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[The Awesomest]

OK I ran into another wall. Party at level 51, Shulk-Dunban-Sharla. Shulk is in this party because the place I'm in is full of Mechon.

Spoiler

I've made my way into Galahad Fortress, but I need a lift key, which, apparently, is in a room full of Supply Mechon. Like, 6 of them. And the one who has the key, the Sentinel fellow, is a couple levels above me and is ignoring me completely. Do I just muscle my way through this one too or is there a more prudent strategy?

Hmm didn't notice your first post or I'd offered some advice, specifically have you been using the lure function? In that specific scenario I cleared out the room before the 2 unique mobs and then just used lure to pull the guy who dropped the magma stone into the previous hallway and fought him there.

Lure is pretty much key for a lot of the higher populated areas imo.

Oh, no doubt. I never thought to bother with the smaller guys though. I had been luring the Moonlight guy into the tunnel where he kept destroying me, and the other guy was too big to lure into the tunnel. He kept turning away.

I killed that unique elemental at lvl 47. He's a bitch, but definitely doable.

Spoiler

Did it with Melia/Shulk/Riki. Melia has the best ether attacks and Riki has some ether DOTs. Physical damage is almost useless against this guy, his defence is way too high. The tanks son't really help either, as they don't do enough damage to keep agro off of Melia. He drops an advanced skillbook btw, so killing him is worth it.

Yeah, I noticed Melia did more damage, but I still seemed to get killed before I even got him halfway dead. Thanks for the advice though, now I'll know how to get at him when I go back there.

 

[burgerdog]

Success, 7th in party and I can quick travel again. 62 hours on the clock(batteries died at 61 hours.) Time to relax and clean up alcamoth and the small amount of quests I have left in frontier/colony9, etc.

 

[burgerdog]

OK I ran into another wall. Party at level 51, Shulk-Dunban-Sharla. Shulk is in this party because the place I'm in is full of Mechon.

Spoiler

I've made my way into Galahad Fortress, but I need a lift key, which, apparently, is in a room full of Supply Mechon. Like, 6 of them. And the one who has the key, the Sentinel fellow, is a couple levels above me and is ignoring me completely. Do I just muscle my way through this or is there a more prudent strategy?

.

I was using the exact same party and perhaps lv52 and I had to brute force my way in there. Try to spam buster as much as you can, it will deal a ton of damage to anything in front of you. If you're not in any rush to get continue I would suggest gaining a few more levels. The boss fights coming up were a bit hard at 52.

 

[Ledsen]

The amount of relevant titles that break the 20 hour mark has decreased drastically from a decade ago. Reviewers are rarely confronted with a title of this length and if it's a 'big name title' they should devote their resources to actually playing through it to give a review. If the reviewer did not have time, or had to stop playing because they were sick of it, then they should note in the review where, or when they stopped. Especially in the case of games that rely on story, where you can say it is as important as any gameplay mechanics you'll be rating. You either have to devote time to review the entire game, not review it all, or put a remark in about how far you were able to complete the game. Maybe state that you will have a follow up in a later issue? There are plenty of ways around it.

Nice stealth brag about the wage, champ .

I completely agree that they should put the amount of time they played in the review. No reason not to.

Also, I'm in Sweden, not the US. My salary is nothing to brag about, the dollar is just really weak against to the SEK.

 

[ZenaxPure]

OK I ran into another wall. Party at level 51, Shulk-Dunban-Sharla. Shulk is in this party because the place I'm in is full of Mechon.

Spoiler

I've made my way into Galahad Fortress, but I need a lift key, which, apparently, is in a room full of Supply Mechon. Like, 6 of them. And the one who has the key, the Sentinel fellow, is a couple levels above me and is ignoring me completely. Do I just muscle my way through this one too or is there a more prudent strategy?

