This section covers the jobs found in the Fire Crystal.
Beastmaster[]
| Beastmaster | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
     | ||||||||||||
| Command | Catch | Innate Skills | None | Equipment | Whips, Knives | |||||||
| Ability 1 | Calm | Description | Paralyze an enemy | 10 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 2 | Control | Description | Control an enemy's actions | 50 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 3 | Equip Whip | Description | User can equip whips | 100 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 4 | Catch | Description | Catch weak enemies and release to attack later | 300 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 5 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 6 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 7 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
The Beastmaster is a sub-par class. Calm is absolutely useless, Catch is too, and Whips aren't anything special. Control is semi-useful for snagging Blue Magic. There's a couple times in the game when you'll need to use Catch, but there's no need to actually learn the skill from the job, since Catch is the job's innate skill. Slight oversight there. Take the job to learn Control for one character (not your Blue Mage) and forget about this job afterward.
Geomancer[]
| Geomancer | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
     | ||||||||||||
| Command | Gaia | Innate Skills | Light Step, Find Pits | Equipment | Bells, Knives | |||||||
| Ability 1 | Gaia | Description | Execute a magical attack based on terrain | 25 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 2 | Find Pits | Description | Can avoid falling into hidden pitfalls | 50 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 3 | Light Step | Description | Avoid taking damage on trapped floors | 100 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 4 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 5 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 6 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 7 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
The Geomancer is one of the most useful classes in the game, and you will want - no, you will need to use these guys several times. In battle, Geomancers don't have any awesome equipment choices, and only have three abilities. But they're all very good. Gaia, on its own, isn't anything awesome, but it's good as a base skill for the Geomancer class. Gaia executes a random attack based on the terrain. The exact attack is random, but most Gaia skills are group attacks, and all Gaia skills rely on Magic for strength, hence your Geomancer should be an ex-mage. Since their weapons suck, Geomancers should just use "Gaia" every turn, it'll probably do a lot more damage than normal attacks, and Gaia is free, using it doesn't cost a single MP.
Find Pits and Light Step are the reasons this job is required to beat the game. A lot of dungeons have hidden pitfalls that send you plummeting to a lower floor, or they have lava floors that zap your health when you walk through them. The Geomancer detects the pitfalls and nullifies the trapped floors. For a cheap 175 AP you can Master the class easily. At that point you can just switch to Freelancer and snatch those two passive abilities for free. Without the Geomancer, you'll be doing a lot of backtracking and healing, so unless you want to go insane with such tediousness, have a character Master this job.
Ninja[]
| Ninja | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
     | ||||||||||||
| Command | Throw | Innate Skills | Dual-Wield, First Strike | Equipment | Knives, Short Swords | |||||||
| Ability 1 | Smoke | Description | Escape from battle quickly | 10 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 2 | Image | Description | User creates illusions to take hits | 30 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 3 | First Strike | Description | Increased chance of pre-emptive battles | 50 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 4 | Throw | Description | Throw things at enemies for high damage | 150 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 5 | Dual-Wield | Description | Equip two weapons at once | 450 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 6 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 7 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
Ah, the Ninja, a classic job. The Ninja has a good "Throw" ability. Buy a bunch of elemental scrolls for him when you can, they're magic-type attacks on all enemies and are pretty good. The Ninja's first three abilities kinda suck, both Smoke and Image are totally useless command abilities, and Throw is alright but not worth a command slot. Dual-Wield is the real prize, doubling the weapon capabilities of your character. Sure, it means you can't use Shields, but less than half of the jobs in the game can anyway. so you won't really notice it.
The Ninja's only worthwhile ability is Dual-Wield, and it forms the second point of the super-strong triangle of abilities mentioned in Part 2. Have at least two characters Master this job.
Ranger[]
| Ranger | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
     | ||||||||||||
| Command | Aim | Innate Skills | None | Equipment | Bows, Knives | |||||||
| Ability 1 | Animals | Description | Escape from battle quickly | 15 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 2 | Aim | Description | Take aim at an enemy for increased damage | 45 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 3 | Equip Bows | Description | User can equip bows | 135 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 4 | Rapid-Fire | Description | Attack four enemies at half-damage | 405 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 5 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 6 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 7 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
The Ranger is a mediocre class. It's base ability Aim is basically a powered-up normal attack, use it all the time since there's no real downside. It's first ability, Animals, is similar to the Geomancer's Gaia ability in that it does a random attack, but most of them aren't that good. Equip Bows does just what you think it would. None of the Bows are good enough to be equipped alone, with the exception of the Gale Bow, which randomly does Rapid Fire when you attack with it.
As with the Ninja, the Ranger is only worth taking for its final ability, Rapid Fire. Along with Dual-Wield and Spellblade, Rapid Fire completed the triangle of the game's best combo, letting you launch eight magic-charged attacks at once. Getting all these abilities takes time, but is well worth it. At least two characters should Master the Ranger class and learn this combo.
Bard[]
| Bard | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
     | ||||||||||||
| Command | Sing | Innate Skills | None | Equipment | Harps, Knives | |||||||
| Ability 1 | Hide | Description | Hide from battle to avoid enemy attacks | 25 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 2 | Equip Harps | Description | User can equip harps | 50 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 3 | Sing | Description | Sing to activate various effects | 135 ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 4 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 5 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 6 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
| Ability 7 | None | Description | N/A | N/A ABP | ||||||||
The Bard is perhaps the most useless class in the entire series. Don't get me wrong, the series has a long history of stupid weapons. But harps? How the hell does a harp damage anybody? They're not particularly heavy, the strings aren't that sharp so they can't cut, I'm assuming you're damaging the enemy with the sound wave from your playing, and while causing pain and injury with sound is scientifically possible it's outright ludicrous in any practical scenario. The Bard has fortunately been confined to a select few titles since it was introduced and hasn't escaped into the main series in any large-scale fashion. I don't want to turn this into a rant, but really, the Bard is useless.
As for his abilities, Hide just removes you from battle for a period of time, and there aren't any Harps worth equipping so that ability is useless too. Most of the Songs the bard learns are useless too, half of them force the Bard to skip his turn from then on. The other half are divided into two status songs, a song that only hits undead, and a song that heals the party. We have White Magic for that. Actually, "Requiem" is good for a single dungeon, where you have to kill two undead enemies quickly to earn a new Summon, but that's it. Never ever use the Bard, they're right up with Beserkers as one of the worst classes in the game.