Achieving Enlightenment with Nihilism

SPOILER ALERT FOR TIPHERETH REALIZATION

Return to Void alongside Nihil, the Ultimate Guide to achieve Nihilism with Tiphereth. This guide will go over the use of Floor of Natural Science's EGO and Abnormality cards, how to effectively use it, and strategies that you could try to employ in your invitation. PS: Nihil is absolutely borken.

Introduction

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Just finished updating my Tiph realization guide, will try my best to update this within a week since PM probably won't make any more major change to the game (hopefully). Sorry if some of the information are outdated, but overall, it should work still

Welcome to my second guide! This one will be focusing mostly on how to get the most out of the E.G.O. card Nihil, but I will eventually expand to cover Void and other EGO Card in Tiphereth's floor. If you haven't realized this floor, or know a friend that is struggling, I made a guide on Tiphereth's suppression and realization right here

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2195533275
A quick reminder that this guide is not spoiler free, so bare that in mind. With that being said, let's get on to it!

Nihil Explanation and the Problem Behind it

To summarize the passive, your librarian must have Hate, Despair, Greed, and Wrath in order for Nihil affect to trigger. If you meet the requirement, you will be rewarded with the Power of God himself. All of the negative effect of the previous cards will be mitigated, and all of the character, including your ally, will be inflicted with -5 STR, -5 END, and -5 Haste. The effect carries onto the next Act, but you will need 1 Scene before Nihil effect triggers. Gotta get that depression to kick in first I guess. The most challenging part is gaining enough Negative Emotions (I will refer to as "Red Coins" for the sake of simplicity) to get all of the required Abnormality Pages consistently.

If you play this game enough, you will notice that gaining green coin (Positive Emotions) is extremely easier to do than red coin. Play the game normally and you will probably get ~60% Green ~40% Red, which is not that great of an odd for getting 4 Red cards. Your natural instinct tells you to win clashes to rack up damage, but sadly that will result in more green than red. Killing an enemy produces Green, but dying does not produces Red, so it is a lot easier to get it. The worst part is, even if you get 2 Green 1 Red to choose from, that red could be Blessing or Magical Girl, which jeopardizes the run. Even with my deck and strategy, it is not 100% consistent since there is a lot of RNG involved still. I would say about 93% of the time, it works every time.


This picture does not produce joy.

This picture produces pain.

Deck Build - Nihil

The Sacrifices

Embrace Death

Deck: 1x Puppet's Blockade, 1x Energy Cycle, 1x Unlock, 3x Opportunity Spotted, 1x Energy Shield, 1x Ready Up!, 1x Exclusive card/Big Damage card

Passive Recommendation (Passive | Page):

• Grit | Boris
  
• Corpse Cleanup + Mind Hauler | Valerie or Sweeper
  
• Refraction + Dimension Section | Sen or W Corp
  
• Remain Vigilant in Peace and/or Firm as a Great Mountain + Fervor | Mei, Cecil, or Liu
  
• Electric Shock | Brotherhood of Iron
  
• Improv Drumming | Breman Musician
  
• Charged Shield + Force Field + Heavy-Hearted Forte| Bada or Martina
  
• Emergency Ration | Jack
  
• Your Shield | Walter

Page Recommendation:

• Cecil + Mei
  
• Boris
  
• Bada + Martina + Nemo
  
• Puppets
  
• Thumb Soldato + Liu Fixer
  
• Oscar + Salvador + Crying Child

This deck is your bread and butter, and cheese, for generating red coins. Yes, the combat deck is trash. Yes, the passives are random. Yes, you will probably die by using this set up, or lose a butt load of clash, but that's the entire point. The objective of this deck is to be as garbage as possible so you will almost consistently lose clashes for those red coins while not sacrificing too much DPS or survivability. It is "Good Enough" to survive regular mooks and is able to withstand named characters for quite a bit too.

Treat your 0 costs as either a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ clash card, or free damage. Use your Exclusive one-sided most of the time for extra damage, or a panic button. Ready Up is your other panic button + extra protection.

I prefer Dimensional Section and Refraction on my Sacrifices since extra damage/stagger is always appreciated when your entire deck is revolved around being suicidal. Extra ration is there for extra survivability, and Electric Shock for the icing on the cake.

Multiply this deck by 4 and you are good to go.

