Part 132: Shrine of the Starseer

I'm probably not going to make Alfyn a permanent Warmaster, but since I like this party I decide he can be one for the time being. Since my best weapon is currently a bow, he gets Phoenix Storm.



Our final shrine is in the Flatlands. Since I forgot to re-equip Evasive Maneuvers, you get to see multiple encounters here.

Music: Battle III



Plains Drakes love lowering your defenses. If only they were smart enough to take advantage of that.



Phoenix Storm looks pretty sweet for a simple diagonal effect.



I debated making these highest-tier Frogkings my avatar before I opted for the lesser-tier two-eye variant. Meanwhile, the Furious Fungoid exists.



Tiger Rage certainly looks cool.





There's a freaking rhino and some mushrooms that like to birth new abominations that will shortly die.



At least this one took slightly less stumbling around to find.

Music: The Trees Have Eyes





This cave is pretty dull compared to the other shrines.







This is the final job to get in the game. If we can defeat Steorra, it's ours!

Video: Boss - Steorra, Starseer

Music: They Who Govern Reason





Enjoy the music, as it'll be the last time we'll get to hear it!



Steorra's signature attack is Shooting Star, an odd magic spell that deals three hits, but one each of Wind, Light, and Dark.



Cyrus retaliates with a three-hit spell of his own that hits with Fire, Fire, and Fire.



Purifying Dust + Essence of Grape heals the party for 3000HP. This is fantastic all the way to the post-game.





Restore Balance is a nasty move, as it both nullifies a character's current buffs (which means Tressa lost her Transfer Rune buff) and blocks new ones. Sidestep's not as important here, but Tressa's offense relied heavily on rune buffs, so she's neutered until it wears off.



Steorra doesn't really have a good cheese strat the way the others do. Instead, I'm going to rely on my new jobs to help me out here.



Cyrus is going to do most of the heavy lifting, especially early on.



Though Alfyn will certainly get his share of damage in. Ophilia and Tressa really need runes to contribute, unfortunately.





Steorra will shift weaknesses after each break. This set-up can be particularly annoying, as it's entirely possible you may not have any sources of Dark damage outside of Soulstones. Which means you unwisely did not bring Alfyn with you.



We have Sorcerer with Aelfric's Auspieces, though, so a single attack from Cyrus breaks Steorra once again.



And guess what finally wore off?



Steorra shuffles weaknesses again, and now has a hefty twelve shields.



She's also weak to fire, and this should help wear that down.





She's also weak to bows, so with my party her time is short.



If you have a rune equipped, the weapon symbols under Attack and your weapon skills will turn the color of that rune. So Rain of Arrows, True Strike, and Arrowstorm will trigger a rune follow-up.





Like so.



I opted to go Dohter's Charity over Phoenix Storm + Fire Rune.





Did I mention Steorra loves doing Shooting Star after every single break?



Dohter's is a bit overkill, but whatever.



With new weaknesses comes some time hunting for those weaknesses.



The single-target SP recovery is a much more respectable 200SP. Dohter's is coming in handy here!



After another break session, Steorra swaps back to the solo-Dark weakness.



Sure, I'll take it.



These boss fights are making me rich.





This time I go Phoenix Storm + Rune.

Also I swapped to Ice at one point since Fire was no longer a weakness.





And it's an Ice Rune follow-up that ends up the killing blow on Steorra. Much easier than I anticipated!

Music: The Trees Have Eyes









And with that, we've unlocked every job in Octopath Traveler. Sorry, no hidden thirteenth job hidden by the Dark God or anything.

-----



Weapons: Polearms, Daggers
Stats: +15% MaxHP / MaxSP ; +2% PhysAtk/PhysDef/ElemAtk/ElemDef/Evasion

Starseer is certainly the most unique of the four new jobs. While the others focus mostly on damage, Starseer focuses on unique buffs, basically being a Dancer on steroids. Because of their focus relying mostly on buffs, this job works with basically any character, though it slightly favors ElemAtk-heavy characters like Cyrus, Ophilia, and Primrose due to their two attack skills being elemental.

Job Skills

Shooting Stars (35SP) [Wind/Light/Dark] - Deal wind, light, and dark damage to all foes.
Formula: (EA - TED) * 1.06 * (1 + 0.9*BP) ; Hits three times.

It's basically a Sorcerer spell, except instead of one element hitting three times, this deals Wind, then Light, then Dark damage. This means this skill goes with variety over sheer shield-breakage, which can be handy against multiple foes, but against broken foes, this will be as potent as any Sorcerer skill beyond the small stat boost the Sorcerer gets.

BP Boost (25SP) [Buff] - Allow a single ally to gain 2BP per turn for 2 turns.
Formula: (2 + 2*BP) Turns Duration, maximum of nine.

BP is a wonderful resource, and more is always better. It's not as instant as Pomegranates or Concoct, but it also doesn't use resources beyond SP. It can be a bit tricky to work well since you still won't get any BP when boosting during a turn, but if you can give someone (or everyone with Sealicge's Seduction) a bunch of turns with it, this will more than pay for itself.

