Xenoblade Commentary Notes - WIP

Game start:
25 seconds of loading (yes really) - I'll probably give a quick intro to the game here. Maybe use it for introductions.

Prologue fights:
Basic introduction to the battle system, auto attacks, talent arts.
I'll probably use the 3rd fight (single big guy) to talk about aggro a bit as well.
First shulk fight introduces actual arts, second fight is an example of positional bonuses.

Colony 9:
Once we get past the first few fights things chill out for a bit, so we can take some time to just tidy up anything mentioned.

The biggest thing about colony 9 is the collectables. I'll be grabbing basically all of them on the way, and I'm looking for 6 specific ones:
Plate Snow (Most important)
[?] Wasabi (Second most important)
Cool Potato
Red Lettuce
Dance Apple
[?] Kiwi

All of the vegetables give a quick step 3 gem, which is very important for movement. The earlier we can get it the better. The fruit give an Agility gem, which is probably the most important single type of gem in the run. It can be delayed until later though.

Once we get into the colony proper (residential district) there will be a lot of trades for various pieces of equipment (Regnas stuff mostly), as well as doing a couple of side quests for experience. The experience route in early game is very important, since we need to hit level 8 for the ledge. If I don't have to do many trades due to a high amount of collectables then I'll be talking to some extra people anyway for an achievemnt (Friend number 10).
The last thing that happens in the first section is talking to the Gem Man for some gems (HP Up 2, Strength up 2). It's possible I won't have quick step by this point, but it's ok since there's still a chance to get more collectables for trade later on.

All of the optional trades that might be necessary are as follows:
Wasabi - Wester (Wreckage, Night)
Potato - Rocco (near gem man's stall, 9am)
Lettuce - Giorgio (Back side of shopping stall area, Day)
Apple - Liliana (Shopping stall area, 9am)
Kiwi - Paola (Just past Gem man stall, 1pm)

Once the quick step gem is obtained, We'll be putting it on shulk with the light shoes we got from the Dionysis side quest earlier on.
Only other thing of note is buying a Back Slash manual from the shop.

This part is a bit confusing to talk about in just text since it can vary so much, I would recommend watching several attempts at this section if possible to get a better idea of how it all fits together.

Once we get to the lab, we switch over to Fiora for a small section. Since we went to Outlook park earlier we can quick travel straight over there and then go right back to the fortress entrance.

We then switch the time over to 6pm when we enter the lab building to set up time manipulation for a trade later on. We also trade for a Block Guarder (VERY IMPORTANT)

Now we go back to shulk/reyn, skip to main entrance.
Using the back slash manual for another achievement, and getting a battle start affinity on a random enemy for another should always guarantee level 6 (pretty important)
We then run up the hill and backslash a single level 1 skeeter which will one-shot, giving another achievement.
Past this point its just running up to Tephra Cave, although we can grab some more collectables to trade if we need it.

Just before going into the cave we change everyone's skills over to their right skill tree. This is pretty important since discovering areas gives SP as well as Exp and AP, and the skill routes are pretty tight for all characters.


Tephra Cave:
Just running through the cave really, there's 4 collectables I'm on the lookout for here: Bright Fig, Kneecap Rock, Leaf Mystery, Steel Silk
These 4 are the ones that have sufficient value to be traded for a Homs Chestplate in colony 9, which is a good piece of armour for Reyn.

Once we get to the far end of the cave, we drop down into the water for an achievement, then skip to the Gem Man's Stall, and trade for the chestplate, and then it's back to the cave.

This is where things get a little weird ;)

First up is getting back to the locked door and clipping through it using Reyn. This works because when your allies are moving they have no/reduced hitbox, but when they stop they become more solid, so by running at the right angle and roughly at the right time you get pushed right through the door.

Now we can run through tephra cave without any of the plot-based triggers existing. This means that certain enemy groups don't spawn and we're free to run all the way to Vilia lake.

Once we get to the lake, Shulk's Back Slash is levelled up once, this will give us another achievement and also Level 8!

Climb up the vine to the upper balcony, switch over to Reyn lead, give him all the better armour we got earlier as well as Block Guarder with the HP gem.
Now for the ledge. I will save here since there's chance for trolling.

Aggro the skeeter using reyn and push allies off the balcony, there are some movement patterns where it will be too far and not aggro onto reyn properly so thats something I'll be looking for before committing.
Once the bug aggros onto reyn, it's Rage + Aura Burst for Str Down on the bug, and then we run away and jump at the ledge.

The idea is to jump just before getting hit by the attack and hoping.
There's about a 5.5%-6% block rate (not sure on the exact number totally) on every attack it does, and getting a block with a good jump will push you up onto the ledge.
Unfortunately the bug can do several annoying slower things such as Energy Absorb (steals health if you have enough, otherwise just wastes time), A Heal for itself, And a forward lunging attack (Hidden Needle) which if in the right position can move itself out of aggro range and force you to reset the trick.
If I don't get the block before dying then it's a case of reloading the save and trying again.
I'll probably give it 3-4 full rounds of attempts before loading a pre-setup save that's just past the ledge. It's a 90%+ chance to get it by that point but as we know, RNG and marathons don't always mix.

Once we make it up onto the ledge, we run on through to the post-core area of Tephra Cave. Since we're pre-core there are no enemies spawned and we can get to several high-level landmarks which give us a TON of exp. Specifically Heavenly Window, which takes us from around level 16 to Level 43.
We can then grab some crystals from the red deposit (Strength is the main one here) and then grab one more location before skipping out to the Cylinder Hangar in C9.


Colony 9 Mechon Assault:

First up is a bit of menuing, mainly moving reyn's arts around for better damage and then giving shulk a couple of art upgrades.
Ancient machine fight is super easy. Beserker>Lariat>Switch Target>Sword Drive

After the cutscenes we jump down to the lower shore and run towards the colony entrance.
On the way we'll take out a UM (Verdant Bluchal) for the gold chest, which has a chance to contain 2 good pieces of equipment. Pistis Cap (Head) and a Crusher (Reyn Weapon)
After that we enter the colony.

