People often assume that you should only run in FFI if you "need to." If you pay attention, you'll notice that many of the battles are simply not worth fighting bc of the xp/gp payoff. Thieves help you pick and choose battles more optimally.
hmm no, I'm fairly sure that the optimal party is 2 knights, 1 master, and 1 red wizard. The reason being that you only get so many ultimate weapons and armor for your knights to equip, leaving your third knight much weaker than a master would be in his place. At least that was my understanding of the game last time I played so many years ago.
I think the compromise with the third knight being less equiped was the fact that your party as a whole was still very tanky with even shop gear. The third Knight was also the one you used a white spell with on top of red mage group heal to give more support during fights like Tiamat Chaos and the machine thing.
3:45 [Master delivers 10 hits for 1,700 damage against Chaos] "The Master can hit up to 4 times, making him almost as good as a Knight. Top Tier" 4:34 [Knight does 4 hits for 24 damage against Chaos with Excalibur] "The Knight is an absolute BEAST! God Tier!"
The difference being that for the master to reach god status like that, you need to hit max level. On average without grinding more than you need to, you will reach chaos by the time you hit lvl 32. And that is basically with the play style of “kill everything, run from nothing” with the exception of BS enemies like sorcerers. The fighter remains a powerhouse for just about the entire game and having one in your party makes the game a thousand times easier.
It really should have been noted that this tier list only works for the NES version of the game... the PSP and PR versions fixes a lot of the bugs in the NES version so that things actually work properly. Also, the PSP version uses MP instead of fixed spell usages, which actually makes the black mage a lot better.
And intelligence stat actually works so mages deal more damage and heal more. In the other versions that arent PSP, GBA or PR a warrior using magic via items is as effective as using a mage.
Yeah black mage becomes really good at crowd nuking in the PSP/GBA version and honestly may want to be considered as they can save on a bunch of healing. The PR version though the spell slot system is kind of a deal breaker as your not going to want to use your spell slots to nuke and not have enough for your buffs like Haste and Temper which are you boss killers
He said OG in the intro, I like the limitations on NES since it made the game immersive and challenging not the US version though it's buggy, the psp is easy as hell I played it first but I love the charm of the NES version more and the atmosphere. I love the sprites on the psp though and the map is much better.
No, this list is incorrect, especially in the NES version. God = Red Mage and Black Belt Top = White Mage Bottom = Fighter Garbage = Thief and Black Mage
I completely agree with your optimal party... Master is really the only switch out from the third fighter since the Sun sword isn't as powerful as a master. Great video
Two knight and Two red mage is most likely the best party. For speedruns you can switch a red mage with a black mage to make early grind easier because BLM has more spell charges in the early games and anyway by the time you get the infinite magic items most characters can become interchangeable if you have them spam these items.
Doing one of these on the mod of balance for dawn of souls would be neat, some classes weren't drastically changed, but some, like the sage replacing the red mage, are quite fresh, here are some interesting new things: - classes that usually don't have spells now have exclusive spells, particularly the monk - white and black mage (priest and archmage respectively) become low tier fighters, also, mid game white damaging spells exist that can damage more than undead (notably aero as a carry over from FF3) - the sage can't use weapons and is really frail, but can use almost every spell, has more int gain and a bigger mana pool. Really cool mod
I agree I’ve played that one for a couple of hours. I never played the remakes or gba etc of ff1 , just a whole lot of the original NES, bugs and all. It’s really quite refreshing
The bug for running does not affect the thief if he is in the first or second row. The thief's ability to run is very useful for avoiding battles that otherwise would have little gp/payoff and make you waste heal potions. Also, there is one advantage that the BM has over the RM in spite of the intelligence bug: he can learn spells at a lower level (for example FIR2 at L.5 instead of L.6). The RM's attack damage starts to get pretty pathetic by mid game. I think people tend to over rate his attack simply bc he can use swords at the beginning of the game.
The original magic system for final fantasy is a lot like the fixed spell system for dark souls 1, where you use a certain number of spells, and restore them at a checkpoint, like the inn in final fantasy, or the bonfire in dark souls. Later final fantasies switched to mp, so did the souls games eventually.
Ok, I've played the OG version of this game more than just about anyone on here so lets get a few things straight. Optimal party is fighter, blackbelt, white mage, black mage. You can always swap the blackbelt with another fighter. I love the red wizard he's probably my favorite character but he's a jack of all trades master of none. He really suffers in late game as his magic isn't strong enough, and his attacks aren't strong enough, he cant raise the dead and he costs a shit ton to equip. He also cant equip the best armor, weapons and spells for late game. Also early on you have to make decisions on which spells to grab and which to leave behind as he has access to 8 possible spells but slots for only 3. First half of game though if you have tons of money he is absolutely amazing. Ex. silver sword, lvl 3/4 spells. The thief is garbage tier as you mention and while the ninja is better due solely to his equipment list being much broader, his magic which people comment on isn''t really a factor, by then you have items that can freely cast anything he has. The white wizard is probably the most useful class in the game, for the versatility of heals, damage to undead and element reducing spells. And he's the only class in the game that can revive. Once you have Thor's hammer he has a decent attack as well, and he's probably my favorite character to put the masamune on. The black mage is a destructive force, clearing mobs when you are in trouble and dealing tons of damage when needed. TMPR (lvl 2) and FAST (lvl 4) are also amazing skills to boost characters attack. Late game spells also differentiate him from Red Mage with spells that can insta-kill and Nuke. Black belt is difficult early on but once his fists get up to speed he can out punch even the fighter. Especially if you use TMPR to boost his multiple strikes. God Tier - Fighter, White Mage Top Tier - Black Mage, Black Belt Mid Tier - Red Mage Flaming Garbage Pile Tier - Thief
I think you overrate the utility of the Black Mage's exclusive spells in general, but more importantly the TMPR spell just flat out does not work in the NES version of the game (it's bugged), and the inarguably most powerful black spell (FAST) is also available to the Red Mage.
@@shawnmcnally1254 that the Ninja can learn FAST? You're responding to a comment in which I'm comparing Black and Red Mages. Why would I bring up a Ninja's spell list in that context? Yes, the Ninja has FAST. But the chief reason the Ninja's a bad pick (in the NES version, at least) is that they compare unfavorably to the Red Wizard (who also learns FAST) for most practical purposes, so casting FAST isn't a saving grace for the Ninja in terms of party composition, IMO.
@@jortsmajeure Just simply stated that. No reason for a deeper analysis than that. And honestly, you're making the game sound harder than it is. Yes, the Thief sucks, but the Ninja is perfectly fine. Its endgame equipment easily surpasses that of the RM/RW, can equip the Katana, and is capable of providing support/damage in the final battle against Chaos (excluding the Masamune). Let's be real, the final battle consists of casting Fast/Haste on your main fighters and letting them go to town. Without the Masamune, the Ninja is better at doing just that. So, for the final fight (perhaps the only difficult fight in the game, save for the early portions and Ice Cavern), a RM/RW, BM/BW, or Ninja...whoever can more readily cast Fast on your main fighter(s).
He lost credibility when he said the White Mage sucks and is only useful because of "life and his ability to equip the Heal Staff" This guy doesn't know a thing about this game.
The Ninja being able to use Haste (or HYPR or whatever it is in the original lol) is better than just cool. I always suffered through having a thief to have one as a kid, I used the 3 physical classes and a White Mage... but I have an anti-Red Mage bias lol. Playing the PSP remake where the Thief is fixed was a ton of fun for this reason lol.
Honestly even with the pixel remaster id say this list is still accurate as the lack of spell slots really makes the mages dead weight. White mages are slightly ahead as Nul-All and Full life are pretty nice to have but not needed and things like Blink can help keep the white mage alive longer. Black Mages do get bump so they arent complete garbage but magic damage doesnt mean much at all by end game and your going to be using a BM to cast temper and haste on the Master or Knight, and frankly Red mages and Ninjas can do this better than a BM as they can actually take a couple hits where the BM has literally about the half the HP of your other classes, and honestly all the 8 and 9th level spells are useless. Honestly for a Party 2 Knights, a Master, and a Red Mage will easily demolish this game.
In the original NES version, black belts are by far the most powerful, and it's not even close. In your video you say they can "hit up to four times ... doing almost as much damage as the knight" while showing a clip where one gets 10 hits. Black belts/masters start hitting for well into 2k dmg by mid-upper lvl 40s. The knight will do half of that at lvl 50 if he's lucky. Best all around party, from lvl 1 to lvl 50, is: Fighter Black Belt Black Belt Red Mage Fighter soaks damage and gets you reliable kills early on. Red mage lets you do peninsula of power grinding early on with Fire 2, and also does decent damage. End game, it just turns into a heal bot using Heal Staff every turn. The black belts become your top damage dealers around lvl 12 or so (unarmed), and each level, they keep pulling further and further away, and it's not even close. I'm playing as I write this. At lvl 49, the masters are hitting Warmechs for 1300-1500 dmg, compared to the knights 100-300. The thief, black mage, and white mage don't really have a place in the game. They can be fun to play, but (in the case of mages) because of the cap on how many times you can use spells, they have limited value.
I agree with you. I think I used to do 3 BB and 1 WM. I think you kind of need the WM for the exit spell. But maybe the RM has the same skill once hes a wizard? I havent played in forever. There used to be a glitch for the BB too. If you equip a ribbon just before a level up you will have 1 armor. But once you level it will go back to the BB current level, but you still get status immunity of ribbon item. This made the BB a demi god :)
It's been years since I played ff1 but I remember going 3 bl mages 1 black belt. Sure black mages suck but they had access to fireball level 3 faster then red mages. Lightning level 1 makes quick work of the first boss and pirates. Proceed to ocean farm until you can afford fire ball on all your mages. Then peninsula farm till level 15 then ignore the black mages till they die so your bb gets all the xp and proceed to easy mode win. Seriously though peninsula farm until creeps start running away.
If you want overkill then yes. If you want the easier time to play the game Black belt has place for only one spot. Fighter Fighter Black Belt Red Mage would make the game a cakewalk. A single fighter can handle the front row defense and offensive but you take two of them and basically nothing can touch them. Black belt is NEVER superior to fighter and Master is superior to them only near lvl 40 like you said which is pointless considering you do not need to be lvl 40 to finish the game.
@@locloudanerpg yeah, it was tough, though the chaos at the end was the only time everyone died. Bosses were always rough with a couple characters dying.
Everyone hates on the ninja but he is IMO the second best end game hero. Run a party with 2 fighters and 2 thiefs and while the beginning of the game is a little bit of a struggle the end game is a cake walk with the 4 strongest weapons being able to be used and the best armor across the board has well . Yes I know the punching power of the blackbelt gets op when you get to level 15 or so but he is always squishy at any level.
I tend to use the party Fighter/Thief/White Mage/Black Mage, since that party feels more "traditional" for some reason. But of course, a _true_ "traditional party" would simply be the default party Fighter/Thief/Black Belt/Red Mage, which thankfully doesn't suck too much.
Only good thing about the thief is that late game he can cast fast on someone else. I suppose his damage might be decent if you give him the masamune and leave the fighter with the Xcalibur. That, and I always found it much easier to run when you have a thief, I can’t explain why.
My go to party is fighter, thief, red mage and white mage. I know the thief is trash in the first half but I just cant pass on the ninja. What's cooler than a ninja? The answer is nothing. I just like that he gets the biggest leap in upgrade with weapons, armor and magic. The blackbelt is too boring for me with no magic and black mage is too fragile, so I go with the jack of all trades, red mage. Spells make the game more fun for me so I opt for a team that can all use some. At end game you have most spells and equipment used.
