Battle Art (XCX)

Battle Arts are the abilities that form characters' movesets in Xenoblade Chronicles X whilst on foot. They are available via a horizontal selection at the bottom of the screen when a character's is drawn. They are used in combat (although a small handful have out-of-combat utility as well); many are attacks (generally stronger than ), while others the player in other ways such as healing or providing temporary buffs. party members automatically use Arts in battle.

Up to 8 Battle Arts may be available in combat at once. These 8 may be chosen from a larger selection in the menu via the "Arts" option under the "Party" submenu. The full selection available to a character depends upon the weapons the character uses (and, by extension, their ); some may only be unlocked at specific class levels. Each character other than has access to a maximum of 16 Arts, two of which are unique to that character. Cross may learn regular Arts through class level-ups, and may also learn any other character's unique Arts by completing the character's Affinity Missions.

Enemies may also attack using their own Battle Arts. These function similarly to playable characters' Battle Arts. Skell Arts, which may be used by playable characters while in Skells, also function similarly, although with several significant differences.

Overview
Every Battle Art has several properties that distinguish it from others.
 * Target: Every Art affects a specific set of combatants. This may be the currently targeted enemy, all enemies within a certain range of the targeted enemy or of the user, (for beneficial Arts) the user themselves, the user and their allies, etc.
 * : Most Arts inflict a certain amount of damage on the target, while some provide healing instead. The total power is determined both by the Art and by a multitude of other effects such as the s of the user.
 * Cooldown: Most Arts cannot be used repeatedly; the user must wait a certain period of time until it may be used again.
 * Category: Each Art is assigned to one of five categories: melee offensive, ranged offensive,, , and.
 * : Each Art uses a specific weapon. For example, Decoy Round uses an Assault Rifle. This applies to all Arts, including buffs and auras.
 * : Each Art is attributed with a specific element: physical, thermal, ether, beam, electric, or gravity. This affects several things, such as the target's resistance to the Art's damage. Some Arts' attribute is "Weapon", which takes on the elemental attribute of whatever weapon is currently equipped. Arts that deal no damage or heal have no attribute.
 * Hits: Each Art hits the target a certain number of times. This is relevant when raising the count.
 * Additional effects: Many Arts, primarily offensive Arts, have some sort of additional effect beyond simply dealing damage. This is often conditional (e.g. dealing more damage when the Art is used from behind the target). Common additional effects include inflicting a buff on the user, a debuff on the enemy, a that affects enemies below a certain size, and so on.
 * Range: Arts can only be used when their target is within a certain distance. This primarily affects offensive Arts; it naturally does not affect Arts which target the user.
 * Animation duration: Each Art takes a certain amount of time to execute, during which no other action may be performed (besides scrolling to select another Art). Some Arts' animations themselves have additional effects; for example, the character will evade all attacks during the Ghostwalker animation. The hits of the Art occur at specific points during this animation.

Cooldown
Once an Art has been used, a certain amount of time must pass until it may be used again. This is marked by the Art's icon being darkened after use. As time passes, an increasingly large circular sector of the icon lights up. When the entire icon has lit up, the Art may be used again.

Once an Art's standard cooldown has completed, it will continue to charge beyond this, marked by a green line surrounding the Art icon. By default, this "secondary cooldown" takes the same amount of time to complete as the primary cooldown. The Art may be used again before the secondary cooldown has completed, but if one waits until the secondary cooldown completes before using the Art, it will provide a bonus. For offensive Arts, this often means more damage or a more potent additional effect; for buffs, debuffs, and auras, it usually results in increased effect duration and an increased buff/debuff tier. Other Arts may have "immediate reuse" as their cooldown bonus, which simply allows the Art to be used again without delay, consuming only the secondary cooldown and allowing it to be either used immediately or charged again.

Unlike primary cooldown, which occurs unconditionally, secondary cooldown only occurs when the Art's associated is currently being used. This means that an Art which uses the character's melee weapon will not undergo secondary cooldown if the character is currently ing with or using an Art that uses the ranged weapon, and vice versa. When the other weapon is being used, secondary cooldown pauses without resetting, and resumes when the appropriate weapon is switched back to.

