Fixing Crappy Classes?

[Darkholme]

Not all FFT Classes are created equal.

What if they were? What if they were set up in such a way that you should be just as good as a squire as you are as a black mage or a knight or whatever? Additionally, some classes are one-trick ponies.

I believe I saw a few posts in other random threads, but they were really spread out.

This isn't a "Making a new patch" thread, so much as a "What in Vanilla FFT is considerably crappier than your other options?"
More of a thread to detail what needs to be changed about some of the classes. This could be combined with any other hack, like FFT1.3 or FFTRebirth or whatever - or you could make it into a patch. Personally, I'll be taking what we have here, and weighing it against Rebirth, since that's my FFT Hack of choice.

We can do named characters as well, but the regular jobs are what I'm going to start with.

Here's basically what I'm looking for (I'll compile what we come up with in this post):

Job: Archer
Problem: One trick pony, and most charge skills suck (so slow they're almost never worth using).
It would be nice if they had some other archery abilities, Not related to Charge.

[formerdeathcorps]

Several problems:
1) A main class may be bad because of its stats while its skillset be extremely useful (thief) or vice-versa (mime).
2) Some classes/skills may have useful out-of battle effects but few in-battle effects (mediator, thief, Gained JP UP).
3) Some main classes may have synergies better than the main class' abilities.  For example, an archer with knight breaks is better at breaking equipment than a knight with the same breaks since archers have greater range and can equip PA boosting gear.  Similarly, a wizard with draw out is far deadlier than a wizard just using black magic or a samurai using draw out.
4) Given this knowledge, there's still not only ONE way to balance a hack.  Furthermore, defining "perfect balance" as a squire is always equal to a knight or black mage in any situation likely would discourage team building (which probably would make the game less fun).  I personally prefer the definition that a unit is underpowered if and only if he can be replaced by another unit such that the resulting 5-man team becomes stronger against most random enemy teams.

As for unit classes, I will also give scores (where 0 is really bad and 100 is OP).
x<20 (main class is really bad and there's no way to give it a secondary to fix the problem)
20<x<40 (the main class is all right in stats, but has a bad skillset, or vice-versa, or the main class has some innate ability that allows it to use a subclass more effectively than the norm)
40<x<50 (borderline...the main class isn't great, but there's something redeeming in both stats and skillset and certainly can use an effective secondary)

Note...the following assumes you are not using clearly broken tricks like AI manipulation (with golem or transparent) or items that give permanent re-raise.  Otherwise, every unit class is technically "broken" (since it would actually be impossible to lose any match).

Squire
Problem: Bad Growths, even worse skillset (the only redeeming features are Move+1 and Gained JP UP early, and Accumulate)
Score: 15

Knight
Problem: Cannot equip SP gear, outshined by lancer and samurai, though a break secondary on a ranged unit class is likely stronger
Score: 30

Archer:
Problem: You mentioned them above, though they're not entirely one trick ponies since they can break stuff at extra range.
Score: 20

Chemist:
Problem: Growths worse than squire, though a chemist secondary is awesome
Score: 35

White Mage is borderline.  It has the highest SP and HP growth of mages, which is nice, but its heals are bad (reflectable and charge longer than damage magic for less), but its buffs are great (though samurai's are better).  Often useful as a tanky mage.
Score: 45

Time MAge:
Problems: Growths no better than Wizard but has lower MA.  However, high MA growth still means fairly dangerous damage off Draw Out and Summon.  Has an excellent secondary, though.
Score: 45

Summoner:
Problems: Best damage magical secondary other than Math Skill, but the main class is completely outshined by wizard and is the slowest mage other than calculator.  The high MP costs of spells aren't really a late-game deterrent (but are a serious problem early).
Score: 40

Mediator:
Problems: Useful skills which have accumulative out of battle effects, but the main class has poor stats and no really good combat skills except Train (vs. monsters only), Persuade (0 CT) and Mimic Daravon/Death Sentence (instant status).  Can use guns but a knight with equip gun is a better breaker.
Out of game score: 100 (since +Br is permanent in vanilla)
In game score: 35

Thief:
Problems: Poor stat growth, poor usable weapon types, but awesome as secondary with out of game effects.
Out of game score: 80
In game score: 25

