Beginner's Guide to Xenoblade Chronicles
How to Level Up Fast
How to Raise Affinity
Best Party and Team Setup
Which Arts Should You Level Up?
A tier list to the best Arts in Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (XC1) for the Nintendo Switch. This guide will show you which arts to level up first for each character in order to build the strongest team.
List of Contents
The following criteria was used when deciding which Arts you should level up first. Keep in mind that each character can be played multiple ways, so no Art is entirely useless, though some are inherently more useful than others.
Not surprisingly, an Art that works in many situations and will pretty much always work in your party's favor is an Art you should level up. This may seem obvious, however, Arts with high utility are an essential part to a character's kit. The first thing to consider for each Art is its effect.
There are some Arts that are pretty good on their own, but when the character that learns them is considered, they start to feel less useful. A good example is Melia's Starlight Kick, which can be used to inflict Topple on a foe. Normally topple is something you want for a character, but in order for her to use it, she would have to equip two physical arts, which is a bit counter-intuitive for Melia, the best ether attacker in the game.
(Once again, this Art is not entirely without its uses, and can be made use of for Topple Locking. However, generally speaking, Melia should not be using physical arts due to her low strength stat.)
Not considered for Monado Arts of course, but for other Battle Arts, this is a big thing to consider. If an Art is very powerful, but has an extremely long cooldown, you'll generally only be able to use it once, maybe twice per battle, save for long battles with tough bosses. While a long cooldown typically means a very strong skill, sometimes the benefits just aren't quite worth the long wait times.
The following tier list shows the priority for setting/leveling up each art by character. We highly recommend setting/leveling S and A Tier Arts, while B and C tier Arts are optional for most characters. If you want to see a particular character's best Arts, use the table to jump ahead.
Jump Ahead | |||
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Shulk | Reyn | Dunban | Sharla |
Riki | Melia | Seven | - |
Shulk is a special case, in that unilke other characters, he has access to all of his arts in battle. This means that setting skills is not somehting you need to worry about with him, and instead, you only need to think about which skills should be upgraded first.
For Shulk, a combination of good support and offensive ability make up his S/A Tier Arts. Really, none of his Arts are bad, and they are all worth using to some extent, but when it comes to leveling priorty, these are our recommendations.
Battle Soul | Shadow Eye | Air Slash | Back Slash |
Slit Edge |
Stream Edge | Light Heal | Armor | Shield |
Buster |
Shaker Edge | Cyclone | Purge | Enchant |
Eater | Speed |
Shulk Build, Arts, Skill Trees, and Usage Guide
Reyn is the master of tanking attacksーa human shield of sorts. His best skills are the ones that can allow him to tank attacks even harder, combined with a few heavy hitting physical attacks. Arts like Engage become a bit redundant with his already high ability for drawing enemy aggro, and Anchor Chain just seems to be a bit too niche.
Lariat | Berserker | Sword Drive | Wild Down |
Dive Sobat | Magnum Charge | Shield Bash | War Swing |
Bone Upper | Hammer Beat |
Anchor Chain | Aura Burst | Rage | Last Stand |
Engage | Guard Shift |
Reyn Build, Best Arts, Skill Trees, and Usage Guide
Dunban is probably the best tank in the game for one reason: high agility. He is so quick that enemies will have a hard time even hitting him. Dunban is also good because of his high strength and battle capability. The Arts to prioritize for him are the ones that help him land quicker attacks and boost his attack power, as well as the battle arts that are essential for him to deal tons of damage to the foe.
Soaring Tempest | Heat Haze | Serene Heart | Steel Strike |
Worldly Slash | Peerless | Gale Slash |
Spirit Breath | Electric Gutbuster |
Blinding Blossom | Tempest Kick |
Demon Slayer | Thunder | Jaws of Death | Final Flicker |
Battle Eye |
Dunban Build, Best Arts, Skill Trees, and Usage Guide
Sharla is primarily for support and healing, so her best skills are the ones that let her support her team in this fashion. However, she's rather useless if she doesn't have any way to deal damage to the enemy, so a few Arts for damage, like Metal Blast, Thunder Bullet, and Head Shot, need to be prioritized as well.
