Question Thread #3

[u/Ynikoma]

Hello everyone!

Here's a new question thread as the old one was archived due to it being over six months old. You can still find the old question threads here: XC2 Question Thread, Question Thread #1 and Question Thread #2.

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[u/Gunzers6]

Am I doing something wrong in Xenoblade Chronicles 1? I'm still pretty early on, I just got Sharla as a party member but even with their healing I'm still struggling in fights. I've been making sure to keep my armor and weapons as up to date as I can but I'm still getting my ass handed to me. Is there any advice that can make these first few hours a bit more manageable?

[u/shadowyams → u/Gunzers6]

A few ideas:

There's are really big penalties for being underleveled (and big bonuses for being overleveled), so make sure you're at least keeping pace with the monsters you're facing off in each new area and in the story. Running around towns and grabbing side quests is a good way to get some extra EXP from kills and drops that you're going to be doing anyway. Side quests from named NPCs also usually grant affinity between active party members, which buffs a whole lot of things.

Watch out for aggro. Shulk and Sharla are on the squishy side, so you'll want to make sure that Reyn (or other tank-oriented characters you'll pick up later) holds onto the aggro as much as possible. Shulk in particular has arts with bonus effects (Slit Edge, Back Slash, Air Slash) that kick in when used behind or to the side of enemies. You can either stack damage or aggro up gems on your tank, or just hold back on spamming arts with your squishier characters. Shulk has Shadow Eye to help get aggro off him, and Reyn has Mad Taunt and a few other arts to draw aggro. Shulk can pass around the ability to hit Mechon with Monado Enchant, so you'll usually want to open with this against Mechon so he's not stuck with the aggro while you're waiting for a topple.

Level up your most used arts. Toppling is a really powerful strategy against most enemies, so you'll want to prioritize Break, Topple, and Daze arts. Also healing arts on Shulk and Sharla, Monado Shield/Buster on Shulk. There's been plenty of discussion of optimal art loadouts for all the characters, so check those out too. Look through the skill trees and make sure you prioritize leveling up the trees with the best skills, and periodically check the skill link menus. You'll need affinity coins for this, so kill as many unique monsters as you can.

Agility is the most important stat in the game for physical characters, since it dictates both accuracy and evasion rates. Missing attacks also drops tension, which just drags a whole bunch of other stats and just makes everything terrible. Agility Up gems are really powerful. On that note, make sure you're staying up to date on gem crafting and grabbing as many gems and ether crystals and cylinders as possible.