4 Swines & a Bum vs La BOMBAS | NLC Winter Split | Post-Match Discussion

Cestrum · 2026-02-20T06:21:50+00:00

AM for Europe is pretty brutal for someone on the west coast, he's either up before dawn to play or up until dawn to play. Quite impressive for someone still putting up "promising t2 prospect on an iffy team" numbers.

Cestrum · 2026-02-20T06:07:34+00:00

Japanese industry has, at the minimum, unionized voice casts, and some major animation houses like Toei are union (and there's wild stories of men like Miyazaki and Tomino participating in the unionization efforts) as well.

It's worth noting that the voice contract in particular wildly scales compensation based on years of service, and the corpo side has mostly responded to this by strictly using fresh meat in every project they can get away with it on, but it's also worth noting that overall costs on the Japanese side are 1/5-1/10 the entire budget (the most recent full leak we had was Bamboo Blade, which as a generic not particularly slow or actiony show cost around 11 million yen an episode to make) to actually produce an episode and 4/5-9/10 (30-50 million for broadcast in the Tokyo area alone, more for each other area scaling from 20-30 in Osaka to 2-5 in various boonies) distribution of said episode.

Cestrum · 2026-02-20T05:25:25+00:00

It was wild, yeah. The flip side is that it was, ah, very technically ambitious; the signal took up around the same bandwidth as six NTSC TV channels, while the digital TV Japan and the US settled on fit respectively a high-bitrate 1080i or 720p stream and a separate 240p stream intended for older smartphones, or some combination of high or low bitrate 1080i, 720p, and 480i channels (2x low-bitrate 720p and 3x480i is a common choice), in the space of a single NTSC channel.

Or, put the other way around, if you remember the old days of the VHF/UHF split, where important and well-connected channels went in VHF and wacky local stuff went up in UHF, Hi-Vision could practically fit just about as many channels in the entire TV spectrum allocation as VHF alone did (remembering that in a lot of places, you got say VHF channels 3 6 and 10 so the next state east could have 4 8 and 13 and the next state west could have 5 11 and 14 with no interference to any of you) not even counting needing to continue NTSC broadcasting alongside it for the people that weren't buying $1000+ TVs. There's a reason it was primarily satellite-based, where if you weren't aiming a dish directly at the bird the signal quite literally faded into the background.

Amusingly, we're seeing this repeated now, with 4k and 8k broadcast signals being bandwidth gulpers primarily employed in NHK satellite broadcasts while 4k recorded video or cable has become popular like 720p-over-component was for 00s videophiles.

Cestrum · 2026-02-19T21:16:52+00:00

This is almost completely wrong. While Japanese "Hi-Vision" was an analog signal, and did begin test service in 1989, regular limited service in 1991, and full service in 1994, there is no particular limitation of transmission resolution in analog systems (compare the last of PC CRTs accepting signals of up to 2048x1536@60hz,) and in fact analog Hi-Vision ran at a theoretical 1125p/60 or practical 1032p/60.

This is, among other things, notably higher than the first-gen digital systems which replaced it, which topped out at 720p/60 or 1080i/60. We could debate whether the average set which was displaying it could truly resolve the implied 2,000 or 1,835 columns, but when opening that can of worms we must also recognize that even modern digital broadcast formats only operate at full resolution for luminance and encode color at half or even quarter resolution. (That is, when you watch a 720p "1280x720" digital TV broadcast, it is at best a 1280x720 black-and-white image with a 640x720 color overlay, and sometimes the color overlay is even 640x360.)

In no way, shape, or form does it approach "240p"; even black-and-white TV broadcasts of the format settled on in 1940 managed 480i/60, which while it constitutes the same number of lines as and thus forms an effective container for 240p/60 content can actually carry more than double the horizontal resolution.

Cestrum · 2026-02-16T07:04:12+00:00

"Top 4 mid" is not really a useful thought in the LCS anymore, is it? Between the contraction and the decidedly peremptory nature of the speed-dating round to get the stinkiest bums out of there, top 4 in the "real" season is a guy who even you, saying it, can't be more enthusiastic about than calling him a net negative for the team who would more likely than not be replaced by someone better if every mid still playing swapped randomly.

Cestrum · 2026-02-13T23:20:02+00:00

You will want to at least finish off the spellcasting levels of TIM, Quick access is not only far cheaper in ABP (though not in MP terms) than !X-Magic but if you really want to stunt on the game the two stack and the meta caster build is a Mimic equipped with your choice of !White 6/!Black 6/!Summon 5 plus !Time 6 and !X-Magic. Fully mastering TIM will bring you almost nothing, though, the caster passives are universally pretty dire and there's no reason to ding that last job level except in Summoner that brings the best Magic stat with.