Cure Round | Head Shot | Heal Round | Heal Bullet |
Covert Stance | Heal Blast |
Head Shaker | Heat Bullet | Metal Blast | Drive Boost |
Cure Bullet | Shield Bullet | Thunder Bullet |
Tranquilliser | Heal Counter | Aura Bullet |
Sharla Build, Best Arts, Skill Trees, and Usage Guide
Riki boasts some of the best debuff skills in the game, capable of inflicting damage through Freezinate, Burninate, etc., which will also drain the foe's HP. His many debuffs, combined with Say Sorry, a skill that does more damage for each active debuff, make him one of the better support characters for your team. He also has Happy Happy, which might just be the best healing art in the game.
With his other debuffs, Bedtime and Behave become unnecessary. Play Dead, on the ither hand, just seems to be kind of a waste, when he has many other good Arts that could be used instead.
Freezinate | Burninate | You Can Do It | Hero Time |
Lurgy | Sneaky | Bitey Bitey |
Tantrum | Happy Happy |
Say Sorry | Riki is Angry |
Peekaboo | Bedtime | Behave | Roly-Poly |
Play Dead |
Riki Build, Best Arts, Skill Trees, and Usage Guide
Melia is the best ether-attacker in the game, so it makes since that her ether-based attacks are the ones you will want to focus on setting and leveling. All of her Summon Elementals have some use, with Bolt, Flare, and Earth probably being the best for raw damage. Healing Gift and Summon Aqua allow her to heal herself and other teammates, which is something useful for a team that doesn't use Sharla as the dedicated healer (she'll definitely need assistance from another healer, however).
Melia's Physical Arts are in a weird place. On the one hand, being able to topple an enemy is never a bad thing. However, unless your whole party is centered around toppling the enemy, it is hard to justify giving up any of her powerful ether attacks or buffs in place of two physical attacks. Hypnotise as well, is rather hard to justify including in her setup, when there are already so many other good Arts she can make use of instead.
Summon Earth | Summon Copy | Summon Flare | Summon Bolt |
Mind Blast | Summon Wind | Reflection | Summon Ice |
Burst End | Healing Gift | Summon Aqua |
Power Effect | Starlight Kick | Shadow Stitch | Spear Break |
Hypnotise |
Melia Build, Best Arts, Skill Trees, and Usage Guide
Seven has several powerful Arts to cement her abilities as a speedy physical / ether attacker. However, she also has a couple skills that push too hard for her to be a tankーa role which she is only okay at. Seven's AI is not the best in the game, but given the right Art setup, she is extremely powerful when player-controlled.
(Seven is the what the last character unlocked in the game is referred to as. Be wary of spoilers when clicking on the character's skill names)
Final Cross | Air Fang | Lock-On | Zero Gravity |
Spear Blade | Double Blade |
Power Drain | Double Wind | Ether Drain | Cross Impact |
Speed Shift | Healing Energy |
Second Gear | Guard Shift | Shutdown | Mag Storm |
Did you agree with our rankings? Let us know what you think in the comments!
Other Guides |
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Which Arts Should You Level Up? |
Mhmmm, I just got blindsided by this change too. Even before the change there were some weird inconsistencies where you’d click through and the rating on the art’s page was different; not sure if this just reflects that or not. But it sucks to suddenly change it on people when it’s not like this info wasn’t already out there to figure out what’s best, and I’m hoping I didn’t get totally screwed over by it. Guess I need to go looking for other guides before I upgrade more.
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I actually think most of this list is pretty decent aside from 5 things. For Shulk, Battle Soul is pretty bad, idk why it's in S. He is very frail and he builds talent gauge fast anyway Also this list underrates speed art, reyn's aura burst, and Dunban's final flicker. But most of all I want to bring attention to Seven's speed shift only being in B tier. It is a contender for best art in the game. Her damage output becomes insane and it allows her to fill the party and talent gauge instantly.