Xenoblade Chronicles 2 combat problems

Just started playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2, why the hell does this game play so slow? What am i doing wrong? I've got three party members at levels 24-25, but it can still take five minutes to kill some level 18 mook. I'm only in chapter 3, but the spider boss is easier than many of the trash mobs.

It feels like they've made another very complicated system where there are several damage multipliers that can be strung together, but to "even" things out they gave the enemies tons of health so you need to use this system to kill them quick. Took forever to figure out how to game the system they created in Xenoblade Chronicles X, but it sounds like they did the same thing again here too.

What the hell am I doing wrong? Everytime a skill is available, I use it. Every time one of those A/ZL/ZR specials is available, I use it. There's not much else you can really do, why is combat so damn slow?

I tried to look at some online guides and there's even more advanced things out there, like breaking orbs with opposite elements. Feels like the game wants you to do some strategy with your specials, but all you can do is press A/ZL/ZR when they pop up, no advanced strategy beyond that. The Break/Topple thing rarely comes up too.

Attached: XenobladeChronicles2Help.jpg (1920x2700, 1.16M)

the secret is to get the pouch expansions, and use the best special recharge and arts recharge pouch items you can afford
that speeds up the fight a lot by letting you spam driver combos and blade combos constantly

its not that complicated

The entire game is based around three systems: Driver Combos, Blade Combos and Chain Attacks.
A Driver Combo is when you inflict Break, Topple, Launch and Smash in that order. Not only does it do a lot of damage, it makes the enemy drop additional items, drastically speeding up farming. Adjust your equipped Weapon Arts and Blades to ensure you always have all four steps available.
A Blade Combo is when you do three elemental specials in a row, with the first being a level 1/2/3, the second being a level 2/3, and the third being a level 3. If as you say, you're just using your Combo Requests the moment they show up, then you're likely exclusively doing level 1 specials, preventing you from doing full Blade Combos. This is why your damage output is awful. You need to follow the elemental guide that shows up in the upper right corner of the HUD. Don't just spam specials at random, you need to do the combos it shows you.
Finally, there's Chain Attacks. When you finish a Blade Combo, it places an elemental orb around the enemy. You can then burst these elemental orbs during Chain Attacks to do absurd amounts of damage. Like, 80% of an enemy's health in a single chain.

In short, you're basically ignoring the entire battle system by just spamming low-level specials instead of doing elemental Blade Combos, and you're not doing Break, Topple, Launch and Smash. These are not optional systems, they're what the entire game is based around.

Until you can use all arts at the beginning of the fight, cancel arts into arts, and have so much art recharging that you basically never stop chaining arts together, the game is horribly slow yeah. You won't get there for a good 30-40 hours depending on how fast you go through the story. The spinning orb around your party members specials is what level they have, right now Nia doesn't have it stocked so that's why it doesn't let you press ZL to do burnout. The thing you have circled in purple is the blade combo and what elements you need to get an orb. So starting from fire you can go fire>fire>fire, fire>fire>light, fire>water>fire, or fire>water>ice. That will place an elemental orb (which you need for chain attacks) of the last element in the chain, and also prevent the enemy from using whatever you sealed if they happen to have that type of attack .

I've heard that the one to use is that cake / desert one. So always have it active?

How about with a character that isn't in the 3-man party? I currently have Vandham + Nia + Tora, but Rex is the one with two pouches. Would I still get the benefit if Rex is in there?

A lot of Blades have an affinity chart (skill tree) that will say something like "Use Poppi a's favorite pouch item from the instruments category", so I use an instrument...and nothing happens for the affinity but I keep hoping something will. So for the driver (Tora) for Poppi a, I keep using instruments hoping something will trigger, but that doesn't happen. Very frustrating.

