IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS 1) This video is not meant as a guide! It's just for the sake of discussion, for games like Xenoblade 2 the character only gets bad around the end/post-game. 2) There are spoilers in the comments! I did keep spoilers to a minimum in this video, but in the Xenoblade 3 part there's a minor spoiler concerning a hero character that gives you the Soulhacker class. 3) Once again, don't let anything I say in the video stop you from playing characters you like! Xenoblade games are flexible and you can make any character work if you put the effort in! Consider subscribing if you enjoyed, more videos like these are coming up and you can help me reach 2K subs by doing it!
Spoilers: On your second point, "The red guy" is kind of a spoiler in itself. May be better to just say "the person". Those of us who have the Soulhacker class will still know who is being referenced. Just my two cents :)
Problem is nia is locked... probably the worst driver to be constant healing. Morag unfortunately beats rex on healing her evasion is so damn high which means more time to heal the entire party
I mean while true I think the fact Rex is more known for being able to spam Anchor shot like crazy which gives you hp potions from an potent Mythra builds kinda even makes Nia look outclassed still
Why worry so much about spoiler? XC2 ist out for many years already! I bet most people who play this today, are just playing it again afetr already beating it!
MonolithSoft will simultaneously give you an extra party member that can actually be an active hindrance while also having adult Gigachad, Beyblade-Enthusiast Rex exist in the same game. That is so funny to me.
She's not even good, she has a more complete kit than the heroes do, but she's JUST. NOT. GOOD. Also feels like amissed opportunity to not get Panacea, Linka and potentially N as usable heroes, if only because those three potentially mean a choice of role and two of them are just canonically following you around for most of the DLC anyway (Also, just imagine of N's arts were just straight up the Lucky Seven kit without a time limit)
@MaxMonado eh defenders weren't that bad. They mostly just struggled with optimal endgame setups. During the main story and even during postgame, tanks are pretty good. It's just that they fall off when you gotta start minmaxing the party for fast kills.
The best healer in Xenoblade 2 is Avant-Garde Medal. I don't blame you for missing him though, he's not the most well-known party member and he kinda flies under the radar because of more memorable characters like Nia.
Shulk: can see the future and damage un-toppled Mechons by default. Reyn: can switch between shielding and deadly lance skills Dunban: MASSIVE DAMAGE Riki: steals items and deals bonus damage based on how many DoTs the enemy has Melia: summons and detonates elemental minions Seven: summons attack drones for multi-hit attacks Sharla: has to stand still and not attack WHYYYYYYYY
Nia becoming less useful actually fits well in the story as by the time Nia becomes less useful as a party member blade Nia becomes available (with her mostly being in her blade form in the story)
That's likely why she's lacking on the Driver side. Because it is like a prison for her confidence and true self. She can't give 100% so she falls behind the rest. I think it might be intentional since no one else has another form like she does! It's more a concession than anything!
I'm surprised Segiri wasn't even mentioned for XC3. Her class revolves around inflicting debuffs but, as you mentioned, enemies in XC3 have high debuff resistance, especially later on in the game, which is when you unlock her.
Segiri is very underwhelming too, but unlike Juniper and Triton she's more reliable and just better in chain attacks. She has a good completion bonus for her chain order and her heroic chain will give her a bunch of TP
The reason that Juniper's liberation arrow takes so long is because they messed up the programming on the target aiming for the attack. Juniper will always take the longest route to facing their enemy causing them to spin nearly 360 degrees before completing the attack.
Funny that for a while in XBDE, thanks to arts inheritance (a glitch that lets any art be on any character), Sharla actually becomes one of the best party members because the super strong arts like Buster and Sword Drive are all on very fast arts like heal bullet. And all it took as a game breaking bug
i actually used her a lot in , mainly for boss battles of if i was stuck on a fight as oddly when i played her ai was fairly good for healing and it was riki constanlty making odd choices so i ended u using him the least
Healer-AI in Xenoblades is notoriously terrible to the point where i saw myself forced to play the healer so they won't suicide into enemies or just heal for decoration etc. It also helps, that the AI is much better at playing Shulk. Rex or Noah than i am...
I do wonder… Maybe there’s a point to having Sharla be so bad? That she’s meant to encourage players to forgo the comforts of having a dedicated healer in order to experiment with the more offensive and tanky characters instead. And though Nia might not be as egregiously designed, she also fills the role of an early game comfort character more than anything.
Since xenoblade 1 is kinda old and very experimental, I kinda get the impression that they thought having a healer that didn't require MP would be incredibly OP and make it so you never died, and they "balanced" that with the cool off mechanic. There's also the possibility that she was designed very early on and they didn't have time to go back and redesign her skill set.
I guess I should have clarified it in my original comment, but I wasn’t just thinking of Sharla in terms of how she performs in the base game. Heck, I didn’t actually play the original. Rather, I’m more familiar with the definition edition of the game that got released on Switch. But while I’ve become aware that Reyn had been buffed between versions, it doesn’t appear that any noticeable changes were made for Sharla. Which is strange, you know? Why refuse to make any adjustment to her kit that could redeem her in the eyes of veteran fans when given the opportunity?
@@sailorenthusiastespecially since it's so easy to make her better : if she could just use her talent art in chain attacks, she'd already be so much better. Even if it does nothing, it still allows to change colors and since time is stopped in chain attacks, the cool off basically doesn't take time at all. Other simple change : make the cool off be slower. And maybe less cooldown on damage arts, or maybe more numbers here and there. Lastly, this one requires a bit more attention but isn't too hard to do, add an increasing dmg and heal ratio that scales based on the heat of the sniper. Something like at half heat she does 50% more healing and damage. And at max heat, 100% more but then she needs to cool off. And I'm not sure if that's the case already but in chain attacks, even if she's at max heat she can still use all her arts. (with the bonus 100% dmg/heal) I'm not sure if it's already a thing, I haven't played Sharla for years. Not sure if 100% is too much, but if it's just a number problem it's fine, it's the idea that matters.
@@sailorenthusiast I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the only "buff" Reyn got in DE was that Shield Bash always has an 8.4 second cool down, even when it's at Lv 1. However, this is a bug that was introduced when adding the Master Art books (i.e. the Lvl 11 & 12 Art Levels), since Shield Bash Lv 11 & 12 have the same cooldown as it does at Lv 10.
@@arminarlelt7471 funnily enough, Sharla's damage output does actually improve as her riffle gets hotter. Granted the damage bonus isn't very significant (or at least it seems that way since most people, myself included, didn't notice it). Unfortunately, her healing actually gets slightly worse as her riffle gets hotter. I think there's a skill on her 5th skill tree the shortens the Cool-Off animations, but it still takes 3 seconds or so if you manually use before overheating, and ~6 seconds if it overheats. I'm not 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure that if sure that if Sharla's riffle overheats during a Chain Attack, she will be unusable for the rest of it.
Also adding to this, Triton has decent arts and skills at his disposal and you can play around his gambling addiction, while Juniper is just completely trash
Yeah the low TP characters are deceptively useful because if you can get a beefy chain bonus without using them, they can deal massive damage in the last round without getting you up to 100% and you can fit more characters into the round.
I think a simple red art on Sharla in the early game would've done wonders for her. Something with damage akin to Bone Upper, maybe she whacks an enemy with the butt of her rifle and doesn't fill the talent art. This would give her a bit more damage output without sacrificing much healing, and you could comfortably use her in chain attacks with Shulk and Reyn in the early game.
Sharla was pretty close to being decent at least. Give her more damage options by taking some healing away. Or perhaps make up the loss in damage for some insane party buffs that make up for the lost damage in the damage of the other party members.
I think one of the ways to make Sharla more interesting (beyond a couple of extra attacks) is to increase her damage as her rifle heats up but have it decay over time so you have a reason to manage her heat.
@MaxMonado 1 thing sharla has with that 1 red art she's got is that she is the ONLY party member able to inflict insta-kill. Yes only on dazed enemies but u could be fighting a level 80 with lvl 60s. If u get lucky. U can 1 hit it with sharia. U need tk break topple and daze it 1st but its possible. That might be why it's her ONLY red art.
@@SonicBlast4444 It's possible, but it's still only a 15% chance of instant death and it's probably not going to work on anything challenging enough that you'd want it to work on it. The eternal quandary of Xenoblade debuffs, when you want them, you can't have them.
I actually think that FR Shulk is worse than Nikol. You talked about how you can make Nikol unkillable and make him the ultimate reviver but Shulk has nothing like that. He is kinda similar to Aegeaon that he has high evasion but he will never get aggro because of low damage (And i think Aegeaon has better evasion than shulk). Also Shulk Break art is heavily outclassed by Matthews break art because the cooldown is way lower and matthew is just crazy with the recharge, while Nikols launch art is better that Rexs launch art because you dont have to stand on the side from the enemy. They both are still kinda weak but i think in comparison, shulk is weaker IMO. Also i have to defend my girl a little bit (Sena). I think she is the second best behind noah because of her ogre class. Since you can upgrade the starter weapons for each character, Sena becomes the strongest ogre in the game, and Ogre might just be the stroger starter class with her insane break potential. Also having low TP isnt so bad. That just means that you can use her more often without finishing a order. Its not like you do more damage when you have more TP so having one high tp character for "Amazings" and low TP character for damage is the way to go IMO.
