How not to build your team. Final Fantasy 4 invades Vana'diel.

How does Cecil's team fare? Find out!

I have heard people say the canon Final Fantasy 4 team (Cecil, Rosa, Kain, Rydia, Edge) make a balanced party. Well lets have a look at how they would fare in a FF with emphasis on team building, that one that has lasted the test of time, Final Fantasy XI.

Now I have been a FFXI player for about 4-5 years. While I'm not one of the old school players, during the days of hyper inflation and Scorpion Harness considered elite. I also stopped played about 2 year ago, before the release of Adoulin, so my facts aren't exactly 100% up to date either. But seeing as when the Abyssea expansions came out the game started becoming a free for all, and classic teams have more of less gone out the window, I'll base most of this blog entry on the classic style team gameplay. I'm talking' "Kazham @ 24" and "4k/hr" stuff.

This is written mostly for non FFXI players, so if you're a FFXI vet just go with the flow. It's just a candid tongue-in-cheek look at if Cecil's gang walked into FFXI how would hey survive.

Cecil. Pretty good.

Cecil
Cecil is a Paladin (PLD) obviously. As for his sub job, FF4 doesn't mix his job at all, so I'll just use discretion for this. While Dark Knight (DRK) as sub would be hilarious (and fits him in Dissidia), I would go with the vanilla Warrior (WAR).

PLD are traditionally tanks in FFXI. That is, they hold the hate from enemies, so they don't go killing the rest of your team. While their damage is ok, they usually specialise in defence and shield blocking, the idea is to minimise damage sustained. They also have some white magic, mostly to heal themselves. As healing magic generates a large amount of hate for the caster, it also helps them hold onto the hate easier. Their other abilities are there to mitigate damage.

With a WAR sub, the PLD has access to Provoke, a fundamental tool for tanks as it generates a large amount of hate every 30 seconds. Also have access to a still that ups defence at the expense of offence (and an ability that does the reverse, but PLD don't generally use that). Also gives a chance to attack twice which is always useful.

PLD are best with one handed sword and shield, which is also Cecil's set up. PLD/WAR is pretty much a staple in classic FFXI parties and useful in many situations. Probably the best team member.

Rosa. Meh.

Rosa
Rosa is a White Mage (WHM). And due to being able to use bows and have the Aim ability, this would translate over as the Ranger (RNG) job. Unfortunately for her, weapon selection in FFXI is limited to your main job only, so not only would Rosa not being able to equip bows (or other variations such as crossbows and guns), she is also not able to use most of RNG's skills.

WHMs are the "best" healers in FFXI. However Red Mages (RDM) are generally preferred in classic EXP parties (with 75 cap, with higher cap it's a whole different ball game) due to them having ways of recovering their MP. When played well RDMs never need to rest, WHMs on the other hand needs to rest, which increases your party's down time, which decreases your EXP/hour. So you can see why RDMs are preferred. Their main job is to keep the team healed while balancing the amount of hate her spells generate. Also have access to status curing spells, Bar spells (status and elemental resistance) and other support like Protect, Shell and Haste.

RNG adds no practical advantages to Rosa. She can Scavenge for some crafting materials every 5 minutes, scout the surrounding map and gets an accuracy bonus, not that she fights. Yeah, she's very sub optimal, yet you need her as she is the main healer. In classic FFXI 75 cap, WHM sub /SCH (Scholar) for better MP economy, the old school players sub /BLM, while /RDM and /SMN are ok choices. LV80+ though /RDM beats all hands down.

Kain. Serviceable.

Kain
Kain is a Dragoon (DRG). Like Cecil, FF4 kept his job pure so therefore I'll use discretion. While /SAM (Samurai) adds some cool stuff, I'm going with /WAR again, which DRGs in parties tend to do, and also Kain is able to equip 2 handed axes in FF4, which is a WAR specialty (Cecil too).

DRG have had, probably more than any other job, the most arduous journey since its introduction. It was the poor little step child that no one wanted for a long time, it was overshadowed by just about every melee job and for a long time it was next to impossible to get a party invite as a DRG. They have come a long way. They can summon a pet wyvern, whom will accompany your Weaponskill with a elemental breath (when DRG subs a melee job) or healing breath (when subbing a mage job). This makes them capable soloers to an extent too. They have several Jump skills, and is a blast to play, but still isn't considered one of the stronger jobs.

