Chain Attack (XC3)

For other articles titled "Chain Attack", see Chain Attack (disambiguation).

Chain Attacks are a battle mechanic in Xenoblade Chronicles 3. When the Chain Attack Gauge is full, a Chain Attack may be performed by pressing +. Chain Attacks allow for many Battle Arts and other attacks to be performed in succession with higher damage and other bonuses without the enemy attacking. Additionally, a unique music track, also called Chain Attack, will play throughout the attack in most situations. They are unlocked in Chapter 2 during the fight against the Gyanna Aspar.

Overview

When a Chain Attack is initiated, regular combat ceases temporarily; characters and enemies stop attacking and moving, though enemies will continue whatever art was in progress during non-menu time until it has fully concluded. Party members cannot be brought below 1 HP by any means while the Chain Attack is in progress, and activating one will clear participants of reactions such as Topple, so using one to survive an otherwise-fatal attack is a valid strategy.

To begin the Chain Attack, three random Chain Orders are offered, any of which may be selected. The player may then attack using any Art (besides Talent Arts) of a character of their choice, including the active Hero if there is one. When this happens, an amount of Tactical Points (TP) is added to a total for the current Chain Order. If the amount of TP added causes the total to reach or exceed 100, the Chain Order's effects are applied, and the Chain Order's matching character unleashes a powerful Chain Art. If not, the player may choose an Art of a different character to attack with and increase the TP of the Chain Order. This continues either until the Arts cause the total TP to exceed 100, or the player runs out of characters to use Arts with; in the latter case, the Chain Attack ends.

When a Chain Order is initiated, the Chain Attack Gauge decreases by a third. If any Chain Attack Gauge remains at the end of a successfully-completed Chain Order, the Chain Attack continues and a new Chain Order may be selected. The Chain Attack may also continue if the conditions are met for getting an Ouroboros Order. Otherwise, the Chain Attack ends.

Once a character uses an Art in a Chain Attack, they become "inactive", and cannot be used again. Completing an Order "reactivates" a number of inactive characters, allowing them to be chosen again. If the previous Order was completed with 100-149 TP ("Cool"), only one character is reactivated; if it was completed with 150-199 TP ("Bravo"), two are reactivated; and if it was completed with 200 TP or more ("Amazing"), three are reactivated. Certain circumstances, such as Ouroboros Orders or specific Hero Orders, may allow for more characters to be reactivated. Who is reactivated is chosen at random.

If a character is Incapacitated when a Chain Attack initiates, they cannot participate; this also applies to debuffs that prevent them from being controlled, such as Sword Bind or Eclipse Soul. Their particular Chain Order will not appear as an option, and they may not use Arts. With the exception of certain Hero Orders, characters cannot be revived from incapacitation during Chain Attacks.

The Chain Art used is specific to the character's current class, and generally simply deals damage without special effects.

Time is stopped while the player is selecting from any of the menus in a Chain Attack. Otherwise, time flows normally - damage-over-time effects will tick, buffs and fields will expire, drops will vanish, and uninvolved enemies will wander around. This includes not only during attacks, but during time spent doing nothing as the interface shows TP being added, a Chain Art's splash screen, or who is being reactivated. The exception is the Art Combo timer, which remains frozen for the Chain Attack's full duration. As the power of combos depends on the remaining duration of the previous step, this can lead to very powerful attacks.

Ending Chain Attacks

The following conditions will cause the Chain Attack to end:

• The Chain Attack Gauge is fully depleted and no Ouroboros Order is available.
• The player runs out of active characters to use Arts before 100 TP has been reached.
• An Ouroboros Order is successfully completed.
• The enemy being fought automatically ends the battle once their HP reaches a certain amount.
• The chain attack is ended manually when selecting a Chain Order.

In all of the above situations, the Chain Attack Gauge fully depletes upon a Chain Attack ending.

Arts in Chain Attacks

During a Chain Attack, all regular arts are always available, and all positioning requirements are considered as met. Therefore:

• If an art can be a Fusion Art, it always is, as if both the Class Art and Master Art are always ready.
• If an art has a positional bonus effect, it is always triggered, no matter the actual position of the user and enemy.
• If an art affects any allies in range, it affects all allies, no matter the actual position of the user and allies.

