Honestly, the best part about unlocking Guardian was not being held hostage by Heavy Guard's topple art any more. Shield Bash being a master art as well as having an actually decent damage ratio makes Guardian so damn worthwhile on it's own.
@@redwes99 one thing to keep in mind though is you have to put the earlier combo art on the right side, because fusion arts prioritize class arts *then* master arts. So if you do incursor + guardian commander, you can't get break + topple in the same move, BUT if you do guardian commander + incursor, with shield bash as your master art, you *do* get the instant topple (assuming break isn't resisted like normal). This applies to ever step in the combo, so like launch class art with smash master art works wonders (keves dps stay winning)
@@redwes99 my favorite thing to do is have medic gunner with myopic screen into way home so it's daze burst in one art and even the ai can't fuck it up
For what it's worth, I think Noble Taunt is pretty mandatory until you get other Aggro arts from Agnus classes, since you can't hold aggro super well on Guardian by default, and you need something to get your talent art faster imo
Beat my first Superboss today, came down to the wire but Lanz on this class 1v1'd it for the last tick of its health, survivability is really good on the Guardian Commander!
While I know these guides tend to focus on controlling the class, Guardian Commander really shines as an off-tank to support a squishier defender like Lone Exile who will be (ideally) taking all the aggro. The I'll Help skill essentially extends the other defender's life bar, and in doing so the GC will be charging the talent gauge and using Deflector Field decently often as well. I think its defense field makes it the most useful defender for support without necessarily needing to hold aggro.
I remember reading that the damage buff from Awakening is an independent multiplier, and will apply after whatever your chain attack damage bonus is. If true it would make Awakening potentially more impactful than power charge for really high damage percent chain attacks.
Yeah, but it wears off after a few rounds even if you activate it right after getting the buff. Hmmm, if only we had a way to renew it while in chain attack
Idea: - team: 2 signifiers, ogre, 3 guardian commanders, Ashera - everyone with capable hands, damage boosts against toppled enemies, and earrings that boost chain attack gauge build rate -target enemy, but don't attack it -set up buffs using cry of faith on both signifiers aswell as many aureole, resonate flag combos you can before having to engage -swap to someone with glittering melody to pause all buffs -swap to a guardian commander and use talent art, attacking to draw aggro and awaken to start fight -use resonate flag asap to pass awakening to everyone -switch to ogre with glittering melody to pause the effect along with any new signifier buffs - break the enemy -swap to guardian commander to topple - hopefully chain attack is ready now and buffs are still paused. -If buffs not still paused, swap to a character with glittering melody( everyome but the signifiers and one of the guardian commanders should have it equipped) and pause buffs - initiate chain attack and proceed to destroy opponent with awakening boosted arts from all the guardian commanders Think this has any merit/ is worthwhile?
I have an interesting story with this class. I was exploring Dannagh Desert after beating the game and I lowered my level to make gaining class levels possible, but I had Zeon in my party at endgame level just as a form of insurance. It was a good thing I did, too. I took on a squad of Keves soldiers that was 10 levels higher than me (I was playing on Easy difficulty), and they proceeded to wipe out everyone except Zeon. I then watched as Zeon, with his immense bulk and self-healing, soloed the remaining soldiers while at the brink of death. It was fun. Sidenote: I was playing on Easy because I no longer cared about difficulty now that I had finished the main story, and I didn't want to start playing around with serious builds until I had everything maxed out or at least unlocked, especially since I would be switching to new classes regularly.
The challenge mode DLC would’ve been the best way to unlock classes using Nopon stones. It was a pain in the ass when I reached the end of chapter 3 and maxed out every class and hero I had up until that point, wasting CP until the rest of the heroes became available
I think the Rigid Support accessory goes well with this class with the Brimming Spirit gem since it recharges a random skill each time you block getting them off cooldown faster so you can spam arts
A word of caution for rigid support: at the time you can acquire it at the beginning (extremely early), your block rate will not be high enough to make this viable. It is extremely good later on especially once second and third accessories unlock and your block rate gets higher.
Holy shit the Resonant Flag strat with the Awakened effect hyped me so hard liking a lot this class (and being the main class of my Lanz instead of his own XD), never thought about that, thx Enel
I think Seraph Noah is optimal for the invincibility cheese because of this interaction. He can self damage a little bit, then pass invincibility and awakening to Mio through Ouroboros form, and Mio can extend both and pass them to everyone, so everyone is invincible AND awakened for the whole fight.
I like how Mind for Guarding is a gutted version of the Ultimate Shield skill from Xenoblade 2 but is still really good. Goes to show you just how much more important drawing aggro with Defenders is in this game versus the previous games.
That's because in this game its dang near essential to have Defenders, Attackers, and Healers, while in both 1 and 2, some characters designed to be an attacker were also good at defending or vice versa.
I really like this class for burst material farming, especially when I am lowering my level to 5 lower than the unique named enemy I am fighting to drag on the fight as long as possible. It's very safe, and has a topple art early on in the battle just in case I need it. The one problem I found with Zepher or Lone Exile is that they can die, and when that happens other characters die, which causes Reaction art cooldowns to reset throughout the party - it just means I am farming a lot less materials and wasting time. So yeah, Guardian Commander it is. The class stays above 90% hp pretty much the entire time. Super safe. It's great to just tank the entire battle and pop 20+ burst combos, one after the other like clockwork. This class really helped with that.
I feel like the best part of awakening is shortening recharge times. Let's you spam your arts more, and get to more awakening procs, and this really just snowballs into a good tank when it works. Sadly it does not always work and is outclassed by agility tanks because of course it is
I love the fact he also facetanks attacks from a consul in a cutcene and his name sounding like hes about to drop a space colony on me makes it even better, he might look kinda generic but he will always be one of the best wingheads along with melia
Potatinator Zeon would be proud, a wonderful guide as always! My favorite part about GC is honestly just the fact that even without aggro they still help to tank, since if they hunker down next to the person with aggro they essentially become a health battery.
