Musing on FF5 job balance

[Dark Holy Elf]

Apanda

He's shockingly close to "Byblos, scaled to endgame". He's weak to fire (neutral to everything else, unlike Byblos), and has exactly the same AI, which includes a decent physical and a 2-3HKO Wind Slash which can show up every even-numbered turn, along with Dischord, Web, and Confuse as filler moves. He still counters physicals with Protect and magic with Toad 1/3 of the time. Drain, instead of being 2/3 at low HP, is now 1/3 at any HP (so overall he has only a 1/3 chance to not counter).

He's obviously a worse boss than Byblos, because Hermes Sandals exist to double your speed and block his slow status. And his damage is a little worse for the time, too, especially against mages, because your MDef is higher (his higher magic multiplier mostly compensates for your higher HP). But otherwise it's amazing how much he just feels like a scaled-up version of that boss.


The winner here is Summoner, because Apanda has a special counter for Ifrit: instead of using Toad/Drain, he'll cower in fear and skip his next turn, and also be unable to counter until said skipped turn. So lob an Ifrit and then spam Syldra while he's cowering. Or just spam Ifrits, whatever you fancy.

Black Mage certainly 4HKOs with Firaga, so that's a one-rounding. There's a slight risk that Byblos' Drain counters focus enough to kill someone... actually no, there isn't, not with high-MDef equips, unless your level is quite low. Toad could stop the one-rounding I guess, forcing you to live through one turn! You might get Magic Hammered.

White Mage can fire off Holy. They'll need around 7 to win? Pretty easy. Same as Black Mage just with a higher chance of being Magic Hammered I guess. They can also use a Berserk/Blink strategy to avoid counters if they wish.

Time Mage can one-round with Meteor. If they fail to they can cast Return, should you care about losing your MP or something.

Ranger... well, Artemis Bow hits weakness again! Of course it will trigger a potential Protect counter, but the opening Artemis Rapidfire does crazy amounts of damage, almost a third of his HP. Open with that, follow up with a few other Rapidfires... you'll kill on your third round probably, though a few Drain counters could come out to play before then and maybe force you to heal.

Knight can also hit pretty hard, as both the Flametongue and Brave Blade do similar, competent damage here. They could kill in 2 rounds if they're lucky, but 4 if they aren't (evade, Protect counter coming early) which would give Apanda two turns including a Wind Slash, along with the counters they'll trigger.

Monk is pretty bad! Apanda has everything they hate: decent defence and their attacks trigger two counters. This is a another fight where Kaiser Knuckles are a decent idea, since they roughly double damage here in exchange for half as many turns (and half as many counters) which is a good trade; however they only have one unless they've farmed rare drops. Focus Kaiser Knuckles 6HKO, or 11HKO after Protect, but those come really slowly so they'll want to throw in some other Focuses probably. Apanda's going to get quite a few turns regardless of strategy, lots of time for him to use Confuse (bad for Monks, see Wendigo) or Dischord, or slow anyone with Kaiser Knuckles, as well as hit them with Wind Slashes and decent physicals a lot.

Thief... well, the good news is that unlike against Byblos, they do notably outpace Drain on average, even after Protect. The bad news is... it's still not by all that much, one Drain (1/3 chance) erases about 1.5 Thief attacks or so. Dischord will make this worse with time, too! In theory it's possible that enough Dischords will make this fight unwinnable short of running him out of MP, so this is ugly.

Dragoon only has one PC who can do real damage, that being the one with the Holy Lance. Other spears don't break defence very well at this point, though will still overcome Drain on average at least. They can also use Jump to avoid the even-numbered turns, which avoids Wind Slash and Dischord entirely, leaving only Apanda's physical and the Drain counters they need to care about. They don't have the kind of offence Knight/Ranger have to cut through this, but this strategy should serve to keep the fight under control; they'll still need to use a bunch of Hi-Potions erasing all the Drain counters.

Ninja, fittingly, returns to Flame Scrolls for one last time. They trigger physical counters but go through Protect, evade, row, everything, and kill in four rounds or so. Still enough to give Apanda two turns and force a little healing, but only a little and they win pretty easily.

Samurai as always can make the Zeninage choice; it kills in 7 shots and costs 13000 gil or so. Or they can use physicals... which will be a bad time (not too different from Monk).

Berserker hits somewhat hard; they'll win in roughly 32 hits or so, depending on which weapon lands them and what counters they see. This will give Apanda about 6 turns and about 10 Drains (though a few of those might bounce of an Aegis Shield). This feels very coinflippy for if they win or not, it really depends on how many Wind Slashes Apanda uses and how many Drains. Feels a bit better than Thief's situation? The extra HP and shields help. Neither is good, obviously.

Mystic Knight activates Firaga Sword and goes to town. Two rounds of attacks should very likely suffice thereafter, though of course it's not a sure thing thanks to Apanda's evade. They could also have one or two try for Silence Spellblade which seals off the Drain/Protect counters but does draw out the battle increasing the chance of seeing Wind Slashes.

Okay, back to mages. Blue Mage kills in three rounds, maybe triggering around 3 Drains and 3 Toads, with of course a risk of Magic Hammer in there. They can use Mighty Guard to halve the hit rate of Toad/Drain/Magic Hammer and laugh off all damage, too. It's not as decisive as White Mage but safer than the jobs who have to go toe-to-toe with Apanda's evasion.

Red Mage has a decent toolkit for this fight, especially if they have Dualcast. Silence is about a 37% chance to stop his counters (60% if twice) for a time, and Fira does respectable enough damage (similar to a Flame Scroll)... outright good if cast twice, killing in two rounds. They're in a pretty similar situation to Mystic Knight... worse stats and damage (though better with Dualcast after Protect) but worry less about evasion. Dualcast being not quite a given makes me tiebreak for MK though.

Beastmaster likes that their legendary weapon is fire, it makes it quite potent here. It's only one, though (for all that Beast Killer is a respectable backup) and not as powerful as, say, Knight's attacks. They can also release Great Dragons; the first does around 9999 (Protect may soften later ones) and those are available right before this boss.

Puny Morning Star or Sage Staff hits from Chemist aren't a very tempting way to fight this, what with Drain counters and all. The other extreme is to double their HP then fire off Dragon Breaths, which hits Apanda's fire weakness and 4HKOs. This will use eight Dragon Fangs, which can be farmed with the Sage's Staff in Drakenvale, or stolen from Great Dragons near where Apanda is fought. Alternatively, they can berserk and blind Apanda (using a Turtle Shell and then ~2 Dark Matters) then try to turtle through counter-free with the Heal Staff. This is extremely similar to Samurai in terms of resource cost; Chemist having mage equips to go with their doubled HP makes me favour them slightly, though.

Geomancer... well, Gaia will use Ignus Fatuus, which is no longer as potent as it used to be even against a fire weakness; 34HKO or so before Drain which largely offsets one use. It ignores Protect and evade and row, so this is certainly still better than their physicals! Various mage advantages (confuse immunity, more MEvade) make them better than Monk, but no more.

Bard can buff to overcome Drain, but they have no answer to Apanda's own turns in the meanwhile; Discord will be annoying, and Wind Slash hurts and draws out a lot of healing. Apollo's Harp is certainly the thing to buff since it's magic and ignores but that's a lot of turtling during which they may have to heal a whole bunch. Probably worse than Geomancer, better than the weak fighters.

Dancer blocks confuse and their offence is certainly better than Monk's. But it's still not in a great place; once Protect lands they... still have better offence than Geomancer, but have to be in the front row with less HP (and no Main Gauches). Given how often Apanda uses (respectable) physicals, I think that's a win for Geomancer.

1. Summoner
2. Time Mage
3. Black Mage
4. White Mage
5. Ranger
6. Blue Mage
7. Mystic Knight
8. Red Mage
9. Knight
10. Beastmaster
11. Ninja
12. Dragoon
13. Chemist
14. Samurai
15. Geomancer
16. Dancer
17. Bard
18. Monk
19. Berserker
20. Thief


Next up: some blue mage with a stupidly large skillset and the highest MDef of any maingame boss. Will it stop the offensive mages from being really good? Probably not.

[074]

It's worth noting that at endgame, you're swimming in money.  I'm not quite sure it's too hard of a choice for samurai as to whether or not to throw some gil at this point?

[Dark Holy Elf]

You can certainly run out in the final dungeon if you aren't somewhat careful (13000 gil would take ~7 randoms to replenish, though as you noted you come in with far more), so it's generally worth deciding whether a boss (or random, for that matter) presents an adequate threat to justify it. Apanda may well, but for instance, Calostiferi and (spoilers) Azulmagia do not.

[Reiska]

Do you actually have all that much left over after you buy your Hermes Sandals?  I seem to remember having just barely enough for those.

[Cotigo]

Re: Namagomi's point, eh, the classes that have been chronically spending a bunch of money are going to have a lot less in the bank than those that aren't, and Reiska brings up a good point that they're going to have a harder time buying Hermes Sandals ASAP without grinding. Penalizing them for this still seems in line with the spirit of the rankings if you ask me.

Moving on, as interesting as the analysis was, similar to how only Summoner cares about Odin/Levi/Bahamut, I think it's kind of an important note that unless your Wind Crystal job is either WM or BM, you have no reason whatsoever to do the Fork Tower, as nobody except those two can cast Flare/Holy. Which really doesn't give a pass at all to the Water/Fire/Earth jobs, but honestly including Omniscient in the rankings for Knight/Monk/Thief and Minotaur for Blue Mage in the context of a Fiesta (much less an SCC!) seems a little unfair in practice.

Of course, I may be misremembering, and please correct me if I am. Are there even any worthwhile drops/chests that those jobs care about? It doesn't look like it.

Also, out of curiosity, will you be including Necrophobe in the ratings? That fight can basically be skipped by all classes if you fought Gilgamesh 4 right? Or skipped entirely if you don't care about getting that save point.

