xbcx faq

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Xenoblade Chronicles X.

Changelist:
 - 2025-03-24: Multiple updates for DE, add missing npcs to "don't kill NPCs" pastebin
 - 2025-03-20: Starting work to update for Definitive Edition. Work in progress.

(Old guide for WiiU version: https://pastebin.com/246MYxBh)

First, some essential tips:

TIP: Save before accepting affinity or story missions, as once you have accepted an affinity or story mission you are trapped into that mission and cannot accept any other affinity or story missions until it is over. This can be a major annoyance if you decide you don't want to / aren't ready for a mission mid-way. You can go to settings -> return to title screen from the main menu to reload your old save.

TIP: To not feel overwhelmed by combat:
- Augments are very powerful and there are some you should use even early game. See "Which augments should I use?"
- Some fraction of your healing comes from Soul Voices. Read the in-game manual on Soul Voices, Soul Challenges, and Morale.
- Debuffs are powerful in this game. In-game manual lists all buffs and debuffs in detail with nice pictures.
- Once you unlock overdrive, see "How does overdrive work? Infinite overdrive?" and "How do auras work?"

TIP: Read the in-game manual about Skell Insurance and how not to lose your skell.

TIP: Party members join with 0 class exp, and a small (2x their level? pretty minimal) amount of BP. Thus, it makes sense to unlock party members as soon as you get the quest (easier said than done...) Also you may consider *not* turning in the collectapedia, and instead save it for when you have more party members to maximize the awarded BP. In the end, you will need to farm BP / class exp, see "Farming class exp? Farming BP?"

Q: Is there anything missable in this game?
A: No. You can 100% this game, regardless of your decisions during missions. However, your decisions in missions may lead to certain NPCs dieing, these NPCs never serve any in-game function other than talking to you.

- To see what decisions to make so that you don't kill NPCs, see this pastebin
https://pastebin.com/VNQLiH1x

Q: ... But what if I'm an autist for affinity links?
A: There are two affinity links in the affinity graph you may care about. Tl;dr, be very careful about doing Nopon quests and surveying Noctilum until you get both of the links below.

Lucia > Prea Slarth “Dancing queen of NLA”
Lucia will only talk about Prea Slarth and trigger the link if the Prone are in NLA, but NOT the Nopon, issue is that the Nopon only require:
>Ch 5 clear and level 22
The Prone require:
>Ch 5 clear and Oblivia 40%
You’d need to reach 40% Oblivia to get the Prone and trigger this link before doing the Nopon quest.

The other one is
HB > Elenora "Will be my aide someday"
This happens during HB's King of Fear affinity mission, but only if Noctilum has a survey % between 25% and 30% (!!!)

Q: ... even more autistic.

The boss of chapter 10 will permanently destroy the bridges in Sylvalum if you don't kill it fast enough. A build that will kill it quickly: if possible, craft some beam damage up and/or mechanical slayer and/or attack: direction (front, side, above or whatever) augs and put them on your skell, ideally mastema since it comes with beam damage armor. Buy and equip Drones, which do beam damage and have completely busted dps. Have your party in other skells you can afford or have available, and put drones on them too. This should work, but if it doesn't just reload a save and tweak your build for more damage.

Q: How do I move?
A: Click the left stick to run. Hold R and press B while running to enable auto-run.

- Pressing Y opens the map, and you can then fast-travel

- Once you unlock skells, you can fast-travel to your skell with Party -> Return to Skell. This is useful for farming an enemy that is far from a fast-travel point.

Q: How do I attach augments?

To attach augments, press ZL when in the equip screen. You can inspect the "built-in" augments of a piece of gear, and attach augments, if there's slots.

- Do L's quest in chapter 4 to unlock the ability to add augment slots to gear, at the cost of miranium.

Q: Which augments should I use?

- Weapon augments are always active for both your ranged and melee weapon, so it doesn't matter which one you put weapon augments in.