Same here except I swap white mage with black mage. Makes grinding easier and I think black mage is cooler then white mage. I know deep down the thief is worse then red mage or fighter but he is just very cool and once he becomes a ninja he still is a shitty mage but is stronger then red wizard. Sadly this is effectively the last time red mage is relevant in the entire series. He is one of the worst class in ff3 and basically only has uses in ff5 to get x spells as he is one of the worst class here too. But on the NES this guy was a true beast. Funny enough the ninja went on and became the best class in ff3 and just overall really strong in ff4, 5 and 6. Monk also became stronger as the series went on, ff3 monk has two classes that are very strong in ff2 all you need is super high level fist if you want to, in ff4 yang is good, ff5 you get broken HP AND an ability that allows you to use your fists on any classes you want basically having mages that can fight like monks with no problems, ff6 has sabin which is probably the most popular FF character of all times.
there's two problems with this list. Basically this is the best 'fastest' group (well, 2 knights 1 master and 1 red wizard because there's not a good 3rd knight weapon) But the white wizard has it's own cheese that the red wizard can't touch early game. If you don't know this game, or are doing such low level runs, having someone who can put up elemental resists when bosses use skills like lit2 that can decimate you at low levels. So it really depends on what criteria you're allowing yourself. Is this the best party if you're allowed to level up a bit? No, cause again it's still 2 knights 1 master and 1 red wizard. But is THAT the best party? Again, only if you're allowed to level. The master also loses power if you're not allowed to level up so it's kinda bad in a low level run.
Not many people seem to like the white mage but his elemental resist buffs, cure and heal spells are invaluable. That, and I HATED having to drown my party members in heal potions just to heal up. But mid-combat that cure3/4 and heal3/4 is a lifesaver. And before you get the ribbons which is basically late game, the buffs will save you countless times. Yeah he suck’s offensive wise, but there is plenty of equipment in the game that you can spam for free spells.
Re-playing the NES original and chose this exact party, FFVII themed with Cloud (Fighter), Tifa (Red Mage), Yuffie (Thief), and Aeris (White Mage). It's a good set-up, though I've run stronger ones (such as having 2 fighters). Just having a bit of fun this playthrough.
@@chrischandler889 Hi Chris. In the NES version, Red Mage not Black for the recommended set up but it's considered sub-optimal. I don't know about other versions, although I've also finished the GBA port a number of times. Also not sure why this Andy Blanton person felt the need to be disparaging by calling it "lazy".
@@chriskroutil1518how? On the NES the only good thing going for him is being able to cast fast once he becomes a ninja. And running away. I always found it easier to run when you have a thief in the party for some reason.
@Larsgman The Luck bug is not a complete bug. In the early game, especially in Marsh Cave and Ice cave, he will be able to run significantly better than anyone else. Later in the game, his luck is no longer an advantage over other characters, but he can cast FAST, AND he can equip better absorbing armor than any other character besides the knight (he can use a shield and equip the Flame armor which then means you can give the opal bracelet to someone else).
I would love to see you come back and redo the older Final Fantasy lists but reviewing the Pixel Remaster editions. This list in particular would probably be heavily shaken up since stat bugs are mostly fixed.
Definitely something you could think about, especially considering the Pixel Remasters are going to be the main versions of the games people play anymore.
If you want to be able to use all of the items you need a fighter, thief, black mage, white mage, as I recall because there was like one piece of armor or weapon that only their evolved classes can use. I think the black and white shirt (which would probably be robes) for the wizards, the ninja has the katana and can use the black belt weapons, and the Excalibur for the knight.
@@metalshider74 I'm pretty sure a master without weapons is better than a ninja with the katana, but having another person to cast haste (fast) is nice.
Sadly if white and black worked as intended and boosted the magic stat that would make both mages much superior to red mage. In the rest of the series they boosted the stats so most likely they would have done the same in the original
Is just the NES version? I plan on playing this relatively soon for the first time, but was probably gonna emulate the Final Fantasy Origins version. I'm assuming it's not too different but bugs are probably fixed.
I didnt watch the video yet, but people saying the thief sucs in many of the comments probably didnt played any of the post NES releases. The Thief was made way stronger, a little less than the warrior still but now it compensates with the hit rate, especially at the beginning of the game it would be doing more damage than the warrior, and the extra agility always comes handy in any desesperate situation. Double casting temper alongside a Black Mage it also helps a lot in boss battles to quickly buff a warrior/black belt without needing to have another weak character
as someone that just finished a black belt only run, well, first you shouldn't upgrade to master, you'll lose on some bonus MDEF and won't gain a lot, second, holy cow these things are OP without fast, I can only imagine what would happen if they had fast on, just three of them absolutely curb stomped chaos.
You're right about the costume downgrade on black mage. What were they thinking? I still think these guys are great because they can zap the critters of evil all at once. That's so nice to do, especially when you're in your ship and hordes of nobodies are constantly interrupting your dang voyage!
I like using Black Belts and Master fighters in my party and Fighters, and Knights and I like using the Red Mage and Red Wizard in the game for the Exit and Warp spell. I like the Masters dealing over 999 damage and yes it's worth it to keep Black Belts in your party. The Black Belts and Fighters and Red Mage are my favorite characters to use in the game. I don't like using Thief and the time it takes to get him to be a Ninja is not usually worth it. I don't really like using White Mages or White Wizards or Black Mages or Black Wizards since they're more vulnerable to attacks. However I do like the Black Mages spells if you don't run out of them, I don't like their weak attacks. I don't usually use White Mages or Wizards since they don't have much Attack spells and their Harm Spells are very useless unless the enemy is undead and the White Mages attacks are very weak. In the end I use Heal potions and Heal Staff and Heal Helmets to cure my entire party's HPs.
That's about how I do it. Forgot about the warp spell tho, maybe not enough slots or something. The ninja is just cool, kinda a for fun challenge type run.
I don’t know by memory what spells the red mage cannot learn, but despite what everyone else says, i have always found the anti-element lineup from white magic on almost equal value to fast. I can’t count how many times my party would get completely annihilated by a horde of enemies spamming AoE fire/ice etc. spells. If you get lucky and your white mage goes first, you can consider the battle won. Especially when trying to conquer the ice cave, gurgu volcano, castle of ordeals, and especially when trying to grind the peninsula of power and you get a pack of frost wolves. But i guess that’s just me. The heal and cure lineup are also lifesavers
Many have mentioned, but the strongest is the BB or Master. I think I used to do 3 BB and 1 WM. I think you kind of need the WM for the exit spell. But maybe the RM has the same skill once hes a wizard? I havent played in forever. There used to be a glitch for the BB too. If you equip a ribbon just before a level up you will have 1 armor. But once you level it will go back to the BB current level, but you still get status immunity of ribbon item. This made the BB a demi god :) Somewhere around level 14 you could go bare fist and get multiple hits matching the damage of a fighter. The fighter was always stronger up until the very late game when the Master just dominates. Probably around level 20 to 22 the Master just becomes more reliable in every category.
It's weird. I remember someone telling me that only the White Wizard could use the EXIT spell as well. But the Red Wizard actually *can* use it. I think you need it to escape from the final dungeon since once you walk through the time portal you can't walk back out. I don't know if that might've been an error written in a strategy guide or maybe a game journalist for EGM or Gamepro etc. might have incorrectly written this back in 1989 or 90 and it spread as fact.
Swap the master and knight and you get the best tier list. The fighter and black belt are good, but in the early game black belt is garbage because his gimmick is bugged until the wonderswan color
yeah early game black belt is just bad, sometimes even worse then the thief. Basically kngiht and red mage are good for the entire game, OFC black belt becomes better by the end but not by much. Best use of black belt is if you hate spending money you get a fighter type that cost nothing but this is pointless because you can get a lot of money pretty fast and all the good items are in chest anyways.
@@jeanbob1481 I played FF1 a lot as a kid. The knight/fighter is way easier in the early game 150%. But late game nothing is as powerful as the BB. They do superior damage and have superior defensive stats to the Knight even if the knight has the best Eq. On the original Nintendo you could equip a BB with a Ribbon right before leveling up. After leveling up the BB immediately gets defensive stats equal to the character level but maintain status change immunity granted by the ribbon. Eventually BB are doing anywhere from 8 to 12 hits or more and its consistent. It consistently out damages the knight by a solid 25 to 50% at end game levels. The shift in power dynamics happens around level 14 if my memory serves me. So up until 14 fighter was better but from 14 to 20 they were about equal after level 21 the Master was typically better. Its been a long time since I played the game but I think thats what I remember.
@@takigan On the original nintendo the red mage could not use Exit spell, to the best of my recollection. Also, the red mage kind of sucked. Couldnt fight. Couldnt use the best magic. IDK. I never really liked the red mage cause he was just mediocre at everything and excelled at nothing.
Due to the the INT stat actually working in that release, Black Mage is a lot better. I'd also say White Mage is also a little better. Fighter and Red Mage are still probably the best classes that release though.
@@RayOfTruth Intelligence stat STILL doesnt work on the PS1 version. This, alongside other few bugs that PS1 didnt fix were fixed until the GBA version. A proof of that? Just use a level 1 Black Mage. Cast the fire spell a couple of times. Now level up it to 50 or 99 (depending on the difficult) and cast the same spell. You would notice that you are doing the same damage. The same happens with White Mage healing, Red Mage or Warrior/Thief using spells via items (they also would do the same damage than a Mage, something it doesnt happen in post PS1 releases).
2 fighers, 2 red mages is optimal OR 2 fighters, 1 blackbelt, 1 red mage. The third fighter will be significantly weaker since the 3rd best weapon is the Sun Sword (Or defense depending on your hit %). 3 Fighers and 1 Red Mage is good but is certainly not optimal by any stretch. And while black mages are held back because of their bugs, they are certainly not worthless. They get spell charges earlier than red mages which is useful for speed running since they get their first charge of the Fast spell at level 8. They're also pretty good at running away. Plus NUKE is quite good for the casual players playthrough.
Red Mages must have been heavily nerfed in the GBA version then. I'm currently playing it for the first time on a GBA emulator with my team set up being - Red Mage - White Mage - Black Mage - Thief All are on Lv 6 right now and the Red Mage is lagging behind as far as HP and damage output is concerned. (even when I apply an attack buff on him)
Red mage on NES was a true beast... He is basically second best fighter and best mage all in one but with shit defense and HP which does not matter all that much if you compare him with other characters. I am saying he is best mage because he is most versatile. If you want both black and white magic you are forced to pick two different characters to specialize in them... Or you pick only one character that can do them very well and fight too. In the late game he still remains relevant but becomes the worst fighter type behind ninja and master. But once again he can use magic.
Having just completed a solo run with Black Belt (NES) and a second one with the Monk (PS1), I'd say it is the best character in the game and should be God-Tier. He requires zero gear, zero magic and at max level (which you're gonna hit on a solo-run), he is immune to status effects
This is very agreeable with the NES version but not at all for PR and especially not PSP 20th anniversary edition. In PSP they replaced spell use with MP which made black magic way more viable. And all of the INT and Thief stat issues are fixed in those more updated versions. Thief is still utterly useless, and Red Mage is still better than a White Mage but does not outclass Black Mage anymore in raw black magic output, especially in PSP version where Black Mage has vastly more MP than Red Mage.
I guess i am just biased because I've always believed the best combination to be 2 fighters white mage and black mage. Sure, the black belt can surpass the fighter in terms of damage on chaos but we're talking somewhere past lvl 32, which was the average lvl i would be at when I would beat the game. The lower his lvl the worse he does in performance. The fighter on the other hand has the most hp and defense and because he can equip just about anything in the game he will your standard damage dealer and will be very hard to kill. I've always included the wm/bm in my party makeup because not having access to all the spells would always be a turn off. Also because i would have a habit of going to the castle of ordeals before fighting kary because i wanted the heal staff ans zeus gauntlet to spam their abilities in the volcano (never have to worry about hp and large swaths of enemies).
I have not played the other versions but on the NES the red mage can do anything black and white can do except better but we are not counting the occasionaly nuke and holy that you basically can use once or twice during the last boss fight, spells that are too costly to ever use lol. Meanwhile red mage contributes the entire game with spells AND attack. 2 knight and 2 red mage is best party. You can swap one red mage if you like more variety for another mage type however.
@@jeanbob1481i should try a fighter, black belt, and 2 red mages one of these days because the white mage and black mage with a fighter on top has always been a staple for me. But I guess because the way I would play FF1 was basically like a slog - once i got the heal staff and zeus gauntlet that is literally what i had the wm/bm do for 99% of the game.
