Vanguard is one of the first job classes you’ll unlock in Bravely Default 2 as it is received immediately after the first asterisk fight. This is your basic tank class for much of the early game, and you’re not going to encounter another on its level until the much later Shieldmaster class a few chapters later.
As a result, you’re going to get quite comfortable with a Vanguard in your team, meaning it’ll be quite a high level compared to your other jobs and a great alternative to even the newer ones you unlock. If you choose to persevere with a Vanguard in your team, these will absolutely be your favorites to have equipped as a secondary sub-job.
10 Spiritmaster For More Support
There are two main ways that you can build a Vanguard. The first is to build an aggressive physical damage dealer, building off of the high offensive stats and Earth-imbued attacks you learn throughout the game. The other is to make a defensive supportive tank, drawing in your opponent’s attacks to let your mages and rogues charge up big attacks.
If you plan on going the supportive route, the returning Spiritmaster job will almost assuredly give you everything you need. This class provides progressive healing effects and spirits that can restore health and other resources to your entire party, without many of its spells utilizing your Restoration stat. This means you can give ample support without the usual support items, and give your dedicated healers a break whenever they need it.
9 Dragoon For Offensive Capabilities
For a more offensive route, the Dragoon is an updated version of the classic Valkyrie class from past games, with the ability to lift your allies in the air to deal melee strikes upon landing. This gives a surprising degree of support, as you can jump high when enemies have high BP to simply dodge attacks.
Alternately, this can just give an ample variety of aggressive moves, with some that can pierce an opponent’s Default stance and a Special that can deal Electric-imbued physical damage. It gives your Vanguard tons of range, especially since many foes will end up resisting your Earth abilities in certain chapters of the game.
8 Swordmaster For A Hybrid Class
The Swordmaster is a strange entity this time around, acting as a combination tank and DPS class. Its main strategy revolves around changing between different stances, with one doubling the number of basic attacks you deal and the other letting you counter-attack foes whenever you’re struck.
For Vanguards, the counter-attacking Fluid Stance is the main ability, particularly since the Swordmaster has a few great attacks that slow your opponent’s next attacks and grab their attention. It’s all too easy to become an aggro machine with the Swordmaster sub-job, and you’ll have trouble getting rid of it when you get comfortable landing in the strategy.
7 Monk For Early Game Benefits
Monks are fairly underpowered in the later sections of the game, but as the third class you unlock in the game, you’ll very likely find it makes a great aid to your melee party members for a long time. One of the best combos you can have through the first few chapters is a Vanguard main job with a Monk sub-job, giving you many moves without its poor weapon proficiencies.
Monks also get the first move that lets you pierce Default stances, and while it might not be as fancy as the one you get with Dragoons, it’s extremely helpful against the game’s early bosses and their defensive strategies. The Monk itself can’t carry itself very well, but when equipped with a Vanguard, its moveset can carry your team significantly harder.
6 Bard For The Ultimate Stat Booster
Bards are, without question, the easiest way to improve the stats of your team. Most of its spells are quite low in mana cost, and they’ll give your team ludicrous boosts of stats that last several turns, and you can often charge up the offense-based spells for big attacks if you plan your turns well.
Even if your Vanguard is the only attacker on your team, using a Bard sub-job to increase whatever stats you need can help you amp up your physical attacks for several turns to come. Alternately, raising your team’s defensive stats lets them survive errant attacks that you might not be able to draw in, giving your team the general defensive support that Vanguards can’t always provide.
5 Bastion For A Great Aggro-Puller
Many players might see the Bastion as an upgraded Vanguard class, but that’s hardly the case given how great the Vanguard is in terms of stats and versatility. Bastions are purely defensive tanks and, while they aren’t the worst in terms of damage, they need some strong aggro-pulling abilities to really persevere.
This is why they make a great secondary job to the Vanguard, as you can use physical attacks to raise your defense and draw in attacks to become an invincible lightning rod for your team. Even better are its reflective spells, which can fully nullify most boss attacks if you can correctly predict an incoming physical or special move.
4 Shieldmaster For A Super Tanky Vanguard
As mentioned earlier, the Bastion is hardly the most defensive tank class in the game. That would more likely be Shieldmasters who completely ignore damage in exchange for throwing themselves in the way of damage for your allies. This lets you block damage without using aggro spells, as attacks like Defender of the People can ensure you’ll take the hits instead of just raising probabilities.
That said, the Shieldmaster does actually have some offensive moves that calculate themselves off of your equipment weight and certain status ailments. The Shieldmaster’s offensive power is too low to use these as a main class, but being a sub-job for Vanguard lets you actually use these mostly-unusable abilities with surprising effectiveness.
3 Ranger For Reliable Damage
Rangers are generally just a surprisingly effective aid to any DPS character – especially when leveled up quite high. Their most useful move by-far is the late Humanoid Slayer move, which deals extreme damage against human foes that you’ll encounter again and again through the game’s many asterisk boss fights.
That said, nearly all the moves of a Ranger are better as a sub-job already since the class natively has very few weapon proficiencies besides bows. Being able to more reliably deal vulnerable damage to foes with Sword and Axe weaknesses make it feel right at home under a Vanguard’s belt.
2 Red Mage For Useful Magic
As mentioned before, Vanguards are usually at their best when they’re either functioning as a supportive ally or a hardcore melee slayer. If you wish to go the supportive route, there’s one last class that can give your team absurd healing without needing any restoration stats, and that would be the wonderfully revamped Red Mage.
This class has bizarrely poor natural stats, so it already is much easier to equip as a sub-job for any role. Its healing spells are the main appeal, though, as they heal for flat amounts instead of being calculated by your stats, letting a Vanguard heal for amounts nearly identical to a White Mage for no extra cost.
1 Berserker For The Ultimate Beat ‘Em Up
The most powerful early combination of jobs early in the game will be available right after the first main chapter of the game, as the Berserker class gives a ton of extremely powerful attacks that Vanguards can sometimes wish for. Berserkers are also a poor choice for a main job since their special passives rely on the rare Enrage condition and have extremely poor accuracy, but as a sub-job there’s no need to worry about this at all.
Berserkers also have tons of utility in their normally-inaccurate moves, with some that weaken the defense stats of foes while others just deal ludicrous amounts of damage. With the downsides of a Berserker eliminated through being a sub-job, you can easily make any party member into a broken physical barbarian.
