Bravely Default 2 Best Jobs TIER LIST
This Bravely Default 2 Best Jobs Tier List will break down the best and worst jobs in Bravely Default 2 and why.
If you’re playing Bravely Default 2, you’re going to want to know what the best jobs in the game are so you can know which jobs to focus on to build the most powerful party that you can. This Bravely Default 2 best jobs tier list will help you figure things out.
As with all tier lists, this Bravely Default 2 best jobs tier list is subjective. I run a site full time where I thoroughly play through almost every RPG that comes out and I’ve been playing RPGs since the early 90s, and these are my thoughts on how each of the jobs fare in Bravely Default 2 after very, very thoroughly completing the game twice. You may disagree, and that’s fine! It’s always best to form your own opinions.
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With that out of the way, let’s get into the Bravely Default 2 Best Jobs Tier List.
S Tier – Bravely Default 2 Best Jobs Tier List
Spiritmaster
Easily one of the Bravely Default 2 best jobs, the Spiritmaster is invaluable the moment you get it and it only gets stronger as the game goes on. When it first becomes available, its Reraise buff and its Spiritbringer ability make is the perfect supplement to a White Mage skillset. One it’s mastered, though, is where it really shines.
Once mastered, Spiritmaster will have all of its spirit abilities active permanently as long as it doesn’t end a turn with more than 1 BP. Even if it’s dead, its spirit abilities will continue to go off. At level 15, that means every few rounds, the Spiritmaster will passively cure the whole party, restore everyone’s mana, revive any dead party members (including itself), cure almost all negative status effects, and grant the entire party a free BP.
To top it all off, the Spiritmaster can’t be killed by damage unless it’s already at 1 HP, and it’s passively immune to almost every major status effect. Needless to say, this thing breaks the game and it’s definitely one of the Bravely Default 2 best jobs. Don’t leave home without one.
Swordmaster
Swordmaster, right off the bat from job level 1, deals double damage on all its basic attacks. It deals more damage from regular attacks than most jobs are capable of when blowing their entire mana pool, and if you give it Indiscriminate Rage from the Berserker class, it can start a fight by attacking all enemies 6 times.
If you ever wanted more damage, it also has a quadruple damage attack and an attack that deals 9x damage, which makes it even stronger against bosses. In the endgame, you can equip it with the two endgame daggers to activate its second specialty and get an absolutely staggering amount of attack boosting passives for free.
Finally, Swordmaster makes an excellent sub-job for tanks thanks to its counterattacking Fluid Stance, which allows tanks to do decent damage while consistently maintaining full BP.
Freelancer
Freelancer has a lot of useful utility skills that you’ll want on at least one party member throughout most of the game. It can examine enemies, remove enemy buffs, heal status effects and find free items. All great stuff.
In the endgame though, once you’ve mastered every job, which is not terribly difficult, maining Freelancer or putting it as a sub-job alongside Sub-Specialty 2 (or the Swordmaster second specialty) essentially maxes or nearly maxes out all your stats with very little effort. This makes it the go-to sub-job for almost every character in the endgame, and it’s hard to deny that a “must have” job for the majority of the game, including the endgame, belongs in S Tier among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Beastmaster
Beastmaster is good for most of the same reasons Freelancer is good. In fact, it’s arguably a little better. Its skillset is more versatile. It can deal damage of every element and do essentially everything any other job can do. On top of that, it’s capable of getting the same (or better) stat bonuses as the Freelancer.
The only reason Beastmaster is lower than the Freelancer is the amount of work required for it to reach its full potential. Monsters are consumable, so you have to replenish your supply ahead of major encounters or you could run out. Additionally, its stat bonuses are tied to how many monsters you capture and it can take an extremely long time for it to match the stat bonuses the Freelancer gets access to by just naturally playing through the game. Still, it’s definitely among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Salve-Maker
Salve-Maker is insanely versatile and it’s almost completely free of any MP concerns, unlike the White Mage. With its specialties, it’s Healing Item Amp passive and its skillset, it can outheal the White Mage for the vast majority of the game without any concern for MP or Restorative Power, meaning you can just toss it as a sub-job onto a fast job like Phantom or Thief and have a super-powered support character who doesn’t need any additional gear or abilities.
