Final Fantasy III - (by SQUARE ENIX)

[Riotgirl]

Originally Posted by Isilel

Will Dragoon be useful even without the stolen ultimate lance? I have bitten the bullet and looked into the Faq in detail and there is no way I'd start grinding a Thief to level 71 now.
Also, can the Thief steal Antarctic Wind, etc. or only the items that can be bought in shops?

Difficult question, because I am not au fait with all the weapon and armour upgrades the various classes receives or stats. There are a couple of reasons:
1. Red Mage begins to struggle in mid-game [Fire Crystal onwards]
2. Saronia practically forces you to change jobs in terms of providing equipment
3. Lances and spears are good against flying creatures
4. Jump ability provides damage multipliers (especially flying creatures / bosses)
5. As L.Lawliet states, lovely character model

Stealing Gungnir is the cherry on the top. Be advised, that the GameFAQ job guide mentions that lance / spear upgrades are a lot less frequent than swords. Also, the big disadvantage of Jump, is whilst your Dragoon is invulnerable whilst jumping, damage is only performed at the end of the 2nd round - and there is a 1 in 3 chance that one of your squishies will get hit.

Thief can steal magic such as Antarctic Wind and upgrades from creatures, and other canned magic. Helps in Boss fights. Also, my Thief is now job level 99, and has the highest defense in my party! Better than both my Dragoon and Knight. In fact, during the fight with Garuda, my Thief tanked the damage until my Dragoon delivered 5.5k of damage with Jump. Fight over in 3 rounds.

As mentioned earlier, depending on equipment finds / upgrades, you're almost forced to choose certain jobs. I'm not switching my Thief until Ninja is available.

Originally Posted by Isilel

The Faq says, though, that the weight the party carries slows them down in combat - ouch. I now see why the giant chocobo is there.

Also, It turns out that only the Ranger can use elemental arrows... sigh. This does make the Red Mage less useful.

I do not believe that weight was introduced in the iOS version. Hence, no reason to use the Fat Chocobo (although I love the comedic music score).

You are almost arm-twisted into using certain jobs by equipment upgrades. The Red Mage stops getting weapon upgrades until end-game and falls behind power curve. Also, half the MP of a Black or White Mage. I really started to notice the Red Mage fall behind during Fire Crystal stage when random encounters ramp up in difficulty.

[Isilel]

Originally Posted by Riotgirl

1. Red Mage begins to struggle in mid-game [Fire Crystal onwards]

Not sure that I agree - I am past the water crystal now and the Red Mage was still very useful so far. I like the flexibility very much and they tend to remain standing after boss fights, because of the magic resistance. Their Cure heals more hps than that of my Knight, too and there are stronger spells for the boss fights. I did find 2 very good swords recently, so both the Knight and the Red Mage could upgrade. Yes, no armor upgrades, but then neither did I find any Dragoon-specific armor so far (still in Amur(?)). In fact, there is only the Thunder spear for theDragoon.

OTOH, here is my dilemma - I have turned Refia into Geomancer, because L. Lawliet convinced me - and the class has been absolutely ace, despite complete lack of intentional grinding. You do the same thing over and over, true, but so do the fighting classes. I was thinking about taking her until the last crystal and then turning her into a summoner. But everybody says that the next boss Goldor is completely immune to magic. Is it really true? Do I have to turn her into Dragoon or have basically a 3-character party at the next boss fight?

Thief sounds really awesome, thanks. And job level 99?! Wow. My highest job level is 34... I wonder if there is a massive defeat incoming. The last 2 boss fights were surprisingly easy.

BTW - Fat Chocobo seems to be bugged. After I have deposited some stuff into him, I could no longer sell most of the loot still in my inventory.

[Riotgirl]

Originally Posted by Isilel

Not sure that I agree - I am past the water crystal now and the Red Mage was still very useful so far. I like the flexibility very much and they tend to remain standing after boss fights, because of the magic resistance.

That's the great aspect about the job system - everyone has their own view and their own playing-style. Red Mage wasn't adding much to my party for me, but you are still getting a lot of mileage.

Originally Posted by Isilel

But everybody says that the next boss Goldor is completely immune to magic. Is it really true? Do I have to turn her into Dragoon or have basically a 3-character party at the next boss fight?

