Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

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Got into a discussion about Charge in FFT, and decided to start an Archer SCC to give me more intuition about it.

Dorter: 1 reset
Sand Rat Cellar: 1 reset

The 3 WP crossbow is pretty bad, and I was not particularly good at judging before moving to a square whether my shot would actually be blocked before moving.  I also made equipment errors--went back to buy the better clothing for Dorter (was low on cash before and trying to avoid a potential random in araguay woods).

In sand rat cellar, first attempt Delita and Algus had too much move.  Unequipped battle boots from Delita and Algus so they didn't suicide round 1 and block me from shooting through the door.

Zaland Fort City: 0 resets

Only noting this one cause it was still 0 resets.  Despite a lot of stuff going wrong.  Round 1 carve model causing petrify.  Forgetting that you need 4 jump to get on the wall, which would have been a really nice place to be for an archer but I went in with 3 jump archers.

Barius Hill: 1 reset

A combination of not enough JP yet for arrow guard, and a Knight with battle boots whose 4 move caught me by surprise.

Golgorand: 2 resets

Gafgarion surviving was a surprising problem.  A Time Mage would haste him and let him move out of Charge+5.  A Knight would jump in front of a charged arrow.  I also once again let myself get surprised by knights with battle boots on one of the failed attempts.  Seems like the knights very often have had them in chapter 2.

Gate of Lionel: 1 reset

So the strategy is 7 speed Ramza move-wait move wait open gate with ramza, and then kill Gafgarion with Archers to save ramza.  Failed to kill Gafgarion the first attempt.  Stuff like not being able to hit him under the arch (I do need all four archers to hit him in order to one-round him, and I need charges as well.  And first attempt my archers got spread out in CT too).

6 speed actually worked a bit better than 7 speed--can charge starting from round 1, and Gaffy doubleturns the archers right after the gate opens, letting them all charge on him right after the gate opens.  Pretty much all my gear got broken due to rubber shoes.

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Done with Chapter 2

You know, I remember hearing about people getting Charge+7 on the Archer SCC.  Never felt like I remotely had spare JP for it.  Bought whatever charge I could afford for dorter (mixture of one-of Charge+3, Charge+4, and Charge+5 on each character) and then by the time I was towards the end of the chapter, I got tired of missing and decided concentrate was just a better pickup than a second charge ability.

There have been SCCs where I skipped random encounters, but not this one, as I think I might need level 18 for Riovanes anyway, so it's not like I was unusually low on JP.  Guess the people grinding Charge+7 grinded a little extra for it.

End of Chapter 2, everyone has two charges (usually Charge+3 and Charge+5) Concentrate, Arrow Guard, and Jump+1.

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So the goal of this being to analyze how good charge actually is in vanilla--and unsurprisingly it's been reasonably respectable so far, but that comes with this being chapter 1/2.  Like...Charge+5 is decently often landable, and it's often double damage or close to double damage.

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Chapter 3

Goland Coal City: 1 reset.  I had to rescue this person on a roof, and my archers couldn't shoot that high.  I hope this isn't foreshadowing for a future fight.

(A few fights felt sketchy, and not the fights I was expecting--UBS2 despite having the high ground, and Grog Hill despite having 108 Gems + Windslash bows.  Long fights where there was risk of of going down early, basically).

Anyway no resets in the rest of the chapter until...

Inside Riovanes: 10 resets so far.  2/5 party members including Ramza hit level 18, and I figured that would be enough, but it's feeling like actually no, it's not enough.  I can't find a consistent way to bait him into charging a spell, and it's not even particularly good for me if I do bait that--bow range in this fight is like...3 or 4 usually, and I'm wearing 108 gems for damage so my move is 3, so him charging usually puts him out of range of most of the party.  The best runs are when I can get him to melee physical every round, keeping him in the center of my party, and then at least on the first round I use Charge+5 on him.  But outracing doesn't seem to be happening.  Ramza deals 100 damage round 0, baits him down, dies.  I deal about 500 damage round 1 (600 total).  Then typically two people die, one from the next Velius physical (which OHKOs) and one from just general demon stuff.  So two people alive, who maybe if they were both good combat and could Charge+5 without the demons killing them mid charge would deal about 300, but more realistically are dealing about 200.  600+200 = 800.

Looks like I do need to grind a bit after all, but...I'm not even 100% sure level 18 alone is enough.  Might also want to grind money for gear, though IDK what gear.  I don't have twist headbands but those don't hit a damage point.  Bracer and crossbow options seem unlikely to help.  Maybe equipping for HP so I don't die to two giga flares/dark holies?  I think I have a save file from before I bought spirnt shoes, so that might free up some money too (I thought sprint shoes would be useful here but they don't feel like it).

Feels a bit weird, cause I know I beat this with mediators gamesharked to level 1 like...back in 2002 or something, but I guess guns are long range weapons and bows are pretty short range.

EDIT:

Inside Riovanes: 7 more resets.  Came back with slightly better stats with everyone at level 18, but also a notable strategic change and a bit of luck.  (I had one bad compatibilty archer, ran that archer forward to bodyblock demons, and they actually took three dark holies to kill).

Roof of Riovanes: 3 resets.  So like...yeah, archers can't shoot stuff above them, it's a bit of a problem.  I could only figure out how to shoot with two archers on round 1, even if I move wait, move acted with one of the archers.  I think the strategy I worked out after a bit of trial and error would have eventually worked, but ultimately it didn't matter cause I got lucky with a crit.  Might have been a fight to have one archer with a crossbow but I didn't own any.

EDIT 2:

First four fights of Chapter 4 done.  Fairly uneventful.

But I do have an interesting observation about Charge (which after all was kind of the point of going back to vanilla--trying to dig into how usable vanilla charge was).  The one thing I found interesting is just how often I was landing Charge+7.  Mostly this is the first point in time when all my characters had Charge+7. By the time I had 400 spare JP it was Chapter 3 and enemies were no longer 6 speed so I delayed Charge+7.  But now that I finally have it I was landing it more often than I thought on 7 speed enemies...a knight with throw stone here, a knight with defend there, a yellow chocobo that waited on the same turn my character waited in another fight.  It came up often enough to feel worth noting.  And...often did actually make the difference between not lethal and lethal (136 damage vs 160 at the moment, so an 18% damage boost--helps that it pushes things over a strengthen threshold for 108 gems).

Do I lose any of the first four Chapter 4 fights without it?  No, they were stomps.  Do I win any previous fights with it?  Mmm...I mean I didn't have JP for it in early chapter 1, and would rather get Arrow Guard for Barius Hill.  And it would not have made a difference for the end of chapter boss fights.  Maybe Charge+7 could have prevented the Goland Coal City reset?  Charge+7 might've been nice for killing Chemists.

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FFT

So...something interesting Laggy pointed out to me (and I've actually chatted with the person who did the speed run now) is that the speed run meta for non-mathskill has kind-of changed...away from Ninja (I used to see the occasional Ninja on non-Mathskill speed runs) and towards Draw Out and Time Magic.

Specifically, Ramza goes for Draw Out, and then other people cast quick on him.

But I was also watching a speedrun and noticed that Meteor sometimes got used.  I asked the runner about that, and they had the following to say:

"Meteor is used for its high damage output to guarantee kills on low Faith / bad comp units. While oftentimes it can be substituted for Odin or Cyclops (much faster spells), the general mentality of the run is to maximize the odds of one-rounding the enemies, since having to use weak spells to pick off survivors is slow and awkward." - Claude

("Fast" here, I believe referencing the animation time, not the ctr--the ctr is a non-issue).

