General Sources:

Stuck with a specific class that you have no clue how to use? http://www.garath.net/Sullla/FF/finalfantasy.html has solo single class challenges with _EVERY_ class except Mime. Useful for seeing how to get potential from classes.

Stuck on a specific fight? http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/588331-final-fantasy-v/faqs/30040 has ALL the data in the game. If this doesn't help formulate a strategy, then you're probably looking at it wrong :P

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As1XoaEFimODdEdpbXVYVFNuaUQ0TEZnRlliajZtMFE#gid=0

The useful enemy data for farming things. Contains places where you can learn Blue Magic, all steals and drops.

Encounter chart for the seas in the endgame: http://smg.photobucket.com/user/SamuraiGoroh/media/Final%20Fantasy%20V/ff5ocean.gif.html

ALWAYS TAKE THE CHICKEN KNIFE http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Chicken_Knife

A more in-depth set of notes by Garlyle, made last year: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14275030/ffv%20fjf%20handbook.txt

They're useful, but also a bit overwhelming at first :P

Here's what "Heavy" does:

-Negates %-of-HP based damage (Spells such as Demi, L3 Quartr, etc)

-Negates "Reduce HP to critical" effects (Dark Elixir, Tornado, Whirlpool, etc)

-Negates all forms of Instant Death (even those that normally get around immunity: such as X-Zone or Phoenix Down on undead bosses)

-Negates Charm

-Causes Odin to perform Gungnir instead of Zantetsuken

-Negates instant kills via elemental weakness (Magic Knights)

Those first 4 points are a pretty big deal should you get Chemist, as you can make your characters Heavy. This is present on most, but not all bosses. Notably, the 4 Seal Guardians are NOT Heavy, leaving a lot of ways to cheese that fight.

Pressing "up" in the item menu in battle allows you to change your weapon mid-battle. This is how you break rods, by selecting the rod equipped. This casts the 2nd level elemental spell on all enemies, and they can be purchased in Karnak for 750 apiece. Rods also boost elemental damage for their element by 50%.

Items you DO NOT WANT TO MISS with any party.

Near the beginning of the game you can pick up a Healing Staff from Tycoon Castle. This replaces your regular attack with Cure2, for free-invaluable for a White Mage, and quite useful in many other parties as well.

The Elf Cape is a very nice accessory for the entire game, granting a 33% chance to evade physical attacks. There's one in Walse Castle basement, Karnak Castle (during Escape), and 1 in the Moogle Village. There is also a Guardian Dagger in Karnak Castle during the escape, which is an excellent dagger for that point in the game, in addition to a 25% chance to block physical attacks. All of these block/evade chances stack!

In the Hiryuu Valley/Mountain/wherever just past Kelb/Quelb, there's a skeleton lying on the ground. Searching it gives you the single highest defensive item in the game, the Bone Mail. There is a catch, though-it makes you undead, as well as the following other effects:

-Absorbs Poison damage

-Halves Ice damage

-Weakness to Holy/FIre damage

-Several status immunities: Death/Poison/Darkness/Old/Charm/Berserk/Regen

You can still heal via Drain, full heal via Death, and heal via elemental absorption. You can not be revived mid-battle.

Location: http://i.imgur.com/gvuTNCh.png

In the Moogle Village, there's a chest with the Dancing Dagger. You do not want to miss this, as it gives all classes that can equip daggers access to !Dance, meaning the 4x damage of Sword Dance and the ability to confuse. It's also a pretty nice dagger on its own for when you find it.

In the Forest of Moore, there is a chest that can be obtained once the forest begins burning. Pick it up before hiding from the blaze, and it's an Aegis Shield. After, it's a Flame Shield. The Aegis Shield has a 33% chance to block ANY AND ALL INCOMING ATTACKS, INCLUDING NORMALLY UNBLOCKABLE ATTACKS!!! It also makes the user immune to petrification.

Location: http://i.imgur.com/SaFDSpq.png

However, if your party does not have access to shields, the Flame Shield sells for more.