@@jeanbob1481i rarely used the red mage in my playthroughs over the years because i always found his limited spell charges and what spells he could use were really bothersome. He is really great early game though because of the ability to equip the chainmail
The general shape of this tier list is good, although IMO it doesn't make sense to evaluate the base and prestige classes separately since nobody's gonna use a tier list to plan a playthrough of just the first or back half. Thief/Ninja: even if running worked correctly, this would still be the worst class, because you can't avoid boss fights and you need the experience you get from random battles. What they need more than that is for critical hit chance to not be bugged, as the Ninja would at least have crit chance to brag about. They'd still be the most useless class but it would help close the gap. As it is, Thief/Ninja is worse than Red Mage/Red Wizard across the board so there's no reason to use them except that ninjas look cool. Black Mage/Black Wizard: you're right about intelligence being bugged, but the other problem is that Red Mage gets all of the important Black Mage spells. The spellcasting items you get tons of (e.g. Black Shirt, Thor's Hammer) make it easy for any party to AOE down most trash packs, limiting the appeal of BANE, QAKE, XXXX, etc). White Mage/White Wizard: this is the one you underrate most severely, because it's not just the ability to revive that sets them apart from the Reds. The most difficult and dangerous enemy formations are giant packs of 7-8 zombies which can paralyze on touch (Wights, etc). White Mages have by far the best hard counter to these groups, as well as other undead enemies (HARM). Their inability to do AOE damage against non-undead trash fights (as compared to a Red Mage/Wizard) is mitigated in the second half by the spellcasting items, and against bosses their physical shortcomings aren't particularly relevant since they'll be casting heals and barrier spells nonstop. Black Belt/Master: you're too kind to these guys, IMO. Their only advantage relative to a Fighter is that they're cheaper to gear out, but you still need to grind to see them shine. If you're not overleveling they're underwhelming, and if you are overleveling you'll have the money to gear a Fighter anyhow. It's fun to see those giant damage numbers at endgame if you do grind, but there's no good reason to put one in the party instead of an extra Fighter. By the time a Master outperforms a Knight, you're more than strong enough to kill Chaos, so who cares? Red Mage/Red Wizard: you describe these as support classes, but it's not like they're bards or something; they aren't as physically strong as Fighters (or as Black Belts, after the first quarter of the game or so), but they still do good physical damage in trash fights, even if in boss fights they focus more on buffing the Fighter, healing, and casting defensive buffs like AFIR. I don't object to ranking Fighters above them, but it's easy to overstate the difference. These guys are like 70% of a Fighter, 90% of a Black Mage, and 60% of a White Mage, rolled into one slot. IMO the only parties I'd consider using (setting aside challenge runs, variety, and aesthetics) would include 1-2 Fighters, 1-2 Red Mages, and 0-1 White Mage. The other three classes are useless in comparison.
Ninjas aren't that bad. Probably not worth putting up with a Thief, but it's not like the game isn't doable with a Thief. Ninjas make up for that for the most part. One thing you don't mention is the lack of item space. You are guaranteed to have to drop some of those precious spellcasting items.
Your comments on the thief are ironic, since running actually helps you grind faster: you run from the battles that don't give as much xp and thus fight more battles with higher xp. For example, prior to the Marsh cave, ogre battles are the most lucrative. Wolf battles, in contrast, not only give pathetic xp, they take a long time and also force you to waste a lot of gold on potions. There's no way around it: some battles are more worth the damage you take than others and thieves let you maximize this in your favor.
@@chriskroutil1518 Interesting thought (for the versions where running isn't bugged, at least) but if you're trying to maximize gains, escaping a battle and waiting for another one eats time too, so how sure are you that the total EXP/Gil per minute shakes out in a runner's favor? In other words you have to consider not just the yields of ogre vs wolf, but the added time it takes to run from a wolf battle and find another one (which might still not be an ogre) when trying to maximize EXP/Gil per minute. Do people actually use Thief in speedruns, or is this just an idea that *sounds* like it's time efficient?
@@jortsmajeure @Zack Fornaca Well, first of all most speed runs are done with the factory settings and thus the encounter formations are all predetermined. Most regular players in contrast are playing with battles that are actually random (as they were meant to be). Also, most of the planning for a speed run is to get past Lich #2 in the Temple of Fiends Revisted at a super low level since he uses Nuke. As for the Luck bug, it only affects rows #3 and #4. Thus, a thief in row #2 will always run in the first round (except for un-runnable battles). This is quite fast indeed. There's no mathematical formula i can use to prove it, but try it and you'll see.
@@IamRyanBui Lack of exit, fast, life and life are considerations. Sometimes a room full of enemies knights struggle with can be beaten with a strong fire spell, etc.
The trend in these videos is to prefer characters with strong, basic attacks-these characters only seem like the best because they can be effective even when playing brainlessly. But the truly most powerful characters in FF games are the ones that take some skill to use. And it’s all about how you use your characters *together*.
Two fighters, two red mages, melt every boss, with fastened attacks. I also don't like how brainless the optimal way of playing FF1 is, it's why I do challenge runs, but there's no denying, the combination that kills the fastest will be the strongest
the best team, bar none, is fighter/black belt/red mage/red mage. the best character? prolly fighter: he's the best choice for the top slot no matter what team you're running due to armor/survivability & second-best DPS after black belt (with masamune)
Eh, I kinda think red mage/wizard is the best because he can cast fast, which essentially doubles your best dpser's dps (and then your second best, etc) with 1 cast, and then can provide their own dps after to boot. Against bosses I mean. Against non bosses, other spells help carry them above as well even if they don't scale imo.
try knight, master, 2x red wiz; solve rng to FAST knight and master in round 1 of every fight BEFORE they attack; red wiz AOE spells or attacks in round 2 = you won't see a 3 round fight all game long [Edit] 2x red = double heals, buffs, & AOE spells just CRUSHES early game content. Double fast round 1, round 2 AOE or attack (or heal =/) becomes the overwhelming strategy as soon as lv4 spells come into play & it's all downhill from there; 1 rounder bosses lol
@@jc.11912 fighters maximum IMHO. There is not enough powerful equipment end-game and your 3rd fighter will look like a wasted slot. Early-midgame though they will crush the majority of enemies. Only reason I say this with confidence is because i beat the game before at lvl 32 (the average) with 4 fighters. The last 2 fighters were basically pathetic against chaos.
Forgot to mention the haste spell being so important for bosses. Also Red Mage can't cast heal magic that restores the whole party so he is pretty mediocre at healing. I always found a white mage is mandatory for the Choas fight.
People dismissing the white mage have never experienced him coming in clutch with the heal2, 3 etc… Really good to have when fighting enemies that can cast nuke like lich in the final dungeon or warmech for example.
@@leargamma4912 but remember it was the 1st of its kind back in 87 or whatever. It was really good for back then and easy enough to navigate and get through without an internet guide. I'd say most Jrpgs from the 80s and 90s were pretty esoteric and easy to get stuck on but not this one.
@@CosmicCosmo1 true. Calling it garbage is a bit much. I understand how influential and good this game was at the time, but for today's standards it is a major slog. In addition to being slow, with all the bugs and glitches (intelligence not working as intended? Really? Something that simple not working is a Major deficit) make it more difficult than it should be.
“Start with three fighters and one red mage.” Horrible. No good. Just BAD. I’d do: fighter, red mage black mage and white mage; to gain an effect on magic
Replace redmage with something else like another fighter or a black belt. Either that or replace either the wm/bm with a red mage if you insist on taking a rm along
Fighter, fighter, white, red. The two fighters take 75% of all hits. Lead fighter with BEST equipment (except ribon) and second fighter gets second best gear. White for LIFE + Life2 and to heal and later damage w/items. Red for magic (some enemies are resistantto physical. Plus time save), good damage, good armor, plus damage items late game. Go heavy on potions to save white mage battle heals.
First the info is incorrect. The thief does run away better just not as good as he is suppose to be. The only way to get the floater before beating Kari with all the rub spell is a thief to run or white wizard to cast life.
Few problems. In my experience, each class peaks at different parts of the game. The black mage is super helpful for early power peninsula grinding because of Fire 2, for example. Also, there are items in the game that you don't have to equip to use, you just need to have them in the character's inventory. So, characters who don't have to equip as much have an advantage in that way: the mages and the black belt being good examples. But yeah, fighter is the best, there are still just things that the other classes can do better than him at certain points.
@@amimm7776 Black mage has superiority in the very early grind, he gets lvl 2 spells earlier then red mage. You cannot call him useless for this very reason, the speedrun WR used to have 2 red mages and 2 knight until they actually started using 2 knight 1 red m and 1 black mage for this reason alone, early grinding. For the rest of the game until Nuke he is strictly inferior to red mage and even then nuke is a meme. But basically near the end game classes can use infinite magic items and they can end up becoming pretty similar to each others. At that point having a white mage using an heal staff or a black mage using a zeus gauntlet is better then a red mage using these because they both have better spell lists. But this is a losing battle because the red mage can handle both magic very competently and he can even fight, making it possible to basically have ZERO other mages in the party and still enjoy both magics. IMO Thief and White mage are truly useless. Harm is really good but you can survive without it. Thief is inferior knight and basically ninja is superior red wizard but not by much.
The best party in the NES version is KN KN RW RW. Two strong attackers, two support. You can tank the game at a super low level. This is the party Fraser used in the WR speed run. The remakes are trickier since they fixed all the bugs. I’d say KN KN RW RW is still viable in the GBA version. BW still stinks, though he is good for the first 3/4 of the game. I recently finished the game with Ninja, Master, Red Wizard, and White Wizard. Haste and Temper/Giant’s Glove on Master for about 3-4 turns (level 60-70) and you can easily do 10,000+ on chaos and the bonus dungeon bosses.
Have you tried all 4 Fighters at least for the original game it seems work well. Later versions would replace the red mages with them white ones, your bosses will thank-you you.
@@IamRyanBui 4 fighters would dominate the early game, but has two major flaws: expensive equipment and no healing (outside of items). Absolutely viable but not the best.
@@medleysa like I said, that depends on which versions you’re talking about and how you grind. For the original, it may not be the speediest but it’s practically a no-brainers when it comes to pure strength.
@@IamRyanBui if you want this there is no point to 4 fighters... Take 3 fighters + another class. I mean 2 fighters are basically unkillable, you put 3 and it is literally over nothing kills you. But at 4 fighters you have problems, you cannot optimally equip all 4, very expensive and you cannot use super useful spells like exit or warp. Of course such a team needs no healing but they could use FAST. 3 fighters + red mage or 3 fighters + black belt sounds good. But then again you do not NEED more then 2 fighters they will already destroy the entire game especially if you put in a red mage. This leave one spot for literally any other class you want and you still have an invincible team. If you want cheaper you put in a black belt, if you want the best team you put in another red wizard, if you want nuke you put in black mage, if you want more life 2 you put in white wizard. If you like the ninja because his class is the coolest in the entire series you use him. Basically you ABSOLUTELY need one fighter and one red mage to destroy the game in half. If you want to do it harder put another figter and red mage. The other classes are basically standing around and looking good while the red chads are doing the work.
for psp ff1 I go with a fighter, red mage, bl mage and wh mage. it works. I like having the fighter for melee, the red mage for versitility, and the other 2 for magic focus. I did a red mage solo run with red mage doing all the work so the others could max out stats post job upgrade. I hear red mage doesn't get more stats after the upgrade.
It works but it's slow, and this game is old so might as well make a fast strategy that not include grinding so you can proceed to the next level it's tedious.
@@xionveil7054 it works well enough for me. I like it, and I enjoy the versatility. I usually grind out levels and spells so as to stack buffs up to take out the extra bosses. I don't care for low grind runs.
@@wuffy8006 Just wondering what your level was when you beat chaos with that party. I'm going to play the PSX version later; I really like the Famicom version, but I've played it a lot, so I might as well try the PSX! I completed the game at levels 29-30, but they say you have to be level 45 to damage chaos, so I finished it at that level.
@@xionveil7054 Chaos? I save him for last. My red mage was a wizard, and I solo'd the game with him until the class change, to max out the stats of the rest. red mages don't get more stats upon class change. the psp version has bonus content, so by the time I get tochaos, the red wizard is level 99, and the rest are probably also 99 or close to it. so, I level up the whole gang to have my bases covered. the warrior for strength and light healing, the red wizard who is good all around, and the mages who excel at their craft. The games a cake walk by then, not that it was hard to begin with.
