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| FINAL FANTASY IV: THE AFTER YEARS |
| CHARACTER GUIDE - iOS/ANDROID EDITION (v 1.0) |
| by RitzierHades63 |
| |
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Contents:
I. Intro and Updates [INT]
II. Equipment Notes [EQN]
III. Character List [CHL]
- Ceodore [C01]
- Cecil [C02]
- Rosa [C03]
- Kain [C04]
- Rydia [C05]
- Edge [C06]
- Cid [C07]
- Yang [C08]
- Palom [C09]
- Porom [C10]
- Edward [C11]
- Luca [C12]
- Ursula [C13]
- Leonora [C14]
- Gekkou [C15]
- Zangetsu [C16]
- Izayoi [C17]
- Tsukinowa [C18]
- Harley [C19]
- Golbez [C20]
- Calca [C21]
- Brina [C22]
IV. Comparisons [CMP]
V. Suggested Lineups [SGL]
VI. Outro and Credits [OUT]
==============================
| I. INTRO AND UPDATES [INT] |
==============================
Hello! I'm RitzierHades63, and welcome to the latest Character Guide for Final
Fantasy IV: The After Years. Why make a guide for a game that came out eight
years ago (nine years in Japan)? Well, -I- didn't get around to it until a
couple months ago, so it's new to me! *cough* Besides, for all its faults,
this game has a really deep character system that's lots of fun to play around
with. I was going to do most of this experimenting anyway, so even if nobody
reads this, I haven't wasted much time that I wasn't already going to.
This guide is focused on the 3d remake of the game for iOS/Android, the only
version I have. It has a few differences from the 2D versions, some of which
may change your character strategies. First off, the Challenge Dungeons have
been cut. Without these, there's no reason to level up your characters after
you finish a chapter. So at the "gathering" - the point in the last chapter
where everyone comes together and you can finally pick your team - a lot of the
cast will be far behind the ones that get the most screentime. How much
grinding a character needs to become useful is an important factor in how
valuable they are.
Another big cut to this version of the game is the cameo bosses in the last
dungeon. They're replaced with four eidolon palette swaps called Lunar
eidolons; this may be lazy programming, but at least it gives the 2d players
new challenges to take on. One of them is meant to be beaten during regular
gameplay, but the other three are the Superbosses, brutal fiends with way more
powerful attacks than the last boss. I doubt they're harder than Omega or
Shinryu from the 2d versions, but they still need preparation.
The goal of this guide, then, is to help you pick a team that can beat the
game's biggest challenges: the last boss and the superbosses. You shouldn't
fight any of these until you're at the last save point in the final dungeon.
By then you should have all the best treasure from the last two dungeons and
have Dualcast unlocked. So when I rate the characters, I'll be going by how
good they are at the endgame with their best options available. (If you're
reading this before you get to the gathering, you can use it to plan ahead and
avoid leveling characters you know you won't want later.)
This guide consists of four sections. First, I talk about the various
equipment the characters can use, since it's so crucial to shaping your lineup.
You can skip this section if you want, but you may be in the dark about some
things later, like the difference between Knife and Dagger and what the heck
Light Helmets are. Next is the meat of the guide - a careful analysis of every
character in The After Years. After that, I'll compare the characters to see
who has the best stats and who works best in which roles, then give you some
suggested lineups to use based on how the characters work together.
By now, I'm sure you've realized I'm very long-winded, and I've probably bored
you to tears. Sorry about that if so...but take it as a warning. I'm going to
be this way through the whole FAQ, so if you haven't liked it so far, you may
want to bail out now. But if you want to learn more about these characters -
and you really like reading - you've come to the right place!
Updates:
- 1.0 (6-18-17): The first release of this guide. It covers Sections
I-VI.
With that said, off we go!
=============================
| II. EQUIPMENT NOTES [EQN] |
=============================
Which weapons and armor a character can use are very important in this game,
because most of the best equipment offers great bonuses to certain stats.
While each character has its own unique set of gear, it's possible to break
down that gear into categories, which are a lot easier to list for each person.
This section will list both the categories and the most important items in
them, so you can have some idea of a character's capabilities just by looking
at their gear.
I specifically ignore certain equipment in this document. I don't consider
superboss rewards, because beating them is what this FAQ is prepping you for.
I don't consider rare drops, because you won't have them unless you're lucky
(or do a lot of farming). I don't list some starting equipment that can only
be used by one character, because none of it is useful for the endgame. Of the
Tail trade-ins, I only assume you've got the Limit Ring, the one you're most
likely to have and the only one that really changes your strategy. (The Taunt
Ring might be good too if you can get the stupid thing to work...) And I only
mention Adamant gear in one writeup, because there's really no telling which
pieces you have; if you haven't picked any yet and want my advice, just get one
of each piece.
Weapons: There are lots and lots of categories of weapons. Most are self-
explanatory, but some aren't. The list:
- Sword: All swords but the Excalibur and Ragnarok, which are part of the
Holy bonus set (see below). The best normal sword is actually the
Defender, which you can buy (along with most other Challenge Dungeon
items) at the start of the second-to-last dungeon. Everyone who can use
it has better options from other categories.
- Axe: All axes. The best by far is the Gigant Axe, which does more damage
than any other melee weapon in the game (except for the bonus weapons
from superbosses). The problem is that it's two-handed, so you can't use
a shield with it, which hurts your Defense. It's usually worth it,
though. Other sources say axes have bad accuracy, but I haven't
experienced that in this version of the game.
- Hammer: All hammers. Anyone that can use hammers can use axes, so the best
hammer, Thor's Hammer, isn't anybody's best option. Note that it does
cause lightning damage, though, and a couple of the superbosses are weak
to lightning.
- Spear: All spears. The best is the Holy Lance, the second strongest (non-
bonus) melee weapon and some characters' best option.
- Claw: All claws. None of them have any Attack Power, so the best are the
Dragon Claws (+10 Strength), the Tiger Fangs (+10 Speed), and the Godhand
(+10 to both).
- Katana: All katanas. The best are the Mutsunokami, which also casts Blink
when used as an item, and the Masamune, which also casts Haste when used
as an item. Quite useful tools, those katanas.
- Knife: All knives EXCEPT the Assassin's Dagger. Everybody who can use one
can use the other but the ninjas (Edge and the Eblan Four), who cannot
use the Dagger. Probably a design choice, since giving ninjas the
Dagger's Speed bonus would be obscene. The best knife is Triton's
Dagger, not that it matters.
- Dagger: The Assassin's Dagger. Its damage sucks, but its +15 bonus to
Speed can be a godsend.
- Whip: All whips. The best is the Mystic Whip, which actually has the same
Intellect bonus as the best Rod. This only matters for Rydia, though.
- Instrument: Instruments such as harps and lutes, equippable by Edward only.
The best is Loki's Lute, which offers a great +10 bonus to Speed and a
tiny bit more damage than the Perseus Bow/Arrows.
- Bow: All bow/arrow sets. Bows are terrible for most of the game, but you
finally get some decent ones in the last chapter. The best is the
Perseus Bow, which is the strongest offensive weapon for most mages.
- Thrown: Boomerang-type weapons. These are even worse than bows unless
dual-wielded, and even then you'll only want one - you'll get the
"ranged" damage bonus even if your other weapon isn't ranged. The best
thrown weapon is the Rising Sun, with a sweet +10 bonus to Speed and
decent Attack Power.
- Staff: All staffs. The best is the Seraphim's Mace, just for the +15 bonus
to Spirit. Occasionally in random battles I'll switch to the Master's
Staff, which casts a single-target Cura for free when used as an item.
- Rod: All rods. The best are the Stardust and Faerie Rods, which both have
the same +10 bonus to Intellect (where's my +15!?). The rod you should
be using in random battles, though, is the Recovery Rod. This hidden gem
heals all characters for at least 400 HP when used as an item! Using
this with your nuker in random battles can really help save your healer's
MP. It does leave the healer with nothing to do but attack, though...
Shields: With one exception, shields are bonus gear for heavy armor users. The
Lunar Shield has a +5 Speed bonus attached, but otherwise they're not much more
than extra defense. The exception is the Adamant Shield, which can be used by
anyone - even dual-wielders and mages! ...but not Calca and Brina. (Of
course.)
Helmets: There's only three main categories of helmets, but there's a couple of
"side" categories that only have one or two items in them. (They're all pretty
good, though.)
- Hats: Basic hats. Mostly low-level equipment, but also Ribbons, which have
good Defense and prevent all status ailments but Paralyze. Besides that,
the only notable hat is the Green Beret, which has awful Defense but
offers a +5 bonus to Strength.
- Helmets: Tough gear worn by heavy-armor users. The best normal helmet is
the Dragon Helm, which has the most Defense and halves damage from fire,
ice and lightning to boot. Most heavy-armor users can use the Crystal or
Lunar bonus sets, though, which are stronger.
- Light Helmets: Two hats, the Red Cap and the White Tiger Mask, that are
mostly saved for "athletic" types that use neither heavy armor nor mage
gear. Both hats are quite nice - the Red Cap is stronger than the Dragon
Helm, and the White Tiger Mask offers +5 to Strength with much better
Defense than the Green Beret.
- Mage Hats: A few mid-level hats worn mostly by mages. The best is the Cat
Ear Hood, which has excellent Magic Defense and offers a +5 bonus to
Speed. If you want magic stat bonuses, try the Hypnocrown, which gives
+5 to Intellect, or the Sage's Miter, with +5 Spirit.
- Female Hats: Two hats, the Gold Hairpin and the Mystic Veil, that can only
be worn by females (and Brina). The Gold Hairpin gives a massive +10 to
Intellect, making it Rydia's helm of choice most of the time. The Mystic
Veil gives +7 to Intellect AND Spirit, making it a slightly better option
for your female casters.
Armor: Again, three main categories, but lots of small "side" categories that
have a few gems hidden among them.
- Clothes: Basic clothes. Mostly low-level equipment. The Black Belt Gi is
notable for its +5 bonus to Strength; its Defense is low for the endgame,
but it's the only option for most heavy-armor-user Strength builds.
- Armor: Tough gear worn by heavy-armor users. The top of the line is the
Dragon set again, and most users still have better options.
- Light Armor: Two garments, the Red Jacket and Brave Suit, that are mostly
saved for "athletic" types that use neither heavy armor nor mage gear.
These are phenomenal pieces that give +10 bonuses to Speed AND Strength.
The Brave Suit also gives +10 to Stamina, so wearing it gives a better
Defense score than the Dragon Mail.
- Ninja Suits: Two garments, the Fire Scarf and Black Garb, that only the
ninjas can wear. They're better off going with light armor, though, for
the stat bonuses.
- Robes: Soft clothes worn mostly by mages. The best is the Luminous Robe,
but everyone who can use it has a better option.
- White Robes: Two robes, the White Robe and the Robe of Lords, that only
white magic users can wear. These have good Defense and +10 bonuses to
Spirit, and the Robe of Lords also has +10 Stamina. But Speed is really
important for healers, so you may want to boost that instead.
- Black Robe: The black mages' answer to the White Robe. It's useless,
but...
- Sage Robe: Black mages also get THIS robe, and this time Leonora can get in
on the action. It's slightly weaker than the Robe of Lords, but has
bonus Intellect instead of Spirit - and bonus Speed instead of Stamina.
(I'd say the Robe of Lords got the raw end of that deal.) It's the best
option for black mages or, for Golbez, Intellect and Speed builds.
- Doll Clothes: Special clothes only wearable by Calca and Brina. The best
one is the Final Outfit, which has surprisingly good stats, but the Clown
Clothes may be better with their massive +20 Speed bonus. It all depends
on how you use the dolls. IF you use the dolls.
Accessories: All characters can use the vast majority of accessories. The main
exception is arm accessories: most characters will use either gloves or
armlets. These are just extra Defense except for the Lunar Gloves, with +5 to
Strength, and the Talisman armlet, with +5 to Intellect and Spirit. There is
another exception, though - power bands, namely the Power Armlet and Hyper
Wrist. Most characters can use them, but many (usually the less athletic ones)
cannot. The Hyper Wrist is great for Strength builds, adding +10 to the stat -
and in the iOS/Android version of the game, it's buyable!
Bonus Sets: Along with the equipment above, some specific groupings of armor
(and occasionally weapons) can only be used by certain characters. These are:
- Holy Weapons/Armor: Ragnarok, Excalibur, Lustrous Sword, Lustrous Shield,
Knight's Armor and, for some reason, the Gauntlet. Reserved for the holy
fighters Cecil, Kain and Ceodore. Only the Ragnarok is good, and you
have to beat a superboss to get it. (This does NOT include the Holy
Lance, which can be used by any Spear user.)
- Crystal Armor: Crystal Shield/Helm/Armor/Gloves. Can be used by every
heavy armor user but Cid and Luca, for some reason. Kain's best
equipment, unless you're building him for Strength.
- Lunar Armor: Lunar Shield/Helm/Armor/Gloves. For those with Lunarian blood
only - Cecil, Golbez and Ceodore. This is the strongest armor in the
game besides the Adamant gear, and it's the best option for all its users
unless you REALLY want better stat bonuses.
- Genji Armor: Certain heavy armor that can also be worn by ninjas. These
include the Genji Helm/Armor/Gloves, but also the Bone Wrist, Mythril
Gloves and Iron Gloves for some reason. All characters who use heavy
armor can also use these (and the Genji Shield), so they're not listed
for them. This armor can be nice when you get it, but it's all
outclassed by the endgame.
- Female Armor: Minerva Bustier, Rose Twine Dress, and the Queen's Whip/Mask/
Tights/Gloves. Used by all females (but not Brina this time) and no
males. The interesting piece here is the Minerva Bustier, which has
great Defense and physical stat bonuses - but also -10 penalties to
Spirit and Intellect. It's still the best option for raising Speed for a
few characters.
=============================
| III. CHARACTER LIST [CHL] |
=============================
Now it's time to look at the characters themselves! ...almost. First I should
show you the formatting I'm using. Here's what's included in each entry:
Job Class: Taken from the character's status screen.
