A guide to raising affinity between party members in Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (XC1) for the Nintendo Switch. Here we will cover all of the ways to grind affinity quickly, and go into the benefits of raising your party's affinity.

What Does Affinity Do?

Affinity is a mechanic that represents two characters' support for each other, and when leveled up, leads to various benefits in and outside of battle. By going to the Affinity Chart from the main menu, you can view the affinity levels between all of your party members.

Each color/symbol shown between two characters represents a different level of affinity between those characters.

Color	Meaning
Yellow	No Affinity
Green	Low Affinity
Blue	Medium Affinity
Purple	High Affinity
Pink	Max Affinity

Benefits of Raising Affinity

As two characters gain higher affinity for each other, they will enjoy a wide number of bonuses. These include the following.

Higher Chance of Chain Link

This is probably the main reason you will want to increase affinity. When two characters share a high affinity with each other, there is a much higher change to trigger a Chain Link during a Chain Attack, allowing you to extend the attack to deal even more damage to the enemy. Chain Links are the only way to max out the chain multiplier, and stringing together as many attacks as possible is the key to defeating those higher leveled enemies.

More Skill Links

Another very useful benefit of affinity is the gained bonuses from Skill Links. Every character can use Skill Links to equip another party member's skills, allowing them to enjoy the perks as well. Each time the affinity between two characters increases, another skill from that character can be equipped, and if affinity is raised to the max between two characters (Pink), both characters will be able to link up to five of each other's skills.

Of course, in order to equip another character's skill, the character who is equipping it will need to have the right amount of Affinity Coins, and the character who owns the skill will need to have gained enough SP to have learned it.

SP Farming Guide | How to Grind SP

Access to Heart-to-Hearts

Heart-to-Hearts are a special type of cutscene between two characters, which are viewable at varying affinity levels. When a Heart-to-Heart location is found in an area, interacting with it will show the characters involved, as well as the required affinity. During a Heart-to-Heart, you will have two chances to select responses for one of the involved characters, affecting the outcome of the dialogue.

While these cutscenes are a neat little feature, and give some insight into each character's personality, they also serve the benefit of allowing these characters to raise their affinity even further. Choosing the better answers will allow the characters to gain much more affinity than they would when choosing the worse answers.

Boosted Gem Crafting

When Gem Crafting, using two characters with higher affinity for each other will award them with a higher number of turns to craft. On top of this, higher affinity between party members makes it possible for other party members to provide an assist when crafting.

How to Raise Affinity

The following methods can be used to gain affinity for two characters.

Accepting and Completing Side Quests

When taking on a side quest from a named NPC, sometimes you will notice that a party member joins in the conversation, and hearts will be displayed next to the characters' icons. This means that the two characters' affinity has increased. This can also be done when completing a sidequest and returning to the quest giver.

Affinity can only be gained from active party members, so naturally, you will want to keep the party members who you want to raise affinity for on your active party (controlling one of them). When exploring a new area with lots of side quest, set the characters who you want to gain affinity for, and speak with all the NPCs marked with (!) symbols!

Giving Collectables as Presents

The blue items picked up from the ground of different areas (collectables) can be given as gifts from one character to another through the Affinity Chart, which can increase these characters' affinity for each other. However, if the character dislikes the item they are given, this can actually decrease their affinity, represented by a black heart symbol.

Each character has different preferences for each collectable, which can range anywhere from -2 to 4 hearts when given to them. For a full list of each character's preferences for each collectable, see the guide below.

Presents Guide | How to Give Gifts

Using Chain Attacks

Activating a Chain Attack will increase affinity for all members involved. Keeping your party's tension high and using arts like Back Slash to fill the Party Gauge is the key to activating many Chain Attacks.

How to Chain Attack

Burst Affinity

Burst Affinity shows up when a B-prompt comes on the screen during combat. These pop up when a party member is able to dodge an attack or land a critical hit. They will also show up when a party member misses an attack. Time the B press just as the ring touches the outer rim of the circle to gain Burst Affinity for your party members.

Encouraging / Helping Party Members

Reviving a fallen ally and then encouraging them, as well as helping out an ally who is suffering topple, daze, confuse, etc., will also raise your affinity with them. Keep an eye on your allies' statuses to keep them in check and raise affinity. Also note that to revive a fallen ally, you will need at least one full block of the Party Gauge.

