Talk:Final Fantasy character jobs

Wakka
Wakka from Final Fantasy X uses a projectile attack (his blitzball). By default, he learns special abilities that boost accuracy and inflict negative status. That would seem to identify him as a hunter wouldn't it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.163.242.143 (talk) 06:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Reception and criticism?
Is it really necessary to include a "Reception and Criticism" section in this article? This article deals simply with explaining the different classes which have been present in the various FF games. The reception or critcism of class systems employed in each individual game or the portrayal of a class in a specific game is independant of documenting the classes which have been in FF games, and such specific criticisms would be better placed in that game's article. 75.128.252.51 05:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I fully agree with this. The class and other systems are so radically different in each game (despite similarities to the classes themselves, in games that have them) that I don't see how any sort of general reception  or criticism to them in the whole series could be made.  It's still empty, too (2 months later).  I'm removing it. Of course, if anyone can actually find something to put in it, they're welcome to re-add it. 76.202.59.91 02:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * There's no deadline in Wikipedia. It's been added by an editor who wishes to add an out-of-universe context in the article ( and I know he will ). There's nothing wrong with the reception section being in this article, in fact this and the "history" section will save this article from deletion in the case of "not notable fiction". Give it time. &mdash; Blue. 10:55, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

GAC
Will be nominating this article for GAC once I finish the reception section. I know we don't have every single job appearence referenced, but it's not material likely to challenge, so it doesn't fail the GA criterion in that department. &mdash; Deckiller 21:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Is the FFV job screen pic from the fan-translated ROM? I think a picture from an official version would be more acceptable. Kariteh 20:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I've nominated it. Kariteh 10:46, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Alright. I'll try to seize this moment and find more reception info. &mdash; Deckiller 14:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Merging in FFXI character class page
I think this could be done very smoothly. I was shocked by the sheer amount of overlap, and at every section there is a link to this article, so perhaps a few sentences on FFXI's character class distinctions could bolster this articles nomination. Judgesurreal777 03:28, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Absolutely not. It should remain seperate.  FFXI is an MMORPG and uses a different style of character jobs than the Main FF does.  FFXI's classes article is specific to FFXI, and this article is general for FF as a whole.  It should never become merged into any FF game article, let alone one that is radically different that every other FF game by being in a completely different genre.  There are similarities, but they are not the same.  --&mdash; Δαίδαλος  Σ  Σ  06:01, 13 May 2007 (UTC)  This is why one should not edit in the middle of the night, I originally read this as a proposal to merge this article into FFXI's, not the other way around.  Since I have reread it and realized my idiocy, let me restate my view:  I don't have any objections to the merge.  --&mdash; Δαίδαλος  Σ  Σ  08:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm leaning towards merging. FFXI has a different audience, and a well written article about the FFXI jobs would have reception and criticism information which would be very specific and irrelevant to the FF series as a whole... But I wonder of much of this out of universe information is really available. Besides, it could be put in the main FFXI article instead, just like what could be said about the FFV, T, TA jobs etc. The argument about it being a different genre is hardly relevant in my opinion. Wikipedia is not a game guide, so a lot of the "radical" differences are technical stuff that shouldn't even be mentioned. The genre (RPG, Tactical RPG, MMORPG, etc.) doesn't really matter since the themes, designs, and inspirations are the same, and that's what is relevant. Kariteh 08:09, 13 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I was more thinking of a Gameplay of Final Fantasy XI article to help get rid of the character classes in XI article and help trim down the massive gameplay section on XI's article before the FA push. Other FFs have character or story-centric articles due to focus; this game is 100 percent gameplay, so it's ok to make an exception and create a gameplay subarticle. &mdash; Deckiller 12:55, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that may be a great idea, since it would pave the way to get FFXI featured. Judgesurreal777 16:09, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * But if the main FFXI article -- a video game article -- doesn't deal with the gameplay, what could it possibly deal with apart from beating about the bush? Kariteh 17:09, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * No; the main article will summarize the gameplay in 5 paragraphs or so, with a main article template to the Gameplay article per WP:SS. &mdash; Deckiller 20:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll close this merger for now, until we can get a consensus on where it should go. Judgesurreal777 05:11, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Onion Knight
Although this is a great article, there seems to be one job missing. The Onion Knight job class. Without this class, this article is not, in my opinion, complete. --64.24.45.216 15:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You are welcomed to add it in. &mdash; Blue. 14:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

