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[Ourobolus]

Last run this year, I think.

Natural
Knight/Black/Beastmaster/Thief

Zzz. At Archeoavis and he's a bit of a pain. May grind out a Flame Ring or two.

 

[Ourobolus]

Crack some rods bro.

Yeah, but it's just the one Mage. Still slow.

 

[Boney]

I started a new chaos run.

Got Mystic Knight, Bard and Ranger so far...

Oh god

Gimmie Chemist so we can have the most broken team ever

 

[Ourobolus]

Hmm. Shouldn't you still have a Freelancer if you're doing Natural? You haven't gotten the Earth Crystal yet!

Oh shit you're right. Forgot that it is still one per crystal. >_<

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Oh yeah, in that case definitely don't leave anyone as a class they've mastered. Dragoon doesn't really have much useful for a physical character (!Lance is much better on mages), so I'd go Samurai over Dragoon.

My current party is:

(mastered) Blue Mage with the Knight's 'Two-Handed' as secondary
Summoner with White Magic as secondary
Monk
Thief with the Beastmaster's 'Control' as secondary, to help my Blue Mage

I plan to change my Summoner back to WM once mastered (or maybe Dancer?) and Thief to Ninja once mastered (I heard it was good to master Thief because of stats or some such). I might switch Monk to Samurai - I want to have a superlative physical fighter on my team - and I had planned on just leaving my Blue Mage as is, as he's adept with both physical attacks and magic, but maybe I'll switch him to something else if it's not a good idea to leave characters in one job for too long.

 

[chaosblade]

Took two tries to get the Genji Armor from Gilgamesh since the stupid knife didn't want to mug the first time, meaning I had to do the annoying Necrophobe fight twice. Necrophobe himself wasn't bad at all, but until I had him down to a couple barriers they were rough.

Once I had a save point I took on Shinryu.

It was easier than I expected. Used a random battle against a Behemoth and Gorgimera to weaken myself, which went fine. Then Shinryu itself didn't really pose any problem. Got Berserk off with the Wonder Wand immediately, but Shinryu got an attack in before I got to guard. Fortunately it was on Faris, who was loaded with evasion equipment just in case, and she safely dodged it. Smooth sailing from that point, I slowed Faris so I didn't have to input guard as often, and never had an attack from Shinryu come up while she wasn't guarding. Not that it would have mattered too much because she dodged nearly everything anyway.

I tried to use Flash early on while the Beastmaster dealt damage, but that was wasting turns and MP, so I ended up just casting comet with Lenna and Bartz.

My current party is:

(mastered) Blue Mage with the Knight's 'Two-Handed' as secondary
Summoner with White Magic as secondary
Monk
Thief with the Beastmaster's 'Control' as secondary, to help my Blue Mage

I plan to change my Summoner back to WM once mastered (or maybe Dancer?) and Thief to Ninja once mastered (I heard it was good to master Thief because of stats or some such). I might switch Monk to Samurai - I want to have a superlative physical fighter on my team - and I had planned on just leaving my Blue Mage as is, as he's adept with both physical attacks and magic, but maybe I'll switch him to something else if it's not a good idea to leave characters in one job for too long.

You should definitely mix some other jobs in there, and look for some more creative combos.

For example, Ninja's scrolls are based on magic power, multi-target, and they are dirt cheap once they are available for purchase. So combining a Ninja with a powerful magic class allows you to do some heavy magic to all enemies damage for no MP. Either giving a Ninja white/black/time/summon, or giving a caster the throw command works fine. Black Mage has solid offensive magic in general so it isn't as useful there, but White and Time are both lacking in the damage department so it gives them a big boost. And Summoner is very MP heavy, so having scrolls as an option lets you use their MP reserve for utility summons like Golem or Carbuncle instead of offense.

You probably also want to get Spellblade on a character that will be using Spellblade-compatible weapons. Mystic Knight isn't that great of a job for random encounters, but they are excellent boss slayers. A surprising number of bosses (including part of the final boss) fall in a single blow to Break Blade, and many bosses have elemental weaknesses that you can hit for huge damage. And when all else fails Drain Blade heals you with every attack, which is nice for longer battles.

