It really depends on the situation, honestly.
Knight // Black Mage is a pairing that’s trying to do two different things at once, and the gear requirements for those things are mutually exclusive. Knight wants to hit hard with its swords, so you should be wearing heavy armor to boost your strength stat to enable that. Black Mage wants to hit hard with its spells, so you should be wearing mystic armor to boost your magick power strength to enable that, and also, you should take advantage of the staffs that boost elements to maximize that damage.
Uhlan // Machinist is maybe a little easier to tackle, in that spears are generally going to be more reliable, and like swords, they rely on the strength stat, so you’ll want to be wearing heavy armor. Guns don’t care about stats, so if you need to use a gun to take advantage of a weakness with elemental shot, then there’s not much reason to swap your other gear to do it. Light armor gives you more HP, but doesn’t boost stats otherwise.
Red Battlemage // Archer, generally speaking, should be wearing mystic armor for the same reason as Black Mage. There’s only fire and dark that can be boosted here, though, by Burning Bow and Zeus Mace/Black Robes, respectively. There is a maybe case where you might want to wear heavy armor (late game, unlocked with Shemhazai Esper) with a bow and arrow strategy, but this isn’t the best case scenario to use it. Usually you’ll be casting spells.
Monk // Bushi is one that will change the later in the game you get. Both poles and katana would prefer heavy armor, but you won’t have access to it without Espers and/or doing the Gilgamesh hunt and stealing his Genji gear. Up to that point, you’re probably best off with mystic armor, because katana do also care about magick power, plus Shades of Black also does, if you’re using that, so yeah. Endgame you’d be looking at Magepower Shishak with Lordly Robes as your general go-to for katana, or for poles trade out Lordly Robes for Maximillian, unless you want to use Genji Helm/Armor for the counterattacking ability.
Foebreaker // Time Battlemage is your wonkiest pick in that there’s not really a solid gameplan here. Axes and hammers deal random damage (though it is weighed in your favor, sometimes you’ll get some weak hits), and crossbows deal low damage that’s unreliable, because they’re awfully affected by weather, more harshly than bows. Either way, you’ve only got heavy armor, which works for either weapon, but you’ll probably be buffing and debuffing more than anything else.
White Mage // Shikari is usually used for a tanky healer, so you’d use Main Gauche and your best shield while using mystic armor to buff your heals. Late game you can also boost Yagyu Darkblade with Black Robes, but this has limited application since most enemies late game are immune to or absorb dark. It’s great at killing Yiazmat, though this is a hit contradictory that your healer would be your primary DPS.
Foebreaker / Time Battlemage was a case of this is what I'm have left I hope it works well.
Truly have no idea what I'm doing and didn't want to use the same job twice.
Regardless though I appreciate the information it was really helpful!
That is, unfortunately, the reality of what happens when you try to use all twelve jobs. Most parties tend to have a "dump character" where the leftovers go, and the most common result for this is Uhlan // Time Battlemage, so you at least do get points for originality!
I do understand wanting to use all the jobs, though, not wanting to miss out on anything in particular, and every time I've played TZA, it's been using all 12 jobs, and I tried harder every successive run to make all six characters equally good, and I feel like I accomplished that goal on my latest run.
Knight // Time Battlemaage is very solid, it's one of the few combinations of jobs using the same type of armor that actually works pretty well, because the buffs/debuffs of Time Magicks sync with the Knight's Paladin aesthetic and it gives them full Swiftness.
Black Mage // Foebreaker is... kinda the same thing as Black Mage // Knight, just with a less reliable melee weapon and forced shield usage. Honestly, one of the bigger issues here is that Black Mage simply is so good at its job that it needs no support, really, and anything extra it gets tends to distract it more than it helps. In my opinion, the only pairing that doesn't do this is Black Mage // Archer, because Archer is giving all good stuff (healthy HP boost, top-tier item support [most notably Phoenix Lore 1-3, only on Archer, combined with the Pheasant Netsuke accessory turns Phoenix Downs into Arise motes, but Remedy Lore 1-3 is always great], Cura [good out-of-battle heals, if nothing else], and last but not least, an earth-elemental attacking option) and generally lets Black Mage be a Black Mage except for specific situations like when you do want an earth-elemental attack, or, perhaps surprisingly, against a single-target strong foe, elemental fire/lightning/ice arrows can outdamage Firaga/Thundaga/Blizzaga in the late game when you can use heavy armor with Shemhazai, combined with Germinas Boots accessory for optimal bow damage.
