Tempest Trials+: Nihility & Dream (Finale)

[Diovani Bressan]

The conclusion of the Nihility & Dream series, will soon begin!

The curtain rises on Nihility & Dream, a series of events focusing on the story of Peony and other álfar!

Plus, story elements that feature Special Heroes chatting will be released on the 4th day and 7th day after the event starts!

The bonus allies of this TT+ are:

 

Claude's skills at 5★ Lv 40:

Heir to House Riegan, leader of the Leicester Alliance, joining in Askr's winter festival
in the role of envoy. Appears in Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

 Golden Yule Bow+ (Mt: 12 / Range: 2)
Effective against flying foes. At start of combat, if unit's HP ≥ 25%, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 and Atk/Spd/Def/Res+X to unit
and grants Special cooldown count-X to unit before unit's first attack during combat (X = number of spaces from start position
to end position of whoever initiated combat, max 3; if【Penalty】 effects are active on foe, then the value is treated as 3).

 Sol (Cooldown: 3)
Restores HP = 50% of damage dealt.

 Atk/Spd Form 3
If unit is within 2 spaces of an ally, grants Atk/Spd+X to unit during combat (X = 2 × number of allies within 2 spaces, + 1; max 7).

 Chill Atk/Spd 2
At start of turn, inflicts Atk/Spd-5 on foe on the enemy team with the highest Atk+Spd total through its next action.

And the Sacred Seals are:
* Description for the enchanted version of each sacred seal *

 Odd Res Wave 3
At start of odd-numbered turns, grants Res+6 to unit and adjacent allies for 1 turn.
(Bonus granted to unit even if no allies are adjacent.)

 Special Fighter 3
At start of combat, if unit's HP ≥ 50%, grants Special cooldown charge +1 to unit and inflicts
Special cooldown charge -1 on foe per attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)

 

You can also earn some Divine Codes: Ephemera 12 by reaching the 6,000 score, and a Dark Blessing and an Anima Blessing by reaching the 12,500 score.

[Mercakete]

Oh right, we were supposed to be surprised about Eitr being Freyja last time, weren't we? ... Eh, I'm not going to put on an act. Anyway, I look forward to seeing how this arc ends, even though I'm not into it. I'm just mildly curious what they're going to do here and kind of want it to be done with. So, who else is thinking Freyja's going to unlock new power and become the queen of both dreams and nightmares as a new ascended (or whatever at this point) unit? Like, I think this is supposed to be the end of her "redemption" arc (even though she didn't actually redeem herself at all? Even being all "I realize I care about Plumeria and Triandra and maybe Peony and Mirabilis too" isn't really redemption after trying to pull every living being into an endless nightmare out of pure jealousy. And if they go with "now that my life is better and the solution was dropped into my lap, I'm going to forgive the humans (for something that wasn't even their fault anyway and I'm the one who actually needs to make a really big apology) and take care of them on behalf of my dead brother" then...yeah. WELL let's hope they hold Freyja accountable, eh? (Yeah, right.)

[Ice Dragon]

The Sacred Seals are pretty disappointing again.

Odd Res Wave is basically useless like all of the other Wave skills.

I'm not sure what use the Special Fighter Sacred Seal actually has. It's a good skill, but not when its competition is everything else that can be in the Sacred Seal slot. The main issue is that there is very little competition for Special Fighter in the B slot, but a lot of competition in the Sacred Seal slot.

Special Fighter has the most competition in the B slot on fast armors where it competes with Savvy Fighter, Hardy Fighter, Gambit, and Counter Roar, all of which are usually better than Special Fighter in that slot. However, the problem is that fast armors are unable to give up their Sacred Seal slot to run Special Fighter there because they absolutely need the +7 Spd from a Spd Form skill in order to have any hope of dealing with the current Spd creep.

Pretty much all modern(ized) slow armors already have a guaranteed follow-up on their weapon, which means Special Fighter is already going to be run in their B slot because they don't need any of the other Fighter skills. The ones that don't have a guaranteed follow-up are going to be running Vengeful Fighter or Crafty Fighter in their B slot, which means they'll already be overlapping half of Special Fighter's effects.

The only situation I can see (other than simply lacking resources) where Special Fighter in the Sacred Seal slot is actually a viable option is if a slow armor is running Hardy Fighter or Gambit and it doesn't have either of Special Fighter's effects in a different skill slot.

