Pugilist: Pugilists are fist-fighters that fight at extreme close range. striking foes from the rear and flank with an array of punches and kicks. The pugilist's unique trait is Greased Lightning, and ability that increases the pugilist's attack speed and damage as they pummel their foes. Later, when Pugilists become monks, they gain additional abilities to stun enemies, remove buffs and boost the party's healing power. The pugilist focuses heavily on hitting the opponent from the side and rear with constant frequency and speed. Positioning is key to successful pugilist and monk play. Because of their speed, monks tend to hit lighter than other damage-dealing classes with fewer big hits, but more consistent damage across the board.
Lancer: Lancers are spearmen that focus on dealing a flurry of damaging attacks, debuffs and damage over time with spear or lance. Lancers excel at dealing damage at all sides, slowing or stunning their foes or setting up powerful physical attacks. Among the damage-dealing classes lancers deal the highest amount of damage per hit over the other classes and tend to focus more on bigger numbers and "burst" style damage. Later, as they become dragoons, they can cross huge gaps in distance with jump attacks and mix in both physical weapon skills with instant attacks from jumps, buffs like Blood for Blood and and area-pf-effect attacks like Doom Spike, and Dragonfire Dive. Lancers and dragoons are among the most balanced and well-rounded of the damage-dealing classes, containing an array of ranged attacks, single-target attacks, and area-effect attacks. The lancers and dragoons rely on a strict, though easy, rotation that doesn't deviate, but does contain many different steps and power ups.
Archer: Archers are a ranged physical damage class. Amongst the ranged classes, they are the fastest and most consistent. They can pelt targets from a distance with a hail of arrows and focus specifically on dealing critical damage frequently and as often as possible. Despite their great range, they are not limited on mobility and can easily avoid dangerous attacks, while continuously firing upon the target. Due to these advantages, archer damage tends to veer on the lower end on a per-hit basis. Lower than pugilists or lancers. Make no mistake, however, as archers ability to fire while on the move and at a distance keeps them on par with their melee cousins. Archers rely on a "process" based attack system. In short, usage of abilities generates "procs" which improve the abilities, refresh cooldowns, or increase the damage of the archer's attacks. As a result, archers don't have a set rotation and instead rely on a "circle-of-life" proc system which revolves around generating critical strikes to proc and refresh attacks. Later, as archers become bards they gain a variety of support-style songs that buff allies or hamper foes. Amongst the physical-damage classes, archers have some of the best area-effect attacks that can hit multiple enemies at once for great damage.
Rogue: Rogues are close-ranged assailants that deal damage from the shadows, weaken their foes with debuffs, or deal tremendous amount damage over a short period of time. Rogues contain a number of unique, utility-style abilities including poisons which change the effect of certain attacks like Mug or Juggulate. In addition rogues can deal large chunks of damage with sneak attacks and trick attacks, or assist their allies with TP regeneration through the use of goad. Acting as a sort of middle-ground between pugilists and lancers, rogues are capable of hitting big numbers like lancers and attacking frequently like pugilists, yet while excelling at neither, nor burdened by their shortcomings. Later, as rogues become ninjas then begin to carve their own niche in the party by applying ninjutsu, unique spells that can be used to fit the situation as it demands. Dealing with a large number of weak enemies? Use a Katon or Doton spell. Need to deal strong single target damage? Use a Raiton. Got a distance foe? Summon a Fuma Shuriken to damage them from afar. As a result, rogues and ninjas are great jacks-of-all-trades and provide some utility to small and large parties through the use of offensive and defensive abilities.
Arcanist: Arcanists are spell-casters that summon pets and deal large amounts of damage over a period of time. Arcanists primarily debuff targets with poisons and non-elemental spells while their pets assist them with direct damage magic, or absorb damage as a tank. As arcanists deal damage through in-direct means, their direct damage spells and abilities are somewhat lacking. Do not mistake this for a sign of weakness, and the damage over time quickly adds up. Combined with pet assistance, the arcanist is a powerful spellcaster. Supplementing their damage over time is their unique ability of Aetherflow. Aetherflow grants a stack of ammo that can be used to cast unique spells that deal large amounts of direct damage or can be used to spread the arcanists DoTs across targets. Later, arcanists can become summoners or - if their prefer a role more suited towards defense - scholars. Summoners gain the ability to summon classic Final Fantasy summons like Ifirit and Titan and combine their unique abilities with the summoner's own. As a summoner levels up, they'll gain abilities to power up their pets and unleash their ultimate attacks. In addition to providing some utility-support with spells like Virus, Eye-for-an-Eye and Resurrection.
Thaumaturge: Thaumaturges are powerful single and multi-target spellcasters. Their focus is dealing tremendous amount of single target and multi-target damage directly at the enemy, the classic offensive spell caster. Their primary trait revolves around the ability to deal damage through the use of fire and ice elemental attacks. Fire attacks are powerful spells that grow in power the more they are used while ice spells, such as Blizzard, are used to recover MP while maintaining offense. Thaumaturges will rotate between these two elements dealing damage to foes and providing light support through crowd-control abilities like Sleep. Later, as thaumaturges become black mages, they can access to ancient magic - powerful spells that can deal lots of damage to multiple targets. Black mages and thaumaturges are straight up, no frills, long range spell casters and excel at dealing lots of damage.