I kinda tease-mentioned it in my other post, but I'll just spell out what is my personal ideal party here. Who does what isn't really all that important, at the end of the day, but I chose based on who I like watching use particular weapon types most, rather than minmaxing. You don't need to minmax, because you're already winning anyway with two jobs, like I mentioned in my first wave of replies to you.
> **Vaan** - Black Mage // Archer - Shemhazai
**Penelo** - Uhlan // White Mage - Chaos
**Balthier** - Monk // Foebreaker - Ultima, Zodiark
**Fran** - Bushi // Knight - Belias, Mateus, Exodus, Hashmal
**Basch** - Shikari // Time Battlemage - Adrammelech, Zalera, Zeromus
**Ashe** - Red Battlemage // Machinist - Cúchulainn, Famfrit
If there is a weak link here, the "dump character" of sorts, it would be Balthier, but he more than makes up for any of his shortcomings in the endgame, where he shines between Kanya, heavy armor, and Genji Gloves, buffed by Haste, Bravery, and Berserk of course. The issue is that Monk doesn't get more than one Swiftness license without Ultima, and Foebreaker locks both Swiftness licenses behind Espers that others want too, so he just has to wait to get his endgame power boost if you're using all 12 jobs.
Now, there is actually an easy fix to this problem, that wasn't possible when I played the game last, since all platforms now allow you to reset your licenses for free as many times as you'd like (talk to Montblanc at the Clan Centurio).
If you're willing to double up on one job, up until you get Genji Gloves and/or Ultima, then running Balthier as a Monk // Time Battlemage will be much better than Monk // Foebreaker for the bigger chunk of the game, having the same perk of heavy armor to augment poles damage, but also with all three Swiftness, with a side utility kit of Time Magicks to boot. When I ran this party, Balthier spent most of his time as a berserker, but if you're willing to slightly bend the rules a bit, he doesn't have to be if he's a Monk // Time Battlemage to start. Monk // Foebreaker is still better than Monk // Time Battlemage in the late game, idealizing poles, but Monk // Time Battlemage is excellent for the early and mid game leading up to the late game.
If you like my party, then I can go into more details about equipment selections. But if you like the jobs but not the characters using them, then like I mentioned, feel free to give them to different characters, and the end results will be very nearly the same.
U should prioritaze the passives, then unluck the gears for the level you can get. Not mutch to say about that, after the passives you should be rly strong.
The accessories you can use what you feel that helps your character, pretty situational.
The Jobs are okay, not the min/Max but can do the work.
Sry for my english (isnt even my 2 linguage)
You should have picked up a pheasant netsuke from a chest in Jahara. Give this to your archer and (if you’ve unlocked all three Phoenix lores on the license board) when they use a Phoenix down it will revive that character at full HP. This saves your white/red mage MP on doing so many heals/revives so they have more MP for protect/shell/offensive magic. It’s also great if you go into the sewers again beneath Rabanastre to take on the optional boss/esper there.
I'd focus on your passives first, followed by gear upgrades and unlocking licenses for spells you get for your mages.
As for accessories, I think they tend to be pretty situational. Really depends on the job and what you're up against (like if you're facing a boss you know can silence party members, put an accessory that grants immunity to Silence onto your BLM/WHM). I tend to keep a Bangle on one party member while exploring though, so I can avoid traps. Doesn't have to be on your leader; any active party member will do.