With Compounding, Phoenix Downs turn into the Arise spell, X Potions become Elixirs, Ethers can be thrown at the whole party. It’s extremely powerful. It’s definitely one of the Bravely Default 2 best jobs and you should invest some time in getting one (or maybe even two or three) on your team.
Bravebearer
Bravebearer is capable of manipulating BP in a way no other job can and that becomes enormously useful in the endgame optional encounters you’ll be doing around the time you unlock it.
Let’s start with its Equaliser spell, which is one of its best. Equaliser gives anyone with negative BP and extra one and takes a BP away from anyone who has 1 or more BP. This means you can full brave every turn with every character and as soon as the Bravebearer’s turn comes up, he can full brave, do an action and cast Equaliser 3 times, and everyone’s back to 0 and ready to act again, including the Bravebearer itself. Wild.
On top of that, if you equip it with the Maximise HP passive from Monk or overheal him with the White Mage passives, it can deal 15k+ damage to all enemies reliably multiple times per round. Certainly one of the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
A Tier – Bravely Default 2 Best Jobs Tier List
White Mage
White Mage is useful throughout the entire game. Its skillset is straightforward, and it’s powerful. Protect and Shell are semi-worthless in this game, but other than that, very few spells will get more mileage than Arise, Curaga, Basuna and Esuna.
There’s not much to say about White Mage other than that you need a healer in Bravely Default 2 and White Mage is the best healer in the game, contested only by Salve-Maker and Spiritmaster, both only benefit from having White Magic available in the party. A Spiritmaster will probably want White Magic itself as a sub-job, and a Salve-Maker will want a White Mage in the party to act as a dedicated healer in case it wants to do other things.
You’re going to use White Magic for practically the entire game, I can pretty much guarantee it. And for that reason, it has to rank among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Red Mage
If Red Mage didn’t have access to Chainspell, it’d be an interesting side-grade or maybe a mild upgrade to the basic Black Mage job. However, it does have Chainspell, which makes every spell cast twice at full power for free and instantly doubles the effectiveness of any magic job, which instantly gives it a spot among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Other than Chainspell, its skillset is practically identical to the Black Mage skillset except it can only access two elements instead of three (the Heal line of magic become all by useless towards the end of the game). However, Chainspell is so good that a Red Mage with significantly lower magic power than a similarly equipped Arcanist will outdamage an Arcanist even if it’s not hitting weaknesses and the Arcanist is.
Quake and Tornado aren’t terrible spells, either. They’re perfectly strong spells, they just don’t have the elemental variety to reliably hit vulnerabilities.
Chainspell is such a coveted ability that on the merit of it almost entirely on its own, Red Mage earns a spot in A Tier among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Shieldmaster
Shieldmaster is the tank in Bravely Default 2 and it comes in handy a lot, especially if you give it a nice, complementary sub-job like Swordmaster (for Fluid Stance) or Bastion.
It makes a fantastic main job for a tank because, not only does it protect your party better than any other job, it’s also constantly refilling its MP and BP, which makes it excellent for casting support spells, and since it takes a lot of hits, it activates any counter abilities you put on it constantly.
It doesn’t dish out a ton of damage, but that’s not really something you need in a tank. Once you’ve reached max level and maxed out all your jobs, you probably won’t need a Shieldmaster ever again, but until you get to that point, it certainly pulls its weight and deserves a spot among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Phantom
Phantom is Bravely Default 2’s take on a ninja class and as such it’s exceptionally fast and deals a lot of damage. Not only that, it can cast two major buffs on itself to put its damage through the roof. As a pure physical attack class, it’s second only to the Swordmaster.
Phantom pairs really well with Salve-Maker, which can take advantage of the massive speed that Phantom has to make sure it’s available with clutch healing items whenever they’re needed, while providing Phantom with access to the Analyze skill which gives it another way to boost its own power.
