AI Loop Glitch Explanation/Possible Strategies

Explanation: Some of Octopath Traveler's bosses have a 50% health action where they power up to 3 actions. (For example, Steorra/Darius/Werner all start with 2 actions per turn, and then at 50% HP they spend a power-up action to go to 3 actions per turn.) If you break them immediately before that "power-up action", they will loop their shields and attack, never going to 3 actions.

How to trigger basically:
- bring a boss below 50% HP
- break right before their power-up action

For example, Steorra is a boss that can be AI Looped. At below half health, Steorra's first action of the turn will be to use Shooting Stars. Her second action will be 'Steorra's body grows as light as the air' which powers her up to 3 actions per turn. You need to break right before the 'Steorra's body grows as light as the air:' to trigger the loop.

As another example, Darius is also vulnerable to this glitch. At below half health, Darius' first action is always 'Sweep' followed by 'Darius let out a battle cry!' which takes him to 3 actions per turn. If you break right before his battlecry, you will AI Loop him. (Werner and Simeon are similar bosses who have a set 'Default Attack' and 'Power Up to 3 Actions' pattern at half health; see bottom for full known list of bosses.)

To AI Loop a boss (using Werner and Olberic as an example):

At just before the halfway point (50,698 HP), we want a specific turn order where either
First Pattern for AI Loop:
T1: Werner1 Werner2 Olberic1
T2: Werner3 Olberic2 Werner4
OR
Second Pattern for AI Loop:
T1: Werner1 Olberic1 Werner2 (and Werner1 didn't use Sweep)
T2: Werner3 Olberic2 Werner4

In either Pattern, Olberic1 does damage to push Werner BELOW half health without breaking (his name changes color after this attack if you did it right), then for his Olberic2 action breaks Werner. That activates the glitch.

Note that in the Second Pattern, Werner1 needs to not use Sweep as that's his default action. In the Second Pattern, if Olberic1 damaged Werner below half health, but Werner1's action was Sweep, Werner2's action actually does his 'You cannot hope to keep pace with me...' power-up to 3 actions. Then, on T2, it will have Werner taking 3 actions, and he cannot be AI Looped anymore.

These above examples feature a solo battle, but this is also perfectly fine and doable with a full party as well, as long as there's character breaking immediately before the power up action.

Solo Strategies:
- wait until you see an upcoming turn order where you can break the boss and it goes
First Pattern for AI Loop:
B1, B2, C1 - in this case, C1 just does some non-breaking attack to bring enemy below 50% health
B3, C2, B4 - here, C2 does a breaking attack to break boss
OR

Second Pattern AI Loop:
B1, C1, B2 - C1 just does some non-breaking attack to bring enemy below 50% health
B3, C2, B4 - here, C2 does a breaking attack to break boss
(Note that for Second Pattern, B1's action needs to not the 'default' pre power up action [ex for Darius, they always do a default Sweep before their 3 action power-up, so their B1 action needs to be any attack other than Sweep]. For First Pattern, it doesn't matter what B1 and B2 are.).

If it's Third Pattern AI Loop:
C1, B1, B2
B3, C2, B4
In a solo, you cannot normally do the AI Loop glitch with this turn order, but it can sometimes be possible with Poison or Patience support skill. It's technically possible for C1 to do an action like poison (via empoison, 40% bottle poison throw, etc) to have the boss take damage after B2 but before B3 since poison ticks happen at the end of a boss' turn. Poison does 1% to bosses, so if the enemy needs only a tiny bit of damage to drop below half health, you can push them over with poison, making the enemy power up with B3/B4 to AI Loop them. Alternatively, Patience if it procs after B2's action can let you take a turn to attack and drop their health past halfway.

(Eye for an Eye can also be used in theory to break after B3 to do the AI Loop but is obviously less reliable and more RNG.)

Full Party Strategies:
- A suggestion of Doid#5819 is to use moves like Panther Dance to adjust turn order. Some NPC summons or moves like Starsong can be used for this purpose too.
- Do not use Leghold, as we need the boss' turns to be staggered to do this. You can technically heal the boss with items like Monster Perfume too to avoid overdamaging them.

Usages:
- Doid#5819 gave the idea of looping a boss to stall and using Bewildering Grace to hope for a high EXP/JP multiplier.
- Another common use is in solo playthroughs, speedruns, or challenges, to loop a boss and make them more manageable. (As an example, soloing Steorra requires a great deal of RNG and HP tracking to defeat her without the AI Loop, as her Ethereal Healing heals 3562 HP each turn, which some solo characters cannot even outdamage per turn.)

The following 8 bosses are the confirmed ones with this glitch so far (there may be others but only these were tested and verified):
-    Darius - loops shield shift and sweep
-    Werner - loops shield shift and sweep
-    Simeon (Phase 2) - loops shield shift and Master of Silence
-    Steorra the Starseer - loops shield shift and Shooting Stars. (Do note that because Steorra's shield shift rotates phases of shields [ex in contrast Werner and Darius keep their same set], she resets the shield count, so it becomes harder to break her as she always goes back to the full count after being looped. This means it is especially hard for solos to rebreak her. However, if she is broken, she does stay looped. The only change being that she moves to her next weakness set but continues looping her shield shift and shooting stars)
- Darius? (Gate of Finis) - loops shield shift and sweep
- Werner? (Gate of Finis) - loops shield shift and sweep
- Simeon? (Gate of Finis) - loops shield shift and Master of Silence
- Gareth - You have to break them when the adds are first KOed (triggering their 3 actions per turn) rather than at 50% HP. Their loop is shifting weaknesses and Sweep, much like Darius does.
- Mánagarmr (the Great Direwolf) - when HP is 50% or less, defeat all three wolves right after he summons them, and he loops two physical attacks over and over

Confirmed to NOT work from testing: Redeye, Balogar the Runelord, Winnehild the Warmaster, Esmeralda, TBA

Other bosses with glitched AI but that are different: Lyblac (she loops her Soul Healing if Maw is destroyed first, but her broken AI appears to be different from AI Loop)