Document Information

This document was written based on the Australian/European version of Bravely Default.

It is designed to give detailed information about the job system, general job advice and sample setups to help you design your in game team and strategy. It is designed to be descriptive instead of prescriptive, as there are multiple ways to build a successful team. You are encouraged to experiment with the job system as in my view, you will get much more out of the game if you have a go yourself at designing and modifying your team's abilities, but this may give you a few ideas if you're a bit stuck.

File History

Current version: 1.30 (12 Oct 2015, editor updates), initially published 18 Feb 2014

This upload is mainly a maintenance update to work with some new editor features, as well as a few minor additions.

Copyright Information

Copyright (C) 2014-2015 Benjamin Lee

This guide may be not be reproduced or modified under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other unauthorised web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright.

This particular guide may only be hosted on the following sites (as of October 2015).

• GameFAQs (gamefaqs.com)
• Neoseeker (neoseeker.com)

All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders.

Credits

• Square Enix / Silicon Studio: For making the game
• SBAllen and Devin Morgan: For running GameFAQs and providing the tools used to make the guide
• Bravely Default Message Board community: Suggesting strategies I may have missed.
• kupomogli: Giving me tips on how to use BP Recovery effectively.
• Mark Jhon: For some ideas about more sturdy and effective support builds.

Job System Explanation

Bravely Default has 24 unique jobs, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. You gain jobs through the game by defeating certain bosses.

The job your character chooses affects what stats are boosted/reduced and how well characters can use various equipment. The job you are in does not influence what stats go up as your character level goes up, so you are free to choose whatever jobs you like and switch at any time. Characters are not limited to certain jobs: their base stats only differ by about 1-3 points.

As you increase in job level, you get a slight boost to your base stats (1% per job level), you learn new abilities and you do more damage through higher hit counts for normal attacks and magic.

Here's what the various stats are and what they mean:

• HP ~ Affects maximum HP
• MP ~ Affects maximum MP
• STR ~ Increases physical attack damage
• VIT ~ Reduces physical attack damage taken
• INT ~ Increases magic damage (both spells and sword magic), increases chance to inflict status effects
• MND ~ Increases healing, also decreases magic damage taken, decreases chance to be inflicted with status effects.
• DEX ~ Affects accuracy of attacks
• AGI ~ Affects number of hits, turn order and evasion

Abilink allows you to obtain abilities that a friend has unlocked, even if you don't have them yet. You can assign one friend to each party member. This reduces the need to grind out job levels if you want certain abilities and one of your friends has obtained it.

Each job has 14 abilities, which are gained by increasing in job level. Ability cost is explained through the following:

• N/A: Does not have a cost.
• 0: Costs no MP or BP in battle
• ??? HP: Costs HP
• ??? MP: Costs MP
• ? BP: Costs extra BP
• ? SP: Costs Support Points (not to be confused with Sleep Points)

All starting abilities are automatically equipped for a character in that job.

This FAQ analyses the jobs in general, and how useful they are throughout the game.

The effectiveness of equipment is determined by the following grades that you see on the equipment screen. The boost affects the original stats of the item. For example, armor with a P. Def of +45 would raise P. Def by 90 on a character with rank S in armor, while only 45 for a character with rank E.

Equipment without an armor rating (such as robes and hats, as well as certain accessories) are considered Rank A for this purpose. The equipment rank only affects the main stats boosted (P. Atk for weapons, P. Def for shields, armor and helmets).

• E ~ No boost
• D ~ 20% boost
• C ~ 40% boost
• B ~ 60% boost
• A ~ 80% boost
• S ~ 100% boost

When wielding weapons in both hands, if Dual Wield is not equipped, the stat modifier for the weapon is halved. If Two-Handed is equipped with a one handed weapon in one hand and the other hand is empty, the stat modifier for the weapon is doubled.

Here's the JP required to reach a particular level in a job:

Freelancer

Freelancer - Job Stats

Freelancer - Equipment Modifiers

Freelancer - Job Summary

The freelancer is a "jack of all trades", a profession which can do most things with average ability. It's the starting job of the game. Its potential is only seen in the endgame, where it can have the highest stats due to the stat bonuses given to it.

Freelancer - Ability Notes

• JP Up increases JP gain by 20%, rounded down, to a maximum of 999.
• Mimic will fail on special moves, as well as the following moves: Rage, Experiment, Mass Attack, Shield Strike, Salesman

Freelancer - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Has Examine, a very useful ability to find enemy HP and weaknesses
• Has a number of useful field abilities: Dungeon Master helps get through dungeon traps, and Divining Rod helps for finding treasure chests.
• JP Up and Lure Enemy is useful for quickly leveling up jobs. Flee and Stand Ground can save your party from unexpected attacks.
• Mimic is the basis for many strategies that cost lots of BP, money or MP

Disadvantages

• Doesn't offer many choices by itself. It will usually be run as a secondary job command until the endgame.
• Only becomes a bit more useful in the endgame, where you've mastered several jobs and get a slight boost to your stats.
• Takes a long time to level up to get the really useful abilities.

