Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Editionhas several elements that would draw prospective players in, whether it be the combat system, the vast open world, or the large cast of characters. But one of the coolest elements of this game has to be the giant robot Skells the player can pilot.
Skells are incredibly powerful tools for combat, but out of all the different Skells available in this game, there is one that stands above the rest: the Ares 90, a Skell so powerful it’s capable of destroying nearly any enemy on Mira in an instant. This guide will detail how to collect all the materials necessary to create the Ares 90 Skell.
Required Materials
Once you’vecompleted Chapter 12 of the main story and reclaimed the LIfehold core, you gain the ability to develop new Skell Frames, one of which is the Ares 90. It’s one of, if notthe most demanding material lists to gather in the entire game, though it was made more lenient in the definitive edition, so we’ll go over each material and the best way to get it.
When you unlock the ability to develop Skell Frames, you also unlock the Ares 70 Skell Frame, which, while easier to acquire, does not reach the same heights of damage and overall utility as the Ares 90.
It’s important to note thatoffline players will have a significantly harder time obtaining all the requisite materialsto craft the Ares 90, as they have access to a limited number of reward tickets, which are necessary to obtain certain materials.
Golden Yggralith Heart & Silver Vita Core
Immediately upon looking at the material list for the Ares 90, we can see two immediate problems: the Golden Yggralith Heart and the Silver Vita Core. These two are problematic to obtain for very different reasons, so let’s go through them one by one.
The Golden Yggralith Heart isa material that is only obtainable by defeating the global nemesis Yggralith Zero, one of the two online bosses, alongside the Telethia Plume. To put it simply, it is impossible for offline players to obtain this material without material tickets to use in the online material market.
Even if you are an online player, however, it will probably still be incredibly difficult to obtain this material naturally, asit will only drop if your party is the one to drop Yggralith Zero’s RP to zero. This is difficult because if you wait too long to fight Yggralith Zero, its RP could hit zero before you get the chance to take it on, and you need to be sure that your team composition is able to output enough damage to bring Yggralith’s RP to zero within the time limit.
The Silver Vita Cores, on the other hand, have an entirely different problem:they are only dropped from one of the final bosses in the game, the Vita mech. Due to this, if you don’t obtain both the Silver Vita Cores you need for the Ares 90 during the final chapter of the main story,you will be required to either purchase these materials with material tickets or farm the time attack mission Dark Matter Phantom.
For these reasons,we recommend using material tickets to buy both of these materials. The other materials are also available on the material market, but obtaining them in-game is much easier compared to these two materials. These two materials are very expensive, however, with theGolden Yggralith Heart costing 1,590 material tickets, and eachSilver Vita Core costing 475 material tickets.
Upgraded Lens & Seidr Control Device
The next two materials, eight Upgraded Lenses and four Seidr Control Devices, are much easier to obtain compared to the previous materials, and can actually be found in the exact same place:from Seidr enemies in both Sylvalum and Cauldros.
Seidr enemies can befound most commonly around Ganglion camps in both Sylvalum and Cauldros, with several tyrants being part of this enemy class as well, such as Badul’s Seidr in Sylvalum and the Enhanced Attack Seidr in Cauldros.
The Seidr Control Devices are the rarer of these two materials, butsince they can both be found on the same enemies, just keep farming them until you have all the materials you need.
For those who want to speed up this process and simply purchase these materials using material tickets,each Upgraded Lens only costs 10 material tickets, while each Seidr Control Device costs 90 material tickets, meaning you will need 440 material tickets total to get the required amount of both of these materials.
Advanced Core
The next material needed to craft the Ares 90 Skell is six Advanced Cores, which you canobtain by defeating Xe-dom enemies across Mira. These enemies can be found all across Sylvalum as they patrol the entire region, as well as several deactivated Xe-doms in Cauldros that will attack you if you get too close to them.
These enemies can be a bit difficult if you’re fighting them with weaker Skells or on foot, butproper use of Overdrive should help trivialize the fight on foot, whilehaving a properly equipped Skell with powerful arts and augments can make fighting them in Skells much more manageable.
If you would rather skip the farming process,each Advanced Core costs 75 material tickets in the Material Market, meaning that to get all six of these required for the Ares 90, you’ll need to have at least 450 material tickets.
Crude Neilnail Mask
If we don’t count the Golden Yggralith Heart and Silver Vita core due to the unique circumstances of how to obtain them, thenthe six Crude Neilnail Masks are by far the hardest material to obtain for the Ares 90, whether you’re farming them naturally or purchasing them with material tickets.
If you want to obtain these naturally,you’ll have to obtain them by defeating Neilnail Skells. In the main game you only ever fight four of these, two in Neilnail’s first affinity mission and two in her second affinity mission. If you wish to fight more of them,you’ll have to take on the time attack challenge Twin Dolls of Mystery, where this item is a rare reward for completion.
On the other hand, if you wish to purchase them with material tickets,each Crude Neilnail Mask costs 475 material tickets, the same number as the Silver Vita Core. However, unlike the Silver Vita Core, the Ares 90 requires obtaining six Crude Neilnail Masks compared to the two Silver Vita Cores needed for it,which cost a total of 2,850 material tickets.
You can obtain material tickets by completing squad tasks, completing online missions,or as a reward for surveying 60, 85, 95, and 100 percent of any region.
Cimmerian Cinnabar
Unlike the rest of the materials needed to create the Ares 90 Skell,Cimmerian Cinnabar can only be obtained in one way: mining it through FrontierNav.
You can mine Cimmerian Cinnabar by placing a mining probe onone of the following FrontierNav sites in Noctilum: FN Site 202, FN Site 203, FN Site 207, and FN Site 217. You only need two of these materials to craft the Ares 90, so simply placing a high-level mining probe on one of those sites or creating a chain of mining probes around that site should be enough to get what you need.
Miranium
The last and arguably most important resource you need to create the Ares 90 for yourself is alsoone of the game’s most common: Miranium. Every time you set up a probe on Mira, that probe begins mining Miranium, the production of which can be increased by placing mining probes across the planet.
The problem with this isn’t obtaining Miranium itself,but having enough storage to contain it all.For the Ares 90, you need 100,000 Miranium to pay for its development. The only way to have enough capacity to hold that much is tohave a large chain of storage probes somewhere on your FrontierNav map.
Once your storage limit is at least 100,000, simply play the game while your probes mine Miranium for you in the background.You need to be actively playing the game for these probes to mine, so putting your controller down for an hour won’t help. Simply focus on other tasks or obtaining other materials in the meantime.
Once you’ve managed to obtain all of those materials through your own hard work, your reward is well worth your effort. The Ares 90 iscapable of outputting so much damage, even without any damage augments, that it can one-shot almost every enemy in the gamewith its Aghasura Cannon, making farming materials significantly easier and providing a huge boost to your overall combat potential.