Who are you controlling? You mention the mob is "ignoring you completely"? As in your tank can not hold aggro onto him or what? I can't remember this specific fight to be honest but as a general strategy I would say in any AOE situation with high damage: control your tank yourself, open with their AOE attack (both Reyn and Dunban have one), use the party commands to make sure everyone focuses on the same target (this way your AOE attack is enough to hold aggro on its own) and then go from there. Also if you're having trouble killing everything I'd suggest switching out Sharla for Riki.

As mentioned many times in this thread Sharla's damage output is fairly minimal but that isn't really the reason I would suggest it. Riki + Shulk + Dunban I found over the course of the game to be just ridiculously overpowered. Specifically because Riki's "happy happy", Shulks multiple positioning based attacks, and Dunban using gale slash -> worldly slash (I believe is the name) fills up an INSANE amount of the party gague. You can spend most fights spamming chain attacks the entire time after enough practice. I experimented with a lot of party setups over the course of the game (I got Shulk, Reyn, and Sharla maxed affinity with every other character except Melia from battles alone almost) but whenever I got stuck I found switching to Dunban/Shulk/Riki pretty much trivialized every fight.

Strategy spoiler I guess for those who don't really want to know:

Spoiler

I found I could decimate most enemies during chain attacks with these guys. Specifically controlling Dunban I would make sure his Blossom Dance was off cooldown then activate a chain attack. I would use Blinding Blossom -> Happy Happy with Riki -> Heal or Shadow eye with Shulk (depending on the situation) then if a 4th attack happened (which by the end of the game will almost ALWAYS happen) I would use Blossom Dance which by the time I reached Galahad Fortress would hit most enemies for around 100k. Generally that's enough to kill many enemies in the game but if not and the chain attack continued it just gave the chance for Shulk to backslash for upwards of 50 to 60k and Riki to get some insane bleed ticks up.

The best part is after all of this your party gauge should already be back to almost full (if not full) so you can immediately activate another chain attack and do it again.

Obviously there are a ton of over strategies out there but for the last third of the game that is what I used and I literally only died in one encounter with that party, it was pretty ridiculous especially considering I was severely under leveled in the final parts of the game.

 

[chaosblade]

7 hours in, about to go to

Spoiler

Ether Mines

.

Man, Night Cardamon was a bitch. Ether Fireworks is hella cheap, but I got him. Only unique eluding me thus far is White Eduardo because the game refuses to give me the thunderstorm necessary to make him spawn. Lots and lots of rain though.

Edit: Finally. And he spawned right on top of me.

 

[ErasureAcer]

LVL 92. Still yet to beat the game. Don't wanna go past the point of no return though.

A new annoyance I've found is some enemies have a limited battle zone.

Spoiler

Stupid Dragon in Colony 6

. So you hack away and then the fight ends cuz they decided to do a move that pulled themselves out of the zone. Ridiculous.

 

[chaosblade]

Done with Ether Mines, 10 hours, level 27. All "possible" uniques to this point beaten. Ditched Sharla, she'll never be in my party again this playthrough.

It's funny how you can be absolutely decimating a boss (

Spoiler

I'm looking at you Xord

) and in the cutscene you'll be struggling.

LVL 92. Still yet to beat the game. Don't wanna go past the point of no return though.

A new annoyance I've found is some enemies have a limited battle zone.

Spoiler

Stupid Dragon in Colony 6

. So you hack away and then the fight ends cuz they decided to do a move that pulled themselves out of the zone. Ridiculous.

As long as you keep a save you can keep playing on that file. The final boss is going to be a joke since he won't even be able to hit you :lol

And all enemies have "zones." If you pull them too far they'll retreat. At least I don't know of any exceptions, granted some do have really big areas they can move around in.

 

[EvilMario]

Done with Ether Mines, 10 hours, level 27. All "possible" uniques to this point beaten. Ditched Sharla, she'll never be in my party again this playthrough.

It's funny how you can be absolutely decimating a boss (

Spoiler

I'm looking at you Xord

) and in the cutscene you'll be struggling.

There are a lot of fights they end when you bring a bosses health to 50%, or so, where I felt like I could have actually won the fight. Instead, they act like we could barely damage them.

