Top 5 Worst Xenoblade Bosses

[@rhettmitchell]

The problem I had with the power lines was that I DIDN’T KNOW THEY WERE THERE

[@MaxMonado]

You're not the only one lol

[@Kaisona2017]

At least with the Power Lines, you can build up your blade arts and party gauge on the Aeshma’s Core, in order to do non-spike inducing blade arts, and chain attacks on the Power Lines. The third phase, where it’s just Aeshma’s Core, is even worse. Not only, due to the issues already mentioned in the video, but also because it doesn’t even give you a second target to fill up your arts, and gauge. If you don’t wipe out Aeshma’s Core with a chain attack once it hits half health, you’re shit out of luck.

[@themegatonmenace1224]

But before the fight starts the characters literally say to attack the power lines

[@outcastpenguin3518]

@@themegatonmenace1224 I didn't think there was a separate enemy called powerlines though, I thought it was flavor text.

[@moonlestrange9114]

Thats exactly what tappen to me. I was so blind.

[@Webo250]

For a game well know for its excessive tutorials, I'm very surprised at how spike damage wasn't explained at all in XC2

[@MaxMonado]

Ironic isn't it?

[@patrickshaw411]

funny thing is: even if they were in the tutorial, it probably wouldn't have been explained very well.

[@justanothergamer9570]

XC2 is actually terrible with tutorials in general. There isn't even a tutorials menu as far as I can tell, so you can't even review the tutorials that the game has shown you. Most of the info that you can buy from the info brokers is basically just you paying to have the right to review shorter and less detailed versions of what the tutorials already explained.

[@massimilianodelrosso5495]

I'm playing XC2 since late December, i'm at the end of chapter 7 and i JUST DISCOVERED SPIKE DAMAGE EXIST IN THIS GAME WITH THIS VIDEO

[@TBNRfrag0666]

Lucky I played XC1 so I know about spike damage but to a new player it’s a silence killer

[@nickhoude21]

me who's died like 10 times on Aeshma's core over 2 playthroughs: there's fucking spike damage in xenoblade 2?

[@MaxMonado]

At least you're not alone lol, I've seen some other comments saying the same

[@Xsor.]

I only ever played Xenoblade 2, and never knew that was a thing. Instead, at some point I tried autoattack Cancelling with Rex, to recharge Anchor Shot faster to help heal my Team, while also providing damage. This didn't always help.

[@Hephaestus_God]

Is it really that shocking? XC2 was my first ever xenoblade game and even I knew it had spike damage in it. I am pretty sure it did mention it early in the game (not as detailed as XC1 but still mentioned). And having played the other games I don't see how you could just assumed XC2 doesn't have spike damage. Lots of unique enemies clearly have some form of spike damage and the odds of never encountering one see rather low

[@Yenkaichi]

@@Hephaestus_God Spike damage literally was never mentioned in 2's (sparse) tutorials, and also does not appear at all prior to this fight. And seeing how much the combat changed between 1 and 2, it's easy to imagine why someone would reasonably assume that spike was not a returning mechanic.

[@Hephaestus_God]

@@Yenkaichi I just went to the wiki and lots of unique monsters did indeed have spikes with the most being ether spikes. (and yes some of those unique monsters came before the core). Also blades had their own spike damge skills. So saying it was never there is a lie. Now there might not have been a tutorial for it, but I said I couldn't remember. However, I did know about spike damage somehow and I didn't watch any youtube videos. So it being my first Xeno game I had to learn it from somewhere in the game. I just dunno where

[@FIamestalker]

I'm honestly glad I was already aware of the infamy of Lorithia long before i got to her, knowing you had to go in with an Ether team made the fight relatively painless.

[@MaxMonado]

Exact same happened to a friend of me, told him to use Melia throughout the game and he steamrolled that fight lol

[@pef_v6107]

I just used Melia on her because it felt right after what Lorithia had done to Kallian, didn't expect her to be the best possible option.

[@KeyToAeris2024]

Lothria nearly made me rage quit Xenoblade 1 as I had never used Melia throughout the entire game. I finally scrapped through but I was so done at that point. The rest of the final bosses were pushovers

[@MaxMonado]

Yeah I've heard the same for many other people, Lorithia is an enormous difficulty spike

[@DragonshotProductions]

I just turned on easy mode for that one fight lmao

[@goatedbillionaire]

dickson made me rip my doodle off in rage

[@dorf7219]

@@DragonshotProductions easy mode didnt exist when i first played :( (i was on the wii)

[@omegawario7479]

For the xenoblade x final boss I literally left my Wii U running all night to recharge my skell outside the boss arena because I was out of fuel and there was no way in hell I was doing that shit on foot.

[@MaxMonado]

Completely understandable actually, I remember this fight was impossible on foot before I learned about overdrive cheese

[@Shadowizzmoneygang]

Honestly without spamming overdrive or using a skell that fight feels literally impossible

[@Solbankai66]

I always get closing out whenever I lost my Skell

[@PhantomHeit]

oh my god me too

[@boshwa20]

@@Shadowizzmoneygang Or you just rely way too much on the skell and left your ground gear by the wayside

[@austincrook5304]

Xenoblade 2 be like: “Remember how much the first few hours of me sucked because you’re stuck playing solo Rex with no tanking or healing? Wanna do that again?” Thank goodness XC3 had the basic kindness to give you a decently-sized party right off the bat (with full access to break-topple-daze, no less!)

[@Atheau]

It's exactly this that frankly ruined Xenoblade 2 for me. By the time I reached the point of having a full party of decently equipped heroes I was just tired of the combat. There were other problems I had too, but this was the absolute worst. XC3 does a much better job of introducing the combat mechanics at a pace that keeps things interesting without being a complete slog (or too overwhelming).