Spoiler:
•••Spoiler:  Yes, Goldor is immune to magic (you pick up this information through NPCs). No biggie, Refia has to melee attack with her bells. The real difficulty is all the goddamn random encounters in Goldor's Manor - good for levelling up our party, but a pain in the posterior.

Originally Posted by Isilel

Thief sounds really awesome, thanks. And job level 99?! Wow. My highest job level is 34... I wonder if there is a massive defeat incoming. The last 2 boss fights were surprisingly easy.

After Garuda, my party composition and levels are: all level 29, Thief JL99, Dragoon JL22, White Mage JL63 and Knight JL32. Played for just over 20 hours.

Hein was a little tricky with damage, especially as Arc [White Mage] was pulling double-duties healing and casting 'Libra', but not too bad; Kraken didn't present any problems; and I found Garuda a cake-walk. Note: party composition and tactics play a large role. For some reason, the first incarnation of Gutsco presented me with challenges re: Ignus [Red Mage] taking 2 dirt naps - including the hilarious Phoenix Down revival and immediately punched in the face for the 2nd dirt nap! Convinced me to go the Knight route.

[Riotgirl]

Completed Circle of Caves - after taking a detour in Ancient Ruins and getting my ass handed to me on a plate - and proceeded to Temple of Time. Run into x3 Chimera Mages for the 2nd time, and get my ass handed to me on a plate. Except for Arc [White Mage], everyone dead! Arc gets a massive exp boost and teleports out of the dungeon, heading to the wellspring in Saronia to revive the rest of the party.

Perhaps I need to head to Unei's Shrine first ...

The difficulty level ramped *right* up! Need to sleep and about consider Unei's Shrine tomorrow.

[L.Lawliet]

Originally Posted by Isilel

Not sure that I agree - I am past the water crystal now and the Red Mage was still very useful so far. I like the flexibility very much and they tend to remain standing after boss fights, because of the magic resistance. Their Cure heals more hps than that of my Knight, too and there are stronger spells for the boss fights. I did find 2 very good swords recently, so both the Knight and the Red Mage could upgrade. Yes, no armor upgrades, but then neither did I find any Dragoon-specific armor so far (still in Amur(?)). In fact, there is only the Thunder spear for theDragoon.

OTOH, here is my dilemma - I have turned Refia into Geomancer, because L. Lawliet convinced me - and the class has been absolutely ace, despite complete lack of intentional grinding. You do the same thing over and over, true, but so do the fighting classes. I was thinking about taking her until the last crystal and then turning her into a summoner. But everybody says that the next boss Goldor is completely immune to magic. Is it really true? Do I have to turn her into Dragoon or have basically a 3-character party at the next boss fight?

The Dragoon seems to stay quite powerful even though I rarely find equipment for her (I use Refia ). I managed to get two of the ultimate spears from Odin (not a spoiler cuz he just sits there and waits for you to kill him cuz he has no purpose in life except to be robbed). Dual wielding dragoons are probably my favorite thing in this game. You can't even dual wield spears for dragoons in Final Fantasy Tactics

Glad you liked the Geo. That thing in my opinion is still overpowered. It doesn't do elemental weaknesses like you said but otherwise it's just constant magic spam, occassionally wiping most of the enemies from the scene in one turn or VERY rarely it does Mega Flare for 9999 damage. I only had it happen twice.

As for bosses, I don't think there's any problem with experimenting. I rarely look at faqs for bosses so if it doesn't work out, reload and switch my load out.

Originally Posted by Riotgirl

Completed Circle of Caves - after taking a detour in Ancient Ruins and getting my ass handed to me on a plate - and proceeded to Temple of Time. Run into x3 Chimera Mages for the 2nd time, and get my ass handed to me on a plate. Except for Arc [White Mage], everyone dead! Arc gets a massive exp boost and teleports out of the dungeon, heading to the wellspring in Saronia to revive the rest of the party.

Perhaps I need to head to Unei's Shrine first ...

The difficulty level ramped *right* up! Need to sleep and about consider Unei's Shrine tomorrow.

Ahh I want to make a comment but I have no idea where I am right now since I just loaded it back up after not playing for like 5 months. I have this old lady who has been sleeping and I just woke up with some music. Sound familiar at all?

[Riotgirl]

Adjusted my tactics for the random encounters in Temple of Time and have progressed to the next level. Resuming my old tactics of when I progress so far and have made significant increase in levels, job levels and/or equipment upgrades, teleporting out to save my progress. Takes longer, but party increases in ability each time, and I progress a little further. Old school dungeon crawling.

