Last week we discussed some tips for starting out in Bravely Default II, the latest entry in the Bravely series of JRPGs from Square Enix. With some considerable time invested into the game now, I’ve got some tips for those of you a bit further along into the game. No story spoilers, but there will be spoilers for Jobs, so keep that in mind.
FARM BUILD
Once you’ve unlocked the Berserker and Beastmaster jobs you’re basically all set when it comes to grinding characters for the rest of the game. By this point you should have already mastered Freelancer for JP Up and JP Up and Up passives, granting you a boost of 1.7X JP in battles (and from JP Orbs).
With Berserker and Beastmaster (both unlocked by the end of Chapter 1) you’ll unlock the Indiscriminate Rage (Berseker) and Raw Power (Beastmaster) passives. Indiscriminate Rage allows the standard attack command to hit all targets at full power while Raw Power will stack a 10% damage bonus for each time you use Brave during a turn.
Combine these two with the JP Passives and all you’ll need to grind monsters for JP is to open up battle with a full stack of Brave Attack executions and watch everything melt. You can just press Y to repeat the last set of commands on each party member every turn.
BEASTMASTER IS BUSTED
Last week we went over how broken Freelancer is with the amount of bonus stats it gets from mastering jobs, but there’s an upper limit on this both in terms of how many jobs there are available in total in Bravely Default II and by the fact job acquisition is gated by how far along you are into the game.
Enter Beastmaster.
Mastering Beastmaster unlocks a passive similar to the Freelancers, only it scales with the amount of monsters captured in battle. Here’s the kicker, it doesn’t appear to have a limit as far as I know and it also goes off the total monsters captured, not how many monsters you have currently available to release in combat. If you really want to break the game, just equip the Beast Whisperer passive, which automatically captures 30% of monsters defeated in battle, and start stacking stat bonuses like crazy.
Personally, I don’t do this, but it’s worth mentioning for sure.
SHIELDMASTER AKA THE BP BATTERY
This is a bit busted, but not Beastmaster level busted. With the right setup, the Shieldmaster (unlocked in Chapter 2) can serve as a BP battery for the rest of the team. You’ll need Shieldmaster as your main job and Vanguard as your sub-job for this. Shieldmaster must be your main job due to the Chivalrous Spirit Speciality (+BP on Guard).
The build requires the following passives:
- Revenge (Red Mage, unlocked Chapter 2) – 25% chance to gain JP when hit
- Sub Job BP Saver (Pictomancer, unlocked Chapter 2) – Reduce BP cost of sub job abilities by 1
Once you’ve got these passives slotted, all you need to do is use the Shieldmasters Bodyguard or Defense of the People ability to guard a party member and you’ll start racking up BP between Chivalrous Spirit and Revenge. Simply dole that BP out using the Vanguard's Gift of Courage ability and now you’re a BP battery for your party.
Credit to u/junerlegion for the excellent idea!
ROB BOSSES BLIND
The Thief (unlocked in Chapter 1) has a cheesy way to steal powerful items from world bosses with almost zero risk. You’ll want to master Thief for two important passives: Magpie and Rob Blind. Magpie will increase your chance of finding rare items while stealing by 25% and Rob Blind will allow you to greedily steal two copies of whatever item you do steal.
Once you have these passives slotted, go find some unthreatening creature to do battle with and spam 13 Thievery abilities (you can just spam Steal) until your Special ability comes up. Finish the battle and then find a world boss you want to rob. Save your game before entering the fight and then trigger the Thief’s special ability on the boss and flee the battle after. The Thief’s special will guarantee you steal an item (or in this case, two items!) and using this strategy you’ll be able to snatch two copies of the world boss’s unique item drop in the first turn and run away. If you don’t end up getting the item you want, just flee and quit to the main menu, reload, and try again.
It’s cheesy but it’s a great way to get the items you want without having to rely on being able to beat the boss or spam steal with its low rate of success.
Pro Tip: You can increase the Thief's Steal rate by stacking Thieves Gloves acquired in Chapter 3. I still prefer this more guaranteed method for world bosses, however.
CHANGE GEAR IN COMBAT
Honestly, this is more of a basic tip, but I’m a bit of an idiot and only realized I could do this recently. Some JRPGs allow you to switch gear in combat, but it usually sacrifices a turn to do so. This isn’t the case in BD2. Switching gear mid turn is easy and painless and you can also “Use” certain weapons in combat to activate various abilities.
Got any advanced tips of your own for Bravely Default II? Share ‘em in the comments below!