The Prophet

Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of All

Deck: 3x To Overcome Crisis, 1x Unlock, 2x Sturdy Defense, 3x Fervid Emotion [1x Boundary of Death if you want to be an absolute God]

Passive: Firm as a Great Mountain/Remain Vigilant in Peace/Corpse Cleanup + Remembrance

Infinite 4 Yujin, the single strongest entity in this entire game. With the correct build and set up, she will become unstoppable. Keep using Overcome to regain light and draw, clash Sturdy Defense for faster draw, and set up Unlock to get Unlock III when your health exceed 25%. After that, just spam 4 Cost + Overcome/Unlock III for free. She will be your best DPS and clasher to wither down the enemy before they kill your sacrifice too early. The reason why she is probably the best unit to be used with Nihil is due to the fact that Overbreathing + Wrath will make a 4 Cost card into 0 Cost.

Math time: 4 Cost - 2 [Overbreathing] - 2 [Wrath's Light Regeneration] - 1 [Natural Light Gain] = -1 Cost

Yep, you are not hallucinating or anything. You regain a Light for using a 4 cost card with Nihil! Not only that, Remembrance + Kizuna = + 4 STR +2 END will give you the boost to create a come back you needed. Lone Fixer is not worth it since you don't want to be alone fast, and it's only 1 more STR than Remembrance. If you're already alone, you either won or lost most of the time. Moreover, 1 STR doesn't matter much when you got Nihil anyway, since most dices are going to roll 1-2.

Yes, I have gamble addiction with Boundary of Death.


I am Le Thumb De Capo, and this... is my weapon.

Deck: 2x Frontal Assault, 1x Unlock, 1x Reload, 2x Bayonet Combat, 1x Summary Judgement, 1x Focus Fire, 1x Le Regole

Passive: Corpse Cleanup + Remembrance/Empowering First Shot + 1 Cost passive

If you prefer to wither the enemy down faster, Kalo might be a good pick for this. Be more mindful about clashing with him, but in a one-sided attack, he will shine quite well. Treat his bullets as support fire, or ammunition for Focus Fire. His passive should help your nuggets survive a little better, though don't count on it too much.


There could only be ONE

Deck: Standard Index Deck with Exclusive

Passive: Grace of the Prescript + Instant Cooking | Corpse Cleanup + Mind Hauler + Unstable Charge | Mind Hauler + Health Hauler + Grace of the Prescript

Solid decks for people who want to maximize DPS, and is not comfortable using Yujin. You can use any Proxies pages to be honest, though prioritize Ester -> Gloria -> Hubert. Castigation is a great Kill Command card in case you absolutely need someone to die/stagger, Eradication is a mass attack, and Decapitation could be used as a kill/stagger secure. Though, be aware that your survival is a bit lower with Index, since they are usually hyper offensive.

Strategies - Nihil

So, you built your Floor of Natural Science with a Savant and four Sacrifices, now time for the real madness. The shortened version of this is to purposefully lose clashes as much as possible without dying too fast, and your Savant survives until you pull Nihil. Sounds simple, but in reality it takes substantial about of brain power. I will divide the tips into sections to make it easier to understand.

Why Opportunity Spotted instead of Stigmatize?

Although Stigmatize's On Use effect produces red emotion coin, it only produces 1, which is not a lot for a 2 cost. Not only that you need to get as much red coin as possible, you also need to level up your emotion level swiftly too. In an one-sided attack, Stigmatize gains 1 red coin, while Opportunity gains 3 random coins. In a clash, Stigmatize gains 3 coins, while Opportunity gains at least 4 coins. Also, with Stigmatize's dice being [3-7, 3-7], you have more chance of winning a clash than the super low dice value of Opportunity. Winning clash generates green coin, which is bad. Losing clash, however, generates red coin. To make it even better, rolling min value produces red coin, while max produces green coin. So, with a perfect roll, Opportunity could generate up to 8 red coins in one clash for only 1 cost. You'd be surprise how useful that 3-5 block is at mitigating damage and destroying dodge dice. Yeah it's trash for everything else, but that's not why you are using it for, you are using to make your nuggets have mental breakdown.

tl;dr Opportunity Spotted generates more red coins on average than Stigmatize could ever do.

Clash Prioritization

There are infinite possibility of clashes in this game, and sometimes it's better to abandon this strat for a moment in order to survive the onslaught. I will provide examples of coin generation methods and some trick that could benefit you.

Your best scenario most of the time. This will generate a lot of coins, and most of them are going to be red due to the fact that you are going to lose all of those clashes. However, this is taxing to your stagger and health even with 3-5 block dice. Don't do this on your first scene since it's a waste of card and health. Just one side with Opportunity if you really can't do anything else, it will guarantee you 3 emotion coins so you level up.