Roles: Things a character is best at doing. This can be Fighter (physical
attackers), Nuker (magic attackers), Healer (HP/remedy/life givers), Support
(buffs/debuffs and minor healing) or Tank (defensive units).
High Stats: The character's best stats. These were determined by comparing all
characters at equal level. In my case it was level 56, which was my highest
level when I started this FAQ and the one I had to catch every other
character up to.
Low Stats: The character's worst stats.
Equipment: What gear a character can use. For more details, see above.
- Weapons: All categories of weapons usable by the character.
Best Weapon: The strongest weapon the character can use at the endgame.
Sometimes there's more than one, usually for sword users (you get the
best one, the Ultima Weapon, only after beating the superbosses) and
mages (who will want offense sometimes and magic stat bonuses
others).
- Shields: Whether the character can use shields.
- Helmets: All usable helmet categories.
- Armor: All usable armor categories.
- Accessory: Whether a character uses gloves, armlets or both, and if they
can use power bands. Remember, any other accessory can be worn by
everyone.
- Bonus: Any bonus equipment sets the character can use.
Abilities: A character's magic and other abilities.
- For magic and ninjitsu, you'll see a spell list like so: Cure(1),
Libra(5), etc. The number in parentheses is the level at which the
character learns the spell. Starting spells are listed first.
- Other abilities will have their own paragraphs afterwards.
Notable Bands: Good bands the character can get in on. Note that some bands
do much more damage in this version of the game, so keep an eye out for new
toys to play with.
After all that, I give the character an in-depth look. I judge characters
mostly on five areas: Stats/Equipment (they're closely linked, so I talk about
them both at once), Magic, Abilities, Bands, and Starting Level. That's their
starting level at the gathering, by the way. Finally, I give a summary of the
review and rate the character just for fun.
Okay, then. Let's dive in!
=============
Ceodore [C01]
=============
Job Class: Red Wings
Roles: Fighter/Healer/Support
High Stats: None
Low Stats: Intellect
Equipment:
- Weapons: Sword, Spear, Bow, Knife, Dagger, Staff
Best Weapon: Holy Lance before bonus bosses, Ultima Weapon after
- Shields: Yes
- Helmets: Hats, Helmets, Mage Hats
- Armor: Clothes, Armor, Robes, White Robes
- Accessory: Gloves, Power Bands
- Bonus: Holy Weapons/Armor, Crystal Armor, Lunar Armor
Abilities: White Magic, Awaken
- White Magic: Cure(1), Libra(5), Protect(12), Raise(14), Cura(15),
Esuna(20), Float(25), Shell(34), Blink(40), Reflect(45), Haste(47),
Curaga(49)
- Awaken: Using this skill will fully heal Ceodore and raise his stats by
a considerable amount. The stat boost wears off after a few turns,
though, and when it does Ceo's HP is reduced to single digits. If you
win a battle with Ceodore still Awakened, he'll be reduced to single-
digit HP immediately after.
Notable Bands: Vibra Plus, Double Jump, Makeshift Cannon
Our first character is the protagonist of the game, and the only new character
on this list for some time. Ceodore is one of just two characters that
seriously try to mix magic with might; unlike Golbez, however, Ceodore doesn't
excel at either of them. He's got low physical stats for a fighter and low
magical stats for a healer. So what does he have going for him? The single
best band in the game, that's what. Between that and his versatility, he's
worth a second look.
Let's start with his stats. Ceodore's weapons and heavy armor suggest a
front-line fighter, but he doesn't do well there. His attack damage is about
2/3 as high as the heavy hitters', and his HP is painfully low, even behind
mages' at low levels. Granted, he can equip Lunar gear to become surprisingly
durable, but it's still not enough.
Luckily, Ceodore has a back row option as a white mage...but he's not very good
there, either. Low MP and Spirit keep him from healing as well as Porom and
Rosa, and he's not even that much better with a bow. He's also missing several
crucial spells for a white mage - Curaja, Arise, Holy, and, worst of all, Slow.
So he can't be your only healer, just like he can't be your main attacker.
And the kid's special ability, Awaken, is barely worth mentioning. You have no
way of knowing when the skill will wear off, so you may not be able to heal him
in time when it does. Even while the skill's running, all it does is pull up
his stats to the levels other characters have normally.
All that's not to say don't use Ceodore, though. No, not at all. You see, in
the iOS/Android version of the game, one of the band moves somehow got horribly
broken. That band is Vibra Plus, and it belongs to Ceodore and Cecil. Put a
Limit Ring on one of them and keep them both in the front row and this band
does absolutely insane damage. 99999 damage, sometimes. This turns any boss
in the game into a complete joke, and it more than makes up for Ceodore's
shortcomings.
So what if you don't want to abuse a broken band? Well, Ceo's got a couple
normal ones, too. Double Jump, with he and Kain, is the strongest non-broken
two-person band in the game, and it bypasses the damage limit even without a
Limit Ring. If full-party bands are your thing (they're not mine, they're way
too slow and your whole party is rarely free), Ceodore also has the strongest
one of those in Makeshift Cannon. Using him, Ursula, Luca, Palom and Porom,
this band can do more damage than even Final Fantasy! It doesn't heal you like
Final Fantasy does, though.
The last thing Ceodore has going for him is levels. Thanks to all that time
spent traveling with Kain, he should be pretty close to your highest-level
characters when it comes time for the gathering. You wouldn't know it based on
his stats - his HP is typically lower than his mother's at this point - but it
won't take too long before he's a perfectly functional party member.
- The Bottom Line: Ceodore is a prime example of the power of bands. He's
mediocre overall, but his bands alone turn him into a contender. When he's
not using bands, he's best used as a support player, switching between
attacking, backup healing and buffing as needed. Just know that if you use
him, you still have to bring along a REAL healer, meaning your DPS in random
battles won't be the best.
- The Score: 10/10 with Vibra Plus, 7/10 without
===========
Cecil [C02]
===========
Job Class: Paladin
Roles: Fighter/Support/Tank
High Stats: HP, Strength, Stamina
Low Stats: None
Equipment:
- Weapons: Sword, Axe, Bow, Knife, Dagger, Staff
Best Weapon: Gigant Axe before bonus bosses, Ultima Weapon after
- Shields: Yes
- Helmets: Hats, Helmets, Mage Hats
- Armor: Clothes, Armor, Robes, White Robes
- Accessory: Gloves, Power Bands
- Bonus: Holy Weapons/Armor, Crystal Armor, Lunar Armor
Abilities: White Magic, Cover
- White Magic: Starts with Cure, Sight, Libra, Cura, Esuna, Teleport
- Cover: Using this skill on an ally will cause Cecil to take damage from
individual physical attacks instead of that ally. Once it's used,
he'll keep doing it until the end of battle or until you tell him to
stop - you don't have to use the command every turn. Cecil will also
automatically take individual physical hits for any ally that is at
critical HP. If Cecil is at critical HP, though, he won't do any
Covering at all (some Paladin you are).
Notable Bands: Vibra Plus, Final Fantasy
Cecil's put in a difficult position in this game. You can't use him at all
until the gathering chapter, and even then he's in no condition to fight. He's
not back in fighting shape until the very last dungeon - at which point he's
painfully behind in levels. So what do you get if you take the time to bring
him up to speed? Sadly, not much...except for the best band in the game, of
course.
Once Cecil's all grown up, he's pretty comparable to Kain - a heavy frontline
fighter with some white magic thrown in. In some ways, he even exceeds Kain...
but in most ways, he falls short. Cecil's got a better equipment selection,
along with slightly-higher Strength and Stamina. But they don't make up for
his lower Speed and HP, and he's missing one key piece of gear: the Holy
Lance. If you don't like the Gigant Axe (or have it on someone else), Cecil's
best weapon before the bonus bosses is the Excalibur. And the Excalibur sucks
in this game.
Cecil has some white magic, but it's really an afterthought. He gets zero
buffs and zero debuffs; probably his best spell is Esuna. His Cura is good for
some emergency healing on one character, but that's it. Kain outperforms him
in this area with Haste and Blink alone.
The paladin's saving grace is Cover, which some would argue is better than
Kain's Jump. Jump packs a punch, but it's slow-charging in this version of The
After Years, and its power can be affected by the phase of the moon. Cover, on
the other hand, is instant, and it always does the same thing: add a layer of
defense for weak allies. If you like tanking, though, Cecil is miles behind
Golbez, who can actually grab aggro (and has a bit more Stamina to boot).
So if he's a worse fighter than Kain and a worse tank than Golbez, why use
Cecil? If you read Ceodore's writeup above, you'll know why. If not, suffice
it to say that on iOS/Android, the Cecil/Ceodore band Vibra Plus is broken.
99999-damage-with-a-Limit-Ring broken. If you want to trivialize every boss in
the last dungeon, Ceo and Cecil are the way to go.
Unlike Ceodore, however, Cecil doesn't have any other game-changing bands to
work with. The only one that's really worth mentioning would be Final Fantasy,
which uses the original FF4 team of Cecil, Rosa, Kain, Rydia and Edge to deal a
truckload of damage and heal the party a little bit. It's a great band, but
it's slow to charge and takes up EVERYONE'S turn, which really limits its use.
I've already mentioned the real dealbreaker for Cecil, though: his levels. He
starts out all right, but you won't want to use him right away because of his
handicapped stats. By the time he goes back to normal, your main party members
will have grown far beyond him - especially if you're just using one party for
the endgame.
- The Bottom Line: If you want to take advantage of Vibra Plus, you'll need
Cecil. Otherwise, he's just not worth the time it takes to grind him up to
being useful. Even if you do, he's outclassed by Kain as a Fighter and
Golbez as a Tank, and those two don't need ANY grinding to use. Sorry,
Cecil, but you're sitting on the sidelines in my game.
- The Score: 10/10 with Vibra Plus, 4/10 without
==========
Rosa [C03]
==========
Job Class: White Mage
Roles: Healer/Support
High Stats: MP, Spirit
Low Stats: Intellect
Equipment:
- Weapons: Bow, Staff
Best Weapon: Perseus Bow or Seraphim's Mace
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Mage Hats, Female Hats
- Armor: Clothes, Robes, White Robes
- Accessory: Armlets
- Bonus: Female Armor
Abilities: White Magic, Blessing, Aim
- White Magic: Starts with Hold, Libra, Sight, Protect, Slow, Cure, Raise,
Cura, Esuna, Berserk, Teleport, Blink, Confuse, Shell, Curaga, Mini,
Silence; Dispel(33), Haste(36), Float(38), Reflect(40), Curaja(45),
Arise(55), Holy(60)
- Blessing: Rosa charges for a moment, then meditates. About half the
time, a small portion of HP and MP is restored to each ally. The other
half of the time, the skill fails.
- Aim: Rosa charges for a moment, then delivers a physical attack with 100%
accuracy.
Notable Bands: Pure White Magic, Holy Burst, Final Fantasy
If you want a healer in this game - and you do - there are only three viable
contenders. Rosa's the first of them, and believe it or not, she's the
strongest physically - her HP, Strength and Stamina beat both Porom's AND
Edward's. She also starts at a relatively high level, meaning you can put her
in your party with little to no grinding. So why wouldn't you want to use her?
Because her rivals have some important abilities that Rosa is sorely lacking.
Looking at Rosa's stats, you'll find some surprisingly high numbers. Aside
from her physical traits, she's got fairly decent Speed and very good MP and
Spirit, lacking only in Intellect. Porom beats her in those last three
categories, but not by enough to make a difference. The main problem for both
of them is Speed; light armor users and even black mages get armor that offers
a +10 bonus to the stat, but white mages don't. Of course, Rosa can always use
the Minerva Bustier, but that severely lowers Spirit, and the tradeoff may not
be worth it.
White magic is where Rosa shines, and she shines quite brightly. She starts
off with Curaga, and will probably be the only one to have it at the gathering.
She learns all white magic and has plenty of casting power, nearly matching
Porom in efficiency. Where Rosa cannot compete with Porom, however, is
Dualcast. Porom can use it, Rosa can't. This makes Porom the much better
choice for the bonus bosses, assuming you didn't (and don't) give Dualcast to
someone else. Meanwhile, neither one of the white mages can revive or remove
ailments from the whole party at once, which is Edward's big advantage. Of
course, Edward doesn't have Rosa's buffing ability (or Slow), but sometimes a
party-wide Phoenix Down is more important.
So what about Rosa's non-magic abilities? Well, they're not very good. Aim
was nice in the original FF4 because bows had terrible accuracy; here, they hit
just as much as any other weapon, making the skill unnecessary. Blessing can
be better if you like using black magic or bands during random battles, but
it's pretty unreliable, so you may find yourself running low on MP anyway.
The queen of Baron does have some interesting bands, though none of them are
top-tier. Pure White Magic applies a whole bunch of buffs to the whole party
at once, but you have to have Rosa, Porom AND Leonora in the party to use it,
which cripples your DPS. Final Fantasy, on the other hand, uses the much more
balanced team of Cecil, Rosa, Kain, Rydia and Edge to do a boatload of damage
and even heal the party a bit. You'll be hard-pressed to use it, though, since
all five party members are rarely free at once. Probably Rosa's best band is
her and Rydia's Holy Burst, which is the strongest two-person magic attack in
the game...but if you put Rosa on offense, you're gonna need another healer.
Really, the biggest thing going for Rosa is her high starting level. It makes
her perfect for casual players and speed runners, who want to get through the
game as quickly as possible (for very different reasons). Players willing to
grind for a while, however, have other options.
- The Bottom Line: Rosa is good, but she's not usually the best. If Porom
doesn't have Dualcast, Rosa probably beats her, and outside of total
disasters she probably beats Edward too. But if you want to take down the
superbosses, you're really going to need either two healers or one with
Dualcast. Either way, you'll have to grind someone up to par, so Porom makes
the most sense.
