This is an in-depth guide to the Arcanist job in Octopath Traveler 2. We’ll break down the Arcanist job, including skills and interactions with the other jobs of Octopath Traveler 2.
What is the Role of an Arcanist
What is the Role of an ArcanistArcanist are one of the Advanced Jobs of Octopath Traveler 2. They’re a more supportive Job, with very little offensive options. They specialize in using Daggers and Staves as their weapons of choice.
Despite the lack of offensive options, Arcanists have some of the strongest utility among the advanced jobs. In terms of offense, they get a single Light Spell and a single Dark Spell, both of which also carry some utility to them.
As an Advanced Job, there are no characters that start with this job. This means you’ll need to find the NPC to unlock and use this job.
Where to find and how to Unlock the Arcanist Job
You can obtain the Arcanist Job by speaking with the Arcanist Descendant, who resides on Lost Isle. To Reach Lost Isle, you’ll need to have completed Partitio’s Scent of Commerce in Toto’haha, unlocking your personal ship.
You’ll also be required to beat the powerful foe creating the whirlpool to access the section of the sea that Lost Isle resides in.
Finding the Arcanist Descendant is a little deceptive, as when you reach the island, you’ll come to a maze with a sign at the front that only reads “Discover the true path.”
This would naturally lead you to think that you’d have to solve the maze. Except upon solving the maze, there’s just another sign that reads “The true path… Free from wickedness and distraction, Thy mind’s eye shall be thy guide.”
To reach the Arcanist Descendant, What you need to do instead, is just head directly west from the first sign at the start of the maze. There is a barely visible hidden path that glows blue here which leads directly to the Arcanist Descendant.
This also does not require you to go through the maze, meaning you could potentially get the job earlier than intended, provided you can survive the powerful foe in the whirlpool
Upon Speaking with him, he’ll grant you the Proof of the Arcanist, enabling the job for use.
Arcanist Skills: Overview and Recommendation
Like all job, the Arcanist 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.
Active Skills
Active Skills are skills used in battle, to either attack, provide buffs, or apply debuffs. Below are the Active Skills available to Arcanist. Arcanists have access to Malice and Blessing 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.
Malice
- Skill Type:
Dark - SP Cost: 25
- Effect: Deal Dark-based damage to all foes, and restore HP to all allies. HP recovered increases with damage dealt.
- Boost Effect: Increases damage dealt per BP spent.
Dark
Malice is a pretty good skill, considering it’s one of only two multi-target Dark Spells. With the additional healing it offers, it’s just as good at supporting a team, without being character-bound as the other option is.
This skill can be upgraded by the effects of Advanced Magic to Resentment, dealing damage twice; or by the effects of Alephan’s Wisdom to Malevolence, dealing damage three times.
Blessing
- Skill Type: Light
- SP Cost: 25
- Effect: Deal Light-based damage to all foes, and restore SP to all allies. SP recovered increases with damage dealt.
- Boost Effect: Increases damage dealt per BP spent.
Light
Blessing is a fairly decent skill, being a direct upgrade to the skill the Cleric has by offering utility as well as damage. It’s a fair bit more expensive to start, but it can easily recover its cost through its secondary effect.
This skill can be upgraded by the effects of Advanced Magic to Benediction, dealing damage twice; or by the effects of Alephan’s Wisdom to Spiritual Grace, dealing damage three times.
Hex
- Skill Type: Debuff
- SP Cost: 18
- Effect: Increases the duration of Attribute-reducing effects on all foes by 1 turn.
- Boost Effect: Extends negative effects by an additional 1 turn per BP spent.
This skill is very niche, as most fights can be ended long before even a short debuff will wear off. There are a few late-game encounters where this can be useful though, helping you to fend off damage easier.
This skill can be upgraded by the effects of Advanced Magic to Curse, increasing the base extension time to 2 turns; or by the effects of Alephan’s Wisdom to Scourge, increasing the base extension time to 3 turns..
