Octopath Traveler 2 Nut Farming Guide: What You Need & Why You Should Do It

Stat Nuts are a returning mechanic from "Octopath Traveler"  in its equally successful sequel, "Octopath Traveler 2." Once a finite resource in the first game, Nuts are now a renewable — if exceedingly rare — means of permanently boosting your characters' stats throughout the game. There are ten kinds of nuts that correspond to the ten character stats, each of them coming in sizes of regular, medium (M), and large (L), which in turn determines the magnitude of their effects.

Whether you're using them to balance out the inherent weaknesses in your party or just buffing the ever-loving heck out of one or two favorite characters, Nuts are a peripheral — but powerful — part of character building that you won't want to ignore. That said, not all Nuts will be able to have the same effects on every character — not to mention, Nut farming is a tedious endeavor that takes a bit of setup before you'll be getting any substantial returns. You won't get very far in Nut-farming and stat-boosting if running in blind: Here's a breakdown of every kind of Nut, their effects on every character, and the best methods of farming them.

As mentioned above, there are ten different kinds of nuts that come in three different sizes, making for 30 individual in-game items that you can farm and use to increase your characters' stats.

• Nourishing Nut: Max HP
• Invigorating Nut: Max SP
• Fortifying Nut: Physical Attack
• Tough Nut: Physical Defense
• Magic Nut: Elemental Attack
• Resistant Nut: Elemental Defense
• Sharp Nut: Accuracy
• Slippery Nut: Evasion
• Critical Nut: Critical Hit Rate
• Light Nut: Speed

The complicated part is that each kind of Nut has varying effects on every character. Some take better to particular Nuts than others and vice versa, meaning that the sum of stat increases you get from a set amount of Nuts can vary wildly depending on how you distribute them. As a general rule of thumb, a character will get the most out of a Nut that corresponds to their highest base stats:

• Hikari: HP (Nourishing), Physical Attack (Fortifying), Physical Defense (Tough)
• Agnea: Speed (Light)
• Osvald: Elemental Attack (Magic)
• Temenos: SP (Invigorating), Elemental Defense (Resistant)
• Throne: Evasion (Slippery)
• Ochette: Physical Attack (Fortifying), Accuracy (Sharp), Critical (Critical)
• Partitio: Physical Attack (Fortifying), Elemental Attack (Magic)
• Castti: Physical Attack (Fortifying)

Another thing to note, however, is that every stat is capped at 999,  and it is very possible for characters' highest base stats to hit this cap at higher levels with late-game gear. As such, you might find it more useful to spend Nuts on a character's weaker stats to balance them out in the long run. 

While you can get a decent amount of Nuts simply by progressing through the game in a thorough fashion — using path actions, fulfilling sidequests, seeing stories through to the end, searching through every chest — there is a way to acquire more. If you want to make real powerhouses out of your characters and cut through even the hardest bosses "Octopath Traveler 2" has to offer, you'll want to go after Octopuffs.

With only a 5% spawn rate, Octopuffs are extremely hard to find and kill at a regular rate. There are exactly ten kinds of Octopuffs, each of them dropping one kind of Nut:

• Nourishing: King Octopuff (spawns everywhere)
• Invigorating: Queen Octopuff (spawns everywhere)
• Fortifying: Desert Octopuff (Hinoeuma)
• Tough: Ocean Octopuff (Harborlands)
• Magic: Snowland Octopuff (Winterlands)
• Resistant: Mountain Octopuff (Crestlands)
• Sharp: Forest Octopuff (Leaflands)
• Critical: Wasteland Octopuff (Wildlands)
• Light: City Octopuff (Brightlands)
• Slippery: Island Octopuff (Toto'haha)

While you could go off and start farming them via brute force, you'll be locking yourself into a long and grueling grind with extremely diminishing returns per hour. If you want to save yourself a lot of misery, you'll want to grab a few items and character abilities to help you encounter and kill Octopuffs at a more reliable rate.

The items you'll need to up the encounter rate are the Alluring Ribbon and the Octopuff Pots. The Alluring Ribbon helps increase monster encounters in general, which is normally somewhat undesirable but is extremely helpful in this case; you can earn one by completing the "Lingering Love" sidequest found in Stormhail (Winterlands). Octopuff Pots increase encounter chances for Octopuffs specifically. There are three that can be found in-game:

• One from completing the "Will Research for Money" side story  found in Montwise (Crestlands) via the Octopus Researcher. The quest target is in the tavern of Conning Creek (Harborlands).
• One from a fisherman at the entrance of Conning Creek, where you can either take it from him with the Steal or Mug path actions, buy it from him with 19000 Leaves,  or use the Entreat path action at level 30. 
• One from a red chest to the right of the pathway leading up to the lighthouse at Lighthouse Island, which is found in the Sundering Sea north of New Delsta Harbour: Anchorage (Brightlands).

Having one Alluring Ribbon and all three Octopuff Pots equipped to your characters' accessory slots will stack to give you the highest encounter rate possible from item bonuses. Another ability you'll want to add to the mix for the best chances is the More Rare Monsters passive ability from the Hunter job;  you can either use Ochette or equip the skill to another character via unlocking Hunter as a secondary job. 

Once you've managed to set up a tolerable encounter rate for Octopuffs, you'll need a setup to actually be able to kill them. With a tiny HP pool but an infuriating amount of speed and evasion, these things can slip through your fingers before you can get off a single hit.

The one support skill you'll definitely want is A Step Ahead, gained from the Inventor job.  Ideally, you'd be equipping it to all characters, but this can be a pain to grind as Inventor is an advanced secondary job that can only be equipped to one character at a time. Still, even having one or two characters who've mastered the ability will improve your farming experience by leaps and bounds. 

It's also a good idea to hunt Octopuffs in areas with a lower danger level, as it makes it easier to filter out the non-Octopuff monster encounters quickly and painlessly. The unfortunate fact is that Octopuff hunting can be a miserable grind even with all the setup;  be prepared for a great deal of tedium if you're dead set on farming more than just a handful of Nuts.