Knight

Knight is your standard melee damage class, being the direct advancement of the Squire. It makes good use of the Two Hands ability to increase its damage, can wear heavy armour to protect itself, punish the antithesis of the Fighter, mages, in various ways, and even break equipment. It's not flashy, but it's powerful.
Skills:

  • Breaks - These break either an opponent's equipment, or their stats. Equipment breaks are extremely unpleasant, requiring the Repair skill to fix, which can fail. Status breaks are decidedly more accurate and supplement other debuffs very well. The Breaks are the main Knight skills.
  • Aspel - Very low damage, but I don't think it can miss. Has a good chance of silencing the target.
  • Mind Blast - Extremely low SP damage, lower than the Dark Knight's Darksword ability unless you go for some very heavy buffs.
  • Chaos Blade - This is a very deadly skill if used correctly. It is an extremely low duration confuse, but is 100% accurate.
  • Shock - Powerful nondiminishing physical damage equivalent to third-tier black magic spells, based on only weapon power and strength. It factors in defense and gets only halved effect from power_up. However, it's the third most powerful area attack at third tier.

    Samurai

    The Samurai has an interesting ability that isn't shown in the help files. It has the "Blade Grasp" ability, which allows it to randomly "catch" melee attacks, making them only deal 1 damage. Its Sword Tech command is nothing spectacular, but can get the job done fairly efficiently. The final Sword Tech, Cleave, works like in FF6, having a chance of killing the enemy outright. I've never been truly disappointed by Samurai.
    Sword Techs:

  • Dispatch - Fast, unblockable damage that ignores defense. This is almost completely strictly better than melee.
  • Retort - 100% counter rate while Retort is charging. Resolution does nothing other than end the 100% counter rate.
  • Stunner - Crap from what I've seen. Chance of either damage or paralysis.
  • Quadra Slam - Four attacks that do roughly equal damage to your melee.
  • Slash - Deals exactly half the target's current HP to them, fails if it would deal more than 9999 damage.
  • Empowerer - Drains a small amount of HP and SP from the target. Not as good as it was in FF6.
  • Quadra Slice - Four attacks that ignore defense, do quite a bit of damage, and can also critical hit. Slow, though.
  • Cleave - A chance of Odin's zantetsuken effect, which is instant death by slicing in an area of effect. Not always effective, and like all instant death it requires you to be a higher level than the target.

    Runic Knight

    Runic Knight is similar to Celes Chère from FF6, where you imbue your sword with the ability to absorb any and all magical spells directed at you. Unlike Celes, you turn these spells into charges, which are used to perform sword techs of varying elements and statuses. A master Runic Knight can perform very strong runic attacks that can decimate not only mages but fighters alike.
    Skills:

  • Runic - Puts up a magical shield that blocks magic from affecting you. Duration is affected by class level, and chance of success (of setting up the effect) is based on Willpower. Can be cancelled by 'runic stop'.
  • Runic Fury/Cold Shoulder/Flame Slasher/Seismic Slash/Thunder Bash - Your basic runic attacks that draw on your charges, two per use, to deal damage that ignores evade and defense. Runic Fury is nonelemental, the others are of an obvious elements.
  • Virus Pierce - Uses one Poison charge to deal less damage than the above techs and poisons the target.
  • Confuser - Uses one Confuse charge to deal less damage than the above techs and confuses the target.
  • Infuse - Toggles on/off, doubles your charge usage and increases damage drastically. This makes Runic Knight a lot better than one without Infuse.

    Mystic Knight

    Mystic Knight is capable of some of the highest-damage melee attacks in the game, especially combining its two abilities to exploit a mob's weakness. It gets a few standard sword spells, and must find the others. It's a powerful class if you have high Wisdom and decent accuracy, or even if you want a subjob with Two Hands and Cure/Cure2.
    Skills:

  • Elemental Sword - Creates an elemental weapon, two-handed, of one of four of EF's eight elements: Fire, Lightning, Ice, and Earth. It can't create anything of Water, Air, Holy, or Dark, though. The battle power of this weapon is based upon Strength and Willpower, capping at 170. It automatically is wielded in two hands.
  • Mystic Sword - Enchants your sword with an element, for the most part. The cost is taken from your SP per hit, and relies on your Wisdom. There are two other sword spells, Poison and Drain, each of which are mostly useless. Drain Sword is excrutiatingly weak, and Poison Sword isn't worth it compared to even a basic elemental sword. There is a semi "secret" swordspell, given by Ramuh's Rolling Thunder ability to any class.

