More Final Fantasy

[System Error]

There are a few pieces of Dancer-only equipment that appear in the third world which replace Tempting Tango and take Sword Dance up to 50% odds to appear from the Dance command, and these are awesome when they finally show up. Unfortunately the first 80% of the game has to be completed without any of them, and much of that journey is frustratingly random.

Technicality: Lamia's Tiara. Gets the boost but is not Dancer-only, anything that can equip light armor can use it, and it does work with the Dagger. Also still need to complete the first 80% of the game without it, as far as a solo class is concerned anyway (Thief can get it in W1, but can't wear it).

Only an aside, it's definitely worth noting for certain setups - used it once in a solo fiesta where I happened to get Thief, Mystic Knight, and a magic class.

[Sullla]

Herman scores another correct prediction. Can he go 5 for 5 tomorrow?



Oracle
Overall Ranking: 20/26 [Tier 4, Rank 4]
Innate Command: Condemn
Stats: Strength -9, Agility -1, Vitality: -4, Magic Power +36
Equipment: Staffs, Light armor set
Abilities: !Condemn (20 ABP), !Predict (50 ABP), ABP Up (150 ABP), Read Ahead (300 ABP)
Total ABP to Master: 520 points

Even amongst the generally weird classes that make up FF5's job system, the Oracle stands out as a particular oddball. This is one of the new classes added for the Gameboy Advance port, and it's mostly known for being an otherwise-useless class that gets an even higher Magic Power stat than the Summoner, establishing a new value for the highest in the game. The innate ability of the Oracle class is Condemn, which functions similarly to the enemy skill of the same name. A timer appears above the target's head and counts down to zero, at which time one of eight different effects takes place. Three of them deal modest amounts of elemental damage attuned to fire/ice/lightning, one of them inflicts Toad status, and one of them inflicts Stop status. None of these are very useful beyond the early stages of the game. Two of the more helpful Condemn curses are "Rejuvenation", which heals the target for about 1000 HP, and "Recuperation", which functions as a Heal / Esuna status restoration ability. Best of all is "Doom", which functions exactly the same as the Doom spell: when the ticking clock hits zero, the target dies. Condemn doesn't work against anything with the Heavy flag in the code and that rules out most bosses, but it works just fine against everything else and Doom crushes random encounters from the beginning to the end of the solo run. Even better, as the Oracle gains more levels in the job, the timer on Condemn decreases. It starts at 20 seconds and eventually drops to 5 seconds after mastering the class. The timer will also increase or decrease depending on whether the target is in Slow or Haste status, which means that an endgame self-targeted Rejuvenation curse goes off in 2 seconds with the Running Shoes. That's pretty handy to have around, and the ability to drop nearly any random opponent in 5 seconds is amazing. Condemn is surprisingly a pretty good ability, and one of the best features of this class.

Against Heavy targets where Condemn doesn't work, the Oracle must use the signature ability of the class: Predict. This is the single most difficult ability to use in the whole game, and on a casual playthrough it appears completely random, hitting both the party and enemies for wildly varying amounts of damage. Most people correctly throw up their hands and go back to annihilating their enemies with X-Fight and Magic Sword and whatnot. Anyway, Predict chooses one of ten different predictions based on the last digit of the Oracle's MP total. These all have varying degrees of usefulness, ranging from strong non-elemental damage (Cleansing) to multiple different types of elemental damage that hit everything on the battlefield (Deluge/water, Eruption/fire, Rockslide/earth, Hurricane/wind) to several different predictions that heal the party (Healing Wind, Blessing) and then finally one disastrous prediction that does nothing to the monsters and savages the party (Pestilence). The best prediction is likely Divine Judgment, which damages enemies with holy element while healing the party at the same time. The strength of these predictions is based on the last digit of the target's HP, with a "0" digit having almost no effect and a "9" digit producing very powerful results. Predictions can be used with three different timer lengths, with the fastest costing 7 MP and the slowest costing 1 MP, with an additional in-between result that costs 3 MP. The key to using the Oracle class is therefore to cycle between predictions, queueing up the desired ones ahead of time by setting the Oracle's MP total where the player wants it, and then choosing prediction combinations that keep the MP digit on the correct number. This requires skill and planning to pull off, and can be thrown awry by enemy Psych / Osmose spells or Magic Hammer. Unfortunately these timers also can't be sped up and Predict is a slow-acting ability in the lategame. Predict is therefore a very difficult ability to use effectively.

