Octopath Traveler II: Best Job Combinations
There’s a lot player choice in Octopath Traveler II, though one of the biggest choices is exactly how to set up your job combinations. Picking what extra job class to bequeath to what character is always a challenging question.
Each of the eight cast members comes with their own native and latent job and set of abilities - but once you start unlocking secondary jobs at guilds, you’ll be able to assign a second class to each character. This isn’t just a choice about which class you prefer, but also how the two jobs intersect and how their abilities complement each other.
There’s a lot of combinations to consider - and so this page is here to offer some suggestions for the best job combinations for those who are paralyzed by the choice or left scratching their heads. Right now, it’s a work in progress - we’ll be updating, and you can drop your own thoughts and combos in the comments.
Best Job Combinations for Octopath Traveler 2
We want to start this, the meat of the guide, with a clear and plain message. Listen up, and listen close: there are no absolute best job combos in Octopath Traveler 2. The game is open-ended enough that just about any weird or whacky combo you can think of could be made to be viable - but of course some combos are more natural and immediately effective than others.
Ultimately, though, you can go with your gut and have fun with the system. That's what it's for! The same applies to building the best party - experimentation is king. Alternatively, you can get some advice - which we have here. Below, we’ve got some thoughts on at least a few job combo options for each of the eight playable characters.
For now, this guide only covers the secondary classes and not the secret advanced jobs. This is by design, as the advanced and secret jobs are late game and more complicated - and also are very strong, so naturally would top every list.
Ochette: Best Hunter Job Combinations
Warrior - Unbridled Power
Ochette can bolster her offensive capabilities with the buffs that the Warrior class offers, while it also gives you a few more weapon types to play around with.
Basically, this combination can hugely reduce Ochette’s reliance on using her animals for help - which you might see as a major plus or alternatively might see as dampening this character’s unique skill set. The damage output is hard to argue with, however.
This combination works great for Ochette, but also fits Hikari - just in reverse.
Thief - Rapid Boosting
Ochette's natural Hunter class pairs well with the Thief for a simple reason - the Thief has some great skills that raise chances of landing a crit, which pairs well with some of the high-damage abilities open to the Hunter.
The Thief also has a chance to act first at the start of battle, which lets you get in there right at the start and sometimes even end battles before they really even begin. This works great in reverse too, with Throne.
Castti: Best Apothecary Job Combinations
Cleric - The Healer
If you just want to turn Castti into a very traditional White Mage support character type, this is the job combination you’re after. She can obviously heal with her Item Combining skills, but by pairing her with the Cleric you’ll also get a range of healing and support spells.
Because of the way you stack jobs in the Octopath games, it’s not guaranteed that you’ll actually choose to have a dedicated healer outright - but if you do, this combo on Castti is one of the better ways to achieve it.
Dancer - Queen of Buffs
As with the above, but instead of healing this is all about the buffs. The Dancer is the base support class in Octopath Traveler 2, and so combining the two means you can buff as well as heal - and you’ll also have a bit of limited group healing capability, though not nearly as much as the Cleric combo.
There’s one more clever trick here, which is to pair the Dancer’s ultimate ability with the Apothecary’s 3-turn Regen health Replenishment skill - this can give the whole party passive heals for three turns.
Throne: Best Thief Job Combinations
Warrior - Tank the Pain
The idea here is pretty simple - you combine the buffing and counter-attack abilities of the Warrior with the Thief’s strong stat base and the brilliant Thief Support Skill Ensnare - which gives you a high chance to inflict a negative status effect on enemies whenever hit with physical damage.
The Warrior’s Incite ability will make enemies gravitate towards Throne - which then lets you unleash that status effect, counter attack - or both, if you’re lucky. In addition, the stats on this combo just turn out pretty decently, even if in terms of strategy it’s quite a straightforward setup.
Dancer - Double Supporter
The main problem with the Dancer class is the frequency of casting and how stingy Octopath Traveler 2 is with its buff and debuff durations. You can fix this with this combo at least a few times in big battles thanks to the Throne’s Leave No Trace ultimate - meaning you can cast those buffs twice in those clutch situations.
Beyond that, this’ll also give you access to a little more magic and the ability to buff allies in the first place, which pairs well with the Thief’s enemy debuff skills to make for a strong all-around support party member.
Osvald: Best Scholar Job Combinations
Cleric - The Wizened
If you just want to make an absolute all-rounder for magic, use the Scholar’s strong magic stats as a base and add in the Cleric for a job combo that has access to four of the core spell types, plus support skills that raise SP and thus allow for much more casting to be done.
This is synergistic in other ways, however - with the Cleric also having access to good healing and a couple of skills that can buff allies, or more likely be used to keep the slightly more squishy Osvald alive in tight situations. It’s really all about that offensive magic, however.