 

 

Claude's weapon is pretty good on literally any offensive unit. Getting a free fully charged Deadeye just for having any debuff on the opponent is pretty amazing. There's very little reason to use the primary condition on the effect (distance moved) when the alternate condition is so easy to fulfill. Infantry bows are now open to run Incite + Oath Echo without needing any form of Special acceleration in any other skill slot. Cavalry and fliers, which normally don't have access to most forms of Special acceleration, now have a much easier time running Deadeye and can also run it with Desperation 4 to avoid counterattacks.

On Save armors, it still loses to Arcane Nastrond, the main reason being that Armored Beacon and Armored Floe don't need to themselves be charged in order to activate their defensive effect, and it's really hard to pass up Arcane Nastrond's guaranteed follow-up and 30% first-hit damage reduction.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Ice Dragon

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I guess I'll have some decisions to make about Claude. I'll keep one, obviously, but do I fodder off the other one so another bow unit can have that bow? Brave Lyn? Ninja Heath? Klein, Rebecca, Dorothy, etc.? I dunno

[Ice Dragon]

34 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

I guess I'll have some decisions to make about Claude. I'll keep one, obviously, but do I fodder off the other one so another bow unit can have that bow? Brave Lyn? Ninja Heath? Klein, Rebecca, Dorothy, etc.? I dunno

Brave Lyn is a decent pick if you want to use Sacae's Blessing and you aren't already running Whitecap Bow or Whitewind Bow on her since Sacae's Blessing can't be used with an Arcane weapon. Everyone else on the list has no such drawback to running an Arcane weapon.

Whitewind Bow has the advantage of granting a higher boost to Spd (+11 with a Spd refine and the weapon's native 2 Bonuses with another +2 for each additional non-stat Bonus) as well as Null Follow-Up, but you can't activate a Special easily with it while running Sacae's Blessing.

Golden Yule Bow grants less Spd (+9 with a Spd refine) and no additional non-stat effects, but lets you land a Deadeye on every first attack (if the opponent doesn't have Scowl effects).

Whitecap Bow grants the smallest boost to Spd (+7 with a Spd refine), but has a Brave effect if your Spd is 10 points higher, allowing you to land Deadeye on the 4th attack if the opponent doesn't have Guard or follow-up prevention. The smaller Spd boost and restrictive Spd comparison means it'll probably only be useful against slow tanks given that Lyn's Spd stat is falling behind, and you'll still need to have answers to Guard and follow-up prevention, which are pretty common on slower units.

[DefyingFates]

I'm not going to look at the datamined text, but that intro went a lot harder than it had any right to and seeing Plumeria freak out over having spent so much time bullying her "Lady" was hilarious, as brief as the cutscene was. As for the rewards, Res Wave is a waste but might as well complete the set. Special Fighter could have some niche uses I guess and Claude's bow will be great for building nukes. Cool!

[GrandeRampel]

@Mercakete

I think you are misunderstending something, my friend.

This wasn't really supposed to be a redemption arc at all, nor does anybody in Askr who isn't a fairy really cares to forgive Freyja or have anything to do with her.

Remember how book 4 ended? Unlike with pretty much all the other villains, the Askr Trio didn't go out of their way to kill Freyja, nor did they feel vindictive towards her. "Curses, one day we will make her pay! This isn't over Freyja!" yeah, no.

The only thing they cared about was waking everyone up and escaping the nightmare themselves. Once they did that they stopped caring about Freyja since her plans were foiled and the humans were safe.

Freyja "died" because she cared to save Triandra and Plumeria's lives, but the Askr Trio didn't know she would do that.

They probably thought she would spend the rest of eternity malding that the humans bested her. Or maybe she would make peace with it and grow as a person one day, "good for her" but they didn't care one bit.

The vast majority of the humans don't know that Freyja was responsible for the whole incident, and the few that do don't really want an apology, they only want Freyja to never do that sh*t again.

An apology COULD still happen, and it would be nice, but even if she apologizes I don't know if the Askr Trio would believe or trust her at first, nor do they need to.

It's not like she will join the order, or anything (yes, I know that there are four versions of Freyja in the order already, but they are summoned from other worlds AND are a case of story/gameplay separation, unless you want to tell me that 2 Surtr also redeemed themselves off-screen and joined the order).

 

 

 

So, as I just established IMHO this current arc isn't about Freyja at all, let alone being a redemption arc for her. So what kind of arc is it?

