Did you (or do you plan to) level your Trust NPCs to 80?

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Originally Posted by Imora

Do you have to level them for them to be used later in MSQ? Because I really don't want to chain run Holminister Switch 20 times, I'll be 80 before I finish the fairy kingdom. ><

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Short answer: No, you will always have a party available at the correct level when you need to clear a dungeon for story progress.


While you are going through the MSQ, your trusts will be in "scenario mode". You'll have a different group of options for trusts according to who is with you at that point in the story.

After clearing the dungeon but before reaching the end credits, you can replay the dungeon in scenario mode.

Once you clear the credits, you no longer have access to scenario mode and instead you're given "avatars" of your final party group who you will need to level up. They can run any dungeon regardless of whether the character was originally present or not, but you need to get them up to the right level for the dungeon first.

After getting all six to level 80 you can access scenario mode again if you prefer.

Also for post-credits dungeons you can initially access the scenario version while you are progressing through the MSQ, but after that you need level 80 avatars if you want to run it again.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

The Trust system is a worthless, poor play enabling tool. Resources would be better spent elsewhere.

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You may not like the Trust, but it's far from worthless nor a poor play enabler. Poor player already exists before Trust, and major of the time the other players who carry them won't say a word since it's just dungeons. And worthless? I don't think so. You get xp, gears, and minion from running a dungeon with Trust. It's good for people who have unusual schedules and have to play outside of prime time, plus you can clear the dungeon in your own leisure.

I don't trust any NPCs. Have many of them even blink? Suspicious.

Leveled all to 80.
Sometimes it's faster to lv alts through trusts, because queue times. Also you get all loot, and don't need to rush, just do things at your own pace. Also i've grown to dislike playing with other ppl, so i only do that through daily roulettes.
The xp was really bad initially, so i got burnt out from it too, but they boosted the xp, so they can lv up at slightly lower pace that you do, taking 1-2 extra runs, which is np if you lv 2 alts at the same time. They also take less damage, so you can usually AOE groups of mobs anyway, though with 2 trust NPCs it's pointless cause they don't AOE.
But yah, running holminster with every job, was a pain, Qitana is nice though cause of the music. It's a good way to learn new dungeon mechanic.
Now that it's done, i don't need to think about it anyway.
I've taken long breaks from the game, and can polish up through trusts.
When i got my PS5, i had to redo every UI setting, and every skill bar, so i could sort that out during trust runs without holding ppl back.

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Originally Posted by TheJarvisMan

Just kinda curious where the community lands on this. I've personally leveled 3 of them to 78 and the other 3 to 73. I'm honestly getting burnt out on it to the point I can't bring myself to do it, and I'm the kind of player that happily grinded all combat and non-combat jobs (minus two that are in the works) to 80. How about you guys? If you are leveling (or have leveled) all of them up, what motivated you to do so?

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That's about where I stopped. Got Thancred to 79, two others to 78, the rest to 73 except one to 71, and that's as much as I tolerated. I guess I reaaaaally grew tired of them, as unlike squadron they're completely inefficient, plus I started playing with other people more and had no use for Trusts anymore.
Also, I levelled them while levelling my dps classes, as I could just semi-afk while they do pulls and only do bosses, but with a tank or healer yo can't do that. And now I don't even have classes to level anymore so...I just really don't see the point to Trust anymore. I loved it at first cause I didn't want to interact with people, but now that issue is gone.

It's easy if you avoid DF like the plague while leveling alt jobs. So yes I did. The reward is pointless as I never ever use it anyway.

And once you clear your first run by learning the bosses' mechanics, Trusts are still a worse version of Squadrons.

I tried to use Trusts during the MSQ back when ShB was first released. Each time, I would get bored, drop out, and queue in the party finder. :B
My worst trust run was Amaurot with the twins and Thancred. During the first boss, the twins kept running into each other with AoEs, wiping each other, leaving me, a DNC, to try to heal Thancred. It didn't end well.
I have tried to use trust to level tanks and DPS but, with DPS, it was too slow for me, and for tanks, I couldn't pull wall-to-wall like I wanted to because enemies weren't dying quick enough and I would have to blow my cooldowns.
All my trusts are 71 (sans G'raha) and that's probably where they're going to stay.

