|
blakelmenakle posted:Honestly, Knight/3xZerk isn't that bad. 3 two-handed Zerkers wreck poo poo pretty hard, and you have a well armored Hi-Potion/Elixir bot to boot. Aside from a couple of annoying bosses it's not that hard of a run up until NED, which requires some extra planning and some luck (which is arguably more fun than running a high-damage or high buffing team). Two handed Berserker is pretty meh during bosses, since you're giving up one of the best benefits of using a Berserker, the power bonus while keeping a shield. Equip Swords Berserker, on the other hand, is where it's at. Kyrosiris posted:Yeah, I'm going to agree with consensus that Thief is better than Monk. Maybe not in worlds 1/2 (and definitely not without a supporting cast), but in the Void? I'd rather have a Thief than a Monk, any day, any time, any comp. Why? Like, what does Thief add to your team that a Monk doesn't? Thief has dumb utility things, Chicken Knife !Mug, and stealing two pieces of armor your team might not use. Monk can boost either the power or durability of any character on your team who doesn't need their secondary, can carry almost any secondary themselves as good as or better than the original user, and come with Counter for free damage. In exchange for, what, not being able to use the Chicken Knife, an ability nearly every other class has? Hell, Monk even makes something like a Mystic Knight, Geomancer, or Dancer better at using the Chicken Knife than they normally could thanks to Barehanded. A lot better, actually. Since I've used it so much, let's compare at level 38. Faris as a Geomancer, since she gets the second best Strength and Agility, why not. So she has 31 Strength, and 34 Agility with the Chicken Knife on. Neo has 30 Defense, so we're looking at 97 Attack times M. ((38 * 31) / 128) + ((38 * 34) / 128) + 2 is M. So, 97 * 21 = 2037. If she puts Barehanded on, then that 38 * 31 becomes 38 * 53. 97 * 27 = 2619. A nearly six hundred point increase in damage thanks to having a Monk in your party. "But if you had a Thief in the party, then they'd be doing more damage with the Chicken Knife than the Geomancer!" This is true, but then the Geomancer would be sucking. I don't feel like doing the math now, but I'd guess that Geomancer with Barehanded swinging the Chicken Knife plus a Monk attacking will average out to more damage (counting Chicken Knife fleeing and criticals) than a Thief with the Chicken Knife and the Geomancer using the Assassin's Dagger. On top of that, the Monk will have more HP. I'll stand by it: the Thief is pretty terrible. Not Geomancer tier, but still quite bad.
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 04:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 13:58 |
|
|
Negating the flee chance with mug is a far bigger bonus to the chicken knife than turning upper 30s-lower 40s str into 50 something str. Even without unique steals there are lots of very good ones at times where some classes would be lagging (double lance, javelin, hi potions in the fire ship, 99 fire rings in barrier tower, early ninja clothes/green beret/mage masher/gaia gear/10s of elixirs in the karnak 500 and library, early mythril weapons at walz, killer bows/lamia's tiaras in Ronka, this is too long so I'll stop now)
dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 04:43 on May 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 04:37
|
|
|
The thing you're hitting on here ("Monk isn't a bad job because it's a great base platform for independently powerful skills") is part of why I hate Dancer so much and why none of the jobs in the game, apart from the context of a lousy overall party roll, are terrible. Red Mage, the other worst job people talk about ITT, becomes one of the most powerful in the game if you get any of the other real casters. Dancer's incredible fragility (and it really can't be overstated; Dancers have less HP than Black Mages do and Sword Dance, the only thing that makes them more than dead weight, is row dependent) makes it the worst "platform" for abilities from other jobs in the game, and Equip Ribbon is the only more-than-marginally useful thing it has to offer. I agree that you're underrating Thief's utility, tho.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 04:42
|
|
|
Trasson posted:Why? Like, what does Thief add to your team that a Monk doesn't? Eliminating ambushes, guaranteed fleeing, double-speed running, and making sure you don't forget where invisible passages are all pretty loving fantastic. Plus, as stated, they can use the chicken knife without activating the flee effect. Putting Barehanded on people for using the chicken knife means you pretty much have to multiply their damage by .75, because they'll waste their turns a lot on bosses, or be useless in random battles that you actually want to fight. You'd be better off giving people !Focus, which increases damage and doesn't trigger Flee. And Monks can't do anything useful on their own. No weapons means suckful damage. You can give them Equip X, but then they're missing out on a potentially useful secondary just so they can hold a weapon like big idiots. You can give them the accessory that increases barehanded damage, but then they're not wearing Haste sandals and might as well not show up for the Void at all. And their huge HP pools and terrible defense mean they're just bottomless pits to swallow up your healing resources, rather than useful tanks. Also, why the gently caress are you having geomancers attack NED with daggers? You do realize that the only Geo proc in the void is Wind Slash, which can be boosted with an Air Knife to do like 2000+ damage to every part of of NED from the back row, right?