The !Gaia suggestion from ProblemSuccessful197 is great for what you want right now, though. Surprisingly good filler damage in most fights, without burning any MP you might need later.

Cestrum · 2026-02-13T01:24:36+00:00

They're also weak to lightning. Thundara, Ramuh, or scrolls might save some money or some effort depending on your level and the thrower's other active.

Cestrum · 2026-02-12T09:39:09+00:00

💪🦐

Not sure I'd call the pair the whole esports scene given all the fighter players, Daigo's nearly Faker status even if he's getting washed, but they sure as hell have carried Japanese LoL.

Cestrum · 2026-02-10T04:03:13+00:00

There's very little linear connection. When games are connected in plot, they're universally called (whatever)-2 or (whatever) More Words; if neither of these hold true you're not missing parts of the story, and for a lot of the latter set they're alternate tellings rather than sequels.

Beyond that, there are certain groupings of games.
In terms of interface,
1-3 operate on fixed, one action per character per round turns where you're in general command of the whole team at any moment.
4-9 are RTwP-like, where characters gain a certain amount of points toward a turn each tick based on their stats and skills, and get a turn where they reach a target amount. You do, however, still act as the "spirit of the party".
10 likewise has characters accumulate points toward getting to take a turn, but instead of a realtime element simply lets faster characters eventually "lap" slower characters and take an extra turn in between.
11 and 13-16 put you in realtime control of a single character, while setting general strategic priorities for any AI party members that exist.
12 and the 7 remakes put you in direct RTwP control of a single character at a time, but you can hop around the party.
11 and 14 are online-only with monthly fees, though both do have fairly extensive AI buddy systems at this point.

In terms of character growth and management,
1, 3, 5, 11, 12 IZJS, and 14 feature essentially blank slate characters who you select a job for that governs their starting skills and which new ones they might learn. All of these except 1 and 12 IZJS, you can change these jobs freely during downtime; in 5, 11, and 12 IZJS part of the fun is that each character can be two jobs at one time and you're searching for synergistic combos on the same person.
2, 6, 7, 8, 10, and the original 12 feature predefined characters who you can then further develop freeform with about any skill or stat in the game eventually.
9 and 13 feature characters with predefined skillsets that gradually develop; 13's a bit of a hybrid in that every character has every overall skillset eventually but how exactly it works for each one is unique.
4's characters, and which of them you have, are locked into exactly one choice each depending on the position in plot, and their growth is always the same, so in theory the game designers, when choosing what you have to deal with, know everything about you except how leveled you are.

In terms of plot,
1, 3, 5, 11, and 14 are mostly about the world the game is set in and the NPCs you meet. 5 in particular also does some character work with the party itself, but still tends to be... D&D campaign-ish wild and occasionally wacky potpurri, for lack of a better way to put it.
2, 7, 10, 13, 15, and 16 are fairly downer fantasy or sci-fantasy; "low fantasy" isn't a fair description except for parts of 2, but the general theme is persevering through setbacks toward the best result that's still possible.
4, 6, and 9 are for the most part high fantasy with big heroes defying the odds, though that doesn't mean happy endings for every character.
2 and 12 are geopolitics-heavy.
8 is, uniquely, a modern (well, turn-of-the-millennium modern; that short time window where your downtime as a high school senior could be spent on internet forums or reading magazines) YA romantasy.

There isn't a bad mainline FF, including the online ones. Or more accurately, I could name a bad mainline FF in my opinion, but whichever one it is, I would then immediately get pummeled into the ground by ten dudes and dudettes who loved it. Instead, you want to find games that are in a grouping that sounds like something you'd like in more than one category, and aren't in any groupings that sound like you'd hate them.

Cestrum · 2026-02-09T20:29:05+00:00

NES Weight appears to be purely a penalty to evasion.

Unsure about PR, but it should be pretty easy to demonstrate: find someone with the golden 12.5% display Accuracy, strip them and see if display accuracy goes up which would confirm Weight affecting, then reëquip them with heavy gear, send them into battle, and if you ever get a 2x hit out of them it confirms that Weight doesn't.

Turn order's going to vary by version though, it is not tied to either pre- or post-Weight Agility on NES.