Right now we don't have any special tools to deal with mechon, so we have to play by the rules a little. This first fight is just waiting for shulk to break so we can topple->damage.
Then run through the colony to the fortress (Running away is a valid tactic)

The 2 plaza fights are a little more complicated, and the first uses a bit of a glitch to go optimally. We focus attacks on the larger enemy and wait for shulk to break, then by doing topple we can damage it normally and we'll get all 3 enemies in range and Lariat.
What happens here is if you kill a mechon enemy with an AoE art, then all enemies in range will take full damage. Regardless of if they are toppled or not.
Unfortunately this fight can troll pretty hard if it wants to so we'll see if it gets shown or not.

The second fight isn't too bad, but has a bit of a menu at the start to rearrange party and equipment, and then we basically just kill time until dunban uses Enchant, which allows us to damage mechon properly.

After the fights we switch Dunban's skill tree, since he counts as a real party member at this point, and run out to the main entrance
MONADO BOYZ
First fight is free, just whack stuff

Metal face is a bit more subtle, the idea is to build the party gague (top-left) for a chain attack, which we do by staying on the side/behind and using the relevant arts. You can get lucky here and get a burst affinity from a deflected attack (since Metal face is a faced mechon everything does 1 damage outside of topple).
The chain attack is the reason for the party order shuffle earlier, since it lets us do Air Slash>Steel Strike>Sword Drive for the highest damage on the toppled Metal Face.

Once we regain control after the cutscenes Dunban has left us again, and Fiora is presumed dead.
We skip to Mag Mell in Tephra Cave and run through to hit the cutscene triggers, since we can't advance without them. We get to take some shortcuts here using the landmarks we got earlier though.
Spider fight is dumb, hope to get lucky with targeting and stream edge as many as you can then cleanup.
After that we run through to the boss.

Arachno Queen:
This fight is the game's vision tutorial, so we see them first here. The general idea is run to side, slit edge, shadow eye, backslash, cleanup if necessary. It';s very simple.

Then we run out of Tephra cave and onto the Bionis' Leg
Just before changing areas, I'll check the collectopaedia for Tephra Strange, which is an Attack Stability Gem. This is super helpful and counteracts a damage glitch which you get when your damage range is too high (Which ours currently is due to how Monado 1 scales and the fact we're way over-level). It has the effective increase on DPS the same as a Strength Up 6 Gem.

Bionis' Leg:
First part of the leg is relatively straightforwards. However instead of running from the buggy straight to the ardun fight, we take a slightly longer route to hit a further landmark so we can cut down on travel time due to a forced teleport.

During this run it could be thrown over to the host desk or any donations could be read since its just a chunk of running around.

The fight is very basic, a couple of arts kill both of them
Then we skip to the further point and run into the camp.

This is the first part of shopping in the run that isn't completely trivial.
The idea is to sell old/uneeded weapons (Gold chest drops) as well as all materials, and then use collectables to finish out the amount we need which is 15200G.
If it ends up being less than that, then things are fine, it just requires an extra selling section a bit later on.
We then buy 2 Infantry Boots, which are a unique boot with a Quick Step gem attached to them (Which as mentioned earlier makes us go faaaaast)

Then after talking to sharla we do some rearranging of equips. Stealing Sharla's Body and Leg armour for the slots, as well as putting Infantry boots on Shulk and the Light shoes on Reyn. We then give Shulk the Quick Step gem on the Round Top, because he's still our main movement character.
We also shift Sharla's still tree to Perserverence for skill links later on.

Note: Sharla is basically useless, and is effectively the least used character in the run. There's only really one point where she can be helpful but apart from that we just get rid of her as soon as possible!

More movement for a little while, this would be a good time for Donation reading or throwing it over to the host desk.

Once at the Far end of Raguel bridge we skip back to Tephra Cave, where the Red crystal store was found earlier and grab some more crystals. We then run down the other side of the area to another hidden landmark (Bafalgar's Tomb) which takes us up to Level 50. The reason this isn't done earlier is to give us a second shot at the crystals to get more of them, and we have higher quick step now so we save movement time without losing any time on earlier fights since things die super fast anyway.

After this we go back to the Gem Man's stall and do Gem Crafting.

The ideal situation here is as follows:
Initial Tension V - 1
Strength V - 3 (With any amount being Strength VI if possible)

I have a list of several different crystal possibilities for this but the basic flow is:
Fuse Strength with Strength for a Strength Gem
Get Initial Tension gem from some random fusion (very very likely)
If possible to go for Strength VI, then fure Strength with Non-Strength and get a good Strength Cylinder (2 if possible)
Then Fuse Cylinder with Other Cylinder/Gems for high chance of Strength VI.

The good thing about these crystals is that is basically pretty hard to get screwed into a cylinder when you want a gem since the numbers are fairly high, but it can happen. If it does it sucks, but its not run over.

After this we throw the Strength Gems on Shulk/Reyn in the best way possible and then go back to the leg.

This next movement part up until the mechon boss is another good opportunity for donations/etc

The boss here is pretty basic. First phase is get Reyn to aggro and then Slit->Eye->Backslash->Whatever to kill
Second phase is similar but with using Enchant at the start so that Reyn/Sharla can actually do damage.
The second "fight" we just use to rebuild the monado, and then run away and face away from the boss to remove some lag.

After the fight we skip back to Spiral Valley (where the boss fight was) and run on into Colony 6.

Ether Mine:
Running to the mine entrance is nothing special, good point to throw it over to wherever.
At the start of the mine we buy 2 manuals (Light Heal and Slit Edge) which will get used later.
The first fight in the mine is a little weird. the Ideal situation is Bustering every enemy at once but this happens very rarely and isn't really manipulable.
Then we go through some tunnels and into the main mine area.
This entire section has global platform cycles, and so we can get stuck waiting for a fair amount if bad things happen.
The jump down to skip a level is fairly precise, and requires landing on the slightly raised portion of the lower level else the fall damage will kill you.

The moving platform cycle is reset with a Save/reload, so if there's a bad cycle here that's what I'll do.
On the big moving arm there's a menu to level up Buster (shulk) and Reyns DPS arts (Sword Drive, Lariat, Berserker).
The reason we can run through the wall and skip a fight is because we're on 50hz and so the slight increase in movement speed and lesser framerate means we can just clip right through the wall (its very thin)

The fight with the 2 taller mechon is fairly basic. Just building the monado, hitting both of them if possible, and then tidying up while also refilling the monado somewhat.
Then we run down to the boss of the area.

