Tales of Arise offers all kinds of new and interesting combat tricks from Counter Edge to quickly dodge and counterattack an enemy to Boost Attacks. But you’ll still be relying on Artes, the series’ de facto skills, for many of the battles that lie ahead. How do you unlock new Artes though and how does Arte Proficiency play a role?
Arte Proficiency is essentially a measure of how much you’ve used a certain type of Arte. Each character has a few different types of Artes with Proficiency tied to them. So depending on how often you use Artes tied to these, Proficiency will increase and new Artes in those categories will be unlocked. For instance, raising Alphen’s Sword Strike Proficiency to 1000 unlocks Double Demon Fang while at 1200, you’ll unlock Dragon Swarm.
Skills are a little more complicated. Each character has a number of Titles (about 15 each) with several different skills attached. First, you need to complete certain actions to unlock a Title. Then you can spend SP to unlock the skills within these Titles. Different skills provide different bonuses, whether it’s passive increases or new abilities. Many Titles have specific requirements like performing a number of Boost Attacks, forging weapons, cooking meals and so on.
Of course, the next obvious question is – what are the best ways to earn experience points and SP, both for becoming stronger and unlocking skills? There are a number of ways, starting with the Consecutive Battles bonus. When ever you partake in multiple battles in a row and handily dispatch enemies, as indicated by the Battle Score, a small meter will start building up on the right side of the screen (just below the map).
This is the Consecutive Battles bonus and it will stack up to four times. While it’s active, experience points (EXP) and SP earned from battles is multiplied. You can also increase the difficulty – Battle Scores will receive a flat multiplier bonus, which helps raise the Consecutive Battles bonus faster.
Cooking certain meals like Leaf Wrapped Fish and Fruit Sandwich will provide a buff to EXP earned as well. Also keep in mind that weaker enemies will provide less EXP and SP on top of taking longer to fill the Consecutive Battles meter. So while it may be recommended to hang around certain areas and grind for a bit, you’ll eventually want to move on and fight stronger foes to reap better rewards at a faster pace.
As noted above, SP is earned from battles but you’ll get the most from completing sub-quests. Upon entering a new city or location, look for an NPC with a mailbox icon to get new sub-quests. These are also good for earning new items, equipment and Gald so they’re worth doing, even if you come back to them later. Another good avenue for earning SP is defeating bosses and Elite Monsters.
Let’s say you want to earn some Gald quickly, whether it’s for buying supplies or new weapons. First, make sure that you’re cooking dishes that will boost the number of dropped items, the drop rate of Rare Ores and so on. Go around collecting different items and then either sell them or use them for crafting new accessories and such. Monsters will drop a fair number of items if you have a buff going and they can fetch a decent price.
Make sure you’re selling Commodity Items as well since they’re only useful for earning Gald. Fishing is also worth noting and while it may take slightly longer than just harvesting materials, it provides an interesting mini-game to take a break (plus caught fish sell for decent amounts).
Finally, if you’re struggling to earn EXP or Gald, try enabling an Artifact to increase the amounts gained. These could be considered “assist” features for players but they’re still very useful if you want to progress the story or don’t want to spend time grinding. For more details on Tales of Arise, check out our review here. It’s currently available for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5 and PC.