GA passed
While I would like to see more in the reception, in its current form it is well sourced and thorough. One thing though; some images are missing the detailed fair-use rationale. I'm going to assume that you'll do it, and pass. Good job. David Fuchs ( talk ) 20:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I've added fair-use rationales. Kariteh 21:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Many thanks. &mdash; Deckiller 06:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

MISSING JAPANESE VERSION NAMES
IVE READ THAT IN FINAL FANTASY 1 YOU EVOLVE FROM A BLACKMAGE TO A BLACKWIZARD AND FROM A FIGHTER INTO A KNIGHT BUT ARE IS IT A FAN TERM OR ARE THEY ACTUALLY CALLED THAT? AND IF SO WHAT ARE THEY CALLED IN THE ORIGINAL JAPANESE VERSIONS? THANK YOU —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.188.17.249 (talk) 22:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * CAN YOU NOT TYPE IN ALL CAPS IT'S NOT MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO CONTEXTUALLY HOLD "SHIFT" WHILE TYPING
 * Anyway, yes, that's all true.—Ｌｏｖｅはドコ？ (talk • contribs) 05:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Specifically, Fighter, Knight, Black / Red / White Mage and Black / Red / White Wizard terms are used in the official, localized versions of the original Final Fantasy. We still don't have the Japanese names for the original Final Fantasy's upgraded Fighter and Mage classes. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 07:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Details missing
Details missing include... Fighter : Typical skills include the lowering of stats of the enemy Dragoon: The ability to control dragons. Summoner: None of the description talks about the Summoner's ability to summon entities of magic, I don't know how this was missed out, all it talks about is how fragile the class is. Blue Mage: Didn't mention that the typical weapon of the Blue Mage in the Tactics/Advance are Sabres Red Mage: Didn't mention that the typical weapon of the Red Mage is depicted as the Rapier. Chemist: Misleading, says that the Chemist is a healer, whilst they can also be damage-dealers —Preceding unsigned comment added by DrTheKay (talk • contribs) 15:34, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Fighter: That's not a central facet of the class that is inconsistently applied anyway. Dragoon: They rarely use dragons in battle. Summoner: That appears in the first sentence. Blue & Red Mage: Their weapons are not their central characteristics. Chemist: if you feel something's missing, you can change it yourself! That's the beauty of Wikipedia. Axem Titanium (talk) 22:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Bard and Dancer
IMO they should be split. Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift have Bard and Dancer as separate classes, while only Final Fantasy X-2 combines aspects of both in a single class. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 23:44, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * That is a bit confusing, given there's a bit of distinction there between the two. Any reason for the combination in the first place?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't know, they've shared a section since an anonymous editor added them in this edit. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 05:15, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I've split them. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 05:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Class Divisions
Moved Paladin and Dark Knight from Mixed to Physical. Both classes are primarily combat-oriented classes. Any sub-abilities are "fringe" benefits, if you will, for being of that class. Cecil was the primary physical class throughout FF4. Gafgarion was almost exclusively a physical warrior. Paladins in the Tactics games are also primarily combat-oriented.

Also moved Geomancer from Magical to Mixed. Several incarnations of this class are quite combat-oriented. The ability to fight well AND cast a variety of decent spells is the itinerant mixed class.

Also moved Mystic Knight from Mixed to Physical. Steiner, Gladiators and the Warrior Dress Sphere all suggest combat-oriented and not Mixed. FreddyPickle (talk) 16:07, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * IMO the organization should be based on whether significant physical combat and magical facets are typically present or absent, not on which facet is usually dominant. Dark Knight and Paladin are consistantly focused on physical combat, however magic is always a significant secondary facet, and that facet is typically the main thing which distinguishes them from Fighters / Warriors. The same argument applies to Bangaa Gladiators. As for Steiner and the Warrior dress sphere, I would consider those to be examples of a class's signature abilities being "borrowed" by another class, similar to how Final Fantasy X-2's Alchemist dresssphere includes ranged physical combat aspects typically associated with the Gunner class, or how Rosa's official class is White Mage, but she can wield a bow and has the Hunter class's signature Aim ability. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 07:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Summoners and Game Appearances
Considering that this page is specifically about jobs, should we move the information regarding summons in the "Summoner" section to its own page (on, say, "Summons in the Final Fantasy series")? Listing the names for the various incarnations of summons is definitely important to the FF series at large, but doesn't seem particularly relevant to the summoner job itself.