- The Score: 7/10
==========
Kain [C04]
==========
Job Class: Holy Dragoon
Roles: Fighter/Support
High Stats*: HP, Strength, Speed
Low Stats: None
Equipment:
- Weapons: Sword, Axe, Spear, Bow, Knife, Dagger
Best Weapon: Gigant Axe before bonus bosses, Ultima Weapon after
- Shields: Yes
- Helmets: Hats, Helmets
- Armor: Clothes, Armor
- Accessory: Gloves, Power Bands
- Bonus: Holy Weapons/Armor, Crystal Armor
Abilities: White Magic, Jump
- White Magic: Starts with Cure, Cura, Hold, Esuna, Teleport, Blink, Haste
- Jump: Kain charges for a while, then Jumps in the air, leaving the
battlefield. While he's in the air, he cannot be hit or targeted by
enemies or allies. After a moderate amount of time, he will land on an
enemy, dealing much greater damage than he would with a regular
physical attack. The damage is increased further if Kain's wielding a
spear.
Notable Bands: Double Jump, Mirage Dive, Final Fantasy
* Kain's stats will differ depending on what level he's at when he gets his
class change. The more he levels before changing, the worse his overall
stats will be. His "high stats" should still be high in any case, though.
Kain is the most visibly changed FF4 cast member. He was already a tremendous
fighter, both on offense and defense...and now he gets Holy and Crystal
equipment, some spiffy new spells, and HP that even outdoes Cecil's. Not every
change made to Kain is for the better, though, and his rival still gets better
gear than he does. So is Kain really the better option? Let's look a bit more
closely (spoiler: yes).
Stats are a tricky area with Kain, thanks to the class change mentioned above.
Regardless of when you change over, though, Kain should excel in HP, Speed and
Strength, and his Stamina will probably be pretty good too. This means he can
dish out tons of damage and take incoming attacks like a champ. Granted, his
gear's a little limited - he can't use mage or Lunar equipment like Cecil, and
he doesn't get high boosts in Speed and Strength like light armor users do.
But he does just fine without them.
Kain gets white magic in this game, and while his healing sucks as much as
Cecil's, his utility spells sure don't. Being able to Haste your healer while
the healer's casting Slow is a great blessing, and Blink can be just as
important against physical bosses. Kain also matches Cecil's ability to heal
ailments and Teleport, giving him more support options. Just take care not to
use too much MP on support, since you'll want all you can get for Kain's bands.
The dragoon's other ability, Jump, is...well, it kind of sucks this time
around. Not only did they add a charge time to it, they made that charge time
as long as the hangtime! You can get in at least two regular physical attacks
for every Jump, which means more damage in the Waxing and Waning Moons. In
the New and Full Moons, Jump still wins, but it's still irritating to wait for.
Kain makes up for his nerfed Jump, though, with some of the best bands in the
game. Double Jump, with Ceodore, is the best non-broken two-person band you
can find, dealing the most damage and breaking the limit without a Limit Ring.
Mirage Dive, with Edge, is also great, since it's nearly as powerful and
involves a much stronger fighter. You'll have to put on the Limit Ring for
that one, though. Finally, Final Fantasy is an extremely strong band between
Cecil, Rosa, Kain, Rydia and Edge, doling out massive damage - and some
healing, too! Just don't expect to get off a five-person band very often.
But probably the biggest advantage Kain has over most characters is in his
starting level. He's one of the few characters who will actually be close to
Golbez, Rydia, Edge and Luca at the gathering. This makes it easy to plug him
into your party and go - especially compared to his rival, Cecil, who can't
even be used properly until the very last dungeon.
- The Bottom Line: Kain is an excellent choice for your final party. He hits
hard, takes a punch, offers key buffs and has a couple of great bands for
bosses. Best of all, he shouldn't need any grinding! You'll do well with
Kain as one of the Fighters in your team, especially if he's joined by
Ceodore or Edge.
- The Score: 9/10
===========
Rydia [C05]
===========
Job Class: Summoner
Roles: Nuker/Support
High Stats: MP, Intellect
Low Stats: HP, Strength, Speed, Stamina
Equipment:
- Weapons: Whip, Bow, Knife, Dagger, Rod
Best Weapon: Perseus Bow or Mystic Whip
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Mage Hats, Female Hats
- Armor: Clothes, Robes, Black Robe, Sage Robe
- Accessory: Armlets, Power Bands
- Bonus: Female Armor
Abilities: Black Magic, Summon
- White Magic: Starts with Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, Sleep, Poison, Stop,
Toad, Warp, Fira, Blizzara, Thundara; Pig(20), Osmose(26), Bio(32),
Drain(36), Blizzaga(41), Firaga(42), Thundaga(43), Break(45),
Quake(51), Death(55), Tornado(58), Flare(60), Meteor(65)
- Summon: Rydia summons a creature to make an attack on the battlefield
(or, in one case, help the party). Summons are unlocked as the story
progresses, from the lowly Chocobo to the mighty Bahamut. Rydia also
has four optional summons, but they're a pain to get and not very
effective.
Notable Bands: Holy Burst, Mirage Song, Final Fantasy
Rydia is kind of shoehorned into your party. You spend the first third of the
final chapter with her, and even after, you have to put her in your party a few
times to progress the plot. Luckily, she's pretty good...but she faces
challenges for the black mage job in Palom and Golbez, who are both clearly
better in some areas. So is it worth keeping her around, or should you only
put her in for those story battles (and let her get slaughtered)?
Stat-wise, Rydia is pretty awful. She comes with great MP and Intellect and
fairly good Spirit, but everything else is poor or worse. Her chief rival,
Palom, beats her in everything but Spirit and Speed, and she actually has less
HP than the dolls at equal levels. The DOLLS, for crying out loud. Don't let
her ability to wear power bands fool you, either - she's lousy with physical
attacks. At least her gear helps her with her Speed problem, as the Sage's
Robe and Cat Ear Hood offer her 15 extra points without sacrificing much
defense. She also gets to use the Recovery Rod, which is always nice.
Black magic is Rydia's bread and butter, especially in the early game when she
has no summons. She's quite good at it, learning all spells (even status ones,
unlike Golbez) and getting plenty of power to cast them with. Palom beats her
in MP, but not by much, and while he holds a bigger advantage in Intellect,
Rydia can narrow the gap with the Gold Hairpin. She can't make up for how fast
she learns spells, though - Palom finishes his spell list ten levels before
Rydia, and even Golbez learns Flare and Meteor earlier. Palom can also gain a
leg up on Rydia with Dualcast, but that's kind of a moot point since it works
so much better on Porom.
So what sets Rydia apart from those two? Summons, that's what. These stylish
attacks hit all enemies for full damage, cannot be Reflected, and don't suffer
when the phase of the moon hurts black magic. And once you get Bahamut, he's a
top-tier damage dealer (despite his ridiculous charge time). Granted, the rest
of her summons aren't nearly as powerful, but they're better than a Fira!
Rydia also has a few good bands to her name. She's another one that gets in on
Final Fantasy, the Cecil-Rosa-Kain-Rydia-Edge deal that does massive damage and
heals your party by a small amount. It's tough to get all five members of the
party free, though. More practical is her Holy Burst band with Rosa, which is
the strongest two-person magic attack in the game. The problem is that it ties
up Rosa on offense, meaning you'll need another healer instead of more DPS.
Luckily, Rydia has a band with another healer: Mirage Song, with Edward, sets
Blink on the whole party at once. It's very convenient, especially since
Edward has no buff skills of his own.
Like Rosa, Rydia's biggest advantage may be her level at the time of the
gathering. You've been using her for hours by this point, and she needs no
catching up. On the other hand, you've been using Golbez too, and he can cast
damage spells nearly as well.
- The Bottom Line: Rydia's worth depends on your play style. If you don't mind
losing status spells, you may not need a dedicated nuker at all - just put in
Golbez and let him do any necessary nuking, then go back to punching faces
in. I'm addicted to Stop, though, so I need a black mage. Palom has the
better stats for it, no doubt about that, and if you give him Dualcast he's
easily the better option. But if you don't like grinding, like having
summons as a backup to magic, or want to be at full strength for all story
battles, Rydia's your best bet.
- The Score: 8/10
==========
Edge [C06]
==========
Job Class: Ninja
Roles: Fighter/Support
High Stats: HP, Speed
Low Stats: None
Equipment:
- Weapons: Katana, Knife, Thrown, Claw (can Dual Wield)
Best Weapon: Mutsunokami and Masamune or Mutsunokami and Rising Sun
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Light Helmets
- Armor: Clothes, Light Armor, Ninja Suits
- Accessory: Armlets, Power Bands
- Bonus: Genji Armor
Abilities: Ninjitsu, Throw, Mug
- Ninjitsu: Starts with Flame, Flood, Shock, Gale, Smoke; Heal Pill(17),
Shadowbind(25), Mirage(32), Blast(42), Frost(45), Blitz(48), Tremor(50)
- Throw: Edge throws a weapon at an enemy to deal damage to it. This does
full damage from the back row, of course. You can throw any weapon you
like, but it's better to throw shuriken, which have no other purpose.
- Mug: Edge charges up for a moment, then performs a regular attack and
tries to steal from the enemy at the same time. Simple.
Notable Bands: Mirage Dive, Final Fantasy
Kain may look like the most changed cast member of FF4, but that title should
really go to Edge. In the first game, Edge did low damage, got knocked out
easily, had useless magic and could hurt himself while stealing. In the
sequel, Edge winds up having the best physical attacks in the game until you
snag the bonus gear. He's also much more durable, has more support options and
hurts OTHER people while stealing. Quite the turnaround, eh?
Edge's stats are incredible in this game. He has no weaknesses - everything is
average or better. His HP may not impress like Kain's or Yang's, but it's
still on the high end. And his Speed is phenomenal. Add to this that some of
Edge's best gear has +10 Speed bonuses (Rising Sun, Brave Suit) and you've got
a character that'll run circles around the competition, even as he delivers the
hardest hits of the team.
Ninjitsu has also changed for the better, though not by much. It still doesn't
do much damage, but you do get a healing skill that goes through Reflect, and
you can still escape battles easily and put Blink on Edge. That's not the only
support Edge can give, though: his best weapons cast Blink and Haste when
used. That means that Edge, like Kain, can help with the buffing in the first
round or two of a boss battle before he starts dealing damage.
Edge's other skills are okay, but nothing to write home about. Throwing can do
major damage, but only if you're willing to part with a treasured weapon or the
expensive Fuma Shuriken. (On the other hand, what else are you going to do
with all that money you get in the last two dungeons?) While Mug is miles
better than Steal, the charge time means your DPS will take a hit. And just
like FF4, there's not much worth stealing in The After Years anyway.
Edge only has a couple of good bands, but they are very good indeed. Mirage
Dive is my personal favorite band - it does nearly as much damage as Double
Jump and puts Blink on Edge to boot. Plus it involves Kain and Edge, who can
do much more damage in random battles than Kain and Ceodore. Finally, Edge is
the last character that can join in on Final Fantasy. Again, this is a full-
party band requiring Cecil, Rosa, Kain, Rydia and Edge that does insane damage
to an enemy and some healing for your party. And again, your whole party is
rarely free to use it, and even when it is the charge time is painful.
On top of Edge's other advantages, he requires no grinding after the gathering.
His starring role in the first third of the last chapter means he'll be one of
the highest-leveled characters you've got. There's a case to be made for just
sticking Rosa into the party you started the chapter with and going from there.
Edge is a very good argument for this case.
- The Bottom Line: I can't say enough good things about Edge. He's powerful,
durable, versatile, and ready to go from the start. About the only reason
you wouldn't use him is if you're abusing Vibra Plus and don't have room in
the party for another Fighter. Other than that, Edge is the man.
- The Score: 9/10
=========
Cid [C07]
=========
Job Class: Engineer
Roles: Fighter
High Stats: Strength, Stamina
Low Stats: MP, Speed, Intellect, Spirit
Equipment:
- Weapons: Axe, Hammer, Bow
Best Weapon: Gigant Axe
- Shields: Yes
- Helmets: Hats, Helmets
- Armor: Clothes, Armor
- Accessory: Gloves, Power Bands
- Bonus: None
Abilities: Analyze, Risk Strike
- Analyze: Using this skill displays the target's HP and MP totals and any
elemental weaknesses it has. Like the Libra spell, but free.
- Risk Strike: Cid makes a regular attack that is a guaranteed critical hit
if it works, but it misses a lot. Sources say it's a 50/50 chance, but
in my experience it's far less accurate than that.
Notable Bands: Final Calcabrina
Cid's problem can be summed up in one word: he's slow. Really, really slow.
Several other characters also have speed problems, but they can fix it somewhat
by wearing armor that gives significant boosts to the stat. Cid cannot, and it
renders him pretty much unplayable. There's not much more to say, really, but
I'll give it a shot.
Stat-wise, Cid is unimpressive. Actually, I take that back - his Strength is
off the charts. Only Yang ends up stronger, and he's saddled with claws.
Cid's Stamina is pretty good too, but his strongest armor is the Dragon Mail -
which is actually weaker than the best light armor - and his HP is merely
average. All his other stats are flat out bad. Intellect and Spirit don't
hurt much, but his dismal MP makes it hard to use bands with him (not that he
has any great ones). And again, his Speed hamstrings him to the point of
uselessness.
The old guy's abilities are pretty bad, too. Analyze has two problems. First,
it's the same as the Libra white magic, and Cid is never in a party that has no
white mage (unless you put him in one). Second, if you're using a walkthrough,
you already know what the enemy's weaknesses are, so you don't need either
skill. Risk Strike is, to me, even worse - you're gambling to get a minor
damage bonus, and you end up with nothing most of the time. Or at least I do.
Even good bands elude poor Cid. The only one worth mentioning is Final
Calcabrina, which does pretty good damage for a four-person band. But it
charges slowly, costs more MP than Cid (and Luca) can handle, and requires
Calca and Brina, two of the OTHER worst characters in the game. So I think
I'll take a pass.
About the only thing Cid has going for him are levels. He starts out higher
than a good portion of the cast at the gathering, and at that point his 1500 HP
are nothing to sneeze at. But several other characters can already outdo him
there, and they have so much more to offer.
- The Bottom Line: No. Unless you like the old codger, Cid is not worth
messing around with. I cannot stress enough how bad his Speed is, and he's
not even that durable. He has nothing to offer but strong physical attacks -
and he's not even the best at that (Edge and Luca beat him)! I don't know
why the developers chose to do this to the poor guy, but they did, so steer
clear.
