Best Support Skills in Octopath Traveler 2

Octopath Traveler 2 really tests your wits when it comes to picking the right Skills. With over 30 different skills to choose from in the midst of your journey in Solistia, there’s a lot of variation that needs to be accounted for. This begs the question, what are the best Support skills in Octopath Traveler 2?

In this article, we’re going to go over the best Support skills in Octopath Traveler 2 alongside the reasons why they’re so great in the first place.

Additionally, if you ever need to get more games on your Switch, be sure to get a Nintendo eShop Card from OffGamers here.

Note: The skills mentioned down below are in no particular order and can be interchanged depending on your lineup.

A Step Ahead (Inventor, 130 JP)

Having an extra turn at the start of battle allows you to set up combos quicker than everyone else. While this alone is great, the skill also provides you with 1 BP, as you would get with a normal round as well. In essence, all of your characters will be able to start with 1 extra BP at the beginning of Round 1.

This skill is excellent for a few reasons. Primarily, it’s the first Support skill you unlock for Inventor. And, secondly, setting up inventions for your Inventor can take a lot more than 2-3 turns before you are finally able to dish out damage. So, the skill provides you with quite a formidable head start.

Lastly, Inventor skills can be used by anyone once they’ve been initially unlocked. So, you can use the skill on stronger travellers like Castti to gain even more BP at the start of the round, thanks to her passives.

Evasive Maneuvers (Scholar, 130 JP)

If you’ve ever played old-school Pokemon games, getting grabbed into battle consistently can get quite annoying. Aptly added, the Scholar, in particular, tends not to have the setup necessary to immediately dish out tons of damage.

As you progress through the game, constant random encounters can bring the already relatively slow pace of the game to a screeching halt and also consume your resources. Plus, as you move through Solistia, you are bound to face off against enemies that’ll absolutely decimate you, reducing your ability to openly explore the lands.

The Evasive Maneuvers skills reduce the rate of these encounters. From our playthrough, the reduction is closer to 20-30%, which is reasonable enough to warrant picking this skill up.

Deal More Damage

Deal More Damage is a much-needed skill for high-damage travellers like Osvald, Thorne and even Ochette. With it, you’ll be able to increase the maximum damage a traveller can deal by equipping the character to a maximum cap of 99,999.

As mentioned earlier, characters like Throne with the right buff and Osvald with his high elemental attack damage can deal a substantial amount of damage and can be played as multi-target damage dealers or nukers depending on your lineup.

Plus, it is an essential skill for regular PvE as well as it helps you clear enemies much quicker than without it. So, you should definitely have this skill on your main damage dealer regardless of who they are, especially in the later stages of the game.

Rise Again

The item Olive of Life serves the same effect as Rise Again. However, if you’ve played the game, you’ll immediately come to realize how hard it gets to procure the Olive of Life, especially in the earlier stages of the game.

With your combos set up, you might just need a turn or two to be able to pull them off. However, your enemies might not be that considerate, leading you to succumb to a fatal blow, a turn before their forecasted demise.

With Rise Again, you’ll be able to resurrect from death with 25% of your Max HP once in a particular battle. While the HP gain may not seem like much, you’ll eventually have the foresight to prepare some recovery combos to get the newly resurrected traveller out of the red.

This skill can come in clutch on numerous situations where you just need a few extra turns to turn the tide of battles to your side. Granted, it works best on support characters like Agnea and Temenos, but it can still be used on damage dealers if you feel like they’re dying a bit too early.

Master of Offense (Armsmaster, 130 JP)

Most enemy lineups in Octopath Traveler 2 tend to follow the textbook definition of an overpowered character, coupled with a few squishies buffing them up. In most cases, you won’t really be able to do much to your opponent if you can’t chow through the big guy first.

Luckily, with Master of Offense, your critical hit rate goes up quite significantly. So, once you’ve broken that pesky enemy, you can immediately unleash a barrage of critical hits annihilating their HP bar. What’s left, then, is slim pickings with the squishies. Bon appétit!

We recommend utilizing this skill in battles where your damage dealers still haven’t scaled properly. Generally, characters like Hikari can really take advantage of Master of Offense, increasing their DPS even though they might not be very high level yet.

Salt in the Wound

Extra turns can be absolutely pivotal in you being able to take out a foe quickly and efficiently. With skills like Master of Offense already wreaking havoc for broken enemies, why not add further salt in the wound (pun intended) by adding in a 50% chance to gain an extra turn and attack another enemy?

Case in point, you won’t be able to stack this up multiple times as this skill procs once per turn. However, couple this with Master of Offense, and you’ll be able to really take advantage of broken enemies and take them down either because of the critical chance or by being able to attack another foe with a free turn.

Vigorous Victor

Vigorous Victor restores 30% of the equipping character’s HP and SP if you win a battle. This Skill is great for the seasoned speedrunner to a novice player. Running back constantly to get your health and SP back can get extremely tiring and repetitive over the course of the game, with this skill alleviating some of those woes.

We recommend picking this up on Support characters, as they generally need the post-battle healing the most. As we’ve mentioned prior, this Skill will still require you to use consumables or run back to town to heal up. But, it’ll definitely reduce the frequency of you needing to do so, which is reason enough to have it equipped.

Incidental Attack

When setting up your combos at the start of the battle and buffing your team up, you probably won’t deal much damage as most of your initial turns will be spent getting amped up. Not to worry, by far, the Thief’s best Support skill is Incidental Attack, equipping them with a 50% chance of attacking when using a non-damaging skill.

In essence, you’ll have a chance to deal DPS at the start of rounds even if you haven’t really cast anything that’s bound to cause damage in the first place. This is great for the late game, wherein even a single hit from a character that deals significant damage can turn out to be absolutely crucial in taking an enemy character out.

Extra Experience

Quite self-explanatory, Extra Experience provides a lot of utility, with characters gaining +10% EXP from battles. While this may not seem like much, it does have a compounding effect as you progress through the game and get more XP per battle.

We’ve had this Support skill equipped for a majority of our playthroughs especially before our Hikari reached Level 30-35, where he seriously starts dishing out damage. Besides just damage dealers, XP is important for every Traveler, which is why we think this is one of the best Support skills in Octopath Traveler 2.

Full Power

Getting extra BP at the start of battle from support characters like Partitio can be an absolute game-changer. With Full Power equipped, he’ll be able to give as much as 3 BP right on his first turn using Donate BP.

The real utility of this skill is exemplified when you have multiple characters that can take advantage of the Latent Power early on, allowing them to get a head-start on their combos. Couple this with A Step Ahead, and you are in for an absolute treat when it comes to preemptive setups.

Conclusion

While all of these Skills can be labelled as situational in certain scenarios, having at least 5-6 of them equipped at any time across your characters will help ensure that you are making the most out of what Ocotpath Traveler 2 has to offer in terms of Support skills. Good luck!