 

[massoluk]

Curses. I decided to go back to Xenoblade for my 3rd playthrough with my level 97 chars. I figure I'll only do the expirable quests and just rush through to see all the cutscene. Bam, the Bionis legs quests took me a whole day.

 

[chaosblade]

There are a lot of fights they end when you bring a bosses health to 50%, or so, where I felt like I could have actually won the fight. Instead, they act like we could barely damage them.

I thought the funniest example of that were (late-ish second half of the game spoilers)

Spoiler

the fights against Egil, aside from the last one which is basically a playable cutscene.

Anyway, nearing what I'm expecting to be one of the biggest challenges of this playthrough. Reckless Godwin, I'm going to get my revenge for last time :lol

Also accidently got attacked by Sunlight Schvaik, and that was a disaster since I was already fighting some enemies. Almost won despite him being a couple levels higher than me and getting quadruple teamed. Went back and fought him solo and he went down without too much trouble. Didn't help that he's a bird, and my party really excels at the ground game since I can double topple + daze (combine that with a chain attack and you have a slaughter, against even the strongest uniques). Topple spikes will mess me up pretty bad, but I don't think I'll have to deal with those for a while.


Reckless Godwin won the first time. Damn his mass topple, and decapitate attacks. Beat him the second time though at level 30 with Shulk/Dunban/Reyn. Proud of that win.

 

[The Awesomest]

Who are you controlling? You mention the mob is "ignoring you completely"? As in your tank can not hold aggro onto him or what? I can't remember this specific fight to be honest but as a general strategy I would say in any AOE situation with high damage: control your tank yourself, open with their AOE attack (both Reyn and Dunban have one), use the party commands to make sure everyone focuses on the same target (this way your AOE attack is enough to hold aggro on its own) and then go from there. Also if you're having trouble killing everything I'd suggest switching out Sharla for Riki.

Strategy spoiler I guess for those who don't really want to know:

Spoiler

I found I could decimate most enemies during chain attacks with these guys. Specifically controlling Dunban I would make sure his Blossom Dance was off cooldown then activate a chain attack. I would use Blinding Blossom -> Happy Happy with Riki -> Heal or Shadow eye with Shulk (depending on the situation) then if a 4th attack happened (which by the end of the game will almost ALWAYS happen) I would use Blossom Dance which by the time I reached Galahad Fortress would hit most enemies for around 100k. Generally that's enough to kill many enemies in the game but if not and the chain attack continued it just gave the chance for Shulk to backslash for upwards of 50 to 60k and Riki to get some insane bleed ticks up.

Obviously there are a ton of over strategies out there but for the last third of the game that is what I used and I literally only died in one encounter with that party, it was pretty ridiculous especially considering I was severely under leveled in the final parts of the game.

By ignoring me completely I mean the Sentinel guy just stands there with his back to us as we get pummeled by the Supply guys. Doesn't even think he needs to fight us, and he's right ;_;

This is like, the first thing you do when you enter the fortress, trying to find the lift key, and I believe the Sentinel guy has it, but if I'm having this much trouble with his cronies I hate to think what it would be like if he joined the battle. I'm probably gonna grind out a few more levels and maybe I'll use Riki like you suggested.

 

[Roto13]

OK I ran into another wall. Party at level 51, Shulk-Dunban-Sharla. Shulk is in this party because the place I'm in is full of Mechon.

Spoiler

I've made my way into Galahad Fortress, but I need a lift key, which, apparently, is in a room full of Supply Mechon. Like, 6 of them. And the one who has the key, the Sentinel fellow, is a couple levels above me and is ignoring me completely. Do I just muscle my way through this one too or is there a more prudent strategy?

Take out one of the grunts, run away, come back and take out another grunt, repeat until the only one left is your mark.

They don't respawn when you run.

 

[The Awesomest]

Ahh- brilliant!

