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Is a +SPD Nowi viable?

I'm almost done with my +10 nowi but I don't know what IV's to choose...
+SPD -HP with fury and a SPD refined lightning breath or -SPD +DEF with steady breath and QR?

I'm leaning towards the steady breath build since bold fighter dont care about speed, but the speedy build is really useful for content other than arena

Asked by Atmosphere4 months 4 weeks ago

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A speedy Nowi can also be useful in Arena considering not all Arena teams are Bold Fighter Armored units.

Mostly depends on which one you prefer. I'm also in a similar predicament as far as my Donnel: didn't know if I should merge my +Def/-HP into a +HP/-Res to make him even bulkier against physical units, but decided against it.

Now, I'm wondering if I should go with +Spd, but I'm too drained to look for another on banners, lol.

+Spd Nowi is indeed viable.

Personally, I want to see more variety than Steady Breath QR, but a +Spd Nowi does work. A FEHtuber/Twitch streamer I watch runs a +Spd Nowi. His name is Nimious Plays. I suggest checking him and his Nowi out.

But it is up to you on what you want to do.

Yeah Spd Nowi is great. The only reason why many people go SB+QR is to max out on high SP skills and are the next best thing after armor emblem. Offensive Nowi capitalizing on Spd doesn't benefit from SB on player phase and her optimal mixed phase builds tend to use skills that don't weigh as much as her SB+QR build. But SP costs aside, both builds are viable and is encouraged in case you want to use her for other things outside of arena. Some infernal maps require you to be more on the offensive side than defensive side or you will easily get overwhelmed.

I disagree very slightly. It's almost impossible to double the super-fast meta threats (Karla, some fliers, maybe Nino) without multiple emblem buffs and chill spd. The point of QR is that I only need to keep up with them, stop their double, and let QR take care of the rest. This, not score, is why I use SB+QR on fast Nowi

I was under the impression that if you're building arena core anyway, you might as well capitalize on as much SP as possible. I guess what I was trying to convey is that a spd mixed or player phase dominant Nowi will probably choose a special other than Aether for example. You don't need the high SP cost to use Nowi outside of arena.

That's a very reasonable way to see it, but for that matter unarmoured ranged units have no place getting merges until an arena core is complete. Some people take that line; I don't agree with it because I believe people should invest in units that make them happy and use the skills that maximize the unit's effectiveness regardless of whether the arena scoring system will pay them off for it. This is the "intrinsic reward vs extrinsic reward" debate.

Philosophy aside, outside arena aether is actually more practical than in arena - sustain on chain modes, keeping QR active against hordes of reinforcements in LHBs and GHBs and etc.

In arena there are only ever four opponents so some burst special to blast through armours' massive defenses is nice. One-and-done isn't an issue, an issue which aether is really good at solving.

I use +Def Nowi, but I should say that +Spd Nowi is good vs mid-tier Arena meta, where most units are fast. This is not the case in the high Arena meta where you find Bold Fighters that don't care about speed to double, in this case +Def is better.

Below is my Nowi, also +Spd -HP. Not the heaviest scorer, I’ll admit, but she’s treated me well throughout some meta shifts.

During earth season, F!Grima boosts her speed to 39. Before buffs.

She’s mostly enemy phase, yes, but functions very well on player phase as well, so no need to worry about Bold Fighter.

That’s just my two cents, based on personal experience.

I hope this helps!

I don't see the point of a speed Nowi. Like as a blue unit her job is to take on red units and most red units (except for like Ike) have much higher base speed than Nowi. Meaning spd really only benefits her when she fights other Nowi's. Which if you have a varied team comp she should not be fighting anyway. also she will only double the other Nowi if that Nowi is -spd. So in my opinion and Netral spd nowi is the best.

A +10 Nowi with a speed boon, speed-refined Breath, Life and Death, Speed +3 seal, and a Hone Dragons/Spd Tactic buff has 51 speed.

Or 49 speed if you give her Fury 3.

Life and Death.
Good joke.

...Don't really get why that's a joke...? 51 HP (if you go with an HP bane), 51 speed, and 29 defense is enough for her to survive as long as the opponent doesn't have Bold Fighter.

I must be missing something.

Nowi isn't the most offensive powerhouse and terms of Atk, and she performs a lot better at tanking and self-sustaining through Aether, which she does a lot more if she's getting doubled. At least Fury would make her a lot more bulky while retaining decent Atk & Spd.

Well obviously, she doesn't have the highest attack stat of everyone in the game, lol, but even then, she'd be at 61 attack if receiving Hone Dragon's buff, or Atk Tactic.

