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Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Field Skills Guide: every field skill listed, how they work and how to get them

by RPG Site Staff on 19 December, 2017

Like many of the best and most in-depth RPGs out there Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is all about character customization, and in Xenoblade 2 this primarily takes the form of switching out your blades, powerful beings you summon to help you. Every blade has its own unique skills and abilities, and among those abilities are the Field Skills, special abilities that are more handy out of battle in the field during exploration - and since there's quite a lot of exploration of the sprawling world of Alrest in Xenoblade 2 that means Field Skills are enormously useful.

There's an absolutely enormous variety of field skills in Xenoblade 2, with the different skills spread out among the various blades in the game. You'll need to know all about how blades work before we start explaining this, so be sure to check our out Xenoblade 2 Blades guide - and if you're searching for the harder-to-get blades we've got a full list of every rare blade in Xenoblade 2 to help too.

The various field skills can help with everything from opening chests to increasing your chances of getting good loot, plus they can even open up entirely new areas of the game world by clearing away obstacles or allowing you to jump to high, otherwise out-of-reach locations. You'll want to keep at least one of most of the field skills to hand on an equipped blade in order to make the most of your travels of Alrest. Let's get into it...

We've got even more Xenoblade Chronicles 2 guides to help you navigate the more obtuse elements of the game:

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Xenoblade 2 Field Skills Guide

First off, let's talk about how to understand field skills and know what you're dealing with in the first place. In order to see your field skills simply navigate your way to the menu of a blade and then switch between their different abilities using the L and R buttons. This will show you battle abilities and the like that you should be well familiar with, but towards the end of this information you'll find the Field Skills list.

This lists what Field Skills a blade has access to, and every blade has different field skills - not just down to blade types, but down to individuals. That means different copies of the same blade could have different field skills, so be sure to check what each blade has in detail - it'll be different for everyone, since like drawing new blades itself there's an element of the random here. Be careful not to release a blade that has a really useful field skill by mistake, as making that blade again won't guarantee you that field skill coming along with them.

The only exception to this are rare blades - they have set field skills.

Using Field Skills

When the time comes to use a Field Skill, you'll know: you'll interact with something in the world and it'll give you a prompt like the screenshot we've posted above. As you can see, it'll tell you what Field Skill you need to peform the action. Here, we're trying to open a container, but it erequires a certain level of field skill. These menus can begin to look complicated in talking about things like Focus or Nopon Wisdom, but the logic is the same: you'll have required skills and a required level, and between your equipped blades you'll need to fulfil these requirements. The requirements can be met by one blade (IE, a blade having two levels of Nopon Wisdom) or by multiple (two blades having one level of Nopon Wisdom each). 

Once you do have those requirements squared away, you'll be able to perform the action. As mentioned above this can be as simple as opening up a chest but also extends to actions that can open up whole new optional areas of Alrest for you to explore, so don't take anything for granted when exploring with Field Skills - it might lead to something big.

Field Skills appear as part of a blade's affinity chart and can be leveled up in some cases in order to make their abilities more powerful. Like with upgrading blades in general, this will come through progression, raising trust and completing conditions in order to unlock the necessary nodes on the affinity chart. More on this is on our Xenoblade 2 blades guide, which teaches all about the blade system in general.

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Field Skills and Rare Blades

As mentioned briefly above, there is one way around the Field Skills being randomly assigned to blades when you draw them, and that's through rare blades. Rare blades are the best and most powerful blades in the game, but cruically they also have another advantage: they have set field skills. While many of these blades can only be attained at random, it does mean that for the few designated via side quests as rewards and the like you have a guaranteed way to get your hands on a high-quality blade with that field skill.

Rare blade Vess can be acquired through the 'Tranquility' side quest, for instance, and she has the Forestry, Fortitude and Dumpling Pro field skills by default.  In other cases these blades are delivered through the story - so Pyra is aprt of the plot and comes with Fire Mastery, Focus and Cooking, while Dromarch will give you Water Mastery, Botany and Ancient Wisdom.

Keep all of this in mind as you progress, and remember that you can find a full list of rare blades and their field skills elsewhere in our Xenoblade 2 guide.

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Xenoblade 2 Field Skill List

Field Skills can be split into a few categories in Xenoblade 2 - here's a complete list broken up by category.

Item Collection Field Skills

These skills increase how much loot you'll get from loot collection points across Alrest. The higher the level in these skills, the higher the chance you'll get better loot - and they sometimes are used or even required for completing some fetch quests. Each skill relates to a specific type of loot - and we've listed that below, too.

  • Agronomy (Vegetables)
  • Botany (Plants)
  • Entomology (Insects)
  • Forestry (Trees)
  • Ichthyology (Fish)
  • Mineralogy (Minerals)
  • Salvaging Mastery (Salvaging)

World Interaction Field Skills

These field skills are used for interacting with the world of Alrest at large, and only appear on rare or special blades. These skills can often open up vast new areas of the game for you, and each pertains to a different task:

  • Ancient Wisdom (Decoding ancient writing etc)
  • Focus (Focusing on a specific task)
  • Fortitude (Assists with staying-power)
  • Girls' Talk (Talk to the ladies)
  • Keen Eye (See things with clarity, noticing small things)
  • Leaping (Jump to high places)
  • Lockpicking (Open locks like doors and treasure chests)
  • Nopon Wisdom (Knowledge of all things Nopon, including the langauge)
  • Super Strength (Pretty self explanatory - lift things, smash things, etc)

Crafting Field Skills

These crafting-related field skills will allow you to make special pouch items, which is a vital part of Xenoblade 2. Only a particular rare or special blade can get each of these skills. 

  • Cooking (All about food. Exclusive to Pyra)
  • Dumpling Pro (More food - but dumplings only. Exclusive to Vess)
  • Patissier (Pastries and other sweet things, yum. Exclusive to Gorg)
  • Weaving (Create brilliant fabrics. Exclusive to Vale)

Mercenary Field Skills

These field skills are only able to be used during Merc Missions, but they're useful all the same. Only Common Blades get these skills...

  • Expeditionist (Can use full strength even when away from Driver)
  • Industry Mastery (Machine repair and upkeep)
  • Info Collector (Collecting Info)
  • Production Mastery (Making Things)
  • Transport Mastery (Moving goods quickly)
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    Elemental Mastery Field Skills

    • Dark Mastery
    • Earth Mastery
    • Electric Mastery
    • Fire Mastery
    • Light Mastery
    • Ice Mastery
    • Water Mastery
    • Wind Mastery

    Blade Exclusive Skills

    These field skills are only available to a single blade - and in all instances they're either used as part of the story or in part of a side quest but otherwise have no use once they've been used for their single intended purpose.

    • Miasma Dispersal (Roc)
    • Passionate Soul, Justice-Loving Soul and Kind Soul (Godfrey)
    • Assassination (Perceval)
    • Prospecting (Agate)
    • Fleet of Foot (Boreas)
    • One Lucky Gal (Kasandra)
    • Chivalry (Perun)
    • Harmony (Ursula)
    • Phhonex Linguistics (Nim)
    • Extra-Ancient Wisdom (Adenine)
    • Mastery of Thunder (Electra)
    • Birdbrain (Finch)
    • Beguiling Charms (Floren)