Anyone else playing this now?
Seems like not much info is on the web, we could share some tips and tricks, and ratings of rare blades.
Seems like not much info is on the web, we could share some tips and tricks, and ratings of rare blades.
Gaming Xenoblade 2 (Switch)
- Thread starter Ødegaard
- Start date
Note: Rex can use every blade from a certain point late in the game (even if it is on another driver).
Strongly prefer agility-tank, dodging damage is much better than soaking it, especially as there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference stat-wise between soak-tanks and dodge-tanks.
So far I prefer to have a dps, healer and tank. While against some bosses I enjoy having one as heal and dps or dps and tank to soak more damage. When I'm down to 2 characters sometimes during the story I use 1 tank and 1 heal as the damage isn't awful for story-missions from a tank.
End-game (but not grinded to op-ness) builds.
Rex:
Mythra/Pyra - Light/Fire/All - Topple (mods:ether/str)
Agate - Stone - Launch (mod:dex)
Roc - Wind - Smash (mod:dex)
Alternative builds:
1. Herald (for Agate) - Lightning - Blowdown/annul defense/aoe-tech
2. Vale (for Agate) - Dark - Break (mod:ether)
Nia
Dromarch - Water - Break (mod:ether)
Vess - Lightning - Break (mod:maxhp)
Ursula - Ice - Launch+knockback (mod:agi)
Alternative build:
1. Floren (for Vess) - Stone - Break (mod:ether)
Morag:
Brighid - Fire - Break (mod:agi)
Aegaeon - Water - Smash (mod:agi)
Kasandra - Dark - Topple (mod:maxhp)
Alternative build:
2. Finch (for Kasandra) - Wind - Topple(mod:agi)
The main-build makes sure you have all elements in the party so stacking up elemental orbs for chain-attacking won't be a issue. Also keeps "solo-smasher" for minor enemies on Rex so they can be killed faster as well as backups for topple, launch and smash on the other two, and generally good mods for the respective roles.
I'm sure there are good builds with Tora & Zeke as well, but I prefer Rex with the two ladies. I haven't tried Pandora on Rex, but assuming he'd have the same skillset as on Zeke with the weapon then I'd use it over Herald despite Heralds amazing damage since he'd keep topple.
I do like individual strong blades like:
Dps: Herald, Vale, Kos-Mos & Zenobia
Heal: Boreas & Nim
Tank: Perceval & Electra
But haven't seen a good place for them to go in. Could make arguments for Nim over Floren on the alternative route, but Floren has a better stat-mod & better healing skills in my opinion.
If stackable damage increase (haven't tested or researched) the combination of Perceval & Vale could be brokenly overpowered.
Great chips at certain points
Pentagon Chips can be acquired from killing the level 40 Hard Krabble on Lascham Island where you had a quest to kill a low-level crab in Torgott.
Also available from level 32-35 Sprack Parisax in Cataracts of Rujah - Uraya, though they are quite close to each other so harder to pick off one and one.
Pentagon chips on Dromach gives 1% to kill off a water enemy on auto-attack hit. Making it faster to farm it on Lacham Island once you have one.
It's also "needed" to speed up the farming of the next super-chip:
Gold chips can be acquired from killing level 60-63 Zeoth Serpronds in the far south of Temperantia near the cloud sea. If you need to google for it and don't find it on enemy name, search for Triedge Isle. There are three there, but two that are fast to farm. One at your far left in the cloud sea, he'll patrol for a bit and reach the shore so either throw something at him or he'll target you. Run a bit closer to land so the stuff you get won't drop in the cloud sea. The other will pop-up from the cloud sea shore near a urchin closeby. Once defeated you save and reload the game and they'll re-appear.
Both these chips are superb for the chapters you get them in.
Pentagon chips can be gotten from Chapter 2 and 3 while gold chips are available from chapter 5. There is better chips in Temperantia that can be gotten, but it'll be game-breaking so not worth getting on your first play-through.
Strongly prefer agility-tank, dodging damage is much better than soaking it, especially as there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference stat-wise between soak-tanks and dodge-tanks.
So far I prefer to have a dps, healer and tank. While against some bosses I enjoy having one as heal and dps or dps and tank to soak more damage. When I'm down to 2 characters sometimes during the story I use 1 tank and 1 heal as the damage isn't awful for story-missions from a tank.
Morag > Tora because dodge-tank > sponge-tank
Rex > Zeke because Rex can do anything.
Making the party Rex (dps) - Nia (heal) - Morag (tank) unless you want to run both Rex & Zeke and ditch Nia and not have a set healer. You'll need to be more aware when fighting.
Rex > Zeke because Rex can do anything.
Making the party Rex (dps) - Nia (heal) - Morag (tank) unless you want to run both Rex & Zeke and ditch Nia and not have a set healer. You'll need to be more aware when fighting.