I can see why you'd say Shulk, the difference between him and Nikol isn't that big so either one can be seen as the worst, I can get behind your points. I'd just say that you can never have enough chances to inflict break, that Shulk has some utility with Monado Armor and better unity pairings than Nikol (with Matthew and Rex). And don't worry I love Sena too (my favorite after Lanz), I don't think theres a big difference between the 5 remaining characters from 3 but honestly you make a good point for her
@@MaxMonado Ok i kinda forgot About Shulks AoE Armor Veil lol. Yeah they both are kinda not that great and heavily outclassed by everyone else. I think they would be better if Rex wouldnt be so op, so they could actually tank something. They both are still great at negating or avoiding damage and if they would just hold aggro they would be sooooo much better (AKA if they both have a force Aggro art like Hugos Talent art in Torna). And im Glad to see that you are a Sena fan :D Sena fans are great people :D
Nikol's launch is also good because it doesn't have a positional requirement, so it's a lot easier to use. But yeah he is unfortunate as a tank. For that reason, I'd probably say Lanz is the worst. Sena her ouroboros arts actually do quite a bit of damage and with Ogre she will be your primary breaker. Taion is not good as a healer, but he is great as an attacker. So default classes Taion, overall I would say Lanz.
@@24hr-Gaming Well if we count Ouroboros forms then i actually think that Mio is the worst. Her only reaction arts are Break and Daze, and the Burst combo is kinda weak in comparison to Smash. Also Noah has a break art too and more damage. Speaking of damage, almost all of mios Ouroboros skills are only for evasion so she has the lowest damage if we compare all the ouroboros forms. The only thing Mio can do better than anyone is sharing Buffs. Noahs Buffs specifically. Noah is the only one who can get invincibility so if you share that buff with mio and then if she uses resonant flag, you can make the entire team invincible
Just to bring up something. While it does no damage, Sleep Bullet is the fastest cc in xenoblade 1, pretty much affecting enemies that arent immune or resist it the moment you hit the button. Sharla is really good at canceling enemy attacks while they are starting the animation of their attack. Kino's sleep bullet however has a cast time. Preventing instant reaction to cancel enemy attacks. So he's worse in that regard.
The thing about Cool Down is that it's "supposed" to be a fun trade-off mechanic. As her rifle heats up, her healing gets weaker while her offense gets stronger. Sadly, her stats and her arts don't really synergize well with this ability. I can't say I've ever said to myself while playing as Sharla "Ooh, my rifle is hot! Let me get off a few really strong Headshots before cooling down!" while simultaneously having dedicated DPS like Shulk or Reyn in the fight.
As someone who mained Sharla for an entire playthrough, if you learn how to play her, it's really easy to use cool off to your advantage. She doesn't have the best damage output, but with just a little investment, you can use drive boost to thunder bullet mash and end with a powerful head shot. I actually find her versatility quite useful. She might not be the most versatile character, but she can switch between dedicated healer and surprisingly decent attacker pretty quickly. Edit: I know that's very similar to what you said, but I felt the need to emphasize her effectiveness, which I find to be quite underappreciated.
The hilarious bit is that it actually makes her and Kino worse yet again. Their DPS(Which is just spamming thunder bullet because they have nothing else, lmao) does not need the slight damage increase, but the healing decrease actively hurts their already redundant niche.
So overall if I were to judge a trend with the worst party members it would be that the earlier xenoblade games had problems with healer characters being lacking due to the nature of the mechanics and how their hindered in animations or crippling drawbacks (cough sharlas talent art) rendering them mostly pointless but got better in the later games. Tanks in the later games can’t keep aggro because of how aggro generation works and every later entry makes debuffs more and more worthless due to how every major enemy being overtuned to kingdom come with resistances (you know its bad when the literal art that reduces debuff resistances can be resisted) thus kneecapping every debuff specialist character. healers have gotten better from Torna the golden country onwards however aggro generation for tanks and debuffs is an issue that need reworks for future xeno games so that these gameplay elements can actually do what their supposed to do without being shot in the foot by the games own mechanics.
Tanks are pretty much fine, at least on the evasion side. Sponge tanks get fucked due to aggro mechanics, but dodge tanks have no problem keeping up. And god fucking yes. Why the fuck does Segiri's debuff resist down get blocked by debuff resist??? What's the fucking point? 😭
NGL, it's a travesty that they seem to have started a pattern of fixing the last game's issues only to make a new one for no real reason, bonus points when these issues newer issues aren't even related but are ALL suffering doubly so around the attackers being really OP (Supports and tanks aren't the ones inflicting debuffs either, that's... Mostly attackers)
Sharla saved my first run. I was mesmerized with the story and rushed it, barely fighting mobs and ignoring all side quests. I had no idea of how to use chain attacks for anything but ensuring topples and daze. I managed to survive all of the game with sheer visions and out healing the enemies. I even managed to out tank the final teletia boss with Sharla - riki - rein... That took me like 2 hours... I was on the zone the whole time, it was awesome!
Actually, on difficulties other than Easy, Fiona's order also only fills a third of the chain attack gauge. Chain attack damage speedrunners play on easy because of that, maybe that's why thought FR nerfed that ability. You *can* give her that effect and play on easy to offset her downsides, but I know not everyone's gonna want that
Yeah I made a mistake there, hero characters in 3 also don't consume the chain gauge if you use their strategies (at least on normal), which is why I thought it gave more chain gauge then it does. You can get more rounds with Fiona's order, but the effect wasn't nerfed as I said
IDK about Easy so I can't really say what changed between base and FR there but at least on normal or above Fiona's order was nerfed purely by not being on a hero as nothing else about it changed. But overall I wouldn't even think that's a nerf just off all the other manuals existing.
No joke, when I was finding items to increase my party's equipment and art slots, I only gave them to Nikol when he was literally the only one left I could give them to.
I was honestly getting a little worried at the end when you said Nikol was the worst character in FR because I despise Na'el so much. I figured out and basically depended on my chain attack strategy because it could easily tear a tough enemy to shreds, but when Na'el gets added to the party all of a sudden my access to that strategy is completely gone. Plus it really feels like she shows up and ruins my strategy way more than she's mathematically supposed to
Also to add to Xenoblade 2: A healer isn’t even necessary after the halfway point. You can use accessories that heal a percentage of damage done. Not to mention using evasion accessories to not get hit. Best team in the game is Rex/Mythra, Tora/QTpi, Zeke/Kosmos.
@@raquansingleton1549 If you think that, you don't know anything about the battle system in the game. Nia is the worst member. She's the slowest autoattacker, even with her best weapons, and once you get the ability to heal through damage, she's useless. Zeke with Kosmos is broken as fuck. But even Pandoria is an excellent blade choice for him, as well.
@@raquansingleton1549 I admit, the battle system is confusing to start. But it's really deep and you can do pretty much anything you want. I've soloed super bosses with every character, and I made Mythra into an evasion tank. Because Nia is so slow with her auto attacks, she doesn't heal well, at all. That's why, imo, it's best to make another driver the main healer if you still need one. Rex+Nia is a great combination. Zeke/Pandoria are absolutely broken in NG+ because of Zeke's second growth chart. He's great as a DPS or Tank. But Tora is the best tank in the game. So, my preferred 3 party team is DPS, DPS, Tank. If the battle system confuses you, there are great videos and guides that can help you understand it. Hope you manage to finish the game eventually, it's well worth it.
@@raquansingleton1549 In terms of sheer DPS potential it's Rex > Tora > and Zeke in that order if you include DLC blades. Without DLC blades it's Tora > Zeke > Rex. Rex with Fiora is beyond busted. But Zeke with Kosmos is busted in terms of damage. With DLC Zeke is also busted with Corvin. In NG+ Zeke is really strong with just Pandoria. Also that guy is slightly wrong. Best tank in the game is Rex with Mythra or Fiora. Tora does the most damage, is good at everything, and is also the best breaker by a longshot, but Rex on Fiora is also extremely busted to the point where he will always have aggro and Mythra is good at keeping everyone alive, not just the tank because foresight is busted especially when stacked with other evasion modifiers. Best standalone can survive literally anything tank is Rex, Morag, or Zeke with Corvin. Mythra with Rex is best overall, and Rex with Fiora is most damage. Tora is best in utility because you don't need to worry about evasion if bosses are stuck in driver combos forever. The weakest party member is Nia, but she is really good with Crossette. Though Zeke would also be really good with Crossette. Morag falls behind a lot too, but Corvin saves her so if you want to use Morag to tank at all and end game end game, you should give her Corvin.
I don't get why FR didn't just have the Post Game character's Chain Order work like Heroes from the base game and just not deplete the Chain Gauge, would've made them feel so much better as a reward.