Monk

Monk - Job Stats

Monk - Equipment Modifiers

Monk - Job Summary

The monk specializes in physical attacks, armed or unarmed.

Monk - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Don't necessarily need weapons to be successful due to Knuckle Lore
• Have naturally high HP which can be increased further.
• Capable of reaching the highest P. Atk in the game (barring an all job mastered Freelancer) through Natural Talent.
• Capable of self removing status conditions, saving your healers a turn.

Disadvantages

• In the midgame, is outclassed due to knuckles not providing significant attack boosts.
• Not good at attacking multiple enemies at once.

White Mage

White Mage - Job Stats

White Mage - Equipment Modifiers

White Mage - Job Summary

The white mage provides healing and support for other party members.

White Magic

White Magic can be used once the appropriate job level is reached and the scroll has been purchased from the magic shop.

All healing spells from the Cure line do damage instead of healing undead enemies.

White Mage - Ability Notes

• Epic Group-Cast works on both offensive and defensive magic.
• Conservation of Life only activates if other party members are knocked out. It does not activate off poison damage, but activates on Doom and other self inflicted knockouts.

White Mage - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Decent healing magic and abilities.
• Automatically cured of common status conditions at the end of a battle.
• Useful abilities, such as Angelic Ward increase your chance to survive, and Epic Group-Cast can be utilised to increase group damage.

Disadvantages

• Fairly fragile. If your White Mage gets hit by physcial attacks, they go down very quickly.
• Outclassed by the Spiritmaster later on.

Black Mage

Black Mage - Job Stats

Black Mage - Equipment Modifiers

Black Mage - Job Summary

The black mage provides damage through offensive magic.

Black Magic

Black Magic may be used once the appropriate job level is reached and the scroll has been purchased from a magic shop.

When used on an undead enemy, Drain and Aspir cause HP/MP loss instead of gain.

Black Mage - Ability Notes

• Group-Cast All works on the following: All White Magic, All Black Magic, All Time Magic, and Corpse.

Black Mage - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Good ability to damage single and multiple enemies and inflict harmful status conditions.
• Contains good abilites to reduce damage and debuffs to more vulnerable magic classes, such as Damage Dispersion and Silence Immunity.
• Near the end, gets very useful abilities such as Group-Cast All and Pierce M. Defense, which become very useful for other casting classes.

Disadvantages

• Fairly fragile. If your Black Mage gets hit by physcial attacks, they go down very quickly.
• Requires high job levels to have a decent impact.

Knight

Knight - Job Stats

Knight - Equipment Modifiers

Knight - Job Summary

The knight has high P. Def and decent attack power.

Knight - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• High defense, can tank physical attacks very well, especially with Dual Shield while still having Super Charge for damage.
• Protects low HP allies from potentially dangerous physical attacks.
• Two-Handed gives a good attack boost throughout the game to physical classes.

Disadvantages

• Quite slow overall.
• Protect Ally can end up being a liability with moves that ignore P. Def, such as Minus Strike.

Thief

Thief - Job Stats

Thief - Equipment Modifiers

Thief - Job Summary

The thief specialises in stealing items, and also has fairly high hit counts.

Thief - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Good at stealing items from enemies, some of them being unique and limited.
• High hit count due to high agility.
• Godspeed Strike provides high amounts of damage without compromising speed.
• Has very useful abilities to increase speed, which become important for controlling turn order later on.

Disadvantages

• Vulnerable to magic skills.
• Needs decent job levels to hit hard.

Merchant

Merchant - Job Stats

Merchant - Equipment Modifiers

Merchant - Job Summary

The merchant is good for making money, and can also spend money to provide support.

Merchant - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Makes it easier to gain money.
• Useful for controlling BP or damage dealing.
• Easiest class to farm money with, especially with Big Pharma and Salesman

Disadvantages

• Costs money to use skills. This applies mainly for the early stages where earning money is more difficult.
• Becomes outclassed later on as a primary job.

Spell Fencer

Spell Fencer - Job Stats

Spell Fencer - Equipment Modifiers

Spell Fencer - Job Summary

The spell fencer uses magic to power up their attacks.

Sword Magic

When sword magic is used, magic damage with the specified element is added to the weapon. In the case of Aspir and Drain, the weapon damage causes HP/MP drain. When status effects are added, there is a chance to cause that particular status ailment when attacking. Sword Magic, despite the name, works on any weapon (even bare hands) and require the magic scroll to be purchased.

Spell Fencer - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Sword magic allows you to exploit elemental weaknesses.
• Unique ability that allows your physical attackers to do fairly high damage with spells.
• Well balanced in stats overall.

Disadvantages

• There aren't really too many disadvantages, but the class doesn't really specialise in anything stat wise.

