Octopath Traveler Cyrus FAQ

Q: So what is the route for this run?
A: As you might be able to guess from the splits; Get, Tressa, Therion, Alfyn, and then beat up Cyrus'story.

Q: Why those characters in particular?
A: There's basically 3 things you need to get a story done in quick time.
1) Evasive Maneuvers - A Support skill for scholar that reduces encounters
2) Merchant(s) - The Hired Help skill is just insanely good for blasting through at low levels, does far more damage than anything else
3) Money - To actually use Hired Help
So Cyrus gets the first, Tressa obv the second. Therion is there also because Armor Corrosive to reduce defense helps a bunch too, and picking up purple chests for extra cash also helps a lot. Alfyn rounds out the party, simply because he's along the way and fast, and Concoct is a little bit helpful for the final boss.

Q: Could you not use less than 4 characters?
A: Yeah, you could. Skipping Alfyn is definitely possible. But I really don't think it's faster. The final boss especially, while about as consistent, just takes so much longer with 3 chars.

Q: Do you get any jobs for the characters?
A: Yeah, a few. Merchant (for Alfyn), Warrior (for Tressa), and Hunter (for Cyrus).

Q: What the hard part of this run?
A: Yvon, the chap 3 boss is easily the worst. Lucia (chap 4 boss) can kill you also if you don't have a character that isn't Cyrus go before her Turn 1, but after that it's not bad at all. Whereas Yvon almost always has his two Research Fellow get an attack off, and if they both choose Tornado it's super over. Even one choosing tornado generally ends the run depending on who dies as a result.

Q: Why are you resetting the game/going in and out of an encounter
A: This resets the encounter count. Basically the way encounters work (this may not be true at all, but it's how I understand it) is that there's a counter that starts at some given number (say 80 or something) and every step you take, counts down, and if it hits zero you'd get an encounter. But exiting a map, whether it be by entering a new area or resetting, or stupidly by triggering an optional boss but not starting the fight, resets the count, so another encounter won't show up for a long while.

Q: So encounters can be completely controlled?
A: Nah, the number chosen is still random, so it might be 60, might be 80. Having evasive maneuvers reduces the amount you get drastically, but there are plenty of places in the run where sometimes you'll get an encounter, and sometimes you won't.

Q: What's WR?
A: https://www.speedrun.com/octopath | See: Splits

Q: Planning on doing other categories?
A: I'm running this game at PAX (https://horaro.org/asmpax2018/schedule), so preparing for that (bidwar between the Ophilia/Cyrus/Alfyn, so working on those 3).

Q: What's goal time?
A: Any PB would be really nice.