I love Alchemist. I found it on my first New Game Plus and I hardly ever swapped Rikku out of it. Find the Mug garment grid and you're set.

Yeah, Baralai is fast, and (as Paine suggests in an aside) tougher than he looks. One of the things I love about him. :) My mistake the first time was trying to use dresspheres that I wanted to level up rather than just whacking him with magic. ;)