Time Mage

Time Mage - Job Stats

Time Mage - Equipment Modifiers

Time Mage - Job Summary

The time mage can provide both offensive and support magic.

Time Magic

Time magic can be used once the appropriate job level is reached and the magic scroll for that spell has been obtained.

Time Mage - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Diverse range of offensive and support magic, notably Reraise, Quick and Meteor.
• Very useful abilities: Time Slip can prevent you from being wiped out by surprise, and importantly has Slow World and Hasten World, which are two useful methods for BP control.

Disadvantages

• More vulnerable to physical attacks.

Ranger

Ranger - Job Stats

Ranger - Equipment Modifiers

Ranger - Job Summary

The ranger specialises in targeting enemy weaknesses.

Ranger - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Quick to exploit enemy weaknesses.
• Hawkeye makes it much easier to get all your hits to connect with an opponent, which becomes useful with the ability Precision.

Disadvantages

• Requires lots of time to get the most useful abilities.
• No way to do more damage to humanoids, which is a problem considering many bosses are from the Human family.

Summoner

Summoner - Job Stats

Summoner - Equipment Modifiers

Summoner - Job Summary

The summoner deals party wide damage through summoning monsters.

Summons

Summons cost 40 MP except for Susano-o which costs 60 MP.

Summons have the same base damage except for Susano-o which has slightly higher damage. With the exception of Girtablulu, you must survive a single attack from a summon in order to be able to use it. Equipping HP / M. Def boosting abilities or elemental damage reduction can help.

Summoner - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Deals party wide damage which is unaffected by magic reflection.
• Boosts damage from friend summons.

Disadvantages

• Quite slow.
• More vulnerable to physical attacks.
• Hard to manage MP until late game.

Valkyrie

Valkyrie - Job Stats

Valkyrie - Equipment Modifiers

Valkyrie - Job Summary

The valkyrie uses BP based attacks to do large amounts of damage.

Valkyrie - Ability Notes

• Spirit Barrier doesn't get applied at 0 MP (in the case of MP cost being reduced to 0). When MP reaches 0, it is removed immediately, so if there are two attacks and the first depletes MP, the second one will cause HP damage.
• Jumps: If all members of the party have used a jump skill in the same turn before the enemy, the enemy will not be able to use attacks that target party member(s). Also, on the turn when the jumps occur, the enemy won't be able to attack because they can't select a party member as a target. However, if one or more party members are on the ground, the attacks will change targets to them. Because Jump activates at the end of the turn, and High Jump and Super Jump cost 1 more BP than the number of turns it takes, there needs to be some form of BP managment. The most common is Hasten World, while Convert BP with MP Free in a Pinch at critical HP is another viable setup, provided you always move faster than the enemy and they have no way to counter or make priority attacks. Low Leverage can also cut BP costs at the cost of damage.

Valkyrie - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Deals party wide damage.
• Useful skills that allow for invlunerabiity for 1 or more turns.
• Has an ability that bypasses Default state's damage reduction.

Disadvantages

• Requires a good way to manage BP.

Red Mage

Red Mage - Job Stats

Red Mage - Equipment Modifiers

Red Mage - Job Summary

The red mage can use offensive and defensive magic, as well as attacks, but doesn't specialize in anything.

Red Mage - Ability Notes

• BP Recovery triggers on any status element/elemental weakness application except for instant death and Dread. Triggers even if the status ailment is already inflicted.

Red Mage - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Good at managing BP due to BP gain abilties such as Turn Tables and BP Recovery.
• Good at managing MP.

Disadvantages

• Doesn't really specialise in anything.
• Limited to level 4 black/white magic without a secondary job.

Salve-Maker

Salve-Maker - Job Stats

Salve-Maker - Equipment Modifiers

Salve-Maker - Job Summary

The salve-maker uses items to attack, heal and support the team.

Compounding List

This covers the combinations that can be used to produce various items/effects in battle using the Compounding ability.

This list does not have every possible combination, but it will have the most efficient combinations.

Salve-Maker - Ability Notes

Experiment

Salve-Maker - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Highly versatile, with healing, support and damage available, providing you know what you're doing.
• Damage from attack items ignores defenses.
• Has a party wide revive for no MP.

Disadvantages

• Requires items to actually work. Mainly a problem for players who don't have access to the Compound or Item shops in Norende Village.

Performer

Performer - Job Stats

Performer - Equipment Modifiers

Performer - Job Summary

The performer uses singing to support all allies.

Performer - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Provides party wide support.
• At maximum level, can control BP very effectively.
• Has passive abilities that boost stats.

Disadvantages

• While there are no real disadvantages, it is limited to support in the majority of cases and is shut down by Silence.

Pirate

Pirate - Job Stats

Pirate - Equipment Modifiers

Pirate - Job Summary

The pirate uses attacks that lower stats.

