One of the major points of Crystal Project is "Adventure", and a major facet of that is "Discovery".

If you are playing through Crystal Project, I highly suggest you avoid spoiling yourself any more than you may have already, and instead discovering each of the Classes the game has to offer for yourself. Wait until you obtain the classes yourself, and get chance to build your own opinions or ideas first. Once you have learned something from someone else, you cannot unlearn and experience the joy of discovering something for yourself.

This guide is more intended for those who are already aware of the Classes, but are looking for more information on them; or those who want more information on what classes are in the game before you purchase it.

The opinions expressed below are my own; thus they are biased by my own experiences.
I explicitly do not delve into end-game min/max composition requiring specific gear; but may give suggestions on good class pairings as I update the guide further.

This guide is NOT taking into account specific "end-game" gear setups that can drastically change how a class can behaves or be used.

It is also NOT a guide for specific character builds or party builds. Certain classes are vastly more useful when paired with very specific party setups.


This guide is meant a starting point for players to come up with their own interesting or unique party setups.

That's why this guide won't explicitly say "Use Class A only if paired with a 2nd person using Class B"; or "Class C wants this specific weapon/accessory to get 4* or 5* rating".

That is left for the Player to experiment and discover themselves (or lookup more detailed explicit party/equipment builds for specific instances or fights.)

If you play Role Playing Games (RPGs), you are probably already familiar with the concept of "Classes". For those not familiar, the short explanation :

A "Class" describes the general abilities of what a character can potentially do in an RPG.
- What Weapons they can use
- Their physical and mental capabilities as a rough rating or "statistical score"
- Abilities, Skills , passive traits, or special talents they have
- What benefits they bring to the team as a whole

If you think of a medieval Hunter for instance, you know they: A) Use a Bow, B) likely very dexterous, C) Can attack at medium or long ranges with a practiced aim, D) They can weaken or kill enemies before they get too close to anyone else.

Crystal Project takes this a step further with a common RPG mechanic of a "Main" Class and a "Sub" Class.

Main Class defines:
- The types of Weapons and Armor the character can use
- Their general Statistics as a rating (Strength, Vitality, Agility, Dexterity, Mind, Spirit, Luck)
- The Skills they can learn and use in battle
- An Innate Passive ability that gives a special bonus fitting for the Class

Sub Class defines:
- Additional Skills they can learn and use in battle.

For example, let's say you have someone that spent time as a Wizard, learning to set things on Fire with magic .... then later change their "Main Class" to a Warrior to use a sword, shield and heavy armor to protect themselves instead.
You could take the time they spent as Wizard and set that as your "SubClass", and the Warrior would be able to use all of the spells they learned as a Wizard!

In the example above, I mentioned you could make a Warrior with subclass of Wizard.
Sounds fun right?

Except these two classes do not work well together - they have no Synergy.
Warrior has good Strength, which boosts damage of all their skills.
Wizard abilities are boosted by Mind though, and Warrior has very poor Mind stat.

So while the Warrior can use Wizard magic, he won't do very well with it.

In the summary below of each class, I list what statistics each class has good scores in; and what stat boosts the damage of all their skills. (Strength for Warrior, Mind for Wizard, etc.).

The other challenge to watch for is the type of weapon required to use class skills.
Warrior Skills can be used regardless of weapon.
Monk skills can only be used Unarmed or with a Staff.

So Monk / Warrior could work well - the monk would not have to change what weapon it uses to use all of the Warrior skills.
Warrior / Monk on the other hand, could not use any Monk skills with it's normal weaponry (Swords/ etc). It would need to use Passives from other classes to be able to change it's weaponry to fit both skills. (Brawler passive from Monk, which lets Warrior have damage bonus when unarmed.)

Picking two classes that work well together can be challenging, but very rewarding.

For the purpose of this guide, I have tried to roughly score each Class on a 1-5 star scale, based on it's ability as either a Main Class or a Sub Class. These rankings are based on:

• it's own merits & skills
  
• Assuming a somewhat "balanced" party configuration
  
• Across a range of different combat situations (single target normal fights, multiple target fights, normal bosses)
  
• Potential synergy with other classes
  
• Generally available "regular" equipment, a player could be expected to have near when they acquire the class.
  Specifically excluding end-game gear which can cause drastic changes in class ability or damage output. So a class isn't judged on expecting a new player to have the Apothic Edge Axe,etc.

Certain fights may require a specialized strategy (Summon Bosses, Late-Game / Super Bosses) - where certain Classes or specialized party configurations might be far more useful than they would be in the other 90% of other normal monster or normal boss encounters.

Just because a Class is ranked low, does not mean it is "useless" - just that it may have issues performing well outside of certain specific situations.

This is your early-game "Tank" class, though it has decent damage and supporting debuffs as well.
To focus on tanking, go for a 1-handed Sword and Shield; to focus on damage, 2-Handed Swords are usually your best bet. Early game, you'll be limited on equipment choices, so don't stress too much about it.
Warrior can still perform decently at either role regardless of which weapon they are using, and can use Defender or Berzerker without spending their turn to further dedicate into either role.
Late-game, it can still fill either role fairly well, but it is eclipsed by other classes.

Key Skills : (Any weapon type / Strength)

• Taunt - Very few abilities grant a large amount of threat in a single action. This is the first you'll have access to, and the best for a Strength-based tank.
  
