Part 124: Let's Learn Jobs: Monk

Let's Learn Jobs: Monk



Monk is all about dealing physical damage, but suffers from weaker defenses (slightly compensated by high HP), often self-destructive attacks, and zero proficiency with magic.

Bravely Default's monk is a direct successor to Final Fantasy monks. They are good at punching things dead while wearing little clothing.




Monks punch things. The game wants to make sure you know.



Their ideal weapon use is limited to staves and knuckles; not listed here is the option of going bare-handed, part of the monk specialty.



Blue are support abilities, red are skill abilities.

Level 1 - Strong Strike: Attack with x2 attack power but hit chance halved.
Level 2 - Invigorate: 75% chance to raise physical attack by 25%, up to 150%, for two turns. Failing damages user for 20% of their HP.
Level 3 - Inner Alchemy: User recovers from Poison, Blind, Silence, Dread, and Confuse. (5 MP)
Level 4 - HP 10% Up (Cost: 1)
Level 5 - Knuckle Lore: Allows other jobs to equip the monk specialty. (Cost: 1)
Level 6 - Hidden Dragon: Attack last in turn but for 25% more damage.
Level 7 - Qigong Wave: Attack with 25% more damage and pierces Default. (12 MP)
Level 8 - Blind Immunity (Cost: 1)
Level 9 - Physical Attack 10% Up (Cost: 1)
Level 10 - HP 20% Up (Cost: 2)
Level 11 - Pressure Point: Attack with x2 attack power that ignores target's physical defense. (1 BP)
Level 12 - HP 30% Up (Cost: 3)
Level 13 - Phoenix Flight: Attack which reduces user HP to 1 and deals damage to target equal to HP lost.
Level 14 - Natural Talent: Physical attack doubled when user has nothing equipped. (Cost: 1)

Monk abilities make for a solid physical attacker, but to get the job's full benefits, HP and defense (and clothing, apparently) must be sacrificed. Frontal assault indeed.

Though they have a way to negate status effects (self-only), they work best with a healer to back them up and keep their large HP pool refreshed.



Going bare-handed will often be better than using weapons. Also useful for allowing non-monks to do decent weaponless/knuckles-based physical damage.


The guys wear Barras's outfit while the gals wear the sleeveless upper halves of martial arts uniforms (usually there's matching leg coverage).