The Best and Worst Final Fantasy Class

[Earnest]

So many games have class based systems, but I swear Final Fantasy do it the best. However they have a few complete duds.

Anyway, pick the best and worst.

* Warrior
* Monk
* Samurai
* Dragoon
* Thief
* Ninja
* Dark Knight
* Paladin
* Hunter
* Berserker
* Mystic Knight
* Black Mage
* White Mage
* Summoner
* Time Mage
* Scholar
* Red Mage
* Blue Mage
* Geomancer
* Bard
* Beastmaster
* Gambler
* Mime

My personal choices for the best would be Monk, whilst the worse would Geomancer. Honestly, did anone bother with that class. At least a bard could put all the enemies to sleep, or heal allies.

[CloudStrife]

Bard is a coward class wich i hate
And the best is Mime cause you can use other's skills as well

[Fantastein's Cat]

^^ I used the Geomancer in FFV quite a bit, actually. The avoid traps ability was useful in certain dungeons. Unfortunately that was about all they were good for, so their use was pretty limited. IIRC, I'd just train one character in Geomancer until they learned the ability to avoid Terrain damage, then equip it in places like Exdeath's Castle.
I can't remember if it was the Geomancer or another class that had the ability to use certain attacks depending on the terrain, but if it was the Geo. then that's another fairly decent ability. Not as good as alot of other abilities, but not bad.

As for worst... Bleh, tough one.

I guess from that list, I can narrow it down to three classes.

The Thief. In most FFs, there's just not enough good items to steal, and Thieves' stats are pretty average. They're usually just not good enough in battle, and even if there are enemies with good items to steal, usually it's just bosses, so like the Geomancer, their use is very limited. (Still loves me some thief characters though. Locke ftw! ...sh1t, Treasure hunter, treasu-- *is killed*)

The Berserker. Berserkers have great HP and attack, but, well, they're berserk! You can't heal when you need it, and what if there happens to be an enemy like the Whelk from FFVI, that counters when you hit it at a certain time? That could do some serious damage. IMO, the stat boosts just aren't worth competely losing control of your character. Berserkers have never really appealed to me at all. :\

The Scholar. If I'm remembering the right class, all that Scholars can really do is analyze enemies. Yawn, and their stats aren't wonderful either. Only time I like the Scholar class is in FFTA2, when you can use them in some great strategies (In that, their attacks are elementals that hit EVERYONE, ally and enemy. You can equip everyone in your party with armour that absorbs an element, then use the attack for that element. Healing and damaging your enemies. Yay. :D) Other than that, bah.

I'm not actually sure if the Scholar is the class that I think it is, so that narrows it down to Thief and Berserker. Thief at least has some situational uses, so I'll put down Berserker as my Worst FF class.

Best classes... Bah, I'll try to narrow it down again. Just remember, most of my opinions are coming from FFV. >.>

The Dragoon. Good HP, defense AND attack, not to mention the Jump ability, which does extra damage and protects you for awhile? Brilliant. The only real downside to it I can think of is that if you're using healing or support spells, the Dragoon also misses out on those.
But yeah, I pretty much just think of Dragoons as Knights with 2x the badass. :D

The Ninja. Great speed, and decent attack. Their defense suffers a little, but alot of the time they're dodge tanks, so they don't need it. They also have the ability to Dual-Wield, which is definitely one of my favourite abilities in FF, lol. Then there's also the Throw ability, which can do huge damage, at the expense of either a scroll (which are great for dealing with a group of enemies quickly, especially if they're weak to an element) or a weapon. Even very weak weapons that you can buy for... well, for just some spare change really, can do some pretty decent damage. Unfortunately they lose points because even though Throw is usually incredibly broken when you get it, it tends to lose usefulness after awhile, and eventually gets completely outclassed by other abilities. Good while it lasts though, and Dual-Wield is always useful. Oh... I'm also a sucker for ninjas anyway. >_>

The Blue Mage. Heh, I LOVE Blue Magic. I always have at least one Blue Mage in my party, just because of how damn fun all those different spells are. Blue Magic basically manages to cover EVERY area of magic. You want some offensive magic? Aqua Breath, Aeroga (depending on the game) and if you wanna count the E. Skill materia from FF7 as blue magic, then you have attacks like Beta, Trine or even Pandora's Box (beast of a spell XD). Healing? Angel's Snack and Auto-Life (both from FFIX), and of course the almighty White Wind! And of course there's the ultimate support spell, Mighty Guard! Haste, Protect and Shell on every character in just one spell? zomg!
Their stats are also fairly balanced, nothing's too low (although nothing really excels, either). The Blue Mage's biggest weakness is the fact that it's such a bitch to get all the Blue Magics. Still, if you can be bothered getting at least the great spells like M. Guard, White Wind and a couple of offensive spells, you now have a great character in your party. ^.^
Oh right, and if you wanna break the game, Level 5 Death is instant KO for alot of enemies, including a few bosses IIRC.

