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Ascended Fjorm

Analysis by MackerelPye
Ascended Fjorm - Ice Ascendant

5

Obtainable as a 5 only

Hero Stats

Max Avg Total Stats at Lvl 40
190
HP 43
ATK 39
SPD 41
DEF 31
RES 36

Stat Variations

Level 1 Stat Variation
5★
HP ATK SPD DEF RES
Low 18 8 10 8 9
Middle 19 9 11 9 10
High 20 10 12 10 11

Level 40 Stat Variations
5★
HP ATK SPD DEF RES
Low 40 36 38 27 33
Middle 43 39 41 31 36
High 46 43 45 34 39

IV Sets

Key stats worth increasing through nature if possible.
Complementary stats that matter, but not to the point of picking them over key stats for nature increase.
Relatively worthless stat that can safely be decreased through nature.
HPATKSPDDEFRES

Fjorm is entitled to a free Ascended Asset of choice as an Ascended Hero

  • In most cases, it's best to go for +SPD regardless of your initial Asset/Flaw combination to improve her follow-up potential and avoidance. +ATK comes a close second to fulfill KOes as soon as possible.

  • At higher merges, +HP makes for a fair argument as it provides more general survivability and scales well with damage reduction.

  • +RES and +DEF are not recommended since they provide diminishing returns on Ice Mirror calculations, meaning less damage reduced and dealt back.

Skill Sets

Skies of Clouded Grey, Now a Blue Horizon (Reduction-Based Far Save)

Build by MackerelPye
Recommended
Nifl's Bite A Steady Posture 3
Alternate: Atk/Spd Unity
Swap B Hardy Fighter 3
Ice Mirror C A/R Far Save 3
IVs

+ATK and/or +SPD / -RES or -DEF or -HP

SMystic Boost 3
Alternate: Atk/Spd Bond 3

Show Explanation/Analysis

Assets/Flaws: +ATK and +SPD / -HP or -RES or -DEF

Weapon: Nifl's Bite

Assist: Positional Assist

Special: Ice Mirror

Passive A: Steady Posture 3 / Kestrel Stance 3 / Atk/Spd Bond 4 / Atk/Spd Unity / Mirror Stance 3 / Swift Stance 3

Passive B: Hardy Fighter

Passive C: A/R Far Save

Sacred Seal: Mystic Boost / Atk/Spd Bond / Deflect Missile / Deflect Magic / Quick Riposte / Atk/Def Form / Spd/Res Form / Steady Breath 

