

Time Mage makes a decent carrier cause their primary is better than Oracle's Primary.  Even without Short Charge, if you're a Time Mage with Draw Out, for example, and you fail your teleport you can just...haste yourself, which as a draw out user you probably care about more than Oracle's tricks.  With Short Charge they can use Meteor.  There's an argument that Summoner/Time Mage is better than Summoner/Oracle, not because Time Mage does anything really to support the Summoner skillset (summoners don't want any of Time Mage's buff spells), but because of Meteor.  There's also Time Mage/Chemist, which is an excellent support character while not giving up damage (whereas an Oracle/Chemist would be giving up damage).  Calculator...probably likes Oracle more than Time Mage, but doesn't like either one very much.

Hmm...should probably reverse the order of these two; more of the skillsets that can be carried seem to lean Time Mage.

3. Time Mage

4. Oracle

5. Chemist ...I mean, this is a bit of a hard one to place.  But...guns and Throw Item.  Just thinking back to co-op games I've played and how often Chemist just comes up.  Don't really have a hard logical argument for the exact placement of this one other than "I feel like I see Chemist carrier kinda often".  Although...honestly, I've seen Chemist carrier more often than Oracle carrier if I'm being completely honest.  But on the flip side, Chemist carrier also usually a stepping stone and not the final destination, just pretty good for a while.

Next clump is a bit of a mess.

Priest is a good carrier for Calculator, cause a lot of times the thing you care about as calc is speed.  But it's also a miserable carrier for most other MA based skillsets (Summon, Draw Out, Black Magic).  It's fine for Yin Yang I guess, YYM doesn't care about the low MA, does like the speed.  Priest as a carrier has situational uses for Time Magic if you're trying to deal with one specific story fight where you need to speed match with a fast enemy to drop a meteor on them.  Also worth noting Priest has PA, can honestly get away with being a carrier for Jump since okayish PA multiplier, high speed, able to wear clothes, nice primary (revival--if your Lancer wants revival it's not like they're going to Chemist--terrible PA or Monk--terrible revival).  I guess the primary revival means I'm probably underselling it as a Samurai carrier too.  (Again, not like your Samurai wants to go to Monk or Chemist for revival).  And also primary revival honestly makes this at least a little bit interesting for special characters like Agrias with Equip Sword.

Geo is an okay carrier for everything; it can carry physical or magical stuff, and offers a shield and 4 move and an acceptable primary in exchange for notably lower stats than dedicated magic/dedicated physical carriers like Wizard/Ninja.   Also has sword, can be a carrier for Agrias.

Summon offers a really good primary, slightly slower speed (which can actually be good for speed matching slow enemies--primarily enemy summoners).  Most of the time the slower speed just hurts so much though.  So it can be a situational carrier like Priest where you pull it out for specific fights for speed manipulation.  Most of the dual class combinations that would be interested in Summoner as one of the two skillsets would not pick Summoner as the carrier, however...with a few notable exceptions.  Summoner/Chemist picks Summoner; that's probably the best argument.   Summoner/Samurai picks Summoner--kind-of a weird dual class cause they do similar things, and both want a ton of JP.  Summoner/Calc picks Summoner (but Summoner/Calc is a really weird combo).  Summoner/Bard picks Summoner (even weirder).

Howeverrrrrrrrrrrrrr....  The way speed works, though, there's also just windows when Summoner is really, really good, because they've reached a speed point where they match Wizard.  (Five levels between 13-17 when they are speed 6 and other classes haven't hit speed 7, four levels between 31-34 when they are speed 7 and other classes haven't hit speed 8.  Two levels between 50-51 where they are speed 8 and other classes haven't hit speed 9).  During these small level windows they're...better than Oracle, better than Time Mage, honestly basically Wizard tier for a few levels (still worse MA than Wizard, but way better primary).

Mmm...yeah, ok, I'm probably underselling Summoner.

It still belongs in the same clump as Geomancer/Priest.  These are mostly situational picks you'll bust out for a fight or series of and usually not an evergreen pick.  But like...probably towards the top of the trio?  On Priest/Geo...yeah Priest over Geo still looks ok to me.  Want speed/want usable revival with the primary without bad stats probably beats the Geo callings of want shields/want 4 move/want an above average physical attack.  I might be underselling how good Geo is as a carrier for Draw Out in particular, though (where the 4 move and shields make it arguably an Evergreen option for that one skillset).  Might be worth thinking about this some more...for now:

6. Summoner

7. Priest

8. Geomancer

Alright...

9. Monk on the one hand, unlike the last three which have brief windows of shining as a carrier class, this is an evergreen carrier class...but only for exactly one skillset (Punch Art), with I guess some arguments that you can carry Jump as a Monk with Equip Spear...maybe?  Just...yeah, definitely lower than Geo for sure.

OK, Knight and Archer probably should be thought about.  Much like the Geo/Priest/Summoner trio they're situational, something you pull out for a fight or two, except just...worse and useful as a carrier on worse builds.  Knight is solid in Chapter 1, a fine carrier for Agrias before you get Geo or after you get Knight Swords since it has better stats than her base class, and on rare occasions a go-to for generic characters if the Excalibur is not in use.  Archer is nice in some specific story fights where you know you can take the high ground and have ridiculous range with longbows.  Mmm...yeah the Knight stuff feels like it matters more.

10. Knight

11. Lancer At the point when I put Lancer 13th I was basically grasping at straws.  But thinking on it some more Lancers have Spears, so if you haven't learned Equip Spear yet, you use them as a carrier for Jump!  Lancer/Dancer combos sometimes go for the high HP cause dance doesn't need speed.  Lancer/Chemist might ride out Lancer until Thief Hats really forced their hand.  And of course Lancer does just have stellar equipment in Chapter 2.  Much like Monk, Lancer is a carrier for its own skillset, except unlike Monk this is a temporary thing that ends half way through Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 really kicks you out of the class hard.  Hmm...still, 13th is probably wrong.  The more I think about it, it's got at least one maybe one and a half chapters like Monk where it's the best carrier for its own skillset.  Probably bumps it up above Archer and Mediator.

12. Mediator is there for using black robes with Elemental guns, and also for using innate Monster Talk.  Mmm...honestly, there probably is an argument that Mediator should be ahead of Archer, actually.  Switching for Longbows in specific fights is an option...but it's an option you take if you want Archer JP anyway and you're just timing when you'll get the most relevance out of the class.  But Monster Talk tends to force you into Mediator whether you want more Mediator JP or not.