[@Solbankai66]

And you know what else made Xenoblade chronicles 3 good the fact that you could fight in the water plus you can use both XC1 with Burst (?) & XC2 combos so the combos have an infinite potential.

[@Solbankai66]

@@zacharyhurley4077 I don't know why but whenever I gain one the heroes it reminds me of the Rare blades Quest from XC2

[@Atheau]

​@@Solbankai66 The Heroes are just the rare Blades minus the gacha system. Which I'm all for by the way. I'm not saying the introduction of party members in 3 is better, per say (It took me a few hours to learn who everyone was and get a feel for their personalities). I still think XC1 handled the steady addition of party members the best. But I do wholeheartedly think that 3 handled it better than 2 did. It is also not just about the party members, but also the rate at which they drip feed combat mechanics.

[@KociolxD]

@@zacharyhurley4077 You still get heroes, so it isnt that bad, right?

[@dfk53h]

AFTER ALMOST 5 YEARS OF XENOBLADE 2, I NOW DISCOVER THAT AESHMA CORE HAS SPIKE DAMAGE

[@MaxMonado]

I guess that just goes to show how poorly spike damage is explained in Xenoblade 2 hahaha

[@dfk53h]

@@MaxMonado Truly a horrible mechanic, it literally punishes you for playing the game.

[@raddreokami6892]

There were only 2 enemies in this game that I've known had Spike damage, the power lines not being either of them.

[@Kaisona2017]

I didn’t even know Spike Damage was a term, until I watched Chugaaconroy’s LP of the game. I just thought it was a unique gimmick, the boss would have, when the little anger mark appeared on its health bar.

[@Zeik188]

I didn't know either, I thought it was just attacking me some how doing boat loads of damage.

[@geniusx4473]

I was quite surprised to see morag #1 cuz frankly I breezed through the fight with ease and had much more trouble with lorithea in DE. But now I look back and realize I had wulfric and avant-garde medal on Rex and I kinda took that for granted lmao.

[@Zeik188]

Yeah, I DIDN'T have those blades on rex and I lost to her over and over until I found a build that let me slowly outlast her. I was ready to quit the whole game by the end, and if it wasn't for the fact that I had a feeling the game was near over I probably WOULD have quit.

[@theonesithtorulethemall]

@@Zeik188for me it was nia… she had all my good blades and made shure I knew becours she full healed like 4 times and I simply culdnt outlast her

[@Saphius-]

As a Melia main (yes, I played her all the time. I like playing mages) I never had realized that Lorythia was supposed to be HARD. I was pretty shocked when I talked to a friend of mine who had never played her ahah

[@MaxMonado]

I've seen some people say that fight should even be number 1 but if you play as Melia or Riki you can completely steamroll that fight lol

[@Saphius-]

@@MaxMonado Yeah! Honestly it's not that bad when you use the game to its full array of characters. Tbh, I think people are too used to using the protagonist only. XC3 was a nice break from that! (Although it could be said that the characters' gameplays aren't really unique. It's so much fun though)

[@Fast_Iain]

#1: Morag Me: "What?" From Chapter 10 Me: "Ohhhhhh."

[@shiningowl]

Not to mention in the fight against Morag the level scales, and when you play as Morag mainly its basically fighting yourself. making it even harder.

[@MaxMonado]

I can't imagine how hard this fight must have been for people who solo'd the rest of the game with her lol

[@lusaminable]

I solo her in NG+ and I regret it. It took me 64 try to defeat her

[@moosoose4661]

I think the #1 was very badly designed because if you can't beat her for any specific reason (no good rare blade, not over leveled), it's much harder to level up and all that so in that situation, you are just stuck forever

[@MaxMonado]

Exactly! Leveling up with Rex on his own is nearly impossible unless you still had some bonus exp at inns, I wish I talked about this in the video

[@screenpigeon]

good vid. Morag 3 does suck. Honestly was in the situation where I thought it was impossible for me. I only got through because you can actually get Morag stuck on the fence in the area and then use a blade with an ether cannon or bitball and just sit there and let auto attacks beat the boss for you. Only downside is it takes forever.

[@MaxMonado]

That's how I ended up defeating Morag on my first playthrough too actually!

[@ImEnder]

The way I was able to beat that fight was I used I believe Kora? This she has a skill that heals you when you’re moving so I had just done chip damage for the whole thing 😂

[@SunderMun]

@@ImEnder Exactly what I did.

[@MALware7170]

@@ImEnder same, only way I managed to do it and it took at least 3 tries

[@214ms5]

I defeated morag 3 just by quickly switching to my maxed ursula after watching etika do it and healing rex upon every blade switch. Makes "bearing her soul" all the worth while doing

[@Uchihalegend14]

Thanks for the heads up for xenoblade 1 and 2 worst boss battles cause I really did need the heads up

[@Zachattack10213]

Honestly, I thought that the Mòrag’s boss in Chapter 10 was her anger against me for replacing her with Poppi QTpi. It was my first time actually fighting that boss and for the Phantasm and PowerLine boss, they weren’t too difficult imo. But that one just made me kinda frustrated.

[@klanggemaldemusic8723]

That Morag battle was really tough. I mean at least it taught me how pouch items works xD And once you use them the fight gets way easier^^

[@MaxMonado]

True, pouch items help out a lot in general

[@kirbywithaknifeisawesome6028]

My brother told me in Argentum “buy narcipear jelly and use it it’s top 5 pouch items”

[@moosoose4661]

@@kirbywithaknifeisawesome6028 narcipear jelly is broken after all. However, you can use hot ruby steamed bun from mor ardain if you can get that easier.