Arcanist - Master Magus
We said we wouldn't feature too many of the secret jobs in this guide, but we have to make a bit of an exception for Osvald and the job combination of Scholar and Arcanist, as it honestly just leads to the all-out best magic class in the game. Offensive and support magic, access to Dark and Light elements, and even healing spells - it has it all.
If you go down the path of dedicating Osvald to the path of magic, which certainly matches his natural affinity, this is the endgame for him as a character - it's unbeatable.
Partitio: Best Merchant Job Combinations
Dancer - Instant Support
This is another class combo that is built around a bit of a gimmick - but it’s a good one! Specifically, the Dancer’s Divine Skill lets you cast a buff that allows a party member’s moves to hit all enemies for three turns - and Partitio’s latent power means he’ll start every battle with that skill locked, loaded, and ready to fire.
The end result is that you can kick off every battle by giving an ally - area-of-effect hit-all spells for three turns. This is less useful for longer encounters, but makes ripping through random encounters far more breezy. Partitio himself will get a few more element attacks, too.
Warrior - Incite & Slide
The job combination of assigning Partitio the secondary class of Warrior is one of those setups that's designed around one specific skill pairing - that is 'Incite' and 'Vengeful Blade' from the Warrior plus 'Sidestep' from the Merchant.
Sidestep lets you dodge the next incoming attack with guaranteed success. Incite forces enemies to attack you. And Vengeful Blade automatically counter-attacks any incoming attacks. You see where this is going. This setup allows you to encourage attacks, cha-cha slide out of their way, then deliver a devastating counter-attack. Perfection!
Agnea: Best Dancer Job Combinations
Apothecary - The Healing Touch
If you want to lean into Agnea’s natural support role as a dancer, there’s really no more obvious choice than making her into your party’s designated healer, too. This is a stat synergy, but also an ability synergy thanks to Angea’s Latent Power.
While not available all the time, the way ‘All Together Now’ makes single-target skills target all is a game-changer, and allows Agnea to heal or revive the entire party at once. Between heals, rather than awkward downtime, she can flip back to the Dancer’s natural buff game.
Thief - Cast a Wide Net
Once again, this class combo is really all about the manner in which Agnea’s Latent Power works - turning single target skills into hit-all masterworks. This time, the idea is to combine this with the nasty debuffs that the Thief can cast on enemies.
Like with the other implementations of this idea, it can allow you to crowd control large numbers of enemies easily - and then turn on a dime to buff your entire party the very next turn.
Merchant - Shake Your Moneymaker
This is more of a neat trick than anything else - but you can use the Dancer’s latent ability, All Together Now, to turn a single-target move into a multi-target move. You can then pair this with the Collect skill from the Merchant… and make it rain.
This is more a gimmick to get money than anything else, but this combination also makes the Dancer much more combat-viable, too, with Daggers, Polearms, Bows, Wind, and Fire Magic. This isn’t exactly a combo for the late game, but that money-making tip makes it a great option for grinding.
Temenos: Best Cleric Job Combinations
Scholar - Grand Wizard
As previously mentioned in the Osvald section of this page, this class combo is the best magical output available without any of the secret or advanced classes - mashing up what is essentially a black and a white mage (though nothing is so black and white in Octopath - pun intended) to create a magical jack-of-all-trades that also has masterful stats for the purposes of casting.
Toss in the Elemental Barrage skill, which hits three to five times with random element damage, and this seems outright broken. In a good way.
With Temenos in particular there’s a neat extra wrinkle, however. His Latent Power allows him to damage enemy shield points to make them vulnerable with the wrong element - which goes well with the Scholar’s HP-busting spells. Gather BP, and then use this to let rip with a max-power spell that melts faces.
Apothecary - Physician Heal Thyself
This is a more boring combination than the above as it doesn’t involve melting HP bars, but if you want a slightly more exciting healer than some of the other options in the game.
The Apothecary will also give you access to Axes, Ice Magic, and Poison, raising Temenos’ otherwise pretty lacking attack capabilities. The poison effects, in particular, shouldn’t be underestimated.
Hikari: Best Warrior Job Combinations:
Hunter - The Physical Beast
If you want to have a powerful jack-of-all trades physical fighter, this combination is the best route to it - and you can achieve it with Hikari or Ochette. It’ll ultimately give you access to Swords, Polearms, Axes, and Bows - meaning you’ve got almost all of the physical attack weapon types in the game.
The two also pair to provide great abilities for tanking, counter-attacking, and dealing crits. It just creates a beast, basically.
Merchant - Dodging & Dealing
The idea behind this one is all built around two skills - the Warrior’s Vengeful Blade, which allows for automatic counter-attacks, and the Merchant’s Sidestep, which when cast gives you one attack automatically dodged with a 100% success rate.
You see where this is going: you can stack the two. The enemy attacks, you sidestep, and then also counter-attack. It’s great - and this job combo also comes with access to additional access to Polearms and Bows, plus Fire Magic.