I dunno, I used Kirin for quite a while until the enemies start getting deathspell and so forth. (I bet Sylphas is going to come and tell me that it's only because you're "unconscious" that you suddenly stop regenerating now)

Eh, carbuncel and phoenix can be useful until you get reflect and Life3, I guess.

I NEVER used carbuncle or reflect in any of the games except fairly early in FF8 or against stupid monsters with reflect on themselves that are immune to physical attacks.

I use lots of cure team spells so it pisses me off when I forget and end up healing my enemy. (Phoenix is good though, in the games with 4 characters anyway.)

Against bosses that use all-magic reflect is amazing, and even if they just use it perhaps half of the time it helps a lot. The only problems are if you are low on healing items or the boss absorbs the element that it uses.

Also, little known trick:

In FF3, just cast reflect on yourself -and- the enemy. It only works one-way, so your opponents attacks will get bounced back still, but you can cure your reflected party by casting cure on the boss.

When I saw this thread had 2 pages, I just knew it was hijacked already.

EDIT: Now to add something constructie. Reflect is very, VERY useful in every FF game I played, after FF 4. I suppose Shiri didn't use Carbuncle as he did not want to overwork a furrikin-like esper/summon/whateva (what, it looks like one - especially in FF 8).
But yeah, in FF 6 summons are useless. Apart from Golem and ZoneSeeker, if you don't have Strago's Big Guard.

I just tended not to have Strago, if I can help it. Blue mages have always pissed me off, ESPECIALLY freaking Quina, since scan was obnoxious back then and didn't update, IIRC.

And man, you guys are weird, what do you do, heal with items?

(And I used to think "carbuncle" was a kind of ruby because of that thing, I think someone confused it with carmandine or whatever it's called and it got stuck.)

Anima was awesome? He projected pure pain, for goddess sake!

Anyway, my favorite are still Eiko's Eidolons from 9. Nice variety (like 10 that all do pure damage? Lame.), handy, and cool. Madeen is awesome.

Also, Hades from FF7, for his synergy with Added Effect.

Being able to level up your GFs in 8 can make the game insanely easy if you level them all to 100 with Seifer in the beginning.

Magus Sisters were random, but awesome. Affliction immunity, and insane attacks.

It's a she. And it's STILL a mummified bondage fish.

Thought it might be a she. Damn. And shush. Nothing wrong with bondage, though the mummy thing is kind of creepy. Except it's a magical being and all, so it's not really.

Damnit, I turn my back on a thread for 2 minutes and I see 5+ more posts already.

Okay, to respond to Shiri...

Carbuncle is a type of ruby. The esper is called like that because it has one on its forehead - but apart from that, it's basically a small animal-like thing with a long tail. Hence, a furrikin.
About curing with reflect on... you can do what Guido says - reflect the enemy, cast healing on them. It's unpredictable though, as you do not know who from your team will get healed. But whatever! When fighting magic-using enemies, they will most of the time not hurt you, the spells will bounce off. Hence, no healing is needed. And when an enemy has strong physical attacks, reflecting is useless anyway. If someone gets badly wounded, use a Hi-potion or something (yes, waste of gold - I know).

Oh, you're right.

A painful localized bacterial infection of the skin and subcutaneous tissue that usually has several openings through which pus is discharged.

A deep-red garnet, unfaceted and convex.
Obsolete. A red precious stone.

I only knew the first one. And the unpredictability of double-reflect is something I don't like. If I say heal Squall, I want to freaking heal Squall, not Zell.

Much love for free megapotions from Alchemists in X-2.

Or duped megalixirs in 7. I went through those like candy for a while.

Duped megalixirs? Remind me, doesn't ring a bell.

And free megapotions were nice, but the alchemist kind of pissed me off in general, more so than the rest of X-2 that is, so I didn't use it much.

Dude, free megapotions. Alchemist is an incredibly healer, and has decent combat skills otherwise.

With W-Item, you selected one, targeted it, selected another, canceled, selected another, canceled... every time you did, it duped the item for you. Quite handy, especially when it's mainly used instead of blowing 50 hi-potion and running to town every three minutes to restock.

Yea but the problem was that I got it pretty late and unlike most of the later classes its early abilities STINK so I was stuck either throwing potions constantly or just shooting people with that weak gun. X_x

Mixing is a nice way to get instant megapotions too, and that's early, and cheap.

from memory the general rule with reflecting is that it bounces back stronger, so even against a physically based enemy reflecting everyone would still work unless they have the scripting to use it to their advantage (Edea in FF8 used the reflect tricks)