GamePress
Analysis by UmbraCorvus
Nowi - Eternal Youth

3-4

Obtainable as a 3 - 4 only

Hero Stats

Max Avg Total Stats at Lvl 40
163
HP 45
ATK 34
SPD 27
DEF 30
RES 27

Stat Variations

Level 1 Stat Variation
5★
4★
3★
HP ATK SPD DEF RES
Low 16 5 4 5 4
Middle 17 6 5 6 5
High 18 7 6 7 6

Level 40 Stat Variations
5★
4★
3★
HP ATK SPD DEF RES
Low 42 31 23 27 23
Middle 45 34 27 30 27
High 48 37 30 33 30

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

Skill Sets

Nono U (Higher Investment)

Build by UmbraCorvus
Recommended
Purifying Breath (+Eff) A Atk/Spd Solo (3 or 4)
Alternate: Atk/Res Solo (3 or 4)
Positional Assist B Null Follow-Up 3
Alternate: Null C-Disrupt 3
Noontime
Alternate: Sol
C Pulse Smoke 3
Alternate: Atk Smoke 3
IVs

+SPD / -HP

SSpd/Res Solo 3

Show Explanation/Analysis

Weapon: Purifying Breath (+Eff)

Assist: Positional Assist

Special: Noontime / Sol

Passive A: Atk/Spd Solo (3 or 4) / Kestrel Stance 3 / Atk/Res Solo (3 or 4) / Mirror Stance 3

Passive B: Null Follow-Up / Null C-Disrupt / Dragon’s Ire

Passive C: Pulse Smoke / Atk Smoke

Sacred Seal: Spd/Res Solo

  • If one is willing to break the bank for Nowi, Nowi can give some excellent returns which is very impressive considering her status as a unit found in the 3 to 4 star Summoning Pool! Heavy investment Nowi builds will often resort to boosting her Speed to very high levels, so ideally a Speed Asset will be taken. While high investment builds are expected to be merged to +10 eventually, an HP Flaw can be taken early on before the merging process begins.
  • Noontime or Sol are the Specials of choice that provide Nowi with a means of healing herself every so often. This is important because Nowi’s refinement effect ideally wants her to stay above 50% HP so that she can maintain her spectrum buff as well as her debuff nullification. As the A Passive will be providing her with boosts to her Attack already, on top of whatever support is working alongside this super-tank build, running a healing Special as opposed to a damage boosting one is not the end of the world.
  • Atk/Spd Solo gives Nowi a substantial boost to her Attack and Speed, and can function both in the Player Phase and the Enemy Phase giving Nowi some strong potential regardless of if she is tanking or initiating combat herself. Kestrel Stance 3 on the other hand sacrifices that Player Phase potential in exchange for a valuable Guard effect. If looking to sacrifice a bit of Speed in order to boost Nowi’s Resistance stat in order to give her a chance to survive common mage threats, Atk/Res Solo or Mirror Stance 3 can be taken instead.
  • Null Follow-Up gives Nowi the ability to shut down ever so common threats that would otherwise prevent follow-up attacks or secure their own against Nowi and ruin her otherwise fairly reliable ability to block Speed based follow-up attacks. Null C-Disrupt can be another option if there is not a Null C-Disrupt user on the team Nowi is on, and can allow her to counterattack Dazzling Staff or Firesweep users. Dragon’s Ire is another option that can help Nowi to secure her own follow-up attacks in the Enemy Phase while also blocking the opponent’s ability to shut down her follow-up attacks, which is great if there isn’t quite enough Speed buffs to make Nowi reliably get Speed based follow-ups of her own.
  • Pulse Smoke is a no brainer for a super-tank build in Aether Raids as Special attacks are often matchup deciders in most cases and shutting them down can greatly increase Nowi’s survivability. If Pulse Smoke is unobtainable, Atk Smoke makes a good budget option.
  • The Spd/Res Solo Sacred Seal is recommended as it boosts Speed and Resistance in both the Player and the Enemy Phases. These two stats are very crucial for many of Nowi’s key matchups that she is expected to deal with within Aether Raids, giving her a fighting chance against both heavy Speedsters as well as magical nuke units.

