Octopath Traveler 2 | 1 Turning Both Secret Boss Phases Using Step Ahead (Full, Uncut Fight)

Well, after a ton of testing and trials, I finally managed to get a 1 turn on both phases of the secret boss! This was always my ultimate goal in case you saw the previous videos, but I'd like to shout out to the community as well. Many of these strategies used came from not just my own experiments in the game, but from suggestions and posts I've seen from others.
You may consider them both two turn phases if you count the step ahead free turn, but either way, I'm happy to have accomplished it.
For those who would like to see the specific build of what I used, you can view it here:
www.reddit.com...
For a general guide that uses no duplicate battle tested equipment:
• Octopath Traveler 2 Lv...
For my full team of level 1 characters fight:
• Using a Full Team of L...
And finally, for those that want to see my 2-man (both phases) fight:
• Octopath Traveler 2 | ...

[@AwktheAngel]

Thank you! I've been avoiding this boss fight for a whole year now. Finally I decided that I wanted to get this done and your guide helped so much! Much appreciated!

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Congrats on clearing the boss!

[@jackfrost1662]

Nice strategy! Don't know if it was intended but I noticed how phase 1 was team OCTO and phase 2 was team PATH

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Haha, that was purely coincidental

[@milkman2808]

This is my first time hearing most of these voice lines in English and I was cracking up the whole video. I finally understand the meme about Castii saying "These hands!"

[@DarrinNewcomer]

My personal favorite of hers is "No mercy, only pain!" haha

[@wolfnews1788]

Catch them!

[@hindelsoft4650]

It's especially funny because the japanese line is just re-using her catchphrase - "extending my hand (to help)"

[@dylanhinkel3548]

I always think of ren & stimpy when she says it

[@fukaze2021]

​​@@hindelsoft4650 it's actually the opposite the japanese dub is recorded first but the english dub is better imo, in the second game at least

[@lukegto]

Man spent several days on this fight. But my whole team was 80 so don’t feel as bad now haha. Great execution mate

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Thanks!

[@kindredzpirit6046]

As everything in life, it all starts with Alfyn/Castti being broken as fuck lol. Very satisfying

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Haha, you got that right!

[@SadisticNiles]

Apothecary was broken in Triangle Strategy too.

[@JJiG]

@@SadisticNiles thats my next game after I finish octo2. I'm like 70 hrs in working my characters level up now. was TS worth the play?

[@mappybc6097]

To be fair, Ochette breaking 6 shields from all 3 Galdera adds, in one turn, *without* boosting, is pretty damn busted as well. Sewer Frog and Creepy Tree ftw.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@mappybc6097 Haha, for real

[@fatbrowne]

I finally beat Galdera today. Your videos were very helpful and inspiring by showing that it can be done. All My party members were above level 90. Your party setup and equipment were good in this video for the second part. The first part I used more of a setup where I used the Thief as my main damage output and I used the Hunter to break shields with summon 6 bests. I also had a second class dancer to use the divine skill to target all characters for the Apocathery so she could cast Remedy and buff everyone 9 times randomly. Then I needed a second class priest to give the thief extra turn at the end of turn and the theif can also use the latent power to essentially get 3 actions within 1 turn. It is a lot of BP management to ensure the thief has at least 3 BP and he is broken so you can do like 60,000 to 99,999 each time. The sorcerer didn't really do enough damage output for me and I actually got him permanently removed on the time when I actually beat both stages. The warrior with full health helped me beat the second stage and using 2 actions each turn 1 from latent power and 1 with 3 BP and I had a priest give him an extra action. I used his double Axe attack at the end of each turn targeting everyone. And when Galdera was in the Red, I ended up only have warrior and merchant alive and I used the learned spear attack that uses up all his SP and it did 99,999 and if it didn't work I would have been killed on the next turn since he had like 6 actions after. I basically spent all day today trying to beat him. Thank you.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Congrats on getting the kill!

