Nidhoggr Guide - No Freyja Holy Relic

Published October 22 2023

A different option for Nidhoggr, if you don’t have either Light Mael of Sunshine, Freyja’s Holy Relic, and such, can be a standard team. This team focuses heavily on increasing your stats and dealing massive damage while counting on Elizabeth’s healing to increase your durability and offensive stats. Meliodas also increases your defensive capabilities by reducing the damage you take.

High Ultimate Move levels on either Escanor are required. Still, he can be replaced by an extra support unit in case you don’t have a high enough level on Elizabeth’s Ultimate Move to increase your team's damage output. If that’s the case, you can use an extra support unit that increases the stats of your allies, such as Green Festival Gowther (with his Holy Relic, he provides a considerable amount of Attack-related stats). This team is also usable if you already have Freyja’s Holy Relic; she can replace Freyr.

## Preparation

### Equipment

Blue “The One” Escanor - Attack / Crit Damage (Red Tarmiel link required; place Escanor further to the left, Holy Relic not required)

LR Red Princess Elizabeth - HP / Defense (recommended Old Fart King link for Combined Ultimate Move, Holy Relic required). If you don’t have her use Green Princess Elizabeth instead.

Dark Traitor Meliodas - Attack / Crit Damage

Red Freyr - Attack / Crit Damage (Holy Relic not needed, although it can be helpful)

Green Festival Gowther - HP / Defense (Holy Relic needed, otherwise don’t include him)

### Useful Artifact Sets

* **No. 29 Eikthyrnir Refuge (Highly Recommended)**

In Demonic Beast Battle, increases allies' stats by 2% / 4% / 6% / 8% / 10%, and when the Ultimate Move Gauge has 5 orbs or more, removes and becomes immune to Freeze.

* **No. 19 Hraesvelgr’s Nest (Highly Recommended)**

Increases allies’ single-target attack damage dealt to enemies by 4% / 8% / 12% / 16% / 20% in Demonic Beast Battle.

**No. 2 Guardian of Istal (Recommended)**
If an ally is Debuffed from a skill during the enemy’s turn, restores 1% / 2% / 3% / 4% / 5% of their Max HP. (Excludes PVP and Death Match)

* **No. 13 What’s the Tally? (Recommended)**

Recovers 1% / 1.5% / 2% of Max HP at the start of the allies’ turn when taking damage. (Excludes PVP and Death Match)

* **No. 34 Not Alone (Recommended)**

Decreases allies’ damage taken from enemies by 2% / 4% / 6% / 8% / 10% if an ally with the [Ragnarok] characteristic is alive on the battlefield.

* **No. 40 Sky, Ocean, and Summer**

Increases all allies' Attack by 1% / 1.5% / 2% / 2.5% / 3% for each applicable ally on the battlefield.
\* Applicable Ally: Humans, Unknown Races

* **No. 15 Happy Halloween**

Decreases allies’ damage taken from enemies by 1% / 3% / 5%. (Excludes PVP and Death Match)

## Strategy

### Important Notes

* A random Demonic Beast passive is applied on each floor during Phase 3; note that these passives will carry over through the entire run for all floors.
* Similarly to Skoll and Hati, Nidhoggr has only 3 Phases per floor.
* Nidhoggr’s attribute is Darkness, meaning your units will take 10% extra damage no matter the attribute.
* Just like in the other Demonic Beast Battles, the HP of your heroes won’t refill after each floor, so you will keep the HP levels you had in the last turn of the previous floor; you should use a heal (if you have it) right before ending each floor.
* If your Elizabeth isn’t high in Ultimate Move level (or your Escanor’s Ultimate Move isn’t high either), you can replace him with Green Festival Gowther.

## Engaging Nidhoggr

### Floor 1

#### Phase 1

In this Phase, you should keep saving Freyr’s Blitz Charge skill (and use others) to deal damage. Remember that the boss has a skill that Removes Buffs, so Meliodas’ Amplify won’t be as effective as in other Phases. However, his Unique will remain helpful thanks to the reduction in damage received. Also, keep using Elizabeth’s attacks to increase your units’ Recovery Rate and make her healings more potent over time.

#### Phase 2

During this Phase, you can use all the cards you reserved to break the boss’ Stances as much as possible to remove its damage reduction gray buffs. You can even get some Meliodas’ buffs here in preparation for the next Phase. Keep in mind that in the second turn, the boss will block all skill effects, including Ultimate Moves, for one turn; therefore, the boss will heavily reduce your damage output if you allow it to use this skill, so it’s better not to prolong for too much time and end the Phase before that happens.

#### Phase 3

During this Phase, try not to deal too much damage if you’re not ending the run that very same turn; otherwise Nidhoggr will increase massively its Attack-related stats. In your first turn, you will likely have removed at least 50% of the bar (if not more, or even all of it) so on your second turn, use all your Ultimate Moves and strongest attacks to end the Floor. Remember to use a heal before the end if one of your units has lost HP since your current HP will carry over to Floor 2.

### Floor 2

#### Phase 1

In this Phase, do not use Elizabeth’s attack if she’s not landing the final attack. Remember that the gimmick still applies: the boss will get a massive boost on everything if you remove its immortality buff, so not attacking with Elizabeth until the last turn (or when your allies are full HP) is crucial since otherwise, she will heal your allies and proc her Unique. Focus on accumulating buffs on Meliodas while dealing as much damage as possible.

#### Phase 2

Here, the boss will have the gray buffs that reduce the damage they receive. Use as many Stance Removal skills as possible to increase your damage output, but keep in mind that if you remove all gray buffs from the boss, it will replace them with another buff, which increases the damage dealt. Again, try to end this Phase as soon as possible; otherwise, in its second turn, the boss will place a Stance, which counters every attack and restores all damage reduction gray buffs.

#### Phase 3

Ideally, you should have at least one Ultimate Move ready (besides Elizabeth’s) to ensure you reduce the HP of Nidhoggr below the required amount (50%) to prevent it from gaining Attack-related stats buffs and reducing the immortality bar. For the following turns, you should fight to keep Nidhoggr’s HP below 50% to keep reducing its bar to 0; if Nidhoggr begins any of its turns with his health above that, it will partially restore the immortality bar. On turn four, fight freely, using all your Ultimate Moves and ending the Floor.

### Floor 3

#### Phase 1

During this Phase, the immortality bar begins at 0%, and it will get filled by 54% for every turn you fail to kill the boss. This bar will be depleted depending on the rank and type of skill you use to attack the boss.
Furthermore, since turn 3, it will seal the first skill type you use for two turns, so you shouldn’t drag this fight for too long. Otherwise, you will lose for running out of options.

#### Phase 2

The most difficult and most prolonged part of this floor. During this fight, you must keep the boss with just 3 gray buffs in damage reduction. If the boss has the fourth when its next turn begins, it will receive a great buff in the damage it deals. Every time you use a skill with Stance Removal, it will not only remove a gray buff but also cause an “Expose Weakness” on the boss, which will cause a different type of skill to reduce the gauge every time it gets used. However removing all grey buffs will greatly fill up the Immortality Bar and whenever you use Stance Cancel.

Furthermore, remember that if one of your units doesn’t use a skill during a turn, it will receive a Darkness stack, increasing the damage it receives. Save the Stance Removal skills for when the boss is about to set its Stance and slowly chip the immortality bar until you move onto the last Phase.

#### Phase 3

Compared to the last one, this Phase is pretty straightforward.
You should get Nidhoggr’s health under 50% to deplete the immortality bar by 20% and remove one of the healing gray buffs. These buffs will fully heal Nidhoggr as soon as its turn starts, so try to keep control of your skills to deal the most damage with them for as long as possible to deal with the least RNG possible. You also should keep a few Stance Removal skills since Nidhoggr will set a Stance that returns 100% of the damage received. When you finally remove all gray buffs, Nidhoggr will receive a  different gray buff, which Increases All Stats so that the fight will get a bit more complicated; spamming Ultimate Moves is critical. Unlike the other Phases 3 of the other Floors, Nidhoggr won’t have a damage cap here, so if your skills are strong enough, you can deal massive damage after removing the healing buffs.

Finish off by using repeatedly your Ultimate Moves and end the run.

Overall, Nidhoggr is the most challenging content in the game at the moment, but over time, several strategies have appeared to face it.