 

[schlew]

Hate to ask for help again, but here I go again. I'm about 9 hours in, and I'm on my way to saving

Spoiler

Juju

. On my way, I keep running into large groups of Mechon. 3-4 I can handle, but it's often double. I feel like I'm leveled well, I'm at 18 and the average level of those mobs is say, 15. I always enchant the group right away, and focus attacks on one particular enemy I chain attack when the chance arrives, and I always try to keep the group enchanted so their attacks work against the mechon. What am I doing wrong? I'll attack a group of 4 and it grows during the battle to those higher numbers. It stinks.

 

[Rebel Leader]

It seems I'm rushing a bit... although I was doing side quests.. Had a difficult boss battle

 

[Roto13]

If other groups are joining in and giving you trouble, try luring the original group away a bit before you start battling.

 

[Hiltz]

Hate to ask for help again, but here I go again. I'm about 9 hours in, and I'm on my way to saving

Spoiler

Juju

. On my way, I keep running into large groups of Mechon. 3-4 I can handle, but it's often double. I feel like I'm leveled well, I'm at 18 and the average level of those mobs is say, 15. I always enchant the group right away, and focus attacks on one particular enemy I chain attack when the chance arrives, and I always try to keep the group enchanted so their attacks work against the mechon. What am I doing wrong? I'll attack a group of 4 and it grows during the battle to those higher numbers. It stinks.

Yes. Try luring out the enemies one by one if they're not all grouped tightly together. Are these mechon the ones near the

Spoiler

Raguel bridge on the Bionis leg or in upper Bionis area?

Also, try to topple enemies as often as you can without having to always wait for a chain attack to do it.

 

[schlew]

If other groups are joining in and giving you trouble, try luring the original group away a bit before you start battling.

Cool, I'll give it a shot. Thanks.

 

[schlew]

Yes, Try luring out one of the enemies so you can take em out. Are these mechon the ones near the

Spoiler

Raguel bridge on the Bionis leg ?

Also, try to topple enemies as often as you can without having to always wait for a hain attack to perform it.

That's the place. I set them up with a break, and have to wait for Reyn to topple them. Should I be attempting something different?

 

[Wichu]

That's the place. I set them up with a break, and have to wait for Reyn to topple them. Should I be attempting something different?

First thing you do when battling Mechon is use Monado Enchant.

 

[schlew]

First thing you do when battling Mechon is use Monado Enchant.

Yep, in my original post I mentioned that I always enchant and continue to do so when necessary. The enemy parties growing too large is my biggest problem.

 

[Hiltz]

That's the place. I set them up with a break, and have to wait for Reyn to topple them. Should I be attempting something different?

You have the right basic battle strategy by using enchant and performing break and topple on them. Luring probably won't work well since the mechon there are so close together.You may have to try using Monado Buster (does double damage in a straight line to Mechon) once Shulk's talent art fills up again after performing Monado Enchant. If all else fails, then perhaps you should just level up once.

 

[Bisnic]

You will eventually get weapons that can hurt Mechons without needing Shulk to enchant all the time.

 

[Leezard]

Yep, in my original post I mentioned that I always enchant and continue to do so when necessary. The enemy parties growing too large is my biggest problem.

Before you get into a fight, if you press up/down on the center art skill button (the "fight" icon) you get a "lure from distance" option. You should be able to take at least one group at a time by doing that.

 

[Wichu]

Oops, missed that. I had a few problems around there as well; I tried to lure the bigger ones away from the group and kill them individually. Then, I could take out the weaker ones using Reyn's area-of-effect arts.

 

[schlew]

Awesome, thanks everyone. I think the problem is that when I did lure, the group would come, and not the individual enemy. My problem was thinking that luring wasn't working. I know now that if I lure the group, it's less likely another group will join in. Thanks.

 

[Snytbaggen]

Could anyone who finished the game tell me how far in I am in the game, in percent? I'm at

Spoiler

the part when the emperor has gone off to the prison island and I'm going around activating some stuff on the islands so I can also get there.

 

[McNum]

Could anyone who finished the game tell me how far in I am in the game, in percent? I'm at

Spoiler

the part when the emperor has gone off to the prison island and I'm going around activating some stuff on the islands so I can also get there.