This is why I have Energy Shield in the deck, to lower the damage you take from a moderately strong card. Not reliable at getting red coin, but at least it's something. Though, don't try doing this against bigger dices like Vapour unless you don't have any choice.

If you are playing this game normally, this might look like I am out of my mind. What if I tell you that by doing this clash, I am guaranteed at least 1 red coin? If you clash against the enemy, and you do not have a dice to respond, you will get hit and gain red coin, and vice versa. Think of it like you are rolling 0-0 dice if it makes sense.

I think this one should be simple to explain. Ready Up your panic button when you have to clash against dice as big as this, or even against something like Emotional Turbulence. Don't let cards like this get a free hit on you unless you are at the point of killing your nuggets for faster emotion level up.

Since most of exclusive cards are extremely strong, you don't want to clash with it unless you are in dire danger, or not enough speed to do one side without dying. Then what's the point of having it? Well, Cowabunga! Just dump them all on one enemy even if it means they will die from it. You can use your other card to do the same if your second dice is not being used right now. Index dogpile and all. Energy Cycle and Unlock are your best one side, but Opportunity works too.

Numerical Advantage

This still applies even when you want to kill off your nuggets. The lesser your nugget count is, the faster you will level your emotion, but also the lower your overall health pool and DPS. There is a balance you need to hold when it comes to the Nihil route: How many red coins you generated, How long until you get a new abnormality page, and How much more hit can you take when Wrath happens. Having numerical advantage will reduces the risk of getting wiped out, and makes it easier to control the clash. You want to get into 5v4 as fast as you can, and depending on your luck, you will lose one or none in the process.

Tactical Suicide

Depending on how much health do you have, which invitation is it, and how long until you can get Nihil, you may or may not want to skip this step. Once you have dwindle the enemy down to 3 or less, try to purposefully "kill" your nuggets by either skipping turn/force clash. Lowest health ones should be priority on the chopping block, though if your overall health is too low, you might want to focus on killing the enemy first. Do not risk it unless you have to. Remember that Wrath will target your own guy at random, so be aware of that when you are at that phase.
You have two options after you get Wrath: Finish the Act, or Lower your body count for faster level up. Until you get Nihil, Wrath is a ticking time bomb, and it is not in your favor. This is why you want numerical advantage, so you can focusing on bursting down the remaining enemy while sacrificing some of your lower health nuggets. Always prioritize getting to next Act with healthy amount of team over getting Nihil immediately. You will need meat bags on the next scene to take some beating before you can proc Nihil.

PSA: DO NOT USE BLIND RAGE TO PURPOSEFULLY KILL OF YOUR NUGGET HERE. THAT IS A BAD SUICIDE, AND IT VIOLATES THE GENEVA CONVENTION. Kill them off in the "boss" scene instead for extra STR.

Zenith

Okay, so you have all the required Abnormality pages, you have some meat bags to sacrifice, and you are in the next act. Your prioritization should be PROTECT THE VIP. How do you do that you may ask? Use EGO mass attack, redirect clash against your VIP even if it means you will die, and pray. If everything goes accordingly, you will get Nihil in a turn or two, depending on your emotion level. To accelerate the process, try to kill off your nuggets during the initial scene so you can get Nihil immediately. Once you get Nihil, then voila! You achieved Nirvana! Now you just spam everything you got, and always use Blind Rage for the free win button.

EGO and Abnormality - Nihil

Ran out of space on the strategy section.

Abnormality Prioritization: Despair -> Hate -> Greed -> Wrath -> Nihil
EGO Prioritization: Lazer/Gold Rush/Sword -> Blind Rage -> Lazer/Sword

EGO Cards Explanation:

• Gold Rush and Lazer (In the Name of Hate and Love): Great cleanup tool for set up scene and a softener for the first Scene of a new Act. Gold Rush should be treated as a set up card for the strength and not really a damaging card here, but it could be useful in destroying a dice of a combat page sometimes.
  
• Blind Rage: If you think Tsar Bomba is scary, try having nihilism and use Blind Rage for ~100 damage in a scene, for every scene. This is your flush card aka Nuke Button. Only use it if you have Nihil, and you want to sacrifice your librarians for more strength. Be mindful that this will stagger/team kill. Take this as a second EGO so you could benefit from other EGO at that moment.
  
• Sword: Not really worth it most of the time due to the lack of immediate utility. I could find a couple reason to take this EGO instead of Gold Rush or Lazer, one being lower cost of 4 and is a gun page, though it is a very specific case of why you want it. It is best to leave this one alone and go with other options. Still a decent kill secure EGO page to use nonetheless.
  
