Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

@AlternateButtons I'm fairly certain that you can find them both in Uraya. I think that they're both 'wood' items, so try looking in collection points near trees, and if you have blades with forestry, equip them to get more.
EDIT: You can find Bamboo Seeds at the Cateracts of Rujah.

What does the DLC do by the way? Having finished the main story and most sidequests that I have access to, and 4 more Rare Blades to get, I'm kind of starved of things to do.

@NinjaAceTrainer Right now the DLC will give you 3 item distribution sets (stuff like money, cylinders, certain blades' favourite items, core crystals) and 5 quests. Throughout the next 8 or so months you'll receive more items, quests, a challenge mode, a rare blade and new story content.

@Grumblevolcano That sounds good. I'll definitely get the DLC when I return to Alrest.

I never quite understood, what do favourite pouch items do? I'm guessing that there's an affinity reward for liked/favourite items, but how does that work for the affinity chart-less Drivers?

@AlternateButtons don't forget you can buy some of the items as well. I'm away from my switch so I can't remember names but there is a desert item that you can buy at goldmouth. I'll update once i get home and can boot up the system (putting out fires at work today).

@AlternateButtons, try exploring some previous titans to see if you run across any new landmarks, as you get bonus EXP for finding those as well.

Unless you've done so already, I'd suggest Temperantia as you really don't cover much of it during the main story, so there could be a lot of landmarks there you haven't run across.

@AlternateButtons Looking at your Driver accessories, Blade chips and Blade Aux Cores may help. Also what is your party lineup as that'll help with specific advice (use spoiler tags where needed)?

@NinjaAceTrainer The issue won't be fixed until mid-February. So until then, don't use that Blade.

@AlternateButtons I can tell Ema is a common Blade but what element and type?

@AlternateButtons If you can topple that boss (I think you can), definitely get an axe wielder on your team instead of Wulfric. I had Mythra/Pyra, Agate (axe wielder) and end of chapter 3 spoilers: Roc . With those blades, keep Mythra/Pyra equipped, then when an ally breaks an enemy (Dromarch can do this), topple them with Mythra/Pyra, switch to your axe wielder to launch them, then smash them with Roc, and get some easy but substantial damage off with a driver combo. There's even a damage bonus if you use an art right after switching blade, which is really useful for this. If you combine it with an ongoing blade combo, you can increase the damage of both combos (fusion combo). Hope that paragraph helps!

@AlternateButtons To add to the already existing advice, be aware that you can negate many enemy attacks during the final stage of a blade combo so sometimes it may be more useful to wait on activation until the enemy is about to do an attack. Note that different blade combo button pressing sequences last for different amounts of time so if say the enemy is about to do an attack and both Dromarch and Aegaeon have Ruinous Weather ready you'd be better off using Aegaeon for it because enemy attacks are negated for longer.

@Grumblevolcano Not just Blade Combo finishers, doing a level 4 special at any time also makes your team invulnerable (yet also frozen in place) for the duration.

For anyone not in the know, you get level 4 specials only when your affinity (the glowing "thread" between your driver and blade) is maxed out (glowing yellow, builds automatically over time), among other potential benefits depending on the blade in question. Once you've done that and built your special up to level 3, you'll automatically reach level 4 after some time as long as you remain in proximity of your blade.

Affinity needs to be built up separately with each blade you switch in, and it resets if you get knocked out. Standby blade affinities won't be affected, but instead their switch cooldowns get reset to zero.

I'm starting to feel like all three of the xenoblade games take place at the same time in a dimensional warp of some sort.
1: Experiment result A
X: No experiment
2: Experiment result B

It's a game made by Takahashi, so there's a lot of similarities between Xenoblade, Xenogears, and Xenosaga.

@Ryu_Niiyama Massive endgame spoilers for both Xenoblades 1 & 2 ahead: At the end of Xenoblade 2, when you meet the Architect and learn about the conduit, it's shown how half of Klaus is in a new dimension along with presumably the female scientist. I think that the other dimension is the world of Xenoblade 1, where half of Klaus and the female scientist became Zanza and Meyneth in that world (and also Shulk and Fiora), which may be why they're treated with a godlike status. Haven't played X so I don't know how that fits in.

@NinjaAceTrainer Yeah sounds about right. I do love how these powerful cpus make the game 3dprinters and petri dishes on steroids.

@EvilLucario Well yeah the science = divinity after a point and man becomes a creator of sentient beings in some point and chaos eventually ensues sounds about right.

I liked Xenoblade 2's combat system when I finally understood it. Some franchises should stay turn based forever though for the main games (e.g. Pokemon).

@AlternateButtons What do you mean by "there isn't enough time"? Is it that you're killing the enemy before you can get another orb or that you're not able to activate a stage of the blade combo in time?

If the former then you could try going against more difficult enemies, if the latter you could take advantage of Mythra's ability to recharge arts by a certain amount if you land a critical hit (Lightspeed Fury in the affinity chart).

@AlternateButtons It doesn't take too long to regain the bar lost by reviving though. You may want to look your party's accessories if you feel it does, there's an accessory for example which fills up the party gauge by about half a bar for every "excellent" special.