Driver Art

Driver Arts (called Vanguard Arts in Torna ~ The Golden Country) are a kind of attack in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Torna ~ The Golden Country. They can be used by pressing X, Y, or B in combat. Party members controlled by AI will perform Driver Arts automatically.

Overview
In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, each active Driver has three Driver Arts available to them at once; which ones are available depends upon the weapon class of the currently active Blade. In Torna ~ The Golden Country, each party member has a unique set of three Vanguard Arts; the ones currently available are those of the character in the Vanguard.

In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, each weapon class corresponds to a set of four Driver Arts for each Driver. However, only three per weapon class per Driver may be used in any particular battle. Which three are available in battle, as well as which Driver Art corresponds to pressing X/Y/B, can be changed in the menu. In Torna ~ The Golden Country, each character only has three Vanguard Arts, although their button correspondence may still be changed in the menu.

In battle, Driver Arts are indicated in the lower right section of the screen. They are represented by the top, left, and bottom diamond (the right one represents s).

Most Driver Arts deal (either to a single target or in an area of effect); in general, they deal more damage than s but less than s and Blade Combos. Other Driver Arts directly heal other party members or block incoming damage. Using a Driver Art increases the Special gauge (by varying amounts - see cancelling for details).

Effects
Certain Driver Arts have additional effects beyond dealing damage. For example, some increase or reduce the amount of on the current Driver, some inflict specific s, some spawn HP potions, some cause all incoming attacks during the move's animation to miss, etc.

One of the most important effects of Driver Arts is inflicting stages of a Driver Combo. Certain Driver Arts inflict one of, , , or on an enemy. (In the latter three cases, the reaction will only be inflicted if the enemy was already suffering from the previous stage of the Driver Combo.) With the exception of Heavenly Disrupt, Driver Arts will only inflict one of these reactions. In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, each Weapon class on each Driver has either zero or one Driver Art which inflicts a Driver Combo stage (except for the Variable Saber on, which has two). The Driver Combo can only be inflicted via Driver Arts in this game, making these Arts an integral part of combat. In Torna ~ The Golden Country, each Driver possesses a Vanguard Art which inflicts a Driver Combo stage; Blades do not, although they may still perform Driver Combos via Vanguard Switch.

Conditional effects
Some Driver Arts behave differently when used under certain conditions. The most common example of this is that the Driver Art will deal more if used under the appropriate conditions. The trigger for these effects varies, although the following are common examples: Successfully meeting the special condition of a Driver Art slightly increases the.
 * Using the Driver Art from the enemy's front/side/back
 * Using the Driver Art when the character in question has the enemy's
 * Cancelling an or another Driver Art into the Driver Art (see below)

Cooldown
Under normal circumstances, when a Driver Art is used it cannot immediately be used again. By default, Driver Arts are recharged using s; the amount by which a Driver Art is recharged is indicated by a pink line running clockwise around the corresponding diamond icon. When this line fully borders the icon, the Driver Art is recharged and may be used again. The icon of a Driver Art on cooldown is also dimmer than an available one.

Driver Arts can also be recharged using certain Pouch Items (primarily Desserts), which recharge Driver Arts by a fixed amount per second.

Certain Driver Arts have special effects which partially recharge them if their attack is a. (For attacks with multiple hits, the partial recharge activates if any of their hits is a critical hit.) 's also applies this effect to all Driver Arts used when she is the active Blade. At maximum level (see below), these effects typically fully recharge the Driver Art on a critical hit, meaning it can be used again immediately (and even cancelled into itself).

Eye of Shining Justice greatly reduces the cooldown of all of 's Driver Arts. reduces the cooldown of all Driver Arts by a fixed proportion, depending upon how high the count is.

Levels
Driver Arts can be levelled up in the menu using WP, starting from level 1 to a maximum of level 5. Doing so increases their damage and possibly (if applicable) the potency or likelihood of their special effect. Levelling up a Driver Art to level 3 or level 5 also reduces its cooldown.

