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Life In The Shadows
Blessing Of Darkness
EXP Augmentor, Octopuff Pot, Cait Sand
Optional Dungeons
Octopath Traveler 2 prides itself as an HD-2D continuation of RPGs of old with plenty of fresh bells and whistles along the way. A chief component in role-playing games since time immemorial has been the art of leveling up, or as is often stated somewhat derisively, 'grinding.'
Related: Octopath Traveler 2 Review - Eight Wonderful Tales Well-Told
Grinding is totally a thing you can do in Octopath Traveler 2, and it will make tougher parts of the game a good deal easier. You don't have to go out of your way for hours on end in order to boost your party's levels to an appreciable degree - you've just got to do at least some of what we're about to suggest.
Life In The Shadows
Early on, the game will warn you that tougher foes are available to battle at night. This generally holds true; it's not that everything's weak when the sun is up so much as the enemies in a given area tend to have somewhat higher stats after sundown.
Remember that Octopath Traveler 2 doesn't have an in-game clock, per se - rather, it's up to the player to switch between day and night at will. There's no 11 in the morning, for example. There's just... daytime.
Fighting at night nets extra experience points, because these more powerful enemies tend to be more valuable in this regard as a rule. But once you have recruited Throné, the reasons to fight at night increase, as she has the 'Life in the Shadows' passive ability in her Thief class. You need to have unlocked the first two Support Skills before 'Life in the Shadows' is available, but trust us, it's worth the effort.
Blessing Of Darkness
'Life in the Shadows' will increase EXP as well as JP. Just note that there's no point in equipping more than one character with it, as its effect does not stack. That said, you should probably keep Throné around a bunch while grinding levels even once you've had other characters learn her cool passive; she also comes with a built-in perk that temporarily raises the party's Physical Attack, Elemental Attack, and Speed at night. This makes battles significantly swifter affairs.
Every character has a 'Talent' in Octopath Traveler 2; Throné's is called 'Blessing of Darkness', and it's good for the above effect. If you want to double down on things to make your nighttime grinding sessions even faster, bring Temenos along as well.
Temenos' own Talent, Moonlight Judgment, temporarily weakens enemies during night battles. No doubt you can see why this pairs so perfectly with Blessing of Darkness.
EXP Augmentor, Octopuff Pot, Cait Sand
These three items should all prove helpful, and there's more than one of each. You should find your first EXP Augmentor, which raises the amount of EXP per battle an equipped character will earn, in a treasure chest out in the sea map after acquiring Partitio's ship from Toto'haru's 'Scent of Commerce' quest.
We recommend doing that quest as soon as possible. The monsters in the ocean are around level 34, so you should shoot for being about that strong before attempting to traverse it, but once you're within striking range, scoop up every chest you can find. Loads of them are great, including the EXP Augmentor.
As for the Octopuff Pots and Cait Sands, these can be found in various locations throughout Solistia as well. The former increases the likelihood of Octopuffs appearing in battles; the latter does the same but for the Cait enemy type. Both Octopuffs and Caits are worth a great deal of Experience Points, as well as JP and Leaves, per kill. You'll recognize that you've encountered one immediately, as the battle music will change to something far more chipper.
The trick is actually killing them before they flee. Focus on your party's Speed potential; here, 'Blessing of Darkness' will come in handy yet again, as it boosts the party's swiftness for the first three turns of battle.
We found the above Octopuff Pot after docking at Frigit Isle's anchorage and exploring this freezing spot from Osvald's intro chapters.
Targeting both Octopuffs and Caits with Soulstones of (M) and (L) size will almost always work, which is noteworthy as their Evasion stat is through the roof. Only once you've achieved very high levels can you remotely rely upon your physical attacks to connect with them.
Optional Dungeons
While some of these aren't technically optional - you'll end up visiting a handful in the story's final chapter - Octopath Traveler 2's map is positively littered with dungeons packed with higher-leveled enemies than anything you'd expect to find in the surrounding area, often with their own difficult boss fights to overcome and plenty of treasure to make it worthwhile.
The rewards don't end with items, however. These optional dungeons will provide substantially more Experience Points per encounter simply because the enemy parties' levels are so much higher than the norm. Obviously, you won't be able to barge into a level 50 location from the start of the game and hope for the best; you'll be flattened. But as soon as you feel reasonably confident that your team can tackle a given spot, by all means, dungeon-dive.
There are optional dungeons with levels as low as 16, too, so it's not all endgame fare. If you stumble upon one of those very soon into your Octopath Traveler 2 tale, you will likely benefit from it far more than what you would have had to rely upon for leveling up in the outdoors routes, which will have enemies with even lower levels.
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