  • Fjorm is essentially locked-and-loaded the minute you summon her. No major inheritance is required outside of your preferred Assist (Shove, Swap, or Reposition if you have absolutely no idea) — and, very, VERY optionally, swapping her default A-slot skill for optimal sidegrades. That's it, that's the build.
  • Now, it wouldn't be professional to just leave a set of skills without elaborating, so we'll go over her intended playstyle plus how her provided skills work with each other:
  • With Nifl's Bite and A/R Far Save in tow, Fjorm already has the building blocks required of a Far savior unit. As long as Fjorm is within two spaces of some ally, all benefits are as follows: 
    • Far Save is so meta-defining already that it borders on self-explanatory — it allows Fjorm to take nearby allies' place in combat whenever a long-range fighter attempts to initiate against them. This is especially potent in both modes of Aether Raids as it is common for both attackers and defenders to run bow, dagger, staff, and time-using units to expand their threat coverage. The extra helping of Atk and Res +4 also doesn't hurt, slightly making up for the lack of stat boosts in Nifl's Bite.
    • Nifl's Bite complements A/R Far Save by completely scratching off the need to run Distant Counter anywhere on the build — that exact effect comes equipped in the weapon itself. Additionally and equally importantly, it grants Fjorm the ability to counterattack enemies with Dazzling and -sweep effects, allowing her to redirect their attacks and directly engage them, rather than leave herself vulnerable to them as other Far Save armors normally would. On top of these, Nifl's Bite features reduced cooldown -1, meaning Fjorm only needs to counterattack once to get Ice Mirror prepared for the next hit coming, and post-combat healing, giving Fjorm a form of sustainability in the absence of a healing Special. 
  • The build focuses specifically on the interaction between Ice Mirror and Hardy Fighter, giving Fjorm a very effective and reliable form of damage reduction. 
    • Ice Mirror by itself is fairly tame Special, reducing the strength of incoming ranged attacks by 30% and returning the reduction as damage in her next hit. Its usefulness amplifies with Hardy Fighter at play, however, as its damage reduction shoots up to a more resounding 51%, and the damage resulting from that is further subtracted by 5 — all of which is then added to Ice Mirror's returning damage. 
    • Additionally, Hardy Fighter grants a partial form of Null Follow-Up: it disables auto-followup hits from her enemy, allowing Fjorm to deftly avoid additional punishment from attacks within the likes of Bramimond's Void Tome and especially Valentine Líf's Þjálfi
  • With all that damage reduction and Save technobabble covered, we move on to the finishing touches: Fjorm's A-slot and Seal.
  • A-slots:
    • Fjorm's default Steady Posture provides a pretty ideal mix of additional Speed (to prevent natural enemy follow-ups while improving Fjorm's own doubling potential) and Defense along with enemy Special delay. The fact that it doesn't boost Resistance actually comes in Fjorm's favor as Ice Mirror reduces and returns more damage. 
    • For better damage output and to maintain Fjorm's great Speed, you may consider running an Atk/Spd A-slot instead. Kestrel Stance 3 is an easy one to recommend as it's the Atk/Spd equivalent of Steady Posture and thus maintains the Guard effect. Atk/Spd Bond and Atk/Spd Unity are also equally worth looking into as they will always be active by running Far Save, and both will provide debuff insurance by neutralizing or reversing Atk/Spd penalties, respectively. 
    • Though Mirror Stance 3 and Swift Stance 3 inhibits Ice Mirror calculations on magic hits, having more raw magical bulk has its advantages as Fjorm can be deceptively squishy if Ice Mirror's down for any reason. At any rate, both are perfectly valid survivability options, and the choice between the two comes down to you preffering extra damage or follow-up Speed, respectively. 
  • Sacred Seals:
    • Like the A-slot, you can run Atk/Spd Bond in the Sacred Seal for a substantial boost in damage and natural Speed. Atk/Def Form and Spd/Res Form are also up on the table as it's fairly doable to fulfill their maximum condition (+7 to their namesake stats) under Far Save. 
    • Mystic Boost provides a secondary source of post-combat sustain. Together with the healing effect from Nifl's Bite, it can heal back a lot of what Fjorm has taken (+13 HP after every combat) and generally primes her better in scenarios where she's fighting many times in a single sitting.
    • Effects like Brave weapons, Desperation, or those powered by 【Triangle Attack】can bypass Fjorm's damage reduction by hitting for full power a second time past the first reduced hit. To account for this, Deflect Missile or Deflect Magic drastically reduces the power of the second hit after Ice Mirror is used up on the first hit of these attacks. 
    • The Quick Riposte might seem a bit redundant given Fjorm's high Speed. However, there's no guarantee your Fjorm will be able to follow-up on everything she's up against, plus having a guaranteed follow-up on herself also helps overcome skills that would stop her from doing so naturally, especially Impact skills and Brave Hector's Maltet. 
    • In the usually rare occurrence Fjorm is affected by a Guard effect (see: Ruse skills, Triandra's Guard-inducing Dance, etc), you can run Steady Breath as a safeguard to have Ice Mirror fully charged on Fjorm's attacks. It's usually simply better to run this in an outsourced form, though, such as keeping Fjorm within range of Brave Lucina or Thórr.

Strengths

Nifl's Bite

In addition to universally reducing Fjorm's Special cooldown by -1 and enabling counterattack against ranged enemies without needing to run Distant Counter in her A-slot, her Goddess's namesake axe brings along a very interesting first in Fire Emblem Heroes history: it allows her to be the very first armored unit to have access to Null C-Disrupt. That particular effect is very important for reasons we cover later down. At any rate, as long as Fjorm is placed near some other ally, her weapon:

  • Prevents ranged weapons and effects that blocks her ability to counterattack, such as Firesweep or Dazzling Staff.
  • Dollops an extra 7 HP restored after every combat (similar to Mystic Boost), allowing her to recover lost health quickly especially without other forms of healing.