13. Archer

14. Dancer You can probably think of lots of dual-class setups that would use Dancer as one of the two classes.  But how many can you think of that would actually choose to use Dancer as the carrier instead of the secondary?  There's...Agrias with Equip Sword.  If you want Dance/Agrias, you probably wind up in Dancer.  There's Dance/Jump, where long-term you probably opt for the clothes job just to get Thief Hat and Power Sleeve.  Actually, you know what?  That's enough to bump this up over Thief.  Definitely not enough to bump it up over Archer or Mediator--I've seen both Archer and Mediator carrier come up in real games, I haven't seen carrier Dancer.  But I'm starting to believe it's not that outlandish.

15. Thief If you don't have Ninja unlocked, this has 4 move, 4 jump and speed.  Also maybe you want to steal the Genji Equipment, and your secondary is something weird.  Also, maybe you want to steal heart a key target in a story battle where you already know the gender.  IDK, these are all stretches but it still sounds more impactful than Mime.

16. Mime Finally, a list where Mime is not last!  Yeah, I mean, the stats are pathetic, but I can think of actual reasons to bring it when all skills are learned, I mean...it's still a sketchy inclusion, but it does do something different.

17. Samurai  The best I can come up for Samurai if you already have the skills you want is various weird dual class setups.  Chemist+Samurai if you really want Phoenix Down (but that's iffy you should use Draw Out Priest instead, it's better).  Dancer+Samurai if you really want both and really want high MA (this is a really hard sell, cause Dancer's MA mult is higher than Samurai's, but they can't equip robes, so I guess if you want Wizard Robe then maybe?)  Lancer+Samurai--Samurai has higher PA and MA using both skillsets better (if we ignore the low HP and lack of shield).  As a short term training setup, Samurai with Jump is legit--Samurais jump real nice.  But as a non-training setup?  No, doesn't make sense to me.  It's...close to me putting them above Mime, but none of these actually sound...good?

18. Squire Maybe you don't have Thief or Geo unlocked and want 4 move.  Or maybe you don't have Geo unlocked, don't have Equip Sword learned and you don't have enough damage against Velius so you want some Twist Headband Power Sleeve Squires.  Like...for some reason you sent all five of your characters to Archer for the entire game, but you're a newbie enough player to struggle with the Archer SCC on Velius, and now you're looking at Platina Sword and thinking it can dig you out of the hole you dug yourself into.  Yeah............  It's way more of a stretch than the Samurai stuff, but I can see a weird scenario where I would advise a real human being to switch to Squire for one fight.  Does...this mean Squire should be above Samurai?

19. Bard Charge+20 with Bloody Strings and a Mime??  (I mean, technically you can, but surely that's not actually a serious build).  There's maybe some dual-class arguments here.  Bard/Samurai, Bard MA is notably higher.  I guess do this on Ramza, the obvious candidate for all Bard builds for even more MA.  Bard not being able to equip robes and having garbage HP so they don't really want to melee kinda ruins it though.  But...at the end of the day, going for a dual-class arguments mean that you care about both skillsets, and are accepting slightly worse stats in exchange for a better skillset.  Is Sing that good to make this a real choice over, say, Wizard or Time Mage with Draw Out?  I'm thinking no.

20. Calculator There are no dual-class combos with Calculator where, once training is done, you would ever pick Calculator over the other class.  There just aren't.  Even classes with much less MA that can't equip robes for Chameleon Robes such as Thief...just do status Calc instead.

[metroid composite]

Reviewing one of the other lists I came up with on the fly and probably should doublecheck, skillset rankings...this one should be straightforward, probably not much movement.

1. Calc yep

2. Summoner yep

3. Time Mage yep

4. Samurai yep

5. Chemist In some circles this would probably be considered a slightly spicy pick (not so much in the DL) since this is loosely a "it's chapter 4 and you've already learned your skillset, which skillset is best" list.  But...even with the assumption of lategame people know their skillsets etc it's...probably just correct.  Can't think of that many endgame parties of good players that didn't have like...1-2 people with item.

6. Oracle yep, life drain is good.  But it's a little niche where you'd pull it out for specific fights, whereas Item you might just keep every fight.

7. Priest Seeing Priest this high kinda bugs me, but...what would it go below?  Not Monk, White Magic is kinda just better than Punch Art overall--both jack of all trades skillsets, but white is better.  Argument for Lancer I guess.  Black Magic?  Since this is kind-of a learned skillset in chapter 4 list feels sketchy; white by chapter 4 is certainly ahead of black.  I think Jump has the best argument; less damage than Holy, but can sustained attack without running out of MP, in exchange for losing all utility.  Ehh...less burst damage for short fights, and no raise for long fights...no I think White above Jump is sounding just fine.

8. Lancer cleanly ahead of Monk/Wizard etc.

9. Monk above dancer is...probably fine.  Punch Art works fine in asssassination missions, dance doesn't.  Dance is better in some fights, but Punch Art is more consistently solid

10. Dancer Does this belong above the "you get these for free on carriers like Wizard/Geo/Ninja" and I think the answer is yes?

So...elemental/black magic/throw is a bit of a mess; by chapter 4 you don't set any of them as secondaries, but they are...fine cause of the classes they're on.  Throw if you don't sink serious cash into it (throwing Yagu Darkness) deals like...100 damage; can be boosted to never miss with Concentrate, but has no supports that boost its attack.  If you want to throw cash around like...160 damage (160 by the way is also the damage if you hit weakness with an elemental ball).  Also Throw is used on a very fast unit so you'll get more attacks off.  Bolt 2 deals like 113.  Can be boosted to like 150 with MAU which a lot of wizard setups will be using, but will always have miss chances.  Elemental will be like...60-70, boosted by MAU if you're using that.  Black Magic also gets Flare, which is like 300 damage, and for some skillsets that don't care about MP (Draw Out, Mathskill) you can throw your MP away on it guilt free (also you'll have MAU with those builds so like 400 damage).  But black has the downside of having both charge times and miss chances, so if something needs to die it's never reliable.  Throw also gets 1.5x damage on charging targets.  Black Magic can technically be used for healing on elemental shields...although so can Throw!  I think this is Throw > Black Magic > Elemental.

11. Ninja

12. Wizard

13. Geomancer

14. Archer Charge is simultaneously bad...but also not bad because charge guns and sometimes charge ninjas in assassination missions.