It's a growth arc for Plumeria, Triandra, Peony and Mirabilis. They are the protagonists of the story, while Freyja is the MacGuffin.

The princess in peril for the sake of kick-starting the plot. The story starts with the fairies wanting to save her and ends once they do save her, but the important stuff is in between.

 

So for this kind of story to work Freyja doesn't really need to get focus much, or even change much (the biggest change happened right before this story started when Freyja realized she loved her fairies and acted selflessly for maybe the first time).

She can still even hate humans as long as she doesn's cause trouble to them.

 

 

Now do I think that she will not grow to tolerate humans, or even like them off-screen?

I just explained that she doesn't need to get over her hate of humans for the story to make sense, but I do believe that they will be cowards and make her suddenly realize that humans are alright out of nowhere with no explanation, JUST because she IS A WAIFU that they need to sell alts of and "HATING" the potential customers with a passion isn't really an endeering trait that makes her desirable. So they will get rid of that trait of hers with half an explanation as to why.

Cowards, all of them! Freyja would be more interesting and unique as a character if she never gets over her biases and simply stops being a villain but remains kind of a shitty person overall.

We don't have a lot of them in Fire Emblem. Shitty people that don't do evil actions anymore but are still haters. I can think of just a couple out of 700 characters.

[XRay]

50 minutes ago, GrandeRampel said:

I just explained that she doesn't need to get over her hate of humans for the story to make sense, but I do believe that they will be cowards and make her suddenly realize that humans are alright out of nowhere with no explanation, JUST because she IS A WAIFU that they need to sell alts of and "HATING" the potential customers with a passion isn't really an endeering trait that makes her desirable. So they will get rid of that trait of hers with half an explanation as to why.

Some customers like to be door mats and stepped on. Not my cup of tea, but no shame in that either. I am sure there are players out there who love to experience the fantasy of being verbally abused.

While she looks like a waifu, she is taken already as a big bro-con. So while her looks will sell, I do not think she will be as popular as other waifus like Lyn, Tharja, Lucina, Camilla, Loki, Byleth, etc. who have less romantic baggage attached.

[Tybrosion]

3 hours ago, XRay said:

While she looks like a waifu, she is taken already as a big bro-con. So while her looks will sell, I do not think she will be as popular as other waifus like Lyn, Tharja, Lucina, Camilla, Loki, Byleth, etc. who have less romantic baggage attached.

If you go by CYL results, Freyja (23rd in CYL7) surpasses Loki (96th in CYL7) in popularity.

In fact, Loki in CYL7 also placed below Gullveig (obviously), Sharena, Fjorm, Heidr, Plumeria, Laegarn, Embla and Ash.

People don’t seem to care about Loki much anymore now that she no longer corners the FEH waifu market (like she did in CYL2).

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Tybrosion said:

If you go by CYL results, Freyja (23rd in CYL7) surpasses Loki (96th in CYL7) in popularity.

In fact, Loki in CYL7 also placed below Gullveig (obviously), Sharena, Fjorm, Heidr, Plumeria, Laegarn, Embla and Ash.

People don’t seem to care about Loki much anymore now that she no longer corners the FEH waifu market (like she did in CYL2).

Oh damn. I guess people do not mind her brother infatuation as much as I thought it would.

[Morgan--Grandmaster]

For a finale, it's definitely on the easier side for Tempest Trials for me even at max difficulty. Just pack a decently powerful close-range cavalier, a healer, a refresher, and another unit to cover your main hitter's weaknesses, and you're good to go!

Edited December 14, 2023 by Morgan--Grandmaster

[Tybrosion]

10 minutes ago, XRay said:

Oh damn. I guess people do not mind her brother infatuation as much as I thought it would.

Freyja did have a noticeable jump in CYL after her Summer alt released. She went from 46th with 2,332 votes in CYL5 to 22nd with 4,180 votes in CYL6. Freyja also actually got slightly more votes in CYL7 (+209 votes) despite dropping one spot from CYL6.

But that aside, I don't see why Freyja's brother obsession would be a point against her when Camilla has the same thing (though somehow not quite as extreme as with Freyja and Freyr) going on with Corrin (their adopted sibling).

[GrandeRampel]

1 hour ago, Tybrosion said:

But that aside, I don't see why Freyja's brother obsession would be a point against her when Camilla has the same thing (though somehow not quite as extreme as with Freyja and Freyr) going on with Corrin (their adopted sibling).