Another note, wow it really does seem like your Wind Crystal job is your most important one by far. Get Black Mage, Knight, or Blue Mage? You're safe. White Mage? Lots of trouble early game but a good roll on Water crystal will fix that.  Monk? Great earlygame, going to suck shit lategame ( 1/White Mage = Monk confirmed, please submit your thesis paper to your advisor so that you may defend it for your PHD in FF5ology). Thief? Cry and then cry some more.

[Reiska]

Yeah, to be clear, I can see having the extra gil stash in a casual run where you might have been grinding a job or two, but in the Fiesta setting I typically find myself just barely affording four pairs of sandals (and that's considering the fact that most fiestas see me grinding for Reflect Rings in Barrier Tower).  And as Zenny noted, a lot of fiesta teams/SCCs will go straight to the void after getting Lenna back because they have nothing to gain from the other tablet dungeons; Leviathan/Bahamut aren't really worth the pickup even if you DO have Summoner, you have little reason to do Fork Tower without WM or BM (though doesn't it unlock something else? I don't recall for sure), and the Fiesta team that needs more than, or even can USE more than, 3 legendary weapons is fairly rare.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Reiska: Well unless you dive straight into the final dungeon (which I'm generally not assuming), you'll collect a bunch more between when you buy stuff in Phantom Village and when you enter the final dungeon (doing any/all of Island Shrine, Fork Tower, Phoenix Tower, Waterfall, and the Great Trench). Finances can be pretty hard to predict depending on how much stuff you want to buy, how much stuff you're willing to sell, and of course how often you defeat enemies versus running from fights.

I think it's kind of an important note that unless your Wind Crystal job is either WM or BM, you have no reason whatsoever to do the Fork Tower, as nobody except those two can cast Flare/Holy. Which really doesn't give a pass at all to the Water/Fire/Earth jobs, but honestly including Omniscient in the rankings for Knight/Monk/Thief and Minotaur for Blue Mage in the context of a Fiesta (much less an SCC!) seems a little unfair in practice.

Well, Fork Tower is the prerequisite to two other dungeons (the Great Trench and the Waterfall, which require the submarine which Cid/Mid refurbish after you rescue them from Fork Tower), and the total amount of stuff stashed away in all three does add up to the point where a lot of fiestas would be interested in doing it. It's not uniform, though, so you're right that some parties might want to skip it, and you could certainly argue that some jobs maybe deserve a bonus for not relying on such things? Dunno. For reference, here's a summary of what each job gets out of Fork Tower:

Knight: Defender (Protect itemcast, also a 99 power weapon with the Main Gauche property), second Aegis Shield.
Monk: Kaiser Knuckles (which really aren't great unless you have another source of Haste because they kick out the Hermes Sandals)
Thief: Yeah, not much
White Mage: Holy
Black Mage: Flare, Wonder Wand (itemcasts Return... and also will cast every white/black spell in a fixed cycle which has some applications)
Blue Mage: Second Aegis Shield, Wonder Wand

Berserker: Titan's Axe (their strongest weapon by raw damage), second Aegis Shield
Mystic Knight: Flare/Holy Spellblade, second Enhancer (only lategame sword they can use), second Aegis Shield
Red Mage: Second Enhancer, Wonder Wand
Time Mage: Meteor, Wonder Wand
Summoner: Wonder Wand

Ninja: Not much, really
Geomancer: As above
Bard: As above... yeah the fire crystal jobs don't have much reason
Beastmaster: Access to Beast Killer rare steals, I suppose.
Ranger: Artemis Bow (one of the two strongest bows, hits weakness on certain species)

Samurai: Second Aegis Shield
Dragoon: Second Aegis Shield
Chemist: Not much
Dancer: Access to Man-Eater rare steals... it's their best weapon (you get one in the final dungeon too) but it's also annoying as fuck to get because it's a rare steal guarded by a common from a 23% encounter.

Everyone: A free Reflect Ring and Flame Ring, and a bunch of money/stuff to sell.

[Cotigo]

Okay yeah that list includes a lot more things than I remembered, and I forgot that Mystic Knight probably reaaaaally wants the last two spellblades.

Wait, Meteor is locked behind the Fork Tower? How exactly do you get that again? I don't really remember.

[Dark Holy Elf]

You get it when you obtain the tablet found in the Great Trench, which requires the submarine, which requires you to rescue Cid and Mid who are trapped underneath Fork Tower.

[SnowFire]

For Calofisteri, for whatever it's worth, while I kind of like the "YOU ARE FF5 EXPERT" angle to make rankings consistent & more objective, if a boss goes completely haywire to a certain strat, I think it's legit to bake in some amount of not knowing what's going on.  After all, if Reflect Ring = win, then all classes sorta tie under the expertise assumption, so might as well assume you're going in blind and not cheesing the fight to have a useful ranking at all.

For Red Mage & Dualcast hype vs. Apanda - wait, is Dualcast really questionable at this point?  In a normal casual run, perhaps, because you've been doing lots of swapping of classes.  In some kind of Talaysen-approved LLG of a Fiesta, sure.  But...  in a Fiesta, will you really be missing Dualcast this late?  And certainly in a solo-class challenge which this seems to be assuming, you should absolutely have it.  Am I forgetting something about the skill curve of FF5?  I certainly had X-Magic by World 3 in my totally casual, build up lots of classes run of FF5, and didn't feel I was particularly grinding for it...  it's slow to get, yes, but not THAT slow.  (Of course, I'd assume you do all the optional subquests before the final dungeon, too, which might account for a little bit of the difference - doing the Trench and so on.  But not that much?)

[Reiska]

You'll have Dualcast for sure if you've done Phoenix Tower.  You might not if you didn't.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'd generally agree that you have Dualcast then, yeah, but I've read about enough playthroughs where people don't (due to running a lot and/or beelining to the final dungeon) that I felt it was at least worth a mention.

I did find a way to tiebreak Calostiferi pretty well! I mean if nothing else, you might not have that Reflect Ring, so yeah reflecting the non-cheese strategies felt easy enough.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Azulmagia is optional; he guards a save point. However, the idea of having to go all the way back to the first third of the final dungeon if you lose in the last area probably isn't a very tempting one for all but the most confident of players, so he will generally be fought. Besides, he's a bit of a wuss, unless your level is divisible by 5. If your level is divisible by 5, you should either bring a lot of offence (by being from the top ~9 jobs on the list at the bottom of this post) or go muck around in this section of the dungeon until your level is one higher, because seriously Level 5 Death is bullshit.

Azulmagia

He has a huge skillset which makes him very random. He'll run a six-turn cycle, going through 18 blue magic spells 1/3 of the time each. Most of these aren't too scary; the most notable are Doom/Roulette/Level 2 Old on turn 2, Level 5 Death/Mighty Guard on turn 3, (the damage = missing HP spell) on turn 4, and White Wind on turn 6. He doesn't have Moon Flute, Vampire, Aeroga, or Aqua Breath which would have been potentially bad for the party.

Otherwise, he's notable mostly for high magic defence which slows down some forms of offence pretty significantly. His physical defence is above average too, but not exceptional. He's noteworthy for being a rare boss with no meaningful status holes (just blind, but he has no physical).


Knight takes this guy out in three rounds. So y'know, he gets one turn. With which the only remotely scary thing he can do is Dark Spark. He miight live to turn 2 but it won't really matter if he does.

Monk probably takes him out with about four rounds of Focus, which is before his fourth turn (depends a bit on evade luck). It's possible some of his actions might buy him some more time, and Roulette or a turn 4 can kill, but even with his ability to destroy monk damage via level reduction it probably won't be enough to get him to turn 6 and the healing.

Thief, now, their offence is bad; the defence slows them down to the point where they need 12 rounds of solid attacking. So yeah they have to potentially deal with anything in his skillset, maybe forcing some revival and healing, and Level 2 Old if they're vulnerable is a serious pain. It... says something about how little offence Azulmagia has that even then I doubt Thieves will need to use more than one Phoenix Down and a few Hi-Potions.

Dragoon needs about 10 rounds of straight attacks. They can Jump to avoid some key ones if they want, but this only speeds up things like seeing White Wind so I dunno. They do have Aegis Shields which Monk lacks but I think their offence is too much worse for this to matter.

Ninja needs 4-5 rounds of attacking, or they can throw things to speed this up... but there's little compelling reason to do that. So Azulmagia gets two turns and maybe Roulettes someone but that's about it.

Samurai can throw money but this guy is a loser, so no, physical attacks it is. 6-7 rounds does it, so maybe Azulmagia lives to turn 4 and maybe not. Similar to Monk, but they fear delevelling less and have the Aegis Shields to block some things.

Berserker needs about 5 rounds! They can't stop to heal but they don't really have to since this guy doesn't use much damage, just means that a Roulette kill is something that slows them down. So again they kill before the fourth turn, probably, and have Aegis Shields. The inability to revive drops them a bit below Samurai/Monk who have similar offence, but probably no further. Nice to have a boss against whom their victory is nearly certain.

Ranger needs three rounds and is ITE. Like Knight but more reliable.

Mystic Knight has Bio Spellblade, since this guy is, rather randomly, weak to poison! Use that, then six attacks win it, which will happen before his second turn unless he has loads of evade luck. Pretty much identical to Knight actually, but with shields I guess.

Beastmaster physical attacks are pretty wretched here, and there's no weakness for them to exploit. They can catch Ninjas and Dragon Aevises (the game spams both at you in the area between Apanda and this guy) and relase them for a quarter of the boss's HP or more, so that keeps them from the lower ranks. But against higher-offence (even Samurai/Monk-level), all these really save them is like, one Phoenix Down or so, which isn't enough.

White Mage kills in three rounds and mocks the first turn. Black Mage has Bio to hit a weakness with (hits harder than Flare or boosted Holy), so pretty much the same deal. Time Mage's Meteor also usually kills in three rounds, though of course it's a bit random; they need to do at least 75% of their average damage over 12 attempts. Usually works! Better than the evade-subject I imagine, especially since TM can always use Return/Quick for an extra push. Summoner also kills in three rounds (as long as they're Level 35 or have Odin). See Ranger for all of these. I give Ranger a slight nod due to not needing MP I suppose, but the gaps here are small.

