For anyone who still struggles with the combat depth keep the following in mind and the rest you'll pick up naturally.


- Your characters auto attack

- With each attack your artes charge up

- With each use of your artes your special charges up

- Specials have charge levels with 4 being the highest

- You can activate other party members specials with ZL

- Auto attacks can be cancelled into artes.

- Cancel attacks into artes the second they hit.

- Don't always use specials straight away charge them up to higher levels first or level 4 if possible.

- Activating your party members specials after your own is a special combo and deals a tonne of damage especially with level 4.

- Go into your menu and check your character artes for a description of what they do, for example some drop potions for extra healing, select your artes based on strategy.

- Blades have different roles (Healer, Tank. Attack) be mindful of them.

- When you switch blades in battle it doesn't reset their charge on artes and such.

You get a tutorial during chapter 3, the bar in the top left has to be full then press +.

This game is very generous with the money it gives the player especially with salvages.

It is, I have now about 200000 coins to spend, but I didn't feel the need to use them a lot except for some items to boost affinity and items to salvage things. I could easily upgrade my weapons and accesories with enemies' loot. 

Honestly, the more I play the game, the more I think that the criticisms were not pretty well founded.

After about 30 hours this game really turns into a grind fest. Fighting a certain silly character for the third time is when it just isn't possible to beat them without leveling up. Its become really bad now. The fighting is very frantic in this game, so grinding for hours on end gives me a headache. Maybe I'm missing something...

- Some characters (Mythra) can't do level 4 Arte in closed environments. So as long as there is a ceiling, you can't use it and it drops back to level 3 while trying.

- Due to Driver abilities, you can also start a battle with a fully charged Arte.

- The special Arte attacks can be build up with the other Team members to unleash a big damage dealing attack. Watchout for the bar on the top right corner and the info on which elements are needed to build it further up.

For example Level 1 Arte element earth (earthquake) on enemy -> Level 2 Arte element fire (vulcano) on the same enemy -> Level 3 Arte element lightning (Lightning volcano explosion)  deals massive damage on multiple enemies.

You got stuck probably because you need blades better suited for the situation?Anyway, did you use your extra exp stored in the inns?You can use it to gain lvls fast.

I'm 30 hours in and haven't needed to grind at all in fact the lack of grinding is what has stood out to me as every now and then you just rest at an in and get 3 or so extra levels for free. Your blade set up may just not be suited to how you play or you may be going in a bit gungho, what blades do you have first of all?

Are you properly utilising specials combo as that is were most people who struggle are making mistakes?

For example stone+fire+wind leads to the following and it deals large chunks of damage even to opponents like bosses who are significantly higher level to you.

When you use a special pair it with a matching symbol indicated in the top right hand corner especially if its the bosses weakness.

This could actually help regarding combos. 

https://youtu.be/-D-H92rHM-4?t=197

Are you doing side quests? Those provide a decent ammount of exp if you rest in the inn.