Ice Mirror + Hardy Fighter

Fjorm retains her first edition of Ice Mirror, which reduces the power of incoming ranged attacks by 30%, and then returns all damage reduced in her own hit. While mildly successful on her Legendary self, its usefulness amplifies remarkably when paired with Fjorm's other default kit skill: Hardy FighterWe're aware that skill can be a bit difficult to read and digest, so here is an abridged list of perks using both Ice Mirror and Hardy Fighter:

  • A halved form of Null Follow-Up — Hardy Fighter almost entirely eliminates Fjorm's risk of getting KO'd by units with automatic follow-up mechanics.
  • Ice Mirror's ranged damage reduction increases to a more agreeable 51% with an additional -5 damage taken off. This also means more damage returned by Ice Mirror; specifically, it calculates its retaliation based on ALL damage reduced
  • Ice Mirror is fully charged and ready to go at the start of the match (turn 1), meaning no setup is required.

Armored Perks / Far Save Access and Utility

Ascended Fjorm is one of the first new armors of the sixth generation, allowing her to start out at a shockingly blizzardous 190 base stat total. Generally, this translates to a stat distribution that's difficult to mess up (a little on that below) as well as fantastic near-maximal Colisseum scoring potential.

The armor skill access is even more important to note. In addition to Hardy Fighter which has been covered above, Fjorm gets the ever-coveted Save skill line. In particular, her default A/R Far Save synergizes monstrously well with the range-specific attributes of the rest of Fjorm's kit. Since Fjorm is able to bait and draw away ranged combat from her allies, she can pull out all the stops and go ham: the ability to counterattack back, ranged damage reduction-and-return, and confident matchups versus staff and -sweep skill enemies.

Overall, these perks make Ascended Fjorm one of our most unique yet effective distant tank units to currently date. 

Solid Statline 

Fjorm's Attack- and Speed-focused stat distribution results in naturally primed damage and follow-up potential, being quite atypical from your average Save armor. As an Ascended unit, Fjorm even gets to choose one of these as a superasset (+4 instead of +3 to the stat) for free

Though this comes at the cost of her defensive stats being merely satisfactory, this actually comes to her advantage as Ice Mirror does much of the handiwork when it comes to tanking many powerful ranged hits that come Fjorm's way. Her defenses being at above-average values also tends to grant solid damage values when Ice Mirror returns the damage it reduces. 

Versatile Unit

Everything Fjorm has to offer translates well in a variety of game modes, with both sides of Aether Raids being no exception. On the Offense side, for example, she can make dealing with Nótt or Cavlines significantly more bearable, while she can significantly delay the efforts of ranged initiators — especially Galeforce starter units like Yuri — on Defense. 

(also, she hangs out on occasion with her fellow axe homie Gala Elisanne to beat Water content in Dragalia Lost. Talk about talented networking! She also sings... In other languages!)

Weaknesses

Armored Shortcomings and Green Coloring 

Fjorm's inability to move more than one space may spell trouble in tight situations, though her playstyle being centered on baiting and engaging ranged enemies with Far Save does ease up on positioning. Additionally, armor-effective weapons pose a moderate threat even with Ice Mirror reduction — Legendary Micaiah's New Dawn particularly hits way too close, and any sort of contact with a generic Armorsmasher holder practically shatters all that nice decorative armor ice. Finally, Fjorm's axe unit startus sometimes proves disadvantageous against particularly tough red enemies.

Sometimes Doesn't Hit Hard Enough

Fjorm relies on her invested Attack stat and the damage returns from Ice Mirror to take down the opposition, as Nifl's Bite, unfortunately, doesn't offer her the same overbearing stat swings common on other armored tanks like Fallen Edelgard's Twin-Crest Power or Pirate Surtr's Sea-Sear Lance. At times, this may not be enough, especially if Fjorm has to finish things in one blow against something that matches her Speed or follows up on her. 