Xord:
This fight takes a bit of explaining, but it basically reuses the glitch from the plaza fights in colony 9 where if you kill a mechon with an attack that isn't strict single target, the damage will be applied the same to every enemy.
To make this happen we refill the monado and slightly damage one of the smaller enemies.
Then we Buster through it into Xord, and it will kill the smaller bot, meaning the damage splashes over and pushes Xord past his HP barrier to end the fight.

Heading back up to the exit is another platform cycle, and again not much you can do about it.

Xord 2:
Idea with this fight is keep the AI backed off and build the monado, then Enchant (so you can actually damage), focus attacks and Shadow Eye to drop aggro. Once Xord decides to hit reyn you can do slit edge/stuff.

Unfinished Battle:
First thing we do is take sharla out of the party because we can now!
Dunban comes in because he's great. This party will be used for a long time when it comes to fights so get used to seeing it.
The fight itself is a bit of a mess, but the general idea is Enchant, rebuild monado, Buster as much stuff as possible and then clean up.

After the fight we change Sharla's skill tree and then move on to Satorl Marsh.
Fun fact: the Weather in this section is fixed to be thunderstorm no matter what.

Nothing really happens now for a while until we get to the second obelisk in Satorl, so now is a good time for donations/host stuff.

Satorl:
This area is very straight forwards, mostly movement optimisations.
The only things worth noting before the end are:
The detours I'm taking are to pick up 4 items for a fetch quest. They exist from the start of the area so it's just efficiency.
Near the third item there's a unique monster that can aggro you, and if he does then you have to fight it. It's basically just a random timeloss.
In the cave with the water, theres a super jump you can get at the end with the waterfall where if you time a jump right you keep momentum and fly further. It looks neat and saves a couple of seconds.

The menu before the last item is a couple of art levels on shulk/reyn for utility, and then setting up dunban.
We take out Battle Eye (Reyn does aggro better), Spirit Breath (it's useless at the levels we have basically) and Gutbuster (We have better sources of break on shulk), and put in Soaring Tempest (AoE damage, loads of talent gague), Jaws of Death (Helpful later on, for now just taking the slot) and Tempest Kick (Removes a buff which is helpful).
We keep in his combinations with Gale Slash since they fill the party gague by a decent amount which is helpful to have.
In general for now Dunban is setup as a second DPS source behind shulk, and his aggro stuff isn't used yet because Reyn does that fine for now, and things can't even really do any damage to us at this point.

Satorl Guardian fight is basic enough. Get Slit Edge on, go for damage

Then we climb up the wall and go through the Bionis interior.
There's a save reset in here for cycle manipulation.
This is another fairly quiet section for a while.

Makna Forest:
Running through to the ruined section of the forest has nothing fancy,
once we get there we shift over to solo shulk and skip back to Agni Tablet.
From there it's a jump down to the lower shore and the Purge Fight.

The general idea with the fight is Buster as many enemies at once, build it back and do it again.
After this we (temporarily) have melia in the party, so we switch her skill tree over.
Then it's off to frontier village.
Before getting to the village on the final bridge, the time of day gets changed to 17:00, which is setting up to getting certain quests to be active in the village without having to change time manually.

Frontier village:
The first trip up the village is grabbing a few sidequests and a couple of quest items, while also getting a load of locations. Then once we reach melia we skip back down to the altar and trigger the riki sidequest.
This just involves getting items from 2 shops, and we can jump down to the second one and talk to the shopkeeper during the landing animation to save a second or so.
After the cutscene we change riki and melia's skill trees. Riki's is important here because we want to get his first Innocence skill by the next menu.
We then grab the Nopon tower and entry bridge landmarks, drop down for a quest item and run over to the resevoir
There's a chance to get 2 collectables in this section. Black Panel and Rumble Box. If I get both, then that's an Agility gem which is very very nice to have.
Once at the reservoir we swim into the basement of the village and grab another sidequest.
Then we skip up to the top, run and grab the final sidequest item at Apex Lake, and then do a menu.
This menu is entirely setting up skill links for characters. The important stuff is Adventure time from riki for movement speed, Giving medium equipment to some characters, and then a couple of other things to enhance each character's skills (Riki gets ether, Dunban gets strength/agility, etc).

Back out to Makna forest and run on towards Leone Telethia. (Downtime)
Just before leone we switch time to day. Basically from this point onwards all fights will be done during day time where possible because of Riki's skill links giving daytime benefits.

Leone:
The leone fight seems basic, but actually has a couple of subtle things to it. The general flow is shulk DPS and go nuts, but each phase has some weird stuff on it.
In the first phase you want to build up the monado where possible, and also prioritise Phys Def Down inflictions with Slit Edge, but Leone can resist this. However you only have to push past a HP threshold and then its next attack will switch phases.
In the second phase the same kind of thing applies, but we hold off on doing the big damage until the point where the kill is guaranteed, otherwise leone will use Super Aura, and begin regenerating. The fight is still winnable at this point but takes much longer or requires you to use monado purge, neither of which are very good.

After that it's back up to melia to pick her up again, and then off to Eryth Sea.

Eryth Sea:
Once we get here, the first thing to do is equip Melia with the Infantry Boots.
This acts against a glitch you can get when having too many textboxes/events queued up at once, where you sometimes won't get the reward from discovering the shore area you land on. Doing the menu here prevents this.
Once we get the landmark we switch dunban's skills over to Bravery.
Then it's off to centre gate for the landmark and then backtrack a little and go to the lighthouse.
This bit of movement has to be done at some point, but it works out a little better to do it here since once we get to the lighthouse we can skip right to the gate and hit the cutscene, which saves a second or 2.

Then its just running with melia for a bit. There is a trade done here for a better weapon for reyn which helps a bit, but its not a huge problem if you can't get it.

Once we get back to the main team, we have to talk to everyone once, and then we get a sidequest to go investigate what happened at the crystal deposit.
On the way there we do a menu. More art upgrades for shulk, Reyn gets some changes, Magnum Charge and War Swing are in over Aura Burst and Hammer Beat for higher DPS. Dunban gets a couple of upgrades, and we also do Riki's first art menu. Upgrading his happy happy will come into effect later on, and we replace some of his auras/worse arts with his DoT effects.

