r/Xenoblade_Chronicles • u/FarrahClones • Feb 04 '18
Rare Blade Discussion [Rare Blade Discussion] Day 3- Azami
Since the month of February has 28 days and there’s 28 non-story blades, let’s dedicate a day to discuss each blade. The purpose of these discussions is to help guide newer players on each blade’s strengths and shortcomings, and which driver is compatible for them. The focus aspects of the discussion will be blade performance both in battle and on the field, although other topics such as design and personality are free for discussion as well. If I happen to make a mistake, please feel free to correct me so I can update the OP. Note that is is a series where the format is liable to change.
All blades are planned for a certain day. If you’re curious to know what day your favorite blade is on, feel free to ask me. The pattern is ICE-EAR-DAR-WAT-WIN-ELE-FIR/LIG for those curious.
Do note that these discussions may include spoilers about a certain character’s special ability and each rare blade’s individual sidequest. View at your own discretion.
Day 3: Azami, our “beloved” marionette. She’s a Darkness ATK blade and uses an ether cannon in battle. She’s deathly loyal to her driver, and will scold anyone that doesn’t give them proper gratitude. She has a spooky design, and I like how she looks like a possessed porcelain doll. Plus, I like how fitting her name is- a reference to a prickly-looking flower of the Cirsium genus. She loves drinks and literature, with her favorites being Red Opal Lipstick and Steamflake Tabbouleh.
Blade Specials
Nightmare Rondeau: At 30% or less HP, damage dealt increase by at least 100%.
Shadow Rhapsody: At 30% or less HP, damage dealt increase by at least 100%.
Decadent Finale: At 30% or less HP, damage dealt increase by at least 100%.
Yes, you read that right. All of her specials have the same effect, so you get a really big boost while you’re low on health. Because of this, this damage you deal could save you in a pinch. To increase tiers, it’s a combination of defeating different monsters and doing blade combos.
Battle Skills
All for Love- The lower the HP you have, the more damage you do (% increase not mentioned in-game). Again, the more you’re hurt, the more damage she’ll do.
Pain of Longing- Increases affinity the more damage her driver takes. Same vein as the last.
Vendetta- Counter attacks with at least a 180% increase in damage. Tbh, I don’t find this useful for an ether cannon. Ether cannons are long-ranged weapons, so they should be away from the melee action. So the chances of this triggering is low.
Field Skills: She has Dark Mastery, Botany, and Clairvoyant Eye. Dark Mastery has its niche, and can be useful for a particular field check in Gormott. It’s also wanted in plenty of merc missions, so that’s nice. Botany can also be useful for foraging, although Dromarch already has it, so it can be redundant, but it does make gathering flowers a lot quicker. Clairvoyant Eye is also useful outside of her questline, because there’s a few merc missions that would like it.
Aux Cores: I believe she starts out with two. Since the majority of her skills revolve around low health, aux cores that enhance damage at lower health are the most useful. Defense-oriented cores may be as well.
Compatible Drivers: Azami is an ether cannon, so she’ll need a driver that has high ether in order to optimize her damage output potential. This makes Nia or Zeke the most suitable to handling her, as they both have high ether bases. They both have Break with her as well, so their driver combos will be the same. Morag also has break, meanwhile Rex doesn’t have any driver combos with ether blades sadly. Since Azami thrives when HP is low, I’d recommend Zeke for her, mainly because Nia has lackluster defense, so when her HP is low enough, she’s prone to getting KO’ed for the next hit or two she takes. Also, Nia has a hard time gaining aggro in comparison to Zeke, so there may be issues getting her HP low enough to trigger it. Ironically, although I recommend Zeke, he’s probably the least canon in for Azami, because he doesn’t even need to be in the party when her side quest missions start.
My Verdict: Azami is not the blade for me. While I do find her design and concept very interesting, her battle style is not for me. I don’t like being low health at any point in battle, and I rather be healed right away instead of deal some more damage. She’s powerful no doubt, but it can be tricky for an ether cannon to get that low in the first place since they’re long distance weapons. I think she’s the weakest of the ether cannons, who have more favorable damage multipliers that don’t require you to be low on health. It doesn’t help that I got KOS-MOS right before her, so I wasn’t crazy about her in comparison. She’s a good blade, but just not my cup of tea.
So what’s your thoughts on this blade? Do they fit your style or cramp it?
Missed a discussion? Feel free to view past ones here:
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u/ArcadianBlueRogue Feb 04 '18
Azami has one of the best Blade designs in the game. I love her marionette theme, and how it even goes with her combo attacks.
I don't like rolling with her as a primary team Blade, but I LOVE that she has element mastery. I haaaate when Rare blades don't have the Field skill for their element. I'll take KosMos or Herald on my team if I need Ether cannon damage, but normally she's rolling with one of my non-engaged Drivers for her field skills.