- The Score: 2/10
==========
Yang [C08]
==========
Job Class: Monk
Roles: Fighter
High Stats: HP, Strength, Stamina
Low Stats: MP, Intellect
Equipment:
- Weapons: Claw (can Dual Wield)
Best Weapon: Godhand and Dragon Claw or Godhand and Tiger Fangs
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Light Helmets
- Armor: Clothes, Light Armor
- Accessory: Armlets, Power Bands
- Bonus: None
Abilities: Kick, Focus, Cover Counter
- Kick: Yang charges for a bit, then delivers a physical attack that
strikes all enemies at once. The damage is divided equally among all
targets.
- Focus: Yang charges for a while, then delivers a strong physical attack.
- Cover Counter: This functions like Cecil's Cover - you pick the ability,
then select an ally, and for the rest of that fight Yang will intercept
physical attacks made to that ally. Whenever he intercepts an attack,
however, he will counter with a regular physical attack of his own.
Yang won't cover for weakened allies automatically like Cecil, though.
Notable Bands: Twin Wing Frenzy, Five Star Crimson Palm, Sword and Fist
Yang's tale is a bit of a sad one. First of all, he comes to the gathering
vastly underleveled. If you decide to bring him up to speed, you'll be glad
you did for a while, especially when he hits 99 Strength - which he will before
anyone else, thanks to his best weapons. But when you get the OTHER best
weapons - Gigant Axe, Holy Lance, etc - Yang starts falling behind, and it only
gets worse as other characters catch up to his Strength. Luckily, Yang has
some great bands to fall back on...but it still feels like a wasted investment.
On the plus side, Yang's stats are phenomenal. His HP and Stamina are the best
in the cast at equal levels, and if you give him the Brave Suit, he'll probably
be your most durable fighter. His Speed is perfectly acceptable, too,
especially since he has plenty of gear to increase it. And again, his Strength
will hit 99 faster than anyone else's...but because all of his weapons have 0
attack power, his attacks will never get any better once his Strength maxes
out. Meanwhile, other peoples' will, and before too long Yang won't even be
hitting as hard as Ceodore. Sad, sad, sad.
The monk does have some decent abilities to go to. Kick is nearly worthless,
since its damage gets lower and lower with each extra target. But Focus has
its moments: during the New and Full Moons, it will outdamage two regular
attacks, and you can also use it to reduce the number of hits you'll take
against bosses that counter you. Speaking of countering, Cover Counter is a
lot of fun to play around with, although it's not as useful as Cecil's Cover
since it won't kick in automatically. Still, try combining Cover Counter with
Golbez's Taunt for hilarious results.
Yang's bands, meanwhile, are a lot better than decent. Twin Wing Frenzy and
Five Star Crimson Palm (both with Ursula) do solid damage, and more
importantly, they're REALLY cheap MP-wise and REALLY fast-charging. Twin Wing
Frenzy was my main source of damage for a while before I realized the power of
Mirage Dive. Sword and Fist (with Cecil, Ceodore and Ursula) is also fast, and
it's even stronger...but it costs too much MP for Yang and Ursula to use often.
Another big knock against Yang is his starting level. Like most characters
that come from the six Tales unlocked after Ceodore's, he suffers dearly from
the loss of the Challenge Dungeons. When you get to the gathering, he'll be
painfully behind your current team...and investing in him just gives you
diminishing returns.
- The Bottom Line: Yang is a solid player, but not a great one. He's got the
durability, for sure, and his bands with his daughter are pretty useful. But
for DPS in random battles - not to mention versatility - the monk just isn't
up to snuff. Use him if you like him, otherwise don't bother.
- The Score: 6/10
===========
Palom [C09]
===========
Job Class: Black Mage
Roles: Nuker/Support
High Stats: MP, Intellect
Low Stats: HP, Strength, Speed, Spirit
Equipment:
- Weapons: Bow, Knife, Dagger, Rod
Best Weapon: Perseus Bow or Stardust Rod
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Mage Hats
- Armor: Clothes, Robes, Black Robe, Sage Robe
- Accessory: Armlets
- Bonus: None
Abilities: Black Magic, Summon
- Black Magic: Starts with Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, Sleep, Poison, Pig,
Blizzara, Fira, Thundara, Break; Warp(19), Toad(22), Osmose(25),
Drain(29), Bio(30), Stop(32), Blizzaga(41), Firaga(42), Thundaga(43),
Quake(45), Death(46), Tornado(48), Flare(50), Meteor(55)
- Bluff: Bluff actually does two things. First, it attempts to put a
debuff on enemies that reduces their magic defense. This sometimes
misses, and many enemies are immune anyway. But Bluff also seems to
boost Palom's Intellect by a small amount, which works no matter what.
Both the buff and the debuff last for the rest of the battle.
Notable Bands: Makeshift Cannon
Palom is the supreme black magic user of The After Years. He has the highest
Intellect of the cast, and he gets plenty of gear built for raising it even
higher. He even has an ability that makes his black magic more powerful
(though not by much). What keeps him from running away with the top spot for
nukers is utility, which Palom runs a little short on.
Stat-wise, Palom is the superior of the two dedicated black mages. He's got
more Intellect and MP than Rydia - actually more than anyone else in the cast -
but he also has more HP, Strength and Stamina, making him both mentally and
physically stronger. Of course, Rydia sets the bar pretty low on stats, so
it's not like Palom's physical traits are mind-blowing. Rydia is slightly
better in Speed, but both of them are pretty slow, so their use will be limited
until you get the Sage Robe, which adds 10 to the stat.
Again, Palom is extremely good at black magic. He gets the most casting power
on the team, letting him use spells more effectively and more often. Even
better, he learns his spells insanely quickly. Palom has every black magic
spell in the book by the low level of 55, something that could easily be
reached through regular gameplay. On top of that, he has the ability to
Dualcast. Granted, it's better to give that to his sister instead, but dual
Meteors can certainly be fun!
On the other hand, that's pretty much all Palom can do. He has another
ability, Bluff, but all it does is raise his magic power (by a very small\
amount) and lower the enemies' magic defense (when it works, and when it isn't
resisted, which it often is). About the only other thing you can use him for
is his weak physical attack or healing with the Recovery Rod; the second is
usually the better option. Meanwhile, Rydia has Summons, and the other nuker,
Golbez, has...well, so much more.
Palom doesn't have many good bands to work with, either. The one he has,
though, is basically the strongest in the game (not counting the broken Vibra
Plus). Makeshift Cannon, starring Palom, Ceodore, Ursula, Luca and Palom, is
capable of incredible damage, even beating out Final Fantasy in my test runs.
Of course, it has the same problems Final Fantasy has - long charge time, full-
party requirement - and it doesn't heal you at all.
Probably the biggest mark against Palom, though, is his starting level. Like
most of the cast, he'll be on the lower end of your levels at the gathering
thanks to the loss of the Challenge Dungeons. The other two nukers, Rydia and
Golbez, will have some of the highest levels of the team. It may not be worth
the grind to you to get a slightly stronger nuker who can do very little else.
- The Bottom Line: Palom is a fine choice, but he isn't the finest. The best
party is one whose members can take on multiple roles, and Palom is not such
a person. Golbez can switch between sword, shield or magic at the drop of a
hat, and Rydia has a whole list of spells all her own. Still, if you're
ready to sacrifice that for raw power, Palom is the way to go.
- The Score: 7/10
===========
Porom [C10]
===========
Job Class: White Mage
Roles: Healer/Support
High Stats: MP, Spirit
Low Stats: HP, Strength, Speed, Stamina, Intellect
Equipment:
- Weapons: Bow, Staff
Best Weapon: Perseus Bow or Seraphim's Mace
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Mage Hats, Female Hats
- Armor: Clothes, Robes, White Robes
- Accessory: Armlets
- Bonus: Female Armor
Abilities: White Magic, Pray
- White Magic: Starts with Hold, Slow, Libra, Cure, Sight, Raise, Cura;
Protect(12), Silence(15), Berserk(18), Teleport(19), Esuna(20),
Blink(23), Confuse(25), Shell(29), Dispel(31), Mini(31), Curaga(33),
Haste(38), Float(40), Reflect(44), Curaja(48), Holy(52), Arise(56)
- Pray: Porom charges for a moment, then meditates. About half the time, a
small portion of HP is restored to each ally. The other half of the
time, the skill fails.
Notable Bands: Pure White Magic, Makeshift Cannon
Porom is one of your three viable candidates for healer. She's the frailest of
them all, with bad stats in every category except the two most needed for white
magic. She'll also start out the gathering at a very low level, forcing you to
put some time into her. On the other hand, she does have the highest Spirit in
the game, and you may like her learning curve for spells more than Rosa's.
And, of course, there's Porom's trump card: Dualcast.
Porom gives Rydia a run for her money in the bad-stats department. Of course,
her MP is top-tier and her Spirit is better than everyone else's (she beats
Rosa by a hair). But just about everyone has higher HP, Strength and Stamina
than she does, and her Speed and Intellect aren't much better. The HP
especially means Rosa is a lot easier to keep alive than Porom. The Speed gap
isn't as wide, but it's there, and it means using the Minerva Bustier to boost
the stat is usually Porom's best bet.
As you'd imagine from her job class, Porom is all about the white magic. She
learns every spell in the game, and learns some of them faster than Rosa; the
only real difference is with Holy, which Porom learns eight levels before her
rival. She also has the most power and fuel for white magic you can get. But
most importantly, Porom alone among the viable healers can learn the almighty
Dualcast. This gives her twice the healing, twice the buffs, and the ability
to start a boss battle with Slow even if the party is already hurting. Of
course, that advantage goes away if you want to give Dualcast to someone else
(or if you already have).
Like her brother, though, Porom has only one other ability, and it basically
sucks. Pray offers random free healing to the party, which is always nice...
but the Recovery Rod, which Porom can't equip, does it just as well and a lot
more reliably. And if you use that, all it leaves Porom to do is a physical
attack, which she is really bad at.
Porom's bands aren't great, either, though they have their uses. Pure White
Magic fully heals the party and sets just about every buff you can think of.
Only problem is, you need Porom, Rosa AND Leonora to use it, and if you bring
that team into a random battle it'll take forever to finish it. Makeshift
Cannon is a little better, with a more balanced team (Porom, Ceodore, Ursula,
Luca and Palom) and the best damage capability this side of Vibra Plus. You'll
need the whole team to use it, though, which is tough to find time for.
The last disadvantage the younger white mage has is how much more training she
needs than her elder. Everyone plays differently, of course, but if you play
like I did, she'll be one of the lowest-level characters at the gathering.
Rosa, on the other hand, needs very little grinding to catch up to your regular
players. Porom requires an investment, no doubt about it.
- The Bottom Line: The question is, how badly do you want to Dualcast white
magic against the bonus bosses? If the answer is "very" - and it should be -
you're going to have to train up Porom eventually. (You can try Leonora, but
that's a tough road ahead.) But if you've already reserved Dualcast for
someone else, or if you don't care about it all, Porom's advantages over Rosa
stop outweighing her drawbacks, making Rosa (or possibly Edward) the better
choice for healer.
- The Score: 8/10
============
Edward [C11]
============
Job Class: Prince
Roles: Healer
High Stats: None
Low Stats: HP, Strength, Stamina
Equipment:
- Weapons: Instrument, Bow, Knife, Dagger
Best Weapon: Loki's Lute
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Light Helmets
- Armor: Clothes, Light Armor
- Accessory: Armlets
- Bonus: None
Abilities: Bardsong, Salve, Escape
- Bardsong: Edward performs a random song from his repetoire to affect the
battlefield. Effects range from healing the party to buffing to even
debuffing the enemies. Note that Edward must be equipped with an
instrument to use this command.
- Salve: Edward charges for a moment, then uses up to five curative items
at once - one for each party member. Each item used is deducted from
your inventory, and not all items can be used with this command.
- Escape: Edward quickly runs off the screen, hiding from the enemies.
While hidden, Edward cannot be targeted, but the only action he can
take is to Return to the battlefield. Unfortunately, his command
window can't be dismissed until you do, making it necessary to hit Next
a lot to get to other characters' turns. You can make Edward Return at
any time, but he'll have to build up another ATB bar before he can act.
He'll automatically Return if everyone else in the party dies, and if
you try to hide him again, he'll just Return as soon as his next turn
comes up.
Notable Bands: Mirage Song
Edward is a strange character. His role in the story, and his role as a
character, foreshadow his awful stats. But they have almost nothing to do with
his role in battle: using Salve to heal the party in ways white mages can't.
That's right, Edward is your third choice for healer in this game...and thanks
to the iOS/Android version allowing you to go back and restock items, he's
never been more viable.
Stat-wise, Edward is flat-out horrid. At least some of Ceodore's stats were on
the high end of average; Edward's not in the top half of anything. Luckily,
his best stat is an important one: Speed. Edward is a good deal faster than
Rosa and Porom - and even better, he gets the Assassin's Dagger, the Brave
Suit, and other gear that can raise that Speed further. His other stats do
make it hard to keep him alive, but they don't affect his healing capabilities
at all.
Edward has no magic, but he has three command abilities, all of which are at
least somewhat useful. One of the Bardsongs he can use sets Protect AND Shell
on the entire party, and another can Haste it. The ability is too random for
my tastes, but if you wanted to, you could try a boss battle repeatedly until
you start it with one of those songs. Escape is a leftover from Edward's
cowardly days, but just like then, it has some use: you can take him out of
danger for big moves like Megaflare, then bring him back in to help the others
recover. You need some major Speed to pull this off, but it's doable.
None of this would matter without Salve, though. Salve is Edward's saving
grace, turning a poor support character into an incredible healer. No white
mage can revive four party members at once. No white mage can cure everybody's
status ailments in a turn. And it takes a dualcast Curaja (at 80 MP) to match
the 20,000 HP Edward can heal with five X-Potions and the Economical Band. The
big drawback of Salve is that it uses up items quickly, and once you're past
the Point of No Return (same time as the gathering) you can't go back to
restock. In the iOS/Android versions of the game, though, you CAN go back,
eliminating this problem! Of course, Salve can get pretty expensive, but
really, what else are you going to use gil on in the endgame? (Unless you love
shuriken, I mean.)