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 05:02
|
|
|
The only way I can see anyone saying Thief is worse than Monk is if they only played up until the end of world 1 and then quit.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 05:06
|
|
|
Zombies' Downfall posted:I agree that you're underrating Thief's utility, tho. I'm really not. What exactly are the notable steals that make a huge difference? And not just "nice to have" but are really massive? A lot of them are actually really narrow. You can steal Hi-Potions at Karnak, sure. If you've got a staff wielding class, though, this drops immensely in value. It's useful, sure, but not exciting. And if you're that hard up for healing anyone can trivially farm Elixirs in the Wind Shrine. There's an Earth Hammer from Titan, but that's not actually all that exciting. The same class that can use it also gets an instant Death weapon, and has no need of back row compatibility. It's got a great synergy that might not exist with your class set. You can steal Double Lances in World 2. Two classes use those. One of them is the Thief itself. The other is the Ninja, which doesn't actually need any help, as it kills things quite well as it is. Flame Rings can be bought in Istory in World 1. It's a lot of money, but anyone who's experienced enough to look online for anything resembling a rare steal is experienced enough to know if their party needs a set of Flame Rings in World 2. I mean, you can steal a bunch of other marginal attack increases a little earlier than you could otherwise obtain them, but that's not worth much. dis astranagant posted:Negating the flee chance with mug is a far bigger bonus to the chicken knife than turning upper 30s-lower 40s str into 50 something str. Well, now I feel like doing the math. All numbers are at level 38 and against Neo Exdeath, but the principles should remain the same. For record, Neo Exdeath has 30 Defense. I'm also going to ignore the effects of random variance. Monk Bartz: Attack is 3+2*Level, M is ((Level * Strength) / 256) + 2. 79 - 30 is 49 * 10 = 490. However, Fists have an 8% chance to crit. Crit damage is Attack * 2 and Defense = 0, which results in 158 * 10, or 1580 damage. Since that's only 8% of the time, and we get 490 the rest of the time, then expected damage per hit is ((490 * .92) + (1580 * .08)) or 576 a hit rounded down, so 1152 average damage per attack. Monk Bartz with Kaiser Knuckles (requires a Time Mage, Samurai, or Chemist to not be a dumb idea): Normal hit: 99 * 10 = 990. Critical damage is 258 * 10 = 2580. Average per hit damage is 1116 a hit, so 2232 damage per attack. Geomancer Faris with Barehanded and Chicken Knife: Already calculated above, it's 2619. However, !Flee kicks in 25% of the time, so expected damage is 1964. Total: 1152 + 1964 = 3116. If the team can support it, then Kaiser Knuckles Monk makes this 4196. Thief Bartz using !Mug and Chicken Knife: 127 - 30 is 97. 97 * (((29 * 38)/ 128) + ((41 * 38) / 128) + 2) = 97 * 22 = 2134. Geomancer Faris with Assassin's Dagger: 88 - 30 is 58. 58 * (((31 * 38) / 128) + 2) = 58 * 11 = 638. Total: 2134 + 638 = 2772. So no, negating the flee chance with Mug is not a far bigger bonus to the Chicken Knife than boosting the Strength of the user. Schwartzcough posted:Also, why the gently caress are you having geomancers attack NED with daggers? You do realize that the only Geo proc in the void is Wind Slash, which can be boosted with an Air Knife to do like 2000+ damage to every part of of NED from the back row, right? Neo Exdeath is just a useful benchmark. I could do formulas for against the Seal Guardians or Gilgamesh or whatever. I just picked an arbitrary target that one might actually care about maximizing damage to (as opposed to, say, Apanda). Schwartzcough posted:Eliminating ambushes, guaranteed fleeing, double-speed running, and making sure you don't forget where invisible passages are all pretty loving fantastic. Yeah, but how much of a help are those? Hell, I play the SNES version and I'm not giving the Thief points for dashing. Is guaranteed fleeing and avoiding ambushes really worth not contributing to the team in actual combat? Like seriously, stop and think here. You're advocating Find Passages as a plus to Thief. An actual merit that should make it desirable. Schwartzcough posted:And Monks can't do anything useful on their own. No weapons means suckful damage. You can give them Equip X, but then they're missing out on a potentially useful secondary just so they can hold a weapon like big idiots. You can give them the accessory that increases barehanded damage, but then they're not wearing Haste sandals and might as well not show up for the Void at all. And their huge HP pools and terrible defense mean they're just bottomless pits to swallow up your healing resources, rather than useful tanks. Like I said above, I'd only use Kaiser Knuckles if you otherwise had another source of Haste on the team. Otherwise, yes, of course you want Running Shoes. Also, what are their terrible defenses? They get the same armor