Chapter 2 jobs:
Ranger: All you Final Fantasy 5 players have fond memories of X-Fight hitting a boss 4 times per weapon, and the gimmick Animal summons. Well, Bravely Default took their useful skills away. Most of their attacks are of the "do 50% more damage to a specific monster family" sort. The problem is that many of the bosses are Human or another type that isn't weak to those skills.
Multiburst sounds like X-Fight for the cost of 1 BP, but it doesn't actually count as a multi-hit attack versus a single target! Some people on GameFAQs message boards seem to like them when combined with Sword Magic, but Thieves can do something similar with more utility. Paralyze Immunity is nice if you don't want to equip an Earthing Rod accessory.
One other thing that makes Rangers less relevant is the fact that Bravely games don't have a front or back row.
Summoner: Yet another job that's weaker than its FF5 counterpart. All but one summon (Susano-o) in Bravely Default has the same base power as the starter Earth summon Girtablulu, so imagine being stuck with Ifrit or Shiva tier spells for most of the game. They don't have defensive buffs like Carbuncle or Golem either. Other players tend to prefer Arcanist, Time Mage, or Vampire if they really want attack spells, but say the Summoner upgrade Conjurer is still viable. Then again, you don't get Conjurer until the end of Chapter 6, and that's a long wait. Summoners can be okay for random encounter grinding because their spells hit groups, and the Land Turtle at Mount Fragmentum can't Reflect their spells.
Valkyrie: For once, we have a better version of an FF5 job. Valkyries are Dragoons with a different name and new tricks. Crescent Moon hits all enemies for 1 BP for the strength of a regular attack, which is useful for random encounter grinding and Rusalka's clones. Spirit Barrier can block 9999 damage attacks from bosses, and is the only way for a solo character to fight Chapter 3 Qada legitimately. If you don't want to fight legitimately, equip the Hasten World passive on a character and give your whole party High Jump. Congratulations! You can now autobattle almost every boss, except Rusalka who will crash the game if you try that. Spears are good weapons too, since you can buy Lü Bu's Spear from Norende for 8000 pg early on.
Red Mage: Red Mage is another case where the passive skills are better than the job itself. They don't even get "dualcast" until the sequel. Pick up Revenge, Turn Tables, and possibly BP Recovery and move on to another job. (Unless you really need 2 passive ability slots, since the Red Mage has Revenge as an innate skill.)
Revenge has a 25% chance of giving a character 1 BP if an attack hits them. Anyone who's read my solo Ringabel posts knows how much I use this ability. Turn Tables is useful for Ninjas, who can gain 1 BP after dodging an attack with Utsusemi. Gimmick parties revolve around poisoning your own characters to gain BP from BP Recovery.
Having Level 4 White Magic allows them to cast Reflect and Dispel as needed.
Ranger: All you Final Fantasy 5 players have fond memories of X-Fight hitting a boss 4 times per weapon, and the gimmick Animal summons. Well, Bravely Default took their useful skills away. Most of their attacks are of the "do 50% more damage to a specific monster family" sort. The problem is that many of the bosses are Human or another type that isn't weak to those skills.
Multiburst sounds like X-Fight for the cost of 1 BP, but it doesn't actually count as a multi-hit attack versus a single target! Some people on GameFAQs message boards seem to like them when combined with Sword Magic, but Thieves can do something similar with more utility. Paralyze Immunity is nice if you don't want to equip an Earthing Rod accessory.
One other thing that makes Rangers less relevant is the fact that Bravely games don't have a front or back row.
Summoner: Yet another job that's weaker than its FF5 counterpart. All but one summon (Susano-o) in Bravely Default has the same base power as the starter Earth summon Girtablulu, so imagine being stuck with Ifrit or Shiva tier spells for most of the game. They don't have defensive buffs like Carbuncle or Golem either. Other players tend to prefer Arcanist, Time Mage, or Vampire if they really want attack spells, but say the Summoner upgrade Conjurer is still viable. Then again, you don't get Conjurer until the end of Chapter 6, and that's a long wait. Summoners can be okay for random encounter grinding because their spells hit groups, and the Land Turtle at Mount Fragmentum can't Reflect their spells.
Valkyrie: For once, we have a better version of an FF5 job. Valkyries are Dragoons with a different name and new tricks. Crescent Moon hits all enemies for 1 BP for the strength of a regular attack, which is useful for random encounter grinding and Rusalka's clones. Spirit Barrier can block 9999 damage attacks from bosses, and is the only way for a solo character to fight Chapter 3 Qada legitimately. If you don't want to fight legitimately, equip the Hasten World passive on a character and give your whole party High Jump. Congratulations! You can now autobattle almost every boss, except Rusalka who will crash the game if you try that. Spears are good weapons too, since you can buy Lü Bu's Spear from Norende for 8000 pg early on.
Red Mage: Red Mage is another case where the passive skills are better than the job itself. They don't even get "dualcast" until the sequel. Pick up Revenge, Turn Tables, and possibly BP Recovery and move on to another job. (Unless you really need 2 passive ability slots, since the Red Mage has Revenge as an innate skill.)
Revenge has a 25% chance of giving a character 1 BP if an attack hits them. Anyone who's read my solo Ringabel posts knows how much I use this ability. Turn Tables is useful for Ninjas, who can gain 1 BP after dodging an attack with Utsusemi. Gimmick parties revolve around poisoning your own characters to gain BP from BP Recovery.
Having Level 4 White Magic allows them to cast Reflect and Dispel as needed.
"I wonder what that even looks like, a robot body with six or seven CatClaw daggers sticking out of it and nothing else, and zooming around at crazy agility speed."
T-Hawk, on my Final Fantasy Legend 2 All Robot Challenge.
T-Hawk, on my Final Fantasy Legend 2 All Robot Challenge.