The two other abilities on the Oracle are both passive in nature. "ABP Up" does exactly what it suggests and grants 50% more ability points with each victory in battle. While that might be great for the GameFAQs crowd that likes to grind endlessly, it's pretty useless for a solo run because taking ABP Up requires dropping Predict as an ability. "Read Ahead" enormously reduces the rate of random encounters, and that does prove helpful in a few cases for a solo run. I was able to run all the way from the save point in the Dimensional Castle up to Necrophobia without facing a single random encounter, which made it easier to retry that battle (and the Apocalypse one that preceded it at the prior save point) with less wasted time. Nevertheless, these are minor utility skills that don't hold much value. Every major boss fight has to be conquered with Predict.

Condemn and Predict themselves are mostly OK as far as abilities go, even factoring in the serious difficulties of using Predict effectively. The real problems with this class lie in the character stats and equipment selection. The Oracle has terrible stats in every category other than Magic Power, with horrible Strength and one of the worst Vitality stats in the game. The Oracle even gets a speed penalty for no clear reason. It might seem that this is compensated by having the game's highest Magic Power stat, but there's a nasty surprise waiting for the Oracle in that regard: neither Condemn nor Predict use the Magic Power stat in any way. The Oracle can get up to 70+ Magic Power and it's almost completely worthless. This has to be some kind of cruel joke on the part of the designers; at least the Magic Power comes in handy for Magic Lamp and Healing Staff use. On that note, the Oracle is further crippled by the lack of any weapon other than staffs. No daggers means no Chicken Knife for lategame damage, and no Rods means no rod-breaking shenanigans to fall back upon. The Oracle is pretty much stuck with Predict for damage, with the breaking of Light Staffs and the Magic Lamp as the only other options. This is therefore the class with the highest skill cap to use in the whole game, and quite frankly for non-expert players the Oracle belongs another tier further down on the list, roughly comparable to the White Mage. I only have it here because intelligent usage of Predict can navigate past most of the game's major challenges, and Condemn is consistently excellent at handling random foes.

In addition to the difficulty in using Predict, the ability also deals damage completely independent of the Oracle's stats and level. The damage from Predict is fixed and never increases or decreases. This works well for most of the game, where a handful of predictions will defeat bosses, but it really starts to fall off in the endgame, with Apocalypse causing major problems, and fails completely against the final boss. The Oracle has absolutely no defense against White Hole or Grand Cross, not even a one-time use of Shell out of the Wonder Rod, and my solo Oracle was forced to do mass breaking of Light Staffs to defeat the game. This was a very hard class to win with and stretched my limits as a player. However, Condemn and Predict were still powerful enough that the Oracle was able to avoid being placed among the weakest classes in the game. With enough setup ahead of time, Predict could indeed get the job done, which is more than I can say for some of the other solo classes.

[Gustaran]

Two of the more helpful Condemn curses are "Rejuvenation", which heals the target for about 1000 HP, and "Recuperation", which functions as a Heal / Esuna status restoration ability. Best of all is "Doom", which functions exactly the same as the Doom spell: when the ticking clock hits zero, the target dies.

I have never played FF5, but this sounds confusing - am I missing something? The way I understood the explanation, it sounds like the player puts condemn on a target enemy,  and later some effects occurs - either dealing damage or healing the target.
But why would you consider "healing the target" to be helpful? I presume you would want to kill the target ?
Or are you talking about a friendly target? Can you pick a new target once the healing effect occurs, i.e. a party member?

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

The Oracle sounds like a much less intuitive version of the Final Fantasy Tactics Calculator.  Did the GBA remake developers base it on that, and some time or budget constraint prevented them from including in-game documentation?

[System Error]

Instead of casting magic instantly from halfway across the map for 0MP, you cast whatever random spell after a delay for 3, 5, or 7 MP. If the Oracle is compared to the Calculator like that then I think you could say it failed math class...

[Sullla]

Last class in Tier 4... and another perfect prediction for Herman, who nailed all five of them. Well done!



