Xenoblade Chronicles Guide- Walkthrough Part 28: Cliff Lake

Now that you’re free again, you will want to head up to Cliff Lake- there is at least one quest you need to stop by here if you’re going to complete that you probably already collected, and it’s a nice little area anyways.  There are two ways to get here- the less-adventurous and wetter one is to swim around Lookout Park to the South of Colony 9 and keep going past the cove that holds Lake Magdalena until you find the area of shore.  The more interesting one is to dive off the left side of the Tephra Hill path (right if you’re coming down the hill) and land in Cliff Lake itself.

Cliff Lake is occupied pretty much exclusively by Bunnit and Krabbles, though there are a few Piranhax in the lake itself (which aren’t really important at this point unless you still didn’t kill any Piranhax near Colony 9 itself).  Most importantly, Colony Krabble, an aggressive Krabble that you need for a quest, appears here on the beach.... but only at night.

If you find you still need some Knuckle Bunnit or Junk Bunnit, this area will supply you with those also, as well as a few Cute Brog.  While those aren’t particularly remarkable, it’s noteworthy that everything around here is about level 10 or 11, so if you still need to do some leveling before heading into the deeper parts of Tephra Cave, this is your best training area for now.

This area also holds two named monsters, though there curiously aren’t quests for them- just like with the Mining Patrichev and Cellar Bugworm back in Tephra Cave’s first area.  Being tougher than others of their ilk, all the named monsters have the expectable penchant for dropping strong items, like slotted Million Drivers and other unlikely to find things (Court Leggings, anyone?).  Speedy Ramshyde and Itinerant Dorothea are their names, and each of them is accompanied by two regular monsters of their kind, who will attack you as well when you enter combat with the named monster.

This is the second time you encounter this behaviour in monsters (the first being Lake Magdalena itself), and it’s a pattern that’s going to continue showing up.  Rather than simply making named monsters tougher than regular ones by more and more improvements, they will often be accompanied by regular versions of the monster, that will pester and beat on you while you try to down the unique monster.

This is an opportunity to work on your tactics if nothing else- do you get rid of the small fry so they stop pestering you, or do you focus on the named monster because it’s the one that does the most injury and you don’t want to keel over while you’re letting yourself be distracted?  Of course, there’s a limit to how much you can do about this by targeting things yourself- perhaps you want your buddy to hit one thing while you hit another?

This is where you have a chance (and a reason) to familiarize yourself with the part of the control scheme that lets you command your allies in battle.  Take that opportunity- it’ll come in handy later on.