Electra: Xenoblade 2’s Completely Irredeemable Garbage

[@CaprielleHarmony]

Before anyone comments on my pronunciation of "Xenoblade," that's how it's comfortable for me to say it. If I try to say it with a long e /ɪj/, I become a stuttering mess very quickly, and that's not exactly conducive to a smooth recording process. Also, if they aren't on the video already, subtitles should be coming soon! For some reason, DaVinci Resolve replaced all my subtitles with the exact same line before a certain point, so I have to go back and redo them. Not sure how that one happens. Any errata will be also in this pinned comment below. Thanks again for watching! Be sure to check out the arrangement when it releases on October 10! (Yeah, I know I set the premiere WAY in advance, deal with it.) ERRATA: 2 Oct 2024 - Subtitles are up! 2 Oct 2024 - 1:05 First bullet point on Dromarch should say "Fairly low (random) chance of healing after taking a hit," not after using an Art. (patroka) 4 Oct 2024 - 5:56 Tachyon Chip, not Moon Matter. Moon Matter Chip gives a Block Rate of 25%.

[@angeldude101]

1) /zenow/blade is a perfectly acceptable pronunciation, and is even the standard in both Japan and the UK. /zɪjnow/blade is mainly a North American pronounciation. 2) Technically "long e" is /ɪj/ and is pretty distinct from the short e /e/. You can thank the Great Vowel Shift for rotating several of our long vowels.

[@CaprielleHarmony]

@@angeldude101 1. Admittedly I've gotten some crap for the way I've pronounced certain words in the past so that's just me pre-empting that lmao 2. Yeah I have no clue how the IPA works I watched one Tom Scott video and called it a day

[@hundvd_7]

​@@CaprielleHarmonyYou're pronouncing it better than every other stupid American that complains, so go off king 👑

[@dehydratedbowser5261]

I was thinking how nice it was to hear someone pronounce it properly heheh (being from UK)

[@angeldude101]

You were uncertain about it, but it was confirmed that Core Crystals contain DNA, as shown by Stannif, the Indoline researcher, in Torna ~ The Golden Country.

[@CaprielleHarmony]

Thanks for the info! But... why were you reading that anyway? 😅

[@angeldude101]

@@CaprielleHarmony I saw that the rapid scroll was actual text and decided to see what you'd say about the craziness that is the both the backstory of Xenoblade and the strange mechanics of how Blades work in-universe. I have spent way too much time studying Blade biology.

[@gnderify]

Nothing is more infuriating than 100%ing this game, grinding out hundreds upon hundreds of legendary core crystals, just to have Electra be the last rare blade you need to pull. I swear, they purposefully gave me KOS-MOS early in the game just to make me feel pain later.

[@tylercoon1791]

Finch was my last. I guess she just forgot to show up?

[@CaprielleHarmony]

@@tylercoon1791 Yeah that'd be in her character

[@raichu493]

Encounter rates differ between save files

[@__BlacklotuS__]

Xbc2 is one of the greatest tales ever told

[@aegis9292]

11:28 I will not take this Bana slander he is the greatest character in all of fiction, he is the greatest of the Xenoblade villains. get out of the way Villains with complex emotional motives this man is after one thing and one thing only: the bag

[@CaprielleHarmony]

W sigma grindset frfr ong (kill me)

[@dominicjannazo7144]

Bana is so strong that he can break not only any opponent, but the very narrative stakes of the story. Why should we fear death, when Bana the Sigma can easily survive blowing himself up, an explosion that we're to believe temporarily killed prince what's his face?

[@Nelson-rw2yd]

He's not even the best Bana in Xenoblade.

[@killickan]

I beat this game 100%, NG and NG+ both, and on my NG run I ran Electra for about 50% of it. I knew so little about the game but nothing outside a couple storyline bosses and the deep postgame is actually challenging enough to make me switch so I guess I never noticed? Once I started getting Good™at the game I realized how bad she was, obviously, but it's pretty easy to just ignore most of this from a casual perspective. That said, good video! Love to see it.

