Reposting from previous thread
On farming trust and related fuckeries
Friends a grave realization came upon me. I'm currently on post game, and in need to level some blades to the top of their affinity charts especially Theory, so I can unlock Praxis chart. So naturally I went to the internet to check on the current meta on increasing trust, as well as did some experimenting of my own. Here are the results:
>Raising trust through merc missions
I've been sending blades to merc missions to their fullest ever since I could. Even my unused rares, since they could gain their affinity nodes as well. Never checking how much trust they made from it though. Well, now I've checked, and the results are atrocious.
You gain 10 affinity points per blade per 30 minutes of mission. That's not counting "recomended skills" that decrease time spent on a mission. So if you pick a 2h mission each blade will gain 40 trust points. By exploiting the shit of some recomended skillsI managed to decrease this to 25+ min, but at the expense of not being able to fill it with 6 blades that needed leveling. Not that it matters much, since 40 points is the same as nothing if trust is your main goal here.
Verdict on merc missions: Good for leveling common blades trust, since they usually require very little to get to max lvl, and good for unlocking nodes of your rares, after you've unlocked a certain line/lvl already, since trust gains are abysmal for rares.
>Battle
Trully this must be the best way of leveling a blade, right? It actually takes effort, so no game designer would give you shit rewards for actually using the blades you want to level, right?
Well…
For starters your blade only gain trust if they enter into affinity mode during the battle. So one-shotting enemies is no good for trust farming. Second, you gain a base 10 trust for each enemy defeated after achieving affinity mode (your blade doesn't have to finish the enemy, just be present). Ten… just ten. I mean, it beats merc missions, but that is only expected. Unless you run around picking a fight with anything and everything that moves (of appropriate level btw, so you don't one-shot them) battling isn't terribly efficient at farming trust then. But what about unique monsters? It's said that the longer you stay in affinity mode the more you gain trust, and unique monster can take a beating and some time to defeat. So I tried something, I'm lvl78 more or less and went to kill a lvl 60 Haywire Kustal, because it's not too weak and it's by himself, so I can gauge how much trust I get from him alone. One chain attack finish later and my brand new blade never before used that I brought to the fight had gained 10 trust points. If anyone want to conduct tests of their own they are welcome, because I'm done with unique monsters for the sake of trust leveling
Verdict on battle trust-farming: Mop the floor with every mob you find, as long as the fight is long enough for you to enter affinity mode OR if you can amass pouch items that let you enter the fight with affinity mode on already. Which leads us to
>Pouch Items
This is where the internet meta lead me to. Apparently you gain a bit of trust for each item used, some give more than others, and you can spam them not needing to really wait 'til their duration runs out. I was then directed to a specific item, a Noponcho, bought in Indol or in Fonsett after chapter 8, because it gives the most trust, 21 whole points, every time it's used.
In order to get the most time/efficiency out of this method you also need the following deeds, to increase your pouch item capacity by+30
>Placks Deeds -> Tantal
>Nopox Deeds -> Argentum
>Praximo Deeds -> Tantal
Verdict on pouch leveling: Useful method, but takes time to set up 100% proper. But tbh you probably won't need this to finish the story and enter post-game if you stick to your early rare blades.
Extra tip for beginners: I didn't gave enough attention to pouch items throught the game, and that might have been my greatest mistake. I'll give you these three tips
>Never let your pouches run dry
>Don't bother with long duration items, have plenty short duration instead. That way you get a bit of trust every 20 minutes or so, just remember to replenish it
>Only bother using a rarer/long duration thing if it's to unlock some node on an affinity chart, or if you're trying to pull off some shit like starting a fight at max affinity.