- Appendage Crusher augments stack, each lowering the hardness tier of appendages you are attacking by 1, which can result in 2.5x damage at a -5 hardness appendage. It can be crafted early game, spend a few material tickets from the Online menu to get the materials you can't get on your own. Appendage Crusher does nothing when targeting the "(Body)" part of an enemy, i.e. when not targeting an appendage, when possible you should target appendages. Also see https://www.xenoserieswiki.org/wiki/Appendage .

- HP Up XX augments are free, and you should have at least one equipped so you don't get one shot so much.

- After you unlock the Overdrive mechanic, you'll want a single Max TP UP XX augment (free) to get your max TP over 4000 and you'll want some kind of TP gain augment. The TP gain augments are all good, but can be hard to craft. Still, it's worth farming material tickets at this point to get at least one TP arts gain augment of at least X tier.

- Treasure Sensor augment isn't worth crafting early, as the materials are a pain. The Candid & Credible armor manufacturer when leveled to level 5 sells gear with Treasure Sensor, and a full party decked out in C&C armor hits the cap of 100 points of Treasure Sensor.


- Of course, end game you will use many other augments not mentioned above, but the above is a general guide to get you started for early / mid-game.

Q: Can I change my appearance?
A: You can change everything except your name once you complete the House of Cards mission, after Chapter 5. To get the mission, complete the quest Yardley's Scheme, and then it will show up in the BLADE mission list, **you will probably need to open and close the mission list a few times for it to show up.**

Q: How do I target an enemy?
A: R cycles through targets. Hold R and then A or Y to cycle through possible appendages.

Q: What is a "Melee art" and what does "... when triggering a melee combo" mean?
A: A Melee art is (1) any orange art and (2) any blue, green, or purple art that uses a melee weapon. An art will have its "... when triggering a melee combo" bonus activated if the last art used was a melee art.

- Any art that is not a melee art is a ranged art, and "... when triggering a ranged combo" effects trigger if the last art used was a ranged art.
- Which weapon an art uses is listed above the art description.

Q: Divisions?
A: [WIP] Which Division you pick has no effect. Pick whichever you like, you can change it at the blade barracks customization console for no cost.

Q: Off the record quests?
[WIP] The old guide to Off the Record quests can be found here, but they've changed for DE so you should find an updated guide.
http://pastebin.com/Ev36kgqr

Q: How do I get credits? How do I get miranium?
A: The frontiernav probe system. Research probes give you money, and mining + storage probes let you get miranium as well as exclusive minable materials (White Cometite, etc.) The frontiernav "ticks" every 30[?] minutes of game activity, counting only time spent not in the menu and when the console is not asleep. Thus, you cannot timeskip to force a tick. You can move probes around once you place them at the cost of credits.

The general idea to get the most out of the system is (1) chain together nodes of the same type **and tier** for a bonus at 3, 5, and 8 chains, and (2) once you have access to duplicator and booster nodes, put a duplicator next to multiple chains and one or more boosters **next to the duplicator.**

You can see this strategy in action in this layout, which gets 100K+ miranium storage and credits per tick:
http://imgur.com/a/ids81

Q: How do I get more probes?
A: Some from missions, the rest from treasures (field actions, yellow squares on the minimap).

- Don't feel afraid to go to other continents early in the game to find treasures. There's no reason to wait, and branching out will give you more probe locations and more probes from treasures.

- The drops from treasures are fixed. For a list of which treasures drop which probes, see
http://pastebin.com/i7LjMfTB

- For missions, see
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g0YR4M8RAHiRhCbAvV4tjXXHLEhRMrARzZMYAUGmyZ4/htmlview?sle=true#

Q: Gathering quests???
A: You require items which either (1) are materials, i.e. appendage drops from enemies (2) are collectables, i.e. come from blue crystals or (3) are minable.

You can check whether an item is (1) or (2) using this doc:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g0YR4M8RAHiRhCbAvV4tjXXHLEhRMrARzZMYAUGmyZ4/htmlview?sle=true#
(Bestiary and collectapedia tab, respectively)

If it is a material, use the doc to find out what drops it and destroy all the appendages OR you can spend material tickets at the console in the octagon-shaped room in the blade barracks to buy any material. You can't buy collectibles or minable materials with material tickets.

