Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Update is out!

Challenge Mode is so much fun. One of the missions has you kill Tatsu from Xenoblade X!!! YES!!!

The higher-tiered missions are actually tough. Treehouse wasn't kidding, if you're not prepared they can tear you a new one. There are new debuffs like draining your Party Gauge and enemies have Elemental Awakening, which I'm not sure what that does yet but it seems like a stronger enraged state. Even the lower difficulty ones are pretty dang interesting in terms of fights.

Anyway, I just unlocked Shulk and Fiora for outside use. Gonna go sleep, but man this is so much fun.

My time to revisit Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is coming soon. I took a break after finishing the story but I always meant to come back after some/all of the DLC is out. I think I'll still wait for the story DLC to come out but I'm excited to get back to the game.

@EvilLucario Shulk's Monado Purge seals that and returns them to their normal state if you don't know. Great reference to XC!

I just unlocked Shulk and Fiora for outside use, too. I may kill Tatsu before getting some sleep. The fact you can do that is amazing.

The expansion pass also came with a few extra game settings:

• Auto-battle
• Automate Special Button Challenges
• Enemy Aggression

Damn, Challenge Mode is indeed tough. Cloud Sea King Ken kicked me over for around an hour now, and I have all of my Blades at S+. I need to rethink my party setup to deal with reinforcements and crowd control.

@EvilLucario Aw man. Does that mean I'll have to use Dagas?

Update: I have beaten almost every mission except the level 150 Gogol, the Ardainian Kurodil, and Jin's scenario. Whew, this is pretty tough and they have a LOT of HP.

@meleebrawler Nah, I haven't used Dagas for Kaiser Zone at all. KOS-MOS is top-tier, make sure you abuse her level 2 Special Art as that's incredibly powerful and wipes out pretty much every small fry reinforcements. Also, make sure you stack up on Beta Scopes for easy Driver Combos.

So how do you get to bring Shulk and Fiora back to Alrest? Has anyone figured it out yet?

@Grumblevolcano Beat the challenge Dino Drama. Have fun!

@subpopz It really is a blast, man. Not only are Shulk and Fiora's specials derivative of the first game, but Shulk brought along his vision ability. Vision works as a passive that prompts a button challenge to "change the future" and dodge a powerful attack. From everything to the visuals to the sound effects, you can see the care that went into their development. They're both very strong blades, too.

By the way, it's worth pointing out that Shulk's still feeling it. Hearing that followed by "I like your attitude" is a treat.

Without any spoilers please:

I'm playing through chapter 5 and I'm enjoying the game lot now that things are really rolling along.

Here's my question: Will I miss anything in the main campaign as far as areas and QOL changes if I wait to beat the game to buy the season pass?

Will I be missing anything really important or substantial (a bonus rare blade isn't enough to worry me) if I wait to buy the Season pass?

Have I already missed out on any substantial main game content in my play through so far without buying it?

@Action51 Pretty much no to all of them, it doesn't matter when you buy it. Challenge mode won't really be of use until you've finished the game because of enemy stats, the DLC quests you can do once you've finished the game and the items will still be of use post-game.

Cool.

So there is a little bit of missed content with some quests, but they can be done post game and still feel like they matter?

That's good to hear.

So the expansion so far is:

• 1st December 2017 - Items #1
• 22nd December 2017 - Items #2
• 19th January 2018 - Items #3 and quests #1
• 2nd March 2018 - Items #4
• 30th March 2018 - Quests #2
• 27th April 2018 - Rare Blade #1
• 25th May 2018 - Quests #3
• 15th June 2018 - Challenge Battle mode
• 14th September 2018 - Torna prequel story

I'd guess we'll see:

• July 2018 - Rare Blade #2 and quests #4
• August 2018 - Rare Blade #3

I like this structure a lot more than how BotW was handled.

Well there's been content every month except February and whether I'm wrong or not, I still think Xenoblade 2's DLC was handled better than BotW.

I can't tell what I'm doing wrong but I'm dying very quickly on Tiger! Tiger IRL.

@Grumblevolcano Camp Poppi QTpi with a crit-heal setup and you can demolish everything. If you need the extra defenses, slap a Master Tank Mod on all of your Poppi forms.

Should you still be getting killed, put an Ultimate Shield part on and just keep spamming your Specials. Since you have 100% block rate when you're using Specials, you'll block a ton of damage that way.

What do we know about activation of the story DLC? Do you have to be at a certain point in the story, or can you just load it up from the main menu?

I ask because I'm at the beginning of a New Game +, but I'm not sure I'll find the time to get through the game again...

@Buizel You're referring to the prequel DLC, right? For what it's worth, I imagine you'll be able to launch it separately.

By the way, does anyone have a spreadsheet for the items dropped from challenges? There's more than a handful of new accessories, but I'm mostly curious about the aux core drops.