Kind of makes me want to look at another ban-a-thon.

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FFT ban-a-thon redo number...whatever.

1. Calculator (yeah, nothing changes).

2. Chemist (yeah, nothing changes here either).

3...

So...I mean, ok,

It's not Ninja.

Is there a world where it's Samurai?  I don't think so.

Is there a world where it's Time Mage?  This would shut down the "send Ramza to Samurai and quick him" plan but...ehh...MAU Wizards with Ramuh are excellent and are good extremely early.  And also speed runs sometimes grind a lot more JP than I would assume for a normal run (like the calculator speedrun just grinds out calc in randoms in chapter 1; that's not normal) and that makes samurai a lot better.

I do think it's worth working out the later game damage difference here though, if short charge is gone.

A level 20 wizard has 10 base MA.  Wizard Rod, Black Robe...hmm...might be Thief Hat Angel Ring for the last two pieces, actually.  So like...12 MA, MAU and strengthen bring that to 20.  20*24 = 480.  And then against average-ish faith enemies, gonna be about 200.

A level 20 wizard using short charge Bahamut with light robe (cause, let's be honest, you need the light robe MP boost) will have 12 MA with wizard rod.  12*46 = 552.  Against average-ish faith, 231.

Finally, meteor.  12*60 = 720.  Against average-ish faith 300.

There is also a period of time when enemies wear white robes, and that will bite into the no time mage run a bit, although between Titan and Holy you should be fine.

So...ok, I feel like it's not time mage here.

So...down to the traditional "wizard or summoner?" question for third.

Wizard + Time Mage is interesting, cause I think you can probably do fine with black magic until you learn short-charge meteor.  Definitely a downgrade for the first couple chapters to ban summon, cause Time Mage with Ramuh is better than time mage with Bolt, but maybe good enough cause spellcasters are so good in early chapters, and arguably an upgrade once you get short charge meteor.  Which is to say meteor damage is 302 instead of 252 thanks to wizard stats.  Holy deals a lot more than if you wizard cause you can reasonably MAU it too--I'm going to assume an assassination mission, so like wizard robe flash hat 108 gems, but like...that gets the wizard to 15 MA, 504 damage with holy, compared to 336 if wizard is banned.  But...it's not so clear, cause while meteor is a bit better, the summon skillset is still nice--it's faster than Meteor, costs less MP, it ignores friendly targets, it's got healing and golem.

Quick shenanigans on a draw out user should work fine with either wizard banned or summoner banned if you go for that.  Although...I guess MAU does make draw out better, so...a wizard ban hurts draw out stuff much more than a summoner ban.

Banning wizard also makes a few fights in chapter 1 considerably harder (all the fights before you get enough JP to learn Ramuh and enough MP to cast it).  And...even some of the later fights are awkward--like if this is a solo challenge, you'd better one-shot with one Ramuh...from a non black mage MA.  Like...82 damage with Ramuh and then you're out of MP, compared to a wizard with bolt 2 (and not MAU) could do 88...lol.  Um...okay, so maybe Chapter 1 is harder after you get MP for Ramuh too.

So like...even if the gap is not large due to the quality of the summon skillset, I do suspect like the summoner ban might be easier in Chapter 3-4 when you have short charge meteor, and MAU+Holy for assassination missions.  And it's easier in Chapter 1.  So like...am I meant to pick Summoner here just for Chapter 2?

Eh...I feel like the numbers are actually pointing towards Wizard.

3. Wizard

4...

I think it has to be one of time mage or summoner.

Time Mage builds are just going to have the stronger chapter 3 and 4.  Time Mage allows you to go Draw Out if you want (both Quick and Teleport seem reasonably important for it) although it will be weaker without MAU of course.  Time Mage also gives short charge--either to use with its own Meteor, or with summons.

Summoner still definitely has the better Chapter 1 and 2--Ramuh still smashes.  And...makes it much more reasonable for one or more characters in your party to be weak in Chapters 1-2 (like say, unlocking ninja or samurai)--you really only need one summoner to smash a fight.

I think I lean summoner here, just because you can grab one damage summon, and then use that summon to effortlessly gain JP in white mage and oracle, white mages and oracles covering a lot of summoner weaknesses in later chapters, while enabling other builds in the party like ninjas.

4. Summoner

5. Time Mage

I mean, yeah, it's time mage next.

Without it, Draw Out is bad, due to losing both quick and teleport.

You probably do have a mixed party, not all mages at this point, and haste is good in parties with physical characters.  In fact, due to item already being banned, most physical characters probably set time magic for haste, or white magic for raise.

Time Mages aren't even the worst physical characters themselves in chapter 2--50 damage rainbow staff beats.  And sometime around the end of chapter 2 or start of chapter 3 you get short charge meteor.  While giving useful spillover to any physical characters in the party (MP Switch or Teleport).

6. Priest

Now all the physical builds are setting white magic for raise.  Yeah, so just taking that away is impactful.  And white magic is obviously a fine long-term path anyway.

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7. Lancer

So the choice I think is between Lancer and Squire.  Squire lets you get to the good part of builds a little faster.  Lancer makes the game easy as soon as you get to chapter 2.

I cheated a bit and went back to look at my previous logic on this, cause I remember going Lancer that time, and yeah, I do think the logic I came up with still holds.

Ninja builds don't care that much if Squire is banned--they get to Ninja a bit slower, but don't care after that, and would rather have someone like a Lancer carrying the party while they unlock Ninja.

Monk builds don't care that much if Squire is banned, because unironically they just grab Equip Armor from Knight, and then they get to help the party through Chapter 1 by spending more time on Knight (chapter 1 has from testing been shown to be probably the hardest chapter once this many bans are in play) and using equip armor means Monks also get to not suck in chapter 2 (sucking in chapter 2 is the usual state of monks in the chapter).

Samurai builds obviously crumble without Gained JP Up, but I think by the time Samurai builds are rolling, the game will be fairly easy.  Oracle builds obviously care about Gained JP Up, but I'm not sure that's enough to offset how much 200 HP 100 damage lancers can carry chapter 2.

And then long-term Lancer builds are only a thing if Lancers aren't banned, and Lancer builds themselves are pretty decent.

8. Squire

I don't think there's anything obviously attractive that isn't heavily hurt without Gained JP Up anymore.

9...

So...I'm definitely eyeing Oracle primarily for three reasons.

Paralyze is going to be a popular secondary to slap on just any old physical character who hasn't trained a good secondary skillset yet.  It's got range, it's got infinite vertical tolerance.

Life Drain just trivializes most of the hardest fights in the game.

They hit pretty hard in Chapter 2, which might be a problem chapter.

Defense Up is good.

What are the other candidates?

There's...Knight, that would be targeting early chapter 1 difficulty.  Although I'm not really feeling it.  You don't care too much in late chapter 1 when you get geomancer unlocked.  Even just monk in chapter 1 is acceptable early on.

There's Ninja.  Ninja is probably where a lot of characters will end up.  Ninja obviously has damage for dealing with zodiac fights like oracle does, but also damage that's more effective for cleaning up regular fights since they can use concentrate attacks and usually one-shot generic enemies.