[@CaprielleHarmony]

Like I said, this game is pretty good about even the "bad" options being playable on a casual run! It's just that if we sit down and really look through what Electra brings to the table, bro is not cooking whatsoever. But then again I spammed Ursula and then later Catalyst after Chapter 7, so like, fuck BiS just have fun :)

[@ksemanr]

>stats for nerds okay but she's cute and that's more important

[@patroka]

Love to see more discussion on Xenoblade 2! I have spent an insane amount of time analyzing and writing about this game so I’m always delighted to see people talking about it :). In fact, I had a really similar discussion about Electra with my gf recently, because the shield hammers in Xenoblade 2 are such utter mind-boggling garbage that it really does make an interesting conversation topic. That said, if I may offer some unsolicited constructive criticism, here are some other things I would have mentioned/done: -I’m shocked you left out the super important factor that is Electra’s low crit rate! It fundamentally kneecaps both her damage and sustain in a completely new way, forcing your team to run a healer/Fiora when you use her, and preventing her from ever having average DPS even if the shield hammer wasn’t such utter trash. -two of Dromarch’s skill effects are listed wrong, as one gives 5ish% when you use an art and then other has a low % chance to restore 25% HP when taking damage. …not that it really matters, they all do basically nothing. -Might have been good to mention that the best DPS blades can totally hit the damage cap with one special outside of a Chain Attack, if over the course of several hits. To really help drive home how low 30 is -I think the explanations could have been simplified quite a bit, even while still keeping in the minutia on exactly how it works. For instance, the aggro explanation could have been shortened to “aggro scales directly with damage, decreasing by 75 points a second. Because most attacks deal at least tens of thousands of damage, the aggro numbers get pretty high.” It felt like not all of the information being presented was necessary to understanding how aggro works

[@patroka]

Correction, Dromarch’s hp-on-hit skill is a 25% chance to restore 10% hp, rather than an x% chance to restore 25% hp

[@CaprielleHarmony]

Yo, thanks for the comment! Yeah, I don't know why they did Shield Hammers so dirty and never tried to fix them in post; they had to have known considering Shulk's weapon is fundamentally a reskinned Shield Hammer with faster animations. Responding to your points in order: 1. The low crit rate is pretty bad, agreed. However, the main reason it didn't make the script is that I didn't feel it was entirely necessary to understand why Electra was so awful despite how important it is. When I wrote this, it was with the assumption a viewer had absolutely no knowledge of XBC2 whatsoever (hence why the combat system explanation was included), and I really wanted to hone in on the parts specific to XBC2's inherent systems that set Electra up for failure. Even if Electra had a higher crit rate, everything else about her just seems anti-synergistic to the intended design. 2. Ah, I see the typo. Whoops. Added to the errata and credited. But you're right, it's barely anything in the grand scheme of things. 3. I did put that in the B-roll, but I probably could've drawn more attention to it. 4. You're probably right, but I am a math nerd at heart and cannot resist rambling about formulae even if you try to get me to lol

[@patroka]

@@CaprielleHarmony Fair enough lol o7

[@Magic_Ice]

3:33 to be fair there is only 1 required field skill check that requires a non story blade and that’s at the very end with a pretty low electric mastery gate so if you have even a mildy leveled up common blade via merc missions it should be good.

[@blue-eyesdepresseddragon3753]

God I need to give this game another shot. I've tried. I've tried so so many times but every time I go in blind, thiinking I'll just get in and learn... and every time, I bounce off it like a rubber ball on pavement.