30-ish% Maybe 40%.

 

[nan0]

Could anyone who finished the game tell me how far in I am in the game, in percent? I'm at

Spoiler

the part when the emperor has gone off to the prison island and I'm going around activating some stuff on the islands so I can also get there.

Puts you about halfway through, a bit less.

 

[-GOUKI-]

Can someone also tell me how far i am

im at the

Spoiler

imperial city finally

 

[Snytbaggen]

30-ish% Maybe 40%.

Puts you about halfway through, a bit less maybe.

Awesome, thought I was farther in than that. With this pace the game might easily end up over 50h for me.

 

[Bisnic]

Awesome, thought I was farther in than that. With this pace the game might easily end up over 50h for me.

Eh... im at 70h and still not finished.

But i blame me doing too many sidequests and wasting too much time with the vendors and gifts.

 

[-GOUKI-]

Can someone tell me how far in the game i am?

Spoiler

Im just arrived at the imperial city and saw Alvis again

 

[nan0]

Can someone tell me how far in the game i am?

Spoiler

Im just arrived at the imperial city and saw Alvis again

In

Spoiler

Agniratha

? Pretty far, around 80%.

 

[Wichu]

In

Spoiler

Agniratha

? Pretty far, around 80%.

Pretty sure he means

Spoiler

Alcamoth

, which is maybe 30-40% in.

 

[chaosblade]

Can someone tell me how far in the game i am?

Spoiler

Im just arrived at the imperial city and saw Alvis again

Depends on who answers, but I'd say probably somewhere around the 40% mark. Really just depends on how much sidequesting and exploring you do.

 

[Jive Turkey]

Before you get into a fight, if you press up/down on the center art skill button (the "fight" icon) you get a "lure from distance" option.

Holy shit...Holy shit!

 

[massoluk]

In

Spoiler

Agniratha

? Pretty far, around 80%.

Huh ? I'd say 50% myself

 

[-GOUKI-]

Pretty sure he means

Spoiler

Alcamoth

, which is maybe 30-40% in.

uhhh...

Spoiler

It's my first time in the imperial city

i hope im not 80% done the game

 

[nan0]

My bad, got Imperial City and Imperial Capital mixed up. The others are right.

 

[chaosblade]

Holy shit...Holy shit!

It's definitely helpful, but not 100% reliable. Sometimes enemies have "parties" and if you try to lure one, you'll still end up drawing 3+ enemies.

Still effective though, it makes a lot of near-impossible situations much more manageable.

 

[Jive Turkey]

It's definitely helpful, but not 100% reliable. Sometimes enemies have "parties" and if you try to lure one, you'll still end up drawing 3+ enemies.

Still effective though, it makes a lot of near-impossible situations much more manageable.

Oh that's fine...It's the enemeies (mainly flying) that roam in very unadvantageous locations that annoy me. Having a melee character run himself over the edge of a cliff or the current player character be shoved off a narrow walkway kinda sucks. Pulling those enemies into a better position would really help.

 

[Roto13]

Yesterday I had to collect an item to progress the story, and there were two enemies near it, which was fine, but there was also another enemy that was part of an unrelated quest who was way stronger than my party and he kept wandering over and joining the battle. And Sharla wasn't in my party for story reasons.

So that was bullshit.

 

[Shaffield]

So I'm about 70 hours in at

Spoiler

Mechonis Field

. Should I be taking a break to go do some sidequesting soon?


Also, I'm running a main party of

Spoiler

Melia/Dunban/7th

right now, and equipping

Spoiler

Dunban and 7th as Agility Tanks with Anti-Mechon weapons (since Shulk isn't in the party), and using Melia to rain down shitloads of damage with Wind and Lightning (considering adding Earth as well for the poison, is it worth it?) while Dunban and 7th dodge all day long. I was using 7th's Attack build, but I found that she was drawing too much aggro and the damage without a healer was a little unmanagable (I noticed that the AI doesn't use her Healing Aura very well.)

I seem to be smashing through mobs with no problems, although it may be that I'm a bit overleveled (around 60).

