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    Strategies and Tips [Please Mark Spoilers]

    katimus_prime
    katimus_prime
    katimus_prime
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    • Post n°1

    Strategies and Tips [Please Mark Spoilers] Empty Strategies and Tips [Please Mark Spoilers]

    Post by katimus_prime Fri Dec 11, 2015 12:52 pm

    Just to keep myself organized, I figure I'd start a thread while it's fresh in my mind. Feel free to add to this! I kinda wanna write my own beginners' guide.

    - Once you hit Chapter 2, you are free to roam around, but Fast-Travel does not unlock until you start Chapter 3, so you can avoid the frustration of getting lost or stuck early on if you curb your wanderlust until you finish Chapter 2.
    - Until you can get to the investment board (AM), hold onto the junk that drops from monsters. It may seem like trash, but it's actually really valuable in upgrading your weapons and armor.
    - Battle Arts are color-coded, and your combos and affinities grow based on how many times you respond to character's calls for them. If you're colorblind, this isn't very helpful.
    - You don't have a huge variety of color-coded Arts early on, but when you do start being able to combine things, don't feel like you need to pop an Art one after the other (I'm conventionally trigger-happy from the first XB, so this was hard to un-learn).
    - Choose arts that your party members don't have. You'll be able to accommodate their combo requests easier.
    - You want to do combos. When you're in a bind, they will heal you dramatically, and increase your affinity.

    Battle Roles Relative to the First Xenoblade

    Unlocked in Chapters 1-2
    Spoiler:

    Unlocked in Chapter 3-4
    Spoiler:
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    Yikari
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    • Post n°2

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    Post by Yikari Fri Dec 18, 2015 2:44 am

    I haven't gotten all that far in the game yet and it is a bit too early to got trawling the GameFAQs for tips and explanations; that said, some of the observations I've had appear to hold water so far, so I wanted to share them.

    XXX

    First Class (I'd say 'Job' because I feel that term is closer to how classes work here, but let's use in-game terminology) you start out with has a little bit of everything available to give you a taste of different gameplay roles. It also appears to be able to equip some Arts from the arsenal of other Classes if you rank those Classes up enough and then revert back to it (you can switch your Class whenever you are outside of cutscenes and battles, by the way).

    But its maximum rank is 10 and weapon types it can equip are limited to knives and assault rifles. And while there is enough deadliness and variety to go around in those weapon types, you'll still better be suited by switching Classes as soon as you hit 10 on your starter one.

    Class branch descriptions suggest the amount of gameplay mechanics knowledge the player needs to have to get the most out of them (the topmost is suggested as the most simple, with increasing intricacy as you go down the list), but nothing stops you from trying out all of them one by one in practice in the way you see fit.

    (Personally, I've been unsatisfied with the starting tank character perfomance in, well, tanking and was inclined to develop that way, but that may have been just my bias left over from the previous Xenoblade speaking.)

    You can also browse the descriptions of all Arts and Skills of all Classes from the Class change screen to be able to make a more informed decision. (There is also a curious note at the end of each Class branch that suggests using a Class weapon outside of its designated Class is possible after you max their rank out, but I have been unable to test that out myself yet.)

    There is one detail about changing Classes, however, that I haven't been aware of before I went and changed out of the starter one.

    To be more specific, you don't just get new weapon, Skill and Art access but also lose the ability to use most of the stuff your starter Class can do as well. The only exception being the Arts that conform to the newly chosen Class' specialization. You may want to consider this when you upgrade your Arts beforehand.

    XXX

    Try browsing 'Soul Voice' in your party options sometime.

    In case of NPC party members, it just shows what they are going to request of you and other party members when certain conditions are met (and exactly what bonuses you'll get besides healing if you do so); but, in case of your player character, you can actually choose one of three options from a drop-down menu for each of the trigger conditions.

    Combined with choosing Arts and Skills for your party members to complement this, you can tune your team's perfomance to your preference.

    EDIT:

    At the bottom of your character's list of these there are also two slots for which you can choose trigger conditions as well. There are several trigger conditions in there that are not covered in the default list of triggers.

