Bravely Default II | Best Jobs, Job Combinations & Subjobs
Bravely Default II continues the traditions the series started, acting as a loving revival of golden-era RPGs. One staple of that era was heavily-defined classes and a deeply customizable job system - and BD2 has that.
That means that even seasoned RPG fans will be faced with nasty choices, and inevitably have questions. Which is the best job? And when the time comes to pick subjobs, what’s the best subjob and most powerful job combinations?
Well, we’re here to help. Hello! After pumping hours into Bravely Default 2 and seeing all of its content, including the super-hard post-game content - we’ve got some thoughts on the best job classes in BD2, and then deeper thoughts on what jobs go well together to make powerful job combos. This page is about which jobs are best and which combo best - we've got another page if you just want to see the Bravely Default 2 jobs, how to unlock them, and their abilities. This page, however, divides into three basic sections:
What are the Best Jobs for Each Character in Bravely Default 2?
Some of you might be going into this page looking for general job choice advice in Bravely Default 2, but others might be going in with a more specific angle, wondering what the best jobs are for each character in BD2. Well, here's your answer: any job. Some RPGs (like Final Fantasy XII, for instance) have a system where some characters have natural affinities and stats that makes them a bit of a better fit for certain job classes. Bravely Default is not like this; all four characters are equal at a base level, and so are equally good at every job. With that said, we do have some suggestions for the best jobs, which you can read below.
As ever, we want to take a moment to urge you and remind you: these are opinions. There is no outright best job or best job combination in the game. Some are slightly more broken than others, but mileage will vary based on how you like to strategize in battle. These are just our picks, based on the experience of our extensive time with Bravely Default 2. Don't be afraid to experiment with your choice of jobs and subjobs to find your own overpowered beast combo. Remember, too, that breaking past the level limit to hit job level 15 will unlock the true potential of many classes.
Below, however, you'll find our picks for the Best Jobs and the Best Subjobs & Job Combinations. Enjoy!
Best Jobs in Bravely Default 2
Freelancer
We know, we know - Freelancer is a boring choice. It’s the starting class, after all. It’s a jack-of-all trades, master of none. But you should definitely consider upgrading Freelancer on at least one character, if not more. It’s a good idea to pick out a character early on as your main damage dealer, and make a beeline for the JP Boost abilities.
These JP Boost abilities will then allow you to max out other jobs - including some of the other best jobs suggestions on this very page - more quickly, which in turn can crack some of BD2's harder encounters open like an egg. Later, you can get the 'Late Bloomer' second specialty, which lets you boost all stats based on the number of jobs mastered. That pairs with those JP up abilities nicely, and can lead to a late-game beast of a character. Basically: don't sleep on Freelancer. It's a jack-of-all-trades, and a master of none, but is still one of the best jobs in BD2.
Monk
Of all the classes you get earliest on in Bravely Default 2, Monk is by far and away the most useful - and it continues to be useful right throughout the game. Monk is powerful and viable right from the moment you get it, but it actually can be outright broken for much of the game’s run-time, making it definitely a best jobs list contender.
The Bare-Knuckle Brawler skill is unlocked very early on - and it boosts physical attack by 80% and aim by 30%, so long as there’s nothing equipped to the user’s hands. Because of that, it’s possible for a character to spend the whole game using just their fists - buff up with Bare-Knuckle Brawler, then unleash hell. Later, you can keep Monk as a side job in order to enjoy moves like Flames of War and Pressure Point.
Later in the game, the Single-Minded second specialty makes the Monk even better, increasing turn speed and preventing several debilitating status effects. In terms of combos, Monk goes very well with almost any other offense-focused job, but we do have specific suggestions further down the page.
Thief
This job takes a while to become truly useful, but those who take the time leveling it up will discover it to be one of the most powerful jobs in the game. While it is nice that you can steal items from powerful foes, that pales in comparison to a particularly deadly combination of two moves that can quite literally carry you for the majority of the game.
Godspeed Strike is unlocked at level 9, and will deal a powerful physical attack with a damage boost depending on the user’s speed stat. Bravely Default II takes this powerful move a step further, allowing for the attack to deal the same amount of damage a second time after a few turns. Using all your BP and doing four of these in a speed based build can completely destroy just about anyone in your path, leading to eight total attacks in one turn.
There’s a problem though, this uses up 95 MP and Thieves don’t have a terribly high amount of MP. Well, it would be a problem at least if they didn’t have access to the Steal Spirit ability. This lets them sacrifice 15% of their health to steal MP from an enemy. With proper support from a healer, Thieves can be down right unstoppable by unleashing a flurry of blow and instantly recovering most of their MP back right after.
White Mage
This probably won’t be that surprising to read, but the White Mage job is absolutely vital in the early stages of Bravely Default 2. This is a challenging RPG, and enemies often hit very hard indeed. Once you get out of the prologue (where you have a helpful AI partner that’s great at healing), you’ll need to constantly have a healer on hand to cure and raise injured allies.
