Bravely Second: End Layer tips and tricks to grind out success

It’s easy to be brave when you’re prepared.

Bravely Second: End Layer, the new 3DS role-playing game from Square Enix, is out now. GamesBeat recommended it to anyone who enjoyed the original. However, it is pretty complex. That’s why we’ve put together a few tips that’ll help you succeed in your fantasy adventure.

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Don’t just stick with the same Job

Jobs are your classes, and they level up independently of your character. At each Job level, you earn a new ability and become stronger. Now, your impulse might be to stick with one Job until you’ve maxed it out. This is a bad idea.

Reaching the later levels of a Job can take a lot of time until you’re really far in the game. If you never switch off the first class (Freelancer) until you’re reached its final level, you’ll be stuck as a Freelancer for dozens of hours. And that will hurt your progress — and it won’t be as fun, either.

The real strength of the Job system comes when you mix abilities from multiple classes, since you can equip a set number of perks from all of the Jobs no matter what your current specialization is. You can take damage buffs from the Fencer class and have them make your Charioteer spec even more powerful. But you can only do this if you work toward leveling multiple Jobs.

Every once in a while, take a look at all of the available Jobs and think about which abilities you can combine together. If the Job you’re using is taking too long to level up, then switch to something else. You can always go back to your first choice once you’re in an area that levels you up faster.

Grind efficiently

Of course, if you want to level up quickly, you’re going to need to grind (which is RPG lingo for abandoning any story objectives to just fight monsters repeatedly so you can quickly earn resources). Bravely Second makes grinding more convenient than any other RPG.

First off, hold off on any major grinding until you have a full party of four characters. It’s only then that you can change the enemy encounter rate. When you want to earn a bunch of experience points, find a save point, boost the encounter rate to +100 percent, and then just walk in circles and fight monster after monster. You can also heal at any save point. It costs a little money, but you’ll easily make enough (and then some) to afford it just from all the battle rewards.

You’ll also want to make sure you that you increase the battle animation speed to its max, which you can do by pushing right on the D-pad a few times during a fight. Bravely Second also lets you save previous actions as presets, so you can quickly input a ton of commands with just a push of a few buttons. Create presets for different situations, like one that just spams physical attacks and another that casts magic spells. Pay attention to enemy weaknesses in the area and create strategies that defeat them as quickly as possible.

Not only will that save you time, but you can immediately fight a new wave of monsters if you beat one in a single turn. Stringing together encounters like this can add a multiplier to your rewards, which can make grinding even faster. Be careful, since you’ll start each new fight right where the last one left off. If most of your party members have already attacked or are low on health of magic points, it’s probably better to end the fight and heal at the save point. However, this mechanic makes grinding at lower-level areas more viable, since it’s easier to string together multiple victories and earn high multipliers.

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Don’t worry too much about base stats

Each of your four party members have different base stats, meaning that one might be better at magic-based Jobs while another excels with fighting classes. If you really want to get every last inch of value out of a character, keep those in mind when assigning professions.

But the differences are pretty small. Any character can work well with any Job. If you want Yew to use a lot of physical damage Jobs, go for it. It’s really more important to just make sure you have a well-rounded party that can attack, heal, and use magical abilities.

When you have to choose between two Jobs

Side-quests in the game appear as blue exclamation marks on the map. First off, always make sure you do them. It’s a fun way to level up without depending on grinding, and completing them earns you a new Job. However, you have to choose between one of two Jobs for each side-quest.

You can eventually get those other classes, but not until much later. So, think carefully when making your decision. They also revolve around moral choices, so you might have to do something you would disagree with on principle in order to get a Job that would better serve your party.

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Build up your moon base

Eventually, you’ll help rebuild a moon base (Dr. Evil says hello). This is a little minigame that’s pretty simple. You assign workers to projects, which they complete after a certain amount of time. Using more workers on one project will complete that task faster.

It’s not the most exhilarating feature, but its rewards are important. This is how you unlock special moves that can deal a ton of damage in combat. You can also unlock items that you can then buy at save points, which can save you long trips back to town.

Whenever you’re playing Bravely Second, make sure you’re keeping up with your moon base. If you know you’re going to be adventuring for a couple of hours, put all of your workers on the same project so that you can assign them to something new during the same session. If you’re about to go to bed, spread your workers out over multiple, longer projects that will all finish in the morning.