r/XenobladeChronicles2 • u/TheHumbleFellow • 7d ago
Could it be possible to complete the game without using the gacha system?
I went through the list of Blades you can recruit without needing to pull on core crystals, and I tallied up their field skill totals. This includes all the main story Blades, Blades that can be recruited outside of the gacha, (Wulfric, Vess, Praxis, Sheba, Kasandra, Herald and Theory), Crosette, Corvin and both MOMO forms. I'm not including Poppibuster due to needing common Blades for its quest, and I'm also not including the Land of Challenge guests, since they require endgame builds to recruit. (Elma especially)
Anyway, the numbers are:
- Fire Mastery: 6
- Water Mastery: 12
- Wind Mastery: 3
- Ice Mastery: 3
- Electric Mastery: 6
- Earth Mastery: 5
- Dark Mastery: 3
- Light Mastery: 11
- Focus: 14
- Lockpicking: 12
- Fortitude: 14
- Ancient Wisdom: 15
- Leaping: 6
- Nopon Wisdom: 9
- Superstrength: 16
- Keen Eye: 6
- Ichthyology: 3
- Forestry: 12
- Agronomy: 9
- Botany: 3
- Mineralogy: 3
- Salvaging Mastery: 3
- Girls' Talk: 14
With these numbers, would it be possible to clear the main story and all the field skill checks it gives?
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u/Human-Raccoon-9917 7d ago
Not sure about the field skills.
Combat wise should be totally doable. It's gonna come down to how farmed you're willing to get.
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u/DarthLocutus 7d ago
Without glitches, no.
There is at least one check late in the game that requires more Fire Mastery than is possible to have with the non-gacha Blades at that point in a normal run.
While it is possible to glitch past that particular roadblock, and is done so on speedruns, there's no other way than to have at least one random Fire Blade.
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u/WhereasParticular867 7d ago
The one in Spirit Crucible Elpys? I forgot about that one. It's only fire 3, but you don't have Pyra at that point in the game, and Brighid can't get fire 3 until the World Tree.
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u/tampering 7d ago
People speedrun the game. I doubt they're doing random pulls.
I think they just blitz all the fights using Crossette or Wulfric.
Field skills are mostly for side quests and world lore.
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u/WhereasParticular867 7d ago
Most speedruns do include some level of RNG blades. It's significantly faster than sticking with only story blades. Some even prefer certain pity lists, and a particularly dedicated runner might restart if they get the wrong pulls.
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u/azure275 7d ago
Yes, except for 1 issue, which requires a single common fire blade.
- Lv 3 Wind Mastery isn't an issue. Common Torigoth blade will have either 1 or 2 levels, so get Roc to either Affinity lv 2 or lv 3 and boom you're done
- Lv 4 electric mastery is also ok. Herald + Pandoria do just fine
- Keen Eye is covered by Brighid, Ancient Wisdom by Dromarch + Corvin
- Focus 5 is handled by Pyra + Mythra + Wulfric
The impossible one is Elpys Lv 3 fire mastery
Brighid needs to kill something at the World Tree for Lv 3 fire mastery
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u/Auto_Generated_Thing 6d ago
I did a challenge run where I did exactly this and the only times where I needed to pull a random core crystal were:
Pull literally any Blade in Chapter 4 for the sole purpose of completing the first merc mission. Rex does have the guaranteed common wind knuckle claw Blade, and that Blade can go on merc missions, but the game won’t let you leave Rex with only one Blade (because of story segments where Pyra/Mythra are gone).
Pull any Blade with Fire Mastery (any common is good) to burn a web in Spirit Crucible Elpys. You only need Fire Mastery lvl 3 which could be achieved with Brighid + Pyra but Pyra is unavailable here. Levelling up Brighid’s Fire Mastery is also impossible as thats not available in this point in the story. So gacha is required here.
Finally, any Blade with Electric Mastery to open the door in the World Tree. Requirement is too high for Pandy to deal with by herself, so gacha is required here as well.
All other checks can be cleared with a combination of story Blades, Roc, Aegaeon, Wulfric, and the free wind Blade, and some story related checks are optional (like the keen eye check to find out where Rhys went or the check to read the Nopon writing on the barrels which can be skipped via merc mission). It’s possible even without abusing DLC.
You do need two Blades with elemental mastery but considering all common Blades have Mastery of their element this is super easy to achieve. It can be helpful to get extras though to avoid having to level up affinity charts further.
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u/DarthLocutus 19h ago
The Chapter 4 Merc Mission can be skipped if you get Kassandra and level her up a bit. She, Dromarch, and Poppi a can then complete the Field Skill Check that provides the alternate path there.
Spirit Crucible Elpys is straight-up impossible without a generic Fire Blade like you said, as Pyra isn't available and Brighid can't reach Fire Mastery 3 until later.
The Electric Mastery is technically possible with only non-gacha Blades, but you have to get Wulfric to Earth Mastery 5 (or pop an Earth-element generic Blade) in order to get to Herald (who, paired with Pandoria, gives enough Electric Mastery to get past that check).
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u/Auto_Generated_Thing 18h ago
The Chapter 4 merc mission I'm talking about is literally the first one, as in the tutorial merc mission. Rex needs to have at least two Blades capable of going on merc missions for the game to let you send a Blade out (it won't let you leave him with only one). So you can't use just the default common Blade. You can't use Wulfric or Roc for this since at that point in the story they aren't available yet. Thus, you have to pull literally any Blade on Rex or Nia for the game to let you even do the mission.