When a Driver and Blade are at maximum, all Driver Arts effectively go up one level; for example, if 's Anchor Shot is levelled up to level 2 in the menu and he uses it when is active at maximum affinity, the damage, cooldown, and chance of spawning an additional HP potion will be as though the move were levelled up to level 3. If a Driver Art is levelled up to level 5 and used at maximum Affinity, it will use a sixth 'level' of damage/cooldown which cannot be achieved through other means.

Interaction with other gameplay elements
After a Blade Switch/Vanguard Switch, all Driver Arts will be off cooldown. At the start of battle, all Driver Arts are on cooldown by default; however, each Driver has three s which make the Driver Art assigned to X, Y, and B respectively off cooldown at the start of battle. Being incapacitated or using a does not affect the cooldown status of Driver Arts.

Each Driver Art has a maximum range, and it can only be used when the distance between the character and the enemy is below that maximum. Driver Arts cannot be initiated during s or Blade Combo animations, during a animation, or when inflicted with Shackle Driver. They can be initiated at any time during an animation or when moving, including at zero  or when inflicted with Shackle Blade. A Driver Art cannot be initiated during another Driver Art unless the Arts Chain (or equivalent on other Drivers) has been acquired, and then only in the cancel window (see below). Movement is not possible during a Driver Art's animation.

Auto-attacking cannot be done during a Driver Art's animation. However, Specials may be initiated; doing so nullifies the rest of the Driver Art.

In a Full Burst, each Driver uses one Driver Art in addition to various Specials. (This cannot inflict a stage of the Driver Combo.)

Cancelling
Initiating a Driver Art during the cancel window of an (typically during the freeze frames of the last hit associated with the auto-attack in question) will cancel the auto-attack in a special way: the Driver Art's damage will be increased, the Special gauge will increase more than normal, and the  will slightly increase. A blue ring briefly appears to indicate a successful animation cancel.

Using a Driver Art without cancelling results in the Special gauge being built up 1/4 of the way to the next level. Cancelling the first auto-attack in the cycle into a Driver Art results in the Special gauge being built up 3/8 of the way; cancelling the second auto-attack builds the gauge 1/2 of the way; cancelling the third builds it 5/8 of the way.

If the active character has the Arts Chain or equivalent, it is possible to cancel Driver Arts into Driver Arts. The window for cancelling a Driver Art typically consists of the freeze frames of the last hit of the attack. Cancelling a Driver Art into another Driver Art has the same effect as cancelling the second auto-attack in a cycle, building up the Special gauge 1/2 of the way to the next level. (With or without Arts Chain, activating a during the cancel window of a Driver Art results in a slight boost to the Party gauge.)

Strategy
Using standard strategies (on normal difficulty mode), shortly after the start of the game, the damage dealt by Driver Arts becomes less important than that dealt by other sources. Therefore, the purpose of using them generally consists of building the Special gauge as quickly as possible and executing Driver Combos.

Building the Special Gauge
Cancelling s into Driver Arts substantially increases the amount of Special gauge gained as a result, from 1/4 of a level at no cancel to 5/8 of a level at maximum. However, when cancelling auto-attacks into Driver Arts, there is a tradeoff — waiting for a later auto-attack in the cycle may grant more Special gauge at once, but it also takes more time. In general, the most efficient way to build up the Special gauge through this method is actually to cancel the 2nd auto-attack into a Driver Art, building up the gauge by 1/2 a level per Art.

Regardless of whether the 3rd or 2nd auto-attack is cancelled, it still takes two Driver Arts to build up to a level Special and four to build up to level. Using only the 2nd auto-attack to cancel means that building up to level requires an extra Driver Art over using only the 3rd auto-attack, but this is more than made up for by the amount of time saved not waiting for the 3rd auto-attack in the cycle.

The Arts Chain skill and its equivalents on Drivers' s is of paramount importance precisely because it speeds this process up so much. Cancelling Driver Arts into Driver Arts provides the same amount of Special gauge gain as cancelling the 2nd auto-attack into a Driver Art, but because the auto-attacking is bypassed, much time is saved; the process of building towards Specials becomes twice as fast or more. Obtaining Arts Chain and its equivalents as early as possible (typically around for ) is therefore almost always the best use of one's  in the early game.

