Octopath Traveler - Alfyn FAQ

	Octopath Traveler Alfyn FAQ

Q: Why are you running Alfyn?
A: Looked at the other characters, and I liked with I came up with routing out Alfyn. Seems fun.

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

Q: Why those characters in particular?
A: There's basically 4 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
4) Armor Corrosive - To reduce Defense so Hired Help does more damage.
So Cyrus gets the first, Tressa obv the second. Haanit is used because a Hunter is required to beat Ogre Eagle safely, and it's faster to get Theif Shrine instead of Hunter Shrine for Alfyn, and picking up no purple chests (everyone else uses Therion)

Q: Could you not use less than 4 characters?
A: Yeah, you could. Skipping Cyrus would be possible. But it's not faster at all. And the only way it'd really work is if you got a Cait kill with Solo Alfyn (absolute lmao) and then made it to the Scholar Shrine (also lmao) for Evasive Manuvers onto him

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

Q: What the hard part of this run?
A: The worst boss is the Chapter 2 one actually, Vanessa. Chapter 3 is super free with Alfyn, and Chap 4 while you've gotta adapt, you'd have to be insanely unlucky to lose (or not pay attention/make the right decisions). Vanessa is pretty hard to lose to as well, but she's very unpredictable, so quite often you'll lose a lot of time reviving before actually getting the win.

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.