If it is a collectable, use this image to help find them:
http://imgur.com/a/CMkWZ

Otherwise, you need to use the probe system to mine it (ex: White Cometite). You do so by placing mining probes on probe points where it lists your material, i.e. White Cometite, as a Minable resource.

- Guide for some of the more annoying gathering quests:
http://pastebin.com/Ev36kgqr

Q: How do I increase my survey % of a region?
A: Follow along in Section 39 of the In-Game Manual for pictures. Your survey % for a region is the % of Resolved Segment Recon segments in that region. Each segment has some goal for completion (see manual.) You collect rumours, Yellow Smiley Faces above NPC's heads, to get additional info on how to complete each segment.

- For missions, see
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g0YR4M8RAHiRhCbAvV4tjXXHLEhRMrARzZMYAUGmyZ4/htmlview?sle=true#

Q: Recipes for skells, weapons, materials?
A: Recipes for skells show up when you get the Sakuraba armor manufacturer to level 5 (Level 50 skells), when you beat the story (most Level 60 skells), and when you finish certain character's affinity missions (the remaining level 60 skells.)

Recipes for weapons and skell weapons unlock when you find certain Blueprints which drop from certain enemies and some treasures.

Q: How do drops work?
A: Treasure sensor increases the likelihood of getting rare materials from broken appendages and rare gear from monsters.

- See these two docs to find out what drops what, and with what battle traits:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O9TJtB8ljXSd2j_F9iX2ltFSTgJnuqD3w9J8salKH-M/edit#gid=773807691
and
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17rguweuUX8hL9KseacmihTnsYeS01EYSo2JrFTDR09k/edit#gid=0
(Remember to check the tabs)

- Treasure sensor goes on ground armor, but it works even if you are in your skell

- Tip: Candid and Credible makes gear with treasure sensor, in fact you can hit 100 treasure sensor using only this without needing augments

- Additional treasure sensor past 100 does not do anything.

- Even with 100 treasure sensor, non-prime and non-intergalactic gear drop, and some rare materials do not drop every time

- Holofigures tend to drop when you _don't_ get other drops, so if you are farming holofigures consider removing treasure sensor gear.

Q: Farming class exp? Farming BP? Farming EXP?
If you're ok with also getting lots of EXP, either do support missions or use the brainjack-servant sacrifice trick (look up a video). at level 50+, you might also farm the inside of the giant flower at the top of noctilum.

If you're avoiding EXP, equip a phoenix on your level 30 skell and aoe lots of very low level mobs. hop out, select return to skell from the menu and repeat.

Q: Skells? Flying skells?
A: The Skell License mission unlocks Skells. The "A Girl's Wings" affinity mission lets your skells fly. Higher level skells unlock once you get the Sakuraba armor manufacturer to level 5, and when you find their blueprints from treasures, drops, or missions.

- For missions, see
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g0YR4M8RAHiRhCbAvV4tjXXHLEhRMrARzZMYAUGmyZ4/htmlview?sle=true#

Q: Weather, or "My skell is magically refueling!":
A: See this pastebin
http://pastebin.com/2cfz9LRp

- You can negate damage all taken from weather by crafting a Weather Master XX augment.

Q: My skell died, or assigning a skell to a player?
A: Go to the Skell Hangar from the console in the barracks near the kitchen.

Q: Affinity and Heart to Hearts?
A: Read section 25 of the in-game manual. You must have an affinity of X hearts with a character in order to do their X'th heart-to-heart. Each ally has 5 H2Hs.

- After chapter 12, you unlock the repeatable "Water Torture" support mission from the computer in the octagon room in the barracks that gives ~1/4 of a heart to each character in your party every time.

- For H2Hs, see the bottom of the "Allies" tab of
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g0YR4M8RAHiRhCbAvV4tjXXHLEhRMrARzZMYAUGmyZ4/htmlview?sle=true#

- Some H2Hs require pets.

Q: Pet:Cat required?
A: Unlocked after completing Chapter 5 and the Nine Lives Affinity Mission. You unlock more pets by doing missions from the mission board that appear once unlocking pets.