Seal of Diffusion
- Skill Type: Buff
- SP Cost: 25
- Effect: Extend the reach of skills that only affect the caster to all allies for 3 turns.
- Boost Effect: Increases the duration of the effect by 2 turns per BP spent.
This is almost the holy grail of support skills and opens several of the game’s strongest defensive options to be spread across your full party. In most cases the character you give the Arcanist Job to will want to be able to utilize this to take full advantage of the job.
Seal of Inversion
- Skill Type: Buff
- SP Cost: 15
- Effect: Change one attribute-reducing effect on yourself into an attribute-increasing effect.
- Boost Effect: Increases the number of effects to be inverted by 1 per BP spent.
This can be a very useful tool for party support. Many foes provide a variety of different debuffs and this skill lets you turn those into buffs instead. Combined with Seal of Diffusion, this can also flip an entire set of debuffs applied to your team into buffs, turning most encounters around.
Seal of Immortality
- Skill Type: Buff
- SP Cost: 15
- Effect: Grant yourself an effect that leaves you with 1 HP when hit with a lethal Attack. This effect will disappear once triggered, or after 3 turns.
- Boost Effect: Extends the duration of the effect by 2 turns per BP spent.
This is a very potent support skill, giving you a strong safety net against strong single-hit attacks. With enough HP, it can also help ensure you survive a series of attacks as well, so long as the last hit is what would have otherwise taken you out.
Reflective Barrier
- Skill Type: Buff
- SP Cost: 15
- Effect: Grant a single ally the ability to reflect an elemental attack one time.
- Boost Effect: Increases the number of attacks reflected by 1 per BP spent.
Outside of encounters that can remove this effect, this skill alongside Seal of Diffusion can shut down most elemental attacks. Unlike counter, reflect mitigates the damage entirely and can turn a multi-target spell against your party into a multi-hit spell against your foe.
Divine Skill – Seal of Eternity
- Skill Type: Buff
- SP Cost: 50
- Effect: Indefinitely extends the duration of a random positive status effect on a single ally.
- Boost Effect: Requires Max Boost to use.
This can be insanely powerful, paired with the right effects. This can extend the duration of any turn-based status, making it a permanent effect. It however will not affect skills that only have a set number of uses, like Advanced Magic or Sidestep. However, not needing to worry about the duration of an important boost can be very useful.
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.
SP Recovery
- Total JP Cost: 4,000
- Effect: Recover SP equal to 1% of damage taken in combat.
It’s a little niche, but this can be a great Support Skill for a character built to take hits. While it’s not going to get a ton of SP outside of boss encounters, it can be a great way to focus on keeping yourself buffed without running out of SP
Lasting Memory
- Total JP Cost: 6,000
- Effect: The Equipped character’s status effects will not disappear when they become incapacitated.
This works very well in combination with Seal of Eternity, making it so you don’t lose any buffs you’ve made into permanent effects. Outside of that however, it’ll only be good at maintaining effects that activate a set number of times, rather than a set number of turns.
Price of Power
- Total JP Cost:
- Effect: Double the SP cost of spells, but increases their effects.
This is great for any mage role that’s going for a more damage-oriented style. It’s a fairly strong damage boost, which can make a lot of spells more potent. YOu’ll just also need to make sure they have plenty of SP to still cast with, as skills will cost double.
Of Equal Might
- Total JP Cost:
- Effect: Equalizes the Physical and Elemental Attack of an equipped character to whichever is the higher value. This does not account for Equipment bonuses.
This is a bit of a niche effect, which essentially allows physical-oriented jobs like Warrior also to be able to effectively take on a mage role like Scholar, or vice versa. The downside to this, however, is that unlike a job already suited for it, you’ll have one less Support Skill.
Arcanist Job Synergies
As an Advanced Job, the Arcanist is restricted to being a secondary job only, and thus cannot be paired with other Advanced Jobs. Below you will learn how the Arcanist pairs with each of the basic jobs and which makes for the best primary job.
