Oh, it’s the fourth Hag in White post in the span of two weeks. Oh well, guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Nicaea (Hag in White)
Please pardon me for not taking screenshots. Everything will be written out as best I can.
Bases, Growths, Promo bonuses and other reference material
Bases
HP: 27
STR: 10
MAG: 5
SKL: 11
SPD: 15
LCK: 4
DEF: 6
RES: 9
CON: 8
MOV: 7
WLV: 71-Lances (C-Lances)
Growths
HP: 65
STR: 40
MAG: 30
SKL: 45
SPD: 60
LCK: 15
DEF: 15
RES: 25
Promo options: Falcon Knight, Malig Knight
Falcon Knight promo gains:
HP: 2
STR: 2
MAG: 0
SKL: 2
SPD: 3
DEF: 1
RES: 2
CON: 1
MOV: 1
WLV: D-Swords, +40-Lances
Malig Knight promo gains:
HP: 3
STR: 1
MAG: 2
SKL: 2
SPD: 2
DEF: 1
RES: 1
CON: 2
MOV: 1
Nicaea is the second recruitable flier in Hag in White, joining at Chapter 15, or roughly halfway through the game. She is the game’s Catria, being the middle of three sisters who all happen to be pegasus knights. So why is the average midgame flier better than you know, the flier that joined earlier? Well…
Chapter 1: Out-flying the competition
Nicaea’s main competition is the earlygame flier Teresa, a Wyvern Rider who joined in Chapter 9. However, Teresa can’t really stack up against Nicaea, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, Teresa has a base Res of 0, and a paltry 15% growth. The importance of Res is at an all-time high as enemy magic users are everywhere. Armor knights get magic. Paladins get magic. Rouges get magic. Warriors get magic. Swordsmen frequently have magic swords on them. And then there’s the actual magic-using classes like Mages, Shamans and Mage Knights on top. Having a magic allergy means Teresa dies to two hits from these units, and with 8 base Def and a 25% growth, even physical attackers will bring her down in 3-4 hits. Of the 6 maps in which Teresa is playable on but Nicaea is not, only two have difficult terrain as a substantial obstacle, being Chapters 11 and 13. However, Chapter 11 is loaded to the absolute brim with Archers, magic-attackers and hard-hitting Wyverns that will punch a hole through Teresa’s horrible Defense, preventing her from doing much of anything, while Chapter 13’s layout makes flierdropping a very bad idea due to Conan and Dahl’s positioning and being a Berserker and Halberdier respectively, both with Killer weapons. Vulneraries and Pure Water are both expensive at 300/use, and money is tight. Teresa can’t do much of anything notable during Nicaea’s absence, and even when scaled up to or even past Nicaea’s join level, still has a major issue dealing with the magic users that are absolutely everywhere; Nicaea’s 9 base Res, while not on the level of full-blown Res-tanks like Eupraxia and Hecate, is more than adequate in ensuring that she gets 3-4HKO’d up until the extreme late-game.
Her other two sources of flier competition are both late-joiners.
Glaucus needs to be sent away in a base camp event to fulfill his secret promotion, which sees him return in Chapter 20 as a Wyvern Lord. However, Chapter 20 is quite the late time to join, and even then, Glaucus’ return bases, while containing solid durability, is held back by a base 17 Speed that barely manages to double middling-speed enemies like Paladins. He also struggles to one-shot them even with a Reginleif or Wolf Beil, so his offenses just don’t hold up at that point in the game.
Demeter, a Malig Knight, appears at the end of a 4-part sidequest chain that started in Chapter 9 and had to be kept up throughout Chapters 13, 17 and finally 21. If you manage to get her, her base stats are genuinely excellent, befitting the first of the game’s 3 Gotohs; 21 Speed to double everything and deceptively good durability due to Voice of Peace. Make no mistake; Demeter will give Nicaea a run for her money in terms of durability and being able to hit both Def and Res competently, though this again is not that much of a point against Nicaea; Demeter’s recruitment location is very out-of-the-way, behind a large peak with the only land route being through several mountain tiles, as well as being guarded by 6-7 flying enemies; the only units who can quickly recruit Demeter so she can help you are your fliers, and neither Teresa nor Glaucus are up to that task. Demeter’s offenses are also on the lower end, and she particularly struggles to ORKO enemies without effective damage; her magic attacks almost never reach ORKO power without some help. Even after Demeter gets recruited, Ch21 is so flier-heavy that both Demeter and Nicaea will need to work overtime unless you want fliers slamming into your ground units, and having 2 good fliers is better than having 1 good flier.
Chapter 2: Mid stats on paper are good in practice
Taking a look at Nicaea’s base stats, they seem to be quite shaky on paper. Doesn’t she get 2HKO’d by physical enemies with 27 HP and 6 Def? Or face crit from everything with that 4 Lck?