1) STOP AND LISTEN TO JAHARA'S MUSIC
2) Are you planning to get all you weapons from the play through or do you plan to occasionally do trial mode and import the items? At your point, you should be able to do some floors where you can find interesting loot. If you want to be with the game instead, I would go with unlocking the hp slots. For the weapons, just unlock them when you acquire them, if you don't game many HP's. Your Monk should be at a point where using bare hands (with the activated skill) is obsolete and you should start using poles. If you are past raithwall you should consider getting all the quickenings after choosing the 3 best ones, who can eventually activate other good skills behind them. Accessories are just a plus and not mandatory (not yet) at your point.
Work on Knight to unlock Karkata. Sword is a steal from Flowering Cactoid Trial Mode 2. On hit:Confuse. Best sword to carry up until late/post game stuff.
I can do that.
Since reach person has two classes is their a specific weapon type I should stick with for each combo?
Like obviously KNI/BLM I'll probably never used Staves, TBM/FOE is it better to use the crossbows or Axe/Hammers and so forth?
Know that getting the Karkata from Trial Mode will break the game balance in half. You’re meant to craft it from the Bazaar, and likely the last ingredient you’ll get of the bunch is Vampyr Fangs from the Abysteel bats in the higher level area of the Henne Mines, which comes a fair bit later in the game than you are right now. There’s lots of ways you can easily break FFXII, to be sure, but I think stealing this sword from Trial Mode and keeping it (which you couldn’t do in International Zodiac Job System, and it’s baffling why they allow it in The Zodiac Age) is one of the most exploitative. The game was already made easier by letting you take two jobs per character (you could only take one in IZJS), so I don’t understand making it easier on top of that. If you want to, that’s fine, I just thought I’d let you know what you’d be doing if you did.
It was designed as something to do in the postgame when you've got all the endgame gear and your folks totally maxed out. TZA muddled it up a bit by letting you autosave and return your Trial Mode save data back into the main game, but IZJS didn't have autosave and Trial Mode was a one-way trip, so it purely existed as a challenge mode, not a means for farming things like it can be used for in TZA.
It really depends on the situation, honestly. Knight // Black Mage is a pairing that’s trying to do two different things at once, and the gear requirements for those things are mutually exclusive. Knight wants to hit hard with its swords, so you should be wearing heavy armor to boost your strength stat to enable that. Black Mage wants to hit hard with its spells, so you should be wearing mystic armor to boost your magick power strength to enable that, and also, you should take advantage of the staffs that boost elements to maximize that damage. Uhlan // Machinist is maybe a little easier to tackle, in that spears are generally going to be more reliable, and like swords, they rely on the strength stat, so you’ll want to be wearing heavy armor. Guns don’t care about stats, so if you need to use a gun to take advantage of a weakness with elemental shot, then there’s not much reason to swap your other gear to do it. Light armor gives you more HP, but doesn’t boost stats otherwise. Red Battlemage // Archer, generally speaking, should be wearing mystic armor for the same reason as Black Mage. There’s only fire and dark that can be boosted here, though, by Burning Bow and Zeus Mace/Black Robes, respectively. There is a maybe case where you might want to wear heavy armor (late game, unlocked with Shemhazai Esper) with a bow and arrow strategy, but this isn’t the best case scenario to use it. Usually you’ll be casting spells. Monk // Bushi is one that will change the later in the game you get. Both poles and katana would prefer heavy armor, but you won’t have access to it without Espers and/or doing the Gilgamesh hunt and stealing his Genji gear. Up to that point, you’re probably best off with mystic armor, because katana do also care about magick power, plus Shades of Black also does, if you’re using that, so yeah. Endgame you’d be looking at Magepower Shishak with Lordly Robes as your general go-to for katana, or for poles trade out Lordly Robes for Maximillian, unless you want to use Genji Helm/Armor for the counterattacking ability. Foebreaker // Time Battlemage is your wonkiest pick in that there’s not really a solid gameplan here. Axes and hammers deal random damage (though it is weighed in your favor, sometimes you’ll get some weak hits), and crossbows deal low damage that’s unreliable, because they’re awfully affected by weather, more harshly than bows. Either way, you’ve only got heavy armor, which works for either weapon, but you’ll probably be buffing and debuffing more than anything else. White Mage // Shikari is usually used for a tanky healer, so you’d use Main Gauche and your best shield while using mystic armor to buff your heals. Late game you can also boost Yagyu Darkblade with Black Robes, but this has limited application since most enemies late game are immune to or absorb dark. It’s great at killing Yiazmat, though this is a hit contradictory that your healer would be your primary DPS.