Pirate - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Highest damaging class overall with single attacks.
• Easy way to lower stats and deal damage at the same time.

Disadvantages

• Vulnerable to magic.
• Lower accuracy.

Ninja

Ninja - Job Stats

Ninja - Equipment Modifiers

Ninja - Job Summary

The Ninja focuses on evading attack and is good at using two weapons at once.

Ninja - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Dual Wield mitigates the attack penalty from using two weapons, allowing you to deal more damage.
• Utsusemi is gained at a fairly low level and provides very easy ways to evade physical attacks.
• Can break the hit count limit with Frenetic Fighting, allowing for up to double damage.
• Kairai can redirect attacks at certain party members.
• Very high speed.

Disadvantages

• No real disadvantages, but they go down fairly quickly if they get hit.

Swordmaster

Swordmaster - Job Stats

Swordmaster - Equipment Modifiers

Swordmaster - Job Summary

The Swordmaster uses counterattacks.

Swordmaster - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Fairly powerful counter attacks, especially with a tanking build.
• Free Lunch is very useful for classes that consume lots of MP.

Disadvantages

• Requires good knowledge of an enemy to be able to deal decent damage with counterattacks.

Arcanist

Arcanist - Job Stats

Arcanist - Equipment Modifiers

Arcanist - Job Summary

The Arcanist uses strong black magic that can take advantage of status conditions.

Arcanist - Ability Notes

• Convergence: Affects the following magic: Esunaga, Kill, Slowga, Hastega, Meteor, All Summons, Interment, Firaja, Blizzaja, Thundaja, Aeroja

Arcanist - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Has strong party wide dark magic.
• Makes it easier to inflict and take advantage of status conditions.

Disadvantages

• Requires good methods to control BP or immunity to dark damage, as most of the magic attacks target both enemies and allies.
• Needs high job levels to have decent damage.

Spiritmaster

Spiritmaster - Job Stats

Spiritmaster - Equipment Modifiers

Spiritmaster - Job Summary

The Spiritmaster has moves that prevent or reduce damage.

Spiritmaster - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Strong and efficient healing in combination with White Magic due to lowered MP cost and Holy One.
• Many abilities which change resistances and immunities and provide protection.

Disadvantages

• Requires good methods to manage BP.

Templar

Templar - Job Stats

Templar - Equipment Modifiers

Templar - Job Summary

The Templar has fairly high defense, and can also utilise critical hit attacks and skills.

Templar - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Good defense and defensive abilities such as Rampart.
• Has abilities that allow for critical hits to occur more often.
• Can decrease damage by a lot with Default Guard, and has an additional 1 BP to store up.

Disadvantages

• Damage is lacking a bit.
• Requires good ways to manage BP in the short term.

Dark Knight

Dark Knight - Job Stats

Dark Knight - Equipment Modifiers

Dark Knight - Job Summary

The Dark Knight uses physical attacks that sacrifice HP in order to do damage.

• If Fairy Ward is active, Doom isn't applied.

Dark Knight - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Has strong, physical dark attacks, both single and multiple targets.
• Gets more powerful at lower HP.
• Rage gives the Dark Knight capabilities to do the highest damage in a single attack with the right setup.

Disadvantages

• Your party can easily wipe out if you're not careful.
• Low HP boosts your power, but is risky at the same time.

Vampire

Vampire - Job Stats

Vampire - Equipment Modifiers

Vampire - Job Summary

The Vampire can learn abilities of various monsters.

Genome Abilities

Genome abilities are unique to the Vampire job. A Genome Ability can be acquired by being targeted by it while having the support ability Genome Drain (naturally in the Vampire job, or as a support ability at Vampire Level 13). It cannot be acquired if the character gets knocked out, put to sleep, gets confused or gets paralysed, so status prevention or attack evasion can be used to avoid this.

Locations marked with an asterisk (*) mean that it is impossible to get it at that point except in New Game+

Vampire - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Good range of elemental and status causing effects.
• Has well balanced stats overall.
• One of the few classes that can inflict a range of status effects, notably Charm

Disadvantages

• Obtained quite late in game.
• Sourcing all the abilities may get tedious, especially from Chapter 5 onwards.

Conjurer

Conjurer - Job Stats

Conjurer - Equipment Modifiers

Conjurer - Job Summary

The conjurer uses summons to boost their stats.

Conjurer - Analysis at a Glance

Advantages

• Restores MP after every battle.
• Obliterate makes random encounters a non-issue at high enough levels. (Use with Alarm Earrings)
• Reliable way of boosting stats.

Disadvantages

• Obtained very late in game.
• Can't do much damage on its own.

Team Building and Setups

Your success in Bravely Default depends on how well you can set your entire team up for success, not just one party member, as well as the enemies you face. Here's some information on the typical roles you might find.

