The funny thing is, I've actually been fighting this exact frog boss at level 15 and having trouble finding any way to approach the encounter that makes sense or is even satisfying as a game, which made me seek out this video. I know I can beat it by unlocking more mechanics or gaining a level or two, that's not the problem, it's that I don't know how the game is supposed to work. I know the combat mechanics, I don't know what I'm meant to be doing with them and how it's meant to be interesting or engaging. I'm glad you mentioned that this gave you a kind of satisfaction that you got from World of Warcraft, because Xenoblade 1 seemed like a very watered down version of that kind of combat. The encounter design and character rotations were not designed to the quality of Warcraft, but it was mostly entertaining enough to sustain a single player game. Now I'm here in Xenoblade 3 and hoping for something that has a similar kind of tactical party combat that Wow does. So far, I'm having trouble seeing what the design intent of this game is. The individual character rotations aren't coherent or developed enough to play solely as a single character, and the game seems to constantly fight against trying to play it more as a party management experience the way you might in something like Dragon Age 3 or Baldur's Gate 3. The biggest issue being that you can't assign positions for your team members -- for example, it gives you buff fields that you can put down, but attackers spread out and at best only one will benefit, if you make them stand in it manually. Healing is based on short-ranged PBAoEs and fields, incentivizing healers to stand with the tanks, but you would awkwardly have to shuffle them out out frontal attacks constantly. Since so much power exists in these ground-placed fields, it seems the game wants you to stack your party except for positional moves, but the AI will fight against you doing that. Attacks like the frog's Sumo Slam come out so fast that you can't move out of them, so it seems to want you to use a solo character's evade art rather than play around encounter mechanics. Every character besides the one you used evade with will take huge damage, but then to heal them you'd need to either stack them or run around healing one at a time. So you have a squad of seven thinly-realized individual character skill kits that also heavily resists being wielded effectively in concert. So it seems neither satisfying to play a solo character nor to derive enjoyment from coordinating a full team - the mechanics are all self-contradictory, and the individual character AI will do something counterproductive to any plan the moment you switch away. I'm sure I'm just not getting how this is meant to be played. I've gotten Cutting Edge in Warcraft a number of times but I don't expect Xenoblade 3 to be exactly like that, I'd just like to understand how to derive the same enjoyment others have. I feel like there's something potentially cool here, but it's not coming together for me yet.
The first fight against Moebius is super hard (the one with Mysterious Enemy), you have very limited options and even though the Agnians are there attacking they don't seem to do much, and they don't revive or get aggro, the only way I was able to beat it was being level 11, I tried for around 1 hour or so by being level 10 and it might be possible with good RNG, but I still barely won at level 11
the problem I'm having with the superposses - hard mode - (just starting with the one in Feronis), is that at some point in the middle of the fight he just starts jumping and kills everybody in the party except the tanks (and sometimes does that 3 times in a row killing everybody) ...... the only thing I can improve now are the gems which I have around level 6/8. Bottom line, while agro is usually focused on the tanks in means little when the attacks just reach the whole party.
@@RastovYT I use 2 signifiers with Eunie & Taion, als hero I use 1 extra healer (the one of the post game), 1 agility tank with Mio (her default class), 1 tank with Lanz (also his default class), 1 crit based attacker with noah (incursor), and 1 break based ogre with Sena. To be fair, I've generally had very good results with this set-up & have managed maybe to drain 70% of the health of that Superboss. Another important details I'm level 98 & not all classes are level 20, about half of them are 20 and the other half about 15. Don't know if that makes a huge difference. Have you had any situation in which the enemy just attacks the whole party? Great vid by the way. EDIT: I'v read somewhere else that I should attempt burst based combos to remove the enraged state of those bosses to try to avoid them going crazy, as there is little to do after they start smacking everybody left and right. I'm not sure about that and I haven't tested it but it doesn't sound crazy.
@@tony_0088 Okay, I wouldnt use 2 signifiers, 1 definitely. Either a War Medic or a... whatever Isurds healer class is lol. Zephyr is great, Heavy Guard is not great as its very slow. Zeons Commander class or even a Tank based Soul Hacker is really good. Damage Incursor is great, Seraph is great, Ogre is also great. Just whatever you like really. If you are gonna use Heavy Guard putting the item that lets non healers revive is a good idea because he will hardly ever hold aggro compared to Zephyr. Hope this helps if I think of anything else when I get home from work ill reply again. Using burst is a good idea as well like you said. That Enrage can be brutal. Honestly ive not noticed a huge difference between 15 and 20. It does help a little. You can always stack a bit of health through accessories and gems if you want to. Itll probably die a little slower but if it keeps you alive. The item that survives a hit on 1hp for healers saved me so much.