choices as every single non-heavy non-caster job in the game. If their massive HP pools make them that much of a liability in that case, then what the hell is the Thief? Schwartzcough posted:Putting Barehanded on people for using the chicken knife means you pretty much have to multiply their damage by .75, because they'll waste their turns a lot on bosses, or be useless in random battles that you actually want to fight. You'd be better off giving people !Focus, which increases damage and doesn't trigger Flee. !Focus isn't so hot. You kind of sit there for a little under a turn before actually attacking. It's not quite double damage. It's maybe a little over full damage but without !Flee. So it might result in about the same damage as Barehanded, but it's more consistent, right? Except that spending that turn charging is a turn doing nothing as well. Does it actually result in more damage per unit of time than occasionally missing a turn to !Flee? I don't think so, but I don't have hard data on how long it takes to charge to math it out. Rosalie_A fucked around with this message at 05:28 on May 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 05:17
|
|
|
dis astranagant posted:Negating the flee chance with mug is a far bigger bonus to the chicken knife than turning upper 30s-lower 40s str into 50 something str. Monks can give any class that can use the Chicken Knife the ability to negate the drawback with !Focus. For the record, the following abilities will let you bypass the !Flee chance of the Chicken Knife: !Mug (Thief), !Focus (Monk), !Rapid Fire (Ranger), !Jump (Dragoon), !Dance (Dancer) Note that this works for pretty much any weapon that has a "chance to cast a spell/ability on hit" effect, not just the Chicken Knife. So you could, in theory, use these with Death Sickles or the Assassin's Dagger to fight Undead without worrying about accidentally healing them to full by Proc'ing Death on a hit. There's also the Dual Wield trick where if you have a Twin Lance in your main hand (the first weapon you attack with) and the Chicken Knife in your off-hand (second weapon you attack with), you'll also bypass the !Flee effect.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 05:19
|
|
|
The difficulty of the first half of the game matters, though. There's a lot of Fiesta parties where stuff like Byblos and Purobolus are the hardest bosses in the game.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 05:20
|
|
|
Trasson posted:Why? Like, what does Thief add to your team that a Monk doesn't? quote:Chicken Knife !Mug Monk damage is loving atrocious in endgame. Unless you are leveling into the mid 40s, you are 20-30 damage lower than a real weapon, and no the kaiser knuckles are not a goddamned viable option, giving up five status immunities is stupid.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 05:22
|
|
|
Zombies' Downfall posted:The difficulty of the first half of the game matters, though. There's a lot of Fiesta parties where stuff like Byblos and Purobolus are the hardest bosses in the game. Hilariously, neither of those are ones a Monk would have problems with. !Focus lets you get in the same damage per turn but over fewer actions, which means fewer counters from Byblos, and Monks have Kick for the Purobolus. Kyrosiris posted:Monk damage is loving atrocious in endgame. Unless you are leveling into the mid 40s, you are 20-30 damage lower than a real weapon, and no the kaiser knuckles are not a goddamned viable option, giving up five status immunities is stupid. Yeah, if you don't have another source of Haste, you don't give up the Running Shoes. That's dumb. If you do, then I'd consider it (and have done it, actually, in a Fiesta). Yeah, you lose immunity to some status effects, although only Sleep and Stop are the real bad ones (Paralyze doesn't last long, Slow is cured by another casting of Haste). Depending on your Haste source and your party it may or may not matter. If it's a Chemist, just give the Monk !Drink and problem solved, although you'd get just as good results from Drinking Hero Drinks with auto-Haste on anyway. A Samurai or Time Mage may or may not want to bother with that sort of upkeep, but it's at least a viable option. It's certainly safer to not bother, I admit, but the option's there.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 05:36
|
|
|
Trasson posted:Two handed Berserker is pretty meh during bosses, since you're giving up one of the best benefits of using a Berserker, the power bonus while keeping a shield. Equip Swords Berserker, on the other hand, is where it's at. Oh for sure, once you get into the end game, Equip Swords becomes a lot more useful. But it also takes a lot longer to unlock, and a two-handed Death Sickle will carry you pretty deep into World 2 before you'll find a good enough sword to make sword + shield combo will be much more desirable (and most bosses up to that point are much easier to damage race/fish for death procs than to take a slower defensive route with a team that has one item user as its only source of healing).