Unfortunately for the Phantom, it is second to the Swordmaster. It’s a big mana hog, it requires setup to do its high damage, its weight capacity is really low (meaning you’ll probably have to sacrifice armor to equip two up-to-date weapons), and it’s relatively fragile. Still, second best is no slouch, and it’s a great job that deserves a spot among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Hellblade
I’m not a huge fan of the Hellblade skillset itself, even though it can hit every element. However, I am a huge fan of the massive stats that the Hellblade has as a main job, as well as the sustainability it gets from its specialty that regenerates a significant amount of its HP and MP every round. That alone goes a long way in helping it rank among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Someone counterintuitively, I think Hellblade is the best job for a magic-user until Freelancer is powered up enough to max out its stat bonuses. Not only does it have a high aptitude in staves, the MP regeneration really helps a mage keep casting without ever having to slow down for MP concerns.
Hellblade has a pretty significant drawback in that it automatically goes to -3 BP if it dies, but on the other hand, it’s one of the jobs that’s least likely to die in the first place. It’s a fun job that definitely deserves a mention when it comes to the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Thief
Thief has access to Godspeed Strike which is exceptionally overpowered. That skill alone, for a modest MP cost, can tear through bosses like a hot knife through butter. On top of that, the utility gained by being able mug steal rare items, hit wind weaknesses and refill its own HP and MP makes Thief a great all around self-reliant job.
The main problem with the Thief is that outside of Godspeed Strike, its damage is mediocre and it doesn’t contribute much to random battles unless you’re actively dumping MP on every trash monster you encounter. While it’s not nearly as strong as the Swordmaster and not quite up there with the Phantom, it’s a solid, solid physical attack job that deserves a spot among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Arcanist
Arcanist is, on paper, the most powerful mage class in the game. It gets access to the most powerful spells, including arguably the ultimate spell in the game, Meteor. The problem with Arcanist, though, is that it can’t get both the Freelancer (or Beastmaster) stat bonuses and Chainspell at the same time, making it noticeably inferior to a Freelancer/Red Mage despite its amazing skillset.
On top of that, the Arcanist specialties are more liabilities than they are bonuses. All In makes target-all casting full powered, but it damages the user, but for the low low price of one ability slot you can get the Epic Group-Cast ability with no drawback. Sure, All In can be turned into a positive by equipping resistance gear, but due to the elemental variety required to hit resistances, you’re going to spend a lot of time managing your gear to keep up with it.
Similarly, Wild Wizardry gives the Arcanist a great random chance to devastate your own party with its powerful magic, and 20% bonus damage doesn’t even come close to the 100% bonus damage from Chainspell.
If Chainspell didn’t exist, Arcanist would be the best mage and, for that reason, it deserves a spot in the Bravely Default 2 best jobs A Tier. Unfortunately for it, though, Chainspell does exist.
B Tier – Bravely Default 2 Best Jobs Tier List
Monk
Monk is incredibly strong when you get it and almost certainly deserves to be in A Tier or even S Tier in terms of Bravely Default 2 best jobs throughout the early game and much of the midgame. Unfortunately, its power really drops off toward the end of the game because Bare-Fisted Brawling simply can’t compete with Dual Wield, especially once you start collecting the endgame weapons that give insanely good passive abilities.
Its attack power and HP are both extremely high but, again, other classes eventually catch up and surpass the Monk. Attack caps at 999 and at the end of the game, you can easily hit that cap without sacrificing the passives you get from weapons. Until then, though, the extreme attack, great skillset and low weight requirement make the Monk a force to be reckoned with.
While it may not be a contender for best endgame class, the fact that it’s so strong through the majority of the game makes it deserving of a spot in the Bravely Default 2 best jobs B Tier.
Dragoon
Dragoon is pretty good. It’s not as good as Thief or Phantom, and certainly not as good as Swordmaster, but it’s pretty good. It has some good attacks, it can hit lightning weaknesses, and Jump helps it dodge some meaty boss attacks. Its Highwind specialty means it essentially gets Dual Wield for free. Its stats are all naturally pretty high.
However, nothing Dragoon has compares to Godspeed Strike, 8x regular attacks per round, Ninefold Flurry or powered up Burial Shroud. It’s a great class. It’s a very strong class. Good stats, good skills. It’s just not busted like some of the jobs higher on the list are. It’s a nice, solid high B Tier in terms of Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Bastion
Bastion’s Rampart and Vallation skills are extremely powerful and its defense is super high, which gives it a niche among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs, but it pales in comparison to what the Shieldmaster is capable of as a tank, since it lacks any way to draw aggro or take damage on behalf of its teammates. Altogether, on its own, Bastion is just a really tanky support mage, which, don’t get me wrong, definitely has a purpose.