Physical Attackers

Physial attackers are your primary damage dealers in the game. They are useful at dealing with single enemies, and later on, multiple enemies at once. Typically, you'd want to utilise the following primary jobs as pure physical attackers:

Here's some examples of what you can choose for your secondary job:

Here's a few useful setups that you can use.

Natural Talent Monk

Minus Striker

Free Lunch Strike

Wide Attacker

Precision Fighter

Jump Abuse Team

Rage Drain

Magic Attackers

Some people may feel that magic is a bit of a hit and miss in this game, but with good strategies to manage your MP, they can easily do high amounts of damage to multiple enemies.

Typically, you'd want to utilise the following primary jobs as pure magic attackers:

Here's some examples of what you can choose for your secondary job:

Here's a few useful setups that you can use.

Infinite Summoner

Status Effects

Free Lunch Caster

Physical Caster

Healers

Healers usually end up being an important part of a team, being able to remove status conditions and heal HP, as well as perform other tasks. It's fairly important to manage their BP and MP well, as you don't want your healer to be killed because you used too much BP, or MP.

Typically, you'd want to utilise the following primary jobs as healers:

Here's some examples of what you can choose for your secondary job:

Here's a few useful setups that you can use.

Traditional Healer

Bulky Healer

Bulky Healer Version 2

This set was contributed by Mark Jhon. It is quite useful against bosses with strong group attacks.

Support Healer

Item Healer

Support

Support characters can provide additional BP or stat boosts to a party and can help protect other party members.

These jobs are effective at being dedicated supporters:

Here's some examples of what you can choose for your secondary job:

Here's a few useful setups that you can use.

Super Charge Tank

Swordmaster Tank

Are you my hero?

Alchemist

Utility

Mainly for classes and sets that don't fit in any of the other categories, but are still useful. Sometimes, if a party member has the secondary job slot free for other purposes, you might want to consider running a set of skills specifically for your team.

Here's a brief summary of what jobs can provide through their active and passive support abilities, apart from straight up damage and healing:

Damage and Thievery

Support and Thievery

Your 3 Slot Ability

Given that you can only run one 3 slot ability per party member, it's important to know which ones are the most effective for your team. This will go through the various 3 slot abilities and make suggestions on which ones to choose. Sometime, you might not need a 3 slot ability in some cases and will choose to use other abilities to fill up the 3 slots.

X% stat up abilities stack. This means for 3 slots, it is more effective to run both the 10% and the 20% Up stat abilities rather than the 30% one, and is also more efficient because the 30% Up ability is not available until higher job levels. Generally, Evasion X% Up is not as good, because most abilities don't undergo an accuracy check.

Caster Based

Example: Consider an enemy with 100 M. Def. Arcanists at level 99 typically can get to 200 M. Atk or more. They have abilities to boost their M. Atk by 50%. Magic damage scales with the difference between the caster's M. Atk and the opponent's M. Def, although there is a small amount of damage when the difference is zero. The options are:

• Pierce M. Defense + M. Atk 20% Up: A difference of 240 unboosted, 360 boosted.
• M. Atk 30% Up + M. Atk 20% Up: A difference of 212 unboosted, 368 boosted
• Max Black Magic + M. Atk 20% Up: A difference of 140 (x 1.5) unboosted, 260 (x1.5) boosted. Magic also has base damage it does, even with a difference of 0, so there is some extra damage involved. However, this costs 2 times the MP..

This means the Max Black Magic will result in the most damage (after boosting), with double MP consumption.

However, if the enemy has 200 M. Def (not uncommon in Hard Mode at the end), the calculations are very different:

• Pierce M. Defense + M. Atk 20% Up: A difference of 240 unboosted, 360 boosted.
• M. Atk 30% Up + M. Atk 20% Up: A difference of 112 unboosted, 268 boosted
• Max Black Magic + M. Atk 20% Up: A difference of 40 (x 1.5) unboosted, 160 (x1.5) boosted. (Costs twice MP)

In this case, Pierce M. Defense is much more efficient.

Protection Based

Other

BP Management

BP (Brave Points) form the core of the battle system. Any character or enemy can have a BP of -4 to 3 (4 with BP Limit Up). In order to increase your damage output and utility, while decreasing the enemies' effectiveness, it is advised to have a long term strategy for managing this in the late game. Characters and enemies need at least 0 BP to act, and several moves cost multiple BP.

By controlling the BP of allies and enemies, you can open up an advantage for your team. Here's a list of common abilities used for BP control and within BP control techniques. It should be noted that using BP increasing techniques on undead enemies will decrease their BP instead.

Early Game (Job Level 1-9)

Late Game (All Jobs and Abilities)

Special Setups and Rush Builds

These setups are highly dependent on your entire team for success and often require time (or a lot of money) before the battle to set up various aspects of the team. They are usually used to make certain bosses significantly easier, or get used in challenge runs.

