Octopath Traveler How to Beat Rufus
Items Acquired
Refreshing Jam
We’re finally facing off against our father’s assassin, the “Left-Hand Man” Rufus. This fight includes him and two of his lackey’s (“Obsidian Associates”), but they aren’t protecting him so we can attack whoever we wish.
If you’ve been following this guide, this should be a fairly manageable fight as your preferred party members are likely level 30+, which is a very good buffer to survive this fight. Still, you’ll want someone to keep an eye on health, especially Primrose’s if you haven’t been using her an awful lot (which BK hasn’t… I had her use the “Mole Dance” to increase her defense throughout the fight, as well as using her Dagger to help break the shields of the Associates). In our case, we had Cyrus toss out the occasional party heal with his new Cleric sub-job and that took care of things fairly nicely. You’ll want the party-wide heal available though as Rufus can attack everyone with his “Roundhouse Kick” and “Left-Hand Man” attacks while the associates can hit everyone with their “Quick Strike” attacks.
Still, this is a pretty easy battle. You can use hit-all ice attacks with Cyrus to take out the associates fairly easily and then have your spear-user (you did follow our note earlier, right?) get to work on Rufus. If you take out the associates, you can often use your multi-hit spear skills to just wreck Rufus. When he’s broken, you can use your Divine Skills (although we’d still just recommend Cyrus use a boosted dual-hit Thunder Attack, possibly with Primrose giving him the “Peacock Strut”).
Like always, let’s go over his moves!
- Attack: This is Rufus’ basic attack, which will deal somewhere around 300-ish damage on a decently armored, decently leveled character (assuming this isn’t your first Chapter 2 stop). The associates can also use their basic attack for around 100 damage to a single person.
- Quick Strike: This is one of the associate’s attacks, one they’ll usually use after being broken (so watch out for it!). Quick Strike will hit the entire party for around 150-200+ damage. One of the reasons you want party-healing is because this can happen twice in a row easily (and Rufus can add onto that as well).
- Pummel: This is an interesting attack, with a status condition we haven’t seen much of in the past. When Rufus uses Pummel he’ll deal around 150-200 damage twice to one person. Not too bad, but this also has the chance to stun them (which gives them the Unconscious status effect), which can be quite annoying.
- Roundhouse Kick: Roadhouse! Rufus is quite the fighter apparently, as he can roundhouse kick every party member in the face. That’s some kung-fu nonsense right there! This attack will deal around 300-400 damage to each party member. Another good reason (alongside the “Quick Strike” attack up above) to bring someone who can heal the whole party.
- “Rufus takes a Deep Breath: You will start to see this move near the end of the fight, after Rufus has taken some damage. He’ll use one move to use this move and will start to glow purple. If you can, interrupt him by breaking his Shield Points. If you can’t, he will use the “Left-Hand Man” move on the next turn. This will do around 500-600 damage to everyone in the party, with the chance to stun party members for 2 turns. That chance to stun can mean very bad things as you can imagine (or it may just miss everyone), but either way you want to break Rufus before he uses this move if at all possible.
- Rufus calls for help!: You knew this move would appear! If you kill both associates Rufus will (eventually) use this move (likely after waiting a few turns). Both associates will re-appear afterwards with the same SP and weaknesses, albeit at lower HP levels.
Overall, this is a straight-up brawl from Rufus and his men with very few tricks to the fight itself. Keeping your HP up is the most important aspect of this fight. Besides that, you just need to continue to break his shield and deliver your best boosted attacks from there.