My preferred tank, if i can just get to deflector field and awakening it's smooth sailing from there most times. I ran noble taunt early in the class to help gain aggro but then later when it's easier to get the aggro i swap it for imperial sword which was too slow to be worth using for me early in the game, under awakening it and falcon swoop charge faster.
So good to see another tank video, I've really struggled with keeping the aggro off my attackers in hard mode(especially Incursor) and I had no idea till this vid that awakening didn't work unless you already had aggro. Thanks for another great guide.
So, I don't think this was in the video at all, but based on my testing, Awakening is +40% damage dealt, about -30% damage taken (this could be inaccurate as enemy damage variance is pretty high and it's hard to measure accurately), +35% arts recharge speed, with some small margin of error. Applied by your talent art, it lasts about 18 seconds. If you increase the potency of the buff, the damage dealt and damage reduction get better, but the arts recharge speed is not affected. Additionally, since it was not mentioned, Deflector Field also effectively reduces damage by 75% while active plus gives 100% block rate. What it actually does is, whenever you would take any damage (even DoTs) while using it, you heal 75% of that damage back at the same time. This means if you somehow took 10000 damage during it, you would survive and heal for 7500, but in practice you never see anything like this and it's basically just damage reduction. [Edit: actually, seems like it heals you for almost 12000 when Doom would instant kill you in the video.] Deflector field's cooldown also starts ticking at the START of the art, and since tanks passively generate about 0.8 talent gauge every seven seconds they have aggro plus some small amount per hit blocked/evaded, AND Awakening lowers the cooldown of Deflector Field itself, the cooldown will often be about 1/3 through by the time the art animation finishes, letting you chain Awakening continuously if you can hold aggro.
Hey did you know that Zeon’s voice actor was also in Resident Evil 8? He voiced Heisenberg, the guy who says BTCHHHH. Anyways, if you want a Colony 9er who won’t die of starvation, there’s always Mwamba! In other words, this is Day #2 of pushing the Mwambagenda for a sharpshooter class guide.
It may be worth noting that the spike damage from Ultimate Counter does generate aggro. Also I often misread the class as "Garden Commander" during the game. Then the ascension quest hits...
Clearly, you can see that Zeon's basic gear is missing one key item: POTATOES! An item that gives buffs that make Fiona and her flag (Signifer) look like a meme.
One super strong niche it has is that you can be absurdly aggressive both with and using this class, since it’s effect let’s the class take the damage instead so you can use something like full metal jaguar or seraph and be sorta mindlessly aggressive while it defends you at low HP
This is honestly just "the class that never dies"; since you're guaranteed a free Memory Locket from one of the fixed containers (I think it's on a Ferronis Hulk if I'm not misremembering?), popping it onto your Guardian Commander can make for good insurance in the early-mid game, so you're guaranteed _someone_ can revive even if your healers die to AoE.
On god, I was wondering earlier if there was a class guide for Guardian Commander. Lo and behold, uploaded _5 minutes ago,_ just the video I was thinking of!
Guardian Commander at the time you unlock it is actually so cracked. I'm doing a replay deliberately underleveled, and one of the consequences of that is your first chain attack is often to stabilize party threat. Lanz chain order + mio and maybe Zeon if you're running him basically solidly establishes threat on GC, and one he has threat he just perma cycles awakening and is a brick wall in a way that dodge tanks can't be until much later. My opinion of the job greatly improved after seeing it like this.
Some remarks from how I am using the Guardian Commander: 1. When Deflector Field is on you not only need to get hit, but you also need to actually take damage in order to gain Awakening. If you activate Deflector Field while standing in an Armor Veil field, you will not get Awakening. So you need to step out from this field before activating Guardian Commander's talent art. 2. Doesn't spreading Awakening to the rest of your party only make tanking harder? Especially if you have such aggro magnets in your team as a well-built Incursor, Seraph, or FMJ, because you will be increasing their DPS by not only increasing their damage but also art recharge rate, and tanks already have a hard time keeping aggro as it is. 3. You only have one AOE aggro-generating art set. For group tanking, I had Lone Vanguard's Mighty Beat and paired it with Falcon Swoop. Switching targets is slow, so added AOE aggro generation is helpful and Mighty Beat has a very short recharge of 3. If you are good at cancelling it will be available all the time and makes for a better opener: auto attack > Falcon Swoop > Shield Bash > Mighty Beat > Glow Ring* > Deflector Field; auto attack > fused attacker art + Imperial Sword * since I don't use Resonant Flag, I have Glow Ring instead as a means to taunt (though it can fail, since it's a debuff, so I'm thinking of replacing it with something more reliable) or to make sure that your main target will stay on you as you activate Deflector Field. If nothing hits you, the Deflector Field was wasted. 4. Chaotic Memory is better than any accuracy-increasing accessories, as it makes it so attacks cancelled into cannot be blocked or evaded, so your arts will never miss if you are good at cancelling. 5. It may also be a good idea to replace Fighting Prowess with Flash Fencer's Capable Hands to be able to use Deflector Field much sooner in the fight to boost early aggro generation by delaying the use of Imperial Sword until after the first use of Deflector Field (see item 3 above). 6. I also used the Legendary Biter accessory, but I am honestly not sure how helpful it is. I thought it made regaining lost aggro easier when tanking groups of enemies (especially those level 95+ elite beastmen in the south-eastern cave in Cadensia).
For me, I feel like this class really shines best for an AI controlled defender, or as a backup defender for someone like a Zephyr who can die pretty easily if they can't evade enough, which is saying alot considering evasion tanks usually reign supreme. They're a pretty safe choice if you don't want to play the defender, since evasion arts require timing the AI doesn't always get
The survivability on this class is incredible, I once had my whole team die to two elites except my guardian commander noah who just survived the entire fight and beat them both The skill that regenerates hp helped a lot and I also had the lone exile skill that reduces damage taken at low hp, on top of that because he was alone, his talent art recharged omega fast which frequently gave me another safety net because you can't die in the middle of a talent art animation (on top of the other defensive bonuses this art gives of course)
Loving all the class guides and informational stuff as usual, Enel! You were my saving grace in XC2, and when replaying through XC1 for the remake lol Was wondering if you had any plans for stuff like... team composition guides, or guides for specific setups and stuff like that, that involve more of the party than just a single class? Would be neat to see how you put things together when looking at the bigger picture.