[@kirbywithaknifeisawesome6028]

@@moosoose4661 I beat the game several months ago, but thanks for the info

[@moosoose4661]

@@kirbywithaknifeisawesome6028 yea well because of replayability I played xc2 for like half a year after beating it 😁

[@CronoEpsilon]

On top of everything you said about Lorithia, one of my biggest gripe with her is how she could confuse your entire party and make them walk into the ether pools. On the first time around, that was brutal. Also, I didn't have trouble against Morag as much as I had trouble against Tora. I think your party members also use whatever equipment is left on them. I may have accidently left a Spike Damage Aux core on Poppi or something because it was absolute hell to play around that. Also around this time, I was getting Joycon drift.

[@Phazon8058MS]

I'm truly baffled by the people who just use Shulk/Reyn/Sharla the whole game, not even trying other party members. Once I get Dunban, Sharla is mostly riding the bench for the rest of the game, and I'm constantly shifting around my party using all sorts of different combinations, and those combinations almost never include Sharla.

[@MaxMonado]

I think some people just like to stick with what theyre used to, plus healers are usually really good in other rpg's, though I agree its much more fun to experiment with other combinations

[@Kimo-Cyrus]

Thinking about Xenoblade bosses made me think about how I had to fight the final boss of 2 4 times not because it was hard, but because my game crashed 3 times while doing it. the first 2 times happened out of nowhere but I thought I knew what it was after the 2nd time 3rd time was on purpose to see if I was right and I was. Up to that point I had never used the pyra/Nia combo with pyra as my main blade only Nia (didn't even know they where different) so I didn't know using pyra version would crash my game so I just didn't use it. X and the power lines where the only ones here that I remember having a hard time with, I used melia quite a bit and for that fight just felt right. Phantoms I think took 3 tries.

[@MaxMonado]

Damn that's some bad luck with the final boss, but if it makes you feel better I think I had to fight the X final boss even more lol

[@Solbankai66]

Did you get beaten by the Final boss because it did say if you lose you will be returned to where you were before you got that

[@MachinaZer0999]

I didn’t have any issues with a lot of these bosses. I don’t even remember the power lines having spike and I took them out in like 30 seconds after seeing them when I destroyed the turret. Lorithia only took me 2 attempts and I’m pretty sure I used the Shulk/Reyn/Sharla pair up, though it did take a long time and I have a natural instinct to kill mobs that bosses spawn anyway. Morag got really close to killing me but I had Perceval on Rex from start to finish with more attack than most of my offensive units. Just luck I guess, cause I’ve heard a lot of people complain about these

[@MaxMonado]

Maybe it was just luck, or maybe you're just a pro gamer ;)

[@bluevalor491]

But Percival is absolute trash outside of one condition, that being multi enemy fights 🤷‍♂️

[@MachinaZer0999]

@@bluevalor491 You underestimate the power of his 2nd special. Also, for me, hitting 100k with a single move without a chain attack is extremely high

[@LTSKRUNKLY]

Oh my GOD was the final battle in Xenoblade X difficult. I had never really been stuck on a boss in a Xenoblade game before, and then the Vita came along.

[@MaxMonado]

Glad I'm not the only one who struggled with that boss, it took me forever to find footage off people losing to that fight lol

[@LTSKRUNKLY]

@@MaxMonado that could be due to the fact that this game compared to the other two isn't played as much, which Is sad because this game is incredible and one of if not the best Wii U games.

[@MaxMonado]

@@LTSKRUNKLY It really is. That just makes me hope the game gets a port or sequel soon

[@alexvisan5034]

At least you were stuck in the final boss of a Xenoblade game. I had to lower the difficulty to Easy just to beat a story quest I was overleveled for in Xenoblade 3. Seriously, it took for me more tries to do that quest than to beat the whole final area and defeat the final boss of the game.

[@heathersmith4042]

​@@alexvisan5034 The difficulty in Xenoblade 3's story fights is super unbalanced for sure. Assuming you're the same level as the boss, hard mode frequently only works if you have access to late game strategies, and mob fights are just fucking absurd. There was a mob in a story fight that killed me within seconds on hard mode, so I just switched to normal. The fight directly after it, I could take on in hard, no problem, so clearly it wasn't a problem with my level- it's that mob fights often don't work well in 3.

[@florian_g03]

Well I don’t know if someone already commented this, but you can easily win the fight against Morag if you run behind the railings with a blade that has a cannon (can also be a common one I guess). Then she gets stuck and you can shoot her from the distance until she is defeated. First I was completely frustrated as well, since Morag was on a way higher level than Rex for me. But then fortunately I found this trick in a thread online

[@CQSTER-IE]

Great video! I was surprised Xord's fight wasn't here bc his fight was the only time in the series I rage quit lol but the number 1 slot was really funny to me because crossette carried me hard through it without me knowing how hard it actually is

[@Gameboy2007-Official]

I loved the Vita fight, it sure was tough but my only problem was losing a skell lmao

[@idreadFell365]

I honestly don’t remember how hard fighting Lorithia was, I can’t remember whether I beat her on my first try or died a couple of times before beating her.

[@MaxWelton]

4:45 to be fair, nothing else gets explained either.

[@Fynzou]

I know it's a dlc fight but Elma: Redux. You can only use dark specials because you NEED seal reinforcements, and you have to kill 3 reinforcements she summoned first because each reinforcement seals one of your party gauge. 😑

[@MaxMonado]

Yeah that fight is brutal, I remember giving up and switching to easy mode (and I still couldn't beat it then)

[@AlvinEarthworm]

Two words for the Core and Ch. 10 Morag fights. CRIT HEALS! I always have an Avant Garde Medal or lower rank equivalent equipped because crit healing is the most sustainable method of survival in XC2. It becomes less reliable in endgame content, mind you. But it's an easy cheese strategy to get you through the game. Also, the first fight against Patroka and Mikhail in the Old Factory or against Malos and Jin on the Cliffs of Morytha were far worse.

[@saltmines5761]

From what I can tell, there aren’t any spikes in XC3; THANK GOODNESS!!!!