[@CaprielleHarmony]

chuggaaconroy made an excellent beginner's guide to Xenoblade 2 if you ever run into problems with the gameplay! I know he recently had his own stuff going on but it does fill in a lot of the gaps that the tutorials (that, might I remind you, YOU STILL CAN'T REREAD EVEN IF THEY WEREN'T WRONG) neglect to mention

[@LiquidOrcana]

I'm sorry, but as a player who is physically unable to help myself from using the low to mid tier options I will now be doing my first play through of Xenoblade 2 with Dromarch and Electra as a focus for all my build and party composition decision. You have doomed me

[@secondaegis9190]

I wish you luck, and that your mind may hold out till the end

[@CaprielleHarmony]

I am so sorry

[@dominicjannazo7144]

I wish you "luck" as with x2's awful gacha (no hard pity or rate up even though it's not a f2p moneysink) you could play 100 hours and never get Electra.

[@HEX33C1FF]

I heavily disagree with your view of Electra as a character and her voice, but other than that, great video! No disagreement about her gameplay traits, just character quality.

[@CaprielleHarmony]

Damn, someone on the Internet had a different opinion to the person who made the video. Mods, make them have to roll for KOS-MOS again. Kidding, kidding! I realize that part is very much subjective. But I can't deny I am not a fan of her voice direction or Blade Quest. ... then again, Ursula is my favorite Rare Blade and her Blade Quest is infamous so...

[@HEX33C1FF]

Titan's foot, granting me a cruel sisyphean endeavor while enjoying another one yourself? My favorite Rare Blade is Kora and I don't think even I'd get cooked as hard as you would. If you'll permit me to relate a bit of why I like Electra's quest, Electra has her own little The Fear She Carries arc in her quest like how Herald does, from the perspective of a growing new blade that'll probably grow up to be some wicked thunder goddess one day, but will avoid the same pain Herald and Mythra do because she learns the lesson of power and the heart of its wielder early. She reminds me of the conversation Poppi and Mythra had in Morytha, fresh in my mind by the time I did her quest. She's like a not quite as good Poppi to me, and I think that's neat.

[@Extrahu3]

If anyone ever thinks they are a failure in life, remember: At least you aren't Xenoblade 2 Electra

[@aegis9292]

2:46 I got Kosmos on my first playthrough of 2, but because at the time I had never heard of Saga before I had no clue of the character's significance and just immediately benched her because I didn't like the gun weapon lmao

[@TheXBladeist]

As someone not exposed at all to Xenoblade and its lore and history, the write up was a very good read. Well done! The following jokes were the perfect punchline. But whenever I do get to play the series, I'll vibe with her if the gacha tosses me her way.

[@garou2868]

Oh that's slander. That's slander of my favorite blade... (Played through the whole game with her on Rex and learned way later that she was so bad. Still my favorite, the parts of her quest on Morytha and in Argentum are really cute.)

[@CaprielleHarmony]

This might mean nothing to you, but I was that guy in TFT who liked Stillwater Hold (by far one of the most unpopular things ever implemented in that game) so...

[@SagittariusAyy]

Nah, that was me with Finch…I only learned towards the end that she was better on Morag

[@mectainea5575]

Shame that aggro system in Xenoblade in general basic screws every character that’s designed as a traditional tank as its been a problem in every xenoblade game even in xenoblade 1 and 3 which in xenoblade 1 the tanks aren’t really tanks per say but are more like chunky DPS units and xenoblade 3 most tanks like in XC2 can’t even keep aggro for long. Even in xenoblade 2 the best tanks are more closer to being more like dps units with arts focussing on dealing high levels of damage like standard dps characters than tanks that absorb aggro and supporting the team which further adds to the fact that Xenoblades mechanics is very skewed towards dps. whats worse in general is there are items that outright benefits you for running no tanks and with how dps characters are designed, its possible to have no tank setups with zero consequences. Even healers were on the weaker end with xenoblade 3 being the game that put healer roles in a far better state compared to sharla in XC1 and most healers in XC2 (who get outclassed by dps characters equipped with self healing items)

[@mectainea5575]

Shame too as a blade like electra only needed a few tweaks to her kit and changes to the aggro system otherwise she could have been a decent tank as you can even build her to have 95% block rate (though tachyon chip is better anyway)

[@CaprielleHarmony]

Oops, thank you for reminding me to add something to the errata LMAO

[@mectainea5575]

@@CaprielleHarmony yea 95% is like electras absolute maximum block rate which is actually the highest block rate in the game as far as i know (I believe electra is the only blade that could achieve this or is one of the few that could) but tachyon chip is still better anyway since in exchange of the block rate being a bit lower, it gives an effect of adding 25% aggro per arts use (i think its that effect) and it keeps her original weapon model which tbh I think every rare blades unique weapon models are better than the weapon models from other core chips

[@firerath]

Counterpoint: Godfrey exists.

