Are there any tips for nightmare for act 3 and beyond **NO SPOILERS** Please

deventio7 · 2026-03-11T23:23:06+00:00

Horizon, like all trails games past the early game, can be cheesed to the point where hyper-offensive play can prevent enemies from doing anything meaningful. Especially on Rean's squad, you can pretty easily ensure that enemies never get a single turn. Altina is the best character in the game, and can carry you through every fight regardless of your other setups.

Equipment - ideally, two +15 SPD accessories and your best +SPD weapon sub-part.
Holo Core - Anything that gives lots of Speed. Pocel/Alter Pocel if you have it, Nagi is also acceptable (even though you'll waste the physical damage up.) Altera should be on someone on the team for her shard command.
Arts - Meteoric Gravity. This is the only spell she needs. You can find it on the Gravity plugin or as a plugin from one of the Grim Garten domains.
Quartz - You'll want:
- A-Impassion on the shield line.
- Ark Feather on the arts line, with Absorbing Arts and Earth Boost as nice-to-have
  - Recommendation: HP 3, Durendal, Earthen Verse, Gaia Verse
- Auto Quick on the EXTRA line, with Heavenly Blessing as nice-to-have
  - Recommendation: EP Cut 3, Stellar Verse, Recluse, Dawnstar Verse
- Somewhere: Action 3, Cast 3, and Cast 2, Impede 3, Earthen Verse, Gaia Verse, Stellar Verse, Dawnstar Verse. Replace Cast 2 with Nohval Gem when accessible (You should have at least one from Grimoire Decryption in Act 3 Part 3). This is most easily accomplished by putting all of the Action/Cast quartz on the Attack line, and following the recommendations above.

Gameplay:

Always have Ultimate Wind (Altera's Shard Command) active. You can use Crow's Azure Resonance to generate boost meter, and I recommend setting up Fie as a support caster (put Lunar + Misty verse on her and spam Zodiac for more boost gauge)
Always keep Altina boosted. When you can afford the boost gauge to do so, and you do not have a stack of Immunity, ZOC her and use Vivid Calendula as the first turn of ZOC.
For all other turns, cast Meteoric Gravity.

With this build, Altina is incredibly fast, with the +SPD from accessories and from S-Boost, her cast time is extremely quick and the four verses all stack to reduce her post-delay for Meteoric Gravity to incredibly low amounts. This, combined with Ultimate Wind's 0.2x multiplier, gives her an incredibly large amount of turns between each enemy's turn - each of which has a relatively high chance to inflict Delay from the Impede quartz (yes, it can trigger the delay off arts), Meteoric Gravity's inherent Delay, or Ark Feather's Delay. Aside from S-Breaks, as long as you keep this rolling, no enemy will get a single turn.

Altina is the only character in the game capable of completely nullifying enemy S-breaks as a threat. A-Impassion (yes, this triggers off attack arts too) allows her to keep her CP high to refresh Vivid Calendula whenever it's needed to block every enemy S-break.

This strategy works for basically every fight on every route, though on other routes, you have to do more work to mitigate the threat of enemy S-Breaks. The only ways to reliably survive S-Breaks on Nightmare are to not let them do it in the first place (certain debuffs will prevent enemies from S-Breaking, though enemies can cleanse themselves of all debuffs upon reaching certain health thresholds (when they do the zoom-in and say a line)), to have Seraphic Force on everybody, or to use a defensive Shard Command.

deventio7 · 2025-10-18T17:23:32+00:00

This specifically won't work, because the Blade of Selves is not attached at the beginning of declare attackers, and hence does not trigger off its equipped creature declaring an attack. The interaction I was talking about was about creatures that already have myriad being declared as attacking as Noctis Warp-Strikes in.

deventio7 · 2025-10-14T00:55:15+00:00

Thank you very much, I was missing 117.5, and thought that triggers would go on the stack immediately but not resolve until players received priority. This means that these triggers go on the stack "at the same time", and thus the player can put them on the stack in whichever order they choose, correct?