[@Jaice00]

one funny thing about the morag fight is that it can be extremely easy to cheese in new game+. besides the fact that you get access to all your blades in new game+ during this fight, you can also just set your level 1 and she will also be level 1.

[@byrontheusurper6505]

I forgot xenoblade 2 has spikes, I only remember them from 1!

[@straydog4048]

I also had a really hard time with the Morag fight in chapter 10 at first, but I later equipped a (Tank) blade and easily defeated her in one try. The problem is that she has wayy more health and defense than you, so it's nearly impossible to defeat her with an (Attacker) or (Healer) blade, you need a Tank blade so you can handle her attacks and not die in like two hits lmao

[@orga7777]

That fight was brutal, yeah.

[@mythoughtsexactly2145]

Godfrey was honestly my MVP when facing against the party members at Chapter 10. I was pretty indifferent before, but those fight sequences made me like him a bit. Edit: Oh I didnt know that cutscene locks out blades that were equipped on other party members. Now I am feeling very lucky since Godfrey was supposed to be on Zeke's main team, but I somehow unequipped him before that lol

[@MaxMonado]

Happy to hear there are fellow Godfrey appreciators out there! Sadly I couldn't use him because I had him on Morag when that cutscene got triggered :c

[@SuperDdall]

It's hilarious to hear someone being so thankful to what many consider to be the worst (or at least one of) blades you can get.

[@ShursGarden]

"If I played Xenoblade 2 first I would have no idea what killed me the first few times!" I PLAYED XENOBLADE 1 FIRST AND DIDN'T KNOW WHAT KILLED ME

[@GensoBees]

Shout outs to chapter 1 Malos for basically soft locking you if you go in unprepared on Bringer of Chaos difficulty. Can't open the menu to lower the difficulty, so better hope you can level up enough on the level one krabbles hidden way out of the way before your Narcipear Jelly runs out.

[@weaponsci]

"Morag..." Me: Why?! "...from chapter 10." Me: Oh yeah that makes sense lol.

[@kfed9834]

The power line spike damage btw a common strategy I hear used is cycle between hitting the turret and the power lines, the turret has its own damage ofc but you can usually just attack the turret to get time to heal everyone back up, then swap back to the power lines

[@jstar3382]

The strat I found for aeshma was to grind up party gauge on the core and then use a chain attack on the power lines

[@tsyumamatsuthehavenofguard32]

0:58 Well I can definitely say that there is at least two bosses I can define as these in 3... at least in terms of hero quest consuls. Funnily enough they share a similar problem: status scummers.. Keep in mind, I fought those two on hard mode so the damage and the amount they could cast at once was increased

[@otakat7433]

What some harsh memories did you just make me remember 😭 If I can add one more boss to this list, Gadolt in XC1 really traumatized me too lmao

[@MaxMonado]

I heard a lot of others say Gadolt as well, maybe I just got lucky during my playthroughs lol

[@otakat7433]

@@MaxMonado For talking with other Xenoblade players, I realize that everyone seems to feel uncommon difficulties against a random boss, and in the same time smashing foes who drive most of people nuts lmao I guess Gadolt was your weak one !

[@eddiec9756]

I agree with all of these picks. I encountered a glitch during the final boss of Xenoblade X where my skells were destroyed and ran out of power at the same time when I killed the final boss. After that all my party members were just stuck. I could still move the camera but there was no music. And that sucked because it took me hours to beat all 5 phases. As for your number 1… yep I made the mistake of using an Inn to level up all my characters right before this battle and Zeke and Morag were level 78 while Rex was 72 making it way harder. I even tried to grind Rex up by himself but that didn’t work out well. Eventually I got past the fight but I swear it was sheer luck.

[@MaxMonado]

That sounds really rough, I can imagine jowls frustrating both of these must have been

[@jasomega2446]

As someone who only played Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I agree with ALL Of your Xenoblade 2 Boss Entries on this list.

[@nathanblackburn1193]

I feel like the phantasm fight would be way less annoying if you just had to defeat a certain number of them like 10 or something because it's not like defeating all of them is a narrative thing because even after beating all of them the cutscene just shows more appearing anyway.

[@StarlightNkyra]

I agree with this. Every fight (except 1) at least contains a classic case of xenoblade not telling you enough information, or doing it badly. Legit, untill you start experimenting, or looking crap up online, the games feel like amazing story games, with similar gameplay to a button masher. Bossfights that are more gimmicky often run into the problem where the game is asking way too much of you with your current knowlege, because it is gimmicking mechanics you are hardly even aware of (due to lackluster tutorials and lack of incentive to experiement besides postgame or grinding boredom.) Meanwhile, Morag is just poorly scaled, with an element of RNG that only becomes somewhat manageable when you know it exists beforehand. (you are, of course, given no information beforehand besides posssible internet help, and I guess the sixth sense of the JRPG player.) Yet, it is enough to turn the boss into a huge wall.

[@3slicessenpai]

I do admit that Shulk/Reyn/Sharla is my comfort team in XC1, because it's the most basic and easy to use. But throughout my playthroughs of 3D and Definitive Edition, whenever I needed a particular boss dead, I'd call in the Anti-Boss Squad: my Dunban/Melia/Riki. Melia may not be the most fun to use, but even my Shulk-loving pea brain realized how much of a linchpin she can be to any party combo.

[@FreyjaThAwesome1]

That number 1 brought back some trauma

[@MaxMonado]

You're not alone there.

[@MB-bl4nl]

The xenoblade 2 ones are kind of funny to me. The only fight I remember really struggling on was the final boss. I had been playing on Rex for pretty much the entire game with the blades Pyra/Sheba/Cosmos and kind of just blazed through to the end. Even with bonus xp I was a bit under-leveled and up to that point I still had not understood how to do orb bursting, or how to combine the break combo with the element combo. I literally died on that fight over a dozen times because of this. I guess it was my fault for not paying attention enough to how the combat worked, but it really made that last fight a pain.