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 05:36
|
|
|
Trasson posted:Is guaranteed fleeing and avoiding ambushes really worth not contributing to the team in actual combat? YES. Thief's contributing to the combat in making it so that you don't soak an unholy assfuck's worth of damage in a bunch of useless random battles you were going to run from anyway. If you weren't going to run from them, then you're likely either doing a Brave Blade run - in which case godspeed, you crazy loving bastard - or you can wipe the enemies easy with or without the Thief's contribution.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 05:42
|
|
|
blakelmenakle posted:Oh for sure, once you get into the end game, Equip Swords becomes a lot more useful. But it also takes a lot longer to unlock, and a two-handed Death Sickle will carry you pretty deep into World 2 before you'll find a good enough sword to make sword + shield combo will be much more desirable (and most bosses up to that point are much easier to damage race/fish for death procs than to take a slower defensive route with a team that has one item user as its only source of healing). Oh trust me, I know. KataraniSword posted:YES. Thief's contributing to the combat in making it so that you don't soak an unholy assfuck's worth of damage in a bunch of useless random battles you were going to run from anyway. If you weren't going to run from them, then you're likely either doing a Brave Blade run - in which case godspeed, you crazy loving bastard - or you can wipe the enemies easy with or without the Thief's contribution. How? Is it really that hard to run around with Potions and Tents? I mean, I'm honestly lost here, what random encounter is so threatening that avoiding the one in 16 chance of getting back attacked by it is worth putting up with a lackluster class? EDIT: This isn't Final Fantasy VI, where you can get Pincer'd and not only be unable to run but have your defense and evasion cut to zero from the back. You just get your row switched and the enemy going first. dis astranagant posted:Also, Byblos is one of the worst fights for monks between his evasion and discord more than quartering your damage instantly. Thief has it better how? Rosalie_A fucked around with this message at 05:50 on May 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 05:43
|
|
|
Also, Byblos is one of the worst fights for monks between his evasion and discord more than quartering your damage instantly.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 05:46
|
|
|
Trasson posted:Thief has it better how? Because they can have 99 Hi Potions easily to force their way through. Grinding Elixir drops in the Wind Shrine is way, way slower.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 05:50
|
|
|
Schwartzcough posted:Because they can have 99 Hi Potions easily to force their way through. Grinding Elixir drops in the Wind Shrine is way, way slower. I guess if you're in a solo or single class challenge, but in a Fiesta you've got 1-3 Monks and 1-3 Mystic Knight/Berserker/Time Mage/Red Mage/Summoner. I mean, if you're doing a Hard Mode challenge or something and roll Thief/Thief then you've got a point. Also, I'm not sure on the Hi Potion <-> Elixir exchange rate on the time it takes to earn them (you can also do the Ship Graveyard for all that's worth) but I'm pretty sure in the time it takes you to steal 99 Hi Potions you can acquire a quantity of Elixirs that can be summarized as Good Enough. Byblos only has 3600 HP, after all.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 06:00
|
|
|
Trasson posted:How? Is it really that hard to run around with Potions and Tents? I mean, I'm honestly lost here, what random encounter is so threatening that avoiding the one in 16 chance of getting back attacked by it is worth putting up with a lackluster class? i think getting back attacked is annoying because it means it will take longer for me to run from a given encounter. thief both inherently solves this problem and has flee. also you run faster. ergo, thief is a convenience class. using potions after every random battle is also annoying and gets old.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 06:02
|
|
|
Two years ago, I signed up for my first playthrough and got to the last dungeon before I had to take care of real life things. I didn't finish. Last year, I finished a random run, and then did a normal run and got Chemist and it was just too easy and I lost interest. I think this is the year that I risk berserkers.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 06:04
|
|
|
Trasson posted:How? Is it really that hard to run around with Potions and Tents? I mean, I'm honestly lost here, what random encounter is so threatening that avoiding the one in 16 chance of getting back attacked by it is worth putting up with a lackluster class? Back attacks don't make much of a difference in the long run, no, it's !Flee. There's pretty much no reason to fight any of the battles from the Forest of Moore until endgame unless you really want a drop or are really hurting for experience/gil. In particular, things both in Exdeath's Castle and the Cleft of Dimension can and will utterly plaster a weaker team - which is what you'd end up with if you're trying to debate the viability of Monk and Thief - in the time it takes to run normally. This is doubly so if for some reason you're trying to pull up through Fork Tower with a non-magical team, in which case you want nothing to do with Omniscient's side. In the long run, though, I'm arguing for a removal of a major - but ultimately unthreatening - inconvenience and you're arguing for a fringe boost in damage at the sacrifice of how broken Running Shoes are. Trasson posted:Thief has it better how? Knives' damage formula doesn't rely as heavily on level as Monk fists do. Ultimately, in the Byblos fight, a Thief-heavy team's biggest threat is the Drain counter spam, whereas a Monk heavy team has to fear Discord reducing their damage to nil.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 06:10
|
|
|
