The White Mage is likely to be a fundamental part of your Bravely Default 2 party for nearly the entire game. Not only does it provide more healing than nearly any other class in the game, but its defensive stats and weapon proficiencies let you stay surprisingly solid by being able to use a staff and shield with ease.
You get this class quite early, and at least one of your party members will likely have it as a main class for almost the entire game. With that much use, you might be wondering what the ideal sub-job is for it, but there are several you can find throughout the story that will give your White Mages a ton of great ways to boost their effective healing strategies.
10 Salve-Maker
There aren’t many classes that don’t improve when receiving the Salve-Maker sub-job, but White Mages might benefit from them more than most others. This optional job provides several ways to use items more effectively and gives the ability to combine items for powerful attacks that aren’t calculated through your weak White Mage damage stats.
It also gives access to a number of healing abilities that don’t use your mana, such as the Revive spell which brings a party member back to life at half health with a cost to the user’s HP. Moves like this are great if you ever get inflicted with mana-stealing attacks or status ailments like Contagion, and they give your White Mage way more consistency in its healing speed.
9 Bastion
Most White Mages are going to be pure supports, so many tank classes often won’t give a lot of benefits when equipped as a sub-job. You don’t want to be drawing in attacks since you’re quite fragile, but a small number of tank classes can give your team great defensive moves that make a great change of pace from your healing.
One of these is the Bastion class, which gets you a wide variety of moves that can reflect physical and magic attacks back on your opponent. This ability to nullify damage is extremely powerful against certain enemies, and while you want to make sure not to reflect any damage that would heal your opponent, Bastion sub-jobs can help keep your team from needing healing in the first place.
8 Oracle
The Oracle is one of the weaker mage jobs in the game, being quite similar to the Time Mage but with a little less consistency in its powers. This job has access to many timing-based effects, boosting the attack and turn speed of your allies while potentially slowing or stopping your foes from taking action.
Its stats are a bit too weak to make it a main job, but as a sub-job for healers it can help you heal way more regularly by increasing your own turn recovery speed. Simply apply a few spells on yourself before healing your allies and you’ll be healing them with no delay after every move of your opponent.
7 Hellblade
It might seem weird to suggest hard damage-based sub-jobs for your White Mages, but the late-game Hellblade class is one of the few that can really work well. Most of its spells involve dealing elementally-charged physical attacks that harm a foe periodically, letting your White Mage deal a surprising amount of damage over time while taking care of your allies.
However, the real reason to use this sub-job is the move Minus Strike, a classic and tear-inducing move that deals damage based on your missing health. Since your White Mage is busy taking care of teammates, it’s easy for the healer to end up low, and this lets your White Mage hit near the damage limit regardless of its stats if they’re just about to die.
6 Arcanist
The one other damage class worth mentioning is the Arcanist, whose spells are powerful enough to not care about how low the White Mage is compared to other offensive casters. The Arcanist is all about high power moves that affect everyone in the battle, and cover a wider range of elements than nearly any other mage to ensure you hit vulnerabilities.
The downside of an Arcanist is that its best moves will also harm your party members, but White Mages can counteract this by healing your team immediately after. As a result, its drawbacks are completely nullified, and you’re able to use the Arcanist to its fullest potential.
5 Freelancer
Even though the Freelancer class is quite boring compared to many of the game’s classes, it’s hard to ignore just how helpful it can be to have them as a sub-job early in the game. This class is all about versatility, with a few unique healing moves that you can use in emergencies that cost very little mana.
The other reason Freelancers are strong is quite similar to the Hellblade, in that it provides a few ways for your White Mage to deal damage without needing high offensive stats. The best of these is Body Slam, which deals damage based on the number of mastered jobs, and it can be utterly unstoppable with a high density of maxed-out jobs.
4 Shieldmaster
The Shieldmaster is more often a powerful main class for most of your party members from mages to supports, but even as a sub-job it can help out your White Mage with a bit more sustainability for your team. You’ll often be targeted as the team’s designated healer, and the Shieldmaster job lets you take advantage of that focus by reflecting damage back at your attackers.
Using Reprisal will let you hurt your opponent for half the damage dealt to you, and with your frequent healing spells you can likely avoid getting downed in the process. Alternately, this sub-job can also let you dive in front of your allies to take damage for them, giving you the option to sacrifice yourself if you won’t be able to heal them in time.
3 Bard
The final three classes you should use as your White Mage’s sub-job are all the most obvious strategies, which is to have them support your team in other ways alongside healing. You won’t have the damage stats to hit your opponents back in most cases, but being able to raise your team’s stats alongside their health gives them all a huge amount of flexibility.
The Bard might be the most efficient way of doing this, as you can boost everything from defense to offense for your entire team with its wide variety of spells. You don’t get too many boosts from the Bard’s passive specialty effects either, so you can easily alternate between a healing spell and stat spell each other turn for perfect support.
2 Pictomancer
The one problem with Bards is that there are tons of ways to lose your own status effects, as many bosses will have moves that eliminate your stat changes or counter buffs. The Pictomancer is far less immune to these effects, making it a way better option of supporting your team by diminishing your largest foe’s stats instead.
Pictomancers have all the same stat-changing effects of Bards but reversed, and as a result, they’re harder to be shaken off and stay for a lot longer. It even comes with a great ability to inflict Daub on many bosses, which makes all resistances weaker and can let many attacks become super effective against most foes.
1 Spiritmaster
While the Spiritmaster won’t provide you much in the way of stats, it’s impossible to understate how invincible your team will become when it’s combined with a White Mage. These slower healers will summon spirits and cast long-lasting regeneration effects on your allies, giving health without needing to even cast a spell most turns.
This doesn’t even include the other great benefits of Spiritmasters, like their absurdly powerful Holy spells to deal Light Damage and the late-game spells that restore resources like MP and BP. When attached to a White Mage, these spells can give longer sustainability while the White Mage spells restore larger amounts in dire situations, giving you a perfect and indestructible force thanks to this single supportive party member.