/WAR is a decent choice for parties, with chance of double attack and some skills that increase damage. Though towards the end of the partying days, /NIN was popular for most melee jobs. In this team Kain should be able to deal some respectable damage with staple DRG spear Weaponskill Penta Thrust and its Jump skills.

Rydia.
Dead weight.

Rydia
As Rydia's official job title in FF4 is Summoner (SMN), this will be her main job, and Black Mage (BLM) will be her sub. In the traditional sense, Black and Summoning Magic sorta do the same thing, and that is elemental and non elemental damage, so adding Black Magic to a Summoner doesn't add much to one's versatility, as without the Black Magic set, she is still able to nuke. There's a reason why later Summoners in the series are bundled with White Magic instead of Black. Yuna, Garnet and Eiko need to thank Rydia for doing the hard yard back then and finding out White Magic complements a Summoner much better.

Summons in FFXI (also called Avatars) act more like FFX or FFXII, where the Avatar acts as a pet and you have some control over its actions. It can attack enemies, and its skills are called Blood Rages (both offence and defensive varieties), where every 30 seconds you can command it to use a skill, for example Heavenly Strike for Shiva. While your Avatar is out, the Summoner has to pay a "perpetuation cost", which is a maintenance in MP required to have your Avatar out. When your MP reaches 0, the Avatar is unsummoned. Blood Rages also cost a large amount of your MP, so playing a Summoner you need to know when to let your summons stay and when to let them go.

Summoners struggled to fit in for a long time and usually, its spot is better used by another job. At higher levels with some good gear, they can be quite impressive and they've got a few cool unique things going for them, eg, using your Avatar to pull (the term used to aggro 1 enemy and bring them to the team) is very safe, and their Avatars detects when you draw aggro and automatically attack the enemy, leaving you to run for your life. It's hard to really say what SMN contributes to a fight, outside of very specific fights with specific strategies. They can do a little big of damage, but the 30 second timer on Blood Rage means few and far between. The Avatar's attacks so less damager-over-time than a proper damage dealer job, and their defensive Blood Rages can hardly be depended on, not to mention being hugely MP dependent, in a team without any reliable sources of Refresh (think Regen for MP instead of HP).

Does BLM contribute anything worthwhile? Nope. /BLM is one of the worst subs for SMN due to the way skill levels work in FFXI. Your sub job is half the level of your main job, and sub job skill levels are capped at that. Eg, SMN 70/BLM 35 will have Elemental Magic skills capped as a level 35 BLM, the skill is shared with your main job. As SMN and BLM share no skills, its Black Magic is piss arse weak. That means Rydia has to rely on its Avatar's undependable skills. In this team, she might as well pull as she's hardly got anything better to do.

Traditionally SMNs in FFXI sub /WHM and are invited to parties as a second rate healer, that is, when a team can't find a RDM or WHM. Its large MP pool does decently when using the WHM's healing spells. Although /SCH is a much better option, though some old schoolers won't hear of it, as the /SCH has some nifty tricks that buffs its skill levels, so the SMN can even crank out some semi-decent nukes if required. Post 80 content made the RDM also a popular choice.

Edge.
On the wrong team!

Edge
Edge is a Ninja (NIN) there's no doubt about it. And with the steal set, his sub job is Thief (THF). While it's not a terrible combination. /THF is more of a farming job, not really ideal when it comes to fighting anything worth fighting.  Though the worse problem is having both a PLD and a NIN on the same team.

