Bravely Default 2 contains a ton of overpowered strategies to get you through your first run and even harder challenges in New Game Plus. This is partly thanks to the wide set of powers you can get from mixing job classes in any combination, but an even more powerful source of strength is in each job’s unlockable passive abilities.
Many of these can break the rules of the game, letting you do absurd amounts of damage or just provide alarmingly efficient boosts to any role of your team. If you include any of these ten passives on at least one of your party members, you’re likely to have a much easier time with the game’s hardest bosses and enemies.
10 Obliterate (Bravebearer)
It’s hard to understate just how important Obliterate is to have in the later sections of the game, as it’s one of the biggest reasons to invest some time in leveling up a Bravebearer. This ability will immediately kill any enemies that are twenty levels below the equipped character, with no setbacks to the money or experience you gain whatsoever.
This will give you the easiest way to grind for experience, as it cuts combat out of grinding repeated mob encounters and will nearly double your speed. It’s not going to work on bosses, unfortunately, but by the end of a short grinding session, you’ll very likely be more than strong enough to handle any opponent with your other powers.
9 Dual Shields (Shieldmaster)
On the more practical end of things, Dual Shields is one of the stranger passives in the game, letting you equip a second shield in your main hand instead of just your off-hand. You might think this is silly, and it can be unfortunate in some cases to lack a basic melee attack, but shields in Bravely Default 2 are especially pushed in terms of stats.
This will let any teammate be extremely defensive, including any support characters like White Mages and Spiritmasters. You can even equip certain Magic Damage boosting shields to mages to make them as buff as your tanks, all thanks to a single passive that doesn’t have many downsides.
8 Dirty Fighter (Pictomancer)
One of the last abilities you get as a Pictomancer requires you to extend its job levels, but that’s hardly a high price to pay given its power. Dirty Fighter boosts the power of your attacks based on the number of status effects they’re afflicted with, namely those that the Pictomancer’s abilities can provide.
The strategy of this is to equip it to your DPS characters, who can then slam attacks on whoever your Pictomancer chooses to inflict stat-decreases on, and occasionally inflict Daub to increase their weaknesses. This can lead to some insane damage when chaining Brave attacks, making it a must-have if you want a Pictomancer on your team.
7 Healing Item Amp (Salve-Maker)
One of the most common strategies in Bravely Default 2 is to have two support or caster characters alongside two damage characters, with one usually being a tank. There are certainly other strategies, though, and one is to make every character capable of healing. Not many jobs have high restoration stats, but the Salve-Maker’s Healing Item Amp ability can nullify that easily.
Healing Item Amp simply adds an additional fifty percent more health to any healing item you use. This means that any character can heal up to half an ally’s health using an inexpensive X-Potion, matching a huge number of spells that your melee and tank characters will surely be unable to accomplish otherwise.
6 Surpassing Power (Hellblade)
Surpassing Power is a unique ability in the series attached to the new Hellblade class, and is especially important for those wanting to break the rules of the game. This is because it increases damage past the usual limit of 9999, meaning you can hit even harder with your critical hits and annihilate most foes in a single strike.
You’ll still need a lot of stat changes to hit that limit, since the game naturally doesn’t want you to fire that strongly in most instances. However, if you set up a team that maximizes on a single damage-dealer, you can easily take advantage of Surpassing Power to deal twice as much damage as the game intends you to do.
5 Magic Critical (Red Mage)
Perhaps one of the more underrated abilities of the game is Magic Critical, an odd perk of levelling up a Red Mage that allows the user to potentially deal critical damage with their offensive spells. Much like Surpassing Power, this lets you break a fundamental rule of the game, and you can easily hit the damage limit if you build your mages with great Critical Hit chance items.
This is even better with the Red Mage specialty Chainspell, which lets you cast a copy of your strongest spells for zero cost. With a maximum of eight attacks in a row, you’re especially likely to end up making at least a few critical strikes, and when you’re abusing an opponent’s elemental weakness you’re surprisingly likely to just kill them in a few shots.
4 Sub-Job Specialty 2 (Bravebearer)
The Bravebearer has a few overpowered abilities due to their theme of utilizing the game’s mechanics, but the most broken ability belonging to this class is perhaps the most basic one. This would be Sub-Job Specialty 2, which lets you take on your sub-job’s second specialty that you unlock by getting it to Job Level 12.
Nearly every sub-job specialty does something ridiculous, and getting it for just one ability slot means you can create even more broken characters in any role. For example, giving the Red Mage specialty Chainspell to a healer will let you use an alarming number of restoration spells, while taking on the Bravebearer itself with this ability will give any class a free BP at the start of each turn.
3 Brute Force (Beastmaster)
The Beastmaster is one of the more underwhelming melee DPS classes of the game, that’s not to say it doesn’t have a surprising amount of power in the late-game. It has tons of great abilities to help spellcasters save mana and resources, but melee characters are sure to appreciate Brute Force for its unstoppable power.
This ability lets the user deal fifty percent more physical damage when using the Brave function three times, which you often should be doing already if you plan on dealing lots of damage in a single burst. It’s essentially a free damage boost for a strategy you’ll already be engaging in, making it a ludicrous effect for any physical brawler.
2 Dual Wield (Phantom)
There are two final passive abilities that blow the others out of the water, and it can’t be said how high Dual Wield is above its peers. This lets you hold two weapons in your hands without any decrease to their stats, meaning you can maximize damage and use duplicate weapons to hit record-high stats.
There isn’t a single class that this broken skill doesn’t improve. Mages will be able to use two staves to hit ridiculous Restoration and Magic Attack stats, while melee fighters can equip two heavy Axes or Swords to annihilate opponents with just their standard attacks. It’s a must-have for every character, unless you prefer the more defensive route of Dual Shields.
1 Epic Group Cast (Bard)
This last ability might not seem as powerful as the others, but it’s alarming just how many effects Epic Group Cast can improve. This makes it so any move with multiple targets will work at full strength, rather than spreading its power out, which can give every spellcaster class a ridiculous amount of power in any of its moves.
Healers can now use less expensive Cure spells to heal their entire team for over twice the usual amount, while damage-dealing wizards can use their wide attacks to clear wide sets of enemies without needing to focus their shots. Even more surprising is that it boosts the overpowered Spiritmaster passives, healing your own team nearly twice as much as normal and making it even stronger as a subclass for tanks or melee characters.