You have to set your party up to evade the move or combo them. Signifer and Orge should be a must in your party. Also of there a moves that you want to avoid and cant then just use the Oroboros forms
I know that this video is old and came out soon after XC3's release, but you're pretty heavily overating the "Steady Striker" it can be good for sure, (just as you said) but there are usually better gem options. For example, even on an agnian healer, you might not even want steady striker equipped. This is because Lifesaving Expertise & the other acessory that's just like it (forgot the name) are pretty much mandatory on every healer, besides signifer, because of how broken swelling and refined blessing are... Speaking on signifer more, it's an extreme case of the point i'm tryna make. This is because of the aforementioned swelling and refined blessing gems, as well as the 2 other healer gems i mentioned. All 4 of these gems are incredibly useful for signifer, but you can only have 3 gems equipped at a time. Thus, you have to pick between the 4, which leaves NO room AT ALL for steady striker. (Btw, usually you'd want to use Lifesaving Expertise, and then Refined & Swelling Blessing as your gems on signifer, as granting more HP to revived allies is not QUITE as important as the other gems.) Pretty great video otherwise, especially considering when it was created!
I get the need to use evasion arts effectively but I just can't see them coming. The art window is VERY tight and the notice of what art is coming out is displayed at the very top where the monster's name is which is too high for me with all of the lines, numbers, particle effects and everything else on screen. Is there a way to make the art names more obvious like Xenoblade 1 DE?
Yeah I 100% get what you mean its a bit tricky and for the first half of the game I had to die a bit to really get used to them. After a while I started getting a bit of a 6th sense when they hadnt used one for a while and started getting ready for something so I could snap hit the button. Practicing Art Cancelling helps a lot as well cause you get used to what part of the animation you can cancel at. More obvious arts would be amazing, I don't think we have anything like that right now.
If you still are in need of any tips, you can try and do what I did to start with. I practiced the evasion timing with Dreadwyrm Nizoont (or the Umber Drague enemy that appears in chapter 4, if you're early game), since it has a huge telegraph for its attacks. Once I got the hang of it from Nizoont, I moved on to try it on other superbosses, like Perilwing. I never tried it with the damn Grandeps though, I hate its guts lol. Oh, and you can always try fusion arts, like Variable Turret plus an evasion master art, for a large evasion window. But that might not be too viable for later enemies.
I just put the game on easy because the combat is jank. How are you going to have a healer and tank dynamic when your heals are garbage and your tanks die so easy? I just want to play for the story anyway.
The funny thing is, I've actually been fighting this exact frog boss at level 15 and having trouble finding any way to approach the encounter that makes sense or is even satisfying as a game, which made me seek out this video. I know I can beat it by unlocking more mechanics or gaining a level or two, that's not the problem, it's that I don't know how the game is supposed to work. I know the combat mechanics, I don't know what I'm meant to be doing with them and how it's meant to be interesting or engaging.
I'm glad you mentioned that this gave you a kind of satisfaction that you got from World of Warcraft, because Xenoblade 1 seemed like a very watered down version of that kind of combat. The encounter design and character rotations were not designed to the quality of Warcraft, but it was mostly entertaining enough to sustain a single player game. Now I'm here in Xenoblade 3 and hoping for something that has a similar kind of tactical party combat that Wow does.
So far, I'm having trouble seeing what the design intent of this game is. The individual character rotations aren't coherent or developed enough to play solely as a single character, and the game seems to constantly fight against trying to play it more as a party management experience the way you might in something like Dragon Age 3 or Baldur's Gate 3. The biggest issue being that you can't assign positions for your team members -- for example, it gives you buff fields that you can put down, but attackers spread out and at best only one will benefit, if you make them stand in it manually. Healing is based on short-ranged PBAoEs and fields, incentivizing healers to stand with the tanks, but you would awkwardly have to shuffle them out out frontal attacks constantly.
Since so much power exists in these ground-placed fields, it seems the game wants you to stack your party except for positional moves, but the AI will fight against you doing that. Attacks like the frog's Sumo Slam come out so fast that you can't move out of them, so it seems to want you to use a solo character's evade art rather than play around encounter mechanics. Every character besides the one you used evade with will take huge damage, but then to heal them you'd need to either stack them or run around healing one at a time. So you have a squad of seven thinly-realized individual character skill kits that also heavily resists being wielded effectively in concert.
So it seems neither satisfying to play a solo character nor to derive enjoyment from coordinating a full team - the mechanics are all self-contradictory, and the individual character AI will do something counterproductive to any plan the moment you switch away. I'm sure I'm just not getting how this is meant to be played. I've gotten Cutting Edge in Warcraft a number of times but I don't expect Xenoblade 3 to be exactly like that, I'd just like to understand how to derive the same enjoyment others have. I feel like there's something potentially cool here, but it's not coming together for me yet.
The first fight against Moebius is super hard (the one with Mysterious Enemy), you have very limited options and even though the Agnians are there attacking they don't seem to do much, and they don't revive or get aggro, the only way I was able to beat it was being level 11, I tried for around 1 hour or so by being level 10 and it might be possible with good RNG, but I still barely won at level 11
the problem I'm having with the superposses - hard mode - (just starting with the one in Feronis), is that at some point in the middle of the fight he just starts jumping and kills everybody in the party except the tanks (and sometimes does that 3 times in a row killing everybody) ...... the only thing I can improve now are the gems which I have around level 6/8. Bottom line, while agro is usually focused on the tanks in means little when the attacks just reach the whole party.