Rex:
Mythra/Pyra - Light/Fire/All - Topple (mods:ether/str)
Agate - Stone - Launch (mod:dex)
Roc - Wind - Smash (mod:dex)
Alternative builds:
1. Herald (for Agate) - Lightning - Blowdown/annul defense/aoe-tech
2. Vale (for Agate) - Dark - Break (mod:ether)
Nia
Dromarch - Water - Break (mod:ether)
Vess - Lightning - Break (mod:maxhp)
Ursula - Ice - Launch+knockback (mod:agi)
Alternative build:
1. Floren (for Vess) - Stone - Break (mod:ether)
Morag:
Brighid - Fire - Break (mod:agi)
Aegaeon - Water - Smash (mod:agi)
Kasandra - Dark - Topple (mod:maxhp)
Alternative build:
2. Finch (for Kasandra) - Wind - Topple(mod:agi)
The main-build makes sure you have all elements in the party so stacking up elemental orbs for chain-attacking won't be a issue. Also keeps "solo-smasher" for minor enemies on Rex so they can be killed faster as well as backups for topple, launch and smash on the other two, and generally good mods for the respective roles.
I'm sure there are good builds with Tora & Zeke as well, but I prefer Rex with the two ladies. I haven't tried Pandora on Rex, but assuming he'd have the same skillset as on Zeke with the weapon then I'd use it over Herald despite Heralds amazing damage since he'd keep topple.
I do like individual strong blades like:
Dps: Herald, Vale, Kos-Mos & Zenobia
Heal: Boreas & Nim
Tank: Perceval & Electra
But haven't seen a good place for them to go in. Could make arguments for Nim over Floren on the alternative route, but Floren has a better stat-mod & better healing skills in my opinion.
If stackable damage increase (haven't tested or researched) the combination of Perceval & Vale could be brokenly overpowered.
Great chips at certain points
Pentagon Chips can be acquired from killing the level 40 Hard Krabble on Lascham Island where you had a quest to kill a low-level crab in Torgott.
Also available from level 32-35 Sprack Parisax in Cataracts of Rujah - Uraya, though they are quite close to each other so harder to pick off one and one.
Pentagon chips on Dromach gives 1% to kill off a water enemy on auto-attack hit. Making it faster to farm it on Lacham Island once you have one.
It's also "needed" to speed up the farming of the next super-chip:
Gold chips can be acquired from killing level 60-63 Zeoth Serpronds in the far south of Temperantia near the cloud sea. If you need to google for it and don't find it on enemy name, search for Triedge Isle. There are three there, but two that are fast to farm. One at your far left in the cloud sea, he'll patrol for a bit and reach the shore so either throw something at him or he'll target you. Run a bit closer to land so the stuff you get won't drop in the cloud sea. The other will pop-up from the cloud sea shore near a urchin closeby. Once defeated you save and reload the game and they'll re-appear.
Both these chips are superb for the chapters you get them in.
Pentagon chips can be gotten from Chapter 2 and 3 while gold chips are available from chapter 5. There is better chips in Temperantia that can be gotten, but it'll be game-breaking so not worth getting on your first play-through.
Edits every now and then to updating list and thoughts.
Last edited:
I'm considering getting this once I'm done with Mario Odyssey (just left New Donk City, had a constant smile on my face during the festival). How grindy is it? Do you need to constantly beat up random enemies in order to get ahead or can you progress at a decent pace?
I'd say for a jrpg it isn't really grindy in the battle-department as you don't really get tons of experience from random battles. At least not yet for me (i'm at level 40 on chapter 5, but I'm taking my sweet ass time).
Your best of progressing from my experience, will be to follow the story and doing a few side-quests (remember to sleep at a hotel or something to get that accumulated questing experience).
The thing with Xenoblade and Xenoblade 2 (haven't played X) is that the world is meant to be more of a field of different beings living in a sort of echo-system. Meaning that you'll have some overpowered enemies laying around that you can get yourself killed over. It frustrates a lot of people who think it's a open-world rpg that lets you run around where you want to go instead of where your level permits you to go.
If you want to be free from worrying about if the enemy will kill you or not, you'll have to grind your eyes out. But if you want to follow the story and do a fair bit of side-quests for extra story and rewards you'll just have to figure out where you can and cannot go, who you can and cannot engage.
Luckily you can see enemies levels from quite a distance and can try to keep away from them if they don't seem like something a sane person would try to attack. Being aware of your surroundings in the game is also important because of this (say flyers or fast runners have a certain place they patrol, then if a quest demands you to get past them then you need to figure out how to get there without engaging them).
I believe It's hard for me to comment much about the pacing though, since I'm one of the people who enjoy a long grind. Put in 50 hours to reach the 5th act (out of 10 from what I've gathered). By comparisons people have finished it at a normal pace within 60-70 hours according to this article, with completionists expecting around 120 hours of playtime.