TP

Main article: TP (XC3)

The amount of TP gained by using an Art in a Chain Attack depends upon several factors. Every playable character and Hero has a certain amount of base TP; the first time they use an Art in a Chain Attack, this amount will always be added. A host of other conditions add to the amount of TP gained from using the Art.

If the character is reactivated and used in a subsequent Order, they will start with the total amount of TP given in the previous attack — the sum of their base TP and the extra TP gained from conditional benefits of using Arts in previous Orders. In this way, the amount of TP a character adds broadly increases over time in a Chain Attack.

A character's base TP is based on the extent to which the character fights tactically in-universe, with tactically-minded characters (e.g. Taion) having higher base TP. Accessories and Skills can increase the starting amount when a Chain Attack begins.

List of base TP for each character Character TP Noah 30 Mio 25 Eunie 25 Taion 35 Lanz 15 Sena 15 Ethel 25 Valdi 20 Zeon 25 Teach 30 Riku & Manana 15 Gray 35 Isurd 40 Juniper 25 Ashera 15 Alexandria 30 Monica 30 Fiona 15 Triton 10 Ghondor 35 Miyabi 15 Cammuravi 15 Segiri 20 Nia 15 Melia 35 Ino 25 Masha 35 Shulk 25 Rex 20

List of base TP for each character (Future Redeemed) Character TP Matthew 15 A 25 Nikol 25 Glimmer 20 Shulk 20 Rex 15 Na'el 20

This page or section is incomplete. In other words, yes we know it's unfinished; we just didn't want to leave it blank in the meantime. You can help complete it. The editor who added this tag elaborates: Some unknown conditions which grant TP

List of conditions which grant TP

Name	TP	Notes
Role Match TP	10	User shares the same Role with the order's character
Force Match TP	5	User shares the same Affiliation (Keves, Agnus, etc.) with the order's character
Critical Hit TP	1	User dealt critical damage with a hit; triggered again at 5, 10, and 15 crits
Combo TP	1	User applied Break, Topple, Launch, Smash, Daze, or Burst
Reaction TP	1	User applied Knockback or Blowdown
Combo Follow-Up TP	1	Unclear. Appears to be related to Topple, Launch, and Daze
Increased Effect TP	1	Art conditional (positional, combo state, etc.) was satisfied
No Block TP	1	When the attack would be blocked by the enemy, but Art or other effects nullified it
Damage TP	1	The hit brought the enemy's health to or below 50%, 25%, 10%, or 0%
Full Health TP	1	User has a full health bar
Field TP	1	User cast a field
Field Disperse TP	1	A field effect was dispersed for having reached the limit with a newly summoned field
Battle Affinity TP	1	Unclear. Trigger condition is based on the same pairings as Teamwork TP (potentially non-consecutive)
Teamwork TP	1	Triggers for consecutive characters if they make a key pair, or are both non-heroes of the same affiliation
Role Type TP	1	Unclear. Potentially something like "multiple roles have been used in this round"
Role Consistency TP	1	The user and the previous user share the same role
Force Consistency TP	1	The user and the previous user share the same affiliation
Buff TP	1	User cast a buff
Debuff TP	1	User inflicted a debuff on the enemy
Heal TP	1	User healed allies
Taunt TP	1	User used a Taunt art to draw aggro
Hit TP	1	Triggered at 5, 10, and 15 hits
Empower TP	1	Unclear. Triggers at 2, 4, and 6 of some value
Enfeeble TP	1	Unclear. Triggers at 2, 4, and 6 of some value
Fusion TP	1	User used a Fusion Art
Last Act TP	1	User was the last character available
Highest TP	1	User had the highest TP
Lowest TP	1	User had the lowest TP
Bonus TP	1	User triggered 4 or more other TP conditions; triggered again at 8, 12, 16, and 20 other conditions
Hero TP	1	User is a Hero

Chain Orders

Chain Orders start with choosing an Order from among a selection of three random active characters. Each character's Chain Order is associated with a certain beneficial effect; this effect occurs if the Order is successfully completed by reaching 100 TP, and its effects typically last throughout the remainder of the Chain Attack. The strength of this effect typically increases every 20 levels.

The currently active Hero may have their Chain Order appear in the selection. If chosen, the Chain Attack Gauge will not decrease, allowing for an extra round.

