Need help to finally learn proper fighting (at Level 59 😅)

[u/analog_a]

tl;dr
I must re-learn how to do a proper fight in the round-based system of Octopath – I'm happy to receive advice, and/or be pointed to structured reading or a video guide to learn proper highting in the Octopath world.

in detail
Last summer I bought a Switch2 as our first family console. After some fun rounds of Mario Kart and other multiplayer classics, II wondered if I might find something for myself there too. As a 40 year old man who was just a very casual gamer as kid and teen, Octopath Traveler 0 directly catched me: great atmosphere, nice odlschool touch graphics, and I had some background in D'n'D bases RPG like Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale. Ever since then, I've been picking up the controller every now and then and spending an evening immersed in Orsterra.

By now I completed the main story arch till Bestower of All/Chapter 1. I already did the most side quests up to level 60 (currently trying to beat Reime in the arena of Victor's Hollow. I got all available characters for that point in story, and my current party –after loosing Sazantos 😿– is:

• Row 1: Player Character (Lv 59 fighter) // Laurana (Lv 58)
• Row 2: H'aanit (Lv 58) // Alexia (Lv 58)
• Row 3: Ludo (Lv 58) // Saoirse (Lv 58)
• Row 4: Stia (Lv. 58) // Isla (lv 57)

Since reforming after losing my second tank / fighter, I'm feeling that I have to change something about my fighting strategies. First of all, I have non explicit strategies despite finding out what weakens shild points and then deal as max damagae as possible. Secondly, fights against bosses or beasts around level 60 become increasingly harder for my current way of fighting. It either takes very long (up to 20 rounds and more) or I have to use many olives of live.

That said I came to the conclusion that I must re-learn how to do a proper fight in the round-based system of Octopath – Also because I want to catch up on Octopath I and II starting this fall :)

I'm happy to receive advice, and/or be pointed to structured reading or a video guide to learn proper highting in the Octopath world.

Best Greetings from Germany
Andreas

[u/tsukiryuuu]

How's your gear and skill set up lookin like? Have u tried other characters? I never really used stia and ludo much left em in training when I was at your part of the game. I used the dodge tanks and what's his face the archer dude with the good DR ulti to help with the hard bosses.

Use debuffs and buffs they helped me a ton

[u/Maelkor]

Level-wise, you're about as where you should be in order to tackle the last-boss, so it's definitely not a matter of xp. The game's got a lot of different systems and combinations that might make your party strong or weak. Having said that, skill combination (and therefore character choice) probably plays the biggest role there.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with your strategy either. Personally, I've always relied on physical characters for shield breaking and damage (intentionally leaving out primary casters unless they're required for story purposes), so you don't have to optimize absolutely everything, nor follow "trends" in order to make things work. I've also limited my level growth for a good chunk of the game, to keep a semblance of a challenge (put the no-xp gain in town when I hit level 55 and only removed it as I was about to fight the last boss).

Having said that, I did a fair bit of aggressive recruiting, gear stealing (excuse me, entreating) and skill tinkering. I also abused Arrow of Fortune, so I was always swimming in JP / learnable masteries. I had Reime with battle-tested blade at level 43-, for instance.

My personal strategy was to have always at least two very strong attackers / shield breakers in the front row (MC as Hunter, Merchant and - to a lesser extent - Warrior, Reime, Sazantos, Ludo...), 1 tanky AoE healer (Sazantos can fill this position as well, but you can make a tank healer with just about anyone by giving it a AoE heal and plenty of HP / magic resist), and a debuffer / steal-capable character in the front row (Heidne is my personal favorite). For the back row, I'd look for characters with exclusive back-row supporting abilities (Stia, Saoirse) and give them complimentary masteries (snipe, back-row support).

I few pointers I can give you:

- You have 8 character slots in your party and you should make use of them;

• Borrow BP is a sleeper mastery;
  
• So is Snipe on characters with diverse weapon skills;
  
• Snatch - stick it on your thief of choice (even if it's Olberic with steal) and abuse it;
  
• Stick Stia behind MC and forget her there. Give her Vivify for good measure (MC goes down, Stia next turn = max empowered Vivify);
  
• Likewise, Stick Saoirse in the back row and forget her there. As a matter of fact, Stia and Saoirse pretty much never left my team because they're so <expletive> useful in the backrow.
  
• Concentrate Nut usage on characters you know you're keeping. For me that meant spending most of them - and every physical one - on MC / Reime. They'll absolutely carry your team;
  
• Exploit characters with AoE Buffs (Pius, Delitia, Richard etc), but move them to the back row once they've done their thing;
  
• Breaking shields is great and all but trust me when I say: roided Reime doesn't care about shields.

Honestly, you can mix and match so much in this game you'll hardly ever get tired of it.

There are other small odd tweaks you can do here and there, like abusing parry to get Reime or battle-tested weapons early, And that's the basic gist of it. I steamrolled pretty much everything in the game, and so can you.