Zodiac Age - What to consider when choosing job combinations?

Using the picture below, we can go into some of the combinations.

A bad combination would be to combine Knight with Uhlan. Both use heavy armor and the only real difference here is that one has shields and the other has 2 handed weapons.

Another bad combination would be White Mage and Monk. The monk is more of a supporting class to add to an already strong melee job. There is nothing in the Monk job that White Mage needs or wants.

In general, the idea is to keep squishies in the back and melee fighters NOT using offensive magic.

These are the bad combinations

• Archer - Combining with the heavy armor / melee jobs

  • You want the Archer in the back casting spells. You should make your Archer into a support mage.

• Black Mage - Combining with melee jobs

  • You want your BM in the back, combine it with any ranged job

• Bushi - Shikari and Foe

  • Too much overlap

• Shikari - Bushi and Foe

  • Too much overlap

• White Mage - Any melee job

  • see BM

• Uhlan - Archer WM BM Machinist

  • This job is all about dealing damage - You need to combine it with Monk to deal out damage and survive

• Machinist - Any melee class

  • Machinist is a great support job to mages

• Red Battlemage - Time battlemage

  • You don't want ALL your utility on one character

• Knight - Black mage

  • Don't use your tank to deal magic damage - baka

• Monk - Archer

  • Why?

• Time Battlemage - Red Battlemage

  • You don't want ALL your utility on one character

• FoeBreaker - Bushi and Shikari

  • Too much overlap

Note - You can basically blind pick any job combination and beat the main story with minimal hunts completed. The real reason for best job combination is the optional end game stuff.

Bushi/Shikari is actually considered one of the best for dealing damage to Yiazmat, and really, you can utilize any job combination if you really want to. What you really want to worry about is which character is best for what, like Ashe/Penelo have the best MP, Fran has the best vit, Balthier the best speed, Basch is the best strength, and Vaan is the jack of all trade. Even then, you can have a Time Mage Basch and it won't really matter. So long as you pick what you think would be a fun or useful combo.

If you really want to plan it out, copy and paste this into your own sheets pages and swap jobs from there: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qM7wr8k2H_b9OAToAgPsPip8QAjB2ET6z22jHDy4wCs/edit#gid=1059552339

These are some good resources that demonstrate that any combination can have potential:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zQRW7f-77b8pgIBDVQMbH6KzBUX0Q-F05WPHUhIi170/edit

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/191202-final-fantasy-xii-the-zodiac-age/75477310