The effects of the Order apply before the subsequent Chain Art. While this is mostly beneficial, any decrease in current aggro may be immediately won back, and any Power Charge will be immediately consumed by the Chain Art (and so can't be saved for something else).

Ouroboros Orders

Ordinarily, Ouroboros forms do not appear in Chain Attacks. However, two situations may result in Ouroboros forms being used in the attack at the end of a Chain Order. This is unlocked after the battle against the Lambda Ferronis.

The first situation is if two characters in an Interlink pair (Noah and Mio, Eunie and Taion, or Lanz and Sena) both have their associated Chain Orders completed in a single Chain Attack. In this case, one of the Chain Orders available in the following round will be an Ouroboros Order (randomly selected from the two characters in the Interlink pair in question), and (if the Order is completed) the attack at the end features both Ouroboros forms of the character in question. An Ouroboros Order may be available in this way even if no Chain Attack Gauge remains, allowing for an extra round. However, the Chain Attack ends after such an Ouroboros Order, regardless of whether any Chain Attack Gauge remains or not.

The second situation is if the Chain Attack is initiated while the player controls an Ouroboros at Interlink level 3. In this case, only the Ouroboros Order of one of the characters in the Interlink pair in question will be selectable. If this Ouroboros Order is successfully completed, the Ouroboros Order of the other character in the Interlink pair will be the only Chain Order option in the next round. The Chain Attack ends after these two rounds.

In either case, if the Ouroboros Order is chosen, all characters are reactivated for that round, regardless of how much TP the previous round was ended with. Additionally, Ouroboros Orders will always satisfy the "Role Match TP" and "Force Match TP" bonus conditions.

Ouroboros Orders are, logically, not available in situations where the party's ability to Interlink is restricted. There is no indication of this; they will simply not appear for selection.

List of Chain Orders

Character	Order name	Order effect	Lv. 1-20	21-40	41-60	61-80	81-99
Noah	Brave Assault	Attacks during Chain Attack gain {value}% chance to bypass defense.	60	70	80	90	100
Mio	Lightning Quick	Reduces Attacker and Healer aggro by {value}%.	60	70	80	90	100
Eunie	Pinion Primed	Reduces enemy ether defense by {value} percentage points during Chain Attack.	30	35	40	45	50
Taion	Art of Subjugation	Reduces enemy physical defense by {value} percentage points during Chain Attack.	30	35	40	45	50
Lanz	Tyrant Wave	Increases Defender aggro by {value}% and grants Attack Up to all allies.	30	35	40	45	50
Sena	Bombshell Blitz	Attacks during Chain Attack gain {value}% chance to be unblockable.	60	70	80	90	100
Ethel	Wintry End	Increases damage ratio by {value} percentage points and grants Critical Rate Up to all allies.	100	125	150	175	200
Valdi	Bullet Hail	Heals all allies for {value}% HP and grants them Regenerate.	30	35	40	45	50
Zeon	Deflector Form	Increases Defender aggro by {value}% and grants Armor Veil to all allies.	30	35	40	45	50
Teach	Dragon Unbound	During Chain Attack, heals {value}% of damage dealt as HP, up to 200% of Healing Power.	4	5.5	7	8.5	10
Riku & Manana	Noogie Storm	Increases everyone's TP by {value}.	6	7	8	9	10
Gray	Ruthless Persecution	During Chain Attack, boosts damage dealt to low HP enemies by {value}%.	60	70	80	90	100
Isurd	War of Attrition	Reduces enemy physical and ether defense by {value}% during Chain Attack.	10	15	20	25	30
Juniper	Radiant Cascade	During Chain Attack, boosts damage dealt to low HP enemies by {value}%.	60	70	80	90	100
Ashera	Saber Siege	Increases damage ratio by {value} percentage points and grants Power Charge to all allies.	100	125	150	175	200
Alexandria	Whistling Blades	During Chain Attack, increases Critical Rate by {value} percentage points.	20	22	25	27	30
Monica	Lost Advent	One additional character is reactivated, with {value}% chance for 1 more.	10	15	20	25	30
Fiona	Galactic Flight	Charges Chain Attack gauge and grants Power Charge to all allies.	—	—	—	—	—
Triton	Barbarous Rage	Randomly increases all characters' TP by between {value 1} and {value 2}.	2/10	3/12	4/14	5/16	6/18
Ghondor	Avalanche Onslaught	During Chain Attack, increases critical hit damage bonus by {value} percentage points.	50	75	100	125	150
Miyabi	Elegant Maelstrom	One additional character is reactivated, with {value}% chance for 1 more.	10	15	20	25	30
Cammuravi	The Indomitable	Increases damage ratio by {value} percentage points and grants Attack Up to all allies.	100	125	150	175	200
Segiri	Viscous Venom	Reduces enemy physical and ether defense by {value}% during Chain Attack.	10	15	20	25	30
Nia	Salvation's Ripple	{value}% chance to revive all downed party members, allowing them to participate in the Chain Attack.	60	70	80	90	100
Melia	Ether Absolute	Reduces enemy ether defense by {value} percentage points during Chain Attack.	30	35	40	45	50
Ino	Ino Unlimited	Increases damage ratio by {value} percentage points.	150	190	225	265	300
Masha	Radiant Artificer	During Chain Attack, increases Critical Rate by {value} percentage points.	20	22	25	27	30
Shulk	Liberation Edge	Increases damage ratio by {value} percentage points and grants Power Charge to all allies.	50	63	75	88	100
Rex	Deliverance Hew	Reduces enemy physical defense by {value} percentage points during Chain Attack.	45	53	60	68	75
Noah & Mio	Limits Unbound	Greatly increases damage ratio and deals defense-bypassing damage.	—	—	—	—	—
Mio & Noah	Death of 1,000 Cuts	Greatly increases damage ratio and reduces Attacker and Healer aggro.	—	—	—	—	—
Eunie & Taion	Brilliant Ascension	Greatly increases damage ratio and fully heals all allies.	—	—	—	—	—
Taion & Eunie	Grand Design	Greatly increases damage ratio and fully heals all allies.	—	—	—	—	—
Lanz & Sena	Demon Punisher	Greatly increases damage ratio and and reduces Attacker and Healer aggro.	—	—	—	—	—
Sena & Lanz	Big Bang Implosion	Greatly increases damage ratio and deals defense-bypassing damage.	—	—	—	—	—

