Sadly, not all jobs are created equal. The jobs described today aren’t bad, but they need a bit of support from the rest of the party. The exception is Mystic Knight, which is an all-around awesome job that got stuck in here because I’ve grouped the jobs by crystal, and it comes in at the same time as Red Mage and Berserker. It’s still quite unique, but in very good ways.

Mystic Knight

Mystic Knight is one of the more unusual jobs in FF5, and it’s one example of a concept that re-appeared in much less powerful forms later in the series. Mystic Knights use their command, !Spellblade, to charge their swords with spells. Elemental spells multiply your physical damage against targets weak to that element, they don’t do anything otherwise. Status spells will always inflict their status on the enemy as long as you hit them and the target isn’t immune. Statuses that can be inflicted with !Spellblade include poison, sleep, silence, and stone (!). Near the end of the game, Flare just provides a large non-elemental damage boost. Mystic Knights also have Magic Shell as an innate passive, which gives them Shell when in critical condition.

• Break spellblade is an instant kill against anything not immune to stone. Most bosses after you get Break have this immunity, except for Odin, Twintania (when charging Gigaflare), and one of the sections of the final boss.
• Most available sword magic is Black magic, but Silence and Holy are White. Don’t forget to pick them up.
• If you need to beat Fork Tower (and with a Mystic Knight you absolutely want to do this) and you don’t have any casters, Omniscient can’t do anything to you if you silence him with every hit.
• Firaga, Blizzaga, Thundaga, Holy, and Bio will instantly kill things weak to their element, or do 4x damage if the target is immune to that effect. Killing things quickly with this class is just a matter of picking the right spell.

Red Mage

How good it is to get Red Mage depends on if you have any of the four classes I mentioned yesterday, and how willing you are to earn the 999 AP that learning !Dualcast requires. The Red Mage command ability is !Red, which includes the first 3 levels of White and Black magic. This does grant 2nd-tier elemental spells and Cura, but these start to fall off in effectiveness at the end of World 1. FF5 is the first game in the series to give Red Mages their signature !Dualcast ability, which allows casting two White, Black, Time, or Summon spells in a single turn. (The corresponding command ability must also be equipped.) Equipping !Dualcast also grants the ability to cast anything a Red Mage could cast.

• Red mages don’t have a lot of HP, so be aware that they might need extra attention if you put them in the front row.
• Red mages might not have much damage, but they do still have Confuse, Silence, and Sleep. These remain useful, even after the -a level spells no longer are.
• Even without any other casters, a character with !Dualcast can cast Raise twice. This means recovery from unfortunate situations is made quite a bit easier.

Berserker

My love for you is like a truck. Berserkers are very straightforward: they hit things. As long as they’re alive, they’ll swing their weapon or fists at anything in front of them, and there’s not much you can do about it. Their innate passive is Berserk, you can’t control them so they have no command. Mastering Berserker grants Equip Axes. It’s not all bad news: Berserkers have high strength and are immune to confusion, It’s just that sometimes they have a tendency to make things unpredictable.

• In most versions, Berserkers attack randomly. In the iOS/Android version, Berserkers are much more predictable and attack the target in front.
• Axes and hammers ignore a portion of enemy defense, but have a large damage range and tend to be somewhat inaccurate compared to swords. Don’t forget that Berserkers can use Knives to get around this.
• Harvesters (Found near Crescent Isle) can drop a Death Sickle, an axe that has a chance of inflicting Instant Death. This works on a lot of things, including a few bosses.
• When you fight the Sandworm, you should kill your Berserker(s). Trust me on this one.

Geomancer

Geomancer varies in quality depending on where you are in the game. Their command, !Gaia, uses a random ability based on the area you’re in and the user’s level, higher levels generally enable more powerful abilities. Some of these are very powerful (Cave In is basically Meteor), but many of the low-level ones are not. Randomness can also make this a bit frustrating. Geomancers have a pair of innate passives: Light Step avoids damage from ground hazards (spikes, lava), and Find Pits causes you to leap back from collapsing floors. A single Geomancer in the party provides these benefits to the party, so there’s not much point in giving these to other classes. As a side note, Geomancer is the fastest class to master.

• If you’re playing the Mobile version, !Gaia’s randomness no longer has a level component. This means that you can get powerful spells earlier, and the results are weighted a bit towards them, making Geomancers quite a bit better.
• There’s a section in Drakenvale that requires falling into a pit. Don’t let Geomancer keep you from advancing in the game here.
• !Gaia is a very good command to give to mages that aren’t doing a lot of damage on their own, like White or Time Mages. It probably does more damage than that measly flail you were thinking of having your White Mage use, anyway.
• !Gaia mostly deals earth and wind damage, so keep Gaia Gear and Air Knives handy for boosting those elements.

Tomorrow: Jobs I’m having a hard time of thinking of a good collective description for. Hope to see you at the Fiesta next week!