There's monk--it has healing and revival, and unlocks early.

There's Geomancer.  I think Elemental can fill a very similar role to Yin Yang magic as something for ranged characters to do when out of range.  And attack up is good, although with Life Drain around the value of any damage stuff is dubious.  And Geomancers are one of the few classes that can make good use of the cracked MA gear in chapter 2 (just to boost elemental).

Alright, hold on, let me think about this, I was about to declare "oracles use MA better", but I'm not sure that's true.  Level 8 oracles still have 6 MA, so with triangle hat wizard robe that's 9, and a 7 WP Battle Bamboo makes that 63 damage.  A male geomancer will have 6 PA, and 4 MA.  Triangle Hat Wizard Robe makes that 6 PA 7 MA.  The formula ends up being 4*7 = 28 damage, but it's at range 5 with potential AoE and never misses.  Meanwhile geomancers have 4 move, and their weapon attack deals 48 damage (unless they learn attack up, then it's 64).  They could, of course, opt for headgear to deal 56 attack damage and 24 elemental damage.  The Oracle stick damage is of course at range 2, but geomancers have 4 move (also better HP and shields, so they feel more comfortable going into melee).

Mmm...in terms of a class to carry you through chapter 2, I think Geomancer is making a better case for Oracle here, and elemental provides reasonable competition for paralyze as a secondary.

That said...28 damage elemental is good, but you could just be a mediator, or anything with equip gun, really and deal 36 damage at longer range.  You would lose the rushdown potential of geomancer, though--one of the strengths of geomancer over mediator is being able to deal melee level damage when they need it.  Mediator doesn't feel that exciting though cause it's kind-of a dead end.

For other options...there's...Dancer.

Is there actually a world where dancer is the right choice?  I...hmmm...think it's at least worth considering?  The logic would go like this: whether it's with life drain or attack up ninjas, you can deal with zodiac fights and assassination missions.  Nameless Dance probably is the single best "smash the mooks" plan available, with the possible exception of draw out.  Speaking of which, dancers can pretty painlessly get lots of Samurai JP, and are female for the higher MA to make draw out good.  They don't mind using dance to grind Thief JP for Move+2 either.  Also Geomancer is still legal, so move 6 or move 7 with red shoes draw out user on a high MA class is on the table.

There's...actually a case that a dancer ban is what would hurt Chapter 3 and 4 the most.  Makes mook fights harder than any other one ban, and doesn't leave an obvious path to Samurai.

Still not really sold on a Dancer ban cause you can get Ninjas with Move+2 and Concentrate before you can get dancers, and like...you're probably out of the woods once you have Ninjas with Move+2 and Concentrate.

So...ok...

Is the ban Ninja?  Eh, Dancers still smash mook fights, and life drain destroys boss fights, feel like a Ninja ban doesn't add much difficulty to early chapters where the party is weakest, and the party can still cover everything real well once past that point.

Is the ban Geomancer?  That feels like the ban that would probably hurt specifically Chapter 2 the most, and they're nice-to-have although not essential in Chapter 1.

Is the ban Oracle?  I've come to the conclusion that they're worse than Geomancers in Chapter 2 (and chapter 1).  They're definitely better than Geomancers once we're getting to fights like Altima and probably Velius, but I think you are super out of the woods by that point.  A dedicated oracle giving everybody defense up by spillover is cool, but I don't think that comes online by the end of Chapter 2.

9. Geomancer

10...

So...one pattern my brain does remember is that once Geomancer goes (and squire is already gone) suddenly Knight is a serious candidate.  Banning Knight will unironically spike difficulty in Chapter 1, and honestly Chapter 2 at this point.

Although...Oracles do keep the Chapter 2 reliance on Knights somewhat in-check.  Oracle sticks hit harder than Knights, with 2 reach.  Knight is still no joke, though, since they get to have almost double the HP of an Oracle for a bit--and realistically we're probably talking about an Equip Armor Monk by this point, so it's not like it's a dead-end job that's not gaining relevant JP (although being in monk does make them hit a little bit less hard even than a Knight--although once they get wave fist, they can hit from rage 3 through walls--they do need to equip a power wrist to maintain any semblance of serious damage with wave fist, though--60 damage with power wrist, 40 damage without power wrist, so 1 less move than the oracle).

So...ok, at very least Oracle is not blowing away Knight/Monk setups in Chapter 2, and honestly it looks like Knight/Monk setups can be pretty nice for the HP.

Yin Yang for Paralyze is obviously still quite good--especially now that it has no competition from elemental.  Just gives range option to what is going to be for the first couple chapters a party of many melee fighters.  If they have easy access to it, probably everyone's secondary.  But also...I don't think people will purposely rush to unlock oralce for it--Paralyze is nice, but it's not like haste, it's not the end of the world to delay it.

Oracle obviously brings some highly relevant tools to later chapters.

Samurai is looking pretty dead thanks to the Geomancer ban.

I guess I need to take a serious look at Ninja damage to make sure it still murders zodiacs and thus life drain isn't a big deciding factor.

A level 20 Ninja has 8 speed, and 8 PA, admittedly just missing their 9 speed and 9 PA point.  Thief Hat Power Sleeve gets them to 10 stat.  So...130 per sword swing (260 total).

Granted, you can use Equip Sword from Knight to boost that damage.  Same setup would be 280 with Equip Sword, or 336 if you used Equip Sword with twist headband.  I guess I should check unarmed damage with martial arts too.  With Twist Headband Power Sleeve that's 288, so Equip Sword is better.

I mean, it's fine if you catch the zodiac charging.  If you don't life drain does kill faster.  So ok, banning Yin Yang has a non-negligible effect on killing zodiacs later on.  I also think it has a non-negligible effect on mook smashing.  Like...yeah, dance does mook smashing better than yin yang, but the dancer wants to set Defence Up.  Defence Up is also what the draw out user wants to set at this point, if you try to make Draw Out work.

Mmm...but on the other hand, break up the Knight/Monk voltron, and Monks become a lot less attractive, and it's not like they offer nothing at later stages of the game either (the one remotely reasonable revival left).  Although nothing stopping you from training monk to get revival later on, you'd probably just delay it cause they're bad in chapter 2.

Banning Monk would close off that option.  Although I don't think it would do much to stop people from leaning on Knight if needed to ease the difficulty in Chapter 1 and 2.  A couple of Knights with Agrias and Gafgarion's old equipment using Paralyze while other characters unlock good jobs like Dancer and Ninja.  Yeah, sure, Knight JP isn't useful.  But to use a fire emblem term, Knight just becomes a Jagen.  Although...honestly, I would definitely try to beat that fight with that character in oracle first before I switched to Knight with Yin Yang.  They have a better attack, they just can't soak 200 HP worth of damage.

I guess one other complicating factor is when equipment shows up.  Like...one spare copy of armor is available for Barius Hill and Zaland Fort City (presumably you use the other armor on Agrias), but also only one Wizard Robe is available for those two fights.  For Goug Machine City, Barius Valley, and Execution Site you can have up to 5 people with Wizard Robes, and also the equipment you got from Gafgarion and Agrias is no longer so advanced--gold armor and gold helmets are buyable now.  Gold helmet is 60 HP compared to Green Beret's 48 HP, so Gold Helmet is honestly now a downgrade--speed+1 is almost always worth losing 12 HP.  (Cross Helmet is 70 HP, you still have one copy of that).