One change that I think is worth noting is swapping the Defensive Soul skill for Dynamite Spirit and swapping the Platinum Brooch for a Titanium Temple Guard. This can help get aggro a bit easier, and I find the class stays above 90% hp without much effort anyway, at least on normal difficulty.
Uno it’s rly cool how quick you keep pumping out these guide videos- literally I’ll watch a video, play some Xenoblade 3, have dinner, and there’s another one out 😂😂
Just wanted to pop in and say thanks for the guides! They also give the added benefit to a small minority of us who play completely in Japanese to learn what everyone is called in English.
I pretty much viewed this as an attacker class in disguise for the longest time because I have the hardest time generating aggro on this class if there are any other defenders in the party (I have the same trouble with Monica’s class making it hard to take advantage of the high block rates these 2 offer). I’ll have to try speccing out like this with the incursor/martial arts masters since they always pull aggro
Inititally, I thought this class was a bit underwhelming. And then I used Deflector Field. And then Imperial Sword. And then Falcon Swoop and oh my god I have Deflector Field up again this class is ridiculous. Sadly, your damage classes start outpacing it by the tail end of the game, but that initial joy of getting drunk on awakening is unforgettable.
Ah yes, the Class that I only used because I saw that Master Topple Art. As soon as I got a certain other Tank Class, I completely forgot this one existed. Honestly kinda feels like Tanks got screwed over in 3. There's only a handful in comparison to these other Classes and only 2 of them feel useful...and feel fun to actually play.
I haven't really used this class at all but I think I'll give it a go as I really don't enjoy heavy guard because I just can't hold aggro. Your videos are now my 'go to' vids for Xenoblade, great job bro!
Gaudian Commander special because it doesn't strictly need to hold aggro to tank. As long as your attackers and healers don't get one-shot, you can take advantage of I'll Help and Protector's Pride to get more damage reduction and art recharge than if your GC was being attacked directly.
My one problem with this class is how hard it is to pull agro since it has no natural aggro boosting arts, but then I unlocked Lone Exile then I figured out how to make this class work as a backup tank until you Talent up
Hey can you elaborate on why Aerial Slash is stronger than Jackal Claw? They both have 400% multipliers, 5 recharge cooldow , physical, and grant a high crit rate. Whats the difference? You said the same thing about Hidden Thorn when Ground Beat has the same multiplier but a lower cooldown. I figured that it was due to bleed but now I'm completely confused. Did you do some testing on the crit rate grant and it was different? Anyone can answer but this is killing me
Master arts use the weapon stats of the classes they come from. So Aerial Slash is slightly stronger than Jackal Claw because Incursor has a higher attack stat than Martial Artist. I'm pretty sure this is only off of base stats (so you don't need to go equipping your characters in their master art classes), but someone can correct me if that's wrong
Another case of "the master arts/skills are more useful than actually running the class" most of the time, this time thanks to Shield Bash and Protector's Pride...
during a certain characters ascension quest i was required to go through a very high level area (though i was of an adequate level to be in that area safely anyway) but was having trouble surviving a few battles (literally both my healers were dying within 2 seconds of the fight starting) and was stuck, left to come back later but this time had a guardian commander as one of my tanks, the same thing happened to my healers but my dps lived a bit longer so i used them to kill as many enemies as possible before taking control of the GC and managed to solo the last 2 enemies in the battle with it (first one had about 15% hp left after everyone else died while the other had about 90%). It was nailbiting and painfully long but my setup allowed me to successfully get through that fight and complete the quest.
I like this setup but I really feel like using Capable Hands and being able to start the fight immediately with a taunt and then awakening seems very powerful and useful. I feel like that opening would keep aggro on you with no difficulty at all
THANK YOU FOR EXPLAINING WTF AWAKENING DOES!! Might seem obvious to you vets but this is my first real attempt at playing through XBC game and I could not figure this out for the life of me lol Btw, absolutely in love with this game, it's spectacular. Massively addictive in the best possible way. I haven't been this engaged with an RPG since Skyrim.
Iv been replaying Xc3 on ng+ after beating Future Redeemed. Any plans on an updated hero tier list with the dlc heroes and Shulk and Rex? Also anyone else notice how Ceratinia is a mix of Telephia and Titan from xc1 and 2?
@@ianluk6385 he has designs of Titans such as Gramps in his Titan form from XC2 with his grey shell like skin but also the lucent parts of him are Telephia in nature
@@fishnutz5196 I can kinda see the titan parts, but I really don't see the Telethia parts. But that's probably just me. If that was intended, that's super cool though
I remember barely beating the act 3 final boss on hard mode using this class as my only tank (using Lanz) while everyone had the "reduce cooldown when non-defenders hold aggro" as both a passive and an accessory. What made it so memorable was that he kept dying so much that the passive was pretty much active the whole fight, and I was still close to wiping and having to restart the fight. The only reason I was able to win was because Eunnie and Taion's ouroborous had a "revive all allies" skill, which I used at the very least second to bring everyone back up and finish the fight with everyone using a single art at the same time after reviving them all due to the
I feel they wanted to enforce more of a holy trinity this time around, and in both previous games one of the trinity got pushed out. In 1 your best attackers were also tanks, and in 2 healers were a suggestion.
@@DivineRainor especially considering if you build poppi right enemies will basically forget there's other party members in the first place Even blade nia's broken healing is kinda useless when you're tanks are built well
So, a few things. 1. Guardian Commander actually works best with 2 of them. This is because you can set one Guardian Commander to focus slightly more on Aggro. While the other focuses more on just straight attacking. The guarantee to block damage for a low health is at around the same amount as the auto heal damage. Meaning you can practically infinitely self-heal. The 2nd commander will block damage for a moment and the first will go back up to health and take damage again. Theoretically have the 2nds only source of awakening be the 1st buff passing to run an alternative damage-oriented art. 2. Armor veil might actually be stronger than healing for this class because I think it allows healing from the skill to work while letting damage be absorbed while this class is low health.
