Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

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So...I was talking to Ciato and Elfboy, and they brought up the FFT ban order tier list, which I don't think I ever finished.  I could just read up this topic and see how I ordered that before...but where's the fun in that?  Going to try and reconstruct that from logic (which...I suspect might actually cause a different ban order).  Obviously this is for vanilla FFT, balanced versions like LFT are much harder to tier.

1. Calculator This is the obvious one that the vast majority of people ban if they're trying not to break the game.

2. Chemist I'm probably placing this one higher than I did last time I made a ban list.  But people when playing will deliberately self-ban Auto Potion much more than they'll deliberately avoid picking up Ramuh say.  You are just in tryhard break the game mode if you use Auto Potion X-Potion in any class.  Whereas you aren't in tryhard break the game mode if you're a priest with Ramuh using Gained JP Up.  And the thing is, you could build around auto-potion if it was necessary, you could stack effects like low faith + defence up + kiyomori + high brave--but that's just not needed when vanilla FFT enemies deal like 75 damage, and X-Potion heals for 150.  Auto potion+X Potion just...doesn't matter what class you run it in, doesn't matter whether you run it with damage reduction abilities, it's just going to be a little too high-power.

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So...ok, after those first two bans, what's the strongest setup?  Well we know what the no-mathskill speedrun uses: 4 Wizards with Magic Attack Up and Ramuh.  So it seems like we're going to need to ban one of Wizard or Summoner.  If we ban Wizard what's the best setup?  Probably some combination of Summon/Short Charge.  Meteor/Short Charge would also be a consideration, but it would probably still use Summon secondary.  If we ban Summoner, what's the best setup?  Time Mage with Short Charge Meteor.  With wizard still legal you could take short charge meteor into Wizard for slightly higher MA, but this does mean locking yourself into black magic (rather than using your secondary for revival or MP restoration).  I think the setups with Summon are sounding stronger generally--short charge summon probably better than short charge meteor.  Grinding for short charge with Ramuh generally strong than grinding for short charge with Bolt 2.

3. Summoner As noted above, the next ban was either summoner or black mage, and if math skill and summon are banned Black Mage just has quite a bit less to offer (nobody wants MAU over Short Charge now, and wizard's high class MA and ability to equip rods are in lower demand).  There is a possible argument here for Black Mage if you put high value on Samurai with MAU compared to Summoner with Short Charge and Time Mage with Short Charge but...I don't.  Being a Samurai means being weak for like...chapter 1, chapter 2, and chapter 3 while you unlock the class and get JP for all the abilities and wait for katanas to show up in stores.

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Right, so what are the next candidates:

* Time Mage: has Short Charge, which almost every good remaining class wants (Yin Yang wants it, Priest wants it, Meteor wants it, even Black Magic might consider it to get access to Bolt 4).  Time Mage has meteor, really expensive, but the best overall offence spell remaining, though obviously Holy is better in some fights, and demi/demi 2/life drain are better in some fights (Time Mage bringing both demi and demi 2 of course).  Short Charge Meteor has some arguments to be the best overall lategame setup.  Time Mage has teleport, best overall movement.
* Priest has the only good revival with Chemist gone.  Holy is now one of the good overall offence options, comes online way earlier than Meteor (600 JP instead of 2300 JP for short charge+meteor).
* Ninja with Move+2 and Concentrate is around and a pretty strong setup.  This has...decent arguments to be a stronger lategame setup than Time Mage (Time Mage SCC is considered easier than Ninja SCC, but Ninja SCC doesn't have Move+2 and Concentrate, whereas Time Mage SCC does have Short Charge and Teleport).  Worth noting, unlocking Ninja does also come online faster than learning both Short Charge+Meteor...at the expense of being super weak in Chapter 1 and 2 while you're grinding out Thief.
* While there's a few ways to be strong in Chapter 3-4, there's really only one way to be strong in chapter 1-2 now and it's Black Magic.   Short-charge meteor setups will use black magic the whole time they're training.  Thieves with dreams of becoming Ninjas will rely on teammates with Black Magic to carry the team.

I don't think it's Priest yet.  Revival gets good when all the enemies don't fall over and die before 3 turns, and I think we're still in fall over and die mode.  (And to be blunt, I don't think Holy even stands out much among these offence options).

I don't think it's Ninja yet.  If you leave both Wizard and Time Mage un-banned, Black Magic into Short Charge Meteor just means this unit is good the whole game.  Still too much power on that side of the job tree.

If you ban Time Mage...well you would probably want some characters going down the Ninja route.  One or two Wizards early on to carry the party, and then the Wizards would probably drift into more of a support role with White Magic or Yin Yang Magic.  Yeah, that's not even that awkward.

If you ban Wizard...well you're pushed in much more awkard directions if you want units that can deal damage in Chapter 1/2.  Like...we're talking running Knights in Chapter 1 (super dead-end class) running Lancers in chapter 2 (much better, but still a bit of a dead-end class) or just grabbing Holy in chapter 2, but that's still kind-of awkward (only enough MP for one of them, pretty large JP detour into Priest when ultimately you're going to want to be heading to Time Mage, and Chapter 2 has no assassination missions outside of Queklain).

Just...sounds more awkward.

4. Wizard There just isn't an easy replacement for black magic in Chapter 1/2 once summon is banned, and even if you take away the best mage option for chapter 3/4, there's still strong offence setups like Ninja, and mages can still head into white magic and play a support role, so it's not like the black magic character that carries the party through chapter 1/2 is going to be dead weight in chapter 3/4, they just might be more support role than DPS role.  It is interesting that black magic, and not high stats/MAU are what's getting Wizard banned this time.  (Although high stats/MAU are what put them into contention for being banned last round alongside Summoner).

(to be continued in followup posts).

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Alright, so what's the next ban.

* Squire is a possible ban.  With all the low JP options (Chemist/Wizard/Summoner) banned, suddenly banning gained JP Up hits like...everything.  Before banning Wizard I don't think squire was on the table "yeah you'll get your lategame setup a bit later, but you've got black magic so you aren't even that weak while you wait".
* White Mage is a possible ban.  The only good raise, and offence is now low enough early on that this could matter in chapter 1-2.  Also one of the lowest cost way of getting big offence (holy).
* Time Mage is still very good, though would get hit pretty hard by a gained JP Up ban.  Would care about a white mage ban too, as white magic gets its power spike when Time is still weakish.  Though...Oracle can probably also fill in the "hold the party's hand through Chapter 2" if needed (sticks are actually semi respectable damage in chapter 2--like...more than a knight deals, and Silence Song beats a couple of fights).  White is going to be notably better at handling golgorand, though--both in terms of making sure gaffy dies (holy is very good for this) and making sure nobody crystallizes (raise is good here).  Getting back to Time Mage, for the chapter 1-2 party, Haste is going to be fairly strong.
* Ninja is still very good, but would care at least a little bit about either a gained JP Up ban (lengthens the amount of the game when they are basically a dead-weight thief) and also care about a white mage ban (Ninjas have low HP and crystallize fast, so backup revival does matter).
* I'm starting to think a little bit about Lancer and Samurai.  Starting to, but they aren't there yet.

This is starting to feel like it's going to be Priest or Squire.  Every other build leans on core mechanics like gaining JP and having a safety res.  Most other builds are fairly endgame focused and theoretically have decent balance with each other.

So...if we ban squire, what does a low JP build look like?  Some kind of Priest/Oracle/Time Mage/Mediator Mix maybe.  Like...a Priest SCC with access to Life Drain, Haste, sticks, guns, and various theoretical endgame power spikes that will be slow to access due to a lack of Gained JP Up (short charge meteor, Ramza grabbing angel song, ninjas, samurais).

If we ban priest...we keep gained JP Up.  With Gained JP Up, unlocking Ninja could happen about the same time as the other party with priest that doesn't have Gained JP Up would be learning Holy (unless the priest like...skips raise).  So...should be still before golgorand.  Ninjas best weapon in chapter 2 is...fists because daggers are terrible and ninja swords are a chapter 3 thing, but at least fists can be boosted with martial arts (60x2 = 120 is a reasonable expectation; but martial arts means no concentrate on that).  Alternatively, Lancer unlocks notably earlier, Lancer is borderline unkillable in chapter 2 and can jump for 108 damage.  By comparison, Holy on gafgarion is around 245 damage, holy on generic enemies around 210, never misses.  But only enough MP for one per fight.

I don't think the Priest-banned group is going to be missing raise much in Chapter 3-4 or so when they have Ninjas, short charge meteor etc.  So it's more a question of chapter 1 early chapter 2, how much does a raise safety help, and how much does the early power spike of Holy mater when it's not actually that early due to a lack of Gained JP Up.

5. Squire: Yeah...thinking on it, my belief in the raw carrying power of Priest in Chapter 1/2 is...not particularly high.  600 JP is not that low for that part of the game when you don't have Gained JP Up, and mages really don't like being in Preist past about early chapter 2 (7 speed, when the enemies are speed 6).  Raise isn't always better than Haste or Silence Song as far as low-JP spells go.  By contrast as covered above, I don't really think any of the bigger JP dumps (Time Mage, Samurai, Lancer, unlocking Ninja, mastering Monk) are worth individually banning when banning Squire is a pretty big hit to all of them.

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OK, so next up...

We've just lost Squire.

* Priest now seems like a really obvious target point.  Raise is still the only sensible revival--and the period when the party is weak enough to care about revival is likely to last for a while now without Gained JP Up.  Holy is a nice early-ish power spike with a low JP cost.  Weaknesses the SCC faces can be covered with a bit of multiclassing (picking up demi or life drain for altima, throwing in some MP restoration).
* Lancer and Ninja jump to mind as two other classes that can achieve competence with relatively low JP levels.  Lancer in particular as it is basically good in Chapter 2 as soon as it's unlocked.
* Time Mage is still chilling with a ton of busted (but kind of expensive) stuff.

6. Priest Yeah, kneecapping the only good revival left has to be fairly painful, and the fact that it also happens to be one of the few good high-offence options available at low JP on top of that really pushes it over the edge.

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Alright, so things are now looking like

* Time Mage: packing a lot of stuff.  But some of it is on the expensive side.  Teleport (can be picked up through spillover if someone goes for meteor).  Haste (when you cut out black magic, item, and raise, this probably gets set as a secondary a lot).  Short Charge Meteor.  MP Switch should probably be mentioned as it is a very good reaction for people who don't need their MP, and something that can be picked up through spillover.
* Ninja, comes online earlier than Time Mage.  Though training to unlock Ninja is more painful.
* Lancer, comes online faster than Ninja.  Arguably stronger in Chapter 2 and 3.
* Samurai -- throwing this in here as there are people who self-ban from using blade grasp, and Draw Out was a skillset that got hit with a lot of nerfs in LFT.

So...what I'm seeing immediately looking at this list is...parties will probably consist of physical jobs getting hasted by Time Mages while the time mages grind out enough JP.  Ninjas getting hasted by Time Mages or Lancers getting hasted by Time Mages, or maybe even Monks or stick-wielding Oracles getting hasted.

Unless...you ban Time Mages.  Then you can either go Ninja or Lancer but you won't have haste, won't get AoE, and your gravity options are more limited.

7. Time Mage In terms of building a raw offence with short charge meteor, I don't know that it's standing out at this point--very slow to get without gained JP up.  But it just gives things to other party members; casting haste on them.  Giving them spillover for MP Switch or teleport.  having lots of synergy with Samurai (has Teleport for them, and is a high MA carrier class).  Time Mage just seems like the jenga piece that seems most likely to make things crumble a little.

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alright, so what are we looking at now...

* Lancer -- comes online at some level pretty fast, since it just needs Chapter 2 equipment to be a reasonably strong melee fighter.  Takes a while for the full jumps to be learned.
* Ninja -- comes online slower, but is basically fully online when it does, while Lancer still has tons of training to do.
* Samurai -- probably the most gamebreaking stuff left on paper, but a lot of massive rugs have been pulled from under it (no gained JP Up, no teleport, no MAU, no Wizard).

8. Ninja I don't necessarily have a good 100% fool-proof logic here, but intuition is just saying I shouldn't think about this one too hard and the correct pick here is Ninja.  Ninja is the last of the OP 6 (Calc, Time, Priest, Wizard, Chemist)--only reason to have it down at 8 was just that Squire and Priest have support effects that touch every setup.  Ninja is a really strong setup on its own.  It reaches near peak performance faster than the others.  It's a really good carrier (notably a really solid physical carrier for Jump and Punch Art).  It has Abandon, which...is a really good reaction, maybe not Blade Grasp level, but often considered third behind Blade Grasp and Auto Potion.

[Dark Holy Elf]

If you do want to go back and read your old thoughts, they start on page 7 of this thread (assuming 25 posts per page anyway). For all that I agree it's probably more fun to reconstruct things without referencing that at first and see how they end up. Not much else to say yet beyond that I am reading~

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Alright, so let's take stock of where we are currently

* The strong longer-term builds are looking like Samurai, Lancer, and maybe a little bit of Monk or Oracle, with Lancer being the one that is actually strong in Chapter 2.
* Move+2 is a big deal.  There is no Move+1.  There is no Teleport.  A lot of things left are melee or...in some cases do have a range 8 attack but the range 8 attack costs tons of JP and they'd benefit a lot from Move+2 while they wait (Samurai, Lancer, Monk).
* Defence Up and Equip Gun are actually good support abilities now, mostly due to low competition.  In particular with Defence Up, Oracle tends to require a decent amount of JP commitment, which means one person committing Oracle gives the rest of the party Defence Up for free from spillover.
* If you rush to Samurai or Lancer, what's your secondary?  Yin Yang for Paralyze?  Elemental for range?  You could get Revive in Monk on the way to Samurai, but IDK if that's actually better than getting HP Restore or Earth Slash...well Earth Slash you would need martial arts too or it's likely to deal the same as Elemental.  Steal Heart if you don't mind skipping/delaying Move+2.  Talk Skill isn't bad--Invitation with just a 100 JP dip, option of more stuff with slightly larger dips (brave/faith modifying at 200 JP.  Mimic Daravon at 300 JP).  For jobs with low MP pools (Lancer) this might be better than Yin Yang.  A lot of OK options, nothing really standing out.
* If you have a dedicated monk the rest of your party gets HP Restore from spillover, so that's cool.
* What are the things people do actually self-ban?  Blade Grasp in Samurai, and Secret Hunt in Thief?  Both...not fast grinds.  Both competing with other JP options in the jobs (Draw Out and Move+2 respectively). 
* Secret Hunt in particular you really need to commit to, like invite and breed the right monster or deliberately fish for the Barius Hill Super Monster Battle.  If you don't actively plan out poaching you're getting...maybe one Salty Rage (red dragons show up in a number of random fights) one Holy Lance (same with Sacreds) one Ultimus Bow (same with King Behemoths).  Porkys (Chantage common drop) only show up from breeding or deep dungeon.  Hydras (Setiemson common drop) are super monster battle or deep dungeon.  But even then...you do need to be female to wear perfumes, and with a lot of remaining jobs being physical, that's not a trivial restriction.  If you have say...one Samurai Ramza, two Lancers, one Monk, and an Oracle, I don't think throwing Chantage on the Oracle is that large of a power spike.  Invincibility is invincibility, sure, but...Oracle is inherently defensive anyway, and enemies can still cancel spells by killling them.  Female Draw Out user with Chantage (or Setiemson) is a lot more spicy--high offence unit that loves to make suicidal dives.  But if that's the concern, banning Samurai does quite a bit to reduce the power that perfumes can offer.

So what does this party look like

* At least one Oracle (dipping Mediator just because it's the only other job on that side of the job tree now).  I don't think you want to go like 5 Oracle, though; still a support unit.

Chapter 1:
* The Knight into Monk path will do the heavy lifting.  Wannabe Lancers are stuck in Thief...and even if they unlock Lancer there's no spears.  Knight and Monk are prerequisites for Samurai anyway.  Bonus if you unlock Geo for Elemental secondary.