Healers really went a long way in Xenoblade. From being borderline useless in 1 to borderline nonexistent in X to actually pretty good but ultimately outclassed by crit heal in 2 to being some of if not THE most broken OP classes in Xenoblade 3
Honestly, having played Xenoblade 1, 2 base and 3 base to the end of the story, a video like this does help because most of the time in combat, I have no idea what I'm doing. So I always just overlevel the party to get by. So one day if I revisit the games, I'll definitely look over the stats. I need to revisit anyway though, as I still have yet to beat Future Redeemed and I haven't touched or even bought Torna.
TBH this was an interesting watch. Part of it's a bummer because I specifically like using Sharla and Nia; in Sharla's case I'm also pretty sure it's why I found the game so much harder since I'd always have her or Melia and just couldn't figure out chain attacks. With Nia though it's more surprising because at least feelwise it felt like all 5 drivers were completely usable due to the simple fact that they all have access to the same weapons. In my case specifically though the reason ended up favoring her MORE is because I did get Zenobia and Ursula on her having a driver with the first 3/4's of a driver combo conveniently in one place. But that said in retrospect XB2 has so many ways to heal that I can see how she'd be outclassed anyway (cuz jars be funny). As far as Nael goes I'll say this much but funny enough I gave her one of the Melia Hero Chains so she actually contributed quite actively on my team; Matthew also had Cammuravi's Hero Chain (I think with Nia's order?) and at the very least whenever Nael's order came up picking Matthew would give a pretty much perfect amount of TP. The fact that she prevents you from getting specific unity orders is def a detriment but nevertheless I found her at least somewhat useful anyway. As for Nikol the memory locket thing is hilariously accurate but one other thing I did find useful with him is his base TP reasonably high and giving him the item that boosts initial TP further also makes him a bit better in chain attacks (which are just dummy fun in general in FR because of the manuals). Probs also worth noting that that the tanks being bad tanks in FR is also partly a fault of how good the attackers are at getting aggro. It's noticeable how even when you AREN'T playing Rex he's almost always the first and most frequent party member to die. Nael also seems to die fairly frequently for me and Matthew is more reasonable. But it's def as much a fault of them drawing aggro poorly as it is the attackers drawing aggro absurdly well.
Yeah the difference in strength between party members in 2 is pretty negligible. Even moreso in 3. The only game where your party comp can really affect your performance in a major way is 1.
I forgot xc2 has different attacks on the same blade for everyone, for a long time I struggled to remember why the characters differ at all if anyone can equip any blade, that makes so much sense
I'd say the real nail in Aegaeon's coffin is his partner: Brighid. who is also a dodge tank, but actually does damage because of War Pyre, then dodge tanks better because ranged attacks nearly never hit her as well which synergizes back to War Pyre that needs you to dodge, and you now have a universal high dodge rate against a huge chunk of attacks. On Juniper: Yumsmith is a contender because of design spaghetti making half their kit just... not work.
Great video! Maybe you can make a part 2 based on worst character AI for when you're not playing as them but only if there's actual differences in the rankings (probably not). On a side note: while I agree sharla is the worst I played as her the most because with her insane healing you can defeat monsters 20+ levels highers than you if you know how to heal optimally. It was super fun using her to get into areas I wasn't supposed to be at cuz of my level
When I went through Future Redeemed I exclusively played Shulk and could not keep hate to save my life. Nikol always took it with his AOE, multi hits, generating aggro per second and his HP pool is ridiculous compared to anyone else, even Shulk.
I made Hope work and solo’s Gradivus with her; but the fight took ~45 mins (there’s a sped up video on my channel) I then tried to kill Telethia Endbringer with her but I couldn’t get her DPS high enough to exceed Endbringer’s regen. :(
one thing you mistakenly imply is 0tp characters are useless, when they can let you get a little further in a chain order, which can be situationally useful.
I was soooooooo disappointed when I got Na'el for the final boss. Who was with you to fight Alpha? Who was there and actually persued his own goal of fighting Alpha? Right: N! Imagine how amazing ot would have been to play N as a kind of hero character in the final boss fight. Sure you would mop the floor with Alpha probably but its a nice idea I believe. Makes the games come full circle :)
To dunk on hope even more, her best traits are shared with every other person with a knife (Cross, Irina, and Celica), all of which have a better secondary weapon and personal arts than Hope. Her signature arts are a 1 hit psycho launcher virus debuff, which is lol on like 3 different levels (single hit=no TP gain in overdrive, virus is unhelpful at best, and psycho launchers are not exactly popular ranged weapons anyway), and a knife aura, secondary speed, which is nice, secondary cooldown speed is meta for getting those tertiary 400% bonuses in overdrive, but in most cases it's worse than the stock standard knife aura Full Specs, and considering Irina is one of the first characters you can pick up, theres basically no point to Hope at all even if you just want someone for early game brainjack cheese (to the points that before this video I actually did not know she existed lol)
Aegaeon meanwhile: “Breaking Wave!” “Hundred Year Wave!” “As you wish!” “Brighid!” Then he never comes out again bc Brighid has such better damage and Hugo better tanking.
Aww, Juniper and her class was one of my favs. High damage + even more depending on positioning. I liked putting her class on Noah for the longest time
The best part about Xenoblade is that you can use the worst characters and still not have that hard of a time. I had Noah in the Stalker class for half the game and never struggled, Juniper is outclassed but if you like using them then that's all that matters!
juniper might be garbage, but at least she got one of the best cutscenes in the game so that's at least a plus I just made a harmless comment on a funny scene in this game why are all my replies fighting
*they Giving you benefit of the doubt, but I know it’s coming from some idiot (matthew voice): don’t give me “mistranslations” when Japan had been more ahead in trans inclusion than even gay inclusion for cultural reasons. Localizers knew what they were doing, and they were supposed to.
If they ever remade Sharla's kit for a future trilogy release or something similar, she could use her talent art as a heat release beam or something. It could scale by the amount of heat built up and if used correctly, it could become one of the best damage dealing arts which would be funny for a support.
I feel like Sharla could have been made much better if she was a healer with more balance between healing and out right attacking. The heat mechanic could have been used so she can't spam either healing or offensive arts (i.e. offensive heats up the rifle, support cools it down). And then you could have made her talent art a means of breaking her limit and she can spam as many arts as she wanted
The only use times I use Sharla is when required (so before Dunban joins) when I wanna cheese a battle with the Melia/Riki/Sharla, and farming affinity on quests.
I could be mistaken but in the version 2.1 patch notes it said "Increased the percentage chance to re-acquire Battle Manuals, Tactics Manuals, and Strategy Manuals" which if interpreting it correctly (I tried looking online to see if there was an explanation of what it actually meant but couldn't find any) it's possible to get duplicates of manuals. Getting a duplicate of manual 14 could solve the problem with *SPOILER*. It could also just mean replacing manuals you somehow lost so I'm not sure if this is true (I really wish the patch-notes weren't so vague)
I'd probably put Shulk over Nikol for FR sure shulk has a higher base attack stat nor a target lock debuff. but I find Nikol much more consistent when it comes to generating and maintaining aggro because he does not need to rely on a single source of a debuff to get aggro. Nikol gets access to a passive that has him constantly generating aggro and has two arts that further boost the amount of aggro he gains. one of which has an AA recharge of 3. Nikol also has the benefit of not being partially designed around having a buff he can't acquire on his own. When im not controlling either one, I often see its Nikol that ends up having the aggro between the defenders.
So Triton unlocks the equivalent of Final Fantasy's Blue Mage, a class that starts with nothing and is made to learn attacks from enemies usually ending up with more skills than any other class once it's maxed out, but cannot learn any skills himself... That's pretty dumb
What could have made Sharla's cool off useful is if she did an attack that did true damage before it makes her cool down. Letting it at least have some use in a chain attack before she can't do anything after. It doesn’t completely fix the issue, but it would at least make it more useful.
When I played Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and DE My team was Riki, Sharla, Shulk. Sharla was a good healer to keep the only battle where I did not use her in, would be the worst boss in the game and maybe a couple of other fights.
Yeah Segiri's kit is VERY dysfunctional, but she at least has a good chain attack strategy and a good heroic chain I'd say she's about on par with Triton but still better than Juniper
Question: would the common wind knuckle blade that Gramps gives ya and ur not allowed to dismiss count? Also, the worst AI in the Torna dlc is Laura. "Hey Laura, everyone's dying, can u get Haze on that?" "Can't talk, I'm gonna half my own hp"
Found this video and I would make a case for Juniper being better than Grey in ONE aspect... She's Agnus, which allows her to pair well with Agnus heroes when playing the Gauntlet. Considering that Agnus has heroes like the Queen, Miyabi and Fiona, who are absurdly broken, she fits quite well. Furthermore, since the Gauntlet actually allows you to buy buffs that can enable her bleed tactics to actually work, she's not as bad as Triton though XD
So the funny thing is I legitimately often let sharla die when it was just her shulk and reyn. She is legitimately worse then not having a third party member early game those big sword drives in chain attacks are a big deal but later on you can Riki’s magical harem party which I mostly use late game flying enemies since her damage vs flying enemies is legitimately pretty decent and melia and riki have magic arts to synergize with her and melia especially right after sharla in a chain attack helps significantly. It’s legitimately a decent party to use.