Mimic
Overall Ranking: 21/26 [Tier 4, Rank 5]
Innate Command: Mimic
Stats: Strength +0, Agility +0, Vitality: +0, Magic Power +0
Equipment: Daggers, Rods, Staffs, Ninja/Thief weapons, Shields, All non-Ribbon armor
Abilities: !Mimic (999 ABP)
Total ABP to Master: 999 points

The Mimic is the hidden secret class in FF5, found as an optional side quest in the third world underneath the sunken Worus Tower. The Mimic is most similar to the Bare / Freelancer non-job, sporting no bonus to character stats and the chance to wield a much wider equipment selection than normal. Unlike the Bare job, Mimics have their own unique ability named, well, Mimic. This causes the character to repeat the last action taken by a member of the party. In a normal full party, it's possible to chain Mimic commands together to have the party use all sorts of powerful and game-breaking combos, like having one character use X-Magic followed by double Bahamut summons and then Mimic that on a character that doesn't even have X-Magic or Summon as selected abilities. Mimics can also bring over any abilities learned as a part of other classes, but unlike the Bare job they aren't required to take "Fight" and "Item" as commands, and can take up to three abilites from other jobs instead of two. All of this is mostly wasted for a solo Mimic, unfortunately, who never gets to use anything but the basic Fight and Item commands along with the class-specific Mimic. You can Mimic your own Fight command from the last round, which does absolutely nothing different from simply picking the Fight command a second time. The only real trick for a solo Mimic involves the use of items: you can drink an Elixir and then Mimic that drinking on subsquent rounds, only consuming one item in the process. I called this the "bottomless cup" tactic and it was useful at times to reproduce a poor man's version of the Bard's Hide ability and run dangerous foes out of magic points. Since this was a very slow process and the Mimic was fully targetable the whole time, I only used it in a few places. It is not possible to Mimic rod breaking, and an actual item does have to be consumed each time for that move.

Speaking of which, Mimics have access to rods and staffs along with the default knives. They also get to use the very small selection of Thief/Ninja weapons, although the Double Lance tends to be the only one in that group worth equipping. Thankfully they do get to use shields and all of the non-Dancer armor in the game, without which I would have placed the Mimic in the next tier down. This is certainly helpful and the opportunity to use all of the game's shields opens up some useful opportunities for this class in the later portions of the game, between the Aegis and Fire and Ice and Genji Shields. Unfortunately, most of the really useful gear that can be used in battle happens to be weapons of different types, and the Mimic is excluded from most of them. With mediocre stats in every category, the Mimic is forced back on breaking rods and staffs far too often. I had to resort to that option over and over again on the Mimic run despite my best intentions. This is a class that doesn't have a lot of other options.

The Mimic is essentially a crippled version of the Bare job. The Mimic command barely even qualifies as an ability, and aside from that, this is the same non-job with an enormously reduced selection of available weapons. The main way to make progress with the Mimic is through aping the Dancer with the Dancing Dagger or to become a pretend Black Mage via rod breaking, both of which I've mentioned before knock down the scoring of a class on this tier list. There weren't a lot of roadblock bosses, but only because I kept resorting to the powers of other classes instead of anything that the Mimic could do itself. I think my favorite trick with this class was breaking Venom Rods onto the solo Mimic to heal while wearing the Bone Mail. That was fun. I also came up with a creative strategy to run Exdeath and Neo Exdeath out of magic point by running the emulator on Fast Forward all night while Mimicking the drinking of hundreds of thousands of Elixirs. When a solo class is restoring to those sorts of tricks, it's definitely among the weaker entries on the list. I have the Mimic as the worst of the "below average" classes, just barely managing to escape the ranks of the truly underpowered classes.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Instead of casting magic instantly from halfway across the map for 0MP, you cast whatever random spell after a delay for 3, 5, or 7 MP. If the Oracle is compared to the Calculator like that then I think you could say it failed math class...

A Calculator who failed math class sounds appropriate! 

I thought of Calculator in the "gimmick job based on math" sense. 

Yay!  By simple process of elimination that any hack could do, I predicted Tier 4!    What do I win?

After reading all these Final Fantasy 5 solo reports, I'm considering a Bravely Second Exorcist solo, though I may have to include exceptions for certain boss fights.

I expected Mimic to be a bit higher in the tier, but I forgot how much worse its equipment selection is compared to Freelancer.  Having to resort to rod breaking all the time must be boring.

[System Error]

I expected Mimic to be a bit higher in the tier, but I forgot how much worse its equipment selection is compared to Freelancer.  Having to resort to rod breaking all the time must be boring.

Breaking rods isn't so fun? Are you kidding me? When was the last time you saw a tactic with such power and efficiency with killing things? Breaking rods puts the game on another level, and we will be blessed if we ever see a tactic with its usefulness and accessibility for anyone again. Giltoss breaks records. Mix breaks records. Breaking rods breaks the rules. You can keep your statistics. I prefer the magic.