The exception to the above is in, during which secondary cooldown will occur regardless of whether the Art's weapon is currently being used or not. Overdrive also unlocks "tertiary cooldown", which functions very similarly to secondary cooldown (and also occurs regardless of whether the Art's weapon is being used). Tertiary cooldown is marked by a white line surrounding the Art icon once secondary cooldown has completed. Using an Art with completed tertiary cooldown almost always provides a greater version of the secondary cooldown bonus, or in the case of "immediate reuse" Arts, another immediate reuse which consumes the tertiary cooldown but not the secondary one.

Categories
Battle Arts come in five categories, marked by the colour of the Art icon. This broadly corresponds to their main function. It also determines what Soul Voices they correspond to, and what happens when they are used in.
 * Melee offensive Arts are colour-coded orange. They deal and usually (but not always) use the melee weapon. They tend to have relatively short range.
 * Ranged offensive Arts are colour-coded yellow. They deal using the ranged weapon. They tend to have longer range than melee offensive Arts.
 *  Arts are colour-coded green. They target the user and/or one or more of the user's allies, either healing the target or providing temporary buffs or other beneficial effects. In Overdrive, they increase the Overdrive duration by 0.05s * the number of targets * the Overdrive count.
 *  Arts are colour-coded purple. They may deal damage, but their primary function is often to inflict debuffs on the enemy. In Overdrive, they restore TP to the user (10 TP * the number of hits * the Overdrive count).
 *  Arts are colour-coded blue. They provide the user with an Aura, which is a temporary buff with several beneficial effects. All such Arts are TP Arts. In Overdrive, they increase the Overdrive duration by 0.1s * the Overdrive count. Some Auras may provide out-of-combat utility; for example, Shadowrunner prevents enemies from attacking the character out-of-battle, and boosts Skell fuel recovery.

TP Arts
Some Battle Arts require 1000 to use (marked by the letters 'TP' on the Art's icon). This is true of all Auras, and each weapon also has one or two melee/ranged offensive Arts that require TP. Such Arts tend to be significantly more powerful than other offensive Arts. A small number of Arts also require TP (generally those that provide allies with TP themselves).

Whereas the damage dealt by non-TP Arts is proportional to the character's melee or ranged attack, the damage dealt by TP Arts instead uses the character's potential. This makes potential particularly important for dealing damage, as the power of the strongest attacks depends upon it.

Combos
A combo is when a character uses a Battle Art within 5 seconds of another Battle Art. Several conditional effects rely on an Art being used in a certain type of combo, e.g. Stream Edge which "boosts damage in ranged combos". This condition is satisfied if Stream Edge is used shortly after another Battle Art which uses the ranged weapon (such an Art need not be offensive). Likewise, conditional effects which apply in "melee combos" apply when the Art in question is used after another Art that uses the melee weapon.

For combo-related conditional effects that apply to the hits of the Art (such as increasing damage or granting on hit), any hit of the second Art must be with 5 seconds of the end of the first Art's animation to have the conditional effect. For those that affect the Art's cooldown, only the start of the second Art need be within 5 seconds of the end of the first Art; the timing of the hits within the animation is irrelevant.

During, there are several effects conditional upon combos containing Arts of certain categories. For example, comboing a buff into a ranged offensive Art will result in the Overdrive count increasing by two per hit instead of the usual one. In all of these cases, the 5-second limit does not apply; the Arts simply must be used consecutively, with any duration of time between them.

In Soul Voices
Soul Voices are very closely linked with Battle Arts. Almost every Soul Voice represents a call from the character that initiated the Soul Voice to use a certain category of Art. If any other character uses any Art in that category before the Soul Voice expires, both the character who initiated it and the one who used the Art will recover a certain amount of HP, and the Art will have an extra bonus effect. What effect this is, as well as the required category of Art, depend on the Soul Voice.

Art levels
Arts can be levelled up in the menu, from level 1 to a maximum of level 5. Doing so costs. Levelling up an Art decreases its cooldown, increases its damage (if applicable), and often increases the potency of its additional effect(s).