Chapter 2:
* Lancer and sometimes Oracle (70 damage sticks and Silence Song) do the heavy lifting.  Dedicated Monks experience their weakest chapter.  Samurai are faring even worse.  Monks actually have some tension where they...want Move+2, but their own skillset is also very JP hungry, like it's probably not worth delaying Earth Slash and Revive to detour into Move+2.
* Elemental is like 24 damage.  Draw Out from a Samurai with a Wizard Robe (if you get there this chapter) is like 84 damage (worth noting samurai swords don't even exist until half way through the chapter).  Jump is like 90 damage; 108 if you get to 8 PA.  Earth Slash is 48 (32 without martial arts).  Oracle stick hit is around 63.  Romanda Gun is 36, 54 with Charge+3.

Chapter 3 (for now ignoring a bunch of Yardow stuff like Bracer which technically shows up in Chapter 3, but right at the end and very expensive):
* Lancer damage doesn't scale up too much (maybe 120) but you know, 8 range now, invincibility frames, etc.
* Twist Headband means monks learning things in other classes is no longer painful; looking at Thief for Move+2, maybe Geomancer for Attack Up.
* Power Sleeves show up half way through the chapter--Earth Slash up to 75 damage now (notably 75 both from a Monk but also from a Thief with martial arts and twist headband).
* Guns go up to 64, and 88 with Charge+3.
* Sticks are casually dealing 100 or so if you use a wizard robe
* Elemental is dealing like...30.
* Samurai...still on 84 with Koutetsu, hasn't hit an MA Point, although one Samurai can swipe the red shoes to get 96 with Koutetsu.  Can learn Heaven's Cloud for 98 (112 with red shoes) but that's probably a waste of JP.  Able to deal more if they class jump to Oracle -- Full Wizard Rod Wizard Robe Oracle is like...144 with Koutetsu, so that's an option for hard fights.

Late Chapter 3/start of Chapter 4 (allowing for stuff like Bracer from Yardow now, as well as start of Chapter 4 gear)
* Samurai gets Muramasa (162 within Samurai w/ red shoes, 252 if you go Oracle) also Kiyomori.  Two massive power spikes.
* Lancer is 132 without bracer, 176 with Bracer; 198 if they're done mastering Lancer and ready to switch to Geo or whatever, 242 with bracer on geo.
* Earth Slash is...114 thanks to Bracer.  (Just shy of an important PA point that gets them to 147.  Geo with Twist Headband Power Sleeve Bracer can reach that 147).  However...we're just hitting the point in the game where enemies often float or have earth clothes so this number is a lot less impressive than it looks.
* If you feel so inclined, Geo autos with an ice brand and bracer are like 182.  143 without bracer.  Actually a little higher cause of the Ice 2 proc.  (earlier in Chapter 3 they were like 110, so like stick level).
* Sticks are dropping off--110ish if you still use Wizard Robe, but Wizard Robe is getting pretty sketchy on an oracle (low HP, low MP).

Late Chapter 4
* Samurai are just revolting.  Kikuichimoji is 240 damage range 8 AoE ignore friendlies, more vertical tolerance than Earth Slash.  Also Rune Blade Geo becomes a serious alternative to Wizard Rod Oracle for using draw out (more move and access to Ageis Shield).
* Lancer don't really move up, because they need to use Thief Hats for speed to land their jumps now and spears don't move much.  Still like 228 with a bracer on a geo or something.  Unless you poach, Holy Lance is a common poach from a not hard to find enemy to bring that number up to 266.
* Guns stay largely stagnant unless you steal/invite for magic guns.  You can add attack up to bring Mythril guns to 80 and Charge+3 to 112.
* Earth Slash on a monk with Attack Up is up to 210.  (If you can find enemies who don't float or have earth clothes, lol).
* Oracle sticks aren't really going anywhere at this point (they've gone up a little at 144, but don't look great next to bracer boosted numbers--bracer you can justify when you have 8 range, but magic gauntlet is a lot harder to justify when you have 2 range).
* I guess I should check in on Elemental with Rune Blades and Bracers...64ish.  OK.

9. Lancer They unlock their job much sooner than Samurai.  They're actually strong when they unlock their job even at low JP thanks to equipment imbalances in Chapter 2.  Much like Samurai they get a big damage boost from changing jobs to one with better stats.  (Samurai used to get a much bigger boost, but Wizard is banned so).  They need a lot of JP sure, but they get a head start--if they grind straight for it, they should be learning Level Jump 8 around the same time as a character going Samurai finally finishes unlocking Samurai for the first time.  They have 8 range for the longest time of any job apart from maybe Mediator and Dancer.  (Monk gets 8 range early but gets trolled by floating enemies and earth clothes for half the game).  They're either #1 or a close second on damage at every point I checked.  Having 2-3 Lancers, totally reasonable.  Having 2-3 Samurai...well either they're female, and you stab yourself in the foot in Chapter 1-2.  Or they're male and thus weaker in Chapter 3-4.  You could have multiple Monks easily enough too, but Monks didn't blow me away in the checkpoint by checkpoint comparison.  Oracle offering Defence Up is looking not as important in a world where people want Equip Spear.  Oracle offering life drain...ehh...loads of high damage setups, I think this crew can handle zodiac demons well enough that they'd survive a Life Drain ban.

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OK, well, all the calculated numbers haven't changed, what's next.

* Banning Thief would hit Samurai hard, Monk less hard, and not really Oracle at all (they can just use Move MP Up).
* Banning Samurai cuts out an over-the-top Chapter 4 powerhouse, but a Monk/Oracle party will certainly get the job done in Chapter 4 (Oracle SCC has like...typically no resets in Chapter 4 because Oracles when they have all their JP are very solid.  Combine with Monks and you can put targets to sleep with Oracles and then one-shot them with Wave Fist, Oracles don't mind wearing Earth Clothes even without any special synergy, so Monks can full heal them from range using Earth Slash, and you get to put HP Restore as a reaction on your Defence Up Oracles).
* Banning Oracle is going to hit Chapter 2 pretty hard (Oracles are kind of the best Chapter 2 class with Lancer gone.  More damage than Monks, and Silence Song is great).  Banning Oracle also hits Samurai in various ways--Oracles give Defence Up to Samurai from spillover, and Samurai when they want a high MA job were often going Oracle (until Geomancer gets Rune Blade in late Chapter 4).  Also takes away life drain, but I don't think this party is all that scared of Altima.
* Banning Monk takes away revival, takes away HP restore for the whole party, takes away good physical damage (once they get Bracer, more like chip damage before that, but being specifically physical matters when hitting sleeping targets and charging targets).

10. Oracle Samurai kinda suck until chapter 4, or maybe Yardow if you save up JP and money for Kiyomori.  Monk kinda sucks until chapter 4, or maybe Yardow if you plan ahead and save tons of money for a Bracer (no, the chapter 3 power sleeve non-bracer numbers were not impressing me--75 damage earth slash is like...Mythril Gun range).  They have a lot of the same weaknesses (can't hit someone 4 height above them, garbage in chapter 2) a lot of the same strengths (line attacks, healing).  Oracle was kind of just good at covering both their weaknesses--good chapter 2 class, skillset with vertical tolerance, low cost skillset that's easy to set as a secondary.

11. Monk If you ban Samurai, what do you have?  A Monk SCC with some perks--pick up Elemental from Geomancer for some range, maybe get Attack Up, maybe get Equip Armour, maybe Move+2.  Not too bad.  If you ban Monk...you don't get a Samurai SCC, cause you still need to unlock the class and you'll need some characters to pull you through chapter 2.  What classes can you use to survive Chapter 2?  Archer, Geomancer, and Mediator I guess?  Dancer if you're feeling spicy?  Entirely possible that you might dedicate 2-3 characters to being a quasi Archer SCC--learn some charges, go to Mediator when guns show up, maybe grab Attack Up at some point.  Not really reasonable to send your whole party down the samurai road right away.

12. Samurai I did briefly entertain the thought of "Should one of Archer or Geomancer be banned before Samurai?"  It's an amusing thought, but no, ban Archer and people would build around Geomancers instead (and in fact Geomancy is a solid secondary for Samurais).  Geomancer and Archer are similar enough in power for the role of being an acceptable midgame unit.  Samurai is unique in bringing tons of lategame power.  Banning Geomancer...would weaken lategame Samurai a bunch (now there's no high MA classes...like at all; lowers the potential of Draw Out) but Samurai still brings stuff like Kiyomori and Blade Grasp--you could go Archer for Charge into Mediator for Equip Gun into Samurai to get lategame stuff.

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OK, time to take stock of where we are.  12 classes are banned.  That means 7 classes are not banned, and 1 other class is Mime.

* The idea of banning Thief for Move+2 is not happening anytime soon--Archer and Mediator really don't care.  Geomancer cares a little.  Banning Thief for Secret Hunt is also unlikely--if we're that worried about Chantages, just ban Mediator.
* Mediator brings guns, and Talk Skill, both pretty relevant.
* Archer brings Charge, Arrow Guard which is a fairly premium reaction, and bows which are often worse than guns.
* Geomancer brings Attack Up, and swords which are good when you really want to hit hard (for must kill enemies they kill a lot faster).  Counter Flood is also a fairly premium reaction.
* Knight...Knight Swords hit hard if you raise your brave I guess?
* Dancer exists for range status and range chip damage
* Bard...I'm not convinced it's worth unlocking.

How much better are guns than bows?  Well...bows to match the accuracy of guns would need Concentrate, and if you're attacking uphill it's usually crossbows, so like 6 WP compared to Mythril gun's 8 WP for most of the game (similar enough damage if the crossbow user uses power sleeve twist headband).  Guns are 8 range compared to 4 range.  Downhill or flat you can go Windslash Bow for 8 WP (different formula again though; damage will be similar to guns or slightly higher).  5 range on flat, tons of range if shooting downhill.  Crossbows get up to 10 WP in the second half of chapter 4.

How much more damage are swords than bows?  Swords in chapter 2 and early Chapter 3 are kind-of bad actually--more damage than bows but not a lot more.  Late chapter 3 early chapter 4 swords just power spike, they're like...double the damage of bows.  Late chapter 4 Gastrifitis catches bows up a bit, swords are 40% more damage or so.

13. Mediator In the Mediator/Geomancer/Archer debate...yeah, sure looks like guns bring quite a bit to the table.  IDK if it's more than what Geo or Archer is bringing, but banning Mediator also just closes a lot of loopholes, like the ability to get Chantages in Chapter 3 by inviting Uribos, the ability to break the game by getting an elemental gun from a variety of sources.

14. Geomancer There's a lot of ways left to deal with mobs of enemies.  Cripple them with dancers, for instance.  Geos have the best game against Zodiacs, though.  Swords hit harder for starters, and Attack Up goes with everything when it comes to zodiacs.  Also just...Geo SCC easier than Archer SCC.

15. Archer The remaining classes are Archer, Knight, Dancer, Thief, and Bard.  (Oh right, and Mime).  Archer and Dancer are the two SCCs with some power behind them.  Thief's Move+2 isn't very exciting to either of them.  So Archer vs Dancer.  Archer's available from the start of the game, and Dancer is the second slowest class in the game to unlock.

16. Dancer The last remaining class with some semblance of competence.

17. Knight OK, so Knight, Bard, and Thief.  Banning Bard is sketchy, because Thieves with Equip Sword using Twist Headband and Power Sleeve hit hard like Geomancers.  So it's Bard+Thief or Bard+Knight.  And I think the Knight combo has more synergy (giving Move+3 to Knights, for example does more than giving Move+3 to Thieves who already have Move+2.  Knights being the only source of robes or shields, for example, for cheesing out the Wiegraf duel and Balk II).

18. Thief? TBH, this mostly comes down to Thief SCC vs Bard SCC, and honestly I can't remember which is considered harder.

19. Bard (Or Thief, see above)

20. Mime

[Dark Holy Elf]

How much better are guns than bows?  Well...bows to match the accuracy of guns would need Concentrate, and if you're attacking uphill it's usually crossbows, so like 6 WP compared to Mythril gun's 8 WP for most of the game (similar enough damage if the crossbow user uses power sleeve twist headband).  Guns are 8 range compared to 4 range.  Downhill or flat you can go Windslash Bow for 8 WP (different formula again though; damage will be similar to guns or slightly higher).  5 range on flat, tons of range if shooting downhill.  Crossbows get up to 10 WP in the second half of chapter 4.

How much more damage are swords than bows?  Swords in chapter 2 and early Chapter 3 are kind-of bad actually--more damage than bows but not a lot more.  Late chapter 3 early chapter 4 swords just power spike, they're like...double the damage of bows.  Late chapter 4 Gastrifitis catches bows up a bit, swords are 40% more damage or so.

Having done the Archer SCC you just... basically never use crossbows between Longbow and Gastrifitis. I tried on a couple occasions and was always disappointed. The problem is that even if you're attacking uphill, in order for them to outrange bows, you need to be attacking 4 squares uphill, and at that point terrain starts to block your line of attack pretty often (including the terrain the enemy is standing on, if the height difference gets much greater than 4). Grog Hill is a good example of an uphill map where it's extremely difficult to actually make good use of the crossbow's ability to fire upwards, and the ability of longbows to fire over enemies/allies and to get further range when attacking along a flat (e.g laterally, in that battle) is more important. And in literally every fight before Grog Hill, crossbows have 3-4 attack which is just way too low, compared to bows which have 4-6 during that same stretch. Like... if you have 6 PA and 6 Spd post-Lionel, you can do 52 damage with Charge+5 with a crossbow, and 72 with a Lightning Bow (ignoring the random Bolt 2)... and this gap is even wider before Lionel (3-power crossbows!) or after Queklain (Mithril Bow). Like... Elemental doesn't do much less damage than crossbows at this point (admittedly a good point for it, with Diamond Armlet/Wizard Robe), and is better in a lot of ways (ITE without a support slot, doesn't need to charge, random status, sometimes has AoE); this doesn't speak highly of anyone running a crossbow as their main offence.

Guns are better of course, at least if you have Attack Up (without Geo, Concentrate becomes a pretty dominant support ability). Though it's worth remembering that they don't exist until halfway through chapter 2, and later in the game their power does start to fall off unless we go harvesting elemental guns, and that's both annoying and is limited by the user's faith, which, in an all-mages-are-banned setting, there's little reason to want to have above 50 otherwise.

I argued so strongly for Geomancer being #13 that I did a playthrough to prove it, so naturally I'll restate that opinion here.


Otherwise it's interesting to compare this list to the one you made 9 years ago

Code: [Select]

1. Calculator
2. Summoner
3. Wizard
4. Chemist
5. Squire
6. Ninja
7. Time Mage
8. Samurai
9. Lancer
10. Priest
11. Oracle
12. Monk
13. Geomancer
14. Knight
15. Mediator
16. Archer
17. Dancer
18. The Infernal Spawn of Boco (Red Chocobos)
(It doesn't look like you decided on whether Thief or Bard was higher.)
The biggest changes are that Chemist and Priest are higher this time (and Mediator, though I'd argue it needs to drop), while Samurai, Ninja, and Knight are lower, Priest being the largest overall. I'd be curious for you to re-read your earlier thoughts and decide which ones you think are more correct. I'm not really sure, myself!

[metroid composite]

Interesting; in my memory I didn't remember finishing the last list; remember stopping around 10th.

The biggest changes are that Chemist and Priest are higher this time (and Mediator, though I'd argue it needs to drop), while Samurai, Ninja, and Knight are lower, Priest being the largest overall. I'd be curious for you to re-read your earlier thoughts and decide which ones you think are more correct. I'm not really sure, myself!

Chemist (from #4 to #2)...yeah, knew this one was going to come up.  I still remember the old logic (if you are really hardcore focusing on breaking the game, like no-calc speedruns, summon/black mage with MAU is better, Auto-potion doesn't get set on the speed run cause it takes animation time).

Really, the call on this one was
1. I remember the state of mind I was in when making this list the last time, and it was fresh off a different list where Chemist wasn't very high (and was correctly placed lower on that list).
2. it's possible to dabble in Summon without breaking the game if you don't go all-in with MAU on a Wizard.  (Not like there aren't a number of SCCs easier than the Summoner SCC).
3. By contrast, you could stack up abilities that would power auto potion--such as defence up, kiyomori.  But even if you don't stack them, Auto Potion X-Potion is kind of in the danger zone.