Near the end of the game, if you take Boko behind Istory Falls (via the river), you can find the Magic Lamp. This item, when used in battle, cycles through the summons in order. Once it gets to Chocobo, however, it casts it about 20 times before failing with the useless "Egg Chop". It will not summon Phoenix, Odin will always cast Zantetsuken (this allows you to kill a part of Neo Exdeath, specifically the back part: http://i.imgur.com/FphWf.gif). You can reset the casting order both where you picked it up and deep in the Great Trench.

Inside Mirage Village, behind the bar, one of the barrels contains a unique item, the Thief Knife. When attacking with it, it has a 1/2 chance to Steal, in addition to the attack. It's also a decent dagger on its own, and gives a +1 boost to speed.

Inside Fork Tower, you can get the Wonder Rod. The Wonder Rod casts Reset when used as an item in battle, breaking it...but resetting the battle resetting your inventory, as well. Meaning you still have it. However, attacking with it cycles through all the white magic, then all the black magic, then back through the white magic. This allows parties without white or black magic to prepare a spell, 1 singular spell, to cast in a boss fight. This includes Holy, Flare, Berserk, and Break!

Class Specific Stuff:

Knight: You rely on equipment. Can trivialize physical battles with Guard and Cover. 2-Handed makes your physicals deal double damage at the cost of not being able to equip a shield. Quite solid, but nothing special on their own. They synergize well with weaker classes, allowing you to pass on the Knight's strength with Equip Swords-yes, even a White Mage equipping swords will hit as hard as a Knight with this!

Monk: Damage goes up with level, not equips. !Kick helps sweep random encounters, not too useful in bosses. BuildUp takes 2 turns to deal 1 double damage attack, not too bad. They can counterattack innately, which is nice sometimes for getting around enemy counterattacks. Fairly simple class. The Brawl/Barehand ability passes on the Monk's insanely high strength to whatever class has it equipped-again, regardless of their current modifier! The Kaiser Knuckles near the end of the game are well worth picking up, boosting the Monk's attack power significantly.

Thief: Ummm...you can see secret passages, you're fast, and...you can steal stuff. The Flee ability is nice too. Oh, you also can never be back-attacked, which is nice. Thieves can pass on their Speed stat with Footwork, and bypass dagger effects with !Mug. This means you can use the Chicken Knife without fleeing, which, due to the Chicken Knife scaling with Agility and Strength, makes the Thief very useful with that weapon. There are some steals and drops you absolutely WANT TO GET, as they'll make your life much easier.

Skeletons in the Ship Graveyard can drop Daggers-you want 4 for these for Siren if you draw Thief early.

Pick up the Thief Glove on the Steamship. When equipped, doubles the success rate of steals (from 40% to 80%).

Full Moon is also on the Steamship, this thrown weapon deals full damage from the back row.

The Double Lance can be stolen in Galuf's Basement from the statue enemies. This dagger attacks twice and is the strongest dagger so far-a very nice pickup for a Thief.

Other useful things can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As1XoaEFimODdEdpbXVYVFNuaUQ0TEZnRlliajZtMFE#gid=0

The rest of the really useful stuff is as follows:

Walse Tower, Wyvern: Mythril Dagger

Near Karnak, Zu: Elixirs

Steamship, Poltergiests: Hi-Potions

Exdeath's Castle (Last visit), Owazoral: Mirage Vest (Armor that grants Image)

Exdeath's Castle (Lsat visit), Wall Mage: Wall Ring (Accessory with auto-reflect)

Phoenix Tower, Bella Donna: Coral Ring (Absorb Water, Immune to Fire, Weak to Bolt)

Phoenix Tower, Sol Cannon: Guard Ring (Auto-Regen)

Void, Necromancer: Bone Mail (Should your strategy involve multiple)

Void, Crystal Dragon: Elixirs (common steal!)

If you draw Berserker to go with Thief...Berserk your Thief, Footwork your Berserker. Instead of a fast, low damage character and a slow, high damage character, you now have 2 fast, high damage characters. It's not a kiss of death combo, in fact the 2 synergize very well together.

