Every Major Final Fantasy Job Ranked From Lame as All Hell to Rad AF

Cool to not cool:

Dragoon

If you have a problem with dragons, who are you going to call? Dragoons. Being the job most associated with ripping the eyes out of a massive dragon’s skull, being the exterminator of wyrms, needs to be a top three profession in Final Fantasy. Plus, look out how they dress…

Summoner

The clear number one spot for the raddest and coolest Final Fantasy job has to be the Summoner. The Summoner can call upon the most bad ass, frightening enemies in all of Final Fantasy lore and history such as Bahamut and Anima, and force them to do their bidding. They are powerful, and intentionally dress like a unicorn. I don’t understand it, but I accept it if it means Ifrit is on my team now.

Black Mage

Black Mages dress like Vivi from FF9 and, after a little bit of spell chanting can call down meteors, bursts of hellfire, lightning storms, hurricane force winds and more. They are pretty much universally good in every game, and if that’s not cool, I don’t know what is then.

Blue Mage

What’s better than controlling beasts like the beastmaster? What about just straight up absorbing/eating them and gaining all of their best attributes, and then, combining those abilities with any other beast’s abilities that you come across. That’s what the Blue Mage does and it does usually while looking like some kind of blue power ranger ninja.

Dark Knight

Dark Knights are the proud owners of some of the coolest armor, weapons and abilities in the game. They are so committed to wrecking face, they are willing to sacrifice their own health to do so in certain games. Plus, in lots of iterations, they carry around a giant scythe that makes them look like the grim reaper, and that’s obviously a sweet look that I shouldn’t need to explain.

Ninja

Unlike Samurai which are too close to their played-out real-life counterparts, Ninja’s in Final Fantasy embrace the absurd, made up AKA (bad ass), aspects of the job. In just about every game Ninjas are in, they are super powerful, wear sleek black shadowy garb, stress absolutely nothing, and in Final Fantasy XI, they could even tank using nothing but their own shadows and evasiveness.

Red Mage

A mage that ain’t afraid to mix it up is my kind of mage. While the Scholar is wishing it could be either a White Mage or a Black Mage, the Red Mage just does a little bit of everything and but isn’t trying to be something it’s not. And, instead of hiding, it can grab a sword and stab someone in their face if needed. Most importantly though, obviously, is the hat. The greatest most pimp-friendly hat in all of Final Fantasy.

Time Mage

The Time Mage is the quiet guy at the party that doesn’t say much, but is kind of just keeping to themselves but then out of no where they chug an entire beer in like less than a second and suddenly you love them. Like nothing about the Time Mage’s image looks cool at all. They dress like the Pope. But, when you’re getting hasted, and sending enemies into black holes or whatever, you’ll deal with their stupid hat.

Gambler/Corsair

I mean, it’s a class based around gambling and pirates (FFXI). Do I really need to say anymore? The only thing that makes them not cool sometimes and holds them back is that occasionally their abilities blow up in your face. Such is the life of a gambler though.

Geomancer
Normally, I would write off a hippy earth-day loving class as lame as all hell. But for some reason, the Geomancer has always appealed to me. It gives me serious Captain Planet vibes with its ability to use all of the elements and they have gone to battle with everything from axes to bells. Scrappy AF. They good in my book.

Mystic

I imagine the Oracle/Mystic as some old guy with a stick that somehow is mixed up in massive battles from the Final Fantasy universe. There’s few things radder than that. They have spells based around yin and yang, which I really don’t understand at all but it sounds awesome. And again, if all else fails, stick to the face.

Archer/Ranger

Bows and arrow are so hot right now. Every game from Destiny 2 to Tomb Raider, is putting bows in their game. You know who have been ahead of the curve? Archers of course. They stay out of the fray, but still pull their weight without resorting to gunpowder like other classes.

Dancer

Dancers are pretty neat. They can just kind of hang back do a little dance, and suddendly all of your enemies are sleeping, poisoned, drunk or whatever. I don’t how or why it works, but I’m not questioning it and the Dancer gets serious points for creativity in that regard.

Samurai

You might have assumed that the Samurai would be higher, but honestly I’m over Samurai. They are played out. It’s a dude with a Katana. Who cares. They are cool in real life, but super overrated in Final Fantasy.

Paladin

Whatever, goody goody two shoes job. I’d rank it lower but to be honest, Paladins do look pretty slick in that white armor, and can handle tanking feats that other jobs just can’t handle. Respect.