Arguments could be made either way, but Chemist 2nd is reasonable.  Like...sure, the party if you don't ban summon AND people go all in on abusing summon is strong, but so is the all-in Auto Potion abuse party.  (Bunch of black mages running Auto Potion early on into Short Charge Meteor later on).

I think I feel ok about this pick.

---

On Priest 6th -- well, honestly, this time I went for the angle of "what would make this playthrough harder--looks like this party is weak in the earlygame let's make it even weaker earlygame".  Last time I went for the angle of "the earlygame stuff is weak, so let's ban something from the lategame".  This is a result of inconsistent rules TBH.

On Nina vs Time Mage (they swapped spots--had Ninja higher last time Time Mage higher this time): Honestly the decision did come down to partially "Lancer is close in value to Ninja", which partially came down to how much earlier Lancer comes online.  If Lancer and Ninja are close, then Time Mage performs an important support role.  Also, this may be a case where earlier ban choices impacted later ban choices--ban priest, and suddenly Time Magic is just a secondary you slap on everything.  With Priest still around ehh...you might be slapping raise.

On Samurai 8th->12th.  Again, this seems to be a slightly different rules thing.  Last time I followed the logic of "what's a good thing to ban?  Blade Grasp!"  This time I was thinking more along the lines of "it looks like this party is vulnerable in Chapter 1 and 2" which leads to Monk/Oracle/Lancer/Priest (all classes that contributed to Chapter 1/2) getting banned first.

Geomancer should be 13th instead of 14th -- yeah, fair enough, I had forgotten that whole conversation and how the power level was still high enough that going for Chantages didn't really make sense.

Knight should be 14th instead of 17th: looks like this one was actually partially based on Elfboy's playthrough, and based on the fact that Knight was really important in Chapter 1 (so this is now getting more in line with the kind of logic I ended up using to ban Priest as early as I did).  But also based on information I kind-of overlooked when I was making the new list--Equip Sword is really good for damage.  Ice Brand Healing is now the best Chapter 4 healing (lol bards).

Mediator/Archer/Dancer still in the same order, just below Knight.

So...I'm thinking 13-18 on the old list is probably pretty solid since it was actually based on detailed playthrough notes.  Probably keep 1-12 from the new list, since I was using logic closer to what the old list used.

1. Calc
2. Chemist
3. Summoner
4. Wizard
5. Squire
6. Priest
7. Time Mage
8. Ninja
9. Lancer
10. Oracle
11. Monk
12. Samurai
13. Geomancer
14. Knight
15. Mediator
16. Archer
17. Dancer
18. Red Chocobos (from Boco)
19. Bard/Thief
20. Bard/Thief
21. Mime

Looking over these...

2. Chemist
3. Summoner
4. Wizard

Basically always going to be 2-4.  I don't really think it's possible to do a playthrough that would test which one deserved to be higher since they are all so easy.  Unless you did a solo challenge, in which case yes, I think Ban Auto Potion First is correct.

Next...


5. Squire
6. Priest
7. Time Mage
8. Ninja
9. Lancer

I think there's potentially room for movement in these.  Like...I put Ninja over Lancer mostly based off of "everyone always tells me Ninja is better".  I put Priest high partially because of raise, but I might be overvaluing Raise here.

10. Oracle
11. Monk
12. Samurai
13. Geomancer

So ok, I am getting a bit skittish about this order, cause Oracle/Monk the logic behind them being where they are was "what are you doing in Chapter 2 without these?"-- but it turns out you can get a lot done with the Archer/Geomancer/Mediator triangle.  Monk/Oracle do offer RSM and good skillsets (that don't require opening Samurai) though, and they do just murder bosses, which has been a bit of a weak point for classes below them.

Even if Oracle and Monk are where they should be, is Geomancer above Samurai actually...correct?  One thing I did note is that banning Geomancer really limits what you can do with Samurai Draw Out--there's no other high MA classes left.  Technically Samurai offers Two Hands for boss assassination, which hits harder than Attack Up, but that's revoltingly expensive (900 Samurai JP), and what class are you going to set Two Hands on anyway?  With Geo banned it would be like...Knight?  Obviously with Samurai you gain some lategame strength, but you lose a lot of earlygame strength (no longer have attack up for guns).  Also Samurai gets more painful when you can't set elemental secondary.

So ok, I'm willing to try swapping those around.  Let's say we go

12. Geomancer
13. Samurai
14. Knight

Is there a world where Samurai go below...Knight?  Mmm...on the one hand that's kind of hard to justify--the whole "knights have healing in chapter 4" falls flat when you're comparing it to Draw Out (which has healing and Kiyomori, not to mention Blade Grasp).  On the other hand, there's still Chapter 1, and later chapters where Equip Sword physicals on a Thief/Archer do outdamage draw out on low MA classes.  Kikuichimoji is 8 range, though, and Draw Out ignores Elmdor's Blade Grasp, and human boss evasion, so I think that's enough to really shut down the "but what if equip sword thieves are better at assassinations".  I mean, they certainly are against Velius.  So ok, Samurai could move below geo, but not lower.

15. Mediator
16. Archer
17. Dancer
18. Red Chocobos (from Boco)
19/20/21. thief/bard/mime

There's probably an argument for Archer before Mediator here.  With Knight gone, banning Archer does make Chapter 1 truly miserable.  Archers are better at assassination (which still look like the problem fights).  With Knights gone, Archers are the only source of shields...although I guess that doesn't matter too much if Mediators are banned (can't really use shields much without guns).  Looking back at my old arguments...Equip Gun is good and does let you cruise to dancer.  (Whereas with Mediator banned, there isn't really a comfy way to get to dancer).  And of course Mediator brings lots of potential comedy options (Chantages, inviting a Hydra and breeding Tiamats).  Mediator's probably fine here.

So...ok, starting from the stiched together list, some potential movement, but not much I'm really sure about.  I am still feeling okish about experimenting with Samurai one further down.  Still leaves some open questions about the ordering of Priest/Ninja/Time Mage/Lancer--feel like that 4 pack could be re-ordered a lot of ways.  For now:

1. Calc
2. Chemist
3. Summoner
4. Wizard
5. Squire
6. Priest
7. Time Mage
8. Ninja
9. Lancer
10. Oracle
11. Monk
12. Geomancer
13. Samurai
14. Knight
15. Mediator
16. Archer
17. Dancer
18. Red Chocobos (from Boco)
19. Bard/Thief
20. Bard/Thief
21. Mime

[metroid composite]

So...picking up the unfinished Bard/Thief thing.

Reading through old posts, seems like there were some semi-formalized rules about how you're supposed to go through "dead" classes.  E.g. if Thief is legal, then you can use daggers in Squire and Chemist while unlocking Mime, since those two classes have worse stats than Thieves (but you can not use swords or axes in squire, as all classes that use swords have been banned).

I mean, within reason of course.  If you are going through an armour class to unlock Mime, you don't need to be completely naked to compensate for Bard and Thief's inability to equip armour.  Maybe just wear enough armour to match the HP total you could have gotten from clothes.  Likewise, there's daggers that deal more damage than the oak staff, so maybe you can use the oak staff (just don't abuse this rule to get more damage or anything).

However, ban thieves, and...things get really ugly.  Bards have no weapons until meeting at Lionel Castle.  On their SCC, they deal baseline 1 damage for all of chapter 1 and half of chapter 2.  To make it really authentic you would wear slightly out-of date gear to get your HP down to more realistic bard levels (summoner HP too high!)  Which means...have fun unlocking Bards using punching low HP summoners.  I mean, it's doable using SCC guest rules, powerlevelling a guest to carry you through chapter 1, and then doing every proposition in Chapter 2 (resetting if you get into a random encounter).  But...very unpleasant.

So a bard SCC with a much worse Chapter 1 and 2.  Potentially with an easier than Bard SCC late chapter 4 with some grinding (Unlocking Mime with Sing is perfectly reasonable, and if you want to grind, level up-down on a few characters can get them into like 900 HP range in 3ish hours--which I did calculate earlier in this topic as being generally faster and easier than poaching Zorlin Shapes on the Thief SCC or going through the entire Deep Dungeon just to poach Chantages).

By comparison, ban Bard and...I think you just play a Thief SCC.  Steal one Chantage from Meliadoul.  Pretend Mime doesn't exist.  Much easier Chapter 1 and 2.

Chapter 3...Elfboy reported on his Thief SCC being level 30 towards the end of chapter 3, which was considered a relatively low level.  Pre-Bracer that represents 88 damage with twist headband power sleeve, 96 with diamond armlet I guess.  Bloody Strings at level 30 with diamond armlet deals 91.  Bracer skyrockets thief damage to 140, and doesn't change Bard much.  Bard's got range and draining, Thief has speed and HP.  Of course these are post Orbonne numbers (bloody strings doesn't show up till then).  Pre-Orbonne you're looking at not power sleeve and not bloody strings, so 70 or 60 damage from harps, and 70 damage punches, I guess 88 with diamond armlet.  I'm kind-of ignoring skillsets here for a bit, I assume they favour Bard (notably for this chapter Bard does actually have a plan for Wiegraf--song buffs lots of them, which also gives them a plan for Velius).  Overall not completely one-sided but I think Bards take Chapter 3.

Chapter 4 Elfboy reported going up to level 50 with Thieves.  10 base speed, 9 base PA, Air Knives with Thief Hat and 108 gems goes up to 130.  Punches go up to 176 with bracer (which...is more damage per clocktick actually).  Harps...9 MA, 2 PA, 8 speed (close to 9).  Up to 117 harp damage, but that requires full bracer+twist headband+power sleeve.  Something like Flash Hat+Angel Ring+power sleeve will be 91.  Something like Thief Hat+Bracer+Power Sleeve will be 104.  Highest damage per clocktick option (but Thief wins the damage per clocktick category by a convincing amount, and has more HP).  There's also like...a few fights where you fight undead, and need to throw on the Ramia Harp, so that's kind-of awful this deep in the game.

Throw in the Meladoul Chantage, and I'm thinking early chapter 4 seems to generally favour Thieves.  Late Chapter 4 if you go deep on grinding, Bards can snag Mimes (initially iffy due to terrible HP and 4 move) and then level up down for a couple hours (suddenly good now).

So like...

Chapter 1: Hard Thief
Chapter 2: Leans Thief  (Unlocking Bard is still a major problem.  Once unlocked...maybe Bard has an easier Golgorand, hits harder, has healing, so...tentatively putting this chapter as "Leans Thief").
Chapter 3: Leans Bard (Harps beat daggers and fists when they first show up in stores, and Sing beating Wiegraf/Velius is a kind of big deal in this chapter).
Early Chapter 4: Leans Thief (steal Chantage from Meliadoul, Air Knife doesn't suck, Fights with undead exist to spit in Bard's face)
Chapter 4 Lategame if excessive grinding is deemed worth doing: Leans Bard/Mime (Level up/down is faster than lategame poaching plans if you've got Mime unlocked, and honestly probably more impactful.  Sing+Mime is a nice upgrade to sing even with no level-up down).  Although...worth noting it's mostly ridiculous HP you get.  My calcluations from earlier in this topic were about 900 HP and...13-16 PA.  Twist Headband Power Sleeve Bracer Thieves also have 16 PA (but do not have martial arts or concentrate).  Certainly more damage than thieves regardless, but not blowing them out of the water before battle song, and of course mimes have 4 move, less speed--quite a bit less speed if they are levelled down.  The 900 HP is nice, though; basically comparable to a chantage except when it comes to AI behaviour.

So...

Hard Thief
Leans Thief
Leans Bard
Leans Thief
Leans Bard/Mime (but debateable if that level of grinding is actually warranted).

Overall this is looking pretty Thief

Which makes the current list look like this:


1. Calc
2. Chemist
3. Summoner
4. Wizard
5. Squire
6. Priest
7. Time Mage
8. Ninja
9. Lancer
10. Oracle
11. Monk
12. Geomancer
13. Samurai
14. Knight
15. Mediator
16. Archer
17. Dancer
18. Red Chocobos (from Boco)
19. Thief
20. Bard
21. Mime

Still want to look at the 5-9 bunch, and the 10-14 bunch

[SnowFire]

It's not a big deal because it's a definitional thing, but I'll just say that I still find it weird to see Squire so high up, essentially on the basis of Gained JP UP alone.  Yes, it's technically a Squire ability.  But...  in a "normal" game, you can learn it immediately after Gariland Magic City.  Even starting Chemists will get access to it fast thanks to spillover JP.  It probably wasn't great design to have the ability at all (hence LFT giving it to every class for free), but to the designer's credit, you get access to it near-instantly on essentially any character.  You weren't really expected to play FFT without access to it.  To me, this feels closer to requiring you directly draft Merlinus in a Fire Emblem draft to be able to send extra supplies to your convoy rather than discard them, or the like.

Just for giggles, if Gained JP Up is thrown out (either because we decide we're willing to grind for the JP, or because we just declare it blanket legal), where does vanilla Squire end up by mc rules otherwise?  My kneejerk is just above Bard, but maybe I'm off.  They do still offer Move +1, but Thief is #18 and offers Move +2, so that only goes so far.

[Random Consonant]

but I'll just say that I still find it weird to see Squire so high up, essentially on the basis of Gained JP UP alone.

You weren't really expected to play FFT without access to it.

Hmmmm yes what a mystery.

[SnowFire]

Gained JP Up is good, yes.  I'm saying it doesn't really feel like a Squire ability, more like a universal system feature that happens to be in Squire.  In a vanilla playthrough, you collect your L2 Squire for access to Knight / Archer and your Gained JP Up then move on and never look back, having used Squire for 3/60 battles or the like.

It's also worth noting that in traditional SCC rules, you do some Mandalia Plains / Sweegy Woods grinding with Gained JP Up allowed solely to unlock the challenge job.  If we assume some sort of similar exception in "vanilla but with a deep ban list" - i.e. it's okay to grind through the "illegal" classes in random battles to unlock the legal classes - then the value of Gained JP Up does notably fall off some after C1 for some classes, like Geomancer or Thief, who'll unlock everything relevant pretty fast once the class unlocking is thrown out.

[Random Consonant]

Well it doesn't really matter what it "feels" like does it?  What matters is what it is, and I would point out that by your logic Math Skill should no more "feel" like a Calculator ability (since "in a vanilla playthrough" you do propositions to get all the skills in it you want then move on and never look back, having used Calculator for 0/60 battles or the like) than Gained JP Up "feels" like a Squire ability, and that's plainly not what's being assumed here.

[metroid composite]

Just for giggles, if Gained JP Up is thrown out (either because we decide we're willing to grind for the JP, or because we just declare it blanket legal), where does vanilla Squire end up by mc rules otherwise?  My kneejerk is just above Bard, but maybe I'm off.  They do still offer Move +1, but Thief is #18 and offers Move +2, so that only goes so far.

Um, it moves several things around--for one thing, assuming Squire doesn't go earlier over Move+1 (not too likely, but...more likely than Thieves getting banned early for Move+2) then Knight doesn't get banned 14th (or I guess 13th if we're assuming Squire hasn't been banned yet).  Knight getting banned 14th was partially about being able to slap Equip Sword on a Thief, but Squires already have swords and 4 move (they do have slightly worse stats than Thieves, but they can set Concentrate and Thieves with Equip Sword can't).

But also, obviously, all of the high JP jobs that kind-of get dunked downwards (Samurai, Time Mage, Dancer etc) probably move up some.  Jobs that were moved up because everyone else was suffering from even more JP deprivation than they were (Monk, Priest, Geomancer, Mediator) probably move down a little.

Oh also, anyone getting credit for a support ability like Attack Up from Geomancer, or Martial Arts from Monk, or Defence Up from Oracle?  Yeah...get ready to shift all of those down because you aren't setting that stuff in most fights over Gained JP Up.  Monk in particular suffers, because once you're done learning their skillset, if you want to go learn something else, do you drop Martial Arts for Gained JP Up?

Basically the entire list changes.  And in particular it kind of breaks the spirit of the list because lower power support abilities would get less chances to shine when the highest power support ability never gets banned.