[@Vayank123]

I cracked up when I fought this guy on his first phase and was extremely happy to beat him on the second phase. When he was low on HP and it was his turn to go, he spawned souls, consumed them for only 10k HP restore and it was not enough to save him from me dealing the killing blow against him with Osvald/Throne. All my characters are not level 99 and I had Hikari at Level 91 and his damage was insane. Well, Throne and Osvald were OP as well. Also, the ability step ahead does not stop you from getting an order of characters you want so if the order ends up being bad, best to restart the game and try again (for example, I wanted Cassti to go first instead of Throne for BP boost - but Step Ahead would not apply to speed for some reason). The game randomizes that every time you fight the guy so you have to be lucky to get the right character order position. But I liked your strategy man. Helped defeat Galdera after multiple attempts. Also, there is an item that lowers phys and magic defense stats on all foes. That is very useful against the souls if Throne is struggling to defeat the souls and die from their counters and against Galdera if you want.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Thanks. I do want to mention that Throne doesn’t actually need BP since her latent allows her to give herself BP, then follow it up with something else. I actually made a guide video on this that allows you to ignore turn order issues for this fight, so it doesn’t really matter who goes when. This was a challenge video so I had to try and deal as much damage as fast as possible.

[@Georgefloydthesneedster]

Hey, Ive been replaying the fight again today and I theorycrafted a hypothetical "true" one-turn kill of phase 2 without a step ahead. For context, my team was agnea inventor, throne cleric, temenos merchant and hikari armsmaster. All of them were max level, and hikari had pretty much every single nut inside of him that boosted his hp, physical damage and critical, was at 1hp with alpiones amulet, and, of course, btb and giants club. First, agnea would have to be the first one in the entire turn order. She latents critical scope on all of galderas limbs and himself, then hikari boosts with boost-start fully to kill all of galderas limbs with sentencing gavel. Next one is throne who latents herself to give herself max bp and give hikari aelfrics. Lastly, temenos gives hikari a large pomegranate. Then hikari gets the extra turn, uses fully boosted limb by limb and finishes galdera. Managed to kill him that way several times, only thing thats missing is the correct turnorder

[@DarrinNewcomer]

That indeed sounds like it would work! Would be a pain to get the right order like you mentioned, but it looks like all the necessary pieces are there. The only two things to account for though is that I don’t think you can debuff the main body until it becomes vulnerable, and it doesn’t become vulnerable until it gets a turn after the limbs are dead.

[@Georgefloydthesneedster]

@@DarrinNewcomerthats exactly the thing, you cant debuff galdera, but for whatever reason putting the crit debuff on something bypasses galderas invincibility. Its the only debuff in the game that can do that. With him becoming vulnerable, im guessing you need to be lucky and have his main body be after hikari, otherwise it wouldnt work

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@Georgefloydthesneedster Oh neat, I didn't know that about the crit scope! It would be crazy if you could get a real 1 turn

[@Georgefloydthesneedster]

@@DarrinNewcomerjust a matter of luck, not that its impossible

[@Georgefloydthesneedster]

@@DarrinNewcomerjust checked it, it doesnt seem possible since i got galderas main body to act several times after hikari destroyed the limbs, yet all he does is "smile menacingly". Dunno what to do now, since i could technically kill him, yet he just refuses to give up his invincibility despite not having limbs anymore

[@Chewythebigblackdog]

This is pretty cool. I took inspiration from this and decided to do something similar myself, but the goal was to make the strategy not rely on turn order RNG, and to avoid using level 99 characters (I went with level 80 in the end, since that's around the highest point I'd consider realistic to grind to) while still doing each phase in "1 turn" (2 if you count step ahead). I couldn't make it entirely consistent, since ochette still needs to land a defence drop, just like in this strat. I did need THREE battle-tested blades to do it lol (though no duplicates of anything else). I also avoided nut farming, but I'd imagine this strategy did as well. Here's a general gist of what I did in each phase (I've uploaded a full fight to my channel in case anyone wants to see it in action): Phase 1 (Armsmaster Ochette, Cleric Throne, Castti, Cleric Partitio) On turn 0, I applied aelfric's to both throne and ochette, and (since aelfric's turn order is consistent) had throne kill all souls while unbroken and undebuffed with aeber's before having ochette break and debuff the eye with provoke beasts (I also applied a crit buff to guarantee I can critical hit the eye). On turn 1, I had castti refill BP (and heal to re-activate peak performance) with concoct (she went first via a defend), partitio apply aelfric's to castti, throne use disguise to copy ochette, then the two of them spammed lionheart's axe to kill the eye. Phase 2 (Arcanist Hikari, Cleric Agnea, Conjurer Temenos, didn't actually need a 4th character lol) Turn 0, Agnea buffs hikari with attack up, hikari (1 hp alpione's) uses hienka to guarantee he acts after being buffed, then OHKOs limbs w/ sentencing gavel. On turn 1, I refill hikari's BP, use aelfric's twice to ensure I get 2 actions once he becomes vulnerable, then apply an ancient cursed talisman before OHKOing with Limb from Limb. Note that at level 80 with maxed p.atk, limb from limb actually is around 2k damage short of the kill if all 4 hits roll minimum damage. To remedy this, I had temenos apply fire enchant to hikari on turn 0, and gave hikari as many magic nuts as possible (and used scorched bone spear + mooneater for extra fire damage).