The process is also sped up massively using Pouch Items. Some (chiefly Instruments) build up the Special gauge directly, but in fact it is generally much more efficient to use those that recharge Driver Arts over time (chiefly Desserts) to support the Driver Art cancelling cycle. (Narcipear Jelly is available from the start of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and is extremely good for these purposes.) A Pouch expansion kit is obtained relatively early on in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, after fighting ; if this is used on the player-controlled Driver, two Desserts can be added simultaneously, almost completely eliminating the need to auto-attack altogether.

Making use of Driver Arts which recharge on s may also speed this process up substantially, particularly in situations where Arts recharge Pouch Items may not be sufficient to continually cancel Driver Arts into one another. Where this recharge is enough to completely eliminate the cooldown of the Driver Art on a critical hit, it allows for the Art to be cancelled into itself repeatedly for as long as critical hits are sustained. This is a very efficient way to build up the Special gauge.

Driver combos
At all stages of play, Driver Combos are of great use; they temporarily make an enemy unable to attack, provide HP potions, and provide incredible benefits as part of Fusion Combos. This makes the Driver Arts that inflict them correspondingly very important.

Not all Driver Combo-inflicting Driver Arts are created equal. For the most part, the quality of such an Art is determined by its cooldown (which determines how often it may be used). For, , and Smash, it is also desirable for the Art to have a short animation, to decrease the risk of the Driver Combo expiring before it may be continued.

Driver Combo locking
One common lategame and postgame strategy is that of Driver Combo locking. This entails completing a full Driver Combo, then immediately after the Smash animation ends, ing and Toppling the enemy before it has a chance to attack again. Doing so requires a means to quickly inflict any stage of the Driver Combo at any time; this may be done entirely manually by controlling, but it is possible to have AI party members do so instead (particularly and , whose AI has them prioritise inflicting the Driver Combo). Ensuring that the desired Driver Arts are always off cooldown may be done implicitly via including necessary Blade Switches in the rotation, or more conventionally using Pouch Items.

As almost all enemies have a chance to resist Break, ensuring that Break can be quickly inflicted after the previous Smash is nontrivial. Using Beta Scopes or Master Scopes (or ) is generally necessary to reduce enemy Break resistance to the point at which they may be broken consistently. Speedy Sword is a very good choice of Art for Breaking, as its three hits (all of which have a chance to inflict Break) correspondingly increase the chance of a successful Break substantially.

Driver Combo locking has direct benefits beyond making the enemy continuously unable to attack. The repeated application of Smash results in many items being dropped, making this an extremely effective way to farm for Core Crystals and other loot. The Smashes also damage the enemy. However, the true power of Driver Combo locking comes when combined with damage over time (DOT) from Blade Combos — the Driver Combos extend the Blade Combo timer indefinitely while the repeated Smashes increase the strength of each DOT tick. This is the most effective way to kill enemies with very high (especially in ) on Bringer of Chaos difficulty.

Driver Combo locking strategies usually avoid the use of s (in large part because they are most effective on Bringer of Chaos difficulty in which Chain Attacks are greatly weakened), and as such they may be used in combination with (which has the added benefit of reducing the enemy's resistance to the Driver Combo). During long fights in which the Overdrive count will be built up to a high number, the damage of Driver Arts becomes more relevant; due to the reduced cooldown offered by Overdrive, the ideal strategy entails having the player use their strongest/fastest Driver Arts repeatedly cancelling into one another while the AI party members perform the Driver Combo. With highly optimal setups and execution, the damage from Driver Arts may even outstrip that from DOT.