Still fairly obnoxious to place Squire though, since there is an argument to ban them over Move+1, which is considerably stronger than the argument to ban Thieves over Move+2 or Bards over Move+3, because Move+1 is basically free and everyone ends up getting it through spillover (whereas on Elfboy's playthrough even with Move+1 banned, not everyone bothered with Move+2, and those who did often didn't grab it till Chapter 3 or so).  Although...I guess with Gained JP Up, Move+2 is also considerably faster to get....

(TBH, though, I've always had a personal preference for tier lists that give Squire at least some credit for Gained JP Up.  There are plenty of tier lists that basically ignore it--SCC difficulty ranking would be one such tier list.  The GameFAQs FFT board also made a skillset ranking assuming you learn everything in the skillset--that would be another such tier list.  A lot of my preferences probably come out of stylistic clashes with the GameFAQs FFT board, which tends to have attitudes like "why wouldn't you grind to unlock Mime in chapter 1?")

It's also worth noting that in traditional SCC rules, you do some Mandalia Plains / Sweegy Woods grinding with Gained JP Up allowed solely to unlock the challenge job.  If we assume some sort of similar exception in "vanilla but with a deep ban list" - i.e. it's okay to grind through the "illegal" classes in random battles to unlock the legal classes

No, this isn't SCC rules for dead classes.  The assumption is that you use dead classes in story fights, and just don't use anything from the class that's particularly strong and would carry the party through fights.  (E.g. no: you don't get to learn Black Magic on your Wizards while you head to unlock Bard).  If you read through Elfboy's playthrough, there were plenty of instances of female Lancers who were on the path to Dancer.

The SCC rules remove the unlock penalty for classes, and one of the goals I had when setting up this tier list was to preserve that some classes are pretty expensive to unlock.

[metroid composite]

Okay, so I just got back from a weekend vacation where I didn't have internet, so here's the dump of information from that weekend.



Alright, some Ninja vs Lancer numbers, since I did not do a full analysis on that

Chapter 2:
Lancer doing 90-108 damage with jump
Ninja (not existing for most of the chapter, unlocking around when Lancer gets level jump 8 if other jumps are skipped)
Ninja doing 70 damage with daggers
Ninja doing 64 damage with throw ball
Ninja doing 120 damage with martial arts (potential for 156 with headgear+power wrist)
Ninja doing 128 damage with Equip Sword

Chapter 3 (pre-yardow):
Lancer dealing 120 damage
Ninja dealing 180 damage with Concentrate Ninja Swords
Ninja dealing 72 damage with throw ball (a few weakness enemies make this 144 in this chapter—flame shield and ice shield knights as well as some undead monsters)
Ninja dealing 256 with Martial Arts (288 with diamond armlet).

Early chapter 4 with bracers:

Lancer dealing 176 damage
Lancer that switched out to Geo dealing 231 damage
Ninja dealing 286 damage (with concentrate and ninja swords; can wear green beret without losing damage)
Ninja dealing 484 damage (with martial arts)
Ninja dealing 330 damage (with concentrate and fists)

Late chapter 4 when people feel pressured to wear Thief Hat:
Geo/Lancer: 228 (barring poaching shenanigans)
Ninja: 312 (with concentrate and ninja swords)
Ninja 420 (with martial arts while still wearing a Thief Hat; can hit 528)


So...what I'm seeing with Ninja is...for one thing a lot of flexibility; switching between Concentrate and Martial Arts depending on the fight.  Going through elfboy's geomancer report, on how often he used Attack Up vs Concentrate, there was a lot of attack up.  Also 50% more damage while having more speed if going ninja swords, about double the damage with martial arts fist usually possible.  All things considered, while Lancer's charge time isn't always a downside since it is invincibility frames, it's more often a downside than an upside.

In disadvantages, Lancers always do their damage at range 8, while Ninjas have to get close.  Ninjas are less durable in several ways...unless they use Abandon+Feather Mantle (small damage loss).

Nobody wins chapter 1.
Chapter 2 Lancer wins by a lot (even when Ninja is unlocked it's not great thanks to only having daggers)
Chapter 3 is advantage Ninja
Chapter 4 p1 is advantage Ninja
Chapter 4 p2 is advantage Ninja

So like...I suppose the question is if chapter 2 is hard enough that we need to be trying to laser target it with a Lancer ban, and...nah, you can have Oracles (quite good in the chapter) Geomancers (quite good in the chapter as demonstrated by Elfboy's playthrough—Wizard Robe+Diamond Armlet is good for elemental), you can go for Equip Armour Monk (Monk normally has its low point in Chapter 2, but Chapter 2 armour is really good).  There's also options of not rushing to Ninja—stopping and getting a punch art skillset first, using martial arts to make Thief and Archer not annoying to go through.

On the whole, yeah, Ninja > Lancer still seems reasonable.

Hmm...actually, going back and revisiting this, I'm raising some question marks about Ninja being above Lancer in Chapter 3, just because you can sensibly have several Lancers in Chapter 3, but you can't have too many Ninjas sensibly by the start of Chapter 3, as you likely don't want that many people in Thief/Archer at the same time (see the Time Mage vs Ninja stuff below).

---

Priest above Ninja/Time Mage:

How important is having revival?  Moderately important.  I'm looking through Elfboy's bottom 8 class playthrough, and a lot of the actual resets were “made some signifcant mistake very early, got a crystallisation.  Went back, didn't make mistake again.”  Over the course of the game, probably prevents some resets.

How important is Holy?  It makes mages into damage powerhouses in chapter 2.  It's 600 JP compared to 2300 JP for Short Charge Meteor; its online before Ninja, before Earth Slash, before Geomancer can get Attack Up.  It allows mages to start working on the JP for very JP hungry lategame setups without punshment.

How important are Cures?  Probably fairly important in Chapter 1 with Potion banned.  Maybe less important than Haste, though.

What happens if we ban Ninja instead of Priest?  Meh, Lancers exist, Monks exist, whatever.

What happens if we ban Time Mage instead of Priest?  Interesting.  So...part of the argument in favour of Priest is that it allows you to comfortably grind for lategame setups like short charge meteor.  Take that away, and are Priests really a problem?  Priests would now be looking at Priest/Oracle, and Oracles are relatively beastly in the lategame, but probably not Ninja/Lancer levels.  Oracle does complement Priest very well, though—where do priest SCCs run into trouble?  It's stuff like running out of MP on Altima.  Oracles bring Life Drain to bop Altima, as well as Spell Absorb and Move-MP Up for MP issues on other fights.  Not to mention sticks—if there's a concern about running out of MP on non-altima fights, sticks can close things out.

Do I think a sane person would go 5 priest/oracle when Ninjas and Lancers and Samurai and Monks are available?  No, mostly because of Chapter 1.  Kinda want a couple of Knights or something.  I could see Ramza starting in Knight in chapter 1, picking up Weapon Guard and Equip Shield, then heading back into the Oracle/Priest path.  A second male Knight could stay Knight for Chapter 1 and then roll into some physical build in Chapter 2 (with Monk being probably the most tempting cause it would give HP Restore to the whole party through spillover, and the time in Knight means Equip Armour monk).  Mages picking up their choice of weapon guard or equip shield from spillover.  So...yeah, with Priest/Oracle still legal, I can imagine running 4x Priest/Oracle.  It's maybe not the best setup possible in Chapter 4 when Ninja is available, but all of those units would be continuously useful in every chapter (acting as support units in Chapter 1, offence units in chapter 2 before Ninja was unlocked, etc).  Like...that sounds like a plausible setup.
By comparison, it's hard to imagine 4x Oracle/Time Mage as being correct.  These units are going to be support units for roughly half the game until Short Charge Meteor is available.  They are both lategame focused classes.  Time Mage would appreciate Oracle's MP restoration and conservation of course, but it's kind-of coming at the wrong time (Time Mage SCC largely stomps chapter 3-4, and needs more help on Chapter 1-2).

So...yeah, Priest here is probably correct as the 6th ban.  The mage path is probably overall too strong with all three of Priest/Oracle/Time Mage available.  And Priest is in the unique position of having power relatively early in the game, and combining well with either Oracle or Time Mage.

Stick with Priest > Time Mage/Ninja.

---

On Time Mage over Ninja:

With the banning of Priest, parties will start looking a lot more physical.  Haste becomes really good in heavily physical parties, puts Time Mage over Ninja in Chapters 1&2 I think.  Short Charge Meteor is...not as slow as it looks due to job level stacking.  My estimate is unlocking Ninja takes about 94 actions in general, unlocking Time Mage, learning Haste and Slow and then saving for Short Charge Meteor looks like...142 actions.  Unlocking Dancer 128 actions.  Elfboy's report about Dancer suggested unlocking it close to Chapter 3 start, so like 12 actions after that...is about 4 more fights means Goland, zalmo, UBS2, UBS3, have it in time for UBS1 maybe.

Is it possible to just get Meteor and not Short Charge?  If your enemies are 6 speed then sure—looks like this is doable in maybe a few Chapter 2 fights (about 100 actions to get Haste, Slow, Meteor).  If  hitting 7 speed enemies, well...only if you can get speed 7.  A speed 7 character can land meteor on another speed 7 character as long as the enemy moves and acts.  Requires being 7 speed, though.  And no you can't use Green Beret to reach speed 7, your MP will be too low.  You can't use sprint shoes, not out yet.  You could job change to priest...but it's banned, so no, you basically need Short Charge from the start of Chapter 3 onward.
Time Mage wins chapter 1 & 2 because of Haste and Ninja being stuck in garbage classes.  Ninja wins chapter 3 due to coming online.  Time Mage wins early Chapter 4 (up through Bethla) because most enemies are the same speed.  Late Chapter 4 there's a lot more fights with fast enemies, which means Ninja might be better in late Chapter 4, but it's hardly a blowout.  Having a time mage gives a lot of useful spillover (MP Switch or Teleport for all the non-Time Mages, Haste secondary another possible spillover benefit, outside possibility of getting multiples).

So like in the Chapter by Chapter breakdown Time Mage looks a little ahead, and spillover would be another point in its favour.  However...there's also the factor where you're not going to load up on 4x time mage.  I think you want at least 1.  You can probably get away with 2, although with 2 you won't be doing like “only haste and slow and then save for the next 2 chapters”--one of those Time Mages would probably at least partially invest into Oracle, or Mediator for equip gun, or pick up more utility stuff from Time Mage like Teleport before going for Meteor.  Although, worth noting, two Time Mages spillover between the two of them is enough to get Short Charge Meteor by late Chapter 2 (if you skip everything besides Haste/Slow).

Granted, there isn't really a great way to get 4x Ninjas by the start of chapter 3 either, just because of how awkward it is to get there.  You don't really want to be running around with 4x Thieves at any point in Chapter 1 or 2.  Chapter 3 you can use Twist Headband + Power Sleeve and use martial arts, or use something like Equip Gun, and then you can get Thief JP comfortably.  Although 29 Thief actions...at that point you'd be looking at unlocking Ninja by Chapter 4.  A Chapter 4 party with 4x Ninja is possible though!
Although...there are certainly some mook smash fights where one character with Short Charge Meteor might be more impactful than two physical characters, so you know, that seems important too.

OK, so regardless, Time Mage wins Chapter 1&2 thanks to Haste and Ninja having bad prerequisites.  Haste, and spillover options like Teleport and MP Switch never stop being good.  There is an argument that in Chapter 3 when you probably only have 1-2 Ninjas due to the unlock requirements, it's not clear that 1 Ninja is more impactful than 1 character with Haste hasting the whole party—particularly since if Ninja was banned, that would just be something like a Lancer or a Monk or a Geomancer in their place.  This is also a chapter where TM spillover can really start rolling in benefits.

Chapter 4 probably favours Ninja, because 4 Ninjas is plausible, an argument could be made that they are better than 4 Monk/Lancer/Geomancers with a haste-user, and you're probably only looking at 1 character with Short Charge Meteor (although 2 is doable).  Doesn't...feel completely one-sided though.

So...yeah, I think this favours Time Mage still, pretty heavily leaning on Haste.  There's an argument that you should just go physical characters with haste secondary and largely ignore the rest of TM.  Short Charge Meteor and tossing some spillover to the party is...viable, but hardly mandatory.  Ignoring it for stronger chapter 2 classes is honestly pretty reasonable.
So okay, regardless, mostly on the backs of Haste, Time Mage over Ninja still looks justifiable.

There is still an itching open question, though, on whether it's better to go with low faith and bad internal compatibility (which would drop the value of Haste quite a bit).  I think bad internal compatibility is probably a no—even ignoring haste, various Monk things like Chakra, Revive, healing with Earth Slash want good internal compatibility.  If it's a good internal compatibility party, you can still get an 83% chance to hit haste on a 50 faith character (99% chance if they're best compat).  Also...ehh...is low faith really that important when you have Lancers that can jump to avoid spells locked onto them, and Oracles who can silence song to cancel a spell, and potentially even Time Mages who can cast Reflect to save you from a spell?  (OK, Reflect is a bit of a stretch, 330 Time Mage JP is probably not getting spent on that spell).

Leaving this as Time Mage over Ninja for now, but there are certainly open questions.

---

Monk vs Oracle

So ok, this kind-of needs to get revisited I think.  Oracle handing out Defence Up through spillover is not really that exciting with Attack Up, Concentrate, and Martial Arts, and potentially Equip Gun floating around.  Monk handing out HP Restore from spillover is a big deal—the practical competition going from Elfboy's playthrough is like...Counter Flood.

I was thinking that most people would be setting Yin Yang Magic as their secondary in Chapter 1/2—low JP cost height ignoring ranged secondary.  I had kind-of just mentally dismissed Elemental, though, and reading through Elfboy's Geo playthrough, Elemental was a pretty important secondary (including being a secondary that sometimes got set on classes like Archer just for ITE and AoE).  Another takeaway from that playthrough was that, at least mediocre status moves underperformed.  Steal Heart was learned but never used due to low hit rate.  Mimic Daravon barely used only when there were obstacles in the way—the party just overall had too much damage to justify it.

Yin Yang is obviously better than Steal Heart or Mimic Daravon; actually has a hit rate.  Reasonably learnable earlier in the game.  But even still...it's probably not going to be everywhere, some people are just going to set Elemental instead.  Or Charge.  Going by the number of people who unlocked Mediator on Elfboy's playthrough (not many) it's not going to be automatic to bother unlocking Oracle for a physical side character, so setting Yin Yang might not even be an option for everyone.
So like...Oracle is...sticks (which are largely better than Swords and Monk damage in Chapter 2/3, though don't come with a shield or 4 move) Life Drain (which is very OP of course) and...quality status if you're in the market for it.  (A dedicated Oracle is...perfectly viable).

On the flip side, what happens if you ban Monk?  No HP Restore to whole party from spillover.  No Revive.  General drop in damage options post Yardow (Monk is pretty good damage when Bracer shows up, kind of filler before then, but Earth Slash outdamages Elemental by a decent margin, even if targeting options are worse).  Really no major skillsets on the physical side of the job tree before Draw Out/Dancer.  (Elemental is solid enough, but a step down from Punch Art).

Yeah, this is feeling like Monk > Oracle.


---

So...at the end of all of that...surprising to me but Priest seems pretty solidly #6.  Ninja/Lancer/Time Mage are still a bit of a mess; no movement for now, but they all feel on the border of moving around.  Monk moves up over Oracle.  List as of now:

1. Calc
2. Chemist
3. Summoner
4. Wizard
5. Squire
6. Priest
7. Time Mage
8. Ninja
9. Lancer
10. Monk
11. Oracle
12. Geomancer
13. Samurai
14. Knight
15. Mediator
16. Archer
17. Dancer
18. Red Chocobos (from Boco)
19. Thief
20. Bard
21. Mime

I think Oracle vs Geomancer probably needs to be looked at next.

[metroid composite]

Additional thoughts: Oracle vs Geomancer comparsions for the #11 spot yes, but also Samurai should be given some consideration, as one of the justifications for Geomancer before Samurai was "Geomancer is the last high MA classes left, so banning it hits Samurai too."  If Geomancer isn't uniquely high MA, that justification kind-of goes away.

Anyhow...is a dedicated Oracle fine?  Yes, it's fine, so spillover plans with Oracle are still reasonable.