15. Mediator Had this at 16th.  But...nah, people actually do sometimes invite things, like invite chemists with elemental guns, invite stuff for poaching.  Sometimes also modify brave/faith.  Less than Charge in the games I've observed, but still, people do.

16. Knight Eh,  you know, let me move this up too.  Speed breaking bosses or weapon breaking key targets isn't that much of a meme if you do it with guns and dual-weilders.  Pretty niche, only good in a few fights, haven't seen it in a lot of games I've observed myself, but I do read about it from time to time, and I can't deny that it's effective for a few fights.

17. Bard I...guess I had this at 15th cause of Angel Song, comboed with a full party that either uses MP or sets MP Switch?  Hypothetically quite strong, on paper.  Don't see a lot of people using it in practice.  Might have also been at 15th cause in an abstract fight Sing is probably better than Battle Skill or Talk Skill, but Battle Skill and Talk Skill actually have niche fights where they are...either good or the best in the game at their role.  Sing is...never better than meh outside of some weird MP Switch teams.

18. Thief Here for Steal Heart, basically.

19. Squire Yeah, Accumulate is bad.  You know, I did most of a Squire SCC; got part way into Chapter 4, with levels pretty low (like...below 18 on most of my party right before Sluice).  Barely used Accumulate, often just worse than moving and waiting.  Throw Stone for the chip damage was also usually worse than waiting unless you could knock someone off a cliff.

infinity. Mime Most categories are bad for Mime.  This one is even worse.

[metroid composite]

SCC difficulty rankings I'm very unsure about, partially cause while I have done some SCCs they were in different formats.  Mediator and Summoner I did gamesharked to level 1.  The summoner run felt harder than the Mediator run but the Mediators I did some extra grinding with (got elemental guns) and Summoners lose a lot more from being level 1 (65 less MP and 2 less speed than being level 31).

I had quite a bit of trouble with Samurai, probably more than Mediator gamesharked to level 1 now that I think about it, but it was also the first SCC I ever did, so maybe I was just bad?  Still...maybe Samurai should be below Mediator?

Is Geomancer an easier SCC than Summoner?  I've done both, but Summoner had a big extra handicap; not sure.

Pretty confident about Time Mage > Oracle/Monk > Geomancer/Summoner > Mediator/Samurai/Calculator (with spells) > Squire.  Those are ones where I've actually had my hand on the controller for at least a chunk of fights.  Exact ordering within clumps I'm less sure about.

All the classes not on that list are basically guesswork and me trying to remember other people's posts from 2001.

[metroid composite]

Soft ban list probably needs a little bit of revisiting.

So...when we were down to the 8th ban, it went to squire, and then the 9th ban came down to Priest vs Lancer vs Samurai and Samurai was ruled out very quickly due to a loack of Gained JP Up.  Well, now there's the option of Samurai with Gained JP up.  Does this change anything?

Mmm...Samurai still does have problems where one Samurai (Ramza) is pretty reasonable, but multiples are sketchy cause you have to send females down the physical job tree and get job level 4 in Monk, so there's no major threat of like...4 people in your party going Samurai.  Priest still has the thing where Black Magic is not bannable, and Priest is one of the only un-banned classes that can gain relevant JP while making use of Black Magic.

So 8. Priest is probably still correct.

It's at 9 where we need to take a close look at Lancer vs Samurai.  Lancer is better in Chapter 2, and Chapter 3.  Samurai becomes a god in Chapter 4.  Hm...no, that's probably still fine.

Next up...

Squire's positioning...it's not moving any higher; Archer just does too much; arrow guard, concentrate, way too much.

Is it moving lower?  I mean, do you ban Squire for Move+1, or Thief for Move+2, when the best strategy probably involves a bunch of soft-banned classes anyway?  Getting Move+1 is very free with guest fights, but Move+2 is ultimately better but involves grinding a weaker class instead of getting free spillover.

Orrr...comedy third option, do Squire and Thief drag each other down?  And I think they...might?  With both of them in play, banning either one is less impactful.  Dancer might move above them.

Might be

15. Dancer
16/17. Squire/Thief
18. Knight/Mediator

Knight offering Weapon Guard to Geomancer setups, Equip Shield to gun chemist setups.  But...movement probably helps more than evasion because it helps with hard fights (zodiacs etc).

Which order should Squire/Thief go in?  Mmm...probably Thief first.  Like...sure, normally Move+1 gets more use than Move+2, but so much has been banned that there's basically nothing better to grind out than Move+2.  Besides, Secret Hunt and Steal Heart count for something.  There is nothing else of value in Squire.

Ok, so

14. Dancer
15. Thief
16. Squire

When I allowed invitation to be bannable, I moved Mediator up a couple spots...maybe you invite a Tiamat or maybe you invite for elemental guns.  But...thinking on it, no I was wrong to move that above Knight with Weapon Guard and Equip Shield.  Even Equip Armor on a gun user maybe.

17. Knight
18. Mediator
19. Bard

Bard's a huge investment for a nice bump.  But...so is Mediator invite shenanigans for tiamats and elemental guns, and like...less of a time investment TBH, and doesn't kill your PA.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  So I felt like writing words about FFT and a special character ranking showed up as an idea.  At first I wanted to do an overall ranking (and may still do so) but a more focused topic is simpler and may help organize thoughts.  So up first, special character skillsets.  I will be including Worker 8 and Byblos but not the Holy Dragon who gets replaced in the course of recruiting all the specials.  The originating character's gender will be considered in the ranking, seeing as one needs a Gameshark or other form of editor to have a male Divine Knight on the team or something like that.

US PSX version because that's what I'm familiar with.

1. All Swordskill
2. Holy Sword
(large gap)
3. Work
4. Byblos
5. Magic Sword
6. Guts
7. Limit
8. Snipe
9. Mighty Sword
10. Dragon
11. Truth
(another large gap)
12. Un-truth

And some scattered bits of the thought process.

Do I really need to explain All Swordskill?  A PA based skillset that combine three types of swordskills into one command which ignores all forms of evasion and used by a male character.  Night Sword to recover any injuries sustained.  Equipment breaking when that sort of thing makes enough difference.  Holy Sword for general damage dealing and the occasional lucky status proc.  Dark Sword drains away the MP of an enemy mage if for some reason you aren't murdering it. (such as training in Thief with Equip Sword on the way to Move+2)  The requirement of a sword or knight sword barely slows down the sheer destructiveness of the skillset.