Right now I have a party of

Attached: c22054cb2770826a8072d290b5cdbcc1b50dea1b15f1370ff0462c7c6223c2f1.jpg (818x1200, 211.61K)

To elaborate a bit about Blade Combos, using the image in as an example.
You're presented with four Combo Routes because you started with a Fire special.
Fire Fire Fire
Fire Fire Lightning
Fire Water Fire
Fire Water Ice

Don't worry about the Seals, the important thing is that the final special of the combo will place an Elemental Orb. You can have up to eight of these (one for each element) on an enemy and then burst them all during a Chain Attack by using the right elements against them.
You just need to use a Level 1 Special (or higher), then a Level 2 Special (or higher) then a Level 3 Special (or higher) in that order, with the appropriate element. Your characters will build these up automatically during the fight, and the amount of glowing dots spinning around the Combo Request is what level they're built up to.
One last thing: Each special lasts for a limited time (which you've highlighted in green as #3) so you have to fire off the next step in the combo before that meter drains away.

skill issue

>How about with a character that isn't in the 3-man party? I currently have Vandham + Nia + Tora, but Rex is the one with two pouches. Would I still get the benefit if Rex is in there?
just give them to each character you're currently using in your party, they last for a good while and stocking them lets your character refill their pouch automatically once they run out
the best ones early on are the whispercorder and narcipear jelly IMO, both can be bought in goldmouth

>"Use Poppi a's favorite pouch item from the instruments category"
you will have to look in the wiki for those things, but for now just look at pic related for the main characters, the one you mentioned is the maracas that can be bought in goldmouth's instrument shop

Attached: instr.png (665x216, 21.36K)

Genuinely, just like that other user said, skill issue.

Ok, equip the desert on active party members. Use the wiki to figure out who has a favorite what. Thank you.
>A Blade Combo is when you do three elemental specials in a row, with the first being a level 1/2/3, the second being a level 2/3, and the third being a level 3. If as you say, you're just using your Combo Requests the moment they show up, then you're likely exclusively doing level 1 specials, preventing you from doing full Blade Combos. This is why your damage output is awful. You need to follow the elemental guide that shows up in the upper right corner of the HUD. Don't just spam specials at random, you need to do the combos it shows you.
How can I tell what the first teammate has done, if the special is level 1 or 2 or 3? And then how can I tell what the second teammate has done, if that is 2 or 3, or worse just 1? And why does my special go up to 4? Wouldn't it be wise to wait until it just goes up to 4 then use it then, praying that the teammates were smart enough to setup the combo 1 then 2 first? Most of the time their portrait just shows up, sometimes it spins, sometimes all three portraits show up and they spin, there's no A/ZL/ZR. What are those supposed to mean? Are they just thinking about doing a special but are waiting for some unknown trigger first?

What exactly does the thing in the very upper right tell me? It seems to be some sort of ladder, you want to get to the top, but hell if I know how to activate it or climb that ladder.

What is that thing in the very upper left? The tutorial that came and disappeared said when you get three of them full, press the + button and you'll get something good. I don't think it's worked anytime except that one tutorial instance.

Attached: XenobladeChronicles2Help2.jpg (1920x2160, 1.01M)

The pink thing you said you don't know what it is? That is the blade combo level.

If you press A, you use the special of the blade of the character you are currently controlling, while if you press ZL or ZR, you use the special of the character depicted there.

After you use a special, you'll notice the pink thing on the top right changes, displaying the path your combo can take. You have until the green thing of your first screenshot to execute the next step of the combo (that Heat debuff with a bar decreasing).

Like in your current screenshot. You started an earth combo with a level 1 special. Meaning to progress it, you need to now use a level 2 special or either fire or earth.

If you user a level 2 earth special, your only choice to end this combo is a thunder level 3 special. However, were you to use a level 2 fire special, you could finish this combo with either a level 3 wind special, or a level 3 earth special.

The AI will actively change blades to try to continue your combo. Basically you want to team build such that you have blades who can do varieties of combos.