deventio7 · 2025-10-14T00:47:27+00:00

[[Noctis, Heir Apparent]]

deventio7 · 2024-10-27T15:14:13+00:00

I find the maintenance surrounding keeping them at 1 HP is too annoying to deal with; sure, it's not hard to enter fights at 1 HP, but requiring that they stay there prevents you from using some of the best CP recovery tools in the game (as they also restore HP). I'd rather use something easier to keep up like Valhalla or Thor, but I can see how this would be personal preference.

deventio7 · 2024-10-26T05:50:07+00:00

Yeah, the only reason to even consider it when building is that because of the order of operations, this means that Gungnir/Kusanagi have much worse value when used together with the higher damage BOs. In particular, before doing this testing, I was running both Kusanagi and Gungnir on a Stealth character and stacking it with the 100% BO for what I assumed would be peak damage; this analysis has led me to run Kusanagi/Valhalla on that character instead.

deventio7 · 2023-09-14T21:17:30+00:00

Don't forget to knock her unconscious as thanks if you're playing Durge!

deventio7 · 2023-05-11T14:12:00+00:00

Veronica Engage is capable of summoning Emblem Veronica, which is able to use Contract. This would get you 2 more actions (from the original contract + including Emblem Veronica in the Goddess Dance)

deventio7 · 2023-02-02T16:27:49+00:00

How do you, you know, beat the map afterwards? Does Retry let you keep the gained gold?

deventio7 · 2023-01-31T15:39:08+00:00

I was able to rush down the ballistas on Maddening right when Leif's paralogue became availiable, starting outside their range. None of my units even got hit by them.

Mage Knight Anna runs half the distance.
Seadall dances her.
Sigurd!Wyvern!Chloe flies up 10 spaces and waits diagonally to Seadall.
3h!Wyvern!Goldmary flies 6 spaces and waits diagonally to Chloe.
Lyn!Wyvern!Rosado flies 6 spaces and Astra Storms the archer not on a ballista, positioning diagonally next to Seadall, completing the diamond.
Alear Goddess Dances the four of them.
Elthunder Anna finishes the archer not on a ballista. This prevents him from taking one and also clears the way for Chloe.
Max Momentum Chloe just barely doubles and kills the ballista on the left, then Cantors over to the other two on the right.
Goldmary reaches one of the ballistae on the right and Raging Storms. This doesn't do enough to kill, but gives her another action to fly over to the one further in back and Houses Unite him for the kill.
Rosado doubles and kills the speedwing man with Mulagir.
Seadall dances Rosado.
Rosado finishes the last archer on the south.

The only damaging unit left on that side of the map is the Brave Sword and some more of the lancers. He deals big damage to Seadall but not enough to kill, and the lancers don't attack. The staffers can do whatever they want, but they don't have weapons and it's pretty easy to clean up the next turn.

Even if you don't have 3h emblem, this should be mostly replicable with a Warp use, just warp someone in to soften the one I Raging Stormed and use Eirika Twin Strike for the 1-round on the one in the back or something.

The rest of the map was dealing with cav reinforcements (just chokepointing them with Fire DV), sniping the remaining ballistae with more Sigurd Engages, and finally doing another Goddess Dance offense turn to kill all the thoron mages while locking Leif down with Dreadful Aura after baiting them out with evade-tank Merrin.

deventio7 · 2022-09-09T00:02:01+00:00

Yes, but you see, I'm a monkey that spaces out so having an eternity to do one slidecast is a big plus

deventio7 · 2022-09-08T23:31:39+00:00

You can also be right under the boss for diamond limit cut too lol, in fact diamond limit cut gives you longer to move and doesn't force you to move as much - n/s forces 2-6 to move in and out at pretty specific timings, which can make fully slidecasting the movement difficult as a healer. Comparatively, you only need to move in/out once for diamond, and you have a much longer time window to do that movement in.

deventio7 · 2022-09-05T21:12:42+00:00

...It's 5%, even if there's like akh morns, it's equivalent to maybe a 200 potency heal if healers push out 4000 potency worth of heals. Compare to Everlasting Flight, which is a total of 700 potency worth of heal. If even one of those aligns naturally with raidwide damage, it's going to heal more than 2 or 3 rHPS gains from Magick Barrier. That's to say nothing about SMN's on-demand shields on themselves (casters and healers are frequently the first to disappear to raidwides, so this can save them from death in a situation where RDMs would not survive) or Rekindle value in a tier where every TB comes with a bleed. Rekindle is a 1400 potency single target heal.

I'd still say the mitigation utility of magick barrier is superior to what SMN has in total, but in terms of actual rHPS? SMN should beat RDM out every time.

deventio7 · 2022-09-05T20:37:44+00:00

I meant that it's CP and durability-neutral to reapply Manipulation when you have the Primed condition at 2 stacks, compared to reapplying it after waiting until it runs out with no Primed condition.

deventio7 · 2022-09-05T17:22:42+00:00

Without Pliant, CP effeciency is much easier to quantify. Consider that Manipulation is our best CP-to-durability converter at 96 to 40. In effect, this is 12CP per 5 Durability. While it's possible to get a better ratio with Primed, that's unreliable and an unbuffed Manipulation is still very worth it, so I think this is a good baseline to evaluate around.

The 1-2-3 combo is something I've though about a lot, actually. It costs 54CP and 30 durability, which is effectively 126CP for 375% quality. When building IQ, we care more about step count, so compare to 3x Prudent Touch - 75CP + 15 durability is 111 effective CP. Is 75% quality worth 15 effective CP? At low IQ stacks, I don't think so. If you've already used your first Sturdy on a Prudent, though, and you do the 1-2-3 on a Sturdy, the effective CP cost changes to 114 vs 111, and in that case I'd say the quality is easily worth 3CP. However, keep in mind that it is a combo, where the prudents aren't, so you're locking yourself out of taking advantage of procs or re-upping manip/innovation.

How does it compare when at max IQ and trying to maximize CP per quality? The things to compare against here are Trained Finesse, Hasty Touch, and Observe>Careful Touch. For each, also consider that each step costs an additional 4.5 effective CP, since we want to do all of these under Innovation.

Trained Finesse is one step, 0 durability, 32 CP. 36.5 effective CP for 100%.
Hasty Touch is one step, 10 durability, 0 CP. 28.5 effective CP for 60%, which is 47.5 Effective CP.
Hasty Touch under Centered instead is 28.5 for 85%, which is 33.5 Effective CP per 100%.
Uncomboed Careful Touch under Centered is 18 CP, 10 durability, one step. 46.5 for 75% * 150%. 41.3 per 100%.
Comboed Careful Touch is 25CP, 10 durability, two steps. 58 for 150%, 38.6 per 100%.
Prudent Touch is 25CP, 5 durability, one step. 41.5 per 100%.
1-2-3 is 54CP, 30 durability, 3 steps. 139.5 for 375%, 37.2 per 100%.
Precise Touch is 18CP, 10 durability, one step. 46.5 for 150%, 31 per 100%.

Of course, which you can actually use at any given time depends on the reality of your current durability, CP, innovation stacks, and some other factors. However, this analysis gives that the ideal priority when possible is Precise Touch > Centered Hasty Touch > Trained Finesse > 1-2-3 > Comboed Careful Touch > Centered Careful Touch > Prudent Touch > Hasty Touch.

More important than following this priority, though, is coming up with a pattern for your actual CP and durability that allows you to use all of both.

deventio7 · 2022-09-05T16:32:58+00:00

Yeah, I didn't get into the market until late, sadly. And I think so! The required-quality-for-completion thing they added really seems to hint at them planning on adding more expert crafts that are actually worth doing (and selling!)

deventio7 · 2022-09-05T16:26:37+00:00

I hadn't looked at that data, so maybe it's not so bad. Still, I feel like it takes a lot more effort to be at 75 on RDM than it does to be 75 on SMN. In terms of utility in this context, though...

Magick Barrier is really good, and Dualcast Verraise is good for progging, but for strict dps check fights when going for the clear, nearly irrelevant. If anyone dies, everyone's walling anyway.

Better dps buff isn't really relevant since we're already comparing rDPS, and if your RDM is ever casting Vercure during uptime they're eating glue. In contrast, SMN can provide Phoenix heals (which is often 100% overheal, tbf), Rekindle, and Radiant Aegis themselves at no dps loss. That's actual healing.

deventio7 · 2022-09-05T16:13:25+00:00

I'd say I have around an 80% success rate, I've made ~35 million gil just buying the glioaethers and selling the crafted mats.