I don't want to spoil anything so I'm not going to read the details, just one question, are any of the blades acquired through the story, other than Pyra obviously.Note: Rex can use every blade from a certain point late in the game (even if it is on another driver).
Strongly prefer agility-tank, dodging damage is much better than soaking it, especially as there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference stat-wise between soak-tanks and dodge-tanks.
So far I prefer to have a dps, healer and tank. While against some bosses I enjoy having one as heal and dps or dps and tank to soak more damage. When I'm down to 2 characters sometimes during the story I use 1 tank and 1 heal as the damage isn't awful for story-missions from a tank.
Morag > Tora because dodge-tank > sponge-tank
Rex > Zeke because Rex can do anything.
Making the party Rex (dps) - Nia (heal) - Morag (tank) unless you want to run both Rex & Zeke and ditch Nia and not have a set healer. You'll need to be more aware when fighting.
End-game (but not grinded to op-ness) builds.
Rex:
Mythra/Pyra - Light/Fire/All - Topple (mods:ether/str)
Agate - Stone - Launch (mod:dex)
Roc - Wind - Smash (mod:dex)
Alternative builds:
1. Herald (for Agate) - Lightning - Blowdown/annul defense/aoe-tech
2. Vale (for Agate) - Dark - Break (mod:ether)
Nia
Dromarch - Water - Break (mod:ether)
Vess - Lightning - Break (mod:maxhp)
Ursula - Ice - Launch+knockback (mod:agi)
Alternative build:
1. Floren (for Vess) - Stone - Break (mod:ether)
Morag:
Brighid - Fire - Break (mod:agi)
Aegaeon - Water - Smash (mod:agi)
Kasandra - Dark - Topple (mod:maxhp)
Alternative build:
2. Finch (for Kasandra) - Wind - Topple(mod:agi)
The main-build makes sure you have all elements in the party so stacking up elemental orbs for chain-attacking won't be a issue. Also keeps "solo-smasher" for minor enemies on Rex so they can be killed faster as well as backups for topple, launch and smash on the other two, and generally good mods for the respective roles.
I'm sure there are good builds with Tora & Zeke as well, but I prefer Rex with the two ladies. I haven't tried Pandora on Rex, but assuming he'd have the same skillset as on Zeke with the weapon then I'd use it over Herald despite Heralds amazing damage since he'd keep topple.
I do like individual strong blades like:
Dps: Herald, Vale, Kos-Mos & Zenobia
Heal: Boreas & Nim
Tank: Perceval & Electra
But haven't seen a good place for them to go in. Could make arguments for Nim over Floren on the alternative route, but Floren has a better stat-mod & better healing skills in my opinion.
If stackable damage increase (haven't tested or researched) the combination of Perceval & Vale could be brokenly overpowered.
Great chips at certain points
Pentagon Chips can be acquired from killing the level 40 Hard Krabble on Lascham Island where you had a quest to kill a low-level crab in Torgott.
Also available from level 32-35 Sprack Parisax in Cataracts of Rujah - Uraya, though they are quite close to each other so harder to pick off one and one.
Pentagon chips on Dromach gives 1% to kill off a water enemy on auto-attack hit. Making it faster to farm it on Lacham Island once you have one.
It's also "needed" to speed up the farming of the next super-chip:
Gold chips can be acquired from killing level 60-63 Zeoth Serpronds in the far south of Temperantia near the cloud sea. If you need to google for it and don't find it on enemy name, search for Triedge Isle. There are three there, but two that are fast to farm. One at your far left in the cloud sea, he'll patrol for a bit and reach the shore so either throw something at him or he'll target you. Run a bit closer to land so the stuff you get won't drop in the cloud sea. The other will pop-up from the cloud sea shore near a urchin closeby. Once defeated you save and reload the game and they'll re-appear.
Both these chips are superb for the chapters you get them in.
Pentagon chips can be gotten from Chapter 2 and 3 while gold chips are available from chapter 5. There is better chips in Temperantia that can be gotten, but it'll be game-breaking so not worth getting on your first play-through.
Edits every now and then to updating list and thoughts.
Yes.
Just started this. I like it so far, but it is very unpolished and has quite a few weird design flaws.
For instance, you have to escape from a place, but can still fast travel anywhere. Howrver you do need to fast travel back to captivity to escape manually to actually escape.
Other nitpicky things like mobs attacking you through the floor or ceiling and aggroing or not aggroing willy nilly kinda break immersion.
Still, like it so far honestly.
For instance, you have to escape from a place, but can still fast travel anywhere. Howrver you do need to fast travel back to captivity to escape manually to actually escape.
Other nitpicky things like mobs attacking you through the floor or ceiling and aggroing or not aggroing willy nilly kinda break immersion.
Still, like it so far honestly.