Octopath Traveler: Session 13

This session, I went back around grabbing purple chests out of areas where I didn't have Therion in the party the first time, finished up side quests, and took on a couple cave areas; and in the process I fought things and got all the usual ancillary benefits.  This kind of stuff is really hard to elaborate on in the meandering manner required to pad out the length of this post, to be honest.

I finished up a few side quests here and there.  I currently have an aspiring actor following me, looking for another because they both have to be recruited at the same time for some stupid reason, but I may have to part ways and go back to Noblecourt to get him again later.  As it turned out, apparently I'm blind and the moneylender that was a part of a side quest in Atlasdam was standing right next to the NPC that gave me the side quest, and in fact, I'd already used path actions on him.  Beating him up solves the side quest, so yay.  Gave Lorie's diary to the NPC that was looking for her, though I'd already found her gravestone lol.

Fully learned a few more jobs.  H'aanit and Ophilia are now only missing each other's primary jobs as secondaries.  Others are missing a lot more, especially the people I don't use as much.  I'm trying to get Scholar learned on as many people as I can, so I can always have someone in the party with Analyze to assist in figuring out enemy weaknesses.  I have sort of a process for doing it without Analyze, but Analyze would make it go a lot faster.  In developing my process, I logic'd out the order of the weaknesses.  You see, there's up to five weaknesses for any given foe, but they always appear in the same order regardless of any gaps between them.  Knowing this order lets you more easily decide what to try next once you find one that works.  Also, some enemies actually have logical weaknesses, whether to weapons or elements, which always helps because you can just whack them with whatever makes the most sense and it'll probably be a weakness (for example, treants are weak to axes and fire).  Unless you're trying Lightning on a foe that's wearing armor.  I'm so used to armored foes always being weak to Lightning from Bravely Default and Bravely Second that the lack of that here kinda trips me up.

The caves just outside of Wellspring I thought were really easy, up until the boss at the end.  Kinda had to hit the home button and restart the game, the fight was just going nowhere.  Death loops aren't particularly fun, especially when coupled with a foe that puts your entire party to sleep before wiping out half of them.  It's a side quest thing, I'll come back to it in about 20 levels or so and wipe the floor with it, I guess.  Before it got me in the death loop, I'd only managed to figure out that the guy accompanying the giant serpent was weak to staff as his third weakness of five, which meant that weaknesses four and five have to be elements.  I never really got the chance to try anything else, though.

Anyway, if I don't decide to devote next session to more purple chest opening or any side quests/exploration, it'll be time for H'aanit's Chapter 3.  In that regard, I left myself in Stillsnow.