Octopath Traveler 2 Cleric Job Guide

This is an in-depth guide to the Cleric job in Octopath Traveler 2. This guide will break down the Cleric job including Skills and interaction with other Jobs of Octopath Traveler 2.

What is the Role of a Cleric

Clerics are almost a purely supportive job specializing in the use of Staves. Clerics offer very little damage but plenty of support and recovery options for the party.

This supportive role however often makes them essential, as they’re able to focus on supporting rather than damage.

In Octopath Traveler 2, Temenos Mistral has Cleric as his main role. Temenos is an Inquisitor or a high-ranking member of the church chosen by the pontiff themself to protect the church and its clerics. Temenos sets out on a journey to figure out the mystery behind the recent death in the Flamesguard Church.

How the Cleric Job has Changed for Octopath Traveler 2

The Cleric got a few very notable changes which make them much more supportive. This includes new buffs, which take the place of some older ones. One thing that remains unchanged is their access to Holy Light and Luminescence.

Clerics no longer have access to Reflective Veil. While this seems like a huge loss, this is made up for slightly with their new Prayer to the Flame Skill. This combines the effects of old Sheltering Veil with Dancer’s old Mole Dance skill, to boost both defenses.

This created another spell slot, which is being filled by the new Sacred Shield Skill skill. This is another damage-reduction skill, that can be applied to a single target, granting at least 50% damage reduction from the next hit.

They also lost access to Heal More, but Heal Wound was buffed slightly, which unfortunately comes with a higher SP Cost. This is a good change overall, as two of the Clerics’ skills are no longer variations just the same spell.

This also created space for the new Mystical Staff skill. This skill is very similar to the Thieves’ old SP Thief Skill, but uses Staves instead. It’s great for SP management, which Clerics can definitely go through a lot of at times.

Cleric Skills: Overview and Recommendations

Like all classes, the Cleric has both Active Skills and Support Skills that can affect their combat ability. Below you can read the overview and recommendations for each skill individually, followed by a segment with recommendations on which skills to pick first and why!

Active Skills

Active Skills are skills used in battle, to either attack, provide buffs, or apply debuffs. Below are the Active Skills available to Clerics. Clerics have access to Heal Wounds and Holy Light by default, the other skills require the use of Job Points, or JP to unlock.

Among the Active Skills are Divine Skills, which are powerful skills that are unique to each class. These however cannot be unlocked until all other skills have been unlocked first, which requires a large amount of JP, in addition to their own unlock cost.

Heal Wounds

• Skill Type: Recovery
• SP Cost: 15
• Effect: Restore HP to all Allies.
• Boost Effect: Increases healing power per BP Spent.

Heal Wounds is a fairly strong healing skill. Having it right out of the gate without any need to spend JP makes Cleric a great supporter. It is fairly costly, but thankfully Clerics have the means to restore SP to themselves, via the Mystical Staff skill.

Holy Light

• Skill Type: Light
• SP Cost: 6
• Effect: Deal light-based damage to a single target.
• Boost Effect: Increases damage per BP spent.

Having a light-based spell is always good, as many undead or other creatures tied to darkness are weak to it. Being a single-hit spell also allows it to do fairly good damage, provided it is not resisted.

Prayer to the Flame

• Skill Type: Buff
• SP Cost: 8
• Effect: Increase the Physical and Elemental Defense of a single ally for 2 turns
• Boost Effect: Increases the duration of the buff by 2 turns per BP spent.

Prayer to the Flame is actually a fairly strong defensive buff. This allows a Cleric to simultaneously bolster both defensive stats and reduce incoming damage. Though it’s the cost of two individual buffs, it does provide two effects to make it worthwhile.

Mystical Staff

• Skill Type: Staff
• SP Cost: 6
• Effect: Unleash a staff attack on a single foe twice. recover SP equal to 10% of the damage dealt
• Boost Effect: Increases damage per BP spent.

Mystical Staff can be great early on while enemies have low Physical Defense. However for clerics themselves, unless you give them a Physical Attack-based Staff, they will eventually miss out on this as an SP recovery option due to low damage.

Luminescence / Radiance

• Skill Type: Light
• SP Cost: 14
• Effect: Deal light-based damage to all foes once. (with Advanced Magic: Deals light-based damage to all foes twice)
• Boost Effect: Increases damage BP spent.

