GRcade

Blade skills can be across multiple blades so you don't need one with level 3 (aside from the rare blade specific skills such as noppon wisdom).

I only have one blade with this required skill. Past the point where Pyra gets taken by Torna so she isn't with me to help activate it. Which would mean having to somehow get another one through resonating more cores. My luck is so bad, I don't think that will be happening lol.

What's the skill?

It's Fire Mastery to get past that huge road block of webs. Brighid only has level 1 atm. Close to getting level 2 and have yet to unlock requirements for Level 3 so I might be effed >,>

Just get a couple of generic fire blades, you should have plenty of common core crystals.

Edit: basically just load your characters with whatever blades you need to unlock that part, so 3 x level 1 fire blades and whatever else you'd need (sometimes wind mastery).

For some reason it never occurred to me to get the generic blades, I was just assuming rare only lol. My bad. I might try this out then, thanks dude.

something i didnt pick up first time round, at the start of chapter five

Rex Kramer wrote:Blade skills can be across multiple blades so you don't need one with level 3 (aside from the rare blade specific skills such as noppon wisdom).

I was all over the combos last night thanks to your tips. Still got a lot to learn but your tips have immediately made a difference-I have my head round the basics now and can see what you have to do to improve. So thanks!

No worries. I've gone cold turkey now on the game for at least a month. But nothing else quite scratches the itch the same way XC2 does. It's going to be a long 30 days.

Yeah figuring out the combos was a big help for me, I just need to actually remember the right ones to start with to make sure I can successfully complete the combo!

About 35 hours into this now, slowly making my way through chapter 5, game just gets better and better.

Man, I'm just flying through the New Game Plus mode. Got a couple of the new Torna Blades and to my surprise their affinity chart is completely open for super fast completion - annoyingly though, Blade Chips don't seem to do anything to them. It's also disappointing to see that the enemy level doesn't start higher on the second playthrough although being able to lower your own level can certainly help increase the challenge.

I should of seen a certain thing coming with a certain character a mile away but I was still surprised when it happened. This story keeps things interesting quite consistently to keep you going which I love about it.

Im finally starting to get a handle on Blades and rarity and all that stuff now, I got Boreas early on and I couldnt figure out why he looked different from other blades or why his merc squad had a name when he was leader. I now know that heres a rare blade and theres lot of rare blades out there to collect. So now rather than sitting on cores for no reason I crack those suckers open and see whos inside, at least I do for the common ones, Im gonna hold on to the rare ones a little longer and open those with some boosters. I have no idea if this is a good idea but it sounds like it will work.

Im also adapting my merc teams to the task at hand a bit more, making sure I send a couple of blades with applicable skills on each mission. Im absolutely loving this game at the moment, I dont ususally play games on my lunch break, aside from something on my phone if ive read all the news, but I can see myself bringing my Switch to work to get my Xenoblade fix more often.

Yeah when things start to click more it become a vastly more enjoyable experience. I've managed to get a couple rare blades from commons which have caught me off guard. Got a nice tank for Rex now. Currently past 60 hours into Chapter 8. Things are getting a little to real >,>

Well, that's New Game Plus beat. Time to grind bonus EXP for those sweet, sweet overdrive protocols.

So I’m expanding my blade collection a little now I’m getting the hang of it, what’s a good approach to levelling up etc? And I haven’t quite got my head round how you get the skills for real world stuff, is that from their affinity chart progress?

My main tip, don't hoard core crystals. Get them used but only keep generic blades that have 2 or more fields skills. Always keep rare blades. Then always run Merc missions as it'll level up any blade that goes along.

Yeah, I wasted a lot of my first playthrough hoarding rare and legendary cores but they drop so often once you get some gold chips that it was a bit of a waste. On that note, make sure you don't kill the Ardun in the farm on Gormott until you get it to level 100 - it's great for farming both rare and legendary cores and gives a lot of EXP.

Blade affinity charts are indeed where you unlock/level your field skills so it can be useful to use the favourite function for some of the more common skills you'll need such as super strength, lock picking, elemental mastery and focus. Mercenary missions are a great way to complete your blade affinity charts though due to the high trust requirements it's not so good for the rare blades. My one annoyance is tasks such as the 'deal a certain amount of damage in one hit' or 'deal a total amount of damage' as they can't be completed with the mercenary system which means equipping gooseberry fool blades for a few battles.

Yo getting Poppi's last form is such a chore, I don't see why they didn't make it tied to the story. This better be worth it >,> Trying to branch off doing more side quest before I delve any deeper into the story. Wanna try getting more rare blades first too. Also I effed up big time not realising how to level up my mercs. Still at level 1 lol.

I need to get back into this, still at the start of Chapter 5. I seem to find myself getting easily distracted whenever I enter a new area - it's just fun to explore, seeing what new side quests and monsters are out there!

My tips for levelling up would be to make sure you take on monsters that are slightly above you in level (EXP seems to scale based on the relative level between you and the enemy), use blade combos to build your chain attacks and then make sure you finish the enemy using your chain attack as this gives a multiplier to the amount of EXP you receive. Oh and there are also accessories you can equip which increase experience received as well.