• Power Break / Armor Break - Apply Attack Down or Defense Down debuffs instantly. Do not underestimate these skills!
  
• Defender / Bezerker - Self-buffs that effectively increase either your Defense or Attack, at expense of the other.

Useful Passives:

• Equip Sword
  
• Adrenaline (+6AP at battle start)

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• The 4 "Crash" skills. Do extra damage but impose some penalty. Can be situationaly useful, but be careful of which penalty you accept in longer fights.

Early-game, this is your choice for "simple" melee damage. See monster, smack with fists.
Has a fair range of attack abilities, but requires a LOT of AP buildup. Heavily reccomended to get the "Adrenaline" passive from Warrior class early on.
You'll probably replace this class as soon as you get Fencer however; and it's skills are of limited use mid-or-late-game.

Key Skills : ( Unarmed, Staff / Strength )

• Earth Split - For a while, this will be your first AoE. Cannot used on flying targets, or anything immune to Earth. Generally requires at least 2 turns to charge enough AP.
  
• Thunder Chop - Good single-target elemental damage.
  
• Revive - Having someone that can revive a dead Healer can prevent a party wipe.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Wind Punch - Unless you are counting on getting Critical hits to make use of the extra damage, this skill generally does less damage than Thunder Chop.
  
• The various self-healing abilities. Can be situationally useful, but as a DPS class, you are usually better off focusing on damage and letting the dedicated Healer do the healing.

Useful Passives:

• Counter - (Counters physical damage with a melee attack - Amazing damage boost early/mid game.)
  
• HP Boost (Max HP+20%)

Rogue can do some Very Good Damage ; but is more challenging to use well.
A lot of it's abilities can only be used if the Rogue is the target's LOWEST Threat.
That means all 3 other characters have to be at exact same or higher threat than the Rogue.
This makes using Rogue skills tricky if you do not have great threat management; or if your Tank dies.
This also means once you use certain abilities (anything that causes any threat), all other abilities become useless on that target.
So you either have to make sure not to use those abiltiies unless the target will die, or you're ok with Rogue becoming less useful afterwards.
Don't even think of having more than one Rogue.

Key Skills : ( Dagger/Rapier / Dexterity )

• Steal - Allows stealing items. Some stolen equipment can be very useful or powerful, so it's worth trying on every new monster.
  
• Sleep Bomb - Puts a target to sleep, but only ONCE PER TARGET PER BATTLE. This can be very useful to prevent a turn (like an AoE attack), but make sure not to wake the monster up before that turn passes.
  
• Eye Gouge - Blinds a target, but only usable if the Rogue is the target's LOWEST Threat. It will add Threat, so it may make Rogue skills unusable afterwards unless all 3 other party members have higher threat already.
  
• Shadow Cut - Basic attack, requires being target's LOWEST threat, but causes ZERO THREAT and costs nothing. This will be your main attack to enable using any other "must be LOWEST threat" abilities.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Most of the Rogue attack skills require Rogue to be the target's LOWEST Threat. Once it gets any threat, it's almost defenseless. Healing from a Regen Buff seems to count as Threat for the character having it, so Regen on a Rogue can be a bad idea...

Useful Passives:

• Pocket Sand (When injured to critical, inflict Blind on the enemy that hit you. Your Tank WANTS this skill.)

This is your starting Healer. They cast Healing spells. They sometimes prevent people from dying. :)
Not a lot else to say really, don't expect much more than healing.
They do get a decent Spirit-based attack spell, but for the MP cost it's often cheaper to let someone take a punch to the face, counter-attack and heal them up afterwards.
If not healing.... they smack things with a stick or book. Does about as little as you'd expect in most cases.
Late-Game, not much changes. You may end up using other classes for healing and subclass Cleric for their spells.

Key Skills : ( Magic / Spirit )

• ALL of the Cure/Revive spells. Plain "Cure" is fairly low cost, while Curena is one of the few full-party heals.
  
• Blackout - Certain fights will cause a lot of Fire damage; being able to negate 100% of it can be very useful in those situations.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Star Flare - While having a large damage spell on your Healer may sound fun, it is terribly expensive and slow.

Useful Passives:

• Equip Staff (Helpful when you want another class to act as Healer, Equip a Staff to boost their Spirit.)

Wizards blow things up with magic. They also make lots of monsters mad, and die a lot in return.
If a Wizard's spell doesn't kill something, you can bet it will try to eat them in return.
Technically, they offer some of the first Area-of-Effect (AoE) attacks, but they are VERY expensive MP costs.
Magic itself is fairly limited before having to chug Tinctures/Ethers, and stronger spells especially so.
Early-game, it may be better to stick with just the cheap Fire or Bolt single target spells, as they do good damage for the MP cost.
The stronger spells may hit harder, but are not MP-efficent.
They can use a strange variety of weapons - generally you'll want to stick with Wands to increase Mind (which increases spell damage).

Key Skills : ( Magic / Mind )

• Fire and Bolt - Cheap for the damage they can cause.
  
• Firen - One of your first AoE attacks, but expensive to use early game.
  
• Flare and Thunder - They will be far too expensive to use much early game - think of them more as late-game or end-game attack spells.
  
