More Final Fantasy

[English Language]

Predict is "fun" to mess with. Good luck. Falls off a bit late game since, from what I researched during my solo earlier, the Oracle's stats have no effect on anything Predict does save his MP..buut I'll let you experiment there yourself so I don't ruin the surprise. Good luck.

[System Error]

Yes, definitely. I have to finish out the full set of classes.

Does this mean you're going to personally do White Mage yourself too? ;P It'd certainly be a crazy way to finish!

And in any case, any further FF games you're going to tackle challenge-wise after completing (almost) all the FF5 solos?

[Sullla]

Remember how I opened this thread in 2008 when I was just about to start doing solo class challenges for Final Fantasy 5? It's 2018 now, and I finally completed the last one with the Oracle. Enjoy the report.

[T-hawk]

Sol Cannon: maybe Predict doesn't trigger the Launcher self-destruct, but I'd bet a regular melee attack would, after dealing the 800 damage via Predict.

You say the Oracle never uses its Magic Power stat, although it does factor into the Healing Staff and Magic Lamp as you eventually used. At any rate, you should know the real reason for that stat, which is to incent/force you to make use of the new job if you want to max out a character's stats in everything.

Smacking with the Flail to scramble the last HP digit - actually could be better to use the starting Staff for 95% hit accuracy instead of the Flail's 70%.

You've still never played the FF5 Advance bonus dungeon, right?

[System Error]

Grats on finishing, and it was a nice read. The issue you were having with Sol Cannon is that Predict just does not trigger any counterattacks or reactions...except for death counters. Found that last part out myself the hard way when doing VS. Gil Turtle. So the whole bit in the code where they selfdestruct under a certain HP threshold never triggers. Strange oddity about the ability, it is - gives it a neat advantage, except for when it's a disadvantage.

The bonus dungeon might be worth a playthrough, just to get the content on the site. If not linking up my and T-Hawk's reports that do it there. It's not THAT bad, with the right class. Definitely something to experience yourself at least once, I feel.

[English Language]

Sol Cannon: maybe Predict doesn't trigger the Launcher self-destruct, but I'd bet a regular melee attack would, after dealing the 800 damage via Predict.

Can confirm, it does not. I bumped into this exact situation during my run and bopping it is how I solved it. It does mean it can take around 3 rounds to deal with the Launchers, so it's still fairly dangerous.

That said, reading the challenge Sullla, it looks like it went mostly identical to my run. Right down to the level we finished at .

Byblos went by a bit quicker for me since you can actually hit him with Condemn. He apparently doesn't have the Heavy flag.
See above for my notes on Sol Cannon.
We both seemed to end up lucking into the same solution for Azulmagia(reflect level 2 old back at him).
Your Necrofobia went way smoother than mine did. I didn't consider going full-on offense right at the start since I was too focused on making sure Golem was ready for the second half.
I never considered NonCycling Predictions like that. Probably would have made it way easier. We also both seem to have ended up with Aging causing issues with finishing the boss off.

Very nice work regardless. Didn't seem to be much of a change in strategy for a lot of bosses, but Oracle doesn't have as many reliable options as, say, Black Mage. Good read regardless, and congrats on finally finishing all the solos.

[RifleAvenger]

Sullla's FF5 reports were what led me to RealmsBeyond, so it's bittersweet to see the last one go up.

Still, I'm surprised such a party unfriendly class was ever made.  It definitely seems like it works better alone; a lot of predictions look like they'd be hard to mitigate the backlash for an entire party who could all have different final HP values.

[Sullla]

OK, let's do something fun. I've been tinkering around with my tier list for Final Fantasy 5 solo classes, and it's essentially done at this point. Rather than dump the whole thing out at once though, I thought it would be more entertaining to post one class per day, counting down the list from the best to the worst one entry at a time. This way, you guys get to discuss what you think, make predictions, and all that sort of fun stuff. There are 26 total classes in FF5 which means this will take about a month in all. I'll post the introduction today and then start with the first job class tomorrow. Have fun!

With solo reports completed for 25 of the 26 classes in Final Fantasy 5, and T-Hawk supplying a report for the final White Mage job that I have no desire to play out for myself, it's time now to turn to one of our favorite exercises: creating a solo class tier list. The idea behind a tier list is to rank each of these jobs against one another as played throughout the game with a solo character. Tier lists are often misunderstood online; a tier list that ranks the Ninja class above the Time Mage isn't claiming that the Time Mage is inherently bad or that the game can't be completed with it. The tier list is simply stating that a solo Ninja has a much easier time beating the game than a solo Time Mage, something that I don't think would be in much dispute. By weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each of the 26 classes against one another, we can arrive at a more accurate evaluation of how they stack up in terms of overall strength.

One of the most important things to do when creating a tier list is to define the criteria that will be used very carefully. Those stupid clickbait articles that plague the Internet will often leave their criteria deliberately vague to generate controversy and discussion. For this tier list, I will be evaluating the FF5 jobs as played by a solo character from the beginning of the game up to its conclusion, not including any of the optional superbosses or the Gameboy Advance bonus dungeons. The assumption is that these classes will be played at an optimal level, and classes with a higher burden of knowledge like the Chemist with its Mix ability are not penalized in this tier list for requiring more expert knowledge. However, classes do get penalized base on their ease of use; the need to hunt down various ingredients for the Mix ability adds an extra burden not present when attacking away with something like the Knight's Double Grip ability. Similarly, if a class needs to rely on breaking rods or making heavy use of the Dancing Dagger / Magic Lamp to progress through the game, their ranking takes a minor hit on the tier list. We're trying to evaluate classes based on their own abilities, not turning into a pretend Black Mage or Summoner lite, although having access to rod breaking is still better than not having it available at all. The main criteria used for evaluation is the ease or difficulty that each of these classes experiences when playing through the entire game from start to finish. The easier a time that a solo class has in progressing through the game, the higher the ranking in the tier list, and vice versa for the solo classes that struggled along the way.