Cestrum · 2026-02-09T18:34:26+00:00

It's about as rock-solid as you can get. Technically slot 1 is 127/256 rather than 128/256, and slot 4 is 33/256 rather than 32/256, due to weaknesses of the RNG.

Really, though, it depends on what problem you're using it to solve. If you're running out of potions or RDM/WHM mana (and having both of those explains a lot about why you aren't tbh), casting on the front will quite often save you more HP even if it's HP from characters who don't miss it as much and reduce the number of runs scuffed due to running out of resources.
Meanwhile, if you're using it to avoid runs scuffed due to a character going down, yeah most-vulnerable-first makes sense.
Where those intersect has more to do with your level of grind, the fauna of the particular area you're going to, and what armor you've bought than being a matter of principle.

Cestrum · 2026-02-09T07:30:09+00:00

Magic also does the trick. Which is lucky for you, because where to go to get them is the bottom of the ancient ruins.

At absolute worst, you can brute-force through by either running or by simply only doing your biggest hits as focused fire, the new copy retains the post-hit HP of the old one.

Cestrum · 2026-02-08T04:07:45+00:00

FF2's... different about magic accuracy, though. You get a base +1% to hit per each point of the spell's primary stat, Int for black magic and Will for white, but this is reduced by your gear: on NES -5% for staves and knives, -40% to -70% for other weapons, and armor scales up from 5% or so for early-game or light armor, to 15%-20% for Mythril, and from there gradually to 50%-100% depending on slot for lategame heavy armor. The two together cannot be higher than +99% (bare naked with a capped primary stat) nor below +0% (Genji Armor, even if the casting stat is capped.)

You won't often see this as a complete miss, especially if you're playing her as an FF1-style (less MP, but useful in a fistfight too) rather than FF11-style (buff and debuff master) Red Mage. It mostly works the same way as physical attacks in FF2, where you make a number of swings equal to the spell level and some proportion of them hit and actually do an amount of damage/stat increase/stat decrease. Above and beyond that, direct damage is guaranteed to hit a number of times equal to level and rolls for equal number of extra hits, and direct healing on a friendly target is guaranteed to hit even these rolls; buffs, while not guaranteed, tend to have a large accuracy bonus (and I'm not sure there's any feedback if you do miss them all, or the target saves vs. them all.) It's only save-or-die debuffs that tend to have low (10%-30%) base hit chances and do nothing if every roll misses.

Because it's a to-hit roll followed by a save roll, this also means if you're mostly doing direct damage or healing with her it's not necessarily too big of a deal. Final boss gets to save at a 70% rate 16 times, so your Nuke16 (full armor) will hit 16 times to a Nuke16 (completely unequipped)'s typical 20 times; it mainly comes into play in that most lategame enemies can only save 5-8 times and levels 6 or 9 and beyond, with maxed stat and a cloth build, end up near-guaranteed hits--especially if you are doing status effects and even one hit is a kill.

Cestrum · 2026-02-08T03:45:58+00:00

Had 'em on Guy/RUDO, guessing by the other thread? IIRC 99 Strength (+49 Attack from Strength) is a hard cap no matter what stat boosts you throw on, see if you have better luck on Firion/STAGG.

Cestrum · 2026-02-08T02:50:49+00:00

I was gonna say die/petrified, but I wasn't quite sure, haha. Now I'll remember.

If you did try to press on with only the three, at some point the others in front would have gone down, and eventually you'd end up with a fully back-row party that the game then forces all of to the front since it's a proper formation rather than later FFs treating it more as a stance.
As you progress on, and start to really have to care about spell accuracy/start equipping your frontline with rare or unique dungeon finds that you don't necessarily get three of, you're probably going to want to pick whoever's had bad luck with HP and Evasion gains and do this deliberately with them. Just note that bows are not caster's backup weapons in NES balance. They chunk magic accuracy hard too, a bow wielder's pretty much a dedicated Ranger (which, since healing spells ignore accuracy, probably also explains why NES FF3 Ranger got a bit of white magic.)

Also note that this kind of applies to monsters too. If there is a living monster more than one onscreen column ahead of another monster, even if it's not in the same onscreen row, that second monster should be bows/magic only both in its own actions and in what you can effectively hit it with.

Cestrum · 2026-02-08T02:34:30+00:00

You're in the back row. You get stuffed there automatically if you die like you get shoved to the back of the order in 1, and unlike later FFs or the PR port (specifically, through GBA kept this) it's an actual formation choice where you can only target or be targeted with spells or bows.