[@Kaisona2017]

It’s not due to the lack of paying attention. The game just doesn’t teach you this stuff in its tutorials. I had no idea how to make the combat fun, until I watched Chugaaconroy’s Let’s Play. I’m amazed I still managed to beat the game, with nothing more than driver combos, and a limited knowledge of how chain attacks worked.

[@MasterKingSirPlease]

YOU'LL PAY FOR YOUR INSOLENCE!!

[@B-rex395]

I actually beat Lorithia fairly easily, but then again my entire party was level 89 and I was using Melia anyway as it seemed thematically appropriate to have her fight this boss.

[@justforfunprofile]

The Morag fight with Electra is a cakewalk. Lorithia is hard but it was hinted many times to switch characters in specific boses, i.e. Dunban against Mumkhar.

[@brandonhughes4076]

I used Electra for the Morag fight, and I know she's generally considered either the worst or second worst blade in the game but in a 1-on-1 like that she makes it trivial with the right core chips. I also had Nim with a specials recharge pouch item and just spammed special one, since it has decent damage and really good healing. Honestly didn't realise the Morag fight was difficult without blades that work for it

[@Saphius-]

What, really, she's considered bad?? I was so proud of my 80-90% guard rate on her xD she's one of my fav ahah

[@CodeMarbles]

man I must have gotten really lucky with Lorithra, it took me only 3 tries while being underleveled using Shulk Reyn, and the 7th party member

[@MaxMonado]

That's the exact party I beat her with my first time! (although it took me way more than 3 tries)

[@SilverSpireZ]

Tyrea and Solidum Telethia are easily my number one. My god, that was such an absurd spike in difficulty compared to the rest of the game. Haven’t spent so long retrying a boss fight in any of the other games. I actually beat Lorithia on my first try somehow, but I can definitely see how she’s more hated.

[@bluevalor491]

Well there is one strategy for the Morag fight that guarantees the win, but it’s not guaranteed that u will have access to the strategy… it’s if you have any ether cannon blade, any at all- you can stand behind one of the fences in the arena and fire at morag at at range where she can’t hit you. Basically put the controller down and wait till she’s dead :)

[@MaxWelton]

9:56 Z: Pathetic.

[@BlackRover18]

I just discovered about the power cables spikes and lorithia defense novas. Better late than never i guess

[@MaxMonado]

I can at least tell you you're not alone because a lot of other commenters said something similar lol

[@lordinot_7911]

For the Morag/Team fight i just equiped 3 healing blades with 2 healing actions each and kept switching between them to just spam attacks for healing potions and I was just strong enough to not get one-shot by one of Morags combos. There wasn't really any other method at that time that would have me beat these 4 bosses back to back without loosing my sanity

[@lukegarner6948]

The fights against your own party members in Ch 10 were infuriating, but I got insanely lucky. Somehow, Morag got stuck running behind a blockade, and I had Azami equipped. I was able to just barely escape her range and just whittled down her health with basic blast shots. Oh well, got through it lol

[@Starfloofle]

I guess the simulation had a malfunction lol

[@acestreamline7024]

I honestly didn't have that much trouble because I kept grinding until I reached the max as I went along.

[@bluevalor491]

For the final one, you do get an avant garde medal from a chest pretty much right before this fight, which will heal you for every crit you get… soooo with that form of healing it’s easy to do by yourself long as you use a blade with decent crit rate

[@plompedu]

WAIT, IT WAS SPIKE DAMAGE THAT KILLED ME SO OFTEN AGAINST THAT GODDAMN CANON?!

[@teamrocfan]

Great video. You’re right, XC2 NOT EXPLAINING SPIKE DAMAGE. Blew my mind. For a long time I thought the game didn’t even have spike damage until I played the challenge battles

[@Evan-mt7bc]

If you put any Knuckle Claws on Rex you can actually dominate the 1v1, including the mandatory tutorial wind common Knuckle Claw Blade you're forced to awaken and can't release at the beginning of the game. The combination of Blowdown and and the healing make it an incredible weapon for the purposes of the 1v1 if you get 1 of the rare knuckle claw blades, ESPECIALLY Kora whose literally created for this fight and has no other reason to exists makes this fight even easier and if you have a common Water Knuckle Claw Morag goes down even faster.

[@hmminterestinginterestingi3023]

I’ve played through XC2 3 times and still didn’t know the power lines had a spike, I just thought ashema’s core was doing a gross amount of damage

[@Jojo-on7pk]

I think the way I beat Morag in my first playthrough was by going to an inn and leveling up Rex a bunch.

[@Crepuculum]

If I recall from Chuggaconroy, you could lower the level of your party members, but I presume that would be unfair.

[@MaxMonado]

Iirc I think that only works in new game plus, don't think you can do that in the main story (+ you can't change their levels as soon as the fight began bc they leave your party, so this only works if you knew beforehand)

[@TwoIdiotsJourneys]

9:54 Z listens and thinks “5 phases? Try 14.”

[@skyblade7438]

I think they actually nerfed Lorithia in Definitive, she used to use Soul Read in the original and she never did it on me this time round. My tactic was to kill all the Spirits bar one: if you do that, she never spawns more.

[@MondoMonado]

Sorry but just wanted to say both of what you said is wrong, Lorithia never had Soul Read in the original or the remaster and she literally does have an art that respawns all the nova's (check her Xenowiki article if you don't believe me)

[@skyblade7438]

@@MondoMonado I could have sworn she had Soul Read in the original, especially seeing the Solidum Telethia (which apparently people hated as well) did have Soul Read in the original and didn't use it on me in DE either. I know she can respawn the novas, but she doesn't spawn any if you keep at least some of them alive.