Holy Sword even by itself is still very destructive with several options for hurting multiple targets.  Female PA means its not as powerful in Agrias' hands but PA boosting gear from Chapter 3 onwards address that matter.  It's still useful before then for perfect accuracy, infinite vertical range on Statis Sword/Lightning Stab, and sometimes helpful status proc.

May seem strange seeing Work placed so high but other skillsets are more niche and/or have aggravating limitations.  Work is simple.  Aim at target in range, target gets hurt.  Pierces defense and evasion.  Even the self-damage is more like something to keep the skillset in check rather than a hinderance.

The Byblos skillset is quite potent in the vaccuum of this ranking.  Parasite wrecks generics and will usually land something decisive within 2 attempts.  For Zodiacs, Difference will put a hurting on them.  For other humanoid bosses, OK Byblos struggles to contribute.  Using Shock as a primary damage source entails leaving the user in an injured state so it's riskier getting mileage out of it.  This limitation along with the weakness of low MP human bosses is what leads me to place it behind Work.  The sheer number of hoops to jump through to recruit Byblos is something I will touch upon in the overall rankings.

Magic Sword has some cool skills but there's also a number of limitations.  They require MP, can only hit one target at a time, are Faith based so will whiff often on low Faith enemies, and (other than Shock) are subject to magic evade.  Beowulf really doesn't like all the Feather Mantle humans in the end stretch and the Deep Dungeon.  Weakness aside, Drain really takes down Zodiacs, Chicken turns enemies into poultry very quickly or just neutralizes reaction abilities on bosses, Break has a good chance of creating a statue, and Shock has 8 range so good luck trying to hide from it.  His other skills are more situational and take more thought to use and they are more accurate than their Oracle counterparts.  Despite being the only skillset here with MP costs, still feels right.

Guts I feel is very situational but there are some unique things it does very well.  Yell is one of very few ways to increase Speed in battle.  Using it once will make up for a Summoner's speed deficit.  It can bring a Calculator up to speed with the rest of the party to aid in its training.  It's handy for theft too.  Feels overrated in most randoms though and I feel it throws my party order out of sync in short battles.  Cheer Up is the best skill for raising Brave but doesn't really offer much in the way of helping win fights; it's a long term investment I find I only use after a battle is under control.  Scream is neat being one of the few ways to boost MA in battle but again, not really decisive in getting out of a jam.  Ultima at least does unevadable MT damage.  Not a whole lot of it but it's something the rest of the skillset lacks.  Many fights, I find I don't really miss the absence of Ramza's Guts command and I use a generic setup with him.  And despite this, the lower ranked skills feel worse.

Limit has some neat abilities.  Finish Touch is devastating to generics.  Cross Slash has decent damage and a short charge time.  Climhazzard takes planning and teamwork to use but anything under 50% max HP when it fires is going to die.  I decided the charge times, the fact Limit only targets panels, and the Materia Blade requirement drags down the command's ranking.  Also needing Short Charge to get reliable use out of the powerhouse Limits ties up the support slot.  A significant factor of the Materia Blade requirement means no Rune Blade and its +2 MA and no auto-haste since Excalibur is off the table even when no one else in the battle is using it.  The nature of the CT system means there will be moments where CTs line up such that Limit cannot hit anything.  Ninjas especially will terrorize a Limit user and a Materia Blade physical is laughable relative to the other options out there.  Male MA growth barely registers in the face of the other drawbacks of the command.

Snipe underwhelmed me once I really took a look at it.  Works best with a long range weapon or dual-wielding and even then it's usually not great.  Don't Act and Don't Move status will last about a turn and a half when Mustadio first joins.  Even if Mustadio is using Snipe every turn, it will barely keep more than one enemy disabled after factoring in the skill's accuracy.  And when enemy Speeds are getting higher and it starts to look a little better (takes an 8 Speed enemy out for two turns consistently), Thief Hat humans completely shut down the skillset.

  Now the good news.  Seal Evil is a supreme tool for dealing with undead humans in the few story fights they appear in.  Also handy for dealing with undead monsters in a way that doesn't risk having them come back to life.  Snipe also pierces evasion.  Arm Aim has its unique niche of being the only PC skill that inflicts Don't Act status that bypasses evasion.  So it is nice to have for opening up pesky mantle wearing Knights should the attack team be lacking evade piercing damage.

  Meliadoul joining the party later than Orlandu yet having her skillset overshadowed by his is frequently cited.  But in a hypothetical situation where she's not stuck in Orlandu's shadow (or a non-hypothetical one where he's sitting out to keep from inflating the enemy levels more), how does her skillset fare?  Not very well, I determined.  Even if she's borrowing the Excalibur though it does help some with killing a target before they run out of things to break.

  I pondered a bit before placing Mighty Sword this low.  When it does work, it works very well, breaking the targeted equipment 100% of the time, no dealing with accuracy issues or evasion.  But the skillset is an all or nothing proposition.  Against monsters, Zodiacs, or humans with no more relevant equipment to break, what does Meliadoul have to followup with? Since about 80% of random battle opponents are monsters, 80% of the time, the Mighty Sword command is deadweight worse than a skillset with no abilities learned.  The limitation also makes Mighty Sword a lot less attractive to set as a secondary for a random battle.  If it turns out the opposition is entirely monsters, it becomes a wasted slot.  Snipe, underwhelming as it is, at least has a chance of working on more stuff.  Which is why I end up rating it above Mighty Sword as some chance of working felt more valuable than no chance.

  Now if one has the PSP version as their primary version, that bumps up the ranking.  Working on everything other than those with the requisite support ability and having damage potential better than the PA * WP of a regular attack, it becomes a lot more attractive to set as a secondary along with Equip Sword.  Not a factor here but an interesting footnote.

  There is one time where I really want to bust out the Dragon skillset and that is taming Balk 2's dragon pets, especially the Tiamat.  The rest of the time?  Range 2 vertical 2 breath avoids Counter at least and can put a hurting on monsters with a relevant elemental weakness.  Tends to outdamage Faith based magic most of the time except for the strongest Summons, Holy, and Flare.  Subject to magic evade so less adept at dealing with humans.  Then there's the issue that half the skillset is useless without a dragon ally and no dragons on the enemy side to turn on them.  Holy Bracelet has better range but good luck hitting a specific target with it as it's rando-magic like Truth/Un-truth but a Summon sized effect area.  Dragon breath may have more usable situations than Mighty Sword but the few times Mighty Sword can work, it tends to have a bigger impact on the battle.  So Dragon gets ranked below.

