Sorry, I was wrong about Monado Buster giving Awakening. The only way to get Awakened in Future Redeemed is by a Unity Combo. The hero version of Shulk you can get in the main game does have a replacement skill that can give Awakening from taking damage, since he has no way to get Awakening on his own. Monado Buster and Heavy Rush only do boosted damage while Awakened.
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."Why are we limiting everyone to their default classes and inheritor classes? It's a nice self-imposed challenge, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of the game?
It's like trying to play XCX with default weapon loadouts only, the ether blossom build would no longer be possible since you'd be limited to the Winged Viper/FMJ's dual swords. Or you'd have to use the long sword without the dual guns. The majority of the player base would quit 'cuz most rely heavily on Ghostwalker as a crutch.
If I had to play X3 with default classes only, I wouldn't have my awesome FMJ Taion, or War Medic Eunie. No thanks.
It makes the characters feel less homogeneous and half of my team aren't Seraph.
Continue writing our story of peace.I always just shuffle the classes around, always focusing on getting master arts from reaching level 10 in a given class. That's how I keep it varied on fresh playthroughs.
Still really wish 1's Expert Mode was a thing in 3, to keep my levels from getting too high as I try to complete quests when they become available.
ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.While I'm not a fan of self-imposed challenges that are clearly against how the game wants to be played, some of us do greatly prefer when characters have unique, defined roles (1, Torna, and Future Redeemed) compared to when everyone is fully customizable (2 and 3).
Edited by justinkal on Jun 6th 2025 at 8:01:35 AM
I'm fine with characters having fixed roles. The problem is, it potentially pigeonholes certain ones if they're deemed non-viable, or not worth using.
Being able to customize your characters prevents that by giving the player options to improve them. Look at Sharla in X1. She's so limited that most people drop her as soon as Dunban and Rikki become available. Why? Because Sharla only has three attack arts and her rifle overheats quickly, which requires her to constantly cool it off. All of which limits her utility.
Imagine if you could customize her though. It'd be a different story. Irina's only slightly better off, but my usual build for Rook is basically a godmoded version of Irina (i.e. high-powered with 0-cooldown).
Eunie as Medic Gunner = good —> Eunie as War Medic with Pride of Place = unstoppable.
Fixed roles work best for characters like Cloud, or Alphen, who are well-balanced to accommodate most situations. Which also allows them to cover other party members who are either specialists, or ones with situational advantages.
Edited by MiinU on Jun 6th 2025 at 6:51:10 AM
Eh, it's not like you can drop any character in Xenoblade 3 anyway, and most characters do inherit at least 1 good class (though Mio needs the DLC to do so). Furthermore, most classes can have multiple playstyles. You can even turn War Medic into a dodge tank if you're so inclined.
The character stats aren't that much different in Xenoblade 3, and that's why they are just that interchangeable. You can use Lanz as a War Medic just as well as Eunie.
Edited by RAlexa21th on Jun 6th 2025 at 7:35:09 AM
Continue writing our story of peace.I prefer fixed roles even if it leaves to someone feeling underwhelming, because it makes the characters feel distinct from each other. When everyone can do anything nobody feels special, which is boring.
Although it does work a lot better in 1 than in Torna or Future Redeemed, because each character (except Shulk) can pick any 8 out of 16 arts, allowing for substantial customization within the role.
Even for Sharla, you can try to make her do some damage, or you can focus on making her be a pure healer, or you can make her be focused on other non-heal types of support (damage prevention shields, putting enemies to sleep, curing/preventing debuffs, raising tension, etc). None of those are particularly worthwhile routes to go, but they do exist and are quite different from each other.
Giving each character a unique role also means you can make them each feel different to control. Shulk is rotating around the enemy to get positionals, Dunban is based on chaining together arts that get bonus effects when used in a specific sequence or have weird activation conditions set up by specific other arts, Melia is moving around to keep allies in range of her proximity buffs but not too close to be vulnerable to enemy AOE.
Edited by justinkal on Jun 6th 2025 at 10:14:14 AM
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Lanz's heal magic stat isn't nearly as high as Eunie's, so it's odd that he inherits the War Medic class while Eunie gets Lost Exile and Ashera's class. You'd think it'd be the other way around since Lanz has innately higher HP, attack power, and defense than Eunie.
Edited by MiinU on Jun 6th 2025 at 8:21:35 AM
Lanz's Healing stat as War Medic is 171, while Eunie's Healing stat as a War Medic is 212. That's about a 20% differential. Higher than I'd expect, but not as impactful as the sheer amount of defensive buffs of an endgame team.
Pride of Place isn't exactly in the meta regardless. It's Glittering Melody (though I prefer to limit them to Noah and Mio) and Cry of Faith that are the important supporting Talent Arts.
