Trust

Trust is a mechanic in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country. It is used to determine the strength of a Blade or Driver in combat. As it increases, a Blade's damage also increases, their  deal more damage, their Blade Arts activate more often, and their cooldown gets shorter.

In Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country, Drivers also have trust ranks, which increases in tandem with their Blades. In addition to all of the standard benefits, a Driver's trust rank also decreases the cooldown of Vanguard Switches.

Trust ranks
There are a total of 16 different trust ranks. From lowest to highest, they are as follows:

E, D, C, B, A, S, S1, S2, S3, S4 ,S5, S6, S7, S8, S9, S+

Ranks E - A
Up to rank A, the Blade reaches a new rank each time a new key affinity lock is unlocked on the. The exact requirements for this vary depending on the given Blade. In most cases, a Blade needs to acquire a certain amount of trust points. For most Blades, this is 9,800 points. However, this amount can range to as many as 10,600 points (seen with ), to as few as 3,800 (seen with ). Some others Blades, such as, may not even require trust points to reach rank A trust.

Most Blades added as part of the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Expansion Pass only require 4,000 points of trust, with being the sole exception requiring 5,000 points.

Rank S
Once a Blade reaches rank A trust, they can achieve rank S Trust by filling out all nodes on their Affinity Chart.

Ranks S1 - S+
After reaching trust rank S, a Blade continues to accumulate trust points. Once enough points have been reached, a Blade's trust will increase again, until they reach trust rank S+. A Blade still gains trust once at Rank S+. However, no additional benefits will be obtained.

Trust Effects
As a Blade's trust increases, certain statistics are being altered as follows: