Gem Crafting returns in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - and this time, it's thankfully been streamlined to be a little less convoluted than in the original game in the Xenoblade series. With that said, it's still a quite deep system, which naturally raises questions about the Best Gems and where to get all of the materials needed to craft them.

Gems are first introduced early on in Chapter 2 of Xenoblade 3. You'll be introduced to this function in the required quest "Riku and Manana" - though if you want help with other quests, be sure to check out our complete Xenoblade 3 Quests Guide! Once the Gem system is unlocked, you'll then be left to get to grips with it and discover the best gems for yourself. We've got some help for you, however:

If you're a Xenoblade veteran, there's some good news - Gems and Gem Crafting is simpler this time around. There's no Affinity requirement, or heat gauge, or RNG in gem crafting, unlike in the original Xenoblade. Instead, all you need are some monster item drops, a gemstone, and some Ether Cylinders. With these, you can craft gems at any campsite in the game.

One of the best parts about gem crafting in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is that you do not need to make separate gems for each character. Once you craft a gem, any character in your party can equip it, and multiple characters can equip the gem at the same time. Once you craft a gem, you basically can equip as many as you need to whoever you want. That means you only need to craft each gem once, even if you're a completionist. 

There are 20 total types of gems, with ten ranks in each. The ranking is basically an indicator of a gem's quality, which means that a higher-rank gem will always supersede a lower-rank one.

For example, if you craft a Tailwind III gem, you do not need to craft Tailwind II, because there is no reason to - it will be worse than what you have. For this reason, sometimes it may be best to skip a few ranks when crafting. If you can craft a Tailwind X gem, there's no reason to waste components making a Tailwind VII, VIII, and IX gem, right? You'd just be wasting materials.

That about covers it - we told you it had been simplified! Collect materials, craft gems at a camp site, and equip them. Simple! No more RNG. Bless. Now the only question becomes... which gems are best?

You might be wondering which gems are the best to make for your party. To be honest, there is no clear and obvious set of the best gems in Xenoblade 3, as every gem has its benefits. You can only equip (up to) three gems at a time though, so you want to make sure you pick gems that are useful for the current class of the character you are placing them on - as with most things in Xenoblade 3, character classes and party composition should drive much of your decision-making. 

When you look at the Gem chart in the game, you'll notice the gems are sorted into four columns, with each column exhibiting a different color. The blue gems in the first column are Defender-oriented gems, then red gems for Attackers, then green gems for Healers, then orange gems which are more general purpose and useful for the player-controlled character.

Whenever you change a character's class, including when you unlock a new class by recruiting heroes, it's best practice to change the gems they have equipped. If you want to do this the easy way, you can simply perform the Auto-Build option by pressing the Y button on the class screen. The game will automatically place appropriate gems on that character for their current class. Defenders will be mostly loaded with Defender gems, and so on. 

As for which gems are generally best, we do have a few broad suggestions of the best gems in the game:

With that said, the choice is and should be ultimately yours - pick gems that you think are going to work for your play style! We list all gem types in the list below, so check out what they do and see for yourself which gems you think you'd like on your party.

As explained above, there's a handful of different gem categories in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, each of which is home to five different types of gem. Within that, each type of Gen has ten different ranks, written in roman numerals, representing their power level.

We listed some suggestions for our favorites above, but in the interest of posterity, here's every gem in Xenoblade 3. The minimum and maximum values listed reveal the range of the ability, where minimum is the Rank I gem, and the maximum is the Rank X gem version:

Thanks to the ranking system, we clearly know which the most powerful gems in Xenoblade 3 are - the Rank X Gems. These are the top rank of each type of Gem, meaning they're the most powerful in each gem category. Once you're in the late game, you'll likely be aiming to craft these - and if you're a completionist like me, you may want to get every Rank X gem in the game.

Crafting Rank X Gems isn't easy, however. Each Rank X gem requires many rare monster drops, and the farming alone can take dozens of hours - though you can shorten the process somewhat by following this guide. Below is a list of all the monster drop items requires for each Rank X gem in Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

For a little bit of bookkeeping on the list below, each Rank X gem also requires 5 Ultra Pure Gemstones and 3 Ether Cylinders. Also note: the first three monster drops listed for each gem are of the Purple rarity, the 4th item is of Yellow rarity, and the 5th item is of Common rarity. Also, each monster drop requires 30 items each. These are simply excluded from the list below for readability.

Many items are best obtained by Unique Monsters, and guess what, we have a Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Unique Monsters guide for that!

Increases Block Rate by 30 percentage points.

Deals 280% of Attack damage when you take damage.

Boosts aggro generated when using Art by 45%.

Start each battle with aggro.

Increased critical hit damage bonus by 70 percentage points.

Boosts power of debuffs applied to enemies by 50%

Extends duration timers of debuffs applied to enemies by 50%,

When helping an incapacitated ally, revives them with 45% more HP; also raises Healing by 15.

Boosts speed of ally revival by 45% and raises Healing by 15.

Boosts power of buff effects issued by self by 50%.

Extends duration of buff effects issued by self by 50%,

Adds 40% chance to strike twice per auto-attack.

When canceling, boosts damage dealt by 75%.

Reduces aggro generated when using Art by 45%.