@@Zhortac Well more like they beat him with sound logic that Chaos in an chaotic universe would be order. and boring. Then they blasted him with enough white magic to bring down a god of chaotic energy. Which he was
assuming this does not count on the psp remake of the original because in that version the black mage and white mage are better at their jobs then the red mage, yeah the red mage can to both jobs but why use him when everything he does can be done better by someone else? fighter/knight out attacks him, black mage/wizard and white mage/wizard out mage him.
I'm amazed to see a video speaking the unequivocal truth about the black mage having zero dislikes (at the time of writing.) Uncyclopedia put it best when they described them as a joke played on rookie FF1 players.
Let's be honest blackbelt/master will out dps any class in the game, by level 20 no other class can keep up. So Knight for Tank, But Master for DPS and Red Wizard for support and Ninja for filler. Cause black wizard sucks, white wizard is ok but sucks dps wise. This is the real party
Ditch the thief and replace him with literally any other class, preferably one that can cast magic to support your 2 melee classes and to cast defensive/aoe spells early/mid game.
"Ditched the vivi look and no one likes you" Well, excuse you. This look of the black wizard is far better 😒 Agree with everything else you say though. Thieves are so... so bad. Like a poor man's fighter. I saw someone on here doing an all thief party and was thinking wow, that's crazy. Bahaha
I'm doing an all thief party run, and I must tell you... they aren't half bad. Thiefs are a poor man's fighter, they're essentially weaker fighters with some added perks to make them worth your while, but the thing is... they're only bad because every other class is just so much more OP than them. In my all thief run, I decided to outright skip the class change because a 4 ninja party is legitimately pretty good due to the acess to fast and pretty much every armor and weapon under the sun
Wow, no offence but this was so wrong lol. You do not need to equip the heal staff to use it, or any item for that matter. Try beating the game without a white mage, good luck. Also the black belt./master becomes by far the best melee character at high levels.
Red Mage is superfluous IMO. He's good early on, but he ends up a bit more second rate later in all categories. If you are to bring a mage, you are better off investing in a White Mage to keep your party alive, which is better long term. The Blackbelt is God Tier, whereas the Knight is top tier. I've seen the Blackbelt toss aside Chaos, where the others struggle. Red Mage is OP in the homebrew tabletop RPG based on Pathfinder though.
Disagreed, red mage is versatile, they can help clear out the annoying Elfland bosses quicker, also get fast AND life, I never really used many healing spells in battle even, fighters are just too strong and can outdamage chaos easily.
@@amimm7776it all depends on your luck. I can’t count how many times my white mage came in clutch with the cure and heal spells lineup. And until you get the items that can cast defensive buffs, the AFIR/AICE spells have saved my bacon numerous times, especially in places like gurgu volcano, ice cave, and temple of ordeals. Also when you successfully cast MUTE on Astos (rare) always made me lmfao.
4 white mages? It'll never work. Besides, then you wouldn't have a black mage to combine with your fighter to use Fighterdoken + TwoFisted Monkey Style Attack.
The Masters the strongest character at the end of the game no question, that crap you said about being almost as strong as the fighter no no they're at least two to three times stronger they do twice or three times as much damage
The problem with the black belt is that he can dish out a lot of damage, but it all depends on your level. By the time you hit level 32 you’ll already reach chaos, and IIRC the fighter with the Excalibur (or masamune) will out-dps him. Yes I’ve seen videos of a black belt basically 1-shotting chaos but we’re talking max level. Do you know how long it takes to grind from lvl 32 to 50? Quite a lot. Unless you’re buying equipment for your fighter or buying end-game spells for your wizards there is no need to over-level like that.
PCY Collectible/Trading Cards would be tough in the new versions of the game. White mage is very necessary to survive in the new hard boss battles and they can use some of the most ultimate weapons so their lack of damage is out of the picture when they can one hit kill all regular enemies Two red mages becomes inferior. Only reason for the red mage is haste spell. Knight, white wizard, and a red wizard are necessary but the last one is good to have a master cus they are the ultimate nukes that kill bosses faster than anyone. Most bosses can go down in one or two hits with a master.
Now that's an interesting party composition I'd like to try at some point. I'd trade the black belt for another red mage or thief since BBs only really shine after overlevelling like crazy, sonething i hate to do
update, tried dawn of souls out, they somehow managed to make the black belt eleven times as OP as they were. I'd still trade the ninja for a white mage or another red, the extra bosses are pretty dang hard, and you'll need protera and some strong healing spells for them, so white mages are finally useful!
@@amimm7776 heres why i pick these class. 1. Knight (tank, and DPS) 2. Ninja (DPS, temper and haste) 3. Black Belt (DPS, cheap) 4. Red Mage (curaga, protera temper and haste) -im not sure if the BB is in second or the Ninja, its been so long. -physical attack is OP, due to temper and haste. so i have 3 physical DPS. - you can switch BB to Black Mage, if you want a more balanced group. it can also speed up the process of buffing your Warrior and Ninja. -i dont like using the same class. mostly because of equipments. -i dont need more healing, red mage/wizard's curaga and heal is enough. besides theres item spells i can use, if i want a stronger spell. -i also played dawn of souls with the same party... low level until i job change (lots of resets)
That depends on which version you are playing. Original NES thief is a dumpster fire garbage tier - only take him if you’re trying to make the game harder. Literally any other class will be more useful
I've actually done the math on this and wrote a guide that should be floating around somewhere. God = Red Mage and Black Belt Top = White Mage Bottom = Fighter Garbage = Thief then Black Mage Black Belt can hit 26 times, if raised properly, and can 1shot anything in the game, including WarMech and will have 999hp long before level 50. Red Mage can equip almost all the best gear and has utility magic. White Mage hits hard with hammers, early game, and later if you put 'the sword' on it then it's still respectable...nowhere near Red, though. Fighter is just a MUCH lesser Black Belt with much lower evade AND Def at endgame. Thief does more damage without mp than Black Mage. The strongest party in the game, for power gaming, is 1x Red Mage as a solo playthrough with their 50/50 Growth Potential (ask if you don't know) and revive 3x Black Belts after the class change for the 25/75 Growth Potential and save scum for the correct stats when gaining levels. A properly raised Black Belt will act first before ANY other enemy and will 1shot literally anything unless you get really unlucky on WarMech...but then you still have two more in the chamber before WarMech can act.
Black belt only becomes godlike if you go past lvl 32. On average I would reach chaos at that level and my fighter would out-dps the black belt even after fast.
@Larsgman The problem with that is that there are still 18 mote levels and just because you stop at 32 doesn't mean everyone else, including the actual ceiling of the game, stop at 32. Lawyered.
Mid-game is pretty fun with this setup actually, since all of your black mages will have about 10 spell charges each of various aoe-damage attack spells.
No... just no. *facepalm* In the original NES version you can't escape the final dungeon without a White or a Black Wizard in your party. The Red Wizard can't learn Exit or Teleport... So you're boned if you want to grind to level 50 in the final dungeon... The best party in the game is 1 Fighter, 1 Black Belt, 1 White Mage and either the Red Mage or the Black Mage so you're completely well rounded... Thief should never be a part of any party... If you want to take a hit in the DPS department and go for more suvivability choose 2 Fighters a Red Mage and a White Mage. White Mages are not low or shit tier either... they're literally mid to top. And while you may be right about Fighter being God Tier for most of the game, I'd say he's God Tier at the start and middle but at the very end tapers off in to Top Tier where as the Black Belt starts in Mid Tier and ends in God tier. The Ninja is not even close to Top Tier, the Thief is shit tier and ends up in like Mid Tier as the Ninja. Also Black Mages are not shit tier at all, they're mid tier the entire way through the game, their utility comes in the form of stacking Temper and casting Haste on your Master / Knight and their spells are great for taking out giant groups of trash mobs... way more utility than the shitty ass Thief yet you have both of them in that category... wtf is this list? LOL
The thief is a catch-22, you wouldn't need to run that often if you didn't have him.
That is hilarious,
People often assume that you should only run in FFI if you "need to." If you pay attention, you'll notice that many of the battles are simply not worth fighting bc of the xp/gp payoff. Thieves help you pick and choose battles more optimally.
the theif just sux, red mage is better at every point
@@LIONTAMER3D Eloquent analysis
@@chriskroutil1518 >implying other classes can't consistently outrun the monsters as well
hmm no, I'm fairly sure that the optimal party is 2 knights, 1 master, and 1 red wizard. The reason being that you only get so many ultimate weapons and armor for your knights to equip, leaving your third knight much weaker than a master would be in his place. At least that was my understanding of the game last time I played so many years ago.
I think the compromise with the third knight being less equiped was the fact that your party as a whole was still very tanky with even shop gear. The third Knight was also the one you used a white spell with on top of red mage group heal to give more support during fights like Tiamat Chaos and the machine thing.
3rd fighter makes the first half of the game much quicker. Depends what you're looking for imo.
@@jc.1191 ummm not when you have to grab all that GP for a 3rd silver sword
3:45
[Master delivers 10 hits for 1,700 damage against Chaos]
"The Master can hit up to 4 times, making him almost as good as a Knight. Top Tier"
4:34
[Knight does 4 hits for 24 damage against Chaos with Excalibur]
"The Knight is an absolute BEAST! God Tier!"
The difference being that for the master to reach god status like that, you need to hit max level.
On average without grinding more than you need to, you will reach chaos by the time you hit lvl 32.
And that is basically with the play style of “kill everything, run from nothing” with the exception of BS enemies like sorcerers.
The fighter remains a powerhouse for just about the entire game and having one in your party makes the game a thousand times easier.
It really should have been noted that this tier list only works for the NES version of the game... the PSP and PR versions fixes a lot of the bugs in the NES version so that things actually work properly. Also, the PSP version uses MP instead of fixed spell usages, which actually makes the black mage a lot better.
The 2 Fighters and 2 White Mages. A bit of a slower start but should work out optimally in the end.
And intelligence stat actually works so mages deal more damage and heal more. In the other versions that arent PSP, GBA or PR a warrior using magic via items is as effective as using a mage.
Yeah black mage becomes really good at crowd nuking in the PSP/GBA version and honestly may want to be considered as they can save on a bunch of healing. The PR version though the spell slot system is kind of a deal breaker as your not going to want to use your spell slots to nuke and not have enough for your buffs like Haste and Temper which are you boss killers
He said OG in the intro, I like the limitations on NES since it made the game immersive and challenging not the US version though it's buggy, the psp is easy as hell I played it first but I love the charm of the NES version more and the atmosphere. I love the sprites on the psp though and the map is much better.
No, this list is incorrect, especially in the NES version.
God = Red Mage and Black Belt
Top = White Mage
Bottom = Fighter
Garbage = Thief and Black Mage
Let's all just agree that there's nothing final about Final Fantasy
W4CCK I finalize that statement
Square thought that Final Fantasy would be their last game that they would make.
@@danny75461 no, they just thought no one would ever make another game in that genre -.-
🤘
You know, there hasn't been a Never Ending Story movie made since 1996.
I completely agree with your optimal party... Master is really the only switch out from the third fighter since the Sun sword isn't as powerful as a master. Great video
Two knight and Two red mage is most likely the best party.
For speedruns you can switch a red mage with a black mage to make early grind easier because BLM has more spell charges in the early games and anyway by the time you get the infinite magic items most characters can become interchangeable if you have them spam these items.
The heal staff and zeus gauntlet made up 99% of my wm/bm fight options as soon as i got a hold of them
Doing one of these on the mod of balance for dawn of souls would be neat, some classes weren't drastically changed, but some, like the sage replacing the red mage, are quite fresh, here are some interesting new things:
- classes that usually don't have spells now have exclusive spells, particularly the monk
- white and black mage (priest and archmage respectively) become low tier fighters, also, mid game white damaging spells exist that can damage more than undead (notably aero as a carry over from FF3)
- the sage can't use weapons and is really frail, but can use almost every spell, has more int gain and a bigger mana pool.
Really cool mod
I agree I’ve played that one for a couple of hours.
I never played the remakes or gba etc of ff1 , just a whole lot of the original NES, bugs and all.
It’s really quite refreshing
The bug for running does not affect the thief if he is in the first or second row. The thief's ability to run is very useful for avoiding battles that otherwise would have little gp/payoff and make you waste heal potions.