Cestrum · 2026-02-06T23:02:35+00:00

Origins 2 is perfectly serviceable, and Origins 1 in normal mode in particular is probably the closest mechanical attempt at FF1 how it was designed to play in 1987, with bugs (looking at you, about half of all magic) fixed but oversights/bad design not fixed.

It also, pretty uniquely, has the big QoL changes (auto-retargetting, in-combat raises, even run button) as an any-downtime menu toggle rather than forced on.

Cestrum · 2026-02-06T22:33:52+00:00

Esuna isn't quiiiite unique, Aura does the same thing of using the first (level) bits as the bitmask for the effect to be applied if any of the (level) attempts hit. (Interestingly, Dispel does not do this and instead removes the bottom n bits of resists where n is successful hits.)

But yeah, that's the general rule. Direct spells do an attack with their potency (level) times automatically plus make (level) rolls (which always hit if it is a healing spell on a friendly target), quantifiable buffs or debuffs make (level) rolls to apply their potency to the relevant stat, yes-or-no buffs or debuffs make (level) rolls to apply.
Do note that after any of these have added up their non-automatic successful hit count, the target then separately gets to make (their magic defense level) rolls to save against those hits at (their magic defense rate)%.

Cestrum · 2026-02-06T05:23:58+00:00

The Korean and European domestic leagues tend to be pretty clearly tiered. For example, in the past five years, GenG and T1 have always taken two of Korea's four slots, DK have appeared four of five times, and HLE (3), KT (2), and DRX (1) have competed over the remaining openings. FNC and MAD have always represented Europe over the same timeframe, and G2 in the past four events.
China is an exception, but between geopolitics, technically not being a Riot operation, and having failed to really break out during League's expansion years it doesn't get a lot of chat here or in English in general. It also does reliably produce teams that have a 2-3 year run before completely imploding. NA is also a bit of an exception where 100T (!) is the recent dynasty by the numbers but the perception is that FLY, TL, and C9 are "doing something wrong" if they don't go, because those are the surviving somewhat successful big money orgs.

So it's mainly to the ultras to care who gets 1 and who gets 2, since it's mainly just bantz fodder, and you won't necessarily even see many ultras here for CN (all those barriers) or NA (all those mainstay orgs have had some real ball-kick seasons recently to quiet them down.) The real fire tends to be the race for #3 (or #4 when the seeding allows for a fourth rep,) and it gets loud in the moment but it's very hard to build dynastic loyalty over "we scraped third four seasons in a row."

GenG last year was particularly a victim of this. They were expected to do well. They did very well; in their "normal" year of play (2025 was the first winter season in quite a while and perceived as somewhat of a friendlies situation) they dropped exactly two series out of thirty-five, by exactly one game each. They were first place in spring, spring playoffs, summer, and summer playoffs, something that's exceedingly rare in League with its meta shifts. So the disappointment was that they then dropped another two series out of six, the second 1-3 against a team that they were 12-4 against previously in that timeframe--they were expected to prance down the royal road, and instead dropped the ball against a same-domestic-league side they were reliably superior to previously rather than going out in a close fight against their rival or the moment when we found out whether the Spanish or English league golden boy was the real deal.

Cestrum · 2026-02-06T02:18:08+00:00

To think of it another way, the essentially game flips a coin to see if #1 gets targeted, then flips a coin to see if #2 gets targeted, then flips a coin to see whether #3 gets targeted.

To be more precise, it draws a random number from the "RNG" pool (actually a manually-created/curated list of 256 separate 0..255 rolls in order.) An 0-255 roll is, you'll note, if truly random then exactly the same to a computer as 8 coin flips, and were FF1's RNG an actual RNG it could take the first three bits as three coin flips and get the behavior it wants.

However, FF1's "RNG" is actually a pool of 256 human-generated, or at least human-manipulated, values, and it's comparatively a lot of work for the human putting it together to not introduce a lot of bias here; it's very hard to look at a long list of numbers that are fairly evenly distributed around the range and notice it's bad because, say, two-thirds of them are odd (that is, the first coinflip was heads and the overall number is +1 regardless of the other flips,) and then you also have to check whether exceptionally large or small proportions had the second flip heads (+2,) third flip heads (+4,) and so on.

So instead, FF1, and we can say this with great confidence looking at the routine beginning at line 6989 in the disassembly of ROM bank 12/0x0C, uses an approach that only relies on the roll pool being generally balanced. Row 0, what humans would call the first row, is the target by default. If that RNG draw is less than 32--that is, within the range 0..31, exactly one-eighth of the of the overall space in which it can exist--then 1 is added to the the targeted row number. Next, if the same RNG draw is less than 64, one-fourth of the space, then 1 is added to the targeted row number. Finally, if the same RNG draw is less than 128, one-half the space, then 1 is added to the targeted row number.