The funny thing is that the chance of getting more chain attck rounds is partially based on affinity. Shulk and Reyn tend to have high affinity with eachother even in the early game, while Sharla has lower affinity which means she will drag the overall affinity down. More often than not your chain attacks will last longer without Sharla in your party.
I should get more into xenoblade mechanics thh, there's some mad interesting stuff I never rlly understood, especially 2, it's the one I put the most hours in and the one dearest to my heart but I feel like I still don't understand shit about how the battle system actually works!
Xenoblade 3 Juniper, they are just too cute to not have as a primary hero for me. Yeah, you can do Valdi or the other broken healer class for insane sustain, or you could do Zeon/Monica for great tanks, or have Alexandria take point to deal a lotta damage. But Juniper's just so adorable, I love them. Ntm, NB representation in games goes hard. Unfort they got shot in the foot with poor arts, mid-chain orders, and all that good stuff. But I can't stop loving them, and maybe I'm weird, but I enjoy Stalker.
Nah, it's based to keep using your favourite characters! I used Stalker on Noah for half of the game and it worked just fine for me, you can use anyone and any class if you want to!
I would rank Nikol above Shulk in Future Redeemed. While the revival thing is fairly lame, it's at least useful. As healers, Glimmer and A go down pretty easily if you're going against an enemy with AOE and/or a super boss. Having a tank as a back up revival unit comes in handy fairly often. And, if nothing else, getting Rex back up on his feet faster is a good thing. Shulk? Well, he's got a Break. But otherwise, the same problems as Nikol. Can't get aggro. And his dodge tanking really doesn't work all that well on the super bosses, so he's not nearly as good for revival backup.
That's fair, lots of other people have the same take. I still think his Break, slightly better damage, Monado Armor support and his better unity pairings make him better overall, though they're both still bad
personally I didn't even use healers or tanks in xc2 and made a full crit heal team of rex, tora, and zeke, which can basically be at full health the entire time assuming no one shots ofc, and honestly even in the other games where that's not as viable, you can just chain attack an enemy and kill them with nonsensical damage from even near full hp so healing and even tanking aren't even needed, so the worst characters being mainly tanks or healers makes total sense given the general mechanics of each game
Considering Sena as the second worst party member in xb3??? She's like... the best one (besides Noah cuz yada yada) by a decent shot. Ogre is one of the best classes in the entire game, both for damage and utility. 3 of its class skills are massive damage boosts with extremely easy conditions (+50% dmg to physical arts, +60% dmg when at full HP and a whopping +150% dmg to toppled enemies) and the 4th one is a *flat* +45% break success rate, making it the best breaking class by far while also enabling the user to deal insane amounts of dps. And because Ogre is Sena's starting class, she's the only one who can get the Blade Upgrade for it, which is a free +10% atk and +20% crit rate that only Sena can get on Ogre.
I agree. My ranking for 3 is: 1:Sena, 2:Noah, 3:Mio, 4:Taion (chain order), 5:Eunie, 6:Lanz. Sena is break master, Noah’s time is now, Mio never gets hit, Taion reduces def on chain order which boosts attacker dmg as most I use are Physical, Eunie gives sp defense debuff while also pairing with Signifer due to the Ouroboros talent that increases dmg by the buff. Lanz is the worst because Heavy Guard gets outclassed by Guardian Commander, I never need his chain order unless I go for a Sena/Lanz Ouroboros, and he’s a worse tank than Mio besides the hilariously long time he can dodge for with Variable Turret.
Shulk isn't great for FR post game but in the Gauntlet he's pretty amazing, He can land Target Lock consistently, he has a break art that applies more consistently against debuffed enemies, and because target lock actually works he doesn't need to spec dmg to hold aggro you can just build him to be super tanky as another backup reviver
I actually used electra for most of the game because she was the only electric blade I ever got for Morag, and all my other party members got better blades than their electric blades
From a person who has over 1,000 hours in xc2 Nia is definitely better as a blade that’s my personal opinion her driver form has some worth when doing certain fights but her blade form is better most of the time
I would argue that Tora is worse than Nia. At least until he gets QTPie. Having access to less equipped blades is bad. When you get your 4th party member, it's a tank. Like Tora. And one that has access to better classes and will have better dps and aggro. management due to effectively having 6 arts and not just 3. And when Tora gets his second blade, the third slot is oppened shortly after for everyone else. After he gets his 3rd blade he is a beast, but before ? I would not field him over Nia.
If 2 included worst party members with blades... Its a surprising 3 way tie between dromarch electra and godfrey. Godfrey and electra share a very similar issue, as hammer blades they generate way too much aggro way too fast to keep the focus split between morag or tora, in godfrey's case he also bad as a field effect user. Dromarch, however, has the problem of his battle and general arts not actually being true healing. For a beast blade, that's basically a death sentence.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS
1) This video is not meant as a guide! It's just for the sake of discussion, for games like Xenoblade 2 the character only gets bad around the end/post-game.
2) There are spoilers in the comments! I did keep spoilers to a minimum in this video, but in the Xenoblade 3 part there's a minor spoiler concerning a hero character that gives you the Soulhacker class.
3) Once again, don't let anything I say in the video stop you from playing characters you like! Xenoblade games are flexible and you can make any character work if you put the effort in!
Consider subscribing if you enjoyed, more videos like these are coming up and you can help me reach 2K subs by doing it!
Spoilers:
On your second point, "The red guy" is kind of a spoiler in itself. May be better to just say "the person". Those of us who have the Soulhacker class will still know who is being referenced. Just my two cents :)
The best part about xenoblade 2 is that he calls Nia the worst healer party member but also calls her the best healer blade
"Congratulations! You just outclassed yourself!"
SPOILERS 🤓
Problem is nia is locked... probably the worst driver to be constant healing. Morag unfortunately beats rex on healing her evasion is so damn high which means more time to heal the entire party
I mean while true I think the fact Rex is more known for being able to spam Anchor shot like crazy which gives you hp potions from an potent Mythra builds kinda even makes Nia look outclassed still
Why worry so much about spoiler? XC2 ist out for many years already! I bet most people who play this today, are just playing it again afetr already beating it!
"Doesn't have well balanced party members"
FR Rex: DOUBLE SPINNING EDGE
Who needs balance when Rex can kill everything himself
I love the Beyblade Build.
@@lanteanboy let it rip
They knew exactly what they were doing when they put crit recharge on *that* Art. The Rexcopter memes are eternal.
@@TARDISES Let it rip
MonolithSoft will simultaneously give you an extra party member that can actually be an active hindrance while also having adult Gigachad, Beyblade-Enthusiast Rex exist in the same game.
That is so funny to me.
If Na'el fully worked like a hero and didn't take up the chain attack guage with her chain order she probably would have been a lot better.
She's not even good, she has a more complete kit than the heroes do, but she's JUST. NOT. GOOD. Also feels like amissed opportunity to not get Panacea, Linka and potentially N as usable heroes, if only because those three potentially mean a choice of role and two of them are just canonically following you around for most of the DLC anyway (Also, just imagine of N's arts were just straight up the Lucky Seven kit without a time limit)
I like how Healers were so bad in 1 and 2, and then in 3, Fiona’s class exists.
They finally learned from their mistakes (sadly they forgot how to make good defenders in the proces)
@MaxMonado eh defenders weren't that bad.
They mostly just struggled with optimal endgame setups.
During the main story and even during postgame, tanks are pretty good.
It's just that they fall off when you gotta start minmaxing the party for fast kills.
@MaxMonado I mean I still think defenders were bad in 2, the only exception being brighid morag and hugo
Well, Signifer is such a good support class because it relies more on buffs than nerfs bc nerfing opponents was screwed over in 3
@@MaxMonado dunban put the fear of god into them
The best healer in Xenoblade 2 is Avant-Garde Medal. I don't blame you for missing him though, he's not the most well-known party member and he kinda flies under the radar because of more memorable characters like Nia.
Looooooooool true
He was also held hostage by a unique monster.
So true. Rex becoming Attacker, Defender and his own Healer all by himself with that. Then again Rex does mean King so
Shulk: can see the future and damage un-toppled Mechons by default.
Reyn: can switch between shielding and deadly lance skills
Dunban: MASSIVE DAMAGE
Riki: steals items and deals bonus damage based on how many DoTs the enemy has
Melia: summons and detonates elemental minions
Seven: summons attack drones for multi-hit attacks
Sharla: has to stand still and not attack
WHYYYYYYYY
They easily could’ve made her do AOE damage or been invincible while venting too
Nia becoming less useful actually fits well in the story as by the time Nia becomes less useful as a party member blade Nia becomes available (with her mostly being in her blade form in the story)
That's likely why she's lacking on the Driver side. Because it is like a prison for her confidence and true self. She can't give 100% so she falls behind the rest. I think it might be intentional since no one else has another form like she does! It's more a concession than anything!
I'm surprised Segiri wasn't even mentioned for XC3. Her class revolves around inflicting debuffs but, as you mentioned, enemies in XC3 have high debuff resistance, especially later on in the game, which is when you unlock her.
