Part 43: Character Write-Up - Mega Man X

Cool. I'll wait to go over a given party member until you show their stat page and Hyper Mode in the proper LP so I'm not stepping on any toes(and naturally spoilers omitted until said they are encountered, where upon I'll go over them probably). May as well get started here, so let's get right into things with X.

Mega Man X

The Hero of the game, both in terms of his name being on the cover and also that he's the all-rounder type in the party. He's middle of the road in all respects, save for his Hyper Mode turns, but let's break it down a bit further.

Weapon Type: Busters (Shot damage)
Starting WE: 25%
WE Gain per turn: 25%
Action Trigger: Charge Shot - Heavy damage to entire enemy party. More WE = More damage. If used at 100% WE, it will always crit.
Elemental Resistances: None
Force Metal Slots: 4
Starting Immunity: 10
Hyper Mode: X Fire (Pronounced "Cross Fire" like how those Monster Hunter games were X and XX for Cross and Double Cross respectively)
Hyper Mode Benefits: LE +50%, Power +50%, Speed +25%, WE Gain +25%, 50% reduced damage from Combat/Shot attacks, Action Trigger becomes Charge Collider, Basic attack deals Fire elemental Combat damage, Sub Weapons are changed to a Shell Buster and a Power Charge.
Hyper Mode Turns: 6

As to be expected, X gets a lot of unique toys to play with as the main character. He's got the most Force Metal slots, the unique X Heart Force Metal that revives him at 10% health the first time he gets KO'd in any fight, and his variable Action Trigger depending on if he's in Hyper Mode or not. Charge Shot blasts the entire enemy field, where as Charge Collider ruins the day of one enemy in particular by shoving a plasma sphere through their face. X also gets pretty beefy stat boosts in X Fire that solidifies it as an intended Boss Killer with Charge Collider, and also just a pretty hefty tank with the damage reduction and increased LE. Worth noting though is the WE Gain effect - that doesn't add another 25% onto the amount he gains per turn, it adds 25% of his normal per-turn recharge onto it, in this case bringing X's WE generation per turn up by 6% to a total of 31% WE per turn while using X Fire. Pretty handy for getting out more than one Charge Collider if you maintain Hyper Mode for multiple turns, since it doesn't actually take 4 turns to reload between shots like standard X. On the flip side, whatever Sub-Weapons he had equipped are temporarily shoved aside for a Power Charge and the X Fire exclusive Shell Buster. As a Sub-Weapon, Shell Buster... is not especially spectacular. It costs 20 WE to use, and deals Fire elemental Shot Damage. Technically useful, but as Wild Jango helpfully showed off, some enemies can absorb elemental damage to heal themselves which can make X Fire pretty sad unless it's Charge Collider time. Speaking of Charge Collider, much like how his normal Charge Shot is better at a full charge, Collider does more hits the more WE you have to charge it with. It caps out at 10 hits at max WE, with each hit dealing half of X's basic attack damage - doesn't sound like a lot, but if he's doing 500 damage per basic attack, Charge Collider would do about 2500 at full power.

Overall, X is the bar against which other party members will probably be measured in my opinion. He's consistently good, and the fact he's there from the word go in gameplay means you'll have a lot of time to get a feel for him within the Command Mission battle system. He can do some things that other party member's just can't with his Action Triggers, and X Fire is simple but effective in its wide array of boosts it gives... locking your Sub-Weapons to some things that might not be as useful aside.

...But then there's the matter of the Ultimate Armor, unlocked by beating the Rafflesian bonus boss fight in Tianna Camp once you have the Tianna Key from Deployment. It's suitably preposterously more powerful than X Fire, and its Nova Strike Action Trigger is entirely an on-demand Final Strike. And unless you do something like what Bisby did, your best bet for getting it will probably not be until you're about to knock on the door to Epsilon's main base in Chapter 9. Ultimate Armor grants +100% Power, +50% Speed, +40% WE Gain per turn(So, +10 WE per turn just based on X by himself), and X always takes reduced damage as if he had spent his turn defending instead of attacking. It also counts him as a flying unit, meaning Combat attacks have a harder time hitting him, replaces his sub weapons with two simple damaging ones called Impact Cannon and Strike Bullet, and turns his basic attack into a chest mounted death ray called the Giga Crash that has a pretty high chance to crit. Once you get this, prepare to blast the rest of the game past it wide open.