The Black Mage is the very first asterisk you get in Bravely Default 2, being equipped by the handsome Elvis before being available to every party member shortly after. Your Black Mage will quickly become a vital part of your team, having the widest variety of attacks to strike against weaknesses early and remarkable Magic Attack stats for the late game.
To get the most out of your Black Mage, though, you’re going to have to pick the right sub-job to make sure you can add to their powerful moveset. Thankfully, there are tons of the game’s 24 jobs that can accompany your wizards perfectly, and help them be a vital member of your team in every battle ahead.
10 White Mage
With both being the earliest mage classes in the game, it’s hard to argue with the effectiveness of White Mages as a secondary class to your Black Mage. This gives you healing options if you don’t have a great moment to attack, and also means you can switch strategies mid-battle if your melee fighters need to take the reigns.
White Mages can’t really do the reverse too well, as their offensive stats are relatively low compared to most of the game’s other mage classes. As a result, they make a great companion to Black Mages, and are a wonderful strategy to start with before unlocking more options.
9 Beastmaster
You’d be right to be skeptical of a Beastmaster being a secondary class to a mage, as the class itself is fairly heavy on physical damage rather than magic spells. They learn some solid passive abilities that can save mana, but that isn’t the real reason that you should want it as a subclass, as they’re actually much more powerful in the late game.
This is because of the second Beastmaster specialty, which increases your stats by the number of monsters you’ve captured. This includes your Magic stats, and when you have this specialty with the Bravebearer-unlocked ability Sub-Job Specialty 2, you can make a Black Mage with stats far beyond any of your other options.
8 Pictomancer
Back on the more magical end of things, the brand new job of Pictomancer makes a great choice for those wanting a little more support for your offensive wizards. This class thrives on using stat-changing moves on your enemies, lowering their offense and defense with a few Light and Darkness spells to fill in the extra spell slots.
Even more important for Black Mages, though, is the ability to inflict the Daub effect. This will lower all resistances to every element and weapon, letting a Black Mage reach full power with its strongest elements regardless of an opponent’s resistance.
7 Spiritmaster
By the end of the game, there’s no team that isn’t more powerful when a Spiritmaster is added. Unlike the other classes, the Spiritmaster doesn’t have to synergize with the Black Mage to be effective, as it can simply summon spirits to restore anything from Health to BP without wasting turns of offense to keep your party alive.
Nonetheless, the Black Mage can actually take advantage of the Spiritmaster’s offensive skills quite well, as they also learn a number of powerful Light spells that the Spiritmaster can’t do much with. As a result, the Black Mage’s offensive stats can make for a more aggressive Spiritmaster, rather than a slow and passive one.
6 Salve-Maker
The Salve-Maker is another catch-all class, providing a lot of support without using much of your mana. This class thrives by using items and gold to heal your teammates, but also can inflict tons of status ailments and elemental damage by combining certain items to provide unusual effects.
This essentially gives you something to do if your Black Mage runs out of mana, which can happen alarmingly often against certain bosses that inflict Contagion or just straight-up steal your MP with their attacks. With the added Attack Item Amp trait from Thieves, you can make your Salve-Maker sub-job even more powerful than it already would be.
5 Oracle
The Oracle is a strange job class compared to the other mages in the game, but as a secondary job to the Black Mage, its offensive potential can rise much higher. The main ability this class has is a triple-damage magic strike, hitting with all three of the Black Mage’s elements of Fire, Lightning, and Ice in a single move.
The Oracle is a little weak in terms of offense, so having the Oracle skills boosted by the Black Mage’s native Magic Attack stat lets you chain all sorts of abilities. If you need more support, you can also switch to your speed-up and slow-down spells, which can keep your team moving rapidly or prevent your opponent from taking turns.
4 Bastion
Very few tank classes are strong when equipped to a Black Mage, but the Bastion is somewhat unique thanks to its reflective abilities. These will nullify certain types of attacks that hit your team, redirecting the damage right back to your opponent if you correctly choose whether they’ll strike with a physical or magical attack.
This can help Black Mages especially, as you can end up reflecting their reflections and take more ambitious strikes against foes you haven’t learned resistances for yet. If you prefer to go at a foe running wild instead of taking a slow plan, you’ll have a lot of fun with the Bastion moveset at your disposal.
3 Bravebearer
It’s hard to explain just how broken the Bravebearer is, but as a sub-job, it works out great for characters that want to primarily thrive on their main job. This class gives access to several physical attacks that aren’t calculated by the user’s stats, instead basing it on the number of battles won and the amount of time you’ve spent playing the game.
This means your Black Mage can suddenly deal physical damage, something that no other sub-job is really capable of. It’s even better with either of the Bravebearer’s specialties, since both can give you more BP and increase your number of repeated moves, but either way it’s just a great boost to single-minded roles like spellcasters.
2 Red Mage
The appeal for the Red Mage as a sub-job for Black Mages is incredibly simple. It provides Wind and Earth spells with the same power as a Black Mage’s elemental attacks, but with significantly more power than what Red Mages are capable of, giving you far more versatility and greater opportunities to abuse a boss’s elemental weaknesses.
Much like the Beastmaster, though, you can also do a lot with the Sub-Job Specialty 2 passive, as Red Mages gain access to Chainspell to copy your spells for free on each cast. With a full set of Brave attacks, this means you can cast up to eight spells in a single turn, which can often just annihilate an opponent right away.
1 Arcanist
The final spellcaster in the game you unlock is the Arcanist, and unfortunately, it comes with a wide number of weaknesses that make it a terrible main job. Both of its specialties involve risking your ally’s health, and many of its moves already do this by hurting your party at the same time.
This makes it an excellent sub-job for the already powerful Black Mage, as you can use all its powerful moves without the downsides of its specialties. When sticking to the single-target spells like Meteor and Doomsday, you can easily hit the damage limit of 9999 thanks to their absurdly powerful moves, giving your Black Mage a ridiculous amount of reach compared to any other secondary class.