Bard is an easily overlooked job since it sounds kind of useless. It's actually all kinds of amazing though. As is Chemist.

Exdeath didn't really do much at all and went down easily, but Neo Exdeath definitely put up a fight this time. I took three Almagests before I finally got rid of that part, and it was preparing for a fourth when it finally went down. I also took two grand crosses, the first of which was pretty painful - one death, one zombie, one hurricane, and one frog.

Blue Magic though. I just kept coming right back. Mighty Guard for quick buffing, and White Wind for full party healing. Aeroga and two handed Ragnarok made for solid damage, along with the appropriate whips. And once the Almagest part finally went down it was easy from there. Somehow I managed to balance damage between the last two parts perfectly, they went down one after another. I planned on summoning a Zu to finish it out the last part quickly, but I didn't get an opportunity to release it before #victory.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

You should definitely mix some other jobs in there, and look for some more creative combos.

For example, Ninja's scrolls are based on magic power, multi-target, and they are dirt cheap once they are available for purchase. So combining a Ninja with a powerful magic class allows you to do some heavy magic to all enemies damage for no MP. Either giving a Ninja white/black/time/summon, or giving a caster the throw command works fine. Black Mage has solid offensive magic in general so it isn't as useful there, but White and Time are both lacking in the damage department so it gives them a big boost. And Summoner is very MP heavy, so having scrolls as an option lets you use their MP reserve for utility summons like Golem or Carbuncle instead of offense.

You probably also want to get Spellblade on a character that will be using Spellblade-compatible weapons. Mystic Knight isn't that great of a job for random encounters, but they are excellent boss slayers. A surprising number of bosses (including part of the final boss) fall in a single blow to Break Blade, and many bosses have elemental weaknesses that you can hit for huge damage. And when all else fails Drain Blade heals you with every attack, which is nice for longer battles.

Bard is an easily overlooked job since it sounds kind of useless. It's actually all kinds of amazing though. As is Chemist.

Wow, thanks a bunch!

Also, what's the point of mastering a job if you don't intend to stay in that job? What exactly carries over, if anything?

 

[Professor Beef]

Wow, thanks a bunch!

Also, what's the point of mastering a job if you don't intend to stay in that job? What exactly carries over, if anything?

Mastering a job gives a permanent stat boost to Freelancer (and Mime, IIRC).

 

[Link Man]

Mastering a job gives a permanent stat boost to Freelancer (and Mime, IIRC).

Also makes Dual-Wield innate for those two classes.

 

[Professor Beef]

I DID IT

I decided to switch to Flare Sword instead of Drain Sword after killing the back pieces, and it helped make the difference. Also Meteor deciding to focus on Faris instead of Beef.

Already made my #victory tweet, gonna contemplate starting my 750 run sooner or later.

 

[chaosblade]

Also makes Dual-Wield innate for those two classes.

I think most innate abilities for jobs are granted to freelancer/mime upon mastery.

You are basically expected to use Freelancer/Mime for the end of a normal run to combine your best abilities with your best equipment and best stats, with more freedom to select abilities because your characters will already have the innate abilities from the jobs they mastered. It opens up a lot of things that aren't possible* during a fiesta run due to the limitations of jobs that a Freelancer doesn't have.


*You can "buy" a Freelancer in the fiesta through the job fair, and you can use them in the early-game during natural/chaos runs, but those are both exceptions rather than the rule.

I DID IT

I decided to switch to Flare Sword instead of Drain Sword after killing the back pieces, and it helped make the difference. Also Meteor deciding to focus on Faris instead of Beef.

Already made my #victory tweet, gonna contemplate starting my 750 run sooner or later.

Congrats, it's funny how the mini and toad sprites look like roadkill.


Thinking about registering for my 4th run tomorrow... either No750 or standard since I haven't done either of those this year.

 

[Matt Attack]

Decided to go ahead and register for a run (Chaos/Natural) since I've got the iOS version downloaded right now. It'll be my third year signing up, but I've never actually gotten far in the past. I'd like to see if I can make it further this time.