• Storm Stance - Very Situational - You really don't want a Wizard to be taking hits; but if they are going to get hit, countering with a FREE spell is amazing.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Mind Stance - You really don't want Wizard to be taking physical attacks.... but if you are, may as well use Storm Stance.

Useful Passives:

• Initial Focus (for FIRST turn, deal 35% more magic damage)
  
• Equip Wand (Helpful for using another class as Magic DPS with a Wand to boost Mind).

Warlock trades power for flexibility - it can do little of everything!

It's attack spells aren't especially powerful, but have useful buffs or debuffs to go with them.
It's heals aren't especially powerful either, but are effective and cheap.
Having both in one Class though gives Warlock the flexibility to easily change duties based on the flow of the battle.

Melee is .... medicore, but better than Cleric or Wizard.
Equip a Staff if mainly healing, or a Wand if mainly using magic damage.

This flexibility makes it an amazing class skill throughout the game - you may even decide use this as a Subclass for late-game end-game.

Doublecast lets you cost 2 Warlock spells at once for an extra MP cost - great for emergencies. (Some rough boss fights I've survived by having my Wizard or Dervish using the Warlock subclass - emergency healing or reviving dead party members.)

The Refresher passive skill is almost mandatory for any magic-using class.


Key Skills : ( Magic / mix of Mind & Spirit )
A wide variety of magic spells makes almost everything situationally useful for any magic user (Healer or Mage).

• Blaze - Decent base damage, but applies an very nice damage-over-time debuff (Burn), which lasts for 2 turns. It's almost like getting a 2nd spell worth of damage for free!
  
• Frost - Decent damage, but the bigger bonus is the Resist Down effect it applies. Great if your Warlock's turn comes before your Wizard or other magic damage users.
  
• Heal - A decent and cheap heal. Not as strong as Cleric's Cure
  
• Remedy - Small heal + removes a debuff. Most debuffs come from an attack, so heal+remove debuff in a single action is useful.
  
• Life - Reviving the dead is always useful.
  
• Dispel - One of the few ways to remove enemy Buffs. (expensive at 22 MP however)
  
• Refresh - One of the few ways to recover MP in battle. Recovers 6MP per turn, for 4 turns. Does not stack with the buff from Refresher passive skill.
  
• Doublecast - For additional MP cost, lets you cast 2 other Warlock spells instantly.
  
• Protect / Shell - One of the few options for Defense Up / Resist Up buffs, sadly only single-target though.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Dispel - A very useful skill, but also has major drawbacks. Very high 22 MP cost, and it also removes a debuff (bleed/poison/power down/etc) if any are present. ... there aren't many other choices for removing enemy buffs however.

Useful Passives:

• Refresher - HIGH PRIORTY - Recovers 6MP per turn for first 6 turns.
  
• Regen - Recovers 15% of Max HP per turn for 6 turns. Eventually out-classed by damage passives, but very useful for early-to-mid-game.

A good physical damage class through mid-game, but gets overshadowed later.
It can be used as a flexible subclass thanks to Equip Sword or Equip Rapier, and also provides self-healing through Snowfang.
While it is an Agility-focused class, it can be used decently well on a Dexterity-focused class as well thanks to many Dexterity classes having decent Agility scaling.

Key Skills : ( Rapier or Sword / Agility )

• Poison Tip / Barbed Cap - Damage + apply a damage over time effect. (Poison / Bleed).
  
• Swallowtail - Moderate AoE, but can be used every turn. (you gain 6AP a turn, this costs 6AP)
  
• Snowfang - Ice elemental damage (which is rare), also heals for 50% of the damage caused.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Eagle Eye - 1st physical attack of a battle will not miss, but useless after the 1st turn. Very situational
  
• Both "Stances". The benefit and penalty of each Stance almost seem to basically cancel each other out.

Useful Passives:

• Equip Rapier (If you want to use Fencer as a subclass, you may need either this or Equip Sword.)

A mix of magical damage and various debuffs. Shaman has some very useful abilities, but be warned the slow speed and cast time may make some debuffs hard to use before an enemy's turn.
It has Luck as one of it's significant stats, but nothing in it's skillset is affected by luck.
May be worth considering a subclass with anything affected by Luck (Scholar's Dice Roll), but not a lot of viable magic options.

I'm not sure why you would ever want to use an Axe on a magical damage class - equip Wands for extra magic damage.

Key Skills : ( Magic / Mind )

• Acid / Bio - A bit expensive for a basic damage spell, but they apply critical Power Down / Magic Down debuff for 2 turns.
  
• Epidemic - Area of effect Poison spell
  
• Sleep Echo - Same as Rogue's Sleep Bomb

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Stone Core - You don't want to be taking hits as a magic user most of the time; but at least -25% physical damage taken for a few turns can be situationally useful...
  
• Mist Core - ... on the other hand, 25% chance to evade magic is pretty low - 3/4 of the time this skill won't do anything.

Useful Passives:

• Safeguard (When injured to critical HP, cast Armor/Resist Up on self for 4 turns - great for a tank!).

Scholar is an interesting class, and can be useful in mid-game after you have learend a good variety of abilties.
Learning those abilities can be challenging - don't expect to Master this class until VERY late-game, 1 ability is only in an end-game challenge dungeon.
The challenge of using Scholar comes in learning the skills - either you need to keep Scholar as a Main class, or learn the expensive "Learning" passive for 25 LP.