Ol' Reliable (Breath Build)

Build by UmbraCorvus
Recommended
Purifying Breath (+Eff) A Fierce Breath
Alternate: Steady Breath
Positional Assist B Dragon's Ire 3
Alternate: Quick Riposte 3
Aether
Alternate: Sol
C Pulse Smoke 3
Alternate: Atk Smoke 3
IVs

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

SMirror Stance 2
Alternate: Sturdy Stance 2

Show Explanation/Analysis

Weapon: Purifying Breath (+Eff)

Assist: Positional Assist

Special: Aether / Sol

Passive A: Fierce Breath / Steady Breath / Warding Breath / Darting Breath

Passive B: Dragon’s Ire / Quick Riposte

Passive C: Pulse Smoke / Atk Smoke / Player Preference

Sacred Seal: Mirror Stance / Sturdy Stance / Kestrel Stance

  • For those looking for a more traditional Nowi build, the tried and true “Steady Breath Nowi” still functions pretty well as it always did, and Purifying Breath being literally a better form of Lightning Breath means that these types of builds can still be strong if these Skills were inherited on Nowi prior, or one is still looking to run these types of builds. The choice of Asset varies greatly depending on which Breath is to be run. More or less, it helps to double down your Asset choice with whichever stat your chosen Breath Skill boosts. For example, a Speed Asset with Darting Breath will prove to be quite useful for boosting Nowi’s effective Speed.
  • Thanks to the cooldown bonus provided by the Breath A Passive, higher cooldown Specials can be utilized with relative ease. Aether is an option on a Nowi that does not commit much to the Speed stat, while Sol can be activated in one round on a Speed Nowi build even if the opponent cannot follow-up attack so long as Nowi herself can.
  • Dragon’s Ire has a much more generous HP threshold compared to Quick Riposte and even neutralizes effects that would otherwise prevent Nowi’s follow-up attacks, making it the ideal B Passive of choice. Dragon’s Ire is unfortunately somewhat difficult to obtain, so to that end Quick Riposte is still as serviceable as ever for securing follow-up attacks in the Enemy Phase.
  • The Sacred Seal Slot again, much like the choice of Asset, largely depends on which Breath Skill is being utilized and what stat the player would prefer boosting. Ideally if you are using Darting Breath, the Kestrel Stance Sacred Seal should be used to boost Nowi’s Speed further. As for the other Breath Skills, it is mostly up to player preference as to whether the Sturdy or Mirror Stance Sacred Seal is taken.

The Police Left me with Nothing (Budget)

Build by UmbraCorvus
Purifying Breath (+Eff) A Sturdy Stance 2
Alternate: Triangle Adept 3
Positional Assist B Quick Riposte 3
Alternate: Swordbreaker 3
Moonbow C Atk Smoke 3
Alternate: Threaten Res 3
IVs

+ATK or +DEF or +RES / -HP

SMirror Stance 2
Alternate: Sturdy Stance 2

Show Explanation/Analysis

Weapon: Purifying Breath (+Eff)

Assist: Positional Assist

Special: Moonbow

Passive A: Sturdy Stance / Mirror Stance / Triangle Adept

Passive B: Quick Riposte / Swordbreaker

Passive C: Atk Smoke / Player Preference

Sacred Seal: Mirror Stance / Sturdy Stance

  • While expensive builds definitely make Nowi much stronger than most dragons, Nowi makes a shockingly serviceable budget unit for those just looking to have a decent Distant Counter unit that can check a couple of threats for them. This build focuses mostly on utilizing cheaper Skills that are easy to access through the 3 to 4 Star Summoning Pool.
  • Moonbow is taken as the Special of choice for a bit of damage boosting as well as for its short cooldown. While a healing Special like Noontime is considerable on other builds, this build will often lack the harder firepower of max investment builds, meaning that Moonbow might be required to edge out some matchups in Nowi’s favour.
  • Sturdy Stance and Mirror Stance are obtainable easily through Altena and Silvia respectively, and the choice between the two mostly depends on whether one wishes to invest more into Nowi’s Defense or Resistance more. Triangle Adept is another A Passive option, turning Nowi into a dedicated Red unit check and can make her a solid pick for Arena Assault where you know what you are up against and can counterpick accordingly.
  • For the B Passive, Quick Riposte is needed to ensure that Nowi has a means of securing follow-up attacks in the Enemy Phase as this build does not focus on her Speed stat. Swordbreaker is another alternative to this slot, and much like Triangle Adept in the A slot, serves to make Nowi more of a dedicated check.
  • Atk Smoke is going to be the C Passive of choice as Pulse Smoke is very difficult to obtain but Atk Smoke is not. However, the C can be switched out depending on player preference.
  • For the Sacred Seal, Mirror Stance or Sturdy Stance make solid Sacred Seal options, and depending on which A Passive was chosen, one can either choose to double up on the same Stance, or carry both Sturdy and Mirror Stance at the same time.