 

[YourMaster]

Mastering a job gives a permanent stat boost to Freelancer (and Mime, IIRC).

The stat boosts are nice, but for that you only need to master 4 classes with a high stat (E.g. Summoner for the magic stat, Monk for HP, etc).

The real benefit are the innate abilities also given to freelancers on mastered jobs. E.g. when you have a character who mastered mystic knight and monk as a freelancer, he will cast magic shell when low on health and will do counter attacks.

These are the innate abilities:

Knight: Cover
Monk: Barehanded, Counter
Thief: Artful dodger, Vigilance, find passages, Sprint
Ninja: Duel-wield
Samurai: Shirahadori
Sorcerer: Magic shell
Blue mage: Learning
Chemist: Pharmacology
Geomancer: Light step, find pits

A third reason to master a job is that often the most useful skill is last. A red mage is completely useless after the first world, has low stats and no innate ability, but when mastered you get dualcast which is the best skill for any caster.

 

[chaosblade]

A third reason to master a job is that often the most useful skill is last. A red mage is completely useless after the first world, has low stats and no innate ability, but when mastered you get dualcast which is the best skill for any caster.

Often, but definitely not always. Mentioned before how weird Blue Mage is, with !Blue being a 70 ABP ability, with a total of 100 ABP to learn from scratch. Yet !Scan costs 250 ABP, on top of the previous 100 ABP to get the previous abilities. But all it is, is Libra in an ability slot. For the same ABP you spend on !Scan by itself, you can almost get !White6. Which sounds more useful? I know my answer!

 

[Ludovico]

First year making it this far, just got the earth crystal and watched Galuf and Krilia leave for home.

Monk, Summoner, Bard, Dragoon

Summons: choco, sylph, remora, shiva, ramuh, ifrit
Songs: mighty march, romeo's ballad, alluring air
Pianos: Pretty sure I've hit them all so far..
Levels: 21 across the board
Gil: 30k
Flame rings: Zero

Any advice for how I should go about setting up for the rest of the game? Also are there any missables I need to be worried about before I leave world 1?

Bard question - is singing "march" more than once per battle redundant? I don't get entirely how the regen/stat songs work.

Having fun so far!

 

[Ludovico]

That's all the important stuff, so you should be set. Make sure you have a spear for the Dragoon.



Yes. Mighty March gives your party Regen, which is then an ongoing effect by itself. Romeo's Ballad and Alluring Air are both temporary effects that you may need to recast later. The stat boost songs have an effect over time, but the Bard will keep singing those on their own, until something hits them.

Awesome. I'll pick up a cheap spear for now, don't remember finding anything cool so far.
And I got down the art of alluring those fan enemies in the flying fortress into healing my party, just wasn't sure if the march could be stacked or eventually ran out or stopped if the bard gets dropped.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Mastering a job gives a permanent stat boost to Freelancer (and Mime, IIRC).

That's it? Hm. I don't plan on using the Freelancer so that doesn't seem worth it to me.

 

[Dusk Soldier]

That's it? Hm. I don't plan on using the Freelancer so that doesn't seem worth it to me.

no that's not it, you also get any innate abilities from mastered jobs, like the samurais evasion ability, or the ninja's 2-handed.

But you're not allowed to even use freelancer during the fiesta(except under very strict circumstances), so it's a moot point.

 

[Link Man]

Third job is Samurai. This is already looking easier than my previous run.

 

[YourMaster]

Often, but definitely not always. Mentioned before how weird Blue Mage is, with !Blue being a 70 ABP ability, with a total of 100 ABP to learn from scratch. Yet !Scan costs 250 ABP, on top of the previous 100 ABP to get the previous abilities. But all it is, is Libra in an ability slot. For the same ABP you spend on !Scan by itself, you can almost get !White6. Which sounds more useful? I know my answer!

True. The blue mage doesn't have a good final skill, but instead has a very nice innate ability. To an extent these balance out.