I'd imagine it would be her damage output isn't as bad as Juniper but I could be wrong
Segiri is very underwhelming too, but unlike Juniper and Triton she's more reliable and just better in chain attacks. She has a good completion bonus for her chain order and her heroic chain will give her a bunch of TP
Segiri isn’t that bad, she’s a great hero and her class is actually usable unlike some others (shackle ring)
she also has the benefit of unlocking a skin tight outfit for each part member instead of just a shirt....if your into that lol
Apparently the debuff res is always specialized into one side or another (physical or ether) on enemies so her arts do work, just only half at a time
The reason that Juniper's liberation arrow takes so long is because they messed up the programming on the target aiming for the attack. Juniper will always take the longest route to facing their enemy causing them to spin nearly 360 degrees before completing the attack.
If that's actually the case then that's really funny
I always wondered about that.....surprised they never patched it.
@@SonicBlast4444 NGL at some point I found it so hilarious that I'm glad they never did. It's so goofy
@ChouRaiyuki just means I'm never using her class or her. Oh well. At least I can say I learned somethjng
@@SonicBlast4444 you say that like you have a choice 😭
Funny that for a while in XBDE, thanks to arts inheritance (a glitch that lets any art be on any character), Sharla actually becomes one of the best party members because the super strong arts like Buster and Sword Drive are all on very fast arts like heal bullet. And all it took as a game breaking bug
True, I remember seeing that. I guess Sharla was the best all along
When it comes to Sharla, there's also another issue. The AI.
Cause there WILL be moments where that girl will seemingly refuse to heal people.
It's weird because in my experience she always healed on time, but I have seen this be a problem for other people
i actually used her a lot in , mainly for boss battles of if i was stuck on a fight as oddly when i played her ai was fairly good for healing and it was riki constanlty making odd choices so i ended u using him the least
Iirc, it is actually the opposite issue. She heals too much, leading to either her heals or herself being on cooldown on bad points in a fight.
Healer-AI in Xenoblades is notoriously terrible to the point where i saw myself forced to play the healer so they won't suicide into enemies or just heal for decoration etc.
It also helps, that the AI is much better at playing Shulk. Rex or Noah than i am...
I do wonder… Maybe there’s a point to having Sharla be so bad? That she’s meant to encourage players to forgo the comforts of having a dedicated healer in order to experiment with the more offensive and tanky characters instead. And though Nia might not be as egregiously designed, she also fills the role of an early game comfort character more than anything.
Since xenoblade 1 is kinda old and very experimental, I kinda get the impression that they thought having a healer that didn't require MP would be incredibly OP and make it so you never died, and they "balanced" that with the cool off mechanic. There's also the possibility that she was designed very early on and they didn't have time to go back and redesign her skill set.
I guess I should have clarified it in my original comment, but I wasn’t just thinking of Sharla in terms of how she performs in the base game. Heck, I didn’t actually play the original. Rather, I’m more familiar with the definition edition of the game that got released on Switch. But while I’ve become aware that Reyn had been buffed between versions, it doesn’t appear that any noticeable changes were made for Sharla. Which is strange, you know? Why refuse to make any adjustment to her kit that could redeem her in the eyes of veteran fans when given the opportunity?
@@sailorenthusiastespecially since it's so easy to make her better : if she could just use her talent art in chain attacks, she'd already be so much better. Even if it does nothing, it still allows to change colors and since time is stopped in chain attacks, the cool off basically doesn't take time at all.
Other simple change : make the cool off be slower.
And maybe less cooldown on damage arts, or maybe more numbers here and there.
Lastly, this one requires a bit more attention but isn't too hard to do, add an increasing dmg and heal ratio that scales based on the heat of the sniper. Something like at half heat she does 50% more healing and damage. And at max heat, 100% more but then she needs to cool off.
And I'm not sure if that's the case already but in chain attacks, even if she's at max heat she can still use all her arts. (with the bonus 100% dmg/heal)
I'm not sure if it's already a thing, I haven't played Sharla for years.
Not sure if 100% is too much, but if it's just a number problem it's fine, it's the idea that matters.
@@sailorenthusiast I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the only "buff" Reyn got in DE was that Shield Bash always has an 8.4 second cool down, even when it's at Lv 1. However, this is a bug that was introduced when adding the Master Art books (i.e. the Lvl 11 & 12 Art Levels), since Shield Bash Lv 11 & 12 have the same cooldown as it does at Lv 10.
@@arminarlelt7471 funnily enough, Sharla's damage output does actually improve as her riffle gets hotter. Granted the damage bonus isn't very significant (or at least it seems that way since most people, myself included, didn't notice it). Unfortunately, her healing actually gets slightly worse as her riffle gets hotter.
I think there's a skill on her 5th skill tree the shortens the Cool-Off animations, but it still takes 3 seconds or so if you manually use before overheating, and ~6 seconds if it overheats.
I'm not 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure that if sure that if Sharla's riffle overheats during a Chain Attack, she will be unusable for the rest of it.
Would like to say 15 TP in 3 is definitly useful for not going over, especially fine if your a healer. Flagbearer Lanz time
True, it's especially useful in the last round, guess my boy Lanz might not be the worst
@@MaxMonadoMio is way worse than Lanz imo for this reason, she has middling TP and even worse chain attack skills (this is why I make her my healer)
Also adding to this, Triton has decent arts and skills at his disposal and you can play around his gambling addiction, while Juniper is just completely trash
Yeah the low TP characters are deceptively useful because if you can get a beefy chain bonus without using them, they can deal massive damage in the last round without getting you up to 100% and you can fit more characters into the round.
Mio has the Zephyr bonus. Zephyr is the best tank class IMO making her one of the best party members as you can’t hit her.
I think a simple red art on Sharla in the early game would've done wonders for her. Something with damage akin to Bone Upper, maybe she whacks an enemy with the butt of her rifle and doesn't fill the talent art. This would give her a bit more damage output without sacrificing much healing, and you could comfortably use her in chain attacks with Shulk and Reyn in the early game.
Triton at 0tp is useful because you can get basically a free attack in the chain attack
yeah i think people forget that low tp is good if your trying to fit more attacks in, just need that high tp for the finishing move
Sharla was pretty close to being decent at least. Give her more damage options by taking some healing away. Or perhaps make up the loss in damage for some insane party buffs that make up for the lost damage in the damage of the other party members.
True, give her one more red art and some buffing moves like you said and she would already be much better
I think even just letting her talent art chain would be a huge difference, since she's actively a detriment for chain attacks.
I think one of the ways to make Sharla more interesting (beyond a couple of extra attacks) is to increase her damage as her rifle heats up but have it decay over time so you have a reason to manage her heat.
@MaxMonado 1 thing sharla has with that 1 red art she's got is that she is the ONLY party member able to inflict insta-kill. Yes only on dazed enemies but u could be fighting a level 80 with lvl 60s. If u get lucky. U can 1 hit it with sharia. U need tk break topple and daze it 1st but its possible. That might be why it's her ONLY red art.
@@SonicBlast4444 It's possible, but it's still only a 15% chance of instant death and it's probably not going to work on anything challenging enough that you'd want it to work on it.
The eternal quandary of Xenoblade debuffs, when you want them, you can't have them.
I actually think that FR Shulk is worse than Nikol. You talked about how you can make Nikol unkillable and make him the ultimate reviver but Shulk has nothing like that. He is kinda similar to Aegeaon that he has high evasion but he will never get aggro because of low damage (And i think Aegeaon has better evasion than shulk). Also Shulk Break art is heavily outclassed by Matthews break art because the cooldown is way lower and matthew is just crazy with the recharge, while Nikols launch art is better that Rexs launch art because you dont have to stand on the side from the enemy. They both are still kinda weak but i think in comparison, shulk is weaker IMO.
Also i have to defend my girl a little bit (Sena). I think she is the second best behind noah because of her ogre class. Since you can upgrade the starter weapons for each character, Sena becomes the strongest ogre in the game, and Ogre might just be the stroger starter class with her insane break potential. Also having low TP isnt so bad. That just means that you can use her more often without finishing a order. Its not like you do more damage when you have more TP so having one high tp character for "Amazings" and low TP character for damage is the way to go IMO.
I can see why you'd say Shulk, the difference between him and Nikol isn't that big so either one can be seen as the worst, I can get behind your points. I'd just say that you can never have enough chances to inflict break, that Shulk has some utility with Monado Armor and better unity pairings than Nikol (with Matthew and Rex).
And don't worry I love Sena too (my favorite after Lanz),
I don't think theres a big difference between the 5 remaining characters from 3 but honestly you make a good point for her
@@MaxMonado Ok i kinda forgot About Shulks AoE Armor Veil lol. Yeah they both are kinda not that great and heavily outclassed by everyone else. I think they would be better if Rex wouldnt be so op, so they could actually tank something. They both are still great at negating or avoiding damage and if they would just hold aggro they would be sooooo much better (AKA if they both have a force Aggro art like Hugos Talent art in Torna).
And im Glad to see that you are a Sena fan :D
Sena fans are great people :D
Nikol's launch is also good because it doesn't have a positional requirement, so it's a lot easier to use. But yeah he is unfortunate as a tank. For that reason, I'd probably say Lanz is the worst. Sena her ouroboros arts actually do quite a bit of damage and with Ogre she will be your primary breaker. Taion is not good as a healer, but he is great as an attacker. So default classes Taion, overall I would say Lanz.
