Holocore & Arts Drivers

[thomaskuznicki]

Optimum endgame holocore and arts driver choices for each character?

[Reitschuster]

Originally posted by thomaskuznicki:

Optimum endgame holocore and arts driver setup for each character?

Nobody can say.
Depends entirely on your playstyle and your customization of each character.
For Van, I always go with Mare (Gray) for evasion
For Aaron, Carabia for most damage
But these things completely depend on your preferred build for each character. If you don't know what to do, what you should do is go all in on a quality you want to maximize with a character (Like STR for Aaron for example) and select the holo core that complements that and possibly the quartz and shards you have selected.

[ZekeBel]

I'm currently on my 2.5th playthrough and the list below is a mix of what I've used in the past and some other novel ideas I'm currently trying, it's all based on my personal experience and playstyle. Note that I only cover Hollow Cores:

• Van: Mare (Chaos) is one of, if not, the best Hollow Core in the entire game, so this is a pretty easy choice. You can also swap to Mare (Law) if you prefer a Van that focuses on tanking rather than dealing damage
  
• Agnès & Quatre: both are pure Arts users so the best Hollows for them would be Loray (increase EP consumption for stronger Arts) and Otis (increases Magic damage and reduces casting time), up to you who equips which one
  
• Judith & RIsette: their statlines favor a jack-of-all-trades playstyle, with Risette focusing more on support due to Cobalt Courtain and Judith being more offensive with her Grimcatz transformation. I usually have both of them on Arc Feather duty (Risette using Waters Arts and Wind for Judith) but they can help in the frontline with no issue. I recommend Pocel and Sitri for them, you can choose and all around boost with the former or a longer S-Boost duration for more consistent Shard Skill procs with the latter
  
• Aaron: his damage output goes through the roof with the right build so depending on what you want to do, there are several options. You can go pure physical attacker with Carabia, focus on critical hits/damage with Nagi or go all-out with Stuns (and the 'Executioner' Shard Skill) thanks to Bathym
  
• Feri: I usually have Feri as an Arc Feather bot in the earlygame since she has very easy access to it, but she ends up falling off somewhat early. I'm experimenting with a support build this playthrough, that focuses on buffing allies with Arts and her Flaming Prayer and debuffing enemies with the different 'Breaker' Shard Skills, plus Arc Feather of course. In this case, Sallos (HP recovery after acting and a general attack boost) or Raym (if you prefer to solely use Arts) feel like the best options
  
• Bergard: to be honest, I haven't used him much. But looking at his statline, Bergard has very good physical Atk and Defense so you can build him as a bruiser with Camio, Carabia or Bathym
  For this playthrough I'm trying a pseudo-tank build with the 'Carbuncle' and 'Ratatoskr' Quartz and the Oze Hollow for a higher chance of absorbing magical damage. This seems more niche and I have to try it some more to see how effective it is, but the option is there

[thateclipse]

My view on artes drivers is the more plugins, the better. Every area has a relatively small subset of monsters and I like to build around their weaknesses. I'll swap drivers as necessary but I'd rather not deal with all the menus.

[COCAINE BEAR]

Van mare chaos completely breaks the game, especially if he goes grendel. He does more damage than the rest of the party combined. He still does a decent job of tanking so there is no reason to waste his damage output by going full tank.

Also there is a bug with the grendel (not sure if fixed now) where if you queue up a grendel s-craft during the attack animations when it is about to wear off, the s-craft does not go off (also does not cost cp) but instead you get an extra turn

[Reitschuster]

You don’t need Nagi for Aaron for critical hits because you can literally have Carabia and a 100% critical hit chance with the right combination of equipment and quartz

[ZekeBel]

Originally posted by Reitschuster:

You don’t need Nagi for Aaron for critical hits because you can literally have Carabia and a 100% critical hit chance with the right combination of equipment and quartz

That's true, I think Aaron should stick to Carabia (or Bathym to capitalize on Stuns/Executioner) but it doesn't hurt to list extra options

[Legendary Mr. Tiddles]

This is the kind of discussion we want to see on these fine boards. Keep 'em coming and thank you for the tips.

[ToxiCyborg]

Originally posted by Reitschuster:

Originally posted by thomaskuznicki:

Optimum endgame holocore and arts driver setup for each character?