Black Mage: !Black boosts the Magic stat of any class who equips it. Black magic is amazing. Rods boost the damage by 50% for their element. There's not too much else to say-just burn everything.

White Mage: Well, you have healing. You have support statuses. You can even stick !White on someone out of battle to heal up, then give them their non-MP using ability before fighting again to conserve MP. Granted, you have to fight to the Water Crystal on 4 White Mages...but hey, the Flail from the Ship Graveyard helps, and the enemies in the Ship Graveyard are undead so you can heal them to death. The Healing Staff mentioned earlier means you're basically unkillable. You have to win in battles of attrition vs. Magissa/Forza and Galura, but they're quite manageable with Armor and patience-I beat Galura at Level 9, and could have done it lower. In the late game, you get access to Holy and suddenly have THE BEST OFFENSIVE SPELL IN THE GAME O_O. You'll be fine past Galura, so just push through.

Blue Mage: http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/snes/ff5/bluestrat.shtml

No, seriously. This is all you need. If you don't have Control, use the following methods of learning the following spells:

Fusion: Mythril Dragon in the Void, via confuse.

Missile: Prototype appears on an island in the southwest of the first world. He fights with Missile.

Guard Off: Shadows in the second world, when confused and given an Ether, can use this.

White Wind: Arage (red rabbit) near Exdeath's Castle can be confused to cast this via the Dancing Dirk.

Mighty Guard/Big Guard does not need to be controlled to learn, like White Wind it can be done with Confuse.

If you really need more help, http://www.garath.net/Sullla/FF/bluemage.html

Mystic Knight: You can pass on Magic and Strength with Magic Sword. Pick up all the spells, 1st level deal double damage vs. anything weak to it, 2nd level triple and 3rd level instant kill (!), or quadruple (!) damage if the target is immune to instant kills. Guaranteed petrification with Break Sword, if the target isn't outright immune. Mute Sword can remove elemental properties from your weapon. Flare Sword is obscenely powerful, as it ignores 3/4s of the enemy defense AND buffs your attack by 100.

Time Mage: Well, you have some nifty support spells, but what is damage? Can pass on Equip Rods. Haste is broken broken broken broken broken broken USE IT. Void LOCKS OUT ALL MAGIC FOR THE REST OF THE FIGHT, ON BOTH SIDES (some fights don't work with this, but it still neuters a lot). Exit is a free escape, and departure from a dungeon. Float can avoid damage floors. Quick gives the user two actions for the price of one. It's also 77 MP cost, so don't worry about it. Meteor is decent in boss fights. White Mage, Time Mage and Bard are very support heavy classes, hopefully you don't get stuck with those three to start... :V

Summoner: Passes on Magic to other classes with !Summon. Also, summons range from amazing to useless. Remember to use elemental boost items. Let's just go through the whole list, since that's what you'll be using...

Chocobo: Buy in Walse. Small physical damage to one target, rarely Fat Chocobo for large damage to all targets.

Sylph: Buy in Walse. Small magical damage to one target, also non-elemental. Functions as a party-wide Drain-no, seriously.

Remora: Buy in Walse. Paralyzes the target. Pretty much useless.

Shiva: Defeat in Walse Tower. Can be permanently missed. Less powerful than Ice2. Can be easily defeated by repeated attempts with Chocobo, or Sylph spam.

Ifrit: Mandatory boss. Shiva helps. Sligghtly less powerful than Fire2.

Ramuh: Optional boss near Istory. Slightly more powerful than Bolt2. Not too hard of a battle with physical damage.

Titan: Mandatory boss. Gaia Gear boosts Earth element damage. Obscenely powerful for when you get it, but misses flying enemies.

Golem: Optional event battle. On Hiryuu Mountain, defeat the other enemies while leaving Golem alive. This summon is really useful, as casting it will block ALL PHYSICAL DAMAGE UP TO THE CASTER LEVEL*50, +1000!!! You want this, really badly.

