This is part 3 of my job enhancement overview. You can view part 1, which covered Holy Cavalier and Dark Cavalier, here (I still need to add Ark), and part 2, which covered Holy Brawler and Ninja, here.

I've said this in my other overviews, but again, job mastery bonuses for job enhancements are minimal. So in global, if you're not going to use a unit's JE as the main job, and you're not going to get any useful basic sub-skills, reactions, or passives out of the JE, then it's not worth doing the JE, because the stat boost is insignificant. On the other hand, if you are using the JE as the main job, you get a pretty decent stat boost out of it because the J11 equipment is better. In JP the job mastery bonuses seem higher, so this may eventually change in global.

Anyway, let's proceed. In the tables below, if an ability is changed, I'm only going to list changed stats. So for example, Weapon Crush -> Severed Blade. They're identical in damage, cost, area, and duration, so I'm not going to list that. I'm only going to list what is changed; but if I specifically spell something out in the original, and not in the new skill, then it means that the new skill doesn't have that (ex: Guard Stance gives PDEF, MDEF, healing, and evasion, whereas Diamond Formation trades all of that for Slash Resistance).

For stat boosts, I'm only going to list the real major ones, like MOVE 1 or built-in resistances. If you're interested in seeing the exact stat differences, you can play around with the unit planner here (you'll need to use the Japanese version for now).

I took this information from a combination of wytesong's compendium and the Japanese alchemistcodedb. If the Japanese version differs from what we get in global, there may be some changes that I'll need to make after Thursday. I took the names from the news post we received in global, so those should be accurate.

I bounced some of my ideas off of the players in the Japanese Discord channel, so a huge thank you goes out to them, especially to /u/Kahare.

Ranger

Falcon

Specialized in evasion. 5 Evasion Rate and 11 Missile ATK built-in.

Characters: Hazel, Ryle, Sabareta, Seida, Ishuna, Artemis (when I have a character's name italicized, it means that the character will eventually get this job enhancement, but does not have it yet in global, or that the character is not available yet)

Falcon adds a new passive, which is pretty nice if you like dodge memes. Keep in mind that passives DO stack (unlike gear), so you can throw on Shadow Jump and Feint for 40% evasion, then a Swallow's Scarf for a total of 50% evasion ( 55% evasion if running Falcon as your main job).

Falcon Dive is kind of weird. The hit rate on it has been nerfed compared to the Wide Barrage that it replaces. It still does two attacks, but each one only has a 45% chance of hitting. That's a 69.75% chance of at least one hitting. Debuff resistance/immunity is less common than the status ailment resistance/immunities, so this has a better chance of working than Blind.

Since this whole JE is about missing/accuracy, let's cover that real quick. Evasion gained from passives increases the chance of the enemy getting a "Miss". This can be bypassed by the enemy having a high DEX (or you having low DEX) or by getting a combo attack. The "Evade" that you'll sometimes see is from reactions, so that's separate. Since Ryle can also run Perfect Evasion reactive, what it means is the game will check if the attack would hit through the evasion passive/DEX/lowered accuracy, and if it does, it has a 10% chance for Ryle to evade. Note that Perfect Evasion only works on physical attacks/skills.

All in all, Falcon is pretty decent, but it's also luck-based. If you're like me, giving the enemy a 10% chance to hit may as well be 100%... if you tend to be pretty lucky, then this is a great JE for you.

WARNING: I heard when I first started that if you have Ranger as your sub-job, the AI really likes using Wide Barrage in auto mode. Because of that, I've always avoided unlocking Wide Barrage for rangers. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong; but if that's still the case, keep that in mind before unlocking Wide Barrage/Falcon Dive, because if they do favor using Falcon Dive they basically have a ~30% chance of wasting their turn.

Lupus

Specialized against Beasts and Monsters. 11 Missile ATK built-in.

Characters: Milis, Eros, Rigalt, Yuan, Gunner

It's important to note what monsters and beasts are here. Monsters are basically everything that isn't of the human, demon, or machine type (Vermin, Beetle, Kaiser, Familiars [AKA Dragons], Mandragoras, Lizards, Ratties, Wolves, and later Blobs/Oozes, Minotaurs, and Griffins). Beasts are a smaller sub-set within monsters. They include Ratties, Wolves, and later Griffins and Cyclops (notably, Cyclops are the only creatures to my knowledge that are beasts but not monsters). Anyway, Monsters encompass a good number of enemies, whereas Beasts are very few.

That out of the way, Lupus doesn't give you a lot. The damage increase on Scouting Shot isn't terribly significant, although Monster is a common enough type that it's still useful. The -2 movement is nice, as it's a pseudo slow that bypasses resistance/immunity to slowness (assuming they don't also have resistance/immunity to debuffs). Beasts are few and far between, and typically beast type enemies aren't a huge threat, so Cerberos Rain is meh. Further, other than Gunner, who probably won't run this JE as her main anyway, none of the units that get this JE are all that great.

Serpent

Specialized in Jewel damage. 11 Missile ATK built-in.

Characters: Tamamo, Dark Princess Yomi, Disgaea Rin, Shekinah, Belta

The formula sqrt(Damage)*2 is kind of hard to visualize on paper. Shackle Rain will probably hit for somewhere between 400 damage (=20 jewel damage) to 600 damage (=49 jewel damage) not counting elemental affinities.

