[Luap]

I just got that. I think I just need a sword with more slots so I can put another Aggro Up gem on him.

Dunban weapons seem to have the lowest drop rate for me. Which sucks because that means I get stuck with a weapon for a long time. Thankfully I got one not too long ago, and it has 3 slots so it's all gravy.

The extra slot also let me give Dunban another Aggro Up gem (he now has +30%), which in turn let me take off Shulk's aggro-decreasing gems in favor of Double Attack gems. I got him to 50% double attack and he's a fucking monster at the moment; those double attacks are really awesome because he gets to use his Monado Arts so much faster now.

[Croc]

Speaking of Dunban and gems, what's the word on Dunban with no gems/armor and with those skills that give him stat boosts versus regularly equipped Dunban?

[Jive Turkey]

Dunban weapons seem to have the lowest drop rate for me. Which sucks because that means I get stuck with a weapon for a long time. Thankfully I got one not too long ago, and it has 3 slots so it's all gravy.

Huh. I wound up with 15 Darkness Sickles and Forma Spears (each) at one point.

[OMG Aero]

I wish you could buy maps in this game.
I just spent over an hour swimming around Eryth Sea to complete the map because I am a crazy person.

[Bisnic]

I wish you could buy maps in this game. I just spent over an hour swimming around Eryth Sea to complete the map because I am a crazy person.

I learned that once you find all zones with a name on a map, that every corners will uncover. I checked the Eryth Sea on Wikia to find the spots with lands, and once i discovered the last one, the whole sea showed up on my map.

[Luap]

Speaking of Dunban and gems, what's the word on Dunban with no gems/armor and with those skills that give him stat boosts versus regularly equipped Dunban?

Someone posted earlier saying that it's basically a gimmick. I wouldn't trade all those gem slots for anything.

I learned that once you find all zones with a name on a map, that every corners will uncover. I checked the Eryth Sea on Wikia to find the spots with lands, and once i discovered the last one, the whole sea showed up on my map.

Wow... that's gonna save me some time. I also like to complete my maps so I've spent a lot of time just roaming around.

[Esura]

I'm so tired of doing quests. I made it to Alcacoth and I'm about to go to the High Entia Tomb I guess at lv. 39 and I have like what feels like 500 quests for this area. The story is starting to get more interesting and I want to progress with that instead of doing these side quests or rebuilding the Colony or whatever. Do skipping quests affect anything other than getting money?

[chaosblade]

The main reward you miss out on is the two optional skill trees for each character. The 4th ones are available about halfway through the game at the earliest and the 5th ones are post game.

There are also some gems and other minor rewards that you either can't get elsewhere or can't get until the post game content.

[Esura]

The main reward you miss out on is the two optional skill trees for each character. There are also some gems and other minor rewards that you either can't get elsewhere or can't get until the post game content.

Do you need that to stand a chance against the final boss?

[chaosblade]

Not really. Definitely need them for post game stuff and optional bosses though.

[Seanspeed]

To put it simply: Dunban takes little damage, so little that Shulk's heal is usually enough to keep him alive. That combined with another character who will probably do more damage than Sharla means less healing needs to go out because you finish fights faster. That's the simple logic behind it anyway. I don't know if Reyn can function without Sharla, but the whole "not using Sharla" thing is generally because Dunban is tanking.

So if I dont have Sharla in my party, it means I have to have Dunban....

Again, it ruins the prospect of mixing up my party more often to affinity grind a bit. Like the previous poster said, I get on just fine with a Shulk/Reyn/Sharla combination like I started out with early on, but it gets boring doing that constantly and it benefits me a lot to use other characters to gring up affinity levels.

[Croc]

I was visually cross-checking my affinity chart to see how many people in Alcamoth I'm missing and it turns out it's only one. Too bad that I can't actually tell who the person is, just where there location is on the affinity chart ugggh

[chaosblade]

So if I dont have Sharla in my party, it means I have to have Dunban.... Again, it ruins the prospect of mixing up my party more often to affinity grind a bit. Like the previous poster said, I get on just fine with a Shulk/Reyn/Sharla combination like I started out with early on, but it gets boring doing that constantly and it benefits me a lot to use other characters to gring up affinity levels.

