Get a Job! Trivia Quiz

Answer: ABP

ABP -- or Ability Points -- are earned after successful battles. Most regular enemy groups give 1 ABP, so earning most abilities is slow, especially considering that some of the better ones require hundreds of points to learn.

The regular Jobs have a secondary skill slot that utilises a chosen ability learnt from other Jobs. For example, if you earn 45 ABP in total with a fist-fighting Monk, the Barehanded skill is unlocked. Equipping this skill in a healing White Mage's secondary slot will give them equal attack power to a Monk when unarmed, and will thus provide them a bit of physical bite they otherwise wouldn't have.

The squirrels in the Jacohl cave are a decent early source of ABP (5 for the Skull Eaters) as are the stone knights in the Bal/Val Castle basement (8 ABP for 5). Lategame wise, enemies in the very last area of the N-Zone/Void are packed with ABP; the Movers can give 199 ABP in one fight!

In terms of the incorrect options, EXP is used for increasing levels, which in turn increase Max HP, MP and base stats. Gil is the game's currency, and crystal shards house the Job souls within.

Answer: Knight

A Knight provides a great counterpoint to spellcasters; it's robust, deals good physical damage and can protect critically injured allies from physical injury with Cover in addition to the above strengths. What it lacks is versatility; the regular attack's usually all it has attack-wise, and if that isn't working, it won't be so helpful.

Whilst a Summoner may be susceptible to physical attacks, it can summon Golem to erect a protective barrier and absorb some damage; Carbuncle can also be used defensively to reflect enemy Magic. Summoner's real limit is that its summoning is MP-intensive, and whilst Knight can steadfastly go on attacking without cost, Summoner is limited by its MP. Without MP, it's forced to use items, attack with weak Rods or Knives, or let others carry the fights. Picking a selection of Jobs that synergise and cover individual weaknesses makes the game a lot easier!

Answer: Ribbon

Quite a few pieces of equipment are better off worn by Jobs who can't initially wear them. Generally, some melee classes benefit from being able to wield swords/Knight swords, whilst some casters enjoy the protection that heavy armour provides. For more specific examples; the Maneater provides double damage to Jump, making it useful for a Dragoon. Meanwhile, the Rune Bell boosts elemental damage by 50% and adds critical hits to spells at a 5MP extra cost, which several casting classes can really benefit from.

The Ribbon in question is a recurring item in the Final Fantasy compendium. It's typically uncommon to rare and usually provides defence against most if not all status ailments. The one here has a few blind spots, like Confuse, Old, Mini and Paralyze, but protects against most of the remainder of potential ailments.

Other than the default class, the Dancer's the only one who can typically wear this Ribbon. It confers a boost in all stats and a good +12 Defence and slight +2 Magic Defence bonus. Other Jobs can use the Ribbon (and other Dancer-specific equipment) through mastery of EqRibbon. The Mime really benefits from being able to equip Ribbon; many Jobs have a better use for their secondary ability slot than EqRibbon, but as Mime has three secondary ability slots and can copy others' abilities, it can afford to use one for the Ribbon.

The Ribbons are found in the following locations; in Karnak Castle during the escape sequence, from the girl in the Regole/Lugor Bordertown equipment shop in the Combined World, in the Pyramid, and in the Void/N-Zone forest area. That's potentially one for all!

Answer: Walz/Walse Tower

After defeating the enraged Garula at Walz/Walse Tower, the Tower begins to sink underwater. The group is able to collect five of the six crystal shards, but one is annoyingly out of reach and seems to be lost forever. However! Once the group find their submarine in the reformed world, they can go explore the sunken tower. They 'only' have seven minutes of air in which to find the crystal shard.

Gogo, a mime, guards it, and is typically beaten through patience in a gimmicky do-nothing battle. The alternative here is to get pelted with horribly painful counterattacks of a similar modality to the attacker's i.e. a strong physical or strong magical attack. Not so fun, and if enough damage is done he'll multi-cast Meteor spells to really put the boot in.

The major advantage Mime has over other Job classes is that it can equip three learnt secondary abilities. It has no 'Fight' or 'Item' command, though, instead having 'Mime', which copies the last player ability used for no MP cost, as its only default battle command. It's a little limited in its weaponry options, not being able to equip the naturally strongest examples without using secondary slots on equipment gating skills. It's therefore best made into a spellcaster -- Dualcast says hello! -- and since its Mime ability copies the last ability used, it can be very MP-efficient if multiples are employed.

Answer: Rapid Fire

Rapid Fire isn't a snap to learn. A massive 405 AP are required to acquire this ability, with a total of 195 AP required to learn its preceding abilities. However, the end result is very much worth it; although the four hits are slightly weaker than normal hits, eight of them will still add up to be more than awesome.