I dunno--like...one issue with the Monk/Knight route here is that you really can't just add more of them.  You can run two, one for each of Gafgarion and Agrias' armor, and then you're running on storebought trash armor.  You can run five oracles if needed to make the fight easier--this isn't that exciting until you get wizard robes (granted, cypress rod shows up after Zirekile falls--with wizard robe we're talking 54 damage, but you only have one of those.  Without we're talking 42 damage.  42 is pretty meh).  That said, another reason to be interested in the oracle route after wizard robes show up is that it also gets you to guns (which...technically there's one fight between wizard robes and guns being storebought, but it's an easy fight).  Once guns show up, gun wielders with Yin Yang sound pretty solid to me.

So...I think the breakdown works like this.  Of the fights that matter in chapter 2, the Knight/Monk combo is cooking a little for Barius Hill and Zaland Fort City, and after that the oracle route just looks better.

Another interesting question is when do I think the Knight/Monk combo will have both equip armor from knight and wave fist from monk.  Hmm...assuming 3 actions per fight, Knight unlocked in time for Sweegy Woods, no gained JP Up, no detours to unlock anything else, they should have 482 Knight JP by Zaland Fort City.  So...yeah, the Knight/Monk combo is literally going to be there to slap on Gafgarion's armor, but they won't be packing wave fist for those fights.

Zaland Fort City is also like...the classic Silence Song fight to save Mustadio, so there's a case oracles bring more to that fight anyway, so like...we are really looking at just Bariaus Hill in Chapter 2 as a "Knight/Monk fight".

Yeah, I think it's Oracle.  More and more they are just looking more valuable in Chapter 2.  And more valuable for chapter's 3-4, for all that the challenge probably is not so much of a challenge by that point.

10. Oracle

11. Knight

With oracle gone, I think it's one of the Monk/Knight combo next.  Knight clearly matters more in Chapter 1.  If my calculations are right, you're not learning much punch art that matters before Chapter 1 is over even skipping Equip Armor.  And it's the combination of them that lets you build a reasonable character in Chapter 2 that still works towards long-term goals while yoinking Gafgarion's gear.

Monks without the armor who just learn wave fist...they'll get wave fist in late chapter 1 or early chapter 2, so JP isn't an issue for Zaland Fort City/Bariaus Hill, but honestly they're not bringing that much to the party that an archer would not.  Wave fist deals 36.  An Archer with Headgear and a silver bow in Chapter 2 deals 30, but potentially with more range.  And Archers are probably more durable too.  Once you hit the PA point you can deal quite a bit more with wave fist by equipping power wrist, but at the expense of 3 move on a unit whose range isn't great.

And then guns kind of outmode everything if you bother with mediator, and then not long after that Ninjas unlock and are better than guns.

12....

So...

The argument for Monk is as follows: they punch for 36 in chapter 1.  Archers are stuck with ass crossbows up through sand rat cellar, and those deal 15.  Thieves get Mythril Knives at least, but those deal 20.  4 base move on thieves is nice though.

And monks bring some other nice things; healing revival.

The counterpoint to monks being important for chapter 1 is that once you get the Long Bow after Sand Rat Cellar, Archers are doing alright.  20 damage baseline, that you can potentially stack with charge.  Becomes 25 with Silver Bow before the end of the chapter.

The argument for Ninja is like...all of chapter 3 and 4, just dealing with fights like Velius and Altima.

But Monks, while they are not Ninjas, surely they can handle Velius right?  Like...power sleeve bracer is on the table at that point, 13 PA with level 15 Monks.  That's...133 damage, 196 if you can get Velius to charge a spell.  They can handle altima just fine thanks to revival, healing, status curing.  And they're fine against balk, do the earth slash line.  Picking up Move+2 at some point also is a nice boost compared to their SCC.

I think Charge+guns is also going to be doing pretty good pretty fast, and it helps that archers are fairly solid units in late chapter 1/early chapter 2, so you won't need to wait for guns for the character to be ok.  Gun/charge unquestionably overtakes punch art after Mithril guns but pre-Bracer.  It doesn't overtake Ninja, but I guess the argument would be you need to spend less time messing around with weird unlocks like thief.  (Do still need to go through Chemist/Priest/Oracle to unlock mediator though--all banned classes, so you don't get anything out of the six or so fights it takes to go through those).

Is there a world where the ban is archer?  Hurts the gun build.  Hurts Ninja a bit cause no access to concentrate.  But that said...maybe three characters do basically a Monk SCC where you send maybe two characters down the Ninja path early (specifically to get through theif early while thief damage is still passable) and let the monk spillover JP help with the Ninja unlocks for the ninja path characters (need 350 Monk JP to unlock Geomancer--spillover will finish that before you're done with Thief) and ehh...should be able to get Ninja before Golgorand I think.

So...if the Ninja ban doesn't hurt enough cause Monks can fill their lategame role well enough, and whichever you leave up between gun builds and ninjas cover the weak part of Monk's level curve between mid chapter 2 to mid chapter 3, I guess Monk just makes sense here.

12. Monk

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13...

Is there a world where guns are a good enough lategame that the answer is somehow still not ninjas?

5 Mediators can definitely gun down Velius, like...no problem there at all.

And obviously you get access to Archer (for shields and the charge skillset) and Dancer (to smash generic fights) and Thief (for move+2) and potentially Samurai on some characters.  Potentially even Bards to abuse two-part fights like Adramelk and Altima.

The question is whether you will feel the need to grind and stop to get elemental guns, as is often done on the Mediator SCC--if that does feel necessary, the ban is probably Ninja cause Ninjas absolutely require no such grind.

The other question, if it's a ban aimed at gun combos, is what piece would be the ban?  Like...my first thought was Archer, as that would continue to hammer out harder chapter 1 and early chapter 2 difficulty.  But I think the route might be...yes, be on Archer for some of those fights (unlock Mediator on the easy fights) then get equip gun, then go for like...Dancer/Samurai with equip gun.

Hmm...how much damage will Kikuichimoji do anyway?  Looks like....112 from a Mediator with a Wizard Robe.  128 from a Samurai with a Wizard Robe, but you lose Thief Hat if you do that.  96 from a dancer.

OK, so the thought was that maybe Draw Out could make it unnecessary to get elemental guns, but like...I am relatively unmoved by these numbers.  The mediator kikuichimoji number is probably the most impressive one cause at least you still have thief hat, but like...you're still equipping a Wizard Robe, so that little maneuver is costing you 70 HP.  Dancer only costs you...23 HP or so compared to Mediator, but is the same general ballpark as a Charge+3 Mithril gun.

What draw out would help with if skipping elemental guns though is like...getting through Elmdor's blade grasp, and getting through Rofel's defence up + save the queen.

And like...maybe there's still a convincing strategy for Altima, cause you can slow dance + persuade.

But I don't know, like...yeah, you probably could cobble together some lategame strategy, but it's now a pretty huge step down from just getting Ninjas instead.

So the question is whether Archer is hard carrying in Chapter 1 and 2 and...not early chapter 1, cause of how bad crossbows suck, and the fact that Thieves hit for 20 instead of 15.  Late chapter 1 early chapter 2 yeah, they are nice.  Then guns and ninjas kind of take over.  So they shine for about one total chapter.  Ninjas probably shine for two and a half.

13. Ninja

14...