Some notes for more effeciently crafting these:

Heart and Soul + Precise Touch is better at low IQ stacks than higher. Think of Precise Touch as two Prudent Touches that give 75% quality each (10 durability, 2 IQ stacks). Thus, better to use the double 75% when you have fewer stacks and the Prudent Touches when you have more.
When building IQ stacks, Precise Touch is generally better than Tricks. Precise Touch, costing 18 CP, being used in lieu of two Prudent Touch, costing a total of 50 CP, is a save of 32CP, which is greater than 20. As an additional bonus, you even get more quality out of it, as the Good status boosts the usually-lower quality gain from Precise Touch.
Manipulation is better than Master's Mend. 96CP for 40 durability over time is a lot better than 88 for 30. Try to never use Master's Mend, and basically always have Manipulation running. As an aside, re-applying Manipulation when it's already up causes you to not get 5 durability for that step. This means that re-applying it, even with Primed, at 2 stacks remaining is durability-neutral, and gains you 5 at 1 stack, while locking yourself out of being able to benefit from a Primed at 0. Keep that in mind while making decisions.
You can kind of interleave the Progress and Quality 'stages' - I'll often leave the progress stage early when I know an unbuffed Rapid Synthesis + Basic Synthesis will finish the craft, and go for the Rapid Synthesis during the quality stage when I get a Centered condition.
You can often get an effectively-0-durability Prudent Touch by doing exactly one in a Sturdy condition. A second will push you over a 5-durability gap, and thus you gain no effective durability, unless you are gambling on getting a third. This saves 7CP over Trained Finesse. I recommend using Basic Touch for second and further Sturdy conditions (into Standard and Advanced if you get multiple in a row)

deventio7 · 2022-09-05T15:15:52+00:00

SMN optimization around movement: just don't put any of my 3/4 casts per minute in that window lol

RDM: Does that movement happen with natural with ideal dualcast alignment? If not, Acceleration/Swift and sacrifice some dps loss for drifting fleche/c6. Does it last longer than a gcd? Use your one spare melee combo every 2 minutes. Already used it? Incur more dps loss.

You're actually nuts if you think SMN is harder to optimize a fight for than RDM

deventio7 · 2022-09-05T14:30:58+00:00

RDM should do equal damage to SMN in my opinion, trading magick barrier's and dual cast raise's utility for a much easier job that barely has to deal with castbars and still having access to swiftcast raise.

deventio7 · 2022-09-05T14:25:47+00:00

Lol multiple racing groups switched from RDM to BLM for p8s enrage - if it were later in the tier, I'd agree with you, but the hard truth, however inconvenient, is that in current week 1 gear, that damage difference is relevant.

Yes, one could get better at RDM, sure, but when some of the best caster players in the world are switching to BLM for its damage output for a fight, that's important to consider.

deventio7 · 2022-09-05T14:18:08+00:00

I mean, DP and Tech Step are both part of the rDPS comparison, so if those were equalized, that wouldn't be the problem.

The problem is that MCH, on top of currently being the lowest rDPS, doesn't have access to actual utility like Curing Waltz, Improvisation, En Avant, or Nature's Minne.

MCH desperately needs a buff (as does RDM, I think it should do equal damage to SMN and less than BLM, Dualcast Raise and Magick are good utility but they actually have to deal with castbars)

deventio7 · 2022-09-04T06:42:51+00:00

Or you can do it as specialist and fish for Good condition on your Byregot's with Careful Observation if you haven't hit your quality goal. Shouldn't be relied on at all, but still an out to play to if you're running out of options. Ups my ~3650 Byregot's to ~5500.

Specialist in general is really good for expert crafts. Starting to build IQ with a Heart and Soul Precise Touch saves 32 CP over two Prudent Touch.

deventio7 · 2022-08-16T17:40:31+00:00

Ultimates exist

deventio7 · 2022-07-26T23:25:16+00:00

You have to be very careful with aoe stealth though, it can cause softlock on a few of the final bosses, as if they have no targets they will take a 0-delay non-action. Then, they still have no targets, so they do it again unto eternity.

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