alcharagia posted:thief is a convenience class This is exactly it. Thief makes some things a little easier or less tedious. As it so happens, I value convenience incredibly low. I mean, not "grind 99 Elixirs in Wind Shrine so you're set for healing for the rest of the game" low, but pretty low. I guess if you (not alcharagia in particular, just anyone reading) value that convenience at some level higher (somewhere around "would not go for Brave Blade unless four Knights and then maybe not even then" is a good target, maybe more or less) then you'll like Thief more. Personally, I prefer to use options that are just more powerful, even if I don't have the convenience of stealing Hi Potions or running away from any battle I want and not having back attacks. KataraniSword posted:Back attacks don't make much of a difference in the long run, no, it's !Flee. There's pretty much no reason to fight any of the battles from the Forest of Moore until endgame unless you really want a drop or are really hurting for experience/gil. In particular, things both in Exdeath's Castle and the Cleft of Dimension can and will utterly plaster a weaker team - which is what you'd end up with if you're trying to debate the viability of Monk and Thief - in the time it takes to run normally. This is doubly so if for some reason you're trying to pull up through Fork Tower with a non-magical team, in which case you want nothing to do with Omniscient's side. First, I only ever mentioned Kaiser Knuckles in the context of having another source of Haste, and even then I never said it was superior, just a riskier option with a higher damage payoff. And there's almost no encounters that will TPK an appropriately leveled healed party in one round, even on a back attack, unless it's Berserkers against Iron Giants. There's some that might deal a whole lot, and there's some that'll take you out if you're skimping/ran out of healing somehow, but basically none that will kill you under prepared circumstances. As for Fork Tower, it's entirely possible to go up the whole thing without a single fight, it's that short. The chance of eating a Flare before you run is not worth a Thief. KataraniSword posted:Knives' damage formula doesn't rely as heavily on level as Monk fists do. Ultimately, in the Byblos fight, a Thief-heavy team's biggest threat is the Drain counter spam, whereas a Monk heavy team has to fear Discord reducing their damage to nil. Like I said, if it's a hardmode run and you roll Thief/Thief or Monk/Monk there's a point, but any Water Crystal job will give you the tools you need to splatter Byblos. Hell, I had a dumb moment and forgot the Fire Crystal, and it doesn't even matter. Berserker will kill Byblos faster than he drains, Mystic Knight, Summoner, and Red Mage I don't even need to mention, and Time Mage can Slow him, or just crack a Fire Rod on his rear end. There's no real reason to even have a Thief heavy team unless it's a Hard Mode run. Rosalie_A fucked around with this message at 06:24 on May 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 06:10
|
|
|
neither class is actually dead weight though. monk tears through a lot of world 1 and can be absolutely monstrous with a bard or !drink. thieves, like earlier mentioned, get muggin', as well as stuff like early lamia's tiaras if you get a dancer and hi-potions, plus i'm pretty sure artful dodger, like, fixes that bug with the berserker's atb where they take forever to get a turn. on the whole i'd prefer other classes but both classes are aight
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 06:19
|
|
|
That said, for as much as I've harped on the side of Thief, if I had to get one of the two classes for my Wind Crystal pull? I'd rather actually loving do enough damage to see the Water Crystal. A full-thief party is just painful, whereas Monks give no fucks until world 2 starts and suddenly enemy defense is outstripping their natural damage formula. It's ironic: A thief's utility starts kicking in almost at the exact point Monk starts lagging behind, Walse Basement excepted.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 06:26
|
|
|
I don't have the numbers to back me up, but I'm pretty sure my thieves have always started outdamaging Monks at least by the time I get a Twin Blade. Add the fact that they can add a ton of convenience options, often get other classes better weapons faster, and can give other classes game-best speed.... well, what can monks do again? Give better strength to the few classes that don't already have good strength but also don't have anything better to do with their turns that poke things with a dagger? Give better HP at the cost of versatility? As you've said, Focus isn't good. !Kick quickly becomes totally obsolete. Chakra is a total insult of a skill. Monks aren't even a good carrier class for almost anything because they lack the equipment options to take advantage of most magic or physical offense-based skills. They just don't have enough advantages over Thief to give up the Thief's many many quality of life improvements. Monks are pretty good in world 1 (barring Byblos). They're OK through some of world 2. They're terrible after that. They are also terrible in any fight with discord, Old, or other affects that screw with their levels. Another thing here: Most people actively posting in this thread have done multiple fiesta runs. They know what they're doing and want to get through the game as quickly as possible. Quality of life improvements will mean far more to these people than "Monks hit marginally harder for half the game."
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 06:27
|
|
|
KataraniSword posted:That said, for as much as I've harped on the side of Thief, if I had to get one of the two classes for my Wind Crystal pull? I'd rather actually loving do enough damage to see the Water Crystal. A full-thief party is just painful, whereas Monks give no fucks until world 2 starts and suddenly enemy defense is outstripping their natural damage formula. Thief has it pretty easy pre-byblos other than maybe Karl Boss. At level 10 you can keep Magissa from bringing out her husband, you can steal mythril knives for garula (back row is your friend here), and spam hi potions for liquiflame. And even byblos probably won't be that bad because hi-potions and mage mashers.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 06:33
|
|
|
