Tips for The 8 Jobs of Octopath Traveler

Time for a grand, continent-spanning adventure? It'll take more than one set of skills to do it right. Here are some tips on the 8 jobs of Octopath Traveler.


To be the best adventurer you can be, it’s important to turn your team into a collective jack-of-all-trades. To maximize your party’s efficiency, you’ll need to learn the ins and outs of the job and sub-job systems. To clarify, the “job” is a static skill set each character starts with, while the “sub-jobs” are unlocked in various shrines around the land and can be freely changed. Here’s the lowdown on the eight vanilla jobs, and some ideas on how to mix-and-match.

Merchant

Tressa’s starting job. The Merchant’s a bit of an odd duck, offering little in basic offense beyond wind magic, but a lot in circumstantial abilities. Support yourself and allies with Donate BP and Sidestep, and use Rest to restore HP and SP for free. The Merchant’s most notable ability is Hired Help, allowing you to spend some money for a variety of physical attacks coupled with party-wide buffs. If you plan on making regular use of Hired Help, though, remember to use Collect to swipe some cash from foes. For a sub-job, any kind of straight damage-dealing job like Warrior or Hunter works to make up for the Merchant’s offensive shortcomings.

Guide: The 8 Jobs of Octopath Traveler, and How to Mix Them. Sword in hand in thirty minutes or less!

Scholar

Cyrus’s starting job. The Scholar has magic out the wazoo, starting with AOE fire and ice spells as well as lightning available for learning. When an entire enemy team has the same elemental weakness, that’s when the Scholar really shines, though just having all-target spells is pretty nice in general, even if enemies aren’t weak to them. You can also use Analyze to learn one weakness on a target, as well as see their current HP. Boost up, and you can reveal multiple weaknesses at once. Consider Merchant, Dancer, or Cleric for a sub-job, if only to round out the Scholar’s magic arsenal with the wind, darkness, or light, respectively. 

Warrior

Olberic’s starting job. A bread-and-butter damage-dealing tank, the Warrior has basically no magic potential, but a high degree of weapon versatility. Level Slash will be one of your workhorse skills, great against foes with sword weaknesses, but also just good crowd control in general, similar to the Scholar’s AOE magic. If your Warrior needs to soak up more damage or otherwise fly solo, use Stout Wall to build a physical defense and Incite to attract enemy attention. If an enemy has a weakness to polearms and swords, you can really ruin their day by wearing down their guard with Thousand Spears, then delivering a devastating Cross Strike when their defense is compromised. Since Warrior is such a straightforward job, there’s lots of potential for mixing. Add Cleric or Dancer to improve your tanking potential, or if you’re feeling gutsy, go all in on offense with Hunter.

Thief

Therion’s starting job. Besides the obvious item-swiping skills, the Thief is a master of debuffing enemies and solo support. Shackle Foe and Armor Corrosive will reduce an enemy’s physical offense and defense, respectively. HP Thief and Steal SP can be used in a pinch to support the Thief if a proper healer isn’t on hand or you need some quick SP restoration. The SP you steal can also be distributed to the party via Share SP, creating a renewable source of energy. Be careful not to overdo it, though; Share SP will take 50% of the user’s current SP, which means it’ll either use up most of it if it’s high or do virtually nothing if it’s low. Thief pairs well with support jobs, since HP Thief and Steal SP allow recovery while staying on the offensive, though a case can also be made for doubling up with offensive jobs like Warrior and Hunter and creating a tank.

Dancer

Primrose’s starting job. In contrast to the Thief, the Dancer is all about buffing up the party. Physical strength, elemental strength, physical defense, and speed can all be powered up through a variety of dances, with Boosting increasing the number of turns they last. If you’re a risk-taker, the Dancer also offers Bewildering Grace, a skill that causes a completely random effect to occur every time it is used. With each BP spent, an additional effect will be triggered. It might be something good like a party heal or a big attack on enemies, or your entire party might be shot down to 1 HP. It’s your neck, risk it if you want. Combine Dancer with Thief to gain a deeper control over buffs and debuffs, or add Cleric to round out the buff arsenal with magic defense.

Guide: The 8 Jobs of Octopath Traveler, and How to Mix Them. Primrose can rock any look.

Cleric

Ophilia’s starting job. The Cleric is a juggernaut of good vibes, with even the basic heal skills restoring at least a fourth of any character’s health, to say nothing of Boosting. Every healing skill affects the entire party, even Revive, though the trade-off there is that characters are only brought back with 1 HP. While not to the extent of the Dancer, the Cleric also has some buffing potential; use Sheltering Veil to improve the elemental defense, or, if one character is being over-targeted with magic, use Reflective Veil and return it to the sender. To create the ultimate, any-circumstance healer, combine Cleric with Apothecary, though be prepared to sacrifice most of that character’s damage-dealing capability. If you want a somewhat more self-reliant Cleric, add Thief for Steal SP.

Apothecary

Alfyn’s starting job. The Apothecary’s one-man heals may seem a bit superfluous compared to the Cleric’s party-wide ones, but it also has some basic status-manipulation skills. Use Rehabilitate to cure a party member of all status ailments as well as render them immune to further ones for a few turns, and turn the tide on your foes with Empoison to give them a little taste of the green flu. The Apothecary’s resurrection skill, Vivify, also restores more health to the target party member than the Cleric’s Revive (though only for one member). If all else fails, bust out Amputation and Last Stand for some nasty axe attacks. If you want to focus on defense, combine Apothecary with Cleric, as previously mentioned. If you want to maximize the axe attacks, however, throw a Warrior in there for some health and strength bonuses, as well as additional weapons to round out the solitary axe.

Hunter

H’annit’s starting job. H’annit’s signature skill, Beast Lore, sadly does not carry over into the regular Hunter job. This cripples its worth somewhat, but it still has an arsenal of bow attacks, both single-target and AOE, that give some good damage-dealing potential. Rain of Arrows doesn’t do a lot of damage, but it’s great for breaking defenses on enemy’s with bow weaknesses, and if you get lucky, you might break multiple foes at once. Arrowstorm is a more concentrated version of Rain of Arrows that targets all foes at once instead of random ones, though it costs a lot more SP to use. Use Rain to break, and Storm to squash. Leghold Trap can force an enemy to the end of the turn order for a little while, and while they’re off-kilter, use True Strike to hit them with the critical-grade damage that would normally be reserved for a broken defense. As with Warrior, the Hunter works for both tank builds and battle medics, and can, for all intents and purposes, synergize with the same jobs as Warrior. If you like, try adding Scholar for more AOE options, as well as bonuses to elemental offense and defense.

1 Comment

  1. Avatar photo

    Neat article! Octopath is one of my favorite games of all time, and the job system really adds to the charm of its battle mechanics!

    Reply

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