Any party will work, some just less effectively than others. I used Reyn a lot on my second playthrough and have used Sharla as little as possible.

[ErasureAcer]

I was visually cross-checking my affinity chart to see how many people in Alcamoth I'm missing and it turns out it's only one. Too bad that I can't actually tell who the person is, just where there location is on the affinity chart ugggh

Last person I found in Alcamoth was a lady during the day time on the right hand side of the second floor. Pretty creepy if that's who you're missing.

[DragonGirl]

So if I dont have Sharla in my party, it means I have to have Dunban.... Again, it ruins the prospect of mixing up my party more often to affinity grind a bit. Like the previous poster said, I get on just fine with a Shulk/Reyn/Sharla combination like I started out with early on, but it gets boring doing that constantly and it benefits me a lot to use other characters to gring up affinity levels.

Don't worry about it. I used every party combination imaginable and tore through enemies with enough success that I rarely bothered with optimizing my party, and I was only occasionally over leveled.

[ZenaxPure]

Any party will work, some just less effectively than others. I used Reyn a lot on my second playthrough and have used Sharla as little as possible.

Pretty much, like I said I don't actually know if Reyn can function without Sharla (because I never tried it). But for 60% or so of the story I was constantly mixing up my party, it made the game a lot more enjoyable and spread affinity around a lot.

By the end of the game my Shulk was max affinity with everyone but Melia, and the other characters were maxed with at least half of the others (aside from again, Melia), while barely touching any sidequests. I'd suggest just experimenting with what you want and seeing what happens.

[chaosblade]

Pretty much, like I said I don't actually know if Reyn can function without Sharla (because I never tried it). But for 60% or so of the story I was constantly mixing up my party, it made the game a lot more enjoyable and spread affinity around a lot. By the end of the game my Shulk was max affinity with everyone but Melia, and the other characters were maxed with at least half of the others (aside from again, Melia), while barely touching any sidequests. I'd suggest just experimenting with what you want and seeing what happens.

Yeah, you never know how a party will work until you try it. I didn't think Shulk, Reyn, Dunban would be nearly as good as they were. A great combo for topple and daze.

[PigSpeakers]

This game finally got interesting. I feel like I just finished disc 1.

Beat the Prison Island section and the whole mess with fiora in the mechon suit happened, which I sort of guessed it was her, but I was still pretty intrigued when all of the events happened. Now I'm actually interested in the story, whereas before it was just sort of an entertaining revenge plot. It still kind of is, but it adds a bit more "why" questions in there.

[OMG Aero]

I learned that once you find all zones with a name on a map, that every corners will uncover. I checked the Eryth Sea on Wikia to find the spots with lands, and once i discovered the last one, the whole sea showed up on my map.

oh god damn it

[chaosblade]

I guess I've decided to try something completely insane, if anybody is curious if it's possible (I kind of am). I'm thinking about shooting for the highest enemy in the game. At level 90. That would give me a 30 level disadvantage. Wonder how significant the 9 level difference would be for that enemy. Will definitely need to spec up with some night vision and stuff (having to grind Ancient Daedala and Dienos Sauros at that level will be interesting too).

And I guess this thread had a good run before it hit the community graveyard. Better than Wipeout at least, that thread was moved two weeks after the "full" Vita launch!

Edit: A quick search and the lowest level I've seen is 96/97 for that enemy. Interesting

Edit2: Found a video where someone did it gimped at level 88. So I'm considering going for 85 now!

[SecretMoblin]

Yikes, 85.

That battle could take forever.

[chaosblade]

I'm still in the high 70s since I haven't done much other than some quests since beating the game. Theoretically I could try at 80, but farming the gems I'll need will take forever.

Nothing really to lose except time, and honestly it's fun. Most of the enjoyment I've gotten out of the end-game stuff on my second playthrough is killing stuff while underleveled, especially since unlike the "superbosses" the normal enemies/uniques aren't intended to be killed at such level differences. There's a thrill to that you can't really get when you're in that 5 level "safe zone."

