Squire

The Squire class is where many of your characters will begin the game. While it is not very powerful, the skills learned here are valuable to a character throughout the game. Squires are good fighters early on due to their good balance of attack types, combined with decent speed and movement ability. This class truly is "The starting point to becoming a fine warrior."

In battle, the Squire is a good complement to the attack team with decent power and HP totals. You will probably want these guys on or near the front lines helping out your heavier attackers. Equipped with a good secondary skill, a Squire will be a formidable fighter during the first chapter and part of the second chapter. However, once you get further along, you should probably change to the more powerful classes as they become available and as you meet up with tougher enemies.

Equipment

Weapons: Knife, Sword, Axe, Hammer
Shield?: No
Helmet: Hat
Armor Type: Clothes

Basic Skills

Name	Description	Range	Effect	Vertical	MP	Speed	Jp	Useful?
Accumulate	Raise your physical attack power	0	1	N/A	0	Immediate	300	Yes
Dash	Dash at an enemy and attack them with a body blow	1	1	1	0	Immediate	80	Not really
Throw Stone	Throw a stone at an enemy	4	1	N/A	0	Immediate	90	Very useful early in the game Not so good later
Heal	Heal abnormal status conditions - Darkness, Silence, and Poison	1	1	2	0	Immediate	150	Not really

The Squire's ability set of basic skills is just that: a set of basic battle techniques. These combine attacks with healing tactics for a decent ability combination that is a good skill set to keep available early in the game. Of the Squire's abilities, make sure to pick up Throw Stone first. This gives your Squire an immediate attack with medium range while he/she is a Squire. It does minimal damage, but earns you the JP that you will need to advance to the higher classes. If you plan to commit a character to this field or plan to set Basic Skills as a secondary set of skills, save up the JP to buy Accumulate next. This can be used at any time during a battle and raises the attack power of the character using it by one. It also seems to earn more JP than the other skills. The other skills are okay, but not ones to bother with, unless you want to master this job class.

These skills make a decent, usable secondary skill set early on, but become obsolete once you advance to higher job classes and learn more effective secondary skills. You may want to leave this as a secondary ability through most of Chapter 1, but try to switch to a better skill set as soon as you can.

Reaction Abilities

Name	Description	Trigger	JP	Useful?
Counter Tackle	After being physically attacked, counter with a body blow	Physical Attack	180	Early on

The Squire's lone reaction ability, Counter Tackle, is a decent reaction skill. After being attacked, your character can counter with a dash attack. This skill is a decent one to start out with, but I personally abandoned the use of this after learning Weapon Guard as a Knight.

Support Abilities

Name	Description	JP	Useful?
Equip Axe	Allows the character to equip an Axe	170	Not really
Monster Skill	Character talks to friendly monsters within a range of 3 panels, giving them access to their hidden skill.	200	Sometimes
Defend	Character defends against an attack, lowering damage	50	Rarely
Gained JP Up	Increases the amount of JP earned in battle	200	Always

Of the Squire's support skills, make sure to buy Gained JP Up for all your characters. This skill is critical for character development, as the faster you gain JP, the faster you can obtain more elaborate skills and job classes. Make it a priority to buy this skill and equip it as soon as possible. The usefulness of this skill makes the other support skills of this class almost a waste of time, unless a character is specifically training to become a Master Squire or a Mime. The skill Equip Axe allows a character to equip a powerful Axe as a weapon. This might be useful if you are training in a weaker class like Wizard, Time Mage, Priest, or Thief, but I would prefer to get the more expensive, but more useful Equip Sword skill as a Knight. Monster Skill is worth getting if you plan to actively use monsters in battle, but if you don't plan to use monsters, don't even bother. Defend is a cheap and decent skill for your weaker characters early on, but becomes obsolete quickly as you gain more powerful skills.

Movement Abilities

Name	Description	JP	Useful?
Move + 1	Increases a character's movement range by 1	200	Early on

The Squire's lone movement skill, Move + 1, is valuable early on, but becomes obsolete once you gain access to skills like Move + 2, Move + 3, or Ignore Height. I suggest getting this and equipping it, but switching to a better movement skill during Chapter 2.

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