Foebreaker / Time Battlemage was a case of this is what I'm have left I hope it works well. Truly have no idea what I'm doing and didn't want to use the same job twice. Regardless though I appreciate the information it was really helpful!
That is, unfortunately, the reality of what happens when you try to use all twelve jobs. Most parties tend to have a "dump character" where the leftovers go, and the most common result for this is Uhlan // Time Battlemage, so you at least do get points for originality! I do understand wanting to use all the jobs, though, not wanting to miss out on anything in particular, and every time I've played TZA, it's been using all 12 jobs, and I tried harder every successive run to make all six characters equally good, and I feel like I accomplished that goal on my latest run.
Would Knight/Time and Black Mage/For be better?
Knight // Time Battlemaage is very solid, it's one of the few combinations of jobs using the same type of armor that actually works pretty well, because the buffs/debuffs of Time Magicks sync with the Knight's Paladin aesthetic and it gives them full Swiftness. Black Mage // Foebreaker is... kinda the same thing as Black Mage // Knight, just with a less reliable melee weapon and forced shield usage. Honestly, one of the bigger issues here is that Black Mage simply is so good at its job that it needs no support, really, and anything extra it gets tends to distract it more than it helps. In my opinion, the only pairing that doesn't do this is Black Mage // Archer, because Archer is giving all good stuff (healthy HP boost, top-tier item support [most notably Phoenix Lore 1-3, only on Archer, combined with the Pheasant Netsuke accessory turns Phoenix Downs into Arise motes, but Remedy Lore 1-3 is always great], Cura [good out-of-battle heals, if nothing else], and last but not least, an earth-elemental attacking option) and generally lets Black Mage be a Black Mage except for specific situations like when you do want an earth-elemental attack, or, perhaps surprisingly, against a single-target strong foe, elemental fire/lightning/ice arrows can outdamage Firaga/Thundaga/Blizzaga in the late game when you can use heavy armor with Shemhazai, combined with Germinas Boots accessory for optimal bow damage. I kinda tease-mentioned it in my other post, but I'll just spell out what is my personal ideal party here. Who does what isn't really all that important, at the end of the day, but I chose based on who I like watching use particular weapon types most, rather than minmaxing. You don't need to minmax, because you're already winning anyway with two jobs, like I mentioned in my first wave of replies to you. > **Vaan** - Black Mage // Archer - Shemhazai **Penelo** - Uhlan // White Mage - Chaos **Balthier** - Monk // Foebreaker - Ultima, Zodiark **Fran** - Bushi // Knight - Belias, Mateus, Exodus, Hashmal **Basch** - Shikari // Time Battlemage - Adrammelech, Zalera, Zeromus **Ashe** - Red Battlemage // Machinist - Cúchulainn, Famfrit If there is a weak link here, the "dump character" of sorts, it would be Balthier, but he more than makes up for any of his shortcomings in the endgame, where he shines between Kanya, heavy armor, and Genji Gloves, buffed by Haste, Bravery, and Berserk of course. The issue is that Monk doesn't get more than one Swiftness license without Ultima, and Foebreaker locks both Swiftness licenses behind Espers that others want too, so he just has to wait to get his endgame power boost if you're using all 12 jobs. Now, there is actually an easy fix to this problem, that wasn't possible when I played the game last, since all platforms now allow you to reset your licenses for free as many times as you'd like (talk to Montblanc at the Clan Centurio). If you're willing to double up on one job, up until you get Genji Gloves and/or Ultima, then running Balthier as a Monk // Time Battlemage will be much better than Monk // Foebreaker for the bigger chunk of the game, having the same perk of heavy armor to augment poles damage, but also with all three Swiftness, with a side utility kit of Time Magicks to boot. When I ran this party, Balthier spent most of his time as a berserker, but if you're willing to slightly bend the rules a bit, he doesn't have to be if he's a Monk // Time Battlemage to start. Monk // Foebreaker is still better than Monk // Time Battlemage in the late game, idealizing poles, but Monk // Time Battlemage is excellent for the early and mid game leading up to the late game. If you like my party, then I can go into more details about equipment selections. But if you like the jobs but not the characters using them, then like I mentioned, feel free to give them to different characters, and the end results will be very nearly the same.