The Mime. They can Mimic all your other characters awesome attacks (Flares, Summons, Throws etc.) without using up any of their own MP, IIRC. 'nuff said.
Unfortunately, unless you're playing FFVI, where Gogo can use other character's abilities without having to use Mimic, you're gonna have to wait for someone else to move first. Still a great class though.

As for narrowing it down... Blargh! I guess I'll go with Blue Mage due to fanboyism, lol. I really can't choose. >.<

[EDIT]

Whoa, that turned out bigger than I intended. >.> Sorry guys. =p

[Red XIII]

Blue Mages, Monk, Dragoon, Red Mage, Scholar, Sage, Ninja, Paladin -- all good.

Samurai, Thief, Dark Knight, Hunter, Berserker, Geomancer, Bard, Beastmaster, Gambler, Mime -- all suck.

The rest are either staples or middle of the road. Also, some of them depend on which game. Some renditions of the jobs have been better than others.

[Najirra]

As a standalone class I would say my opinion is tied between Warrior and Ninja.

Warriors get the best armors and have the most damage potential, they're an all around good class to have in either party and even though they lack magic, their sheer power stats more than make up for it, I never play a final fantasy without at least some sort of warrior in my team, even though today's FFs don't require you to be picky anymore as all characters are able to get the full skill list ever since FFX.

Ninja are tied with Warriors for me because even though their weaponry and armor may not be up to par with the Warrior's, they have dual wield and in some FFs they can use a limited amount of black magic. Not to mention their uber speed in combat. Same like the Warrior, I never leave without a speedy character like a Ninja in my team.

And from a FFV perspective, the ultimate combo would be a Warrior combined with a Ninja, having the ability to wear incredible armor, having more speed because of the Ninja class and being able to dual wield Excalibur and Ragnarok makes for the ultimate fighter right there.

Follow ups for me would be monk, black mage (never leave without one) and mime. White mage is sort of mandatory in any party.

Worst class for me would be anything I cannot directly control. Such as berserker, beastmaster and blue mage.

Berserkers are what their name implies, constantly berserked. While their damage output may look great, if I'm not in control of the character then I can't put strategy to use, unless a certain enemy requires a berserked character to wail on it, I would rather use spells and potions to berserk my characters myself rather than have a permaberserked character in my team. not to mention they look like bigfoot in some games (berserker Krile was cute though).

Beastmaster and Blue mage are in the same cathegory to me, they rely on enemies to become powerfull, beastmaster needs the monster itself, blue mage needs it's skills. You can't control this as a beastmaster needs the luck of finding a powerfull beast and in most cases lose it at the end of the fight and blue mage needs the luck that the beast uses the skill you need. It's all up to random luck and if there's anything I hate it's these random things in games. I know it sounds contradictory to say that but random in most cases equals tedious and while I have lots of patience, there are many games where I simply gave up in the end because of "random things".

While I'm talking about standalone classes here, when these classes can be combined with other classes some may become stronger while others grow weaker, while a summoner may not be uber on its own, white mage/summoner for example is a very good combo. There's many others like this so the classes above are personal favourites, it all depends on your playstyle and wich class combos are better suited to that style.

[Fantastein's Cat]

^ Well, on the B.Mage relying on luck, most of the game's have an ability that lets you manipulate so they use the attack.

But yeah, I can see what you mean, since they still have to rely on that class/ability (which means you have to make someone else give up AP or whatever to learn it).

And since Scholar is in Red's list of best, I KNOW I'm thinking of some other class now. >__>

[Nitro]

I couldnt decide on just 1 class so i went with 2 of each

Best:
Monk - very powerful and knows how do dish out some pain
Dark Knight - Mainly because FF III i really liked the dark knight here with soul eater and a blood sword.

Worst:
Bard - just seems like a big wimp, absolutely useless other than putting someone to sleep
Geomoancer - Never really used them didnt seem all that interesting, maybe i didnt give them thier fair chance but i just never thought they would be useful.

[Najirra]

I never used Bard in any of the job class FFs, but back in the day when I played FFXI, Bard was one of the best classes around. Their songs raised various stats and were almost mandatory in the HNM fights. Bard was the most wanted class for any party outmatching even the popularity of a red mage.