61 attack and 51 speed sounds good to me. Is it the best? In my opinion, no, but the point of my first post to aniel2749 was to show him that Nowi can reach way higher speeds if actually built for it. :P

Life and death would actually work if I didn't have to give up steady breath for it. It's the Lissa school of tanking - I don't have Sheena defrnses, but I keep healing and healing and healing. It legit might work with infantry rush and a buff because her atk is decent to begin with (lightning breath doesn't help, but L&D does). I might try this for show if I pull infantry rush someday.

Isn't it better to initiate on bold fighter units? If they deal enough damage, they will KO on the 2nd hit and the enemy cannot follow up because they're already eliminated.

In a perfect world yes, but armours are by nature tanky, and it's not always possible to get through without a moonbow or bonfire/iceberg. I use aether, so if she doesn't already have 4 charges, I might get busted by a QR bonfire/iceberg

in terms of arena scoring Hone dragons, LnD and speed+3 seals are not good for scoring worth and speed tactic is super expensive. That and a +10 speed boon Karla with even speed wave gets 54 speed with a single rally or drive from an enemy reaching 57 so yeah she will be out classed in speed

But you don't need every single unit to have the most expensive skills in every single slot to stay in Tier 20. I've seen people with a few of their skill slots with "less than costly" skills and stay in Tier 20.

With that said, Nowi being a blue unit doesn't mean the only units she has to face are reds. With more and more people figuring out that you don't need armored/dragon units to get/stay in Tier 20, I can see it being 'normal' to run into someone using a sword unit that's not a +10 Karla/Ayra/Mia.

And even then, it's extremely easy, and I mean EXTREMELY easy, to bait units in Arena, especially if they don't have a singer/dancer with them, so even if a 51 speed Nowi fights a 54 speed Karla, she won't get doubled.

I'd say those are both the most common IVs. I think she can do better def invested but I've seen some dangerous +Spd TA builds.

In a way, but I don't think it's her best by a longshot. Not getting doubled means you won't proc either Aether or Ignis...at best you're apparently not taking as much damage, but you shouldn't be taking much to begin with if you're heavily optimised to take neglible amounts of damage.

I never understood this thing where people value not getting doubled as an offensive character. Lukas doesn't care about getting doubled, so it's not like Shiro's advantage in Spd will mean much (unless Dragons but fok 'em). At least melee characters can take advantage of Steady Breath and be able to launch 4-Turn specials regardless, which is not something CC + Owls can say.

This is a good point. I like fast Nowi for two reasons: player phase power, and taking multiple opponents. Not getting doubled doesn't just mean taking one less hit; it often means dodging their moonbow (or Regnal Astra, and mine does with buffs) which might have +10 or +20 behind it. I beat the Lucina LHB in this exact manner, blocking Lucina's double, denying her aether, which would have done a lot of damage due to the 50% def reduction. If you play slow Nowi you probably use guard so it won't matter, but I'm not convinced that she can maintain her guard for more than one engagement, or two at most. You're taking a lot of hits.

The other thing about blocking doubles is that she will win against low-res axes (which might hit too hard otherwise) and squishy green mages including even Divine Naga due to being able to use distant def (because QR is in B) and having boatloads of HP. I avoid doing it, but in a pinch it's great.

Also, I often win against non-greens without aether, which allows me to unleash it on a fresh opponent, not one who only has 11HP left to give me. If the first battle didn't do much damage, I prefer to take the extra hit before healing because that way I really heal as much as possible instead of hitting the ceiling of my max HP

I think the summary is that I get a lot more general use out of the fast variant. Taking negligible damage is probably equally good except on her turn, but then she leaves that to teammates.

I never thought you could save a B-slot in Guard by simply avoiding doubles...that's a really good point. I actually tried looking into building a Libra so fast that not even Ayra could double him, but also decently tanking (the highest mix possible).

Same thing with your Aether example.

Imo +spd nowi is really good, she is more troublesome to deal with than her standard slow build, because she can be either enemy phase or player phase.

Bold fighters will present an issue for fast Nowi unless she uses guard+QR anyways, which is a concession but arguably not that bad of one. Fast Nowi should, with buffs, initiate on bold fighter Zelgius for an easy win unless he has like three ward armours and warding breath and res boon. Maybe even then, because she's blue. Hardin might be too tanky to get through unless he dumps his res, but worst case scenario I think she can survive a bonfire because she has so much HP. Hardin won't have an ignis because he will almost certainly keep Gradivus. Not sure what it looks like against Berkut's lance + QR Gwendolyn or Effie, but again, they can't fire ignis. Gwendolyn doesn't seem too scary - she won't do much except on the bonfire, and I can heal up. Effie is somewhat of a different story.

The other advantage of pushing Nowi's speed a lot is being able to take the faster flying Tikis on enemy phase. If Nowi gets doubled I think she can expect to die, but one hit is ok, and there's no way flying Tiki should survive the QR double.