Well yes, but they aren’t nearly as bad of a problem as they’re made out to be.
Firstly, while she does take a lot of physical damage, she’s also very good at avoiding the same physical damage, and even then, it’s not her job to be a tank, or to be thrown into a horde of enemies and told to clean up. Firstly, Axereavers are freely purchasable on her join map, giving enemy Axe users low hit rates against her. Secondly, her primary role is to be an offensive nuke that takes enemies down reliably, while having good mobility; she shouldn’t be fighting a large horde at the same time. Her offense is excellent; 40% Str and 60% Spd growths will ensure she can keep up with enemy durability, and her Str and Spd will cap after promotion, which is important as this allows her to keep with ORKO thresholds in the endgame.
Secondly, Lck issues are almost non-existent and very fixable.
Consider how Crt/CrtAvo is calculated; base Crt is equal to Skl/2, rounded down, while base CrtAvo is equal to Lck; this means a Lck stat of X will allow a unit to face 0 crit against an enemy with 2X+1 Skl, when weapon/skill crit is taken out of the equation. In practice, this means that Nicaea is the only unit in the entire game who has even a remote problem with facing enemy Crt, because basically every other unit in the game outscales enemy CrtAvo without issue, and the two that don’t (Plato and Jason) join 4 maps after Nicaea. But this is not a bad thing for Nicaea, because it means she has virtually no competition for either the Hoplon Guard of the Mother Icon from Chapter 1; giving Nicaea the Mother Icon on join instantly buffs her Lck to 6, which is more than sufficient, given that Ch15’s promoted enemies in ordinarily higher-Skl classes like Hero (Hoplite) do not reach 14 Skl without needing a serious highroll. Enemy Skl doesn’t scale particularly fast either; by the Endgame, the average enemy only has about 19-20 Skl, so roughly 9-10 Lck is sufficient, and despite her 15% growth, Nicaea can fill this out without too much trouble (reaching 9 Lck at roughly promoted Lv15 with one Mother Icon, and much sooner if given the 2nd Mother Icon which barely has any competition for). On the other hand, having barely enough Lck is also not a detriment, because player units can essentially be categorized into two tiers: those that face Crit from high-Crt enemies (almost entirely Swordmasters/Berserkers/Halberdiers that have Crit+15), and a handful of very high-Lck units that don’t (Agari, Delilah, Vasiliki…). And Nicaea scraping the bottom of the first category is no issue, because 80% of the cast is in the same CrtAvo tier; luring high-Crt units is a job reserved to the designated CrtAvo units (or super-tanks that can wall the Crit).
Now, consider Nicaea’s offenses. They’re excellent.
Firstly, with 15 base Speed and a 60% growth, Nicaea will double everything. This automatically ensures her a decent, if not good, damage output. She will have no issue filling Falcon Knight’s Spd cap of 28, and while generic enemies are slow (with a conspicuously small population of enemy Swordmasters), a few speedy bosses like Scymerius 3 or Marina are out of doubling range for the middling-Spd tier units, and Nicaea can kill them quickly and reliably, especially as kill boss maps become increasingly common in the late game.
Secondly, her physical damage output is great. 10 Str and 40% growth is absolutely fine, because simply giving her a good weapon can go very far. Her Reginleif is 10x3 Might against Cavs and Armors, and both her join chapter and the map that follows are filled to the brim with either Cavs or Armors, all of which also out-level her in the short term, so she has no issue quickly getting EXP. While the Reginleif can’t be abused forever due to it’s low-ish durability, for the rest of the game, she can do perfectly fine; using the Axecrusher to nuke Ch19 Berserkers into oblivion or just plain doubling with a Steel or Killer Lance against Snipers or Magic users. If necessary, there is a Brave Lance on her join chapter which upon reaching B-Lances is an easy ORKO on almost any non-Armor enemy.
Even outside flier-only objectives or terrain-heavy maps, these offenses are comparable if not better than most of the cast, with only other fast attackers having equivalent if not better offenses. Even then, several of the ground maps have forest terrain that greatly hinders the ability of ground units to advance. By the late-game, where extremely-durable Warriors become commonplace, Nicaea becomes one of the only units capable of one-rounding them at both 1-2 range (using the Wing Shield to tank bow hits), due to her good Strength scaling and the S-ranked Lust being the first S-ranked weapon to be obtained.
All in all, NIcaea is primiarly defined by her excellent offenses for a flier, in addition to having passable durability, particuarly when dealing with enemy magic damage, which is commonplace. She is able to crucially have ORKO power while also being able to fly, while retaining ORKO power against some of the bulkier enemies in the lategame.
Chapter 3: Character Story (contains massive spoilers)
Part of what makes Nicaea so well written is how her recruitment and story arc are carried out, in that they throw a massive, unpredictable curveball on the usual FE formula.