Shoat: Optional boss in the world 2 northwest forest. Can be permanently missed. Essentially Break with higher accuracy.

Carbuncle: Optional boss in Exdeath's Castle. Permanently missable. Standard "full party Reflect" summon. The fight is pretty nasty, though a Shoat summon after its 3rd attack instant kills it.

Syldra: Optional event in the Pirate Cave, near the end of the game. When boosted, as powerful as Bahamut. Air element.

Odin: Optional boss in Bal Castle. Instant Death. The fight is tricky with summoners due to the 1 minute real time limit to win, so hopefully you have other damage. Shoat can oneshot, if you don't mind the cheap kill.

Phoenix: Optional pickup at the top of Phoenix Tower. Straight upgrade to Ifrit's damage (same fire element), revives all dead party members with full HP...and MP!

Leviathan: Optional boss in Istory Falls. Win with Coral Rings. Fairly high Water element damage. No equips boost it, however.

Bahamut: Optional boss on North Mountain. Carbuncle makes the fight a joke. Non-elemental, hits all enemies like most summons. Syldra+Air Lancet deals more damage for less, though.

Red Mage: Well, your early-game is god tier. Past the first world...not so much. Still a decent utility class, requires a bit of Munchkining to get the most out of. X-Magic is nice on other spellcasters, and Red Mages work well with basically every other class. So there's that.

Berserker: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5FTJxfV3pc HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahahahaha...

Ok, there's some upsides. Give them as much strength as possible, pass on whatever you can to buff DPS. The Doom Axe can instantly kill-pick one of those up on Crescent Island. With the Thornlet or Giant's Glove equipped, their magic stat drops so low it goes below 0. The game treats this as 250+. In the Pyramid you can pick up an Earth Hammer, which has a 33% chance to cast Quake. You see where this is going, though it doesn't work in the GBA or iOS versions. You can still stick !Black on it on something to boost magic to make Quake useful. Of course, in some fights you're better off just killing your berserker...I'm sorry.

Beastmaster: They're hard to use, work well with Blue Mages, and all around decent in that respect. They have some high preparation high reward strategies that outright DESTROY certain boss encounters with the Catch command. Whips deal full damage from the back row, which is nice. You can grind on Shield Dragons in the Sealed Castle with Control (Coronet increases odds of this working) by having themselves Blaze to death. The Cornago Jar is a must get in the second world-catch a toad, give it to an old guy, equip it and BOOM-50% HP is enough to capture enemies instead of 12.5%. Useful captures are as follows-do remember that 1 monster per person gives 4, and there's some clever solutions abusing this.

Goblin: Flare (no, I'm not joking-though Goblins have a mere 8 HP, so good luck catching one)

Carcurser: Hug (Ship graveyard, petrifies)

Bandersnatch: Blaster (instant death, near Walse)

Zu: Breath Wing (air element, 25% max HP damage, works on basically anything! 4 of these kill anything with less than 40k HP, as long as they take full damage from air element. Near the Ancient Library.)

Mini Dragon: Holy (near Istory)

Sand Bear: Fight (Quicksand Desert...why is this important? because 2,000 damage, that's why)

Iron Dress: Fight (Cave of Shoat, 6,000 damage. No joke.)

Yellow Dragon: Thunder (Breath Wing but lightning element, Exdeath's Castle)

Great Dragon: Attack (9999, The Void Caves)

Some nice cheese strats include catching a D. Chimera (desert near library) for Aqua Rake to OHKO Sandworm, 4 Yellow Dragons to 1 round Exdeath, and 4 Aquathones (I think up near Lygor/Rugor) for Doom/Death on the Seal Guardians. There's other good uses for this class, but they're a bit harder to use. Just be patient and prepare your monster cannons carefully, and you should be able to deal some nice damage.

Geomancer: http://www.gamefaqs.com/gba/930369-final-fantasy-v-advance/faqs/60794

The FAQ says FFV Advance, but it holds for all versions. Just replace !Gaia with !Terrain or whatever. The main use is not taking damage from damage floors and not falling in trap pits. They rely a lot on the air element as well. Nothing too great anywhere, though they do have a nice Magic stat. Not too great, not too useful, don't work well with others-hopefully you have some other good classes.