Schwartzcough posted:Monks aren't even a good carrier class for almost anything because they lack the equipment options to take advantage of most magic or physical offense-based skills. I'm not going to debate the other points because I really should go and do something else other than argue about a video game on the internet, but I will contribute on this. Wind Crystal jobs. I know it's not applicable for a normal Fiesta, but it is in Hardmode as well as a normal run. First of all, !White. The only thing White Magic needs is Holy boosting as as covered earlier, Holy's still amazing even without that. !Black isn't awful on a Monk, either. Yeah, you don't get full damage with boosting, but you can throw down spells with over double the vitality, and anyway, Monk's got okay damage at best so this is still an upgrade. Everyone knows !Blue so I'll skip it. Knight gives Equip Swords. Equip abilities and other passive buffs are maligned because you lose out on versatility, but why were you going to spend turns not attacking with your attacker anyway. Besides, swords are the most versatile weapons that actually deal damage. Thief...*cough* Water crystal! !Summon is good even when you're not boosting, and it gives you a reason to cast Bahamut and Leviathan. Mystic Knight's a wash, I'll admit. Time Magic is weapon-agnostic. !Dualcast isn't super exciting on a Monk but you get a durable double-Life and double-Protect caster out of the deal so that's certainly useful. Plus, again, the magic will probably outdamage the Monk at endgame. Berserker gives Equip Axes so our Monk has actual attacking power. No Thornlet, but there's as many versions without that bug as with it now, so whatever. Thor's Hammer is good enough if you like the back row. Berserk itself is quite suitable through most of the game. Fire Crystal! A Monk won't !Throw all that well, but they can take !Smoke if that's your thing. !Rapid Fire is amazing on anything (as an aside, if you get both Ranger and Time Mage, that honestly is a reason to consider Kaiser Knuckles/Haste over Running Shoes since the extra attack is that much more powerful against Defense 0) while Equip Bows exists, I guess. All of Beastmaster's stuff is better on a Monk, you just can't use whips, !Catch, and !Control all on at the same time. Given the choice, I'd go with whips. Geomancer gives nothing, but that's an indictment of Geomancer as opposed to the Monk's versatility, as far as I'm concerned. !Sing is, of course, amazing. Earth! I already went on at length about !Drink, but I'll reiterate that it'll do wonders for a Monk. Doubling an already massive HP total, getting Protect and Haste, and Level counts double for Monks because every level is two points of attack as well as contributing to their damage multiplier. Monk uses !Drink better than the Chemist, no question. !Mix is good but we all know that. !Dance is nice on whatever you put it on, but there's also the option of Equip Ribbons. Gives a real weapon, too, although one only slightly better than the Assassin's Dagger. Equip Spears is alright in the Monk's hands, but the lack of any interesting spears leaves this worse than Equip Axes/Swords/Whips. Samurai hands out Equip Katanas, but there's only one good Katana in the lategame so whatever. There's always throwing money, though, don't need stats or equipment for that. So yeah, the Monk can use just about anything from different classes. Of course, most classes have this ability, so it's not especially notable here. The only real standouts are the different Equip abilities because normally the issue is getting the weapon without the armor or HP, but Monks get that. Most other things that are good are good on anyone, and the Monk just has more HP to use them. Finally, the different magic abilities (!Time excepted) aren't quite as strong without their boosting weapons, but still offer plenty of utility and power. In a decent number of these cases, the Monk really does do it better because no stats/equipment are really needed but extra HP is always welcome. !Time, !Drink, !Dance, arguable !White and !Dualcast if you consider the offensive parts secondary, !Sing. This isn't even counting the game breakers like !Mix and !GilToss/!Zeninage Monks are a good carrier class for a lot of crap, is what I'm saying.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 07:26
|
|
|
ultrafilter posted:There's really no awful combination under the standard Fiesta rules. There are some that require a bit more patience or grinding than others, but that's really the worst you can say. Realistically, any game with unsupported Red Mage and Geomancer is going to be a slog. On Monk/Thief: neither are terribly useful, but Thief is a far better chassis to bolt the many one-and-done abilities onto with 40 Agi (roughly 10% reduction in action delay vs Monk before equip weight) and innate Vigilance, on top of the ability to access !Mug for Chicken Knife shenanigans and !Flee for solving all unwanted random encounter problems forever. (Artful Dodger is only really useful for passing off to a Berserker if you get one, as it's roughly a 19% reduction in action delay before equip weight. Not as good as Equip Harps making the Rune Axe tick, but fairly strong for the ease of access.) Compare to Monk's claims to fame in party synergy: trivializing the early-early game and passing off its 50 Str, which is only really relevant for gimmicks, desperation (which, to be fair, most Monk teams wind up having), or parties that include Thief/Dancer/Geomancer and don't have something better for them to be doing. (Sometimes Blue Mage, but realistically Blue Mage always has better things to do with its time.) As a chassis for other abilities, the only significant factor is having a boatload of HP, the usefulness of which is heavily compromised by the fact that it's a Monk and either you're leveling enough that your party has enough HP to meet the thresholds anyway or your Brawl attacks are doing utterly atrocious damage.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 07:27
|
|
|