    Dark Knight

    "Dark knights are knights without honor. They kill for pleasure and are very good at it. They advance in deadly sword techniques, and even learn a small amount of black magic to aid them in battle." So says the help file for Dark Knights in EF. They are indeed very good at killing their enemies, but their Dark Wave attack hurts themselves as well, so you have to always be careful. Be aware that, obviously, you cannot be a Paladin and a Dark Knight on the same character.
    Skills:

  • Dark Bomb - Deals dark damage to the room, which ignores defense and evade. Affected by your attack power.
  • Night Sword - Drains HP from the target. Don't use if the target are undead. Affected only by weapon power and Wisdom.
  • Dark Sword - Drains SP from the target, it's weak but at least it's better than Osmose.
  • Pierce - Removes the Light Shield effect from a target, or reduces their base and/or equipment evil defense by a flat number. This can be resisted by a strong opponent, and the reduction to undispellable defense has a cap.
  • Dark Wave - This will deal about 6000 damage to the entire room at full power, non-diminishing. Its only drawback is that it's dark-elemental, and thus many mobs resist it. Still, it's the most powerful area attack in the game.
  • Death Blade - A low chance of instantly destroying the target. Doesn't work on boss mobs or mobs of a higher level than you are.

    Paladin

    In most respects the opposite of the Dark Knight, the Paladin learns white magic and holy skills that protect themselves and allies from harm. At higher levels they can even slash their swords using holy fires, causing holy damage to their enemies. Paladins are powerful knights, that can turn the tide of many a battle. Be aware that, obviously, you cannot be a Paladin and a Dark Knight on the same character.
    Skills:

  • Peace - Attempts to stop all fights in the room by laying down your sword. Chance affected by class level.
  • Ray of Light - Calls down a healing ray of light to, well, heal someone through runic and whatnot. Power affected by class level and willpower.
  • Light Shield - Puts up a barrier that blocks dark damage, based on Willpower and class level.
  • Cover - Intercepts melee attacks directed at its target. Also, Retort. You're welcome.
  • Rampart - Increases the physical and magical defense of yourself and your party, applying this directly to their equipment defense.
  • Sacred Slash - Holy-elemental damage sword tech, capping out for damage around third-tier level, only around 4000, but a lot of strong mobs in the game are weak to holy. It's affected by Strength, Willpower, and class level. Has a damage bonus against undead mobs.

    Berserker

    Berserkers are furious fighters that use axes and can even sunder the very earth with their strength. Their skills are primarily axe-based, and while berserked, can deal formidable damage. They even gain a skill that can be used while not berserked, allowing them to still kill their enemies when their Blood Lust runs out. A very powerful melee class, for those with the skill to use it.
    Skills:

  • Aggressor - Enhances your accuracy at the cost of your evasion. Unique in that it doesn't require you to be berserked or holding an axe. Highly useful with low-accuracy axes.
  • Guard Crush - Deals damage to a target and lowers their chance to parry attacks. Note that parrying can only be done with a weapon, so this is useless against many mobs.
  • Bloodbath - Similar to the Rage ability, you lose all control of your character. You attack with increasingly powerful melee attacks, until either the fight's over or you die. If you can last for long enough, you can see some downright disturbing melee damage.
  • Whirl Axe - Throws an axe you have in your inventory at a mob, after whirling around and hitting the entire room with it. It's buggy, and isn't that great for damage, but it has its uses.
  • Crippler - Similar to the Guard Crush ability, Crippler deals damage to a target and lowers their physical attack power. I shouldn't have to state the obvious here.
  • Concussion - You slam your weapon into someone's skull in order to concuss them, which confuses them, mutes them, or deals SP damage to them. You'd wonder why you couldn't just hit them with the sharp end of your axe for a lot more damage, but who are you to question those who berserk themselves?
  • Earthsplit - This is the second most powerful area attack at third tier, dealing earth elemental damage to the entire room. Not much else to say about it aside from the fact that it's really slow.

    As a quick aside, it's taken me this long to notice that I've gone from second-person writing to third-person writing. Go figure.