Corrin is supposed to be a self-insert tho. It's not exactly the same thing.

[Tybrosion]

52 minutes ago, GrandeRampel said:

Corrin is supposed to be a self-insert tho. It's not exactly the same thing.

Fair point.

I suppose the way I see it, Corrin is only truly a self-insert in Fates. It would be kinda hard for them to be a self-insert in this particular game when that role already belongs to a different character (Kiran).

That is just my opinion, of course.

[Mercakete]

17 hours ago, GrandeRampel said:

@Mercakete

I think you are misunderstending something, my friend.

This wasn't really supposed to be a redemption arc at all, nor does anybody in Askr who isn't a fairy really cares to forgive Freyja or have anything to do with her.

Remember how book 4 ended? Unlike with pretty much all the other villains, the Askr Trio didn't go out of their way to kill Freyja, nor did they feel vindictive towards her. "Curses, one day we will make her pay! This isn't over Freyja!" yeah, no.

The only thing they cared about was waking everyone up and escaping the nightmare themselves. Once they did that they stopped caring about Freyja since her plans were foiled and the humans were safe.

Freyja "died" because she cared to save Triandra and Plumeria's lives, but the Askr Trio didn't know she would do that.

They probably thought she would spend the rest of eternity malding that the humans bested her. Or maybe she would make peace with it and grow as a person one day, "good for her" but they didn't care one bit.

The vast majority of the humans don't know that Freyja was responsible for the whole incident, and the few that do don't really want an apology, they only want Freyja to never do that sh*t again.

An apology COULD still happen, and it would be nice, but even if she apologizes I don't know if the Askr Trio would believe or trust her at first, nor do they need to.

It's not like she will join the order, or anything (yes, I know that there are four versions of Freyja in the order already, but they are summoned from other worlds AND are a case of story/gameplay separation, unless you want to tell me that 2 Surtr also redeemed themselves off-screen and joined the order).

 

 

 

So, as I just established IMHO this current arc isn't about Freyja at all, let alone being a redemption arc for her. So what kind of arc is it?

It's a growth arc for Plumeria, Triandra, Peony and Mirabilis. They are the protagonists of the story, while Freyja is the MacGuffin.

The princess in peril for the sake of kick-starting the plot. The story starts with the fairies wanting to save her and ends once they do save her, but the important stuff is in between.

 

So for this kind of story to work Freyja doesn't really need to get focus much, or even change much (the biggest change happened right before this story started when Freyja realized she loved her fairies and acted selflessly for maybe the first time).

She can still even hate humans as long as she doesn's cause trouble to them.

 

 

Now do I think that she will not grow to tolerate humans, or even like them off-screen?

I just explained that she doesn't need to get over her hate of humans for the story to make sense, but I do believe that they will be cowards and make her suddenly realize that humans are alright out of nowhere with no explanation, JUST because she IS A WAIFU that they need to sell alts of and "HATING" the potential customers with a passion isn't really an endeering trait that makes her desirable. So they will get rid of that trait of hers with half an explanation as to why.

Cowards, all of them! Freyja would be more interesting and unique as a character if she never gets over her biases and simply stops being a villain but remains kind of a shitty person overall.

We don't have a lot of them in Fire Emblem. Shitty people that don't do evil actions anymore but are still haters. I can think of just a couple out of 700 characters.

I think you're misunderstanding me on some fundamental points. I don't think this is a true redemption arc at all. (I put "redemption" in quotes in my last post for a reason.) It's more of a "coming back into power" arc, technically (and only talking about this TT+ series) but the "redemption" happened at the end of book 4, and this is continuing that. Even so, it doesn't lead to the end of a true redemption arc. As I described, her "turning from bad to good" was just "caring about Triandra and Plumeria" (end of book 4), "maybe Peony and Mirabilis" (this TT+ story), "and humans are maybe okay now" (my projections on how this may end, especially if she becomes the ruler of dreams in addition to nightmares.) This isn't actually turning from bad to good because of the events and attitudes involved (which I wrote about in my previous post.)

So, my point was about how IS is treating her like "she's good now!" and acting like we should just let go of how horrible she was and instead cheer her on/want her to overcome the nothingness/etc., but how she wasn't actually ever redeemed so much as her bad deeds were swept under the rug.