DoT is very strong in this game since the damage dealt each tick of the DoT depends on the initial hit of the art, and since that can be increased with the Ether stat and various buffs, DoT can really stack up fast, which is what makes Riki and Melia so strong.

The second menu is to change the party order for the next 2 fights (Reyn, Riki, Dunban) and give riki some different equipment, as well as an Initial Tension gem (needed for happy happy stuff later on).

The Kromar fight is pretty neat, the strat is to lure them all over to the bridge so they group up, use War swing to fill the talent gague, then Berserker for the strength up, Magnum charge to supercharge the next art and then Lariat to hit them all for a chunk of damage. Then it's just cleaning up.

After a couple of cutscenes we go back to Alcamoth for the second fight.

The assassins fight flows basically the same as the kromars. Hope they group up and hit as many of them as you can with a supercharged lariat, then tidy things up.

Then we head for the tomb, just before entering we change up Riki and Dunban's skill trees again as they've learnt some skills now.

High Entia Tomb:
This first section is the game forcing you to use melia, so we take this chance to set her up.
Flare (AoE Blaze DoT) and Bolt (Ether up buff, good damage) are upgraded, and Burst End (Aura Seal), Aqua (Healing) and Shadow Stitch (Bind) are replaced with Copy (Copys a summon, super helpful), Earth (Poison DoT) and Starlight Kick (Forces topple after Spear Break, helpful combo).

The fights are easy with the general pattern being Bolt, Copy, Flare, Discharge all, do stuff to finish up.

Once we gain the main party back we switch riki's skill tree again (he bounces around a lot, but it's about guaranteeing the correct totals later on).
Then we run on to Hall of the Emperors for the mid-boss of the area.
Rufus:
This fight is weird. Sometimes he just melts, sometimes it takes a while, but it generally depends on how lucky you get with Phys Def Down inflictions (Abbreviating this to PDD for the rest), and also if you have Buster for big damage.

Then we run on to the end of the area, with a slight detour to a hidden room with a chest in. the chest contains Ruby Glasses (Ether Up V headgear), and  a Summon Bolt master manual (which we sell).

Just before the Tyrea fight the time of day gets reset to 18:00 to ensure it doesn't turn to night during the fight.

Tyrea:
This fight is kind of interesting since shulk can't damage Tyrea (or any high entia) with the Monado I, so you would expect that he wouldn't get used in this fight. But he does!
The general strat is to take down the telethia first, and while doing so, prioritise side/back hits on the relevant arts for Party Gague build.
Then once he's dead, focus on Tyrea and continue to build up to a chain attack.
Once Reyn and Dunban have reapplied their auras, chain attack and do Slit Edge, Worldly Slash, Sword Drive.
This applies 2 more PDD inflictions and gives a x3 damage Sword Drive, which is enough to kill her from pretty high health.

Alcamoth:
This section is a lot of running around hitting cutscene triggers for quite a while.
Once we head out of the main palace, we stop by a shop and sell off our spare weapons/materials and the Bolt Manual from earlier. We then buy Hover Boots, which are a unique footwear with Agility Up on them.

We then head back out to Eryth Sea, and skip to the lighthouse.
On the top level we buy a Love Biter (for riki, explained later) and a Tempest Kick Manual, as well as trading for 4 PDD gems (Which give a chance for auto attacks to inflict PDD. This is very strong and is one of the major pinning points of the current route).
Then it's just running around and hitting the 2 seal islands. (Downtime)

Skyray is a funny fight. It used to be somewhat tricky since once he gets to low health, he will use "Ether Meteor V" which is a talent art that causes Daze and hits AoE. However now that our DPS is much better in this route, we can just kill him without ever seeing it. The only important thing of note here is that we CANNOT use the monado for this fight since we need it for the next one.

Prison Island 1:
Only 2 things really happen here. The first is a small skill menu at the gate, to add on a link for shulk and change riki's tree again, and then the Metal Face fight.

Metal Face:
This fight upgrades the monado, so it's important to menu at the start of it, since it takes off your gems.
We give shulk the Ruby Glasses, Nopon Gloves (for the slot) and then give him 2 PDD gems and Agility on the Monado.
The fight strat is then Enchant and chill until monado is rebuilt. Slit Edge->Air Slash, wait for Slit edge again. Slit Edge, Eye, Backslash, Buster to finish.
Doing most of the damage at the end of the fight ensures you won't see some of his more annoying attacks and is a little safer.

Then there's a few more cutscenes in alcamoth we have to go hit (downtime) and then we take a airship back to Makna forest so we can head over to Valak Mountain.
Fun fact: there was a whole other area planned inbetween Makna and Valak called the Bionis' Shoulder, and while it was scrapped from the final game, the basic area still exists on the disc and is visible in the credits, but can also be reached via AR/similar code.

Valak:
Not much happens in the early part of this area (downtime)
Once we get to the lower part of the upper area (not confusing at all) then there's a slide section with some wonky/amusing physics, and then things chill out again until we get to Harict Chapel.
Once there we skip to the lava cave and go fight Conflagrant Raxeal.
The fight is fairly simple, just go for PDD and DPS as possible. Want to build the monado here, and also I start paying attention to whether Dunban has his Talent Art stocked or not at around this point.

Again a little more downtime as we run to the glacier and then another boss fight

Mumkhar I:
This fight is weird. Enchant at the start so reyn can damage, but then we basically just chill out. Go for PDD where possible and occasionally break/topple/daze, but in most cases you just want to let the fight flow on its own. Mumkhar has plenty of annoying things he can do, and letting him get away with stuff especially near the end is scary, so toppling helps with that. You don't want shulk to take the aggro though, because we're at the point where bosses can actually hit us again now.

Sword Valley:
This area starts with the first Major shopping menu in the run. This is the first point where money can really be tight or an issue, and we also redo a lot of our setup.
First selling:
We get rid of all of Dunban's equipment, all materials and crystals, spare gems, and then collectables to hit the money amount (or all of them if we're low). The goal amount is 132,780G.
Buying:
We get an Anti-Mechon Striker/Driver (Dunban/Reyn weapons), 2 Brave Gloves (good slotted gloves), and Engineer Belt (Earth cloak), and a Thunder/Soaring Tempest Manual.
If things have to be cut off due to lack of money, then the first thing to go is the brave gloves since they can be traded for later on.