Blue Mage doesn't have the offence, but they do have the hilarity. Azulmagia can learn a few blue spells he doesn't yet know, and once he does, will spam that at you for a few turns. On the list is Self-Destruct: use it on him and he'll use it on you. A bad idea when he's outnumbered! Two people miss out on AP. You can use Level 3 Flare to kill him faster, though this also causes him to learn the ability and he'll destroy you if your level is divisible by 3 so either make sure it isn't or teach him something else right before his turn (1000 Needles or Aqua Breath are the safest; Mighty Guard can soften the latter). Blue Mages can also kill him in four rounds with Aeroga so they'll face down a Roulette this way. So they're in the same boat as MK/Knight/Ninja where the worst-case scenario is one person dying, and there are clever ways to outdo that.

Red Mage's spells barely scratch Azulmagia and he nulls all their status and laughs at their Protect. So they're stuck using a physical game which betters Thief's but not much more; they'll kill in about 10 rounds, similar to Dragoon. Raise saves on Phoenix Downs I suppose.

Chemist can slowly clobber him to death with Morning Stars, reviving people after an unlucky Doom/Roulette/??? and healing Level 2 Old (if necessary) using Recover. This will need around 18 rounds if nothing slows them down, or about 10 Azulmagia turns. This... still doesn't use that many Phoenix Downs.

Geomancer's Gaia either hits magic defence or tries to use gravity here; both are a rather bad idea. So it's Geomancer physicals! Obviously loses to Thief, gross.

Bard isn't much better; the Apollo Harp is out, as is status, so they're killing this guy with their knives. Buffing level/strength will probably pull them past Geomancer but probably not Thief.

Dancer can Sword Dance away, at least this pierces defence and evade nicely. It's a coinfip as always, but around 5-6 rounds should do it, which slides them nicely into the gap between Ninja and Samurai. Which is good enough for the top half for the first time ever, and before they even get their hands on the Man-Eater, too!

1. Ranger
2. Black Mage
3. White Mage
4. Time Mage
5. Summoner
6. Blue Mage
7. Mystic Knight
8. Knight
9. Ninja
10. Dancer
11. Samurai
12. Monk
13. Beastmaster
14. Red Mage
15. Berserker
16. Dragoon
17. Chemist
18. Thief
19. Bard
20. Geomancer

[Dark Holy Elf]

Catastrophe

Catastrophe is the owner of one of the strongest multitarget attacks in the game: an Earth Shaker which he can use every turn (2/3 chance) and does over 1000 damage (or a bit less to mages), 2HKOing most and even threatening OHKOs against the frail at some levels. This would be nasty as fuck if you didn't have Auto-Haste; as is you can kill him before his second turn or use a few other tactics. He also sometimes mixes in Demon Eye (petrify) or physicals. Like the other final dungeon bosses so far he has decent defences (this time mostly physical) and evasion.

He also really doesn't like Float, but aside from the three jobs who have direct access to that, the other way to get Float (confusing a Gaelicat) isn't really practical to keep so far into this dungeon, since any death or tent/cottage use removes it.


Knight will usually kill in three rounds. Around 8 hits, 85% chance for each. Three rounds is what they get before Catastrophe's second turn, so they're probably fine.

Monk is another matter. Against Catastrophe's defence they're going to need around 7 rounds, which gives him four turns, plenty of time to destroy Monks even if they can survive two Earth Shakers with HP+30%. Hi-Potions don't cut it here any more, Elixirs it may have to be.

Thief... oh no. Can you say 13 rounds? While being solidly 2HKOed MT? This is terrifying.

Dragoon can try Jump shenanigans but Catastrophe isn't Titan and Earth Shaker is permanently a nasty threat. They need 5 rounds and that's bad, since unlike Monk they can't rely on tanking two Earth Shakers, and they'll have trouble outracing even his third turn.

Ninja needs 5 rounds too, which is also very bad, though at least they are faster so they should beat his third turn. Of course, they can pull out some throws to speed this up. 12 Shuriken (30000 gil) will drop Catastrophe safely, and that's cheaper than pulling out Elixirs certainly. They can also mix in some other powerful weapons they may have lying around, though we'll see how many other bosses they'll want those for.

Samurai's in a tough spot. Catastrophe's defence is too high for Zeninage to be effective, it'll struggle to break 4 digits. Their physicals kill in six rounds. They can go for some Murasame or even Murakumo rare-steals but those are super-annoying to get (guarded by commons) and this is one of the only places left they actually meaningfully help, since nothing else left has defence this high. And they still only make it like... 4-5 rounds.

Berserker's damage piercing defence is good! They might even have the raw HP to avoid a 2HKO, though probably not. They'll win in four rounds (often five) and can't retreat to Elixirs, meaning they face 2-3 Catastrophe turns so this will take resets if they get greeted by two Earth Shakers in that time. I think I'd rather eat resets than deal with all the elixirs Thief has to eat.

Ranger has an ITE/ITD blitz which kills very easily before Catastrophe's second turn. They've definitely turned into a top-tier class for lategame bosses.

Mystic Knight doesn't have a weakness to exploit here. They can use Flare Spellblade and kill in about three rounds plus the initial setup round, unfortunately they can't outrace the second turn unless they land every single hit. They can try to get through this with Drain Spellblade but it doesn't work very well since Catastrophe's high defence and evade really put a huge damper on it.

Releases look good for Beastmaster here, given that this is a boss who certanly justifies them. Sword Dancers are the common enemy here and take off a third of Catastrophe's HP; get three of them and you win! Since catch is probably what they'll want to do to get through some of these enemies anyway on the way here, though if they threw some against Azulmagia they'll need to restock which is more annoying. Some of their whips can also briefly paralyze Catastrophe, which is fun.

White Mage kills in two rounds with Holy. Black Mage kills in two rounds with Flare. Summoner kills in two rounds with Syldra. White Mage gets an extra bonus that at lower levels, Shell allows them to survive Earth Shaker (Ranger gets OHKOed at Level 33 or below, for instance; the mages at 31).

Time Mage uses Float, and laughs. Catastrophe is smart enough to dispel it in response, but that still eats its turns. At this point it no longer matters what offence they use. Oh and they can Slow/Old him, if you care, though his level and MEvade makes that a pain. Best, of course.

Blue Mage also has Float, in the form of Mighty Guard. Of course it also puts them in Shell, which reduces his damage to crap even on his subsequent turns. Aeroga three-rounds him anyway (even allowing the turn on Mighty Guard) so most of this is just useless; if they don't have Mighty Guard they'll still outslug; they even have better durability than the other mages and Ranger.

Red Mage obviously is in a tougher spot. Offence isn't very good here, certainly. But wait! Two shots of Doublecast Cura can actually erase Catastrophe's damage. Doublecast Fira isn't too bad against his lower MDef, either; 17 or so shots of that will be enough. 34 Firas and about half that many Curas will see them through this fight. This consumes under 500 MP before considering any Gold Hairpins. Should be fine, at lower levels they might in slight risk of using an Elixir, or maybe being OHKOed by high variance at levels as high as 34.

Chemist can mix Levisalve, it takes only one floating PC to make Catastrophe use 100 Gs. They need around 66 attacks to win and probably around 11 Levisalves to live long enough to get them (cost: around 1000 gil, dirt cheap really). Or they can employ the comedy option: mix Levisalve but once on someone with a Reflect Ring, and watch Catastrophe do nothing but reflect 100 Gs off the person with it. Oops! So yeah the gil cost is tiny and this works at any level, although White Mage's works at any level I'd ever consider, so that's how high Chemist goes!

Geomancer will need around 10 rounds to kill with Gaia; it wastes nearly half its turns on gravity, but those it doesn't will accomplish something at least, and it's better than trying their puny physicals here. Anyway this is terrible, kinda like Thief.

Bard, um. The status is out and their HP is, well, Bard HP. They can be OHKOed at Level 35 or below. They need to use Elixirs to make progress after each Earth Shaker. If they get enough Speed Song up they might be able to get away with just Hi-Potions, so that's their goal, and I suppose it's something that say, Thief or Geomancer can't do. But while the song is going on they're down a healer, so honestly yeah they're even worse.

Dancer needs 4-5 rounds of attacks on average, though they could get really lucky and only need 3, which would be nice! They don't reliably prevent the second Earth Shaker and get exploded as a result. Hell, even one is bad news, since like Bard they need to be Level 36 to reliably avoid a OHKO (and yes, that's with equipping for MDef). This puts them in a similar space to Dragoon, and I think the level requirement hurts more than the slightly better offence helps.

1. Time Mage
2. Blue Mage
3. White Mage
4. Chemist
5. Summoner
6. Black Mage
7. Ranger
8. Knight
9. Red Mage
10. Beastmaster
11. Ninja
12. Mystic Knight
13. Monk
14. Samurai
15. Dragoon
16. Dancer
17. Berserker
18. Geomancer
19. Thief
20. Bard

[Dark Holy Elf]

Halicarnassus

THE KING can do 9000 damage with Holy. What a badass!

He also only does it on turn 8. On turn 1 he'll turn the entire party into frogs (unless you frog yourself before the battle, then he'll heal them instead; at worst, though, you use four Maiden's Kisses and carry on). On all other turns he'll use either weak physicals or Reverse Polarity (even turns only), with a 1/3 chance of Haste on turn 5. After turn 8 he repeats the cycle.

With no evade and lower defences than most final dungeon bosses he isn't even living long enough to do his one good damage move, never mind it's not that hard to recover from if he does. Well whatever, let's get this over with.


Knight: Kills in three rounds at most, mocks any physicals in the meantime.
Monk: Kills in five or six rounds, maybe less with Focus. Isn't dying to physicals before then.