[Luap]

I definitely have to take back what I said earlier about Shulk's AI being terrible. Sure he sometimes uses backslash from the front, and he tends to overuse Monado Buster, but other than that he fights pretty intelligently. I was playing as Sharla last night when I fought that unique monster you have to beat to get the (Valak Mountain item) Magma Rock, and when I drew aggro Shulk immediately put Speed on me. I was very impressed with the reaction time. Plus, him and Dunban have been good at using Break+Topple+Daze on enemies.

I've been using Sharla to build affinity (gotta get that agility skill link for Dunban) and because I'm overleveled, but I didn't expect to enjoy it so much. My team is basically invincible while I control her; I only leveled up her healing/support arts so even her weakest heal restores like half of Dunban's HP. Throw in her shield and debuff removal arts on top of that and shit just gets unfair.

Btw, Valak Mountain is the first area of the game that I didn't enjoy. I generally don't really like snow/ice areas in games and this was no different. It's just white and rather bland (especially for Xenoblade standards). I just rushed through it after minimal exploration. Was the (boss spoiler) Mumkar fight supposed to be ridiculously easy? Dunban and Shulk just kicked his ass while I sat back and did minimal healing/buffing with Sharla. Good cutscenes though. Dunban is such a boss.

[Starwolf_UK]

Btw, Valak Mountain is the first area of the game that I didn't enjoy. I generally don't really like snow/ice areas in games and this was no different. It's just white and rather bland (especially for Xenoblade standards). I just rushed through it after minimal exploration. Was the (boss spoiler) Mumkar fight supposed to be ridiculously easy? Dunban and Shulk just kicked his ass while I sat back and did minimal healing/buffing with Sharla. Good cutscenes though. Dunban is such a boss.

The thing I don't like about the area is how little quick travel points it seems there are. Plus the whole falling to your death then being put to a checkpoint miles away.

The boss fight was the name was in yellow for me and it was close and if the battle had gone on 2 seconds longer I'd have gotten wiped out. It didn't help AI Shulk kind of forgot to use enchant (or lacked the gauge possibly) for a bit

So random question time which will probably be like the Haste+Haste Auras stacking question but anyhow:
Weapon power gems. Do they allow me to exceed caps. Say I've got double attack at 50% then weapon power of 30%. Will it make Double Attack 80% or is it suck at 50%?

[HeresSomeWeapons]

AH! I think my save file is corrupted. Somebody...please help!

So whenever I try to load my save file the game hangs at the loading screen then goes black and says "Reading disc..." After that, the game reboots and gives me the "Please don't whack anybody in the face with the Wiimote" screen.

One interesting thing of note is that on the File Select screen where it normally shows a thumbnail, Lv XX and your party leader's name, on my save file the letters "Lv" are shifted to the right and are directly on top of the numbers. I mean directly on top of. This was my first indication that something was wrong.

Has anybody had this happen to them? Is there a fix? Fuck, I hope I'm not boned...I've already put 24 hours into the game. For reference I just got to Alcamoth.

EDIT: Nevermind. I rebooted my Wii and tried at least 5 times before posting this to no avail. I randomly decided to try again while waiting for someone to reply, and it works now. I created a second save file now to be safe, which I guess I should have done in the first place. Anyway...bizarre.

[Luap]

Damn that sucks HeresSomeWeapons. That's why I use 2 save files.

The thing I don't like about the area is how little quick travel points it seems there are. Plus the whole falling to your death then being put to a checkpoint miles away. The boss fight was the name was in yellow for me and it was close and if the battle had gone on 2 seconds longer I'd have gotten wiped out. It didn't help AI Shulk kind of forgot to use enchant (or lacked the gauge possibly) for a bit

Why would Shulk need to Enchant for that fight? I don't think you needed to against him IIRC. Anyway I was like 2 levels above him so that helped. :P

I finally got Sharla and Dunban to affinity level 3 so he can use her agility skill now. Now I'm using Riki.

[Ultratech]

So random question time which will probably be like the Haste+Haste Auras stacking question but anyhow: Weapon power gems. Do they allow me to exceed caps. Say I've got double attack at 50% then weapon power of 30%. Will it make Double Attack 80% or is it suck at 50%?