How does spillover Defence Up for everyone compare to, say Attack Up?  Hmm...I feel like it's probably better for mook smashing.  Just due to the formulas--4/3 rounded down for the party...or 2/3 rounded down for the enemy.  The numbers are higher and the rounding is favourable.  If someone with 8 PA and attack up hits someone with defence up, the net result is that they have effectively 6 PA.  That's an extreme case, but on average Defence Up has like...20% more effect than Attack Up thanks to bigger numbers and better rounding.  Spillover defence up is also obviously very nice on anyone where a significant amount of what they do isn't affected by attack up (so like Samurai using Draw Out, Dancer using Dance, even to some degree Geomancer when they are doing Elemental attrition.  Though obviously Attack Up is preferred on things like gunners).  Defence Up, while not being dominant enough to justify banning before Monk, does strike me as being genuine competition for the support slot.

Now, granted, that's specifically against physical mooks.  Attack Up is better at smashing mage mooks.  Attack Up is better at smashing bosses.

Oracle does just happen to have answers for both of those, however.  Life Drain is very good boss smashing, probably overall better than what Geomancer has to offer.  Silence Song tends to instantly delete a mage from the fight, and casts fast enough to cancel their spell.  (There is a stretch of the game when blocking silence is common, however).

Sticks from Oracles are also about as good as swords from Geomancers in Chapter 2-3 (pre-yardow)--though this is with less HP and no shields, of course.  Swords obviously win Chapter 1 and 4 substantially anyhow.

Though...regardless, I feel like there's an argument Oracles bring a little bit more to both Mook Smashing (Defence Up + Silence Song + I guess other stuff from Yin Yang) and also a little bit more to boss smashing (It is very hard to lose to a zodiac when you have life drain.  Like...solo Ramza with Life Drain and not much else beats most zodiacs; I know because that was often my setup of choice for zodiacs on a heavily restricted solo challenge).

So okay, I'm still feeling reasonably comfortable about Oracle > Geomancer.

Oracle vs Samurai, though...part of the argument for Oracle over Samurai was "hit 'em where it'll hurt--Chapter 2".  Based on Elfboy's reports, just get a lot of Geomancers and Chapter 2 will be the on the easy end of chapters.

If we're doing chapter by chapter breakdowns...

Oracles certainly win Chapter 1 (Chapter 1 is their weakest point, but Paralyze is a decent complement to Knights, and notably turns off Counter on Miluda and Wiegraf, which can be a problem for a melee party.  So this isn't just a charity "they win for existing"--no Oracles do get some work done).

Oracles win Chapter 2; actually good in the Chapter, Samurai still struggling with unlocks.

Throughout Chapter 3, Samurai have the ability to be good by popping out to an MA carrier.  If they pop out to an Oracle with a Wizard Rod and Wizard Robe then Koutetsu...hits about as hard as an Attack Up sword hit from a geomancer, but they can pair it with a different support ability like Defence Up.  That said, any fight they don't take seriously and just stick in the Samurai class they are going to hit less hard than a stick-wielding Oracle without Attack Up, and will just generally make the party weaker.  Also, if it's a choice between banning Oracle and banning Samurai, worth noting Oracle brings quite a bit more MA than Geo in this chapter.

I guess it's worth figuring out what Samurai should actually go for.  Takes 94 actions to unlock the class (late chapter 2), but realistically I think you either stop and get some ranged skills (some elementals, some Yin Yang) or stop and get Move+2, cause 3 move no range Samurai would genuinely weaken the party a lot.  So more like 108 actions to get into Samurai.  Maybe more like 128 if you set up both your range and your move+2 (so about the same unlock time as Dancer).  If you go for Koutetsu + Murasame + Kiyomori + Muramasa + Kikuichomoji + Blade Grasp, it's 2960 JP, so...148 more actions.  I guess 121 accounting for higher levels.  Assuming 3 actions per fight on average that's like 40 fights to get all that JP.  So...basically stay Samurai for almost every remaining fight in the game.  Yeah, no.  What can we drop?  Drop Muramasa and Blade Grasp I guess?  If you have two Samurai, one of them can drop Kiyomori and keep one of Muramasa/BG.  This gets us down to 1680 Samurai JP.  Now down to 75ish actions after correcting for higher levels (enough to be out of the class by Bethla, and reap the benefits for the rest of the game).  There is an alternative plan--have your dancers unlock Dancer first, and then unlock Samurai and grind out that JP.  I think I conceptually like the Dancer route, cause you aren't really punished for being in Samurai, you probably want a Dancer or two anyway.  But it does mean unlocking Samurai even later--towards the end of Chapter 3 or start of Chapter 4.

But hmm...what does this fairly powerful post-Bethla setup accomplish?  It's good mook smash, but it's chapter 4, and you could also have a dancer or two for mook smash.  It's good boss smash, easy reaching of highly mobile bosses like Balk and Altima, but is it better than Life Drain?  Hmm...not against Balk or Altima I think.  But in narrow circumstances...maybe?  Let's say you're challenging yourself to beat the game with 2 characters or 3 characters, and don't want Rofel to break your equipment, then yeah, Life Drain's damage is too low to one-shot, use Kikuichimoji to save yourself a bit of money if Rofel breaks your stuff.  Unless you roll the 1/6 then Kikuichimoji breaks and you don't save money.

So ehh...feels like between Life Drain and Dance and other generally solid setups (Geomancers, Mediators, Oracles) that post-Bethla Chapter 4 is kinda already under control by the time Samurai really power spikes, and banning them wouldn't remotely make that part of the game hard.

So this should still work:

11. Oracle
12. Geomancer
13. Samurai

Once deciding on Oracle 11, this genuinely does mean that a 12. Geomancer ban would hit Chapter 2 fairly hard, would hit gunner setups fairly hard, and would hit Samurai in general fairly hard (switching classes for more MA now not really a thing, Samurai setting Elemental for range no longer a thing).  13 Samurai is probably still fine (kind of just reaching the point where Samurai SCC for chapter 3/4 is something actually desireable in the party).

[Tide]

I checked with a couple of people before deciding to post (again? I dunno) since I feel like I'm hijacking MC's topic. Anyway, feel free to move this to its own topic if you'd like!

So yes, Theorycrafting. Or "Tide likes to analyze games on a deeper level" cause that's what I do. You might be thinking, "but Tide, I thought you don't really like competitive games", and this is true! However, once upon a time (namely when I was younger, all the way up until the late teens), I played a lot of games with multi-player in them, so I'd like to analyze a few (especially weird obscure titles) under a more analytical lens. Especially now that I'm older and have a better grasp of tactics that can be employed. And since it's me we're talking about, let's look at a racing game you probably haven't played or head of: Biker Mice from Mars!

Biker Mice from Mars is a racer where you progress through each track and gain points based on your ranking. You'll get prize money to upgrade your vehicle as you go, but for the purposes of this comparison, I'll be primarily looking at the vehicles that have maxed out Grip/Shots/Engine. Armor is discounted because increasing armor actually decreases the effectiveness of attacking. Everyone additional armor point you gain, the AI gains as well. Assuming you are going head to head, you could buy armor but armor doesn't tend to let you win races, especially when one of them is...well you'll see. This means armor is the only upgrade where it becomes situational versus the other categories, where more upgrades is better.

The game features six characters from the cartoon: Throttle, Vinnie, Modo, Limburger, Karbuncle and Grease Pit. Each racer is graded on a spectrum of 3 visible stats from 1 (worst) to 6 (best). These stats are Top Speed, Acceleration, Handling. Based on the in-game information, they are then ranked as such:

Throttle:
- Speed: 3
- Accel: 3
- Grip: 4

Vinnie:
- Speed: 1
- Accel: 5
- Grip: 6

Modo:
- Speed 4
- Accel: 2
- Grip: 3

Limburger:
- Speed: 5
- Accel: 6
- Grip: 1

Karbuncle:
- Speed: 2
- Accel: 4
- Grip: 5

Grease Pit:
- Speed: 6
- Accel: 1
- Grip: 2.

However, the stats don't tell the complete picture. Each character also a distinct list of differences and they play pretty differently. It's actually pretty amusing to me that a racing game designed during this time period has such variation between it's playable characters. Some of these differences include:

- The way the vehicle operates. Limburger has hovercraft and is thus never effected by terrain that would slow you down. He also doesn't lose speed from going up ramps. Compared to say Karbuncle, who cannot pop a wheeling because he's riding a giant cockroach, and constantly loses speed on negative terrain, and you can see a pretty big difference just based on the character choice

- Weapon attack. Pretty obvious. Each character has a signature weapon that they can use to hamper the other racer, which I assume is correlated to the cartoon. These are widely different, but the most common is a projectile type, which can be fired down a pretty far distance off screen in a straight line. However, even between these, there are differences. Karbuncle has a mutagen ray, that transforms victims hit by it into sluggish mutants for a few seconds. Limburger can actually fire his weapon BACKWARDS against tailgaters.

- Jump. A hidden stat but this stat governs how well a character can take off of ramps. The better the Jump, the more distance you gain, which in turn, often translates to more speed. In order of best to worse: Karbuncle has the best jump, followed by Vinnie, Throttle, Modo, Limburger, Grease Pit. Note that the fall off from Vinnie to Throttle is pretty notable. Grease Pit barely gains much height from jumping and thus is the worst from taking off ramps. Meanwhile, expect Karbuncle and Vinnie to literally fly off the stage in some cases.

- Cornering type. It's a racing game released after Mariokart, so Power sliding exists. However, every character also has a different type of drift and how much speed they can gain from a power slide. From personal experience, Vinnie gains the most speed but also has the most dedicated cornering (he spins either left or right so your direction has to be correct or you'll drift into the corner). This is followed by Karbuncle (who throws a spiked ball anchor), then Throttle (power drift), Modo (hop), Grease Pit (mitigated crashing), Limburger (full stops, then charges up for a burst of speed).

With all of this in consideration, here are more indepth personal looks at each person:

Throttle:
- Is basically Mr. Average. Doesn't have any particular stat he excels at, but also doesn't have any particular stat he's terrible at either.
- His weapon is pretty boring. A straight shot that launches a target upwards and then drops them down. It's also not as useful on Limburger because Limburger can still fly while he's hit and can travel forward, losing almost no momentum
- He drifts and takes jump pretty well but there otherwise isn't anything that's really unique about him.
- Probably the best  beginner type character but is definitely one of the worst as you play more

Vinnie:
- Despite his 1 start speed rating, is by far and away, the fastest character in the game due to his cornering gains and great jump stat. He's only at a disadvantage if he's going down a straight road and the more complicated maps don't give you much of those - especially since Vinnie will be flying over them.
- His other stats tend to be associated with low speed, but in truth, are probably more mixed. You'll be going so fast when you understanding how to use Vinnie that you often have to take corners super early. And since you're going so fast, if you crash into anything, you might actually bounce backwards - depending on the obstacle.
- Requires good knowledge of the course due to a lot of speed coming from cornering. If you're not sure how to take the corner properly, you won't properly drift through them.
- His weapon is unique. It causes his vehicle to jump. There are two parts to it: the first is the actual jump where Vinnie launches himself upwards. The second part - he slams his bike straight down. The catch here is, Vinnie gains additional momentum depending on how much air he has as he's descending. This allows him to actually SPEED UP with his weapon.
- As an actual attack though, it's pretty bad. You either have to be point blank (good luck doing this on Modo) or you have to land on top of them as you descend. Most of the time, you can't see them when you're high up in the air, so it's kind of a crapshoot
- The opposite of Throttle really - a much more expert oriented character. I suspect if I'm playing this with other people now who have played the game before, we'd probably have to ban Vinnie. He's just distinctly faster than everyone else when he's being played by someone who knows where they are going.

Modo:
- The other character who is probably the most newbie friendly, due to primarily one thing: BIONIC CHARGE
- Bionic Charge (his weapon) is absolutely ridiculous. It lets Modo charge at top speed towards the direction he's facing. Anything that gets in his way takes 3 points of armor damage. Note that without upgrading armor, you only have 3 armor points, so it instantly destroys the target's ride and costs them a lot of time, while Modo actually picks up even more time than usual since he's ramming you at top speed.
- At 3 points of damage, it means that Modo is also the only character who will ever gain a benefit from upgrading armor - but only at set intervals. If he upgrades to 6 points of armor for example, he will 2HKO, but enemies need to 6HKO him. Pretty significant!.
- Because it's a straight charge, Bionic Charge can also be used to pick up speed after getting hit by another competitor's weapon OR you can use it like a makeshift Nitro-boost. This actually lets Modo take certain jumps that he otherwise wouldn't be able to and in some cases, even access some short cuts.
- His stat mix otherwise isn't great though...namely his jump and cornering gains are distinctly weaker than his colleagues.
- The less specific cornering type definitely helps beginner players for power sliding, but leaves something to be desired if you're more experienced.

Limburger:
- As noted, he flies a hovercraft. He doesn't lose speed on terrain that other characters will sometimes lose speed on.
- Also as noted, he is the only character that can fire his weapon backwards. It travels less distance than a forward shot, but it's unique to him and let's Limburger shake off tailgating effectively.
- He's really weird to control though. Take turns like you do with other characters and he'll stop for a second before turning. He also ends up turning only 90 degrees in this way. To actually corner, you have to tap the directional button repeatedly, which means he tends to take them very wide.
- His power slide and jump stats are weak too. Overall, he's powerful but very weird. 

Karbuncle:
- His main disadvantage is not being able to pop a wheeling. This means he has no defense against enemy mines or difficult terrain and he can lose speed everywhere on certain courses - especially the water heavy ones.
- His shot does no armor damage but it's as good as draining all the armor points of a target anyway since you can't resist it. You have to wait for it to expire.
- His jump is absolutely crazy. He mainly loses to Vinnie in the speed department because he can't GAIN speed from it. Probably the best villain character.

Grease Pit:
- Once everything is considered, is really bad. Has no real way to gain a lot of speed from corners, his shot is unspecial, and he doesn't have any real strengths other than high top speed on a straight road.


With that, I'd probably rank the characters from best to worst as:
1. Vinnie - absolutely no contest. He beats everyone in terms of speed and doesn't have Karbuncle's major disadvantage. His weapon is also extremely versatile although it straight up sucks if you're actually trying to kill someone with it. So he's great for the main game but probably not a great choice for Battle mode. Would probably need to be straight up banned if you're racing against someone directly without any AI because once he's ahead, it's pretty much impossible to catch up unless the Vinnie player messes up.

2. Modo -  After Vinnie it gets really fuzzy. Because all the other chars (sans Grease Pit) can be competitive with each other in some way. Modo's really strong though. Bionic Charge is as versatile as Vinnie's weapon but with the added benefit of it actually being a great attack. He's also straightforward to use although strategizing your Bionic Charges becomes more important against more experienced players and the longer courses

3. Karbuncle - Between him and Limburger, I think Karbuncle wins. Limburger laughs at him forever on water heavy courses, but Karbuncle can gain a ton of speed on tracks where there are more corners and non dirt roads. It's pretty significant. He also wins on weapon type as the mutagen transformation is just a lot more powerful than stunning someone briefly with a projectile. Karbuncle versus Modo is interesting but Modo being able to straight up destroy Karbunckle if the two are ever close enough together is a problem for him. Unlike with Limburger where you lose maybe a second, getting hit by Modo costs significantly more time. And despite having a better jump stat, not having a weapon to provide speed might also mean Karbuncle can't take as great advantage of ramps. If he get ahead of Modo to the point that Modo can't really catch up without burning a number of Bionic Crash charges, he'll probably win, but that's pretty tricky. 

4. Limburger - He loses to the other 2 primarily because of his weird cornering and poor power drifting. Being able to shoot backwards is fun though and makes it such that lining up to shoot Limburger is hard. Unless your name is Vinnie cause then you just hop over it. Beats Throttle due to having straight up better stats and because his craft mitigates the effectiveness of Throttle's weapon...for some reason.

5. Throttle - As noted, is Mr. Average. He's always technically better than someone else, but doesn't have any real compelling reason to be used since you'd rather just use that other character instead. Also having a random Limburger weakness is weird and does him no favors. Still better than Grease Pit though.

6. Grease Pit - Just badly outstated. What he needed was either a stronger jump or his weapon to have some unique effect. I can understand keeping him bad on corners but there's no reason why he should be the worst jumper and have nothing special about him. Oh boy, he beats Throttle if you're going up against Limburger?? I don't get it.