Thief: Kills in like nine rounds or so. This gives him time for... four, maybe five physical attacks? Not enough time to get a Holy off, but if he focuses on one PC a bunch he MAY force a Hi-Potion use.
Dragoon: Kills in like eight rounds or so, more durable than Thief.

Ninja: Kills in three rounds, has Image if it matters (it doesn't).
Samurai: Kills in six rounds, mocks physicals in general. Zeninage kills in two rounds but why bother, right?

Berserker: Okay, here's the one job that has issues here, because they get wrecked by toad! Once THE KING transforms them back, though, they will start to hurt him pretty bad, killing him in five rounds, potentially. If he hastes himself in the first cycle he might do okay and maybe has a chance? Alternatively, they can try to get a Fury (common random in this area) to toad one or more of them before the boss, though since they're berserkers such finesse isn't really their forte.

Ranger: Kills in three rounds.
Mystic Knight: Kills in a total of five rounds, with shields and durability blah blah blah.

White Mage: Kills in three rounds.
Black Mage: Can Toad themselves before the fight if they wish. Kills in three rounds.
Time Mage: Kills in two rounds. Potentially one with Quick I suppose.

Summoner: Okay Halicarnassus has this thing where he counters offensive summons with a OHKO move. Too bad Golem stops it, so you alternate Golem with Syldras (10 should do it) until he dies.

Blue Mage: Could Toad themselves before the fight but that's more trouble than it's worth since it has to be done in battle, kills in four rounds.
Red Mage: Can Toad themselves before the fight. Kills in eight rounds with either Enhancer or Dualcast Fira, maybe if he focuses on one front-row PC he can make them heal... with Cura...
Beastmaster: Kills in eight rounds. Can release stuff if they want to speed this along, but it probably won't be necessary.

Chemist: Kills in about 20 rounds. That means Halicarnassus lives long enough to get off a Holy! DRAWS A PHOENIX DOWN OR SOMETHING MORE VALUABLE YESSSS unless he hits a Reflect Ring or something shut up.
Geomancer: Kills in about 13 rounds. Might well see Holy.
Bard: Kills in about 17 rounds, might be able to change this slightly via Sing, I dunno. Will almost certainly see one Holy.

Dancer: Kills in about five rounds. Probably not even focused physicals take them down, their defence is decent.


Another boss too terrible to bother with a formal rating. Berserker is the worst, Chemist/Geomancer/Bard might use a Phoenix Down, Thief might use a Hi-Potion or two, Summoner uh has to use a fair amount of MP I suppose. Everyone else cruises. When Thief is "they might have to use a Hi-Potion" against you, you know you suck.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Twintania

After a run of bosses who could be taken down with simple slugging with little issue (and Catastrophe, who at least required you to be good at it), Twintania can come as a bit of a rude surprise. He spams multitarget damage at you; the first two turns are either Ice Storm (~700 ice magic) or Atomic Ray (~320 fire magic) or a physical attack (~900 to the front row). Then you face a MT Mind Blast (~320 + some HP leak, paralyzes for just over one of his turns if you aren't using Hermes Sandals), then two turns of Wind Slash (~220). Much more dangerous are his brutal counters, used 1/3 of the time: Tidal Wave against physicals (~1000 MT water magic) and Mega Flare against magic (~1200 MT non-elemental reflectable magic). Those hurt! They probably won't OHKO but they can kill when combined with Twintania's own turn, or if you see two in a row.

He's weak to holy and water, but he's hard to blitz down with 50000 HP, and those counters are really nasty unless you have a way to deal with them. Coral Rings do exist to absorb water and provide fighters with an out, but of course they mean giving up haste and immunity to Mind Blast (you have one from a chest, more are really expensive).

The most important part, though, lies in what comes next. On his sixth turn, he'll secretly change forms; this form is faster than most hasted characters. The next turn it will announce that it is charging for Giga Flare, and the turn after that you will see, as promised, Giga Flare: over 3000 points of searing multitarget, non-elemental, unreflectable damage. Have a nice day!

This form provides a death sentence for many parties... but also for Twinania himself. See as soon as he changes forms, he gains the following vulnerabilities: instant death (both the heavy-type checking variety and the vanilla kind), petrify, toad (he'll recover when he transforms back, but this prevents Giga Flare), and stop (lasts a long time, since he's not heavy any more). He also becomes vulnerable to gravity and loses all his defences/magic evasion, so you can easily land whatever you want. And best of all, there are no counters. So one option is to wait until he adopts this form, then to unleash either some extreme violence or shady status attacks (the Assassin's Dagger provides an option for almost everyone; so does the Magic Lamp, for all that you want it for the final battle, and really don't want to leave the dungeon and come back in order to recharge it) in the time provided. Of course if you don't deal with him during this brief window, you'll probably be dead.


Knight can kill in three rounds, but those counters are an issue. If they equip for Coral Rings, though, they're... probably fine, since as long as they trigger one Tidal Wave per round (80% chance) they'll be fully healed, and even if they don't that might be okay depending on what moves Twintania uses (e.g. not Ice Storm). They hit him twice, get paralyzed, but recover fast enough to finish him before Giga Flare. Alternatively, if they don't have Coral Rings, they try for the Assassin's Dagger. They'll get in two shots (if they can figure out when he changes forms; the ATB gauges freeze for an instant when he does), each at 22.5% or so. That's... definitely not very good, but an option if Coral Rings aren't on the table. They can also equip Aegis Shields and hope to survive Giga Flare that way, it at least gives them another chance though burns a bunch of items.

Monk... argh. No Assassin Dagger. With the Coral Ring, outracing Giga Flare is hopeless. They do have a lot of HP to soak Twintania's attacks, but... argh, they even trigger two counters. The number of Elixirs they'd need to heal through all that is ludicrous, since they'll trigger around 11 counters in order to win (yes, even with Focus), and they'll use at least two elixirs per counter. They can also just flip the table and summon Odin, and redo the damn dungeon. Or grind to Level 42 where they can survive Giga Flare with HP+30%, at which point a Coral Ring strategy should see them through the rest of what he does. To be clear I consider both of these worse than going for Assassin's Dagger resets, but you could argue that.

Thief doesn't have Monk's HP or even damage so Assassin's Dagger is their only hope. If they time things well they might be fast enough to get off three attempts, which is nice.

Dragoon has Jump! So just use that when he charges. Holy Lance Jump even hurts a lot, which is cool. Otherwise they can use Flame/Ice Shields to try to reduce his normal damage. They'll still need to go through a bunch of Hi-Potions, unless they Coral Ring it.

Ninja, like Thief, might also be able to squeeze in three Assassin's Dagger hits, though they have a harder time doing so. Coral Rings... should let them just barely outrace Giga Flare, but it'll be a close thing (they can always throw things if they need to). Very close to Knight overall, a bit better at asssassination and a bit worse at blitzing? Fitting. Tiebreak for Knight since they can survive a failed assassination with the Aegis Shield at least.

Samurai gets to pull out a new trick: Iainuki! This instant death move will have around 95% accuracy and all four can use it. Goodbye! All they need to do is live long enough to use it, and with Flame/Ice Shields this is easy.

BER SER KER has four instant death weapons! Four times the chances for instant death! Well maybe, their bad speed and inability to wait means they'll probably only get four chances. They also absolutely need Coral Rings, because they can't avoid triggering counters. Is needing to buy Coral Rings worth the slightly higher chance to land instant death? Eh... they can use an Aegis Shield, so sure.

Ranger can hit weakness with the Artemis Bow so has Knight-level blitzing (as usual, Coral Rings required). They're also pretty good at assassinating: Killer Bows with Rapidfire have a 28% ID rate, and they can run four and get 2-3 shots with each, which is over a 90% chance of winning.

Mystic Knight is a lot like Samurai, use shields and so on to survive, then instagib Twintania when it charges, with either Break or Holy Spellblade. They have slightly less HP but their status is faster and even more accurate; you MIGHT mistime a Iainuki since it has a charge time, I guess.

Beastmaster physicals aren't great even though Beast Killer hits weakness, so forget the Coral Ring strategy. The perfect catch here is an Orukat; its Demon Eye has a 100% chance to petrify, so having one means you win. This is a bit of a backtrack, though, (they're fought before Apanda) unless you grabbed one and kept it patiently until now. Otherwise they can do the usual instant death thing with Assassin's Dagger.


The mages can't use Coral Rings, but on the other hand they don't really need to. To start with White Mage... Holy strikes a weakness. They can either two-round the second form and avoid counters that way (though they'd better time this right), or they can set up Reflect/Shell to just survive any Megaflare counters easily enough. Not like they don't have Curaga ready to go anyway; they could get by without either buff if they wanted.

Black Mage doesn't have the defensive tools, so they'll need to wait and then Death him. They get ~8 shots at ~90% accuracy so yeah that's a win. Compared to Mystic Knight or Samurai they might actually have to use some Hi-Potions to survive the first form.

Time Mage has Stop, so once Twintania changes forms they can use that to lock him down entirely while waiting for ~60% Banish to carry him away (or just damage if you prefer; Stop is 100% and thus total annihilation here). They have no trouble living long enough, either; they can Slow Twintania and use the ol' Healing Staff to turtle through his attacks even he chooses the good ones.

Summoner can use Catoblepas or Odin to send the charging form packing. Carbuncle also allows them to attack and bounce Megaflares (it also bounces Atomic Ray and Mindblast, though Ice Storm still presents a threat); Leviathan strikes a weakness and kills in 9 shots. If they don't have Carbuncle they're no better than Black Mage; if they don't have any of the optional summons they're kinda screwed (beyond the usual Assassin's Dagger strats) but that's not very realistic.

Blue Mage can use Level 5 Death to send the second form packing. If they don't have it, Pond's Chorus or Death Claw both work nicely as well. With White Wind and/or Mighty Guard they can easily turtle through the early stages.

Red Mage doesn't have the good healing or buffs of White, nor the fatal status of Black... but they do have Toad! It's 90% accurate and thus easily suffices to control Twintania's Gigaflare; meanwhile, their Dualcast Cura and Healing Staff should keep them afloat through his own turns. They can use the Assassin's Dagger to try to finish him off once Toad has landed; even if it fails one cycle, they can survive to try again on the next.