[@TruCheesy]

I'm surprised that the final phases weren't mentioned for Number 2, where it literally disables your skell. The first time I beat it I had to do an exploit that allowed me to avoid the disabling of my skell. It was basically impossible for me any other way at the time.

[@MaxMonado]

By the time I finally got to the final phase I had already learned how to abuse overdrive, so I had little trouble with it. But yes, the final phase sucks.

[@yourlocalraccoondealer8611]

You reminded me of all the boss fights i struggled on severely during my XC2 playthrough (first full xeno game for me too). Aeshma's Core, Phantasms, Memory Morag, also some awful difficulty spikes with Malos both in Uraya and Morytha Cliffs (first fight). Those are probably my bottom 5 from XC2 specifically.

[@MaxMonado]

Yeah you're not alone on those fights, those latter fights are hard definitely, but I wouldn't say they're bad beyond being frustrating for some players

[@yourlocalraccoondealer8611]

@@MaxMonado Agreed there. Difficulty spikes leave a poor taste in people's mouths, which is what i dislike, but both fights are incredibly memorable for the setup and story surrounding them both, do they aren't even close to as bad as the ones you outlined. Great videos btw dude :)

[@MaxMonado]

@@yourlocalraccoondealer8611 Thanks! :)

[@nerdyplaysmagic8270]

I remember being SUPER lucky during my first playthrough of 2 with what blades i had on rex and i was able to steamroll Ch. 10 Morag and then on a second playthrough i got absolutely obliterated by her for AGES was not a very fun experience.

[@MaxMonado]

Just goes to show how different you experience can be based on how lucky you were

[@redranger7573]

I figured out that you can attack the turret itself to build up level four specials and then use them on the power lines because you take no damage when preforming a level four specials. It’s the only reason I got through the fight.

[@iansinclair2028]

ch. 10 morag at no. 1 confused me a bit, i get why you put it at no. 1, i also distinctly getting to lv 99 before getting into the fights because all the superbosses opened up, getting kos mos around chapter 5 because i grinded for it, and just getting relatively good luck with the blades i had equiped on rex, i think i had herald, azami, and roc in the last slot, that party was set up to get through the team especially since i still had the overclocking bangle on rex.

[@iidrbubbles]

Ill predict "you'll pay for insolence" will come on here

[@snolls105]

I wanna go :) Future Connected and Torna aren't going to be here because I never actually played them, but Xenoblade 3 bosses outside of the final boss (haven't gotten there yet) are fair game. Optional Boss Fights are allowed, but only really if they're memorable enough to be mentioned. Overall, I'd say that designing bosses for Xenoblade games is an interesting prospect. A lot of good fights get carried by their surrounding story and spectacle more than their gameplay because the game's combat is centered around the player rather than the enemies. What I mean by that is bosses should be varied to make them interesting, but those variations need to be both obvious enough for the player to notice but not override the gameplay to an oppressive level. I'll go over the generals for each combat system per game. Xenoblade 1's combat is the most straight-forward in the series. It has exploitable mechanics that the game tells you about, mainly break > topple > daze during chain attacks, or if you know about the topple exploit, break > topple > topple > topple. Even ignoring that, the game has other easy to access mechanics that are super exploitable. The way agility works in this game is the example that first comes to mind, where it's tied to both accuracy and evasion and the way those percentages are calculated is additive, which means you can realistically get a high enough agility score where enemies will have as low as a 10% chance of hitting you without needing to overlevel by mid game (I discovered how extreme this got during a no-clothing run where I reached a roadblock during the Bionite Order fight where the problem was not that the horde of enemies shredded through my tank, but that Dunban got locked in the dodge animation, preventing him from drawing aggro, this was before getting access to the ability that gives him a 30% boost to agility when naked, which I unlocked during Valak Mountain). The exception to this rule comes in the form of ether arts, which I rarely see from enemies. When I fought the superbosses, I also didn't use a topple build. Instead, I gave Shulk the ability that increases his talent gauge during visions (and also that one gem that builds up talent gauge faster), which resulted in the fights becoming very straight-forwards. Shulk in particular is a very straight-forwards character who the player is incentivized to use for most of the game due to him having the most readily accessible answers to the mechon and telethia enemies, where it's rare not to be dealing with one of two during the main story. The way Xenoblade 1's combat is balanced is that the party each has their character specific roles that they want to accomplish while enemies will try to disrupt those roles through visions. The combat is at it's most fun when you are trying to prevent visions while under a time limit. The best bosses in the game take advantage of visions (the exception is Xord, who I enjoyed fighting due to him challenging the player to break > topple > daze him during chain attacks, so the fight is about building up the chain attack meter and bursting him down while trying not to die). Egil and Zanza come to mind primarily because of Egil's infinity damage attack and Zanza turning visions into quick time events. Personally, I think any boss that requires the player to react to them is at least functional in this game. Xenoblade 1 is also the only game that really plays with its arenas, and that's for a good reason. Dying because the AI is too stupid to avoid stage hazards isn't fun, I also wasn't a fan of how the final Egil fight locks you out of using positional arts, which are a huge part of Shulk's kit. I think 1 had the most creative boss designs out of the series simply because its combat was balanced around reacting to enemies, which afforded the designers the ability to make the story bosses creative. Alongside that, the series's combat system hasn't been refined yet, so this game has the most amount of the devs trying things which they might have decided wouldn't be appropriate for future entries. Xenoblade Chronicles X both has my favorite gameplay and my least favorite combat system in the series. A lot of the fun I have in X is exploring the world and playing around enemies outside of combat. Such as observing the giant dinosaur things or keeping an eye out for the level 60 tyrant in that field in oblivia that only comes out during the daytime. I have several problems with X's combat that go beyond the game just never properly explaining it. The combat is entirely centered on what the player character is doing and how they are built. There's very little playing around enemies or party members in this game, which results in honest combat encounters feeling very samey. I say honest encounters because my most memorable in-combat moments in the game are when overlevelled enemies either do walk in on the fight or very easily could if I'm not being careful. I usually play as Elma, especially during the main story because she's cool, the Cross is the only character who has to deal with the downside of class systems (being that if you want the best stuff, you often have to spend at least a little time playing as classes that aren't fun), and Elma is the only character with Ghost Factory (you can't access it until you complete her post-game mission). The main thing that makes Elma interesting to play as besides that is her more nuanced positional arts compared to other characters. Sliding Slinger in particular is memorable during Chapter 5 because I have to be extra mindful not to just yeet myself off a cliff in the middle of combat. Violent Streak is interesting because the ability is strongest in a horde of enemies but it has the highest risk of accidentally aggroing something. I also like how she's a glass canon who could be played as an evasion tank. The subtle ways characters can be adjusted in playstyle as you get comfortable with them is a fun feature of Xenoblades 1 and X that don't really translate into 2 and 3 due to those games embracing class systems more wholely. Another thing I like in X's combat was how it handled repositioning. You can either reposition slowly and still auto attack or you can reposition quickly, which prevents auto attacks. It feels a lot better than what 2 did. So those are the things in X's combat that I like. Regarding the stuff in X's combat that I dislike, I hate how heavily build-dependent it is. Most of the strategies you can come up with in the game come down to building your character a specific way and executing on that build. There's very little in-the-moment reactions you have to keep track of. I think managing TP was supposed to be part of the game, but it's very easy to just make builds that replenish TP so quickly that you barely have to manage it, and if you don't use stuff like that, TP builds up so slowly that using TP arts just isn't fun. A lot of improving at the game's combat felt like me understanding what specific buffs mean (like decoy in particular, I think barrier is another one but I haven't bothered learning what exactly it is, stasis is another good example) and receiving clarification on mechanics that the game never properly taught me. Most of my reaction to bosses would come down to opening up the wiki, checking what classification of enemy it is and double checking what type of damage it does, then equipping augments (or armor) that specifically either multiply damage against that class and/or give bonus resistances because those stats are the best source of general offense and defense. The resistances are the more offensive ones because there are six different damage types that aren't easily distinguished from each other. Often times you'll have something like an enemy discharges lightning and it's an ether attack rather than an electric attack or they'll fire a laser at you which is a thermal attack rather than a beam attack. On top of that, every attack is distinguished between being melee or ranged, which has their own resistances. In case you're out of the know, the six elements are physical, beam, ether, gravity, electric, and thermal. I personally would get physical and melee attacks confused and I also got the ether and gravity icons mixed up, even years after first playing the game. Improving at X's combat did not feel rewarding because most of it felt like learning stuff that I should have already known from the start. But once I did understand these things, a lot of the game just got torn through, which resulted in uninteresting gameplay. Overall, the game's combat was very complex but not particularly deep.