Powerful Melee

Fjorm's PRF skills being specific to ranged enemies backfires a bit so as long she's not partnered with a dedicated melee or Near Save ally or built to engage in close-range herself as well. Melee units with a high Attack or Speed advantage over Fjorm can bypass her damage reduction and prey on her relatively low Defense stat — this is especially true of many invested Sword heroes. Keep in mind though that Fjorm can be fairly competent on the melee side, so if you need her gone, it's best not to underestimate her especially in Speed.

Additionally, Nifl's Bite allows Fjorm to counterattack enemies with Dazzling Staff, Firesweep, and other similar cancellation techniques, but only if they use bows, daggers, tomes, or staves. Ice Mirror's damage reduction activates only on these same ranged enemies as well. Therefore, melee units with some sort of -sweep effect can be situationally troublesome — Brave Alm's refined Dracofalchion is a pretty dangerous example of this, as well as the growing list of units with Null Follow-Up swords combined with Windsweep

Miscellaneous Countermeasure Skills and Units

Fjorm's playstyle results in a few pretty odd countermeasures:

  • Consecutive/Double Attacks: If an enemy runs some sort of weapon or skill that enables attacks to hit twice in a row, Ice Mirror can only reduce the damage of a single hit while the other damages her fully. Watch out, in particular, for Brave-style weapons like Meisterbogen, and correctly-positioned enemies empowered by 【Triangle Attack】.
  • Bolt Tower: On Aether Raids Defense, a properly-positioned Bolt Tower can bring Fjorm into more comfortable KO range. This is only effective as long as the Offense attacker makes a good move before the Healing Tower heals her up. 
  • Pulse Smoke / Pulse Tie / Guard: A properly-targeted Pulse Smoke or Even/Odd Pulse Tie brings Fjorm out of her normally always-active Ice Mirror, leaving her vulnerable to the full power of incoming ranged hits. Similarly, a Guard effect prevents Fjorm from fully charging Ice Mirror upon her counterattack; do beware especially of the Guard penalty coming from the Ruse skill line or Triandra's Frightful Dream
  • Fatal Smoke: Fjorm relies quite a bit on the post-combat healing of her axe to recover and ready herself for new fights. If affected by Fatal Smoke and challenging other units in the same turn, she finds herself easily worn down to the point of defeat.

Weapon Skills

Weapons SP Rng. Mt.
Iron Axe
Learns by default at 1 ★
Unlocks at 1 ★
Inheritable by Axe users only.
50 1 6
Steel Axe
Learns by default at 2 ★
Unlocks at 2 ★
Inheritable by Axe users only.
100 1 8
Silver Axe
Learns by default at 4 ★
Unlocks at 3 ★
Inheritable by Axe users only.
200 1 11
Nifl's Bite

Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1). Unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range. If unit is within 2 spaces of an ally, restores 7 HP to unit after combat, and also, if foe uses bow, dagger, magic, or staff, neutralizes effects that prevent unit's counterattacks during combat.

Learns by default at 5 ★
Unlocks at 5 ★
Inheritable by Axe users only.
400 1 16
Weapon Evolution
Weapon Upgrades
Weapon Upgrades

Special Skills

Special Skills SP Turns
Holy Vestments

Reduces damage inflicted by attacks from foes 2 spaces away by 30%.

Learns by default at 4 ★
Unlocks at 3 ★
Restricted to melee units.
100 3
Sacred Cowl

Reduces damage inflicted by attacks from foes 2 spaces away by 30%

Unlocks at 4 ★
Restricted to melee units.
200 2
Ice Mirror

If foe's Range = 2, reduces damage from foe's attacks by 30%. Boosts unit's next attack by total damage that was reduced (by any source, including other skills) when Special triggers. Resets at end of combat. (Skill cannot be inherited.)

Unlocks at 5 ★
Non-Inheritable skill.
500 2

Passive Skills

Passive Skills SP Slot
Darting Stance 1

If foe initiates combat, grants Spd+2 during combat.