[Tide]

Upgrade routes and Item analysis (of the above):

One thing I didn't mention is that every lap you complete, you received an item that the game will randomly give you. Similar to Mariokart, the worse your placement rank is when you cross the line, the better the item is. Technically anyway. There are 5 items in total:

- Cash: Gives you $200 instantly. Doesn't sound like a lot, but consider each track has 5 laps, it's a potential to get up to an extra $1000 - which starts mattering. Pretty much the only item you get while in 1st.

- Turbo: Provides a sudden burst of speed. Best way of using this is right before a jump so you can extend the length of the turbo through your jump. That being said, more powerful with the better jumpers (Vinnie/Karbuncle) and worse with the weaker ones.

- Sheriff Star: Makes you Invincible for a short duration. While active, it improves all your stat parameters sans Jump. You tend to get this around 3rd or 4th place. The speed boost from this though isn't strong enough to make you start jumping off ramps. Best used on straight roads as a result.

- Skull: Generates an earthquake across the entire map, which causes everyone on the ground to slow to a crawl and makes turns basically impossible. This would be a really powerful item like Mariokart's lightning bolt EXCEPT you can dodge this if you are using the right racers. Modo and Vinnie can both use their weapon charges, which bypasses this item's effects. Notably, Modo can still move forward while Vinnie can jump off the ground and still gain momentum if using the drop down from Shooting Star. So yes, as if Vinnie and Modo weren't already good enough, they can also flip this around to benefit themselves if they are willing to blow some weapon charges. One other thing of note is that, the quake does stop Limburger completely in his tracks, even though it shouldn't. He literally gains no momentum the moment the quake starts, so it's extra effective on him.

Timer: Freezes all racers for about 3-4 seconds while the user is unaffected. Because you cannot dodge the effects of the timer, it's the more powerful of the two "effect all" items. One trick that can be performed with the timer is to place mines directly in front or on top of a racer as a frozen. Since when time resumes, you automatically go back to the state you were in before the item was used, if you aren't already in a wheelie position, the mine becomes unavoidable, guaranteeing a few more seconds of delay on your target. Getting the timing on this though is tricky cause mines disappear pretty quick. Incidentally, this also makes Karbuncle the most vulnerable to this  tactic as he can never pop a wheelie. On the other hand, once again, Vinnie can cheat this by taking to the air if he suspects a timer is about to be pulled. Once he's airborne, you won't be able to hit him at all, thereby allowing him avoid this trap set up.

So yes, in case it wasn't clear, even all the items in the game have a pro-Vinnie bias.

Upgrade routes:

Long story short, Engine upgrades are the most important things to have and many of the PCs want to invest in engine first if possible. The trouble of course is that it is also the most costly upgrade and if you're playing 2 players, one players will have much less income than the other. Winning first place and getting 5 cash rolls gives you something like $4000, where as being in second means less cash rolls and only a $2000 prize. So if you're playing with another person, you'll want some temporary benefit to compensate while you wait for the engine. Another thing is, each upgrade gets more and more expensive. Going from engine level 1 to engine level 2 is a $4000 increase, meaning it costs $9000. In that time, other un-upgraded parts will start to look better. While wait and spend $21000 for the best engine if you can get some other useful parts instead?

As noted earlier, all parts sans armor are useful. Armor is entirely situational. Modo basically either wants none or 3 upgrades. Everyone else might want 1 (so they don't get insta-wrecked by an opposing Modo) but in some cases, like Vinnie, you might want 0 since a Vinnie player should be well ahead of everyone else anyway. In Karbuncle's case, full armor upgrades does work out since his weapon doesn't care about armor to slow you down significantly. However, that's a lot of cash to be dumping into something that otherwise doesn't really help you.

General upgrade path for all characters is to do Engine levels 1-3 first, then upgrade another part after. The first 3 engine upgrades cost a combined total of $22000, which isn't terrible if you're constantly 1st. You will get this by the time you're midway through Round 2 and the game has 5 Rounds on Normal. The last upgrades though cost $39000. So saving up for those without touching anything else might not be a luxury you get to do.

Vinnie: Doing 3 Engines first, the all 5 shots before focusing on the last 2 Engine upgrades seems to be the best plan for optimizing speed. As mentioned, Vinnie needs 0 armor upgrades since when a player knows what they're doing, Vinnie will often fly way ahead to be caught. As for tires, you probably won't need them until maybe Round 4 when the tracks get more complicated. His high grip rating + power drifting most of the time means you won't really notice a change in handling until very late. Shooting Star having a secondary speed benefit is huge though and gives the Vinnie player a second option if he can't place first consistently since weapons are considerably cheaper than an Engine boost (but then why are you using Vinnie?)

Modo: Like Vinnie, 3 Engines first. After that, everything into Shot, then a few upgrades to tires. Armor is situational here and you may consider investing around Round 3, but you have to do it all at once. Basically, one stage hazards become more prevalent, having Modo 2HKO isn't too bad of an option since your rivals 6HKO at best. On the other hand, having way more defense to prevent your ride from being wasted starts becoming more of a benefit as the hazards increase. The last few engine upgrades are kinda optional here because Modo already has pretty good base speed - plus Bionic Crash lets you travel at top speed for a few seconds anyway.

Karbuncle: Probably just wants to dump everything Engine. He'll need it too since every 2 track of a round is a water track which basically just spites him. A few weapon upgrades help, if you can spare some cash. Although he can get a benefit from going max armor, as noted, that's a lot of cash to dump on a stat that doesn't directly impact how well you perform. Still, like Modo, investing a couple of levels around round 3 might help out if you can't outmaneuver the hazard since his weapon effectiveness remains the same throughout.

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Yep, other people posting theorycraft in this thread is totally fine

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So...I last redid an old FFT tier list which was the "ban classes in the order that will increase difficulty the most".

Now I'm a little tempted to redo another tier list which is "how much do each of these classes contribute to an optimal playthrough", which should look pretty different.  (I got some messages from people  who preferred this style of list).

General rules are:

1. Turboing through the game, no stopping to grind; we are stomping.  If you want calculator JP, better get it in story battles.
2. Low party coordination.  The example that springs to mind is a co-op setting, where three or four humans each control one character, but don't work as a group.  (So...you can equip a chameleon robe on yourself, but you can't force other people in your party to do so, and certainly heavy coordination stuff like The Quickening is just not happening).
3. Generics only.  Just simplifies the list.
4. While it is a stomp, it's not a speedrun.  We don't reset if we miss, we don't avoid using moves cause of animation time.
5. PSX NA version.

note that this tier list will get weird, for instance Knight and Archer might end up ahead of something like Samurai, because going to Samurai, while not the weakest thing to do, is almost never optimal, but using Weapon Guard or Concentrate is reasonable.

Anyway...

1. Wizard How many optimal setups use wizard?  Honestly?  90%-95%.  How much do they use Wizard?  Black Magic in Chapter 1 and often Chapter 2 (it's a fine secondary on summoner for MP reasons, or you might not go straight to summoner), and then the Wizard class with MAU in Chapters 3 and 4.  Wizard from its stats is a...decent MA bump, after accounting for some MA boosting gear about 15%-20% more MA than the next best option, and then MAU is another 33% boost (although rounded down granted) for an overall around...55% more damage with the same abilities--something like that?

2. Summoner Shiva/Ramuh/Ifrit are just the best budget spells in the game by a mile, and very portable.  You can coast on knowing a single one of these three for...basically the whole game as long as you go MAU Wizard.  Short Charge+Big Summon is also pretty good; a small damage bump over MAU Ramuh, and a large AoE increase, in exchange for more MP (and a significantly slower build).  Obviously Math Skill can completely eclipse Summon, but if going calc you do lean on your teammates to carry you through a few fights while you learn it, and with the rules the way they are (uncooperative teammates who won't necessarily wear chameleon robes) you may want more than just CT5 (although being a supporting role and running CT5 Pray Faith and CT5 Raise is legit, but that still puts emphasis on summon).

3. Calculator Wizard and Summoner together are basically all you need to stomp the game, but Calc can completely eclipse them in power if you can handle being weak for several fights while you train.  I guess the question is whether anything else should be here instead.  MAU Wizards with Ramuh don't even need Gained JP Up or Move+1 very much (although they will certainly use them, no complaints), nor do they have a lot of use for Item.  They wouldn't mind grinding out Auto Potion at some point, but that's still a lot less impactful than grinding out Math Skill.

4. Chemist So I think the viable options here are Squire, Chemist, Time Mage, and Priest.  Priest contributes almost exclusively to Math Skill.  Chemist and Time Mage can contribute to summon setups.  Squire contributes lesser amounts to every build (and notably Gained JP Up contributes quite a bit to Calc builds, and also contributes quite a bit to short charge+summon builds.  Doesn't contribute a ton to MAU+Ramuh builds because they aren't JP hungry, but neither does Time Mage or Priest).  Feels like definitely not Time Mage or Priest.  So Squire vs Chemist; Chemist is more ignorable than Squire (where you often get spillover JP without trying), but Auto Potion is a huge power spike, and having a couple people with phoenix down drops the risk of full on resets significantly.  Auto Potion isn't the power spike that Math Skill is, but it's also a lot easier to get (just wait till guns come out; toss some guests into Chemist and give them a gun if you want some spillover).

5. Squire I think whichever of Squire/Chemist I didn't pick was going here.  Both Squire/Chemist have a lot to offer just about every build.

6. Time Mage: Teleport is super OP, and if you have a dedicated Time Mage you can reasonably give Teleport to a lot of people through spillover (or Short Charge for that matter).  Dedicated Time Mage isn't unreasonable, since Short Charge Meteor is fine, not as good as Short Charge Summon (7 ctr instead of 5 ctr friendly fire, but hey more damage is cool).  The one thing keeping Teleport in check is that it's just...movement isn't that high a priority for damage mage builds--the most busted builds don't really need movement.  Another useful spillover ability for non-mages (or calculators) is MP Switch.  Short Charge gives a lategame path for summon (while MAU Ramuh is pretty good, Ramuh has a mult of 24, with a 4/3 multiplier for MAU, and a 5/4 multiplier for strengthen from Black Robe, this only gets you to 40, Bahamut has a mult of 46, and you'd pair it with the Light Robe for MP, but that's also a decent HP gain over the Black Robe).  None of this stuff is really super critical path for breaking the game, but it's fine.  Whereas I think the main competition is Priest for their contribution to calculator, but calc's power level is going to be very high with or without them.

7. Priest Pretty sure I had Priest much lower last time as I weighed their contribution to Calc less.  But ehh...the contributions to Math Skill are real (with Holy and Raise being the two best math skill spells).  And the stats...while the stats suck in Chapter 2 where you end up having 7 speed when you want 6 speed, there are also fights where I've picked Priest over other classes to get +1 speed without being stuck on a Green Beret (basically from Chapter 3 forward the speed is almost always an upside).  The other option here is Oracle, which also contribues to Math Skill (though not as much).  Has on paper better overall stats/equipment, but there isn't actually a reason to use them over Wizard (whereas speed is a real reason to use Priest over Wizard).  Oracle also has better overall spells outside of Mathskill (and by spells I mostly mean Life Drain for boss fights.  But Silence Song also has 3-4 fights where it shines).   Although...Holy is a great spell, and also has fights it just kills, and transitions well into mathskill later in the game.  Problem with Oracle is that it's a couple of moves that break a couple of fights, but isn't the plan A battering ram.

8. Oracle We are getting to the point that contributions are small and builds are a little bit niche.  But Oracle is good at having niches.  Life Drain breaks some fights.  Silence Song breaks some fights.  They probably have the second best contributions to math skill.  (If you have uncooperative teammates who won't wear chameleon robes, CT5PrayFaith is still boss, and just about everyone will wear a thief hat, so CT5Paralyze is great).

9. Ninja I'm less and less sold on Ninja when it comes to optimal build paths, since you do have to go through Thief and Archer and suck for a while, and your payoff is being overall worse than a MAU Wizard with Ramuh.  But it does cover some weaknesses of mage builds, notably Roof of Riovanes, you can end the fight before the enemies have a chance to kill Rafa.  (Whereas Summoner builds have charge times, and Mathskill might not be able to avoid hitting Rafa).

10. So now we get to the really minor contributions.  There's stuff that only Ninjas care about (Move+2 from Thief, Concentrate from Archer).  There's budget stuff for mages (Weapon Guard, sometimes you'll start at 199 Knight JP, and have a guest go Knight for spillover, and it's like 20% evade, honestly best of the budget reaction options for mage).  Equip Sword is also sometimes the highest damage option for a Ninja, but it costs 400 JP when Ninjas can easily pick up Martial Arts for 200 JP anyway so...meh.  Excalibur also exists, so one character going Knight in the second half of Chapter 4 just to wear that is completely reasonable (mage or physical character; Excalibur is that good).  It's better-used on a non-generic character so this gets slightly less weight, though.  There's Monk--Monk itself is kinda whatever, but a dedicated Monk can give HP Restore from spillover, Monk offers Martial Arts as an option for Ninjas, and Chakra restoring MP is nice; Monk can also reasonably transition into Ninja as their endgame.  And finally Bard.  Ramza going Bard to make gaining Calculator JP easier (and make the character contribute a lot more to the fight while they're in calc) is...legit, and Angel Song is the best MP restoration in the game.  Hmm...how real is the give the party spillover HP Restore Plan?  Wave Fist (300) + Earth Slash (600) + Stigma Magic (200) + Chakra (350) + Revive (500) + Martial Arts (200) + HP Restore (500) = 2650.  2650/6 = 441.  People start with about 150 in the class so...yeah, you really don't need to overstay in the class to get HP Restore to everyone.  I think this goes to Monk.

11. Knight: So...there's the good but not super powerful RSM for Ninja, which is already stretching the idea of main line power build, or the earlygame placeholder, but easy to get from spillover 200 JP reaction in Weapon Guard, which works on mages which are a fairly main line build (plus Knight having a few other upsides like easiest class for mages to pop into that has a shield and a robe, also Rune Blade when archer has no weapon that boosts  MA, and occasionally Excalibur shenanigans).  Bard to Calc...is honestly more something that I see discussed in theory than played out in practice.

12. Thief: Between a fringe option of dipping Bard before Calc, Move+2 which basically every Ninja will use, and Concentrate which...will be used sometimes but Ninjas will sometimes use Martial Arts, Throw Item, Attack Up, or even Equip Sword instead...Move+2 just seems like the cleanest of them.  It's always good.  It's super free for Ninjas.  It actually boosts Ninja's throw range.  I've seen it in practice way more than Singing Calc.

13. So...ok, how good is Concentrate on a Ninja really?  It...exists, but having recently re-read through Elfboy's Geo/Archer/Mediator playthrough, there was a decent amount of using Attack Up over Concentrate.  And then we can throw in Martial Arts in there as well as another support fighting for Ninja attention.  (Concentrate does boost Throw, though, which Attack Up does not, a factor fairly relevant when the main selling point is boosting Ninjas.  On the flip side, when Ninja is in a supporting role supporting a party of mostly mages, Ninja's main job...other than being Phoenix Down errand boys, is to hit enemy mages and archers that are charging to cancel the charge by killing the target--a role where Concentrate does not add anything.  Ninjas don't really need to kill Feather Mantle'd Knights, the mages can handle those enemies).  Does this mean it's time for Geo to go with Attack Up?  Ehh...I feel like Martial Arts, Throw Item, and Concentrate are still making Attack Up not that big of a deal.  Bard for singing calculator?  Meh.  Honestly?  Samurai, for all that you need to be kind-of weak for the first three chapters, and end up arguably not as good as Summoner overall, Samurai can still bring party diversity.  Kiyomori is the best at what it does.  Blade Grasp is...mechanically solid, just way more expensive than Auto Potion.  Samurai bring instant-speed no friendly fire AoE, which technically neither Summoner nor Calc can boast (Calc having friendly fire, Summoner having charge times).  Although...hold on, Samurai is a fringe option you realistically only ever do on Ramza.  Bard into Calculator is also a fringe option you realistically only do on Ramza, and it...sounds better.  For the first two Chapters you're better than the Samurai path cause you're either a mage or a gun user with a robe who is still not bad at casting magic.  And you're not that bad when you're a singing calculator as Sing is not heavily speed dependent (like...the lowest lows of the Samurai path include 350 Thief JP, which might contribute less to the team than a calculator with Sing).  And obviously after gaining some Calc JP you become a god, so.