    Dragoon

    If any class can deal damage effectively, Dragoon can. They gain the Lance skill, which deals damage equal to the Jump skill, and can be used on the ground. Spiritlance creates a weapon for the user to wield (you can set its color with 'spiritlance -color [color]' but bear in mind there's a character limit). Dragoons even get the Dragon Strike skill from FF5, which summons a dragon to drain the life from enemies.
    Skills:

  • Lance - Does damage equal to the Jump skill, but on the ground. Very much worth using.
  • Spirit Lance - Allows you to create a lance onehanded, with a name you can define yourself. This lance's battle power increases with class level.
  • Dragon Strike - Drains HP similar to Night Sword, but is a bit weaker.

    Treasure Hunter

    "Call me a treasure hunter or I'll rip your lungs out!" Treasure Hunter shouldn't be underestimated. Their Cat's Eyes skill allows them to see in the dark just like it was day, and they can even remember their way to any room from almost anywhere, making travel instantaneous across cities, continents, even between worlds.
    Skills:

  • Cat's Eyes - Works like a permanent light source. Will not protect you from a grue.
  • Mark/Return - Allows you to 'mark' one room, and 'return' will instantly move you to that room, almost no matter where you are. Some rooms you can't return out of.

    Ninja

    Ninjas can wield two weapons at once, cast spells on themselves to make themselves stronger, and even have reflect-piercing attack magic. As well, they can pin their enemies to the ground, paralyzing them and rendering them unable to fight back. Ninja is a very good class for those with dexterity.
    Skills:

  • Mirror - Increases Evade.
  • Absorbsion - Basically a redundant Safe spell, but it stacks with Safe.
  • Finesse - A Haste spell that can come in very handy for increasing battle speed.
  • Sneak - Redundant.
  • Throw - Throws a throwing weapon at the target. Not that great, I've found. Few throwing weapons are in the game, and most are laughably weak.
  • Ambidexterity - Ye olde dual-wield. The hallmark trait of the Ninja since RPG time immemorial. The weapon you wield in your left hand takes a damage penalty.
  • Flame/Hail/Stone Rain/Blitz - Elemental damage roughly equal to Fire2 and its ilk. Goes through Wall but not Runic, and can multitarget. Stone Rain can destroy your opponents' lands, for 2R.
  • Smokescreen/Smoke - Never used them, but go wild if you want.
  • Vitality - Regen.
  • Pin - Paralyzes the target, good to get in a few free shots. Accuracy is based on Wisdom, as is all magic. Players will hate you if you paralyze them in PK.

    Black Archmage

    I should really just post damage numbers up here (I've done 16000) and leave you to decide it for yourself. Anyhow, the Black Archmage is the master of the elements, and any major deity help anything with a weakness to a particular element. They can even paralyze their enemies with the Stop spell, and the Quake spell is so powerful that magical barriers cannot stop it.
    Spells:

  • Flare/Glacier/Storm/Boulder/Vortex - These are your standard spells for killing things, use them liberally and enthusiastically.
  • Dull - This will turn almost any of your enemies into a physical weakling, especially when stacked with Weak.
  • Keen - This raises your magical attack power yet another stage, so stack it with Power and go wild.
  • Aspir - SP drain better than Psyche, but worse than Dark Sword.
  • Virus - Does damage and poisons, not bad but not great either.
  • Siphon - Drains a lot of HP from multiple enemies. Stronger than Sap.
  • Paralyze - Paralyzes the target, like Pin.
  • Death - The ultimate Black Archmage spell, Death instantly kills a target, although the usual instant death restrictions apply.

    Sensei

    The Sensei is a formidable fighting force, as its Blitz skills deal fast damage that can even attack an entire room without losing strength. The Bum Rush, Sabin's ultimate attack, is a very slow skill that unleashes devastation on anything that's hit with it. The Chakra of a Sensei is not only very powerful, but it can target others as well.
    Skills:

  • Rising Dragon - Low physical damage. Pretty much safe to completely ignore despite its awesome name.
  • Aurabolt - Holy-elemental damage that's pretty fast, good considering there are a lot of mobs weak to holy. Affected in part by Willpower, mostly by class level.
  • Fire Dance/Blizzard Fist/Air Blade/Earth Slam - Elemental blitzes that deal damage to an area, nondiminishing. Good for slaughtering Imperial continent mobs for JP.
  • Bum Rush - The single most powerful attack in the game, but it has a prohibitive charge time. There's a random uppercut that adds several thousand more damage, in addidion to the easily 20000+ base damage Bum Rush will deal. With an elemental claw and a lucky roll, I've pushed this to nearly 75000 damage.
  • Meteor Strike - This is based on the opponent's attack power and battle speed, so the faster and stronger they are, the harder it hits them. Good for powerful, high level bosses. Leafers it hits for maybe 1000 if you're lucky. However, the stronger your opponent is, the higher fail rate this has. Paradoxial but (barely) balanced.

    White Archmage

    Gaining even more skill with healing spells, the White Archmage can now defend against almost any status effect, and can heal them with the Heal spell. They can send enemies (or allies) into a berserk rage, and can even distort time and space to move faster than those around them, as well as making magic reflect away from anyone they see fit.
    Spells:

  • Remedy - I'm getting tired of writing the same thing for different tiers, so use your imagination.
  • Brave - Prevents Fear, which makes you run randomly.
  • Calm - Prevents Berserk, which is the downfall of a lot of mages.
  • Clarify - Prevents Confusion, which is another fairly debilitating status effect.
  • Voice - Prevents Mute, which again is the downfall of a lot of mages.
  • Stimulate - Prevents Paralysis, which is the downfall of pretty much anybody. Invaluable to have if you don't want to wear a Jewel Ring for some reason.
  • Dispel - Removes all status conditions from a target. See Red Wizard.
  • Wall - Gives reflect status to the target. This wall bounces most magic off yourself and, hopefully, back at the caster.
  • Sanctify - This was, after a long and bitchy string of complaints from Valk and Enishi that White Wizard having an attack spell made it "too powerful," moved to White Archmage. It's basically Blaze, but Holy element and costing 25 SP.
  • Harden - A stronger version of the Safe spell. Use it liberally.
  • Blanket - A stronger version of the Shell spell. Use it liberally.
  • Temper - The ultimate White Archmage spell is a buff for the rest of his party. Stack it with Strong for a very potent increase in physical attack power.

    Red Archmage

    Red Archmages wear armor just like midlevel fighters, and can cast magic just like midlevel mages. This is where they fall flat on their faces, since their bretheren are casting for thousands and they're barely breaking 2k. However, X-Magic helps a lot in overcoming this.
    Spells:

  • Most Spells - Commented before, not going to again.
  • Annoy - A stronger version of Bother, which will decimate a target's SP roughly twice as fast.
  • Soften - Lowers a target's evasion. Stack with Expose.
  • Blunt - Lowers a target's magical power. Again, stack with Debility.
  • Jeopardize - Lowers a target's magical absorb even more than Bare does. If I have to tell you to stack the two, you're an idiot.
  • X-fer - Unlike Dispel, this only removes positive status effects from a target, which basically means you can remove buffs from an enfeebled enemy and not have to worry.
  • X-Magic - The hallmark of Red Mages since FF5. To put targets into an X-Magic alias, you use the $* tag twice, such as 'xmagic cure $*, cure $*' to cast cure twice on the same target.

    Time Archmage

    Time Archmages are without a doubt one of the more esoteric party support classes in the game. They get a lot of spells that move people around, and even get third-tier damage and instant death spells. However, they don't get a lot in the ways of solo ability, nor do they get anything solidly conventional, which makes them difficult to use without practice.
    Spells:

  • Teleport - Basically like Warp/Exit, but affects your whole party.
  • Deliver - Warps a party member to your last save point.
  • Scatter - Warps everyone in your party to their respective save points.
  • Wall - See White Archmage.
  • Stop - See Black Archmage's Paralyze.
  • Send - Warps yourself or a party member to their save point.
  • Quick - Instantly fills up the charge "gauge" for the target, enabling their next spell/ability (or melee attack) to be executed instantly. Can only be used in combat.
  • Dejeon - Spell-based instant death. Sends the mob and their inventory to the X-Zone. Low success rate, usual instant death restrictions apply.
  • Accelerate - Similar to Haste, but more expensive.
  • Nexus - Creates a portal to the Nexus. Very handy.
  • Asteroid - Third-tier nonelemental damage, similar to Flare. Much more stylish and pierces Wall.
  • Quarter - Low accuracy, but hits a target for 25% of their current HP. Again, notable for the fact that it can indeed hit bosses.

