Arcanists are able to perform powerful, if occasionally indiscriminate, magical attacks.
In-game description.
The Arcanist is a job in Bravely Default II, whose Asterisk holder is Vigintio Isaac. It is a magic-based job that primarily uses dark-elemental spells and non-elemental spells, as well as devastating spells combining two elements but affecting all enemies and party members.
Appearance[]
When using the Arcanist job, characters will sport feather-adorned buttoned lab coats, goggles, and crooked top hats with candles resting on the edge.
Job overview[]
The Arcanist sports high magic oriented stats, with their magical attack power being one of the highest within the game.
The job's Necromancy command gives the Arcanist access to the Dark family of spells, providing the players with a straightforward method of inflicting dark-elemental magic damage. In addition, they have access to the Drain and Aspir spells, giving the user the ability to syphon the HP and MP of enemies. Spells such as Comet and Meteor also give Arcanists the ability inflict multiple non-elemental magic attacks on targets, giving them an advantage against enemies with multiple elemental resistances. Perhaps the Arcanist most unique abilities are its dual-elemental magic spells that include the likes of Ardour and Meltdown, which deal damage to both friend and foe alike.
Its Magic Amp passive ability learned at job level 13 allows the user to deal extra damage with their magic abilities, but at the cost increasing a spell's MP costs by fifty-percent. The effects of Magic Amp can easily be circumvented with proper MP management with items and the job's MP Regen passive learned at job level 10.
However, despite its magical prowess, the Arcanist is a risky job that takes much elemental resistance and buff management for players to truly take advantage of in normal encounters. Due to the jobs innate Speciality passives, All In and Wild Wizardry, players have to deal with the constant nuisance of their attack spells dealing damage to caster or the party. Wild Wizardy's near catastrophic effects make the Arcanist job dangerous to use once reaching level 12, causing the user's spells to have a chance of inflicting damage to both the enemy and player parties, making it incredibly risky to use higher tier spells on the off-chance it could accidentally knock-out the entire player party, resulting in a game over. In certain encounters however, players can take advantage of Wild Wizardy's ability of backfiring on the player party with the use of group casting Reflect on the party, which will cause the spells hitting the group to deal damage to the enemy instead.
The Arcanist is more suited to serve as a sub-job for other mage classes like the Black Mage and Red Mage, allowing them to take advantage of the Necromancy command in various means. The Black Mage in particular can take advantage with its High-Velocity Magic Speciality, allowing the user to deal elemental damage with Necromancy spells without the worry of having the spells being absorbed or nullified. While the Red Mage's advantages include its potential to cast Meteor up to eight times with the aid of the Chainspell Speciality. However, should players wish to avoid taking damage from casting their spells, equipping any Sub-Job Speciality passives is highly ill-advised.
Stats[]
| Stat | Rank | Stat | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP | E | MP | S |
| Physical Attack | D | Magical Attack | S |
| Physical Defence | E | Magical Defence | A |
| Restorative Power | B | Speed | E |
| Weight | D | Chance of Being Targeted | A |
| Aim | C | Evasion | D |
| Critical Chance | B |
Equipment[]
| Daggers | Swords | Axes | Spears | Bows | Staves | Shield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B | D | D | B | C | S | E |
Abilities[]
Specialties[]
| Name | Level | Description |
|---|---|---|
| All In | 1 | Applying attack spells to multiple targets does not reduce the damage inflicted, but does cause them to target the user. |
| Wild Wizardry | 12 | Attack spells are 20% more powerful, and also reduce their targets' MP. However, they will also occasionally target all allies and enemies. |
Abilities[]
The Arcanist's fixed commands are Necromancy.
| Name | Level | Type | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dark | 1 | Command | 15 MP | Perform a dark magic attack on a target/all targets. |
| Ardour | 2 | Command | 36 MP | Perform a magical attack on ally and foe alike that combines the powers of fire and water. |
| Drain | 3 | Command | 30 MP | Perform a magic attack that absorbs a target's HP. |
| Darkra | 4 | Command | 38 MP | Perform a powerful dark magic attack on a target/all targets. |
| Electon | 5 | Command | 50 MP | Perform a magical attack on ally and foe alike that combines the powers of lightning and light. |
| Aspir | 6 | Command | 20% HP | Perform a magic attack that absorbs a target's MP. |
| Darkga | 7 | Command | 66 MP | Perform an extremely powerful dark magic attack on a target/all targets. |
| Meltdown | 8 | Command | 70 MP | Perform a powerful magical attack on ally and foe alike that combines the powers of fire and wind. |
| Death | 9 | Command | 25 MP | Attempts to instantly KO a target. |
| MP Regen | 10 | Passive | 1 Slot | MP is restored by 5% at the end of each turn. |
| Comet | 11 | Command | 45 MP | Perform two to four quick non-elemental magic attacks on a target. |
| Doomsday | 12 | Command | 80 MP | Perform an incredibly powerful dark magic attack on a target. |
| Magic Amp | 13 | Passive | 1 Slot | Spells cost 50% more MP, but deal 25% more damage. |
| Apocalypse | 14 | Command | 110 MP | Perform an extremely powerful magical attack on ally and foe alike that combines the powers of earth and darkness. |
| Meteor | 15 | Command | 136 MP | Perform four incredibly powerful non-elemental magic attacks on random foes in quick succession. |
Special[]
Elvis preparing Black Mass (top).
Black Mass's impact on a group of enemies (bottom).
The Arcanist's Special is Black Mass (ダブルコラブス, Daburu Korapusu?, lit. Double Collapse), a powerful darkness-imbued magical attack on all enemies, with an additional effect of increasing the party's Restorative Power by 50% for a short duration of time. In order to perform the move, players must have the character as a Arcanist use their Necromancy abilities 13 times in battles.
Gallery[]
Etymology[]
Arcane is a synonym for esoteric. It refers to various secret philosophical and religious doctrines and traditions.
The job's Japanese name of (魔人, Majin?) derives from the Witch/Demon (魔, Ma?) and Person (人, Jin?) kanjis. While Majin (魔人) has no direct single word English translation, the most common interpretations are that of magician, sorcerer, or conjurer. The job's Japanese name is not the same word of Majin (魔神, Majin?) commonly used for Demons Gods, which derives from the Witch/Demon (魔, Ma?) and God (神, Jin?) kanjis.
The Arcanist job originates from the Final Fantasy series of games, however it is known as Magus in all appearances in the series. Introduced in Final Fantasy III as an upgraded form of the traditional Black Mage job, it learned powerful magic spells not usable by its predecessor. In the Bravely series, the job initially did not carry the elements of its Final Fantasy job origin when first introduced to the series in the original Bravely Default. However, later entries such as Bravely Default: Praying Brage began to take influences from the Final Fantasy original, with it becoming an upgraded form of the Black Mage job.
The Arcanist of Bravely Default II also takes elements specifically included in the Arcane Magick school introduced in Final Fantasy XII, featuring several of its spells including the Dark line, Death, Drain, Aspir, and Ardour. In addition, its Special name in Japanese, Double Collapse, is a reference to the Scathe Black Magic from Final Fantasy XII.