Which Driver Arts to use
In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, each Weapon Class on each Driver has four Driver Arts available, but only three may be selected at a time for use in battle. Deliberately choosing the three available ones may improve combat prowess substantially. The following are general guidelines towards making effective selections.
 * Arts which inflict stages of the Driver Combo are essentially always worth choosing over those which do not. The only exceptions are in very specific setups which rely upon certain tactics involving the Driver Combo, e.g. if the player does not want the enemy to be Launched for the purpose of achieving a specific Fusion Combo stack pattern, or if the player wishes to keep AI Drivers on specific Blades and giving them Driver Combo Arts on an undesired weapon runs the risk of the AI switching to the Blade to continue a Driver Combo. (These setups and their concerns are irrelevant for most players; as a rule of thumb, Driver Combo arts should always be chosen.)
 * Certain special effects of Arts are generally useful. For example, Arts which make the user evade all attacks during the animation, Arts which directly heal the party (especially before lategame), and recharging on s are in general very useful. However, Arts which stop the user from attacking and block all incoming damage (such as Rigid Shield) are generally poor for multiple reasons; for example, they are only effective if the user keeps for the duration, but as they result in a long period where the user does not deal damage, the user will usually lose aggro before the duration is up.
 * Arts with shorter cooldowns are better than those with longer ones. Having a low cooldown means that Arts can be used more frequently, especially once Driver Arts may be cancelled into one another using Arts Chain or equivalent. If a Driver Art recharges on crit, its cooldown is effectively zero if it crits, making it an extreme example of this.
 * Similarly, Arts with shorter animations are better than those with longer ones, especially lategame when the time spent in Driver Art animations dominates the time spent waiting for cooldowns.
 * All else being equal, Arts with higher ratios are better than those with lower ratios. However, this should not be overly prioritised (especially not over cooldown/animation speed), because the damage dealt by Driver Arts is typically inferior to that dealt by other means in any case.
 * Some conditions for special effects of Driver Arts are easier to achieve than others. For example, cancelling into a Driver Art is a very easy condition to fulfil; however, attacking an enemy from the back is more difficult in practice, as the time spent moving into position to attack an enemy from behind is seldom worth the extra damage/ gained as a result.

Driver Art-oriented strategies
In certain situations, it can be effective to use Driver Arts as the main focus in combat. The most common such situation is in the early game — roughly the first two chapters of Xenoblade Chronicles 2. In this case, all of the above strategy still applies broadly similarly — the techniques which enable faster buildup of the Special gauge also enable more per second due to Driver Arts, and Driver Combos are of similarly great use. (It should be noted that s and Blade Combos are still greatly effective whenever they are available; however, due to a lack of Arts Chain and relatively long cooldowns at these stages of play, they are somewhat less frequent than later on, making Driver Arts correspondingly more important.)

In lategame and postgame, there are two broad classes of Driver Art-oriented strategies: Driver Combo locking, which is discussed above, and those which use Driver Arts as the only significant source of damage. These latter strategies are Blade-specific; three particularly useful ones are as follows.
 * provides one Driver Art to each Driver that recharges on a ; at maximum level, it recharges fully. With proper setup at maximum, Fiora can have a crit rate of 100%, meaning that this Art will always be able to recharge fully on hit and (assuming Arts Chain or equivalent has been acquired) cancel into itself. Due to Fiora's extremely high damage from , this results in being able to achieve an extremely high amount of damage per second very quickly in a fight. It is particularly effective as a means to quickly kill enemies with relatively low.
 * on on  gets access to, which speeds up the animation and cooldown of Zeke's Driver Arts to such an extent that using Driver Arts results in higher damage output than using Specials. While this is somewhat less useful in  due to how Eye of Shining Justice interacts with multiple-wave fights, it is extremely effective against single targets outside of Challenge Mode, and works very well in combination with party buffs such as  and.
 * provides his Driver with an Art which allows evasion of enemy attacks for the duration of the animation. In combination with, which recharges Driver Arts upon evasion of an attack, this Art may be cancelled into itself as long as enough attacks target the Driver during the Art's animation. Moreover, doing so will continuously keep the Driver impervious to attack, making this an excellent defensive strategy during fights where many attacks will be targeting the Driver at once (Elma: Redux being a notable example).