Strengths

Purifying Breath

Although simplistic in nature, Purifying Breath proves to be a simple yet effective new weapon for Nowi to take advantage of, essentially being a stronger version of Lightning Breath that still sports the cooldown penalty, but also can give Nowi +4 to her Attack/Speed/Defense/Resistance as well as the ability to ignore debuffs applied on herself during combat if her HP is equal to or above 50%. This makes Nowi a simple and reliable innate Distant Counter weapon user that sports some solid benefits in such a debuff heavy metagame, but is also a strong Distant Counter user that is readily available and more reliable than most other dragons that choose to run Lightning Breath themselves.

Versatility of Builds even at Low Investment

Nowi, much like other units, sees strong returns the more expensive one’s budget for Skills tends to be. However, Nowi’s simple effectiveness leads itself to making her still quite a serviceable unit even for budget builds. The ability to easily have access to both Distant Counter and bypassing debuffs is nothing to sleep on, and even lower investment Nowi builds can get a shocking amount done depending on what content is tackled.

Weaknesses

Anti-Dragon Weapons are an Issue Outside of Dedicated Builds

As a dragon, Nowi faces a bit of an uphill climb in the sense that there are a wide variety of dragon slayers that she must be wary of that can exploit effective damage to get through a large chunk of Nowi’s otherwise sturdy defenses. Most noteworthy is the ever common matchup against Thrasir, who not only sports dragon effectiveness but also has colour advantage against Nowi. While there are some team setups or builds that can give Nowi an edge even against the likes of Thrasir, they can often be expensive or very committed to make sure Nowi can deal with said matchups to the point where performance in other areas may suffer as a result.

Generally wants more Expensive Skills for Peak Performance

While Nowi is definitely capable of being built on a budget, a lot of Nowi’s potential is locked behind more expensive builds that can bolster her statline to much more impressive levels or give her access to Skills that can give her stronger matchups against common threats and otherwise mitigate most weaknesses she would typically suffer from. She has a strong base for being such an accessible unit, but it is up to the player to ensure that base grows into something that can be potent in the late game.

Weapon Skills

Weapons SP Rng. Mt.
Fire Breath
Only inheritable by Dragon units.
50 1 6
Fire Breath+
Only inheritable by Dragon units.
100 1 8
Lightning Breath

Enables counterattack regardless of attacker's range. Slows Special trigger (cooldown count+1).

Learns by default at 4 ★
Only inheritable by Dragon units.
200 1 7
Lightning Breath+

Enables counterattack regardless of attacker's range.
Slows Special trigger (cooldown count+1).

Learns by default at 5 ★
Unlocks at 5 ★
Only inheritable by Dragon units.
300 1 11
Purifying Breath

Slows Special trigger (cooldown count+1). Unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range. If foe's Range = 2, calculates damage using the lower of foe's Def or Res.

Unlocks at 5 ★
Non-Inheritable skill.
400 1 14
Weapon Evolution
Weapon Upgrades
Weapon Upgrades

Support Skills

Support Skills Rng. SP
Rally Defense

Grants Def+4 to an adjacent ally until the end of the turn.

Learns by default at 4 ★
1 150

Passive Skills

Passive Skills SP Slot
Defense +1

Grants Def+1.

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 3 ★
30
A
Defense +2

Grants Def+2.

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 4 ★
60
A
Defense +3

Grants Def+3.

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 5 ★
120
A
Threaten Res 1

At start of turn, inflicts Res-3 on foes within 2 spaces through their next actions.

Inheritable by all units.
50
C
Threaten Res 2

At start of turn, inflicts Res-4 on foes within 2 spaces through their next actions.

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 3 ★
100
C
Threaten Res 3

At start of turn, inflicts Res-5 on foes within 2 spaces through their next actions.

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 4 ★
200
C

Other Info

Origin
Fire Emblem: Awakening

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Official Hero Artwork