While you don’t have Blades to customise your weaponry in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, you’ll go through the game unlocking lots of different classes, and you have complete freedom over how you assign these to your party. What’s more, as you master classes you get greater options for Combo Arts, making you more powerful than ever.
The game encourages you to switch things up often and have your characters master as many classes as possible, but it’s always a good idea to have a solid setup in mind for when a tough job needs doing. We’re going to go through all six main party members and pick out a class that makes the best use of their stats and abilities, so you can create an optimal party for when you’re struggling with a fight.
Noah - Full Metal Jaguar
In previous Xenoblade games, the male protagonist and his bright red sword have been the centre point of the story, so giving them anything else was pointless. Shulk should always have the Monado equipped, and Rex is always best with Pyra/Mythra by his side. However, Noah’s sword isn’t as important throughout Xenoblade 3, so there are a lot of other options for his weaponry.
Full Metal Jaguar is a fantastic attacking class. The auto-attack damage slowly increases over time, making it great for a long fight against a high-level unique monster. On top of that, the Combat Arts deal massive AOE damage that is great for crowd control, but also tears through single opponents. Not to mention, he gets a cool cape.
Gray is the Hero that unlocks this class, you can find out how to do that in our Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Heroes guide.
Mio - Lone Exile
Unfortunately, defenders got the short end of the stick in Xenoblade 3, as there are far fewer of these classes than attackers or healers. That said, the fact that they’re few in number makes them all feel very different to each other, and Lone Exile makes great use of Mio’s surprisingly great offensive capabilities.
Lone Exiles draw as much aggro as they can, and use the enemy’s strength against them. They deal out counterattack damage for both themselves and nearby allies. It means that everyone else in the party can be safe while Mio dishes every little bit of hurt back in the enemy’s face.
You’ll need to recruit Ashera to unlock this class.
Eunie - Strategos
Despite the name, many healer classes don’t actually have many healing abilities. A lot are more support oriented, dishing out buffs/debuffs instead of healing. If you want to restore your allies’ health in battle then Strategos is a brilliant choice. They lack all-out healing abilities, but they have Combat Arts that AOE heal back damage dealt, and they can plant regeneration rings on the battlefield for passive healing.
Isurd is the Hero for this class.
Taion - Signifer
Signifer is an example of a healer class that doesn’t do any healing. That doesn’t make it worthless though, because a Signifer will make your party insanely powerful if used optimally. Their Combat Arts all deal out random buffs on your allies or debuffs on your enemies. If you combine it with a Hero like Miyabi who can accelerate Art recharge rate, then a Signifer can be continually casting every buff in the game on your party.
Signifer is a mid-game class, and you’ll need Fiona to get it.
Lanz - Lost Vanguard
One of the few defender classes, Lanz can tank damage like no other, so the Lost Vanguard is an easy favourite. Although it’s not as good at drawing aggro as the Lone Exile, it can cast a whole host of defensive buffs on allies and has enviable HP, letting them shrug off even the hardest of hits from terrifying opponents.
You’ll need to recruit Monica to get the Lost Vanguard.
Sena - Incursor
While Noah is an attacker that flourishes with quick attacks, Sena works best with some big and heavy that will crush an opponent in a single slow swing. Although her base class of Ogre is brilliant for this, the Incursor comes with a slightly greater degree of speed and a much sharper blade.
Incursors see their damage increase with every critical hit they land, meaning you can easily snowball their huge damage if you’re clever with your positioning when using Combat Arts. Not only are the Arts in question very powerful, but many of them deal AOE damage or inflict debuffs on the enemy, meaning your whole party will do more damage with an Incursor in the party.
Alexandria is the Hero you need for this class.
Written by Ryan Woodrow on behalf of GLHF.
