Pathfinder Challenges: NPC Trainer Battles and Rewards

Pathfinder challenges are high-level PvE trainer battles against NPCs, and you find them in Aidel and Astra. They are spread across the open world instead of sitting in one hub, so you will pass a lot of them while exploring.

Each one shows on your map as a marker, and you can track any marker at any time. You don't have to stumble into a fight. Pick the one you want, track it and travel there. That helps when you are working through them in a deliberate order, which is worth doing for the reason in the next section.

The reward that matters most is B-Sauce fragments. A Pathfinder challenge gives one or two of them depending on difficulty: the harder the challenge, the more you get. The catch is that fragments are a first-clear reward only. Beat a challenge again and none drop.

That means every challenge has a one-time fragment payout. If you don't clear it, you don't get the fragments. Each first win counts, so it is better to come back to a fight you can't win yet than to keep losing and grinding at it.

Elite Pathfinder challenges add another reward: clearing one awards seven petals. These are the top tier of the challenge list, so expect them to be the hardest fights on the map.

Rematching a Pathfinder challenge goes through Battle Interlink, the game's co-op battle system. Battle Interlink modes can be played with AI-controlled teammates, and Pathfinder challenge rematches are one of those modes. You can run a rematch without a full group of friends.

The four-player Holo-Battle Interlink works the same way. You can play it with a group, or let AI fill any open slots. AI is not a full replacement for people, though. Playing solo with AI teammates produces lower damage output and fewer rewards than playing in a team. If rewards matter to you, find other players. If you just want to get the fight done, AI teammates do the job.

Remember that rematches don't pay B-Sauce fragments, because those come from the first clear only. Rematches are for the fight itself and the Interlink rewards, not for collecting more fragments.

Because Pathfinder challenges are high-level, your team's level decides when you can take them on, and the level cap decides how high your team can go. What raises the Aniimo level cap is not settled.

One answer is that the cap goes up as you progress through the campaign's main story quests. The other ties it to your player title: you raise your Pathfinder rank or Wayfarer level by clearing Pathfinder promotion exams and Elite Training missions. The assessment exam in the Sea of Flowers is the example given for lifting the level 25 cap, and higher thresholds such as level 35 also need exams of this kind.

In practice, keep the main story moving and take the promotion exams when they open up. Doing both covers you either way, so you won't stall below a cap while waiting to be ready for the next challenge marker.

05Where to start

Track the markers, clear every challenge once for its B-Sauce fragments, and leave the Elite ones for when your team can take seven petals' worth of fight. Use rematches and AI teammates when you want the fight again, but bring real players when rewards matter. Keep the story and promotion exams moving so your level cap never holds you back.