You can go one of two ways with Bastion. You can either double down on the support mage role and give it an additional support skillset, like Spiritmaster or Bard, or, as I prefer, you use the Bastion skillset on your Shieldmaster to give your tank some fantastic support magic.
Buffs, in general, become unattractive as you get to the end of the game because you’re going to have a Spiritmaster in your party because it’s so busted, and Spiritmaster’s Purebringer will purge all your buffs off every couple of rounds. Bastion is one of the few support mages that still has a place in that environment because neither Rampart nor Vallation tend to last very long; they usually absorb a big party-wide hit almost immediately after they’re cast.
As a class, I think Bastion is a little incomplete, but as a skillset for a tank, I think it’s decently useful. Not A Tier, definitely not S Tier, but probably solidly B Tier, maybe on the lower end of B Tier in terms of Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Vanguard
Vanguard is surprisingly good despite being one of the first jobs you gain access to. Thanks to its second specialty, which improves attack power based on equipment weight, it’s actually one of the first jobs that can achieve maximum attack power. Combine that with its high defense and the fact that Neo Cross Slash and Quake Blade are very, very decent skills, and it’s hard to deny that Vanguard is a pretty good class.
However, the issue here is that Vanguard is sort of an attack-oriented tanking class, which just isn’t a good role to have. It’s not as powerful as any of the attack classes that rank among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs, and it’s not as tanky as any of the other tank classes in the higher tiers of the Bravely Default 2 best jobs. As a result, you’re really better off specializing most of the time: either have a dedicated attacker or have a dedicated tank.
Any time you need a tank, you’re probably better off with a Shieldmaster, and any time you need an attacker, you’re probably better off with a Swordmaster or Phantom. Adding to that, a big part of the fun of Bravely Default 2 switching to new jobs until the end of the game and that means you probably don’t want to sit in the Vanguard job from beginning to end.
Still, it’s not a bad job at all. I think it deserves a spot in low B Tier among the Bravely Default 2 jobs.
Berserker
When you get Berserker, it’s already not as good as the Monk or the Thief, but it’s not unusable by any means. It’s a decent physical damage job, and it gets one great passive ability (Indiscriminate Rage) that makes it totally worth leveling up, but I don’t think you can count it among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
However, while Amped Strike is powerful, it’s a huge MP hog and it’s still not as powerful as Godspeed Strike. While Berserk definitely improves the Berserker’s attack power, 50% doesn’t come close to the 100% Swordmaster’s Solid Stance provides with no downside. It’s not as fast as Phantom or Dragoon, and it’s not as easy and reliable as the Monk.
For those reasons, I have to rate it lower than all those other classes when it comes to the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
C Tier – Bravely Default 2 Best Jobs Tier List
Ranger
Ranger is a dedicated attack job and like many of the dedicated attack job, it does what it’s supposed to do… just not as well as several of the other ones, so it’s hard to picture it being one of the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Its job is to dish out damage and it does that reasonably well, but it takes a lot of MP to do it, it doesn’t have any self-buffs like the Phantom or Berserker, it can’t come close to the shenanigans of the Swordmaster, it doesn’t have any really great heavy-hitting skills (Barrage pales in comparison to, say, Godspeed Strike), and it doesn’t have the great all around base stat of the Dragoon.
While it’s a competent attack class, I feel it deserves a place in C Tier among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs. Not terrible, but there are many better options.
Black Mage
Black Mage is obviously great when you first get it because it’s your first magic user, but in the end it’s just kind of a one trick pony. It can hit 3 weaknesses reliably, but it doesn’t gain any strong passive abilities or specialties that make you want to use it once you’ve unlocked the later jobs that begin to overshadow it.
You’ll probably use Black Mage until you unlock Red Mage, then use Black Mage as a sub-class until you unlock Arcanist, and then poof, you’ll probably never use Black Mage again unless you really, really want to hit those three weaknesses for whatever reason.
