Nightmare's Gateway: Eternal Dreamland Rules and Strategy

KR/CN version 5.3.2 (Ichigo Shikano·Summer) introduced a new Nightmare's Gateway mode, Eternal Dreamland (provisional translation). The goal is to knock the enemy down as early as possible. Once downed, the enemy cannot get back up, and the earlier the knockdown occurs, the higher the score multiplier that remains in effect for the rest of the battle. In practice, set up essential buffs and debuffs while reducing the enemy's Down Points, then focus your damage after the knockdown.

Eternal Dreamland
After being knocked down, the enemy cannot get back up, and the remaining duration of effects applied to it no longer decreases. The fewer turns it takes to knock the enemy down, the higher the score multiplier afterward.

This mode has not yet been released on EN/JP/SEA. Eternal Dreamland and Eternal Domain are provisional translations used in this guide.

Core Rules

Eternal Domain
The enemy's maximum Down Points are greatly increased. It cannot be knocked down directly and recovers 2 Down Points at the end of its turn. Skills that hit a weakness remove 1 additional Down Point, and the enemy takes 20% more final damage after being knocked down.

Because the enemy starts with far more Down Points than usual and restores some whenever it acts, multi-hit attacks that strike a weakness and gun attacks are especially effective because one action can remove Down Points several times.

Score Multiplier

Score earned before the knockdown is subject to a 0.5x multiplier. The turn on which the enemy is knocked down determines the multiplier, which then remains fixed until the battle ends.

The gap between a turn-one and turn-two knockdown is particularly large. Still, rushing the knockdown without preparing key buffs and debuffs can lower your final score. Aim for the earliest knockdown your team can reach while completing the setup it needs.

Interactions and Notes

Enemy debuff timers stop, but ally buff timers do not

Once the enemy is down, the remaining duration of debuffs and ailments on it no longer decreases. Short effects such as Defense reduction or increased damage taken can therefore be kept active until the battle ends without repeated refreshes.

Buff durations on allies continue to decrease normally. Effects with short durations, or those that require multiple knockdowns to reach full strength, cannot reach their full potential here.

Morgana·Starlight Awareness 2

I'll Turn It Up activates normally on the first knockdown. Once the one-turn buff expires, however, it cannot be triggered again because the enemy never gets back up.

Kumi Katayama Awareness 2

Role Model permanently increases all allies' Attack by 10% whenever Kumi knocks an enemy down, stacking up to three times. Since Eternal Dreamland allows only one knockdown, the effect can stack only once.

Ichigo Shikano·Summer Skill 1 and multi-hit checks

When only one enemy is present, all five hits of Ichigo Shikano·Summer's Romantic Pearl strike that target. In the 5.3.2 cycle, every hit applied both the normal reduction and the extra weakness reduction, removing a total of 10 Down Points with one skill.

By contrast, Motoha Arai's Wrathful Thunder attacks four times, but its Down Point reduction is applied only once, removing 2 Down Points in total. Multi-hit skills do not all use the same check pattern, and this behavior may change in later updates, so it should be tested again in future cycles.

Black Frost cannot force a knockdown

In KR/CN data, Black Frost's Avalanche can normally knock the target down directly while ignoring weakness and Down Points. Eternal Domain blocks direct knockdown, so even if the fixed 25% chance succeeds, the skill cannot bypass the Down Point gauge. The current EN/JP description abbreviates this effect to a 25% chance to knock the target down.

Chaos Hex and gun attacks

In the original author's test against a gun-weak Rebel enemy, one of Wonder's gun attacks removed 8 Down Points. This was not because Chaos Hex has an effect that directly removes 8 Down Points; each hit of the gun attack triggered the additional weakness reduction.

Chaos Hex's Deadly Instinct automatically reloads bullets at the start of the turn, making it easier to repeat gun attacks that rapidly cut down the enemy's Down Points.

Source: Explanation of the new Nightmare's Gateway mechanic (original post)

This guide is based on the gameplay findings in the original post and was written with the author's permission.