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The deep and flexible combat system is one ofOctopath Traveler 2’s biggest selling points. It allows you to experiment with different job combinations, strategize using each character’s unique skills and Latent Powers, and mastery of the Boost system lets you pull off some tremendously impressive feats of devastation.
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The game is very good at easing you into this battle system, but the later stages will get quite tough if you don’t take the time to work out some decent strategies or learn the ins and outs well enough. Here, we provide some tried-and-tested tips for getting to grips with the combat system.
Learn The Order Of Weakness Icons
Unless you’re a heavy user of theScholar’s Analyzeability, finding out what an enemy is weak to can be something of a chore, requiring some trial and error. However, once you’ve revealed one or two, you can use a simple trick to narrow down the full range of weaknesses possessed by the enemy in question.
The weaknesses in the game, whether to a weapon or an element, arealways arranged in the exact same order. That order is as follows:
This means that whenever you identify a weakness, you cannarrow down the other weaknessesthe enemy has based on the position of the revealed weakness in its weakness box. For example, if you reveal the first weakness, on the far left of the box, and it’s Staves, then you know that the rest of the enemy’s weaknesses must all be elemental in nature.
This trick takes a lot of the guesswork out of finding weaknesses.
Once you’ve reached Gravell, which is at the northern tip of the western continent, you’ll be able to unlock theArmsmasterjob. This job has theSixfold Strikeattack, which deals a strike of every single weapon type - this is perfect for identifyingweapon weaknessesin one turn. After that turn, you simply have to root out any elemental weaknesses.
Elemental Barrage Makes Mugging Easy
One of the more convenient and exploitable Path Actions in the game isOsvald’s Mugging. This allows you toacquire the entire inventory of an NPC in one fell swoop, as long as you canbeat them in a battle. This means you can get very powerful pieces of equipment before you can get Throné or Agnea to a high-enough level to get them normally, or raise the funds to purchase them with Partitio (and some items cannot be purchased, anyway).
The potential issue that you may identify is that Osvald can be quite fragile at times, and relies on being able toexploit elemental weaknessesunless he’s built for a more physically oriented sub-job. This is whereElemental Barragecomes in - most NPCs in the game are weak to at least one of the three elements that Elemental Barrage makes use of, so it’s a great way to root them out efficiently. In addition, once an enemy is Broken, aboosted Elemental Barragewill deal a very large amount of damage without the need for setting up an elemental boost or Advanced Magic/Alephan’s Wisdom.
Simplypump Osvald’s elemental attack stat as high as it can goand then use Elemental Barrage to your heart’s content. With high stats, it’s a great tool for taking on even enemies who don’t have weaknesses to Fire, Lightning, or Ice.
Elemental Boosts Rule The Roost
Some pieces of equipment in this game will raise the damage that a character deals when using certain elements. This boost is not insignificant and canseriously boost your damage, letting you break the damage cap quite easily when the conditions are right.
Having the item equipped is all you need for the boost to be applied - if Osvald has a Dagger equipped that boosts his Fire damage, for example, his spells will still be boosted even when the elemental attack he’s using is from a Staff.
The table below listsevery piece of equipment that boosts an element.
Sunshadow Staff (and Light)
Enhance Your Equipment
The range of equipment in Octopath Traveler 2 is vast - there seems to be a piece of equipment to satisfy any want or need. Some of them come with downsides to compensate for their power, and some of them are just plain useful. There aretwo ways to make some of the best pieces of equipment even more useful.
The first is theBlessing in Disguise. This is an accessory that you can pick up either from theSeat of the Water Sprite, an optional dungeon in the Crestlands or from theLost Isle, which is only accessible afterpurchasing Partitio’s boatand defeating the whirlpool monster to the east of Toto’haha Island.
The effect of the Blessing in Disguise is to completelyreverse any negative modifiersthat your equipment has. When paired with the right equipment, this can be incredibly useful.A prime example is the Cursed Set of armor, all of which have fantastic defensive stats but plummet another stat into the ground - with the Blessing in Disguise, the Cursed Set now provides the best stat boosts in the entire game, turning a whole spread of -66 into +66.
The second method isUpgraded Accessories, which is aSupport Skill learned by the Inventor class. To unlock this, you’ll need to have completedthree of Arkar’s inventions. This skill willraise the stats granted by the user’s accessories by half, giving them far better stat gains. This is best used on characters who use their accessories simply to boost their stats, usually the offensive stats. The best accessories, such as the Eye of Calamity and the Librarian’s Amulet, have huge stat boosts associated with them, so using them with Upgraded Accessories is a no-brainer.
Make A Meal Of Your Foes
One of the more underrated unique abilities in the game isOchette’s ability to Capture monstersand then prepare them, turning them into meals. At the beginning of the game, the meals aren’t too impressive - Jerky and its varieties only heal a bit of HP and sometimes SP, and they’re not as good as Healing Grapes.
Stronger monsters, however, get turned into far better meals. They can grant great status effects and stat buffs, deal with rare status ailments, and even replicate the effects of rare Energizing Pomegranates and Empowering Lychees.
When you have Ochette in your party, make liberal use of the Capture ability,keep her auto-capture option turned on, and use her to finish enemies off when you’re able to. Not only will this let you experiment with lots of different and interesting monsters in battle, but you’ll quickly amass a great repertoire of meals that you’ll always be able to find a use for.
If you combine this with theApothecary’s Divine Skill, Dohter’s Charity, you’ll be able tospread the effects of a meal to the entire party at once. If you get some particularly useful meals, such as those that provide offensive buffs, this is a great way to use them.