Its magic stat isn’t exceptional, it doesn’t get Chainspell, its versatility is useful but its 3 spell types are only marginally more useful than Red Mage’s 2 or Arcanist’s Dark and Non-Elemental spells. Maybe Black Mage deserves to be a little higher due to its usefulness in early game, but I feel pretty good about putting it in C Tier among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Oracle
Oracle’s claim to fame among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs is supposed to be its utility, which, is undeniably actually pretty decent. It can cast haste, it can ensure your physical attackers hit elemental weaknesses, and it can generally power up your team.
Oracle faces two problems, though. The first is that it has the same problem every other buff class has, which is Spiritmaster is so broken and the downside of running with a Spiritmaster is it purges all your buffs off every few rounds.
The second is that the Triple line of spells is just not that good. It’s not as good as any of the spells any of the other mage classes get, including Spiritmaster’s Holy. Not only is its overall power lower, the multiple elements makes it get resisted and absorbed a lot more than any other attack magic class has to deal with.
For those reasons, I think it’s safe to say Oracle belongs in C Tier among the Bravely Default 2 jobs.
Pictomancer
Pictomancer is one of the few support jobs that doesn’t fall victim to the Spiritmaster curse, since its abilities affect enemies and not allies. Still, it just doesn’t feel powerful in terms of Bravely Default 2 best jobs. In the endgame, you could spend 4 Brave lowering an enemies defense by 40%, or you could spend 4 Brave dealing 80,000 damage.
You’re going to have a support character, that most likely will be a Spiritmaster. You’ll probably have an attack mage, which is almost certainly going to be some combination of Freelancer/Arcanist/Red Mage. You’re going to have an attacker or two. You might have a tank.
The only place I could see the Pictomancer fitting into a party is maybe as a secondary support skillset on a support tank, which, to be fair, is a pretty decent place to put it, but then it’s competing with Bastion and maybe Oracle for that spot. Still, I think you could make a case that it’s better than Bastion because it doesn’t get purged.
Altogether, I don’t think Pictomancer is useless, but I think it’s hard to argue it’s a must-have. It’s not tough to find a place for it, and for those reasons I think it belongs in low C Tier among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
D Tier – Bravely Default 2 Best Jobs Tier List
Bard
Bard is the class that’s hardest hit by the Spiritmaster’s passive buff-purging, since all the Bard does is cast buffs. There’s a couple problems here.
The first one is that the Bard’s buffs aren’t that strong. You have to cast each one 2-3 times before you really see any benefit from it. I could see this being alright on a support tank, like I mentioned for Pictomancer, since Shieldmaster tends to get tons of spare BP and MP but, again, you have a binary decision between these Bard buffs and the insane passive support a Spiritmaster provides.
Bard also doesn’t get anything that helps any other class besides the Bard, so you don’t get very much value out of leveling it if you don’t plan to use the Bard skillset.
If Spiritmaster didn’t exist, I think Bard would probably be solid C or maybe even B Tier in terms of Bravely Default 2 best jobs. Unfortunately, Spiritmaster does exist, so here we are, placing it in D Tier among the Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
Gambler
Gambler is not unusable, but I do think if we’re talking about Bravely Default 2 best jobs, it’s the worst job in the game. It takes money to cast skills that are highly unreliable and, at their most potent, still don’t deal as much damage as what the really strong classes are able to deal.
You can cast a spell that has a low chance for 8x damage… or you can cast a skill as a Swordmaster that does 9x damage every time. You can cast a spell that has a low chance to do multiple underpowered elemental attacks… or you can Chainspell ultimate magic spells for ~15,000 damage a hit.
Other people might rate this job higher, but I just don’t see it. I tend to not like these kinds of gambling jobs in general, but if the damage is going to be highly variable like it is in this case, at least make the high-end of what it can do better than what other jobs are capable of doing reliably.
I definitely think Gambler deserves a spot in D Tier when it comes to Bravely Default 2 best jobs.
That about covers it when it comes to the Bravely Default 2 Best Jobs Tier List. Be sure to check out the Main Page for more game guides, the Bravely Default 2 section for more guides for this game and the Quizzes section for fun quizzes related to RPGs and pop culture.
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