Blaugust Post #10
Last night, our Monday raid beat up Bismarck (Extreme). It helped a lot to have Belghast, who cleared it with the Wednesday group last week, but it was still the first kill for 5 of us. Bismarck is one long DPS check, but more than that it’s the kind of “controlled chaos” fight that the Monday group excels at with AOEs flying everywhere and weather changes that have to be reacted to appropriately. Clearing this fight opens up our way to Thok ast Thok (Extreme) and the hardest current encounter in the game outside of Alexander (Savage).
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As suits his music, Ravana asks you to dance. It’s the kind of intensely structured encounter where you need to know what’s coming, as reacting to it is generally not going to be fast enough; it’s kind of like Titan in this sense. In addition to his normal abilities, Ravana has a series of attacks called “Liberations” (Prelude to Liberation, Liberation, Swift Liberation, and Final Liberation). Each of these is a 15 second cast (he takes bonus damage while using these) that ends with a very choreographed attack pattern. These vary in difficulty from “You remember Ifrit EX, right?” to “What madman came up with this nonsense?”.
Fortunately, all is not lost, and Someone came up with these simple animations to show one way of dealing with what’s going on. I love it when players do awesome things like this, because trying to explain Final Liberation in just text requires a lot longer than the 54 seconds of this video. Understanding how and why it works that way isn’t really something you can get from the video, so there are some drawbacks there too.
This is one of my favorite classes, but it’s unfortunately the worst of this lot. It’s not bad by any means, but the other 3 are potentially game breaking and Dragoon is just good. Dragoons have their signature !Jump ability as their innate command. The user leaves for a turn before coming down on an enemy, this does double damage if the user is equipped with a spear. They also have !Lance, which steals HP and MP from a given target. Finally, they learn Equip Spears. Sadly, a fiesta class can’t take this and !Jump.
The last of the heavy armor classes, Samurai has a lot going for it. Their innate command is !Zeninage, better known as Gil Toss. This damages all enemies by literally throwing money at them. Their innate passive is Shirahadori, which causes them to sometimes evade melee attacks. They also learn !Mineuchi, which I’ve honestly never found a use for. It’s supposed to paralyze enemies, but it doesn’t thanks to a bug. (I believe the bug is fixed in the Mobile version.) Their final command ability is !Iainuki, which attempts to instantly kill all enemies. Samurais also learn Equip Katanas.
The only thing you need to know about chemist is that it can revive the entire party for 0 MP, and that’s not its strongest ability. Chemists have the innate passive of Pharmacology, which doubles the effect of healing items. Their innate command is !Drink, which allows the user to use the drink items for a variety of buffs. The real power in the class in !Mix, which takes two items in your inventory and produces an effect of some kind. Most of these are fairly defensive, but there are some exceptions. There are effects that can’t be duplicated by any other class available to Chemists this way. Their other commands are !Recover, which casts Esuna on the part for free, and !Revive, which casts Raise on the party for free.
Dancers have low strength, not great agility, and the worst HP in the game, but they’re the fiesta class most likely to do 9999 physical damage, and their unique equipment includes the best defensive item outside of the bonus dungeon. The Dancer innate command is !Dance, which randomly produces one of 4 effects: an attack for x4 damage, hp drain, mp drain, or confusion. Dancers also have !Flirt, which just attempts to confuse an enemy. The final ability dancers learn is Equip Ribbons, which does what it says. Dancers themselves don’t need this ability to use ribbons.
The purpose of the Ninja is to flip out and kill people. The Ninja command is !Throw, which can fling weapons or certain other items (scrolls and shuriken) at enemies. Their innate passives are Dual-Wield and First Strike. Dual-Wield allows holding a weapon in each hand, and it’s another 1/3 of the game’s traditional power combo (Seriously, they made it 
Beastmaster is a class that varies in power depending on where you are in the game. Their innate command is !Catch/Release, which can catch an enemy at low health and later unleash it in battle for an effect. Their other commands are !Calm, which Stops “magical beasts” (but also Omega in most versions, for some reason) and !Control, which takes control of an enemy. Berserk/Confused enemies can’t be controlled, and physical attacks will break it. Berserkers and Beastmasters aren’t exactly friends. Beastmasters also learn Equip Whips.
Bard is a very strong support class, and I’d actually consider it one of the best. Their innate command is !Sing. There are two types of songs: The first (and more common) type has an effect on either all enemies or all allies. The second causes the user to sing continuously, raising the party’s stats until they either die or take a physical attack. They also learn !Hide, which removes the user from battle until you use Reveal. Bards also learn Equip Harps, which is more useful for passing some speed and magic to another class than for actually equipping harps.
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.
How good it is to get Red Mage depends on if you have any of the four classes 
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.
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.