OK, so...7 classes left, 6 cause Mime doesn't count.

Thief, Archer, Mediator, Samurai, Dancer, Bard.

It's between Mediator and Archer, I think.

Archer obviously still has the combined end of chapter 1 start of chapter 2 making fights easier.

Let's see, I literally just recently did an Archer SCC, and posted resets in this topic.  Oh, 17 resets on inside riovanes you say?  Had to leave and grind levels?  Shooting uphill with bows sucks?  Yeah...way back in the day I did a Mediator SCC where I gamesharked my level to level 1, and I'm pretty sure I had a much easier time with that fight.

Combine this with the fact that Equip Gun makes it a lot more pleasant to unlock and gain JP in jobs like Samurai and Dancer.

14. Mediator

15...

Is there a world where it's not just Archer?

I know the Samurai SCC hits a similar wall on Velius where you need to grind for more JP or levels.  Dancer...is not going to save Velius.  Ironically Bard could save Velius by doing sing cheese on wiegraf.

I...straight up don't think the answer is Samurai.  They have JP issues on the SCC, when you get the job unlocked in chapter 1 and have five characters sharing spillover.  The thought of sending one character to Samurai, which will unlock, being generous, around the end of Chapter 2 start of chapter 3, and then solo-grinding Samurai JP with that character...yeah, that path is not sounding amazing.

Dancer is...I mean, they take longer to unlock than Samurai, but they are good the moment they unlock.  Dropping a few numbers into a spreadsheet, job level 2 takes 2 fights to unlock, job level 3 takes 6 total fights to unlock, and job level 4 takes 11 total fights to unlock (assuming 3 actions per fight).  So unlocking Samurai (or Ninja) with zero spillover is "27" fights.  Unlocking Dancer is "38" fights.  Hmm...these numbers sound suspicious even for a game without gained JP Up--obviously levels help some and I'm assuming no levels here.  Assuming level 8, it becomes 2 fights for job level 2, 5 fights for job level 3, and 9-10 fights for job level 4.  This brings it down to 23-24 fights for Ninja/Samurai, and 32 fights for dancer.  So that would push unlocking dancer into late-ish Chapter 3 territory.  The other answer might just be "we are past the point where we can assume 3 actions per fight"--if it's 4 actions per fight, everything comes earlier.

But yeah, regardless, everything else is very slow, I think this is just archer.

15. Archer

16. Samurai

OK, so obviously at this point the idea of not grinding is more or less out the window, or else you're doing a Thief SCC which doesn't make a whole lot of sense cause Thief SCCs need to grind a ton.

And a Samurai SCC with grinding, and where you can set Move+2, yeah, you are cruising.  Don't think banning Thief does a whole lot here, cause then you just grab Dance, and aren't too sad about the low movement.  Don't think a dancer ban does a whole lot.  Move+2 doesn't fix dancer SCC's problems the same way it fixes Samurai SCCs problems, and the grind to unlock the class will also be longer cause it's more JP, and worse cause you need an all-female squad in physical jobs.

17. Dancer

So...Dancer, Thief, Bard.

Yeah, so one of these has a comfortable SCC.  It's Dancer.

18. Bard

Unironically, I think Mime tips the scales here.  Like...I don't remember if Mime SCC or Thief SCC is harder.  But Thief SCC does need to do quite a bit of grinding.  Level grinding to actually win the wiegraf duel.  Grinding out poaches for chantages.  And the one thing they have going for them over bards is that they hit harder upfront.

Yeah, well, guess what, if you grind, you can get Mimes.  Mimes can do upfront damage.  Like...ok, level 30 Thief has 7 PA.  with power sleeve, twist headband, bracer, that's 14.  If you have 72 brave that will round up punch damage to 140.  If you don't, 126.  An equivalent level 30 Mime will have 9 PA, and be punching for 78.  So...ok, not impressive yet, but wait for it.  Level 30 bard will have 2 PA, and 7 MA.  Power Sleeve Twist Headband Bracer brings that to 9 and 7, averaging 8.  That's a harp attack of 108.  OK, so still less than the Thief punch, what's the deal?  Well...then the harp attack gets mimed.  The mimed harp will also deal 108 damage (and mimes have innate concentrate, that's a big deal too).

Also, when singing is a reasonable strategy, Mimes obviously turbo-charge it, and get turbo-charged by it.  Like...one round of battle song with a mime is PA+4 to the whole party.

19. Thief

20. Mime

[metroid composite]

OK, so the ordering I came up with this time is...

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

What's different from last time?

3. Wizard
4. Summoner

Wizard and Summoner swap places.  Quick+Draw Out being a serious strategy used by speed runs convinced me that Magic Attack Up is important in later chapters.  Magic Attack Up and Wizard stats also matter for holy on assassination missions.  Wizard stats also boost Short Charge Meteor.  All this together led me to conclude that Wizards do more for Chapters 3-4.  And I ended up concluding Wizards were actually substantially better in Chapter 1 as well, like Bolt 2 outdamaging Ramuh thanks to wizard stats.

9. Geomancer
10. Oracle

Geomancer and Oracle swap places.  This really comes down to a re-analysis of where the party would be struggling at that time, it's Chapters 1 and 2, and then revisiting assumptions that Oracle was better than Geomancer in Chapter 2 (I came to the conclusion that Geomancer is actually noticeably better for these chapters).

OK, this whole sequence is different:

12. Monk
13. Ninja
14. Mediator
15. Archer

In the previous version:

12. Ninja
13. Archer
14. Monk
15. Mediator

For Monk over Ninja, I think a few big things that changed between these two is actually doing an Archer SCC, and getting a real sense of two things:

First, last time I valued Archer over Monk in chapter 1, and yeah, rethinking that cause of how bad archer weapons are for literally half the chapter.  Dorter and Sand Rat Cellar with 3 WP weapons suck, and technically there's sweegy woods and mandalia plains in there too.  This means that it's not an Archer advantage, and more of a Monk advantage for chapter 1, so monks are at least worth looking at to make the earlygame harder.  Every fight after Sand Rat Cellar is an assassination mission too, so even though archer is "better" having 25 damage at range, melee for 36 isn't bad.

Second, actually reflecting on some experience with a monk SCC in chapter 4, and how it was smooth sailing with no resets.  Bracer good.  And you get to add like...Move+2 and Concentrate onto that (concentrate being very relevant to bypass earth clothes) and like...wear elemental shields for balk, and yeah, Chapter 4 should be a stomp.  Ninja would make it more of a stomp no doubt, but it's enough of a stomp.  And this should carry back to Velius as well, since Bracers are available at that time.

So that makes the only remaining hole to plug late chapter 2 early chapter 3, when monk equipment sucks.  And...Ninjas can fix that, but gun/archer builds can too.

Obviously Ninja can't be delayed too much, so Ninja next.

Mediator over Archer...part of this is just that all the other reasonable lategame tools are banned, so suddenly you are leaning on guns for a long time.  And part of this comes out of doing the Archer SCC.  Charge concentrate bows...yeah sure they hit harder than guns, but like...8 range, instead of attacking uphill and getting 3-4 range is such a huge difference.  I'd rather have guns without charge than bows with charge.

...

