Quick Links

Nozomi is the first human ally you'll pick up in Monark, and she's the character you'll be fighting alongside during the first act of the game, taking down the Pactbearer of Pride. She's not a Pactbearer herself, but that doesn't mean she's less useful in battle.

RELATED: Monark: Route Guide

In fact, Nozomi is one of the most useful supportive characters in the game, thanks to her ability to tank hits and heal her allies. She won't let you down if you side with her, that's for certain. Here's how she fares in battle.

How To Use Nozomi

Monark Nozomi

One of the first things you'll notice when using Nozomi in battle is that she doesn't exactly deal much damage. Her ATK stat is very low in comparison to the main character, and even though she's lugging around a huge lance, it doesn't do much.

This is because Nozomi is primarily a defensive-oriented support character. She's meant to take hits and help out her allies while doing so - and this makes sense considering her personality and backstory.

  • Many of Nozomi's skills are centered around leading the charge and being the center of attention for enemies. One of her most valuable skills is an attack that raises Nozomi's defense at the same time, making it obvious that she's designed to be in the fray, even if she's not a fantastic offensive combatant.
  • Nozomi is also one of the few healers in the game. While other units will have to rely on items to restore health, Nozomi can spend some of her HP to restore the HP of one of her allies significantly. However, this does mean that she cannot regain her own HP.
  • Nozomi also has access to quite a lot of buffing skills, so she'll never be caught without something to do. She can give defensive and even offensive buffs to her more capable allies and even improve the power of her assist attacks and counterattacks.

In conclusion, the watchword for Nozomi is utility. She'll never be the linchpin for a team's overall strategy, but she can grease the wheels and make everything run just a bit smoother. In difficult battles, you'll want to be moving your team forwards slowly so that Nozomi is always the most attractive target for enemies to pick - she will be more than capable of fending off attacks in the majority of cases and can even make a dent in the enemy with Counterstance active.

Notable Skills

Monark Nozomi Awakened Light Of Hope

Since Nozomi is not a Pactbearer, unlike the protagonist, Ryotaro, and Kokoro, Nozomi doesn't have access to Authorities. This means that all of the skills available to her will cost HP. Luckily, she's got a high DEF stat. It also means it's far easier to manage her MAD gauge.

While physical attacks aren't her strength, Nozomi does have many of them.

  • While her early physical skills are nothing to write home about, Protean Spear and Sweeping Shield are two very useful additions to Nozomi's kit. The first is a very solid opener that improves her own DEF while dealing damage, and the latter is an AoE attack that moves around its targets. Sweeping Shield is great to use when you need your enemies to group up just a tiny bit more to be able to strike them all with a powerful Frozen Thorns or Animakinesis.
  • April Showers and Helter-Skelter are barrage attacks with random hits tied to Nozomi's LUK stat. These won't be useful at all until she gets to a high enough level to consistently reach the maximum output of the skills, but it's worth considering her LUK Up passive node to boost your chances.
  • If you're looking at Nozomi to do real damage, Piercing Javelin is where you'll find the most success. It's a 200 percent potency move with a large, pillar-shaped area of effect - there aren't many skills in the game with that power and range, but then again, Nozomi has low ATK. It does, however, reduce her attack after using it, so it's only really viable to use once every few turns.

Where Nozomi shines is in her supportive skills.

  • Healing Prayer will be a workhorse skill for many hours, as she won't get her many higher-level healing moves until late in the game. As it stands, it's an incredibly solid panic button. Once you have it, though, Renewing Prayer is a great skill to set up and forget about, letting it do its work with passive healing.
  • Rejuvenating and Restoration Prayer are worth noting for their stat-debuff and status ailment healing abilities. They're useful to have when you need them, but you're also likely to have a large stash of cheap healing items by the time Nozomi reaches these skills.
  • What you want to get is Aegis and, eventually, Aegis+. These are very powerful skills that let Nozomi take damage and status effects in place of an ally (or all affected allies, in the case of Aegis+). These late-game skills let Nozomi come into her own when it comes to protecting her allies and should be something you use in every battle to make the most of her great stats.
  • Light of Hope, Nozomi's Awakened skill, is brilliant. It's an AoE buff that lets all affected allies use their abilities without cost, including HP and MAD costs. Using this before any strategies that employ high-cost skills makes things easier to manage.
    • Thanks to this, grabbing Concentration and Refined Ego is a great idea. This will let Nozomi reach Awakening far quicker and let you use Light of Hope more often.
  • Counterstance is one of Nozomi's more useful offensive skills. It improves her counterattacks' power considerably, which is great since she's likely to be making many counterattacks. While her ATK is lackluster, to begin with, any addition to her damage output, even if it's a passive addition, is useful.

Nozomi also has some useful passive abilities that should be considered when thinking of a leveling route.

  • Right next to her starting node is the Defensive Standby passive. It's a very expensive skill, but it's one of those additions that underpin a character's identity on the battlefield. It will give Nozomi a 30 percent DEF boost when using the Wait command, making it a viable strategy to plonk Nozomi in the middle of an enemy pack and wait around, letting you sort out your attack force.
  • MOV Up is almost vital for Nozomi. It'll improve her mobility and let her get to where she needs to be to take damage for her allies.

Where To Spend Your Spirit

Monark Nozomi Awakened

Unlike most other characters in the game, Nozomi's skill tree is very much on the linear side. The only deviation you can make from the main route through it is the off-shoots. Let's look at the skills you'll be happy with on the main branch and the ones you should nab on the way.

  • Charm Resistance is just a pretty nice thing to have, but it's the prerequisite for Defensive Standby, and you're definitely going to want that eventually. Just keep it in mind.
  • Once you reach Windcleaving Spear, Defense Hormone is worth picking up right after. You can leave Concentration until after you get Light of Hope.
  • From there, you can largely ignore the off-shoots of her main skill tree branch until you reach the top row. You'll want to pick up Light of Hope, Refined Ego, and eventually Sword Dance.
  • Once you get to the end of her skill tree and the valuable support moves, you can safely ignore Restoration Prayer and head straight for Aegis+.

Conversely, some moves will never really be that useful for Nozomi.

  • Sleep Resistance might be okay to invest in for a few cheap levels but can be ignored after that. You should have plenty of restorative items, anyway.
  • LUK Up is only useful if you really like the idea of April Showers and Helter-Skelter - and you shouldn't. Likewise, PSY Up isn't useful - Nozomi's healing potency is fine without it.
  • Lucid Prayer sounds nice for its MAD reduction qualities. Still, it requires investment into Restoration Prayer, and by the time you've enough Spirit to make use of it, you should have superior MAD management techniques.

NEXT: Monark: Complete Guide