How Arcanist Synergizes with Other Jobs
The 
Apothecary isn’t one of the strongest combinations with Arcanist but does have a few interesting skill synergies. Most notable is the ability to apply to Rehabilitate every member of the party. This is an effective and easy way to shut down bosses that spam status effects.
Additionally, they’re also able to apply Replenish Health to the whole party. This can even be taken a step further with the Seal of Eternity, making the effect permanent. Though, it’d have to be the first effect applied to guarantee that it becomes a permanent effect.
As for the 
Cleric, there’s not really much of a synergy here. They get access to a Dark spell and a Light spell with more utility. The biggest benefit is being able to use Malice to heal the party, while still dealing damage. While Seal of Eterntity can make Prayer of the Flame into a permanent effect, it’ll also require two casts of Seal of Eterntity to do so.
Dancer can be an exceptionally good pairing, if only for the ability to selectively buff Physical or Elemental Attack, then make it permanent via Seal of Eternity. You’d also gain access to decent HP and SP recovery skills as well, giving a bit of extra supportive power beyond buffs.
Agnea’s Latent Power can also be used to apply Reflective Barrier to the whole party as well, but this can also be done with Sealticge’s Seduction just as easily which doesn’t require Agnea to take the Arcanist role.
The 
Hunter is a bit of an odd choice to pair with the Arcanist. This can make Ochette a niche support for physical damage-based parties. Seal of Diffusion allows her to apply the effects of Indomitable Beast to the whole party, granting Physical Attack, Evasion, and Speed to everyone. She’s also able to grant Take Aim, increasing Accuracy and Critical as well, letting her very quickly buff a party to their maximum potential.
Additionally, Ochette can use her Latent Power to reduce an Enemy’s Shield Points, as well as apply reductions to both Physical Defense and Elemental Defense. She can then extend these almost indefinitely through Hex.
Combining Arcanist and 
Merchant makes for an incredibly strong support offering. This is largely due to the Seal of Diffusion allowing you to spread the effects of Sidestep. This allows you to very easily shut down encounters that rely on physical attacks. You’re also able to spread the effects of Rest, allowing you to recover HP and SP for the party, as well as shrug off status effects.
This can be made even stronger by pairing them with a Dancer that passes Sealticge’s Seduction to him as well. This would allow you to also apply Reflective Barrier to every member of the party, largely shutting down both physical and Elemental attacks, so long as you maintain both effects.
Scholars also have the potential as an interesting support option with the Arcanist Job as well. Seal of Diffusion allows you to spread the effects of Stroke of Genius to the whole party. While this is a bit random in nature as to what it provides and to who, you’ll also have the ability to make any useful buffs permanent via Seal of Eternity.
This pairing also allows you to make good use of Osvald high base Elemental Attack to dish out damage and support in equal amounts with Malice and Blessing. With access to Advanced Magic and Alephan’s Wisdom, the Arcanist’s ability to deal damage, recover HP, and recover SP is also increased. Though these skills don’t specifically require Osvald himself to be an Arcanist.
Unfortunately, 
Thieves do not synergize very well with this job. The only slightly interesting options they get are being able to spread Swift Step and slightly easier maintenance of Armor Corrosive and Shackle Foe.
Throne’s Latent power does provide one slightly interesting option, being able to apply the Seal of Immortality and immediately extend it with the Seal of Eternity. Though this is still a bit of a wasteful action, as the effect can still expire once triggered. It can however help in situations where you need a specific party member to survive an impending attack that can deal a lot of damage.
Warriors are also a great combination with Arcanist, gaining a lot of utility and covering weaknesses fairly well. With Seal of Diffusion, they’re able to spread Abide, Stout Wall, and Vengeful Blade. This makes them able to support the party fairly well already. Add in Of Equal Might from the Arcanist Support Skills and they will have plenty enough Elemental Attack to make great use of Blessing and Malice as well.
Having Arcanist as a secondary job also gives them a slight bump in Elemental Defense and SP, stats which tend to be lower for Warriors. Additionally, they have access to Reflective Barrier to further mitigate any incoming Elemental Attacks.