14. Samurai And then sure, I guess we get the fringe but semi-justifiable Ramza build paths one right after the other.  See above for comments on Draw Out--yeah, it's overall worse than summon, and does involve being bad for a while, but brings party diversity--Kiyomori, instant speed AoE, Blade Grasp.

15. ok, so it's some combination of Archer/Geo next.  Archer contributes to Ninja...maybe, they might want martial arts or throw item or attack up instead.  They also contribute Charge to training in Chemist (and sometimes Charge Ninja for some assassination fights).  Geo...contributes attack up to...Ninjas sometimes, Monks (who go back to Monk instead of going Ninja) is a solid carrier for Samurai, and a comfortable carrier for Monk.  Ehh...Archer is feeling more main-line here.  Contributing to more optimal paths Chemist/Ninja rather than Ninja/Samurai/Monk.  Concentrate (and Martial Arts) gets picked up while unlocking Ninja, Attack Up is a detour for Ninjas.

16. Geomancer the remaining options are Mediator (held back by the "we are stomping, through efficiently not grinding" ground rules) Dancer, Lancer, and Mime.

17. Mediator Shackled by the rules that were set out for this list (low grind, stomp quickly, any grindy stuff needs to happen in story battles).  Even though it can boost the best builds, it's just slow at doing so, and comes with making yourself weaker in those fights.  The one time it does pay off is Bard->Calc Ramza, where you need to spend some time in Mediator anyway, and probably boost a bit of faith during the 3-4 battles when you're required to be there.  Still...it does things.

18. OK, so the options are Lancer and Dancer.  Lancer can be temporarily strong in Chapter 2 when armour is good, but...not as strong as a summoner, and not really worth unlocking just for that.  You can stick Jump on Samurai to make them suck less.  Dancer...you could stick dance on Samurai or Calculator, but it does involve going through the physical side of the job tree as female (female admittedly being the gender that wants to end up in Samurai or Calc, but you are very weak the whole time you're in classes like Monk and Thief).  Still...I think it's Dancer just for more successfully having a niche.

19. Lancer Lancer still has niches points.  Reasonable damage, invincibility frames, range 8, works ok on weird weapons like Katanas and axes.  Also able to be unlocked in a sane amount of time.

20. Mime

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So...I'm curious now how much classes move between the two lists, so I'm going to take a look.

For the ban-a-thon the list looks like:

1. Calc
2. Chemist
3. Summoner
4. Wizard
5. Squire
6. Priest
7. Time Mage
8. Ninja
9. Lancer
10. Monk
11. Oracle
12. Geomancer
13. Samurai
14. Knight
15. Mediator
16. Archer
17. Dancer
(17.5 Red Chocobos (from Boco))
18. Thief
19. Bard
20. Mime

And for the contribution level to optimal builds the list looks like

1. Wizard
2. Summoner
3. Calculator
4. Chemist
5. Squire
6. Time Mage
7. Priest
8. Oracle
9. Ninja
10. Monk
11. Knight
12. Thief
13. Bard
14. Samurai
15. Archer
16. Geomancer
17. Mediator
18. Dancer
19. Lancer
20. Mime

Wizard
4th place in ban-a-thon
1st place in meta weight

Makes sense.  Wizard is kinda in nearly every build, but not that good solo (medium difficulty SCC).

Summoner
3rd place in ban-a-thon
2nd place in meta weight

Summoner has stuff that somewhat cries out to be banned, but not quite as much as math skill or auto-potion.

Chemist
2nd place ban-a-thon
4th place meta weight

The movement here is basically Chemist sliding under Wizard and Summoner for meta weight.

Calculator
1st place ban-a-thon
3rd place meta weight.

Same here.  Summoner/Wizard moved above it.

Squire
5th place
5th place

Of all the classes to stay in exactly the same place, I wasn't expecting Squire.  (Figured it would be lower in the ban-a-thon than meta weight).  These two lists do use pretty similar rules about JP, learning, though, which is probably why.

Time Mage
7th place Ban-a-thon
6th place meta weight

Priest squeaks above Time Mage in the ban-a-thon because of revival and having a damage spell that doesn't have very high JP costs.

Priest
6th place ban-a-thon
7th place meta weight

Weird thing is I feel like Priest gets overrated by both lists (ban-a-thon because all the better cheap damage spells get banned.  Meta weight because of math skill).

Ninja
8th place ban-a-thon
9th place meta weight

Ninja benefits some from the ban-a-thon, as it doesn't really care about all the mages getting banned, and uses almost entirely physical class stuff (only really cares about Chemist).

Oracle
11th place ban-a-thon
8th place meta weight

Oracle is good at picking out niches, which ups their value in meta weight when most of the main roles like damage and healing have been filled by the really OP classes.

Monk
10th place ban-a-thon
10th place meta weight

Funny coincidence.  But I guess it makes sense; Monk has a big pile of stuff that all has uses, just none of it particularly stands out.

Knight
14th place ban-a-thon
11th place meta weight

Does get overinflated a bit in the meta weight because it's one of the few physical classes that does much for mages.

Geomancer
12th place ban-a-thon
16th place meta weight

Doesn't actually change as many positions as I thought it would from the two formats.  Obviously much better in a ban-a-thon format than a format where it needs to compete with Wizard and Ninja for a class that has stats, and where Attack Up has to compete with everything.

Samurai
13th place ban-a-thon
14th place meta weight

Surprisingly low in both lists.  (Probably for similar reasons that Squire is similarly high in both lists; JP limited formats just hit it hard, and while Ramza going to Samurai is pretty reasonable, a second character going samurai needs to be either male or female and not both like Ramza, so it's very unlikely to have more than one Samurai).

Lancer
9th place ban-a-thon
19th place meta weight

This has to be the largest swing.  Lancer deals damage and is hard to kill.  Other classes deal damage better and contribute more to making you hard to kill.  But ban those classes and....

Thief
18th place ban-a-thon
12th place meta weight

This is unsurprising; Thief can't really stand on their own, but do contribute a bunch to Ninja.

Bard
19th place ban-a-thon
13th place meta weight

Interestingly directly below Thief in both lists (for similar reasons as thief; pretty bad on its own, but has things to offer other builds).

Archer
16th place ban-a-thon
15th place meta weight

Yeah, Archer is probably going to be pretty close to 15th-16th range in most lists.  Never good, but never complete garbage.

Mediator
15th place ban-a-thon
17th place meta weight

For ban-a-thon guns into inviting/breeding Hydras bumps up Mediator.

Dancer
17th place ban-a-thon
18th place meta weight

Kind of held back by the same thing in both lists (going for JP efficiency) and even the ban-a-thon doesn't help it that much, because by the time it's in contention, the hard fights are big bosses with status immunity.  Still better in the ban-a-thon (there's an argument for it being 19th in meta weight, for instance).

Mime
20th
20th

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So...feeling like Priest is getting overrated by these lists, is there a ruleset that doesn't overrate Priest?

It's tricky, cause class restrictions inflate priest (revival) but complete lack of restrictions also inflate priest (they work well with math skill).  Kinda need a ruleset that can ban mathskill, but can't ban Phoenix Down.

So...proposed ruleset:

A ban-a-thon, EXCEPT that when a class is banned you can still use up to a certain amount of JP from that class and no more, and can still be in that class to unlock jobs

Question is how much JP to allow from banned classes.

There's an argument for 200.  Sometimes you start with basically that much (199) and the most common class unlock requirement is 200 so even if you're mostly ignoring a class it's not unusual to just end up with 200 JP in that class.  The other logical numbers would be 100 (the minimum starting JP in a class) and 150 (the average starting JP in a class).

I'm a little tempted to set the number at 200 just to finally make a tier list where Squire isn't great, but I think if Ramuh can't be banned that's...going to make the whole tier list "what class best uses Ramuh?" which won't make for a very interesting tier list.  I'm still tempted to push on the high side to make it feel different from the other ban list.  So...150?

So...first before even getting into the list, what meta warping things would just always be legal under the 150 rule?

* Potion+Phoenix Down
* Fire+Ice+Bolt
* Haste
* Paralyze (but notably not Silence Song at 170).
* Hell Ivy (or insert your favourite elemental here)
* Invitation
* Nameless Dance
* Angel Song
* Throw Ball+Shuriken
* Asura Knife

OK, it feels a little weird that end-of-job tree stuff stays legal (songs/dances in particular), cause the idea of 150 JP is that these are low-investment things that most characters will just be able to get on average from spillover, and it's not particularly common to accidentally unlock Dancer or Ninja from spillover.  Also...if the idea here is to allow the use of basically free stuff even after bannings, maybe being in carrier classes should just be...allowed?

A ban-a-thon, EXCEPT that when a class is banned you can still make use of up to 150 JP from that class, and still be in that class, unless the class is an end-of-jobtree class (Bard, Dancer, Ninja, Calculator, Samurai, Mime), which once banned can't be used at all

OK, I don't see anything too wierd about this ruleset at a glance (and as a bonus it would actually be really straighforward to do a playthrough, whereas with the first ban-a-thon unlocking classes was a bit...abstractly defined).  There's definitely some weirdnesses about this ruleset--it's maybe going to underrate a class like Wizard, cause a lot of its best features (Bolt 1, stats) aren't bannable (although Bolt 2 and MAU are bannabale, so Wizard will be fine, just maybe not top 4).

Alright, that's the ruleset, going to start a list in the next post.

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1. Calculator Anyway, it's still a ban list.  And there's an obvious first ban.

2. Chemist I don't think the second ban changes either.  Pretty common for people to ban themselves from using Mathskill or Auto-Potion with X-Potions.  If it's a solo challenge, there isn't really a question of what's more important to ban, for instance; ban Auto-Potion not Summon.

3. Summoner Yep, Shiva/Ifrit/Ramuh still need to go, and I literally tuned the ruleset around being able to ban them.  So far first three bans mirror the old list.

4. ... So now things get interesting.  The ban here with full class bans was Wizard, but that won't actually get rid of Fire/Ice/Bolt or even the carrier now.  However, the fact that you can just...be a mage with Bolt 1 means it's still pretty attractive to be a mage for at least most of Chapter 1 and 2.  And later when Bolt 1 isn't an "I win" button you can swap it for Phoenix Down.  Which...is really making me think Time Mage here.  Second easiest SCC, and the rules just cover a lot of their weaknesses; they get to use Bolt before they have Meteor, and Phoenix Down to cover their lack of revival.

5. ... Ninjas are kinda popping out at me as a fairly easy SCC that gets to mix in stuff like Phoenix Down and Move+2.  But...also kind-of not jumping out at me, because in chapter 1 and 2 instead of being a mage with Bolt 1, you are a thief with a 4 WP dagger.  So...I'm kind-of looking at mages, kinda not looking at Wizard due to how the rules are a little Wizard unfriendly, and...kind of looking at Oracle, actually, since they're a lot better at using Bolt 1 in early chapters (ability to use Thunder Rod, more MA, less speed).  They also gain a lot more from Phoenix Down not being bannable than Priests do.  From what I recall, the early chapters on the Oracle SCC were the hard ones, and Chapter 4 was like the zero reset chapter.  Give them Bolt to plow the early chapters and well...yeah.

6. ... So...Ninja is kind-of looking like something that might need a ban, but also kind-of not because you're still trading a pretty bad chapter 1-2 (while you unlock the job and are in classes bad at using Bolt) for a powered up chapter 3-4.  Squire isn't banned, but...with all the 50-100 JP abilities remaining legal, banning Squire doesn't make early chapters actually hard or anything.  So I guess the question is whether a Wizard/Priest multiclass is a problem.  And...I think yes?  Wizard SCC dominates chapter 1 and 2, and then drops off in Chapter 4 only because they don't ignore evade (and charge times plus not ignoring evade is a bad combo--you don't know how many spells to lock onto a target).  Priest has Holy, which does ignore evade (Holy also having...across the board slightly better numbers than Wizard's Flare) and gives them that endgame they were missing.  I guess the question is whether it's more important to ban Holy, or more important to ban Bolt 2, Bolt 3, and Magic Attack Up.  And...I think it's the latter?  Bolt 2 with MAU deals almost double the damage of Bolt 1 without MAU, which makes Wizard dominance last all the way until enemies with white robes show up.  And also, if Wizard is the banned class and not Priest, that presumably means you're spending a lot of your time in Priest (building up the skillset), which is also going to make you a lot less impressive than someone training up Wizard.  The problem with the Priest/Wizard combo was too much earlygame power into still pretty good endgame power (but less endgame power than a Ninja or Samurai build for instance).  Pulling back much harder on the earlygame power seems reasonable, so Wizard.

7. Ninja Yeah, Ninja with access to Move+2, Phoenix Down, and just about any support it wants?  Needs a few teammates to carry it through a few low-power levels in Thief, but it seems like the clear ban target here.  Weaker earlygame than a Priest with Bolt, sure, but unlocks Ninja in mid chapter 2 and stays stronger for basically the whole game.

8. Squire ok...so let's just review the current situation.  Chapter 2 Priest with a Wizard Robe and Triangle hat deals...53 damage with Bolt 1?  59 with Wizard Mantle?  This is kida middle of the road, slightly more than gun damage (36) quite a bit less than a Lancer using Jump (90-108 range).  Slightly more than Earth Slash (48).  Less than a Samurai with a Wizard Robe using Koutetsu (84).  Geomancy should be around 36.  Mages typically have a very good chapter 2 thanks to Wizard Robe.  Lancer is known for having a very good Chapter 2.  Samurai is not known for having a good chapter 2 (wizard robe helps) though you're unlikely to load up on multiple Samurai, due to wanting to run female characters for the MA, but needing to send them down the physical job tree.  These actually seem kinda balanced with each other, which...makes me think Squire to kill Gained JP Up hits actually all of these builds and so maybe that's just the pick.

---

After that...hmm...still thinking.  I will note having a ruleset that gives an unbannable earlygame baseline is making me lean more towards banning slower lategame stuff as a higher priority.  So I am looking towards higher JP investment classes like Samurai and Lancer as possible next bans.

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9. Between the two of Lancer and Samurai, with Gained JP Up banned Lancer looks like the obvious pick.  Ramza samurai is pretty good, but multiple samurais involves sending a lot of female characters through the physical job tree (and with gained JP up banned that's going to be slow).  Whereas 3-4 Lancers is actually sounding like a fine party.  I guess Priest is the big question mark.  Lancer caps out around 264 with jump at level 30 (power sleeve, twist headband, bracer on an Equip Spear geo).  In practice less than that cause they need to equip speed boosting gear.  With Thief Hat 228.  Priest at level 30 caps out around 420 (Wizard with some MA gear, 108 gems using Holy), but in practice usually less than that if they're training in Priest proper or need to equip for MP.  Let's see...378 equipping for MP in Wizard.  252 equipping for MP in Priest.  I guess...how much JP does it really take Priest to get everything they want out of white magic?  600 (Holy), 280 (esuna), 70 (shell), 70 (protect), 180 (raise), 50 (cure), 180 (cure 2), 400 (cure 3), 400 (magic defendUp) = 2230.  There's some fringe options (700 JP 10 CT Cure 4 which doesn't heal that much more than Cure 3, 400 JP Regenerator), But I think the moral of this story is that Priest can be done learning Priest JP stuff and off to Wizard before Lancer is done with Jump stuff (especially if Lancer is planning to pick up Dragon Spirit).  Priest in Wizard also keeps revival, and the best non-banned healing.  Lancer in Geo can't keep using Phoenix Down if they want Jump.  If Lancer wants to be able to revive and have decent Jump damage they (unironically) go Priest with Jump (Priest physical attack is only slightly less than Geomancer).  The advantages Lancer has is that Priest until late in Chapter 3 can only Holy once per fight, and for the rest of the game is mostly stuck on two Holies.  Lancer has more range (8 instead of 5).  Lancer is immune while jumping instead of taking 1.5x damage like Priest while charging.  Lancer has more HP.  But back to Priest for a bit there's the X-factor of Priest builds getting access to a range of sub-150 JP mage things, like Bolt 1 (100 damage AoE if you have Wizard stats, with low enough MP cost that it can be spammed; obviously has weaknesses, gets walled by white robes for a few fights, and is evadeable, but pretty good at points).  Also Haste, either before or after they're done with gaining Priest JP (Time Mage is only a slightly worse carrier than Wizard).  Not that Lancer can't learn/set haste, but it involves unlocking Time Mage and not setting Phoenix Down, and their MP is pretty low.

