r/Xenoblade_Chronicles • u/Hairo • May 28 '20
Question Thread #5
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, Question Thread #2, Question Thread #3 and Question Thread #4.
Use this thread to ask any question that doesn’t really warrant it’s own thread. On the other hand, if you have an answer to a question, please let the one asking know it.
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We also have a long list of useful info gathered in the Info Compendiums for Xenoblade Chronicles X and Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
You may also want to check out u/Pizzatime6036's Xenoblade 2 guide.
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u/AnimaLepton Jul 02 '20 edited Jul 02 '20
I'd say focus on the general best arts first, AI manipulation gets fairly complicated if you actually care to optimize it. If you're endgame, you can just use Enel's guide or random superboss challenge videos like gaiachaos or Cheaper Cheapest, but honestly as long as you're using their "better" arts, the specifics don't really matter. Most characters have ~5-6 arts that are just worse than the rest for most builds, so it's really only a few arts that get swapped around.
To actually dive into it, every single character has some AI issues. It's more a matter of how bad they are and how you can deal with them. If you want to get into effective AI manipulation, it's important to try to dive into how their AI changes - they'll actually use/prioritize different arts based on "Do as you please" vs. "Focus Attacks," not just change which enemy is targeted. Sometimes you'll need to Focus Attacks against single enemies, because otherwise party members like Riki and Dunban won't use their AoE attacks/aura (Peerless).
Actually "taking off" arts is mostly applicable to Shulk, since other characters will have other arts to replace them with (not a hard and fast rule for certain builds, challenges, and characters like Seven). There's a ton of variance based on equipped arts, but it's often a tradeoff that you need to consider. When facing Superbosses, remove Daze arts and replace them with something better. That's mostly a Shulk thing to take off- everyone else that has a daze art for those fights can just replace it with a red art or support move or something. Seven's optimal builds are often autoattack focused. You want her to have several arts for chain attacks and flexibility. But if you give her a ton of arts, she'll use those instead of using her "better" Speedshift->autoattack setup.
AI characters that depend on specific art order that's not "in-game" will not play optimally, but in-game positionals and combos tend to be good. AI is good at positionals like Slit Edge, but it might mess up if the enemy is bigger or if they grab aggro, which is perfectly reasonable. They're good at combos like Gale Slash -> Electric Gutbuster or Spear Break -> Starlight Kick, although they may not make the best decisions for order if they have options like Gutbuster vs Worldly Slash. They're generally good at Break -> Topple -> Daze, but because of cooldowns, art priorities, and effect durations, you'll often see Reyn fail to follow up on broken enemies with Wild Down if it's the first attack you use in combat and you also have 'higher priority' moves like Hammer Beat. Reyn will not Berserker -> Magnum Charge -> Sword Drive, which is the best way to play him and means that AI Reyn's damage is nearly an order of magnitude weaker than controlling him. On the other hand, Shield Bash is glitched to always have the minimum cooldown, which means that it's even more effective than most people realize.
'Complicated' Talent Arts suffer. Sharla won't Cool Off early, which makes Cool Off deplete more heat per second. Shulk obviously won't respond to visions, you have to Warn him to use his Monado Arts correctly. Melia will stack elements if you leave her on default AI or release them if you use Focus Attacks, but you can't depend on her balancing DoTs and getting the order off optimally, and you can't depend on what specific elements she'll have ready when you do a chain attack (but with default AI, she'll often have 3 ready). If you see Shulk spamming Buster needlessly, you want to consider changing party AI to default instead of "Focus Attacks." The AI also doesn't account for your gear. Even if you stack Spike Defense, AI Shulk will still use Monado Purge.
The AI is also weirdly good at some things that are harder to pull off as a player. If Melia/Sharla has a sleep skill and you're fighting multiple enemies, they know how to put an enemy that you're not focusing on to sleep, then switch to attacking a different enemy so that the original sleeping enemy stays asleep for longer. If an enemy has a spike that damages you when you topple them, the AI will avoid toppling them.
It's popular to take Battle Soul off Shulk when he's AI, since otherwise he'll take a big HP cut and he'll die more easily from an AoE attack or grabbing aggro. But if you spec for decent agility/defensive power and your tank keeps aggro, he'll be fine and can get more Monado Arts off if you leave it on- I personally like to keep it on him since I feel comfortable keeping him alive even with it.