Hmmmm... what classes and hero are you using?
@@RastovYT I use 2 signifiers with Eunie & Taion, als hero I use 1 extra healer (the one of the post game), 1 agility tank with Mio (her default class), 1 tank with Lanz (also his default class), 1 crit based attacker with noah (incursor), and 1 break based ogre with Sena.
To be fair, I've generally had very good results with this set-up & have managed maybe to drain 70% of the health of that Superboss.
Another important details I'm level 98 & not all classes are level 20, about half of them are 20 and the other half about 15. Don't know if that makes a huge difference.
Have you had any situation in which the enemy just attacks the whole party?
Great vid by the way.
EDIT: I'v read somewhere else that I should attempt burst based combos to remove the enraged state of those bosses to try to avoid them going crazy, as there is little to do after they start smacking everybody left and right. I'm not sure about that and I haven't tested it but it doesn't sound crazy.
@@tony_0088 Okay, I wouldnt use 2 signifiers, 1 definitely. Either a War Medic or a... whatever Isurds healer class is lol. Zephyr is great, Heavy Guard is not great as its very slow. Zeons Commander class or even a Tank based Soul Hacker is really good. Damage Incursor is great, Seraph is great, Ogre is also great. Just whatever you like really. If you are gonna use Heavy Guard putting the item that lets non healers revive is a good idea because he will hardly ever hold aggro compared to Zephyr. Hope this helps if I think of anything else when I get home from work ill reply again.
Using burst is a good idea as well like you said. That Enrage can be brutal. Honestly ive not noticed a huge difference between 15 and 20. It does help a little. You can always stack a bit of health through accessories and gems if you want to. Itll probably die a little slower but if it keeps you alive. The item that survives a hit on 1hp for healers saved me so much.
You have to set your party up to evade the move or combo them. Signifer and Orge should be a must in your party. Also of there a moves that you want to avoid and cant then just use the Oroboros forms
I know that this video is old and came out soon after XC3's release, but you're pretty heavily overating the "Steady Striker" it can be good for sure, (just as you said) but there are usually better gem options. For example, even on an agnian healer, you might not even want steady striker equipped. This is because Lifesaving Expertise & the other acessory that's just like it (forgot the name) are pretty much mandatory on every healer, besides signifer, because of how broken swelling and refined blessing are...
Speaking on signifer more, it's an extreme case of the point i'm tryna make. This is because of the aforementioned swelling and refined blessing gems, as well as the 2 other healer gems i mentioned. All 4 of these gems are incredibly useful for signifer, but you can only have 3 gems equipped at a time. Thus, you have to pick between the 4, which leaves NO room AT ALL for steady striker. (Btw, usually you'd want to use Lifesaving Expertise, and then Refined & Swelling Blessing as your gems on signifer, as granting more HP to revived allies is not QUITE as important as the other gems.)
Pretty great video otherwise, especially considering when it was created!
I love a well thought out and valid comment, it definitely made me reconsider using it again when I next go back to the game. Cheers!
@@RastovYT You're welcome! I'm glad i could help you understand the effectiveness of the gem better.
Just a big tip here:
More damage = more aggro
Using aggro boosting on the tanks is useless compared to boosting damage to gain more aggro.
A little long in the tooth but well done mate. Thanks for the tips!
Thanks I appreciate the feedback. I didnt expect it to wind up being so long. Definitely a learning for me but I'm glad you liked it!
I get the need to use evasion arts effectively but I just can't see them coming. The art window is VERY tight and the notice of what art is coming out is displayed at the very top where the monster's name is which is too high for me with all of the lines, numbers, particle effects and everything else on screen. Is there a way to make the art names more obvious like Xenoblade 1 DE?
Yeah I 100% get what you mean its a bit tricky and for the first half of the game I had to die a bit to really get used to them. After a while I started getting a bit of a 6th sense when they hadnt used one for a while and started getting ready for something so I could snap hit the button. Practicing Art Cancelling helps a lot as well cause you get used to what part of the animation you can cancel at. More obvious arts would be amazing, I don't think we have anything like that right now.
If you still are in need of any tips, you can try and do what I did to start with. I practiced the evasion timing with Dreadwyrm Nizoont (or the Umber Drague enemy that appears in chapter 4, if you're early game), since it has a huge telegraph for its attacks.
Once I got the hang of it from Nizoont, I moved on to try it on other superbosses, like Perilwing. I never tried it with the damn Grandeps though, I hate its guts lol.
Oh, and you can always try fusion arts, like Variable Turret plus an evasion master art, for a large evasion window. But that might not be too viable for later enemies.
@@GamingFreakShow1991 those are some brilliant tips and a really great way to practice as well. Thanks for sharing.
I don’t have the interlink option?
It unlocks after you get the agnian ouroboros forms
Yup thats right. I should have been more specific in the video.
I just put the game on easy because the combat is jank. How are you going to have a healer and tank dynamic when your heals are garbage and your tanks die so easy? I just want to play for the story anyway.