A lot of the fun inBravely Default 2comes from the game’s extensive job system. Every boss has an Asterisk, and beating them will allow you to take that Asterisk and get a new job. In thisBravely Default 2jobs and abilities guide, we’ll walk you through all the jobs in the game, the best job and subjob combos, and a few tips for grinding Job Points (JP).
Each job gives you access to a new list of abilities as well as different weapon prophecies and base stats. Building your party requires more than throwing a couple of jobs together and hoping for the best, so make sure to carefully consider what each job is good at when building your lineup.
Further reading:
How to unlock every job in Bravely Default 2
You’ll unlock most of the jobs inBravely Default 2by simply playing the game. There are 24 jobs in total, and you’ll only miss three of them if you stick to the main storyline and ignore side content. Two of those come from easy side quests in Chapter 1 and Chapter 3, while the last job only becomes available after you beat the game once.
We won’t mention specific boss names or reference story events, but there may be minor spoilers below.
The Prologue introduces you to all the key jobs you need for the rest of your play-through. The Black Mage and White Mage jobs will likely follow you until at least Chapter 3, and the Monk job is useful throughout the game. Make sure to start leveling up the Freelancer job early so you can unlock JP-boosting passive skills.
Chapter 1 rounds out the basic lineup introduced in the Prologue. The Thief job is the most important, so make sure to level it up quickly. Otherwise, Chapter 1 brings the game’s first optional job, which you’re able to pick up at any point during the chapter.
Chapter 2 is all about specialization. Here, you’ll finally have access to wind and stone magic and powerful debuffs.
Chapter 3 brings a few more flexible jobs, allowing you to replace the White Mage and Black Mage jobs you’ve likely been using up to this point. Like Chapter 1, there’s an optional job that you may pick up at any point during Chapter 3.
Things change a bit in Chapter 4. Instead of a linear series of bosses, you’ll be able to unlock the first three jobs in any order you want. There isn’t a best way to go about it, so just track down whatever job seems most interesting to you.
New Game+ brings one additional job, allowing you to reach the game’s true ending.
The best job combinations in Bravely Default 2
There are countless ways to build your party inBravely Default 2.Half the fun is experimenting with different builds to see which jobs work together. We have five job combinations that you can use throughout the game. If you want to experiment, verify to check weapon proficiency for each job as well as the base stats. You don’t want to pair the Thief job with a low-speed stat, for example.
Black Mage/Red Mage
This is an essential combo, so we recommend having a character leveling up the Black Mage on your way to unlock the Red Mage job. With both, you may cover all of your elemental bases. Black Mage gives you fire, water, and lightning, while Red Mage gives you wind and stone. Even better, the Red Mage job has a few healing spells available, freeing up your healer to buff and use other skills.
White Mage or Spiritmaster/Bard
Similar to the last combo, this one just makes sense. The White Mage job has all of the healing, revival, and status healing skills you need, while the Bard job comes with a slew of status-boosting skills. Early, you can buff your team or debuff the enemy team using Bard skills while keeping your White Mage healing magic in your back pocket. Later, replace the White Mage job with Spiritmaster.
Vanguard or Monk/Shieldmaster
The Vanguard job is caught between taking damage and dealing it, forcing you to carefully balance how much HP your Vanguard has left. The Shieldmaster job fixes that issue. A huge boost to base HP with the Shieldmaster job makes it a perfect pairing with Vanguard, which is already focused on soaking up attacks. This combination can dish out damage, but more importantly, it can take just as much.
For a more offensive build, replace Vanguard with Monk. The high HP of Shieldmaster gives your Monk plenty of fodder to activate skills.
Phantom/Thief
Outside of an unintentionalPersona 5reference, this job combo is surprisingly powerful. The Phantom job boosts your critical, evasion, and speed stats, all of which pair well with the Thief job. The Thief’s Godspeed Strike becomes very deadly with a change to critical and the high speed stat of the Phantom job.
Arcanist/Pictomancer
The powerful elemental magic of the Archanist job makes a natural pairing with the Pictomancer’s debuffs. This late-game setup is great for your Black Mage, allowing you to still target weaknesses with magic while giving you a few more support skills. Leveling up this combo is a little tricky, though, as the Pictomancer’s skills aren’t great on their own. Consider leveling up the Archanist job first, or use a maxed-out Black Mage.
How to grind JP in Bravely Default 2
Bravely Default 2is a traditional JRPG, so get ready for some grinding. Thankfully, there are a few things you can do to make the grind a little easier and cut down the time it takes to max out every job.
Level up a group of Freelancers
The first thing you should do is level up the Freelancer job on all of your characters to level 12. That gives you access to two key passive skills: JP Up and JP Up and Up. The former multiples all the JP you earn by 1.2, and the latter multiplies JP earnings by 1.5. Combined, they deliver 1.7x JP. After you’ve earned these passive skills, you’re able to equip them even if you don’t have the Freelancer job equipped.
It’s a bit of a bummer at first, but giving your entire party nearly twice the JP makes grinding experience with other jobs much, much easier.
Multibattles are best, but rare monsters work
You can get into multibattles by running into a group of enemies close to each other. Each wave will raise the JP multiplier at the end of battle, so you want to round up as many mobs as possible.
There are a two ways to go about doing that. The first is to expend items that attract certain types of monsters. You’ll get multibattles this way, but most are only with a few mobs, and you’ll spend a lot of items. A better way to go about it is to return to an area in the overworld where enemies flee from you. Then find a corner and scare as many enemies as you can into that corner. Run in once you’ve rounded everyone up and repeat.
If you’re having trouble, you can also grind battles with rare monsters. Late in the game, you can down some of the earlier rare monsters within a few hits. This process isn’t quite as fast as doing multibattles, but it’s still faster than grinding random encounters.
Explore when you aren’t playing
Finally, you can earn JP even when you aren’t playingBravely Default 2.The game’s online portion allows you to explore while your Switch is in Sleep Mode. When you encounter other players exploring, you’ll sometimes stumble upon treasure. If nothing else, verify to start exploring before you turn off your Switch. If you explore for the maximum 12 hours, you’ll usually end up with a few JP orbs.