Trasson posted:Monks are a good carrier class for a lot of crap, is what I'm saying. Ah, I'm not convinced. As you said, "So yeah, the Monk can use just about anything from different classes. Of course, most classes have this ability, so it's not especially notable here." Of course they can USE secondary abilities, but they have no synergy with any of them (barring !Drink, I guess). They can't boost elements, and they need to use Equip skills just to do physical damage. I mean, hell, you're admitting that putting Dualcast, from the notoriously offensively-anemic Red Mage (who can equip Rods, I might add, to significantly boost their damage over what a Monk can do with it) will outdamage a Monk's other offensive options. That... is not good! The benefit of skills like Equip Swords or Equip Axes is they give the strength stat of the originating job - but Monk's already have high strength; it's just wasted on them. So even using the Equip X skills provides less benefits to Monks than to other classes. We'll put it this way: people rag on Dragoon for having no synergy and not being a team player. But Dragoon gets to wear heavy armor and shields, and do good physical damage from the back row, and combined with jumping that makes them extremely hard to kill; WAY more than Monks. So Dragoon is a better job to carry pretty much any ability you listed than Monks are, despite being the job reviled as having no synergy. Hell, they can equip Air Knives, and therefore are far, far better Blue Magic, Summon, and Geomancy carriers than Monk is. They also get Lancet, giving mages on the team a way to replenish MP for free. Dragoon is constantly in the running for worst Earth job, and they're leagues better than Monk. Schwartzcough fucked around with this message at 08:11 on May 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 07:54
|
|
|
Fiesta can't come soon enough.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 08:02
|
|
|
Really, though, the important takeaway is that without a mage class to staple onto it, Geomancer is by far the worst class out of the lot. It gets nothing from its own skills, contributes nothing to non-mage builds, does next to no damage to bosses thanks to Terrain being stupid and backloaded with stuff that whiffs on Heavy enemies, and has the worst weapon type in the game. Thief and Monk may not be optimal, but Geomancer is the biggest albatross here.Minrad posted:Fiesta can't come soon enough.  This argument has reached the point where it's just cyclical. Maybe I'll try a warm-up run, or try to finish FF9 before prereg starts.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 08:07
|
|
|
Chaotic Neutral posted:Subbing Dragoon for Samurai doesn't make it much less miserable, either, though it'll bring your completion speed down. Slightly. What? If i had a Samurai on the team without enough offense, I'll just gil toss the bosses to victory. Sure I need money, but I find that you always have money to Gil Toss.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 10:33
|
|
|
Trasson posted:Hilariously, neither of those are ones a Monk would have problems with. !Focus lets you get in the same damage per turn but over fewer actions, which means fewer counters from Byblos, and Monks have Kick for the Purobolus. Yeah that's what I was saying, in opposition to all the stuff about Thief being awesome. I love having a Thief from World 2 onward, but saying "Thieves are good" without qualifiers is as dumb as people saying "Sabin is bad" about FF6. It's technically true, in a sense, if we're talking about minmaxing in the last third of the game, but you have another 66% of game to play prior to that. Monks make the run up to World 2 cake, a Thief start is incredibly tedious especially if you get bummer rolls for Water and Fire. KataraniSword posted:Maybe I'll try a warm-up run Doing this to play the GBA extra content for the first time and playing this game with no restrictions in its pure format is pretty hilarious with all the accumulated knowledge from years of Fiestas Baku fucked around with this message at 12:43 on May 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 12:17
|
|
|
I've done Monk/Berserker on Byblos. It isn't something I'd wish on my worst enemy. Having done two fiestas with them, Monks loving blow.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 13:05
|
|
|
Zombies' Downfall posted:Monks make the run up to World 2 cake, a Thief start is incredibly tedious especially if you get bummer rolls for Water and Fire. Yeah, my primary complaint with Thief isn't that it's strictly bad, it's that it doesn't do anything to make the difficult part of the game easier, which most other classes do. It's why I favor the Monk over it so much: a bucket of HP really is that useful except against the percentage HP attacks, which stop showing up as much the more the game goes on. Sure, you have Chicken Knife !Mug, but that's not that much extra damage over the Monk, and it's meaningless if you have anyone else in the party that wants the weapon (A party of Thief, Mystic Knight, Ranger, Dancer. Three of them aren't getting the Chicken Knife). I keep comparing the late game because, honestly, that's the worst part. Almost all of Final Fantasy V's difficulty can be summed up as "Castle Exdeath, Exdeath 1, Pyramid, Cleft of Dimensions, Exdeath 2, Neo Exdeath". I mean, Byblos? You need a really, and I mean, really anemic class loadout for Byblos to actually be trouble. I don't mean "hmm, maybe I have to strategize or consider a couple of extra levels" trouble, I mean "every weapon and action I use in this battle will make a dramatic difference as to my chances of winning or losing" trouble. It's the team thing that really does it. It's no coincidence that Geomancers are both reviled and offer almost nothing to make the rest of your team better. Sure, Thieves with some stealing make the early game a bit easier, but you'd need to be a solo berserk nudist to not be able to make it through to your first Gilgamesh fights. Thieves don't do a drat thing for the team when White Holes and Grand Crosses are being fired. Okay, I will admit that the Genji Helm prevents Mini and Charm, so Thief technically helps against Grand Cross if you have a heavy armor user. This isn't worth enough points in my mind. Monks are definitely third worst in my mind, don't mistake me. Outside of immense luck with Kaiser Knuckles crits, they don't really have any sort of power behind them. However, they do offer support to a team in HP+30% and Barehanded, both of which are actually appreciated in cases. And, just so it's not thought I just think about Neo Exdeath, I will point out that Barehanded is a viable offensive option for a good portion of the early game. And there really are some classes who don't need anything else for their secondary. What are you going to give a Summoner, for example? I mean, there are options, don't mistake me, but if you don't have them? Monk/Summoner/Ranger/Dragoon, what secondary does the Summoner get? !Lancet, when the game hands out Elixirs like candy and you have Golem? No, you'll really just do well giving them HP+30%. Put a Thief in that same party, and what do you have? Slightly (and I do mean slightly once World 3 hits) faster Syldra casts instead of two/three Syldra casters and a Bahamut caster. I mean, Monks are still bad. Capital B bad. But they at least have options to play with the rest of the team. Thieves really don't. And frankly, that's entirely thanks to Steal. Everything worth stealing is highly exclusive to just a few classes. To make things worse, everything worth stealing is after the appearance of the Thief Knife. Let me put it this way. If you could steal Chicken Knives but only in World 2 that would be enough for me to say the Thief is worth having on your team.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 13:08