Key Skills : ( Magic / mix of Mind or Spirit )

• .... hard to judge. Many situationally useful skills, but the skill themselves are all over the place. (You'll also have to travel all over finding monsters to learn the skills from.)
  
• Generally speaking, the healing abilities may be the most useful.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Learning - Just because it costs 25 LP.
  
• MP Sickle - I want to call this one out, as it is very situational. Deleting enemy MP is usually less effective and slower than deleting their HP!

Useful Passives:

• Learning - Lets you learn Monster Magic even if you aren't on Scholar.... but it's a whopping 25LP.

The second "Tank" Class, though it works differently.
Instead of trying to act first to Taunt for threat, Aegis works by letting someone else get threat, and then using Cover to take damage in their place. (Which is why Aegis is so horribly slow).
However, this has the same weakness as Warrior tanking - using "tank" abilities takes your turn, so you have to choose between "tanking" actions, or "debuffing" actions.
Aegis also has one of the most required debuffs for late-game - Magic Down.
Many of the other skills are not very useful though, and it has less damage ability compared to Warrior.


Key Skills : ( Any weapon / Strength )

• Cover - for 3 turns, will take direct single-target attacks directed at someone else.
  
• Magic Break - Applies Magic Down debuff for 2 turns.
  
• Resist Break - Applies Resist Down debuff for 2 turns.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Most everything else not listed above.... You'll use almost every turn trying to build threat, so the self-defensive skills may not get much use.

Useful Passives:

• Stalwart - Once per battle, if killed while at full HP, instead survive with 1 HP. *You will find a lot of one-hit kills from damage late-game, especially on hard. This gives you 1 chance to survive.
  
• Natural Tank - Begin battle with small amount of threat on every enemy. Situationally useful.
  
• Stance Tank - Recover 20%HP when changing stances. Situationally useful.

Hunter does good damage using bows. That's about all there is to it.
A lot of hunter abilities have cooldowns, but no costs associated with them.
A strong source of AoE damage in Barrage, but on a several turn cooldown.
You won't be able to use the same skill two turns in a row, but there are plenty of skills to choose from.

Key Skills : ( Bow only / Agility )

• Most all of the attack skills, but especially Barrage (AoE damage).

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• none ? All have at least decent usability.

Useful Passives:

• Perfect Vision - "Always hit" with attacks if your chance to hit is 80% or higher. (unless enemy has perfect evade/blink/etc buff.)
  
• Equip Bow - All hunter skills require Bows, so if you want to use Hunter as a subclass, you'll need this.

Chemist lets you "use items in battle", but it's not an "Item" command like you would think.
The Chemist skills cost items to apply a set-value heal or effect.
Some of the skills could be useful (MP or AP), or very situational buffs (Float to counter Earth spells).
Others are random (Random buff or Debuffs), or very situational niche abilities.
There are zero offensive abilities, and trying to use it as a main healer will deplete your stockpile of healing items quickly.

Best uses are as a subclass for throwing MP or AP restoration, or perhaps as a Main class to take advantage of the "max cooldown of 1" by using a subclass with longer cooldowns.


Key Skills : ( n/a )

• Tincture/Ether/Zether - (MP recovery) Very few other options to recover MP during long fights.
  
• AP Juice - Situationally useful way to force charge an ally's AP, useful for specific Samurai or Monk uses (but that's about all)

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Tonic/Potion/Z-Potion - Why spend potions in battle when any MP-based healing class can do the job better?
  
• Fig/Sap Mixtures - Random Buff/Debuff sounds ok, but in reality more likely to end up with something not very useful.
  
• Other skills are .... situationally rarely useful (?)

Useful Passives:

• Selfless Cure - Very situational, requires that the target you are healing has more HP (in percentage of Max HP, not raw numbers) ... but there's not a lot of good passives for a dedicated healer.

*Disclaimer* Reaper is one of my favorite classes, so I may be a bit biased. I usually dislike classes where abilities cost Health, but it can be made to work here. **
Reaper is a Strength-focused DPS class, but has enough health and durability to serve as a tank in many situations.
If a Reaper causes 1,000 damage, their Max HP increases by 400. (They don't heal for any of that new value; only the HP Max increases.)
Half of their skills cost HP to use, but can be used with any melee weapon; The other half have a cooldown, zero cost, but require Scythe.
Weapon choice will play a very important role in their ability to keep themselves alive and doing damage.

Scythe gives access to two different skills with Lifedrain, so you can steal-back the life that was spent on skills.
1-handed Sword gives access to a shield, so you can equip the Blood shield that gives +10% Lifesteal.
Avoid 2-handed Swords - you may as well equip a Scythe instead.

Adding in a Hemorring (Accessory, +15% lifesteal) helps offset the HP cost of skills, and gives more flexibility.

(Reaper has decent Mind & MP stats, but why?? Maybe to sub Warlock/Dervish?)

Key Skills : ( 4 skills usable by any weapon, 4 are Scythe Only / Strength )

• Most all of the Attack skills are useful, depending on your weapon choice and the situation.
  
• Using Scythe gives access to an attack with 300% Lifesteal, which is great for either self-healing, or reaching max HP after an AoE adds a lot of helaht.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Frenzy - Buff for 3 turns that gives very slightly more AP. Maybe situational use, but I'm not sure how or why.
  
