The combat system of every Xenoblade game is a bit complicated with how many systems you have to account for at once. Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, for the most part, takes from its predecessor for its combat, though has more than൩ a few unique systems of its one. It's still a learning process to understand it all.

One of the biggest new combat additions to X is Overdrive. Taking the place of the Chain Attack system from other games, Overdrive can be performed completely independ🌄ently or with your party, though doesn't really play b🎶y the rules of the rest of the combat. Let's break down this system so you can understand exactly how it works.

How To Unlock Overdrive

As with many things in the game, Overdrive is not available to you immediately. This ▨is so you can actually learn the core combat system before overloading you with one of the game's most complex systems. Thankfully, it's not a missable system, unlocked as✤ part of the story.

To unlock Overdrive, you must first complete Chapter Five, Ma-non Maneuvers. Upon completion, alongside a bevy🐠 of other systems, Overdrive will be unlocked. At this point, you have the entire system to play with, with no more aspects of it to be unlocked. And it is wonderfully, terrifyingly ♐complex.

If you want a safe place to practice using Overdrive, you can do practice battles from the Customisation Center in the Blade Barracks.

How To Use Overdrive

So, you've unlocked Overdrive. Unlike other games in the series that pause the game to let you take your time to tactically plan through what your next action will be, X never stops time. Overdrive runs in real-time, and ends by itself after a few seconds. So you need to be fast, and that means knowing exactly where all🦹 of your Arts are placed on the palette.

Once you have 3,000 Tension Points (TP), you can activate Overdrive by pressing on ♏the big button in the middle of your Arts Palette. This will blur the rest of the screen and put a focus o🍎n your Arts Palette. A countdown will begin, and you have until it runs out to use your Arts to the best of your ability.

There are a few unique benefits that p💞resent themselves from the moment you activate Overdrive, such as:

• A burst of damage when Overdrive is activated.
• Tertiary cooldowns can now be achieved.
• All cooldowns are faster.
• Arts cooldown regardless of what weapon you have equipped.
• You deal more damage, and enemies have reduced debuff resistances.

Many of these bonuses can be increased even further through tactical usage of Overdrive. The goal when in Overdrive is to try to make it last as long as possible. Le🌳t's cover the fundamentals of the system before we get in💫to that, though.

Colour Combinations

Every Art in the gameas a colour associated with it, indicating what type💞 of Art it is. These are as follows:

• Orange - Melee attack
• Yellow - Ranged attack
• Blue - Aura
• Purple - Debuff
• Green - Buff/Healing

These are needed for Soul Voices, but become incredibly important in Overdrive for a few different purposes. Performing a Art of a certain colour will trigger unique effects, such as giving you extra TP or increasing Overdrive time, though the most powerful effects come♋ in the colour combination effects. Performing c🎃ertain Arts of certain colours in a specific order will trigger these effects.

Here is every effect, how to achieve it, and what it does:

These bonuses are all in addition to the standard effects of the Arts you use, so they☂ are a purely beneficial bonus. It is primarily important to defeat the enemies you are using O𝕴verdrive against, but if you can naturally incorporate these bonuses into your Overdrive combos, they will only make the fight easier, and the rewards greater.

Building The Counter

Once you activate Overdrive, that central button will turn orange and display two new pieces of information. These are the timer that shows how long Overdrive will last underneath, and the Hits Counter right in the centre. The Hits Counter is one of the most important tools to keep track of in Overdrive as it make🅺s the mode so much more powerful the higher it is.

The Hits Counter rises with every hit you land. This doesn't mean using one Art will give you one hit, though. If an art deals five hits, it will raise the Hits Counter by the five points. This makes it incredibly beneficial to have Arts that hit multiple times as it will ♑be much easier to build up the Hits Counter.

You can check the number of hits an Art performs from the Arts screen in the menu.