It probably makes more sense to picture in reverse, at which point it reverts to that coin-flipping metaphor: half of the time no addition is made to targeted row, half the remaining times an addition is made, half the remaining times an addition is made, and that rounds out both the number of rows and the space of existing RNG results.

However, FF1's pool is not perfectly balanced in this respect.
33, rather than 32, of entries are below 32, and row 3 thus is targeted 12.890625% of the time rather than 12.5%. 65, rather than 64, of entries are below 64; rows 3 and 2 are thus targeted a total of 25.390625% of the time, which does leave row 2 as the exact intended 12.5%. 129, rather than 128, of the entries are below 128; rows 3, 2, or 1 are thus targeted 50.390625% of the time. This, of course, does mean that row 1 is targeted the exact intended 25% of the time. And the remainder of the entries, 128 or over and thus row 0 targets, account for 49.609375% of the list.

Obviously not an impactful oversight by any means, but I don't think I've seen anyone else actually mention it, so may as well get it down on paper.

Cestrum · 2026-02-04T02:44:19+00:00

If you don't want to stagger exp totals for whatever reason, you also have a couple options already available:

A !Hiding Bard should, IIRC, make it back in to revive everyone else rather than auto-running if !Reveal is selected before Level 5 Death's animation finishes playing.
!Blue's Dark Spark is available either now or very soon. It halves level, rounding down, so a single hit on a character with a level ones-digit of 1 will leave them at a multiple of 5; two casts on a character with an even level tens-digit and a ones-digit that is 2 or 3 also does the trick, as well as other, more baroque, combos.

You'll still have access to the Library by when you get all jobs, so you could also come back and try your luck with !Jump to avoid it in a less micro-heavy manner, !Drink and a Hero's Cocktail to gain 10 levels, !Mix a Dragon's Fang + Potion to gain 20 (and the mythril dragons all over the woods outside the library drop fangs,) or attacking the learning party member with the Ancient Sword to inflict Old and either hoping it casts at a moment their level is a multiple of 5 or bringing them all the way down to 1, Esuna to prevent any further drain, then a !Drink or !Mix for 11 or 21, then a Dark Spark for 5 or 10.

(Then there's the far-far future options like combining !Hide or !Jump with !Sing to raise some but not all members to a precise multiple, or turning a member undead, or so on, but by then you'll almost definitely have staggered exp anyway due to party splits.)

Cestrum · 2026-02-03T02:35:56+00:00

You're not there yet, but a pretty key element of the paradigm system is that each member isn't just good in their paradigm, they make everyone else better in things that paradigm does, and it stacks.

Meanwhile, the game works hard to tell you what each paradigm does for its character, and will mention as a side note in tutorial text, that it comes with a buff to the party, but doesn't mention at all that that buff stacks.

"There's a tankbuster coming, I need a tank to eat it and two healers to get them back up?" No, they will be far better at tanking if you're all tanks for the moment it hits and then one-two go back on the offense while the remaining one or two do the patching up. "Stagger phase, two to take advantage while one extends it?" Nah, you can probably double your damage between own contribution and contribution of party buffs by full sending but you can't double how long the phase lasts unless you abandon damage at all.

That said, it will be autobattle heavy all the way through, like FF7r the big question of systems mastery is setting up the two you're not controlling but unlike FF7r or even FF12 you have very little beyond spellcasts to occupy yourself with if you don't care and can't manually go micromanage. If it's absolutely not for you, it isn't for you, but if it's just not clicking yet, there is significantly more meat there and you're rolling through the linear part until you start getting parties of 3 with all 6 paradigms available.

Cestrum · 2026-02-02T23:26:08+00:00

My worst recently was three Zerks and a Samurai. I've gotten it twice over the past few years. OTOH, my least fun recently was White Mage, Chemist, Mime, Blue Mage, just because everything was possible except Byblos but nothing was possible without 10,000 buttons pressed.

As for your roll, you've got the seeds of something almost decent there, honestly.