That's it? Hm. I don't plan on using the Freelancer so that doesn't seem worth it to me.

No, see a few posts above. The freelancer/mimic jobs are by far the best jobs in the game. Freelancers have the best stats of all the jobs you mastered, get innate abilities of all the jobs mastered, have several skill slots to fill and can use all equipment there is. The whole point of the job system is mastering jobs to power up the freelancer/mimic.

You can have a freelancer with the spellpower of a summoner, the agility of a thief, the health of a monk and the strength of a gladiator. Then you can make him cast two spells each round, for example both time magic and white magic. Than you can also have a mimic who can for no mana cost cast those same spells again and use summons.
They also retaliate of course, and casts protective shields on themselves when they are about to die.

 

[Nottle]

About a week ago I bought a copy on the GBA and the save battery didn't work. I could save but not reload. Disapointing. So I returned that and got another copy.

I'm going to do a normal play through then a fiesta playthrough. What is the recommended fiesta style run through the game for a first timer?

 

[chaosblade]

About a week ago I bought a copy on the GBA and the save battery didn't work. I could save but not reload. Disapointing. So I returned that and got another copy.

I'm going to do a normal play through then a fiesta playthrough. What is the recommended fiesta style run through the game for a first timer?

A normal fiesta run would be fine. Random/750/no-750 are pretty similar and just change the job pool, but a normal run is more straightforward. Wouldn't mess with Chaos, natural or FF1 for a first one.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

In a normal playthrough, the idea is that you master the classes that you want boosts or innate abilities from, level up other classes enough to get the abilities you want, and then at the end of the game you go Freelancer and utterly wreck shit.

The freelancer/mimic jobs are by far the best jobs in the game. Freelancers have the best stats of all the jobs you mastered, get innate abilities of all the jobs mastered, have several skill slots to fill and can use all equipment there is. The whole point of the job system is mastering jobs to power up the freelancer/mimic.

Ahh! Now I get it. I guess I was thinking that Freelancer was the same as all the other classes but just not as good - an okay fighter, an okay mage; the only advantage being that you can equip any type of armor or weapon. Clearly that isn't the case.

One question though - say if Faris mastered thief and then I switch Galuf to Freelancer, would he gain the Thief's stat boost or would that just be for Faris as Freelancer?

 

[chaosblade]

Mastered jobs are character specific, not party-wide. So if you want to master something on multiple characters they all have to do it.

 

[gblues]

Team Squishy is now complete: black Mage, red Mage, Geomancer, and Chemist.

The Chemist job saved my ass against Titan. Most of the strategies required skills I didn't have, and my team couldn't survive Earthquake. I didn't think about the new job immediately, since I was a man down.

Then I was like, "Fuck it" and tweeted for my final job. Thank goodness, too! A brief ABP grind to learn !Mix and Titan took a dirt nap.

Now I'm in Bal grinding out my ABP on Objet d'Arts. Woo!

 

[chaosblade]

Doesn't Red Mage have confuse? Could have gotten Gaelicats to put float on your party.

 

[Zero-Crescent]

Team Squishy is now complete: black Mage, red Mage, Geomancer, and Chemist.

The Chemist job saved my ass against Titan. Most of the strategies required skills I didn't have, and my team couldn't survive Earthquake. I didn't think about the new job immediately, since I was a man down.

Then I was like, "Fuck it" and tweeted for my final job. Thank goodness, too! A brief ABP grind to learn !Mix and Titan took a dirt nap.

Now I'm in Bal grinding out my ABP on Objet d'Arts. Woo!

A good way to avoid that Earthquake attack is to Confuse some Gaelicats over at North Mountain. When confused, they have a chance at casting Float on one of your party members.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Mastered jobs are character specific, not party-wide. So if you want to master something on multiple characters they all have to do it.

I figured it would be kind of game breaking if it was party-wide, heh.

 

[Quenk]

Started another regular run and so far I have Knight and Summoner. Unfortunately I didn't get any jobs I haven't gotten in previous runs.