A round of Goliath Tonics lets Chemist survive the opening rounds easily... and in fact, can even let them tank a Giga Flare at Level 39 or above! Of course recovering from one isn't exactly a pretty thing to do (the X-Potion mix, which consumes an Ether, will probably be called for if they go that route) but they only need to do this if they're trying to survive after failing to land the Assasin's Dagger. If they'd prefer, they can just toss a Dark Matter at Twintania in the form of a Death Potion. The options here make them safer than Ranger and those relying on the Assassin's Dagger or Coral Rings, at least.

Geomancer... Gaia is useless against the first stage, so they'll need to just turtle through it using Hi-Potions as necessary. Then they can try for Assassin's Dagger hits... but they have another trick here; everyone else can use Gaia and hope for the ~25% chance that they draw Twister, which will lower Twintania to 1-9 HP so the next hit kills. Overall this has about a 90% chance to work.

Bard is... actually kinda awesome here! They don't worry about surviving the first five turns; they just hide. Once those are over, they reappear, and use Stop. Like with Time Mage, this is total lockdown forever, until they land the Assassin's Dagger. So... to be clear, they're Time Mage, except with no risk whatsoever in the early stages of the fight instead of very little.

Dancer also gets to pull out one of their obtuse tricks: Flirt! Now with the endgame Dancer equipment, it's 100% accurate, and locks down the non-heavy Twintania form forever, or, again, until the Assassin's Dagger can finish him off. There isn't even the risk of mistiming it! They only issue is that Dancer needs to actually heal and such through the first few forms; more than Black Mage does even, since their HP sucks.



Ninja in 16th! Bard and Dancer both in the top half! Don't see that every day. Also behold, the final time Berserker isn't a raging dumpster fire of Tide-approved trainwreck.

1. White Mage
2. Mystic Knight
3. Blue Mage
4. Bard
5. Time Mage
6. Summoner
7. Red Mage
8. Samurai
9. Black Mage
10. Dancer
11. Chemist
12. Ranger
13. Geomancer
14. Dragoon
15. Knight
16. Ninja
17. Beastmaster
18. Berserker
19. Thief
20. Monk

[Dark Holy Elf]

Another optional boss; this one guards the save point right before the final boss. If you're confident in your lumberjacking skills, it's reasonable to skip this one, but again, I suspect enough players/teams will want to fight him anyway

Necrophobe

Necrophobe begins the battle invincible, protected by four barriers (two in the front row and two in the back, behind him). Necrophobe doens't act, but the barriers do. They're slow (the fastest jobs will tripleturn them with haste) but they have a fair bit of offence; they'll reflect Flare/Holy off themselves for around ~1000 damage, then reflect -aga spells off their whole team for 1 to 4 hits of around ~360 to random PCs. Of course there are as many actions as there are living barriers, so this can add up to quite a bit!

The barriers are reflective but have a few status holes and not THAT much HP, so they can be cut down. By the time one is left it isn't very threatening. Kill them all and then Necrophobe becomes vulnerable on his next turn, using Flash to try to blind the team.

For the rest of the fight, he'll doubleact, usually using relatively competent physicals (~1200 to the front row). 1/3 of the actions will be something stronger: usually Vacuum Wave (~2000 physical), but sometimes Death or Hurricane (sets HP to critical; only used as the first action first). It's a fair bit of offence, but mostly physical. He has excellent defences (ties Calostiferi for the highest of the final dungeon bosses) but he's weak to all elements, so most jobs have a way of punching through them (remember, almost everyone can use the Air Knife at worst). He has 44000 HP, though if you fought Gilgamesh way back in Exdeath's Castle, everyone's favourite comic relief villain will interrupt the battle with 10000 HP left to go, triggering a plot fight which ends in Necrophobe's death.


Knights can take out barriers in about three hits, so they can have one dead before their first turn, and three gone before their second, which will therefore be pretty harmless. If they wish they can even use this window to buff themselves with the Defender, greatly softening Necrophobe's physical game. Once he drops his barrier, they'll need to cure blind, but then just two rounds of attacks should send him packing, since they hit weakness with the Excalibur and any Flametongues/Ice Brands they have lying around. So Necrophobe gets all of one real turn; he could kill with a Hurricane/physical combo (1/12 chance roughly) but nothing else should do it.

Monks can also kill off one barrier before it gets a turn, and have enough HP to soak the Flares/Holy spells reasonably well. Their offence isn't as good as Knight, though, so they aren't as good at cutting them down from there, and will need some Hi-Potions or Elixirs to deal with what's coming their way. In the main Necrophobe fight, however, they have loads of problems. Their damage is poor, non-elemental, and front-row based, and they don't have access to Protect, so Necrophobe can do quite a lot of damage to them. They'll need about 10 rounds or so to deal with him.

Thief is completely wretched. They can't even kill one barrier before they start attacking (despite potentially tripleturning them), so that'll immediately force some heavy revival and healing. And then Necrophobe will take 8 rounds or so to bring down, from the front row (with Air Knives), where he doubleacts and 2HKOs them, or OHKOs with Vaccum Wave. Yeesh.

Dragoon... the barriers are so slow that they can probably avoid a lot of what they do with Jump, but even if they don't they can do respectably enough in this phase, if worse than Knight certainly. Against Necrophobe they just use Air Knives (and the only Holy Lance owns) and can kill in three rounds of Jump from the back row (and they don't care about blind).

Ninjas need around five hits to take out the barriers, but with a possible tripleturn they'll likely have two dead in round 1 anyway, so they compare well with Knight here. The Image status largely mocks Necrophobe proper, as only Death can go through that and he won't likely live long enough to use it (it's turn 4), while Dual Air Knives do their thing.

Samurais... getting one barrier down for them on round 1 is difficult, but possible (depends on criticals), and so on from there. At least they have Aegis/elemental shields, those help. They can also throw money at the barriers, killing them all immediately, but this does cost 30000 gil. Their huge amount of evasion will mostly see them through the Necrophobe stage as they Air Knife him to death over 5-6 rounds, but it's not a sure thing by any means. Compared to Dragoon... the Zeninage option is at least one to consider, and the evade helps make up for Dragoon's other advantages some, though it is close.

Ranger is up against many targets, and can't gun them down that reliably due to how Rapid Fire works (and the invincible Necrophobe is still a target for that, making it slightly worse). It's a tough choice whether to go for raw damage or Killer Bow (8% ID per hit). It'll probably take around 4 rounds to kill all the barriers, but the risk is that the damage unfocuses and they all get turns, taking huge chunks out of the party's HP. With instant death, they have about a 65% chance to land at least one instant death for every round of attacks, and they get 2-3, so overall that's an 88%/96% chance to take out at least one, but it gets harder and harder to instant death the remaining ones with time. Probably still the better move? Against Necrophobe, they need just three rounds and don't need to heal blind, so he gets just one turn against back row targets. Oh yeah and if they want they can blind him, the Dark Bow has about a 99% chance to do so.

Mystic Knight activates Break Spellblade, and says goodbye to all four barriers immediately. Alternatively, they kill three and then spend time changing over to any elemental spellblade so they're ready to immediately heal blind and start smashing Necrophobe, giving him just one turn, which against their shields isn't likely to kill, though conceivably could (Vacuum Wave is close to a OHKO depending on level, and two physicals would do it if both hit the same person). So their mastery over the second stage isn't as complete as Knight or Ninja, but they make up for it with how ruthlessly they take out the first phase.

Beastmaster hates the first stage of the fight, because their two best weapons (Fire Lash and Assassin's Dagger) both have added spells which they reflect and are thus really bad news. So their normal offence against the barriers is.. sub-Thief, meaning they get wrecked. They probably want to pull out four Dragon Aevises, which do 4HKO MT and thus kill off all the barriers immediately. This works very well; the problem is that there's a small trek after Twintania to pick them up, and a much larger one if they want to restock before fighting Neo Exdeath (spoilers: they do). So this is a pretty large opportunity cost. Against Necrophobe, the Fire Lash becomes a good thing again, as do Air Knives; they'll need around five rounds, though, and Necrophobe can certainly bash them around a bunch in the meantime. So they're the worst of the jobs so far except Thief in the first phase (due to the cost), and decidedly below average in the second, too.

White Mage isn't a fan of Reflect, but it's not a big deal. They can reflect one of their own and bounce Holy off though it's rather unreliable and leaves them unable to heal that PC reliably (though bouncing MT Curaga off the barriers isn't bad at it). Shell's gonna be handy here, greatly reducing the danger of the barriers' offence; might as well start with that on everyone. Of course if the reflected PC does drop due to bad luck or healing being wonky, they have Arise. So... they have some many tools at their disposal that they're in little danger. Necrophobe himself won't even get a (non-Flash) turn, as Holy striking a weakness is Not Very Nice.

Black Mage also needs to get around Reflect, and they have to do it by bringing in a Reflect Ring, which means no Haste on one PC. Death will take the barriers down quite nicely, it works around 2/3 of the time (minus any bounces that hit Necrophobe instead) so chances are only one Barrier will survive to get a turn, not bad at all. (Two is a risk, though.) Again, once those go down, they wreck face; -aga spells hitting a weakness are brutal and even down a PC offensively Necrophobe isn't getting a turn.

Two rounds of Meteors should mostly if not entirely kill the barriers; Quick and Return exist as bailouts if somehow things really aren't going there way. Necrophobe himself eats focused Meteor. Due to his MDef he's much more likely to get a turn than he was against the other mages, but his targets are in the back row so he isn't killing them short of either a Hurricane or a Vacuum Wave in which both moves target the same PC and hit through Main Gauche/MEvade (~8% chnace).

Summoner mocks this whole "multiple reflective targets" thing and three Syldras take them all out. Then Necrophobe tells them to taste his power and they easily two-round him before he gets a non-Flash turn. Oh yeah and if you care, Golem completely wrecks him anyway. Total annihilation.