Ideally, we’d recommend having a dedicated White Mage who is focused on heals and buffs, and will remain so for the whole game, switching classes in a way to maximize those abilities. You can also consider a secondary character with white mage as a subjob, especially early on before hitting the better late-game healer classes. On that topic, White Mage isn’t one of the best jobs in the game - it’s a means to an end. And the end is Spiritmaster, the next job on our list...
Spiritmaster
As you get into the later stages of Bravely Default 2, you’ll want to combine that maxed-out White Mage ability set with the abilities unlocked by hitting the maximum level of the Spiritmaster. The Spiritmaster allows you to - you won’t believe this - summon spirits, and those spirits automatically cast powerful spells that buff, heal, and generally help the party.
When the rubber really meets the road in the late game, the Spiritmaster is the real best job in BD2 for healing - by summoning a few friendly ghosts, you can take the pressure off yourself through the healing and buffs of the spirits - which frees you up turns to do other things. There is nothing more satisfying than getting completely destroyed by a powerful attack from a boss, only to have your entire party come back to life thanks to the reraise spirit.
Hellblade
Leveling this job is essential for any physical character builds you're planning on running. If you want to dish out adequate damage during the endgame, make sure you progress a decent way through this. The design is a little silly, but the fashion downgrade is worth it for the combat upgrade.
The Hellblade job is incredibly versatile, perhaps the most in the game. They learn abilities with every elemental affinity in the game, being able to target weaknesses for massive damage spread out through several turns. Hellblades also get bonuses for having the least health possible, making it a great high risk, high reward job. The Minus Strike command is a particularly useful one.
By sacrificing one BP, they inflict damage on a target that takes their max HP and subtracts it by their current HP. With how much they're likely to die, throwing them a Phoenix Down and not healing them to full health actually has some serious benefits. One of the most vital abilities you need to learn is Surpassing Power, letting you break past the pathetic 9999 damage cap. You're in endgame now, you need to do endgame damage numbers!
Beastmaster
The Beastmaster is a bit of a gimmick class, but if you take the time to put effort into giving it what it needs, it can become flat-out one of the best jobs in Bravely Default 2. What does it need, you ask? Well, it needs you to capture monsters - which can be time consuming, but has major effects. You see, the Beastmaster is a bit like the Blue Mage from Final Fantasy, or FF7's beloved Enemy Skill Materia - it learns skills from enemies, and then you can let the monsters loose to deal out damage with their special skills.
There's an element of the random to the Beastmaster, but we do want to point out two things. First, its level 12 skill, Off the Chain, is very powerful, a buffed version fo their basic 'Off the Leash' attack skill. Second, their second specialty, Creature Comforts, boosts all of Beastmaster's stats depending on how many monsters you've captured. This means you can go capture-wild and absolutely boost stats. This can combo powerfully with one particular job... more on that later.
Best Job Combinations in Bravely Default 2
Any Magic User & Red Mage - maximize your magic
While not that specifically useful, Red Mage is a very important job to get and put some time into in Bravely Default 2 - purely because it has some skills that make a major difference to the other magic-focused job classes in the game - classes like Black Mage, White Mage, and Oracle.
Any magic or support-based character should learn two of the Red Mage skills: Magic Critical (Level 7) and Revenge (Level 8). Magic Critical allows Magic to inflict Critical Hits - which is major - while Revenge gives you a 25% chance of BP increasing when attacked as a passive power. These can allow your offensive or support mages to dominate far more readily. Revenge is a great ability to have included for your healer! In the late game, enemies can frequently sap your BP and leave your party vulnerable. When the healer takes damage, they have a chance to gain BP, leading to them possibly getting a full stock when their turn comes around. This will allow them to dish out immediate emergency healing without dipping into the negatives, keeping them always on their toes.
Monk & Berserker or Swordmaster - the ultimate meathead
As mentioned above in its listing as one of the best job classes in Bravely Default 2, the Monk is a powerful, possibly even slightly broken class. Its natural abilities are highly powerful, and the best pairing for them is any class with a high strength stat.
The Berserker or Swordmaster are both great fits for this - tanky, offensively solid classes - but anything that ups strength significantly is great with Monk. With one of these job combos, empty their hands and then use Bare-Knuckle Brawler to lay down the pain - which will be absolutely one of the best job setups right to the end game.
Thief & Phantom or Ranger - breaking the thief
We already talked about how broken the Thief Job was, so naturally, they go together excellently with speed based Jobs. Honestly though? Throw Godspeed Strike in any physical build and you'll find yourself almost unstoppable.
While you're grinding through Ranger to unlock its true potential, Thief works as an excellent sub job. Yeah it's weird to think about using a bow to hit people with, but you can't argue with results! When you've finally finished Ranger, you can also swap them around and have an equally deadly combination. A Thief who can snipe enemies based on their type, mixing that up with regular Godspeed Strikes? Too good.
But that's in the beginning of the game, what about during the endgame? Phantom has one of the best speed stats in the entire game, and is built around dealing consistent critical damage. Its own abilities are pretty useful, but its stats make a Thief subjob work excellently. Fun fact! Did you know you can crit with Steal Spirit? Unleashing three critical hit Godspeed Strikes, and then stealing back a ton of MP with your last turn is one of the most satisfying plays you can make. Phantom is also the job that unlocks the Dual Wielding passive ability, making it so holding two weapons doesn't decrease their usefulness. This is extremely useful for giving Daggers an extra damage boost, but it also goes a long way for every other weapon type as well.
