Skell Art

Skell Arts are the abilities that form characters' movesets in Xenoblade Chronicles X while they are in Skells. They are available via a horizontal selection at the bottom of the screen when an enemy is being targeted or a weapon is drawn. These Arts are primarily used in combat; many are attacks (generally stronger than ), while others help the player in other ways such as healing or providing temporary buffs.

Up to 8 Skell Arts may be available in combat at once. Unlike with s, the Art depends upon the Skell weapon equipped. When the player presses R when viewing their Skell Gear inventory, they can see the Art's effects, although the name of the Art itself is only visible in combat. The two surrounding the center icon at the bottom of the screen are the shoulder weapon's Arts, followed by the back Arts, the arm Arts, and finally the spare weapon Arts. The position of the arts cannot be rearranged separately from the equipment. If weapons are not equipped to a part of the Skell, there will be no Art assigned to that slot. This often happens with shoulder and back equipment, since those can cover the entire back or shoulder area of a Skell.

Skell weapons are placed on the Skell's appendages. If the enemy destroys the appendage, the Art will be made unusable for the rest of the fight or until Overdrive is activated.

Usage of Arts can also enable Cockpit Time, which temporarily changes the battle perspective to one behind the shoulder of the pilot, re-enables all Arts, and makes the Skell temporarily invulnerable to damage.

Overview
Every Skell 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 by the Art itself, the Force and the Attribute of the weapon associated with the Art, and by a multitude of other effects such as the s of the Skell.
 * Cooldown: Most Arts cannot be used repeatedly; the user must wait a certain period of time until it may be used again. The cooldown depends on the weapon instead of the Art itself, so the same Art can have different cooldowns. When Cockpit Time is activated, all arts immediately recover from cooldown.
 * Category: Each Art is assigned to one of five categories: melee offensive, ranged offensive,, , and.
 * Skell weapon: Each Art requires a specific Skell weapon to be equipped so it can be used. If the appendage the weapon is mounted to is destroyed, the Art cannot be used.
 * : 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. The damage type is always indicated in the Skell's Art description.
 * Hits: Each Art hits the target a certain number of times.
 * 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. Usually, other movements can't be done during an Art, although some Arts, like Drone Shot, fire remote weapons deal damage while the main Skell does its own actions. The hits of the Art occur at specific points during this animation.
 * Fuel cost: Skell Arts require Fuel to function. If the user does not have enough Fuel, the art cannot be used.

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.

Skell Arts have no secondary or tertiary cooldowns. To make up for this, usage of Arts can trigger the Skell's Cockpit Time, instantly refilling all Arts when it activates. This chance increases when Overdrive is active.

Categories
Battle Arts come in five categories, marked by the color of the Art icon. This broadly corresponds to their main function. It also determines what Soul Voices they correspond to.
 * Melee offensive Arts are color-coded orange. They deal and tend to have relatively short range.
 * Ranged offensive Arts are color-coded yellow. They deal and tend to have a longer range than melee offensive Arts.
 *  Arts are color-coded green. They target the user and/or nearby allies, either healing the target or providing temporary buffs or other beneficial effects. These Arts are typically given to arm weapons.
 *  Arts are color-coded purple. They may deal damage, but their primary function is often to inflict debuffs on the enemy.
 * While the Skell has blue arts like Shield Cloak that would indicate an , these blue Arts only act as aura arts for the purpose of Soul Voices. They act as a buff for themselves, and unlike ground Auras, multiple buffs from blue Arts can be stacked at the same time. These Arts are typically given to arm weapons.

In Soul Voices
Similar to s, Skell Arts can also be used to respond to other characters' Soul Voices, giving the Arts bonus effects depending on the Soul Voice and healing both the Skell and the player (or vehicle) that called for it.

Calling Art Names
While most Arts in the Xenoblade games are spoken out loud, only a small fraction of Skell Arts are actually called out by Cross, the main avatar. This typically includes Skell superweapons and Arts that do large amounts of damage, like Phoenix Wings.