Arknights: Optimal Trust Farming Challenge

Have you ever wondered what the most optimal Trust Farming set of operators is? Which ones would give you the best bang for your buck? If so, you have come to the right place! 

In this article I will showcase my findings on what I've dubbed the "Optimal Trust Farming" challenge, from the operators needed, to which skills are used, what other possible rosters would look like and, finally, how it can be further improved.

This guide will assume that you know what Trust is, as well as which main story stages are worth farming. If you do not, I recommend giving the articles below a thorough read.

As you may not be surprised to learn, these three Operators featured above make up for a majority of the Operator usage in the entire challenge, and are in fact completely core to clearing it with a high score.

This trio alone not only has a 3 Operator JT8-3 clear, but can altogether finish 11 out of 13 of the stages in this challenge all by themselves, without any additional help, while still remaining very useful for the couple of stages where they need any outside help.

What may surprise you, however, is that there is no high-scoring combination that doesn't use these three operators, and the reason lies behind the stage mentioned prior, JT8-3.

While there are other trio clears of this specific stage, none of them seem to bring versatile enough operators fit for the rest of the stages, making them essentially useless.

For the three stages where the aforementioned three Operators are not enough, the focus shifts to finding who can aid them in clearing those.

In the end, the two remaining spots in our optimal squad will go to specific combinations of these operators, specfically SilverAsh + Surtr, Phantom + Schwarz or Phantom + SilverAsh. These two aditional Operators are needed for stages in which the core three struggle, namely R8-7 and JT8-2. 

The duo that allows for the most uses of Scene is SilverAsh + Surtr.

That being said, how can we continue this challenge? What can be improved? And, most importantly, how can YOU, the reader, contribute?

As I see it, there are two different paths to be taken

While this minimum roster is already the lowest it can curretly go, there's no telling what the future holds. The release of Ch'en the Holungday seems particularly promising in this regard, likely allowing for a new minimum roster (though most likely an inherently less available one, as it will contain a limited unit).

That aside, it is also possible that she will reduce the number of Operators needed from 5 to 4, though this seems like quite the task. In order to accomplish this, Alter Ch'en would have to be able to replace two other Operators at once, most likely Surtr and Silverash, in every stage where they show up, or allow different solutions entirely. Particularly worrysome is JT8-2, the only stage which uses both these operators at once.

Another logical step to take is to find out if this roster is enough to clear every single stage in the game, worth farming or not. At this point, the entire Trust Farming idea could and probably should be dropped entirely, allowing for a full usage of the 5-Operator roster to its full extent in order to finish the game.

While this roster is undoubtedly very powerful, it's definitely lacking in certain aspects that the farming stages never test it on. Particularly, this team is bound to struggle in consistent Anti-Air and Arts damage. The most worrysome stage probably is H8-4, the final stage of the game, where these operators may not be able to protect the Civilians (or themselves, for that matter) against the sea of fire summoned by Talulah.

My personal prediction for this challenge is that this final roster will consist of 7 Operators, tacking Eyjafjalla and Nightingale to the previous set.

You can find more of the data I collected on this challenge in this spreadsheet, plus some additional comments on how the final roster was decided.

You can also view all the stage clears in the video linked below.

Finally, I want to remind all readers that this is not a list of the absolute best Trust Farming Operators, as some of these clears (particularly 4-9 and JT8-3) can be completed in much more simple ways by other squads.

However, I'd also like to encourage you to participate, to shoot ideas in the comments things I might've missed and, most importantly, to have fun! Always to look for new ways to challenge yourself!