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Discover everything you need to know about the combat guide in Xenoblade Chronicles X and the best tips and tricks for it.
Xenoblade Chronicles X can be a hard game, especially early on. When you keep losing to the same enemy over and over, it might feel like you’re missing something. You want to beat the enemy and reduce the HP to zero, but the game gives you a bunch of different mechanics. Combat is built around auto-attacks, where your character automatically attacks enemies when within range. Arts are special attacks that the player triggers, and TP is essential for using Arts. Positioning is crucial to winning any combat in Xenoblade Chronicles X, allowing you to attack an enemy efficiently. Different enemies come with different mechanics, so learning them is also important in combat. In this guide, we’ll discuss the combat along with its unique mechanics in Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition.
Combat Guide Overview in Xenoblade Chronicles X
The combat system in this series has many similarities to the original Xenoblade Chronicles. Although it looks familiar, some major differences will affect how you fundamentally play this game. At a basic level, you can engage the enemies in an open plane. Occasionally, but not always, you will get a button challenge. You need to nail this to increase your morale level, as seen below the art pallet on the left side. If you stand close enough to an enemy with your weapon drawn, you will automatically attack them in set intervals. In this game, you have two weapons. These weapons have their own separate cooldowns and you can swap between them with the X button. You can cycle through these weapons to increase your auto-attack efficiency, which can be a bit helpful in the early game.
There’s a new green resource meter at the bottom that allows you to quick recast arts a lot more efficiently. When you engage in battle, you have eight normal arts on your art pallets that are automatically off-cooldown. Each art will correspond to one of your two equipped weapons. Damage and effects are usually dependent on the specific weapons that the art came from. You also have secondary cooldowns for all of your arts. The yellow outline will only refill for the Arts of the weapon you currently have equipped in combat. Appendages are destroyable parts of an enemy that can give you extra loot in combat if you destroy them. However, they have a hardness tier, which affects the damage dealt to them.
Combat Mechanics in Xenoblade Chronicles X
Here are all the unique mechanics for combat in Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition.
- TP- Essential for using Arts. Regenerates slowly over time, and you build more TP through auto-attacks.
- Quick Cooldowns- Skip the cooldown and use the Art again.
- Secondary Art Cooldowns- You can see a yellow line slowly go around the border of its icon when the Art is ready to use.
- Soul Voice and Morale- Useful tools for the team with various effects, such as Hit Points recovery.
- Appendages- Destructible body parts of enemies that, when destroyed, can grant bonus drops.
- Stats- Determine how much damage you will deal in combat as the game first takes the enemy’s attack.
- Attack and Potential- Determines your damage potential and damage for all of your TP Arts.
TP
When you log onto an enemy with the L or R button, the battle menu will appear. Here, you can choose arts with the D-pad and use them with the A button. If you want to stop fighting at any point, you can simply press the B button. When you stand close enough to an enemy, your character will start auto-attacking. These auto attacks are weak, but they do give you TP, which stands for Tension Points.
In the beginning, you can only use TP for two things. You can use 3,000 points to revive a fallen party member, but the main thing you’ll use it for is TP Arts. You’ll need 1,000 tension points to even use these arts because they’re just that good. Keep in mind that some normal arts will also give you TP under certain conditions, so be on the lookout for those arts. Constantly raising your TP to use your best attacks becomes a big part of mastering the combat later in the game.
Quick Cooldowns
Your arts go on a cooldown right after you’ve used them. In the early game, the fights can be hard because you just can’t do much. Quick cooldowns are added in Xenolade X Definitive Edition. If you press Y on an Art you’ve already used, you can skip the cooldown and use it again. At the beginning of every battle, you can use the quick cool-down four times. This is shown by the green bar in the bottom right. The things you can do with this mechanic are very useful as you can use a topple art multiple times in a row to make sure that the enemy stays down for longer here.
Find the strongest art you have on one of your characters. Upgrade it as many times as you can, and then just use that art five times in a row to defeat almost any regular enemy around your level. There are some battles against groups of enemies early on in the story, and these can be tough. However, they become so much easier when you take down the lower-level enemies first. This means fewer guys are shooting at you, and the quick cooldowns let you do this very easily. Throughout the game, you can upgrade the green bar with energy clips, which are rewards for exploring. This way, you’ll eventually get even more uses out of quick cooldowns.
Secondary Art Cooldowns
If you press X during battles, your character will switch between using their melee weapon and their ranged weapon to auto-attack. You can switch after every auto attack to get DP faster. However, the weapon you’re auto-attacking with also influences another mechanic namely the secondary cooldown of your arts. When an art is ready to use, you can see a yellow line slowly go around the border of its icon. When that yellow line makes its whole way around, that art has completed its secondary cooldown, and it will be upgraded in some way. Some arts will get stronger while other arts can be used a second time.
This is good because secondary cooldowns are shorter than normal ones. Arts that use your melee weapon will only charge their secondary cooldown if you’re auto-attacking with your melee weapon. The same goes for ranged arts and ranged weapons. Now, here’s an important note: If you press the Y button on arts that are ready to use, they will immediately get their secondary cooldown effects. So, you can skip the waiting process altogether for a few arts per battle. Something that I like to do is to use all of my buffs while I’m waiting for my strongest art to charge its secondary cooldown. Then, I let it rip when I’m all set up.
