(WR 18/12/22) Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Any% Speedrun in

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What are some of the coolest skips or glitches or feats of skill I should check out when I don't have 6 1/2 hours to watch the whole thing?

[@cameronnicolson9815]

We do not skip any story Fights. Just using Combat in unique ways I recommend Cloudkeep at 5:10:00 or Z at ~6:00:00

[@ecriptuszero]

Preface: I'm not a speedrunner for XC3 but I have watched a lot of Quad's and Plexa's speedruns so I'll put down what I find most interesting about the runs. You'll notice that Quad is running the game in Chinese. I believe Chinese is some 10 ish seconds faster than English due to Mio's end of chapter voiced diary entires. Not 100% sure but I believe this is why he is running in Chinese. Chapter 1 - Honestly not that interesting in terms of skill expression in my opinion due to many combat mechanics not being unlocked 33:27 - Intentionally falls off a cliff to warp to objective location faster 1:08:50 Ethel -> Moebius K gauntlet. A lot of power rings used here to speed up the fight 1:44:30 Dorrick - The player primarily controls Mio as Zephyr class in order to evade the mech's auto attacks using Wide Slash and Gemini Strike(talent art). Before he uses a chain attack he uses Noah's Ouroboros art Glorious Wing to give power charge to everyone and groups everyone together using the follow leader tactic. This is so Taion's power ring can be applied to everyone in chain. Notice that Eunie, Lanz, and Sena are all swordfighters? This is because Air Slash is nuts as a fusion art and does a lot of damage. Eunie, Lanz, and Sena are the ones specifically chosen as swordfighters becuase their TP values are low allowing Quad to use all three of them on the last order of the chain (1:48:10) giving as much damage as possible. 2:41:41 Rhinons - Following the J fight where soul link is unlocked for Ouroboros, Eunie gains access to "Shared blessing", a passive that increases her damage dealt based on the number of buffs on allies, up to 500% damage bonus. This skill can be shared with Taion. In this fight against Rhinons and many other multiple enemy fights, War Medic (Valdi's class) is used to quickly give buffs to everyone so that Eunon Ouroboros (Eunie+Taion) can go ham. 3:04:49 - The game allows you to kidnap Ashera by simply starting her Hero quest and leaving. No need to waste time on her hero quest. Same also applies to Isurd who was picked up earlier. 3:19:05 Moebius D&J - Juniper's class, Stalker is actually used in the route and it's actually quite strong in the speedrun provided that bleed is applied to the boss enemy (it's the red claw debuff beneath a bosses health bar). Another notable strategy used here is the intentional killing of Mio. Why kill Mio? - Her chain order (reducing aggro to all allies) is not very good -With all 7 party members alive, the odds of getting of not getting the Hero order is roughly 12%. With Mio dead, there are only 6 possible orders to choose from bringing down the odds of not getting the Hero order to roughly 5%. Getting Ashera's hero order is really important because it's broken af and it really is the difference between killing in chain or not killing in chain. In chain attacks now, almost always it's gonna be the Eunon finisher because of the reasons listed before. 4:11:13 Ghondor - You can intentionally lose the fight and the story will still progress. 4:31:56 Gyrinus - First off, Noah and Mio are Tactician and Medic Gunner respectively because those classes have a very easier time using fusion arts which leads to very fast Ouroboros leveling. Gets Noah and Mio to lv 3 and uses Mega Spinning Edge to kill ASAP 4:33:48 M1 - Earlier in the run, Monica's hero quest was actually completed because of the need of Mighty Beat, an Angus smash art. Fusing Might Beat with Air slash from Swordfighter is nuts due to Air Slash being very good as a fusion art. The Strategy (applies to M1,M2,N1) 1. A lot of swapping between Noah and Mio in order to get level 3 Ouroboros ASAP. This is because Noah's break art is good. Breaking an enemy before a chain is always the play because it's hard to break inside a chain. 2. Get at least Ashera or Taion's order because they will increase the smash damage in chain the most. An alternative is chaining when lv 3 Ouroboros is active because these types of chain attacks start with a higher multiplier and are therefore technically faster than regular chains. 3. Smash with Eunie using Mighty Beat + Air slash when the chain damage multiplier is high enough. (FYI the smasher doesn't have to be Eunie, anyone could be the smasher) 4:49:32 Queen of Agnus - Lucky Seven is unlocked and it's broken. The set up needed is: 1. Ethel's class is used on Noah because of its skill that charges that the talent gauge by 80% at the start of battle at rank 10. 2. Shackle ring - an OP accessory obtained from Elgares Depths (which requires a 5 min detour of just walking btw, it's just that strong) Shackle Ring in simple terms buffs the next art used in succession in a lot of different ways but the most important things it buffs is damage and combo durations (break, topple, launch durations are extended). The combo duration extension is important because smash damage INCREASES depending on the duration of the topple/launch left. A smash with 10 seconds remaining on the launch will do much more than a smash with 1 second left. Strategy for a lot of the remaining bosses - 1. Null Slash and Revolution Edge to charge Unlimited Sword (not in Queen of Agnus because it's charged for the L7 tutorial) 2. Ouroboros Noah has access to Origin while Lucky Seven is active, even at level 0. Origin blade debuffs enemies on hit including reducing enemy defense by 30%(not sure exact value) 3. Charge the talent art Final Lucky Seven by using Tachyon Slash while in front of the enemy. 4. Cancel into 5 unique arts and then use Final Lucky Seven for maximum shackle ring value. You can see the shackle ring value at 4:50:24 . Quad uses Tachyon Slash -> Dimension Ripper -> Gravity Blow -> Night Breaker -> Power Raiser -> Final Lucky Seven He does this to stack shackle ring and you can see the result. The second strategy he uses is the same as steps 1,2,3,4 except instead of letting Final Lucky Seven finish, he swaps characters and uses chain right after Noah launches the enemy. As discussed before, shackle ring will increase the topple and launch duration enhancing Eunie's Mighty Beat + Air slash smash damage. Also the chain uses Eunon's level 3 ouroboros because they're Ouroboros is strong due to shared blessing. You can use this strategy used against Omega Moebius Y. 5:01:30 These two strategies are used against Omega Y, D&J, Cloudkeep D&J Interlink, Crys 1, Crys 2, N3, N4, Origin Y 6:09:44 Z - Honestly just watch the fight because it's cool. Here are some notes though. 1. The electric fields used in Z phase 1 bypasses his damage reduction which speeds up the scripted fight quite a bit. 2. Noah is not only Ethel's class but instead on Miyabi's class because it allows Noah to build up Unlimited Sword very fast. 3. On x inf and y inf, we want Ghondor, Miyabi and Juniper(?) on Y inf because X inf side has Noah which means we don't need the stronger heroes on X inf and would rather have them help the weaker Agnus side instead. Unfortunately this means time can be lost to simple RNG. 4. Z inf 2 can't be one shot because the fight needs to summon Melia and Nia before finishing. Final note, Final Lucky Seven can miss. It's like a 97% to hit break and topple. Missing FL7 can lead to malding which is unfortunate. Skill issue Again, I don't speedrun this game but I've been lurking in Quads' and Plexa's speedruns of XC3 for a while and these some of the notable things I can think of right now. BTW, they're doing a speedrun of XC3 in ESA Winter 23 in February. Be sure to check it out.

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@@ecriptuszero Wow, nice writeup, thanks!