No, the big drawback of using Edward instead of a white mage is losing out on
utility spells. He can only inflict Slow with Spider Silk, which anyone can
do, and trying to buff with Bardsong is like playing the lottery. That's where
Edward's single notable band comes in. Mirage Song, using he and Rydia, sets
Blink on the entire party at once, which is amazing against physical bosses.
Sadly, the rest of Edward's bands are average at best.
Another problem with Edward is his low starting level. He'll be somewhere on
the high end of your low-level characters at the gathering, but he'll still be
miles behind the team you started the chapter with. And it takes a pretty good
amount of grinding to bring him to the point where he doesn't die in every
battle.
The Bottom Line: Edward is a different kind of healer, and it's hard to say
whether he's the best. He uses no MP, but eats items like candy; he's great
at multi-targeted healing, but lousy with the buffs. Personally, I'd rather
have a traditional white mage, but I hate using items in RPGs in general, so
I may be a bit biased. In the end, you'll have to make the decision
yourself, but at least Edward is a serious contender in this game.
The Score: 7/10
==========
Luca [C12]
==========
Job Class: Shop Hand
Roles: Fighter
High Stats: HP, Strength, Stamina
Low Stats: MP, Speed, Intellect, Spirit
Equipment:
- Weapons: Axe, Hammer, Bow
Best Weapon: Gigant Axe
- Shields: Yes
- Helmets: Hats, Helmets, Female Hats
- Armor: Clothes, Armor
- Accessory: Gloves, Power Bands
- Bonus: Female Armor
Abilities: Analyze, Big Throw
- Analyze: Using this skill displays the target's HP and MP totals and any
elemental weaknesses it has. Like the Libra spell, but free.
- Big Throw: Luca charges up for a bit, then throws her weapon at an enemy.
Unlike Edge's Throw, though, the thrown weapon boomerangs back to her,
so you don't lose it. The skill does about as much damage as a regular
attack on a neutral moon, but it can be used from the back row with no
penalty.
Notable Bands: Final Calcabrina, Makeshift Cannon
At last we come back to the game's new characters, probably the most fun ones
to play around with. We start with Luca, who's basically like Cid on steroids.
She's got more durability and better skills than the old man - and with her
best gear she's stronger, too! Unfortunately, she's also nearly as slow...but
unlike Cid, her gear can help compensate for that, making her worth discussing.
Luca's biggest similarity to Cid is in her stats. She's strong in the same
areas (though her slightly better HP qualifies for the "high" category) and
weak in the same areas, and none of her numbers will be too far from her
mentor's at equal levels. This means Luca has Cid's Speed problem - but she
has a secret weapon. The Minerva Bustier was made for Luca, giving her a +10
bonus to Speed (and Strength!) and better defense than her "best" armor, the
Dragon Mail. Even with it, she'll still be slower than most characters, but at
least she'll be competitive.
Luca shares Analyze with Cid, which is just as useless here (unless you're
playing the game blind). But her second ability, Big Throw, can actually be
worthwhile. The attack is stronger than a regular physical under New and Full
Moons, and you can use it in other moons to hide her in the back row without
tanking her damage. Just keep in mind that Big Throw comes with a charge time,
which will slow down an already slow character.
The two mechanics even share the same good band, though Luca has another one
waiting in the wings. Final Calcabrina, featuring Cid, Luca, Calca and Brina,
does surprising damage for involving three of the game's worst characters.
Unfortunately, to keep it competitive you have to USE those characters, which
is painful at best. Luca, however, can also get in on Makeshift Cannon with
Ceodore, Ursula, Palom and Porom, and it's the strongest five-person band in
the game. Five-person bands are slow and need the whole party to be free,
though.
As for starting level, Luca trumps Cid there completely. She gets to tag along
in the first third of the last chapter, meaning her levels will be all caught
up at the gathering. But Edge is all caught up as well, and Kain should be
right up there. Their superior gear, bands and abilities put Luca in a
difficult position.
- The Bottom Line: Luca is a decent choice for the last chapter, but she's not
the best. All she's got going for her is physical damage, which Edge will
always be better at. Meanwhile she's missing the equipment and skills that
make him (and Kain) so great, which means she won't be helping much in boss
battles. It's tempting to keep her in the team because of her high starting
level...but of all the characters you start the last chapter with, Luca's the
most expendable.
- The Score: 6/10
============
Ursula [C13]
============
Job Class: Monk
Roles: Fighter/Support
High Stats: Speed
Low Stats: MP, Intellect
Equipment:
- Weapons: Claw (can Dual Wield)
Best Weapon: Godhand and Dragon Claw or Godhand and Tiger Fangs
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Light Helmets, Female Hats
- Armor: Clothes, Light Armor
- Accessory: Armlets, Power Bands
- Bonus: Female Armor
Abilities: Kick, Chakra, Tenketsu
- Kick: Ursula charges for a bit, then delivers a physical attack that
strikes all enemies at once. The damage is divided equally among all
targets.
- Chakra: Ursula charges for a bit, then heals a moderate amount of HP to
an ally. About as strong as Edge's Heal Pill.
- Tenketsu: Ursula charges for a bit, then delivers an attack with varying
effects. Usually, it's simply a critical hit. Other times it can be
a regular attack, an attack that damages as if it were hitting an
elemental weakness, or even an instant death move.
Notable Bands: Twin Wing Frenzy, Five Star Crimson Palm, Sword and Fist,
Makeshift Cannon
Ursula is your second choice for monk after Yang, and in some ways she's the
better option. She outspeeds Yang by a lot, and her abilities are generally
more useful. But Ursula is far less durable than her father, and it takes her
a lot longer to max out her Strength. Whichever you prefer, though, they're
both saddled with claws, which really limits their potential.
Stat-wise, Ursula is mostly inferior to Yang. She's way behind in Strength,
Stamina and especially HP, and her small advantages in MP, Intellect and Spirit
don't make up for it much. Her Speed does, though - not only is she almost as
fast as Edge, but with her best gear she can actually outpace him (unless you
cripple him by giving HIM claws). Her weapons give her some flexibility, too,
letting you build her for Strength or for Speed. She has the same major
problem as Yang, though: all her weapons have 0 attack power, so her damage
will be way behind other characters' by the endgame.
Besides Speed, Ursula holds another advantage over her father: abilities.
Kick is still useless, but Chakra gives her a good source of emergency healing;
it's not usually as strong as Cecil or Kain's Cura, but it does get past
Reflect, which is nice. Tenketsu is Ursula's answer to Focus, and its most
common outcome is about as strong as Focus with less than half the charge time.
There is a random factor involved, though, so you may not want to take the
gamble.
Possibly Ursula's best aspect is her wide array of powerful bands. She's in
all of her father's good bands, including their two-person teamups Twin Wing
Frenzy and Five Star Crimson Palm. These are some of the cheapest, fastest-
charging bands you can find, and they do pretty good damage as well. Their
third band, Sword and Fist with Cecil and Ceodore, is also fast and strong, but
it costs too much MP for them to use repeatedly. But unlike Yang, Ursula gets
a FOURTH band in Makeshift Cannon, a five-person teamup with Ceodore, Luca,
Palom and Porom that does massive damage. It's pretty costly MP-wise too,
though, and like all five-person bands it's slow to charge.
Ursula draws about even with Yang in starting level. Yang starts just a little
higher, but they'll both be low at the gathering, thanks to the lost Challenge
Dungeon. And while the two both have their strong points, none of them are
enough of make either character worth investing in.
- The Bottom Line: Ursula has some advantages over Yang, but I'm giving them
the same score. Lots of online sources love Ursula for her Speed, and her
abilities and bands do outclass his. But I think Yang's durability is more
useful overall, especially in those late-game fights where even regular
enemies can cast Meteor. Neither one of them has enough power to cut it in
the endgame, though.
- The Score: 6/10
=============
Leonora [C14]
=============
Job Class: Epopt
Roles: Healer/Support
High Stats: Spirit
Low Stats: HP, Strength, Speed, Stamina
Equipment:
- Weapons: Bow, Staff, Rod
Best Weapon: Perseus Bow or Seraphim's Mace
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Mage Hats, Female Hats
- Armor: Clothes, Robes, White Robes, Sage Robe
- Accessory: Armlets
- Bonus: Female Armor
Abilities: White Magic, Black Magic
- White Magic: Starts with Cure, Raise, Teleport, Esuna; Libra(5),
Sight(8), Hold(11), Cura(12), Slow(13), Protect(17), Silence(19),
Berserk(23), Shell(25), Mini(32), Confuse(35), Blink(38), Float(40),
Dispel(42), Curaga(45), Haste(51), Reflect(54), Curaja(57), Arise(62),
Holy(70)
- Black Magic: Fire(event), Blizzard(event), Thunder(event), Poison(15),
Sleep(22), Stop(30), Drain(36), Osmose(39), Fira(41), Blizzara(44),
Thundara(47), Firaga(78), Blizzaga(80), Thundaga(82), Flare(85)
Notable Bands: Pure White Magic
Oh, Leonora. When I've been discussing "viable" choices for healers, I've been
leaving Leonora out on purpose. Why? Well, her Spirit and MP aren't much
better than Ceodore's. Her black magic is a joke, and she's only got one band
that's even remotely useful. And to top it all off, she needs more grinding to
be competitive than any other member of the cast. Still, she's got a few
tricks up her sleeve that no one else does, so if you want to take a chance,
read on.
Not all of Leonora's stats are terrible. In fact, her Strength is good for a
mage, and her MP and Intellect are on the high end of average. But her Speed
is abysmal - sometimes worse than Cid's at equal levels - and her Spirit is way
lower than Rosa or Porom's. One thing she can do that they can't, though, is
wear the Sage's Robe to boost her Speed, which doesn't give her a -10 penalty
to Spirit like the Minerva Bustier (Rosa and Porom's best Speed booster). So
her Spirit and Speed can come close to theirs...but her HP cannot come close.
To anyone's. At all. It is the lowest in the game by a lot, and it's a major
obstacle to using her even in plot battles, let alone against the superbosses.
On the plus side, Leonora does learn all white magic spells...but it takes her
FOREVER. She gets them at much later levels than the real white mages, meaning
you have to put in extra grinding to survive. She also has less power behind
the spells than Rosa or Porom, especially if you're not into Speed builds. Her
saving grace is that she can use Dualcast, and if you've already given it to
her she might be your best bet against the superbosses. If you have a choice
about it, though, Porom can Dualcast too, and she has far fewer issues.
The sage wannabe also gets some black magic, but most of it is useless. She
has lower Intellect than some of the ninjas, and she's stuck with -ra level
spells unless you grind like a madman. She does get one very important spell,
however: Stop. This is important because it's the only good black magic spell
Golbez is missing. So if you're using him as your only nuker, Leonora gives
you a valuable tool that the regular healers cannot. She can also use the
Recovery Rod, something else the healers and Golbez can't do. (Well, Golbez
CAN do it, but you're insane if you make him.)
Back on the downside, Leonora is terrible with bands. The only good one she
can pull off is Pure White Magic, which combines her power with Rosa and
Porom's to put just about every buff in the book on all allies. If you want to
run around with three white mages in your party, go for it! Otherwise, forget
about it.
But the worst part of Leonora is her levels. She'll be somewhere near the
bottom of the underleveled characters at the gathering, and she takes even more
grinding than Edward to keep her from dying. Of course, that's just a prelude
to all the grinding you'll have to do to learn her white magic, let alone her
black magic. Have I mentioned the word "grinding" enough in this writeup yet?
- The Bottom Line: I'm giving Leonora the same score I gave a Vibra Plus-less
Cecil, and for the same reason: she just requires so. Much. TRAINING. She
has her good points, I'll admit; her gear gives her options other white mages
don't have, Dualcast can give her an advantage over Rosa, and she makes using
Golbez as your nuker easier. But as a healer she is totally outclassed by
Porom, and overall you're making things harder on yourself if you use her.
- The Score: 4/10
============
Gekkou [C15]
============
Job Class: Ninja
Roles: Fighter
High Stats: HP, Strength, Stamina
Low Stats: MP, Intellect, Spirit
Equipment:
- Weapons: Axe, Hammer, Katana, Knife
Best Weapon: Gigant Axe
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Light Helmets
- Armor: Clothes, Light Armor, Ninja Suits
- Accessory: Armlets, Power Bands
- Bonus: Genji Armor
Abilities: Ninjitsu, Shuriken
- Ninjitsu: Flame(10), Flash(15), Payback Wave(24), Blast(42)
- Shuriken: Gekkou throws a shuriken at an enemy to deal damage to it.
This does full damage from the back row, of course. Just like Edge's
Throw, except you're only allowed to throw shuriken - no regular
weapons allowed.
Notable Bands: None
This is the part of the FAQ where more of you will start disagreeing with me.
The Eblan Four are reviled by most After Years fans, seen as lousy ripoffs of
Edge that have no character development at all. But personally, I love them.
While I'm not disputing their poor development, their physical attacks are just
as good as anybody else's, and they've got some neat abilities to play with.
In fact, I'd say they were in the upper half of the character list...if ANY of
them had a SINGLE decent Band with anyone else.
We'll start with Gekkou, the one it's easiest to believe is useful. His HP,
Strength and Stamina are all very high, and he has better Speed than Cid and
Luca, the other axe/hammer specialists. He also gets light armor and light
helmets, which raise his Speed (and his Strength) even further. His worst
problem stat-wise is his low MP...but he doesn't have much use for that anyway.
Gekkou's list of abilities is short, but it's got a couple gems. In most
cases, Shuriken is just as useful as Edge's Throw - you rarely want to throw
out regular weapons anyway. It's a good source of extra damage if you don't
mind buying tons of shuriken. Gekkou's standard ninjitsu is useless, thanks to
his low Intellect...but Payback Wave doesn't rely on that. It simply does
damage equal to Gekkou's lost HP. I don't like relying on moves that are only
good when you're critical, but it's great when you can sneak it in between
healings.