[@Bolderox]

Thank you for this, finally was able to get the Platinum Trophy thanks to your help.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Nice going!

[@jumpinggorilamaster]

Done killing galdera, I used pretty much your tactic. It helped immensely. Thank you!

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Congrats on your clear!

[@Kukakkau]

Finally beat after 20+ attempts on first phase and 3 on phase 2. Really didn't want to use 1hp Oswald strat for the first phase if I could help it, but I just got so sick of the ghost counters so had to for my sanity.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Congrats on the kill!

[@blackspore2906]

After like 2-3 days of trying to beat Galdera I did, but man did I hate the turn order RNG. On the run that I killed him, I got Hikari to be first with like 160 speed and I was seething, luckily I did it still.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Congrats on getting the kill!

[@Rainsweld]

dude. this is the most beautiful thing i have ever witnessed. thank you.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Thanks for the nice words!

[@Rainsweld]

@@DarrinNewcomer I fucking hate this boss so this brings me great joy

[@jeremyburlingame6248]

Cracked build 👏

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Thanks! This is the culmination of a lot of testing and discussions on the reddit group

[@carmineescaldos6373]

YO?! Amazing fast clear man. Just curious though, would this work at not level 99 (am around the barely 90 mark) or does it require max level?

[@DarrinNewcomer]

It should, especially with just a 10 level difference. It’s really the gear and team setups that make it happen.

[@Kukakkau]

I did the one round on phase 1 with levels around the 70s so should all be possible if you can get all the setup in place.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@Kukakkau indeed. I’m actually curious at what point the “relative level” effect stops. I noticed that at level 55, my team hits nearly as hard as my level 99, but doing it at level 1 there is a significant drop. I haven’t tested it, but I have a theory that at some point between 55-99 that having a higher level literally does nothing to influence damage anymore from the “relative level” effect, or whatever you want to call it. Also, nice going on the 1 turn with a lvl 70 crew!

[@llimar263]

Excellent video man! I was wondering if you could share the list of NPC's who drop the duplicate battle tested equipment.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Sword - The Young Man in the easternmost town on the Beastling Island (sorry, forget the name). He is roughly to the northwest of the first part of town. Knows merciless sword Shield - The guard at the top of the stairs as soon as you enter Montwise Spear - The old man to the left of Sai's entrance Axe - The NPC that is to the right/easternmost part of Osvald's starting town Bow - The tutor in New Delsta roughly in front of the inn standing next to the young girl Staff - The cleric giving a sermon in Canalbrine church Dagger - Second floor of the tavern in Clockbank. You'll have to beat up the guy blocking the doorway to the balcony first

[@llimar263]

@@DarrinNewcomer Thank you very much!

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@llimar263 Sure thing! Good luck with your drops

[@ALeafOnTheWind42]

I'm surprised your On the Hunt was doing that much damage without revealing the weaknesses. Did you grind many nuts, or did the 19 levels really make that big of a difference?

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Most of that damage is coming from Alpiones and the Finishers Claws. If it doesn’t crit, it does way less damage, but I also invested a good amount of nuts into my Hikari, so he crits almost always

[@jasonchae7985]

Is everyone's sub class a scholar except for Osvald - Arcanist and Hikari - Armsmaster?

[@DarrinNewcomer]

For this build only Throne is using the scholar subclass. Castti, Ochette, and Agnea are on Cleric, and Partition/Temenos are on Dancer.

[@jasonchae7985]

@@DarrinNewcomer thanks this has been a big help

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@jasonchae7985 glad to hear it!

[@rivlasdezerai]

Question, what captured beasts were you using for Ochette? I think breaking his shields quickly is the main part I haven't gotten down yet.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

The axe monster can be one of the lizard guys from the Sunken Maw. The Peak-a-Boo you can get from Southern Timberain Trail.