A solo character could do nothing but break rods and clear essentially the whole game using nothing else, something that's not possible with the other non-class options. In other words, there really is a good reason why we view rod breaking as a cheese option, or at least why I do.

Anyways memes aside, I said that this sounds like fun, so.


I call this variant/experiment "mindless jobless rodbreaking hobos". A lot of variants people do play through a game with intricate knowledge and creativity to make it through with the limited restrictions they impose. I say, screw all that. Let's play with a restriction, but another mentality altogether and see if I can't make it through with no brain, perseverance, and delicious cheese. A few rules/guidelines I'll be following for this.

Guideline #1: These characters are mindless. They cannot do things like take advantage of status vulnerabilities, things that seem to suck or are actually great, or other obscure knowledge.
Addendum #1.1: But not that mindless. Common/infamous stuff will be allowed. And if they chance upon something they can keep on using it.
Guideline #2: These characters are jobless. They must remain jobless for the whole game.
Guideline #3: These characters love to break rods. 750 smoke'em ev'ry day. They don't care if it's cheese and probably don't even know you exist and are making fun of them, they'll bust'em up as much as they want. Some may even think you're the dumb one for not using them!
Guideline #4: These characters are characters plural. I could go solo I guess, but I figured I'd try it with four for various reasons. Maybe I'll try that some other time. (It'll probably be with Time Mage because that one changes the most from rod breaks, but if I do that it won't be just with rod breaks)
Addendum #4.1: Why would they not use jobs, either? I have seen people dumb enough to not find them for one, and for two, "Hey I cleared FF5 without jobs, I just broke a bunch of rods." Doesn't that seem like something they would brag about?
Addendum #4.1.1: But...that means that'll be me. Shit. At least it's for science/entertainment.

All right, from here on out, let's break stuff! From here on I'll be another person with another personality. Let's be a big dumdum.
_____


You have to go to the Wind Shrine first. Hey, did you know you can get free Potions at the start of it? I just attacked and attacked in here.


I did the same on WingRaptor. I almost died on him because he killed everyone but Lenna, but she finished him off with her next attack. I went back and healed at the healing pot at the start after that, though she almost died to a White Snake on the way there. Of course I got jobs at the end, but you can keep your stinking jobs! I prefer the rods.


I got Broad Swords and equipment for everyone in Tule. I spent the rest of my money on Potions. Too bad you can't break the first rods you get. Also jeez. This game is cutscene heavy at the start. It takes forever to really get into the game! Come on, let me do stuff already! Stop interrupting me!


Nothing to say about Karlabos. Only thing I could do was attack, so I just attacked. If somebody got low I just used a Potion.


I dunno what to say about the early parts of the game, though. It's really uninteresting and all I could do was attack. I got a stronger weapon called the Flail in the Shipwreck so I gave it to Faris. The boss turned undead and suddenly started hitting really really hard. I had to use a bunch of Potions so no one would die. Except her that is. She eventually turned back and got really weak again.


You get your first rod in Carwen! Just the one, but it's cool! Because I was getting hit so hard by Siren I upgraded everyone's armor here. I also bought a bunch of stuff. Probably should save some because I need to save up money for buying rods later, but making it so my guys don't die is super important too!


Some of the enemies on the mountain hit really hard, even with equipment upgrades. But I got to break my first rod on the boss! Boom, you're dead! Hehe. I gave the shiny new Whip she dropped to Lenna.


Because the new armor didn't help much and I want to try to save money, I decided not to shop in Walse. I did pick up the Silver Specs from in-town, though. And with the shiny and effective Silver Armlet in the tower, finally everyone has a full compliment of equipment. Also, how much sense does it make that a robe made of silk is just as good if not better than armor of bronze?


Against Garula, I was concerned that I might have to go back and get more potions. But when Lenna attacked, her whip paralyzed it! This made the fight very very easy. It lasted for quite a while too, so the thing barely got a chance to attack.
_____


A fun diversionary aside, that is in fact the Mime shard up there. If you adjust your coordinates to reach it...you'll instantly be warped out of the tower, the earthquake continuing if you've triggered it.


But you can also change the room you're in, which affects the tileset and allows you to reach it without interruption.


Sure enough you'll get Gogo's initial speech, and though aside from that it is a little glitched (you see "Red Mage" when you trigger the fight and "A" in two text boxes after), you can face him normally.


And you do in fact get the job. Putting this here because I always wanted to talk about it in a report, but for now, back to breaking stuff.
_____


Finally I could reach Karnak, where I could pick up rods! Killing bosses is going to be pretty easy from here on out, needless to say.


