Warning: the following is an unbelievably geeky and highly detailed account of stuff I've done in Final Fantasy 5 (Super Nintendo). You will enjoy the following if you think Super Nintendo, Final Fantasy, and RPG's are hot, or if you have a tenacious mind for metaphor; failing that, you will enjoy the following if you are masochistic. But seriously, folks, I have some real feelings to express concerning career, life path, and self-development, it's just that the context I'm discussing them will at times get pretty thick. So bear with me.

Class changes are one of the most interesting and important things about RPG's. Every game has a different system for gaining abilities, each system having its own nuances. For the purposes of the upcoming rant, I'll be referring pretty exclusively to FF5.

Little bit of info for non-gamers:
HP: Hit/Health Points. When you get hit, you lose HP. Zero HP means your character is out of commission.
MP: Magic Points. This allows your character to cast spells or elaborate techniques. These are a finite resource that needs to be used wisely.
White Magic: healing magic. Restores HP, revives dead soldiers, heals status ailments.
Black Magic: attack magic.
Classes. Examples: Monk, Knight, Ninja, Thief, WhiteMage/Healer, BlackMage, TimeMage. This is just a sampling. In FF5, there are 18 (maybe more), called Jobs. In other games, there are usually less. Each class comes with its own set of useful abilities. Certain classes, like WhiteMage, are indispensable, while some more advanced classes, like Chemist, are not necessary but can be handy if it suits you. Warrior classes are physically strong, have high HP, and interesting techs that don't need MP. Mage classes have spells that kick your enemies' ass and save yours. As the game goes on, the most important thing you learn is to balance your classes and abilities among your characters so that as they grow and develop, you always have a strong party. An unbalanced party (e.g. all mages or all warriors) will NEVER make it. Some games don't even allow that to happen.

I like that about FF5. Aside from storylines, your characters are pretty much tabula rasa, and you can guide them along any lines you choose. Any one character can have any set of skills you want it to have. So not only is the party well-rounded, each individual character must be well-rounded (as opposed to having extra characters that you rotate in).

The importance of really well-rounded characters came to my attention when I came to battle ExDeath, the final boss. With the party I had, I battled him so many times, and always got past halfway, but never close enough that I could beat him even by luck. Maybe I hadn't just plain leveled up enough yet, but leveling up is so boring, it's more fun to level up in the process of gaining new skills. But basically, my dillemma was this: My mages didn't have enough HP. ExDeath's nastiest attack is Almagest--it can't be reflected, and it takes about 1600 HP off each character. My mages had like 1700 total, so once Almagest was cast, I couldn't heal them fast enough for the next hits, and with the strong magic users out, it was all over. I tried and tried and tried, but couldn't get around this harsh fact. I needed to back off from the final battle and spend some time leveling up.

Okay, so there are four characters, listed with the breakdown of classes they've currently mastered and have in progress (IP), in the order achieved:
Butz: Thief, Samurai, RedMage IP
Lenna: WhiteMage, Summoner, Monk, Mimic IP
Faris: Monk, TimeMage, Ninja, Mimic, maybe WhiteMage IP?
Cara: BlackMage, Hunter, Knight, WhiteMage IP

So the deal with mastering classes is that when the character is in Mimic or Normal mode, they retain all the stats and innate abilities of all the other classes they've mastered. So a master mage will have high MP and Magic Power/Defense, master monk has high HP, can fight well empty-handed, will counterattack, master thief is fast, can dash and see passages. Yadda yadda yadda. So when you have a Mimic that's mastered one Mage and one Warrior class, that's pretty good. You spread the different Mage and Warrior classes between your characters, and you're hot.

Following are notes on individual evolution:

Lenna. She is the obvious choice to become a White Mage, that being one of the first abilities you need and the one that you use most often; she mastered that one fast. Having played FFX, having used Yuna, I knew that WhiteMage/Summoner was a powerful mage character, so Lenna mastered Summoner next. And rocked it! Lenna focused early and mastered fast. Her abilities were indispensable, so much so that she barely even touched the other classes. For most of the latter part of the game, I just had her flex her mastery. Unfortunately, this meant when we got to ExDeath, I relied on her skills, but her HP was pitiful, and she was a major soft spot. I just had her master Monk, so she is way, way better now. She can fight for her friends, and doesn't constantly need to save herself, which takes care of probably the biggest burden I had.

Cara. Through most of the game, I used her as pinch-hitter, but she became unexpectedly important after she gained some suprisingly useful skills. She took the odd jobs, the ones that none of the others seemed suited for; first BlackMage, then Hunter. She also knows mid-level white magic, so she acted as secondary healer. She also acted as Geomancer when I needed one. Her big turnaround was when she mastered Hunter. The Animals-Nightingale heal saved my ass countless times with no MP, and X-Strike is the hottest thing since 2-Hand. That's four randomly distributed half-power strikes; it's nice in a group of weaker monsters, while indispensable against a single strong enemy, cutting them down Fast. As BlackMage and X-Striker, she is an important Mimic chain starter. And now she's a master Knight, so she's super buffed-out.

Faris. Since the very beginning, when I thought she was a guy, I have been in love with Faris. She is my darling, my star, the backbone of the group. She has always been strong, and she was my ass-whooping Monk in the beginning. Then I moved her into Ninja, but realized she needed some Mage experience, so had her become a TimeMage. TimeMage is a highly underestimated class, and Faris rocked it like a hurricane. And all the while she was a TimeMage I had her brawling like a Monk, and so she has Never been weak, never taken any shit. She filled in as WhiteMage for a while, so can do mid-level heals. Then I brought her back to Ninja class, which was a natural transition. She became fast, and with a weapon in each hand, OMG, when she mimics X-Strike 2-handed, she is a sight to behold. Oh Faris. The love I have for you...

Butz: He's kinda lame. I just don't know why, but everybody in the forums seems to get this feeling too. It would seem he should be a warrior, but he's not as good a warrior as Faris; he's definitely not as good a mage as Lenna; and by the time you figure out what to do with him, Cara has far surpassed him in the other needed roles. He's just sort of a group booster. Don't get me wrong, sometimes that comes in handy, but mostly he's good to draw hits away from the other characters and to sling Phoenix Downs when my important people are out. Now that I think about it, that is pretty important; but sometimes I just wish he was useful! He was a thief in the beginning, and true, Dash, which lets you wander around faster, and Passages, which lets you see secret passages, are really important skills, but they're not battle skills. And Thieves aren't very strong, so I made him a Samurai to beef him up. But then he was all sword, so in this last stint when we were all mastering another class, I set him to RedMage. He is now 2/3s of the way to mastery, and I have realized that at this stage in the game, RedMage is fucking useless. I wanted to up his magic power so he'd be a better Mimic, but Red's magic power is half that of White or Black, and Red's strength is half that of a warrior. So it doesn't significantly up any important stats, and RedMage can only do low-level spells. It casts both White and Black, to be sure, which would have been cool earlier in the game, but against ExDeath, if you can't do high-level, you can't do anything at all. So the skills he's gained are lame, while his power hasn't upped much--I spent five minutes yelling at myself for making him a RedMage. Ugh. Time wasted! So much time wasted!

Anyhow, my insights about how this applies to myself are going to have to wait. This is long enough as it is.

1:17 p.m. 2003-12-22