Pretty sure Weapon Power only applies to Weapon activation Gems (i.e. it'd increase the chance of Paralysis 0on a weapon if it had a Paralysis Gem attached for example. Or Slow or Bind.).

Edit: Looked it up. Only applies to Weapon Debuff Gems. However, you could stack skills to increase the cap (50% from gems +X% from skills).

[StAidan]

Wow, just finished up with Prison Island. The story is really picking up the pace. It's taking a lot of willpower not to just rush through the rest of this thing to find out what happens next :)

[The Awesomest]

Doing Alcamoth quests before they expire. Currently on Preparing for Adventure 3. Where in the crap is this Lakebed Orthlus guy. Anyone?

[AlphaDragoon]

So I guess when you get to the end of the game (or put a certain set of skills on) Melia's AI stops being a complete retard and actually does things. I was so happy, I can finally have her in my group without having to play as her all the time.

[chaosblade]

Doing Alcamoth quests before they expire. Currently on Preparing for Adventure 3. Where in the crap is this Lakebed Orthlus guy. Anyone?

Colony 9, by Agora Shore or whatever its called. Just jump off the brdge and swim toward the shore, you can't miss him.

[The Awesomest]

Thankyouuuu

[Zee-Row]

I find this game very hard to stay interested in , the combat and exploration just doesn't do it for me. I wanna just finish it for the story , i'm at the part where Emperor Sorean is about to call my team for an audience How much more story time do I have left in the game and whats the average level that you can beat the final boss with?

[chaosblade]

You're probably about 40% of the way through, give or take. The story is about to pick up a lot too.

Most people seem to beat the final boss around 79.

[Luap]

Wow, just finished up with Prison Island. The story is really picking up the pace. It's taking a lot of willpower not to just rush through the rest of this thing to find out what happens next :)

Haha I felt the same way. I really picked up the pace after Prison Island. I'm a couple zones past you but I have been charging ahead and doing a lot less exploring/ether mining.

[Exeunt]

106 hours in with my party at level 71; I just witnessed the destruction of Agniritha and the awakening of the Mechonis. The game is starting to get more challenging at this point and I'm not really finding more quests to do outside of the Colony 6 reconstruction. The fights with Gadolt and then Egil felt much meatier than past confrontations and I'm guessing the difficulty level will stay higher from now on since the game's become more linear. The story has gotten a little heavy-handed with its "Shulk will always do the right thing" and the conflict of ideals between Egil and the party (moreso than the first half) but the further developed lore of the Mechonis and the Bionis is pretty interesting. And at least they explained how they all survived the fall as well! Alvis seems like he could actually be on our side in the end but Dickson is seeming a little off... Probably not a Mumkhar-level betrayal but I'm guessing we might confront him at some point. I think all the obvious revelations have been dealt with at this point so I'm interested to see where it goes from here (aside from the core of the Mechonis of course).

Quick question story-wise concerning something that happened a while ago in Alcamoth since this last cutscene reminded me of it. Was there ever a resolution to the plot with the first consort/whoever Melia's "mother" was? I am pretty sure that the Order of the Bionis is still outstanding and will likely come back but was that specific character dealt with? I don't remember that plot point receiving closure so I'm guessing it will reappear before the end of the game.

I've received a couple more Arts books during my adventures and I was complaining last time about only finding useless ones; fittingly enough, in the meantime I found two Arts books from one unique monster, one of them being You Can Do It! Which has definitely come in handy. And even better, I randomly found a drop for Final Cross before I even reached the point where you obtain the Art! I heard it's pretty broken and it certainly looks to be so based on the description, so I consider that drop really fortunate even though I'm not sure just how rare it is. I actually think I've received a couple from gold chests dropped by normal monsters, but I could just be getting my treasure chests mixed up. The prospect of collecting so many Arts books between now and the end of the game is a little daunting, so I hope the drop rates for most of the usable Arts aren't too horrific.

[johnsmith]

Ugh, getting sick of this game. I'm about the same spot as Exeunt, level 71, 60ish hours. Got my ass kicked by a level 75 boss, and its obvious i need to level. But the xp gains are so slow and the normal enemies take so long to beat because they all seem to have massive amounts of defense. Currently inside the bionis the 2nd time. Is there something I'm not getting?