11. Knight

One remaining thought is that the Knight ban...while it hasn't moved, is looking a little more suspicious.  It was banned partially for the combo between knights and monks, but then monks get banned immediately after.  Maybe the ban should just be Monk instead.  But...the idea with Knight is to just carry chapter 1 with high stats, and then immeidately steal Gafgarion's armor and carry chapter 2, and enable a build like Ninja to get through some weak classes like thief due to compensating with a strong class.  Yeah, that's probably still a solid reason for the order.  Banning Ninja obviously doesn't help stop that either, cause you just go equip armor Monk instead.

[metroid composite]

Just musing some more on the Knight stuff.

so...judging by the Archer SCC, I had resets on Dorter, Sand Rat Cellar, Bariaus Hill, and two on Golgorand.  Knight is meant to help with these--does it actually?

Hmm...so actually, on Dorter and Sand Rat, you only have long sword--you could steal the iron sword off of Delita, but that's your option.  So it's only 30 damage (compared to 36 for monk).  What is the actual HP gap?

You could go Bronze Armor (20 HP) Linnen Curiass (20 HP).  The monk equivalent gear is Leather Vest (10 HP).  Monk class HP is like 41 to 37.  So Knight could have 77 HP compared to 51 for Monk.  But Monk does hit harder (36 damage instead of 30).  Accounting for the damage difference, it's Knight is only outclassing Monk by about 26% in these fights, and only if you spend a lot of money.  Admittedly, you could spend even more money for a shield and gain another 10% from the side (although monk has better base front evade--relevant if you're plugging a doorway on sand rat cellar for example).

So...for these two fights, banning Knight may not actually that big of a deal.  Provided you can unlock Monk in time.  Assuming 3 actions per fight, you actually likely won't have Monk unlocked by Dorter.  You would probably have Monk unlocked by sand rat cellar.

And then the rest of chapter 1, it's not that big of a deal to have monk/archer instead of knight/archer.  I had no resets on those fights on an archer SCC, and they're all blitz down fights, so Monk vs Knight isn't too big of a downgrade for those (event though knight zooms ahead in damage).

The other place the archer SCC stumbled was Bariaus Hill.  Yeah...having a tanky character wearing Gaffgarion's Gear would definitely help on that fight.

The final spot is Golgorand.  By golgorand you can have guns.  And...gaffgarion's gear is basically storebought--not the cross helmet, but the rest of it.  And clothes are only 42 HP less at that point while giving speed+1, so arguably better.  And anyway I'm also not sure how much having a damage sponge helps in that fight--it tends to be a disorganized surround by the enemy, so baiting with one high-health character is maybe not that much of a thing.

So...ok, easier dorter, technically easier sand rat cellar but maybe monk can handle that, and easier bariaus hill.  Yeah, maybe Knight isn't the ban.

Don't really feel like Monk is the ban either though--you would just lean on Archer Knight which is a solid combo till you got guns and ninjas.

So...ok, maybe it's Ninja now.

11. Ninja

And then once Ninja goes it's definitely Monk next--if you need blitz damage now it's clearly monk.

12. Monk

13...

With Monk banned, now Knight is the only thing holding Chapter 1 together.  But also...what's your plan against Velius if it's not guns?

Well...actually, Thief with Equip Sword is probably fine.  Like...6 PA, power sleeve twist headband brings that to 10, 120 damage, 180 if Velius is charging.  Yeah, that sounds good enough, and it's enabled by Knight.  Hits about as hard as a two hands Samurai, which is the Samurai SCC strategy for that fight, but you can have 6 move.

And Chapter 4...well hopefully you can get something going with Samurai by then.  Learn some draw outs or blade grasp or two hands.  Two Hands Move+2 Knight is probably a fine answer when blitzing is called for, and presumably you have a dancer for nameless dance and someone with kiyomori.  Yeah, you should be able to handle chapter 4 just fine with that.

So..."good enough" lategame, and some key contributions Chapter 1.

13. Knight

Revised list:

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

[DragonKnight Zero]

Finally picking back up doing my special character ranking.  For the overall ranking, my main focus will be in the context of beating the game and seeing the ending: how useful is this character for achieving that goal.  So I will be factoring in things I didn't before such as when the character joins, how much investment it takes to get them to a useful state, and anything else that might make sense for an overall ranking.  US version because that's what I know.  I'll be taking endgame levels to be in the 40-45 range going into the final series.  I'll edit in anything else as I think of it here but to start off.

1. Orlandu

  Well this was obvious.  Amazing skillset with the stats and stat growth to back it up and a free Excalibur.  That stuff has been talked to death over the years though there are some other points I want to touch upon.  Orlandu also stands out for how little investment it takes to get him a functional setup.  A dip into Chemist for Phoenix Down, a bit of time in Knight for Weapon Guard; just those two skills make give him a functional base to get through the game.  Other important stuff like Move +1, Lightning Stab, Hellcry Punch, and Night Sword (if he didn't start with it) can be picked up along the way while he's steamrolling the game for you.  Being able to wear a Thief Hat with that Excalibur takes things to even more ridiculous extremes.  He'll be getting frequent doubleturns on anything other than those zippy 13 Speed nuisances and anything that might live through one shot of All Swordskill probably doesn't have the buik to handle two unless it's a Zodiac boss.  As if he wasn't dominating enough already, he gets above average Speed and MA growth in his base class, the two hardest stats to raise.  Only times he doesn't feel like a top choice is against exclusively undead (in which case night Sword is neutralized), Charm/Death Sentence is a major threat, or when my team needs more utility such as robbing Elmdor's Genji gear.  But if seeing the credits is the main goal, Genji gear isn't that important.
  For a extra cherry on top, he has a very easy level up/down loop if one wants to push his stats up even more: down Chemist, up Holy Swordsman will yield a net gain in everything without having to think too hard.  Level up/down is not going to be a major factor in this ranking because it's time consuming for small results but is yet another perk in Orlandu's corner.

2. Agrias

  It was a mindbender whether to place Agrias or Ramza in the 2nd spot.  Holy Sword is just that good though.  Point her at something you want to kill and smash.  Most of the time, when Ramza is being a key member rather than just someone forced, he's using a generic setup that any generic could have done.  However, when I decide to bring Agrias to a fight, I've found things go smoother than if she wasn't there.  Holy Sword is one of very few multitarget physical options which becomes highly desirable when able to catch someone charging.  Or even multiple somethings.  While Orlandu may outperform her main gimmick, joining earlier means Agrias has had more party time to train up stronger RSM such as Move +2 and Attack Up.  Training her in other jobs doesn't have to be painful either; just teach Equip Sword first and maybe Lightning Stab and look more seriously into branching out once PA boosting clothes and hats become more available.  Underwhelming base class with its middling PA multiplier and growth is her main downside; giving her levelups in Knight, Geomancer, and Ninja will help close that gap.

