Xenoblade Chronicles Guide- Walkthrough Part 114: Exile Fortress, Home of the Igna

Exile Fortress is a large fort on the top of a bluff- and that bluff and the fortress are the main home of the Igna you keep running into around here.  Because of this, the place is not only a concentration of Igna, it’s also home to the most dangerous Igna around- Reckless Godwin.

Exile Plateau
Monster Level: 26-28

Generic Igna- There are Igna here.  A lot of Igna.  These Igna are in groups of three to five, and they’re all sight-aggressive.  Thankfully their levels aren’t too high, but there are an awful lot of them.  They’re very cleverly spaced out too- it’s almost impossible to fight one group without being dangerously near to another group.  Your best bet if you don’t significantly outlevel them is to use your Arts Menu to, instead of calling an attack and reaching for Battle Affinity, draw their attention from a distance and back off a bit.  Thankfully, while the melee Igna are everywhere, there are almost no Ether Art using Igna on the Plateau, preventing you from having any range issues.

Exile Fortress
Monster Level: 26, 30, 31, 80

Igna- These are the main fight within the fortress itself.  The fortress really only has one room, and in this room are four distinct groups of Igna- the Left Guards, the Right Guards, the Main Guards, and Reckless Godwin.

The Left and Right Guards are simple enough- each of these groups is three Igna, two of them Shield Igna and one Mistol Igna.  These can occasionally be lured out into the hallway without drawing the attention of the Guard Igna or Reckless Godwin, who are both sight-aggressive but not pack fighters.  Ideally, though, you will draw the Guard Igna out alongside one or the other of the Left and Right guard groups.  The Igna in the Left and Right Guards are pretty standard, so they shouldn’t be too challenging.

The Main Guards are a bit harder.  These two, a pair of level 30 Guard Igna, are fairly powerful in their own right, and have the ability to disrupt your combat by not only wandering their attention despite your aggro-shifting powers, but also drawing off the attention of your teammates from whatever they’re doing.  Your general best option is to get them (alongside the Right Guard, Left Guard, or both Right and Left Guard) out into the hallway where Shulk and Reyn can use area attacks to make short work of the entire mess.  It’ll also keep everything in reach so there’s very little chance of wandering teammates or enemies causing problems.

The real threat inside, though, is Reckless Godwin.  This Igna is Big, making him threatening, Named, making him -really- threatening, and level 31, making him downright dangerous.  Godwin will rip you to shreds with his pair of cleavers, make no mistake.  He packs three horrifying attacks and a fourth that can only be used as a follow up.  The most powerful of his Arts is the Crazy Dance- this two-hit attack will strike at your entire party- the first hit causing Break and the second causing Topple.  This also enables his fourth Art, Headsman, which is an instant kill if he can land it.  Thankfully, it has a long charge and frequently fails to fire before the Topple effect ends- and can’t be used against a non-Toppled target.  In addition to this, Crazy Dance itself hits for several thousand damage, and is often enough on its own to drop your entire party.  Just to make things worse, Godwin also packs a Smash attack that will be familiar to you from Brog fights, and the Banishment Art, which strikes a small arc and sends anything it hits flying, briefly knocking them down and leaving them pretty much across the room from him.

Essentially, Godwin is something you should not be fighting at all until you’re roughly level 34 or 35- otherwise you’re just not going to have the endurance to take his heavy hits and still return enough damage to do anything.  Having the right Skills on Sharla can make a big difference, but not enough on its own to save the fight.

As if that weren’t enough, the roof of the fortress, which you will find yourself on later, is home to a giant level 80 monster- the Violent Queen.  This immense spider-thing is thankfully attracted only by sound, so you can sneak around her without too much trouble- but don’t try to fight her.  Just don’t.