  I'd given some consideration to ranking Truth higher.  Unlimited vertical range, ignores evasion, damage scales to MA only with only Zodiac compatibility and elemental resistance to weaken it. (and no enemy unit will resist all five of its possible elements)  But it strikes randomly within the target range.  In a game where knowing how much damage you're doing is valuable for planning out actions, this is just so much of a disadvantage to work with.  And on top of that, one has to wait for it to charge before seeing what it did (or didn't) do.
  It's not quite as atrocious as various voices online may like to claim.  For one, keeping it from hitting allies is as simple as not moving anyone into the target range.  Which you do get to see when selecting it.  Even one enemy on a 5 panel range will see a hit a bit over 50% of the time on average.  The quadratic damage formula also means its damage will climb faster as MA increases.  10 MA isn't too hard to reach in a magical job where even the lowly Heaven Thunder will do a respectable 90 per hit on neutral compatibility without elemental boosting.
  Still getting to devastating levels of MA takes quite a bit of stacking along with high levels.  And while learning how to lower the area of effect is a valuable trait in getting better mileage out of Truth, it's highly map dependent.  Some maps are better than others for getting small effect areas.  Dogoula Pass is pretty great with height differences and impassable panels where targeting them yields several spots which lower the effect area to 2.  A place like Sweegy Woods is terrible for Truth usage.  Flat terrain and next to no obstacles to narrow effect areas.  And when you do finally get a juicy setup of 3 enemies in 4 panels or 2 in 3, Rafa will fire one burst and decide to stop.  In those rare instances where Truth does something decisive (such as landing multiple strikes to take out a key enemy), it's very likely one could have achieved the same result with a more dependable setup.

Un-Truth, Oh joy.  Take every drawback of Truth: the lack of dependability, charge times that make you wait before you see the results, high vertical tolerance making it difficult to lower the effect area and add these issues in.

- The reverse Faith formula: Average enemy Faith is 60 and bosses tend to all have more than that.  So compared to a similar strength Faith based ability, Un-Truth is already doing a third less damage on average.
- Male MA: Male units are already at a disadvantage with wielding magical skillsets as it is but then add in a quadratic damage formula on top of that.  Malak's losing even more power relative to a hypothetical female Un-Truth caster.  Getting meaningful amounts of MA generally involves being in a caster class which leads to the next issue.
- Un-truth has no synergy with caster classes: Having a good Un-truth user (assuming such a thing is even possible) requires having them at low Faith.  Malak is going to be awful with all the caster skillsets.  And sacrificing an entire skillset just to boost the functionality of Un-truth?  Well, you can if you really want but sacrificing Black/White/Time/Yin-Yang/Summon to help friggin' Un-truth is something done for training, not when consciously seeking to build an effective unit.

  Faith Rod does exist but that's Deep Dungeon only so even if I am choosing to ignore Deep Dungeon for this analysis, it still has that availability factor.  And even with it?  Wizard Malak is probably better off with Black Magic than messing around with Un-Truth.  Summons already ignore magic evade so there's little incentive to use Un-Truth over a Summon.  And Summons don't have friendly fire for added mockery.  Oracles I feel are generally better off with sticks.  It would take a very intentional decision and setup to give up their respectable physical for any sort of rod.

  Un-truth can do amazing damage when both the target and the caster have Faith status.  But that's a lot of hoops to jump through to get big damage.  If it decides to hit, going back to the dependability issue.  So this trivia doesn't help its ranking here.  Not when there's Holy Sword skills where one just points them at something you want to die without a bunch of hassle setting up both sides of the battlefield.  Know what else is amazing with both target and caster have Faith status?  Summons and Math Skill and status magic, all superior than hoping a blast of rando-magic hits an enemy

[metroid composite]

On DragonKnight Zero's special character skillset ranking...

I think Mighty Sword is probably too low?

I think it's ahead of Snipe at least.  Saying that Meliadoul doesn't do anything to non-humans is...yeah, fair.  But by the same point in the game Snipe tends to not do anything to most humans (since they wear Thief Hats and are not undead).

There's an argument that Snipe is available for longer so it's not fair to look at them only for the last stretch of Chapter 4, which...yeah, that's fair.  But even when Snipe can hit humans does it really justify the character slot?  It's a bit like 8 range Steal Heart.  Roughly the same hit rate.  Worse status, longer range, but requires you to be wielding a gun for that range.  That's...not really something I'm excited to spend a character slot on.  Maybe as a situational pick.

Whereas ranged instant speed evade ignoring 230ish damage (but only against humans) from a character potentially with auto-haste for 12 effective speed?  Most parties would be fine with including that, at least if they thought they were somewhat likely to face humans.

Which I guess would only move Mighty Sword up one space.  (Don't think it's touching Limit/Guts/Magic Sword).

[hinode]

Just to doublecheck, when is the earliest you can get a Materia Blade? And are these rankings factoring in the availability of that, or does it assume one is hacked in along with the Soldier class itself?

[Dark Holy Elf]

I was under the impression that skillsets were being considered within their non-hacked availability. (Which I approve of. No need to hype things like "Cross-Slash does 22xMA damage, that's 3-digit damage in Chapter 1!" Or for a more extreme example, see things like the Advanced jobs in FF5, which have fixed-damage attacks balanced for endgame.)

That said to answer your question, the earliest you can get the Materia Blade naturally is the start of Chapter 4.

[hinode]

Byblos at 4 makes me think this is disregarding availability.

[metroid composite]

Byblos at 4 makes me think this is disregarding availability.

It's merely not throwing out characters for reasons of "they join too late" (sounds like there will be another list coming that does that).

But even when doing that, it still makes sense to evaluate nearly all these skillsets against Chapter 4 enemies.   (Almost all of these are only available in Chapter 4.  Only Agrias and Mustadio are available earlier.  Sure, technically you have Ramza earlier too, but he doesn't have Scream or Ultima until Chapter 4 so...you don't really have the full Guts skillset).  There's certainly never a reason to evaluate these skillsets against Chapter 1 enemies.

[metroid composite]

Meanwile version 2 of the flowchart with the changes I mentioned.  (Still haven't touched the SCC difficulty rankings though--send help anyone who still remembers stuff about SCC difficulty).