Geomancer
Problems: Cannot deal enough damage (and status procs aren't accurate or always useful) with its skillset, but has good offensive growths.  Counter flood only countered what hamedo countered + geomancy in vanilla.
Score: 40

Calculator
Problems: Atrocious speed growth.  However, as a secondary, it was the most broken generic secondary in vanilla while damage split was likely one of the most broken reactions.
Secondary Score: 100
Primary Score: 20

Dancer
Problems: Atrocious growths in general, though it has a decent weapon type.  However, its secondary is one of the best (Nameless Dance or mimed wiznaibus).
Score: 35

Bard
Problems: Atrocious growths with a poor weapon type.  However, its secondary is one of the best (Nameless Song, Last Song, mimed life/angel song)
Score: 30

Mime
Problems: Great growths, but nearly impossible to use (can't equip skills or equipment), except in select situations, where the free action is broken.
Score: 20 if you're an average player or 100 if you're using a synergy stacked team usually with AI control or lots of testing beforehand.

Onion Knight (you did post in the WoTL forum, after all)
Problems: Cannot use skills except the AI controlled cheaters.  Starting stats are too idiotic to use, but ending stats are OP, especially with Onion Knight exclusive items.
Score: 10 if your Onion Knight is basic or 100 if the mastered one.

[Darkholme]

Fuck! I just spent 45 minutes commenting in depth on each fucking class you listed and then my browser ate my post when I was starting to comment on the last one...

I'm going to bed. I'll comment on this stuff later.

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

Somebody made a thread a year or two ago, where they asked our input on a Tactical RPG they were making.  I can't find that thread, but it had a bunch of really good info in it.  I think it got shuffled around to one of the project boards.

[Darkholme]

I was pretty cheesed off when firefox ate my post yesterday. Anyways, I'm in class, and I re-did last night's post.

Goal Idea:
Consider the following: say all classes are available to all characters from the beginning. I put forth the following idea:
- I think all of them should be viable in-combat choices, and no class should be an obviously BAD choice compared to alternatives.

Let me know what you think of the expansion on your ideas.

2. I'm okay with "Broken" out of battle effects. They make the game easier in general if you're using them; in that they tend to have you be further ahead in capabilities than the battles expect you to be. I'm not sure I consider that a huge problem except in competitive play, but if someone wants things to be easier in single player, I say let them. I'd like to see those same classes, be more useful IN battle, for people who aren't trying to make their game easier.
I'd also suggest that Reaction/Support/Movement abilities shouldn't be used as a balancing measure, since the class doesn't get all of their abilities, just give you the ability to learn them, and everyone can only use 1 of each of the 3 types; and those can come from any class.
1. Very true. Ideally they'd be good for both.
3. Hmm. Okay; True enough.
4. "A unit is underpowered if and only if he can be replaced by another unit such that the resulting 5-man team becomes stronger against most random enemy teams." I like this definition. It's a concise way of saying what I was trying to say. With This definition in mind:

Squire:
Growth/Multipliers:
- True enough. Their stats suck.
Skills:
- Accumulate/Focus is good.
- Tackle is almost always worse than a basic attack. Either needs to be more useful or be replaced.
 - Stone is okay at really low levels, as a "I can't reach them with my melee attacks" but scales poorly. It would be better if it gave damage output that scaled as much as regular attack damage scales, maybe keeping the same ratio of attack damage - throw stone damage more constant.
- Salve isn't bad as a utility ability.
- I think they need MORE abilities in general. Other than tackle, their abilities are decent in principle, though throw stone doesn't scale well.
- Squire could better fill the "Generalist" niche than it does with some new abilities.
Equipment:
- It could use some more gear. Maybe crossbows and if they're still behind, maybe shields.
First Pass Closing Thoughts:
- Squire needs a lot of work to be a competitive option.  Mostly; their skillset is just way too empty.

Knight:
Growth/Multipliers:
- Their growths seem to be okay.
Skills:
- What they have is decent, but nothing spectacular (and better on ranged characters). They could maybe use a "Feint" or "CT Break" ability.
Equipment:
- None of the Knight gear gives an SP Boost? Either an expanded weapon selection, or some new items would help with this.
- I could appreciate Knights with Axes and Flails.
First Pass Closing Thoughts:
- They're not terrible, but they are definitely outshined by Lancers and Samurai.