When I put together tier lists, I usually conceptualize them into five broad categories: the very best, the above average, the average, the below average, and the very worst. I found the FF5 jobs matching up nicely within this same framework, although I needed to add a sixth tier for one class that holds a special place by itself at the absolute bottom of the pyramid. The data naturally sorted itself into a normal distribution, with the largest categories grouped together in the middle and the extremes at both ends holding fewer entries. This is what we would generally expect to see, with most of the game's jobs falling under the description of either "average", "above average", or "below average". The solo classes presented here are also ranked within each tier, although there's less difference in relative strength between codes within the same tier than between classes in different tiers. This allows for a ranking from 1 to 26, with larger jumps along the way when moving between different tiers of power.

Finally, this is obviously highly subjective and intended for fun. Feel free to let me know what you think but don't take anything in this list too seriously. I can only give you my impressions after playing through so many of these solo runs over the last decade. Let's get started.

[Sullla]

We start out today with the first top of the tier list.

Tier 1

These are the absolute best classes possible to use for a solo game. They encounter very little difficulty clearing the game from start to finish, and possess overwhelming advantages that the other jobs simply lack. For anyone who might be interested in doing a solo game for the first time, one of these classes would be the best place to start.



Samurai
Overall Ranking: 1/26 [Tier 1, Rank 1]
Innate Command: GilToss
Stats: Strength +19, Agility +2, Vitality: +19, Magic Power -12
Equipment: Daggers, Katanas, Shields, Heavy Armor set
Abilities: !Swordslap (10 ABP), !GilToss (30 ABP), Evade (60 ABP), EquipKatana (180 ABP), !Slash (540 ABP)
Total ABP to Master: 820 points

The Samurai is the strongest class for a solo game in Final Fantasy 5 and it's not particularly close. I considered creating a separate "God tier" just for the Samurai before deciding that it would be better placed at the head of the top tier. The Samurai has all sorts of advantages that make it perfectly suited to serve as a solo class. This starts with one of the innate class abilities: the "Evade" innate grants Samurai 1/4 odds to dodge all physical attacks. This combines very well with the fact that the class can also equip shields for further physical evade, easily ending the game with roughly 50% odds to avoid all incoming physical damage. (It can often go even higher than that in the endgame since the Samurai doesn't need to equip a weapon to deal damage and doesn't need the Running Shoes for Haste status, opening up the weapon and accessory item slots for more gear with physical evade.) Shields also mean that the Samurai can equip the Aegis Shield for petrification defense and 1/3 chance to dodge all incoming spells, or the Fire/Ice Shields for elemental defense, or a Genji Shield for even more physical evade. This is also a class that uses the Heavy armor set for further damage reduction upon taking hits, and a class with high Vitality for more total health. These defensive abilities make the Samurai a very difficult class for opponents to injure.

Samurais use katanas for their weapons in addition to the default daggers. Katanas tend to be great weapons due to a combination of a high base attack value and the innate chance to critically strike, something that nearly all other weapons in the game lack. The Masamune, the legendary katana weapon, has an attack value of 107, an innate crit chance of 15%, grants the "First Strike" ability when equipped so that the Samurai gets to act first in every battle, and can be used as an item to caste the Haste spell in battle. It's probably the best of the 12 legendary weapons and ridiculously useful for a solo class. If that doesn't work then the Samurai can go right ahead and use the Chicken Knife like most other solo classes, or simply keep it equipped for its +5 Agility boost.

For random battles, the Samurai can cut through virtually anything with its "Slash" ability once the job class maxes out. Slash is an instant death attack that hits all enemies on the screen at once and has a base chance of 85% to slay them instantly. The only downsides are an inability to hit anything with the Heavy flag in the code, and the need to spend one round charging the attack before it goes off. With the Masamune's First Strike ability though, that doesn't take very long and my solo Samurai spent the whole third world annihilating every random encounter with ease. For boss encounters, the Samurai has the marvelous GilToss ability. The base damage is ((Level + 10) - Defense) * 150 and that's a gigantic number indeed, 1650 base damage at Level 1. There's really no stopping GilToss as it works against pretty much everything throughout the whole game from start to finish. GilToss and Slash allow the Samurai to use every equipment slot on defensive-focused gear while still benefitting from a godly offensive output. And they're stupidly easy to use, abilities that don't need to be targeted and require zero thought whatsoever. Move the cursor down one slot, click GilToss or Slash, and watch everything die.

I struggled to come up with any weaknesses for the Samurai class. I suppose it's not the fastest class, at least not until gaining the Masamune in the third world, and there are relatively few katanas to pick between. The one and only somewhat difficult battle in the whole game comes against Necrophobia, who has high enough Defense that GilToss only did about 2500 damage per use. However, my solo character still had enough physical evade to dodge most of Necro's attacks and won the battle on the first attempt, so this wasn't exactly a roadblock boss. I dunno, I'm struggling to see much in the way of weaknesses here. This is an insanely strong solo class and it clears the whole game without breaking a sweat. Go try it for yourself if you don't believe me.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I take it I get no points for guessing that the Berserker is in a tier all by itself down at the bottom?