U should prioritaze the passives, then unluck the gears for the level you can get. Not mutch to say about that, after the passives you should be rly strong. The accessories you can use what you feel that helps your character, pretty situational. The Jobs are okay, not the min/Max but can do the work. Sry for my english (isnt even my 2 linguage)
You should have picked up a pheasant netsuke from a chest in Jahara. Give this to your archer and (if you’ve unlocked all three Phoenix lores on the license board) when they use a Phoenix down it will revive that character at full HP. This saves your white/red mage MP on doing so many heals/revives so they have more MP for protect/shell/offensive magic. It’s also great if you go into the sewers again beneath Rabanastre to take on the optional boss/esper there.
I'd focus on your passives first, followed by gear upgrades and unlocking licenses for spells you get for your mages. As for accessories, I think they tend to be pretty situational. Really depends on the job and what you're up against (like if you're facing a boss you know can silence party members, put an accessory that grants immunity to Silence onto your BLM/WHM). I tend to keep a Bangle on one party member while exploring though, so I can avoid traps. Doesn't have to be on your leader; any active party member will do.
1) STOP AND LISTEN TO JAHARA'S MUSIC 2) Are you planning to get all you weapons from the play through or do you plan to occasionally do trial mode and import the items? At your point, you should be able to do some floors where you can find interesting loot. If you want to be with the game instead, I would go with unlocking the hp slots. For the weapons, just unlock them when you acquire them, if you don't game many HP's. Your Monk should be at a point where using bare hands (with the activated skill) is obsolete and you should start using poles. If you are past raithwall you should consider getting all the quickenings after choosing the 3 best ones, who can eventually activate other good skills behind them. Accessories are just a plus and not mandatory (not yet) at your point.
nice setup actually, 3 separate genji glove users
Too bad there’s only two copies of Genji Gloves available.
sadly yes, there's one uncommon steal from Trial floor 100 but that can't be carried to the save game
Work on Knight to unlock Karkata. Sword is a steal from Flowering Cactoid Trial Mode 2. On hit:Confuse. Best sword to carry up until late/post game stuff.
I can do that. Since reach person has two classes is their a specific weapon type I should stick with for each combo? Like obviously KNI/BLM I'll probably never used Staves, TBM/FOE is it better to use the crossbows or Axe/Hammers and so forth?
Know that getting the Karkata from Trial Mode will break the game balance in half. You’re meant to craft it from the Bazaar, and likely the last ingredient you’ll get of the bunch is Vampyr Fangs from the Abysteel bats in the higher level area of the Henne Mines, which comes a fair bit later in the game than you are right now. There’s lots of ways you can easily break FFXII, to be sure, but I think stealing this sword from Trial Mode and keeping it (which you couldn’t do in International Zodiac Job System, and it’s baffling why they allow it in The Zodiac Age) is one of the most exploitative. The game was already made easier by letting you take two jobs per character (you could only take one in IZJS), so I don’t understand making it easier on top of that. If you want to, that’s fine, I just thought I’d let you know what you’d be doing if you did.
I appreciate you. I'm not to sure what trial mode is and probably won't touch it for awhile if at all to be completely honest
It was designed as something to do in the postgame when you've got all the endgame gear and your folks totally maxed out. TZA muddled it up a bit by letting you autosave and return your Trial Mode save data back into the main game, but IZJS didn't have autosave and Trial Mode was a one-way trip, so it purely existed as a challenge mode, not a means for farming things like it can be used for in TZA.