The support classes in the Bravely Default series are some of the most important in the entire game. No matter what opponent you face, it’s essentially necessary for you to have at least one character to heal your party, and another to change the stats of their teammates or foes.
This is just as true of Bravely Default 2, where there are tons of jobs that have returned and changed since the first game, and even more that have been dramatically changed. If you want to succeed in this difficult new JRPG, there are a few support classes that you’ll absolutely find more valuable than the others.
7 Oracle
The Oracle is somewhat equivalent to the Time Mage from the original Bravely Default, essentially affecting your opponent’s speed instead of their general defensive or offensive stats. In some ways this is super handy if you have a fairly slow and bulky team, as the low speed of tanks like the Shieldmaster can hold them back from dealing any damage.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t make up for the inability to heal foes, and its main restoration power Noble Sacrifice can only be used once per battle. You’ll have to use a lot of healing items to make the Oracle work as a primary support, making it just too ineffective to be worth using as an aid to your teammates.
6 Red Mage
The Red Mage this time around has a great new look and set of powers, but its utility as a primary support is quite mediocre compared to the other options you have in the game. Its main benefit are that its healing spells aren’t calculated by the user’s Restoration stat, meaning it provides flat health to your target that can never be reduced.
Unfortunately, this is quite limited compared to the other support classes, which can heal at a much more significant rate than the limited amounts Red Mages can dish out. This makes Red Mage a great subclass for tanks and melee jobs you think could use some healing options, but not a whole lot else in terms of team support.
5 Salve-Maker
The Salve-Maker class has returned from the original Bravely Default as well, but this time has a much smoother look to go with its nearly identical playstyle. Alongside some straightforward healing and resurrection abilities, you can also use your items to create special effects and even spend money to alter your party’s BP count.
The main issue with a Salve-Maker’s powers is that they use a ridiculous amount of MP, way more than your usual healing spells as anything from a White Mage to a Red Mage. It’s not useless, and can be a great subclass for some of the less healing-heavy supports that we’ll get into later, but otherwise the Salve-Maker is a bare pass for most situations.
4 White Mage
The original healers, White Mages, are still extremely hard to defeat when it comes to their raw restorative power. It has excellent stats this time around, and while it still lacks significantly in the damage of offensive magic classes like Black and Red Mage, you’ll have no problem spending each turn healing your damaged allies each turn.
This is going to be your main support for the start of the game, but the subclasses you can give it are endless if you want to stick in your fashionable coat the whole way. It combos excellently with the two stat-modifiers later in this list, but even some jobs like Salve-Maker and Oracle can strive much easier with this guaranteed healing capability to fill in their limits.
3 Pictomancer
There are relatively few new classes in this Bravely Default game, but the Pictomancer is a spectacular inclusion that twists the stat-boosting support into a more offense-based role. Your messy painter will be able to give weaknesses to foes, as well as decrease any number of their stats for several turns.
It’s not the easiest way to diminish an opponent, and many of these effects are easier to shake off than stat boosts to your own party, but it’s unmistakably effective in what you want it to do. Thanks to its wide variety of Light and Dark damage moves, it also works great as a Spellcaster if you need a little extra damage to beat down your bigger foes.
2 Bard
Regardless of how you want to build your team, you’re almost always going to want a Bard to be by your side. This job class is unmatched in terms of raising your party’s stats, with all its costs being quite low while lasting a remarkable amount of turns and stacking together with multiple uses.
Even better is when you get the special secondary passive ability at level 12, which provides chances of singing additional songs whenever you use a Bard ability. Very few classes let you frequently cast free spells, and this one’s ability to do so makes it extremely easy to get an upper-hand on the toughest bosses in the game.
1 Spiritmaster
The Spiritmaster is simply unmatched compared to any other healer in the game. Returning from Bravely Second, this healer creates summoned entities to heal your team over a long period of time, rather than making them wait for simple small bursts that help you sustain a single attack.
Even greater is its ability to restore other resources, particularly MP, giving it a huge edge over the powerful White Mage and the consistent Red Mage. Since it’s a raw healer that doesn’t need frequent turns to keep allies alive, it also can use subclasses like Bard and Pictomancer to alter stats while sustaining your team better than any other option in the game.