 

[AxelRyman]

There's a reason why Chemist is considered the Instant Win Job Though it does require a bit of knowledge to actually use it properly. Knowledge which is easily available nowadays.

 

[chronobeej]

Doing a chaos run and got a team of Time Mage/ Time Mage/ Summoner/ Dancer. I think Gilgabot has something against giving me a non 750 job. In my three runs that I have done so far, I have only gotten a beastmaster and beserker which was with my beserker risk run. Can't complain though. I have some good synergy with the jobs.

 

[Kaelin]

Gilgabot keeps feeding me Water and Earth jobs in my Chaos runs (exception being the almighty Beastmaster on my third go), so I've resorted to paying Gilgabot for the service of switching jobs (and RNG dictated that my repeated Dragoon would become a Geomancer).

So, I've got Time + Red + Beastmaster + Geomancer (and Time is a huge save for this party). What are my best options for semi-reliably defeating NED (and surviving Almagest) without pumping out another L40+ playthrough? It looks like I can catch Crystelles (using two swipes of Excalipoor from a Red Mage), but are there other options (besides relying on Shell from Wonder Rod)?

 

[chaosblade]

Gilgabot keeps feeding me Water and Earth jobs in my Chaos runs (exception being the almighty Beastmaster on my third go), so I've resorted to paying Gilgabot for the service of switching jobs (and RNG dictated that my repeated Dragoon would become a Geomancer).

So, I've got Time + Red + Beastmaster + Geomancer (and Time is a huge save for this party). What are my best options for semi-reliably defeating NED (and surviving Almagest) without pumping out another L40+ playthrough? It looks like I can catch Crystelles (using two swipes of Excalipoor from a Red Mage), but are there other options (besides relying on Shell from Wonder Rod)?

That's rough. Use the Beast Killer whip on the Almagest part since it is a magic beast type enemy. And if you have a Dragon's Whisker, the middle part is dragon type. Dualcast Quick could potentially help, but you don't really have a lot to cast since Red is weak, Comet is unreliable, and Meteor is even less reliable. And that is very MP-heavy even with Gold Hairpins, but if you have Elixirs it could be an option.

Catching Zu enemies might help, they are still available in world 3 on a peninsula south of the rift entrance. Breath Wing should deal 9999 damage to every part of the boss. A few of those on top of the damage from the lamp will take out the majority of the HP from every section.

 

[SkyOdin]

I actually managed to kill that Blue Dragon stack in Exdeath's castle for the first time today. Chemist + White Mage gives a wonderful amount of survivability. It was decent revenge for being wiped by them so often in the past at least.

 

[chaosblade]

I actually managed to kill that Blue Dragon stack in Exdeath's castle for the first time today. Chemist + White Mage gives a wonderful amount of survivability. It was decent revenge for being wiped by them so often in the past at least.

That has to be one of the worst designed encounters in the game.

There are a number of weird random encounters that are harder than most bosses though. You can probably deal with most through status ailments or actually treating them like bosses and pumping MP and time into them, but... it's a random encounter. It's not worth the effort.

 

[agradine]

And Gilgabot gives me Chemist for my second Chaos class. Damn, was hoping to pick up some missing Fire Crystal classes. Oh well, at least I'll have an easy time of it, and odds are decent I'll at least pick up Dancer for the first time.

 

[Neku89]

For my Chaos run Gilgabot gave me Black Mage/Beastmaster/Dragoon/Dancer. At least it's Ribbon/Rainbow Suit-fest this time! And I could give Dragoon's ability (DragonSword?) to Black Mage for MP replenishment. Any other suggestions?

 

[Quenk]

My fire crystal job is Ranger. Now to decide whether to start running for !RapidFire chicken knife or brave blade for my Knight.

 

[AxelRyman]

Rapid Fire Chicken Knife is better since it uses the Agility Stat in it's formula as well, so overall damage is much higher. Since you have both Knight and Ranger though, you can do the Immortal Knight strat of using a Knight equipped with Blood Sword and Bone Mail using Rapid Fire.