I also used Guardian Commander on Noah for most of my playthrough. The problem was that I used his special talent arts instead of Deflector Shield when awakening is the class' whole gimmick. It took until after beating the game (or near the end of it) for me to think "hmm... maybe I should be using awakening when two of my arts literally get a damage bonus from it..."
I actually tweeted this to you on twitter the other day but didn’t get a response (love the content) Because your block rate is so high would Rigid Support not be a good accessory for this class or is 10% art recharge not that good overall?
10% recharge to one art feels like a really minor effect in single enemy fights that don't attack that frequently, i could see it being great against multiple enemies though
@@EnelXC thanks for the reply! Yeah I kinda just figured that it would be good for holding aggro more than anything else since spamming more arts means more damage, means more aggro etc. But yeah. You're prob right. Wouldn't seem as effective vs 1 enemy
I agonized over my sixth class for so long until deciding that shulk using this class with his weeaboo mode was a nice mix of DPS and tank. Also spreading invincibility through the top agnus art on tank sword is very nice. I don't think I've ever lost aggro after popping that sword right off that bat, even 50% into the bosses health bar.
Honestly understand why this Class is under the Scrappy Trope, sure you can pass Awakening unlike Seraph but Deflector Field relies on the enemy actually hitting it, and Guardian Commander easily loses Aggro. Found Elgares Depths within the past two hours and was power leveling Classes using Attacker Unlimited Sword and when I found the level 80 Elite Moramas on the first floor it's issue with Tanking caused me to die
I find that having a seraph with resonant flag also really helps you maintain 100% awakening uptime, or just running mio (or whatever adjacent character to your tank you wanna play) on the usual signifier buff stuff nonsense for infinite awakening. Helps out this class a lot if you feel like still technically being vulnerable.
@@musoumiko4730 use seraphs talent art on GC so that you can use it with resonant flag, that talent art has really good damage and great aoe, combined with resonant flag feels great to use.
does anyone have any clue how to fully fill out the maps, I am pretty sure I have all locations, all landmarks and all secret areas, is anything else needed?
Ngl they should have called it “Garden commander”
the funniest thing I've read today
Lmfao
Lmao. Those that know, know.
Ngl coming from a family with farms as a livelihood.. His sidequest hits really hard..
Fuck Zeon's ascension quest
Honestly, the best part about unlocking Guardian was not being held hostage by Heavy Guard's topple art any more. Shield Bash being a master art as well as having an actually decent damage ratio makes Guardian so damn worthwhile on it's own.
I personally love pairing that up with Incurser’s break art so I can get straight to topple
@@regulusking4299 Wait, you can do that with fusion arts?
@@puneetkaranth6133 yeah, fusion arts technically just use the ability on the right first and then use the left one immediately after
@@redwes99 one thing to keep in mind though is you have to put the earlier combo art on the right side, because fusion arts prioritize class arts *then* master arts. So if you do incursor + guardian commander, you can't get break + topple in the same move, BUT if you do guardian commander + incursor, with shield bash as your master art, you *do* get the instant topple (assuming break isn't resisted like normal). This applies to ever step in the combo, so like launch class art with smash master art works wonders (keves dps stay winning)
@@redwes99 my favorite thing to do is have medic gunner with myopic screen into way home so it's daze burst in one art and even the ai can't fuck it up
>Another sword and shield class
>Another shield bash topple
Hugo, you continue to bless me with your aesthetic.
This truly is the culmination of years of Sovereignty. Bless you Hugo
Noah: I need you, Mio!
Zeon: I need you, Spongy Spuds!
Ah Yes The Chad Of Kevesi Command himself Zeon
looking forward to this guide
Topple Time!
For what it's worth, I think Noble Taunt is pretty mandatory until you get other Aggro arts from Agnus classes, since you can't hold aggro super well on Guardian by default, and you need something to get your talent art faster imo
Beat my first Superboss today, came down to the wire but Lanz on this class 1v1'd it for the last tick of its health, survivability is really good on the Guardian Commander!
While I know these guides tend to focus on controlling the class, Guardian Commander really shines as an off-tank to support a squishier defender like Lone Exile who will be (ideally) taking all the aggro. The I'll Help skill essentially extends the other defender's life bar, and in doing so the GC will be charging the talent gauge and using Deflector Field decently often as well. I think its defense field makes it the most useful defender for support without necessarily needing to hold aggro.
Agreed. Having the round start topple is also nice for combo coverage
I remember reading that the damage buff from Awakening is an independent multiplier, and will apply after whatever your chain attack damage bonus is.
If true it would make Awakening potentially more impactful than power charge for really high damage percent chain attacks.
Yeah, but it wears off after a few rounds even if you activate it right after getting the buff. Hmmm, if only we had a way to renew it while in chain attack
@@dinotaco4651 what if you pass it to your allies right before it wears off during the chain attack?
@@pondwithducks3092 I'll be honest. Despite using Signifer pretty frequently, I have no idea if that renews the timer on the caster
@@dinotaco4651 I haven't even unlocked signifer so I'm just guessing lol. would be cool though
Idea:
- team: 2 signifiers, ogre, 3 guardian commanders, Ashera
- everyone with capable hands, damage boosts against toppled enemies, and earrings that boost chain attack gauge build rate
-target enemy, but don't attack it
-set up buffs using cry of faith on both signifiers aswell as many aureole, resonate flag combos you can before having to engage
-swap to someone with glittering melody to pause all buffs
-swap to a guardian commander and use talent art, attacking to draw aggro and awaken to start fight
-use resonate flag asap to pass awakening to everyone
-switch to ogre with glittering melody to pause the effect along with any new signifier buffs
- break the enemy
-swap to guardian commander to topple
- hopefully chain attack is ready now and buffs are still paused.
