One of the most unique aspects of the Xenoblade Chronicles series’ battle system is the "chain attacks." This mechanic has changed quite a bit in functionality with each new game, but it always provides a way to perform arts in quick succession, with extra damage added on top.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 makes some of the most drastic changes to the system yet. Every character now has access to a ‘chain art,’ a unique attack that will only activate when a specific TP threshold is met, but can provide a range of powerful buffs. Each character’s chain art has a different function, and while they are all useful, some are clearly more vital to have in the team.
8 Noah: Brave Assault
As the main character of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Noah brings a solid, well-balanced range of options in combat due to his base class, Swordfighter. This focus on solid options carries over into chain attacks via his chain art.
Brave Assault gives attacks a 70% chance to bypass the target’s defenses. While it is more luck based than the pure defense debuffs of Eunia and Taion, 70% isn’t too much of a gamble. And especially on tankier foes, it can be a great way to enhance the chain attack’s total damage.
7 Valdi: Bullet Hail
Valdi’s War Medic class is the purest healing focused class in the game. This focus on healing carries over to his chain art, which is purely focused on restoring party health. It restores a solid 35% of the party’s health, as well as giving them the ‘regenerate’ buff, which restores additional health over time.
While this doesn’t do much for the china track’s damage, in XC3’s harder fights, one chain attack might not be enough to win the battle. So, Valdi’s art is perfect for using a chain attack to top up a near-death party.
6 Lanz: Tyrant Wave
Likely the best chain art in the main party, Lanz’ Tyrant Wave offers a perfect way to reorient the party in the middle of a battle, while also helping to enhance the powers of a chain attack.
Tyrant Wave increases enemy aggro on the party’s defenders, helping to refocus aggro away from the attackers and healers on the team. It also buffs the attack of all party members. The first aspect factors in after the chain attack is over, but the latter takes effect right away, meaning all following attacks in the chain will deal extra damage.
5 Zeon: Deflector Form
Zeon’s chain art is quite similar to Lanz’, but with more defensive utility. This art also provides an increase to defender aggro, but even more so than Lanz’ art. Instead of providing the party an attack boost, however, this art instead provides them with the buff Armor Veil.
Armor Veil is a defensive buff that can usually be provided by healer classes such as the Thaumaturge. It gives a character a defensive shield, which will take damage for them up to a certain limit. It usually relies on positioning to take advantage of, but this way, the whole party can benefit from it wherever on the field they are.
4 Riku & Manana: Noogie Storm
Out of the main six party members, some are more blessed with chain attack potential than others. For example, Sena and Lanz both only get 15 TP to start with in a chain attack, making their use very limited. Meanwhile, Taion gets a whopping 35.
With the help of Riku & Manana’s chain art, the whole party can get a boost to their TP. The art boosts everyone’s TP by 7, getting the lower TP characters up to at least 22. 7 TP might seem small, but the difference between 149% and 150% TP is an entire extra character to use in the next round of attacks.
3 Ashera: Saber Siege
The Xenoblade series is notoriously bad at explaining the finer points of its battle systems, and sadly this continues in XC3. Particularly, some of the various buffs and debuffs caused by arts aren’t very clearly explained to the player.
Power Charge, for instance, is a buff that increases the damage of the next art used. Knowing this information, the fact that Ashera’s chain art applies it to the whole party makes hers one of the best. Combined with a further boost to the chain attack’s damage, this chain art can help produce sky-high damage numbers.
2 Monica: Lost Advent
One of the biggest challenges with maximizing chain track damage in XC3 is picking what characters to attack with and when. Different characters have different TP values to begin with, which are further amplified by chain orders. Depending on the party’s setup, getting 150 or 200% ratings can be quite the math problem.
Usually, the party’s defenders are the most reliable way to lengthen chain attacks, via their ability to reactivate characters for further attacks. Monica’s chain art offers a similar utility, guaranteeing an extra character is reactivated, with a small chance for a 2nd.
1 Fiona: Galactic Flight
One aspect of chain attacks that is easy to miss, is that their length is limited by the chain gauge. Each round of attacks drains the gauge, creating a hard limit to how many chain arts can be activated.
Fiona’s chain art completely breaks this rule. It restores a portion of the chain gauge, allowing chain attacks to go even longer than usual. If that wasn’t strong enough, it also adds Power Charge to all allies. The damage boost this art provides cannot be understated, and it is easily the best chain art in the game.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is out now on Nintendo Switch.