[@snolls105]

TOP 5 BEST BOSSES 5. Zu Pharg (Xenoblade Chronicles X) The one thing Xenoblade X has over the other games is spectacle and giant mechs. That's two things, but fuck you. The Zu Pharg takes these elements to the extreme. The boss initially appears as a giant fortress, sending enemies while looming over you. During the second phase you have to chase the boss across the entire continent. I think this boss's difficulty should be on the lower end because it's primarily a spectacle fight, but X's terrible tutorials and convoluted combat system makes everything harder than it should be. I mostly wanted to put this fight up here because it's such a spectacle. I look forwards to this fight every time I play X. 4. Xord (Xenoblade Chronicles) This boss is fun because you need to break > topple > daze him, but he resists those status effects unless he's being chain attacked. The boss will also summon swarms of minions, which the player wants to fight to build up the chain attack meter, then burst down Xord. While he does force you to play the game a specific way, it works here because you will only have 3 party members during the fight and the specific way Xord forces you to fight is already heavily incentivized by the game up to this point. He does a great job at solidifying the Faced Mechon as threats after the tutorial fight with Metal Face. His difficulty feels just right both for his place in the story and as an early-game boss. 3. Various Overlevelled Tyrants (Xenoblade Chronicles X) I'm including these as one category because the reason these bosses are so good has very little to do with the act of fighting them. Rather they are more comparable to a stage hazard, decoration, or jumpscare, depending on the boss. These bosses have a lot of memorable moments attached to them for me despite me never fighting the majority of them. For example, I never fought Telethia the Endbringer (outside of that one Affinity Mission that doesn't really count), but the boss is memorable to me because it's such a beautiful part of Divine Roost's atmosphere, watching it soar through the air. Hartmut the Calamity, the level 91 thing that flies through Oblivia's Great Chasm, is another "never fought still remember" bosses. I remember in my most recent playthrough, crossing the bridge over the chasm and while fighting some prone, Hartmut started doing a loopdy-loop around the bridge and the entire time I was tense because of the possibility of aggroing the boss while also being awed by its weird eldritch majesty. Like, it looked like it was playing? X is definitely my favorite game because of how alive the enemies feel. Gho-ra the Guardian Deity was another memorable boss. It's a Xe-dom in Noctilum, most likely the first enemy of that type the player will encounter, so I mistook the enemy for being ruins that I could run around, then the boss aggroed me and killed me instantly. That moment stuck with me, even 8 years later. Atreides the Distinguished is another one of those optional bosses that feel more like a part of the landscape than an actual enemy, it's the giant worm in Sylvalum. I never fought the boss, but it was memorable to me because of how much it felt like a part of Sylvalum. And there are so many other optional bosses in Xenoblade X like this where regardless of how fun the fight actually is, they're memorable outside the context of actually facing them off. So I feel like they deserve to be mentioned. 2. The final encounter with N (Xenoblade Chronicles 3) My Xenoblade 3 listings are going to be a bit biased because I played the game in hard mode and these fights are fresh in my mind. Alongside that, I think actually ranking the quality of these fights would require multiple playthroughs where I approach the fights with different builds. Since it's entirely possible for a fight to be poorly designed but I just happened to be overlevellel or had a good build. For example, I had a lot of fun with the M fight, but it could easily be a shitty fight that I just happened to go into 5 levels overlevelled, making the fight an easy but novel boss. I think the concept of her highjacking your party members and having to beat the shit out to them is quite funny and unlike other "fight yourself" boss fights, this one doesn't have THE weakness of being able to sabotage the fight ahead of time due to M herself being a respectable fighter even without the highjacking. The final fight with N took me two days to beat (I was underlevelled and haven't been upgrading my gems as much as I should :

