Artes & Stages

[Max Damage]

Hi all,
I am no beginner to JRPG games, but this is bothering me as hell. I absolutely do not understand the artes and stages. I mean, I understand that arte is a combat move, but I dont get the whole combo and stage thing. What means stage 1,2,3 and 4? How does it affect the combo?So when I push for example a,a,a,a (Xbox controller), what do I do? Do I just spawn Stage 1 arte put on "a" button, or is it liek stage 1 "a", stage 2 "a" and so on? I am very confused with the combat system...

[Simon]

It depends on what types of Arte you've equipped in the arte table. EACH TIME you start A NEW COMBO, you have to use an Arte from the "1st stage" before you can proceed to the "2nd stage" and then the "3rd stage"....

For example in a combo, you press A → X → Y. That means the 1st arte of A row will be chosen, then proceed to the 2nd arte at X row and 3rd arte in Y row... When your combo breaks, you have start over from the 1st stage.

If the "A" Arte row is blank, it means the game will randomly use any arte when you press A during combat (Normally, artes which are more effective towards the enemy will be chosen)

For now, the number of artes you can choose is very limited. You have to keep playing and level up more to learn more artes.

[Simon]

Please do note that the number of MAX SOUL you have will affect how many combos you can do in a row.

By combo, I mean "Artes". For example, if you have 2 max soul, you can only chain up to two artes. That's means you can only trigger the artes in the 1st and 2nd stage ONLY. To increase the number of your combo, try to steals souls from enemies. One effective way to do that is to use Arte that have a probability to stun enemies. (You can check whether the Arte have a "stun" effect under the description)

Stunning enemies which have at least 2 souls can let you steal souls from them. (Enemies with one soul only doesn't work) Enemies are easier to be stunned if they own higher number of souls.

[Max Damage]

Originally posted by Simon:

Please do note that the number of MAX SOUL you have will affect how many combos you can do in a row.

By combo, I mean "Artes". For example, if you have 2 max soul, you can only chain up to two artes. That's means you can only trigger the artes in the 1st and 2nd stage ONLY. To increase the number of your combo, try to steals souls from enemies. One effective way to do that is to use Arte that have a probability to stun enemies. (You can check whether the Arte have a "stun" effect under the description)

Stunning enemies which have at least 2 souls can let you steal souls from them. (Enemies with one soul only doesn't work) Enemies are easier to be stunned if they own higher number of souls.

Wow, this is actually pretty helpful, thank you. However I have one more - How does the combo stack up, if I got like 5 souls, but there are only 4 stages? It just continues from the stage 1 after stage 4?
And what is the best approach? I mean, is it better to combine various effects in combo, or set 4 combos with specific target effect? Like I know that if I´ll bash "A", there are all artes with stun.

[Simon]

Yes, it will continue to stage 1 after stage 4 if you have 5 max souls.

And yeah, that way, it will be easier to remember which arte is being equipped at which Arte slot. I normally set all the artes with stunning effect at my "A" button.

[{ST}Immortal Nub]

I personally set the artes to match the color on my buttons. So I set my wind artes to A, fire artes to B, water artes to X, and earth artes to Y. I wrote a guide as well awhile back, but it might not make much sense to you until you get further into the game: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1404774320

Keep in mind you can also activate artes like items by pausing the fight, going into the artes menu, press RB, then select the arte you want to use. I did this on low level enemies to understand how my artes spaced my characters on the field.