>What is that thing in the very upper left?
Chain attacks, same as XC1. Reviving eats one bar, you need 3 bars to do A chain attack.

here user, let me help you and make the system "click"

the key to the entire system is the icons in the upper right corner, which is a decision tree like pic related, the options given depending on what element you used to start the combo

in your image, you probably started with an earth special, so you are given two choices:

continue with a lv2 flame special (Volcano, which can be used by Nia since she has a flame blade equipped), or with lv2 earth special (Gaia Crash, which can be used by Tora since Poppi is earth-elemental)

the trick is that if you look at pic related, you can see that:
>by choosing to continue with a lv2 flame special, you will have two options: following up with a lv3 wind special, or a lv3 earth special
>by choosing to continue with a lv2 earth special, your only option is to use a electric special, which chances are is an element you don't have in your party

so the "correct" choice here would be follow up with a lv2 flame special using Nia, and then finishing the combo with a lv3 earth special from Tora


BUT, the thing is, you probably have noticed by now how specials take a while to charge. This is why special recharge pouch items are so important, even more so on your AI-controlled party members, because you want them to have their specials charged for these combos. In your pic, neither have their level 2 special charged, which is why you aren't given the option to use them. Buying the pouch items helps this massively. Once you do that, and experiment with the different paths you can take, the system will definitely click.

Attached: decision tree.png (480x272, 213.44K)

Sorry I haven't gotten to all the replies yet, I'm trying to take pictures and make these info graphics as I make replies.
>The spinning orb around your party members specials is what level they have
Ok, so the spinning thing determines the level? So 1 spinning thing equals 1 level? Or is that 2, because sometimes their portrait pops up without a spinning thing. Also it seems like my main character can go to Special Level 4, would that be 3 spinning things, or 4?

I tried to do that combo, going from 1 spinning thing (A for Vandham), to 2 spinning things (ZL for Nia), to 3 spinning things (ZR for Tora). But after I pressed A, nobody else was able to do anything else. Was this not how you do a Blade Combo? One person does a rank 1, then somebody else a rank 2, then somebody else a rank 3? After I did the Rank 1, nobody else could do anything.

Attached: XenobladeChronicles2Help3.jpg (1920x1600, 604.65K)

You need to follow the order from the tree, user. See the post above you:

You can't string any sequence together. You also don't necessarily do A -> ZL -> ZR, YOU pick the order based on the element they have out.

You gotta wait for the Combo Routes to show up in the upper right before firing off the second and third steps.

>I tried to do that combo, going from 1 spinning thing (A for Vandham), to 2 spinning things (ZL for Nia), to 3 spinning things (ZR for Tora). But after I pressed A, nobody else was able to do anything else. Was this not how you do a Blade Combo?
look at pic related, by starting with a wind special, you can only follow up with either a lv2 wind special, or a lv2 ice special.

The AI is smart enough to swap blades if they have a blade of an element needed to continue the combo, but you most likely don't. so your only possible path here would be doing the lv2 wind special with Vandham/Roc yourself, and then finish with a lv3 earth special from Tora/Poppi.

Attached: wind blade combo.png (559x119, 16.4K)

Always arts cancel,

>pic
fucking retard.
read your tutorials nigger.
The game is not that fucking deep. Just has a few steps, 90% of which lead into each other.

It sounds like XC2 might just not be for you, user. People joke about Xenoblade being a singleplayer MMO for a reason. Maybe try something more fast paced and action focused, like NEO TWEWY or CrossCode.

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You don't have all the elemental skills in the beginning of the game you dumb fuck, you need find or unlock that shit with other characters and blades.

Step off. We're trying to explain it to him, we don't need you to discourage him.

Not OP, but xenoblade1-3 haven't had issues grasping.
Though X was above my head for some reason, I don't think I ever used the overclock feature once.

>read your tutorials nigger.
there's a single tutorial about blade combos that happens like 2 hours in the game and that you can't access ever again, and afterwards, the game just assumes you understood it completely and starts building up the battle system from there

Retards should be called retarded user.
The game goes out of its way to explain break > topple > launch > smash.
Even gave like 3 tutorials on blade combos by then.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be discouraging, I just thought it sounded like OP's issues were coming less from a lack of understanding and more from a dislike of the way combat flowed in general. Good luck teaching him!

I like XC2 combat but the biggest issue is that you have to plan out the combos your gonna do before the battle. There is little freedom once the fight starts, I just comes down to execution.

I beat the entire game on the shitch using the break > topple > launch > smash and most basic elemental combo
so many goddamn retards want everything spoonfed to them, where there is 1000s of guides online how to get the perfect team and highest dmg.

the only time you ever need to do autistic high dmg combos and elemental dmg is if you're fighting the lvl 99+ bosses.
holy shit IQ tests exist for a reason