• Expertise - Buff for 3 turns that redices ability cooldowns by 1. Maybe situational use, but I'm not sure how or why.
  
• Rending Cut - Costs 30% HP, does low dmg, ignores 50% defense (but doesn't help much) - applies Armor Down debuff for 3 turns. HP cost is quite high, and there are better ways to apply Armor Down effect.
  
• Moon Slash - The only "absorbs MP" skill in the game, but on a STR-based weapon class, so it won't help magic users much.

Useful Passives:

• Blood Spiller - On hit, inflict Bleed. Very useful for anyone that starts with an AoE attack (Fencer, Hunter)
  
• Initial Oomph - At battle start, get Power Up buff for 1 turn (+35% physical damage). Situationally useful, since it only lasts for 1 turn.
  
• Equip Scythe - If you want to use Reaper as Subclass, you need to consider if you want the Scythe-only skills.

Ninja can be a powerful main class, due to the ability to equip two 1-Handed weapons at the same time - using a skill will attack twice!
The downside is their skills cost "Scrolls", which are 2 Silver each; and you can only carry 30 at a time.
When you first unlock Ninja, this could be very expensive - so you may want to depend more on subclass abilities instead.
Ninja/Fencer with Equip Sword or Rapier can be devastating for much of mid-game, without spending Scrolls for Ninja skills.
Ninja/Rogue can also be devastating, just play the class just like Rogue main.

Later, once you can afford to use scrolls more, give the elemental attacks a try. With dual weapons, the 2nd hit will benefit from the "extra damage" debuff left by the 1st hit. (Put your stronger weapon in the Offhand slot for most benefit).
Ninja is the only class that can take advantage of any type of elemental weakness. (Fire/Lighting/Ice/Water/Earth/Wind)

Key Skills : ( Dagger or Axe / Dexterity)

• Utsusemi - +90% Evasion for 4 hits. (not 100% guaranteed dodge, so be careful; expensive to use)
  
• Kawakage - Evade next 2 Spells (Guarenteed to dodge next 2 spells .... including Buff/Heals; also expensive)
  
• 6 different elemental attack skills. Not terribly strong, but can be useful - bonus; if using 2 weapons, the 2nd hit of the skill benefits from the damage bonus applied from the 1st hit.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• All of the abilities cost 1-4 "Scroll" items to use, and have several turn cooldowns.
  This can be expensive for the early/mid-game when you unlock Ninja.
  Since you can only carry 30 scrolls, it also limits how much you can use skills before having to return to town to buy more.
  Otherwise, all of the skills are fairly decent.

Useful Passives:

• Smokescreen - Dodge the first physical attack received each battle. Situationally useful, but questionable.

This is a confusing class. From the stats and equipment, you would think it was a melee damage class - IT IS NOT. (At least, not on it's own merit of available skills).
If you look at the Skills, they are all Magical based - Mind for damage, and Spirit for Healing Spring.
(You could equip a subclass with Strength-based skills, and use it as a melee class if you really wanted.)

Looking at it as a magical class, it is still a bit confusing. It uses AP instead of MP for many of it's abilities.
Due to this, some builds may still want "+AP" abilities just like a melee class would; but Magic-based equipment otherwise. (Mind for Damage, Spirit for Healing)
It may be best to think of this as either a Main or Sub class for an existing Magic build, and treat the Nomad abilities as Spells that cost AP instead of MP.

Especially useful for a healer with Warlock or Cleric sub, as Therapy Stance lets you use any Healing ability on the whole party. (AoE Bleed or Poison got you down? Therapy Stance + Warlock Remedy!)
Just note that your heals won't be quite as strong. If you want a 2-Healer party for some reason, make sure one is making use of Nomad.


Key Skills : ( Magic, despite the weapons class can use / Mind for attacks, Spirit for heal)

• Therapy Stance - Single-target "Healing" abilities become multi-target (but heal 35% less). Makes any heal spells hit the whole party, but at lower effectiveness. Amazing for Warlock's Remedy to cure debuffs
  
• Healing Spring - A single-target heal that costs AP instead of MP. Can be useful to save on MP, or as subclass to let a Main class healer make use of otherwise useless AP.
  
• Water Blast / Chill Blast / Drown / Icicle - Attack spells that cost AP instead of MP. Can be useful for a Wizard/Dervish main use to save on MP.
  
• Shimmertide - Resist Up buff, lasts until death. (Expensive at 28 AP, but a huge boon on long magic-based boss fights.)

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• En-Water / En-Ice - Stances that change attacks to Water or Ice, with gimicks. Could be situationally useful for a melee class on bosses weak against Water or Ice, or Ice against super high defense/low resist bosses; but that's mostly it.
  
• Wave Armor - Each turn, if you have 12AP, auto-casts an AoE Water spell (Mind) with it. Has some Subclass potential, but locks-out use of most other Nomad skills due to eating the AP.
  
• Shrapnel Armor - Counter any damage with Ice-based spell (Mind) at cost of 8AP. Same concerns as above, very situational.

Useful Passives:

• Frenzy Stance - +6AP on Stance Change. (useful for certain builds which change stances often, but questionable.)
  