-If buffs not still paused, swap to a character with glittering melody( everyome but the signifiers and one of the guardian commanders should have it equipped) and pause buffs
- initiate chain attack and proceed to destroy opponent with awakening boosted arts from all the guardian commanders
Think this has any merit/ is worthwhile?
I have an interesting story with this class.
I was exploring Dannagh Desert after beating the game and I lowered my level to make gaining class levels possible, but I had Zeon in my party at endgame level just as a form of insurance. It was a good thing I did, too.
I took on a squad of Keves soldiers that was 10 levels higher than me (I was playing on Easy difficulty), and they proceeded to wipe out everyone except Zeon. I then watched as Zeon, with his immense bulk and self-healing, soloed the remaining soldiers while at the brink of death. It was fun.
Sidenote: I was playing on Easy because I no longer cared about difficulty now that I had finished the main story, and I didn't want to start playing around with serious builds until I had everything maxed out or at least unlocked, especially since I would be switching to new classes regularly.
Zeon's a natural Paladin, I'm proud of him
the exaggerated swagger of a 100 block rate gaurdian commander.
I had a similar situation. The bird UM in Lower Maktha wiped my team and soloed the last 20% of its HP with just Noah.
Something similar happened to me! All my team out except Zeon, against 2 soldiers in hard and after like 15 mins he won... Amazing
The challenge mode DLC would’ve been the best way to unlock classes using Nopon stones. It was a pain in the ass when I reached the end of chapter 3 and maxed out every class and hero I had up until that point, wasting CP until the rest of the heroes became available
As someone who mains PLD in FFXIV, I love this class. I like the aesthetics of it.
Yooo same! Great taste
I think the Rigid Support accessory goes well with this class with the Brimming Spirit gem since it recharges a random skill each time you block getting them off cooldown faster so you can spam arts
A word of caution for rigid support: at the time you can acquire it at the beginning (extremely early), your block rate will not be high enough to make this viable. It is extremely good later on especially once second and third accessories unlock and your block rate gets higher.
@@jimmayus3211 I don't remember ever finding that accessory, where can you get it if I might ask?.
@@triggerpigking3741 It's the 90 silver nopon coin accessory
@@jimmayus3211 Thanks!, definitely picking that up when I get the chance.
Holy shit the Resonant Flag strat with the Awakened effect hyped me so hard liking a lot this class (and being the main class of my Lanz instead of his own XD), never thought about that, thx Enel
I think Seraph Noah is optimal for the invincibility cheese because of this interaction. He can self damage a little bit, then pass invincibility and awakening to Mio through Ouroboros form, and Mio can extend both and pass them to everyone, so everyone is invincible AND awakened for the whole fight.
I love that there’s like 5 defenders compared to the 20 healer and attackers lol
I like how Mind for Guarding is a gutted version of the Ultimate Shield skill from Xenoblade 2 but is still really good. Goes to show you just how much more important drawing aggro with Defenders is in this game versus the previous games.
That's because in this game its dang near essential to have Defenders, Attackers, and Healers, while in both 1 and 2, some characters designed to be an attacker were also good at defending or vice versa.
Actually a decent tank, I think it gets outclassed later in the game but it’s still pretty solid. Don’t hate this class at all.
I'm really not a fan of class' outfit tho T_T
Works well in the early and mid game
It's nice but once you get ashera & Monica they can do zeon's job better than even he can
Really? I found once I got the class early on, I had a hard time keeping Ggro, the damage early is laughable I found
I really like this class for burst material farming, especially when I am lowering my level to 5 lower than the unique named enemy I am fighting to drag on the fight as long as possible. It's very safe, and has a topple art early on in the battle just in case I need it. The one problem I found with Zepher or Lone Exile is that they can die, and when that happens other characters die, which causes Reaction art cooldowns to reset throughout the party - it just means I am farming a lot less materials and wasting time. So yeah, Guardian Commander it is. The class stays above 90% hp pretty much the entire time. Super safe. It's great to just tank the entire battle and pop 20+ burst combos, one after the other like clockwork. This class really helped with that.
At some point, I'd love to see a guide on how to 1) build the AI to be effective and 2) best ways to use character switching
I feel like the best part of awakening is shortening recharge times. Let's you spam your arts more, and get to more awakening procs, and this really just snowballs into a good tank when it works. Sadly it does not always work and is outclassed by agility tanks because of course it is
I wish Face Tanks got more love as opposed to Agility Tanks....
Quick Reference
Guardian Commander
Arts: 1:00
Imperial Sword/Aerial Slash
Falcon Swoop/Jackal Claw
Resonant Flag/Shield Bash
Skills: 4:57
Defensive Soul
Fighting Prowess
Ultimate Qigong
Gems: 7:21
Empowered Combo
Brimming Spirit
Steel Protection
Accessories: 8:46
Ceramic Belt/Boost Attack
Martis Rings/Boost Block Rate
Platinum Brooch/Boost Accuracy
I love the fact he also facetanks attacks from a consul in a cutcene and his name sounding like hes about to drop a space colony on me makes it even better, he might look kinda generic but he will always be one of the best wingheads along with melia
Potatinator Zeon would be proud, a wonderful guide as always!
My favorite part about GC is honestly just the fact that even without aggro they still help to tank, since if they hunker down next to the person with aggro they essentially become a health battery.
I actually like this class. Thanks Enel for another informative video.
I actually like this class a whole lot and was waiting for you to make a video on it.
My preferred tank, if i can just get to deflector field and awakening it's smooth sailing from there most times. I ran noble taunt early in the class to help gain aggro but then later when it's easier to get the aggro i swap it for imperial sword which was too slow to be worth using for me early in the game, under awakening it and falcon swoop charge faster.
If you use Capable Hands from Flash Fencer as one of your master skills, you can use Deflector Field immediately. Just get some aggro first.
So good to see another tank video, I've really struggled with keeping the aggro off my attackers in hard mode(especially Incursor) and I had no idea till this vid that awakening didn't work unless you already had aggro. Thanks for another great guide.