- You have one pet in your barracks at a time, and you can change it from the console near the kitchen in the barracks -> Barracks Customization -> Pet.

- For missions, see
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g0YR4M8RAHiRhCbAvV4tjXXHLEhRMrARzZMYAUGmyZ4/htmlview?sle=true#

Q: How do auras work?
A: Auras (blue arts) are very powerful in X. They all cost 1000 TP and grant a personal aura with some effect. Note that you can only have one aura active at a time, and it will overwrite.

- In overdrive, using a blue art also increases duration by OverdriveCounter/10. (It's also easier to get the 1000 TP when in overdrive.)
- Most classes have some art that says "increases damage... when an aura is active" or some other effect, and that increase is usually quite strong.

Q: How does "Reflect" work?
A: Most every attack can be reflected back at the enemy. For ground combat, Astrolibrium (lightsaber, beam), Supershield (shield, phys), and Raijin (spear, elec) are your base reflect aura arts. Reflect: XXX augments cause you to **additionally** reflect damage of those elements if you have one of these three auras.

- Pharsis and Nardacyon both have a reflect-piercing attack
- The skell version of this is a little different: going into Overdrive in a Verus (Physical), Inferno (Thermal) or Mastema (Beam) is required to reflect those elements, and Reflect.ADD.XXX augments cause you to additionally reflect other damage types (while you are in overdrive.)
- These can be found as traits on the following gear:
One Photon Saber on the shop gets a reflect trait, ether maybe.
Swimwear arms get reflect thermal.
Torso drops can reflect one element, it depends on manufacturer.

- and as augments:

Ground Ether Reflect Augment is in a chest guarded by the giant tyrant filiavent in white phosphorus lake in cauldros
Additionally,
Lugalbanda drops Beam and Electric
Dadaan drops Thermal and Physical
Telethia drops Ether and Skell.Ether
Pharsis drops Gravity and Skell.Gravity
Leva'el drops Skell.Electric and Skell.Beam
Gradivus drops Skell.Thermal and Skell.Physical

Q: How does Potential work?
A: For ground, potential replaces melee attack (or ranged attack) when computing the damage for TP arts. Potential also increases the amount soul voices heal for.

- For skell combat, potential is basically useless except that it still has the property of impacting soul heals.

Q: I see RESISTED, IMMUNE, or INVINCIBLE some times
A: RESISTED means the enemy resisted a debuff from an attack. IMMUNE means the enemy has an immunity to a debuff. INVINCIBLE means that the enemy cannot be hit at that point in time (usually invincibility frames during spawning or Telethia is immune when transitioning between phases.)

- If you see RESISTED by zenith cannon hits, this is because zenith cannon has a chance to inflict knockback (this is not documented)
- For ground combat, Resistance Reducer augments can be used to ensure debuffs land, but they can't overcome IMMUNE

Q: How does overdrive work? Infinite overdrive?
A: Overdrive is available after a certain point in the story, and requires 3000 TP to start. The usual strategy to preserve overdrive is as follows:
 - Build the overdrive counter by using Green > any art that hits 5+ times > Green > Repeat. This works because the overdrive counter increases by 2 for each hit done by an art after using a green art.
 - Use blue arts for extra time. You'll get an extra [Overdrive Counter]/10 seconds of overdrive. Of course, blue arts cost some TP but you should be able to build that easily in overdrive.
 - Use green arts for extra time. You'll get an extra [Overdrive Counter]/20 seconds of overdrive.

And/or, you can try to generate 3000 TP while in overdrive, then simply use it again while in overdrive to add +30s duration. Arts: Gain TP XX augments make this approach easy as long as you're spamming arts. Alternatively, if members in your party have Last Stand or Energy Source, they can build the 3000 TP for you.

Finally,
 - Use Purple > any art to increase the damage dealt to the current targeted appendage. This shows on the screen as "Resistance: -100%" when you do it at max overdrive counter. Using Purple arts in overdrive also generates some TP.
 - Yellow > Yellow > Yellow increases the class exp you'll get at the end of the fight, up to a cap of 2x.
 - Orange > Orange > Orange increases the exp you'll get at the end of the fight, up to a cap of 2x.