@@24hr-Gaming Well if we count Ouroboros forms then i actually think that Mio is the worst. Her only reaction arts are Break and Daze, and the Burst combo is kinda weak in comparison to Smash. Also Noah has a break art too and more damage. Speaking of damage, almost all of mios Ouroboros skills are only for evasion so she has the lowest damage if we compare all the ouroboros forms.
The only thing Mio can do better than anyone is sharing Buffs. Noahs Buffs specifically. Noah is the only one who can get invincibility so if you share that buff with mio and then if she uses resonant flag, you can make the entire team invincible
Agreed. Noah, Sena and debatably Mio are probably the standouts out of the main 6 party members
Just to bring up something. While it does no damage, Sleep Bullet is the fastest cc in xenoblade 1, pretty much affecting enemies that arent immune or resist it the moment you hit the button. Sharla is really good at canceling enemy attacks while they are starting the animation of their attack.
Kino's sleep bullet however has a cast time. Preventing instant reaction to cancel enemy attacks. So he's worse in that regard.
That's a very creative use for that art! The animations were also something I didn't consider with Kino
@@MaxMonadoit’s why Nene although having the same arts as Reyn is slightly nerfed. Her animations are longer and multi hit.
The thing about Cool Down is that it's "supposed" to be a fun trade-off mechanic. As her rifle heats up, her healing gets weaker while her offense gets stronger. Sadly, her stats and her arts don't really synergize well with this ability. I can't say I've ever said to myself while playing as Sharla "Ooh, my rifle is hot! Let me get off a few really strong Headshots before cooling down!" while simultaneously having dedicated DPS like Shulk or Reyn in the fight.
As someone who mained Sharla for an entire playthrough, if you learn how to play her, it's really easy to use cool off to your advantage. She doesn't have the best damage output, but with just a little investment, you can use drive boost to thunder bullet mash and end with a powerful head shot.
I actually find her versatility quite useful. She might not be the most versatile character, but she can switch between dedicated healer and surprisingly decent attacker pretty quickly.
Edit: I know that's very similar to what you said, but I felt the need to emphasize her effectiveness, which I find to be quite underappreciated.
The hilarious bit is that it actually makes her and Kino worse yet again. Their DPS(Which is just spamming thunder bullet because they have nothing else, lmao) does not need the slight damage increase, but the healing decrease actively hurts their already redundant niche.
So overall if I were to judge a trend with the worst party members it would be that the earlier xenoblade games had problems with healer characters being lacking due to the nature of the mechanics and how their hindered in animations or crippling drawbacks (cough sharlas talent art) rendering them mostly pointless but got better in the later games. Tanks in the later games can’t keep aggro because of how aggro generation works and every later entry makes debuffs more and more worthless due to how every major enemy being overtuned to kingdom come with resistances (you know its bad when the literal art that reduces debuff resistances can be resisted) thus kneecapping every debuff specialist character.
healers have gotten better from Torna the golden country onwards however aggro generation for tanks and debuffs is an issue that need reworks for future xeno games so that these gameplay elements can actually do what their supposed to do without being shot in the foot by the games own mechanics.
Tanks are pretty much fine, at least on the evasion side.
Sponge tanks get fucked due to aggro mechanics, but dodge tanks have no problem keeping up.
And god fucking yes. Why the fuck does Segiri's debuff resist down get blocked by debuff resist??? What's the fucking point? 😭
NGL, it's a travesty that they seem to have started a pattern of fixing the last game's issues only to make a new one for no real reason, bonus points when these issues newer issues aren't even related but are ALL suffering doubly so around the attackers being really OP (Supports and tanks aren't the ones inflicting debuffs either, that's... Mostly attackers)
Sharla saved my first run. I was mesmerized with the story and rushed it, barely fighting mobs and ignoring all side quests. I had no idea of how to use chain attacks for anything but ensuring topples and daze.
I managed to survive all of the game with sheer visions and out healing the enemies. I even managed to out tank the final teletia boss with Sharla - riki - rein... That took me like 2 hours... I was on the zone the whole time, it was awesome!
Hey as long as you enjoyed the game that's all that matters!
Ironically, Godfrey was the first rare blade my Nia pulled and later came Finch. Electra appeared on Morag.
Actually, on difficulties other than Easy, Fiona's order also only fills a third of the chain attack gauge. Chain attack damage speedrunners play on easy because of that, maybe that's why thought FR nerfed that ability.
You *can* give her that effect and play on easy to offset her downsides, but I know not everyone's gonna want that
Yeah I made a mistake there, hero characters in 3 also don't consume the chain gauge if you use their strategies (at least on normal), which is why I thought it gave more chain gauge then it does. You can get more rounds with Fiona's order, but the effect wasn't nerfed as I said
IDK about Easy so I can't really say what changed between base and FR there but at least on normal or above Fiona's order was nerfed purely by not being on a hero as nothing else about it changed. But overall I wouldn't even think that's a nerf just off all the other manuals existing.
I loved Nikol’s character because he’s also someone with a « disability » and compensates with machines
I was so dissapointed he and Shulk sucked
I really liked him too! A real shame he and Shulk got done so dirty
No joke, when I was finding items to increase my party's equipment and art slots, I only gave them to Nikol when he was literally the only one left I could give them to.
fun fact: Nikol is actually easily the best party member if you put all of your points into him and no one else ever (speaking from experience).
@Yojimbo16 ironically enough....same.
@@MaxMonadoi disagree. Nikol was the unkillable tank for me, shulk was the most meh
I was honestly getting a little worried at the end when you said Nikol was the worst character in FR because I despise Na'el so much. I figured out and basically depended on my chain attack strategy because it could easily tear a tough enemy to shreds, but when Na'el gets added to the party all of a sudden my access to that strategy is completely gone. Plus it really feels like she shows up and ruins my strategy way more than she's mathematically supposed to
Also to add to Xenoblade 2:
A healer isn’t even necessary after the halfway point. You can use accessories that heal a percentage of damage done. Not to mention using evasion accessories to not get hit.
Best team in the game is Rex/Mythra, Tora/QTpi, Zeke/Kosmos.
Zeke the worst member in the game.
@@raquansingleton1549 If you think that, you don't know anything about the battle system in the game.
Nia is the worst member. She's the slowest autoattacker, even with her best weapons, and once you get the ability to heal through damage, she's useless.
Zeke with Kosmos is broken as fuck. But even Pandoria is an excellent blade choice for him, as well.
@@sj4iy to your credit. I actually don't lol. I'm glad you gave me insight though because I've been trying to beat the game forever lol.
@@raquansingleton1549 I admit, the battle system is confusing to start. But it's really deep and you can do pretty much anything you want. I've soloed super bosses with every character, and I made Mythra into an evasion tank.
Because Nia is so slow with her auto attacks, she doesn't heal well, at all. That's why, imo, it's best to make another driver the main healer if you still need one. Rex+Nia is a great combination.
Zeke/Pandoria are absolutely broken in NG+ because of Zeke's second growth chart. He's great as a DPS or Tank. But Tora is the best tank in the game.
So, my preferred 3 party team is DPS, DPS, Tank.
If the battle system confuses you, there are great videos and guides that can help you understand it. Hope you manage to finish the game eventually, it's well worth it.
@@raquansingleton1549 In terms of sheer DPS potential it's Rex > Tora > and Zeke in that order if you include DLC blades. Without DLC blades it's Tora > Zeke > Rex. Rex with Fiora is beyond busted. But Zeke with Kosmos is busted in terms of damage. With DLC Zeke is also busted with Corvin. In NG+ Zeke is really strong with just Pandoria.
Also that guy is slightly wrong. Best tank in the game is Rex with Mythra or Fiora. Tora does the most damage, is good at everything, and is also the best breaker by a longshot, but Rex on Fiora is also extremely busted to the point where he will always have aggro and Mythra is good at keeping everyone alive, not just the tank because foresight is busted especially when stacked with other evasion modifiers. Best standalone can survive literally anything tank is Rex, Morag, or Zeke with Corvin. Mythra with Rex is best overall, and Rex with Fiora is most damage. Tora is best in utility because you don't need to worry about evasion if bosses are stuck in driver combos forever.
The weakest party member is Nia, but she is really good with Crossette. Though Zeke would also be really good with Crossette. Morag falls behind a lot too, but Corvin saves her so if you want to use Morag to tank at all and end game end game, you should give her Corvin.
I don't get why FR didn't just have the Post Game character's Chain Order work like Heroes from the base game and just not deplete the Chain Gauge, would've made them feel so much better as a reward.
I just wish we could play as her, her playstyle seems really fun but we can't do anything with it
Healers really went a long way in Xenoblade. From being borderline useless in 1 to borderline nonexistent in X to actually pretty good but ultimately outclassed by crit heal in 2 to being some of if not THE most broken OP classes in Xenoblade 3
Once again a great video! Looking forward to hearing more from my favourite TH-camr!
Always remember that Nia powercrept herself
Great video, good points all around and I'm always happy to learn stuff I didn't know!
Thank you, happy to hear it!
Honestly, having played Xenoblade 1, 2 base and 3 base to the end of the story, a video like this does help because most of the time in combat, I have no idea what I'm doing. So I always just overlevel the party to get by. So one day if I revisit the games, I'll definitely look over the stats. I need to revisit anyway though, as I still have yet to beat Future Redeemed and I haven't touched or even bought Torna.
Happy to hear you found it useful! Good luck with Future Redeemed!
TBH this was an interesting watch. Part of it's a bummer because I specifically like using Sharla and Nia; in Sharla's case I'm also pretty sure it's why I found the game so much harder since I'd always have her or Melia and just couldn't figure out chain attacks. With Nia though it's more surprising because at least feelwise it felt like all 5 drivers were completely usable due to the simple fact that they all have access to the same weapons. In my case specifically though the reason ended up favoring her MORE is because I did get Zenobia and Ursula on her having a driver with the first 3/4's of a driver combo conveniently in one place. But that said in retrospect XB2 has so many ways to heal that I can see how she'd be outclassed anyway (cuz jars be funny).
As far as Nael goes I'll say this much but funny enough I gave her one of the Melia Hero Chains so she actually contributed quite actively on my team; Matthew also had Cammuravi's Hero Chain (I think with Nia's order?) and at the very least whenever Nael's order came up picking Matthew would give a pretty much perfect amount of TP. The fact that she prevents you from getting specific unity orders is def a detriment but nevertheless I found her at least somewhat useful anyway.
As for Nikol the memory locket thing is hilariously accurate but one other thing I did find useful with him is his base TP reasonably high and giving him the item that boosts initial TP further also makes him a bit better in chain attacks (which are just dummy fun in general in FR because of the manuals).
Probs also worth noting that that the tanks being bad tanks in FR is also partly a fault of how good the attackers are at getting aggro. It's noticeable how even when you AREN'T playing Rex he's almost always the first and most frequent party member to die. Nael also seems to die fairly frequently for me and Matthew is more reasonable. But it's def as much a fault of them drawing aggro poorly as it is the attackers drawing aggro absurdly well.
Yeah the difference in strength between party members in 2 is pretty negligible.
Even moreso in 3.
The only game where your party comp can really affect your performance in a major way is 1.
The worst party member in XC3 is the one you never found the Hero Quest for.
Mwamba and Nimue hero quest where are you...
finch is a tank blade yes, but she's not meant to tank, she's meant to forget what she was doing and then bonk the enemy
So basically:
1. Sharla
1 DLC. Sharla clone
X. Sharla look alike
I forgot xc2 has different attacks on the same blade for everyone, for a long time I struggled to remember why the characters differ at all if anyone can equip any blade, that makes so much sense
I love Sharla, in character and in gameplay, but I chronically play healers and love the idea of shooting someone with a sniper to heal them so 🤷♀️
I didn't know that's how xenoblade 1 chain attacks work, that's kinda cool!
I'd say the real nail in Aegaeon's coffin is his partner: Brighid. who is also a dodge tank, but actually does damage because of War Pyre, then dodge tanks better because ranged attacks nearly never hit her as well which synergizes back to War Pyre that needs you to dodge, and you now have a universal high dodge rate against a huge chunk of attacks.
On Juniper: Yumsmith is a contender because of design spaghetti making half their kit just... not work.
Didn't watch it yet but Xenoblade 2 is gonna be Electra, I can feel it
I'm taking this video personally 😤
I still want a x remake
We all do... please Monolith
@@MaxMonado and a sequel, X ending being a cliffhanger
Great video! Maybe you can make a part 2 based on worst character AI for when you're not playing as them but only if there's actual differences in the rankings (probably not).
On a side note: while I agree sharla is the worst I played as her the most because with her insane healing you can defeat monsters 20+ levels highers than you if you know how to heal optimally. It was super fun using her to get into areas I wasn't supposed to be at cuz of my level
If it's about worst AI party member... it's gotta go to Melia 😭
Girl does *not* know how to use her own gimmick fr
When I went through Future Redeemed I exclusively played Shulk and could not keep hate to save my life. Nikol always took it with his AOE, multi hits, generating aggro per second and his HP pool is ridiculous compared to anyone else, even Shulk.
Funny part is Nia end up being a blade anyway so you're not rly gonna use her if you want her as a blade, and a strong one even
Wow, a Xenoblade series video that DOESN'T ignore X? 🤯
12:00 SPOILERS!!!!!
I love how you're using nia AS A BLADE to showcase how she isn't the best driver for healing.
Yeah Nia is technically still the best healer... just not as a driver hahaha
Sharla in the thumbnail made me expect the ranking to be based on story and characterization lol
Nia is very cool. I also liked playing her
Nia is indeed cool and fun to play as, she's still the worst party member sadly.
@@MaxMonadonot really. She actually has a high ether stat
Can't wait for Xenoblade X for Switch.
And here I am maining Kino in FC because he's just adorable and I love him :)
Very based reason to main a character:)
I made Hope work and solo’s Gradivus with her; but the fight took ~45 mins (there’s a sped up video on my channel)
I then tried to kill Telethia Endbringer with her but I couldn’t get her DPS high enough to exceed Endbringer’s regen. :(
one thing you mistakenly imply is 0tp characters are useless, when they can let you get a little further in a chain order, which can be situationally useful.
They way I burst out giggling like a goblin from the thumbnail lmao
I was soooooooo disappointed when I got Na'el for the final boss. Who was with you to fight Alpha? Who was there and actually persued his own goal of fighting Alpha?
Right: N!
Imagine how amazing ot would have been to play N as a kind of hero character in the final boss fight. Sure you would mop the floor with Alpha probably but its a nice idea I believe. Makes the games come full circle :)
To dunk on hope even more, her best traits are shared with every other person with a knife (Cross, Irina, and Celica), all of which have a better secondary weapon and personal arts than Hope. Her signature arts are a 1 hit psycho launcher virus debuff, which is lol on like 3 different levels (single hit=no TP gain in overdrive, virus is unhelpful at best, and psycho launchers are not exactly popular ranged weapons anyway), and a knife aura, secondary speed, which is nice, secondary cooldown speed is meta for getting those tertiary 400% bonuses in overdrive, but in most cases it's worse than the stock standard knife aura Full Specs, and considering Irina is one of the first characters you can pick up, theres basically no point to Hope at all even if you just want someone for early game brainjack cheese (to the points that before this video I actually did not know she existed lol)
NEW MAX MONADO VIDEO !!! YIPPEE !!!
Good video! Wish that Nia was more useful cause I love her animations.
True she does have god tier animations like her dance during the specials
I mean she TECHNICALLY does become more useful
Yeah, I've hear she becomes outclassed... by herself.... she outdates herself@@mythos6308
@@mythos6308xeno 2 still doesnt need healers
@@magicfish8213 Honestly felt like it was the game that needed healers the most b
I still have yet to finish future connected, i should get onto that...future redeemed first tho!
As someone who had sharla in my party for like most of the time, you're right
"Hey Aegaeon, I need you to be the dodge tank"
Aegaeon: *I gotchu homie*
Aegaeon meanwhile:
“Breaking Wave!”
“Hundred Year Wave!”
“As you wish!”
“Brighid!”
Then he never comes out again bc Brighid has such better damage and Hugo better tanking.
Your video made me feel like I've been playing Xenoblades the wrong way xD
As long as you enjoyed the game there is no wrong way :)
Aww, Juniper and her class was one of my favs. High damage + even more depending on positioning. I liked putting her class on Noah for the longest time
The best part about Xenoblade is that you can use the worst characters and still not have that hard of a time. I had Noah in the Stalker class for half the game and never struggled, Juniper is outclassed but if you like using them then that's all that matters!
Me: builds Nikol into an unkillable assist build
juniper might be garbage, but at least she got one of the best cutscenes in the game so that's at least a plus
I just made a harmless comment on a funny scene in this game why are all my replies fighting
Truuuueee and the best Kite moment!
*they
*they
Giving you benefit of the doubt, but I know it’s coming from some idiot (matthew voice): don’t give me “mistranslations” when Japan had been more ahead in trans inclusion than even gay inclusion for cultural reasons. Localizers knew what they were doing, and they were supposed to.
It’s a shame debuffs were shafted in 3 as at least then her class would be somewhat useable
@@repedevesperia4048she
I love the concept of tritons class but I cannot make it work it doesn't do shit for damage!
If they ever remade Sharla's kit for a future trilogy release or something similar, she could use her talent art as a heat release beam or something. It could scale by the amount of heat built up and if used correctly, it could become one of the best damage dealing arts which would be funny for a support.
That would instantly make her so much better
Triton is the best thing of the whole XC3 XD
I feel like Sharla could have been made much better if she was a healer with more balance between healing and out right attacking. The heat mechanic could have been used so she can't spam either healing or offensive arts (i.e. offensive heats up the rifle, support cools it down). And then you could have made her talent art a means of breaking her limit and she can spam as many arts as she wanted
The only use times I use Sharla is when required (so before Dunban joins) when I wanna cheese a battle with the Melia/Riki/Sharla, and farming affinity on quests.