Blue Mage... Aqua Breath is their main tool to go through Reflect, but it's not all that damaging so they'll all get turns, which is bad. Mighty Guard can make those turns not very scary, though. Once it's just Necrophobe, boosted Aeroga does its thing and he likely doesn't get a turn. The biggest problem here is MP; the strategy outline costs around 682 before Gold Hairpins. Four of them certainly have that much, but considering they had to go through a dungeon to get here, it may require burning some Ethers. Also actually getting Mighty Guard. So this probably knocks them below Knight.

Red Mages do not like those barriers at all, they all get turns. Offence not super-different than Thief after factoring in speed. At least Dualcast/Raise/Cura gives them ways to recover, which is something other low-end jobs can't do here although it's still not that great. Against Necrophobe they can buff with Protect and then Dualcast -aras actually only give him two rounds, so that's pretty nice.

Chemist probably wants to send the barriers packing with Death Potions; one Dark Matter each will send them off, no fuss no muss. If they want to avoid using those it's... actually gonna be tough to do so efficiently, even if Chemists double their HP that's a lot of offence they have to deal with since they have no fast way to neutralise the barriers otherwise. So should probably just use Death Potions. Necrophobe isn't too scary with doubled HP and Protect; Hurricane is still kind of a threat, and he certainly might live long enough to use Death too, though, so it could draw a few Phoenix Downs and healing away certainly, especially since they need to be in the front row. They remind me a lot of Samurai (Zeninage vs Death Potions kinda similar, both have poor offence but decent defences in stage 2) but generally somewhat worse.

Bard's interesting. The barriers are vulnerable to Stop, so they can spam Romeo's Ballad. It's ~85% accurate and only has a short duration, but multiple uses still will all but eliminate their turns, and if the odd one does sneak through on occasion it's nothing regen and the odd Hi-Potion can't take care of. It's good that this works, because they can weaken the enemies only slowly. They can (and probably should) buff strength or level, because otherwise they'll also be quite poor against Necrophobe... but with maxed strength he gets only one non-Flash turn, likely.

Dancer... three Sword Dance procs will take out a barrier (maybe two if they're both from the Man-Eater, but they only have one of those probably), so three get first turns, then only one gets a second, barring maybe revival shenanigans round 1. Against Necrophobe they switch to Air Knife dances and he probably only gets one non-Flash turn, though they're front row with bad HP so this hurts them more than it hurts many other jobs.

Geomancer... can use Gaia and fish for a ~25% of 6HKO MT damage, otherwise nothing (gravity attempts). That... gives all the barriers at least two turns unless they're lucky, ew. But their physicals here are just terrible since Assassin's Dagger is out, the Gaia Bell randomly does nothing (and sucks). Only the Rune Chime will be remotely worth using, and that's a rare drop. Against Necrophobe they pull out Air Knives like everyone else. But they're much worse than Thief here, clearly the worst of any-


Oh. Wait. We forgot someone. Berserker can't switch weapons to deal with the two phases of the fight, so they either use Air Knives which suck against the Barriers (9HKO the front row, 19HKO the back) but do better against Necrophobe, or they stick to axes which are better against the barriers (5-6HKO the front, and the one Thor's Hammer does ignore row at least) but only six-round Necrophobe on a good day. Regardless, their inability to focus-fire is terrible, and ensures all the barriers get turns; in fact they probably need around 7 rounds to kill any of them and are too slow to even get a 7-3, meaning they face potentially two rounds of Holy/Flare and one of -aga spells which destroy them. And that's with axes.

And if they make it through THAT, Necrophobe uses Flash, which isn't the trivial issue for them it is for everyone else, since blind is actually awful here! The only ways to prevent it are Silver Specs (which kick out Haste) or Bone Mail (which makes the wearer weak to Holy... very bad in the first stage!). Bone Mail on an Air Knife user is probably the way to go, but this is still bad. Necrophobe's own offence can certainly pile on any berserkers who have survived this long fast. This is a slugfest they're not going to win very often so they can expect many resets, and to make matters worse it's very far from the last save point... and to make matters worse they absolutely must get this save point because somehow this isn't Berserker's worst fight in world 3.


1. Summoner
2. White Mage
3. Mystic Knight
4. Time Mage
5. Ninja
6. Black Mage
7. Knight
8. Blue Mage
9. Bard
10. Ranger
11. Samurai
12. Chemist
13. Dragoon
14. Red Mage
15. Dancer
16. Monk
17. Beastmaster
18. Thief
19. Geomancer
20. Berserker

[074]

It's worth noting that Holy Breath (damage = caster HP) hits weakness as normal, so offense isn't too bad as long as the Chemists have enough of a stock of Dragon Fangs to throw around, I think?  Doesn't hurt with doubled HP, at the very least.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, they could get through with about 5-6 Dragon Fangs, but that's a larger resource hit than the 0-3 Phoenix Downs I suspect they'd use just by hitting him with Air Knives, since nothing but very specific moves actually threatens them then.

[Tide]

Also behold, the final time Berserker isn't a raging dumpster fire of Tide-approved trainwreck.

I like how I am now synonymous with horrible, horrible fights that require some really obtuse method of winning. I blame RICHARD and Laggy-chan.

[hinode]

As bad as that Berserker vs Necrophobe fight is, it's still less of a trainwreck than the mobile/PC version where they will never target the two backrow Barriers and have to resort to the most convoluted FF5 strategy that I have ever heard of.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Exdeath / Neo Exdeath

Exdeath the tree is yon standard final dungeon boss. He has respectable defences and evasion backed up by solid HP, and the usual "above average speed if you aren't hasted, but really slow if you are". He has three phases; generally speaking he hits really hard against a single target. In all three phases, he can sometimes skip a turn, because Square went through some weird phase where they thought it was funny to have final bosses do this, or something.

The first phase will use physicals which do around 1500 to the front (less against high-def types) / 700 to the back, or White Hole. White Hole inflicts both death and petrify, so curing it involves at least two actions (and probably a third to heal them, unless the revival was full). Pretty nasty; blocked by Shell/MEvade, and can be immuned entirely if you null even one of its statuses, so Aegis Shield and Ribbon both work (so does Bone Mail, but you don't want that).

Once he loses 40% of his health, he'll start using Flare and Holy. These probably KO in a single hit, unless your HP is very high. (At normal levels, requires HP+30% or a buff.) He can only use those once every four turns, though, starting with the first turn he drops into this HP threshold. On every fourth turn in this threshold, he can also use Doom. Otherwise it's more physicals and White Hole.

Once he loses 80% of his health, he'll adopt a simple but dangerous AI: 1/3 chance of nothing, 1/3 chance of a physical, and 1/3 chance of Meteor, which does 4 very random hits and is very dangeorus. You don't want to leave him in this stage for long, unless you have Shell or doubled HP. When he dies, Neo Exdeath will appear (unless you killed him via a couple sneaky methods, which I will not be assuming).


Neo Exdeath has four parts; three in the front row, and one in the back. The one in the front mainly uses physical attacks, slightly weaker than Exdeath's. It will throw in Vacuum Wave as well, similar to Necrophobe. 1/9 of the time he'll skip a turn, 1/9 of the time he'll use Dispel (starting from its third turn).

The one in the back uses various singletarget spells, which generally do around 1200-1700 damage. Delta Attack does less, but inflicts petrify. Flare and Holy hit harder, but are rarer, used only 1/3 on turn 3/4 on every four turns thereafter. It can also use physical attacks (same as the other part's, except that this one is in the back row) and Dispel, the latter being rare. Most of this doesn't matter, because this part is Heavy, which gives it a host of terrible status holes, the most easily exploitable of which is Odin. Cast from the Magic Lamp, Odin will always destroy the back part; the Summon version won't work until all other parts are dead. Since Neo Exdeath is more threatening than Twintania for most parties, they will want to save the Magic Lamp just for this.


Since the above two parts are entirely singletarget and one is easily dispatched, most challenge runs fear the middle two parts instead. First of all, the middle-top part has Grand Cross. It always hits, and has a random chance to infict one random FF5 status (HP-to-critical is an option as well). Four of these are blocked by Hermes Sandals. Lamia's Tiara, Aegis Shield, and various Genji equips can cover one or two more each. Ribbon makes this move a joke; only Zombie can sneak through then.

Anyway, this part is weird. Grand Cross will at base be used on turn 3, then every 7 turns thereafter. Once it drops below just over half of its HP, this changes to "turn 2, then every 8 turns thereafter" but restarts the timer from the beginning. Below one quarter HP, the timer starts again, once again for turn 2. If it survives for three more turns after this it has a 1/3 chance to use Meteor every 3 turns. The short of this is that with high offence, it's entirely possible to keep this part from getting a turn, as you can restart the timer several times and conceivably it will spend 4 turns doing nothing at all. Otherwise, though, you can expect to see the odd Grand Cross. Probably not many, but each one is potentially deadly if you lack Ribbons.


Finally there is the bottom-middle part. Just as the top-middle part (almost) only uses Grand Cross, this part only uses Almagest. Almagest is straightforward, boring, but very effective, especially against lower-HP characters. It does 1620 defence-ignoring damage to everyone (720 if you have Shell, though, which makes this move kind of suck). Aegis Shield gives you a chance to block it. No HP limit nonsense here; it's turn 2 then every 4 turns thereafter. Both Almagest and Grand Cross have (separate) visual indications starting the round before they are used, so you know when each is coming.


Neo Exdeath has one final trick, which mostly serves to punish anyone who tries to focus-fire down one part at a time, and reward people who blast away with multitarget (did Summon really need to be better, Square?). Once any part is alone it will use, on its next turn, Meteor/Almagest/Vacuum Wave doubleacted with Comet/Vacuum Wave. If it gets another turn after that, it will repeat this, only even more dangerous as now Meteor/Almagest (the most dangerous moves) can be used on both parts of the double. And it continues doing so from there. The moral of the story is to not leave any one part alive for long!


