Final Fantasy/Parties

Before choosing a party, it is important to understand what each class can and cannot do. You must assign one of six classes to each party member at the start of the game, and you can never change classes. You can have multiple characters with the same class, though in most cases this isn't recommended.

Character class triangle diagram


Legend:


 * Top: characters with no magic powers;
 * Bottom: characters with great magic powers;
 * Left: characters with healing magic ("white");
 * Right: characters with offensive magic ("black").

Picking a party
There is no "best configuration" (though there are plenty tied for "worst configuration"). There are some good setups, plenty of bad setups, and the rest are simply okay. You want to have a good balance of fighting ability, offensive magic, and curative magic.

A good party consists of:
 * 1 Warrior
 * 1 White Mage (the Knight is not a good replacement)
 * 1 black magic user (the Ninja does not count) - Black Mage or Red Mage
 * 1 other physically strong class - Warrior, Thief, Monk, or Red Mage

Note that while the Thief should not fill the black magic user role, it does qualify for the "other physically strong class" slot, and is, in fact, recommended for beginners. You will also want to put the characters in a specific order (though you can change this at any time during the game).

Also, while the Monk class is an offensively strong class, they have poor defense and is only recommended to be paired up with a powerful white magic user.

The order, from front to back should be:
 * 1) Warrior
 * 2) Thief
 * 3) Red Mage
 * 4) Monk
 * 5) White Mage
 * 6) Black Mage

This is based on how many hits a character can take before getting killed (so factoring defensive power as well as HP). Always keep your White Mage/Wizard in the third or fourth position, even though a Thief/Ninja may have less HP, since you do not want your Life caster to die.

Using the above formula, we have reduced the number of possibilities from 1,296 to six.
 * Warrior, Thief, White Mage, Black Mage (balanced)
 * Warrior, Thief, Red Mage, White Mage (physical-oriented)
 * Warrior, Red Mage, White Mage, Black Mage (magic-oriented)
 * Warrior, Warrior, White Mage, Black Mage
 * Warrior, Warrior, Red Mage, White Mage
 * Warrior, Red Mage, Red Mage, White Mage

See the next section for more on the differences between these six.

Physical-oriented parties
The most physically-oriented team includes the four characters from the top of the character class triangle:


 * 1) '''Warrior
 * 2) '''Monk
 * 3) '''Thief
 * 4) Red Mage

It is good for beginners who are not acquainted with dealing with lots of different spells. It is also the default team in the NES version.

Substituting one character (other than the Warrior) with a White Mage will make the game more balanced.

Magic-oriented parties
The most magically-oriented team includes the three characters from the bottom of the character class triangle:


 * 1) '''Warrior
 * 2) '''Red Mage
 * 3) '''White Mage
 * 4) '''Black Mage

This team can own all the spells at the same time, if you equip the Venom sword (that casts Doom) to the Red Mage/Wizard and the Dragon Mail (embedded with NulAll) to the Warrior/Knight. The drawback is the low defense.

Changing the Warrior with a Thief or a Monk will make the game a bit more challenging. Changing one of the three mages will make the game more balanced.

Balanced parties
In general, balanced parties include two magic users and two physical characters. A balanced team is, for example, the default one on the PSX and GBA versions:


 * 1) '''Warrior
 * 2) '''Thief
 * 3) '''White Mage
 * 4) '''Black Mage

The player will have to give up one or more spell per level and color, but on the other hand almost every weapon and armor in the game can be used.

Parties with identical characters
Parties with two or more identical characters can be used, of course, but having members with the same identical characteristics may make the game either boring or lacking something.

Some examples include:
 * 2 or 3 warriors (plus, of course, one or two characters to complete the party): these parties work quite well, especially if the fourth character is a White mage.
 * 4 warriors: surprisingly, it's easy to beat the game with this party.
 * 4 of a kind: the other challenges are increasingly difficult; only recommended for people without a life.
 * 2 white mages and 2 black mages: all the magic will be available, but the defense will be extremely difficult.

Challenge parties
If you are looking to make the game even harder, or just mix things up a bit, try one of these parties.

Four of a Kind
All Warriors, all Red Mages, etc. Depending on the class chosen the challenge level will vary wildly, of course. The imbalance of these parties will lead to bottlenecks where certain parts of the game are extremely easy while others will become very slow and/or challenging. Listed in estimated order of difficulty.
 * Four Warriors: A surprisingly good party, the only drawback is no strong healing; this party is not actually challenging at all.
 * Four Red Mages: Very similar to Four Warriors in the beginning, but after the class change things will slow down a bit. Your defense is somewhat low, but you'll have plenty of White magic.
 * Four Thieves: Very hard since you have no healing and low defense. The Thieves are physically strong and can run from many battles though, but running away does not add to your gold nor your experience pool.
 * Four Monks: Near-suicidal. The near nonexistent defense will mean you will take massive amounts of damage from every enemy. You will also have to rely completely on items for healing. That said, this party is unmatched in terms of strength, even without Haste. Just remember to avoid the class-upgrade. This surely makes for the strongest level-50 party, as the monk/master will have far exceeded all other classes by then.
 * Four White Mages: While healing won't be a problem, the Mages are so weak that even normal fights can take 5 - 10 rounds (this is including spell-casting items like Bane). Bosses are insanely time consuming and can usually hold out long enough for you to run out of MP.
 * Four Black Mages: You'll run of MP very quickly, and the Mages can't fight worth a damn. If you accumulate enough money for spells, the world is your shooting gallery. If you do manage to make it past the class change, you can equip four cat claws and do decent damage against most enemies. You will have to run from the vast majority of fights since it only takes a couple of hits to kill a Black Mage.

Solo


Considered the ultimate challenge by most Final Fantasy players, you have to play the entire game with three of your players dead - get them killed in the first battle and never revive them. You'll have to run from almost every fight and power level on the side, however you do gain 4x the normal rate of XP, so it isn't as bad as it seems. These challenges tend to rely more on luck than skill. Obviously the class of your single character makes a huge difference in the difficulty. (Tip: Do NOT start with Solo Thief)

All white/black mages
The challenge comes because you have no physical fighters and someone is going to have to be put in the front row to take most of the hits; be prepared to restore hundred of HP after every fight that you don't run from. It isn't as suicidal as some of the Four of a Kind setups, but it is still pretty hard. With 1-2 white mages and 2-3 black mages, it should make for a hard but entertaining game.