LogFAQs > #966783162

streamofthesky posted...

XC2 combat in a nutshell:
* Every blade has an element (color)
* A "blade combo" is painting by color in specific arbitrarily chosen sequences (see chart below; one of many things Torna fixed, btw)
* You put an orb of the last color from a blade combo on the enemy; it can only have one orb of each color (so make sure you have all 8 colors amongst your eventual 9 blade slots)
* Once a bunch of orbs are up, chain attack
* Need to break at least one orb each "round" of chain attack to get another round. Orbs are targeted randomly (there's an equip item to target damaged ones instead) and take 3 hits. Except... if the opposing color orb is up (like fire/water), it will be auto-targeted and do 2 damage.

Orb color flowcharts (seriously, just keep it up on a screen while playing): imgur.com/a/HO3oT

That's generally a horribly inefficient way to approach combat, as much as that's how the game suggests it should be played (the tutorials are awful, you'll pretty much need to use outside resources to understand it because of how vague the in-game stuff is and the fact that you can't reread it once you have some experience to help contextualize it). It's enough to get through the main game and even some of the superbosses on normal, but that's because the main game on normal is pretty braindead easy. Get into Bringer of Chaos difficulty or some of the harder challenge battles, and you will get your ass handed to you if you take that approach (and not just because of the Elemental Awakening mechanic that buffs enemies considerably if they have any number of orbs on them). Instead, there are basically three different approaches you can take:

• Art spam - As the name suggests, you just spam arts. Specials usually make for a DPS loss with this approach, so you often just leave them out. Driver combo support can be helpful to keep incoming damage down, but may not be necessary (such as with Corvin's evasion art on Zeke, which has virtually 100% uptime and renders him all but invulnerable)
• Special spam - Use your most powerful special as often as possible, interspersing with a 1-orb chain attack after each completed blade combo to avoid Awakening and get rid of the elemental resistance buff orbs give (20% less damage from that element). Depending on how strong the blade's level 1/2 specials are, the chain attack might not be worthwhile, so you may want to use supporting blades to start a blade combo that your main one can't contribute to to avoid actually completing one
• DoT's - Set up one of the level 2 blade combos with a damage over time effect (Volcano (earth-->fire) being the strongest) with the most powerful special you can, then cycle through driver combos to extend the duration indefinitely and increase the damage. This is a particularly popular strategy for BoC, since it doesn't rely on party meter at all and keeps incoming damage low by locking them down with driver combos, and you can get them ticking for the damage cap pretty readily if you're set up properly

In all of these strategies, you should also consider fusion combos, specifically applying Break before starting a blade combo so that all damage dealt while that Break (or a subsequent Topple or Launch) is active receives a very substantial multiplicative damage boost. Fusion combos are largely why blades with multi-hit specials are considered better for chain attacks, since it makes it pretty easy to hit the damage cap for single-hit ones and waste a huge amount of damage potential. Which strategy works best will depend on which blade (and driver, to a lesser extent) you use.

streamofthesky posted...

Characters and blades/weapon types don't matter, just colors. Everyone effectively plays the same.

This just isn't true. Characters and weapon types dictate the arts you have available, which single-handedly defines how effective pretty much any approach is going to be. Damage ratios, recharge rates, animation speeds, secondary effects... Even if you are exclusively taking the generally-inadvisable approach of "get 8 orbs and use a chain attack," faster animations with faster recharges (or better yet, innate recharge abilities, like Axes on Zeke or Rex) will help you build specials faster so you can get those orbs sooner. And then there are all the various abilities blades have, which are variable enough to completely define their optimal playstyles, in many cases. Element really only matters if you're trying to match a weakness (and in that case, running Adenine and/or Patroka as a support is a good idea to increase the bonus from doing so) or get a specific DoT effect (like Volcano); it's very rare that trying to build more than 1-2 orbs is actually a good idea.

Of course, as I said, none of this matters for the main game. I only know any of this because I've put some effort into min/maxing endgame play, since that's the sort of thing I like doing. Even then, though, stacking orbs is generally a waste of time compared to just setting Mythra up for level 3 special spam and popping 1-orb chain attacks whenever she lands three of them. Exploiting the overkill bonus is often a good idea to help speed up levelling, but you can get a decent bonus just by popping a 0-orb chain attack right before the enemy dies, which is much, much more time-efficient (not to mention less tedious) than trying to load them up with a full burst to hit the full 1000% overkill.

Entity13 posted...

When I could finally pick up weapons that hit mechanical entities just fine, but were weaker than one or two rounds of weapons I'd already been using by that point,

The anti-mechon weapons are a bit of a bummer in that they throw a wrench into the "bigger numbers=more happy" philosophy that drives progress in RPG's, but they become available at a point when almost all of the enemies you'll be fighting are Mechon (as opposed to <5% of them, aside from the Ether Mine), so they're kind of a necessity if you want any sort of flexibility in the combat for the next 30-odd hours. You still have the option of relying on Enchant, if you'd rather use the strongest available weapons instead, but that locks you into using player-controlled Shulk continuously, which you may not want (especially where Melia really starts to come into her own around that point and switching to her is a nice way to shake things up). I do get that having to downgrade your weapons is a buzzkill, but it's well worth pushing past that because the most interesting parts of the story happen after Sword Valley (plus you pretty quickly get anti-mechon upgrades that are on par with or better than the stuff you replaced with those vendor ones, so it's not like progression stops).