Xenoblade practice plan

So I've been wanting to get back in XC for a while, and now that uni work is lightening up a bit I've decided to get back to it.
As you may know, my last run was a train-wreck - Made huge mistakes all over and still almost PB'd, so with proper prep, I should be free to improve by a substantial amount (My PB is 7:11 and Sum of best is a 6:36 - so 35m already)

My plan is split up into separate parts, and I'll probably do a part per stream before I get back to attempting runs. There is a slight catch on this. ESA first cuts come out March 20th, and if Tales of Zestiria proceeds and XC doesn't I'll probably put more time into focusing on that since I would want to give a good run at a marathon, although I won't give up on XC completely (although ESA runs would be my priority, I should be able to have at least 1 or 2 runs on the side, even if one of those is as long as XC).

THE PLAN:

Section I: Run up to Metal Face II
The first 2:30 of the run or so I'm fairly happy with, since everything is fairly basic due to the early levelling. I'll do a run through it at speedrun pace and see what shakes out. If anything goes badly I'll probably do another run through of early game to practice specific fights/menus if I need to.
PB  : 2:39:41
SoB : 2:28:17
Goal: 2:30:00 or lower run time (with practice)

Section II: Valak Mountain->Face Nemesis
This section makes up the next hour or so of the run, and it's also the section that's had the most change since I last properly ran the game. Sword Valley strats have been changed quite a bit, and I was never really great at Valak Mountain/Galahad Fortress, so I think some practice here is needed. Also the Escort fight and Face nemesis are really weak points for me, so again more practice would be really good.

PB  : 0:47:02
SoB : 0:46:57
Goal: 0:45:00 or lower (Should be easily possible)

Section III: Fallen Arm->Start of Grind
This part is mainly filler up to the grind, Fallen Arm is pretty fine in general, although a bit of practice wouldn't hurt, as for mechonis field, I tend to do OK but I do make dumb mistakes sometimes.

PB  : 0:39:30
SoB : 0:36:28
Goal: 0:35:00 (I think this is possible)

Section IV: The Grind
Only way this is going to get better is practice. The main thing that actually needs work here is the large menu setup after the grind, because that thing is enormous and I suck at it. This section also includes movement before and after the grind so its not exact.

PB  : 1:02:56
SoB : 1:01:33
Goal: 1:00:00 (Should be possible with practice I think)

Section V: Leadup to Endgame
So a lot happens in this section. First off is the run to Agniratha, which is usually pretty fine, fights are trivial and movement is easy. Agniratha itself is also straightforward, and Gadolt isn't too bad of a boss. Egil/Yalda 1 is pretty basic since it basically autoscrolls. Apocrypha is an annoying fight, but not so bad. Yalda II I have a good strat for now at least, and Zanza 0 is another free fight. Next section is the assault on Colony 6, A load of telethia fights and this is where we switch over to Melia strats. I have these usually pretty down but again, practice can't hurt. Then we have Bionis interior, which is fine, and Lorithia, which is a pain of a fight. Then we get into Prison Island, the few fights here are OK-ish, but I'm not entirely happy with them, especially not Dragon King.

PB  : 1:23:51
SoB : 1:17:48
Goal: Unsure for now, consistent sub-1:20 would be nice, maybe can push down to 1:15?

Section VI: Final Bosses
Oh boy. Fucking Zanza 2 yo. I really //really// need to practice and get good at all of these fights. Dickson is usually ok but can get sketchy so I need to just do it more to train recovery if nothing else. Zanza 1 is free-ish, although again things can go wrong, and Zanza 3 is pretty simple when it goes right. The main issue is Zanza 2 for sure, needs a lot of practice and review to get good at this fight, so I'm going to spend quite a while doing it I think.

PB  : 0:38:29
SoB : 0:25:06
Goal: 0:25:00 (If not lower)


After all this practice I should be good to start doing runs again, but obviously this practice will take quite a while. My end goals stack up to 6:20, which seems reasonable. End goal overall is sub-6 but that's going to take a long time to get to I think.
Hopefully I should be ready to do runs by mid-May or so, when uni ends for the year.
I will obviously be working on multiple other projects at the same time so don't expect just XC from me, but do at least expect to see it way more often than it has been recently.