Now for the equipping.

Riki: Love Biter, Engineer belt. Both of these have earth cloak which reduce grounded enemies detection radius so we can run around without fear of getting randomly attacked. Regnas Gear just because, Round top for the slot but also because it has quickstep on, and Infantry boots for more quickstep so that we max it out. From this point on Riki is our main movement character for a large portion of the game.

Dunban: New Weapon, Best Armours, Ruby Glasses, and then PDD/Strength/HP gems. Generally beefing him up.
Reyn: New Weapon, Second Armours, Hover Shoes for Agility since he's the slowest character of the 3
Shulk: Better Armours. Strength/Agility gems to make him a bit safer if he gets aggro'd.
We then also use all of our art manuals, although they don't get upgraded just yet.

Sword valley movement is straightforwards enough, occasionally we use quick travel to get closer to a landmark that we're grabbed.
When we get to the raised tunnel the time is set to 4am so that it's daytime later when we need it.

At the end of this area is the first instance of the "Happy Happy trick", which is where since we gave Riki an Initial Tension V gem, we can use Happy Happy right away after engaging a fight. We can then run away immediately, and as long as our AI party members don't get too close to the enemy we can repeat the process, effectively giving us free Party Gague and preparing an early chain attack for the fights where we need it.

Just before the fight there's another skill menu. At this point I might be putting another skill link onto shulk if I couldn't earlier. While not super critical, it's affected by their affinity link so you can sometimes end up getting it later than planned.

Mumkhar 2:
This fight is very stable when it goes well, and a total mess when it doesn't.
At the start of the fight we get Shulk back in over Riki, and then just poke Mumkhar a bit with Slit Edge>Air Slash, for PDD and chain gague.
We then wait until Dunban builds his talent art (Which he will do by using Soaring Tempest). Then since AI members won't use a Talent Art when the party gague is maxed, we can Slit Edge, Eye, Backslash and then start a Chain attack. Then it's Back Slash, Sword Drive, Blossom Dance, and he should go down.
If he doesn't, usually its because PDD didn't inflict very well, and cleaning up isn't too bad usually.
Things only really go wrong if you don't have blossom dance stocked up, because you lose out on a lot of damage that way.

After the fight it's back to riki lead and off to galahad.

Galahad:
In the first major room it's time for an art menu.
The only change is Reyn getting Hammer Beat back over Magnum Charge, since we want him to take more of an aggro role again now over having more DPS for safety. Outside of that it's just upgrading a whole load of stuff.

Another Happy Happy Trick before the first fight, Another simple one if it goes well though. Strat is to Slit Edge the main robot, wait for aggro to be taken away from shulk, and then Backslash, chain: Backslash, Sword Drive, Soaring Tempest and that will kill most if not all of the enemies, and then just clean up.
Then it's off to the lower level and hitting some switches, then another Happy Happy Trick before the final elevator.
Then before the fight it's back to Shulk lead, one more skill menu (this one is to guarantee shulk and reyn finish their right-side trees), and rolling time back to earlier in the day just to keep it safe.

These next 2 fights are the worst fights in the entire run, and can be totally horrible if they want to be.

Escort Fight:
This fight has 4 enemies you have to kill, and Fiora who you can't hurt. We start with fighting one of the large spiders and killing it with a chain attack (which is consistent at least), but the rest is entirely improv.
The flying enemies can force you to lock on to them, and have break resistance and a lot of physical defense, so killing them is very hard without resources (such as chain attack or monado). Also things do a lot of damage to you here since we're a bit under level.

Face Nemesis:
This fight is SUPER dumb because it's on a random timer. So you just have to survive.
We focus on gold face, because if you can do enough damage to him, it forces the fight along a bit, but it's not the easiest thing to do since he's much higher level than we are. Also all the big attacks in this fight hurt a lot, so its a case of go hard until you start dying, then just stay alive for as long as you can and hope for Catastrophe.

Fallen Arm:
Right away we switch shulk to his left tree (right one is complete now)
And then it's a bit of a fetchquest until we get fiora back.
The first fight here is super easy. Buster and cleanup. Not much to talk about because theres not much else to do.

When we get reyn back we also switch him over to his left tree. (Right tree complete also)
This second fight with the flying robots is a little more complex. We have to remember to go back to shulk lead, and then it's a case of letting reyn take aggro and building monado back up, then using buster for massive damage and starting to recharge while we finish up.

Now its like a minute of running around (downtime)

When we get the second team back we switch to riki lead again and dunban gets his right skill tree active, we then grab a landmark for quick travel later and head to the village.

Once in the village we grab the junks landmark and then do some shopping.
We basically sell any spare stuff that we have at this point and buy a Machina Sword (better dunban weapon) and a Jaws of Death manual.

Then we travel around a bit to Sword Valley/Makna for some hidden location landmarks, which give a much higher reward compared to normal ones.

After that, we trigger the next couple of story triggers and lose fiora for a bit while we do a quick sidequest on the fallen arm. All this consists of is running around as riki, grabbing an item on the floor, and then getting a couple more locations for ease of travel later on.
Once we go back to Junks, I'll attempt to trade for a Weapon Power 3 Gem, which increases the activation rate of weapon gems (in our case, the PDD gems) which is very helpful, but not necessary.
Then we get fiora back, skip to Digit 2 and it's off to Mechonis Field
Right at the end with the bulkhead you can skip to it as soon as you have the landmark to skip the opening animation.

Mechonis Field:
This is a very long platforming section with not much to mention outside of a couple of skips and things to look out for.
Throughout this area, I'm watching my collectables for flowers. These give an Agility Gem which is very nice to have later on. The 2 collectables you need for it are: Utopia Crocus and Azure Hollyhock

The first skip is when the large circular pillar appears from the ground with the spiral path. There's a jump you can do from the path to the railing on the side, and then on to the further on platform to skip a decent chunk of movement.

The second skip is near the end of the lower section, with the switch near all the enemies. By jumping over the corners and making our way directly to the switch without getting too close, thanks to Earth Cloak the enemies don't detect us and we can activate it without doing a fight for it.