As I mentioned above, though, the REAL problem with the Eblan Four is that
they're sorely lacking in good bands. This means they're limited to single
attacks in boss battles, while other characters can do so much more. If you're
curious about Gekkou's "best" band, it's probably Phantom Lightflies with
Izayoi. It doesn't heal much (especially if Gekkou and Izayoi are already
healthy), but it does cast Esuna on all party members, which has its uses.
What about Ultimate Art: Advent of Phoenix, you ask? Well, even at full
power - which requires all five ninjas to be at critical health - it still
can't come close to the damage of Makeshift Cannon or Final Fantasy.
The second biggest problem with the Four is their starting level. How much
each member is leveled depends entirely on how much you goofed around with them
in the first half of Edge's Tale. For me, this wasn't much; in fact, Gekkou
was dead last in levels at my gathering. Training him up can be fun, but there
are much better options.
- The Bottom Line: Gekkou gets a bad rap, but he doesn't deserve it for the
reasons you think. He's got strength, durability, and extra damage potential
in Shuriken that many other characters can't match. But his lack of bands
drops his value like a lead balloon, making him a poor choice overall. If
you're satisfied with your band situation, though, Gekkou can fill an empty
Fighter slot quite nicely.
- The Score: 5/10
==============
Zangetsu [C16]
==============
Job Class: Ninja
Roles: Fighter
High Stats: None
Low Stats: Spirit
Equipment:
- Weapons: Spear, Katana, Knife, Thrown
Best Weapon: Holy Lance
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Light Helmets
- Armor: Clothes, Light Armor, Ninja Suits
- Accessory: Armlets, Power Bands
- Bonus: Genji Armor
Abilities: Ninjitsu, Human Kite
- Ninjitsu: Shock(9), Flash(11), Shadowbind(20), Blitz(42)
- Human Kite: Zangetsu charges for a while, then Jumps in the air, leaving
the battlefield. While he's in the air, he cannot be hit or targeted
by enemies or allies. After a moderate amount of time, he will land on
an enemy, dealing much greater damage than he would with a regular
physical attack. The damage is increased further if Zangetsu's
wielding a spear. In other words, this is Kain's Jump, but with a
dumber animation.
Notable Bands: Gale Rush
Remember when I said in the last writeup that the Eblan Four weren't worthless?
Yeah, Zangetsu is the exception to that. The old man just has so little going
for him. He's a front-line fighter with terrible physical stats, and his
high-ish Intellect is wasted on pitiful spells that even Palom couldn't get
much damage out of. Add to that his ripoff command skill, near-total lack of
bands and low starting level and you've got yourself one mess of a character.
For most characters, stats are not their biggest problem, but I think it's safe
to say that they are with Zangetsu. His most viable role is as a Fighter, but
he's got less Strength than Ceodore and less Defense than Edward, who is a back
row character. And don't think you can hide Zangetsu back there - he can't
dual wield thrown weapons (or katana), making them useless.
Granted, the old man's Intellect is decent, but it's not good enough to
overcome the pathetic power of ninjitsu. His two damage spells, Shock and
Blitz, will barely put a dent in most enemies. Even the once-mighty Shadowbind
doesn't seem to work as well in this game as in FF4. And his other ability,
Human Kite, is a complete ripoff of Jump - which is ALSO worse in this game.
Zangetsu is really bad with bands, too. He does have a great one with
Tsukinowa called Gale Rush, which sets Haste on every party member. It's
awesome at the start of a boss battle, but you'll probably only need to use it
once. After that Zangetsu has to go back to his usual junk, which is junkier
than most of the rest of the cast's.
To put the cherry on top, Zangetsu has low levels at the gathering. Without a
challenge dungeon, you just don't get enough time to develop him, so he'll be
on the low end of your roster in experience points. Is the old man worth
putting in the time to catch him up? Don't make me laugh.
- The Bottom Line: No. Zangetsu deserves every bit of bad rap he gets and then
some. He's bad in strength, durability and versatility, and he demands you
spend time grinding just to pull him up to bad. Only use him if you feel
like using all five ninjas at once (and know that he'll be your weak link).
- The Score: 2/10
============
Izayoi [C17]
============
Job Class: Kunoichi
Roles: Fighter/Support
High Stats: None
Low Stats: None
Equipment:
- Weapons: Whip, Bow, Katana, Knife, Thrown
Best Weapon: Perseus Bow
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Light Helmets, Female Hats
- Armor: Clothes, Light Armor, Ninja Suits
- Accessory: Armlets, Power Bands
- Bonus: Female Armor, Genji Armor
Abilities: Ninjitsu, Illusions
- Ninjitsu: Flood(7), Heal Pill(7), Heal Salve(15), Smelling Salts(25),
Stealth Kill(40), Frost(42)
- Illusions: Izayoi - who tells Edge she wants to be thought of as a ninja,
not a woman, more than once - uses her feminine wiles to seduce an
opponent. This sets Confuse on them when it works, which isn't
terribly often. Note that this works just fine on females and
monsters, but does nothing to anything immune to Confuse.
Notable Bands: None
Izayoi is literally the reason I wrote this FAQ. Everything I've read about
her says she's useless - her damage is pitiful, her healing is pointless, etc.
And all of those things are flat-out wrong, at least on the iOS/Android version
of the game. I started this FAQ to prove that Izayoi is not only good, but
just as valuable as 90% of the cast. Sadly, I was wrong - her lack of good
bands sinks her - but that's not going to stop me from talking up her good
points.
Stat-wise, Izayoi is as average as it gets. Nothing too good, nothing too bad.
Her Strength, Stamina, Intellect and Spirit are on the low end of average, but
her Speed is on the high end, and her HP and MP fall right in the middle. She
gets the light armor and light helmets she needs to build up her physical
stats, and her Female and Genji bonus armors have their uses. Her Defense will
be good for a back row character, and her Attack can hit...over 200? WTF?
Well, kids, it seems Izayoi has a secret weapon - a property no one else in the
game has. To put it simply, her damage when she uses a bow is doubled. That's
right, doubled. You won't know it for most of the game, because early- and
mid-game bows are terrible to begin with. But once you get the Yoichi Bow and
Arrows, Izayoi is suddenly a force to be reckoned with. And later, when you
get the Perseus set? If she's caught up in levels, even the heavy hitters need
the Gigant Axe just to MATCH her damage. (Except for Edge. Nobody beats
Edge.) I don't know if she's like this outside of iOS/Android, but nobody
likes the Eblan Four, so I wouldn't be surprised if she was and no one noticed.
So that's the damage myth dispelled...but what about her abilities? Well, the
damage and status-inflicting skills pretty much suck, but the recovery options
are very nice. You've got a revival skill, a Heal Pill that's more effective
than Edge's, and Heal Salve, the best healing skill in the game that isn't
magic. It's good for at least 1500 HP and gets past Reflect, making it a great
way to heal Golbez when he's using Reflect to tank spells.
I was all set to declare Izayoi a great character and give her an 8/10 or
something...until I looked at her bands. As it turns out, she has none. Like
Gekkou, Izayoi can't pull off a good band to save her life. Probably her best
is Phantom Lightflies - with, coincidentally, Gekkou - which is a party-wide
Esuna with a bit of healing attached. Beyond that, all Izayoi can really do
against bosses is chip damage and backup healing duty.
Another problem with Izayoi is her starting level. The Eblan Four don't get
much time to train up, so they'll be part of the weaker half of the cast at the
gathering. And while Izayoi is easily the most unique of the four, it's still
tough to justify training her when she has such a limited role come boss time.
- The Bottom Line: Think of Izayoi as a Ranger, something FF4 never had. She's
not going to amaze you with her stats, and she doesn't have any super-
explosive attacks. But if you want front-row damage from the back row,
consider her. If you like backup healing skills that aren't magic, consider
her. And if you weren't going to use bands anyway, DEFINITELY consider her.
With the right teammates, Izayoi will be anything but useless.
- The Score: 5/10
===============
Tsukinowa [C18]
===============
Job Class: Ninja
Roles: Fighter/Support
High Stats: Speed
Low Stats: HP, MP, Strength, Stamina, Intellect, Spirit
Equipment:
- Weapons: Katana, Knife, Thrown (can Dual Wield)
Best Weapon: Mutsunokami and Masamune or Mutsunokami and Rising Sun
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Light Helmets
- Armor: Clothes, Light Armor, Ninja Suits
- Accessory: Armlets, Power Bands
- Bonus: Genji Armor
Abilities: Ninjitsu, Steal
- Ninjitsu: Gale(5), Mirage(5), Heal Pill(9), Restore Weed(21), Smoke(33),
Tremor(42)
- Steal: Tsukinowa attempts to steal an item from the enemy. This is the
same as Edge's Steal from the original FF4, right down to the chance of
losing HP on failure (this doesn't happen often, though).
Notable Bands: Gale Rush
Tsukinowa is probably the reason everyone thinks of the Eblan Four as Edge
ripoffs. After all, Tsukinowa IS an Edge ripoff. He's got the same equipment
list (minus claws), the same ability to dual-wield, the same useful ninjitsu
(plus Restore Weed) and a command that Edge threw away because it sucked. The
master is better in most situations...but that doesn't mean the pupil isn't
worth a look.
Kid Edge isn't going to impress you with his stats, that's for sure. He ranks
first in Speed, even over Edge, but is bad in absolutely everything else.
Luckily, he's back-row friendly, and his gear can give his Strength a much-
needed boost. If you have the courage to put him up front, his damage is only
a shade lower than the heavy hitters'. If not, subbing in one of his weapons
for the Rising Sun will let him hide in the back while dealing nearly as much
damage.
Tsukinowa has several of the abilities that make Edge great, and even a neat
trick all his own. On the downside, he's missing Throw and a bunch of
(worthless) ninjitsu, and his suicidal Steal makes me want to throttle him.
But\ he does get Smoke, Mirage and Heal Pill, the ninjitsu Edge actually uses.
He's also got a brand new skill in Restore Weed, which is essentially an Esuna
that gets past Reflect. And if Edge isn't using the top-tier katanas,
Tsukinowa can use them to cast Haste and Blink just as well as he can.
Tsukinowa can't compete with Edge on bands, though. He has no game-changing
two-person teamup, and his five-person one - Ultimate Art: Advent of Phoenix,
with the other ninjas - is a far cry from Final Fantasy. He does have a great
band with Zangetsu in Gale Rush, which gives the whole party Haste at once.
But that would require you to use Zangetsu, and nobody wants that.
Tsukinowa also has problems with level, like the rest of the Eblan Four.
Without Challenge Dungeon training, he'll be far behind the highest-level
characters at the gathering. I can't say he's worth spending the extra time
with, either, unless you like Edge so much you want two of him. ...well, more
like one-and-a-half of him.
- The Bottom Line: Sure, Tsukinowa can't measure up to his master...but how
many people in this game can? Judged on his own merits, Tsukinowa is REALLY
fast, has great equipment and offers several support skills. He's definitely
a glass cannon, but you can hide him in the back row without much loss in
output. Only his lack of bands is holding him back from being solid.
- The Score: 5/10
============
Harley [C19]
============
Job Class: Secretary
Roles: Fighter
High Stats: Intellect
Low Stats: None
Equipment:
- Weapons: Whip, Bow, Knife, Dagger, Staff, Rod
Best Weapon: Perseus Bow
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Light Helmets, Mage Hats, Female Hats
- Armor: Clothes, Light Armor, Robes, Black Robe, Sage Robe
- Accessory: Armlets
- Bonus: Female Armor
Abilities: Piercing Sight, Gil Toss
- Piercing Sight: Harley instantly dispels any buffs the target enemy has.
She also has a chance to give it an elemental weakness, though the game
doesn't tell you which element it is if she succeeds.
- Gil Toss: Harley charges for a moment, then throws some cash at the
enemies. In the tradition of Final Fantasy, this does significant
damage to all of them. It's usually more powerful than this, though.
Notable Bands: None
We're coming up on the end of the list now, which features three of the worst
characters in the game (and one awesome one). Harley comes first, and she's
not just bad - she's badly designed. Why did they make someone's only good
stat Intellect, then fail to give her any magic? And then they didn't give her
any decent weapons, either. Or skills. Or bands. Or anything useful. Were
they trying to make us hate her?
Stat-wise, Harley isn't all that bad. Most of her stats aren't good, but none
of them are terrible. She also has an extensive gear list - the only one, in
fact, that combines light gear with mage gear. (You'll usually want to ignore
the mage stuff, though.) The problem is, for all Harley's weapons, none of
them let her do any serious damage. This leaves her plinking away in the back
row like a caster...or, more realistically, using the Recovery Rod.
So, she's not great physically, but her Intellect is fairly high, and she gets
mage gear. So she can cast a spell or two, right? Wrong. Not only does
Harley not have any magic, but none of her skills rely on Intellect at all.
It's like they meant to make her a mage, then forgot about it later. The
skills she does have, meanwhile, are all but worthless. Piercing Sight's
weakness adding rarely works, and even when it does, you can't tell what the
new weakness is unless you Libra or Analyze the target. At least it's a free
Dispel, I suppose. Gil Toss is no better - the gil lost is precious until the
endgame, at which point the damage is really subpar.
Harley doesn't redeem herself with bands, either. In fact, she's got the same
number of bands as Calca and Brina, and most of them are gimmick joke bands
with Rydia and Iyazoi. Feast of the Land, with Edward, is her "best" band by
default: it's a full-party Esuna plus healing, like Phantom Lightflies (but a
little stronger). If you were curious, no, it doesn't cost any gil, even
though you used Gil Toss to unlock it in other game versions.
Last but not least, Harley is likely to be last in levels at the gathering.
You just don't get any time with her, at least not now that the Challenge
Dungeons are gone. And if you think she's worth the time it takes to get her
up to speed, you haven't been paying attention.
- The Bottom Line: No. Harley may be a good secretary, but she's an awful
fighter. She only looks good when compared to other bad characters - at
least she's not as slow as Cid, and she isn't forced into the front row like
Zangetsu. Heck, her access to the Recovery Rod may lift her above them by
itself. But she's got no damage, no magic, no skills and no levels. So I
can't recommend her, not even more than them.
