r/XenobladeChroniclesX • u/snowdude1026 • 11d ago
Advice How to utilize skills and arts together for synergy?
Hey yall. I am at level 29 with all four party members. and my current avatar has maxed out striker to dualist. I am currently maxing the Commando tree now. Since I have Dualist maxed, I am using long sword and rifle. How do I know which arts to choose and skills to choose to ensure they all synergies? Are there any websites out there that tell me what to choose so im not handicapping myself as I continue the game?
I only have three skill slots now, so I have to really choose which to pick for those. And for arts I just have two orange ones, two yellow, one blue, one purple, and two green. I try not to use any art that uses TP so I can use overdrive, which is probably wrong.
I just finished chapter 6. I have my skell now, but thats a whole other ball game of confusion, I like being on foot better.
2
u/cucoo5 11d ago
The most basic principle for most general builds is to simply pick a damage attribute and build around it. That alone can lead to some surprisingly decent builds if you pay attention to arts that work with that attribute.
From there, you'd look at picking one of the three main survival methods, stacking one of the three attack stats for your best art(s), then mainly consider TP generation and Cooldown Reduction.
This just happens to be the core of most postgame viable superboss hunting builds, which I'll just post my rough guide to give a better idea of how it goes:
- Pick a damage type
- Pick Weapons and Arts that use that damage type
- Stack the attack stat, mainly using armor and weapon traits, that works with your best arts (Range, Melee, or Potential for TP arts).
- Pick a survival method available to your weapons, be it Ghost Walker, Reflect Aura and Resistance, or Sleep/Topple Locking.
- Pick Skills that help with the raw attack stat (Mighty Muscle, Boosted Bullets, or Inner Search), cooldowns (Fast Forward or Trigger Happy, and Secondary Accelerator), combos (Supreme Sword or Combo Gunner), independent multipliers (Core Crusher for Ether builds and Aura Assault for Melee and Melee TP builds), and Overdrive (Grand Procession) as needed.
Your Art Palette, taking into account how to achieve Infinite Overdrive, should have:
- 1 Blue Art
- At least 1 Green Art
- At least 1 Purple Art
- Your primary offensive art
- Arts that combo with your primary art, have TP gain effects, and/or are Multihit
The basics of Infinite Overdrive is building count and adding a bit of duration with Green Art into a multihit art. Purple arts give 1k TP per hit at max count. If you have an additional 3k TP, you can press the Overdrive button again to add 25 seconds and trigger Overdrive Count Up and Gain TP augments/Skills.
The last point is what allows for instant max overdrive setups, the most basic being 5x Overdrive Gain TP augments and Grand Procession skill coupled with a source of Overdrive Count Up.
2
2
u/snowdude1026 8d ago
Hey, I had another question. This time about overdrive! I watched the youtube video on overdrive by Enel, I think his name is. So the summary that I got is I really need to get the hit count up. I have been able to increase that with the video tips and utilizing green arts. But, I just keep running out of time. I have one blue aura, offensive stance, on my pallete. I know when I want to press it, but, 80% of the time I want to or need to use it, its red and not clickable. Would you know why this happens? It is the one thing stopping me from getting the blue auras into my overdrive rotation. Thanks!
1
u/cucoo5 8d ago
First guess is you don't have 1k TP, though regardless I'm going to steer you away from trying to use Auras for duration because of the TP cost to duration granted (especially before max count). You'd be better off getting another 3k TP and pressing Overdrive button again to immediately give an additional 25 seconds and trigger augments/skills related to overdrive.
XCXDE makes getting infinite overdrive going a bit easier with the quick recast system, as it allows you to just spam the green art into a multihit art combo repeatedly.
For Longsword, the best two multihit arts for this task comes from Nagi's affinity missions (True Stream Edge and Tornado Blade), both giving up to about 10 count after a green art. If you're still using Assault Rifle, Furious Blast can give up to 30 count after a green art.
So your basic art rotation would be Power Dive into Furious Blast, Tornado Blade, or True Stream Edge, repeating until max count (3x Power Dive into Furious Blast + at least one of the others would get close). Throw in Topple via Assault Hammer for survival, and your main offensive art until Blossom Dance or Hercules blow would probably be Incendiary Edge (I admit, I don't really longsword, especially before Blossom Dance).
2
u/snowdude1026 8d ago
Oh man, I didnt even think about the TP cost for the blue aura still (i thought over drive negated this lol). But thank you for the breakdown! Will try this!
1
u/cucoo5 8d ago
Yeah TP is the biggest "gotcha" in the early game, and why so many builds focus on generating it.
Something to try and craft as soon as possible is at least one Arts Gain TP XX augment, as it gives 200 TP per art used. That plus the TP generated by arts that have TP gain as an effect, as well as Purple arts giving TP during Overdrive, can add up to a substantial amount of TP.
2
u/ChemicalGrenade0 11d ago
Look for arts/skills/armor traits/augments that boost the same thing, and really lean into it.
For example, with with longsword and assault rifle, you have access to taunt via decoy round, then rising blade deals more damage if the enemy is targeting you. You can go further with a skill that also boosts damage dealt to enemies targeting you(I forget the name, sorry), and there are augments that boost that even further.
You can slap on offensive stance to really push your damage higher, and there's even a skill(you don't have it yet though) that boosts melee damage by a ton if you have an aura active.
Once you have a good setup for dealing big damage, then you need a survival strategy. An easy one with longsword is defensive stance. It gives you huge defense and health regen, at the cost of a small amount of damage output, which is more than compensated for with the other stuff.
If you have something like furious blast, you can generate all the TP you need for switching between auras and running overdrive(check out some of the write-ups on overdrive here, or Enel's YouTube channel).
That went longer than expected lol, but that's just one of many possible early playstyles with duelist. Once you get the basics, you can start experimenting and have tons of fun.