Right, I have this thing going on.
For our next roudn of FFTA Jobs we have the three blade wielders: the Fighter, the Gladiator and the Mog Knight. I'm talking about these Jobs collectively because of their similarities in various aspects.
All three Jobs are meant as offense-oriented, physical damage dealers. They tend to feature a good mix of offensive power, mainly in melee, with little in the way of utility.
The three Jobs generally follow a similar stat distribution: good HP, mediocre MP, very good Attack, ok Defense, bad Magic, low Resistance and mediocre Speed; the Mog Knight being the exception in having good Defense and Resistance. Meanwhile the Fighter ges the worst MP growth, though it's also the one with the least MP use of the three.
For equipment all three can wield blades; the Fighter and Gladiator get only clothes and hats for armor, while the Mog Knight also being able to use heavy armor, helms and shields.
Abilities are where we see each Job having its own distinction, even if there's still commonalities. Speaking of those, each Job has their variant of the basic attack + knockback ability (Rush for Fighters and Gladiators, Mog Attack for Mog Knights) and a high power, low accuracy attack (Beatdown for Fighters and Gladiators, Mog Rush for Mog Knights).
Then we have abilities shared by only 2 Jobs: the Fighter and the Gladiator share Blitz (a high accuracy, low power attack; an inverse Beatdown, if you will) and Wild Swing (an AoE that hits the surrounding spaces; a variant of the White Monk's Whirlwind); the Fighter and the Mog Knight share a ranged attack ability, called Air Render for Fighters and Mog Lance for Mog Knights; and finally the Gladiator and the Mog Knight share their strongest attack, the respective race Ultima ability: Ultima Sword for Gladiators (Bangaas) and Ultima Charge for Moogle Kinghts (Moogles).
Finally there's each Job's exclusive abilities, that help to give each one their own niche.
Fighters have access to 2 AoE abilities: a ranged AoE called Far Fist (similar to the White Monk's Aurablast) and wind-elemental cone shaped AoE (Air Blast). Last we habe Backdraft, a strong Fire-elemental melee attack that deal recoil damage (Pokemon's Flare Blitz, basically). For Support Fighter have Doublehand, which works the same way it worked for Samurais in FFT. for Reaction they have 2 abilities: Bonecrusher (Counter but with more damage, we've seen this on Templars) and Strikeback. Strikeback allows the user to automatically evade and counter standard attacks, but it doesn't work on Abilities. It's somewhat similar to First Strike/Hamedo in FFT. Of the three Jobs the Fighter is the one with the greater access to both ranged and AoE abilities, and tend to be the most versatile. Due to this fact it's commonly used as secondary Job and less as the main one, but it still works well as melee unit. Quite a few Abilities can be used at weapon range, so it can work well with ranged units (Archers, Hunters), and Concentrate makes Beatdown much more accurate. It's also a common secondary Job for Paladins, since they have few direct damage and ranged Abilities.
Gladiators can deal elemental damage with the trio of Fire Sword, Bolt Sword and Ice Sword, strong melee-range elemental attacks. Bangaas as a race don't have access to Black Mages, so elemental damage for the classic 3 elements is available only through Gladiators or Dragoons (which have AoE on their Breaths and Jump for range, so they're generally favored). Gladiators also have access to Doublehand and Strikeback (but not Bonecrusher, that's a Templar ability), like Fighters. The Gladiator suffers from the fact that all it's abilities are either melee (the elemental swords, Wild Swing) or weapon range /the rest) and Bangaas don't get units with ranged weapons in FFTA, at best having access to Lances on Templar and Dragoon. The Dragoon itself is a strong competitor, having similar Attack, better range (lances, Jump) and access to AoEs (elemental and not). They still can work and make a scary melee unit, but you have to keep in mind their shortcomings.
Mog Knights, befitting their name, take a page from the Paladin's kit for their other abilities. They have Mog Guard, that improves Defense and Resistance for one turn, similar to the Paladin's Defense ability. They have Mog Aid, a self-only heal + status removal. They have Mog Shield for a 1-shot status prevention (a self-only Astra). Last they get Mog Peek, that detects rare items held by the target (actual in-game description); can't say I ever used it. For Support they get Shieldbearer, that lets other Jobs use shields. Their Reaction ability is Last Haste (Critical:Haste in A2), that self-casts Haste if reduced to critical HP; Mog Knight are though enough to make use of it, though compared to Bonecrusher or Strikeback (or Reflex if we compare to the Paladin) it comes up very short. Mog Knights are the best melee Job Moogles have access to; their shortcomings come from the low Speed and the relative lack of range. Levels in Thief or Juggler can help patch up their Speed, and they can employ Animist or Juggler as second Job to have access to ranged abilities. Mog Knight is a common second Job for Gunners, since the massive range of guns works very well with the weapon range abilities the Mog Knight has. Concentrate also helps a lot in making Mog Rush a reliable attack, for when Ultima Charge can't be used (60 MP per use, they go down fast).
What changes FFTA2 brings? For Fighters, not much. They lose Strike Back to the Parivir; however Back Draft now works by dealing Fire damage to both target and user, so if the Fighter absorbs Fire they'll be healed while attacking. Concentration is nerfed though, so no more accurate Beatdowns.
The Gladiator also changes very little, directly. Ultima Sword now costs 32 MP, so it's usable at all under A2's MP mechanic, but it now scales on Magic instead of being a straight x3 damage like it was in FFTA. The main change is that Bangaas now have 2 ranged Jobs, the Cannoneer and the Trickster, both of which have long-ranged weapons and can be used to great effect with Gladiator as secondary Job. The Trickster in particular is both very fast and has a high Magic growth, so it's possible for them to deal massive damage with a ranged Ultima Sword; pity that the elemental attacks are still melee range, they could have been useful with ranged weapons.
The Mog Knight, now Moogle Knight, it the Job that receives most changes, though even then it's not much. Mog Peek is replaced by Moogle Disarm, an ability can can destroy a piece of the target's equipment. Still not very useful, seeing the low accuracy and the inability to choose what equipment is destroyed. Ultima Charge's cost is also reduced to 32MP, like other Ultima abilities, and scales on Magic now. They're also affected by the Concentrate nerf, so for them also no more accurate Moogle Rush. That's the extent of the changes to the Moogle Knight.
As we can see, the changes are small and don't touch the main role of the Jobs. The Concentrate nerf hurts, though I'd argue that it's a more general nerf (warranted as it may be) and Fighters and Moogle Knights don't suffer from it too much unlike say the Assassin. The Gladiator is the Job that end up benefitting more, if indirectly, form the new Jobs.