I spent some time in the forests outside killing dogs, buying five of each type of rod and upgrading everybody's equipment. Once I got everyone Mythril Swords, my characters could routinely one-shot them. I also got everyone Mythril Helmets and Armor, besides the cheap one I got. I got five of each type of rod for now. Finally I spent the rest on Potions. I'm set!


I had to run out of the Fire-Powered Ship early on because a stupid Crew Dust blinding everyone. I had enough money so I bought 99 Eye Drops. I'm never running out against those stupid things now! Then they decided to be even stupider and never cast it again. Argh. That was a waste!

Though I do have rods now I don't have a lot, so I choose to just attack against the enemies. Aside from that silliness it's not like any of them posed any threat at all. Everyone was level 14 by the time I reached the end.


Got some equipment upgrades in the ship. One, at least. Bigger numbers is better.


LiquidFlame. Took two rods and he went down. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. I got a Flame Bow as a drop, but I needed to take off a shield to use it. Used it during the escape but I didn't like it very much so I took it off after.


Oh yes, the escape sequence. I was sure to get every single chest! One thing, these Gigas enemies were big stupid and bulky. I fought one normally but it took way too long. Instead of wearing them down as the timer was counting, I felt the best thing to do was to just break rods on them. This didn't kill one when it showed up in a group, so I just attacked.


The boss called Iron Claw also got a broken rod once it showed up. Faris got to equip the Ribbon and Main Gauche. I forgot about the Elven Mantle until partway through the next dungeon. I gave it to Roddy. Nice name by the way, huh?


I restocked on rods at Karnak, getting up to ten of the Flame and Frost rods. I also got a free one.here! And a bunch of Potions too. 99 should keep my characters all healed up!

The Anicent Library is long and boring. The stupid enemies don't even give you a lot of Gil! Took a while to get through it. Everyone was at level 16 at the time, so I didn't need to worry about the blue guys casting Level 5 Death.


Two rods each dropped both of the bosses. Funny thing, when I did that on Byblos he tried to cast Protect. Not gonna help you, buddy!


Even a big Dhrome Chimera on the way back tried to kill the party with an Aqua Rake before I killed it instantly with a broken rod. Missed the damage though, argh.

################

So far? I'm having a blast with this. Forget playing "intelligently" and thinking about exactly what to do to beat the boss, just mindlessly break rods and watch stuff die! Hold the A button in random encounters to eventually win! Forget going to places like Tycoon, just charge forward. No need to spend time in battle saving money with the Healing Staff, I can just earn more money and save time by using Potions. Almost dying on WingRaptor had me laughing, basically the perfect start I was looking for. Thought I would have fun acting the fool on Garula with its counters, but it was surprisingly easy due to accidentally running into its paralysis immunity.

Of course I mindlessly rodbroke against opponents who either had elemental weaknesses or were otherwise just weak. How will it scale along?! Is it really true they can carry you through the whole game (no, see: Aracheoaevis, Crystals). Find out whenever!

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

System Error made a new variant just to spite Sullla and me?  How touching!    

The reason I said rod-breaking was boring was more because I thought it would get old if that's the only tactic you used the whole game.  That's why I avoided attack items like Arctic Winds for my 4 Red Mages playthrough in Bravely Second.  After a while, I'd want to use a class's unique abilities.

(Then again, if I had to play through FF5 with something like solo Time Mage, I'd break rods all the time too.)

I'm glad you're having fun with this, System Error.  Sometimes it's nice to unwind use overpowered abilities.

As for Sullla's tier list, will the ranking of Bard be affected by its dependence on emulator fast-forward?  Hiding would take far too long if you're not playing FF5 on a PC.

[System Error]

Nah, not really "spite" but more "science". Anything in the report that makes it seem like that is just because I'm writing as if I'm a different person in the report, up to and including changing my writing style a bit. :P Only reason why I quoted you is because I wanted to reference that meme. It...wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped as when I wrote it with Chemist. @_@

Though yes it was 'inspired' by that quote and the mini debate about rod breaking earlier on in the thread. I was actually going to do it much sooner, but haven't been able to until now. There's actually a much deeper reason why I'm doing this report too - besides being in response and the sheer amusement of how ridiculous it is - but I'll get to that at the end of it.

In regards to ranking Bard...well. Mime escaped the mire even though it spent even longer bottomless cupping against Neo than Bard did hiding. So my guess is while a factor it won't be considered the factor, so to speak.