Best Party Combinations In Octopath Traveler 2

As players are given eight total characters to manage in Octopath Traveler 2, it can be challenging to decide the best party combinations to use against the myriad of enemies encountered throughout the game. Additionally, due to the lack of level scaling, players might struggle to choose which characters are the best to focus on and improve when settling on a particular team. However, with several latent abilities, unlockable skills, and secondary jobs adding even more complexity to this process, players have many options to consider when forming their party members.

Although part of the fun of Octopath Traveler 2‘s building block mechanics, the variety of party choices offered to the player boils down to both the character narratives they want to explore and hero-specific abilities that would benefit them most. For example, both Temenos and Castti have healing abilities that could help other characters in the party, but players might want to explore Temenos’ story of corruption within the church more. Players not only choose what mechanics they are working with when building a four-character party composition but also what narrative the overall story will look like through a hero’s relationships.

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The Traditional RPG Party

The best characters to start with in Octopath Traveler 2 when forming a party resemble the classic RPG team combo: a warrior, rogue, healer, and offensive magic user. While incredibly basic at its core, this group of characters helps teach players the general structure of combat without dipping too much into anything deeper. Hikari provides widespread damage and defense through Learned Skills, while Throné has some of the best DPS with focused multi-attacks on enemies. Osvald is capable of buffing allies with magic and dealing damage with their spells, while Temenos acts as a classic white mage to support their allies.

The secondary jobs are where things get a bit more diverse as players attempt to beat Octopath Traveler 2‘s story. These subclasses of sorts are gained when players earn Licenses in the world, and allow characters to branch off into a wider variety of abilities when leveling up. For instance, teaching Merchant skills to Osvald gives them chances to improve their physical defense, a glaring weakness of the magic user.

The Physical Stun-Lock Party

The focus behind this party composition comes from their ability to use devastating physical damage and skills to stun enemies out of their turns. Keeping Castti as the pure healer this time, players can use Ochette and Throné to exploit any weakness to physical damage in battle. With certain EX skills that unlock when players find Altar locations in Octopath Traveler 2, both the damage dealers and Agnea can quickly take down enemy shields or apply status effects that make enemies more vulnerable.

The reason why players should give Throné the Inventor secondary job is due to the Changeable Catapult AoE attack that comes from the subclass. When combined with Agnea’s Ruinous Kick or Dagger Dance attacks, players can shred defenses before striking every foe at once for significant physical damage. Ochette brings a little extra to the table in this party by providing a slight elemental fill while their companion identifies and targets weaknesses of enemies encountered.

The Magic Donation Party

New characters in Octopath Traveler 2 do an excellent job at supporting each other in battle, but the party that exemplifies this expectation the best relies on the synergy between Osvald and Partitio. This party composition directly supplies Osvald with BP through the Donation ability seen in the Merchant class through Partitio, allowing the Scholar to consistently use their most potent spells all the time. The magical damage from this simple combo can be extraordinary, wiping out enemies whose health can’t keep up with the bombardment of explosive magics used.

Obviously Temenos provides a framework to keep allies healed, but the Warrior seondary job allows the character to act as a source of physical damage as well. Nighttime combat with Throné makes this party nearly impossible to stop, as her skills let players debuff their opponents in addition to the magical attacks being utilized. Players are recommended to use Osvald as their first character in Octopath Traveler 2 to guarantee this team early in the story.

The “Hired Hands” Party

The final party concept here does not boast combat prowess or efficiency, but rather a fun idea that revolves around recruiting NPC’s found within the world. Each character in this team has a specific ability that allows them to gain optional party members that give players what could almost be considered a small militia of allies. For Ochette, this skill is named Befriend and Capture; for Paritio, it’s Hire, Guidance for Temenos, and Allure with Agnea.

The great tactical gameplay of Octopath Traveler 2 gets even more complex as players have to use tons of resources to maintain this extra large group of characters. Thankfully, this means that the secondary jobs of each party member are less important, since the primary abilities needed are tied to base class Path Actions. Players looking to one of the best party compositions in Octopath Traveler 2 for the sheer absurdity of its concept should consider heavily investing in money, food items, and be ready for a heavy leveling grind to keep these NPC’s in line.

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