• Nihil: The weirdest of the bunch. With how low your draw is (as pointed out by Sheepy), you will find your Sacrifice nuggets to not have any card in hand if you really want to. The problem with this EGO card is that: It cannot be used on the first scene on each Act (tested it, effect doesn't work with Daring Decision, or even Void), the effect is not useful during your set up scene if you haven't gotten Greed yet, and your VIP does not get the full benefit from it. It is a superb come back card, however, so pick it whenever you think it will be useful

Abnormality Explanation: Despair has no negative side, Greed regenerate health, Wrath causes team damage. MAKE SURE YOU PUT NIHIL ON THE LIBRARIAN WITH ALL THE ABNORMALITY PAGES OR THE EFFECT WILL NOT TRIGGER. I don't think I need to say it, but I should.

Video Examples of Nihilism equates to Godhood

Uploaded by my friend JoeDynasty
https://youtu.be/tTjFDzEmT-8
https://youtu.be/iNRK0OlPaZo

Abnormality and EGO Review

Section Under Construction

[Snakie]

2nd R Corp is a tough one. I recommend playing with 2 floors in mind by alternating the floor per reception. Rhino gang you should try Netzach floor to counteract stagger and health loss, then later go for Spring Genesis for guarantee win. The biggest downside for Yujin is definitely her stagger. Unfortunately, that's an unfixable problem for Urban Nightmare units in end game content.

[Snakie]

@Charr I might update this guide in later date actually since I'm surprised people still use them. But yes, Rapid Gashes + Clone on Yujin is a bad combo. You already get the benefit of using a 4 cost card with discount, so you will end up with excess light once you go full Rapid Gashes. This also compounded with the fact that Rapid Gashes set up takes too long to be worth it with Yujin. You want her to be combat ready at all time especially if you go for Exodia route because you don't want to lose all health and allies before you get your win con.

Rapid Gashes might be a stronger card than Fervid Emotions in the vacuum, but it won't benefit you much on fully investing in it. You can try substituting 3x Fervid with 3x Rapid and changing Clone to Will of the City or any other draw/light card.

[Charr]

I just tried this strategy against the 2nd R Corp reception and all five attempts ended the same: Everyone except Yujin dies to the Reindeers (or Yujin using Blind Rage in one case), then in the Rhinos fight, she gets staggered in one turn and then dies on the second. Turns out sabotaging your action economy by letting all your guys die is exactly as stupid of an idea as it sounds. Maybe the problem is I'm using a Rapid Gashes+Clone Yujin instead of a Fervid Emotions one as shown in the guide?

[trevormoney1]

Not sure if outdated or wrong, but notably, if you clash with an opponent and don't have a dice to respond you DO NOT get a negative coin.

[RoyalGuardian7]

I tried this on oswald and this build kicked those clowns to kingdom come

[C-Vale]

can this guide be updated cause, im trying to do a tipxodia strat but many of the 1 die emotion coin strat does not work anymore seeing as they changed that rule about clashes

[Murio]

Spent 2 hours to farm all the missing pages for the build, and another half to actually get to the Index Proxies Boss Battle, by the time I managed to get Nihil to activate (wich was on my first try) Hubert was already dead and everyone else except for Olga were staggered and at 30% hp because of the magical girl lazer.

The real treasure wasn't Nihil but the magical lazers we got along the way. Really good strategy tho, thanks m8

[KetchupAddict]

So, I just used this build a few times, mostly against R corp, and I must say it is an interesting and great strategy. A few thoughts of mine.

1.All the sacrifices died before the first act ended. Not that I was expecting them to live long, either, with PM piling it up on the rolls these days. So maybe lone fixer would be a better choice?

2.Defensive abilityies are actually really low. There isn't a lot of counter die here, and after you get hit you only have one abnormality page that rarely triggers able to heal you. (Since by the time you are activated emotion level is probably at max) I ended up barely winning with 6 hp left.

3.Sacrifices have really low draw. Even my sacrifices that died halfway through act one were almost out of cards.

[Skye]

This is really clever and interesting. I never understoof the point of Tiphereth's floor and honestly marked it off as just a bad, low quality floor that has nothing of real value.

This guide has shown me it is actually incredibly useful if you pull things off right.

[Jinlunch]

Fun fact: You can target the librarian you give Wrath to if you want to: Build up emotions on both characters, heal the VIP with the effects of Greed or if Tiphereth decides she wants to delete the lowest hp nugget with Fervid Emotions.