Divination (25SP) [Buff] - Increase a single ally's critical hit rate for 2 turns.
Formula: (2 + 2*BP) Turns Duration, maximum of nine.

This doesn't actually increase the chances of the target doing a critical hit. Rather, it guarantees they do a critical hit. This only applies to physical attacks, but otherwise it's a guaranteed extra 25% damage to their attacks (if you ignore their Crit stat and whether they use always-crit skills like True Strike and Amputation). Most of the time, it's a pretty solid add to any physical attacker, but if their Crit stat is already high it may not be as important to throw on a character.

Starsong (25SP) [Buff] - Augment a single ally's physical defense, elemental defense, speed, and evasion for 2 turns.
Formula: (2 + 2*BP) Turns Duration, maximum of nine.

Basically it adds a ton of defensive buffs at once to one target. It's mostly a bunch of decent-but-not-great buffs that combine together to make a rather great buff to keep your healers or shield-breakers alive. And of course it's beautiful with Sealticge's Seduction.

Celestial Intervention (25SP) [Buff/Debuff] - For 2 turns, render a single foe unable to receive attribute augmentations, or a single ally immune to attribute penalties.
Formula: (2 + 2*BP) Turns Duration, maximum of nine.

The rare skill that can target allies or enemies (for all I know, it's the only skill in the game to do so since Bewildering Grace is technically self-target). It either blocks stat buffs for enemies, or stat debuffs for allies. A situational skill, but a really nice one when you need it. Also, Sealticge's Seduction will target all allies and enemies and give the normal de/buffs for each, so it really shines if you have a Dancer.

Etheral Healing (30SP) [Buff] - Grant HP regeneration to all allies for 2 turns.
Formula: (2 + 2*BP) Turns Duration, maximum of nine.

Gives the HP Regen buff, recovering 10% Max HP per turn. The only real bad skill for the Starseer, as this doesn't stack with skills or equipment that gives HP Regen. The issue is that at this point of the game, foes are going to hit hard, and 10% of your Max HP a round will not cut it when a basic Heal Wounds spell should be recovering at least 50% of your Max HP, and a freaking Healing Grape Bunch around 20%. Big, instant heals are significantly more useful at this stage of the game than gradual, long-lasting healing, so this isn't really worth the cost.

Moon's Reflection (30SP) [Buff] - Grant a single ally the ability to counter physical damage one time.
Formula: (1 + 1*BP) stacks, maximum of nine.

Unlike Reflective Veil, this will not nullify incoming damage. Regular attacks are weak, so by itself this isn't that great a skill. However, it can be handy for breaking shields, and it becomes surprisingly useful if you're using this with runes, as suddenly the damage being countered ends up in the thousands instead of the hundreds. Takes some work, but can be quite strong if you prepare around it.

Steorra's Prophecy (50SP) [NonElem] - [Divine Skill] Unleash an elemental attack on all foes that deals damage proportional to the party's current BP.
Formula: (EA - TED) * 5 * (1 + 0.2*PartyBP)

It only factors in the party's BP after you spend the BP required for this skill, so you'll only have a maximum of 17BP available. This does mean this won't be as powerful as Balogar's Blade from Runelord (though the "target-all" aspect helps it), but if you have enough BP available it should more than suffice. Its only big knock beyond requiring you to save up BP is that it only deals one hit (as the multiple hits from Balogar and from Winnehild's Battle Cry can really add up), but otherwise it's as solid a damage Divine Skill that you can ask for.

-----

Support Skills

Hard Worker - Gain additional JP after battles. (Equipping this skill with multiple characters will have no added effect.)

It's a 50% boost to JP. It's surprisingly nice at this stage of the game, as suddenly you have four new jobs that have very expensive skills to buy. Should be handy for non-boss encounters for the duration of the game.

Boost-Start - Gain an additional 1 BP at the start of battle.

Bad for bosses, but fantastic for random encounters. Also great for grinding in general. Basically the shorter you plan the fight to be, the better this skill gets.

BP Eater - Boosted skills performed by the equipping character deal additional damage.

This lets skills (but not normal attacks) do 50% more damage if they're boosted at all, which...you generally want to do with your damage skills anyway. Almost a no-brainer for your main damage-dealers, probably one of the best offensive passives you can have.

Divine Aura - The equipping character gains a 25% chance of nullifying any damage taken.

This certainly isn't a bad skill, it's more that it's not quite enough compared to all the competition it has for its current slot. If you're missing something for a healer, this is certainly a great skill to have for them, but otherwise it's barely too weak to be in the conversation for end-game passives. Which, considering this is probably the Starseer's weakest support skill, speaks to how strong the Starseer's Support Skills are in general.

-----

We're done! We have all the jobs, we've explored enough, it's time.

Next time, the beginning of the end as we tackle Cyrus's Chapter 4 and try to finish his story.