Serpent is pretty good but global tends to give enemies in EX /Elite Quest massive jewel regen because Roxanne exists. I didn't notice the enemies in Stairway to Heaven/Crystal EX having jewel regen, but they definitely did in the FMA EX events. The viability of this class will depend heavily on whether Gumi continues to slap jewel regen on everything in the higher difficulties. If they do, then Serpent is useless for those missions. If they don't, then it's actually a pretty good class. Keep in mind that jewel regen or not, this class doesn't help much at all against "boss" enemies who tend to have 999 jewels. Against normal enemies, though, denying a group of enemies 20-49 jewels can be pretty significant.

I will say that this JE is probably a little more "advanced", because to use it optimally you'll need a rough guess of how much jewel damage you're doing to do (not sure if it'll tell you), and then you need to know what skills the enemy has and their jewel costs. So either be knowledgeable or play with the AlchemistcodeDB in front of you if you want to use this class effectively.

Professor

Aid

Specialized in healing

Characters: Hazuki, Amaterasu, Decel, Jake, Ennis

I'm not going to do a table here because there are too many changes and the tables are a pain; but basically all abilities that cure a status plus heal in both the main and sub skills have been boosted so that the 60% MATK scaling at level 20 was buffed to 120% MATK scaling. The health potion went from 187% MATK scaling at level 20 to 202% MATK scaling and it has been changed to a diamond 2 AoE (so 13 squares total), but its cost went from 8 to 24 and it went from 10 to 5 charges. The PATK/PDEF and MATK/MDEF drugs also got an 67% MATK (at level 20) HP heal added.

That sounds like gibberish so lets run some numbers on that. Let's take Hazuki and give her Battlefield Drama and Magic Up 1. This puts her at 484 MATK with Aid as her main job. Medical Shower, your big AoE heal, will heal for 202% of your MATK. That's 978 health, so roughly 2/3 of any of the big meta units' HP. This makes it the best healing class that we'll have in global (don't know about in JP), because as a comparison, Curing Embrace from Bishop has 160% MATK scaling.

So the big problem with Aid is that every unit who gets it is pretty mediocre (or outright terrible). Jake, Decel, and Ennis go from Chemist to Professor, so that's cool, I guess? I don't really tend to use any of the status cure abilities, because you're normally only using a professor if you need Vaccine, so you shouldn't need to be curing statuses. You need to be careful with Medical Shower because in order to effectively use it, you need to group up your team. This, of course, makes them susceptible to an AoE. If you're not healing for significantly more than you're getting hit by, then you're back to square one.

Bio

Specialized in inflicting poison. 56 poison resistance (Professor normally gives 18; Chemist gives 0).

Characters: Gane, Kuon

Bio only buffs a single ability, by slightly scaling the damage, and by increasing the damage rate to 25% of the target's max HP. With the "Knowledge of Poison 2" passive, that becomes 40% damage rate with 1 poison duration, for a total of 160% of their max HP in damage over 4 turns. That might sound nice on paper, but it doesn't really work in practice. Most of the big enemies who poison would be most effective on are immune/highly resistant to poison. The enemies that aren't immune to poison can usually be killed within two turns anyway, so the poison doesn't get much of a chance to work its course. You might get some level that can be cheesed with the use of poison, but outside of that, this JE isn't going to see much use... especially given that it's only on Gane (and later Kuon).

Michael's J is pretty similar to Bio, so if you're really itching to get Bio for some reason, just grab Michael's J on Thursday.

Honey

Specialized for enemy status effects. 52 charm resistance (Professor and Chemist normally get 10).

Characters: Elizabeth, Lucretia, Melia

Love Potion and Tranquilizer get moved from Main Ability to Basic Ability

The effectiveness of this is pretty map dependent. They can be great on the right map, but if the enemies are all immune/resistant, then it doesn't do you much good, as the proc chance isn't any higher with these new skills. Human enemies do tend to be more susceptible to these effects. It's cool that Love Potion and Tranquilizer got moved out to the basic abilities instead of being outright replaced, which will be handy when Lucretia gets her Bride J .

Anyway, the fact that both Elizabeth and Lucretia tend to run Professor as their main means that you're probably going to want to pick up Honey for the stat boost, so long as you decide to run Professor as their main.

Mad

Specialized in buff enhancement.

Characters: Vincent, Noah, Alyu, Natalie, Houzuki

Ultra Syrup isn't really enough to make you want to run Mad as your main over any other job - so you're in this for the buffs to the basic abilities, which are now fairly worthwhile. What's also great is that three of the five people who get Mad also have Bard, so you can throw on the Echo passive to give all of your buffs an extra turn. Still, I'd probably only bother using this in a map where you really need to one-shot an enemy and the Mad buff is what makes the difference in doing so. The JE isn't good enough to dust off your Vincent; but it'd be worth putting on Noah as a Basic when she gets it, depending on the map. Alyu eventually gets a bard JE, at which point she's a somewhat decent support character with that as her main and this as her basic.

Closing

All in all, these JEs are "meh". Since we got a token and gear package for our last two JEs, let's assume we get them on Thursday. Unlike our last two sets, none of these JEs are clearly superior to another, so I can't tell you which to gun for. I would say if you tend to use a character a lot, then get that JE - so probably Falcon for Ryle, Serpent for Tamamo (if you have her at LB15 ), or Honey for Elizabeth or Lucretia. If you're desperate for a healer for some reason, you can go with Aid. As a note, unless you're going to run Hazel as a Ranger, or want the Evasion passive, then Falcon may not be worth getting for her since the job mastery bonus difference is minimal.

I'll probably go with Honey purely because I use Elizabeth and Lucretia, and it'll be a stat boost. Since there are more Professor JEs than Ranger JEs, it'll be ever-so-slightly faster to get Ranger drops vs. Professor drops. Not sure if I'll use it on Elizabeth or Lucretia - I'll probably just sit on the tokens until the first time I need to use one of them.