Rush builds aim to beat bosses as quickly (and comfortably) as possible, regardless of what the boss actually is. Several examples include Dark Nebula, Iniquity with Hasten World, or Annhilation with Slow World (with Dark Protection obviously), item abuse, Low Leverage Abuse (although it might seem like an oxymoron), jumping builds and status ailment builds.

Some builds here have been designed to make use of abilities that are often overlooked in general, to show the various possibilities of the system.

Critical HP Team

Abuses the fact that many team members are below 20% HP to activate various abilities. Best used with bosses that are limited to single target physical attacks that do not ignore defense and do not have a way to counterattack.

1. Knight / Freelancer

• Abilities: Dual Shields, Buff Up, P. Def 20% Up
• Equipment: 2 Bloody Shields, Crystal Mail, Crystal Helm, Heike Gloves

2/3/4. Pirate / Spiritmaster [Damage]

• Abilities: MP Free in a Pinch, Two Handed, P. Atk 20% Up
• Equipment: Giant Axe or Earthbreaker, Red Cap, Brave Suit, Hyper Bracers

All Pirates need to have less than 20% HP. This is to make Protect Ally activate and also allows the use of Amped Strike for no MP. Convert BP also costs no MP, allowing you to get 1 BP for free. The Knight should use Ironclad to maximise their defense for the rest of the battle.

Slow World Status Ailment Abuse

While Hasten World is popular due to covering the costs of more powerful moves such as My Hero and Stillness, Slow World can be abused to the same extent, especially with status effects. Enemies and party members that are stopped, paralyzed or put to sleep cannot gain BP, so they actually lose BP every second turn. They can go down to -4, which ensures that they won't move for several turns. Items and/or magic are primarily used to deal damage, as Sleep is the most common status used. Withering Ripple is sometimes set up beforehand to make status ailments hit more easily, as well as providing elemental weaknesses.

1. Arcanist / Red Mage [Status Effects]

• Abilities: Status Ailment Amp, Pierce M. Defense or Group-Cast All, Steady MP Recover
• Equipment: Demon's Rod, Falcon Knife or Wonder Rod, Mage's Hat, Black Robe, Soul of Thamasa

2. Anything [Slow World]

• Abilities: Slow World, BP Recovery, any 2 slots (no poison immunity)
• Equipment: Anything you want (no poison immunity)

Can be a healer/supporter.

3/4: Magic/Item Attackers

• Abilities: BP Recovery + 4 slots to boost magic/item damage (no poison immunity)
• Equipment: Anything to suit the role (no poison immunity)

Usage: Group Cast status effects with the Arcanist. Most bosses are not immune to sleep, but some are more resistant and may require Withering Ripple to have a higher chance of success. Due to BP Recovery, if you cast Poison three times, followed by Poisona once on your team, your entire team gains up to 6 BP (and the party member casting gains up to 2 BP). The rest of the magic/item users use magic/items to deal damage.

Turn Toxic Abuse

Given that you can steal Megalixirs from Guzzlers from Chapter 5 onwards, you might find yourself with an excess supply. With Mimic, this build can beat every boss rush battle in Chapter 8 in a single turn regardless of level, although you do need some protection against status effects. This is not designed for individual bosses with more than 159984 HP.

1. Salve-Maker / Freelancer [Lead]

• Abilities: Feel No Pain, Speed 20% Up
• Equipment: Maximum Speed/Protection against status

2. Salve-maker / Freelancer [Followers]

• Abilities: Feel No Pain, 2 slots of your choice
• Equipment: Protection against status

Usage: Very simple, use Toxic Megalixir with your lead and choose Mimic 3 times. Then choose Mimic 4 times with every other party member. Your lead should be the fastest. Due to Feel No Pain, you take no damage for the first two turns, and in most cases, you can finish the battle before the two turns is up.

Critical Summoning Abuse Team

Repeatedly activates Summon in a Pinch to deal damage, which along with a range of other broken abilities, deals with most group bosses. Requires a very long setup, but can reliably beat most bosses. It's definitely not the easiest method, but it shows how underused abilities can be useful in certain circumstances. However, if you're not careful, this team can fail.

1. Knight / Ninja

• Abilities: Dual Shields, P. Def 10% Up, Steady MP Recover, P. Def 20% Up
• Equipment: 2 Bloody Shields, Crystal Mail, Crystal Helm, Heike Gloves

2. Performer / Freelancer [BP Booster]

• Abilities: Hasten World + any 3 slots
• Equipment: Anything you want

3. Spiritmaster / Ninja [Damage Control]

• Abilities: MP Free in a Pinch, Speed 10% Up, Speed 20% Up
• Equipment: 2 Falcon Knives, Red Cap, Brave Suit, Hermes Shoes

4. Conjurer / Black Mage [Passive Damage]

• Abilities: Summon in Pinch, Absorb P. Damage, Critical MP Recover, Magic Critical
• Equipment: Demon's Rod, Wonder Rod, Mage's Hat, Black Robe, Soul of Thamasa

Make sure that the Spiritmaster and Knight have lower P. Atk than the Conjurer's P. Def so they can only deal 1 damage. You Spiritmaster should have 1 HP to trigger MP Free in a Pinch. Your Conjurer should have just over 20% HP, but if they lose 1 HP, they should be below 20% HP. This will allow Summon in a Pinch to trigger, but due to Absorb P. Damage, they recover 1 HP due to the way the game rounds off damage. This can be repeated to trigger Summon in a Pinch repeatedly. For example, if the Conjurer has a maximum of 7997 HP, they need to be at 1600 HP exactly for this to work.