• Attack Focus - Basic attacks deal 35% more damage or healing (if using a staff that replaces attack with "Aid"). (Could be useful for Staff "Aid" free healing, but otherwise you rarely want to use the basic Attack command. )

Think of this as a Wizard class, except with Earth & Wind spells instead of Fire & Thunder.... and a few downsides.
- A fair number of monsters have immunity to Earth (anything flying), and Wind can "miss" or be evaded like a physical attack.
Strangly, either spell works fine Underwater. (I'm not complianing, please don't nerf it!!!)
- Long cast times for some spells, so don't count on anything landing before an enemy turn.
Thanks to it's innate passive, it gets at least 6 MP back a turn, so it's more sustainable than most other magic users.

Key Skills : ( Magic / Mind )

• Various Earth and Wind-based attack spells. (single target and AoEs; all have long cast times however.)
  
• Magic Prayer - No cost; Silence immunity, MP-Damage immunity, and heals 2MP per turn. Useful on few enemies that silence casters, or when you are desperately low on MP..

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Vigor Drain - Drains target's AP. Does no HP damage, so it's only for stealing a very small amount of AP. Very situational, but monsters get so much AP so fast it's a questionable value.
  
• Soul Prayer - A self-cast Heal spell, based on Mind so it matches the classes main stat... usually better to let a dedicated healer do the healing though; but can prolong death ... if the slow cast time allows it to finish before something eats you.
  
• Meteor - It's a Joke. Everything-targeted, including your own party. Ninja with magic evade on could survive, but why bother?

Useful Passives:

• Focus Shield - Take 50% less damage while charging ability CT (some abilities have long cast times, so this gives some reason to use them... )
  
• Critical Power - At critical HP, gain Magic Up (+35% Magic damage) for 4 turns. (may give a last powerful punch in desperate times)

Ok, let's be real. This class needs a re-work. Most of it's skills have "Auto-repeat for 3 turns", meaning you can't change what they do for several turns.
The skill themselves aren't bad, and have some potential interesting uses, but it's hard to lock a character into the same action for several turns.
I wanted to like this class, but with so many fights requiring a mix of buff/debuff/self-care; and sometimes switching tactics on a turn-by-turn basis - it's hard to lock in any action for 3 turns.

For a while, I used Beatsmith/Warrior or Warrior/Beatsmith as a tank, which can work quite well ... but most other tanks have debuffs (Power Down or Magic Down) they will apply every other turn; Beatsmith loses this flexibility.
It can apply Armor Down or Resist Down, but those are not as critical to party survival.

In the end, it's AoE Damage or AoE Heal can be interesting options for maintaining threat on multiple targets, while still assisting the entire Party....

Oh, and Mana Song is AMAZING.

Key Skills : ( Staff or Spear / Strength )

• Mana Song - The best Beatsmith skill - Restores party MP. Spirit based, so amount varies - but expect between 8-12 MP per turn.
  
• Rhapsody - AoE Heal, applies buff that makes follow-up heals restore 35% more.
  
• Requiem - AoE Spell (mind) damage. Also applies Resist Down, so other spells (and this skill's repeats) do more damage.
  
• .... wait, this is a MELEE DPS Class?? Oh.
  
• (also has various damage ATK/STR based attack skills, with decent damage or add-on gimmicks)

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• I want to like this class. I used it for a while, and when it works and you can dedicate 3+ turns to a single action repeating, it works out well.
  That said, it's often hard to actually utilize the skills in this manner.
  It has a skill that does a lot more damage if the top threat; so maybe good for a Tank - but you may lose that top threat quickly if based on the solely this skill damage alone.
  
• Rhythm Break - Has a debuff that lowers damage of repeated actions.... but enemy what in the game even uses the same skill repeatedly???
  
• Defense Style - Makes attacks automatically apply Power Down (for 1 turn), but also nerfs your own damage by a whopping 35%.
  
• Attack Style - Same as above, but for Defense stat instead.

Useful Passives:

• Auto Speed - At battle start, get Haste buff for 3 turns (turns ready in 25% less time). Situationally useful. Need your Shaman to get a debuff off early in battle? Here's one solution.

..... to be honest, maybe I don't fully understand this class.
Every ability costs a lot of AP; it focuses on needing to build lots of AP fast; and for max ability it needs close to 60AP (it has higher AP cap).
Then, it can spam multiple abilities in a single turn, building up "token" charges for a finishing move, which deals more damage per "token" charge on the target.
The problem thus becomes getting the amount of AP required to use skills in a timely manner - requires either lots of AP+ skills/passives/gear, or use of Chemist AP Juice ability.

Key Skills : ( Katana Only / Strength )

• ? All, I guess. You need skills to build token counters; but many skills and weapons are elemental - you will need a variety to avoid hitting elemental resistances.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Equip Katana - Allows equiping Katana. Not sure why any other class would want this?

Useful Passives:

• Unreactable - Targets are unable to Counter. (Even if you have zero interest in Samurai, this ability is almost required for some mid/late game fights.)

This is another challenging class - there are 3 sets of skills with different weapon requirements, so you have to choose what skills you want by what weapon type you equip. You'll never have access to all of them.
All skills cause some damage, for varying AP costs + several turn cooldown; and either a self-buff or a debuff on the target.