    (I have not tested what happens if you happen to choose one that overlaps with the general list above.)
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    Yikari
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    • Post n°3

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    Post by Yikari Sun Dec 20, 2015 11:18 am

    Ranking up a Class all the way to the end of a branch does give you full access to both of their weapon types at all times. It also changes the Arts available to you, however, since they all seem to be bound to a weapon type.

    For example, if after switching from the gatling + shield Class to something else you choose to keep both of those weapons equipped, your Art selection would not change at all. Might seem like a waste of time playing another Class in the same way like the one you've already got, but, given how Arts are unlocked gradually over the rank progression, you might want to transition yourself a bit slower - as in gain some ranks in the new Class with one of your old setups - to not lose all of your flexibility in combat.

    Mix-and-matching is always an option as well. Don't like a Class' weapon they have for range or melee but okay with the other one? Switch the offending weapon type to something more to your liking. This can also be real helpful when a main storyline or companion quest locks you out of a party member's abilities you have no one to replace with.

    (And also makes what I've said about Arts conforming to the Class' specialization remaining after a Class change incorrect; what happened was the Class I chose to change to retained access to assault rifle weapon type, thus keeping the Arts related to it I've already unlocked in the beginner Class available.)
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    katimus_prime
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    • Post n°4

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    Post by katimus_prime Mon Dec 21, 2015 12:28 pm

    These are all awesome and insightful! Thanks, Yikari!
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    Yikari
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    • Post n°5

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    Post by Yikari Mon Dec 21, 2015 2:00 pm

    Wouldn't call those 'insightful', but they help me gather my thoughts at least. Let's continue with (probably rather obvious) stuff that I somehow missed and may be a useful hint to you:

    - It is possible to view an in-game description of a piece of equipment's special quality if you can upgrade it or can see its recipe in augument creation (requires you to find at least one item that goes in creating the augument in question, if I understand it right) in the kiosk that handles both of those functions.

    However it is not always possible to do so or the description in question may be worded vaguely enough to be of no practical use, so waiting on GameFAQs it is...

    - Speaking of in-game descriptions of equipment's special qualities, the ones for inflicting a negative status on the enemy say that only auto-attacks done by this weapon can do so. Which suggests that weapons with faster cooldowns (or, in case of increased crit chance quality, with longer magazines, in my opinion) are more useful for such purposes.

    - The game warns you of this pretty explicitly, but, in case you were wondering, enemy size does matter. Out of enemies I've met that were in my level range bigger targets offered much more trouble in combat, in some cases up to ~10 levels higher than their level counter suggested even without the dark bubble mark of a 'tyrant' (read: 'elite' or 'boss') variant.

    (The in-game tutorial messages and common sense both suggest bringing Skells to such fights, but I have yet to check how much of a difference it makes in practice.)

    - This will not be new to anyone that has played the previous Xenoblade game, but Topple status effect is your friend. I'd even go so far as to say that a way of inflicting it reliably (as in, with Arts that do not require TP to function) is almost mandatory in your party's arsenal regardless of who you'll be fighting.

    Everything reducing enemies' resistance to negative effects helps with this, inflicting Stagger seems to do so as well. Soul Voice buffs, while short-term, can often be essential for this task because of how some of them can grant such effects to attack Arts that do not normally have them ('Stagger them with a melee attack!' or 'Topple them with gunfire!', for example).

    - The jump your character has can get you a long way. Jumping while sprinting can get you even further, with both bigger length and height, with no real running start required. Seriously, try to use both of those as often as possible, you'd be surprised where you can get with them.
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    katimus_prime
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    • Post n°6

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    Post by katimus_prime Tue Dec 22, 2015 12:12 pm

    Topple was much easier to handle in the first Xenoblade game. I think to balance it out with online players, they've nerfed it so it's harder to inflict on things. This adds a lot more challenge to the game, but seeing as I haven't found a way to PvP, I'm not sure why this nerf was necessary.

    Oh well.

    Anyway, it's also a good idea to keep an eye on which node sites give you items for your mining trouble. Specifically, White Cometite and Aurorite are used in a couple of the quests needed for me to progress as a Prospector, and before I knew what I was doing with mining something other than Miranium, I was a little perplexed. Mining items tick once every 15 minutes, revenue at 30, and Miranium every 45. Two nights ago, I had to leave my Wii U on all night to get 5 Aurorite, so, uh, when you get those items the first time, don't sell 'em off just yet.
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    Yikari
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    • Post n°7

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    Post by Yikari Wed Dec 23, 2015 4:38 pm

    I dunno, not being a three stage status effect and being more effective at its job seems like an improvement in my book. YMMV, I suppose.