[chaosblade]

Ugh, getting sick of this game. I'm about the same spot as Exeunt, level 71, 60ish hours. Got my ass kicked by a level 75 boss, and its obvious i need to level. But the xp gains are so slow and the normal enemies take so long to beat because they all seem to have massive amounts of defense. Currently inside the bionis the 2nd time. Is there something I'm not getting?

Use ether damage for that fight. Or other tactics, I beat it with Shulk, Dunban, 7th and it was a joke at 71, but I've been basically been breaking the game, so...

[Balphon]

Ugh, getting sick of this game. I'm about the same spot as Exeunt, level 71, 60ish hours. Got my ass kicked by a level 75 boss, and its obvious i need to level. But the xp gains are so slow and the normal enemies take so long to beat because they all seem to have massive amounts of defense. Currently inside the bionis the 2nd time. Is there something I'm not getting?

Late in the game I found that a party of Reyn, Sharla and Riki could kill pretty much anything in a battle of attrition. Just load Sharla up on healing abilities plus Drive Boost and give Riki his four DoTs, his heal, and Riki is Angry! for when he takes hate. I took out a few unique monsters 15+ levels higher than me with that setup, so you might want to give it a shot if all you want is to push your way through.

[Starwolf_UK]

Edit: Looked it up. Only applies to Weapon Debuff Gems. However, you could stack skills to increase the cap (50% from gems +X% from skills).

Oh well. On the plus side it frees up a gem slot I could put strength up into or just use a strong weapon with 2 slots (whichever comes off better).

[chaosblade]

Oh well. On the plus side it frees up a gem slot I could put strength up into or just use a strong weapon with 2 slots (whichever comes off better).

It's understandable why it wouldn't work that way, I kind of hoped it did. 100% haste + double attack? I'm not sure if anything in the game could be more broken! :D

[dancrane212]

Ugh, getting sick of this game. I'm about the same spot as Exeunt, level 71, 60ish hours. Got my ass kicked by a level 75 boss, and its obvious i need to level. But the xp gains are so slow and the normal enemies take so long to beat because they all seem to have massive amounts of defense. Currently inside the bionis the 2nd time. Is there something I'm not getting?

I was in the exact same situation. I was lvl. 69 at that boss (currently 73 but I haven't gone back yet).

I leveled up pretty quickly by going to the Bionis' Leg. The ape monsters by the north side of the bridge are easy single out and offer a decent amount of XP.

[zashga]

Finally finished the game this afternoon. It's a really great experience overall; probably my favorite console RPG in the past decade. I clocked in at around 65 hours and didn't even come close to "completion." I only had one region (Hidden Village) at 5 stars and had Colony 6 at ~60%. It's amazing how much content is jammed into this game. It's all on one disc, too!

Ugh, getting sick of this game. I'm about the same spot as Exeunt, level 71, 60ish hours. Got my ass kicked by a level 75 boss, and its obvious i need to level. But the xp gains are so slow and the normal enemies take so long to beat because they all seem to have massive amounts of defense. Currently inside the bionis the 2nd time. Is there something I'm not getting?

If you're talking about Disciple Lorithia, that's sort of a gimmicky boss battle. You don't need to grind levels, but you probably do need to use a specific party composition. I was getting pretty frustrated myself until I got some advice. The winning combination is Riki (main), Sharla, and basically anyone else. Every time the wisps spawn, hit them with Lurgy and Burninate and they'll all die in ~10 seconds. With them out of the way, the fight is very easy. Also, you may need to occasionally hit Z+down arrow (I think) to get your idiot teammates out of the acid pools.

[chaosblade]

Killed a Deinos Sauros at level 79. Was kind of a mess, but I have the unfortunate problem of needing to kill these high level enemies in order to get the gems I need to... kill the high level enemies.

Problem is mainly the inability to use a steady tank. Dunban did a decent job getting attacks off and even dodging the enemy, but he couldn't maintain aggro over Melia or Riki. Riki could at least survive some attacks, but Melia gets torn to shreds. And Shulk is pretty much required for some Monado arts.