Zeon has hard-carried me through so many difficult fights and I can't not love it because of that. Also, I want the Guardian Commander jacket.
Enel's greatest fantasies are being completed as he highlights his enemy Tatsu's greatest nightmare
So, I don't think this was in the video at all, but based on my testing, Awakening is +40% damage dealt, about -30% damage taken (this could be inaccurate as enemy damage variance is pretty high and it's hard to measure accurately), +35% arts recharge speed, with some small margin of error. Applied by your talent art, it lasts about 18 seconds. If you increase the potency of the buff, the damage dealt and damage reduction get better, but the arts recharge speed is not affected.
Additionally, since it was not mentioned, Deflector Field also effectively reduces damage by 75% while active plus gives 100% block rate. What it actually does is, whenever you would take any damage (even DoTs) while using it, you heal 75% of that damage back at the same time. This means if you somehow took 10000 damage during it, you would survive and heal for 7500, but in practice you never see anything like this and it's basically just damage reduction. [Edit: actually, seems like it heals you for almost 12000 when Doom would instant kill you in the video.] Deflector field's cooldown also starts ticking at the START of the art, and since tanks passively generate about 0.8 talent gauge every seven seconds they have aggro plus some small amount per hit blocked/evaded, AND Awakening lowers the cooldown of Deflector Field itself, the cooldown will often be about 1/3 through by the time the art animation finishes, letting you chain Awakening continuously if you can hold aggro.
Hey did you know that Zeon’s voice actor was also in Resident Evil 8? He voiced Heisenberg, the guy who says BTCHHHH. Anyways, if you want a Colony 9er who won’t die of starvation, there’s always Mwamba!
In other words, this is Day #2 of pushing the Mwambagenda for a sharpshooter class guide.
It may be worth noting that the spike damage from Ultimate Counter does generate aggro.
Also I often misread the class as "Garden Commander" during the game. Then the ascension quest hits...
Clearly, you can see that Zeon's basic gear is missing one key item:
POTATOES!
An item that gives buffs that make Fiona and her flag (Signifer) look like a meme.
One super strong niche it has is that you can be absurdly aggressive both with and using this class, since it’s effect let’s the class take the damage instead so you can use something like full metal jaguar or seraph and be sorta mindlessly aggressive while it defends you at low HP
This is honestly just "the class that never dies"; since you're guaranteed a free Memory Locket from one of the fixed containers (I think it's on a Ferronis Hulk if I'm not misremembering?), popping it onto your Guardian Commander can make for good insurance in the early-mid game, so you're guaranteed _someone_ can revive even if your healers die to AoE.
Yes but only healers can revive so it's better on them
That way they can at least try to get the group back up
@@KudaGeatsune3821 The Memory Locket is the accessory that lets non-Healers revive allies.
Guardian Commander is cool. Using a sword and shield is pretty unique in Xenoblade games and I like it.
Thanks for the guides. I’ve been absolutely loving this game!!
On god, I was wondering earlier if there was a class guide for Guardian Commander. Lo and behold, uploaded _5 minutes ago,_ just the video I was thinking of!
I get depressed every time I think of this class because it reminds me of Hugo and his sacrifice.
Guardian Commander at the time you unlock it is actually so cracked. I'm doing a replay deliberately underleveled, and one of the consequences of that is your first chain attack is often to stabilize party threat. Lanz chain order + mio and maybe Zeon if you're running him basically solidly establishes threat on GC, and one he has threat he just perma cycles awakening and is a brick wall in a way that dodge tanks can't be until much later. My opinion of the job greatly improved after seeing it like this.
I thought this class was bad when I first got it, but it’s really come through for me lately. Potato commander is goated.
Some remarks from how I am using the Guardian Commander:
1. When Deflector Field is on you not only need to get hit, but you also need to actually take damage in order to gain Awakening. If you activate Deflector Field while standing in an Armor Veil field, you will not get Awakening. So you need to step out from this field before activating Guardian Commander's talent art.
2. Doesn't spreading Awakening to the rest of your party only make tanking harder? Especially if you have such aggro magnets in your team as a well-built Incursor, Seraph, or FMJ, because you will be increasing their DPS by not only increasing their damage but also art recharge rate, and tanks already have a hard time keeping aggro as it is.
3. You only have one AOE aggro-generating art set. For group tanking, I had Lone Vanguard's Mighty Beat and paired it with Falcon Swoop. Switching targets is slow, so added AOE aggro generation is helpful and Mighty Beat has a very short recharge of 3. If you are good at cancelling it will be available all the time and makes for a better opener: auto attack > Falcon Swoop > Shield Bash > Mighty Beat > Glow Ring* > Deflector Field; auto attack > fused attacker art + Imperial Sword
* since I don't use Resonant Flag, I have Glow Ring instead as a means to taunt (though it can fail, since it's a debuff, so I'm thinking of replacing it with something more reliable) or to make sure that your main target will stay on you as you activate Deflector Field. If nothing hits you, the Deflector Field was wasted.
4. Chaotic Memory is better than any accuracy-increasing accessories, as it makes it so attacks cancelled into cannot be blocked or evaded, so your arts will never miss if you are good at cancelling.
5. It may also be a good idea to replace Fighting Prowess with Flash Fencer's Capable Hands to be able to use Deflector Field much sooner in the fight to boost early aggro generation by delaying the use of Imperial Sword until after the first use of Deflector Field (see item 3 above).
6. I also used the Legendary Biter accessory, but I am honestly not sure how helpful it is. I thought it made regaining lost aggro easier when tanking groups of enemies (especially those level 95+ elite beastmen in the south-eastern cave in Cadensia).