Role effects

When an Art is used in a Chain Attack, the user's role can alter its effect on the TP cycle.

• First Blood: If an Attacker uses the first Art in any particular round, the amount of TP gained from their Art is multiplied by 1.25x.
• Back in Action: If a Defender completes a Chain Order by causing the TP to reach 100 and the Chain Attack continues for another round, one of the reactivated characters will be that with the greatest TP. The other reactivated characters, if there are any, are random as per usual.
• Point Limit: If a Healer's Art would cause the TP to reach/exceed 100, the TP will instead be set to 99, allowing for another character to use an Art in the round. As a result, Healers can never complete an Order.

Heroes do not have these special effects. Instead, they each have their own unique effect when one of their Arts is used in a Chain Attack.

List of Hero Chain Attack effects

Hero	Heroic Chain effect text	Notes
Ethel	Multiplies TP by 150% when first in line to attack.
Valdi	When chosen, increases TP by 50 if the enemy is a machine-type.
Zeon	Adds 15 TP upon own reactivation.
Teach	When chosen, grants 10 TP to all active characters except self.
Riku & Manana	When chosen, multiplies TP from next character to act by 125%. (Valid only for this order.)
Gray	Multiplies damage ratio increase by 1.5x upon completing an order that Hero participates in.
Isurd	Guarantees a "Bravo" rating when Hero completes an order.	The order's final TP value is set to 150, even if it would have been higher.
Juniper	When chosen, increases damage ratio by 50 percentage points.
Ashera	Guarantees an "Amazing" rating when Hero completes an order, but they won't reactivate in this Chain Attack.	The order's final TP value is set to 200, even if it would have been higher.
Alexandria	Multiplies TP by 125% when first in line to attack, and makes all attacks critical.
Monica	When Hero completes an order, adds 15 to TP of the character with the most TP, and reactivates them.	This behaves like the Defender role effect, taking the place of one normal reactivation.
Fiona	When chosen, multiplies the TP of all active characters except self by 120%.
Triton	Either adds 50 or removes 50 TP upon own reactivation.	TP cannot be negative, and will stop at 0.
Ghondor	When chosen, assures self-reactivation in addition to the standard no. of reactivations.
Miyabi	When chosen, Mio gains TP equal to 100% of Hero's TP (maximum of 99; only applied if Mio can still act).
Cammuravi	Multiplies TP by 200% when first in line to attack, but TP returns to pre-action state upon reactivation.
Segiri	Multiplies TP by 150% when Hero completes an order.
Nia	Reactivates all characters except self when Hero completes an order.
Melia	Prevents order from completing if it reaches 100% through Hero's action, letting you select another character.	Therefore, Melia can never complete an order, much like a Healer class.
Ino	When Hero completes an order, adds 30 to TP of the character with the least TP, and reactivates them.	This behaves like the Defender role effect, taking the place of one normal reactivation.
Masha	When chosen, adds 15 to TP of all active characters, and removes 10 from own TP.
Shulk	When character completes an order, adds 20 to TP of the character with the most TP, and reactivates them.
Rex	Multiplies TP by 130% when first in line to attack, and makes all attacks critical.

