Topic: Need help in Xenoblade Chronicles 2... (Chapter 5 Spoilers - Solved)

Hi guys, sorry if I am asking for help at the wrong place. But I'm at chapter 5 in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and I'm at the Aeshma's Core fight. I know that I have to attack the power lines, because the core is continually recovering itself. But my party is constantly dying every time I get the power lines' HP down halfway.

What I tried to do is the chain attack. First I attack the core to get my party gauge to fill up completely, then when the power lines' HP is halved, I activate the chain attack, but everyone takes their turn only once and I end up doing 30,000 damage with no elemental orbs. I also tried paying attention to the element tree at the top right of the screen, but when I need the last element to do one of those powerful elemental attacks, they're never ready. (Example: Morag has the Second Sun move, but there's no button command at all, my fire gauge runs out, and now I have to start from scratch.) FYI, my characters are above level 40, so I'm clearly missing something here.

Let me know if I need to clarify a few things or what I'm missing. Thanks for your help!

Hmm... I don't remember having too much of trouble with this one.
I think my party was Rex, Nia and Tora. Have you been unlocking things in the affinity charts for the blades?

But yeah, you need to get rid of the power lines before attacking the core.

@MarioLover92 I don't remember specifically, it's been a while, but IIRC the problem with that fight is the enemy as an ability....I can't remember what it's called, I just keep thinking of it as "Thorns" (Diablo III's version of it.) Basically near the end the enemy is reflecting the damage you deal it right back at you. You need equips to resist it. There was a way to cheese through the battle I think. It was arguably the cheapest battle in the whole game. Even the main story bosses go down easier.

@Evil_Lucario probably has every name, stat, and metric memorized....he can help.

I saw the title and wasn't surprised to see which part was in question. This was the same boss I had trouble with back when the game came out. I battled the boss 3-4 times and had the same result as you. I was somewhat underleveled so I battled couple of monsters to gain a level or two and came back. This time I won but it wasn't because of the gained levels but the fact that this time I could keep my chain going. Previously I had either died just before getting my chain attack ready or I failed to keep it going.

My advice is to just pay more attention to your chain. Add orbs that you know you can break. For example, try to add a water orb with Dromarch since you have Pyra and Brighid. That way you are sure to break the orb since both fire attacks focus on the water orb. It's also important to make sure you can finish your combos in general so that you can add orbs. When you start a blade combo, you don't have to go to the next level right away. You have time to continue building up your combo meters or wait until your partners switch their blades for ones that work better for the combo. That way you don't end up in a situation where you are in the second stage but don't have a way to finish the combo.

This is a hard battle and the answer is the same to all of the bosses like this. Chain Attack. Like you said is difficult to put orbs on the enemy, but is your only choice. This mechanic is very broken, so make use of it.

Whoops, mis-tagged @EvilLucario earlier.

@NEStalgia Good tag. :^]

Anyways, if you don't mind a bit of grinding, you can go level up some of Mythra's capabilities, especially with Lightspeed Flurry. Every time you crit, you regenerate part of your Art, so if you use something like Anchor Shot and Double Spinning Edge over and over (as they hit twice), you can have a good chance of critting, resetting part of your cooldowns so you can keep building Specials and Arts. Being able to spam Anchor Shot is pretty helpful considering it can drop a lot of HP potions, and it can counteract the Spike damage.

Also, Arts-recharging desserts in Argentum and Mor Ardain are very very good. Use them for everyone and watch as you can just unleash Arts en masse.

Then stack orbs as others said. Cut off the wires, then kill the rest of the bosses in that chapter.

Thanks guys! I managed to beat the power lines. I used Nia, Rex, and Morag and I managed to get and break two elemental orbs. Got three elemental orbs while fighting Jin and beat him, too. I'm at Aeshma's Core without the power lines right now and trying to gather and break the orbs is turning out to be a good strategy for me. They're quite powerful, no lie.

@MarioLover92 What @NEStalgia mentioned is just generally good advice. I believe "spike" was the Xenoblade term. There are items that reduce spike damage and a lot of tough bosses really dish it out. It's the damage you take when you hit them. You'll want to look around for those items and equip them.

@Heavyarms55 @NEStalgia Ah yeah, I did hear of spike damage. I just refined the aux core for reducing it. I'll definitely keep it equipped for all my party members as I get more of them. I finally beat Aeshma's Core and finished chapter 5 by raking in as much orbs as I could, as well as continually healing my party members as Nia. Thanks for all your advice!