[@CaprielleHarmony]

Godfrey is pretty insufferable, I have to agree, but at least he has a skill that increases damage against higher-level enemies, so it's SOMETHING... that alone is definitely stronger than anything Electra brings to the table

[@Nelsito99]

​@@CaprielleHarmonycounter point she has actually usable field skills where as his are only good for his quest and some merc missions

[@meimmakoto3224]

Yeah but even if Godfrey has that damage increase it also IS COUNTERED BY HIS OWN SKILLS SO HE MIGHT JUST SELF RECOVER HIMSELF OUT OF HIS DAMAGE BONUS. I understand they had to have crap blades but this is so stupid

[@thelemstar]

For a 14 minute long rant, I am super impressed with how much love, research and dedication went into it. This is not shallow, basic level hating. This is next level hater behavior.

[@CaprielleHarmony]

Professionals have standards. Be efficient. Be polite. Have a plan to make a video essay on every single character you meet.

[@reeseseater12]

So when I got Electra I was unlucky enough to have Zeke pull her, who already had a rare electric blade, so until Rex became a master driver. I hated how much of a hassle it was to get an overdrive protocols the blade to another driver and since everything was chance when you awakened them. It lead to imbalanced teams and redundant blades

[@CaprielleHarmony]

Unironically criminal how the only renewable way you can get Overdrive Protocols before NG+ is by maxing out the Affinity Tree[sic] of a 4-Crown Common Blade and then releasing it, meaning you have to pull a random blade of the correct rarity (which is determined by luck and before and after a certain point it's not even the most common quality of Common Blade), grind out its entire Affinity Chart, and you don't even get to keep that Blade by the end of it.

[@reeseseater12]

@@CaprielleHarmony agreed. I know the game was a bit rushed with a smaller team, and I still do love it but I still do question some of the decisions they made with it. I've heard their justifications for the gotcha mechanic but I still believe it was the objectively wrong decision and brings the game down overall, and like you said, the overdrive protocols were way too hard and convoluted to get. Make them easier to get but limit a rare blade to only receive it once if you don't want it to be abused or something

[@CaprielleHarmony]

It does make sense in-universe that they're pretty hard to get a hold of (since there's a legal registration system and if people could just change them whenever without going through Indoline's channels that sounds like a logistical nightmare) but like, idk just throw an office in Mor Ardain that opens in the late game/put it behind a quest like they did with Love Sources.

[@weenald7287]

Niacord revival: 3 years later, Electra busters

[@CaprielleHarmony]

Real OGs remember where it all began

[@wesnohathas1993]

It's almost infuriating how absolutely nonexistent the balancing is in this game.

[@DS_DoggerX]

There is simply no reason this character and Poppi QTpi should exist in the same game

[@CaprielleHarmony]

Forget the Aegis, the Trinity Processor, hell, even Origin itself. Tora is clearly the most powerful entity in the Xenoblade universe.

[@catalyst539]

@@CaprielleHarmony Tora made Origin. They even named a book after him

[@CaprielleHarmony]

@@catalyst539 Oh that's right he did didn't he. Tora is more powerful than I gave him credit for. That's terrifying.

[@wesnohathas1993]

Tora is one out of a small handful of character's in Xenoblade who can technically say he has destroyed/created a universe. Let that sink in.