 

[Zero-Crescent]

The three meteor bosses didn't pose much of a threat. For Purobulos, I started off the battle with Romeo's Ballad from the Bard, then put the Red Mage on Silence duty as a backup plan, and have the Black Mage hit them with AquaBreath. Took a few turns, but I managed to take care of all of them at once, without them ever having a turn. I went to North Mountain, where the Gaelicats were indeed quite friendly when confused, as my party was Floated after only a few battles. This made Titan quite the easy battle, as his Earth Shaker attack was rendered useless. Finally, I went up against Manticore, which was a more straightforward battle; he got in a few hits, but the Red Mage and Black Mage finished the battle quickly enough.

I should be ready to go to World 2 at any time now, I'll just stop at Lix for some cheap supplies before leaving.

 

[agradine]

No, that's the main one. !Lance to Black Mage for the MP replenishment, Chicken Knife for the Dancer. Maybe give the Beastmaster !Black so they have something useful to do once they've blown their captured monster.

!Black is great for Beastmasters because it boosts the power of the Fire Lash's Firaga by quite a bit.

 

[SkyOdin]

!Black is great for Beastmasters because it boosts the power of the Fire Lash's Firaga by quite a bit.

Alternatively, give Equip Whips to the Black Mage for when you want to conserve MP. It works for the Blitz/Thunder Whip too, so you can take advantage of the combo as early as World 1. The Fire Lash is really good when supported by actual decent magic power.

 

[Boney]

Oh man, final team this run is Mystic Knight, Bard, Ranger and Samurai.

That's nuts!

I got the 3 songs, anything else to do before leaving w1?

 

[chaosblade]

Going to start run 4 this afternoon. Normal probably. Had great jobs so far, will it continue?

Spoiler

Incoming Monk, Red, Geo, Dragoon run.

 

[chaosblade]

Registered again. Blue Mage.

:lol

 

[DHutch]

Zerker question-
Chaos run, Dancer Ninja Zerk Zerk.

I'm 37/38, but having issues with Neo Exdeath - is there some general wisdom on what level I should pump to? DW zerks just do their thing, and DW dancer is a craaaazy powerhouse (almost 20k damage on some sword dances) so weirdly my ninja's the healbot. It's just the wild targetting on the zerks that makes me not down almagest fast enough. Tips?

 

[Boney]

Zerker question-
Chaos run, Dancer Ninja Zerk Zerk.

I'm 37/38, but having issues with Neo Exdeath - is there some general wisdom on what level I should pump to? DW zerks just do their thing, and DW dancer is a craaaazy powerhouse (almost 20k damage on some sword dances) so weirdly my ninja's the healbot. It's just the wild targetting on the zerks that makes me not down almagest fast enough. Tips?

You could try using the Magic Lamp and hope Catoeblas lands Break on the Almagest part

 

[chaosblade]

If you're using Hermes Sandles and the Rainbow Dress I'd think you would have a decent shot at getting three sword dances off before it casts Almagest in the first place. That would be enough to kill it if you are hitting almost 20000 damage per dance.

 

[chaosblade]

This looks awfully familiar.

Also neat, if you don't cure Lenna of poison during/after the Magissa and Forza fight, the Wind Drake will.

Get to the library -> fight first battle -> everyone immediately gains a level to level 15

>_<

Last run I screwed up and got there at level 11. So I needed four levels before I could learn Lv5 Death. Going to try to do better this time and get there at 9/10 or 10/11.



Garula may not be able to be Goblin Punched like Magissa, but that's what Flash and/or Pond's Chorus is for.

Now I get Mystic Knight. Only had it once before!



I find this part of the game weird, the water and earth crystals both have you going through a fair amount of stuff before you reach them, but the fire crystal comes one short dungeon after the water one.

Liquid Flame fell to two frost rods.

Gilgabot gave me... Ninja. I don't even.

 

[DHutch]

Beat my Ninja, Dancer, Zerk, Zerk run!

I just had to keep plugging away, waiting for good luck on killing the almagest part. I beat it the first time I got that piece down.

Lesson: don't let "Run-Back Fatigue" get to you! (also just go and kill Necrophobe already.)