Archer:
Growth/Multipliers:
- Not sure how their growth compare in usefulness, I don't remember them standing out as either really good or really bad.
Skills:
- Charge 4+ are increasingly bad.
- They could use some new abilities. Maybe flaming arrows, or an arrow-based AoE. They suffer a similar problem to the squire. They need more abilities.
- Mustadio's abilities seem like things that would make good archer abilities.
Equipment:
- I could see giving them knives, for a small boost in versatility. It matches up with the "thief comes from archer" as well as making sense if you think of archers also being fletchers.
First Pass Closing Thoughts:
- They're one trick ponies on their own, but they get decent synergy with break.

Chemist:
Growth/Multipliers:
- They're awful.
Skills:
- Very nice as a secondary, though they could use an offensive ability or two; possibly bombs, or potions forms of  a few buff spells.
Equipment:
- I say give them one or two more weapons; Crossbows would make an okay chemist addition.
First Pass Closing Thoughts:
- It's still a mystery to me why equip gun is a mediator move instead of a chemist move.

White Mage
Growth/Multipliers:
- Good Growths
Skills:
- Heals could use some adjusting. They should arguably be the best healers in the game, since their abilities are heals + buffs.
Equipment:
- Seem okay as-is.
First Pass Closing Thoughts:
- Their heals need a bit of a buff in speed or hp healed, maybe both. But overall they're not bad. They don't need new abilities, just some rebalancing tweaks.

Time Mage
Growth/Multipliers:
- Decent growths, small adjustment or no adjustment needed.
Skills:
- Time Magic is pretty cool.
- Haste 2 is rarely worth the effort, from what I hear, though.
- Some abilities may need some adjusts.
Equipment:
-   It's okay in general.
First Pass Closing Thoughts:
- I like time mages, but they aren't top tier(excluding the brokenness) in combat. 2nd or 3rd tier maybe. They're worth considering, but often not worth a primary class pick.

Summoner
Growth/Multipliers:
- No comments so far.
Skills:
- They do nice damage, but less so if you're comparing damage/MP and damage/casting time. Spells take too long to cast, and cost too much mana. Though they do get some nice AoE effects and can hit pretty big areas. The problem is that's not as useful in FFT as some other games. You're often fighting only a handful of very spaced out enemies, so Area isn't worth as much as it is in some other games.
Equipment:
- Generally ok.
First Pass Closing Thoughts:
- Summoners are too slow, their spells are too slow, and they cost too much. If things were adjusted to speed things up and make them more affordable they would be a more competitive option.

Mediator
Growth/Multipliers:
- Bad stats.
Skills:
- They need more in-combat capabilities.
- Entice, Persuade/Stall, Condemn, Insult, and Mimic Darlavon are the really combat useful ones (though Threaten is okay if you're trying to grind xp/jp). They kindof suck for story battles, and are useful mainly for grinding. Maybe one or two new talk skills could work, as could improving the skills mentioned above, giving them a better success rate would be good, even if it means introducing some mana cost.
Equipment:
- Okay in General.
First Pass Closing Thoughts:
- Mediators are great for grinding. I think it's important that they be more useful in-combat.

Thief
Growth/Multipliers:
-   Not good.
Skills:
- Useful out of combat, less useful in combat; in combat it's a range-less break with lower success rates. I wouldn't mind seeing success rates more comparable to Rend.
- Maybe a backstab ability, or an attack+poison, or a version of throw stone with poison like throwing a poisoned dart.
Equipment:
- I think it would make sense to give guns and crossbows.
First Pass Closing Thoughts:
- Thief needs some new combat utility. They're a bit like the mediator in the utility in plot battles. Kindof like a mediator with a knife, and break.

Geomancer
- I don't really know what to do with geomancer; I've never been able to figure out how to make them useful enough to be worth the effort, and tend to only use them to get to the classes that require them, and to learn ignore terrain and attack boost, then I never use them again.
- I'd be in favor of scrapping them entirely, but if there's something worth keeping, I'm willing to accept the possibility that I just never figured it out.