Choose the best Heart-to-Heart outcomes

Heart-to-Hearts are viewable through affinity, and they also provide more affinity. Successfully choosing the best dialogue choices in these cutscenes will provide the most affinity, so make sure to go with the response that the other character would like better.

Heart-to-Heart Answers and Guide

Easy Affinity Farming

With the previously mentioned ways of gaining affinity between characters, there are a couple things to keep in mind to make the most out of Affinity grinding.

Keep the party members you want to raise affinity for in the active team

This may seem obvious, but since most ways of raising affinity require two characters to be in battle together, you will need to set them both into your team to gain affinity quickly. If there are two particular characters you really want to raise affinity for, select one as the character you control, and the other as an active party member.

Take on every side quest you can

With the characters you want to grind affinity for on the same party, you can go around an area and accept all of the side quests from NPCs to gain affinity. Even if you don't complete the quests, just accepting them will raise affinity (although successfully completing them will raise affinity even more).

Repeatedly help out allies

A very easy way to consistently increase affinity is by fighting monsters with a Debuff Spike Ability, or ones that can inflict Topple, Daze, Confuse, etc. on your allies. Each time your party member has their tension lowered, encourage that member, which will bring it back up and raise affinity in the process.

For foes with Topple, Daze, or Confuse, be sure to equip the party leader with a Topple, Daze, or Confuse Resist Gem. This will allow you to safely avoid the status so that you can move over to your allies and help them out. Go easy on the foe, then run away just before defeating it, and after getting out of range, restart battle and the monster will have full health again, allowing you to repeatedly use this method.

Use more Chain Attacks

Keep your party's tension high, and you will have an easier time filling the Party Gauge. In addition, you'll want to make use of Arts like Back Slash or Slit Edge, which can fill the Party Gauge if used to strike the enemy when the 'Chance' sign shows up. Use Chain Attacks at each opportunity for a quick boost of affinity for all active party members.

Save up collectables, then give them all to one character in bulk

Gifts generally don't reward allies with a ton of affinity every time, so it will be more more efficient to see which collectables you have a lot of, then give them to the character who likes it most repeatedly, using a character you want to build affinity with as the giver.

After getting a lot of collectables, open the Affinity Chart, select Give Gift, then press Y again to change the sort to Number to view which collectables you have the most of. To see which gifts each character can gain the most affinity from, see the guide below!

The Best Gifts for Each Character

Xenoblade Chronicles Tips and Tricks

Beginner's Guide to Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition

Gameplay Mechanics
Battle System and Combat Guide	Can You Switch Characters in Battle?
Stats Explained	Status Effects Explained
How to Chain Attack	What Does Tension Do?
How to Topple | Topple Lock Guide	What is Spike Damage?
Trading and Overtrading Guide	Collectopaedia Guide and Rewards
Presents Guide	How to Change the Weather
What is Weight?	-
Guides for Leveling and Grinding
How to Level Up Fast	AP Farming Guide
SP Farming Guide	How to Farm Money
How to Raise Affinity	Tephra Cave Glitch
Leveling Areas Post 70	How to Get Affinity Coins
Optimization Guides
Best Party and Team Setup	Best Skill Trees For Each Character
Best Skill Links for Each Character	Best Gifts for Each Character
Art Manuals List	What to Sell | Best Items to Sell
Miscellaneous Guides
What Carries Over to New Game Plus?	What is Expert Mode?
Achievement Guide and List	What Happens if You Die?
Appearance Guide | How to Change Appearance	List of Missables
100% Playthrough Checklist	-
Colony 6 Items
How to Get Gogol Horns	How to Get Inferno Element
How to Get Black Liver Bean	How to Get Snow Element
How to Get Azure Hollyhocks	How to Get Dust Element
How to Get Red Frontier	How to Get Empress Beetles
How to Get Rainbow Slugs	How to Get Ice Cabbages
How to Get Sturdy Armor	How to Get Squall Element
How to Get Bunnia Scent Wood	How to Get Fossil Monkey
FAQs
How to Get High Entia Emblem	How to Enter Hode's Lair
Where is Banquet Vassago	How to Get Bitter Kiwis
How to Enter Power Pipe Ruins	-