The Performer uses the standard BP booster setup. The Spiritmaster uses Convert BP if necessary, then sets up Stillness and/or Fairy Ward. The Knight's main purpose is to protect the Spiritmaster. The Conjurer should use Deus Ex and Susano-o to setup, then has the ability to inflict status effects with Black Magic if they want.

The main damage comes from the Summons. To achieve this, the Conjurer needs to be hit with Shippujinrai from the Knight and Spiritmaster, which is why they need to have the lowest P. Atk they can get. The trick is that this always activates before Stillness, which is why the Spiritmaster can equip all the speed increasing items they want, which is different from how the ability normally gets used (it normally has to go after attackers). Summons from Summon in a Pinch also count for rod specials, which is useful for Withering Ripple.

Endgame Continuous Boss Rush

This section is designed to give suggestions for players facing the boss battles at the end of Chapter 8, especially for the continuous boss rush (which is optional, but required to get a journal entry), without resorting to farming Megalixirs, jumping only or using Stillness and taking the fun out of the game. The final team composition is really up to you, but there are at least some considerations.

I have chosen these battles in particular as it is an effective way of exploring endgame setups against a wide variety of scenarios and testing what actually has a chance of working and adapting to those cases. The difficult part is getting a whole non-trivial team to work for all 6 phases, individual phases are much easier to work with in comparison.

There are 6 phases to the battle:

1. Profiteur / Einheria / The Jackal
2. Kamiizumi / Heinkel / Holly / Kikyo
3. Barbarossa / Praline / Alternis / Barras
4. Qada / Ominas / Yulyana / Mephilia
5. Khint / DeRosso / DeRosa / Victoria
6. Victor / Braev / Artemia / Khamer

General Suggestions

1. Useful Jobs

Unless you've chosen some boring option, the following jobs (primary or secondary) are likely to be useful.

• Performer - for BP management and other small boosts
• Freelancer - for Mimic, to deal with the cost of important abilities
• Salve-Maker - for Giant's Draft, as well as healing skills
• Merchant - provides ways to mitigate damage and provide backup BP management
• Spiritmaster - prevent status effects
• Ninja - dodge physical attacks, redirect attacks
• Knight/Swordmaster - has defensive uses
• Vampire/Dark Knight - deal widespread damage

2. Take advantage of HP increasing and damage reducing abilities.

• This applies to all parts of the battle.
• Examples include using Giant's Draft - this will often increase HP to above 10000. As the maximium damage from a single attack is 9999, it means you won't get knocked out by a surprise attack such as Dark Breath or Minus Strike, for example.
• Low Leverage halves most forms of damage from the opponent. Meanwhile, with certain builds you can still hit for maximum damage regularly.
• Hedge Risk halves damage, although only for the user. At this point money is very easy to farm.
• Reraise effects can be used as a backup.

3. Manage BP appropriately

• It makes it much easier if you can quickly replenish your team's BP.
• Any My Hero build works in bulk. BP Drinks work as well (generally you'll only need the 2 BP ones, the 3 BP ones are quite expensive).
• Zero Sum can help control the BP boosting battles (1 and 3) to a limited extent.
• In the last battle Hasten World is active which means you can spend more BP than you normally would. Generally it's not necessary to bring it for the other battles though as it gives the enemies more chances to act.
• Slow World has its merits with effective BP management as it cuts down on the number of attacks the enemy can make.

4. Try to bring effective means of damaging enemy groups

• Getting battles done more quickly generally helps. Even under Low Leverage some attacks can hit near the damage cap.
• Examples include the Monk/Vampire using attacks such as Hellfire (preferably with Natural Talent) or Dark Knights (with ways to manage HP)

5. Some Considerations for each Phase

• Phase 1 is in general quite easy compared to the rest of the battle, just try to get it done as quickly as possible.
• Phase 2 may cause problems if characters are at low HP without protection due to Kikyo. Group attacks are recommended to bypass Heinkel's Full Cover.
• Phase 3 is less suitable for group attacks without proper protection due to Invigorate from Barras and Minus Strike from Alternis which will destroy unprepared parties. Praline's constant BP boosting doesn't help either.
• Phase 4 is notorious for causing problems very quickly as the type of attacks are very different to the other battles (magic). This makes damage mitigation very important at the start of the battle in general.
• Phase 5 is easy if status effects are blocked, otherwise bring protection against sleep at the minimum. If you're fast enough the rest of the effects won't be as much of an issue.
• Phase 6 should be finished as quickly as possible, and this is easier due to the extra BP that you gain. Multiburst and Meteor are notable issues, especially Meteor since it is difficult to fit dedicated special defenders onto a team that can handle the rest of the phases. Low Leverage and Giant's Drafts are highly useful to set up as always.