This can be a powerful Main class while farming normal monsters thanks to its passive, but less useful during boss fights.
For example, let's say an enemy has 900 health left, and your attack would do only 500 damage. Double that would have killed the enemy, so the passive just gives you that double damage. This is far more likely to occur during normal fights than boss battles.

Using Dagger gets you the most variety and some unique skills, but using Bow gets you 2 universally valuable abiltiies and a potentially useful gimick if you have a Rogue in your party.

Key Skills : ( Varies, can't use all skills with any 1 weapon )

• Rapier/Dagger Path: Choice of Debuffs: Bleed / Fatigue+Daze / Weep (very rare, disables Lifesteal/self Healing)
  
• Axe/Dagger Path: Choice of Self-Buffs: No Cooldowns for next 1 turn / Debuffs caused +1 duration for next 2 turns / Frenzy (+1ap turn/attack/taking damage)
  
• Bow Path: Choice of Debuffs: Power Down (3 turns) / Magic Down (3 turns) / Wipe your target's Threat for entire Party

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Crippling Coat - Has 35% chance on hit to add Fatigue (-50% AP gain) and/or Daze (abilities cost 100% more CT). 35% change isn't much - but on a Ninja dual-wielding, you are likely to get at least 1 of these applied. Otherwise, it's too random and little benefit.
  
• Coup de Grace - Deals damage, + extra damage per Debuff on target. Removes all Debuffs afterwards. (meant to be a final attack, but as most debuffs do not last long, it may be hard to have enough on target to be worthwhile; unless entire team is built around applying debuffs.)

Useful Passives:

• Venom Coat - Adds Poison (1 turn) to melee attacks.

The last of the "Tank" classes, with yet another odd mix of skills.
There's an AoE Taunt, but it doesn't provide enough threat to deal with threat caused by AoE damage sources. Your Wizard or Dervish will rip threat away in a heartbeat.
It has two different AoE Heal+Buff skills (1 gives Regen, other gives Armor Boost)... both cost MP, so don't expect to use them much.
It also has a Re-Raise spell, to let someone come back to life after death - for 38 MP. If you can't Tank to protect someone, just be a Necromancer!

It could make a good sub for a Healer, just for the AoE Heal spells.

Key Skills : ( Mostly Magic, 2 skills require Sword or Spear / Vit for 2 dmg skills)

• Warcry - AoE Threat generation. (though questionable amount/value compared to an AoE Damage like Reaper.)
  
• Healing Breeze - Party-wide Heal + Regen (4 turns). (Heals more based on Vit+Spr, but it's not a lot.)
  
• Steeling Wind - Party-wide Heal + Armor Up (2 turns) (Same healing as above)
  
• Re-Raise - Buff lasting 6 turns, on death automatically revive with 25% HP. (38 MP, so very expensive)
  
• Steel Heart - Immune to: Poison, Bleed, Burn, Fatigue, Daze. The first 3 immunities are amazing; and the main reason to be interested in this skill for tanking/survival.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Call to Arms - 38 MP, 16 AP, target any non-self party member - Resets all cooldowns. Very expensive, and not sure why you would want to use this skill...
  
• AP Transfer - 16 MP, gives some of your AP to another ally. Maybe useful for giving AP to Nomad or Samurai.... but may be better to do any other skill instead.
  
• Thawed Heart - Increases Healing-per-turn status effects (Regen) by 35%, but also any damage-per-turn (Bleed/Poison/etc) by 35%. Situationally useful on fights that don't poison or bleed.
  
• Bracing Strike - Costs 12 AP, Damage based on Atk & Vit, generates 50% more threat. .... but isn't a lot of damage, so not a lot of threat still. Better off to Taunt.
  
• Steeling Strike - Costs 24 AP, same notes as Bracing Strike. Not enough extra damage/threat for double the cost.
  
• Equip Spear (passive) - Because so many other class skills allow use of Spear speifically.... >.>

Useful Passives:

• Auto-Revival - Get Re-Raise buff for 6 turns at start of battle. Prevents "1st-turn AoE Party Wipe", but you'll be close to death so need to heal up. Only good once.
  
• Commander - Lose 50% less Threat each turn. Did you know Threat degrades each turn? If you want a serious tank, you may consider sacrificing a whopping 5 PP for this.... or maybe it's too expensive for what it gives in return. Your call.

Summoner requires finding and defeating special bosses scattered through the world, for the "right" to use them in battle.
You must take someone as Summoner class to challenge them, but once the battle is won, anyone can learn the spell for LP. (Yes, they still cost LP to learn.)
Can only use each summon spell once per battle, at huge MP costs. Many of them cost 60-70 MP to use.
Expensive, but situationally useful. Best used for specific boss strategies.

Key Skills : ( Magic / mostly Mind )

• Tira - 70 MP, 45 CT - Gives all allies Blink (evade next 2 physical attacks).
  
• Niltsi - 65 MP, 60 CT - AoE Wind Damage plus Silence for 1 turn (cannot cast magic)
  
• (other attack spells have similar costs and a 1-2 turn debuff)

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Initial Resist - 3 PP for Resist Up buff for first 2 turns. Situationally useful maybe, but is very short-lived for the cost...
  
• MP Boost - 4 PP for +20% Max MP. Way overpriced for the benefit.