[@edgarmarques97]

The one frame of Selen when you said "negligible" was honestly better than the entirety of Electra's existence

[@CaprielleHarmony]

kurosanji

[@VGF80]

Just the fact that Electra is outclassed by common blades is blasphemy. That along with the fact that not all rare blades have 3 aux cores. Besides it's not even a multiplayer game, It's as if Electra was made to be bad as humanly possible rather than giving her some sort of viable niche and that's just disappointing. The only "good" use case for her is as a HM slave with focus and electric mastery, but even then, plenty of other blades share those skills.

[@ValToadstool]

Animation speed being so important is one of my least favorite parts of 2's combat. Weapons being arbitrarily better on some drivers is really annoying and they clearly didn't balance around it

[@kokinfysraviolis1620]

Good vid.... But in her defense she is at least better than Boreas cause.... At least she doesn't have a quest where you are tasked with stealing Nia'ls underpants :/ Also what the hell is Boreas even supposed to be??? (Yes I am Biased, and I'm not gonna hide it .-.)

[@Joe-yx1gq]

at Least Electra is Stronger then A Magikarp Or Yamcha or Game Only Unown so there that at least (or Just Using Her just because why not I use her in my Story playtrough on Nia) Image if Xenoblade 2 DE Does Make Shield Hammers and Electra OP that would be the Glow up of all Time that or Give us Haze, Jin and Malos For New game Plus Blade Roster I'm not Sure and I don't know

[@ZX-Gear]

>Hammer Blade That is one minus for starters.

[@alsaiduq4363]

I would be down for more analysis of bad blades.

[@GAHAHAHH]

I will say the same thing here that I said on enel's video. I think you are falling for the same trap that World of Warcraft players fall into where they bias towards DPS being "the only thing that actually matters" because it's the only thing that is measurable numerically, also there is a heavy bias towards late game with no care for how easy or difficult it is to get to that point and no value on anything less than "max level". For one thing with the way argro works you change it's intent about half way through the game where you go from using a tank to gain agro to using a tank to lose agro; so her passive ability makes sense, also it is good for getting the enemy to target you upon switch in situations where everyone has literally 0 agro which does happen sometimes. The idea behind her at least in late game is to switch to her as a way to "cool off" when you build too much agro then switch back for damage.

[@__BlacklotuS__]

Yeah i love turn based

[@UltimaPhoenix-dx3kt]

*nerd emoji* ACTUALLY only certain types of blades can produce offspring, based on the information we currently have [Xenoblade 2 and 3 spoilers below!] . . . . . . . . . . . . Pyra and Mythra were able to conceive because "lol aegis". they routinely break all the rules that normal blades abide by, so it wouldn't surprise me that they can just "reality warp" themselves or morph their bodies using the massive amount of biological data they've accumulated over thousands of years to be able to construct viable biological apparatus that allows them to conceive. As for Nia, it's both because she's a flesh eater and because of her power. Being a flesh eater -- and thus fused with human DNA -- fulfills the genetic prerequisite to be able to conceive. As for the biological apparatus, her power is literally manipulating cells. It wouldn't surprise me if she could just MAKE a womb and thus conceive. But who knows, maybe Nia devised As for the flesh eater immortality thing, Jin might've been immortal in a "does not age or die of old age" way (unlike Minoth, who is as old as Jin), but without something like Nia's power, his human cells naturally started to reach their limit and fall apart after 500 years (look up what the Hayflick limit is), so he constantly needed to use a regeneration chamber to not die. Being a perfect Flesh Eater might have given Jin cool new powers and an unaging body, but human cells will be human cells. That's why I think Nia might be the most perfect flesh eater, since she can just keep her own human cells healthy by default. They probably don't even HAVE a hayflick limit.

[@wesnohathas1993]

Difficult to say really. It might be possible for any sufficiently developed blade. Just as a byproduct of becoming more human-like as their core accrues more data.

[@thetntman9007]

Counterarguement:Seeker XC3

[@xXunknownXx0000]

Her design is the only good thing about her

[@DongKEKong]

But she's cute at least.