Ninja: You win the game. Throwing is ridiculous, Scrolls deal damage by magic (feel free to pass some along to the ninja to make these broken tier, or throw to a mage), they have a flee, the have innate Image as an ability, they increase odds of preemptives, and can dual wield! If you draw Ninja, you've basically already won. However, it's not even the best Fire Crystal class...

Bard: !Hide is decent for dodging counters, and !Sing is way better than it looks. Not useful on its own, but in a party setting you kind of get to destroy everything. Harps deal percentage based damage, so they aren't too useful. A lot of the songs are easily missable, so don't miss any.

Play the pianos in Tule, Carwen, Karnak, Crescent and Jachol, then Lygor (hidden) and Moore, then finally in Mirage Town (very hidden) for the Power and Hero songs.

Vitality Song: Full party Regen. Learned in Crescent from the bard.

Love Song: Casts Stop on the entire enemy party with higher accuracy. Notably, this works on OMEGA. Learned in Istory from the bard. CAN BE MISSED

Charm Song (?): Same as Love Song, but with confuse. Learn from Lix (Bartz's hometown). CAN BE MISSED

Requiem: Massive damage to undead. Learn from Kelb.

Speed Song: Continuous cast until hit, raises party speed up towards 99. Speed is broken in this game. Learn from Surgate Castle.

Magic Song: Continuous cast until hit, raises party magic up towards 99. Learn from pot on top of Ancient Library. VERY EASILY MISSABLE, OBTAINABLE FOR ALL OF ABOUT 5 MINUTES

Power Song: Continuous cast until hit, raises party strength up towards 99. Learn in Crescent after playing 7 or 8 pianos.

Hero Song: Continuous cast until hit, raises party level up towards 255. Learn in Crescent after playing 8 pianos.

All songs are more effective if sung by multiple bards, speed increases rate of singing, level increases all damage. If you get bard, you have a cakewalk of an endgame, but getting there is a bit tougher.

Ranger/Hunter/Archer: Well, you have, IMO, the best Fire Crystal class. You get bows, Aim for auto-hit, the Killer Bow has a small chance of instant kills things, the Gale Bow attacks 4 times on attacking sometimes, X-Fight ignores defense and hits 4 times for half damage, and !Critt is actually the most surprisingly useful thing due to its chance to heal. Elemental bows keep the Hunter useful until X-Fight, the Legendary Bow has a whopping 30% crit rate. Honestly, if you get Hunter, you also win.

Samurai: The easy to use broken class. You don't need help. GilToss is the money cannon of death. Swordslap doesn't wake enemies and deals full attack damage. Samurai have a 33% innate weapon block effect. Katanas are crazy good. !Slash oneshots any non-heavy random encounter with 85% odds. Works on non-heavy bosses, too. Like Ninja and Hunter, you basically won already.

Dragoon: Dragoons are alright. The don't really synergize too well (outside !Lance on a mage for MP stealing), but they don't really die easily either. !Jump deals full damage from the back row and Dragoons can take hits really well. They're pretty simple, nothing special, but far from bad. Then again, nothing from the Earth Crystal is bad.

Dancer: You have Ribbons, the lowest Vitality (meaning HP) in the game, and lowish strengh too. However, Ribbons are really good, and you can pick one up as early as Karnak. !Dance will deal a lot of damage a lot of the time (when Sword Dance comes up-the drain and osmose aren't bad either, and even confusing has its benefits). Equipping a Rainbow Suit (or Red Shoes or Lamia's Tiara or Man Eater dagger) replaces the confuse dance with Sword Dance, which deals 4x attack damage. I suggest the Rainbow Suit as Hermes Sandals, Ribbon and Chicken Knife are all better choices for the slots, while the Dancer doesn't really have a better armor equip. Dancers work well with both physical and magical classes, surprisingly.

Chemist: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Mix_(Final_Fantasy_V)