Edited by RAlexa21th on Jun 6th 2025 at 8:32:50 AM
Continue writing our story of peace.
Pride of Place is broken with a proper setup.
One of the most common complaints back when X3 launched was the final boss segment, including posts here in this forum thread. Multiple people complained it was a slog to get through and if you die at any point, you have to restart the entire battle from phase 1.
I used the aforementioned Pride of Place setup and Eunie turned the final boss segment into a joke. If it isn't part of the meta game, it's likely because not many realize how broken it can be.
The same can be said of other jrpgs, not every OP strategy or character build gets discussed because some are known only to the few that use them. Rinwell is considered bottom-tier in Tales of Arise, but that's because she's a textbook case of Difficult, but Awesome. Alphen and the others are easier to use.
My setup with Rinwell makes the game a cinch.
Well, so your build is in context of the final boss, which is fine and all, but the postgame is explicitly not about Z. Z's boss fight has a lot of funky mechanics (DOT field effect on the first phase, impossible to use Combos or Positional Arts for the second phase, overall takes too long for Lucky Seven, etc.) that aren't shared with other UMs, story bosses, and Superbosses.
Do you know that Stalker is pretty strong against Z due to its ability to bypass Defense?
Edited by RAlexa21th on Jun 6th 2025 at 10:10:02 AM
Continue writing our story of peace.![]()
I never even noticed Z used DOT fields, but even so, that further shows how invaluable Pride of Place can be. Between it's HP regen being so fast and Eunie's heal magic stat being so high, Pride of Place likely rendered Z's DOT fields useless.
But I wasn't saying it's for use against Z specifically. It's an all-around busted move. If you have the Capable Hands support skill fully mastered, you'll begin every battle with your talent gauge filled. Meaning, you can use Pride of Place right from the start of every battle. You'll almost never have to worry about dying, or even taking damage because of how rapidly it heals you.
The enemy, on the other hand, is screwed unless they're either resistant or immune to blaze damage. Otherwise, they're usually dead within secondsnote . It effectively becomes an instant "I win" button. The battle begins, Eunie activates it, the enemy is roasted, and we move on with nary a scratch. Z was no different.
As for the Stalker class, that's why I keep Juniper with me 90% of the time. Flying enemies are annoying, so I have Taion (as FMJ) and Juniper setup to get rid of them quickly.
Can't say I share your assertion about Pride of Place, and there are much better options for AOE kills (Violent Streak, Element Genesis, Blossom Dance, etc.) and I'll leave it at that.
Though if you have footage of Pride of Place against Superbosses or Archsage Challenge, I'd be interested to see.
Continue writing our story of peace.
I doubt there's footage of anyone using Pride of Place against superbosses and such. From the sound of things, I might be the only who does.
Violent Streak only lasts a few seconds and only inflicts damage. Pride of Place lasts much longer, has wider AOE, deals damage, and heals the entire party all at the same time.
It's like how everyone else uses three Arts Gain TP XXs in XCX, whereas I use Ranged TP Gain Up + a single Magazine Capacity Up XX to do the same the job. Except the latter setup is faster and more efficientnote .
Edited by MiinU on Jun 7th 2025 at 12:08:02 PM
A few things from playing XDE:
- The Hraesvelg Lord was the first level 60 skell I made in this game. With high resistances and no superweapon, it's a Stone Wall compared to the level 50 skells I have. It can take on tyrants that can destroy my other skells and win, but it takes forever.
- I didn't realize back when I played the original that, in the quest where Lana(?) the Nopon was trying to run away from her husband, whether you act like the fake baby is real or point out that it's fake determines if Walolo(?) actually falls for the ruse or not. The first time, I acted like the fake baby was real just because it sounded funny. This time, I called Lana out because I was tired of her being a jerk. Doing this results in her going back to her husband, who's dropped the coddling because he's so mad at her. And this makes him much more attractive in her eyes, so I consider this to be the better ending.
- Replayed "A Gift for Hope" and wow Hope has far deeper issues than I remember.

Hmm, I guess with Double Spinning Edge's hit count, Rex can refill Quickdraw in one cycle which allows him to perpetuate evasion. The only downside is that Quickdraw doesn't benefit from Ultimate Qigong.
Kevesi classes currently rely on Deflector Shield to generate Awakening, but Monado Buster is indeed more reliable and stronger.
Heavy Rush also provides regular Awakening (so not as strong as Monado Buster), but it has faster animation than a Talent Art and can be fused with Resonant Flag, which is why Shulk is the fastest Awakening passer.
Edited by RAlexa21th on Jun 6th 2025 at 2:51:46 AM
Continue writing our story of peace.