Also, some of the sections make it a bit difficult to distinguish between a job appearing in a game and facets of a job appearing in a game. For example, the Magic Knight section mentions that the FFXI Red Mage has "En-" spells. Should we maintain a separate paragraph in each section listing "partial" appearances of these job characteristics?Bill (talk) 00:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Japanese class and ability names
Because class and ability names have not been localized consistantly, I think we should use Japanese names to clarify when we are referring to a single class or ability (such as the Nuke / Flare spell and the Mime / Mimic class), and when we are referring to a group of similar classes or abilities (such as Bard, Dancer and Songstress). -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Last month, this page was merged into Final Fantasy gameplay less than eight hours after a merger was suggested at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Square Enix. Only one other person commanted and the suggested merger, no merge proposal tag was added to the source or destination page. I don't think the merger was adequately discussed, so I have reverted it and added merge tags to the source and destination pages. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:03, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

the whole point is for people can discuss the merge proposal. that's what it is. a proposal. If one suggests it, a tag should be added so people can discuss if it should or shouldn't be merged. I say no, bare concept of classes/jobs should be mentioned and maybe give a few example of jobs (the most reoccuring Jobs) but the list shouldn't be merged along with the gameplay.Bread Ninja (talk) 16:19, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (Edit conflict) 'shrug' Alright. I feel it should be merged- the article is completely devoted to in-universe content with no attempt to relate it to the real world. It is the only article of its kind in Wikipedia, and at the proper level of detail it would fit into a section in Final Fantasy gameplay.

I also disagree with your characterization of the discussion- at 19:54, 17 February 2010, Deckiller remarked to GamerPro64 that this article (that he had GA'd long ago) wasn't worth even having around. I brought this to the Square Enix Wikiproject's attention 7 hours later. Over the next 19 hours, Zxcvbnm, Kung Fu Man, and Sjones23 all agreed with the idea, so I then went ahead and merged it, announcing it on the project talk page. Deckiller reaffirmed his support afterward. That's 5 people, including me, not 2. -- Pres N  16:21, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

PresN there's a difference between an article written in in-universe style and an article being about something in-universe. it just needs some rewriting a bit. but I'm a minority. if the majority feel that merge is good idea i might follow along aswell.Bread Ninja (talk) 16:32, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Regardless of this discussion's result, this 1UP article might be helpful for sourcing. (Guyinblack25 talk 17:02, 9 March 2010 (UTC))
 * IMO Final Fantasy's class system is one of the most notable character class systems. It should be fairly easy to find sources to establish notability, some classes may be notable enough for their own articles. I agree with Bread Ninja that the article is not written in an in-universe style, however if it was, rewriting it from a real-world perspective or adding the in-universe tag would be better options than merging. PresN is correct about the timeline, ZXCVBNM proposed the merger roughly 19 hours before the merge, however that's still less than a day, and neither the source nor destination article was tagged. I reverted the merge because, based on my limited understanding of Wikipedia's article merging procedure, it seemed like the correct way to handle things, I've asked for clarification on Help talk:Merging. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:37, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * please let me add my voice to most people by agreeing that it would be good to tighten this article up and merge it into the gameplay article... Shooterwalker (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC).