The broad strategy to get around this is to either kill all the parts at once with multitarget, or to gun down two of the parts, which will generally be the back part with the Magic Lamp + whichever of Almagest or Grand Cross the party fears more. The Magic Lamp can also call a few other useful things, notably Golem, Catoblepas (5% chance to target and petrify the Almagest part), and some multitarget damage, if desired. Then, spread out damage against the remaining two, so that they die around the same time. You can be crafty by attacking the one you know has acted more recently towards the end, if you wish.


On with the show! I'll be doing this one a bit differently, just using point form for broadly how each job does. I'll also show the construction of the list at the bottom by comparing each job to every job ranked before it.


Knight:
-Aegis Shields can protect from White Hole, though come at the cost of being two-handed.
-Defender can be used to cast Protect and reduce some damage taken, although you'll need to reset it if the character with it dies due to Flare/Holy, etc.
-If Knights go for all out offence and don't get killed, they should be able to kill the tree only giving it two turns. If they want to leave Aegis Shields on two PCs to increase their survivability, make this three. Pretty good.
-Knights survive Almagest at Level 36 or higher, though of course they'll want to pull out the Elixirs after it is used. They'll want to survive a second.
-They can kill the Grand Cross part before it gets an action without much difficulty; this should be their plan of action if they can survive Almagest.

Overall ranking: Nothing to compare to yet! Pretty good though.


Monk:
-With HP+30%, they can survive Flare/Holy, but have no recourse against White Hole and risk seeing Meteor.
-Focus is probably the way to go. A round of Focuses + a round of physicals will mean no chance of Meteor, and generally helps out their offence in the rest of the fight.
-They survive Almagest easily; at Level 34 without HP+30% (Level 29 with).
-Their offence is relatively poor. They might still be able to blitz out Grand Cross with a barrage of Focus, but probably not due to turns spent on other things like healing from Almagest and using the lamp.

Overall ranking; Below Knight


Thief
-They have no tricks or anything which helps them against anything Exdeath or Neo Exdeath can do.
-They need to be Level 41 to survive Almagest, higher than I'd generally assume. If they aren't, their only recourse is to fish for a 5% petrify kill from the Magic Lamp.
-There's remarkably little to say, they're predictably bad.

Overall ranking: Below Monk


Dragoon
-Aegis Shields protect them from White Hole.
-They're very anti-physical with back row, high defence, and shields, so the common physicals in this fight don't do much to them.
-IF they stole Dragon Lances from Crystal Dragon (a big if, since it's a rare steal guarded by a common), that can do a crapload of damage to the Grand Cross part. (It also helps their damage a lot in general.)
-Jump can avoid Almagest! Or Grand Cross. Both is possible, even, depending on how the turns line up. Dragoons can take Almagest at Level 37 or higher.
-Their biggest failing is their generally poor offence, and the fact that stopping to heal isn't very compatible with Jump's defences, since the attacks just focus on whoever stops to heal. They risk seeing Meteor from the tree, for instance.

Overall ranking: Between Knight and Monk. Knight's ability to blitz things trumps their survivability, but Monk's offence, while still better, isn't nearly enough better.


Ninja
-They're quite vulnerable to the tree, but with their speed they can recover from anything it does, and they blitz away the Meteor phase very, very well, via throw at worst (but physicals likely work too).
-Without blitzing they'll give the tree around four turns or so, certainly worse than Knight.
-They need to be Level 41 to survive Almagest. That's bad.
-But they can blitz down the Almagest part before it gets a turn! They just need to throw about 9 Fumas. Random high-power weapons they don't need can substitute well.

Overall ranking: They win relatively safely, but at great cost. No shield and needing either front row or even heavier costs (shuriken?) makes them very fragile and worse than the tanky shield-users. Worse than Dragoon, better than Monk.


Samurai
-It takes about 22 Zeninages to kill the tree (cost: 44000 gil), if they go that route. Elixirs cost 50000, though, as a reminder, so this isn't as bad as it sounds! Tree gets around three turns this way, so it's better than killing slow.
-They have Aegis Shields to protect from White Hole.
-They need only 19 Zeninages to kill Neo Exdeath! (Yes, the lower defence matters.) If Odin is summoned first so there are only 3 targets, this costs around 114000 gil.
-This doesn't quite blitz the Almagest part, but it certainly blitzes Grand Cross. They'll need to tank one Almagest. They need to be Level 36 or get lucky with Aegis Shields.

Overall ranking: Them vs Knight is interesting. Essentially, Samurai spends around 160000 gil to avoid one more Almagest. And also have more survivability due to back row and shields. I'll go with Knight, though, because Samurai performance falls notably with level. Higher than anyone else though.


Ranger
-If things go their way, the tree gets only two turns. As usual, they blitz solos well.
-Back row, but no protection from White Hole.
-Being unable to target Rapidfire suuucks against Neo Exdeath, it ensures that all three parts live a while. They'll definitely see Grand Cross and probably two Almagests (though one is possible if they get lucky).
-The Darkness Bow makes a mockery of Neo's physicals if they equip that for a moment! Funny at least.
-It should be mentioned that Rapidfire is EVEN WORSE here in SNES/PSX, where the parts which govern Neo Exdeath's visuals but don't take turns count as (invincible) targets.
-They can also try to specifically blitz the Almagest part (Artemis Bow hits weakness which helps), but they'll still always see one.
-They need to be Level 41 to survive the Almgest they'll definitely see. 5% petrify or grind there, there's no ninja-like blitz option.

Overall ranking: They're not enough better against the tree than Monk to justify how much worse they are against Neo. "Be level 41 or 95% chance to lose" is unacceptable. Better than Thief of course.


Mystic Knight
-Aegis Shields are cool; you know the drill. Front row less cool.
-Use Flare Sword then beat the tree down; he'll get three turns or so and they avoid Meteor.
-Against Neo Exdeath, glorious Break Spellblade instantly slays the Almagest part (overall cost 3 turns to set it, then set Flare again after).
-Even with all that, they can possibly blitz out Grand Cross as well! A bit dicy if they're alternating between it and the front for targeting, though.
-If they wish, they can focus all their energy on it and lock down the back with Silence Spellblade (Delta Attack is a slight worry, Aegis Shields help), killing it only after killing everything else. Not sure if this is worth it.

Overall ranking: Obvious best so far. No Almagest, solid offence/durability otherwise.


White Mage
-Protect/Shell make everything the tree does survivable. White Hole will hit only 35% of the time and can be dealt with by two spells: Arise and Esuna. (You'll need to reset buffs, but you still come out ahead on turns.)
-Shell makes Almagest a joke. Curaga easily heals it and then some.
-Grand Cross part gets blitzed real bad. It doesn't get one off.
-Um yeah this job laughs at this fight and has no weaknesses nor even significant costs. You can still lose but you have to very actively screw up; White Mages can probably even survive the limit phase indefinitely if they need. They literally tank Double Almagest.

Overall ranking: Um yeah, the best.


Black Mage
-If they blitz the first form it only gets two turns.
-As is the default for mages: they're in the back row to soften physicals, get OHKOed by Flare/Holy if they see it, and can only resist White Hole with MEvade (30-35%).
-Against Tree, they'll probably be OHKOed by Almagest (unless Level 42+), but they can stop it with Break. Break only has around a 10% chance to land, but they get ~16 chances to land it (minus any Magic Lamp turns). Overall this has around an 80% chance of success.
-If they beat that part they're probably in the clear; they may face one Grand Cross as well as they MT-blitz the last two parts down.
-Another option is that they can prep the Wonder Wand to cast Shell on one PC right before Almgest hits, though this does require a bunch of setup. That PC will survive and can work on reviving others, though it's a bit dicy.

Overall ranking: Usually they'll kill with Break. The times that they don't are a concern since that'll basically mean a reset! They're good otherwise, but I'll generally side with safe wins... so below Ninja (the lowest of the relatively safe jobs) but above Monk.


Time Mage
-With Quick they can very easily kill the tree before it gets two turns... in fact doing it in one round is quite possible!
-They can cast Return if the tree's only action is a fatal one if they wish. Almost nobody deals with the first form better.
-Unfortunately they hate Almagest with a passion. Their best bet is to use Old. If they land it within their first 2-3 rounds, then the Almagest caster will lose enough of its level such that its Almagest becomes survivable at Level 40. If they land it right as the fight begins they can survive it at Level 38. Old has a 13% chance to land, but with Quick they get two shots. Overall they have a 90+% chance to survive this way, as high as 97% or so depending on how the turns fall.
-Once Old has landed, the part can be mostly disregarded thereafter, as its speed drops a lot and any future Almagests it does get off will be puny.
-Again, they have the Wonder Wand option. Quick makes them better at recovering, too.
-Quick/Meteor is a decent enough blitz option. It falls just short of reliably killing all of Neo Exdeath's parts before Almagest gets fired, but will completely crush the battle otherwise; Grand Cross shouldn't be much of a concern.

Overall ranking: Basically Black Mage but better in every way? Their strategy actually borders on reliable so I'm willing to push them up a little further, maybe above Dragoon but below Knight/Samurai.


Summoner
-Their performance against the tree similar to Black Mage. The main edge they have here is Phoenix (potentially) which is full revival and even restores MP, so easier to recover from any fatal hits or White Holes.
-Carbuncle/Golem is pretty awesome at walling any non-White Hole fatal hits, though! Also helps in the next stage.
-Another job whose best plan against Almagest is to try to land some sort of status! Catoblepas is the plan here; it's more accurate than Break and lands around 14% of the time, so around a 91% chance to land before Almagest fires.
-Carbuncle helps here another way; there's a slim (1/12) chance that the mage in the back fires Delta Attack and it reflects and petrifies the Almagest part.
-Wonder Wand strats work here again, Golem/Carbuncle/Phoenix make them safer than normal.
-Like Time Mage, Summoner is very close to being able to just blitz the fight with raw damage before Almagest hits, but they'll probably fall a bit short.