Also, there is one advantage that the BM has over the RM in spite of the intelligence bug: he can learn spells at a lower level (for example FIR2 at L.5 instead of L.6). The RM's attack damage starts to get pretty pathetic by mid game. I think people tend to over rate his attack simply bc he can use swords at the beginning of the game.
Red mage is strong early game but he really shows his jack of all trades colors by mid-late game which is why I never really liked using him much
Fighter, fighter, monk, red mage.
The original magic system for final fantasy is a lot like the fixed spell system for dark souls 1, where you use a certain number of spells, and restore them at a checkpoint, like the inn in final fantasy, or the bonfire in dark souls. Later final fantasies switched to mp, so did the souls games eventually.
Ok, I've played the OG version of this game more than just about anyone on here so lets get a few things straight.
Optimal party is fighter, blackbelt, white mage, black mage. You can always swap the blackbelt with another fighter.
I love the red wizard he's probably my favorite character but he's a jack of all trades master of none. He really suffers in late game as his magic isn't strong enough, and his attacks aren't strong enough, he cant raise the dead and he costs a shit ton to equip. He also cant equip the best armor, weapons and spells for late game. Also early on you have to make decisions on which spells to grab and which to leave behind as he has access to 8 possible spells but slots for only 3. First half of game though if you have tons of money he is absolutely amazing. Ex. silver sword, lvl 3/4 spells.
The thief is garbage tier as you mention and while the ninja is better due solely to his equipment list being much broader, his magic which people comment on isn''t really a factor, by then you have items that can freely cast anything he has.
The white wizard is probably the most useful class in the game, for the versatility of heals, damage to undead and element reducing spells. And he's the only class in the game that can revive. Once you have Thor's hammer he has a decent attack as well, and he's probably my favorite character to put the masamune on.
The black mage is a destructive force, clearing mobs when you are in trouble and dealing tons of damage when needed. TMPR (lvl 2) and FAST (lvl 4) are also amazing skills to boost characters attack. Late game spells also differentiate him from Red Mage with spells that can insta-kill and Nuke.
Black belt is difficult early on but once his fists get up to speed he can out punch even the fighter. Especially if you use TMPR to boost his multiple strikes.
God Tier - Fighter, White Mage
Top Tier - Black Mage, Black Belt
Mid Tier - Red Mage
Flaming Garbage Pile Tier - Thief
Even if its not the best class the Red Mage is still the most stylish!
I think you overrate the utility of the Black Mage's exclusive spells in general, but more importantly the TMPR spell just flat out does not work in the NES version of the game (it's bugged), and the inarguably most powerful black spell (FAST) is also available to the Red Mage.
@@jortsmajeure Ninja learns it too. Not to be a jerk, but someone who has played the game as much as they claim, should probably know that.
@@shawnmcnally1254 that the Ninja can learn FAST? You're responding to a comment in which I'm comparing Black and Red Mages. Why would I bring up a Ninja's spell list in that context? Yes, the Ninja has FAST. But the chief reason the Ninja's a bad pick (in the NES version, at least) is that they compare unfavorably to the Red Wizard (who also learns FAST) for most practical purposes, so casting FAST isn't a saving grace for the Ninja in terms of party composition, IMO.
@@jortsmajeure Just simply stated that. No reason for a deeper analysis than that. And honestly, you're making the game sound harder than it is. Yes, the Thief sucks, but the Ninja is perfectly fine. Its endgame equipment easily surpasses that of the RM/RW, can equip the Katana, and is capable of providing support/damage in the final battle against Chaos (excluding the Masamune). Let's be real, the final battle consists of casting Fast/Haste on your main fighters and letting them go to town. Without the Masamune, the Ninja is better at doing just that. So, for the final fight (perhaps the only difficult fight in the game, save for the early portions and Ice Cavern), a RM/RW, BM/BW, or Ninja...whoever can more readily cast Fast on your main fighter(s).
Most lethal team is Fighter, Black Belt, Red Mage, White Mage. They can hit hard and heal. A buffed Black Belt is uncanny with his hitting power!
you kinda lost all credibility when you said to equip the knight with the silver sword.....
Among other things.
wait, WHAT credibility?
He lost credibility when he said the White Mage sucks and is only useful because of "life and his ability to equip the Heal Staff"
This guy doesn't know a thing about this game.
@@PinochleSundae white mage does suck, tho; second worst class =/
@@LIONTAMER3D I consider him middle of the pack after fighter and red mage.
Most people consider thief and bb the worst
The Ninja being able to use Haste (or HYPR or whatever it is in the original lol) is better than just cool. I always suffered through having a thief to have one as a kid, I used the 3 physical classes and a White Mage... but I have an anti-Red Mage bias lol. Playing the PSP remake where the Thief is fixed was a ton of fun for this reason lol.
My first time was a team with Knight, Ninja, BlackM and WhiteM... The Standard
Same
Honestly even with the pixel remaster id say this list is still accurate as the lack of spell slots really makes the mages dead weight. White mages are slightly ahead as Nul-All and Full life are pretty nice to have but not needed and things like Blink can help keep the white mage alive longer. Black Mages do get bump so they arent complete garbage but magic damage doesnt mean much at all by end game and your going to be using a BM to cast temper and haste on the Master or Knight, and frankly Red mages and Ninjas can do this better than a BM as they can actually take a couple hits where the BM has literally about the half the HP of your other classes, and honestly all the 8 and 9th level spells are useless. Honestly for a Party 2 Knights, a Master, and a Red Mage will easily demolish this game.
In the original NES version, black belts are by far the most powerful, and it's not even close. In your video you say they can "hit up to four times ... doing almost as much damage as the knight" while showing a clip where one gets 10 hits. Black belts/masters start hitting for well into 2k dmg by mid-upper lvl 40s. The knight will do half of that at lvl 50 if he's lucky.
Best all around party, from lvl 1 to lvl 50, is:
Fighter
Black Belt
Black Belt
Red Mage
Fighter soaks damage and gets you reliable kills early on. Red mage lets you do peninsula of power grinding early on with Fire 2, and also does decent damage. End game, it just turns into a heal bot using Heal Staff every turn. The black belts become your top damage dealers around lvl 12 or so (unarmed), and each level, they keep pulling further and further away, and it's not even close. I'm playing as I write this. At lvl 49, the masters are hitting Warmechs for 1300-1500 dmg, compared to the knights 100-300.
The thief, black mage, and white mage don't really have a place in the game. They can be fun to play, but (in the case of mages) because of the cap on how many times you can use spells, they have limited value.
I agree with you. I think I used to do 3 BB and 1 WM. I think you kind of need the WM for the exit spell. But maybe the RM has the same skill once hes a wizard? I havent played in forever. There used to be a glitch for the BB too. If you equip a ribbon just before a level up you will have 1 armor. But once you level it will go back to the BB current level, but you still get status immunity of ribbon item. This made the BB a demi god :)
Ah that's exactly what I was thinking.
It's been years since I played ff1 but I remember going 3 bl mages 1 black belt. Sure black mages suck but they had access to fireball level 3 faster then red mages. Lightning level 1 makes quick work of the first boss and pirates. Proceed to ocean farm until you can afford fire ball on all your mages. Then peninsula farm till level 15 then ignore the black mages till they die so your bb gets all the xp and proceed to easy mode win. Seriously though peninsula farm until creeps start running away.
If you want overkill then yes.
If you want the easier time to play the game Black belt has place for only one spot.
Fighter Fighter Black Belt Red Mage would make the game a cakewalk.
A single fighter can handle the front row defense and offensive but you take two of them and basically nothing can touch them.
Black belt is NEVER superior to fighter and Master is superior to them only near lvl 40 like you said which is pointless considering you do not need to be lvl 40 to finish the game.
@@jeanbob1481 At level 12, black belts will already out damage fighters - they are vastly superior offensively.
I recently played through the pixel remaster and actually rolled for what characters to play. There were 6 characters so 4d6 chose my party.
That sounds awesome
What did you get?
@@locloudanerpg two thieves, a red mage, and a black mage.
@@mindlessmeat4055 two Ninjas probably worked for the end game but I bet that was a grind early on! At least the Red Mage could heal.
@@locloudanerpg yeah, it was tough, though the chaos at the end was the only time everyone died. Bosses were always rough with a couple characters dying.
Everyone hates on the ninja but he is IMO the second best end game hero. Run a party with 2 fighters and 2 thiefs and while the beginning of the game is a little bit of a struggle the end game is a cake walk with the 4 strongest weapons being able to be used and the best armor across the board has well . Yes I know the punching power of the blackbelt gets op when you get to level 15 or so but he is always squishy at any level.
I tend to use the party Fighter/Thief/White Mage/Black Mage, since that party feels more "traditional" for some reason. But of course, a _true_ "traditional party" would simply be the default party Fighter/Thief/Black Belt/Red Mage, which thankfully doesn't suck too much.
Only good thing about the thief is that late game he can cast fast on someone else. I suppose his damage might be decent if you give him the masamune and leave the fighter with the Xcalibur.
That, and I always found it much easier to run when you have a thief, I can’t explain why.
My go to party is fighter, thief, red mage and white mage. I know the thief is trash in the first half but I just cant pass on the ninja. What's cooler than a ninja? The answer is nothing. I just like that he gets the biggest leap in upgrade with weapons, armor and magic. The blackbelt is too boring for me with no magic and black mage is too fragile, so I go with the jack of all trades, red mage. Spells make the game more fun for me so I opt for a team that can all use some. At end game you have most spells and equipment used.
Same here except I swap white mage with black mage. Makes grinding easier and I think black mage is cooler then white mage.
I know deep down the thief is worse then red mage or fighter but he is just very cool and once he becomes a ninja he still is a shitty mage but is stronger then red wizard.
Sadly this is effectively the last time red mage is relevant in the entire series.
He is one of the worst class in ff3 and basically only has uses in ff5 to get x spells as he is one of the worst class here too.
But on the NES this guy was a true beast.
Funny enough the ninja went on and became the best class in ff3 and just overall really strong in ff4, 5 and 6.
Monk also became stronger as the series went on, ff3 monk has two classes that are very strong in ff2 all you need is super high level fist if you want to, in ff4 yang is good, ff5 you get broken HP AND an ability that allows you to use your fists on any classes you want basically having mages that can fight like monks with no problems, ff6 has sabin which is probably the most popular FF character of all times.
Agreed. Nothing is cooler than a ninja.
Try two fighters, ninja, red mage. Also a fun run. I might try 3 fighters and a ninja for fun next time. Might be a interesting challenge.
there's two problems with this list. Basically this is the best 'fastest' group (well, 2 knights 1 master and 1 red wizard because there's not a good 3rd knight weapon)
But the white wizard has it's own cheese that the red wizard can't touch early game. If you don't know this game, or are doing such low level runs, having someone who can put up elemental resists when bosses use skills like lit2 that can decimate you at low levels.
So it really depends on what criteria you're allowing yourself. Is this the best party if you're allowed to level up a bit? No, cause again it's still 2 knights 1 master and 1 red wizard. But is THAT the best party? Again, only if you're allowed to level. The master also loses power if you're not allowed to level up so it's kinda bad in a low level run.
Not many people seem to like the white mage but his elemental resist buffs, cure and heal spells are invaluable.
That, and I HATED having to drown my party members in heal potions just to heal up.
But mid-combat that cure3/4 and heal3/4 is a lifesaver.
And before you get the ribbons which is basically late game, the buffs will save you countless times.
Yeah he suck’s offensive wise, but there is plenty of equipment in the game that you can spam for free spells.
In the PSP version I go with Knight, Ninja, Red Wizard, and White wizard.
Re-playing the NES original and chose this exact party, FFVII themed with Cloud (Fighter), Tifa (Red Mage), Yuffie (Thief), and Aeris (White Mage). It's a good set-up, though I've run stronger ones (such as having 2 fighters). Just having a bit of fun this playthrough.
So you're lazy and go with the default setup.
@@andyblanton6570 is that default? I thought black mage instead of red mage was the general set up?
@@andyblanton6570 it is the best for fighting the super bosses I have found. 2 casters have haste and temper
@@chrischandler889 Hi Chris. In the NES version, Red Mage not Black for the recommended set up but it's considered sub-optimal. I don't know about other versions, although I've also finished the GBA port a number of times. Also not sure why this Andy Blanton person felt the need to be disparaging by calling it "lazy".