Luminescence is a multi-target version of Holy Light that hits all foes. It’ll deal similar damage to individual targets, but with the capability of hitting multiple targets instead of just one. Much like the Scholar’s Spells, Luminescence can be upgraded by the Advanced Magic buff to Radiance, which increases the number of hits dealt to 2.

Sacred Shield

• Skill Type: Buff
• SP Cost: 10
• Effect: Grants a shield to a single ally. Reducing the damage of the next hit they take by 50%
• Boost Effect: Increases the damage reduction by 15% per BP spent.

Sacred Shield is an incredibly potent Defensive buff that scales quite well. Since it reduces the damage of any hit by 50%, it can further be paired with other defensive buffs like Prayer to the Flame to drastically reduce incoming damage.

Revive

• Skill Type: Recovery
• SP Cost: 40
• Effect: Revives all fallen allies.
• Boost Effect: Increases the amount of health given by revive per BP spent.

Revive is great for situations where multiple allies fall in combat. However, without BP usage it will always revive allies with 1 HP, making BP usage almost required. Its high SP cost can also make it difficult to use until you have means of reducing it.

Divine Skill – Aelfrics’s Blessing

• Skill Type: Buff
• SP Cost: 30
• Effect: Grants a single Ally the ability to act again at the end of a turn for 3 turns. Only one additional action can be taken per turn.

Aelfric’s Blessing is a fairly strong Divine Skill, though only great in scenarios where you’re about to break a boss. While acting twice in a turn can be very powerful in the right circumstances, it’s also held back by the one additional turn effect. With so many other options providing similar effects, there’s just less of a reason to spend the BP to use this.

Which Cleric Skills you should take first

Since Active Skills can be taken in any order in Octopath Traveler 2, it’s worth considering the benefits of taking each skill. The cost for the next skill increases as you pick skills, so take the time to plan which skills you’d want to make sure you never feel weak.

Due to the Cleric having a mostly supportive kit, they have a lot of great first options. However, I highly recommend Luminescence, this gives you access to a decent-multi-target skill that also allows you to quickly check foes for weakness to Light.

Early on, Revive is not worth prioritizing. While that seems silly, it’s incredibly expensive on your SP costs and requires BP to be a stable or safe way of reviving. The Olive of Life item will be a better alternative for the early game unless you absolutely need to revive more than one person.

The same is also true for Sacred Shield. Despite being a strong effect, Sacred Shield is a lower priority as it’s not impactful until later. Early on you can usually out-heal most damage fairly easily.

Of the remaining Skills, Prayer to the Flame is a versatile option. While it’s a costly buff, it covers both defensive stats. This makes it a great early option, especially if you have a Warrior with Incite.

Of your early consideration, Mystical Staff can be worth prioritizing. This is because not only does it help you maintain SP, it can also serve as a cheaper or even free option to help break foes weak to Staves.

Support Skills

Support Skills are passive bonuses that can be mixed and matched with Support Skills of other classes after unlocking them. Support Skills are unlocked alongside your Active Skills, being tied to the number of unlocked Active Skills for the class. These provide stat boosts or other combat effects entirely passively and do not need to be activated beyond applying them to a character.

Resilience

• Total JP Cost: 130
• Effect: Increases the of HP recovered by the equipped character when recovery effects are applied.

This Support skill affects all forms of recovery, including Buffs, Items, and Spells. This makes it a really good Support Skill that allows recovery effects to keep up with and offset incoming damage much easier.

Inner Strength

• Total JP Cost: 630
• Effect: Increases the equipped character’s SP by 50.

This is a great early-game Support skill for most classes. With SP enabling more skill use and most jobs having low SP Costs, this flat boost helps until levels and gear can take over later on.

Evil Ward

• Total JP Cost: 1,630
• Effect: Increases the success rate of the Flee command. (Effect does not stack when equipped on multiple characters.)

Evil Ward is a great passive if you;re just traversing an area and aren’t looking to deal with encounters. Combined with the Scholar’s Evasive Maneuvers, it’s both less likely to get encounters and easier to run from the ones you do get.

Rise Again

• Total JP Cost: 4,630
• Effect: Once per battle, the equipped character will be automatically revived at 25% HP when taking Fatal Damage.

This is a great Support Skill for the more fragile characters, like the Cleric. While you still lose any buffs that were applied, it saves the time of having to revive the fallen ally. While it’s not the absolutely strongest effect out there, it is a great defensive Support Skill.