Non-inheritable by Staff-wielding units.
Unlocks at 2 ★
50
A
Steady Posture 1

If foe initiates combat, grants Spd/Def+2 during combat.

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 3 ★
120
A
Steady Posture 2

If foe initiates combat, grants Spd/Def+4 during combat.

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 4 ★
240
A
Steady Posture 3

If foe initiates combat, grants Spd/Def+6 to unit during combat and inflicts Special cooldown charge -1 on foe per attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 5 ★
300
A
Hardy Fighter 1

Neutralizes effects that guarantee foe's follow-up attacks during combat. At the start of turn 1, if foe's attack triggers Special, grants Special cooldown count-1. If foe's attack triggers Special and Special has the "reduces damage by X%" effect, Special triggers twice. (Example: if Special has the "reduces damage by 50%" effect and no other damage reduction effects trigger, reduces initial damage by 50%, then reduces remaining damage by 50% for a total damage reduction of 75%.) Each Special trigger is calculated as a separate activation.

Only inheritable by armor units.
Unlocks at 1 ★
60
B
Hardy Fighter 2

Neutralizes effects that guarantee foe's follow-up attacks during combat. At the start of turn 1, if foe's attack triggers Special, grants Special cooldown count-1. If foe's attack triggers Special and Special has the "reduces damage by X%" effect, Special triggers twice, then reduces damage by 5. (Example: if Special has the "reduces damage by 50%" effect and no other damage reduction effects trigger, reduces initial damage by 50%, then reduces remaining damage by 50% for a total reduction of 75%. Remaining damage is then reduced further by 5.) Each Special trigger is calculated as a separate activation.

Only inheritable by armor units.
Unlocks at 2 ★
120
B
Hardy Fighter 3

Neutralizes effects that guarantee foe's follow-up attacks during combat. At the start of turn 1, if foe's attack triggers Special, grants Special cooldown count-2. If foe's attack triggers Special and Special has the "reduces damage by X%" effect, Special triggers twice, then reduces damage by 5. (Example: if Special has the "reduces damage by 50%" effect and no other damage reduction effects trigger, reduces initial damage by 50%, then reduces remaining damage by 50% for a total damage reduction of 75%. Remaining damage is then reduced further by 5.) Each Special trigger is calculated as a separate activation.

Only inheritable by Armored Sword, Lance, Axe & Beast units.
Unlocks at 4 ★
240
B
A/R Far Save 1

If a foe uses bow, dagger, magic, or staff and initiates combat against an ally adjacent to unit, triggers【Savior】on unit.  

If unit triggers Savior, grants Atk/Res+1 during combat.  

【Savior】

Unit takes ally's space, enters combat in ally's place, and receives all after-combat effects.  Savior will not trigger if ally is on terrain that unit cannot move to or if multiple units are able to use Savior during the same combat. If Savior triggers, after-combat movement effects do not occur.

Only inheritable by armor units.
Unlocks at 3 ★
100
C
A/R Far Save 2

If a foe uses bow, dagger, magic, or staff and initiates combat against an ally within 2 spaces of unit, triggers【Savior】on unit.  

If unit triggers Savior, grants Atk/Res+2 during combat.  

【Savior】

Unit takes ally's space, enters combat in ally's place, and receives all after-combat effects.  Savior will not trigger if ally is on terrain that unit cannot move to or if multiple units are able to use Savior during the same combat. If Savior triggers, after-combat movement effects do not occur.

Only inheritable by armor units.
Unlocks at 4 ★
200
C
A/R Far Save 3

If a foe uses bow, dagger, magic, or staff and initiates combat against an ally within 2 spaces of unit, triggers【Savior】on unit.  

If unit triggers Savior, grants Atk/Res+4 during combat.  

【Savior】

Unit takes ally's space, enters combat in ally's place, and receives all after-combat effects.  Savior will not trigger if ally is on terrain that unit cannot move to or if multiple units are able to use Savior during the same combat. If Savior triggers, after-combat movement effects do not occur.

Only inheritable by armor units.
Unlocks at 5 ★
300
C

Other Info

Origin
Fire Emblem Heroes

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