Any advice? (I'm still experimenting with

Spoiler

7th

, considering going back to Shulk.)

 

[Bentendo]

Alright, quick question (on mobile btw - nice mobile site): when I die in the game and go back to the checkpoint, do I retain all of my experience and items?

 

[bozeman]

S


You're probably underleveled to fight the caterpillar at the moment. Named enemies are much harder than most bosses.

But what about the big lizard? I thought that was the whole reason I had to go to the 1st cave in the first place. Am I supposed to be able to beat it?

 

[Jhoan]

This game still has an iron grip on me. I did a massive marathon from around 2PM until 5AM (I think I've broken world records with my sessions). Went from getting

Spoiler

Dunban

to getting

Spoiler

Riki.

This game is amazingly addictive.

The exploration in this game puts the most recent RPG's to shame; the closest JRPG that I played this gen that is similar to the size of this game is Infinite Undiscovery. It reminds me more of Rogue Galaxy in terms of size and seamless load times minus a certain character tellling you the player to stop playing after a certain amount of hours. They're both very similar and I wouldn't be surprised if the devs played Rogue Galaxy while researching.

However, there's something about this game that makes it way more satisfying to explore than in Infinite Undiscovery and dare I say it, Mass Effect as much as I played the hell out of that game. I would say the exploration is on par with this gen's two Fallout games, except that there's something new to see every time versus the copy-and-pasted interiors of the said games.

I have a question concerning a hunt for a monster. So I'm supposed to fight this monster that's in the northern part of Spiral Valley. The only problem is that there's a ridiculously strong Immovable Gonzalez standing in front of the entrance. Is that monster behind him or is it somewhere near that area? The reason that I ask is because I want to move the

Spoiler

people from the refugee camp to Colony 6, but if I do then, I miss the quest.

Should I just pass up on doing the quest? I only have characters at level 36-35 for reference.

 

[MetatronM]

Alright, quick question (on mobile btw - nice mobile site): when I die in the game and go back to the checkpoint, do I retain all of my experience and items?

Yes.

 

[Zornica]

But what about the big lizard? I thought that was the whole reason I had to go to the 1st cave in the first place. Am I supposed to be able to beat it?

no, you aren't supposed to fight it, you are supposed to follow the red arrow.
you can fight the lizard, but you don't have to.

This game still has an iron grip on me. I did a massive marathon from around 2PM until 5AM (I think I've broken world records with my sessions). Went from getting

Spoiler

Dunban

to getting

Spoiler

Riki.

This game is amazingly addictive.

The exploration in this game puts the most recent RPG's to shame; the closest JRPG that I played this gen that is similar to the size of this game is Infinite Undiscovery. It reminds me more of Rogue Galaxy in terms of size and seamless load times minus a certain character tellling you the player to stop playing after a certain amount of hours. They're both very similar and I wouldn't be surprised if the devs played Rogue Galaxy while researching.

However, there's something about this game that makes it way more satisfying to explore than in Infinite Undiscovery and dare I say it, Mass Effect as much as I played the hell out of that game. I would say the exploration is on par with this gen's two Fallout games, except that there's something new to see every time versus the copy-and-pasted interiors of the said games.

I have a question concerning a hunt for a monster. So I'm supposed to fight this monster that's in the northern part of Spiral Valley. The only problem is that there's a ridiculously strong Immovable Gonzalez standing in front of the entrance. Is that monster behind him or is it somewhere near that area? The reason that I ask is because I want to move the

Spoiler

people from the refugee camp to Colony 6, but if I do then, I miss the quest.

Should I just pass up on doing the quest? I only have characters at level 36-35 for reference.

If I remember correctly, there is a secret path from the valley beneath. a big rock is blocking it and you need to tell the quest giver about it. he will give you some tnt to destroy the rock. I don't remember how it went exactly... just jump down and see for yourself.

Alright, quick question (on mobile btw - nice mobile site): when I die in the game and go back to the checkpoint, do I retain all of my experience and items?

there is no penalty for dying