Xenoblade Chronicles

Shulk and Melia have what is considered to be the worst AIs, so you generally want to be controlling either one of them at any given time.

S'ultimately up to you, of course. But if there're a lot of Mechon around, you definitely at least want Shulk in your party.

edited 7th Nov '15 9:04:17 AM by asterism

Yeah, you'll want to use characters with Ether arts (Riki, Melia) against ether enemies. Riki with his damage over time and Dunban built for agility are a good choice against bosses and certain unique monsters, but they both have competent A.I.s.

Basically you're going to use Shulk, Melia and maybe one more. Reyn and Riki work fine without your input, Dunban to a lesser extent. You're unlikely to use Sharla much since her damage output is low and you won't need active healing outside of a few Unique enemies unless you're underleveled.

You can arrange your party however you want. Do whatever feels most useful to you. But you're generally going to want Shulk in the lead for fighting Mechon and major bosses. And major Mechon bosses.

The only other real general rule is that Shulk and Melia work better as lead characters than support characters. They have a ton of useful skills but their AI-controlled versions squander them.

edited 7th Nov '15 12:07:43 PM by Anomalocaris20

Oh, and there is a moment where you don't want Shulk in your party.

edited 7th Nov '15 12:20:05 PM by Elbruno

Are you talking about a certain endgame boss whom you're better off using Melia for, both thematically and practically? Or am I thinking of something else?

When the cult ambushes you in Alcamoth, I believe. Yeah that fight was fucking annoying.

edited 7th Nov '15 12:22:39 PM by TheAirman

Oh, that fight.

I remember that fight. Yeah, Shulk was worthless there. I used him. Thankfully the rest of my party was strong enough to smack them down without much help from me, so it was all good.

I've just made it through Tephra Cave, got the Shield Monado Art, and defeated the Arachno Queen. Using the in-battle visions well is going to take some getting used to, I feel.

And so will Gem Crafting. And passing on Skills with Affinity Coins. I got introduced to a whole bunch of mechanics in quick succession in this play session.

And one more thing. Those materials I get from beating things are mostly just Vendor Trash, right?

You can skip gem crafting until the midgame, when you start getting rank 3 gems. The effects are minimal until then, and your stat totals won't be anywhere near high enough to see an effect from them.

Yes, enemy drops are vendor trash but a certain percentage of it is used in quests. It's not a bad idea to sell all/most of the generic materials after you've checked the basic quests in the local town to make sure they're not needed.

They do have other uses though. High value materials are worthy trade goods because you can find most but not all of the quest relevant drops in NP Cs inventories, if you don't want to hunt your own.

Mostly. You will need some of them for sidequests, however. And some of those quest-mandatory things are really rare, so you might want to be careful about what you sell.

Ninja'd.

edited 7th Nov '15 1:25:42 PM by Yomegami

However, anything that is mandatory for a quest- whether it be one you have or one you can get eventually- will be marked by an exclamation point and you'll usually see a vision the first time you pick it up. So don't worry about selling an item you'll need later.

Although your inventory will fill up a few times before you finish the game. Just make sure not to sell anything with one of those exclamation marks Zelenal mentioned.

Do you use Shulk in the tomb boss fight? Cause Mind Blast can also remove Auras, can't it?

Sure, but it's not as reliable as with Shulk.

I only ask because I try to kill Tyrea as fast as possible, because she will not. Shut. Up.

...

"BEGONE FROM MY SIGHT!".

You'llPayForYourInsolence.wavxinfinity

Not as bad as the second-to-final boss, at least.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH.wav x infinity.

edited 7th Nov '15 7:45:07 PM by Anomalocaris20

No. Tomb boss is worse. Because, you see, her voice gets an echo filter because of her mask.

By the time you've got to Penny the Penultimate you're prolly crazy overleveled.

edited 7th Nov '15 7:53:10 PM by asterism

Wrong fight.

If you have enough DPS, you can cut through the Telethia before it can put up a defensive aura, but once that aura goes up, if you lack Shulk or Melia, it's quite easily game over, for the fact that you can't kill it anymore.

I just encountered my first two "missable" sidequests on Bionis' Leg. I had to hunt down two Unique monsters, one of which only spawned during a thunderstorm, with no indication of where the locations the quest-giver mentioned actually were. Cue much aimless wandering.

On the other hand, Shulk's visions just happen to justify a lot of Anti-Frustration Features, which is awesome.

My next stop is Juju's camp.

Most of the unique monster quests do a pretty good job of telling you where they're located. You might not have the landmarks or locations on your map yet but you can usually find where you're being sent.

Okay, this is going to sound weird but I recommend not progressing the plot where you are just for a bit. Gaur Plain has a fair number of timed quests, and some of them are hidden. The Refugee Camp NP Cs offer quests at multiple points on the full day/night clock, and during the day time there's a locational quest near a waterfall to the East of the main Gaur Plain area. Do a couple of these, then move on, and come back when you can.

Note: two of the timed quests are mutually exclusive. You can start both, but can only complete one.

Just so you know, all the timed quests in the refugee camp don't expire for a while, so don't feel too rushed.

Later on there will be a quest to move them all back to Colony 6. Once you complete that quest, all the refugee camp quests expire, so don't worry too much about clearing them all right now.

Though when you do decide to do them, be sure to check around the camp during day and night, and talk to named NPC's even if they don't have quests. Some quests don't become available until you have certain people registered in your Affinity Chart.