Calculator
- Calculator serves no non-broken purpose, in my (and evidently many patch makers' opinions.) They as a class tend to suck, but they give you all of your spells in many of your other magic classes, and let you apply them as a bard. As a secondary its black magic + white magic + time magic + yin/yang; and it can hit most or all the enemies on the board at once. It's like a broken version of a  combination bard/dancer.

Dancer
Growth/Multipliers:
- Bad.
Skills:
- Decent ability set, though as you mentioned, it's not worth using Dancer as your primary class.
Equipment:
- Decent.
First Pass Closing Thoughts:
- Generally a good debuffer/mass attacker.
Bard
Growth/Multipliers:
- Terrible.
Skills:
- Good beneficial whole-team abilities.
Equipment:
- Also terrible. Give them knives, staves (thinking cleric bards) and books.
First Pass Closing Thoughts:
- Not bad as a secondary, but as you mentioned with the dancer, not worth the effort as your primary class. Needs better growth and gear.

Mime
- Not sure the best way to approach this one. I'd say make them more like Gogo. Give them some gear, and let them do basic attacks in addition to miming special abilities. May not be worth the effort it would take to save them. They either suck, or are horribly broken.

Onion Knight
- I haven't tried the new classes in WotL. I've been playing it again recently, but in WotL I haven't gotten very far. I was playing base FFT on my PSP for a couple years on and off, and picked up WotL when it came out, but haven't really had the time to play through the whole thing.

Overall:
1. I'd give a number of caster classes a new weapon or two, and give almost all of them the ability to use books.
2. I'd give several classes some ranged ability of some kind that currently don't have any, such as a possibility to use crossbows without equip xbow.
3. I don't know if I think we need 4 different sword types, and I'd adjust some of the equip abilities, and maybe add a few more. It'd be nice if equip xbow was for bows AND crossbows, for example; or have an equip xbow skill.
4. I wish Bard and Dancer had been a single class, without the gender difference. They operate nearly the same, and they'd both be more useful if you had a subset of the skills of both.
5. Calculator and Mime could take the boot, and maybe Geomancer as well. Calculator and Mime I'd say are nigh impossible to balance, and I can't see much of a way to make Geomancers useful (though I could be wrong on the geomancer).

Thoughts? More details? Criticisms?

[Nyzer]

Well, for my patch, I gave the Archers four skills. Poison Strike, Tranq Strike, Disruption Strike, and Fatal Strike.

All of them cost MP - to make up for this, Archers have more base MP than any mage, as well as passive Halve MP, but to make up for this, their MA is godawful. It's worse than Speed is for Arithmeticians.

Poison Strike deals no damage, but has a very high chance to poison an enemy. Even bad Zodiac matchups still put it over 60% IIRC. 4 MP.

Disruption Strike deals no damage, but has a 100% chance to stop an enemy's cast. (Cancels "Charging".) 2 MP.

Tranq Strike deals no damage and has... roughly a 60% base chance to sleep an enemy. 20 MP, I think.

Fatal Strike will deal Aim + 20 damage, and instantly kill the target. There's no chance for the KO to fail, so an enemy has to be immune to pass on it. To make up for being this broken, it has the charge time of Aim + 20 as well as a 50 MP cost. It also won't warn you if you move during the charge, so if you move, it fails. (Still leaves you Charging though. Dammit ><)

It should be noted that these four skills, if used with melee weapons, do not show an effect if they hit. I'm thinking of taking one of Mustadio's prompts ("Immobilized"!) and changing it to ("Success!"), then enabling it on all Shots and Strikes.

Equip Crossbows is renamed to Equip Bows, and many of the Bows are changed in type to Crossbows. The final bows are "Heavy Bows" which only archers can wield, but it lends a lot more credibility to Equip Bows. Especially considering that Bows still have the "Arc" capability. (Though their animation fires the same as Crossbows... It shows the archer shooting a bow directly into a wall and hitting a guy on the other side. Still, a minor detail.)

As for Geomancers, I buffed their PA, majorly buffed their MA, and buffed the damage of all of their spells. They're somewhat of a sword and shield wielding mage - give 'em White/Black magic or even Arithmeticks (so broken) and they can use them just as effectively as mages can. It's mostly a job that you use for the active and growth stats than for its own skillset, but that at least is still a lot better than before. They also get innate walking on a few terrains.