There are other synergistic abilities, too. Giving a Summoner Black Magic can enable it to cast Asper, an MP-draining spell, which can replenish its easily depleted power reserves. Placing Spellblade on a Knight to give him elemental-infused attacks works well, since the Knight's physical damage is better than the Mystic Knight's and so the resulting damage will be higher. One could even get funky and stick the Samurai's self-explanatory GilToss on a support class if there was a need for them to pump out some damage in a bind.

Answer: Azulmagia/Apocalypse

The boss's name is appropriate since Azulmagia translates to 'magic blue' in Spanish and Portuguese. He's found in the prison area sitting on top of a save point; with other tough fights nearby it's best to deal with him before them. Azulmagia's pretty easy to curbstomp with strong attacks, but is a good source for learning a large proportion of Blue Magic attacks so patience may be in order.

His AI cycle is to choose one out of three distinct Blue Magic spells per turn for a total of six cycles (before starting over). L4 Qrter is the only exception to this, since it's not Blue Magic, hence only being able to learn 17 spells here. He can learn abilities himself; just try casting self-destruct spell Exploder on him for a fun time...

Blue Mage is really only useful for its Blue Magic; it can do slightly more physical damage than the other basic spellcasters, and can wear a sword and shield, but has precious little else going for it. However, the Blue Magic is useful. White Wind heals the party for the user's current HP value: great if the user's high on HP and the others aren't. Mighty Guard is very costly at 72 MP, but adds Shell, Protect and Float to the party -- the former two are very useful indeed! 1000 Needles and Aqua Breath are good early-game damage spells, whilst Aero3 is handy for later on. Other spells also have situational uses; the various status afflictions and level-specific effects being good examples.

Answer: Yes

Yes, there is. Equipping Black 6 or White 6, learnt from their respectively uncolourful Mages, enables the casting of Level 6 Magic in either paradigm. In addition, Time Magic and Summoning spells are not subject to the Level 3 restriction. This is most likely a flaw in design brought about because Red Mages themselves can only cast up to Level 3 Black and White Magic; the Dualcast Level 3 restriction should theoretically either apply to all magical disciplines or none. Blue Magic and other abilities, on the other hand, can't be Dualcasted with at all. Dualcast is quite clearly an excellent skill for unrestricted spellcasting Jobs, but beware of MP shortages!

Answer: Undead

The Dragon Mountain and especially the Great Sea Trench contain some fairly dangerous undead-type enemies; the latter is full to the brim with them! The Requiem song is the most efficient and effective way to deal with them at the typical time a player enters these locations.

The Bard has poor utility otherwise. Although its LoveSong and TemptSong can respectively stop or confuse regular enemies and has utility there, it's nothing that a stronger class wouldn't be able to make up for.

The Bard's probably not the worst overall class, since it does at least have a couple of distinct uses. Berserker is down there, since although its damage is initially good it has zero control whatsoever and gets outclassed relatively quickly. Geomancer suffers this fate too, since its Earth ability - which has different effects based on the environment one is in - is its only notable damage ability, and it becomes outdated since it doesn't scale with levels. Geomancer's ability to avoid damage floors like lava is useful, though. Dancer's a little unreliable and fragile for a physical damage class, though has its moments. Even though these classes are relatively less useful, none of them are entirely useless, which is a pro to the implementation of the Job system in this game.

Answer: Mix

One example of a really useful spell that can be made is Drain Kiss, made with Turtle Shell and Maiden's Kiss. The Drain Kiss is essentially equivalent to the Black Mage's Drain. However, it's much more powerful because its spell attack rating is set to 255 as opposed to the Drain's 45. Whilst the Chemist's magic stat is lower than average, Drain Kiss still does some serious damage - over 1500 - and in the hands of a magic user can do even more! This is just one example of a useful mixable spell, there are several others.

Most players won't bother with the Chemist, because for healing and general support the White Mage is easier to use and will already have learnt quite a few abilities by then. In addition, some hoarders - like me - are naturally averse to using items to heal, support or hurt, and prefer the more easily renewable standard attacks instead.

Collecting the requisite items can be dull, but does pay off. Essentially, the Chemist has a very strong muscle to flex, but it takes a little work to get that muscle to full capacity. Blue Mage is similar in principle; learning the enemy skills without a guide takes some trial and error and time, but these skills can offer great returns at their apex.

Answer: Bare/Freelancer

It was only fitting that perhaps the ultimately best job* in the game be no real job at all. Although, one could argue it's a job of its own to master the other relevant classes (some don't provide bonuses) and make it the best it can be. Freelancer is the only Job without any secondary skills to learn, so players typically don't ever come back to it later and observe how powerful it can be. One useful combo is the aforementioned Rapid Fire + Dual Wield (innate Ninja mastery ability) pair added with the Mystic Knight's Spellblade to create some blisteringly good damage. It's very easy to overlook just how useful it is to be able to wear any equipment possible!

* It's worth noting that Mime can be better, depending on circumstances. Mime can't innately equip the strongest weapons, but does get three secondary ability slots rather than two and therefore has a higher order of ability combinations.