During the outside section we grab the Great Battle Scar landmark for travel to later. We also switch Fiora's skill tree over to Daring just before the midway cutscene.

The upper area has a couple more skips in it, the first being when we initally head into the area and go around to the right, by jumping onto the top of the ring over the path we can negate enough fall damage to survive the drop to the main power switch.
The second is when going for the other switch, we can jump before getting to the circular area and land directly in the lower part where the switch is.
After hitting the main switches, we go back to the battle scar and head up to the Machina Refuge, which is a hidden area and so gives good reward, while also having some guaranteed high value collectables nearby which help later.

After all the movement is done its onto the High Velocity Lift and heading up to the boss of the area.
The menu here is a pretty major setup change again, replacing Reyn with Fiora and setting the team up correctly because of that.
We give Dunban the Machina sword we picked up earlier, as well as any random drops of good armour, and then Strength/Agility Gems.
Shulk gets the Engineer Belt for the Earth Cloak, Ruby Glasses for the Ether, and his gem setup is given Agility/Quick Step.
Fiora is just given the remaining PDD gems on her weapon.
When it comes to Arts, We level Shield up to 4 here (This as well as the Engineer Belt/Quick Step are important for the next boss because it's a weird one), as well as bumping up buster a bit for that sweet sweet damage.
Fiora gets her initial art setup here, with Second Gear being placed over Zero Gravity for better DPS, and Ether Drain/Healing Energy being removed since they don't really help us and directly counteract her DPS ability.
We also then do a couple of skill links just to get us through the fight and the start of the next area.

Jade Face:
This fight is a little weird. Normally what happens is you start being attacked from the far end of this area, and have to make your way to the boss while also managing several other enemies that spawn. However most of this is based on the boss's Agression towards you, and by having Earth Cloak, we can avoid that initial detection and speed up the fight significantly.
Some enemies do still spawn in however, which is why we have to kill the single TRICK on the way.
Then as we get closer to Jade Face, he will open the battle with Linear Laser IV (which is why we increased shield to 4 just now in the menu).
We use Shield to avoid this, and get our allies focus on him while we rebuild the monado and wait for the talent art to happen.
Then we just do Slit Edge, Eye, Back Slash, Buster, and he's dead (usually)

All that's left for this area is running along the conveyor belt and up to the elevator.

Central Factory 1:
When the lift reaches the top we can skip to the landmark to save a couple of seconds of movement.
Then it's another quick skill menu and off to the control tower.
The first fight here with the flying enemy is pretty basic, just get dunban to aggro and do shulk stuff.
Then we hit the switch, run past and get to the lift, and then run to the factory vent.
Then it's off to do some farming.

Farm:
The first farm is on the Bionis' Leg.
We switch to Melia lead and give her some equipment, sort out some skill links, and then head over to the gogols.
The strat is to lure the gogol over, send it to sleep, and boop it off the ledge. ez.
There's some stuff with moving party members around and stuff but honestly not much to explain, so this would be a good time to open up for chat questions or something else idk.
Once we get to the levels we need (60 on dunban/shulk), we drop down and roll chests.
The items we want (In priority order) are:
Lancelot Boots, Lancelot Leggings, Darkness Sickle, Z Power Boosters
Only the first is really necessary, and all but the last are standard to get at some point in the run. the last is only if you get lucky and isn't worth rolling chests for.

Then we go to satorl, sell our materials and buy some Manuals for dunban, and then it's off to the second farm.

The second farm is a little different. We send Indomitable Daulton to sleep, and then run away to space things correctly so that the gogols moving away from us despawn, and since we're still in battle mode, the game assumes that we killed them and gives us the rewards.
This takes quite a while in total with a couple of small menu adjustments throughout, and we keep going until Shulk is almost level 74.

Central Factory 2:
Immediately after coming back to Central Factory, we do a menu.
Altering some equipment on DUnban/Shulk, as well as giving shulk Quick Step for the remainder of the Mechonis.
We also level up most arts that we're actively using to max, and give Melia Ice and Reflection over Hypnotize and Mind Blast, just so she has a little more damage in combat.
Several skill links are also done to setup our characters damage and general battle prowess.

The fights in this area are now pretty trivial since we're very over levelled, and the only ones of note are the Unique Monster in control tower (since the chest can give helpful stuff), and the final one in the area since it sucks lol.

We also look at the collectopaedia here since both Veg and Bugs can give us helpful gems (Agility 4 and Strength 4)

Agniratha:
This area is a /lot/ of movement.
First off we go to the main tower to trigger the side quest.
Then we have to go around the entire city, triggering 4 pillars.
The first half of the area has no real skips, and the only scary thing
is a unique monster that will aggro you if it faces the correct way.
The second half has a couple of skips, the first from the transporter platform down to a lower walkway, and the second is a jump from the 3rd tower to a lower area.
Once the 4 pillars are active then it's back to the central tower and off to the shrine for the next boss.

Jade Face:
First phase is a simple HP barrier, so all we need to do is rebuild the monado and then Slit Edge->Eye->Backslash->Clean up.
Second phase, we send our allies forwards while activating the monado, and then using Buster on a flying enemy to One-shot it (or at least put it very low on HP). Then we take out the second flying enemy and start to focus on Jade Face himself.
While we're very strong here, Jade Face has a very high resistance to Phys Def Down, so it can be very hard to get damage going.
We can use a chain attack here to get some inflictions, but it can also be better to go for the chain attack only to kill later. It's a balancing act and there isn't really a "right" way to do it, so this is a bit of improv (and so are a lot of fights in endgame)

After this boss, we run up a slope and have another 2 fights back-to-back.

Egil:
The first phase is pretty simple, while we can use Buster for Damage, it's really nice to have the monado for second phase so I'll usually use a buster early, and then rebuild the monado during the fight without sacrificing too much DPS. I might also go for building party gague on this fight if the PDD luck is bad.
Yaldaboth 0:
This fight is a bit dumb (as with gold face before it - same guy, notice the pattern XD)
The best strat is one of 2 things:
1) Run up, Slit Edge, inflict PDD, Shadow Eye, get arts sealed, Buster
2) Run up, Chain attack, push HP threshold, wait.