    Master Summoner

    A Master Summoner can summon powerful Espers that are perhaps more powerful than they are alone. With these, they can easily decimate many mobs that would kill them as any other class. They are the hardest class on SP, and require difficult quests to learn their summons, but they are worth it.
    Skills:

  • Word of Command - Once every 30 seconds, for 100 SP you can order your summon to perform any attack on its move list.

    Dancer

    Dancers get a few decent new dances, but overall nothing overwhelmingly powerful at first glance.
    Skills:

  • Tempting Tango - Confuses a target, based on charisma and class level.
  • Sword Dance - Flat damage, as you'd expect. Weapon power, dexterity, and charisma are a plus.

    Bard

    Bards gain powerful new songs to increase the power of themselves and their allies. If you like singing, or just making yourself stronger, talk like a bad TV advertisement today!
    Songs:

  • Magic Song - Enhances the magic power of you and your party, amount based on Charisma.
  • Battle Song - Enhances the attack power of you and your party, equal to Magic Song.
  • Cheer Song - Exactly the same as above, but for battle speed.
  • Nameless Song - Gives one of five status effects to you and your party: HP Regen, SP Regen, Absorb Up, Magic Absorb Up, and Battle Speed Up. You can stack these effects, but it might take a while to get all or even most of them due to the randomness.


    Inventor

    The Identify skill of the Inventor can even determine just how strong secondary effects are. This should not be overlooked.
    Skills:

  • Identify - Not a new skill, but worth noting that your Identify is stronger as an Inventor.

    Alchemist

    You can mix more ingredients together as an Alchemist than any Chemist can. This allows the creation of Elixirs (if you choose to name them such) that restore full HP and SP per drink, at the cost of ingredients. No Philosopher's Stone, though.
    Skills:

  • Purify - This does nothing, I think.
  • Make Philosopher's Stone - Kills everything in a city in a giant alchemic array to turn a possessed suit of armour into the legendary Stone. I am bored out of my ****ing head at the moment.

    Blue Archmage

    You can learn Grand Train. Three guesses from where. Yeah. Nothing else really comes from this class.
    Skills:

  • Tornado - Third-tier air damage to multiple targets, non-diminishing. Pretty good.
  • Rippler - Exchanges all duration-based statuses between you and a target, including remaining duration. Sometimes handy to enfeeble the hell out of yourself before a fight, then Rippler to give them all to the enemy at once. Or to steal a boss' buffs.
  • Bad Breath - Afflicts a single target with all of blind, confuse, mute, and poison. High cost, low accuracy.
  • Cleansweep - Nondiminishing third-tier water damage. Very nice, but hard to find.
  • Northern Cross - Second-tier, non-diminishing ice damage and short paralysis to all enemies. Very powerful, but also very hard to get.
  • Grand Train - Massive damage exceeding even that of the Black Archmage, at the downside of being very hard to get, and being slow. It is, however, nonelemental and goes through Wall.

    Beast Man

    Since you're a master of the wilderness, you cannot be tracked by simple hunters, and your Fury makes you a force in combat. Your Roar even strikes fear into the hearts of those who hear it. Your Rage is also something to be feared as a Beast Man, and with sufficient power you can exert your Control over nearly anything.
    Skills:

  • Leap - Latches onto a target and lets them beat the crap out of you for a while in an attempt to learn to fight like them.
  • Rage - Rage puts you into a "trance" where you lose all control over your character and fight using random selections from a predetermined skill/spell list. You even gain status effects (including elemental weakness/resistance) based on which Rage you're in. There are Rages for most fighting styles, but not all.
  • Death Blow - Less accurate than Deathblade, but still fun to toy around with, even if you miss 10 times in a row on a Conerian Guard. Standard instant death restrictions apply.
  • Fury - Gives a good amount of power up, haste, and berserk, but it's weakened if you're not a Beast Man primary.
  • Roar - Inflicts Fear status. Yeah.
  • Control - Places a mob under your complete control. Hard to control high-level mobs, which makes it not always worth it, but it's a decent skill.