Soul Voice and Morale
Sometimes, your party members will ask you to use specific kinds of art. This request is a soul voice that plays a crucial role in the game. If you use an art of the same color that your friend asked for, you will both get some healing. You will also get a bonus effect depending on what the character is saying. For instance, if a soul voice says, “Use a ranged attack to topple the enemy,” then your next yellow attack will be to topple the enemy.
This is even if the original art does not have that effect. These soul voices have a chance to appear after specific conditions for each character. You can check those conditions in the menus. However, you don’t need to know the conditions for every soul voice to play this game. Looking through the soul voice list with your current party can just give you a better idea of how you can trigger them and what effects they will give you.
You can actually customize the soul voices from the main character you created at the beginning. You can choose what bonus effects you’ll get for triggering all of them. For the last four voices, you can even choose what conditions you need to trigger. If you activate a condition for your own soul voice, there is a chance to get a quicktime event. Your character will only call out your soul voice if you hit the B button in time. If your timing is perfect, your character will even get more TP. For every quicktime event you successfully complete, the morale level also increases. The higher your morale is, the higher the chances of soul voices triggering for your whole team. This also allows more TP after hitting future quicktime events.
Appendages
This mechanic will give you a ton of advantages while you have to do almost nothing. You can see the enemy’s health bars in two different places: on top of the screen and on the enemies themselves. Sometimes, you can see an extra orange bar on the enemy as well, and that is the HP of one of the enemy’s appendages. By holding the R button and pressing A or Y, you can target different parts of the enemy’s body. You always want to check if you can target an appendage.
If you destroy one of those body parts, the enemy will not be able to use certain attacks anymore, and their defense will be lowered. You’ll even get extra materials after the battle ends. If this sounds too hard to keep track of on top of everything else, remember that you can target appendages before the battle even starts. Always go after these for a chance of extra damage and some loot.
Stats
Let’s talk about your stats. The game offers seven distinct stats that determine your defense in this game. The actual defense stat is the least important out of all of these. To determine how much damage you will take, the game first takes the enemy’s attack and subtracts your defense from it. If you have 100 defense, but the enemy has an attack that can do 1,000 damage, you’ll still lose 900 HP. A lot of enemies have ridiculously strong attacks in this game. The higher your defense is, the better it is. You will have a bigger advantage when you focus on your resistance stats. Both your party members and every enemy can do six types of damage in this game. This includes physical, thermal, beam, electric, ether, and gravity.
Your resistances to these six attributes are applied as percentages. A 50% physical resistance will decrease all physical damage by 50%. This means that if you get a resistance of 100, you will just be immune to that kind of damage. It’s hard to get every single attribute to a high number. The game does tell you which of these six attributes every enemy attack has. So, if you’re stuck on a boss, try to see which attributes its attacks have. If you’re taking a lot of damage from for example, thermal attacks, then see if you have some equipment with higher thermal resistance. For instance, you are wearing something that gives you negative thermal resistance. This means you’ll take even more damage from those attacks than usual.
Don’t invest in Evasion stat. Even with the highest possible evasion, enemies will still have a 5% chance to hit you. You will not get the highest possible evasion for a long time anyway, so it’s even more luck-based. There are even some arts that give you guaranteed evasion or invincibility. This makes the evasion stat even more obsolete once you know what you’re doing. Getting more evasion can be a nice bonus alongside some other stats, but you should not focus on it.
Attack and Potential
Three stats determine your damage output. Attack is for your melee arts, and ranged attack is for your ranged arts, of course, but then there is also potential. This stat determines the damage for all of your TP arts. Early on, you will rely on all three of these stats, but you can try to focus on increasing one of those stats specifically. Make a build that’s focused on melee damage, range damage, or on the potential to one-shot everything with TP arts. There are augments that you can equip on your weapons and your equipment. To equip augments, go to the ground gear menu and press ZL on a weapon or gear with an empty slot. To craft augments, simply go to this shop in the Armory Alley.
Best tips and tricks for Combat in Xenoblade Chronicles X
Here are the best tips and tricks for combat in Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition.
- Learn the enemy attack pattern to adapt your playstyle accordingly because it lets you know what to do next to defeat that enemy.
- It’s best to learn how to chain your attacks effectively.
- Combining multiple Arts for a more powerful attack is invaluable if you unlock fusion arts.
- Positioning is the key to winning any combat in the game.
- You can attack enemies from behind or the sides for additional damage output and critical hits.
- You have more power, speed, and a wider array of powerful Arts if you own a Skell.
- You need to focus on combo arts, as your teammates can help you during the combat by utilizing the combo art.
- The best way to use art is to balance them, so choose the best one that complements your playstyle.
- Manage TP and don’t waste it on random arts or actions in the game. Use Arts at the crucial moment in combat and avoid running from tough encounters.
- The best strategy to defeat the enemy is to pay attention to the enemy’s weakness. Each enemy type has specific weaknesses to different types of attacks.
FAQs for Combat in Xenoblade Chronicles X
What is TP in Xenoblade Chronicles X?
Tactical Points in Xenoblade Chronicles are essential for using Arts. TP regenerates slowly over time, and you build more TP through auto-attacks. You need to manage your TP efficiently during combat to unleash heavy attacks.
What is Art in Xenoblade Chronicles X?
Arts are basically the special attacks that are triggered by the player. The character in the game has a set of Arts tied to their weapon.
What are the Appendages in Xenoblade Chronicles X?
Appendages are destructible body parts of enemies that, when destroyed, can grant bonus drops. If you destroy one of those body parts, the enemy will not be able to use certain attacks anymore, and their defense will be lowered.
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