Octopath Traveler 2: tips and tricks for beginners

Octopath Traveler 2 is quite a deep game, and even fans of the first might find themselves a little lost in the new stuff

Octopath Traveler 2 can be quite a complex game when it wants to be. With eight different characters, all with their unique skills, and the ability to mix up all of the main jobs as you see fit, you might find yourself overwhelmed by choice when it comes to composing a team. There are also plenty of secrets out there in the world that the game never gives you a tutorial for, so we’re here to help.

Even if you did play the first game, this sequel adds a bunch of new layers to things, so we’ve put together these tips so you can hit the ground running in your adventure.

If you're trying to beef up your skills, then check out our guide for the Octopath Traveler 2 Inventor job.

Choose your starting traveler wisely

The great thing about Octopath’s style is that you can get all the characters pretty quickly upon starting your adventure. However, the traveler you start as holds a unique place, as you won’t be able to remove them from your party until you complete their story. This means they’ll likely become the center point that you build your team around, so they need to be a good one.

If one character really draws your heart, then feel free to pick them, but understand that if you start with someone like Agnea, the Dancer, then you’re going to face an uphill battle for the first few hours. Jobs like Dancer and Merchant are focused more on support than power, so those characters will struggle on their own until you have other characters as a backup.

Get items and information from every NPC

Each traveler’s unique path actions are the key to a lot of secrets hidden in the world, and this time each traveler has two path actions depending on the time of day. Things like Provoke or Allure are useful in very specific circumstances, but there are some you should use whenever you enter a new town.

You can look through almost any NPC’s inventory and get very useful items off them with Steal, Purchase, or Entreat – with some of the game’s best weapons being hidden in the pockets of NPCs. On top of that you should get information out of them by using either Scrutanize, Inquire, or Bribe. You’ll need to use this to get information for certain side quests, but more importantly, you can learn the locations of hidden items.

Save Latent Powers for bosses

Square Enix

The Latent Powers are a new feature for Octopath Traveler 2, and they’re extremely powerful. To pick just a few, Throné can act twice in a turn, Osvald can make his spells single-target for a damage boost, and Ochette can unleash one of three massive attacks.

Chaining them together at the right moment can utterly destroy some bosses in an instant, so you shouldn’t just be using them on any random encounter. Thankfully, it doesn’t take too long for them to charge back up thanks to breaks, but you don’t want to get caught out with no power just before heading into a big battle.

Track down secondary jobs ASAP

The true depth of Octopath 2’s combat system only comes out when you have access to secondary jobs. This gives each character an extra set of skills that they can put to use in battle, making them more powerful than ever. It also expands their repertoire of support skills, giving them a better selection of passive abilities.

All of the guilds for the base secondary jobs are in Level 30+ areas or towns, so going there early might be scary. However, if you use the Scholar’s Evasive Maneuvers support skill and don’t sprint in the area, you might get lucky and not get any random encounters. If you do, just try and run and hopefully you’ll be fine. It might take a few tries, but if you succeed, you’ll be able to get secondary jobs quite early in the game.

Advanced jobs are hidden in the world

Like in the first game, there are four advanced jobs that you can find by exploring the world. These jobs are much more powerful than the base jobs in a variety of ways. However, you don’t get them through simple boss fights this time around. In Octopath 2, these jobs are hidden via NPCs out in the world. The most obvious is the Inventor, which has a guild near New Delta, but the rest are much harder to track down.

If you find an odd NPC who has a strange request, then you might just be talking to an advanced guild master – especially if there’s no side quest attached to them.