3. Ramza

  I end up placing him here more because of his versatility, that he gets training time from start to finish, and a few traits unique to him.  Having the benefit of both male PA and female MA, he's able to excel on both physical and magical roles.  Being able to max out his Faith is an advantage unique to him over any other unit for those who pursue a magical path.  The best geomancer, if one chooses to go that route.  Add to that above average MA growth in his base class and with a few levelups in Squire (especially early), he'll be ahead of the magic curve.  Not by a great deal, mostly hitting MA benchmarks a level or two earlier than a generic would, but it's something.  And when Scream is on the table, his magic potential pulls even farther ahead.
   His unique skillset is more utility rather than something that wins battles for me.  The generic squire stuff pretty much falls off for offense and only sees use lategame as a way to break Charm on allies.  As much as some will insist the stat boosting set is gamebreaking, I don't see it that way in practice.  Yell and Accumulate need to be stacked repeatedly to really be impactful I've found and don't really contribute a great deal to encounters that one clears out in 3-4 rounds.  And for harder fights, either the enemies are applying pressure right away and not giving the time to stack Yell/Accumulate/Scream or a strong opening is more valuable than a token increase of Brave or Speed.  Yell is useful for training Calculators, equipment theft, and bringing summoners up to average speed but it's not a universal "I win" button to wiggle out of every challenging encounter.
  Being able to build up a skillset or five is quite significant.  It's commonly cited that skills make a bigger impact on difficulty than stats and I've found it to be the case for me, even more so lategame.  Whereas my endgame specials often only have a few classes unlocked and barely any JP to work with giving them very little flexibility, I run a Ramza who has been through most of the job tree and has a wide variety of abilities to choose to bring into the next story fight.

4. Worker 8

  The bot gets placed this high for a couple of key reasons.  One is its simplicity and evade/defense ignoring attacks.  The other is that it's the full package right out of the gate and doesn't require additional skill training to turn into a contributing member.

Rad/Alicia/Lavian

  While not part of the ranking, felt like leaving a few thoughts about where they fall.  Being able to send them on propositions is huge as they will have very robust skill profiles at endgame.  I've found them to be more effective than most of the special characters just due to greater access to jobs and skills.

5. Beowulf

  I placed him below the wonder trio due to his need for MP to fuel his skillset as well as mostly being at the mercy of enemy Faith and magic evasion.  Also has a slow start as the key skills of Chicken and Shock take concentrated investment to reach.  Before Chicken, Shock, and Break, he's rather middling at contributing to randoms and Drain, however cool it is on the surface, only really shines on Zodiac bosses.  Training him in low MP classes like monk or thief gets awkward, an added hurdle if you want something like Move +2 on him.  Still, 800 or so damage to Altima 2 with Now timing (and not requiring thousands of JP investment for Math Skill) is a compelling argument to work with him.  At least he joins early in Chapter 4 (assuming you do rush for him) so has a far better chance to get in the needed training to obtain a key skill or two before the final series.  Also has above average MA growth in his base class so he's not as bad in a mage role as an average male generic. (relevant if he's in summoner to train up Half MP, though I consider it excessive to reach without intentional grinding)

6. Mustadio

  He and Meliadoul feel really close and I could see swapping their positions fairly easily.  They both have niches where they shine and tend to feel mediocre otherwise.  However I opted to give him the nod because he joins earlier and has better chances of picking up some helpful skills over the course of the game.  It's reasonable to see him learning Auto-Potion along the way.  Meliadoul (and most other Chapter 4 joiners, for that matter) is unlikely to acquire Auto-Potion without intentionally grinding for it.
  Strengths are mostly subdued: Seal Evil on undead humans and Engineer being the best pure "shoot things with guns" carrier.  If you're willing to put in the effort to obtain a spell gun, shooting things with guns can do a lot of lifting getting through the game.  Leg Aim and Arm Aim are situationally helpful and then Thief Hat wearing humans show up and cut into that niche.
  Weaknesses?  Well, if you don't get a hold of a spell gun, his endgame damage barely dents endgame opposition.  64 damage is quite serviceable when the Mythril Gun is first obtained but since gun damage never improves, it falls off in dealing with increasing target HP.  And if Snipe just isn't working out and you want to take him down a different job path, the middling stat growth on his base class will rear itself.  He'll be behind the PA curve relative to other physical focused units and dead average MA growth means he's not going to be a distinguished mage even if you do boost his starting 62 Faith.
  I found him slow to get going if trying to train him outside of chemist and archer.  He's really awkward with melee classes like knight and thief and monk isn't really much better off.  Troublesome since he can be awesome in ninja but getting the prerequisites is going to feel like a chore.  Running him as a mage feels like I'm handicapping myself with his male MA.  All in all, he has little to offer against a boss immune to Arm Aim. He's not completely useless in the mage department; if I want someone to sling status and effect magic at a Gemini boss he may very well be the best conduit for those Slows and Demis and is likely to have a better selection of support skills than Beowulf. (there's no guarantee I'll have anyone else available on the same Zodiac triangle)  And if you want Magic Attack Up for spell gun carnage, got to get him wizard training.  In spite of his issues, he ends up one of my strongest characters by the end of the game who end up carrying other special characters if he's going into the same battle with them.  Though it does take him longer to reach that point and more of a slog compared to training, say Agrias.
  Also, you gotta keep him on the roster to recruit the optional characters and if he's going to take up a formation slot, might as well make use of him.

[DragonKnight Zero]

FFT overall special character ranking - thoughtdump

7. Meliadoul

  She's always going to be haunted by having her skillset duplicated by Orlandu and joining later.  But even then, there are situations where I find that two equipment smashers are better than one.  The Shrine Knights at Morund are a key candidate as being able to smash both Rofel and Vormav's swords before they go is quite convenient.  Kletian's ninjas and Balk 2 are other situations where I can see use in having two Mighty Sword users.  When her skillset is useful, she's really good.  And most remaining story fights will contain humans for her to terrorize.
  Downsides: Beyond the often cited uselessness of her skillset on non-humans, she's also bogged down by joining late and not likely to acquire much in the way of skills to contribute beyond smashing gear for big damage.  Also, Hellcry Punch is the big reason to use her and she usually doesn't start with it.  So got to take time to grind it out if you really want her hitting her stride.  Not the worst ordeal; generally need to grind out 400 or so JP (+200 for Move +1) and Equip Change lets her swap to ranged weapons if there are only monsters to fight.  But compared to Orlandu, who doesn't really need to sidetrack for skill building, or Agrias, who has been around longer to pick up key skills, the need to grind out her important skills hurts Melly in the overall ranking.  Another notable downside is that she joins at a time when the roster is very likely to be packed.  Having to decide between her or a productive generic is yet another strike against her in the overall picture.
  One thing she does claim over Agrias is better PA growth to fuel her skillset. (and a better multiplier though that's less significant if Agrias goes Knight)  Meliadoul generally has the highest raw PA among my female units with only Reis rivaling her.  Still because she starts with the lower female base value, she still has less raw PA than an equally leveled Malak or Mustadio, both of which have merely average PA growth.  So it's just a statistic because I feel like writing about it.  For added insult, if one does go the path of recruiting one of Balk 2's dragon pets, Meliadoul is a prime candidate to kick out for the Tiamat as there are no humans left to fight.

