Octopath Traveler Passive Skills: passive skills for all classes

by RPG Site Staff on 16 July, 2018

A huge part of Octopath Traveler is managing the various job classes you unlock as you go through the game - and one thing that can have an absolutely enormous impact on your play style is which passive skills you choose to use - but the nature of passive skills means you might want to plan ahead as to which you want to acquire and equip on each character - which isn't all that handy considering the game hides what they are from you until they're unlocked. On this page we're going to break down how these special skills work.

First thing's first: you've got to understand jobs. Octopath Traveler has eight different job classes (plus four late-game advanced classes), and while each of these classes is assigned to one of the eight starting characters in the game you will eventually find special Job Shrines out in the world that'll allow you to give each character a subclass, creating unique job combinations. This is where the passive skills really start to come into play. First, however, you need to be ready to start thinking about subclasses, so first go find some of them with our Shrine Locations guide.

Now you've got subclasses unlocked, it's time to worry above passive skills. Here's how all this works:

When you equip a job, you gain access to its stat bonuses and the ability to buy its battle skills.
Skills purchased will eventually unlock Passive Skills. The more skills you buy in a class, the more passive skills you will unlock for that same class. Each job's skills get progressively more expensive as you go, but they can be bought in almost any order.
When you unequip a job, the stat bonuses and battle/active skills for that job will disappear - but the passive skills and abilities will remain.

Basically, the above means that if you plan ahead you can equip a job, buy a few skills to get the passive skill you want and then unequip the job to keep the passive skill on that character - which then allows you to pass that job on elsewhere, since each job can only be equipped to one character at any given time. This is really useful, as some skills that give boosts to stats or regular recovery every turn can seriously help classes outside of the one they're attached to.

Octopath Traveler Passive Skills: every passive skill for every job

The list below is designed to help you plan ahead - take a look at what each of the skills do and think about it in tandem with your job choices and what each character is good at, then plan out your approach to earning and using these skills.

Warrior Job Class Passive Skills

Cover: Take damage for allies who are near death.
Summon Strength: Increases physical attack by 50.
Endure: If your character is hit with blindness, confusion, poison, silence, sleep, terror, or unconsciousness their physical and elemental defenses are raised.
Surpassing Power: Increases the maximum damage limit to 99,999.

Hunter Job Class Passive Skills

Heightened Senses: Increased chance of a pre-emptive strike at the beginning of a battle.
Eagle Eye:- Increases critical rate by 50.
Second Serving: Character has a 50% chance of attacking twice when using a normal attack.
Patience: Character gets a 25% chance of getting a bonus action at the end of a turn.

Scholar Job Class Passive Skills

Evasive Manuvers: Less random encounters.
Elemental Augmentation: Boosts elemental attack strength by 50.
Percipience: Prevents enemies from surprise attacking the party.
Vim and Vigor: Regenerate a small amount of HP each turn.

Cleric Job Class Passive Skills

Persistence: Increases status-enhancing buff length by one turn.
Inner Strength: Increases SP by 50.
Evil Ward: Increases success rate when trying to flee.
Saving Grace: Allows the equipped character to be healed above their max HP.

Dancer Job Class Passive Skills

The Show Goes On: Buffs your Dancer casts on party members will last one more turn.
Eye for an Eye: Character has a 50% chance to counterattack when damaged with a physical attack.
Second Wind: Gain a small amount of SP every turn.
Encore: Once per fight, if your Dancer’s HP is depleted they will revive with 25% HP.

Merchant Job Class Passive Skills

Endless Items: When you use an item there is a 25% chance that it won’t actually be consumed.
Grows on Trees: Get additional money after a battle.
Hang Tough: If not in near-death status, any attack that would knock the character out instead leaves them with 1 HP.
SP Saver: Character will use half the SP they usually would.

Thief Job Class Passive Skills

Incidental Attack: When using a non-damage-dealing skill on an enemy there is a 50% chance you will also attack.
Fleetfoot: Increase speed by 50.
Snatch: When using steal or collect, the character will gain double the loot.
Insult to Injury: Debuffs inflicted on enemies will last one additional turn.

Apothecary Job Class Passive Skills

Inspiration: With each successful normal attack you’ll gain SP equal to 1% of the damage you inflict.
Hale and Hearty: Increases max HP by 500.
Resist Ailments: Improved resistance to blindness, confusion, poison, silence, sleep, terror, and unconsciousness.
Heightened Healing: Gain 30% additional SP when being healed.

Warmaster Job Class Passive Skills

Extra Experience - Gain extra EXP from battles. Does not stack with similar skills.
Stalwart Defense - Raises physical defense by 50.
Fortitude - Deal more damage when your current HP is low.
Physical Prowess - raises physical attack and physical defenese in battle, like an indefinite buff.

Sorcerer Job Class Passive Skills

Extra Experience - Gain extra EXP from battles. Does not stack with similar skills.
Stalwart Defense - Raises physical defense by 50.
Fortitude - Deal more damage when your current HP is low.
Physical Prowess - raises physical attack and physical defenese in battle, like an indefinite buff.

Runelord Job Class Passive Skills

Stat Swap - Swaps the user's Elemental and Physical Attack stats over.
SP Recovery - Gain a small amount of SP back when you take damage, with the amount based on the damage taken.
Dauntless - When afflicted with a Status Ailment, physical and elemental attack stats will be buffed.
Elemental Edge - A constant passive buff raising Elemental Attack and Defense stats.

Starseer Job Class Passive Skills

Hard Worker - Gives extra JP after battle. Does not stack with similar skills.
Boost-Start - Start battles with 1 BP extra.
BP Eater - Skills that are Boosted by the user deal extra damage.
Divine Aura - A permanent buff that has a 25% chance to nullify all incoming damage.