Xenoblade Chronicles

• Fight something stronger than your party...and win.
• Pick a fight you have no hope of surviving...and ace it.

Just how are you supposed to get these? I just fought against a named enemy was about level 30 when my party was 26, and barely scraped through. I really don't want to know what they consider *stronger* than me if a struggle like that doesn't count.

edited 8th Jul '14 8:50:41 PM by ekimmak

If everyone were normal, the world would be a dull place. Like reality television.

You need high Agility to fight against monster that are significantly stronger than you. Agility Up gems and Melia's Summon Wind can do this. Dunban I think has the highest Agility in the party, so including him is probably also a good idea.

Heart of Stone

Just how much agility are we talking? Equipping best agility gear is nearly always at the cost of defence, and when Reyn is the only person who can take more than two hits from someone still in range ...

You'd need so much agility that whoever you're against would have to miss nearly every time.

If everyone were normal, the world would be a dull place. Like reality television.

agility replaces defence.

the reason dunban works as a replacement tank for reyn is that he has high enough agility that he dodges attacks rather than tanks them.

Watching Chugga's LP has reminded me of how hilarious it is that the Bionis's ass is the swamp region. I wonder how long that LP is going to be.

It's more his hip, really.

Doesn't it start at the hip and loop around? Either way the location dot◊ makes it clear that it's pretty close.

edited 9th Jul '14 8:44:27 AM by Kostya

i was always kind of confused by bionis anatomy.

i mean you go from the hip to the trachea to the back (which, is a jungle of what i presume to be back hair) to the head but the way you get to the head is kind of...bizarre and apparantly the hair is a sea or...something?

oh and the arms are are snowy mountains for some reason, even though the eryth sea looks kind of warm-ish and is much higher up.

edited 9th Jul '14 8:48:39 AM by Tarsen

Yeah, the weather patterns make no sense although you could probably handwave it by saying ether generates heat and the arm doesn't have as much ether flowing through it because Galahad Fortress is draining it. It would explain why that's the only region that doesn't have a temperate or tropical climate.

The Bionis has some kind of crest attached to the back of its head that holds the sea. I'm more confused by how it can have a forest on its back when that crest thing should be serving as a ceiling for the back and blocking out the light.

edited 9th Jul '14 9:08:23 AM by Kostya

The wiki says Valak Mountain used to be warmer until a movement of the Bionis changed its climate.

(Also, I can't help but wonder what's on the Bionis' left arm and leg since it would appear that you never go there during the game. The other colonies that got destroyed by the Mechon?)

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Probably. Judging by how Colony 9 is located near the bottom while 6 is higher up I assume the numbers increase going down. That would mean that 7 and 8 were probably on the opposite leg from 6 and 9. Who knows where 1-5 were although I heard a theory that the Left Shoulder's rather primitive town was going to be an abandoned Colony 1. Since it was cut I guess we'll never know.

edited 9th Jul '14 9:16:01 AM by Kostya

Satorl Marsh is located on the iliac crest. You can see it from the Leg.

The one I feel sorry for is Colony 6.

Heart of Stone

what, are they on the crotch?

but i mean, in that case i feel worse for the bionis. his crotch got milked for all the liquid its worth.

edited 9th Jul '14 9:31:47 AM by Tarsen

I think the shoulder was a giant town.

Anyway, the marsh sort of starts on the left edge of his crotch, and wraps around to the small of his back for what I can tell.

I thought the buildings were too small for the giants. You also see early Homs living there in a flashback.

To be fair, the original plan was to go from Makna Forest to the Bionis's Shoulder which led to Eryth Sea. IIRC, there's a dummied-out path in Makna Forest's geometry, somewhere around the waterfalls (I think), that supports that Makna was gonna head straight to the Shoulder. However, as mentioned earler, the Bionis's Shoulder got cut for whatever reason, despite being used in a few cutscenes, leading to a Nopon just kinda teleporting you through a sea in the air directly above Frontier Village (that one never made sense to me - how is that water not falling).

edited 9th Jul '14 2:28:19 PM by ShadowHog

Moon◊

The Shoulder was probably cut for pacing reasons. Both Eryth Sea and Makna Forest are huge. Making the players go through another huge area in between would have bogged down the story too much. It's too bad the Wii couldn't support DLC. They could have tried to add it back in there.

I forget, when does Melia start contributing to knockdown chain attacks?

I also had forgotten how much of a Butt Monkey Reyn can be in post-battle dialogue.

Reyn: Sharla! Did you see what I did? Sharla: No. Wasn't really watching.

Reyn: Hey! How do you think I did? Dunban: Amateurish. Sharla: Yes. Amateurish.

Poor guy. And apparently, everyone dumps him for Dunban as Tank.

If everyone were normal, the world would be a dull place. Like reality television.

i actually had both him and dunban in the same party when i first got dunban. it worked fairly well simply because sharla was more or less extrenuous to the party at that point, so 2 tanks = more goodness (especially one that doesnt need to heal as often).

nowadays, i only ignore reyn because im affinity grinding melia with pretty much everyone else. he would still fit better in the party of sharla and melia than shulk but shulk isnt high enough with melia yet...

Reyn's damage output is actually pretty fierce. 'Specially when he gets that arte that sacrifices his talent gauge to, like, double the power of his artes or something? Sword Drive does, like, 30,000+ after that.

And it's not that much of a sacrifice either, since his talent gauge builds pretty quickly.

Heart of Stone

I think stronger means 5/10 levels higher than you, but especially the latter could be 15. Got it while fighting Avalanche Abaasy (lvl 99 vs lvl 120). I've seen a video of someone killing a lvl 97 dinosaur with lvl 35 or 40, there are some tricks to do that (in the case of the video, it was to keep the enemy toppled so all attacks are guaranteed to hit).
Your main problem will probably be that you can't hit the enemy, so increasing your hit chance (agility or night vision gems) is the trick to do it.

Pour y voir clair, il suffit souvent de changer la direction de son regard www.xkcd.com/386/

I forgot how disturbing the Bionis Interior was. 24 parts and Chugga is just now getting to Makna forest. At this rate the game will take about 70.

I'm honestly surprised by that. Thought this would be going for 100 episodes. It probably has a lot to do with the greater episode length.

Chugga's cutting out a ton of stuff. The parts also average about 20 to 30 minutes too which is longer than the typical Chugga video.

He probably has to, I mean playing normally there's walking everywhere and fighting a lot. Playing the game is one thing, but watching a game is another. If you're just watching someone play Xenoblade it just feels like a bunch of dead air if you don't cut out the boring to watch stuff.

You got some dirt on you. Here's some more!