Priest I think?  Jump is probably overall better than Holy (Holy has damage, Jump has range, durability, and no MP cost).  But it's not a blowout; in some fights the added damage is more important than the downsides on Holy.  And Priest has a lot of other things going for them (can go to a carrier and still keep revival, comes with good healing, makes good use of Bolt1 and Haste which still have moments of really shining).

10. Lancer With Priest being 9th, Lancer should slide pretty easily into 10th.  Dominant levels of strength in Chapter 2 and 3.  Chapter 4 is when if you put things into a spreadsheet Monk maybe looks better, but then you actually play the game, and half the enemies in Chapter 4 float or wear Earth Clothes.  Samurai without Gained JP Up probably contribute, but don't seem like they threaten to make up half the party (which does seem like something that could happen with Lancer/Monk)

[hinode]

One idea to nerf Priest's rankings would be to just use the first set of generics that the game generates for you, instead of rerolling for optimum brave/faith/zodiac compatibility. That would be a cross the board nerf for spells, but especially for healing/buffing ones, like most of White Magic.

As a general matter I think your general assumptions (PSX NA version, generics only, full mechanics knowledge and high faith wherever applicible) is inevitably going to skew heavily towards the mage classes because they have far and away the best skillsets for anyone who understands how all the game mechanics works - magic feels like it was balanced around the obtuseness of Faith and charge times, both things that I've seen a lot of FFT novices struggle with. Moreover class mixing helps a lot to cover for the weaknesses of individual mage classes, so they all wind up ranking better than on, say, a pure SCC difficulty list.

Most of the special characters only join in chapter 4 so they'd be hard to work into these analyses even if you wanted to, but I would imagine factoring in Agrias would benefit a bunch of the physical classes, especially since Holy Knight is a kinda underwhelming class statistically so she probably wants to spend most of the game in various carrier classes.

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As a general matter I think your general assumptions (PSX NA version, generics only, full mechanics knowledge and high faith wherever applicible) is inevitably going to skew heavily towards the mage classes because they have far and away the best skillsets for anyone who understands how all the game mechanics works - magic feels like it was balanced around the obtuseness of Faith and charge times, both things that I've seen a lot of FFT novices struggle with. Moreover class mixing helps a lot to cover for the weaknesses of individual mage classes, so they all wind up ranking better than on, say, a pure SCC difficulty list.

You're not wrong, but it's also just...the way of playing FFT I feel most comfortable commenting on.  My first playthrough of FFT I had Elfboy and Excal sitting next to me explaining faith and CT mechanics, so I don't really have first-hand experience with what it's like not knowing the mechanics of the game.  (These mechanics also get explained in the tutorial, though very few people willingly chose to do the tutorial).

Though...lack of knowledge of mechanics can certainly strike physical as well as magical classes (I know people who had low brave female monks on their first playthrough, and if you aren't reading a guide you just...probably won't even unlock most of Ninja/Samurai/Calculator/Dancer/Bard.  And the newbie thing to do is use "best fit" which equips geomancers with axes and HP clothing over damage clothing, it's a mess).

To be clear, though, my concern about priest being high was not a concern about mages generally being high.  It was more that Priest being higher than some of the other mages didn't feel quite right.  (Specifically Time Mage and Oracle both nearly always feel better in an actual practical playthrough--and that's something the first two lists did not capture, but the third list has successfully captured, so the third list is a success so far).  Priest being higher than, say, Monk is largely expected.  Their skillsets do similar things, mixture of healing, damage, and revival, but Priest has the easier SCC, and Priest gains more from being able to multiclass than Monk does.


(I'll probably continue the list in a week or so after I get back from my trip--I just paused cause I'm not sure if #11 should go to Monk or Samurai.  A party with 5 monks sounds justifyable, but a party with a couple of characters using soft-banned classes like Wizard to cover the earlygame while the rest of the party jets for Samurai also sounds reasonable; going to need to think about that one).

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So...alright, Monk vs Samurai.

Samurai without gained JP Up unlocks after 72ish actions, but I would suggest taking a bit of extra time (83 actions) to get Move+2 from Thief.  Getting all important abilities from Samurai is 2960 JP, 121 actions...and that puts us basically over budget (50ish fights in the game, assuming 3 actions per fight is 150 actions, we're at 204).  Cutting Muramasa and Blade Grasp gets us down to 69 actions within Samurai, which is still very tight (152 actions) leaving basically no room for taking Draw Out onto high MA classes.

There is a bit of a trump card here though in spillover JP.  Send three characters to Samurai, and suddenly 204 total actions becomes 136 (or 152 becomes 101).  This leaves quite a few fights in which you can be a Draw Out Wizard/Geomancer.

One quick observation, though, banning Monk would impact Samurai plans to a degree—HP Restore is really nice for Samurai cause you need 550 Monk JP to unlock the class, and like...sure Blade Grasp exists, but we've already been talking about skipping it to have more time outside of Samurai.  Counter Flood is an X-factor, slightly worse than either, but still pretty good and you get to have good stats while you learn it.

So ok, let's get some numbers.  I guess one question mark I have is killing bosses like Velius, which look like they could be a sticking point, and Monk might bring the single target damage.  Monk with power sleeve, bracer, and a punch deals 171 damage at around the level you fight Velius (level 15-18).  Wizard with Wizard Rod, Holy Miter, Wizard Robe, and Red Shoes using Koutetsu deals 180 damage.  Monk can (and should) set Attack Up to make their number 225 damage.  Magic Attack Up is banned.  Although I guess if we're assuming bracer we should assume magic gauntlet (192 Koutetsu) and then the best replacement for magic attack up is Equip Shield for Ageis Shield (204 Koutetsu).  Granted Monk numbers are unarmed punch numbers with high brave—if they need to wave fist it's more like 133 without attack up, 175 with attack up.

Worth noting that if we wanted to hit physical blitz strats against Velius, looks like banning Geomancer would hurt more than banning Monk, actually.  (Geo sword damage is close to Monk punch damage, but whichever one is slightly ahead at that point in the game, adding Attack Up will be the difference maker).

Ok, well anyway I'm reasonably impressed with Samurai numbers here.  If Koutetsu single target damage is matching or maybe even beating Monk single target damage, that's pretty good news for Samurai, as Koutetsu is AoE, ignores evade and Samurai has several moves that deal more damage than Koutetsu.

Granted, Samurai needs to be more than just a little bit better than Monk, cause some of the party goes to the mostly banned Wizard early on to cover the earlygame for the Samurai path and these early Wizards end up in...probably Chemist with Haste and Phoenix Down.  Or maybe even just Attack Up Geo for assassination missions (these characters will be female, and high faith, so not the greatest Geos, but...functional—like 10% less PA after gear, and similar elemental damage; like people did use some female Geos on the SCC for fractionally better elemental damage even though arguably it's probably not correct).

11. Samurai yeah, the characters that start out with no JP (chilling in Wizard to cover early weakness) don't seem like they end up too weak in the long run.  Needing to be high faith is justifiable because of Haste.  And Samurai seem like they do end up a pretty substantial amount better than Monk.

12. Well, it's between Monk and Geomancer.  And...this isn't as much of a no-brainer as I was expecting.  Geomancers bring more blitz damage with Attack Up.  Furthermore, Chapter 2 is a relative low power point for Monk, so you might still want, say, 1 wizard.  But where does a female high faith wizard go afterwards?  Probably to Geomancer, or Chemist with Attack Up, which also uses Geomancer.

So...the advantages of Geo is more flexibility to go into mage classes early on, and more singletarget melee damage, and Elemental has a  lot of nice features (never misses, occasionally hits AoE, infinite vertical).  The advantages of Monk is serious range damage through wave fist and earth slash.  (Earth slash being ignore evade and AoE, but a lot of enemies in late chapter 3/much of chapter 4 being immune to earth).  Also Monks bring healing with Chakra.  Geos can technically ice heal with Ice Shield+Ice Brand in chapter 4, or black magic and fire/ice shields in Chapter 3, although technically none of these healing tricks are bannable, but Monks can also earth clothes+earth slash heal, which is better, and would be banned by a monk ban. Both can get revival of course with phoenix down, but Monks are also able to lean on their Revive skill and still set stuff like Haste, although there's still a strong argument to set Phoenix Down anyway (never misses, infinite vert).  Monk also get HP Restore for the whole party, which is...probably better than Geo's option (Counter Flood).

So the damage doesn't feel super definitive (higher melee damage vs higher range damage) but other parts feel like they lean monk (Monks bringing better reactions like HP restore and better healing options).  The big selling point of Geo is that if you want early Wizards, Geo is a better exit for high faith female characters; but how many Wizards do you actually need?  Now that Samurai is not in the picture, you can send Ramza to Wizard and then have Ramza end up in Monk later (having high PA and MA you aren't losing either Wizard or Monk performance this way).  Also, while it doesn't help with fights like Velius, you can pick up Concentrate and it's not a bad alternative to Attack Up.  I think this goes to Monk.

13. Geomancer I don't think very much changes from the other ban list when we did Monk/Mediator/Archer/Dancer tests.  The X-factors here is that Chapter 1 has an “I win” button in Wizards, and if you want guns you can just go to Chemist with a restricted skillset (whereas unlocking Mediator was not a given).  More and easier access to guns boosts both Attack Up and Charge, but Attack Up is the stronger of the two.  Also the whole “geo's a decent exit path if you make an early wizard to cover chapter 1” (Also, Counter Flood might just be the best reaction left, and geo's a pretty good class to be in, so restricting them to only knowing a single elemental for the whole game actually matters).

14. Archer So...what's left?  Archer, Mediator, Thief, Knight, Dancer, Bard, Mime.  Yeah, Archer seems like the obvious thing to limit here.  Charge with guns sure, but also Arrow Guard is a solid reaction, and Concentrate is still relevant for using swords.  Stuff that mattered in the hard ban list like “Knight being good in Chapter 1” doesn't matter too much here.

15. so...we're definitely getting to the point that the soft-banned classes are probably going to be plan A.  Wizards into Geomancers with Bolt 1 secondary.  Ice/fire healing with base black magic.  Maybe guns...probably from Chemist rather than Mediator despite only having max 150 JP in item.  The secondary slot is probably dominated by soft-banned classes (Fire/Ice/Bolt, Phoenix Down, Haste). 

So what remains that CAN be banned?  Thief can add Move+2.  Dancer smashes some fights, but they are often not the problem fights.  Knight adds some minor options—Equip Shield is fine, solid on a Chemist.  Weapon Guard is also fine.  Equip Armor as a fringe possibility for Monk.  Neither of these do much if you're sitting in Geomancer, but they're good in other classes.

Thief feels like the thing to ban here.  Seems like the damage from physical attacks is going to matter against bosses, which pushes people towards melee (Geo or Monk with mostly just their physical).  Also potentially ice healing with Ice Brands.  Adding Move+2 helps this game plan a lot for melee.

16. Dancer Weapon Guard and Equip Shield are cool, but they mostly help against non-bosses (unlike Move+2 which helps a decent amount against bosses).  Dancer trivializes non-bosses way harder than weapon guard.  Bard exists for Move+3, which does something similar to Move+2 and thus contributes more to bosses than Dancer does, but the investment is large, the male-only restriction does hurt given that you're spending a bunch of time in mages, and the low PA growth in all the unlock classes is a little unattractive since that will reduce your melee damage.  All that effort for a movement bonus.  Whereas Dancer completely changes how fights play out, and dance comes online much faster than Move+3 due to costing a lot less JP.

17. Knight Equip Shield with a few classes like Monk and Chemist is legit.  Weapon Guard on all the classes other than Monk and Chemist seeing as all the other reactions are banned.  Battle skill even has some relevance on boss fights (speed breaking bossses to 1 speed with guns is a strategy that exists; probably relevant on Altima, maybe even worth considering on Adramelk or Zalera; Weapon breaking could be considered in a couple fights...but probably not, don't actually think these playthroughs are hard enough to justify rolling the dice that hard and using a base 30% hitrate move).

18. Bard yeah, Move+3 exists and is very good, and a few songs are legit; Nameless Song of course, but also Battle Song for PA+1 is pretty legit especially since you can still use Monk for their melee attack and it scales quadratic.  But man, Bard costs a lot of JP.  Unlocking Bard is about 74 actions, but then actually getting Move+3 is another 60 actions (assuming you learn no songs, but you will learn some songs)—the 60 Bard actions will go by much faster than other actions because of Bard mechanics, but Move+3 is still looking like it'll be part-way through Chapter 4.  Unless you make multiple Bards for spillover, but then you have like...multiple male summoners with Bolt 1, and that doesn't sound great either.

19. Mediator Destroyed by post-ban Chemist still wielding a gun, and still being able to use Phoenix Down.  Invitation still does some cool stuff with maybe inviting a Tiamat or getting Elemental guns more easily, but Invitation falls under the category of un-bannable skill (100 JP).  So...what's left is brave/faith altering (doesn't even do that much when geomancer attacks and gun attacks depend on neither brave nor faith, and raising faith for Fire/Ice/Bolt is super slow and doesn't make much sense for moves that will drop off in the lategame anyway).

One of Mediator's few saving graces, I guess, is their PA growth, which, while not good is a lot better than Chemist.  So you could willingly go for a slightly worse skillset in fights where you want to use guns in order to keep your PA high for when you need to swap back to Geomancer.  And if you're going that route then sure, you do end up caring about the Mediator skillset not being banned.  Same, I guess, if you want to wear robes for extra castings of spells like Haste, as Chemists can't wear robes but Mediator can, so you'd rather the Mediator skillset not be banned in that case.  And...I guess with Charge banned and if you go for low faith making Haste not good, Talk Skill does become the best secondary for a Chemist (most other classes would use item, though).  Equip Gun I guess is also decent, but undermined a bit by the fact that you can also just jobswitch to Chemist, and Item is probably the secondary you wanted to set anyway.

Does any of this save Mediator from losing to Bard or Knight?  I doubt it.  "Maybe you'll use Mimic Daravon" vs "Maybe you'll grind out Move+3" or "Maybe you'll use Equip Shield on a Chemist so you can ice heal them"

20. Mime


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Ok, so reacting to this ruleset--overall I think I like the feel of it?  It kind-of captures two things I feel to be true from observing people playing FFT (people self-ban from a few things like Math Skill and Auto-Potion, but also some stuff is literally just free JP wise and tends to crowd out weaker options that are not free).

Some of these ratings do still feel...odd to me.  I think maybe because I've never made a tier list where some of these classes were this high or this low.  (Not used to seeing Oracle as high as 5th or Mediator as low as 19th, for classes that immediately jump out.  But the logic actually feels fairly tight on both of those classes.  I'm a lot less sure about middle classes, like the exact ordering of Wizard/Ninja/Squire/Priest/Lancer for example.  Or the exact ordering of Samurai/Monk/Geomancer, still thinking if I want to reorder some of those).

[SnowFire]

I'll just say that was a very interesting read, and that ruleset (ban = don't spend more than 150 JP, but you can use the class as a carrier) seems pretty cool and reasonably accurate to a "I'll let myself pass through but not linger too long in classes I've decided not to use because I used 'em last time" kind of playthrough, which I think matches how people would generally impose mixing up classes anyway.

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 and have a Ninja-lite style of being able to safely chip from afar while also slapping decently hard when coming in up-close, and can run Phoenix Down/Potion or the like on the side.  I'd be inclined to move 'em up to #10, ahead of Lancer, but that might just be me.

I wonder what a playthrough of this style that went deep into the banlist (15+) would look like.  A lot of PD sandbagging that eventually turns into a pile of Bards singing and moving quickly as they used useful 150 JP abilities from other classes I guess.