Tips for Using Hikari in Octopath Traveler 2

There are certain characters you’ll consider big damage dealers and honestly pretty essential in Octopath Traveler 2, and Hikari is one of them. He’s the warrior of the group, and he can end up being an absolutely incredible character. If built properly by using Challenge whenever possible, then you’ll end up with your second one-person-army in the game. (The first is Ochette.)

How Do You Recruit Hikari in Octopath Traveler 2

When the game begins, Hikari is in Ryu if you need to recruit him due to not picking him as your first character. That means he’s past Canalbrine, where Castti is, and not far from Oresrush, where you find Partitio. So if you didn’t start out with this warrior, you’ll find him there.

How Does Hikari Work in Octopath Traveler 2

Hikari is around to deal damage. You want him equipped with the best possible weapons, and you want to have him Challenge as many NPCs as he can to get more Learned Skills.

But without Challenge, these are the job abilities he can learn. Note that Brand’s Thunder can only be learned after the other seven are.

• Aggressive Slash: 9SP to deal random sword damage to enemies three times.
• Piercing Thrust: 12SP to deal spear damage, and 25% of the time it will land a critical.
• Abide: 4SP for a temporarily physical attack buff.
• Enervating Slash: 7SP to remove buffs on an enemy, then deal damage that increases for each one removed.
• Stout Wall: 4SP for a temporary defense buff.
• Incite: 4SP to draw enemy attacks temporarily.
• Vengeful Blade: 6SP to temporarily be able to counter attacks, and each time you do counter you’ll reduce Shield Points.
• Brand’s Thunder: 30SP to deal sword attack damage.

Which skills to prioritize depends on the kind of build you want for Hikari. If you want him to be a damage-dealing tank, get Stout Wall, Incite, and Vengeful Blade as soon as you can. If you’re going to be all about dealing damage, then I’d say make sure his moveset includes Aggressive Slash, Piercing Thrust, Abide, and Enervating Slash ASAP.

His limit break Latent Power Shadow’s Hold adds three more special attacks to Hikari’s repertoire. Each one involves dealing a large amount of damage. I like Hienka best, because it lets him hit one enemy twice, but then also act again after everyone else already acted that turn. It’s incredible both for dealing damage and acting strategically. However, Tenretsuzan hits a single foe incredibly hard, especially if they’re weak to sword-based attacks. Sogetsusen is a fun one, as it deals sword and spear damage to every enemy, and I loved it for the boss fights where the boss summons minions to assist them.

What About Hikari’s Octopath Traveler 2 Path Actions?

Oh boy is Hikari fun. Hikari is a lot like Ochette, in that keeping both around and having them face lots of enemies makes them stronger. With Ochette, that means building up her collection of monster buddies for Provoke. For Hikari, that means using Challenge to fight NPCs during the day to learn their skills, which you can then use as Learned Skills in battle. You can basically make Hikari not only an incredible attacker, but something of a mage by doing this! It’s fantastic. He’s great. Hikari is absolutely worth having around as often as possible.

However, it does mean making sure he’s strong enough to survive these NPC fights and taking him to every town. However, it’s worth it.

Hikari is also fantastic to have around at night. This is because of his Bribe ability. If you need information, but Castti’s level is too low to Inquire, Osvald’s Scrutinize has a low rate of success, and Temenos can’t hit the weaknesses of the NPC to break them for information with Coerce, then Bribe them with Hikari. It will cost you, yes. But it makes it so easy to find details you need.

Which Secondary Jobs are Good for Hikari in Octopath Traveler 2

Since Hikari is a warrior, he can use swords and polearms. What you want to do is make him a one-man-army. This means getting Hikari as many possible weapons as possible with his secondary job in Octopath Traveler 2.

So, I’d say make him an armsmaster. That is, if you earned that secret job. It gives the person who equips it the ability to use every possible weapon.

If you don’t have the armsmaster role yet, then Hikari should be a hunter. This gives him access to the bow and axe, bringing his total number of weapons up to four. The hunter also has some skills that will help him out, like Take Aim to buff critical rate and accuracy, Precise Shot for a double bow attack, and the Cleaving Blow axe attack that can buff.

Octopath Traveler 2 is available for the Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC. A demo is available.