How Cleric Synergizes with Other Jobs

Below you will learn which secondary Jobs best complete the Cleric as a starting Job and how the Cleric Job synergizes and performs best as a secondary job with other starting jobs!

How Temenos Synergizes with other Jobs

Through the use of his Latent Power, Judgment, Temenos can make incredibly good use of the multi-hit or multi-target abilities of other jobs. This allows him to excel as a support by offering additional breaking power on occasion, in addition to buffs and healing.

Of note, The Hunter‘s Precise Shot can be excellent for this, allowing you to select how up to 5 attacks are distributed. This allows you to focus them all on one target without any RNG at play or perfectly spread them out to break multiple targets.

Check out our Temenos Character Guide to learn about this character and their unique actions within the game. You can also check out our Walkthrough of their story, for hidden items in their story and boss strategies.

How Cleric Synergizes with Other Jobs

Pairing the Apothecary job with the Cleric Job can really expand their support potential, despite the slight overlap in abilities. This can allow you to revive a single target for less SP, thanks to Healing Touch. This can be a bit sub-optimal due to the amount of overlap in skills

Additionally, you get access to Rehabilitate to cleanse negative status effects and provide immunity to them. You’ll also gain access to Replenish Health, which can provide them with healing over time.

If combined with the Dancer, you can have really strong support for your party. Between their Cleric Defensive Buffs and the Dancer’s offensive buffs, you get a ton of options. As a job that already focuses more on support, this gives more potential to do so.

Agnea can also benefit greatly from having Cleric as a Battle Job, allowing her to use her Latent Power, All Together Now, to apply the Cleric’s potent defensive buffs to her whole party. This makes her an exceptionally powerful support option with this set of jobs.

Additionally, Dancer’s Invigorate and Inspire is a great option for Clerics to have. It furthers their support capabilities in a meaningful way. While they lack the ability to buff multiple people without the support of a Dancer, it’s still a useful effect when used well.

The Merchant can be a great combination to expand the supportive potential of the Cleric. With access to Rest, which not only recovers HP, but SP, as well as removes negative statuses, this can ensure only effects like Silence and Unconcious prevent actions. Additionally, they also gain access to Share BP, which is a powerful utility option.

Scholar offers a surprising amount of benefits to the Cleric job, as both Advanced Magic and Alephan’s Wisdom are able to affect many of their skills, including Temenos’ EX Skills. This grants both increased healing and damage potential, as well as some additional breaking power.

The Thief doesn’t really have much in terms of strong synergies, only providing mainly debuffs and some physical damage options. However, Steal HP can be a great option to recover HP while still dealing damage and breaking.

Throné with her Latent Power can actually work out much better than expected. With the ability to heal and buff on a single turn, or heal and deal damage, it makes it a nice option to keep the tempo of an encounter in your favor. Not having to deal less damage in a turn to heal or buff keep your damage fairly high overall.

Combining the Cleric’s skills with the Warrior‘s natural bulk and ability to taunt can create an incredibly effective way of denying most, if not all single-target attacks. You’ll still have to be cautious of multi-hit and multi-target abilities however.

For advanced Job, Armsmaster can be an interesting option for Temenos specifically. With the Armsmaster Sixfold Strike skill and Temenos’ Latent power, you’re able to quickly break foes, especially when they’re alone. With a consistent 6-hit attack, it’s incredibly very easy to break individual targets.

With additional support from a Dancer granting you Sealticge’s Seduction, this can even be applied to the Mischievous Step skill as well. This can let Temenos very quickly and easily break an entire encounter’s worth of foes.

Despite it also being a more supportive job, Arcanist doesn’t offer all to much to Temenos specifically. While you’ll have access to both Light and Dark magic that also comes with slight support utility, that’s about all you gain; save for some additional support options like Seal of Immortality

The Conjurer however does offer a fair bit of extra damage for Temenos. Though it’ll be rare that you use the effect yourself, it does allow Temenos to have a more consistent and supportive option that boosts offense.

The Inventor can be a niche secondary job option for him, which while granting some additional supportive options, is more of a selfish option. This would allow you to use Temenos’ EX Skill Heavenly Shine, then with a BP item from another character, immediately refill your SP and BP to go again. Though it’s still better for another character to be the Inventor.

This concludes our in-depth Class Guide for the Cleric.