General Team Advice

This section gives general advice for building your team in game. One of the good things is that if you find something doesn't work as well as you want it to, you can try leveling up other jobs. Later on, level and job level grinding is made a non-issue with the ability Obliterate from the Conjurer.

Know what you're up against

The best way to build a team is to know what enemies you face and what moves they use. This also applies to enemies from random encounters. For example, in Miasma Woods and Florem, you face enemies weak to fire, in particular, Myconids. Myconids can duplicate if you hit them with physical attacks, so the safest method is to use Fire Magic. Some enemies also have counterattacks, such as the Guzzler (which is often sought for JP and Megalixirs). However, Guzzlers tend to not be resistant to status effects, so Sleep (group cast if possible) makes it safe to steal.

This also applies to bosses. For example, Lord DeRosso, the boss of Vampire Castle can be tricked into repeating a particular move, Bone Crush, when one of your party members is at low HP. However, Bone Crush is a physical attack and thus Utsusemi will avoid it and with Turn Tables, you gain 1 BP. With some luck, it is possible to complete the boss battle even at the lowest level in the game.

Other bosses have exploitable AI, even the second last boss.

Another boss that I want to bring up with exploitable AI is the second last boss, Airy. This boss has a rather predictable pattern meaning that the right combination of Utsusemi and Absorb Magic, along with accessories to nullify the status effects makes it possible to no damage the battle.

BP and MP management

BP Management is covered in a separate section.

MP management can be done by equipping abilities/equipment that lower the cost of magic, using Steady MP Recover, Post Battle MP or through compounding items. Free Lunch is also useful to reduce the MP cost of any ability to 0. Alternatives include using Magic Thirst from the Vampire, although you'll need a physical attacker to make the best use of it.

If in doubt, bring a balanced range of abilties

When you go through bosses the first time, a balanced setup can usually get you through, with a few exceptions. When you rematch a boss, the game gives you hints if they have any new strategies. Generally a balanced team will consist of 1 physical attacker, 1 magic attacker, 1 healer and 1 utility. However, do not rely on one healer for the entire game: if they get knocked out, it can lead to your party eventually being wiped out.

An Example

Here's an example of a team that I used for general play. It is by no means the best, but it explains my thought process when creating a team.

1. Ninja / Salve-Maker

• Abilities: Transience, Turn Tables, Comeback Kid, Counter Amp, Attack Item Amp
• Equipment: 2 Falcon Knives, Red Cap, Brave Suit, Hermes Shoes

2. Spiritmaster / White Mage [Healing/Support]

• Abilities: Holy One, Steady MP Recover, Speed 20% Up
• Equipment: Demon's Staff, Aegis Shield, Holy Miter, White Robe, Hermes Sandals

3. Pirate / Freelancer [Physical Damage]

• Abilities: P. Atk 30% Up, P. Atk 10% Up, Two-Handed
• Equipment: Fox Tail, Nothing, Red Cap, Crystal Vest, Hyper Bracers

4. Conjurer / Black Mage [Status Effects/Magic]

• Abilities: Status Ailment Amp, M. Atk 30% Up or Pierce M. Defense (depending on enemies), M. Atk 10% Up
• Equipment: Demon Rod, Wonder Rod, Mage's Hat, Black Robe, Soul of Thamasa

Usage: The main reason I chose these four jobs is that they are decently balanced against most random enemies and against single bosses. The Ninja's purpose was to evade and redirect attacks, and provide support through the Salve-Maker's abilities. The Spiritmaster's main job is for healing and providing support, especially from status effects and elemental damage reduction. The Pirate has a range of stat lowering abilities to reduce damage. The reason I picked Freelancer was for Examine, as it couldn't fit anywhere else without compromising the build. The Conjurer is mainly for using magic in case I was against enemies with counterattacks against physical attacks. The reason I chose Conjurer over Arcanist was due to the Post Battle MP which made managing MP easier, and the ability to boost stats. This held up well in most battles, except near the endgame where I used far more specialised strategies.

Important Contact Information

Contributor Name: EdeaLee (GFAQs) / Biospark27 (Neoseeker)

Read the information below before sending a message.

• If you want friends for Abilink, use the message boards - I will not be disclosing my Friend Code.
• This is only for important messages (such as major errors or display issues). I currently don't have time to actively work on this document.
• I am not currently accepting any new hosting requests at this time. I have decided to adopt this stance due to various issues that have occurred in the past.