Bravely Second: How to Grind EXP and JP Fast
Looking to power up your characters and classes in this JRPG throwback? We cover the best spots.
Bravely Second is a throwback to classic Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy, and while it does speed up the process, you'll probably still have to grind once in a while. Whether you're trying to catch up for a tricky spot or get overleveled so you can waltz through a few hours easily, we've compiled some of the best places and ways to grind for levels and job experience.
Using the Tools to Your Advantage
If you're new to the Bravely series, you should be familiar with a few mechanics that both Bravely Default and Bravely Second use to make grinding for levels easier and quicker than your standard JRPG.
- Brave - Brave lets you spend an extra BP to put in an extra battle command, and you can stack up to four in all. It leaves you vulnerable in subsequent turns while you recover, but for grinding it can be helpful by taking down groups of enemies very quickly.
- Autobattle - Once you've found a set of commands that works, you can set it to Repeat in the Autobattle menu, and your characters will perform those commands over and over in each subsequent battle. Bravely Second lets you further customize this with specialized Command Sets.
- Encounter Rate - You can set your level of encounters, from the standard (0%) to double the encounter rate (100%) to no encounters at all (-100%). Doubling your encounter rate means you'll spend less time walking to get into a battle for grinding, while setting your encounter rate very low can give you a chance to explore a dungeon for chests or just make it out safely if your life is running low.
- Fast-Forward - By pressing Left and Right on the Gamepad during a battle, you can speed up or slow down the pace of battle considerably. For grinding, it's helpful to turn up the speed to its highest level (4x), so battles will be over more quickly and you can collect your EXP and JP and then move on to the next one.
- 1-Turn Victor - New to Bravely Second, taking out all enemies within one turn opens the option of engaging in another battle, and your EXP and JP will gain a multiplier. The more times you do it, the greater your multiplier. But, spending all your BP on Brave abilities will usually break the multiplier, since eventually you won't be taking all the enemies out in your first turn. Careful balancing is needed to maximize your multiplier while also taking out enemies quickly.
So to put all these pieces together: you can set your characters to use several commands with Brave, keeping in mind you don't want to overextend and break your multiplier. Once you're satisfied with how a battle command is set, you can set those commands to Autobattle, turn up the Encounter Rate, and set it to fast-forward. From there you'll just need to run around a bit and the rest will take care of itself. Be sure to keep an eye on the screen once in a while, though. You don't want to accidentally wipe out because you weren't paying attention.
Early Game
Your travel is very limited in the early portions of the game, so you're basically stuck in whatever region you happen to be in at the time, and those will be the enemies most suited for your current level anyway.
Early in the game you'll have access to the Wizard class, and its Spirit Magic ability casts spells on large groups by default. Most enemies in the early game have elemental weaknesses as well, so finding a common weakness in your current area and exploiting it is your best bet. Set Spirit Magic as your secondary ability on whatever Jobs you'd like to train. Once you know the enemy weakness, you can hit the Brave command to cast four of it per character. Chances are you'll go through one round of enemies per character, which will get your multiplier up to 2.0x. This works best if you have spell-boosting abilities set to your passive traits, especially if you're training a melee class with lower spell damage.
Mid-Game Method 1
One of the easiest grinding methods can be utilized in Chapter 2, once you're able to reach Grapp Keep. The best part about it is that it doesn't rely on your attack or magic damage, making it completely neutral no matter which classes you're currently trying to train. Plus, there's no need to spend Brave points, so you'll usually reach higher multipliers, up to the maximum of 3.0x.
Simply make sure all of your characters have learned the "Halfsies" ability under the default Freelancer class, and set the Freelancer ability "Miscellany" to their second ability slot. Enter the Grapp Keep with a cache of Phoenix Downs, or buy a large amount from the Adventurer.
All of the enemies in Grapp Keep are Undead, so use the Halfsies ability to use a Phoenix Down on the entire group of enemies, and set that command for each of your characters. Chances are fairly high it will kill multiple enemies, if not all of them, and you can set that ability to repeat throughout the subsequent battles.
The money you earn from this method is also more than enough to continuously buy more Phoenix Downs and to pay for rest breaks from the Adventurer, so you can remain in Grapp Keep as long as you like without backtracking to town.
[Credit: Ippongi_Ryuta at GameFAQs]
Mid-Game Method 2
Once you can obtain the Red Mage job class, make sure you do, because it's necessary for both of the ways to pull off this next method. The so-called "Infinite Battle" trick lets you keep going on and on, battle after battle, with a full 3.0x multiplier. It relies on the passive Red Mage ability BP Recovery, which gives you a BP whenever you're under a status ailment. If you can trigger Berserk on your entire party, that counts as a status ailment, so they'll continuously attack without ever running out of BP.
This means that as long as your party is strong enough to defeat the enemies within one round of attacks, you can keep going indefinitely. You can exploit this in one of two ways after equipping the passive trait on each party member.
- Go to Geyser Grotto and find the area of the map that casts Berserk on the party. The enemies will be Berserked too, so make sure your stats are high enough to withstand a few attacks, or that you have abilities equipped to assure you have a good chance of going first. In this area, you'll reach max JP (999) after about 30 battles, which will also net around 15,000 EXP. Rinse, repeat.
- If you have both the Red Mage and Ranger job classes, you can create your own Geyser-Grotto-like effect anywhere you want. The Ranger can cast Berserk on yourself to replicate the same effect when paired with the Red Mage ability. It requires a little more setup work, but unlike Geyser Grotto, you can take it to later areas with tougher enemies and rack up more EXP per run. Just remember to do some testing regarding how many battles on average it takes to reach 999 JP, because after that point you should quit the string of battles, adjust your jobs as necessary, and start anew.