    Speaking of rare drops, those goddrat Energy Tubes and other such items are obtainable at the network terminal in your barracks' floor in exchange for tickets everybody gets when squad missions - those that are shown at the bottom right of your screen - are getting completed. I'm not sure if rare ores are on the list though.

    XXX

    Some things to note about party controls:

    - Holding down R1 and pushing one of the directions on the D-pad shown in the legend in the middle right side of the screen allows some measure of control in herding your cats directing your party members.

    Most often used one will probably be 'Concentrate your attacks on current target'. It helps in case your comrades decide to attack whatever they want and split the damage everywhichway when you happen to be in combat with more than one enemy. Also, if you happen to issue this command when you are locked onto a limb/subsystem of an enemy, your party members will focus on that target.

    - Pressing Start (+) once the battle has started gives you access to some more options, including 'Use ranged attacks' that is very helpful against enemies with dangerous close-range abilities. The only serious downside being your party resetting back to default after the fight is over every single time.

    XXX

    First impressions of party members I've got to play around with so far:

    Minor spoilers inside:

    (I sure hope I didn't misspel any names here. Writing from memory when tired is not conducive to good post quality. Wink )

    But that's just first impressions. Probably could use some work, honestly.
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    Yikari
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    Post by Yikari Thu Dec 31, 2015 1:47 pm

    Update on party member impressions:

    minor spoilers inside:

    XXX

    Got to play with the skell you get for completing the license quest. Observations so far:

    - There are few bodies of water that are deeper than knee height for it; in case of those it can just hover over the surface anyway. Thus it allows you to engage in combat in places you previously were forced to swim and to jump off the water's surface to get to places that were unreachable before.

    - Speaking of jumping, your Skell grants you a greater jump height as well, but at a price of a much bigger minimal turning radius and sliding around like a cow on ice upon landing.

    After some faffing about with it, my recommendation would be to come to a complete stop and turn to face your intended destination before each jump. The slower turning mid-jump can help with jumping around vertical obstacles as well.

    - Vehicle mode replaces your sprint. It can't move in reverse and has some problems with precision manoeuvres and camera jumping around at weird angles, but the flat-out better speed is great for getting away from enemy pursuit. Just lay off the gas before adjusting course and don't use it when in close proximity to cliffs you'd rather not fall off.

    It is possible to prolong your jump distance when in this mode, but only when crossing gaps. To do so press the jump button without letting off the gas right after you start falling; you'll lose some height but since the jump will be performed only after the transformation is complete, you'll be able to reach places that will normally be too far away for your regular jump.

    - Don't forget to use the R1 button when choosing your weapon loadout to see what the art associated with the weapon in question actually does. The stat card shows the numbers, but the actual 'color' and stuff like the number of targets, AOE effect and such of the attack is not shown by the default.

    And while loading up to the gills with all the ranged (yellow) type attacks may be tempting (or it was for me, at least), it will likely be less than effective - the combat system works similarly when in Skells and thus you'll need a little bit of every color, adjusted for your current team members' Soul Voice needs.
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    Yikari
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    • Post n°9

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    Post by Yikari Fri Feb 19, 2016 3:22 pm

    Not a great insight of any sort (again), but a non-spoilery bit of advice for the 'find plushie lobsters' quest:

    I haven't been able to find more than 47 of them until after I've finished chapter 7. After that a whole bunch of them spawned in places I've very definitely checked thrice already and now I am sitting at somewhere around 90 or so of the little buggers.

    I am not sure if the quest requires you to finish a chapter after first taking it or if it is tied to a specific chapter number, but that was how it happened in my playthrough.

    EDIT:

    Looking up tips on gamefaqs and stuff suggests the above observations may or may not be correct. Regardless, here is a pretty good screenshot guide for lobster locations in case you have yet to find it:

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kU7nCw-ZWEuGDq9lPZEYCLm2F4UjKx8aRNFIlbbf3-k/pub
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