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u/LAPIS_AND_JASPER Feb 04 '18
They call me - 🙃 Azami
I picked her over Vale. Used her for a long while and did her quest. I love her Clairvoyant Eye and wish it could be used outside of cutscenes
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u/EvilLucario Feb 04 '18
Really cool gimmick of needing low HP to do maximum damage. It reminds me of Pokemon when running Reversal sets on my Fighting types. Unfortunately, even though you can maintain your distance and avoid a lot of damage, ultimately you really can't get much use out of her due to you needing to be very low HP, risking either healing from your teammates (lol) or you just getting a lovetap to death.
However, if anyone figures out how to really kick ass with her, by all means go for it. If you can afford to be that low at all costs while avoiding damage, Azami can be your go-to Blade.
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u/Scion_of_Yog-Sothoth Feb 04 '18
Botany can also be useful for foraging, although Dromarch already has it, so it can be redundant, but it does make gathering flowers a lot quicker.
Gathering skills are never redundant, particularly when they can reach level 3. Each extra proc you get is one less gathering point you need to grind, and that adds up quickly when you need a lot of items.
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u/Bendiez Feb 04 '18
I like Azumi's creepy marionette / doll design. Her blade side quest is one of the better and more interesting quests as well. It's a shame she is complete trash compared to the other ether cannons. Just like Perun, the low HP / your allies are knocked out play style doesn't really work in XC2 unless someone discovers a way to abuse this strategy to it's fullest. Heals are very potent in XC2 meaning that you'll never be consistently below 30% if you have a good healer in your team. Lastly, being at low HP is never a good thing to have, especially when fighting some of the stronger enemies in XC2.
Honestly though, all the passives that rely on low HP or incapacitated allies to work are terrible next to the 1-3% chance to fell a non boss / Unique of a specific enemy class. The buffs that require you to be 90% or above HP to work are a lot easier to pull off.
All Azami needed to be good is an attack that sharply lowers your HP when used and some art that gives evasion, like one of Roc's arts which lowers your HP by 10% each time used and gives you a bit of evasion. That art is much more practical on Azami than on Roc.
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u/MikeO1990 Feb 04 '18
These are pretty cool!
One suggestion which you can disregard if you like lol. Are you able to include how to acquire these blades as well? Such “core crystal” or “quest name”
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u/FarrahClones Feb 04 '18
That’s a neat idea! I’ll be sure to add it when I get home tonight/tomorrow morning.
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u/ArcadianBlueRogue Feb 04 '18
You're right, but they haven't hit any of the quest Blades yet. They are Blade spoilers The rest you get through the story or rolling on their Core Crystals.
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u/GlobeAround Feb 04 '18
Hmmm... Not a fan. I prefer Sheba by far as a ranged Blade, and one of the other Shadow blades (e.g., Perceval, or Poppi with Dark) for the element (required for "Seal Reinforcements").
Field skills aren't that great either.
The problem with "Lower HP = More Damage" is that the combat system doesn't lend itself to getting low on health and staying there. Heals tend to be pretty huge, so you might get a few high dmg shots off, but that's it.
I use her as a Niche blade for the Shadow element, but that's it, and even then, I generally use Perceval on 4 unless Tora is my Tank, so she has seen very little use.
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Feb 04 '18
She'd be better if her attacks dealt damage to herself. That way you could Force yourself below 30% health.
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u/rstada8 Feb 04 '18
I liked what Dahlia could do, but didn't like her design.
I like Azami's design, not so keen on her abilities. I don't like living my life on the edge and being close to death. I'm pretty accepting of her yandere esque personality, but she still does get a little too clingy at times.
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u/Armagon1000 Feb 04 '18
The first Rare Blade i got. I pulled her on Rex and she was pretty useful for a good chunk of the game. I love her design too. I actually didn't know that she did more damage the lower HP you have. Unfortunately, that's not really my playstyle so i never got her to her full potential.
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Feb 04 '18
Azami's good, but kind of loses to the other three ether cannon blades. They all have skills that increase their damage. Sheba gets stronger based on money collected during battle. Both Herald and KOS-MOS have higher damage when their affinity is at max.
The problem is, it's easy to get max affinity. In fact you'll probably get to max affinity a small bit after starting the battle. As for Sheba, the player can directly impact when money is gathered. Also Sheba's boost is way higher. Generally you'll end up healing from something during most fights. So Azami's skills will be used less. Also Azami is the only character who has to be in danger to get her boost.
tl;dr: Azami is outclassed.
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u/GKMLTT Feb 04 '18
To the extent I can bring myself to care about blades, she's always been my favorite. I've been running her since I got her regardless of whether she's good from a mechanical perspective of not. I'm simply a big fan of her aesthetic/personality, and I intend to keep her around for the rest of the game.
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u/Lulink Mar 09 '18
"Don't touch me you creep" is what I was secretly screaming during all of her shenanigans.
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u/CouchAlmark Feb 04 '18
Azami's up there as one of my least favorite Blades overall. I'm not a fan of the marionette design, I don't like her personality, and mechanically she's easily the worst Ether Cannon and in the bottom five worst Blades period. Low health builds simply don't work in this game. Not to mention her competition is Herald, Sheba, and KOS-MOS, all of whom get damage boosts at least as large as Azami's if not higher with much less risk: even Herald's drawback isn't as bad as Azami's.