Obtained a Defender from a chest in Temple of Time. Equipment upgrades - like random encounters - have scaled up massively. Have now retired my Royal Sword.

Note: Temple of Time temporarily suspended to focus on Legendary Smith side-quest.

On a different tact, my girlfriend insists that I cannot fall asleep before her, so I've turned off key clicks and will have to play FFIV (when she returns in around 3 and a half weeks) using head-phones so not to disturb her.

[Isilel]

Heh, Gorold was a push-over. I decided not to read your spoiler and not to change my party and either Geomancer's attacks don't count as magic or his rep was false, but nobody in the party was even in danger. OTOH, I was very glad to have extra healing of the Red Mage when wandering the corridors - they were far more dangerous than the boss himself! Also, the Red Mage couldn't use the spark daggers, but can use a poison dagger from the sewers, so there was an upgrade for him, after all.
Also, found some really nice Geomancer armor, so older classes aren't wholly forgotten, yay!
So, is the next stop Saronia, or can that town surrounded by the mountains on the same continent as Amur be reached through use of Mini? I wanted to explore a bit, but then came to Saronia and... well. So, should I load an older save or am I good to go?

[Riotgirl]

Originally Posted by Isilel

OTOH, I was very glad to have extra healing of the Red Mage when wandering the corridors - they were far more dangerous than the boss himself!

Goldor's Manor was a classical example of attacked every 2 steps! You'll being to notice that random encounters have been ramped up several notches.

Originally Posted by Isilel

So, is the next stop Saronia, or can that town surrounded by the mountains on the same continent as Amur be reached through use of Mini? I wanted to explore a bit, but then came to Saronia and... well. So, should I load an older save or am I good to go?

I didn't even think of trying to use Mini to reach that village. I presumed that there would be a tunnel later in the game. Hmm .. have to try your suggestion.

You're not too far behind me now! Before exploring, always save on the World Map. As you'll have no doubt noted, the game nudges you in a direction. Explore on the proviso that you need to steer clear of any dungeons.

[Isilel]

Originally Posted by Riotgirl

Obtained a Defender from a chest in Temple of Time. Equipment upgrades - like random encounters - have scaled up massively. Have now retired my Royal Sword.

Have just obtained it too and now my Red Mage is dual-wielding it with the Royal Sword, since he can't use the Blood Sword, alas. But where the **** is Reflect Mail? I don't understand this - the game threw enough Dragoon gear at me to completely equip 2 parties and some of it even _after_ I defeated Garuda. And yes, I took this extremely strong hint and changed my Knight into Dragoon and have been happy with him so far.
It even threw some Scholar and Viking gear at me - although it makes zero sense for anybody to change at this point and it is exactly the same stuff as in the past. Some Ranger stuff too.
Geomancer gear - Ok, I am grateful, since I use one and it is actually an upgrade raher than duplication. But throw me a bone, here, game! It has been long enough.

I am afraid that given all these Behemoths and Dragons I will run out of high-level healing spells before I get to the boss, so I'll probably have to teleport out of Temple of Time too.

BTW - enchanted weapons, such as Defender and staves/rods - do they have unlimited charges of whatever they cast or do they run out/break at some point?

Note: Temple of Time temporarily suspended to focus on Legendary Smith side-quest.

I will not ask, I will not ask...

Originally Posted by Riotgirl

I didn't even think of trying to use Mini to reach that village. I presumed that there would be a tunnel later in the game. Hmm .. have to try your suggestion. .

Nope, doesn't look that way. It is a pity that all uses of Toad and Mini seem to be spelled out so far and there is no use for them in freeform exploration. I saw toads in a channel in Sorania, quickly changed hoping to find some hidden dungeon/stash, but... Nothing. Sigh....

[Riotgirl]

Completed Temple of Time earlier. I noticed all the doors that I had previously missed in my haste, and thus re-equipped my Knight.

The Temple of Time was damn, damn hard - a real dungeon crawl, where things can go South at any given moment re: back attack. Actually used a Phoenix Down when Luneth took a dirt-nap after being 1-shotted for over 1.2k damage!

Completed Ancient Caves; found village of Falgabard; now Cave of Shadows. However, Legendary Smith quest first, after completing the first part of the quest.