For me, I feel like this class really shines best for an AI controlled defender, or as a backup defender for someone like a Zephyr who can die pretty easily if they can't evade enough, which is saying alot considering evasion tanks usually reign supreme. They're a pretty safe choice if you don't want to play the defender, since evasion arts require timing the AI doesn't always get
The survivability on this class is incredible, I once had my whole team die to two elites except my guardian commander noah who just survived the entire fight and beat them both
The skill that regenerates hp helped a lot and I also had the lone exile skill that reduces damage taken at low hp, on top of that because he was alone, his talent art recharged omega fast which frequently gave me another safety net because you can't die in the middle of a talent art animation (on top of the other defensive bonuses this art gives of course)
Great video enel keep it up watching this while on my lunch break
Loving all the class guides and informational stuff as usual, Enel! You were my saving grace in XC2, and when replaying through XC1 for the remake lol
Was wondering if you had any plans for stuff like... team composition guides, or guides for specific setups and stuff like that, that involve more of the party than just a single class? Would be neat to see how you put things together when looking at the bigger picture.
The best part of the Zeon quest is when Kite swoons for that there they / them cat agnussy.
It's really funny that a hard nose like Kite has a thing for cat girls
@@Xenohaste Dont we all
The best part of the guardian commander quest is how this man talks like Gordon Ramsey 😭
One change that I think is worth noting is swapping the Defensive Soul skill for Dynamite Spirit and swapping the Platinum Brooch for a Titanium Temple Guard. This can help get aggro a bit easier, and I find the class stays above 90% hp without much effort anyway, at least on normal difficulty.
I do enjoy Guardian Commander being able to set up a bunch of combo stuff on their own; for what its worth.
Please keep going. Waiting on you to do the other classes!
Uno it’s rly cool how quick you keep pumping out these guide videos- literally I’ll watch a video, play some Xenoblade 3, have dinner, and there’s another one out 😂😂
This game doesn’t have enough tank classes and way to many attackers
There's only so many tank archetypes though, and this game already has two dodge tanks and three meatshields.
Just wanted to pop in and say thanks for the guides! They also give the added benefit to a small minority of us who play completely in Japanese to learn what everyone is called in English.
Poor Heavy Guard, I had high expectations for Lanz base class and was severely disappointed
Indeed! he's been surpassed
Why is there two of you
I pretty much viewed this as an attacker class in disguise for the longest time because I have the hardest time generating aggro on this class if there are any other defenders in the party (I have the same trouble with Monica’s class making it hard to take advantage of the high block rates these 2 offer). I’ll have to try speccing out like this with the incursor/martial arts masters since they always pull aggro
Inititally, I thought this class was a bit underwhelming. And then I used Deflector Field. And then Imperial Sword. And then Falcon Swoop and oh my god I have Deflector Field up again this class is ridiculous. Sadly, your damage classes start outpacing it by the tail end of the game, but that initial joy of getting drunk on awakening is unforgettable.
Still waiting on a guide for the best character of all time, Mwamba!
Honestly the talent art on this class is pretty bonkers. It's crazy how much utility that move has
Ah yes, the Class that I only used because I saw that Master Topple Art. As soon as I got a certain other Tank Class, I completely forgot this one existed. Honestly kinda feels like Tanks got screwed over in 3. There's only a handful in comparison to these other Classes and only 2 of them feel useful...and feel fun to actually play.
Hey hey! Thank you kindly, internet person!
Now to slink back into the lurker shadows for 6 or 7 class videos.
The finally-a-topple-art class.
Damn impressive! You make it look so easy!
Potato BOY!
I love the Potato Boy class!
I haven't really used this class at all but I think I'll give it a go as I really don't enjoy heavy guard because I just can't hold aggro. Your videos are now my 'go to' vids for Xenoblade, great job bro!
Gaudian Commander special because it doesn't strictly need to hold aggro to tank. As long as your attackers and healers don't get one-shot, you can take advantage of I'll Help and Protector's Pride to get more damage reduction and art recharge than if your GC was being attacked directly.
My one problem with this class is how hard it is to pull agro since it has no natural aggro boosting arts, but then I unlocked Lone Exile then I figured out how to make this class work as a backup tank until you Talent up
Since pre release footage , I can't help but laugh at the rakings of the class "CACA" (Spanish for sh*t)
Hey can you elaborate on why Aerial Slash is stronger than Jackal Claw? They both have 400% multipliers, 5 recharge cooldow , physical, and grant a high crit rate. Whats the difference? You said the same thing about Hidden Thorn when Ground Beat has the same multiplier but a lower cooldown. I figured that it was due to bleed but now I'm completely confused. Did you do some testing on the crit rate grant and it was different? Anyone can answer but this is killing me
Master arts use the weapon stats of the classes they come from. So Aerial Slash is slightly stronger than Jackal Claw because Incursor has a higher attack stat than Martial Artist.
I'm pretty sure this is only off of base stats (so you don't need to go equipping your characters in their master art classes), but someone can correct me if that's wrong
@@dinotaco4651 i completely forgot about that tidbit. I knew it used the weapon, so ether vs physical, etc, but the weapon stat swap slipped my mind.
When I saw this class for the first time, all I thought of in my head was Link from The Legend of Zelda.
Underrated hero in my opinion
Another case of "the master arts/skills are more useful than actually running the class" most of the time, this time thanks to Shield Bash and Protector's Pride...
Petition to change guardian commander into potato commander. Spuds can go a long way.
during a certain characters ascension quest i was required to go through a very high level area (though i was of an adequate level to be in that area safely anyway) but was having trouble surviving a few battles (literally both my healers were dying within 2 seconds of the fight starting) and was stuck, left to come back later but this time had a guardian commander as one of my tanks, the same thing happened to my healers but my dps lived a bit longer so i used them to kill as many enemies as possible before taking control of the GC and managed to solo the last 2 enemies in the battle with it (first one had about 15% hp left after everyone else died while the other had about 90%). It was nailbiting and painfully long but my setup allowed me to successfully get through that fight and complete the quest.
I like running the skill that counters when you guard on this job, works great and honestly seems made for it.
I like this setup but I really feel like using Capable Hands and being able to start the fight immediately with a taunt and then awakening seems very powerful and useful. I feel like that opening would keep aggro on you with no difficulty at all
Exactly. This is what I do in my GC build.