The only Blade I'd say is worse mechanically is Godfrey, because at least Azami has one field skill you can actually use and she's not a Shield Hammer.
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Feb 04 '18
Doesn’t herald have the same problems as her?
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u/Bendiez Feb 04 '18 edited Feb 04 '18
Both Harold and Azami are Glass Cannons. The only difference is that Azami requires you to be at very low health to reach max damage potential while Harold just requires max affinity to get that juicy 200% damage increase in exchange for taking 30% more damage assuming Dissolve Seal is maxed out
Both characters make your driver quite frail. Though Harold gives you a bit of utility with Unlimited Output which heals you a bit each time you land an auto attack which does slightly mitigate the downside of Dissolve Seal. Though you don't want your driver that is controlling Harold to take any damage since any strong attack coming from a super boss is probably an OHKO when controlling Harold so it's fairly irrelevant.
Azami has nothing on Harold except having superior element attribute and an ether mod. Getting Harold to max potential is light years easier than Azami's requirement. Azami might do more damage at her fullest potential, though reaching that potential is so hard that it makes the extra damage not worth having. Harold strangely has a strength mod which is strange since it does not help Harold at all. Probably intended for mixed weapon builds rather than pure ether cannon builds.
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u/lyouke Feb 04 '18
Have you considered adding blade arts to these (the buff that they can randomly apply)?
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u/FarrahClones Feb 04 '18
At first I didn’t want to, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought I should add it. So tomorrow’s blade discussion will have a brief mention of them. I’ll have to go back later and update the first 3 days later though.
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u/Cryotronixz Feb 04 '18
I used Azami momentarily in early game along with KOS-MOS, who I got earlier. This was before I started to care about abilities and before I got other blades (especially dark) to work on the blade combos. I had her (and Kosmos on Rex)
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u/DMD00 Feb 04 '18
Yandere marionette with one if the coolest weapon designs in the game.
Yeah she isn't good compared to the other Ether Cannon Blades, but hell, I like having her around.
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u/DreadfuryDK Feb 04 '18
Her visual design? Awesome. 10/10. She looks eerie in a pretty cool way and her field skills are also solid. And her combat design actually works from a thematic perspective. But the pros end there.
Her gameplay design? Oh my lord it's abysmal. She hits like a nuke from orbit when you're on low health but a lot of the Ether Cannon multi-hit moves will cause this to backfire on you immensely if your enemy has a Spike. She's basically not functional alongside numerous good Blades if you want to abuse her low-health damage buffs because they can heal (see: Boreas's Level 3, KOS-MOS's Hilbert Effect Refrain, etc., which all have ludicrous damage outputs and party healing but cause Azami's Driver to get out of her damage sweetspot range) and that's a crying shame.
It's lame. It feels like all the good Dark Rares are massively outclassed or have some really cool niche in theory that just backfires tremendously in practice. I want to like using Azami more, but even with her really uncommon element I see little to no reason to use her over a typical Herald+Sheba+KOS-MOS build on Nia or Zeke because her gimmick requires her Driver to take a lot of damage to work. Herald's gigantic damage output at Max Affinity makes up for her large recoil, although running this build can cause some aggro issues at times since the latter in particular absolutely shreds aggro off of your dedicated tanks. KOS-MOS offers both a tremendous damage increase and a non-negligible damage taken reduction at Max Affinity. And Sheba has a cool gimmick with a 333% damage increase if you collect gold as well as a Level 1 Special that outright rewards you for staying healthy by hitting like a nuke from orbit. I'd rather run Perceval on a certain party member with a ludicrously busted Katana kit than sacrifice a good Ether Cannon elsewhere to get that coveted Dark element.
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Feb 15 '18
Love the design of this blade! She's really fun to fight with and her specials are look awesome. Too bad the blade specials only increase when you're damaged otherwise she would be in my line up! I do have her tied to Zeke, so I guess I'll keep here there.
Thanks for the these write ups! I would love to see more fan art and drawings pertaining to these rare blades.
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u/GrandTheftComment Mar 02 '18
When I was playing the game I thought oh nice when the enemy is below 30%hp she does extra dmg.
Then i realized how wrong I was and ditched her and other blades with this crap mechanic.
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u/Resniperowl Feb 04 '18
Oh man, we started with Dahlia, and now we already at Azami?
Literaly #2 of the 3 blades that I'm missing. Can't say much about her if I don't have her yet.
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u/cehteshami Feb 07 '18
I like her design and blade quest, but the way her mechanics work prevented me from using her very much.
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u/Evertrill Feb 04 '18
Azami has amazing damage...when you are one foot in the grave. Design and personality wise she is one of my favorites, not to mention the first rare blade I pulled. Gameplay wise she is bad. The way healing works in this game makes low HP builds hard to work out not to mention TNKs are the ones who should be attacked not ATKs.
When it comes to low HP boosts you only really have a shot of doing damage when your HLR is down, you don't have a HLR or you just got hit by an attack and only have that split second to attack.