If Dungeons and Dragons can have a separate page for their Character classes, there is no reason the Final Fantasy section, which contains quite a bit of information as well shouldn't. --74.190.14.247 (talk) 06:30, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I think that there is too much good information in this article to merge it. Doing so would require cutting alot of good content, or making the FF Gameplay article unwieldly.  Niether alternative is acceptable, so they should stay seperate.  Nutiketaiel (talk) 17:54, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Requested move
Final Fantasy character classes → Final Fantasy character jobs — Final Fantasy refers to these as jobs a lot more than they refer to them as classes (in FFV Advance, the menu calls them Jobs and in FFIII for the Nintendo DS, the manual has a "'Job' List"). Final Fantasy jobs could also be a possible place to move this. Harry Blue5 (talk) 14:47, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * moved, no objections raised. billinghurst  sDrewth  06:52, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Missing jobs
This article suffers from a serious lack of completion. It doesn't include a single job from the latest final fantasy title, FFXIV. Also I notice soldier, morpher, and possibly other jobs from final fantasy tactics advance are missing here. Is there a reason why I shouldn't work to add these jobs? Is there some sort of guideline as to which jobs deserve their own section? Moonbug (talk) 00:28, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In case any current or future editors want to know, the last time I was actively editing the article, we just sort of eyeballed it. In general, more common jobs, more distinctive jobs and more iconic jobs were generally considered more appropriate for inclusion and separate entries. For example Black Mages have appeared in dozens of games, and their capabilities, aesthetics and class identity are fairly consistent. Paladins are less common, but they are consistently warriors with holy powers and / or protective abilities (such as white magic, Cover or Holy Blade), as well as a consistent "knight in shining armour" theme. In contrast, the Magus class is uncommon, and doesn't have much of a consistant class identity beyond "upgraded Black Mage", so it only got brief coverage within the Black Mage entry. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 12:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Summary table
I prepared the following table about the Final Fantasy videogames I played (yes, I play almost only Nintendo). I used six columns although there are three sections in the article.

In fact, in any basic role-playing game there are three basic classes: fighter, healer, "blasting" wizard. Then you have the "crossovers": fighters with some magic powers, spellcasters that can use both healing and attack spells. Finally, there are further and more exotic classes. This sums up to six sections.

I played four games so far, so I'm putting the table here instead of in the main article, until it will be updated. Everyone wikify it! :-)

I use Arabic numbers (1-2-3) instead of Roman numbers (I-II-III) because, if anyone ignores this, Roman and Arabic numbers are absolutely the same, but the Arabic ones are good for sorting purpose. In FF2 and FF7 I put most characters in the "Mixed class" column because there is no class system and every character can use any spell and a wide range of armors and weapons. --Abacos (talk) 14:16, 9 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The "version" between brackets (first column) specifies which videogame the class names are taken from, typically the first translation into English, and I give priority to Nintendo versions. Adding names of subsequent remakes or rows for different versions would be useless; adding alternate class names on the same line would make the table too large; footnotes or lines in the proper sections could be the solution. --Abacos (talk) 14:26, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Details of how this page got merged/redirected
To the editor/IP that has reverted this redirect a couple times: the initial discussion for merging this page into Recurring elements in the Final Fantasy series is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Square Enix/archive/16. That article did not exist prior to the merge; it was specifically created to be a combination of this article, gameplay of Final Fantasy, and character design of Final Fantasy. Information from this page is in the "Gameplay" section of the resulting article, particularly "Recurring mechanics". Yes, there's a lot less there than there is here. That's because there is frankly not much in the pre-redirect version of this article that is notable and reliably sourced to anything other than a manual- it's almost entirely over-detailed gameguide content that's better suited to a dedicated Final Fantasy wikia page, and what's left isn't really unique to "Final Fantasy". I'll repeat what I said last time I reverted- "If you want to expand, expand there first, don't just revert without any given reason". It's possible that there is enough reliably-sourced information out there to build this article back up out of the "Recurring elements" page, but all three of the editors that spend the most time in the "Final Fantasy" article space agreed that it was unlikely, and you haven't brought forth any evidence to contradict that. Please don't just blindly revert with the objection that "information was not retained in the merge"- not all information is valid to keep. If you want to talk more about it, bring it up at WT:SE, or WT:VG if you want a wider audience. -- Pres N  02:27, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Also, pinging the editor who did the merge if they want to comment- . -- Pres N  02:29, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
 * To the editor/IP mentioned above, I can assure you that I did extensive research and what's now in Recurring elements in the Final Fantasy series is what I found on the subject. --ProtoDrake (talk) 07:32, 23 October 2016 (UTC)