- The Score: 2/10
============
Golbez [C20]
============
Job Class: Lunarian
Roles: Fighter/Nuker/Tank
High Stats: HP*, MP, Stamina, Intellect
Low Stats: None
Equipment:
- Weapons: Sword, Axe, Spear, Hammer, Knife, Dagger, Staff, Rod
Best Weapon: Gigant Axe before bonus bosses, Ultima Weapon after
- Shields: Yes
- Helmets: Hats, Helmets, Mage Hats
- Armor: Clothes, Armor, Robes, Black Robe, Sage Robe
- Accessory: Gloves, Armlets, Power Bands
- Bonus: Crystal Armor, Lunar Armor
Abilities: Black Magic, Pressure, Taunt
- Black Magic: Starts with Fire, Fira, Firaga, Blizzard, Blizzara,
Blizzaga, Thunder, Thundara, Thundaga, Bio; Osmose(32), Drain(35),
Quake(42), Flare(55), Meteor(60)
- Pressure: Golbez charges for a moment, then attempts to paralyze an
enemy. The success chance is fairly high, but many enemies are immune.
- Taunt: Golbez immediately forces all enemies to target him alone with any
individual attacks. Not just physicals, but anything that only hits
one target will be coming his way. This includes counters to attacks
made by other party members! This works on absolutely everything,
including the final boss. (It's technically a buff, though, so if
something uses Black Hole, Golbez will lose Taunt until you use the
skill again.) Sadly, Golbez stops drawing attacks as soon as you tell
him to do anything else, and he pauses whenever he's at critical HP.
Note that Golbez does NOT Defend while doing this move, despite the
animation.
Notable Bands: None
* Golbez begins with 2971 HP, which is sky-high when you first get him.
However, he does not gain any more HP until level 55. Compared with the rest
of the cast at that level, Golbez ranks on the lower end of average.
After spending so long talking about characters who are mediocre or worse, it
feels nice writing about a powerhouse again. Golbez isn't just a powerhouse,
though - he's darn near broken. Never mind that he'll be your best Fighter for
a large portion of the game. Never mind that he's also your best Nuker for a
while, thanks to his early access to high-level spells. What really makes
Golbez a game changer is Taunt, which completely short-circuits the superbosses
(and a whole lot of other stuff).
Golbez's domination begins with his stats. His MP, Stamina and Intellect are
all top-tier, and he's at the high end of average in Strength. He gets most of
the best weapons and the very best armor, giving him great Attack and
unbeatable Defense. (He can use mage gear too if you feel like going that
route.) On top of that, his HP is phenomenal for most of the game - and right
about when it starts falling behind is when you get access to the Adamant
equipment. This is the one writeup where I'm going to talk about Adamant gear,
because this is the only character I use it on. Why? Taunt. I'll get to that
in a minute.
First, let's talk about Golbez's black magic. Golbez isn't exactly the
strongest caster in the game, but you wouldn't know it thanks to his spell
list. He starts with all the -ga spells - something your other nukers don't
get for quite a while - and learns all the other damage spells in time, even
Meteor. Unfortunately, he gets nothing BUT damage spells, missing out on
status spells like Sleep, Toad and Stop. For Stop alone you may want to keep
another nuker around. (Leonora can also fill the gap, but that's a tough road
ahead.)
But Golbez's might and magic aren't his main selling points to me. To me, it's
his command abilities - specifically, Taunt. (Pressure isn't worth discussing,
except to say it's best used when things get desperate.) Forcing your enemies
to target Golbez means you can focus all your healing and buffing on him, and
his Stamina and heavy armor mean he can take a beating. Of course, his static
HP means it'll be harder to keep him alive as the game goes on...until you get
the Adamant equipment. If you give Golbez a full set of Adamant gear, not only
will he have ridiculous physical defense, he'll be immune to all status
ailments (even Paralyze) and take half damage from fire, ice and lightning.
Slap Reflect on him and you've got single target attacks covered - and outside
of their ultimate moves, almost everything the superbosses do is single target!
Golbez's one weakness? Bands. Honestly, he has none, or at least no good
ones. The best one is Advanced Blade with Cecil and Ceodore, which does pretty
good damage and breaks the limit without a Limit Ring. But it's still not as
strong as Double Jump and Mirage Dive, which are two-person bands. And it's a
drop in the bucket compared to Vibra Plus, which uses Cecil and Ceodore by
themselves.
As for starting level, Golbez has no issues there. Unless you kill him at the
start of the chapter, he WILL be your highest-leveled character at the
gathering, usually by a lot. It's just one of many reasons to keep him around.
- The Bottom Line: The only other time I've given someone a 10/10 score was
when they could break the game with their damage. Well, I consider Golbez's
Taunt to be nearly as valuable. And when he's not Taunting, he can wreak
havoc on his opposition with both physical and magical attacks. True, he has
no bands, but does he really need them? The game's protagonist may be
Ceodore, but Golbez steals the show.
- The Score: 10/10
===========
Calca [C21]
===========
Job Class: Doll
Roles: Support
High Stats: None
Low Stats: HP, Strength, Speed
Equipment:
- Weapons: Knife, Dagger
Best Weapon: Assassin's Dagger
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Mage Hats
- Armor: Doll Clothes
- Accessory: Armlets
- Bonus: None
Abilities: Jive
- Jive: Calca charges for a moment, then performs a random dance from his
repetoire to attack his enemies. Effects range from powerful damage to
multi-target debuffs.
Notable Bands: Final Calcabrina
The last two characters on the list are, well, the last two characters on the
list. As in, this is as lousy as it gets. Luca's dolls are monumentally bad.
It's hard to even decide what Role to put them in - their Support skills are
too random for serious use, but trying to use them as Fighters is suicidal, and
they can't do anything else. They contribute nothing, they die often, and
they're not even that cute. Come on, Luca - you can do better than this!
Calca, the boy doll, is slightly better at the Fighter role than Brina, the
girl. He's got better Strength (though it's still low) and Stamina, giving him
stronger hits and a tiny bit more longevity. But with the Assassin's Dagger as
his best weapon, you have to put him up front to get full damage. Even there
his damage is far below any other frontliner's, and every other hit he takes
will probably kill him. (At least the weapon fixes his Speed problem...)
Calca's armor is also terrible until you get the Final Outfit, which has very
impressive stats. But you only get one, forcing you to either just use one
doll at a time - which will forfeit what few bands they have - or keep the
other doll in hand-me-downs for the rest of the game. (Or try to get their
REAL best equipment from rare drops...but good luck with that.)
Calca has one ability: Jive. This is sort of like Edward's Bardsong, but with
dancing, and with the enemies as the only possible targets. Some of these
attacks are pretty good, dealing heavy damage or causing party-wide ailments.
But, like Bardsong, the results are random - you never know what you're going
to get. If Calca had any sort of damage at all, this skill wouldn't be worth
the gamble. As it is, it's probably the best thing he can do with his turn.
Both of the dolls are terrible with bands. They have five total, only one of
which is worth mentioning at all. Final Calcabrina, with the dolls, Luca and
Cid, does really good damage for a four person band, especially considering the
characters used. But not only is it slow to charge, it costs a lot of MP, so
Cid and Luca won't be able to use it much anyway.
The dolls actually have it better in this version of the game when it comes to
starting levels. Losing the Challenge Dungeons doesn't affect them at all -
they couldn't be used for those anyway. So they'll actually be a lot closer in
levels to your other characters than they used to be. That said, they're still
a lot lower than the main team's, and trying to bring them up to speed is a
complete waste of time.
- The Bottom Line: Dear God, no. Calca is absolutely the last character I
would ever put on my team (at least Brina has more Speed to work with). In
the front row he hits like a feather and dies from a light breeze, and in the
back he has nothing better to do than use a completely random ability over
and over. A rock would be a better companion than Calca - at least it
couldn't short-circuit and attack you!
- The Score: 1/10
===========
Brina [C22]
===========
Job Class: Doll
Roles: Support
High Stats: None
Low Stats: HP, Strength, Stamina
Equipment:
- Weapons: Knife, Dagger
Best Weapon: Assassin's Dagger
- Shields: No
- Helmets: Hats, Mage Hats, Female Hats
- Armor: Doll Clothes
- Accessory: Armlets
- Bonus: None
Abilities: Dance
- Dance: Brina charges for a moment, then performs a random dance from her
repetoire to protect her allies. Effects range from powerful healing
to multi-target buffs.
Notable Bands: Final Calcabrina
To be honest, it's probably not fair to judge the dolls the way I would regular
characters. They were probably just joke characters put in just for fun, not
something the developers intended for you to actually use. That's certainly
what their stats, gear, abilities and bands suggest. But characters they are,
and I'm going to treat them like it.
Brina, the girl doll, is even weaker than her brother Calca. Her Strength and
Stamina are bottom-of-the-barrel material, so putting her in the front row is a
very bad idea. But she does get one important advantage over Calca: her
Speed. It's by no means good, but it's significantly better, and her gear can
raise it to incredible heights. Possibly the best thing you can do with Brina
is give her the Assassin's Dagger and Clown Clothes, stick her in the back row
and have her stab things repeatedly, hoping for the Dagger's instant-KO effect
to kick in.
Brina's only ability is Dance, the white-magic counterpart to Jive. To be
fair, this can give everybody Haste, so you can retry bosses over and over
until it works just like with Edward's Bardsong. Most of the time, though,
you're just going to get some free healing. Sometimes it's quite high, but
usually it's lower than the Recovery Rod's, which is instant. You can also
count on the Recovery Rod to not randomly cast Esuna on everybody instead.
Like Calca, Brina is lousy with bands. Their crowning achievement, Final
Calcabrina (with Luca and Cid), is the only one worth mentioning. Actually,
its damage is pretty great. But the charge time really hurts it, and the high
MP cost limits its use. Besides, the band requires you to use Cid. And Calca,
and Brina. Why would you do that to yourself?
The dolls' only advantage isn't an advantage at all: their levels. In earlier
versions of the game, everybody else could level up in Challenge Dungeons, but
not these two. Now that Challenge Dungeons are gone, they're much closer to
other characters' levels than they used to be. Don't let that fool you,
though - it's no more worth catching them up to the main team now than it was
back then.
- The Bottom Line: Dear God, no. Brina is better than only one character,
Calca; she's a step down from absolutely everybody else. Her best move,
Dance, is outclassed by an item, and all the Speed points in the world won't
make the Assassin's Dagger trigger instant death as much as you'd like. To
think that in earlier versions of the game, you had to go out of your way to
bring these rejects to the last chapter...
- The Score: 1/10
=========================
| IV. COMPARISONS [CMP] |
=========================
Now that you know who's who, we can start looking at the characters side by
side. In this section, I'll be showing the top five characters for every stat
at level 56. Why 56? Well, it just happened to be my highest-leveled
character's level when I started this FAQ, so I just caught everybody else up
to it before I went on.
But if you've been paying attention, you'll know that natural stats don't tell
the whole story. So I'll go by natural stats for completion's sake, but I'll
ALSO be showing the top five characters after giving them all their best
equipment. So for Strength, I'll give everybody their best Strength builds,
for Stamina they'll get Stamina gear, etc.
After all that's done, I'll show my top five picks for each Role I defined in
the last section. This won't always go by character rating. For example,
Golbez gets a 10/10 in general, but he's not the best Fighter (at least when
other characters catch up to his level). I'll explain more later.
HP MP
Natural Equipped Natural Equipped
1. Yang (4751) 1. (same) 1. Palom (605) 1. (same)
2. Kain (4722) 2. (same) 2. Rydia (592) 2. (same)
3. Gekkou (4311) 3. (same) 3. Porom (572) 3. (same)
4. Cecil (3985) 4. (same) 4. Rosa (534) 4. (same)
5. Edge (3739) 5. (same) 5. Golbez (441) 5. (same)
A couple of surprises in the HP list. Edge is #5 out of 22? Gekkou beats
CECIL? I thought these guys were ninjas! Ninjas are great, but durability has
never been one of their strong points. The After Years is strange sometimes.
No such surprises for MP, though it's a bit sad to see Golbez beating Leonora
(she's #6 with 405).
Strength Stamina
Natural Equipped Natural Equipped
1. Yang (74) 1. Yang (119*) 1. Yang (64) 1. Yang (114)
2. Cid (71) 2. Luca (103) 2. Golbez (61) 2. Golbez (101)
3. Luca (68) 3. Cid (101) 3. Luca (59) 3. Cecil (95)
4. Cecil (67) 3. Gekkou (101) 3. Gekkou (59) 4. Luca (94)
5. Gekkou (66) 3. Ursula (101) 5. Cid (57) 4. Gekkou (94)
* Stats max out at 99. I only list the higher numbers to give you an idea of
how long it will take the characters to get there.
The monks sure get some good physical stat gear, don't they? It pulls Ursula
up into the top 5 for Strength and shoots Yang into the stratosphere. But your
weapons have a bigger say than your Strength in how hard you hit, and the
monks' claws have 0 Attack Power. Edge is actually the best physical attacker,
and Izayoi is right up there with Luca/Cid/Gekkou thanks to her double bow
damage. Same goes for Stamina and Defense - the Lunar armor gives Golbez,
Cecil and even Ceodore a huge advantage over everyone else.
Intellect Spirit
Natural Equipped Natural Equipped
1. Palom (63) 1. Palom (93) 1. Porom (64) 1. Porom (101)
2. Rydia (56) 2. Rydia (91) 2. Rosa (63) 2. Rosa (100)
3. Golbez (52) 3. Golbez (82) 3. Leonora (52) 3. Leonora (89)
4. Harley (47) 3. Harley (82) 4. Rydia (44) 4. Ceodore (81)
5. Zangetsu (45) 5. Leonora (73) 5. Ceodore (43) 5. Rydia (71)
Are you seeing this?? Harley has as much Intellect potential as one of the
nukers! And yet it's Leonora who gets to dabble in black magic. Sigh...
Anyway, there's no other big surprises here. Zangetsu gets his moment in the
sun (not that it matters), and Ceodore actually trails Rydia in Spirit but can
make up for it with his equipment. Note that Spirit has nothing to do with
Magic Defense; the winners there are the Lunarians again - Ceodore first, then
Cecil and Golbez.