The thief was also supposed to deal ridiculous damage but the agility bugged stopped that
He's still worth using in spite of the bug.
@@chriskroutil1518how?
On the NES the only good thing going for him is being able to cast fast once he becomes a ninja.
And running away. I always found it easier to run when you have a thief in the party for some reason.
@Larsgman The Luck bug is not a complete bug. In the early game, especially in Marsh Cave and Ice cave, he will be able to run significantly better than anyone else. Later in the game, his luck is no longer an advantage over other characters, but he can cast FAST, AND he can equip better absorbing armor than any other character besides the knight (he can use a shield and equip the Flame armor which then means you can give the opal bracelet to someone else).
I would love to see you come back and redo the older Final Fantasy lists but reviewing the Pixel Remaster editions. This list in particular would probably be heavily shaken up since stat bugs are mostly fixed.
That's a good idea! Maybe I could do all six games but using the Pixel remaster version only.
Definitely something you could think about, especially considering the Pixel Remasters are going to be the main versions of the games people play anymore.
If you want to be able to use all of the items you need a fighter, thief, black mage, white mage, as I recall because there was like one piece of armor or weapon that only their evolved classes can use. I think the black and white shirt (which would probably be robes) for the wizards, the ninja has the katana and can use the black belt weapons, and the Excalibur for the knight.
I use that composition yo use the katana and the spell nuke, i am very disapoint the Master lierally destroy everything
@@metalshider74 I'm pretty sure a master without weapons is better than a ninja with the katana, but having another person to cast haste (fast) is nice.
@@jasonbell791 yeah that spell with the best damage in the game is awesome
Sadly if white and black worked as intended and boosted the magic stat that would make both mages much superior to red mage.
In the rest of the series they boosted the stats so most likely they would have done the same in the original
Is just the NES version? I plan on playing this relatively soon for the first time, but was probably gonna emulate the Final Fantasy Origins version. I'm assuming it's not too different but bugs are probably fixed.
Yeah you should be good. 👍
Not all were fixed though. Two of the most serious ones are still present from the NES release: The cancel bug and the useless inteligence stat.
@@sebastiankulche good to know. I ended up playing the PSP version. Sort’ve wish I waited for the pixel remasters. But it is what it is
@@sebastiankulche What's the cancel bug?
I didnt watch the video yet, but people saying the thief sucs in many of the comments probably didnt played any of the post NES releases. The Thief was made way stronger, a little less than the warrior still but now it compensates with the hit rate, especially at the beginning of the game it would be doing more damage than the warrior, and the extra agility always comes handy in any desesperate situation. Double casting temper alongside a Black Mage it also helps a lot in boss battles to quickly buff a warrior/black belt without needing to have another weak character
The Master supported by buff magic capable characters is the optimal party, full stop.
The Master with fast spell os insane
as someone that just finished a black belt only run, well, first you shouldn't upgrade to master, you'll lose on some bonus MDEF and won't gain a lot, second, holy cow these things are OP without fast, I can only imagine what would happen if they had fast on, just three of them absolutely curb stomped chaos.
@@amimm7776 wow
You're right about the costume downgrade on black mage. What were they thinking? I still think these guys are great because they can zap the critters of evil all at once. That's so nice to do, especially when you're in your ship and hordes of nobodies are constantly interrupting your dang voyage!
I like using Black Belts and Master fighters in my party and Fighters, and Knights and I like using the Red Mage and Red Wizard in the game for the Exit and Warp spell. I like the Masters dealing over 999 damage and yes it's worth it to keep Black Belts in your party. The Black Belts and Fighters and Red Mage are my favorite characters to use in the game.
I don't like using Thief and the time it takes to get him to be a Ninja is not usually worth it. I don't really like using White Mages or White Wizards or Black Mages or Black Wizards since they're more vulnerable to attacks. However I do like the Black Mages spells if you don't run out of them, I don't like their weak attacks. I don't usually use White Mages or Wizards since they don't have much Attack spells and their Harm Spells are very useless unless the enemy is undead and the White Mages attacks are very weak. In the end I use Heal potions and Heal Staff and Heal Helmets to cure my entire party's HPs.
That's about how I do it. Forgot about the warp spell tho, maybe not enough slots or something. The ninja is just cool, kinda a for fun challenge type run.
I don’t know by memory what spells the red mage cannot learn, but despite what everyone else says, i have always found the anti-element lineup from white magic on almost equal value to fast.
I can’t count how many times my party would get completely annihilated by a horde of enemies spamming AoE fire/ice etc. spells. If you get lucky and your white mage goes first, you can consider the battle won.
Especially when trying to conquer the ice cave, gurgu volcano, castle of ordeals, and especially when trying to grind the peninsula of power and you get a pack of frost wolves.
But i guess that’s just me. The heal and cure lineup are also lifesavers
"Equip" the heal staff? Um, what?
I caught that too...
He has no idea what he is talking about.
Many have mentioned, but the strongest is the BB or Master.
I think I used to do 3 BB and 1 WM. I think you kind of need the WM for the exit spell. But maybe the RM has the same skill once hes a wizard? I havent played in forever. There used to be a glitch for the BB too. If you equip a ribbon just before a level up you will have 1 armor. But once you level it will go back to the BB current level, but you still get status immunity of ribbon item. This made the BB a demi god :)
Somewhere around level 14 you could go bare fist and get multiple hits matching the damage of a fighter. The fighter was always stronger up until the very late game when the Master just dominates. Probably around level 20 to 22 the Master just becomes more reliable in every category.
It's weird. I remember someone telling me that only the White Wizard could use the EXIT spell as well. But the Red Wizard actually *can* use it. I think you need it to escape from the final dungeon since once you walk through the time portal you can't walk back out.
I don't know if that might've been an error written in a strategy guide or maybe a game journalist for EGM or Gamepro etc. might have incorrectly written this back in 1989 or 90 and it spread as fact.
Swap the master and knight and you get the best tier list. The fighter and black belt are good, but in the early game black belt is garbage because his gimmick is bugged until the wonderswan color
yeah early game black belt is just bad, sometimes even worse then the thief.
Basically kngiht and red mage are good for the entire game, OFC black belt becomes better by the end but not by much. Best use of black belt is if you hate spending money you get a fighter type that cost nothing but this is pointless because you can get a lot of money pretty fast and all the good items are in chest anyways.
@@jeanbob1481 I played FF1 a lot as a kid. The knight/fighter is way easier in the early game 150%. But late game nothing is as powerful as the BB. They do superior damage and have superior defensive stats to the Knight even if the knight has the best Eq. On the original Nintendo you could equip a BB with a Ribbon right before leveling up. After leveling up the BB immediately gets defensive stats equal to the character level but maintain status change immunity granted by the ribbon. Eventually BB are doing anywhere from 8 to 12 hits or more and its consistent. It consistently out damages the knight by a solid 25 to 50% at end game levels.
The shift in power dynamics happens around level 14 if my memory serves me. So up until 14 fighter was better but from 14 to 20 they were about equal after level 21 the Master was typically better. Its been a long time since I played the game but I think thats what I remember.
@@takigan On the original nintendo the red mage could not use Exit spell, to the best of my recollection. Also, the red mage kind of sucked. Couldnt fight. Couldnt use the best magic. IDK. I never really liked the red mage cause he was just mediocre at everything and excelled at nothing.
About to watch the video now, but based off the title, White Mage and their hammer... XD
Swing and a miss
😆
@@locloudanerpg That's a very accurate statement.
@@jc.1191 haha I’m a jackass
I never played the original release of Final Fantasy, but I got to play the origins re-release. How do they fare in the rankings in that I wonder?
Due to the the INT stat actually working in that release, Black Mage is a lot better.
I'd also say White Mage is also a little better.
Fighter and Red Mage are still probably the best classes that release though.
@@RayOfTruth Intelligence stat STILL doesnt work on the PS1 version. This, alongside other few bugs that PS1 didnt fix were fixed until the GBA version. A proof of that? Just use a level 1 Black Mage. Cast the fire spell a couple of times. Now level up it to 50 or 99 (depending on the difficult) and cast the same spell. You would notice that you are doing the same damage. The same happens with White Mage healing, Red Mage or Warrior/Thief using spells via items (they also would do the same damage than a Mage, something it doesnt happen in post PS1 releases).
@@sebastiankulche my bad, I was thinking of the changes made in the WonderSwan/GBA port.
2 fighers, 2 red mages is optimal OR 2 fighters, 1 blackbelt, 1 red mage. The third fighter will be significantly weaker since the 3rd best weapon is the Sun Sword (Or defense depending on your hit %). 3 Fighers and 1 Red Mage is good but is certainly not optimal by any stretch. And while black mages are held back because of their bugs, they are certainly not worthless. They get spell charges earlier than red mages which is useful for speed running since they get their first charge of the Fast spell at level 8. They're also pretty good at running away. Plus NUKE is quite good for the casual players playthrough.
Red Mages must have been heavily nerfed in the GBA version then.
I'm currently playing it for the first time on a GBA emulator with my team set up being
- Red Mage
- White Mage
- Black Mage
- Thief
All are on Lv 6 right now and the Red Mage is lagging behind as far as HP and damage output is concerned. (even when I apply an attack buff on him)
That hp nerf since the gba version is horseshit
Red Mage is nerfed in GBA, but he's still pretty good.
Red mage on NES was a true beast...
He is basically second best fighter and best mage all in one but with shit defense and HP which does not matter all that much if you compare him with other characters.
I am saying he is best mage because he is most versatile. If you want both black and white magic you are forced to pick two different characters to specialize in them... Or you pick only one character that can do them very well and fight too.
In the late game he still remains relevant but becomes the worst fighter type behind ninja and master. But once again he can use magic.
For years I went with the optimal mix until I was told the last group is the only ones you’ll ever need and still haven’t gone back since.
Having just completed a solo run with Black Belt (NES) and a second one with the Monk (PS1), I'd say it is the best character in the game and should be God-Tier. He requires zero gear, zero magic and at max level (which you're gonna hit on a solo-run), he is immune to status effects
This is very agreeable with the NES version but not at all for PR and especially not PSP 20th anniversary edition. In PSP they replaced spell use with MP which made black magic way more viable. And all of the INT and Thief stat issues are fixed in those more updated versions.
Thief is still utterly useless, and Red Mage is still better than a White Mage but does not outclass Black Mage anymore in raw black magic output, especially in PSP version where Black Mage has vastly more MP than Red Mage.
I guess i am just biased because I've always believed the best combination to be 2 fighters white mage and black mage.
Sure, the black belt can surpass the fighter in terms of damage on chaos but we're talking somewhere past lvl 32, which was the average lvl i would be at when I would beat the game. The lower his lvl the worse he does in performance.
The fighter on the other hand has the most hp and defense and because he can equip just about anything in the game he will your standard damage dealer and will be very hard to kill.
I've always included the wm/bm in my party makeup because not having access to all the spells would always be a turn off.
Also because i would have a habit of going to the castle of ordeals before fighting kary because i wanted the heal staff ans zeus gauntlet to spam their abilities in the volcano (never have to worry about hp and large swaths of enemies).
For all versions past the wonder swan color version of FF 1, you are 100% correct.
I have not played the other versions but on the NES the red mage can do anything black and white can do except better but we are not counting the occasionaly nuke and holy that you basically can use once or twice during the last boss fight, spells that are too costly to ever use lol.
Meanwhile red mage contributes the entire game with spells AND attack.
2 knight and 2 red mage is best party. You can swap one red mage if you like more variety for another mage type however.
@@jeanbob1481i should try a fighter, black belt, and 2 red mages one of these days because the white mage and black mage with a fighter on top has always been a staple for me.
But I guess because the way I would play FF1 was basically like a slog - once i got the heal staff and zeus gauntlet that is literally what i had the wm/bm do for 99% of the game.
@@jeanbob1481i rarely used the red mage in my playthroughs over the years because i always found his limited spell charges and what spells he could use were really bothersome.
He is really great early game though because of the ability to equip the chainmail
The general shape of this tier list is good, although IMO it doesn't make sense to evaluate the base and prestige classes separately since nobody's gonna use a tier list to plan a playthrough of just the first or back half.