Welcome to Colony 9: Where we turn spuds into studs.
THANK YOU FOR EXPLAINING WTF AWAKENING DOES!!
Might seem obvious to you vets but this is my first real attempt at playing through XBC game and I could not figure this out for the life of me lol
Btw, absolutely in love with this game, it's spectacular. Massively addictive in the best possible way. I haven't been this engaged with an RPG since Skyrim.
Enel may not be a guardian but he certainly commands the helm of all handsomeness
i would rely like to see a troubadour video scenic you say you use one as you second healer and id like to see how.
is there any plan to eventually look at how to prioritize progress along soul trees for interlink and good setups to use them?
I'll probably have a guide on ouroboros stuff soonish, it's in my plans atleast
Thought: instead of physical defense up skill why not take the flash fencer one that lets you start with your talent art charged?
I love putting an Evasion Art on Imperial Sword because the animation is so long, might as well make it a whole invincible frame.
Absolutely! It's THE art to be fused with something that gives guaranteed evasion.
Iv been replaying Xc3 on ng+ after beating Future Redeemed. Any plans on an updated hero tier list with the dlc heroes and Shulk and Rex? Also anyone else notice how Ceratinia is a mix of Telephia and Titan from xc1 and 2?
A mix of Telethia and Titans? You're gonna have to explain, because I don't see it.
@@ianluk6385 he has designs of Titans such as Gramps in his Titan form from XC2 with his grey shell like skin but also the lucent parts of him are Telephia in nature
@@fishnutz5196 I can kinda see the titan parts, but I really don't see the Telethia parts. But that's probably just me. If that was intended, that's super cool though
I remember barely beating the act 3 final boss on hard mode using this class as my only tank (using Lanz) while everyone had the "reduce cooldown when non-defenders hold aggro" as both a passive and an accessory.
What made it so memorable was that he kept dying so much that the passive was pretty much active the whole fight, and I was still close to wiping and having to restart the fight. The only reason I was able to win was because Eunnie and Taion's ouroborous had a "revive all allies" skill, which I used at the very least second to bring everyone back up and finish the fight with everyone using a single art at the same time after reviving them all due to the
I actually like this class. Such a shame it’s kind of mid. Heck, I feel Defenders are wasted potential in this game.
They made healers really good and so a finger on the a finger on the monkey’s paw curled and we got mid defenders this time around
I feel they wanted to enforce more of a holy trinity this time around, and in both previous games one of the trinity got pushed out. In 1 your best attackers were also tanks, and in 2 healers were a suggestion.
@@DivineRainor especially considering if you build poppi right enemies will basically forget there's other party members in the first place
Even blade nia's broken healing is kinda useless when you're tanks are built well
So, a few things. 1. Guardian Commander actually works best with 2 of them. This is because you can set one Guardian Commander to focus slightly more on Aggro. While the other focuses more on just straight attacking. The guarantee to block damage for a low health is at around the same amount as the auto heal damage. Meaning you can practically infinitely self-heal. The 2nd commander will block damage for a moment and the first will go back up to health and take damage again. Theoretically have the 2nds only source of awakening be the 1st buff passing to run an alternative damage-oriented art. 2. Armor veil might actually be stronger than healing for this class because I think it allows healing from the skill to work while letting damage be absorbed while this class is low health.
I saw resonant flag and I instantly new what insanity this build would do
I also used Guardian Commander on Noah for most of my playthrough. The problem was that I used his special talent arts instead of Deflector Shield when awakening is the class' whole gimmick. It took until after beating the game (or near the end of it) for me to think "hmm... maybe I should be using awakening when two of my arts literally get a damage bonus from it..."
Cool jacket, shield bash, and potatoes. What's not to love?
It always sucks when you realize mid chain attack that you're missing part of your combo, lol
I actually tweeted this to you on twitter the other day but didn’t get a response (love the content)
Because your block rate is so high would Rigid Support not be a good accessory for this class or is 10% art recharge not that good overall?
10% recharge to one art feels like a really minor effect in single enemy fights that don't attack that frequently, i could see it being great against multiple enemies though
@@EnelXC thanks for the reply! Yeah I kinda just figured that it would be good for holding aggro more than anything else since spamming more arts means more damage, means more aggro etc. But yeah. You're prob right. Wouldn't seem as effective vs 1 enemy
I agonized over my sixth class for so long until deciding that shulk using this class with his weeaboo mode was a nice mix of DPS and tank. Also spreading invincibility through the top agnus art on tank sword is very nice. I don't think I've ever lost aggro after popping that sword right off that bat, even 50% into the bosses health bar.
his tiny lil wings are kinda cute
Honestly understand why this Class is under the Scrappy Trope, sure you can pass Awakening unlike Seraph but Deflector Field relies on the enemy actually hitting it, and Guardian Commander easily loses Aggro. Found Elgares Depths within the past two hours and was power leveling Classes using Attacker Unlimited Sword and when I found the level 80 Elite Moramas on the first floor it's issue with Tanking caused me to die
I find that having a seraph with resonant flag also really helps you maintain 100% awakening uptime, or just running mio (or whatever adjacent character to your tank you wanna play) on the usual signifier buff stuff nonsense for infinite awakening. Helps out this class a lot if you feel like still technically being vulnerable.
you cant have a seraph with resonant flag...
.............TRUE idk why I thought of that, I must have just been getting it mixed with signifier
@@musoumiko4730 use seraphs talent art on GC so that you can use it with resonant flag, that talent art has really good damage and great aoe, combined with resonant flag feels great to use.
How do you pull up the overview of the interlink levels of all three pairs? I can't find an answer to that :)
does anyone have any clue how to fully fill out the maps, I am pretty sure I have all locations, all landmarks and all secret areas, is anything else needed?
It is definitely a pretty decent tank yeah it's probably in like top 3 arguably 4 tanks easy (ignore that there are only like 6? Tanks)
Good guide, as always.
If I was setting up this class for AI control, would you think Flamelord or the smash art (forget the name) would work well instead of Resonant Flag?
Probably yeah.