Damage multiplier

Chain Attacks have an extra damage multiplier (sometimes called the 'damage ratio') which can be seen next to the Chain Attack Gauge. This multiplier increases whenever a Chain Order is successfully completed. The damage multiplier starts at 150% (125% on Hard difficulty) for regular Chain Attacks, and 300% (200% on Hard) for Interlink Lv. 3 Chain Attacks. In Future Redeemed, the initial damage multiplier can be increased by using Unity Combos. Each Unity Combo will increase it by 25% (12.5% on Hard).

At the end of each round, a damage multiplier increase is calculated, starting at 100 percentage points (or 200 if an Ouroboros order was completed). In Future Redeemed, this starting value is instead 50 for regular orders, and 100 for Unity orders.

The chances of getting the best possible ratio gain can be increased if the Order's character forms a "key pair" with any of the characters used in the round. A key pair is formed with either the two characters of an Ouroboros pairing, or both a Hero and their class inheritor. Thus, the possible key pairs are:

Key pairs

Character	Noah	Mio	Eunie	Taion	Lanz	Sena
Noah		✓
Mio	✓
Eunie				✓
Taion			✓
Lanz						✓
Sena					✓
Ethel	✓
Valdi					✓
Zeon	✓
Teach		✓
Riku & Manana						✓
Gray			✓
Isurd				✓
Juniper	✓
Ashera			✓
Alexandria				✓
Monica			✓
Fiona					✓
Triton					✓
Ghondor						✓
Miyabi		✓
Cammuravi				✓
Segiri						✓
Nia		✓
Melia	✓
Ino	✓
Masha		✓
Shulk	✓
Rex		✓

In Future Redeemed, the key pairs are different. Note that key pairs are the same no matter currently equipped manuals. Additionally, during Unity orders, only the two characters the order belongs to qualify for key pairs.

Key pairs (Future Redeemed)

Order Character	Matthew	A	Nikol	Glimmer	Shulk	Rex	Na'el
Matthew		✓					✓
A	✓				✓
Nikol				✓	✓
Glimmer			✓			✓
Shulk			✓			✓
Rex				✓	✓
Na'el	✓

The base increase then gets a special bonus as the player progresses through more rounds. This bonus is randomly calculated based on the table below. random(a, b) returns a random number between a and b, inclusive.

Round bonus

Round	Normal gain	Key pair gain	Max gain
1, or any Ouroboros round	0	0	0
2+	random(25, 50) * (round - 1)	random(35, 70) * (round - 1)	50

The round bonus is effectively capped at +50, so advancing further into the Chain Attack does not strictly increase the value, but it increases the chance to get the max value. More specifically, the maximum becomes guaranteed starting from the third round.

Then, the base increase also receives a boost depending on the round's result. It doesn't increase as rounds go on, but it has a higher cap for "Amazing" rounds. Furthermore, it doesn't depend on the exact number of TP gained during the round, but rather on meeting three thresholds.