Thief/Ninja: even if running worked correctly, this would still be the worst class, because you can't avoid boss fights and you need the experience you get from random battles. What they need more than that is for critical hit chance to not be bugged, as the Ninja would at least have crit chance to brag about. They'd still be the most useless class but it would help close the gap. As it is, Thief/Ninja is worse than Red Mage/Red Wizard across the board so there's no reason to use them except that ninjas look cool.
Black Mage/Black Wizard: you're right about intelligence being bugged, but the other problem is that Red Mage gets all of the important Black Mage spells. The spellcasting items you get tons of (e.g. Black Shirt, Thor's Hammer) make it easy for any party to AOE down most trash packs, limiting the appeal of BANE, QAKE, XXXX, etc).
White Mage/White Wizard: this is the one you underrate most severely, because it's not just the ability to revive that sets them apart from the Reds. The most difficult and dangerous enemy formations are giant packs of 7-8 zombies which can paralyze on touch (Wights, etc). White Mages have by far the best hard counter to these groups, as well as other undead enemies (HARM). Their inability to do AOE damage against non-undead trash fights (as compared to a Red Mage/Wizard) is mitigated in the second half by the spellcasting items, and against bosses their physical shortcomings aren't particularly relevant since they'll be casting heals and barrier spells nonstop.
Black Belt/Master: you're too kind to these guys, IMO. Their only advantage relative to a Fighter is that they're cheaper to gear out, but you still need to grind to see them shine. If you're not overleveling they're underwhelming, and if you are overleveling you'll have the money to gear a Fighter anyhow. It's fun to see those giant damage numbers at endgame if you do grind, but there's no good reason to put one in the party instead of an extra Fighter. By the time a Master outperforms a Knight, you're more than strong enough to kill Chaos, so who cares?
Red Mage/Red Wizard: you describe these as support classes, but it's not like they're bards or something; they aren't as physically strong as Fighters (or as Black Belts, after the first quarter of the game or so), but they still do good physical damage in trash fights, even if in boss fights they focus more on buffing the Fighter, healing, and casting defensive buffs like AFIR. I don't object to ranking Fighters above them, but it's easy to overstate the difference. These guys are like 70% of a Fighter, 90% of a Black Mage, and 60% of a White Mage, rolled into one slot.
IMO the only parties I'd consider using (setting aside challenge runs, variety, and aesthetics) would include 1-2 Fighters, 1-2 Red Mages, and 0-1 White Mage. The other three classes are useless in comparison.
Nice feedback. Good point about White mage and zombies and I agree about the Red Mages. Thanks for supporting the channel!
Ninjas aren't that bad. Probably not worth putting up with a Thief, but it's not like the game isn't doable with a Thief. Ninjas make up for that for the most part. One thing you don't mention is the lack of item space. You are guaranteed to have to drop some of those precious spellcasting items.
Your comments on the thief are ironic, since running actually helps you grind faster: you run from the battles that don't give as much xp and thus fight more battles with higher xp. For example, prior to the Marsh cave, ogre battles are the most lucrative. Wolf battles, in contrast, not only give pathetic xp, they take a long time and also force you to waste a lot of gold on potions. There's no way around it: some battles are more worth the damage you take than others and thieves let you maximize this in your favor.
@@chriskroutil1518 Interesting thought (for the versions where running isn't bugged, at least) but if you're trying to maximize gains, escaping a battle and waiting for another one eats time too, so how sure are you that the total EXP/Gil per minute shakes out in a runner's favor? In other words you have to consider not just the yields of ogre vs wolf, but the added time it takes to run from a wolf battle and find another one (which might still not be an ogre) when trying to maximize EXP/Gil per minute. Do people actually use Thief in speedruns, or is this just an idea that *sounds* like it's time efficient?
@@jortsmajeure @Zack Fornaca Well, first of all most speed runs are done with the factory settings and thus the encounter formations are all predetermined. Most regular players in contrast are playing with battles that are actually random (as they were meant to be). Also, most of the planning for a speed run is to get past Lich #2 in the Temple of Fiends Revisted at a super low level since he uses Nuke.
As for the Luck bug, it only affects rows #3 and #4. Thus, a thief in row #2 will always run in the first round (except for un-runnable battles). This is quite fast indeed. There's no mathematical formula i can use to prove it, but try it and you'll see.
I knew that 3 Knights + 1 Red Mage was the best way to go!
Nope
4 Fighters is the only way to go at least in the original which is what this topic is all about.
It is either that or 2 red mage and 2 knight
@@IamRyanBui Lack of exit, fast, life and life are considerations. Sometimes a room full of enemies knights struggle with can be beaten with a strong fire spell, etc.
2 fighters maximum. Early-midgame they’ll crush everything in their path, but late game there is only a handful of powerful equipment.
The trend in these videos is to prefer characters with strong, basic attacks-these characters only seem like the best because they can be effective even when playing brainlessly. But the truly most powerful characters in FF games are the ones that take some skill to use. And it’s all about how you use your characters *together*.
Two fighters, two red mages, melt every boss, with fastened attacks.
I also don't like how brainless the optimal way of playing FF1 is, it's why I do challenge runs, but there's no denying, the combination that kills the fastest will be the strongest
the best team, bar none, is fighter/black belt/red mage/red mage. the best character? prolly fighter: he's the best choice for the top slot no matter what team you're running due to armor/survivability & second-best DPS after black belt (with masamune)
Eh, I kinda think red mage/wizard is the best because he can cast fast, which essentially doubles your best dpser's dps (and then your second best, etc) with 1 cast, and then can provide their own dps after to boot. Against bosses I mean. Against non bosses, other spells help carry them above as well even if they don't scale imo.
As I always did, 2 fighters, red mage and a black mage. Beat it several times with that
Heavily underrated channel. Suscribed.
That means alot. Look forward to more great content!
hey i really liked this video, you do a great job of explaining everything
Thanks!
2 knights a master and red mage is what I roll
try knight, master, 2x red wiz; solve rng to FAST knight and master in round 1 of every fight BEFORE they attack; red wiz AOE spells or attacks in round 2 = you won't see a 3 round fight all game long [Edit] 2x red = double heals, buffs, & AOE spells just CRUSHES early game content. Double fast round 1, round 2 AOE or attack (or heal =/) becomes the overwhelming strategy as soon as lv4 spells come into play & it's all downhill from there; 1 rounder bosses lol
I'm close with 3 fighters and red mage. Same concept, steamroll the game.
@@jc.11912 fighters maximum IMHO. There is not enough powerful equipment end-game and your 3rd fighter will look like a wasted slot.
Early-midgame though they will crush the majority of enemies.
Only reason I say this with confidence is because i beat the game before at lvl 32 (the average) with 4 fighters.
The last 2 fighters were basically pathetic against chaos.
Forgot to mention the haste spell being so important for bosses. Also Red Mage can't cast heal magic that restores the whole party so he is pretty mediocre at healing. I always found a white mage is mandatory for the Choas fight.
Healing isn't that important when you melt the boss in seconds
People dismissing the white mage have never experienced him coming in clutch with the heal2, 3 etc…
Really good to have when fighting enemies that can cast nuke like lich in the final dungeon or warmech for example.
Agility stat is bugged so haste is garbage half the time. The FF 1 on nes is garbage
@@leargamma4912 but remember it was the 1st of its kind back in 87 or whatever. It was really good for back then and easy enough to navigate and get through without an internet guide. I'd say most Jrpgs from the 80s and 90s were pretty esoteric and easy to get stuck on but not this one.
@@CosmicCosmo1 true. Calling it garbage is a bit much. I understand how influential and good this game was at the time, but for today's standards it is a major slog. In addition to being slow, with all the bugs and glitches (intelligence not working as intended? Really? Something that simple not working is a Major deficit) make it more difficult than it should be.
“Start with three fighters and one red mage.” Horrible. No good. Just BAD.
I’d do: fighter, red mage black mage and white mage; to gain an effect on magic
Replace redmage with something else like another fighter or a black belt.
Either that or replace either the wm/bm with a red mage if you insist on taking a rm along
Fighter, Redmage, White mage, and Black mage in all version of FF1
But are they trying to kill chaos?! I DON’T THINK SO
Eh, the party order in some of these setups presented in this video is atrocious. Who would put white mage on the top?! lol
Fighter, fighter, white, red. The two fighters take 75% of all hits. Lead fighter with BEST equipment (except ribon) and second fighter gets second best gear. White for LIFE + Life2 and to heal and later damage w/items. Red for magic (some enemies are resistantto physical. Plus time save), good damage, good armor, plus damage items late game. Go heavy on potions to save white mage battle heals.
First the info is incorrect. The thief does run away better just not as good as he is suppose to be. The only way to get the floater before beating Kari with all the rub spell is a thief to run or white wizard to cast life.
I always go with Red mage, Fighter, White Mage and Black Mage
Locloudanerpg”knight’s magic is good”
White mage”what about me”
Red mage plateaus at mid and just falls off dude
still, speeds up the slow early game and can still cast life, really important for surviving the temple of fiends
Why would you want heal staff and heal Helmut on the same dude?
Actually wearing it as an armor piece I suppose. But kinda a wasted opportunity.
Few problems. In my experience, each class peaks at different parts of the game. The black mage is super helpful for early power peninsula grinding because of Fire 2, for example.
Also, there are items in the game that you don't have to equip to use, you just need to have them in the character's inventory. So, characters who don't have to equip as much have an advantage in that way: the mages and the black belt being good examples.
But yeah, fighter is the best, there are still just things that the other classes can do better than him at certain points.
White and red mage can do the same as the black mage with enough knowledge and encounter table abuse, black mage is just too frail
Fighter is the best, he’s strong all throughout the game and has the most hp and defense.
@@amimm7776 Black mage has superiority in the very early grind, he gets lvl 2 spells earlier then red mage. You cannot call him useless for this very reason, the speedrun WR used to have 2 red mages and 2 knight until they actually started using 2 knight 1 red m and 1 black mage for this reason alone, early grinding.
For the rest of the game until Nuke he is strictly inferior to red mage and even then nuke is a meme. But basically near the end game classes can use infinite magic items and they can end up becoming pretty similar to each others. At that point having a white mage using an heal staff or a black mage using a zeus gauntlet is better then a red mage using these because they both have better spell lists. But this is a losing battle because the red mage can handle both magic very competently and he can even fight, making it possible to basically have ZERO other mages in the party and still enjoy both magics.
IMO Thief and White mage are truly useless. Harm is really good but you can survive without it. Thief is inferior knight and basically ninja is superior red wizard but not by much.
The best party in the NES version is KN KN RW RW. Two strong attackers, two support. You can tank the game at a super low level. This is the party Fraser used in the WR speed run.
The remakes are trickier since they fixed all the bugs. I’d say KN KN RW RW is still viable in the GBA version. BW still stinks, though he is good for the first 3/4 of the game.
I recently finished the game with Ninja, Master, Red Wizard, and White Wizard. Haste and Temper/Giant’s Glove on Master for about 3-4 turns (level 60-70) and you can easily do 10,000+ on chaos and the bonus dungeon bosses.
Have you tried all 4 Fighters at least for the original game it seems work well. Later versions would replace the red mages with them white ones, your bosses will thank-you you.
@@IamRyanBui 4 fighters would dominate the early game, but has two major flaws: expensive equipment and no healing (outside of items). Absolutely viable but not the best.
@@medleysa like I said, that depends on which versions you’re talking about and how you grind. For the original, it may not be the speediest but it’s practically a no-brainers when it comes to pure strength.
@@IamRyanBui if you want this there is no point to 4 fighters...
Take 3 fighters + another class.
I mean 2 fighters are basically unkillable, you put 3 and it is literally over nothing kills you.
But at 4 fighters you have problems, you cannot optimally equip all 4, very expensive and you cannot use super useful spells like exit or warp. Of course such a team needs no healing but they could use FAST.
3 fighters + red mage or 3 fighters + black belt sounds good.
But then again you do not NEED more then 2 fighters they will already destroy the entire game especially if you put in a red mage.
This leave one spot for literally any other class you want and you still have an invincible team. If you want cheaper you put in a black belt, if you want the best team you put in another red wizard, if you want nuke you put in black mage, if you want more life 2 you put in white wizard. If you like the ninja because his class is the coolest in the entire series you use him.
