The Xenoblade Chronicles series, like many other RPGs, divides its characters and classes based on the roles they play within combat. XenobladeChronicles 3 specifically, opts to simplify this system as much as possible, with the main roles being attackers, defenders and healers.
As their title implies, the defender classes are dedicated to keeping the party protected and staying alive at all times. Since the series also makes use of an ‘aggro’ mechanic, defenders are also tasked with keeping the enemy’s attention, so their allies are free to deal damage or support. For these purposes, there are certain arts that stand above the rest.
8 Bull Rush
Just like Reyn in the original Xenoblade Chronicles, Lanz is the party’s premier defender in XC3. Fittingly, his starter class, ‘heavy guard’, is easily one of the best classes for dedicated defensive builds.
One of its first arts is bull rush, a rather simplistic art that nevertheless provides vital utility. Topples are a core part of both smash combos and burst combos, which are important for taking on stronger enemies. Having a dedicated way to cause topple is vital, and best left to a defender, as they have the most access to it.
7 Mighty Beat
While the main classes available to XC3’s main cast are varied and fun to play around with, several new classes can be unlocked via ‘heroes’. Heroes are 7th party members who bring an extra hand and an extra class to the equation.
One of the available defender hero classes is ‘lost vanguard’, which can be unlocked after chapter 5. This class brings ‘mighty beat’ as one of its main arts. It offers the all important aggro gain any defender needs, and decent damage, but isn’t otherwise too impressive.
6 Gemini Strike
While defenders are usually high in HP and focused on tanking a lot of damage, an alternative form of tanking does exist. This is the evasive tank. With classes like Mio's base class, ‘zephyr’, their HP isn’t actually too high, as they rely on dodging attacks after drawing enemy aggro.
For these evasive defender playstyles, gemini strike offers a great amount of utility. Not only does it draw a high amount of aggro, it also increases evasion for a set period, making it the ideal art for the evasive defender playstyle.
5 Blossom Dance
Another alternative defender playstyle offered by a hero class in XC3, is that of a more damage focused defender. The ‘lone exile’ class excels at this, in exchange for less power as a pure defender.
For those hoping to try this playstyle out though, lone exile’s talent art, blossom dance is integral. The art has actually appeared in several Xenoblade games, and in XC3, it deals quite a bit of damage, while also drawing a lot of aggro, fulfilling the defender role while keeping the offense up.
4 Mad Taunt
As previously mentioned, defenders in the Xenoblade series have to deal with keeping enemies focused on them at all times. This can become quite difficult when the party is facing a swarm of enemies, who can’t all be targeted at once in order to hold aggro.
Heavy guard’s talent art, mad taunt, provides an easy solution to this. As a talent art it takes more work to activate than a regular art, but once earned, it can taunt all enemies in the battle, providing an easy way to pull all their attention to the team’s defenders.
3 Deflector Field
Another great defender hero class is the ‘guardian commander’ class, which is available from chapter 3 and beyond. Once this class is leveled, its talent art deflector field becomes usable, and is excellent in combination with good aggro management.
Deflector field triggers the ‘awaken’ buff, which improves attack, defense, and art recharge rates. If that wasn’t good enough, it also creates a damage absorption effect. While it draws no aggro, if its user is already the center of attention, it increases their survivability by a sizable amount.
2 Glow Ring
The importance of aggro management for defenders in XC3 has already been emphasized. But while arts that increase aggro are very useful, the ‘target lock’ effect is arguably a complete upgrade to aggro gain, and as a result it’s a fairly rare effect for an art to have.
Target lock causes the target enemy to instantly focus on the art’s user, ripping their attention away from everyone else. It’s a more immediate way to refocus an anime’s aggro, and glow ring offers a fairly accessible way to get hold of this effect, while also dealing fairly high damage.
1 Ring O'Roses
Puzzlingly, despite being this high on the list, ring o’roses isn’t actually an art from a defender class. It’s only available via the support class, ‘troubadour’, yet offers a utility so strong that any role would be happy to have it.
Ring o’roses allows the user and any party members around them to receive faster recharge rates on all of their arts. It deals no damage itself, but the sheer utility of this buff can’t be understated. Faster cooldowns means more damage, more aggro, more everything. It can turn the party’s efficiency to 11, and is well worth obtaining.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is out now on Nintendo Switch.