Useful Passives:

• n/a

Another class that I beleive needs some love .... relies on "Variance" and random luck. Oh, it's slow as heck too - all skills have long CT.
Basically, "50% variance" on an Axe means your final attack damage will be randomized either up or down by 50%.
Your 500 damage skill may anywhere between 250 to 750 damage.... RNG/Luck dependant, but this class has terrible Luck. :|
Damage can't go negative, so if you have 150% variance, your 500 damage skill could do between 0 - 1,250.
Higher luck gives you a better chance to have rolls turn out in your favor.

In theory, could be useful as a Subclass, used by a Main class with better Strength & Luck.
(I haven't tried this myself, as I am lacking said love of RNG.)

Skills are "Axe/Unarmed", so finally something else for Monk synergy!

Key Skills : ( Axe or Unarmed (why can it equip Dagger??) / Strength )

• Wild Stance - Luck-50%, Variance +100%. You're already gambling with damage by using this class, so why not increase risk and potential gains?
  
• Feast - Basic attack, but 100% Lifesteal.
  
• Gouge / Furrow - Good damage, plus Armor Down / Resist Down.
  
• Hew - High damage (and CT), but removes a Buff ! (very few skills remove Buffs, and Warlock Dispell also removes a Debuff at the same time....)
  
• Feral Stance - Targeting becomes random, but gives +25% more attack. Potentially good for single-target fights? (haven't used myself to know if worthwhile).

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Famine - Very low damage, but absorbs 200% as MP. Requires Axe or Unarmed to use.... neither this class, Nomad(Nomad w/ Axe lol) or Monk(Unmarmed) have much use for MP. Maybe useful for Beastmaster/Scholar or Shaman/Beastmaster; but the subclass's abilities will be weak without the matching main class stat to back them up. Who is this meant for???
  
• Jugular - Super long CT (80!!), but applies a unique debuff: "in 2 turns, Instant Kill" . Maybe useful for high HP non-bosses; but means you have to survive those 2 turns. (but think of it as 3 turns, since it takes so long to use). Maybe situationally useful....

Useful Passives:

• Duel Ready - At battle start, 1st attack guaranteed to Crit.
  
• Threatening - Generate 15% more Threat. At only 2 PP, not a bad choice for a tank class. (Why is it on this class, so late game??)

A lot of builds using Weaver focus on abusing it's Innate Passive on first turn.
Outside of that, it has some useful tricks, but is hard to value as a stand-alone class.
It's usefulness will largely depend on what other class you combine it with.
Note it's abilities all cost MP and have CT as well.


Key Skills : ( Magic, not stat dependant )

• Slow - Debuff for 4 turns (turns ready in 25% more time). Need to slow down a faster boss?
  
• Haste - Buff for 4 turns (turns ready in 25% less time). Need to speed up a slow party member?
  
• Dust - Target's next action comes immediately. (Basically, pull a Party member up to be the next turn)
  
• Quick - 40 MP, 40 CT - gives you 2 turns once the spell is cast. So basically, burning 40 MP and waiting 40 CT to get a bonus turn.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Statis - 9 MP, pick a target, holds your turn until after the selected target's turn.
  # My personal thought, a "wait" command should be part of the base combat menu from the start of the game. #
  
• Stability - Apply buff for 2 turns: "received buff duration +50%". Ok, but for the cost of a turn - this should be a permament buff; not just 2 turns.
  
• Rewind - 24 MP, 20 CT - "Rewinds HP, MP, AP and Status to previous turn values". This seems very niche/gimicky. I'm sure there's some use for it, but beyond recovering HP or MP, but seems awkward. Would make more sense and be more easily understood if it was a rewind to "beginning of battle", but could be very abused.

Useful Passives:

• n/a ?

Another class that can be used for interesting gimicks, but that is the entirety of what the class can do.
It's stats are fairly poor, so it won't be nearly as effective as the original skill that it is copying.
You may have difficulty lining up turns so that the Mimic goes directly after the party member's skill that you want to Repeat.

I've read some interesting uses if you can perfectly align the turn timing; but I still feel this class's usefulness is very limited outside of those hyper-specific setups.


Key Skills :

• Copy - Use the ability which the user was last hit by. Can pick target, but must spend costs.

Questionable / Poor Skills :

• Imitate - Change sub-command to the target ally's Class for the rest of the battle. In theory, this should change your Passive as well.
  Could be useful for some interesting trickery, letting you have a character that could "change class-ish" in battle by copying Sub-Command (and thus it's innate passive) during a battle; however the base stats of this class are so poor it may be hard to effectively utilize any copied class.
  
• Repeat - Repeats the last seen ability on the same target(s) at no cost. In theory, this could be useful... but only if you have a matching weapon equipped, or the ability did not require a specific weapon. You can copy a monster ability, but note the "same target(s)" caveat...
  
• Observe - Wait until immediately after whichever turn comes next. Could be useful, but only works for 1 turn stall; could still be useful .... but has a Cooldown. So if an enemy is doing something in 3 turns and you want this character to heal afterwards, nope.
  
• Mirror - Copy "all" statuses from a target Ally to the user.... except not actually "all". From my own testing, it seems that statuses gained from Perks (Refresher) or Equipment (1st turn Magic Boost) do not count.
  
• Equip All (Passive) - Lets you equip everything, but costs 10PP. Any weapon can be equiped for 1-3 PP instead.

Useful Passives:

• Nope.