I did it as I was leveling alternate classes to 80. It was a safe way to learn mechanics of my jobs in a low stress environment. And with a dozen jobs to get to 80 on my own, it felt less like a grind and more like something that happened naturally.

No. I main tank so I only run the dungeon once with the trusts for the story. After that I dont really see the point as its not like they get stronger and clear the dungeon faster or even close to real players.

Some people say to use it to level other jobs. However with the moogle events and Bozja I usually use those and dailies to level other jobs which is more efficient and better use of time.

I lvl'd some to 80, can't remember if I lvl'd them all to 80 though.

Till they make it to were me and a friend can fill in the missing one or two spots in a 4 man dungeon, or I can do stuff in the open world with trusts, then I probably won't touch em again.

I leveled all trusts. Just take it one run at a time and it's not too bad really. Do like 1 run per day or 1 run every 2 days. Since you're leveling side jobs it also lets your rested exp build up. I also recommend just leveling one group from 70 to 80 instead of hopping back and forth between the total of 2 groups to get them all through the dungeon at once.

The biggest benefit of this is being able to take rhyne into every dungeon and enabling thancred's cartridge combo. Also her trick attack is another nice bonus to open with on bosses and bursting down a mob.

Overall trusts are only as useful as you make them. They give you the option for them for your first run in every dungeon just to get through the MSQ but after that they can easily make leveling a dps job much more bearable since you can avoid que times. At the bare minimum I think everyone should level Thancred, ether healer(although Alphi is better imo), Rhyne, and Y'shtola. That way you have a full NPC squad for whatever dungeon crawling you wanna do no matter your role.

-Thancred just takes hilariously low damage between his brutal shell shield and aurora. He also places damage dealt down debuffs on enemies and is pretty quick to yoink aggro off of everyone else. My biggest issue is his tendency to use aurora on others when it's not really needed.

-Y'shtola follows a general rotation that includes aoe spells so she's the, imo, best dps trust. Her foul spell also chunks everything. Bosses included.

-Alphinaud can be a little slow on heals sometimes but his AI will spam lustrate in emergency sichuations. Also his carby does damage and provides 30 sec damage buffs.

-Rhyne has a trick attack. That on its own makes her really helpful. She also enables thancred to use the cartridge combo, which he uses fairly often btw, and she has an aoe spell she'll use occasionally. I've found she's liable to use it right after finishing dodging aoes and she's out of melee range. It hits decently hard on its own which is nice.

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Originally Posted by SomeRandomHuman

The biggest benefit of this is being able to take rhyne into every dungeon and enabling thancred's cartridge combo.

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I've read before that this is an illusion and Thancred's base damage is adjusted depending on whether Ryne is in the party. So he'll do the cartridge combo if she's there, dealing more damage with those specific attacks, but if she's absent then all his other attacks are doing slightly more damage to compensate.

I don't have a source for this though.

Once you unlock g’raha, you are very likely to not care about Thancred anymore. G’raha is just way tankier & safer to force him a wall pull.

Healers are all eh.
G’raha brings Aero III, occasional Holy & generic WHM kits but he’s permanently locked into my tank slot so nah.
Urianger brings break (useless), occasional Death (rarely misses, doesn’t work vs Sin Eater types) and cards every 30s. Additionally his Malefic cast time is akin to our AST, so he has more time to get that cast off & still move out of red carpets.
Alphinaud brings occasional Miasma II & moonstone carbuncle dmg buff but I do not know when or what makes him utilizes this buff. In my runs with him he annoyingly almost always the one who eats red carpets.

DPS.. I just take whoever. Except Alisaie (my fave) if for some reason I decide to pick Alphi. He will prioritize saving his sister over you.