|
|
|
Personally for me, it boils down to the combo of !Flee and innate Vigilance. Yes, they're convenience/utility abilities. They also happen to be a really big deal as far as convenience goes, in my book. Especially in a fiesta-like setting where I need to be able to adapt to poo poo, convenience and utility rank a lot higher than damage synergy in a vacuum, compared to a normal playthrough where I know I'll always be able to dish out enough damage to negate their usefulness. The convenience of being able to escape any random battle immediately is severely diminished if you can also win that random battle almost as immediately, but there's no guarantee in a fiesta that you'll be able to do that. If I roll a high damage team, sure, I probably won't care about escaping as much. But if I roll a low damage team (which, yes, thief itself would contribute to, but so would monk), !Flee is like a gift from the heavens. These days, random battles typically can give me more trouble in a fiesta than bosses do, between quantity of battles and number of opponents per battle and relative lack of detailed documentation about "this is a good way to handle X enemy with X jobs" compared to the bosses and general gradual resource drain (especially in the CoD). Being able to write all of that off and ignore it by escaping everything is huge, to me. In contrast, thief being relative dead weight on bosses except for Twin Lance or Chicken Knife shenanigans or serving as a high agility chassis for something else... eh. It doesn't bug me. But I can see how one or both of these points may carry very little weight with someone else, because they're subjective priorities.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 15:11
|
|
|
Eeepies posted:What? If i had a Samurai on the team without enough offense, I'll just gil toss the bosses to victory. Sure I need money, but I find that you always have money to Gil Toss. Chaotic Neutral fucked around with this message at 16:00 on May 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 15:55
|
|
|
Last year I did a Bravely Default Fiesta in honour of this. This time I might actually try the real thing. Praying I get thief though because sod moving slowly.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 16:12
|
|
|
Yorkshire Tea posted:Last year I did a Bravely Default Fiesta in honour of this. This time I might actually try the real thing. I've been curious about the Bravely Default Fiesta; mind going over your process? How well did it work for you?
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 16:55
|
|
|
KataraniSword posted:
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 17:00
|
|
|
You can make most anything work, it's just that some combos require more effort. My first run gave me Knight/Mystic Knight as my first two classes and the rest of the game basically required 0 effort.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 17:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 13:58 |
|
|
Rasamune posted:I've been curious about the Bravely Default Fiesta; mind going over your process? How well did it work for you? Of course! BD Spoilers start here: New Game+ allowing the transfer of gold and job levels from a prior game, not items. This is to maximise fun with classes and minimise grinding. Secondary rule, no grinding if it can possibly be avoided. So I basically said each Corps of the Eternia army counted as a set and generated a random number every time I entered a chapter to give me a class. Since classes come one by one, I figured it was okay to just allow myself to go and get the class I had access to as soon as possible. So you have Freelancer as a gimme in every run since it's not amazing but has some quality of life improvements. Prologue: White Mage, Monk, Black Mage, Knight Ch 1: Thief, Time Mage, Spell Fencer, Merchant Ch2: Ranger, Valkyrie, Red Mage, Summoner Ch3: Ninja, Swordmaster, Salve-Maker, Samurai, Pirate, Performer Ch4: Black Knight, Templar, Arcanist, Spiritmaster, Vampire Conjurer is free because it's not great and comes much later than everything else. In short, it was a /really/ interesting run for a large part of the game. I drew Black Mage as my first class meaning my party was paper weak and I had to rely on Spell Penetration. I drew Spell Fencer second, which focused me even more deeply in magic with Phantom Weapon. I then drew Red Mage, which is probably the best class in the game. But the game was still a challenge as I had to eke every single point of magic damage out of my characters as I could, since any random encounter could crush my party if they attacked. Ninja in Chapter three didn't really change anything about my game plan, but I drew Black Knight in Chapter 4. Getting to the end of Ch4 was very difficult, but the moment I got Black Knight, the game was basically over since that class is stupidly broken. What I'd say is that the fiesta encourages you to explore tonnes of combos that you just never would have spent time on in a land of Free Lunch Quad Strikes and Vampires. I never ever would have touched Phantom Weapon Red Mages in a normal run, but they were the absolute lynchpins of my team for the majority of the first half of the game. That said, there is huge huge potential to get screwed over if you don't draw into Red Mage, Time Mage, Merchant or Performer. You absolutely NEED a BP battery somewhere in your squad, otherwise it's almost impossible to keep up with the damage that Ouroboros does to you. All of that said, it was a really fun run and I'd encourage you to try it.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 17:25
|
|