Completing the Ares 90 Skell in Xenoblade Chronicles X

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition has many features that make it appealing to new players, such as its engaging combat mechanics, expansive open world, and diverse character roster. Among the most exciting aspects of the game is the ability to pilot giant robots known as Skells.

These Skells are formidable combat machines, and out of all the variants, one stands out: the Ares 90. This particular Skell boasts immense power, capable of taking down nearly any foe on Mira in a single blow. This guide will walk you through gathering all the materials needed to build the Ares 90 Skell.

Materials Needed

After you’ve completed Chapter 12 of the main storyline and retrieved the Lifehold core, you will unlock the ability to develop new Skell Frames, including the Ares 90. Gathering the necessary materials for this Skell is one of the most challenging tasks in the game, although the Definitive Edition has made it a bit easier. Let’s go through each material and how to collect them effectively.

Once you reach the Skell Frame development stage, you’ll also have access to the Ares 70, which is easier to acquire but doesn’t match the Ares 90 in damage output and overall effectiveness.

Golden Yggralith Heart & Silver Vita Core

The material list for the Ares 90 presents two notable challenges: the Golden Yggralith Heart and the Silver Vita Core. Let’s break down how to obtain them.

The Golden Yggralith Heart can only be acquired by defeating Yggralith Zero, a global nemesis and one of the game’s online bosses, alongside the Telethia Plume. For offline players, this means it’s impossible to obtain this material without utilizing material tickets to access the online materials market.

Even for online players, obtaining the Golden Yggralith Heart will still require significant effort, as it only drops if your party is responsible for reducing Yggralith Zero’s RP to zero. This can be tricky because if you take too long, its RP might drop to zero before you can engage, so ensure your team can deal enough damage within the time limit.

The Silver Vita Cores are equally problematic; they only drop from one of the game’s final bosses, the Vita mech. Hence, if you don’t collect both cores during the last chapter of the main story, your only options will be to purchase them with material tickets or farm the time attack mission Dark Matter Phantom.

Given the difficulty of acquiring these materials, it’s advisable to use material tickets for both. Other materials are easier to gather in-game, but these two are exceptionally costly: the Golden Yggralith Heart costs 1,590 material tickets, while each Silver Vita Core goes for 475 tickets.

Upgraded Lens & Seidr Control Device

The next two materials needed—eight Upgraded Lenses and four Seidr Control Devices—are much easier to gather than the previous ones and can be obtained from the same enemy type: Seidr enemies found in Sylvalum and Cauldros.

These Seidr foes are commonly located around Ganglion camps in both of these areas. Many of them, like Badul’s Seidr in Sylvalum and Enhanced Attack Seidr in Cauldros, are tyrants that can drop valuable loot.

While Seidr Control Devices are the rarer material, you can farm both types from the same enemies until you’ve collected what you need.

Advanced Core

Next, you’ll need six Advanced Cores, which you can acquire by defeating Xe-dom enemies patrolling Mira. These enemies are primarily found throughout Sylvalum and in several deactivated Xe-doms in Cauldros that will engage if approached.

If you’re struggling against them using lower-tier Skells or while on foot, proper Overdrive use can make battles much easier. If you’re in a Skell, ensure you have strong arts and augments equipped to help with the fights.

Crude Neilnail Mask

Excluding the Golden Yggralith Heart and Silver Vita Core, the six Crude Neilnail Masks are the toughest materials to acquire for the Ares 90—either through farming or purchasing.

To naturally obtain them, defeat Neilnail Skells. In the main game, you’ll encounter only four: two in Neilnail’s first affinity mission and two in her second affinity mission. If you need more, take on the time attack challenge, Twin Dolls of Mystery, where they are rare rewards.

Alternatively, if you’d like to buy them with material tickets, each Crude Neilnail Mask costs 475 tickets. However, unlike the Silver Vita Core that only requires two, you’ll need six of these masks, totaling 2,850 material tickets.

Cimmerian Cinnabar

Differing from the other materials, Cimmerian Cinnabar can only be obtained through mining via FrontierNav.

You can mine this resource by placing a mining probe at any of the following FrontierNav sites in Noctilum: FN Site 202, FN Site 203, FN Site 207, and FN Site 217. You’ll need only two of these materials, so deploying a high-level mining probe or chaining probes around one of these sites should yield the quantity you need.

Miranium

The final and arguably most critical resource you need to craft the Ares 90 is Miranium, which is abundant throughout the game. Mining probes will automatically gather Miranium wherever they’re placed, and the more probes you set up, the more you’ll collect.

The real challenge lies not in obtaining Miranium, but rather in ensuring you have enough storage space for it. For the Ares 90, you’ll need a total of 100,000 Miranium, and the only way to hold that much is by having a substantial network of storage probes on your FrontierNav map.

Once your storage capacity reaches 100,000, simply play the game while your probes gather Miranium passively. You must actively be playing for the probes to mine, so taking a break won’t help. Focus on other activities or gather other materials while your probes do their work.

After you’ve successfully acquired all these materials through effort and dedication, the reward awaits you. The Ares 90 is capable of delivering such extraordinary damage that it can take down almost every enemy in the game with a single hit, even without damage augments. This makes farming for materials a lot easier and significantly enhances your overall combat ability.