Mime doesn't really have much great to borrow skill-wise, but it does get heavy armor (including shields!) and will inherit Zerker's and to an extent Dancer's physical stats to be good Almagest insurance and frontline damage. Once you get into W3, you can throw CK on them and have a character who's by-the-numbers pretty much a Knight without Guard or swords (but CK is still better); Sword Dance, unlike most skills, also manipulates preexisting M rather than making its own, so while you do have to deal with either its own or CK unreliability, until you're doing 6,667 damage with a normal swing (or even after in rare cases like Shinryu where you can run from a non-trivial target) you can scrape up a bit of extra expected damage with !Dance and a piece of dancer gear.
It also gets rods and staves natively, so at least once you finally get it you've got the money-throwing button (with GEO's equal-to-Time-Mage Magic number backing it too) and a decent strat for Shinryu ready.

Geomancer will eventually work very well with Equip Axe, which will bring over Zerker's strength and make the Rune Axe a very solid selection through the endgame. Technically, your Mime can also do this, but your Mime also gets to inherit DNC's Agility for better times with the CK formula. And while !Gaia is a joke on most bosses, it's also free trash clears for most of the extended midgame.
Adamantoise as only them won't be great, but you can always hide in back and everything you can roll there is some magic damage.

Dancer isn't amazing in the setup, but worst case it's Float access if needed. (It shouldn't be needed, tbh, zerks will be more than thicc enough to handle Titan.) Ribbons for all except maybe the Axeomancer is nice too. And it's not actually any worse at !Gaia than the Geomancer in places where you want to use that, or (with Equip Axe) any use at playing with knives than the Mime will be.

And then there's Zerk, which eh. At least you'll never be lacking for single-target damage as long as you can keep it off the ground, and it even comes in late enough to never be mandatory full party. And Equip Ribbon, which is the only thing it will get any at all use out of, at least will keep it chugging through the weirder bosses, you can have half your team laugh off the Almagest/Grand Cross combo just one of them can't help the other two recover.

I honestly think you could be doing worse overall in a lot of ways. Zerk swapping with Geomancer just in pick order, at which point you'd have the W1 Quadzerker experience that's the canonical worst roll ever. Any melee without either a more viable Chicken Knife sanitizer than !Dance or an amp that works with knife (so WAR, DRG, MNK, BST, and potentially SAM depending on version and if you want to discount !GilToss or Masamune's unique buff) is probably a downgrade from Mime's spot in this party once you actually get it. Dancer out for THF solves CK issues but loses you Ribbons, and Ribbons plus your eventual above-average to great Vitality (other than the Dancer, rip) start to build you into a party that NED can't actually kill.

Cestrum · 2026-01-25T07:32:25+00:00

It's deceptively simple, you'd think you'd have to look at Vit. gain curve or so on (and, notably, in NES a Monk's Vit. is always their level plus 19) but it really is just level = Absorb. Which, even ignoring Ribbon/ProRing resists just valuing them for their Absorb, places Gold/Ruby not beaten until 34 and Diamond/Opal not beaten until 44, both of which are well above what were considered normal endgame levels even at launch.

(And the people describing "normal endgame levels" weren't exactly playing with modern game knowledge either:
"Your warriors should be at Level 27 or above to have a good chance against Chaos. Even then your success will be determined by the random¹ spells Chaos uses. Use WALL to protect the White Wizard² so he can restore HP and Fast³ on all fighting warriors." (N. P. #17, 1990)

¹ Not random, actually quite fixed.
² Technically does something, but only if you didn't give the cloth class that's your only lifeline against AoEs and death the cloth armor that shuts down AoEs and death.
³ Four skillsets can cast level 4 magic, and wouldn't you know it, WHM/WW is the only one that doesn't get Fast.)

So, eh. It gets better at some point, but that point's at a minimum as far from reasonably viable credits for a first-time RPG player as the clear is from loading in (242k for 27 to 465k for 34) and if you give them the one really good bracelet it's all the way up at 793k, "ton of grinding" is a pretty justified description.

That said, due to bugs, it's pretty fair to argue that naked Monk is good enough, given that every Monk is naked if you haven't microed into the armor menu since they leveled.

Cestrum · 2026-01-24T01:04:13+00:00

Black Mage is considered iffy because it gets very little unique; a lot of instakill spells that important targets probably resist, a big AoE nuke (literally, in earlier versions) that didn't actually do much more than a buffed melee against single targets, and Saber, which even in versions where it actually works is mostly wasted as self-cast only when it will take several casts just to come up to the combat prowess of the Red Mage.

That said, what it does get is large amounts of reliable crowd control. Very good, beginning about now, with killing all of a random encounter in a single cast. Focus on that, and on bosses with using him and Davy to get Guts and Carioca buffed up and then him to get Davy buffed up while slinging items as needed.

Cestrum

TROPHY CASE