Also, nothing I said had anything to do with what the Askrans think. They have no bearing on this. My post was purely about IS, the players, and Freyja's personal journey (or lack thereof.) Like, can we just have the game tell the players "yeah, what she did was terrible and she hasn't changed her stance on her actions." She doesn't need to apologize to the Askrans; I just want her actions/mentality to be treated (by IS) as bad as it actually was.

[GrandeRampel]

On 12/15/2023 at 7:17 AM, Mercakete said:

Also, nothing I said had anything to do with what the Askrans think. They have no bearing on this. My post was purely about IS, the players, and Freyja's personal journey (or lack thereof.) Like, can we just have the game tell the players "yeah, what she did was terrible and she hasn't changed her stance on her actions." She doesn't need to apologize to the Askrans; I just want her actions/mentality to be treated (by IS) as bad as it actually was.

I think on this particular point we agree. It might be for different reasons but I actually would love for IS to follow-up on Freyja's existing characterization and actions, instead of sweeping it under the rug. But I have low hopes for it.

I can already see the "humans aren't that bad actually, I was wrong" moment coming and it makes me mad because it doesn't make a lick of sense.

[defensedefumer]

Here is my playthrough! Merry Christmas everyone!

 

 

[Mercakete]

On 12/17/2023 at 4:06 AM, GrandeRampel said:

I think on this particular point we agree. It might be for different reasons but I actually would love for IS to follow-up on Freyja's existing characterization and actions, instead of sweeping it under the rug. But I have low hopes for it.

I can already see the "humans aren't that bad actually, I was wrong" moment coming and it makes me mad because it doesn't make a lick of sense.

Exactly! (Sorry for the late reply, by the way.) To every craft there are methods which lead to either high or low quality products. Keeping your canon logical and consistent by being true to the characters (whether this leads to growth, a falling out, or little to no change at all) is an important aspect for making quality works in fiction-writing.

 

On a separate note, I found the Blue Lions' little side continuation of the main holiday story to be very sweet. It was nice, but I do wish I knew what his house got for him, as well as what the Byleths did. (Watch it be that both sides got him a dagger.) It's hard to say whether or not Dimitri giving anyone anything other than daggers is in character, though. That said, he's written less gimmick-y and more seriously, so I could see him realistically learning how to give a variety of things. I guess he just gives daggers when he wants to convey the symbolism he received when he got his.

[Etrurian emperor]

I was never overly fond of Freya and her fairies but I'd say the ending was decent enough. 

[Diovani Bressan]

I liked how they mentioned the fact that the fairies did a pact with higher autorities in order to save Freyja.

I will guess that without the help of Alfaðor, Triandra and Plumeria wouldn't be strong enough to enter Freyja's Dreams on their own? And now that Freyja is back, they should go back to Alfaðor's side, but Freyja didn't allow this.

[Mercakete]

2 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

I liked how they mentioned the fact that the fairies did a pact with higher autorities in order to save Freyja.

I will guess that without the help of Alfaðor, Triandra and Plumeria wouldn't be strong enough to enter Freyja's Dreams on their own? And now that Freyja is back, they should go back to Alfaðor's side, but Freyja didn't allow this.

I agree with this. If nothing else, it's explaining a bit of what the heck happened after Lif recruited them, and is giving us more hints toward the events that'll probably occur during the Alfador Arc finale. That said, I'm still annoyed at IS treating Freyja as a redeemed protagonist when she very clearly is not one. It's like they thought that showing the players what she used to be like would garner sympathy toward her since, apparently, Freyr's word on what she was like wasn't enough. Plus more Dokkalfar-Freyja "I care about you" stuff. That, however, does NOT constitute as redemption and is NOT enough for me to cheer for Freyja to win against Lady Gagap, especially when the threat of Lady Gagap is to throw the world into nightmare which was actually Freyja's whole thing. Like, Dokkalfar people, you have no right to be treating it as such a bad thing when it was something you actively worked for in Book 4.

They tried to give her cool, kick-butt moments but they hadn't resolved the issues of her having not actually been redeemed yet, which needs to be done first (or at least have the character be in the midst of a redemption arc) if you want the player to cheer for your protagonist. True, this is more a "how to write" general thing than a case-by-case, but IS is really skipping this step. At the very least make her stance clear again with something like "Now, I still intend to ruin all humans, so you light fairies may want to clear out. We have some planning to do." or something. But this "she's totally redeemed because you feel sorry for her" stuff is just frustrating.