Nefer Build and Guide

Nefer is a 5-star Dendro Catalyst user who is most commonly played as an on-field Lunar-Bloom Main DPS. She accomplishes this through consuming Verdant Dew with special Charged Attacks enabled by her Skill. As a Moonsign unit, she also features important synergies with other characters in the faction; in Nefer’s case, they’re nigh mandatory.

Lunar-Bloom is a reaction that nominally replaces Bloom when certain Moonsign characters such as Lauma, Columbina, or Nefer are on the team. For most purposes, it functions similarly: it is triggered the same way, deals no damage, and spawns a normal Dendro Core which reacts as usual to deal Dendro damage unaffected by Lunar-Bloom bonuses. The only difference is that Lunar-Bloom also accumulates Verdant Dew, which is a resource shared between the team; it can be generated every 2.5 seconds and stack up to 3 times. Verdant Dew can be consumed by the aforementioned characters to deal direct Lunar-Bloom damage with some of their abilities, alongside additional effects. Direct Lunar-Bloom damage is treated as reaction damage and so scales with EM, reaction damage bonuses, ignores DEF, and does not benefit from standard DMG%; unlike typical reactions, it can naturally CRIT and uses the multiplier and scaling stat listed in the ability instead of being dependent on levels.

Nefer’s Moonsign Passive is what enables Blooms to be converted into Lunar-Blooms and increases the team’s Moonsign level by 1. It also increases Lunar-Bloom Base DMG - a separate multiplier to Reaction DMG - based on Nefer’s EM, to a maximum of 14% at 800 EM.

However, Nefer goes one step further. When Ascendent Gleam is triggered, her Ascension 1 Passive stops the spawning of Dendro Cores entirely, converting it instead to a “Seed of Deceit”. Thus, triggering Lunar-Bloom produces two different resources for Nefer. 

Her Skill details where these resources are put to use. Using it causes her to gain the “Shadow Dance” state, allowing her to consume a Verdant Dew to use a special Charged Attack called “Phantasm Performance”. Using it doesn’t consume stamina, and Nefer summons two Phantasms to attack alongside her which deal 3 instances each of Lunar-Bloom damage. These are her main source of damage, especially since they’re further empowered by her Seeds of Deceit - consuming up to 3 to give herself an equal amount of “Veil of Falsehood” stacks for 9s, giving a unique 8% multiplier each and an extra 100 Elemental Mastery at full stacks. She can also cancel her animation fairly quickly with a dash or swap while her Phantasms continue to attack, giving her a healthy dose of i-frames and very fast-paced gameplay.

Nefer can use up to three Phantasm Performances per use of her Skill, and her Skill can hold up to two charges. This means she uses up to 6 Verdant Dew a rotation; while the charge-based nature of her Skill affords some flexibility, considering the cooldown on Verdant Dew generation, Nefer requires consistent Verdant Dew generation to function. In fact, it’s even possible to dash cancel her Charged Attack well enough that you have to buy time for Verdant Dew generation to keep up!

Nefer’s Burst doesn’t deal Lunar-Bloom damage, so it would be useless, but the aforementioned need to buy time means it has some niche value. Nefer’s standard Normal Attacks and her Ascension 4 Passive tied to them are thus rendered obsolete, since her Burst is a better time filler if you’re waiting on Verdant Dew generation.

Of special note to Nefer is her synergy with Lauma. Amongst Lauma’s host of buffs and debuffs - which would already be valuable - Lauma additionally has “Pale Hymn” stacks, which can be consumed when Nefer deals Lunar-Bloom damage to almost double it. This makes Lauma nearly irreplaceable for Nefer’s teams. They’re so tailored for each other that Nefer exactly uses all 18 stacks of Pale Hymn that Lauma can generate in a rotation! Nefer disabling Dendro Core production is also to avoid them wasting Pale Hymn when they rupture, though an added benefit is that it prevents their self-damage which makes running Nefer without a sustain easier.