Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Nintendo Switch)

Frank wrote:Having a bit of trouble with this weaponised Titan in chapter 5

Keep attacking the power lines because the Core itself heals, constantly, but whenever I get to a third/half of it's health bar, the core starts to proper attack and obliterates me. Reading tactics online and they're all banging on about orbs and hitting it with a group combo when everyone's tier 3, but I'm not sure what the orb bit actually means It's got the earth element on it's health bar, so if I finish a combo with Wulfric will that do something special?

Also what's the correct term for the BIG TEAM COMBO you do when you press + when the meter in the top left is full? Trying to find somewhere that explains that a little better but I don't know what I should be searching for

That's called a chain attack if I recall rightly.

Basically when you do a blade combo whichever element the third stage attack is will be attached to the enemy as an orb. You can attach as many orbs to the enemy as there are elements. Once you then start a chain attack you can break the orbs in order to to continue the attack for an additional round, each broken orb will gain you one additional round of attacks. Orbs are easier to break if attacked with the opposite element.

Essentially you should try and do as many blade combos as possible to attach multiple orbs to the enemy, then use a long chain attack to cause massive damage over multiple rounds.

Frank wrote:Having a bit of trouble with this weaponised Titan in chapter 5

Keep attacking the power lines because the Core itself heals, constantly, but whenever I get to a third/half of it's health bar, the core starts to proper attack and obliterates me. Reading tactics online and they're all banging on about orbs and hitting it with a group combo when everyone's tier 3, but I'm not sure what the orb bit actually means It's got the earth element on it's health bar, so if I finish a combo with Wulfric will that do something special?

Also what's the correct term for the BIG TEAM COMBO you do when you press + when the meter in the top left is full? Trying to find somewhere that explains that a little better but I don't know what I should be searching for

orbs appear after you use a third level blade combo, when you use a chain attack (the proper name for the big team combo) you will see these orbs beneath the enemy health bar if you manage to shatter the orb you can have more turns during a chain attack each attack does damage to an orb it takes three attacks to shatter, you can have multiple orbs (one of each element) if theres more than one damage will be done to a random orb unless the opposing element of the blade you use is present in which case it will always do damage to that orb doing twice as much to the orb

the more turns in a chain attack the more damage you do

if that doesnt make any sense open up the tutorials

Additionally chain attacks are great for levelling your characters and gaining additional points for arts etc. As you perform a chain attack a % level will increase, if you manage to defeat the enemy with that chain attack then that % multiplier will be applied to the amount of XP that you receive from the enemy - if you do a multistage attack then the multiplier can get up to ridiculous levels like 300+%

For enemies that were already going to give you lots of XP it can provide a really quick route to levelling up. This is one of the reasons why I played the back half of the game about 20 levels beyond where it expected me to be! :slol:

I was trying to figure out how you did a second or third round of the chain attacks :slol:

Thanks for the help, everyone! That does seem to make a lot more sense now :wub:

Just got onto chapter 7, somehow did a decent chain attack in the latter half of chapter 6 but I have no idea how so when I next tried one it didn't go well! Guess I need to use the elements in a certain order?

You need to break the symbols by using their 'opposite' elements where possible.

Cheers, must have just been a fluke first time I did it properly :lol:

The important part of a chain attack is getting those element orbs on the mob before initializing it. If any of this is obvious then please ignore. When auto attacking, if you trigger a blade art on b, x or y just after landing an attack then this charges the gauge on the a attack. This has three levels, I II and III. Triggering a level I attack creates the elemental tree in the top right corner (looks like an outrun map). Follow that across with a matching II and then a III puts an elemental orb on the enemy of the same sign as that attack. Triggering Fire, Fire and then Fire gives a fire orb. Once you've got 2 orbs attached then it's time to trigger a chain attack as that will give you three rounds if you destroy the orbs.