The one movement that didn't come up in my analysis above is, on the carrier list, Squire moved up several slots.  I saw someone in a different class tier list mention that Squire is good for Gariland Magic City and Mandalia Plains story fights.  And...they're not wrong.  Sure, those fights are a tiny part of the game, but...that is honestly enough to move Squire as a carrier above Samurai...and Mime...and...honestly probably Thief and Dancer too.

[DragonKnight Zero]

I kept my first ranking as a "have all the characters and important skills learned, how do their skillsets stack against each other."  For simplicity, I didn't factor in availability, difficulty of recruiting, how much effort it takes to train them in the important skills (Cloud get hits hard when I do overall rankings and do factor this), how well they preform in other classes and/or before they've learned they're desirable skills, and so on.

And since Materia Blade is available from the start of Chapter 4 and there's no randomness to its acquisition, I'm assuming one already has it by the time Cloud joins.  FAQ bait arguments don't apply as several of the specials are even more FAQ-baity than the blade.

After a few days, I'll write up a special character classes ranking.  As a preview at a glance, it looks like Orlandu and Ramza at the top, Byblos at or near the bottom, shield users above the rest, and the remaining shuffle around at the bottom tier.

[metroid composite]

So...it was bothering me that my memory of Samurai SCCs might be a bit tainted, so I went ahead and started a new one.  Specifically of interest is how much the SCC is doable without grinding.  I decided that grinding extended to grinding up Delita to have a fancy setup for him, so I didn't do that either (Knight with Move+1, Potion, and Weapon Guard).

In particular, I've done a lot of SCCs with somewhat of a "no grind unless absolutely necessary" restriction on them.  But like...if I struggle in the SCC because I spent JP on the wrong thing, that's not the fault of the class.  Like...Time Mage under a "no grind" limitation if you buy something silly like Demi 2, and then lose fights due to not having Meteor, that's not really the fault of the class.  And I feel like I might have done this with my first playthrough of Samurai.

In order to avoid the JP spending mistakes I made last time, my plan for this playthrough is: go for Blade Grasp first in preparation for Barius Hill (which was the first major wall for me last time).  Then get Koutetsu.  Then go right back to saving for Two Hands to hopefully beat Velius without needing to gain levels to hit the level 18 speed point (Velius being the second major wall for me).

Samurai unlocked with characters at level 6-7.  Buldozed the first few fights due to being overleveled (overleveled male samurai deal 28 or 35 depending on brave.  Female Samurai are 15, which...a lot of SCCs deal 15 in Chapter 1).  No resets on Sweegy Woods, Dorter, Sand Rat Cellar, one reset on Miluda 1.

After those fights I was thinking Chapter 1 would be mostly straightforward apart from Wiegraf.  Then 4 resets on Miluda 2, 8 resets on Wiegraf, 5 resets on Algus.  There's some AI manipulation to make these fights better, draw the boss into the right spot while drawing the other enemies away so that they don't meatshield for the boss.  But I figured those luring positions out through trial and error, Delita often made a mess of any luring attempts anyway, and RNG was a big player (whether the boss's reaction would trigger, whether I would miss, whether Wiegraf's instant death or stop would kick in).  Although to be fair, trouble on Miluda 2 was probably partially my fault--forgot to finish Delita's setup for this fight, and decided I would skip over an armour checkpoint cause I expected trouble from Wiegraf, and was like "I can wait for the next store checkpoint after Miluda 2 right?"  Oops.

Anyway, melee characters who can miss, have low damage, and have low movement I guess struggle a little on the last three fights in Chapter 1.  Not earth shattering, I was more interested in Chapter 2 and 3 stuff to be honest

Still a few fights away from Barius Hill, but my best guess right now is some but not all characters will have blade grasp.  And..."some" might mean "only Ramza".  Although...maybe the fight won't wall me even without blade grasp as I have a lot more experience with SCCs now?  Although...pretty sure my chapter 1 reset counts were actually higher this time, so maybe I am old and rusty and will get walled even more.

[metroid composite]

Chapter 2...

Dorter 2: 0 resets, Araguay: 0 resets, Zirekile: 0 resets, Zaland Fort City: 1 reset

So...moment of truth, how many characters do I have enough JP for Blade Grasp on?  And the answer is...zero!  (Ramza has 699 JP, the rest are around 500).

Alright, question 2, was I just bad when I did my first SCC, or can I  clear this fight in a reasonable number of resets without Blade Grasp?  At first I was getting rolled, and thought maybe yeah, this fight was actually just going to take me 40ish resets like when I was a noob.  Switched around my strategies a bit and...ended up with...somewhere around 6-8 resets in the end.  Strategy changes:

* After trying to do things with Agrias on Holy Knight with Hi Potion or Cure 2+Raise secondary, I decided no, I want the one extra point of PA on her, made her a Knight with Holy Sword secondary.
* I decided Mustadio surviving was pretty important to my plan; huge part of my party's damage.  And he has the lowest HP on the team and moves before the Archers, Archers were always targetting him.  Blinged him out with the best mantle money can buy right now...the Leather Mantle.  (If you reset enough eventually the Leather Mantle plus his front evade will keep him alive against archer shots!)
* One of my low faith females I sent to bait a summon from the right hand summoner turn 1.  This pulls the summoner down the right hand lane, which actually means she has to backtrack to actually climb the mountain and get in the fight.  Also sometimes she only has one summon.
* My low faith male I set up one square to the right of the square that gets hit by a Knight turn 1.  Can sometimes hit a charging archer from there, and running into the range of summoners when he's alone is fine.  Also, really need to bait some attacks from Knights onto not Agrias cause she can very easily die if there's no other target.
* In order to time Ramza to be able to hit the summoner on the left when she's charging on her turn 2, I needed to double wait round one, and then move wait round 2.

These changes really flipped the fight around--even before I cleared it, I had a few runs that looked kinda promising.

Still a super legit fight.  Bought full armour and helmet upgrades for everyone in anticipation (including a body upgrade and mantle for mustadio).  So...maybe I'll run into money trouble now.

[metroid composite]

Welp, had that whole nice speech about not being a noob anymore, and then made a noob mistake (have Capricorn Ramza, can't find a way to survive till opening the gate, Gaf deals 63, Ramza with best available HP gear has 185 HP, needs 190 to survive three hits).

Rest of Chapter 2 up through Lionel was stomped by Koutetsu + Wizard Robe.