Ninja in traditional FF series is a good damage dealer. In FFXI they are actually a tank. While the PLD tanks by damage mitigation, NIN is called a blink tank, whom mitigates damage by evasion and shadows. Similar to Edge in game, NIN gets access to Utsusemi, which is a Ninjutsu spell that generates several shadows, each capable of absorbing a hit before vanishing. Ninjutsu don't cost MP, but uses up a "tool" which you need to have in your inventory, and due to their popularity, can be quite expensive. While they do have elemental nuke Ninjutsu, they're generally worthless. They generally dual wield 1 handed katana, which is fast but pretty weak, and in a traditional party, NIN's damage output is quite mediocre. They are popular as a good NIN can tank anything, what they tend to have a problem with though, it being able to hold hate, due to them not having many hate generation skills (though it has improved recently) and low damage output. /WAR is pretty much mandatory for Provoke. A bad NIN is when they can't hold hate, and your healer keeps dying.

So /THF huh? THF is a popular sub job for farming, as they get Treasure Hunter skills which generally means loot is more likely to drop. THF also have some damage skills, namely Sneak Attack and Trick Attack (or SATA). The former guarantees a critical hit and the latter shifts the hate onto the party member you're standing behind, and they work with Weaponskills. This way Edge can do some semblance of damage. Edge would have benefitted much more had his jobs been reversed, THF/NIN gets stronger skills (SATA is more effective when your main job is THF), higher ranked Treasure Hunter, Triple Attack, etc, and still have access to shadows.

How they would play as a team
Obviously, as FFXI use party of 6 they are 1 member short, but lets leave that out for a second. How well would they fare compared to say a standard 5 EXP man party? Hmmmm...

-Cecil is the tank. A decent one, should be able to hold hate, but may run out of MP.
-Kain and Edge are DD (damage dealers), the former decent, the latter.. meh.
-Rydia pulls with Carbuncle, while contributes slightly to the damage, and resting intermittently while the party fights, to regain MP.
-Rosa as main healer. Due to lack of Refresh, will have to rest a lot. Due to this, it'll be far to get experience chain 4 or 5, or even 3.

Other content

Shiva. Less naked than usual.

Ok so far I've been going on about traditional EXP party stuff. What about the other content? Well. The "free for all" stuff like Campaign or Besieged are just that, so you can bring a LV1 if you wanted.  Most content that requires an 18-man alliance would just laugh at Cecil's team. Abyssea makes you so overpowered that Edge can pretty much solo everything, although there's enough variety in the team skills to most hit red, yellow and blue weaknesses (but usually the one you want if the one you don't have). Most of the other contents are doable at LV99 because they were designed for much lower level caps. So you can overpower most weak content, but the popular high level stuff will give you troubles.

Cool combos
Well, maybe not so much "cool", but here's a combo that might work.

-Rydia pull with Titan, use Rock Throw
-Edge use SATA, stand behind the enemy and behind Cecil, use Blade: Jin
-Skillchain: Detonation
-Kain use buffs (eg, Berserk) Penta Thrust
-Skillchain: Gravitation
-Rydia use Elemental Seal, cast most powerful earth spell, or Drain/Aspir for Magic Burst

The above gives you a LV1 skillchain with SATA with Blade: Jin and a LV2 skillchain with Penta Thrust, which should be quite damaging. Unfortunately, you can't really squeeze Cecil in there without giving up on either or both, and they are some of the highest damage potential skills. Cecil could just use Spirits Within and not disturb the chain.

You call him weak?

You can also do Cecil Vorpal Blade -> Edge Blade: Jin (Detonation) -> Edge Penta Thrust (Gravitation) -> Rydia/Titan Stone IV (Magic Burst). But this way Edge's TA does nothing.

The 6th member
So if we could add a 6th member, whom would add the most value to this party? Well, the FFXI answer is generally "when in doubt, add Bard". Bard (BRD) is a mostly support job that buffs your team members with songs and would be a great help. So I guess Edward it is then, hehe.

Edward would be able to give Rosa, Rydia (and Cecil if he desires) double Ballad for much needed Refresh. Minuet and/or Madrigal (attack and accuracy) for Edge and Kain wouldn't go unnoticed, and Cecil also have the option of double Minne for defence. On top of that, slow/debuff the enemies. He can sub NIN for shadows and pull as well. It's a hard life playing BRD. Don't you complain about Edward being weak again! This would make the party almost usable.

Up next. Cecil's team of upstarts invade Ivalice. Are they going to give Ramza a run for his money? Stay tuned.