8. Reis

Reis is a fascinating character to look at in an analysis though maybe not so much when actually trying to use her.  Fantastic stat bases: cast best HP and MA, with above average to good values in Speed, PA, and MP as well.  While her PA isn't going to eclipse a male unit (unless he really neglected his PA growth, say to gain 10 levels in chemist rushing for Auto-Potion), her MA growth makes her the cast-best carrier for any MA focused skillset in the game.  And it's more than a token advantage; she'll be 1-2 MA higher than another equally leveled female unit around the level she joins, which I'll assume to be in the 35-40 range.
  One big downside is that she joins late and with only the two starter jobs available.  So while she does have that potential as cast-best magic user, got to build up a skillset entirely from scratch.  At the late stage in the game she joins, building up a character from nothing is a daunting venture, moreso doing it the slow way without the option to bolster with propositions.  So she's very much a project character: can become very rewarding but also asks for a lot of dedication to bring out that potential.
  Guess I'd better mention that recruiting her human form requires winning Nelveska Temple.  While there is great equipment to obtain if you know about it and the RNG favors you that's a reward in its own right, it's a really dangerous fight.  If your party is ill-prepared to deal with it, losing is a very real possibility.  Though I guess you'll have Orlandu by now so if he doesn't get ganged up on by 4 enemies, you can use him as a crutch to get through.  Probably not getting any of the gear though.  Point is, I am using the difficulty of this fight as a factor in Reis' overall ranking.
  So really, why jump through all the hoops to recruit Reis and deal with her immobile, equipment lacking base class and lackbuster skillset if just trying to see the credits?  Reis has one major way to contribute that's unique to her: Dragon Taming Balk 2's pets, Tiamat in particular.  Getting the Tiamat, in turn, gives access to its Zodiac shredding Triple Breath.  Getting Dragon Tame, Move +1, and unlocking Thief is not that JP intensive either and does feel worth the sidetrack.
  Another low investment route to take with her is unlocking summoner and teaching her Ramuh and flinging destruction around with her inflated MA.  Black Robe, Flash Hat, Red Shoes, and your MA boosting weapon of choice will yield good results.
  One other point in favor of Reis is that she has a very easy Level Up/Down loop in down Chemist - up Dragoner.  I've mostly avoided mentioning Level Up/Down shemanigens as it's time-consuming and intensive.  But if you want to inflate her stats even more, she has a comparatively easy time of it and if you're passing through Zeklaus/Fovaham/Dolddobar anyways, sure why not go down 1-3 Chemist levels and seek out one more fight afterwards?  A counterpoint against her is that more than anyone else, micromanaging her levelups has a greater impact than with anyone else. (though it doesn't matter as much past Lv 50 or so, which is still outside the scope of this analysis)  So training her skills outside of Dragoner and maintaining her stat advantage takes twice as many battles - one to gain JP in not-Dragoner classes and a second to level up as Dragoner for stat growth.  Rather a hassle if one is mostly out to win the game.
  I suppose these two factors do cancel each other out for the overall ranking.  I just wanted to write words about them.

From here on out, I'm getting into the special characters who really aren't worth the formation slot and replacing a developed generic with them feels like a straight downgrade.  They have differing degrees of suckitude though and I'm going to have fun diving into why.

9. Rafa

  I feel Rafa and Cloud are both on a similar tier of awfulness, though for differing reasons.  I had Rafa edge out Cloud because she joins earlier and thus, more party time.  Also helps that Truth isn't all that JP intensive to obtain.  Getting Magic Attack Up for her, for instance, feels like something reasonable to reach where I wouldn't say the same for Meliadoul or Cloud.  Sticks in her base class is nice and gives her a serviceable regular attack to fall back on if one doesn't want to risk Truth randomness.
  And I think that's it for strengths relative to the criteria I'm using.  The quadratic nature of Truth's damage formula makes it scale up a lot faster than regular Faith-based damage magic.  But she's not going to be reaching the high MA levels where Truth damage stands out at the endgame range of 40-45 I'm using for this analysis.  Starting out with no job levels is another strike against her; building up from nothing 60% or so through the game looks very unattractive relative to a developed generic that's been around since Chapter 1.  Not as bad off in this department as Reis but still a strike against taking her.  I'm not giving her any credit for low starting Brave; if you really wanted someone to be a dedicated item finder, you could have made your own generic that way by now.  All this on top of the more commonly cited issue of Truth being unreliable at connecting in a game where knowing what's going to happen is very valuable for planning out your moves.

Dammit, there's more I want to yammer on about Rafa but it's not coming out right now.  Will edit in later and move on to...

10. Cloud

  Cloud does have some interesting toys to help win the game.  Finish Touch devastates generics and Climhazzard is fantastic at bullying Zodiacs.  Those take a lot of training to bring online though and his late recruitment, Materia Blade requirement for Limit, and starting at Lv 1 are all strikes against him.  If one isn't checking a guide they may not even be aware the Materia Blade exists or that it's a requirement for Limit, let alone where to look for it other than a vague hint from Cloud on the formation screen.  So a player who somehow got this far in the questline will be staring at a greyed out Limit command with no idea why that is.
  Then there's joining at Lv 1 when the rest of the team is at 35-40 or beyond.  Levels may not mean that much but being 30 levels behind also means his offensive stats are lagging so his damage is going to suck.  Being behind on the Speed curve is significant as he'll be getting fewer turns and he's gaining JP slower per action, which inflates the time it takes to train a skillset on him.  At least he'll level quickly, for what it's worth.  The level scaling on randoms makes it harder than it needs to be but he will gain EXP in large numbers per action.  Assuming you are able to keep him alive as the higher the highest level unit in the formation screen is, the more of a challenge it will be to keep Cloud alive to train him.  Another small point in his favor is that Soldier has above average MA growth.  Which he really likes for his MA fueled Limits since Cross Slash is a good workhorse while grinding the JP for Finish Touch and/or Climhazzard.
  Still with how late he's recruited, is it really worth the effort to build another character up from nearly scratch when there's only 9 battles left to fight?  One would need to go rather far out of the way to train him in Move +1, Cross Slash, Finish Touch, and Climhazzard.  Oh, and Short Charge too otherwise it's obnoxious to get CTs to line up for Climhazzard.  If you want to for it's own sake sure.  But needing to raise several thousand JP on someone this late in the game is a negative in the context of this analysis.  And for a long time until he's up to speed, there's that feeling of him dragging down the attack team.

11. Byblos

  It's the late recruitment that plunges Byblos in the overall ranking (and the fire weakness, to a smaller extent).  Going through the Deep Dungeon and winning the optional battle at the bottom is more work than simply beating the game.

Boco

  Again, not an official part of the ranking but I'm throwing in a sidebar since he is one of the 16 uniques with a unique quote.  On top of being mostly meh already, he has good compat with zero special characters (other than maybe Ramza) and bad with 5. (6 if Ramza joins that number).  So unless you're playing an "all special characters" file or really want to breed a Red Chocobo, there isn't any strategic reason to keep him around.
  He does have limitless self heals.  Which is more that can be said for the one at the bottom of the list.

12. Malak

  There is no strategic reason ever to bring Un-Truth into a battle.  Even Truth has potential at 15 or more MA (passing 200 damage on Truth hits gets me to at least pay attention and notice).  Which means there's no strategic reason ever to bring Malak into a battle.  If you wanted a low Faith anti-mage unit that much, could have made your own before Chapter 4 comes around easily enough.  Yeah, he joins earlier than Byblos and Byblos was in contention for the bottom spot.  But Byblos has skills I can picture helping me win fights.  Having low Faith also limits support options (an issue shared by Boco and Worker 8).  Limited recovery options isn't the worst thing to work around but losing out on Haste magic is another downside on someone who already has a lot of them.

OK, first draft done.  I do plan on doing additions/edits as I feel a desire to but I do have settled on my overall ranking.

1. Orlandu
2. Agrias
3. Ramza
4. Worker 8
5. Beowulf
6. Mustadio
7. Meliadoul
8. Reis
9. Rafa
10. Cloud
11. Byblos
12. Malak