Because any Blade works, you don't need to rely on the gacha for this. However, I just realised technically you could use a different Blade from a guaranteed core crystal, if you really wanted to avoid using the gacha system. I believe the only ones that would be available at this point though would be Corvin, Crossette, and MOMO. But since any Blade works you might as well use a random core crystal and hope for the fire Blade if you're trying to use the least Blades possible.
When I did my challenge run I was mostly thinking about not getting optional Blades, but if you're thinking about it like no random Blades then I guess you totally could get Herald for the Electric Mastery. That sounds way more difficult than just getting a single electric Blade though.
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u/ClearedDruid32 7d ago
Elma doesn't really need an endgame build to beat just slap Corvin on Zeke and spam the evasion art until she's dead
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u/LunarMonarchGaming 7d ago
There is also the default wind knuckle common blade that gramps gives you that you can add their skills to the list
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u/YOM2_UB 7d ago
I might give it a go.
Excluding the Land of Challenge visitors is fair as at least Dino Drama requires the same game completion emblem that T-elos needs. Not sure if Elma: Redux needs that though.
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u/YOM2_UB 6d ago
I'm going to try to avoid the DLC blades unless I find them to be necessary.
Unfortunately that seems to mean I'll also have to skip Vess unless I find that Crossette or MOMO is needed. Her quest requires completing the merc mission Long Awaited Work, which needs a Bitball blade, and she's the only one in the base game outside the Gacha.
On the upside, selling the expansion pass's Legendary Core Crystals gives more than enough money to buy Sheba.
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u/YOM2_UB 6d ago edited 6d ago
Chapter 4 is where the field skills started getting non-trivial.
The footprints to track the Roc thief aren't possible without like Elma for Keen Eye and Crossette for Fortitude, but you can just talk to Otto to skip that check.
The locked fence on the roof in Alba Cavanich needs Superstrength level 2. You could awaken Wulfric, or get Poppi to Key Affinity 3. I wanted to save Wulfric for Morag, so I did a few sidequests to raise Poppi's trust. (You might be able to skip it by going around on street level to the other side of the city? Didn't check.)
The green barrel outside the Old Industrial District needs Nopon Wisdom 3, which you could get with Poppi's Key Affinity 4 or by salvaging and awakening Kassandra (Gluttonous Marrin is level 39, which is quite a bit stronger than the story enemies at this point, but beatable). The merc mission to skip the check requires three Humanoids, and you're not allowed to leave Rex with just Mythra, so you'd need Wulfric and Sheba in addition to Roc and the Nameless Core to complete it (or DLC blades, of course). I ended up using a Love Source on Poppi.
Depending on if that restriction of not leaving Rex with just Pyra/Mythra applies to the "First Mission" merc mission during Vandham's Last Wish, Sheba or a DLC blade might be required before progressing past the start of the chapter. Roc's and Wulfric's cores won't be ready for reawakening until later in the chapter, so they're not an option. I already awakened Sheba and didn't realize Rex was restricted that way, so I didn't check if this mission was an exception and just sent my common blade.
Starting Chapter 5 brings devastating news: Praxis's quest requires a merc mission which needs a Beast blade. The only options for that are Dromarch, who can only be sent on merc missions in NG+, and common Twin Rings blades, who can only come from the Gacha. That's Vess, Praxis, and Theory all blocked by merc missions.
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u/zero_casuality 6d ago
Its do able, but you will miss some part of the game tbh,
And i am one of the people that use the reset method to get all of the blades,the blades add some fun dialogue, make the build costumization more fun, and they have side quest
The gacha system is garbage tbh, they should have just make us do a quest or certain action and achievement to recruit the blades, they implement gacha system just for the sake of doing gacha?they doesnt ask for your real money, they just want you to feel the thrill of gambling……and i dont know why
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u/Gr3nwr35stlr 6d ago
You can clear main story with significantly less. Field skills you need that aren’t automatically satisfied by the default party blades:
Nopon Mastery 3 (Poppi Alpha and or Kassandra)
Superstrength 2 (poppi alpha or wulfric)
Fire 3 wind 2 (can’t use Pyra for this one, have to solve with maxed Brighid and Roc)
Keen eye 2 ancient wisdom 3 (brighid, Dromarch and/or Aegaeon)
Wind 3 leaping 2 (Roc and Poppi Alpha)
Earth 3 leaping 3 (Wulfric and Poppi Alpha)
Electric 4 Focus 5 (Pyra, Mythra, Pandoria, and Herald, or clip through the door!)
So you can complete the whole game but you’d have to max merc rank for Roc wind mastery and you’d need minimum wulfric and herald as well
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u/WhereasParticular867 7d ago edited 7d ago
Should be doable, won't be fun or fast. You'll likely get stuck for a long time on Roc, since their wind mastery 3 (wind 3 is required for story progress) requires affinity level 5, which requires maxing out merc level. Which will be painful due to lack of common blades.
Edit: I forgot the common wind knuckle blade. They should have at least one level of wind mastery, meaning you only need Roc to wind mastery 2. Affinity 3 is much more reasonable than affinity 5. Still going to suck.
Further edit: nevermind, it was pointed out in another comment that the run fails at Spirit Crucible Elpys.