Nobody can say.
Depends entirely on your playstyle and your customization of each character.
For Van, I always go with Mare (Gray) for evasion
For Aaron, Carabia for most damage
But these things completely depend on your preferred build for each character. If you don't know what to do, what you should do is go all in on a quality you want to maximize with a character (Like STR for Aaron for example) and select the holo core that complements that and possibly the quartz and shards you have selected.

That's the beauty of trails build system, many possible aways to build each character to fit your playstyle.
So there's no "you must do this build" on trails... That said I'll just give general lines on how I use each char.

I mostly use Van as a craft/s-craft spammer (highest dps on party), so law mare and anything that boosts phys dmg, I also give him the cp per turn ring (not as strong as on older trails though), and set deadly lance on his weapon line.
I use Aron as a evasion tank, give him evasion and hate quartz, and the holo that boosts counter.
Agnes as the main heal and arts dps (mostly time and mirage arts), also give her Ark Feather (wind 4, mirage 8 on drive line).
For Feri I try to captalize on her speed, so she can do more actions, cause delay, buff and debuff more frequently (her buff gives CP per turn).
Judith is my second higher dps (after van), she makes use of both phys and admg, and you can easly set deadly lance on her weapon line (ea6, time12), she also has high nat critical on late game.
Bertrand is my second s-craft spammer for when the others are running low on cp in battle.
Risette I use mostly as a defensive character, I give her hp, def, adef as high as possible, so she can withstand bosses s-crafts, heal, revive and shield the party.
And finally, I don't use Quattre too much, as he is too similar to Agnes...

Also, It's really usefful to give CP charge to the characters you use mostly (in my case, Judith, Van and Aron), by giving them fire and wind on extra line.

[Reitschuster]

Originally posted by ToxiCyborg:

Originally posted by Reitschuster:

Nobody can say.
Depends entirely on your playstyle and your customization of each character.
For Van, I always go with Mare (Gray) for evasion
For Aaron, Carabia for most damage
But these things completely depend on your preferred build for each character. If you don't know what to do, what you should do is go all in on a quality you want to maximize with a character (Like STR for Aaron for example) and select the holo core that complements that and possibly the quartz and shards you have selected.

That's the beauty of trails build system, many possible aways to build each character to fit your playstyle.
So there's no "you must do this build" on trails... That said I'll just give general lines on how I use each char.

I mostly use Van as a craft/s-craft spammer (highest dps on party), so law mare and anything that boosts phys dmg, I also give him the cp per turn ring (not as strong as on older trails though), and set deadly lance on his weapon line.
I use Aron as a evasion tank, give him evasion and hate quartz, and the holo that boosts counter.
Agnes as the main heal and arts dps (mostly time and mirage arts), also give her Ark Feather (wind 4, mirage 8 on drive line).
For Feri I try to captalize on her speed, so she can do more actions, cause delay, buff and debuff more frequently (her buff gives CP per turn).
Judith is my second higher dps (after van), she makes use of both phys and admg, and you can easly set deadly lance on her weapon line (ea6, time12), she also has high nat critical on late game.
Bertrand is my second s-craft spammer for when the others are running low on cp in battle.
Risette I use mostly as a defensive character, I give her hp, def, adef as high as possible, so she can withstand bosses s-crafts, heal, revive and shield the party.
And finally, I don't use Quattre too much, as he is too similar to Agnes...

Also, It's really usefful to give CP charge to the characters you use mostly (in my case, Judith, Van and Aron), by giving them fire and wind on extra line.

It's a beauty of this Trails system in particular.
Previously everything you did was always predetermined and was going to result in the same quartz within the scope of the same parameters (STR build).
Because of shards, you can now build different STR builds.
Because of increased quartz slots, you can customize people a lot better than before.

Personally, my main party throughout my first playthrough was. was always this: Van (EVA), Aaron (STR, 100% crit, gladiator headband), Judith (STR, CP gain) and Risette (supportive artsy character).

Aaron is bad and unsuitable for evasion builds because he has a limited attack range, Van does too but Van can at least draw people to himself with coin bullet. In my second playthrough, Quatre is the EVA character. Testing different things with my 2nd playthrough right now.

[Reitschuster]

Since we're talking about endgame, here's my 2nd playthrough (nightmare) setup for Aaron and Quatre. I use Quatre to stun enemies and reduce DEF, then immediately use Aaron with S-break (so that it gives him a STR boost), if anyone needs it. By the game's end, you should be able to capitalize on it.
https://imgur.com/a/xgSI84L
First playthrough I was mostly playing with Aaron though, this time I'm doing different things.