The idea then is to break one orb per round (and only one). You get to do 1x level I for each blade across all drivers. So if you've got a fire orb and a water orb then using a water elemental attack will break the fire orb. If you dont have water then you can still break a fire orb by using several fire attacks instead. After those 3 attacks have done and if you've broken an orb then a b button prompt will appear. Get that right and you'll have 1 attack with each driver at level II. Miss it and you get another round of level I. Break the other orb and same again.

That makes a lot of sense actually

One question though, do I need to do a level 1, then 2 etc 'levels' of special attacks before I get the orb then? Normally I just press the specials when they pop up on screen for my other characters and wait for mine to reach level 3/4 before using it?

Also the start of chapter 7 seems to drag a little, anyone else find this?

It entirely depends on your driver and blade loadouts. Who've you got?

Edit: one of your drivers has to do a lvl I, one does a lvl II etc. But they have to be on the tree that appears after doing a level 1. For example, triggering a level I fire gives you the option of doing level II fire or water. If you do fire then there are 2 options that'll give you the orb on level III (fire and light I think). Doing water gives you 2 other options (1 is fire).

You need to work up through the blade art levels yes, starting with a level 1, then 2 and 3. As Rex says once you perform an initial blade art then the roadmap will appear in the top right telling you which elemental arts you can follow it up with, a different starting element will allow for different follow up elements. If either your own character or someone else in your party has an appropriate element blade then you will need to wait until they have charged their art to the required level before using it, i.e. don't use another level 1 art again, you need to wait until someone has an appropriate level 2 ready. You should see symbols on the left and/or right of the screen telling you how charged your companions arts are (the number of dots circling their icon tells you which level they are at)

It does all sound a bit complicated but once you have your head around it you'll be firing off big combos and chain attacks like nobody's business!

Additionally to what Rex said you can put more than 2 orbs on an enemy before initiating the chain attack, this allows you to have more chances to break an orb during the attack, plus it gives you a bigger chance of initiating the mega powerful "full burst" attack!

I've played 130+ hours and am currently in chapter 5 of NG+ and I've just heard of full burst mode :oops:

This game

It really is something special isn't it? :wub:

Full burst can do ludicrous amounts of damage sometimes so it is worth knowing about!

If I didn't have so many other demands on my time at the moment I'd be deep into NG+ myself, despite clocking up 100 odd hours on my first play through there we so many things that I barely scratched the surface of.

Normal party is currently Rex, Nia and Tora, due to not paying full attention Morag and Zeke are mid 50's so seem a bit over levelled (thanks to the inn system, I wasnt expecting them to be loads higher than the rest of the party), always nice to have them as back up just in case I find myself in a tricky fight.

It certainly is one of those games where the more you play and read about it the more it rewards you! I'll try and put all the advice to good use when I next get on it

As for blades, the normal ones to start with and I'll have to check the names of the others, think Rex has 2 fire plus a wind. Nia 2 water and an electric. Tora an earth and fire.

Going to be away from home here and there so will pick this back up :wub:

and if none of that helps find an informant in one of the towns and you can buy info about it off them

Another question re chain attacks. How do you know when an enemy has an orb on them? Is it when the very right hand side of their health/name bar flashes? Or is it an actual orb that floats around them somewhere?

Sometimes it does not feel like I've been playing this for 50 hours at all :lol:

The orbs float around the enemy. The size of them depends on how big the enemy is so with the larger ones the orbs are quite easy to spot.

Cheers, just making sure I know what to look for!

Yeah it's usually pretty easy to tell when an orb has been attached.

Not sure if mentioned previously but it's worth noting that you can only attach one orb per element, so don't try and do two level 3 arts of the same element until you have burst the first one in a chain attack.

I was surprised at how much depth there was to the combat in this game, it really was one of the strongest points of an already fantastic experience. I was also surprised at how much of it I understood by the end as I have a habit of completely missing key aspects of JRPG battle systems whilst playing them - I completed (and loved) both FFVII and FFVIII back in the day without really understanding anything about the materia or junction systems on my first play through! :fp:

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Nintendo Switch)

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