Obviously grinding for levels would get me the HP, but I want to test low grind Samurais vs Velius, so I might just cheat past Lionel instead, since it's definitely beatable low grind if you just pick a smarter zodiac.  (Cheating would be in the form of like Knight Ramza taking no actions just opening the gate to simulate being a samurai with more HP from levels).

[DragonKnight Zero]

Oof.  Well good luck and hope you don't get walled at Balk 2 like I did without the Lv 35 Speed point. 

Which might still have been doable with the trap strategy but I didn't pick up 2 H Bags to try it.  But I abandoned the SCC and have long since overwritten the save.  The money issues were real from about mid-Chapter 3 and onwards.

My Ramza was a Sagitaraus, for comparison.  I wanted bad compat with Virgo (Lionel being one of the key reasons), Pisces would drag out the Wiegraf duel too much and I decided that reduced damage from Gemini was worth more than weakening enemy Sagitaraus.

[metroid composite]

Balk 2 huh?  That one wasn't on my radar; I know I did this SCC before, and I remember a lot of sticking points due to low levels, but not Balk.

Anyway...taking my cheating strat to give Ramza a bit more HP while taking no actions...

Lionel I...reset 3 times, and then came back with Rubber Shoes and stomped.  Would have been nice to save the money spent on rubber shoes (still didn't have enough JP for Blade Grasp on anyone except for Ramza).

Queklain: 0 resets

Goland Coal City: 1 reset.  3 people with Blade Grasp now, but that means two people who can be murdered by chemists, and also I have two male samurai which can be steal hearted (very bad) and there's three Thieves.  Actually fairly scary fight.

Zalmo 1: 0 resets.

UBS2: 0 resets
UBS3: 0 resets
UBS1: 0 resets

Grog Hill: 0 resets.  If the thief had actually tried to use steal heart, and had hit this was loseable.  They went for an auto against someone with blade grasp instead.

Anyway, Blade Grasp on 4 people, Two Hands on the non-Ramza male, who now actually deals slightly more to a single target (100) than the females with Koutetsu (84).  There's a PA point coming up, but I believe it doesn't actually change my male's damage (PA goes from 7 to 8, which both get reduced to 5 with 73 brave).  Most other people are about 200-300 JP away from Two Hands, so skipping everything else in favour of Koutetsu, Blade Grasp, Two Hands looks like it might get all three skills in time for Velus?  Well...on four characters (the fifth got behind on JP somehow).  Levels are 13-15, so yeah, raming into Velius below level 18 looks extremely likely.

[metroid composite]

Yardow: 4 resets.  Being melee kinda sucks.  First lost because I clumped up too many enemy bodies at the door and then couldn't walk through the door.  Then lost a few times cause I pulled too far back trying to bait enemies forward and then Rafa died.  This was probably harder than it needed to be because I was worried about cash for riovanes so didn't buy white robes.

Yuguo Woods: 1 reset.  Time Mage acted before me and hit Don't move on 3 Samurai.  Not unwinnable from that point, but not great.

Gate of Riovanes: 0 resets.

Wiegraf: With the loadout I have (Capricorn, Two Hands, Blade Grasp, Koutetsu) hit him with a two hands sword attack twice without dying to counter.  Works about 1/8 of the time.  Elf Mantle helps.  Bearable with frameskip to get past his speech.

Velius: So...4/5 of my characters have two hands, and I don't think it's enough.  I've successfully gotten it so that four (technically all five but the girl without two hands I believe is still better using Koutetsu) could manage to melee him once while he was charging.  And...he didn't die.

Male and good compat female deal 180.  Neutral compat female deals 144.  Ramza deals 216.  And then the remaining Koutetsu is maybe 84 or something.  Sticking these in a spreadsheet, says 804.  Even with one more Two Hands I would only get to 864.  Need 960ish.

So...I see three options that get me the win here:

1: Get a big crit.
2: Figure out how to get two attacks from one character on Velius without being murdered by demons after making the first attack.
3: Load up my save outside of Riovanes from before I went shopping.  Buy 1 chameleon robe, 3 sprint shoes, 1 bracer (which...I can just barely afford all that).  Put the Bracer on Ramza, and hope that doesn't fuck up CT coming out of the duel to the point that I can no longer hit Velius while charging.  Put the Sprint Shoes on the characters with two hands.  The character without two hands can use Red Shoes or something like that, she doesn't need to hit while charging.

I think I lean towards trying the 3rd option?  Don't really see a way for a character to live after getting in melee range of Velius.  And the odds of the crit route are around 5% (when the chances of winning the duel are around 12%, so I'd be committing to about 160 resets).  Kinda sucks cause Bracer is a huge money drain that will probably never be used again after this fight, but oh well.  Should probably do some testing first with a 6 CT character to make sure that doesn't completely change Velius' AI or something.

Bracer route Still only gets me to 936 though.  Hmm...if I only buy two Sprint Shoes, use the unsold Diamond Armlet I can get away with two 6 speed characters, a 6 speed character that double waits on turn 1 can hit Velius while charging turn 2, bringing 36 more damage.  Probably two speed 6 characters will change his AI, but I'll run some tests.  I guess if I can get away with only one speed 6 char but not two, a two hands character picking up PA+1 matters more than a non-two hands character picking up MA+1.

Side note: I regret buying circlets on everyone, kinda forgot how much Velius+demons are basically just unlimited damage so I'm not sure Circlets actually change the fight at all.  But I did that before Yuguo Woods and saved over the pre Yuguo Woods file already RIP.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I was Level 18 by that fight and it wasn't that bad (did have a couple resets refining the strategy though). Didn't grind either. RNG luck with randoms? Probably. Unfortunately the file with my strategy notes got eaten; my memory is that 7 speed vs 6 mostly helps with Ramza and the timing of the Wiegraf duel. If you're winning on turn 2 then the battle ends on clocktick 38 (Wiegraf's third turn). 7 speed Ramza will be at 66 CT then, gets one turn 5 clockticks into Velius. He can double-wait and hit Velius mid-charge at that point, although Velius will likely be able to kill him with Titan so only other 7-speed characters can mid-charge him. If you do this with 6 speed... then Ramza gets his turn riiiight before Velius, which isn't very helpful unless your goal is to use Kiyomori and tank. Unless there's some way to avoid moving in the Wiegraf duel, but that seems unlikely since Wiegraf likes to Wave Fist from the edge of range. EDIT: 8 speed obviously gives you maximum flexibility here, since you enter the Velius fight at 100 CT and can do whatever you want, like Kiyomori + move to wherever. That probably helped so much, thinking on it, and was probably what I did.

