Am I playing this game wrong somehow? Just beat Xord in the mines

It gets a lot easier when you move on in the game. Sharla is garbage and should not be used. once you get some better characters, use them, and make sure you utilize chain attacks and actually chain the colors for the damage multiplier. Spoilers below, so view at your own risk.

Melia is the best character, a team of you playing as her, with Shulk and Reyn, should beat every battle. She can force a topple on any enemy, including flying enemies, and she gets passive buffs depending on what element is used.
I reccomend keeping a water and earth element on her and using the bolts to attack. This makes her unstoppable basically, as long as Reyn draws the aggro. Also, Shulk, Dunban, and Fiora is a great team for good DPS. I beat the final bnoss with that team, while severely underleveled.

>>387715739
Forgot to add, gems help out a lot more than the game lets on. make sure you have good gems on your gear.

>>387715739

So just say "fuck it" to healing and go full DPS?

>>387715916

In a game where nearly everyone has a form of healing, as well as near instant healing outside of battle, a dedicated healer is a complete waste.

While you can beat the game with every party combination, any party with Sharla is just awful and makes the game less fun.

>>387716087
This
>>387715916
The goal it to kill enemies before they can do serious damage. And, no offense, but if you're having trouble with random mobs, you need to train up more, or just git gud at the combat. Utilize topple/daze and chain attacks to keep enemies from attacking and do more damage. Shulk's vision skills should keep enemies from doing too much damage with talent arts. This is probably my favorite game, and I know the beginning is a slog, but if you stick with it, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

>>387715916
Pretty much, most fights shouldn't really last long enough for you to need healing.
You probably will want to play with Sharla and Reyn together some just to build up their relationship for the banter, but you can do that vs trash.
Shulk, Dunban, Reyn makes for a rather ridiculously ruinous party.
Oh and don't underestimate Riki, he's not just some cute mascot.

Healing tech is ba in this game, just FYI. Focus on DPS. Use all the free healing methods instead, or just finish the fight before you need it. Spend skillpoints on the stuff that heals when you do the little QTEs.

I don't know what you mean by around "average", but even being only 3 levels below the enemy means you will miss almost every attack and die.

Reyn is good, but party AI is pretty hit or miss in this game. If you are playing as Reyn you might pull better, but if you are playing Shulk you will definitely be doing enough damage to pull everyone regardless. One thing i can think of is make sure he has the moves equipped that refill his talent gauge so he can do more pulling.


It really comes down to your party, though. Sharla. Your main problem is that Sharla is absolute garbage. You should have Dunban or be getting him around this point, right? He's so good he's broken.
Dunban is another tank, except he actually has good DPS. His auras pull aggro, and they also boost his evasion. Give him the highest Agility possible and watch him never get hit. You can actually beat whole crowds of enemies playing as him solo.

Tension is what you need, so you can spam Tri-Attack to heal the party and do massive damage. Sharla is the worst at building tension in the entire game.
If you have Reyn and Dunban in your party they will pull all the aggro together while Shulk can fuck everything up.

>>387715739
>Shulk and Reyn
>not Dunban and Riki
Playing as Melia is great though, I don't even like playing as anyone else after getting used to her. Don't ever use her unless you're playing as her, though. Her AI is awful.

>>387714289
>>387715916

Around where you are now is when the combat started to get fun for me, specifically after getting the new character and being able to replace Sharla. Be sure to explore your options a lot - you can do a lot of varied and interesting setups if you use the correct skills and skill links. Keep in mind it's not like Sharla is useless, but she's more of a crutch character you can use if you're struggling with a fight with a LOT of incoming damage.

>>387716360

I'm not really having trouble as in I'm dying a lot. It just seems like every encounter goes like this.

>battle starts
>Reyn grabs aggro
>Five seconds later Reyn loses aggro because I'm hitting enemies with Arts with Shulk

Another tip is Agility Gems are broken. Max out everyone's agility.

>>387716556
I never got into using Riki. I'm playing again and considering trying him out. What are some good setups with him?

I would use him a lot more if his voice weren't so fucking annoying

I have never seen a more worse combat system in a game yet.
It's made me put off the game for months, still refuse to read spoilers because I might still finish it one day

>>387716820
have him stack bleed and other debuffs, then he can use his move that removes them all in exchange for massive bonus damage.
IIRC he also has instant topple move so that's a no brainer.

He has the highest health so I don't really think there's a wrong way to use hm.

>>387717068
He also has a party heal which is nice

>>387714289
>>387715739
m8 I got through my entire first playthrough with Shulk-Reyn-Sharla. Not saying you should, but it's easily doable. The only place I started to have problems was endgame.

That being said, pretty much every character and every party setup is viable with a little adjustment. The last character you get is kind of a wildcard as far as party role and I made them a speedtank that just dodged everything while still being able to deal damage. The "mage" character is also OP as fuck as long as you're controlling them, the AI sucks ass.

>>387716492
Reyn can do retarded damage if the player is controlling him
I really do wish the party AI was better, it's the only problem with Xenoblade.

>>387718152
Everyone is pretty good if you're controlling them. The AI in this game is severely retarded though. Melia Is the worst if you're not using them. Also, the AI always gets Shulk's directional attacks wrong.

>>387716820
Say Sorry is the single most satisfying move in the game, is fantastic for longer boss fights.

Hero Time, Happy Happy, Lurgy, Burninate, Freezinate, You Can Do It, Behave,
Say Sorry.

my only gripe with this game is that it was too easy,literally have to skip normal enemies otherwise you get 2 levels above the bosses and it turns almost impossible to die

>>387718465
I think they tuned up the AI for her a bit in the 3DS release.
Generally in the second half of the game you'll want to control her most of the time.
Switching out with Shulk and Riki vs certain bosses.

>>387718968
Emulating it with a cheat code to cut EXP gains from all sources in half makes it pretty much perfect

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>tfw went through almost the entire game as Shulk/Riki/Sharla but got stuck at the Heart of Bionis boss at level 70 and watched a playthrough for the rest
>hated the combat
>tfw reading this thread
did i fuck up?

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17KB, 372x260px

>>387720606
>Losing to Bionis Heart when you have Riki's spells (plus Sharla's shitting Lightning shot)

>>387720606
yes
you're supposed to do everything you can for tension and DPS so you can spam endless chain attacks. Combo the enemies to death while they can't do shit and then negating their move with a vision whenever they try to fuck you up is all the fun in this game. Without tension you can't do either.

>>387720606
Pick Melia for that, her AoE lets you take out the 4 recurring mooks easily meaning you can just focus, or if you're a high enough level dance around the mooks for chain up if thy only do physical attacks

>>387716727
This, armorless Dunban + that skill that boosts agility when naked + the best Agility gems you can get at whatever point you are in the game makes him absolutely untouchable until pretty much endgame.