Oracle & Offense Mages - breaking magic limits
A Time Mage is one of the most important support stats for people wishing to maximize their efficiency in battle, but it's not terribly powerful in terms of dealing damage… at least not right away.
Haste, Slow, and both of their variants are very important to help allies get back on their feet after losing all their BP. The Noble Sacrifice passive ability is also extremely useful in late-game fights, where bosses tend to enjoy wiping out your entire party in the blink of an eye. If this happens, Noble Sacrifice will kick in and revive every other party member to full HP besides the user. You wouldn't want to put this on your white mage, since you need them to revive your oracle! This can only be used once, but is a crucial second chance that can turn the tide of battle.
This all sounds swell, but why should you pair it with a Mage? The moonlighting specialty is unlocked upon reaching level 12, making it so that the stats and weapon aptitudes from your currently equipped subjob are carried over to Oracle. This has many uses, but works extremely well with a Mage job with high MP. We recommend running an Oracle/Black Mage setup as the best job combo option, but the sky's the limit!
Gambler & Mages - embracing the MP & RNG
How lucky do you feel? The Gambler class is a unique one, since all of its skills and abilities are based around a roll of the dice - just like gambling itself. The Gambler skill-set includes things like a few skills where you have a random chance of dealing double damage on physical attacks, or even a chance of reviving an ally... or not, with the chance for that move to even kill the user instead. However, it has some useful passive abilities that increase battle gains - and, crucially, some nice, mage-friendly stats.
This is an interesting combo, and not for everyone, but having a good base MP stat makes the Gambler an ideal pairing job combo for mages, if not the absolute best. It'll boost their magical output, but also give you access to those handy gambler abilities that can be activated in a pinch, or during encounters when magic either needs to be held back or simply isn't effective. It can also mean you can vastly increase battle rewards. Don't consider this a must-have job combo, but one that is situationally useful.
The gambler class is optional, remember - if you're unsure on how to get it, head to our BD2 Gambler asterisk unlock guide.
Shieldmaster or Vanguard & Bastion - tank up
If you want to have a single character who becomes an unstoppable damage sponge, consider pairing off the Shieldmaster and Vanguard early on, and then later on switch out one of the two for the Bastion, which acts as Bravely Default II's ultimate tank-style class. Any combination of these three will ultimately result in a highly tanky character who can soak up damage and retain enemy attention, thus allowing you to then lay down the pain with powerful 'glass cannon' characters such as mages.
Generally speaking, we'd actually recommend combining these job classes with other classes to get the absolute optimum best job combo - for instance, combining Bastion with a Healer can lead to a sort of Paladin type job combo of soaking up damage and dishing out healing. However, those who find BD2's combat particularly challenging might really benefit by keeping these disciplines bundled together to make one unstoppable-feeling tank.
Pictomancer & Bard - all about the buffs
The two most traditional and best support jobs in Bravely Default 2 are the Pictomancer and the Bard. The Pictomancer is focused on debuffs on the enemy, while the Bard is focused on buffs for the party - and so these two jobs naturally slot together. By mixing them up, you get access to the vast majority of the buffs and debuffs in the game, all in one handy character - though the stats of these two characters will mean they need protecting (perhaps by the job combo directly above).
As with that combo above of Shieldmaster/Vanguard & Bastion, this one isn't perhaps the most obvious, and you might even get more out of mixing one of these pair with Spiritmaster, which is a key late-game healer who also has some useful buff moves. However, for certain super-difficult bosses, or for if you really just need to give yourself extra layers of protection and take the edge off enemy attacks, this can be a powerful job combo.
Swordmaster & Beastmaster
As a rule, any of the jobs with the word 'master' in their name seem to go together quite well for some reason, but one of the most interesting is certainly the combo of the Swordmaster and Beastmaster. While the Beastmaster does seem to be all about wrangling monsters, it's really got the most in common with the Blue Mage tradition from Final Fantasy - that is to say, a class that learns unique skills from enemies and can use them. Like FF's Blue Mage, the Beastmaster learns a wide variety of abilities with many effects, making it quite an effective jack-of-all-trades. Catching monsters is like Pokemon, where you lower HP and then use a move to capture.
Something specific works to make this one of the best jobs in the game, and one of the best job combos when paired with Swordmaster as a main job. Beastmaster's level 12 specialty is 'Creature Comforts', which boosts stats based on the creatures you've caught - the more, the better. Its level 12 skill is 'Off the Chain' - that's the name, not the description, and dishes out relatively random, but powerful, attacks.
Over on Swordmaster, the Double Duty specialty. With this as your main job, activate this and then equip two weapons, of the same type, one in each hand. This activates the specialties of your subjob - which is Beastmaster - thus netting you the massive stat bonuses from the Creature Comforts specialty. Dual-wielding in this way also boosts attack power anyway - and when combined with Off-the-Chain, you can flatten most enemies fast.