Esmeralda is easily one of the most difficult boss fights you encounter in Octopath Traveler. This is because she has some unique battle mechanics that no other boss (or enemy) in the game uses. She also has a few special attacks that can easily down your party members.
Furthermore, Esmeralda rotates between different sets of weaknesses as well as two different blades that have different side effects.
Esmeralda location
When you start chasing her for the notebook as part of Tressa’s Chapter 4 story quest, Esmeralda will run off into the Grandport Sewers. Follow her into the bowels of the Grandport where she will finally decide to face you and your party members.
Esmeralda weaknesses
Esmeralda has three sets of weaknesses that she rotates in each phase of her boss fight. This makes it quite difficult to finish the fight because every time Esmeralda starts recovering her Shields, her weaknesses will change.
- Weakness Rotation 1: Spear, Axe, Staff, Wind, and Light
- Weakness Rotation 2: Sword, Bow, Fire, Lightening and Wind
- Weakness Rotation 3: Spear, Dagger, Ice, Wind, and Dark.
After the third set of weaknesses, she will cycle the weaknesses between the first set and the third set. The damage through these weaknesses will be reduced because of the shield but when the shield breaks, it will have more damage.
Esmeralda special attacks
Esmeralda has two moves per turn and she will use them depending on whether she has the shields or not. Most of her Special attacks block the character from using a specific skill but some attacks can prove fatal. Most of her attacks are physical though and she does not deal any elemental damage.
| Special Attacks | What Do They Do |
|---|---|
| Hack and Slash | Deals physical attack to a single character 3 times |
| Raven’s Flight | Decreased Physical defense for three turns, applies on the entire party |
| Five Strikes | Heavy Physical attacks on five random targets, can be four or five attacks on a single characters |
| Red Blade | Prevents the target from attacking for two turns and attacks it. |
| Blue Blade | Prevents the target from attacking using Physical skill for two turns and attacks it. |
| Violet Blade | Prevents the target from attacking using Elemental skill for two turns and attacks it. |
| Black Blade | Attacks the target and places a timer, starting from 4 and when it goes to 0, the character dies. Can be removed if Esmeralda’s shield breaks. |
| Black Blade Rush | Applies Black Blade to all characters with timers at 7, 5, 3, and 1. Can be removed if Esmeralda Shield Breaks. |
How to defeat Esmeralda
Esmeralda only deals Physical damage but she is weak against physical as well as elemental attacks. To defeat her, you should keep a lot of DEF on all of your characters. Esmeralda also gets stunned and her turns are skipped if her shield breaks.
Esmeralda has 4 shields and she rejuvenates these Shields and adds 2 more to them when she uses “Esmeralda shifts her weight”. She will have a maximum of 8 shields using this method.
Best party for Esmeralda
For Esmeralda, the best party should be Tressa, Ophilia, Olberic and Alfyn. Here, Tressa is used as this is her story and her battle. Apart from this team, you can also have H’aanit the hunter with the Arrowstorm and leghold and Cyrus the Scholar to fight in this battle as this has also been effective in battle.
What else to bring in the fight?
In the battle Tressa is the most important character as you can use many skills like Sidestep which dodges one attack, this can be combined with Runelord’s skill Transfer Rune to use it on the entire team.
Ophilia and Alfyn are basically useful as healers and you can summon healers or create a Grapewood Panacea which gives 3000 HP to the whole team.
The Warrior Olberic with his Thousand Spears can be useful as it will deal more damage than any character in your team.
Also, bring a lot of Olives of life which will be helpful in recovering from her Five Strikes attack. Try to keep Purifying Seed, Purifying Dust, Essence of Pomegranate, and Essence of Grape to make potions which can be made by Alfyn.