[@rivlasdezerai]

@@DarrinNewcomer Thanks, I figured it out from watching the video, I got Throne's speed to 900+ with nuts and gear, so she was able to 1 shot the extras on phase 1 with Aeber's reckoning, helped a lot. I also found that RNG of which character went first determined if Galdera could use that heat move that damages every turn and and kill 1hp Osvald. Best case scenario Cassti went first to max everyone's boost gauge.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@rivlasdezerai glad to hear it!

[@Balmung077]

Bro you're cracked lmao.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Thanks! I try my best

[@ashishishwar5219]

Why do we generally give armsmaster to hikari instead of ochette in this game? in ot1 the standard used to be warmaster haanit because she has equal atk but a higher crit rate than olberic, and afaik those stat spreads are the same in ot2?

[@DarrinNewcomer]

I’m not sure about other people, but for me it’s just because Ochette is my breaker. Putting it on her for my team would equal a ton of lost damage since she would be having to skip damage from time to time during breaking phases. On Hikari, I can just have him focus on DPS exclusively

[@ashishishwar5219]

Ahhh okay, thank you :)

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@ashishishwar5219 just a heads up though, Ochette does make a good armsmaster though. I think it also looks better on her than Hikari too

[@jamarcusbryant7016]

How do you get the rejuvenating jams? I need at least 2

[@DarrinNewcomer]

I got mine either from side quests or stealing from NPC's, although I'm not sure which ones specifically.

[@ottosanchez3065]

I have finished all the side quests needed to unlock Galdera, but the gate in ??? Island hasn't appeared. Do you know if I need to finish all character's stories to fight Galdera?

[@DarrinNewcomer]

If I had to guess, that's probably it, but I'm not entirely sure what actually is all necessary to trigger him. By the time I decided to go and fight him, I had already finished everyone's stories.

[@Jerjoker007]

Pretty sure you have to finish all the stories (Including the extra story, but before the epilogue)

[@Carnaj90]

Step ahead is so freaking broken.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

It honestly is. I don't really think it should work on this particular boss personally

[@Boops69]

@@DarrinNewcomer If they put it in the game, exploit it ;) But wp! (:

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@Boops69 Indeed haha

[@gamerprince-tl5hg]

It wouldn't be broken if they didn't give every character access to it but instead only gave it to the person using the inventor class

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@gamerprince-tl5hg That actually would be a good way to go about it. I would support it being like that.

[@dibbo9823]

where do you get the foreign ring from it says you get it from a judge npc in tibmerain on guides but that npc doesn't have it for me.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Honestly I’m not sure where I got it from. I was doing various tests and wanted to see if crit effected magic, and just randomly noticed I had it

[@dibbo9823]

@@DarrinNewcomer nvm I found it It's from the "traveler" npc who is blocking the door to the old man who drops the battle tested dagger in clockbank

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@dibbo9823 thanks for the info

[@Jerjoker007]

Well that is a cool strategy, it`s just a shame there is 3 RNG you have to get right (if you want to win without getting hit).

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Yeah. I tried to remove as much of the RNG as I could, but this was the best I could do.

[@Jerjoker007]

@@DarrinNewcomer I’m only sad that you have to either die or exit and re-enter the game to reset. It took me a long time to beat phase 1 (something to do with only 1 elemental weakness and switching it on the souls) but I was really happy to have done it without any “cheesing”. For phase 2 I practically did the same as you (Use Hikari as an op Glass Canon and the others are there to support him), but not before I got him to 25%, died and crack because I didn’t want to do phase 1 over. So I’m glad I found this to cheese the first phase to get straight to the second phase and try again. I’m happy to say I got him on my 7th try(on phase 2).

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@Jerjoker007 well hey, congrats on the kill! And yeah, the amount of restarts I had to do were annoying for some of these challenge videos. Just started force closing the game when I screwed up haha

[@tlk777]

I would be interested in seeing your stats, support skills, equipment for this if its somewhere.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Hi! So in the description I linked to a Reddit post I made that provides screenshots to every characters stats, support skills, and equipment in case you want to check that out

[@wezzeli5476]

@@DarrinNewcomer nice job. i can have my victory now :D

[@dee6561]

Bro... I just finished the game. I thought to myself-- wow, I feel that was much easier than Octopath's Galdera. Let me search up some videos and see what people are saying about the Vide fight. And I see this like...fuckkk...

