When night threatens to fall on Solistia forever, it's up to the protagonists of Octopath Traveler 2 to relight the flames of hope and bring the dawn of a new day back to the world. However, there's one being standing in their way: Vide, the God of Chaos.
While the true ending of the first game is more of a bonus, the Final Chapter of Octopath Traveler 2 is much easier to access and ties up all the loose ends left by many of the main stories. However, the final boss is no easier than the one in Octopath Traveler 1, and all eight characters will be involved in the battle. In the process, the game introduces some new mechanics that don't appear anywhere else, which only makes things more complicated. That's why this guide will help players understand the challenges and advantages that this boss fight involves.
Preparations
- Do every preparation possible before starting the Final Chapter. The Final Chapter doesn't lock out every side story or activity, but there are some things players may want to do during the day (and before the music stops playing).
- Preparations should include getting every secret job, unlocking all their skills, and sharing around a few secondary jobs between characters to give them a good set of support skills. For instance, the Merchant skill Hang Tough is useful on everyone, while the normally excellent Apothecary skill Vigorous Victor will have no impact on the fight. Another good choice is Deal More Damage on a heavy hitter like Osvald.
- Don't forget to scour the world for good weapons and armor as well. Remember to play to each character's strengths, because even Vide can miss if Agnea's Evasion is high enough.
- Make sure to hand out all the stat-boosting nuts. Every point matters in this fight.
- Consider the character balance for both the active party and the reserve party. Both parties should have at least one character who can land a lot of hits using a variety of weapon or element types. Also, the reserve party should be the stronger team since they'll be entering the battlefield second.
- Don't be afraid to use Hired Help as much as possible. While it can feel like cheating on other bosses, Vide is tough enough that players should use every advantage they can get their hands on. Just be sure to have around 500,000 leaves on hand to afford all the needed veteran soldiers.
- For an ace in the hole, be sure to get the Almighty Olive from the Old Vessel in Lostseed. It can restore every ally (fallen or not) to full health with a single action.
Stage 1
During this stage (and yes, this is a two-stage boss), Vide has 10 shields and 200,000 hit points, and they're weak to swords, axes, staves, lightning, and light.
Vide starts things slow in this fight by extruding a single tentacle. As the fight continues and players knock down Vide's shields a few times, the god will pull out more tentacles until they have a total of four. The last two tentacles can only be harmed by elemental or weapon damage types, and the weapon damage tentacle (the Thwarting Tentacle) has a special status effect that reflects all elemental damage dealt to it. It also protects Vide's vulnerabilities, so get rid of it fast.
Once Vide goes below half health, on their next turn they'll shout "All shall be mine!" and absorb the party. This is when the inactive party will take the field, and one nice thing is that they've been collecting boost points the whole time they've been waiting. Vide's vulnerabilities will also shift to daggers, bows, fire, and darkness.
Stage 2
Once players have chewed through all of Vide's health, the second stage will begin. The original party will escape the darkness and join the fight, and players can freely swap between the two parties. However, this comes with both advantages and disadvantages.
- The party will only ever get 4 turns between them, and so on any given turn players will have to choose between one of two characters. These pairs aren't always the same, and are solely based on how well each character rolled initiative relative to their party.
- If a character is down in one party, the game won't automatically swap to the other party to finish out the turn. Players must swap to the less injured party themselves if they want to make the most of their actions.
- There are some upsides to the dual-party approach. Any abilities or items that would affect every party member will affect all eight, and abilities and items that would affect one party member can target any of them. Castti becomes especially useful since she can use Concoct to combine a Pomegranate Leaf, a Diffusing Serum, and a Strengthening Serum to give every last party member 2 or more BP with a single action.
- Vide will tend to focus on the active party, but some of his attacks will sometimes hit both parties, especially if the active party is down a few members.
When the fight begins, Vide, the Wicked has 250,000 hit points, 10 shields, and five weaknesses: swords, daggers, bows, wind, and light. However, the party's attacks can't reach their body until they can destroy Vide's arms, which have a lot more health than the tentacles from the last phase. Note that this goes beyond locking their vulnerabilities: no attack or status effect can so much as touch Vide until both those arms are gone. This means their first charge attack, Dark Calamity, is guaranteed to go off.
Like the last two tentacles, the Wicked Left Arm is only vulnerable to weapon damage while the Wicked Right Arm is only vulnerable to elemental damage, and only four of each type. One more wrinkle is that destroying an arm will curse the active party: destroying the left arm locks damaging skills, healing skills, and items, while destroying the right arm leaves behind an attack and defense debuff for both physical and elemental damage. Luckily, these debuffs only last two rounds.
After breaking Vide once, they'll use an ability that prevents travelers from being revived. This locks the olive items along with every skill that has any possibility of reviving an ally. Vide will also resummon their arms, but this time players can freely target (and hit) their main body as well. When Vide breaks the revive actions will unlock, but they'll lock again when they get their shields back. Also, destroying the left arm a second time won't bring down another curse, but destroying the right arm will.
Vide has no more targeting tricks after this, so hit them hard and often and eventually they'll fall. As a god, Vide isn't gone for good, but the threat (for now) is over and a much-delayed dawn rises. Players can continue to explore Solistia, or they can head back to where the Final Chapter began to watch the epilogue.
Octopath Traveler 2 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, and Switch.