Every Art counts as a Hit, but only performing the same type of attack Art in a row keeps the Hits Counter building up. For example, youꦐ could perform three Orange Arts in a row, but if you swapped to a Yellow Art, the Hits Co🌠unter would reset. To prevent this, you must use a Blue, Green, or Purple Art in between. These will count as a hit too, but can't be used in a row to build up the Hits Counter.

In short, the Hits Counter grows from performing the same attacks Arts in a Row. If you want to swap from Orange Arts to Yellow Arts, use any other coloured Art in between to preserve the combo.

As the Hits Counter grows, which maxes out at 100 hits, it prov🐼ides mult🐬iple bonuses shown above the hits counter. These are as follows:

• Damage - Increases the damage your Arts deal.
• Cooldown - Shortens the cooldowns of your Arts.
• Resistance - Reduces enemy debuff resistances by the indicated amount.
  • If the Resistance Counter was at 10, and an enemy's Beam resistance was 40%, it would now be 30%.

• Extend Overdrive - Lengthens Overdrive by the indicated number of seconds.
• TP Bonus - Increases the TP you gain from each attack by the indicated amount.

These multipliers can grow to a ridiculously high amount. As such, it is worth delaying some of your more powerful Arts for later when you have a muc𝔍h higher Hits Counter so that the effects they cause will be dramaticlaly i𝓀mproved.

Refreshing Overdrive

While increasing the Hits Counter is the most critical goal when using Overdrive, it is not the only goal you should have in mind. While Overdrive can be extended through the Hits Counter, this will only ever add a few seconds. This is great, but it's not game-changing. That's wh🌼y there is an even more powerful way of renewing Overdrive.

It takes 3,000 TP to activate Overdrive. If you earn 3,000 TP again while in Overdrive, you can press the button in the centre again to expend it and increase the length of Overdrive. This grants another 20 seconds to the timer on top of whateve♕r you already had remaining.

Because the renewed Overdrive time stacks, you should activate it as soon as you have 3,000 TP available again rather than waiting for it to get low.

Even better, this doesn't reset Overdrive. All of your various colour combo and Hits Counter bonuses remain. It is🍸 hilariously broken if you can time it right.

Party Overdrive

In previous games, Chain Attacks were a party-wide system. With them being more individual this time around, it means each party member can activate them individually. Party members typically won't do this unless you ask them to, but it is possible. However, despite the system being more individual, there are still bonuses for the wholꦗe party activating Overdrive at the same time.

Commands your party to keep their Tension up so they don't spend t🦹heir💮 points on Tension Arts instead.

Overdrive still functions the same as normal even if the whole party is using it, but it does prov💮ide some extra bonuses. These are as follows:

• Two party members - Soul Voices trigger 50% more often.
• Three party members - +50 TP for every hit from an Art.
• Four party members - Take 50% less damage and gain Super Armour, which grants immunity to Stagger, Topple, Knockback, Launch, and Flinch.

These effects apply to every party member in Overdrive, and will also be activated if๊ more party members join later♔. If every party member has 3,000 TP ready to go, use the Activate Overdrive command to get the whole party into Overdrive to stack those bonuses.

Using Overdrive In A Skell

Overdrive in a Skell is mostly the same as it is for while on-foot, though there are some differences. For one, every series of Skell comes with a unique modifier when it activates Overdrive, though🍸 there are a series of benefits that applᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚy to every Skell as well. These are:

• No Skell fuel is consumed for Arts.
• Cockpit Mode has a much higher chance of activating.

All other bonuses are relative to the Skell you are using. Overdrive also cannot be done infinitely in Skells, and is instead divided into rounds, which are capped at six. In each round, you have a few seconds to perform your Arts and build up the Hits Counter. Once the timer ends♎, you proceed to the next round. The first two rounds are guaranteed, though the chance of entering the next round is somewhat random.

This is influenced by the number of times Cockpit Mode is triggered. While this is also random, it has a much higher chance to occur. Each appearance of Cockpit Mode increases the chance of gaining another round by 20%, and this is not expended throughout turns. Therefore, three appearances of Cockpit mode would give you a💦 60% chance of entering the next round.