Most Useless FF Characters?

[TheDarkOne]

If you're a fan of the Final Fantasy series (as I am), you are probably aware that in most (if not all) games, there is always at least one character you really don't like as they seem to be useless. For example:

Final Fantasy: The Monk
Final Fantasy IV: Edward
Final Fantasy VI: Gau
Final Fantasy VII: Cait Sith

There are just a few examples from my own experience. What are your opinions?

[ZoriaRPG]

If you're a fan of the Final Fantasy series (as I am), you are probably aware that in most (if not all) games, there is always at least one character you really don't like as they seem to be useless. For example:

Final Fantasy: The Monk
Final Fantasy IV: Edward
Final Fantasy VI: Gau
Final Fantasy VII: Cait Sith

There are just a few examples from my own experience. What are your opinions?

Emphasis, mine.

You should play them to very high levels. They stop needing equipment, and you put them into bare hands for attacking, where they do more damage than any other class.

[TheDarkOne]

Emphasis, mine.

You should play them to very high levels. They stop needing equipment, and you put them into bare hands for attacking, where they do more damage than any other class.

Yes, they can do heavy physical damage but beyond that there's not much they can do. I have completed the first game with a Monk (upgraded to Master) at around level 80 and still didn't find him especially useful. Some would argue that it's the thief that is useless but I disagree. After upgrading to Ninja,he becomes stronger and also gains access to some basic magic spells--something the Monk/Master can never do.

[mrz84]

Outside of the plot, Edward is basically useless in FF4.

Gau on the other hand becomes a beast if you take a bit of time to get his rages and try them out to see what works for what situation so you don't have to worry when he uncontrollable. Ie: one of the early rages when you first recruit him can be very useful dealing with magitek armor/soldiers/anything weak to electricity due to having very early access to a Bolt 2 level ability. Some stages also bestow innate bugs to him such as float, etc. Gau takes a bit to learn how to use and some time, but the same can be said of any RPGs protagonist you can level up. Another note is that the rages on Veldt are directly tied to monsters you have encountered. Taking time to fight a new areas monsters for later rage learning is not a bad idea.

Cait Sith is very random with his weapons and limit break and it can be disastrous if rng isn't in your favor (there are at least 2 outcomes of his slots that an lead to game over scenarios if I remember correctly) However, while physical damage may be unreliable, he [REDACTED BECAUSE I HAVE SHIT MEMOERY AT 10PM] and can be a handy magical attack/support character when you aren't able to use anyone else for whatever reason.

Going to FF1 Monk/Master while it's true that they lack extra utility after class change like Knight (white magic) or Ninja (black magic), they make up for it with high damage output due to stat growth. A max level Master with Haste can basically one shot Chaos in the NES version, out damaging well equipped Knights and Ninja characters. His only weakness in in original game was poor magic defense which is remedied easily with a Ribbon.

Honestly, a character is rarely useless in a Final Fantasy game IMHO. It all comes down to personal play style.

[TheDarkOne]

I always found building up Gau's rages tedious and boring, especially later in the game when you keep encountering enemies that you've already learned and not finding the ones you actually WANT to learn. And of course there is nothing that tells you exactly what abilities from whatever enemy you get. Also, in my experience there are always two of them in each rage, one of which is usually an average physical attack and as there is no way to control that, he is not terribly reliable. It is nearly impossible to fight strategically with Gau. The same can be said about Mog's dance ability but the difference there is that dance is optional, where rage is not. If rage were a secondary ability (such as dance, blitz, steal, etc) instead of the default battle command, it might have worked out better.

[MarkLin]

Edward Chris von Muir from Final Fantasy IV
His physical and magical stats are both low, and all he can do in battle is sing and hide. His stats skyrocket after level 70, but who wants to spend that much time with a useless spoony bard?

[TheDarkOne]

Edward Chris von Muir from Final Fantasy IV
His physical and magical stats are both low, and all he can do in battle is sing and hide. His stats skyrocket after level 70, but who wants to spend that much time with a useless spoony bard?

Who even tries to level him up that far? It would require hours of grinding and you'd have to keep him alive all that time.

I'd take a D&D bard any day. At least they can use magic.

[mrz84]

Using my necromantic powers I resurrect this thread to give another go with Edward. In one of the remakes (the GBA one I believe) they added 2 new dungeons that gives an exclusive gear for whatever character/s you use for it and are given the ability to use any other character in the game you recruited (not sure on Tellah since he ya know, died) and one of Edward's give him a ring that changes Sing to Chant (basically grants Mighty Guard - Protect+Shell) making him a more useful support character.

[TheDarkOne]

That may be true, but outside of that game you can’t really keep Edward in your party that long. I really think it’s not worth the time.

[bigjoe]

They should have kept the party switching system in the DS version. Edward would have really got a chance to shine especially given the Augments and such,