[@dee6561]

Damn...and I thought that it was weird that there was this whole "???" island on the south east* of the map...

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Well at least the music is great! I actually really liked the way the Vide fight played out just for the “feel” of it. As far as Galdera, I’m sure you got it.

[@nicho4340]

this is beautiful play. great vids. i'm still unable to beat him :\

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Thanks! If it helps, I'm about to post a guide video on it where I used no subclasses or duplicate Battle Tested gear to show a relatively consistent way of beating him

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Here is a link to the guide I made kzbin.info/www/bejne/mYG6hYyPh8mcjdk

[@Georgefloydthesneedster]

Why did Osvald do less damage with 3 BP then 2 BP?

[@DarrinNewcomer]

It’s because I used his latent ability when doing 2 BP. In this particular attempt, I didn’t get lucky with turn order, so I couldn’t restore his BP and latent before he got his second attack, so the way to get the highest overall damage when that happened is to do a 3 BP attack with no latent, then a 2 BP attack using his latent (his latent makes it a single target attack, but doubles it’s base damage).

[@mister4114]

why did osvalt one true magic do more dmg half boosted than fully boosted? 2:24

[@DarrinNewcomer]

It's because when I did a full boosted one, I didn't use his latent, then when I used the 2 boosted one, I used his latent. His latent turns his attack from multi target into a single target, while doubling the base damage. In this particular circumstance, because Osvald would have hit for way over 99k per hit had I fully boosted with his latent, I would have lost all of the damage over the damage cap had I done that, so it was better to use the latent on the 2 boosted one.

[@mister4114]

@@DarrinNewcomer very well planned & explained! hats off to you!

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@mister4114 thanks!

[@stevebolduc9903]

I was wondering if you can change your characters to a random level can you also change the stats of armor and weapons?

[@DarrinNewcomer]

If it’s possible to do that, I don’t know how. I’ve heard that some people have mods that add new equipment, so probably.

[@stevebolduc9903]

@@DarrinNewcomer oh ok but can you change the characters stats or just the level?

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@stevebolduc9903 that I’m also not sure of. I only ever messed with levels. It wouldn’t surprise me if you could adjust character stats, but if so, it at least isn’t in the same area you adjust levels.

[@xn0u572]

Hikari with allmost max hp

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Yeah he kind of a thick boy in my playthrough. Really didn’t mean to get it that high honestly. I overinvested HP nuts into him

[@rivia3522]

Where's the old man npc that give bp?

[@DarrinNewcomer]

There are a few different NPC’s that can do that, but the specific one I’m using is from Montwise. Should be in the little “town square” type area in front of the tavern

[@Drew-mt8ml]

Wait is is this battle the final one? Or is Vide the final boss

[@DarrinNewcomer]

Vide is technically the final boss. Galdera is optional.

[@dethtroy2185]

I still feel like the first phase is harder, but maybe that's just me.

[@DarrinNewcomer]

It will come down to your playstyle and team setups. I think both phases have something about them that the other one doesn't that could potentially make it harder. For example, the first phase has way more health, lots of things that counter you, locked weaknesses, etc that aren't really present in the phase 2. I could definitely see how that would make it worse for some people.

[@blackspore2906]

Where did you get Agnea's summon?

[@DarrinNewcomer]

He is standing in front of the Montwise tavern.

[@gizilla]

What gear did u used?

[@DarrinNewcomer]

There is a link in the description that shows screenshots of everyones gear and support skills

[@haschbrown2696]

Where do you get all 99 of of those items?

[@DarrinNewcomer]

There’s a lot of items so the ones I have 99 of I just bought or used Ochette to prepare them

[@haschbrown2696]

Where do you buy your items?? How did you get so many Jams and pomegranates

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@haschbrown2696 you have to steal those specifically, although many can be gotten through using path actions on NPC’s. I’ve basically path actioned and taken everything from every NPC in the game that I’ve found. Refreshing jams can be stolen from any dungeon mini boss. The pomegranates can be bought from late game shops, or for the higher level ones, stolen from enemies like the pink jellyfish things in the cavern of wave

[@haschbrown2696]

@@DarrinNewcomer Okay!! What shops??

[@DarrinNewcomer]

@@haschbrown2696 I don’t remember the exact shops. I just went to every shop once I had found all the towns and bought 99 of everything I thought was useful