Basically you ABSOLUTELY need one fighter and one red mage to destroy the game in half. If you want to do it harder put another figter and red mage.
The other classes are basically standing around and looking good while the red chads are doing the work.
Thanks
for psp ff1 I go with a fighter, red mage, bl mage and wh mage.
it works.
I like having the fighter for melee, the red mage for versitility, and the other 2 for magic focus.
I did a red mage solo run with red mage doing all the work so the others could max out stats post job upgrade.
I hear red mage doesn't get more stats after the upgrade.
It works but it's slow, and this game is old so might as well make a fast strategy that not include grinding so you can proceed to the next level it's tedious.
@@xionveil7054
it works well enough for me. I like it, and I enjoy the versatility. I usually grind out levels and spells so as to stack buffs up to take out the extra bosses.
I don't care for low grind runs.
@@wuffy8006 Just wondering what your level was when you beat chaos with that party.
I'm going to play the PSX version later; I really like the Famicom version, but I've played it a lot, so I might as well try the PSX!
I completed the game at levels 29-30, but they say you have to be level 45 to damage chaos, so I finished it at that level.
@@xionveil7054
Chaos? I save him for last.
My red mage was a wizard, and I solo'd the game with him until the class change, to max out the stats of the rest. red mages don't get more stats upon class change.
the psp version has bonus content, so by the time I get tochaos, the red wizard is level 99, and the rest are probably also 99 or close to it.
so, I level up the whole gang to have my bases covered.
the warrior for strength and light healing, the red wizard who is good all around, and the mages who excel at their craft.
The games a cake walk by then, not that it was hard to begin with.
@@xionveil7054 now, if I played the nes version, it would be different I'm sure.
Ah please the best party is 4 white mages. They beat Chaos.
They scared him so hard, he ran and died
@@Zhortac Well more like they beat him with sound logic that Chaos in an chaotic universe would be order. and boring.
Then they blasted him with enough white magic to bring down a god of chaotic energy. Which he was
Too bad the credit went to a sword obsessed fighter, a law manipulating thief, an air headed red mage, and a sociopathic black mage.
@@heroshadow42 That reminds me...
I need to get off my lazy ass and get back to reading 8-Bit Theater.
@@zierin705 Yeah, me too. I love that stuff.
Fighter, 2 black belts, white mage. Cheap and effective
You’re overlooking the monk… it really doesn’t take that long them to start throwing hands. 6-9 hit combos and easily capable of the most damage.
Monk is bugged in the early versions of ff1
assuming this does not count on the psp remake of the original because in that version the black mage and white mage are better at their jobs then the red mage, yeah the red mage can to both jobs but why use him when everything he does can be done better by someone else? fighter/knight out attacks him, black mage/wizard and white mage/wizard out mage him.
I'm amazed to see a video speaking the unequivocal truth about the black mage having zero dislikes (at the time of writing.) Uncyclopedia put it best when they described them as a joke played on rookie FF1 players.
black and white wizard have tons of mp which makes them better than the ninja and master on a count of the warrior rendering them both obsolete
its almost dumb but 1 fighter 3 red mage is also very fun
The only surprise here is you saying the character's names in a different order than they were shown on screen 😂
WHITE MAGE
RED MAGE
FIGHTER AND
BLACK MAGE
If you’re taking a wm/bm you’re better off replacing the red mage with either another fighter or a black belt
Let's be honest blackbelt/master will out dps any class in the game, by level 20 no other class can keep up. So Knight for Tank, But Master for DPS and Red Wizard for support and Ninja for filler. Cause black wizard sucks, white wizard is ok but sucks dps wise. This is the real party
My team:
Fighter
Thief
Black belt
Red mage
Ditch the thief and replace him with literally any other class, preferably one that can cast magic to support your 2 melee classes and to cast defensive/aoe spells early/mid game.
"Ditched the vivi look and no one likes you"
Well, excuse you. This look of the black wizard is far better 😒
Agree with everything else you say though. Thieves are so... so bad. Like a poor man's fighter. I saw someone on here doing an all thief party and was thinking wow, that's crazy. Bahaha
I'm doing an all thief party run, and I must tell you... they aren't half bad.
Thiefs are a poor man's fighter, they're essentially weaker fighters with some added perks to make them worth your while, but the thing is... they're only bad because every other class is just so much more OP than them.
In my all thief run, I decided to outright skip the class change because a 4 ninja party is legitimately pretty good due to the acess to fast and pretty much every armor and weapon under the sun
Wow, no offence but this was so wrong lol.
You do not need to equip the heal staff to use it, or any item for that matter. Try beating the game without a white mage, good luck.
Also the black belt./master becomes by far the best melee character at high levels.
Thank you. That bit about the white mage was so butchered, I wonder if the author ever played this game.
Best party - 3 knights and a white mage
really miss your anime lists, the voice overs just aren't the same
I miss it too my friend. Luckily, video games are much easier to put on you tube.
Fighter, Red Mage, fuck the rest.
Red Mage is superfluous IMO. He's good early on, but he ends up a bit more second rate later in all categories. If you are to bring a mage, you are better off investing in a White Mage to keep your party alive, which is better long term.
The Blackbelt is God Tier, whereas the Knight is top tier. I've seen the Blackbelt toss aside Chaos, where the others struggle.
Red Mage is OP in the homebrew tabletop RPG based on Pathfinder though.
Disagreed, red mage is versatile, they can help clear out the annoying Elfland bosses quicker, also get fast AND life, I never really used many healing spells in battle even, fighters are just too strong and can outdamage chaos easily.
@@amimm7776it all depends on your luck.
I can’t count how many times my white mage came in clutch with the cure and heal spells lineup.
And until you get the items that can cast defensive buffs, the AFIR/AICE spells have saved my bacon numerous times, especially in places like gurgu volcano, ice cave, and temple of ordeals.
Also when you successfully cast MUTE on Astos (rare) always made me lmfao.
4 white mages? It'll never work. Besides, then you wouldn't have a black mage to combine with your fighter to use Fighterdoken + TwoFisted Monkey Style Attack.
The Masters the strongest character at the end of the game no question, that crap you said about being almost as strong as the fighter no no they're at least two to three times stronger they do twice or three times as much damage
The problem with the black belt is that he can dish out a lot of damage, but it all depends on your level.
By the time you hit level 32 you’ll already reach chaos, and IIRC the fighter with the Excalibur (or masamune) will out-dps him.
Yes I’ve seen videos of a black belt basically 1-shotting chaos but we’re talking max level.
Do you know how long it takes to grind from lvl 32 to 50? Quite a lot.
Unless you’re buying equipment for your fighter or buying end-game spells for your wizards there is no need to over-level like that.
2 knights & 2 red wizards. Enough said.
PCY Collectible/Trading Cards would be tough in the new versions of the game. White mage is very necessary to survive in the new hard boss battles and they can use some of the most ultimate weapons so their lack of damage is out of the picture when they can one hit kill all regular enemies
Two red mages becomes inferior. Only reason for the red mage is haste spell. Knight, white wizard, and a red wizard are necessary but the last one is good to have a master cus they are the ultimate nukes that kill bosses faster than anyone. Most bosses can go down in one or two hits with a master.
even in the newer versions: black and white mages are still lower tier.
my pick are always, in that order.
Warrior
Ninja
Monk
Red Mage
Now that's an interesting party composition I'd like to try at some point. I'd trade the black belt for another red mage or thief since BBs only really shine after overlevelling like crazy, sonething i hate to do
update, tried dawn of souls out, they somehow managed to make the black belt eleven times as OP as they were.
I'd still trade the ninja for a white mage or another red, the extra bosses are pretty dang hard, and you'll need protera and some strong healing spells for them, so white mages are finally useful!
@@amimm7776 heres why i pick these class.
1. Knight (tank, and DPS)
2. Ninja (DPS, temper and haste)
3. Black Belt (DPS, cheap)
4. Red Mage (curaga, protera temper and haste)
-im not sure if the BB is in second or the Ninja, its been so long.
-physical attack is OP, due to temper and haste. so i have 3 physical DPS.
- you can switch BB to Black Mage, if you want a more balanced group. it can also speed up the process of buffing your Warrior and Ninja.
-i dont like using the same class. mostly because of equipments.
-i dont need more healing, red mage/wizard's curaga and heal is enough.
besides theres item spells i can use, if i want a stronger spell.
-i also played dawn of souls with the same party... low level until i job change (lots of resets)
That depends on which version you are playing.
Original NES thief is a dumpster fire garbage tier - only take him if you’re trying to make the game harder.
Literally any other class will be more useful
Funny you say blm sucks when the world record time for this game was 2 black mages and 2 fighters
Well i agree that mages suck
Or not coz i did beat ff1 w no
Mages w 2 fighters a thief and black belt
Fi/Fi/RM/RM
I've actually done the math on this and wrote a guide that should be floating around somewhere.
God = Red Mage and Black Belt
Top = White Mage
Bottom = Fighter
Garbage = Thief then Black Mage
Black Belt can hit 26 times, if raised properly, and can 1shot anything in the game, including WarMech and will have 999hp long before level 50.
Red Mage can equip almost all the best gear and has utility magic.
White Mage hits hard with hammers, early game, and later if you put 'the sword' on it then it's still respectable...nowhere near Red, though.
Fighter is just a MUCH lesser Black Belt with much lower evade AND Def at endgame.
Thief does more damage without mp than Black Mage.
The strongest party in the game, for power gaming, is 1x Red Mage as a solo playthrough with their 50/50 Growth Potential (ask if you don't know) and revive 3x Black Belts after the class change for the 25/75 Growth Potential and save scum for the correct stats when gaining levels.
A properly raised Black Belt will act first before ANY other enemy and will 1shot literally anything unless you get really unlucky on WarMech...but then you still have two more in the chamber before WarMech can act.
Black belt only becomes godlike if you go past lvl 32. On average I would reach chaos at that level and my fighter would out-dps the black belt even after fast.
@Larsgman
The problem with that is that there are still 18 mote levels and just because you stop at 32 doesn't mean everyone else, including the actual ceiling of the game, stop at 32.
Lawyered.
Im surprise i thought the best team was 4 black mage 😆
Mid-game is pretty fun with this setup actually, since all of your black mages will have about 10 spell charges each of various aoe-damage attack spells.
I've done it and it's doable. I beat the game at level 32. Just need enough Nuke charges to get you through the final dungeon.
I disagree, but you did content on a game a love so you get a like and a comment for the algorithm 😆
Much appreciated! Would love a subscribe to see your beautiful face around here often!
@@locloudanerpg it cost me nothing to do so... why wouldn't I
@@AlymereWoL real quick give your ff1 tier list.
@@locloudanerpg on the OG NES that's tough. Knight and White Wizard at the top for sure.
Master is the best bro.
Try play FF7 on Nes cartridge not PS1 :p
White mage with certain items is a boss, but you would have had to mastered the game to rely on these tricks
White mage was a man.
No... just no. *facepalm*
In the original NES version you can't escape the final dungeon without a White or a Black Wizard in your party. The Red Wizard can't learn Exit or Teleport...
So you're boned if you want to grind to level 50 in the final dungeon...
The best party in the game is 1 Fighter, 1 Black Belt, 1 White Mage and either the Red Mage or the Black Mage so you're completely well rounded... Thief should never be a part of any party...
If you want to take a hit in the DPS department and go for more suvivability choose 2 Fighters a Red Mage and a White Mage.
White Mages are not low or shit tier either... they're literally mid to top. And while you may be right about Fighter being God Tier for most of the game, I'd say he's God Tier at the start and middle but at the very end tapers off in to Top Tier where as the Black Belt starts in Mid Tier and ends in God tier.
The Ninja is not even close to Top Tier, the Thief is shit tier and ends up in like Mid Tier as the Ninja. Also Black Mages are not shit tier at all, they're mid tier the entire way through the game, their utility comes in the form of stacking Temper and casting Haste on your Master / Knight and their spells are great for taking out giant groups of trash mobs... way more utility than the shitty ass Thief yet you have both of them in that category... wtf is this list? LOL
Ninja is pretty much the best class, but Red Mage / Wizard can nuke everything. 🤷♂️
What, red wizard cannot learn that spell, even if he have magic 8 available
Depends which version you’re playing, original NES he is literally the worst character.