More detailed guide:
http://pastebin.com/QFJ4mRpu

Q: How do I Ether Blossom?
A: The ether longsword blossom build is reccomended for late game. At its core, the build involves (1) Core Crusher skill  and Appendage Crusher augments (2) Offensive Stance art and Aura Assault Skill (3) Blossom dance art (4) an ether-element longsword (5) augments to boost potential stat and weapon damage on the sword.
Usually, this build is paired with dual guns with Ghostwalker art and 2x Arts: Gain TP XX to overcome the frailty of the build and to get maximum overdrive. Usually, you use 444 attack Bewitched Glaive: Receding Rust longsword dropped by Lugalbanda. Using Secondary Accelerator, Fast Forward, or Inner Search skills and Zero-Zero or Primer arts help maintain overdrive and increase damage.

- Potential affects the amount of HP recovered by soul voices and arts, as well as the damage dealt by TP arts.
- Contrary to its description, Core Crusher gives a massive boost to damage, whether you attack the core or an appendage. It just prevents you from destroying appendages.
- This build relies on Offensive Stance and Aura Assault to increase your melee accuracy. You should keep Offensive Stance up at all times, even when starting your infinite overdrive, because otherwise you will miss and this lowers TP growth.
- Appendage Crusher drops the hardness of an appendage by one tier, which can boost damage by > 100% in some cases.
For details, see
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O9TJtB8ljXSd2j_F9iX2ltFSTgJnuqD3w9J8salKH-M/edit#gid=1555582668

Q: How do I diskbomb glitch on my skell?
A: [WIP: Reported to be patched] Diskbombs are pretty powerful thermal sidearm weapons for your skell. If you get one with Custom.WP-MSL-MAG as a trait, it shoots additional times for massive damage. The glitch is as follows: First, put a diskbomb with MSL-MAG in the LEFT sidearm slot. Next, put any other diskbomb in the RIGHT sidearm slot. This causes the MSL-MAG to carry over from the left sidearm to the right, so that both shoot an increased number of times. Additionally, when this glitch is active, the right diskbomb seems to do double damage on top of the increased number of shots. A weird but satisfying glitch to be sure, especially when you upgrade the MSL-MAG trait on the left diskbomb 5 times it will shoot 27-30 times (!) This glitch appears to only work for diskbombs, most other guns use the MSL-MAG trait in different ways or cannot get this trait (you cannot craft an MSL-MAG augment.)

The most powerful diskbomb is the 260 version, the 250 version does significantly less damage but is much more common. Note that you can put a good 260 in the right slot and a 250 with MSL-MAG up in the left slot and the glitch will still work.

Since diskbombs are thermal, they go well on a heavy skell with the Amdusias Hades armor which buffs thermal.

Farming diskbombs: Kill lvl 51-60 milsaadi savages (specifically) in Cauldros. Probably the best location is the Mount M'Gando fast travel point, at one of the bends on the south side you can stand on the rock in the center to get 4 savages in an AOE attack, or wait for 2 more to spawn to make it 6. An alternative site is FN site 512 where you can get 5 in an AOE without waiting if you are careful, but usually you will aggro Zigs that ruin your day.

- Tip: The Phoenix shoulder weapon has a big AOE.

Q: How do I meme-missile on my skell?
A: The meredith and sakuraba M-Missiles target random appendages on an enemy - importantly, they may hit appendages that you usally cannot target from a skell. This makes them very useful for farming some materials.

You can get them with MSL-MAG trait, which makes them way more fun. The meredith M-Missile is beam element and the sakuraba is thermal, both do about the same amount of damage when fully upgraded.

The best way to farm them is go to into Ganglion Antropolis (requires starting the Delphinian Downfall mission) and killing the three lvl 51-60 pugiliths in the big opening room.

- For missions, see
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g0YR4M8RAHiRhCbAvV4tjXXHLEhRMrARzZMYAUGmyZ4/htmlview?sle=true#