The fight is on a HP barrier after which his next art will be Catastrophe and the fight will end.
However he uses Machinery Field which inflicts art seal, so the damage has to be done very fast to get a quick kill.
If this doesn't happen, then we just have to survive and it can suck pretty bad.

Mechonis Core Event:
After these fights we have probably THE MAJOR MENU of the run shopping -wise. This sets up our stuff for the rest of the game, and is even tighter money-wise than the Sword Valley Shop. However there are plenty of things that can be ignored if we're low on money, so it never usually ends up being too bad.
We sell:
 All weapons we don't need
 All Heavy armour or random slotted stuff that's not good
 Fiora's Frame, Arms, Boosters and Drones
 Any other random Materials/Collectables/Crystals
 Ideal money (as in we can buy everything) is 284000. (Lots!)
Then we buy:
 Star Knives (Fiora Weapon)
 Speed III Frame/Arms/Boosters (Fiora Armour with Haste/Agility)
 Uranus Drones (Sword Drones is based as fuck)
 Fiora Art Manuals: Double Blade, Spear Blade, Healing Enery, Ether Drain, Second Gear.

If low on money, then the manuals are the first to go, with whatever we have being used to by as many as possible in the order they are in the shop.
If we can't even get that far, then the boosters are skipped (but that so far has never happened to me. famous last words.)

After that we talk to Miqol and head to the Mechonis Core

If we didn't get the Darkness Sickle in farm, we can trade with Prox at night for a Similar sword.
If we got the Z Power Boosters in farm, then the Speed III Boosters aren't bought, and we save ~30k.

On the way to the next fight, we do some more menuing.
A couple of skill links are adjusted, all arts manuals are used, and then we upgrade a lot of Fiora's Arts, as well as giving dunban Thunder over Blinding Blossom.
We also adjust our equipment. Taking Quick Step off shulk since he'll be leaving the party soon, as well as giving Fiora her new stuff and upping our main party's DPS with gems. We give the Quick Step stuff to Fiora for a little later.

Apocrypha Generator:
This fight is simple. We can use buster near the start for a chunk of damage, but taking aggro from this guy is scary so it's a risk. We can also rebuild the monado during this fight and in fact should.

Yaldaboth II:
At the start of the fight we just do damage. And lots of it. Nothing really happens until we push him down past 40% or so which is when he uses Energy Replenish, so we just go nuts. Nowadays I'm using an early Buster, and rebuilding the monado during the fight also, but this is a little risky since I need it for the first pillar.
Once we get to Energy Replenish, he will use Bionis Slash X, and we get the "Save Bionis" Sidequest, which requires you to kill the 3 energy pillars.
We leave our party members fighting Yaldabaoth, and go beat those up.
The first one we use Buster on, because it basically dies in 1 hit.
The second and third are using various arts, and auto attacks to rebuild the monado, since we need to finish the fight with a full talent art on shulk for later.
Once all the pillars die, we beat the sidequest and the boss gets Dazed, so we run in to finish him off.

Zanza 0:
You literally can't die in this fight, it serves mainly a plot purpose. However there are strats to make it faster.
We go for fiora's talent art as soon as possible, with the Second Gear buff active. Then we use Speed shift for faster auto attacks and just chill out. Occasionally using arts to cancel knockback from his attacks, and doing a second talent art if the first was early in the fight.

Escape:
After those fights we lose shulk for a while, so we switch our party to Melia, Fiora, Dunban.
Fiora gets her gems back, and Dunban gets a better weapon (Darkness Sickle doesn't work on Mechon hence why we switch now and not earlier).
Then we run out back to Junks.

Sureny Telethia I:
This fight is dumb lol.
Ideally we use Melia to stack up a load of DoT arts, and then just chill as it dies.
When it gets past about 60% HP it will use various arts in order (most of the time), which are Soul Read, Burst Animus, Killer Sky, and then end the fight with Mega Ether Particles.
Since Fiora and Dunban generate way more aggro than melia does, and we have reflection, dying isn't really something that happens, it's just a case of sitting back and letting it die.

Colony 6 Assault:
The first thing we can do in this section is catch up on any important shopping that was missed. I'll only do this if I'm missing either the Double Blade manual, or Fiora's Boosters.
Then we have to go fetch Fiora, and head back to the ship to trigger the 3 fights.
This would have to be the cutoff point for the Tyrea Sidequest incentive.

Colony 6 Telethia:
The first fight is 3 Telethia.
We switch the party to Dunban, Fiora, Melia and then start doing Dunban things. It's a simple fight so this is a good chance to generally explain how dunban flows in combat for the rest of the game.
Generally it's a case of balancing Gale Slash with various follow ups for the extra effects, as well as Tempest Kick->Thunder for daze and Soaring tempest for good damage and Talent Art.

The second fight we get Shulk Back! yay!
We switch back to using him as lead, as well as setting riki up for movement again (Quick Step, Earth Cloak) since enemies are getting close to our level again now.
The idea with this second fight is to Purge, and then just do shulk DPS things. Nothing too crazy.

The final fight is a little more controlled, we start off by doing a couple of auto attacks for Monado build, and then doing Slit Edge, Eye, Back Slash, Chain: Backslash, Spear Blade, Blossom Dance to kill.
It usually goes simple enough and even if it doesn't, recovering is fine.
The only really important thing is to NOT use the monado since we need it for the next fight.

Once these are done we're back at Junks again.
If the Tyrea Sidequest incentive is met, this is where I will go trigger the quest at the north gate of colony 6. However the boss fight won't be done until later.
Either way, it's off to the Bionis Interior.

Bionis Interior 2:
We lead with riki once again, but getting through the area is just a straight path. nothing fancy going on (downtime)
Before we get to the heart, we do another Happy Happy trick for party gague, and then also do some art leveling, giving shulk some upgrades on his monado Shield, Purge and Cyclone arts.
We also give Dunban Heat Haze (aura which gives 100% Crit rate) for the next fight.
Before hitting the fight trigger, we change party to Dunban, Fiora, Shulk. There is no point to do it at the start of the next fight so it has to be done in advance.