Speed
Natural Equipped
1. Tsukinowa (50) 1. Edge (85*)
2. Edge (47) 2. Tsukinowa (81)
3. Ursula (43) 2. Ursula (81)
3. Kain (43) 2. Brina (81)
5. Ceodore (41) 5. Ceodore (74)
5. Izayoi (41)
* Edge gets to 85 Speed only by using the Godhand or Tiger Fang claws, which
give him +10 Speed but cripple his attack power. A more realistic build
gives him the Rising Sun/Masamune combo, which puts him at 78 (4th on the
list).
I bet you thought I was lying when I said Brina's Speed could reach incredible
heights, huh? Now if only she could do something USEFUL with it. The other
surprises are Kain and Ceodore, who wear heavy armor but still manage to be
speedy. Ursula's gear pulls her far ahead of Kain, though. Speaking of which:
by level 56, both Yang and Ursula can max out their Strength...but Ursula has
to devote all her gear to the task, losing some potential Speed boosts. Yang
has more freedom to raise other stats, and even after maxing Strength he can
easily catch up to a max-Strength Ursula's Speed. Hmm!
Top Fighters:
1. Kain
1. Edge
3. Ceodore
4. Luca
5. Yang
Which fighters are really the best depends on what you want from them. If you
want raw attack power, Luca is way better than Ceodore, and Cid, Gekkou and
Izayoi are right behind her. (Not that you should actually use Cid, of
course.) If you're more focused on bands, Luca is out and Ursula is in, as
long as you pair her with Yang. The only thing that's certain? Kain and Edge
are at the head of the pack, combining serious power with excellent bands. The
only time they get beat is when you're using Vibra Plus, at which point Cecil
and Ceodore fly miles ahead of everyone else.
Top Nukers:
1. Rydia
2. Palom
3. Golbez
4. Rosa
5. Leonora
That's right, Rosa is a better nuker than Leonora. Why? Bands. Leonora isn't
capable of major damage at all until she learns Holy at level 70. Rosa not
only learns Holy sooner, she can use Holy Burst with Rydia right from the
gathering, which can deal more damage than their strongest attacks combined.
If you only want one nuker, though, you're better off with one of the obvious
choices in the top three spots of the list.
Top Healers:
1. Porom
2. Rosa
2. Edward
4. Leonora
5. Ceodore
No surprises here, at least if you read the character writeups in Section III.
I would put Leonora, who can Dualcast, ahead of Rosa and Edward if she didn't
take so long to train. But even with that problem she's better than Ceodore,
who can't cast Curaja no matter how hard you grind.
Top Support:
1. Ceodore
2. Leonora
3. Rydia
4. Golbez
5. Edge
Support characters don't necessarily have to be top-tier at anything - they
just need to be good at a lot of things. I think Ceodore deserves the top spot
here, because he's great with buffs AND great with damage (through bands) AND
pretty good at healing. Leonora takes second, because even at low levels she
can use lots of buffs, lots of debuffs, free healing with the Recovery Rod and
regular healing with spells. Rydia comes next with the Recovery Rod, lots of
debuffs, and two forms of magic damage to choose from. Golbez makes fourth
place with good physical damage, great magic damage and Taunt - and if you're
desperate, he too can use the Recovery Rod! I should probably give the fifth
spot to one of the mages for their flexible spell lists...but Edge just brings
so much damage to the table, even while having good buffs, minor healing, minor
magic damage and Smoke.
Top Tanks:
1. Golbez
2. Cecil
3. Yang
Not much to say here, huh? Golbez is far and away the best tank, because he
can shield ALL party members by drawing attacks. Cecil can only shield
weakened allies and one of your choosing, and he can't do anything about magic.
Yang can only shield one, and doesn't really belong here; I didn't even list
him as a Tank in his writeup. But nobody else can do any tanking at all, so I
figured it was worth mentioning.
==============================
| V. SUGGESTED LINEUPS [SGL] |
==============================
Okay, so we've analyzed all the characters WAY more than we should've. Now
it's time to come up with your lineup. You need to figure out which roles you
want for your party, then pick the best ones for each job. Try to keep your
characters' best equips from conflicting too much, although with varied roles
this won't usually be an issue. Here's a few suggestions to get you started.
1. Balance
- Tank (Golbez)
- Fighter (Kain)
- Support (Edge)
- Nuker (Rydia)
- Healer (Porom)
* Note: Switch out Kain and Edge for Cecil and Ceodore if you want to abuse
Vibra Plus!
A balanced lineup that follows traditional RPG tropes. I'm recommending Edge
over Ceodore here because three Heavy Armor users may strain your equipment.
Besides, Edge does better damage in random battles...and he and Kain are both
GOOD Support characters, so together they make one great one! *cough* This
team gives you free healing and three free sources of DPS for random battles.
For boss battles, you get monster DPS with two nukers and Mirage Dive, plus
Dualcast for your healer and a superior Tank when you need it. This is the
lineup I beat the superbosses with. (Well, actually, I used Palom instead of
Rydia because I didn't want to break up the twins. Those of you who aren't
stupidly sentimental should really go with Rydia.)
Some adjustments to this lineup may be necessary if you don't have what I have.
If you don't have the Limit Ring, for example, switch out Edge for Ceodore, who
can do Double Jump with Kain to break the damage limit naturally. If you gave
Leonora Dualcast, switch her in for Porom (and be prepared to do some
grinding). If you gave it to Palom, switch out Rydia for Rosa instead -
without Dualcast, you'll need two white mages to keep up with healing and
buffing against the bonus bosses. These adjustments apply to some of the other
suggested lineups, too.
2. Physical Damage
- Fighter (Kain)
- Fighter (Edge)
- Fighter (Yang)
- Fighter (Ursula)
- Healer (Porom)
* Note: Switch out Yang and Ursula for Cecil and Ceodore if you want to abuse
Vibra Plus!
If you want maximum physical damage output, this is the way to go. Kain and
Edge step in again, but this time make sure to put Edge in the back row to make
room for Yang and Ursula up front. These two do less damage than other
Fighters in random battles, but their bands more than make up for it: you'll
have Mirage Dive AND Twin Wing Frenzy to work with, which will absolutely rip
bosses apart. This team does have three light armor users, but Ursula can
equip the Minerva Bustier instead, leaving the Brave Suit and Red Jacket free
for Edge and Yang. (Headgear will still be hard to juggle, though.) Of course
the main drawback here is no black mage, which makes things like flans harder
to deal with - you'll have to rely on ninjitsu - and takes away Stop and the
Recovery Rod. Also, not having Taunt leaves your healer vulnerable, so don't
forget about Cover Counter!
3. Magical Damage
- Fighter (Golbez)
- Fighter (Edge)
- Nuker (Rydia)
- Nuker (Rosa)
- Healer (Porom)
* Note: If you're interested in using Edward as a healer, this is a good team
to do it with. Having Rosa as one of your nukers gives you access to her
buff skills and Slow, Edward's biggest missing features. Once she's done
with those, she can go on offense while Edward concentrates on defense.
You'll notice this is pretty much Team #1, except with Kain out and Rosa in.
Well, the same characters just happen to be the best way to go for magic
damage, though they're not as overwhelming as the physical lineup above. After
Golbez, you still need a second frontliner, so Edge goes in again because at
least he has ninjitsu if his physicals won't work at all. Those two are your
main source of DPS in random battles; Rydia and Rosa come in for bosses, where
their Holy Burst band deals huge magic damage. And of course Golbez can switch
over to nuking - or tanking - whenever he needs to. Your main weakness here
will be the length of random battles, which will take forever unless you're
willing to spend some MP. Switching Kain out for a mage also takes a toll on
your defenses, especially against big group attacks like Meteor and Megaflare.
4. Defense
- Fighter (Yang)
- Fighter (Kain)
- Fighter (Gekkou)
- Nuker (Golbez)
- Healer (Rosa)
If you want a team that can stand up to big group attacks, this is who you'll
want to go with. HP is more important than Defense or Magic Defense here, so
Yang, Kain and Gekkou are the ones you want for the front lines. As for mages,
Golbez and Rosa are the toughest ones you can get, and you might even still use
Taunt on occasion. This team is durable, no doubt about it...but it may not be
the best idea. First of all, Rosa doesn't have Dualcast, which hurts the
team's longevity despite all that HP. It's also pretty weak on the damage
front, with Yang's lower attack power and a lack of good bands holding things
back. And unless you do a whole lot of grinding, even these characters can't
withstand the superbosses' insane single-target attacks. Still, if you hate
random enemy Meteors being an instant game-over, this is your best chance to
avoid it.
5. Pest Control
- Fighter (Golbez)
- Fighter (Luca)
- Fighter (Edge)
- Fighter (Izayoi)
- Healer (Leonora)
If you are absolutely sick of random battles, here's a team that can handle
them like no one else. You've got the strongest three characters in the game
for regular attacks - Edge, Luca, and Izayoi (she beats Cid and Gekkou because
you only have one Gigant Axe). Throw in Golbez and you've got the best group
for free DPS in the game that can still quickly take out flans and their ilk.
For these four characters, Leonora makes the better healer: she's the only one
who can use Stop, which Golbez lacks, and the Recovery Rod. Sadly, Leonora is
also the team's biggest weakness, taking ages to get her good spells and having
low HP all the while. And if you've reserved Dualcast for Porom, she's
probably still the better choice here, even though she's missing Leonora's
extra support options. Another problem with this team is a lack of damaging
bands, which means tougher boss battles. Edge's Shuriken and Golbez's high-
level spells will help, but they may not be enough.
6. Final Fantasy
- Tank (Cecil)
- Fighter (Kain)
- Support (Edge)
- Nuker (Rydia)
- Healer (Rosa)
FF4 throwbacks, anyone? This is the team you'll need to take advantage of
Final Fantasy, the "ultimate" band that does massive damage and heals your
party to boot. Of course, the big problem with this team is Cecil; you'll have
to level him up for a while if you want to use it. If you can get past that,
though, the team's a pretty good one. Kain and Edge are here again with their
overpowered Mirage Dive, Cecil is no slouch and adds a layer of defense, and
Rydia is a top-class nuker as always. Your weak link here will be Rosa, who
will have good durability but no Dualcast to work with. Kain, Edge and even
Cecil can help pick up the slack, though, making this less of an issue. You
could do a heck of a lot worse than these guys, that's for sure.
7. Makeshift Cannon
- Fighter (Luca)
- Fighter (Ursula)
- Support (Ceodore)
- Nuker (Palom)
- Healer (Porom)
Let's hear it for the youth league! This is the team you'll need if you want
to use Makeshift Cannon, the strongest attack in the game after Vibra Plus.
The team is fun to play around with, and the Cannon's damage is obscene. But
when you're not using the Cannon, you're going to have a few weaknesses. Your
DPS in random battles will be relatively low, since Ceodore and Ursula are
fairly weak and Luca is fairly slow. You also have to deal with light HP
totals for everyone but Luca, and when the Cannon isn't an option, you've got
no good bands to fall back on. This team should handle the regular game just
fine, but if you want to take on the superbosses, you should probably look
elsewhere.
8. Futility
- Fighter (Cid)
- Fighter (Zangetsu)
- Support (Harley)
- Nuker (Calca)
- Healer (Brina)
Are you looking for a challenge? Want to bring a full roster, but still have a
terrible time? Then send in these rejects, the five worst characters in the
game. Oddly, they have a little synergy - you have two Fighters, a Support
character, a Nuker and a Healer. Unfortunately, one Fighter's a weak old man,
the other's a SLOW old man, the Support's only support option is the Recovery
Rod and the mages' skills are completely random. Needless to say, things will
be difficult here. If you want strategy, I suggest you put your Protect Rings
on your frontliners and accept that the dolls are going to die a lot. Keep
Harley on the Mystic Whip until the Recovery Rod is crucial - you'll need all
the DPS you can get - and pray for a miracle with Jive. If you can beat the
superbosses with this team under level 70, I tip my hat to you (and ask you to
upload the fights to Youtube!).
That's all I've got for rosters for you. If you have a suggestion, feel free
to send it in - I may just include it in future updates!
===============================
| VI. OUTRO AND CREDITS [OUT] |
===============================
Well, that about wraps things up. I've talked about the characters and their
equipment, the best of the best at each job, and a few groups that do well
together. Now it's up to you to do the rest!
For future updates, though, I'm considering other sections. It might be fun to
put up guides for the last boss and superbosses, in case people need more
direction than the tips I've given above. Going into detail about what spells
do and who has which ones could be helpful. And I've already posted a list of
differences between this version of the game and others on the Gamefaqs message
boards. I might clean that up and make it a part of this guide.
Want to see any of these? Got some lineups to send in? Corrections? Typos?
Aspects of characters I hadn't considered? Send them all to...
ritzierhades63 AT gmail DOT com
I'll do my best to reply as soon as I can!
Credits:
- Mega64 of the Something Awful forums, for the Let's Play of the Wii
version of the game. I mainly used it as a reference for spell lists,
but it gave me some ideas for commentary too. Here's a link for it:
https://lparchive.org/Final-Fantasy-IV-The-After-Years/
- CylindrusAltum of the Final Fantasy Wiki, for the only walkthrough I
could find that's specifically for the iOS/Android version of the game.
It was a huge help in getting through the game, and it, too, inspired
some of my commentary. Here's the link (paste the second part directly
after the first part):
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/
Walkthrough:Final_Fantasy_IV:_The_After_Years/CylindrusAltum
- The Band page at the Final Fantasy Wiki, for a reference of all the bands
in the game. This has many authors/editors, so I'll just leave a general
credit here. Here's the link:
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Band_(The_After_Years)
- The Mynock from Gamefaqs, for the Item List for the Wii version of the
game. It helped me catch a few equipment errors just before I sent this
in (whew!). Here's the link (paste the second part directly after the
first part):
https://www.gamefaqs.com/wii/958463-final-fantasy-iv-the-after-years/
faqs/57690
Okay, folks, that's all for now. See you next time!