Definitely agree with not buying White Robes for Yardow btw... I had some difficulties with the fight too but it's absolutely not worth it, White Robes don't stop Throw and only randomly help against the Summoners (you're basically banking on them only having Ifrit/Shiva/Ramuh). Some SCCs have money to burn on a low-% investment like that, Samurai absolutely does not, unless you're grinding.

[metroid composite]

I am doing the thing I normally do in SCCs where I skip over randoms--means that choosing to go buy equipment isn't also choosing to gain a level or two if the shopping town is far away.  (Same thing I did first time I did a Samurai SCC, for what it's worth).

Ramza does not have JP for Kiyomori.  (After Two Hands, Koutetsu, Blade Grasp he's left with about 150 JP).  Don't really have money to buy spare Kiyomoris either, although I could unequip the Kiyomori from the one Samurai that doesn't have Two Hands learned.

Obviously 7 speed is a huge power spike yeah; pretty sure my first time trying to do no-grinding Samurai I just gave in and grinded for the 7 speed point.  (But I had also spent my JP poorly that time; don't think anyone had Two Hands).

6 speed Ramza seems to be workable on Velius.  I move wait jump into the water, which seems to get me my second turn around when Velius is charging his second spell.  If Ramza's taken any damage during the duel, Velius will lock a spell onto someone other than Ramza turn 1, and none of the demons can reach Ramza in the water spot before Ramza's second turn, and then on turn 2 Velius will once again run past Ramza to lock a spell onto a higher health target he can OHKO, which lets Ramza pop out of the water from behind.  Basically, I get one mid-charge two hands hit out of 6 speed Ramza, which is exactly what I get out of the rest of my party.

[DragonKnight Zero]

FFT Special character class ranking: A loose ranking based on the premise of how much a special wants to be in its base class after finishing its training.  For variety and to keep the list from being too predictable, I will be putting most weight on how well the class uses its native skillset and its innate stats and equipment options.  How good the skillset is to begin with won't be given much weight in this analysis and stat growth of the class won't be factored in at all.  I will not be factoring in female exclusive equipment for the most part; Setiemson and Chantage are that good and would turn the listing into females > everyone else dullness.

Overall ranking will be put up after I'm done typing up my thought because I haven't decided how to order them to keep the reader in suspense.

1. Holy Swordsman: Well, this was predictable.  Ninja PA for high power, knight swords, and Thief Hat and its innate 110% Speed for speed.  HP wouldn't be that important but it gets that as well.  And shields: all the shield using classes are above the others  It's got OK MA and MP as well, not that one is likely to be using an MA based skillset as a Holy Swordsman. 

2. uber- Squire (C4 Ramza)  The only other class with access to hats and Excalibur at the same time, is it enough to put it above other classes when it's dependent on a strong secondary to channel all that speed into?  Actually, I think it does.  The multipliers aren't as strong as Orlandu's and with 110% PA and 102% MA, it doesn't appear on the surface to be amazing at either.  But Scream exists to boost either/both so that drawback can be made up (and its unique to Ramza in the context of this analysis).  Along with access to the full range of armor options and shields, Ramza has the tools to excel at whatever role you want him to fill.

3. Temple Knight: I was unsure whether to place this or Divine Knight in the #3 spot so let Magic Sword's overall usefulness serve as the tiebreaker.  Both have 105% Speed, 4 Move, knight swords, shields, and the inability to wear hats.  Temple Knight has good multiplers in its other important stats.  High MP of course, respectable MA so it can use magic secondaries decently with a Rune Blade, and a good HP multiplier in a class where HP actually matters (for Shock!).  The high PA isn't as important for Magic Sword but it still may see some use for finishing off weakened enemies or restoring his own MP with Chakra.  Beowulf is not going to be good at hitting things with knight swords as other users without intensive Brave altering.  In general, he's going to get more mileage out of a Rune Blade or Ice Brand + Black Robe.

4. Divine Knight (Meliadoul): Knight swords and Knight PA provide the important components of getting oomph out of the skillset.  She can use clothes so Power Sleeve is an option if you want to inflict even more pain.  The class' other weapon options become relevant with Equip Change set as spears and crossbows allow her to damage monsters outside of Counter range.  Doesn't handle magic secondaries as well with under 100% multipliers in both MA and MP.  Still, it's high enough for some impressive numbers when a Holy Lance poke procs a spell.

5. Holy Knight (Agrias): I wanted to place Holy Knight even lower than it ended up.  On paper, it may have been envisioned as someone who could wield both sword and magic.  In practice, its humble 100% to both PA and MA results in a class that does neither well.  It also has only 3 Move and an average 100% Speed and unable to use hats.  However, it still gets shields and knight swords for a skillset that cares for their high WP.  So while it's not great with its own skillset for most of the game.  Holy Knight becomes a competitive option at the endgame/postgame when there is a high WP knight sword to reach for.

[metroid composite]

Velius beaten with the Bracer strat.

My estimates were off, Ramza actually deals 360 with a bracer to a charging Velius--there must be rounding in a different spot than I thought.  Still need literally everyone to connect.

Duel with wiegraf becomes more miserable due to replacing Elf Mantle with Bracer.  Ramza now kills Wiegraf, which...in theory is awesome cause he has 100 CT going into the Velius fight, so he can move-wait, guarantee that Velius walks up to him, and then hit him while he's charging and run away.  In practice it changes the AI just enough so that I have problems with where Velius decides to move on turn 2.

Ran into several problems.  First, if he is in range to physical them, he will (despite blade grasp).  Obviously that means he doesn't kill me, but I also don't hit him while he's charging (or live to get another turn).  Second, it took me a long time to realize it, but at some point he decided that he always wanted to hit the lower HP Samurai even though he could OHKO either one.  I eventually took her helmet off to try and force him to lock Cyclops onto the higher HP Samurai (which incidentally is the one with Two Hands).  He STILL decided to lock onto the lower HP Samurai.  Okay...so removed the helmet from the higher HP Samurai (the one with Two Hands).  Now he locks onto the right Samurai...and I immediately win.

I'm...not sure what quirk of the AI makes him go after the lower HP samurai (while also ignoring the damaged Ramza whom he could also kill).

Probably about 10-12 attempts on Velius ironing out all the new AI and movement?  (Plus a bunch more resets on Wiegraf of course; counting all the wiegraf resets probably 100ish?)