Lorithia:
This fight is very scripted when it goes well, and a mess when it doesn't, but the start is always the same.
We tell the AI to do nothing and use Heat Haze. Then we run to a good poisition, and use Tempest Kick->Thunder for Daze. Then we IMMEDIATELY chain attack. Soaring Tempest (Red, Talent Art)->Fiora's AoE Red Art (I forget the name lol)->Monado Cyclone for HELLA AoE damage.
This kills all the elementals and leaves lorithia open to much more damage.
Then we do another Soaring tempest to fill the Talent Art and Party gague bars, Peerless for the strength buff and Aggro, and focus attacks on Lorithia to get Shulk and Fiora doing stuff.
Then we do Gale Slash->Worldly Slash for PDD and to keep her looking at us, and then another chain.
This is where things get a little weird.
Ideal situation is Worldly Slash, Double Blade, Back Slash, COntinuation into Blossom Dance which will kill.
If you don't get the continuation then it's improv time and this sucks.

After Lorithia it's off to the final dungeon, Prison Island.
If Tyrea incentive was met this is where I would do the boss fight. It doesn't change much outside of this other than 1 fight being a little safer due to a higher level, and shulk already having part of his art menu done before Dickson.

Prison Island II:
Back to Riki Lead for movement.
This area has 3 important Collectopaedia sections: Bug (Agility V), Nature (Strength V), Strange (Ether V).
We run through the first few rooms to the arena, and then go back to Dunban/Fiora/Shulk for the fights.

The first 2 are Obelis Obart/Demon Pavlovsk which are both simple enough and just basic Dunban Things. The only special thing worth mentioning is Pavlovsk has a topple spike, so I won't be going for topple on him much if at all.

Then it's through the Behemoth Nest and hitting a switch. This opens the upper path of the main entrance hall which leads to the arena switch. It also gives us access to an optional room with 2 very good chests in it on the upper part of the main hall.
Once we have that it's running back to the arena again.

Before the next fight we change the party back again, but also give Dunban/Fiora some new equipment from the stuff we just got in the chest.
Master Obart:
This fight is neat. While the general idea is to do Dunban stuff, there's a little thing to mention which is at 50% HP, he will use an Awakening Aura, which increases his level and makes him stronger. However we can cancel that aura going off by using a well timed thunder, and then going back to wailing on him. So basically there's a bit of a pause in the middle of the fight just to make sure it works properly.

A little bit more running up to the Cathedral, where we get to level 56 (if not already) and do a small skill menu. Then we have to run up to the belltower, being careful of aggro'd enemies on the way, and spawning Alcar.
This is the point at which the collectopaedia will be checked for helpful gems, and I might be really wanting that Agility if I haven't had any other gems in the run.
We do happy happy trick again before starting the fight, and then switch to Shulk/Dunban/Fiora, and equip any Prison Island gems we obtained.

Dragon King Alcar:
This strat should be pretty familiar to casuals, as it's the only instance of Topple-locking in the run.
We run up to start the fight, so that Alcar targets onto shulk, and then use slit edge to at least get a little bit of aggro.
Then when Dunban takes aggro off, we get the broken vision Tension buff which puts everyone into high tension. Then once we have the party gague filled and have done a little bit of extra damage/effects with Eye/Air Slash/etc, it's time for the chains to begin.
The first one is Air Slash, Steel Strike, Final Cross, Monado Cyclone->Damage.
Then it's a case of just using art effects and maintaning Topple/Daze where possible, and chain toppling over and over until it dies. Simple.

After this it's past the point of no return and onto the top of Prison Island.
One last semi-major menu before Dickson, upgrading some more arts and removing a lot of shulks so that he focuses on DPS and healing, as well as stocking monado often.

Dickson:
In this route, Dickson is probably the true final boss in terms of the fact that it requires some of the most improv, and can be the sketchiest of the final fights.
Generally the flow is to Peerless, Go for damage where possible while also removing any buffs with Tempest Kick, and surviving visions with Jaws of Death, or cancelling it with Thunder.
The first phase ends when Dickson uses Chaos Punish past 50%Hp, and is usually fine.
The second phase he is much more agressive, but we can also deal a LOT of damage with a good chain attack if the circumstances work out properly. However doing this is a risk since it leaves you unable to revive party members for a while afterwards.
Trying to explain this fight is hard though so I don't really know what to say here.

After Dickson we're into Memory Space, and there's a short Skill Adjustment for the last few areas.
When we get to the moon, we finalise all our skill trees and arts, and then do one final Happy Happy trick on Spirit Gadolt.
Then it's on to final fights.

Each of the final fights has a possible quick kill, but getting all of them is very hard and quite unlikely. Seeing at least one happening is relatively common though.
Again Like dickson, there's a lot going on and a lot of improv happening, so I'll just place my fight notes for them and recommend that you guys go watch me fight the boss in various runs to get a feel for it, since there isn't really any kind of standard strat or flow here.

**Zanza I**
{Party:}~~
Dunban, Fiora, Shulk
~~~~~~~~~~
Remove buff with Gale Slash->Tempest Kick [Summon Guardian]
Go for PDD before chain
Chain attack to kill: Soaring, Drones, Back Slash
Finish with blossom dance [Quick Kill strat]

**Zanza II**
Keep up aggro and fill party gauge for chain
Red vision->Serene Heart
White Vision->Jaws of Death/Shield
Peerless, Gale, Worldly
Remove buffs after first reconstruct
Chain: Worldly/Soaring, Drones/Red, Red, etc.
Force topple with Final cross if needed
**Zanza III**
Peerless, Gale, Worldly
Chain: Worldly, Double, Back slash, Blossom, Red continuations
Generally same idea as Z2 if no chain or doesn't kill
*************

For the purposes of the marathon, time will end on Final Hit and I'll be sure to call it (as well as memeing with blossom dance most likely).
Then we'll let the ending play out and I get to make a fool of myself by singing the ending song.


Other things of note:
Places I'll be asking for the language incentive to be checked:
Menu after ledge/before ancient machines
After Gem Crafting
Menu in Satorl Marsh
Menu at top of Frontier Village
Menu in Eryth Sea
Before Metal Face in Prison Island
Sword Valley Menu
Fallen Arm Shopping Menu
Mechonis Field Elevator Menu
Start of farm Menu
Post-farm Menu
Pre-Mechonis Core Shopping Menu
Before Lorithia
Before Dickson.