Overall ranking: Compared to Time Mage, they aren't quite as reliable though have more safety in some other ways (Golem/Carbuncle) and certainly consume less elixirs on a win. I think reliability trumps here. They still feel better than Dragoon due to the offence which is so much higher.


Blue Mage
-Oh look Mighty Guard. Almagest is not an issue, Flare/Holy/Meteor are not an issue.
-Aegis Shields as well!
-They give the tree thre (not very scary) turns and don't see Meteor, or fear it that much.
-Grand Cross part does not get to fire. Almagest part healed by White Wind.
-They have a bunch of cool status options here but they're too powerful to matter.

Overall ranking: The only knock on them is that they really want Mighty Guard, which isn't completely trivial to get. Otherwise they have all the tools to annihilate this fight, and none of the other blue spells they would use here are remotely obscure. Below White Mage only.


Red Mage
-Protect helps out against physicals, as does the back row. Having some MEvade reduces the hit rate of White Hole at least.
-Dualcast Raise+Cura is an improvement over Phoenix Downs, certainly.
-No shields, bad HP, and terrible damage makes them have issues with the tree though. They give the tree six turns minimum and at least one in the Meteor phase.
-Almagest sucks! They need to be Level 43-44 to survive it.
-Wonder Wand's Shell can as usual let them survive one, but unfortunately their blitzing is so bad they'll see at least one more, so better hope the shelled mage doesn't get dispelled or hit by certain status in the meantime.
-And of course they'll see lots of Grand Crosses regardless.

Overall ranking: Worse than Monk, better than Ranger.


Beastmaster
-Did I mention Mighty Guard rules? Because Beastmaster can get it too! It's a pain in the ass on SCC, but doable: find a Crystelle in the back row, be in the back row yourself, control it to cast Protect on itself, and then hit it with the Dancing Dagger... if it doesn't proc a fatal Dance, it'll have a chance to do 1-2 damage to its 3 HP. Get it down to 1 and you can catch it! Annoying but yeah it's worth it here.
-Better be careful about when you release it though since White Hole is still a bad time for getting rid of it (though nothing else in the first form is).
-Since they can't afford any offensive releases here, their offence against Exdeath is terrible. Like he's getting a dozen turns or so minimum, which is a lot of time for fatal nonsense. You burn through resources like crazy, and Meteor can certainly wreck you. Popping Mighty Guard when Meteor can first make its appearance is probably a good idea, since no more White Hole then, although Meteor CAN kill Shelled characters still if it focuses on them. Not much you can do about that.
-But with Shell up, they need not fear Almagest, barring the rare Dispels that can remove it.
-They can also release Dragon Aevises or Crystal Dragons which deal MT 9999, the other good use of their time. This can either skip the Meteor phase of the first fight, or unload as much damage as possible into the second.
-Actually they might even want to forgo Mighty Guard. The Beast Killer whip strikes weakness on the Almagest part, so they just might be able to get away with three released shots of 9999 and a Beast Killer blitz before Almagest hits. They'll need to rare-steal at least two of 'em, though, and even then things could go wrong if anyone dies due to the physical part while they do this, as they don't have much time to spare.
-They can also just survive Almagest at Level 39 or above.

Overall ranking: Man they're weird. Overall... pretty decent? Their MT 9999 shots and potential Mighty Guard can certainly bypass some problems. Probably better than Ninja with their extra HP and not needing crazy numbers of Fumas. They're a lot like Dragoon, pretty safe but the low offence can bite them. Probably worse due to no Aegis Shields.


Chemist
-So hey with everyone else using elixirs here (except the best of the best), chemist ingredients don't feel too pricy, do they?
-Lifeshield (costs a Phoenix Down) makes them immune to White Hole.
-Goliath Tonics double their HP, letting them survive all but the freakiest of focused Meteors.
-Either a Dragon Fang or two Turtle Shells will put them in Shell. Protect/Reflect/Regen as well.
-With all this in place they mock everything either Exdeath form can do except Grand Cross (and with Lifeshield / Hermes Sandals / Lamia's Tiara, a fair bit of Grand Cross too).
-If they want to blitz Grand Cross out, they can also buff their level to 255 with Hero Cocktails (costs around 10000 gil to do this to everyone). This gives them adequate offence to ensure it doesn't see a turn with Morning Star and Assassin Dagger beatdowns. They can probably get away with a bit less. Alternatively they can unload lots of Turtle Shell/Dragon Fangs into it.

Overall ranking: They win, very safely. They use less resources than Samurai, but more than Mystic Knight, who is slightly less safe but still safe. Ah what the hell, safety rules, and MK may need to use a elixirs anyway. Below only Blue/White Mage.


Geomancer
-Gaia uses nothing but Wind Slash here. Pretty much the best it could be reasonably be, since Air Knives enhance it into something similar to a boosted MT -aga.
-If they really count HP right they might be able to dodge Meteor, but they have to really be careful since the window is small. He gets at least four turns, likely five before any slowdowns for healing.
-Usual mage durability for White Hole, back row, etc.
-They survive Almagest at Level 40. Well, that's one thing they have over other mages.
-Wind Slash is a decent move for the final battle! It might even blitz out Grand Cross, wow. It helps that they have really high magic, so the Bahamut/Levithan/Syldra they can call out of the lamp really hurt.

Overall ranking: That... was actually way less bad than I was expecting! Sure, they need to be Level 40, which is a negative, and a lot of their strategy is a bit dicy even if they are. But... there's nothing really terribly wrong with them? Between Black Mage and Monk works.


Bard
-They can buff all their stats (level, str/spd/mag) to 99 at the start of the fight. Sure they'll need to recover from White Holes, but they can do that without going into elixirs (just a lot of Phoenix Downs, Hi-Potions, and Softs), and it gets easier the higher their speed gets.
-Once they get here, watch out! With their insane speed, they blitz out Exdeath's lower HP phases without it getting turns.
-Oh man, it gets worse. Their Bahamut/Syldra are MT 9999, their Leviathan around 8000.
-And with their crazy speed they easily blitz out everything else too. It takes them around 7-8 of their rounds to win this. During that time, only the front part of Neo Exdeath has any chance to get even a single turn.

Overall ranking: Fucking glorious. Deathbards conquer everything, the only issue is all the Phoenix Downs they'll use early on. But for a completely safe win that cost is tiny, compare them to Samurai. Below Chemist, but better than everyone else.


Dancer
-Man Eater Sword Dances hit weakness on Exdeath and do 9999, that's cool.
-Ribbon blocks White Hole.
-Exdeath probably gets around three turns. They... can often blitz the Meteor stage, but not reliably, due to the nature of Dance. (No, physicals aren't doing it.)
-Against Neo Exdeath, they're... gonna have a bad time.
-They need to be Level 45 to survive Almagest. Ugh.
-They COULD blitz out the Almagest part. But it'll take a lot of luck with drawing lots of Sword Dances. And it'd involve being in the front row with shit HP which the front part can take advantage of (even its physicals probably OHKO). So uh probably not. Either get a few extra levels or pray for a lot of luck with either Dance procs or Catoblepas working.
-Ribbon blocks Grand Cross! Man think how good Dancer might be in the second stage if they had a way to survive Almagest.

Overall ranking: It's Thief, only being Level 41 isn't good enough. So... worse than Thief, despite a bunch of advantages otherwise (Ribbon, more damage). God, the only damn boss the Man-Eater hits weakness on and it doesn't matter.


The one and only, the glorious Berserker
-You are levelling to 99 and are last place, but let's take a look anyway.
-Tree... could be worse! Might as well steal four Aegis Shields so you null White Hole. He'll get two turns against your mighty Level 99 warriors, and nothing he does will be too scary.
-It will take around 70 hits to defeat Neo Exdeath. Or around 18 rounds if nothing goes wrong. This means you will likely see three Grand Crosses and three Almagests. But hey, three Almagest only takes out around half of your 9999 HP (you probably lost a bit more elsewhere) and might be blocked by Aegis Shields, and maybe you get lucky on Grand Cross.
-But the real problem: there's that one target in the back row, lasting even longer than the rest. You can expect a few rounds of it alone. And every turn it gets, it could use Meteor, or worse, Maelstrom.

Overall ranking: Actually while it's boring as sin to get that high, Neo Exdeath isn't as CRAZY bad at Level 99 as he was in SNES/PSX, since those dummy targets are gone. You can certainly conceivably have enough good luck with evasion and Grand Cross misses to get through, not to mention the final part's ultimate AI. But... yeah obviously last.


1. White Mage
2. Blue Mage
3. Chemist
4. Bard
5. Mystic Knight
6. Knight
7. Samurai
8. Time Mage
9. Summoner
10. Dragoon
11. Beastmaster
12. Ninja
13. Black Mage
14. Geomancer
15. Monk
16. Red Mage
17. Ranger
18. Thief
19. Dancer
20. Berserker


We're done! I may try to throw something together later for some attempt at an overall performance but hey, that was fun and interesting to see. It was nice to see White Mage annihilating the Rift bosses after how much this format spat on them midgame.

[Fenrir]

Again, that was so cool. Hope we'll get Omega/Shinryu too

Why isn't Mime in here?

[Laggy]

ff5 bard continues to prove to be its strongest appearance in the series

[Dark Holy Elf]

Again, that was so cool. Hope we'll get Omega/Shinryu too

Why isn't Mime in here?

Years of being conditioned by Fiesta, mostly!

SCC-style Freelancer/Mime kinda misses the point of the jobs especially late in the game, but it might have been interesting to consider how they'd do at other points. At first you might think they're just shitty Knights (less HP/strength, no Double Grip, etc.) and largely they are, but being able to break rods, use the Heal Staff, use the Death Sickle, use Ribbons, etc., would give them versatility. So they'd rarely get too near the bottom I think? Could be fun to look at.

Mime would mostly be worse since they're basically Freelancer with worse weapon options (just rods/staves/knives). There are a few uses for Mimic that I can think of but not many in that setting, so yeah, really missing the point of the job.