Nicaea joins in Chapter 15, but the sequence in which you recruit her already began one map earlier, in Chapter 14. There, Aura, the youngest of the sisters, appears as an enemy, and is tasked with scouting the presence of your army.
Chapter 14’s opening dialogue flat out says that Aura’s job is just to confirm that your army is there, and sure enough, after entering combat with any of your units, she begins running away to escape the map, where she will show up again in Chapter 15.
In Chapter 15, Aura appears as an enemy again, tasked by the chapter boss to attack your forces for real. However, this time, if you visit the lower village, you will find Nicaea (then-unnamed), who will tell you the following, seemingly to get Aura off the battlefield alive so she can be recruited later:
Dialogue
Nicaea: …Hmmmm… It’s you. The enemy.
Visitor: …
Nicaea: Say… There is a pegasus knight out on the field. Her name is Aura. She looks a little like me. Would you kindly send her my way? I doubt she’ll stop to listen to a heretic, but if you clip her wings, she’ll likely flee here. Hmm? Oh, don’t worry, You won’t kill her. She’s got a talent for escaping tough spots. Just do what I ask and come back later. I’ll make it worth your while.
This is very convincing that Aura’s yet-unnamed sister cares a lot about her and wants to get her off the battlefield before she dies trying to fight you. Especially as she flat out states that it is OK to reduce her to 0 HP, hinting at a future recruitment, especially as she promises you a reward. This scene, combined with the usual pegasus sisters archetype, does such a good job selling the narrative that they’ll join later, that upon bringing Aura down to 0 HP as requested, it’s a massive shock that this happens:
Dialogue
(Immediatley upon Aura reaching 0 HP)
Aura flies into the lower Village
Aura: Khh… Urgh…
Nicaea: Rather nasty gash you got there, Aura.
Aura: Ah, there you are, Nicaea. Thank the Mother! I need you to relieve me. I must tend to my injuries. Here, take this lance and strike them from behind!
Nicaea: Ah, you would let me have your treasured spear?
Aura (smiling): I treasure your safety more than any weapon, Nicaea. Make sure you exercise proper caution, all right? As soon as I’ve bandaged this, I’ll arm myself and catch up. Go on, don’t be shy. Pick the lance up.
Nicaea (smiling): Thank you, Aura. That makes everything a lot simpler.
Aura (smiling): Good luck out there, sis–
Nicaea suddenly runs up to Aura and stabs her to death.
What. The. Fuck.
Aura just got brutally murdered by her own sister. This game already had great plot twists like offing the trainee or having a starting party member turn coat on you, but this is something else. But having the pegasus sisters kill each other is even more shocking than any of the main story reveals, especially the incredibly well-executed sequence of making it look like you are taking steps to recruit Aura later.
Still, you were promised a reward for doing this, and if you go back to the village, whoever does the visiting will stumble into the aftermath:
Dialogue
Visitor: …!
Nicaea: There you are. You took your time. You know, I had expected revenge to feel more… Well, more anything, really. I feel completely… empty. Spite has long driven me, and it has led me nowhere. What will I do now? Should I even do anything at all? Perhaps I shall simply replace spite with spite. To oblivion with the Mother and Her church. I would join you and see them all put in the dirt. Of course, I cannot force you to accept me, but… You aren’t exactly drowning in warriors of the skies, right? I promise I am not truly the duplicitous sort. Let me buy your trust with plentiful inquisitorial blood.
And just like that, Nicaea joins you. With the same weapon that Aura was using as an enemy. If you send her up against the boss of the chapter, the boss conversation does explain some of Nicaea’s motives, but if you don’t you’ll just have to put up with, this murderer, in your party until a base conversation in Ch17 that explains her motives.
Turns out, Aura, well she had it coming. Her parents committed the heresy of finding a Lifewringer to cure her terminal illness, and Aura decided the best way to repay them, is to report them to the Church, getting her own parents killed (in front of a terrified Nicaea, no less). She then proceeds to treat this as a positive thing, and according to Nicaea, Aura treated this as one of her proudest moments in life.
Despite all of this, however, the rest of her character arc has her realize that revenge is empty. Her own friend Agari calls her out on attempting to justify her actions to herself, and that simply saying that Aura would’ve gotten herself killed against your army regardless isn’t an excuse to kill her off. Fittingly, she has no supports with anyone else, as not even Agari will talk to her after their one conversation. In fact, after her older sister Cybele inevitably dies as a boss (due to being excessively and blindly loyal to the Church as expected), Nicaea ends up depressed and contemplating her own death, although her ending will reveal that she managed to get out of this mindset. All in all, a well written character that does a very, very good job of shaking up the formula, and then deconstructing the ramifications afterwards.