Result bonus

Result	Normal gain	Key pair gain	Max gain
Cool (100 TP)	0	0	0
Bravo (150 TP)	random(25, 50)	random(35, 70)	50
Amazing (200 TP)	random(75, 150)	random(100, 200)	150

If Gray participated in the order, the increase is multiplied by 1.5x. In Future Redeemed, that effect is available on two different manuals. If the effect triggers twice during one round, the increase is multiplied by 2.25x instead.

Finally, if the difficulty is set to Hard, the increase is halved. The increase is then added to the total damage multiplier, and a new round starts.

Additional gains

Some Heroes increase the damage ratio by a net amount when their order is completed. This occurs after the regular ratio gain described above. However, these gains are still affected by difficulty (i.e., they're halved in Hard difficulty).

Chain Attack gauge

A full Chain Attack gauge is worth 900 points. Once it is full, a Chain Attack can be started by pressing the Plus (+) button.

Several actions can fill or deplete the gauge. With the exception of Fiona's completion bonus, the gauge can't be filled during a Chain Attack. Additionally, all gains are multiplied by 0.75x on Hard Difficulty, and 1.5x on Easy Difficulty. As an interesting quirk, this makes Fiona's completion bonus restore 450 points (50% of the full gauge) on Easy Difficulty, thus making it possible to get 2 extra rounds if less than half the gauge is left.

Additionally, the gauge can also be filled by performing Role Actions.

Points gained/lost

Action	Points gained/lost		Points gained/lost (Future Redeemed)
Break	+15		+10
Topple	+30		+20
Daze / Launch	+60		+45
Burst / Smash	+100		+75
Cancel auto-attack into Art	+8		+6
Cancel Art into Art (includes Talent Art)	+4		+3
Completing Fiona's Chain Order	+300		+300
Selecting a non-Hero Chain Order	-300		-300
Silver Earrings	+X on critical hit	+3 (Common) +3.5 (Rare) +4 (Legendary)	+3 (Common) +3.5 (Rare) +4 (Legendary)
Crystal Earrings	+X on Art execution	+3 (Common) +4 (Rare) +5 (Legendary)	+3 (Common) +4 (Rare) +5 (Legendary)
Preppy-Preppy Link!	+X on Art execution	+3 (Yumsmith rank 1) +3.5 (Yumsmith rank 5) +4 (Yumsmith rank 10) +4.5 (Yumsmith rank 15) +5 (Yumsmith rank 20)	N/A
Chain Gauge Up (Art)	N/A		+3 on Art execution

Overkill

If the target enemy's HP is reduced to zero by a Chain Attack, Overkill begins. Continuing the Chain Attack on the enemy results in higher bonuses being obtained. Killing other enemies that aren't the Chain Attack's target simply kills them as normal.

Overkill can be disabled in the game options, and it is always disabled when the final enemy is killed in Challenge Mode, as well as for certain enemies where their quest advances when they reach low HP. Without Overkill, the Chain Attack will simply end when the target enemy dies (the Chain Art will still go off if the order is completed), and no bonuses are earned.

Bonus rate

The bonus rate counter that starts during Overkill is based on the following formula:

rate = 200 + log(1.02, x) + (x / 3)

where:

x = 1 + 100 * (Overkill Damage / Enemy Max HP)
log(b, x) = log(x) / log(b)

Therefore, the more HP an enemy has, the more damage is needed during Overkill to get substantial rate gains. The maximum bonus is 1000%.

Affected parameters

The Overkill bonus rate multiplies the following resources gained at the end of the battle:

• EXP for all party members below level 99.
• CP for all party members equipped with a class that hasn't reached the maximum Rank.
• Class unlock progression for all party members.
• Gold gained from enemies.
• Enemy drop rate: that is, the chance for enemies to drop each of their items. This bonus is a multiplier, therefore it only works if the drop chance is not zero: for example, it won't make defeated unique monsters drop Gold Coins again (with the exception of Superbosses, who can still drop them after being defeated).
• Enemy drop amount: most enemies have a range of how many collectible items and accessories they can drop, with the exact value determined randomly. Overkill and relevant food effects boost the lower bound (rounded down, and can't exceed the upper bound). In Future Redeemed however, there is no amount bonus for accessories, and the one for collectibles works differently. In Future Redeemed, Overkill and food bonuses grant a (Rate - 100%) chance to drop one more collectible, in addition to the previously mentioned random amount, potentially ignoring the upper bound.

Strategy

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