[raven777]

I am at sword valley, just beat the metal face. I am running out of crystal stocks so I am trying to craft some and get rid of some to get more space. Is level 1 crystals have any use? Like should I use it to craft and get affinity or something? or should I just sell level 1 crystals?
Also, what are some useless traits? I know agility is important. Other traits I use are like ether up for melia, and some strength up. But other than those, I haven't used any other gems.

[AlphaDragoon]

Took out Blizzard Belgazas earlier today, felt good man.

Did it with Shulk/Melia/Dunban, didn't have to use any goofy special setups like Night Vision or any of that, I just went in with my typical gear and took it to him, was controlling Shulk directly for Monado Art usage without wasting meter. Shulk is pretty much required for those high level fights because without Monado Arts you're basically fucked.

I'm convinced at this point that Melia is the MVP in damage dealing, because she can hit like a truck but unlike the other DPS characters in this game, her attacks can't miss and she has DoTs.

[Exeunt]

109 hours in now... and the game's story just got crazy. I'm at level 72 now and anyone who's been at this point in the game probably knows what part I'm referring to; for the record, I'm about to venture into the Bionis' interior again if I progress the story. Poor Dunban needed to pick some better friends. I kind of preferred the more intimate focus it had at the beginning, but at least they keep the villains interesting with all the betrayals and motivations and whatnot. Dickson felt a little off for a long time but I didn't think he would turn so dramatically. "Shulk"/Zanza doesn't work too well for me as a villain but at least there will be his underlings to fight. It seems I'm nearing the end of the main storyline now, but there's still a ton of stuff to do and I'm now getting some new quests in Colony 6, which is only just over 50% rebuilt. It would be really interesting if the game ends on a bittersweet note with Fiora's death. I don't see them destroying the world and I don't know if they'll actually end with a death... the tone of the game is a little hard to guess at times. I suppose I'll have to see what comes.

[AlphaDragoon]

Killed a Deinos Sauros at level 79. Was kind of a mess, but I have the unfortunate problem of needing to kill these high level enemies in order to get the gems I need to... kill the high level enemies. Problem is mainly the inability to use a steady tank. Dunban did a decent job getting attacks off and even dodging the enemy, but he couldn't maintain aggro over Melia or Riki. Riki could at least survive some attacks, but Melia gets torn to shreds. And Shulk is pretty much required for some Monado arts.

At least the one nice thing when your aggro is bouncing all over the place is that the enemies typically take like a second or so before they start attacking once switching targets, so you can wail on them while they're spinning around trying to decide who to hit. XD

[nan0]

I am at sword valley, just beat the metal face. I am running out of crystal stocks so I am trying to craft some and get rid of some to get more space. Is level 1 crystals have any use? Like should I use it to craft and get affinity or something? or should I just sell level 1 crystals? Also, what are some useless traits? I know agility is important. Other traits I use are like ether up for melia, and some strength up. But other than those, I haven't used any other gems.

You can safely sell low-level crystals. None of them are rare as far as I know and can be easily farmed again. Higher level crystals give better boni anyway and they aren't really needed until mid-/lategame.

[chaosblade]

At least the one nice thing when your aggro is bouncing all over the place is that the enemies typically take like a second or so before they start attacking once switching targets, so you can wail on them while they're spinning around trying to decide who to hit. XD

It's funny when you get trapped in a low tension cycle and most of your characters attacks are missing, the enemy will sometimes just stand there. It was like it was taunting me, going 15+ seconds without attacking or anything, because nobody except Dunban was able to hit him, and even he was missing around half the time.

Need to get these debuff resist gems though. Double attack VI would be nice too, but I can probably live without those.

The real question is: Night Vision gems? Beating Ancient Daedala at this level is going to be veeerrry interesting. If anything drops rank IV ones I might need to get those first, but I don't know if anything does or not.

Edit: I see you can trade for Night Vision V. I'd rather craft for max ones, but if that's not an option I guess I'll take what I can get.


Edit: Ahahaha, got those Night Vision V gems. 19 level difference? Nothing for Shulk, Dunban, 7th. Lame part is the battle still takes a while and I got a brown chest drop. :( I need gems!

2 in a row, this game hates me!