[@gilbertguerrero2916]

Something goofy about the Aeshma’s core boss fight is there’s a hidden chest on the way that has a spike resist level 2 aux core. It’s like they knew you’d prolly need this, but never bothered to explain the spike damage mechanic when you’d need it the most… Xenoblade 2 is a funny ass game.

[@Midna78]

I found it more annoying that the fuel instantly drops to 0 in that final Xenoblade X fight... and everyone starts to wonder "huh? Why can't I attack?"

[@XenoVis]

The Vita also has a fuel draining art that DESTROYS any oportunity of using skells there...

[@flamingpaper7751]

When I first fought Morag, I lost so badly I thought that it was meant to be an unwinnable fight with a cutscene after where Rex has to run away. But nope, I was just put at the top of an escalator and had to run down for almost an hour

[@aaronbrazinski5370]

I think most people use Shulk/Reyn/Sharla because they each embody the three main archetypes of Offense, Defense, and Support. Once other party members join that don't clearly fit into just one of those roles, players may avoid adding them to their main party because it would disrupt the balance they are familiar with.

[@theratmaid]

shoutouts to consoul J in xenoblade 3, obviously 3 was not out at the time of vid publishing

[@marc-antoinehamelin1625]

only 5 phase long... wait until you see the final boss of xenoblade 3... it even sparkle a few cutscene there and there just for that extra load time...

[@kevingame3198]

Remember for xenoblade chronicles x make sure you do all the side quests first before the final boss

[@ognoob1606]

I had to walk my best friend through the Power Wire fight over discord. It was fun watching him conquer that boss!

[@MaxMonado]

Sounds like your friend is lucky to have you lol

[@marcossierra3498]

Funny strat my brother used to beat the final boss of X, it was hours in the fight due to how many phases he had and every time he made it to the last phase he'd get wiped by the big aoe the boss has. So the work around he had was that the final starts with your skell getting it's gas sucked to 0 so he fought long enough to have some gas returned and have his skell take the hit from the aoe and win.

[@MaxMonado]

Hahaha well it's a creative work around I'll give him that

[@JustJulyo]

I just started mashing buttons during the phantasm dream scene in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Hated that portion and felt so relived after beating it

[@tenderquirkydragon8643]

New contender: Future Redeemed's twin superbosses that are impossible is kill at first

[@kos-mos98]

im replaying xenoblade 2 and i've been avoiding giving rex any rare blades cause u'know. thank god u reminded me of the morag fight.

[@yobin3711]

Haha yeah the only way I got through Mòrag was by using Ursula and spamming healing arts

[@Hailstorm273]

8:40 it gets worse. Lorithia is glitched on the 3DS version and can crash the game.

[@MaxMonado]

Oh my god that sounds awful

[@PenguinSage]

#1 also does intresting things on NG+ because it uses their gear. I had Poppi alpha use 97% block rate ultimate shield for stuff before I did NG+. When I got to those fights, I had to deal with the 97% blockrate, huge defenses, and 50% chance to deal no damage. On the otherhand though in NG+, you can take all of their equipment away and delevel them to makw it really easy.

[@cheyenneoliver5184]

When I was first playing through the game, I knew of Lorithia's infamy and how so many people had trouble with her. But when I finally reached her boss battle, I didn't struggle at all. I don't even remember how my fight with her went. I was wondering why she was so infamous for her difficulty, and I thought maybe I just overleveled too much (probably was a large factor, the nametag was brown)... until I watched this video. I never really main any one character, constantly cycling party members. So I just choose whoever is most relevant to the story at the time to play as. Which means, it's guaranteed I was playing Melia at the time.

[@MaxMonado]

I've had some people tell me I should have made her number 1 or 2 but seriously Melia or even Riki can make this fight a complete joke

[@Herokingdom]

Unfortunately my play style boils down to maximize damage output, if I fail then I need to find out how to do more damage.

[@Dman25]

The Morag fight wasn't helped by the long walk back down the stairs lol

[@hanifkrisnandito8645]

i guess the line "you will pay for your insolence" was actually meant for us, the player, rather than to the characters we played as. and we did got paid hard if we didn't use melia.

[@GameMaster00744]

boss 3 was the reason why I didn't beat xenoblade for 8 years. I eventually replayed the deluxe version and got past her eventually, but man what a fight

[@MaxMonado]

Heard many similar stories, Lorithia really stopped many people from beating the game

[@HenrikMyrhaug]

Morag in Chapter 10 was quite easy to beat if you just use a common blade who is a healer. You are literally guaranteed a wind knuckle claw common blade. And by that point in the game, you probably have 99 common cores, so there is no way you won't be able to find a bitball healer to keep yourself alive.

[@SensDen]

Only reason I beat Morag on my first playthrough is that I got her stuck in the fence and killed her with a ranged blade slowly

[@microzach3499]

Wont lie from the moment I got a skell I abused the leaving skell and having 2 seconds of complete immunity till I started working on the super bosses