Octopath Traveler II: Hikari Learned Skills Guide

Hikari is one of the most potent fighters in Octopath Traveler II, and is the party member most naturally attuned to be a tanky, physical, all-out brawler. To make full use of him, however, you'll need to amass a weath of Learned Skills - abilities learned from NPCs.

In this guide, we're going to endeavor to detail the best learned skills and the locations where you can get them in Octopath 2 - plus some notes on why those skills are so good. By following it, you can make Hikari into even more of a beast than he is naturally.

The Best Learned Skills for Hikari in Octopath Traveler 2

To make use of the full potential of Hikari as a fighter, you'll need to travel across the full world of Octopath Traveler 2 challenging NPC characters to duels with one of Hikari's Path Actions. Defeating them in duels will unlock an ability associated with that NPC.

This Path Action can only be used in the daytime, and the number of abilities you can acquire is absolutely enormous - in a sense, it encompasses many of the abilities available in the game period. We are going to update this page with as many skills as we can, though the purpose of this guide isn't to list all of Hikari's Learned Skills - instead, it's to pick out and pinpoint the locations of the best skills, so that you can prioritize learning them.

As a note, it's worth saying that Hikari can only equip a maximum of five different Learned Skill abilities at any given time - so you'll have to choose carefully. Some of these skills can pair well with other setup options if you've got the best job combinations, the secret jobs, EX Skills, and a good party setup. 

Below, we complie a list of some of the most helpful learned skill abilities and highly recommended that you pick up some of these abilities for yourself. 

Our Suggested Learned Skill Abilities

• Limb from Limb: Perhaps the strongest damage skill. This ability does exactly four hits and when fully boosted the damage can easily surpass the damage cap, destroying anything with ease.
  • Location: Stormhail: Sacred Guard Headquarters -  Sanctum Knight (Another guard is blocking the room he's located in)
• Deep Analysis: Similar to the scholar's analyse ability. However, this one is vastly superior as It allows you to discover 2 weaknesses at once.
  • Location: Outside of the Flamechurch Cathedral - Scholar
    • Montwise Arena - Scholar
• Last Gasp: An ability that does more damage the lower your HP is. This is an amazing ability for dueling in case you need to one-shot a much stronger opponent than you.
  • Location: Montwise - Guard
• Mythical Bore: This is basically a last resort kind of ability. It consumes all your SP to deliver a really powerful strike. This is probably one of the easiest ability to take advantage of the 99999 damage cap.
  • Location: Nameless Village - Beastling
• Defiant Stance: An amazing self-buff ability that covers both physical offense and defense.
  • Location: Oresrush - Townsperson
• Trick of the Trade: Extremely powerful ability, this will let you raise the attack power of all your allies and allow you to dodge one physical attack. 
  • Location: Rogue Island - Merchant
• Divine Protection: A truly broken ability that lets your character immune to any attacks. When fully boosted, this ability can block 4 hits, making it a must-have for super bosses. 
  • Location: Canalbrine - Cleric
• Shield Thief: This ability works similarly to Temenos's latent powers. It will reduce an enemy's shield gauge regardless of what their weakness are. Obviously, this doesn't let you bypass locked weakness on some of the story bosses.
  • Location: Winterbloom, Thieves Quarter - Thief
• Merciless Blade: An excellent ability on farming Octopuffs and Caits due to its never missing properties. If you do not want to use hired help or souls stones, this might be the best ability to obtain on farming rare monsters.
  • Location: Tropu'hopu - Young Man
• Frenzied Fire:  This ability does a random amount of hits, but it will hit at least four times and a maximum of eight times. This is really good on breaking enemies weak against bow attacks. 
  • Location: Timberain - Elderly Soldier
• Fatal Fang: Similar to the ability above, this will hit four to eight times. This is an amazing ability for enemies weak against dagger attacks, It also has a little bonus that it can poison enemies as well.
  • Location: Clockbank - Elderly Man
• Aggressive Thrust: Like the ability above, this will hit four to eight times except it's spear based.
  • Location: Canalbrine - Bridge Builder
• Compound Formulae: A magic attack that does fire, light, and dark on all enemies. Its similar to the elemental barrage from the scholar, however, this ability is only recommended if you have Hikari built as a magic user. 
  • Location: Montwise - Scholar
• Resting, Resting: Similar to the merchant's skill, Rest. Lets you recover HP and SP without needing items or if you don't have an assigned healer in your group.
  • Location: Beasting Village - Beastling
• Deep Sleep: A very powerful healing ability that will recover 50% of your HP and SP. Using this will put your character to sleep for four turns, but this effect can be nullified with a Wakeful Stone if you're willing to sacrifice an accessory slot.
  • Location: Nameless Village - Beastling
• Twin Serpents: A really reliable double hit on all enemies. 
  • Location: Beasting Village - Beastling, Ku Throne Room - Benkei 

*Edit: Added another ability from our reader's (Myst) suggestion.