Beastmaster

Beastmasters can control monsters and make them fight for you. Sick. Especially cool if it’s a dragon or an evil bunny rabbit. What’s funnier than watching a rabbit murder? Don’t believe me? Go look up Wrathare from Final Fantasy XI. The evil high-level Rarab that has en-death on its attacks and can heal away any progress you made killing it with carrots.

Thief

Thieves steal stuff, are roguish, and give off robin hood vibes, and since you’re the good guy, it’s totally chill. If they did anything else that was cool besides that, they would rank higher.

Mime

The Mime is rad for one reason and one reason only: It’s usually so hard to unlock them that we’re forced to convince ourselves they are actually cool to make ourselves feel good about our life choices and time management.

Chemist

It’s a healer again, yes, but what makes the Chemist at least kind of cool is that it has to work hard. It’s cooking up a potion especially for you and then flinging it like an Olympic hurler across the battlefield for you to catch all dramatic like and slurp it down like a champ. Thanks Chemists!

White Mage

We’re all obligated to be nice to our resident White Mage because if we’re not, they won’t heal us and we’ll die and no one is bad ass when they are dead. So yes they are totally “cool.” *Waits until the healers are gone* Healing is for suckerssssssssss. Real talk though, they are the best in terms of usefulness.

Mystic Knight/Rune Fencer

The Mystic Knight is just kind of an attacker class that can blend some spells into the mix and into their attacks. More appealing than the boring Warrior and Knight, but most jobs are. The Rune Fencer from FFXI was way more rad, but it only appeared in that one game so I’m not going to weigh it heavily yet.

Machinist/Cannoneer

Gun DPS classes that aren’t Archers and Rangers feel like they are cheating. Use a bow and arrow, don’t be a cheater. Mustadio from Final Fantasy Tactics is the only exception to this rule because he’s a pretty chill dude .

Warrior

The Warrior is just whatever honestly. I don’t have strong opinions on it. It has a big axe usually, that’s kind of cool. But it’s just usually your basic attacking/tanking class and nothing more or less. Are you cooler than a Bard or Knight, sure but almost everything else is too. But there are more specialized jobs that get way cooler tools to beat stuff with.

Monk

Listen.. listen, LISTEN. I know that, it might be sacrilege putting the Monk this low, and I get it, inherently a Bruce Lee class that just beats the crap of everything with its bare fists appears cool on the surface. But think about it, you watch everyone else using bad ass looking spells, weapons, summons whatever, and what do you have? Brass knuckles. That’s what you’re bringing to a fight against otherworldly foes. I’ll pass.

Scholar/Sage

Being smart is pretty cool, and that counts for something, but other than the Scholar is definitely on the lame side of the scale. It’s just a White Mage/Black Mage hybrid wannabe. It has no unique personality other than a somewhat charming AF armor in FFXI. That is until FFXIV where if anything, it takes a step back in coolness being nothing more than a Fairy pet handler. Weak.

Onion Knight

The Onion Knight is just so whatever. It has an awesome bad ass outfit sure, but it’s so boring otherwise. The only reason it’s not last is because of that helmet.

Bard

There’s no way to spin a job that plays musical instruments as being cool in any universe, Final Fantasy or otherwise. Even Band Geeks know that they aren’t cool, they just have learned to embrace it. Unless we get a iteration of the bard that is basically Carlos Santana, or Joe Satriani literally melting enemy faces by playing Surfing with the Alien, the Bard must be placed towards the bottom of the list by law.

Berserker

You might be surprised to see the Berserker here so low. You initial thought would be that a raging lunatic that just attacks anything it doesn’t like without rime or reason would actually be pretty bad ass. It is for like five minutes, and then, very quickly, it just becomes annoying when you realize that Berserkers are just idiots. Use a real job.

Knight

Just a a quick disclaimer: This ranking is based purely on aesthetic only. Here’s our ranking of the best Final Fantasy jobs.

OK let’s get real for a second as we kick off this list with the lamest Final Fantasy jobs and work our way up to coolest. The Knight is so boring compared to much cooler, more specialized iterations of it such as the Paladin or Dark Knight. It’s just well a Knight that you would see in any other game with a medieval tinge ever. In Final Fantasy Tactics, all it can do is break the equipment enemies and miss 75% of the time. Lame.