I could be mistaken but in the version 2.1 patch notes it said "Increased the percentage chance to re-acquire Battle Manuals, Tactics Manuals, and Strategy Manuals" which if interpreting it correctly (I tried looking online to see if there was an explanation of what it actually meant but couldn't find any) it's possible to get duplicates of manuals. Getting a duplicate of manual 14 could solve the problem with *SPOILER*. It could also just mean replacing manuals you somehow lost so I'm not sure if this is true (I really wish the patch-notes weren't so vague)
Would be great if we could get duplicates, as far as I know though I've never gotten the same manual multiple times though I could be wrong
I'd probably put Shulk over Nikol for FR sure shulk has a higher base attack stat nor a target lock debuff. but I find Nikol much more consistent when it comes to generating and maintaining aggro because he does not need to rely on a single source of a debuff to get aggro. Nikol gets access to a passive that has him constantly generating aggro and has two arts that further boost the amount of aggro he gains. one of which has an AA recharge of 3. Nikol also has the benefit of not being partially designed around having a buff he can't acquire on his own. When im not controlling either one, I often see its Nikol that ends up having the aggro between the defenders.
Only used Electra just to get past that one door in the world tree that required a stupidly high electric mastery level.
I guess she can be useful after all
So Triton unlocks the equivalent of Final Fantasy's Blue Mage, a class that starts with nothing and is made to learn attacks from enemies usually ending up with more skills than any other class once it's maxed out, but cannot learn any skills himself... That's pretty dumb
It's such a shame that he comes with the most versatile class in the game and then can't use it himself
What could have made Sharla's cool off useful is if she did an attack that did true damage before it makes her cool down. Letting it at least have some use in a chain attack before she can't do anything after. It doesn’t completely fix the issue, but it would at least make it more useful.
Nia being called the worst Driver. . . Proceeds to objectify herself
When I played Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and DE
My team was Riki, Sharla, Shulk.
Sharla was a good healer to keep the only battle where I did not use her in, would be the worst boss in the game and maybe a couple of other fights.
Me who had Godfrey and Electra on Nia for the final fight. '_'
Oh no you poor soul 😭
Bro played on hard mode 😭
I think that Segiri is also in contention for the worst in 3. The debuff focused class who has a resistance down art THAT CAN BE RESISTED.
Yeah Segiri's kit is VERY dysfunctional, but she at least has a good chain attack strategy and a good heroic chain
I'd say she's about on par with Triton but still better than Juniper
I was wondering why in my first playthrough of XC2 I was struggling so hard
I had Nia running Electra
Question: would the common wind knuckle blade that Gramps gives ya and ur not allowed to dismiss count?
Also, the worst AI in the Torna dlc is Laura. "Hey Laura, everyone's dying, can u get Haze on that?" "Can't talk, I'm gonna half my own hp"
Found this video and I would make a case for Juniper being better than Grey in ONE aspect...
She's Agnus, which allows her to pair well with Agnus heroes when playing the Gauntlet. Considering that Agnus has heroes like the Queen, Miyabi and Fiona, who are absurdly broken, she fits quite well. Furthermore, since the Gauntlet actually allows you to buy buffs that can enable her bleed tactics to actually work, she's not as bad as Triton though XD
Sharla got lots of healing but somehow i was still dying until i replaced her with riki
And that's why she's the worst
So the funny thing is I legitimately often let sharla die when it was just her shulk and reyn. She is legitimately worse then not having a third party member early game those big sword drives in chain attacks are a big deal but later on you can Riki’s magical harem party which I mostly use late game flying enemies since her damage vs flying enemies is legitimately pretty decent and melia and riki have magic arts to synergize with her and melia especially right after sharla in a chain attack helps significantly. It’s legitimately a decent party to use.
The funny thing is that the chance of getting more chain attck rounds is partially based on affinity. Shulk and Reyn tend to have high affinity with eachother even in the early game, while Sharla has lower affinity which means she will drag the overall affinity down. More often than not your chain attacks will last longer without Sharla in your party.
I should get more into xenoblade mechanics thh, there's some mad interesting stuff I never rlly understood, especially 2, it's the one I put the most hours in and the one dearest to my heart but I feel like I still don't understand shit about how the battle system actually works!
Xenoblade 3 Juniper, they are just too cute to not have as a primary hero for me. Yeah, you can do Valdi or the other broken healer class for insane sustain, or you could do Zeon/Monica for great tanks, or have Alexandria take point to deal a lotta damage. But Juniper's just so adorable, I love them. Ntm, NB representation in games goes hard. Unfort they got shot in the foot with poor arts, mid-chain orders, and all that good stuff. But I can't stop loving them, and maybe I'm weird, but I enjoy Stalker.
Nah, it's based to keep using your favourite characters! I used Stalker on Noah for half of the game and it worked just fine for me, you can use anyone and any class if you want to!
Just finished future redeemed and now I wished I made an alternate save without Na'el
Yeah... you might still be able to go back with an auto save if you're lucky?
"Electra is the worst Blade"
Me who pulled Electra as their first ever Rare Blade: T_T
I would rank Nikol above Shulk in Future Redeemed. While the revival thing is fairly lame, it's at least useful. As healers, Glimmer and A go down pretty easily if you're going against an enemy with AOE and/or a super boss. Having a tank as a back up revival unit comes in handy fairly often. And, if nothing else, getting Rex back up on his feet faster is a good thing.
Shulk? Well, he's got a Break. But otherwise, the same problems as Nikol. Can't get aggro. And his dodge tanking really doesn't work all that well on the super bosses, so he's not nearly as good for revival backup.
That's fair, lots of other people have the same take. I still think his Break, slightly better damage, Monado Armor support and his better unity pairings make him better overall, though they're both still bad
personally I didn't even use healers or tanks in xc2 and made a full crit heal team of rex, tora, and zeke, which can basically be at full health the entire time assuming no one shots ofc, and honestly even in the other games where that's not as viable, you can just chain attack an enemy and kill them with nonsensical damage from even near full hp so healing and even tanking aren't even needed, so the worst characters being mainly tanks or healers makes total sense given the general mechanics of each game
Me, who played all 3 Xenoblade games but still couldn't manage to clear any of them without relying heavily on healing (except 3):
Considering Sena as the second worst party member in xb3???
She's like... the best one (besides Noah cuz yada yada) by a decent shot.
Ogre is one of the best classes in the entire game, both for damage and utility. 3 of its class skills are massive damage boosts with extremely easy conditions (+50% dmg to physical arts, +60% dmg when at full HP and a whopping +150% dmg to toppled enemies) and the 4th one is a *flat* +45% break success rate, making it the best breaking class by far while also enabling the user to deal insane amounts of dps.
And because Ogre is Sena's starting class, she's the only one who can get the Blade Upgrade for it, which is a free +10% atk and +20% crit rate that only Sena can get on Ogre.
I agree. My ranking for 3 is: 1:Sena, 2:Noah, 3:Mio, 4:Taion (chain order), 5:Eunie, 6:Lanz. Sena is break master, Noah’s time is now, Mio never gets hit, Taion reduces def on chain order which boosts attacker dmg as most I use are Physical, Eunie gives sp defense debuff while also pairing with Signifer due to the Ouroboros talent that increases dmg by the buff. Lanz is the worst because Heavy Guard gets outclassed by Guardian Commander, I never need his chain order unless I go for a Sena/Lanz Ouroboros, and he’s a worse tank than Mio besides the hilariously long time he can dodge for with Variable Turret.
@@frosticle6409 I love slapping a dodge art on Variable Turret, that shit is so goofy
Shulk isn't great for FR post game but in the Gauntlet he's pretty amazing, He can land Target Lock consistently, he has a break art that applies more consistently against debuffed enemies, and because target lock actually works he doesn't need to spec dmg to hold aggro you can just build him to be super tanky as another backup reviver
I actually used electra for most of the game because she was the only electric blade I ever got for Morag, and all my other party members got better blades than their electric blades
From a person who has over 1,000 hours in xc2 Nia is definitely better as a blade that’s my personal opinion her driver form has some worth when doing certain fights but her blade form is better most of the time
Completely agree, that's what I was getting at when I said a certain healing blade on Rex outclassed Driver Nia
I would argue that Tora is worse than Nia. At least until he gets QTPie.
Having access to less equipped blades is bad. When you get your 4th party member, it's a tank. Like Tora. And one that has access to better classes and will have better dps and aggro. management due to effectively having 6 arts and not just 3. And when Tora gets his second blade, the third slot is oppened shortly after for everyone else.
After he gets his 3rd blade he is a beast, but before ? I would not field him over Nia.
Nia is a bad driver but a good blade.
If 2 included worst party members with blades...
Its a surprising 3 way tie between dromarch electra and godfrey.
Godfrey and electra share a very similar issue, as hammer blades they generate way too much aggro way too fast to keep the focus split between morag or tora, in godfrey's case he also bad as a field effect user. Dromarch, however, has the problem of his battle and general arts not actually being true healing.
For a beast blade, that's basically a death sentence.