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| Jesse Woo |
In other words, don't bring a longsword to a ray-gun fight.
04.07.15 - 10:53 PM
Job classes in Xenoblade Chronicles X will be more distinct and central to combat than in its predecessor. There will be four branching tiers, and the developers have released info on the first two. The Drifter class is the basic, and most balanced class. They fight with knives and assault rifles. Once a character's Drifter class level hits 10 they will have access to the Assault, Command, and Forcer classes. The Assault learns offensive and defensive Arts and excels in HP and Fighting (melee) stats. They use long swords and assault rifles. The Command relies largely on Arts to deal damage and excels in Fighting, Shooting, and Evasion stats. The Command class uses duel swords and duel guns. Finally, the Forcer is a support focused class that also learns Shooting Arts. Their best stats are in Shooting and Latent Abilities and they use knives and ray-guns.
In addition, combat is more than simply trading attacks and watching damage pile up. Buffs, debuffs, and status effects from various sources will have major affects in battle. While many are the standard "increase damage," "crit rate up," "sleep," and "blind" that we are accustomed to, there are some unique stand-outs. Bullet Charge multiplies the damage of your next shot, and Fake Body allows you to dodge a certain number of enemy attacks. Status effects can come from allies, enemies, nearby data probes, or even the weather. For example the weather can inflict Heat or Bolt, applying damage for a period of time.
The developers have shared another juicy tidbit as well for those players worried about dressing their characters up in exactly the right outfit. Clearing the game once will unlock a costume equipment slot so you can control a character's appearance independently of the armor they wear.
Xenoblade Chronicles X comes out April 29th in Japan on the Wii U. A Western release is planned for later in 2015. Also stay tuned for more info from the April 10th livestream event discussing online play and Dolls.
