Julia

• Preferred IV: +ATK or +SPD / -DEF or -SPD
• Weapon: Divine Naga / Naga
• Assist: Reposition
• Special: Iceberg
• Passive A: Fury / Atk/Res Bond / Distant Def
• Passive B: Quick Riposte 3 / Quick Riposte 2
• Passive C: Spd Ploy / Varies
• Sacred Seal: Atk Ploy / Distant Def

This set aims to make the most of Julia’s strong magical bulk. The combination of Julia’s magical bulk, Divine Naga, and Ploys make Julia into a versatile and powerful unit.

One of the defining traits of Julia is her ability to wield Divine Naga, the refined version of her default Naga tome. Dealing effective damage is already potent on its own, as it allows Julia to be a very reliable check to dragons like Nowi and Female Corrin. However, the ability to negate all field buffs (such as hone/fortify) is incredible, as it allows her to completely negate the power of Blade tome mages as well as any other units that rely on buffs. Her default Naga is acceptable on a budget, particularly outside of Arena where buffs are much more rare. However, accumulating the Divine Dew needed to refine to Divine Naga is highly recommended.

Iceberg is the chosen special, as a 3 cooldown Special will allow Julia to always activate her Special whenever she is doubled and can counter, or otherwise be charged and ready to activate if she is not doubled.

Fury is the A slot of choice; while the Attack and Resistance boosts are excellent, the real reason it is the most recommended A slot is that it also boosts her Speed, which allows her to avoid more doubles (38 Speed is needed to double a +SPD IV Julia with Fury). If running a -SPD IV or otherwise not as concerned about getting doubled (if Julia is only fighting blue mages, for example, she doesn’t care about getting doubled), then Atk/Res Bond is a strong option that grants a greater boost to Attack and Resistance than Fury does. As an Enemy Phase oriented unit, Julia has no problems standing next to an ally to activate Atk/Res Bond. Finally, Distant Def will maximize Julia’s defenses, but is generally not quite as good as Atk/Res Bond due to Julia not making good use of the physical Defense portion.

Quick Riposte is important to run as while Julia can potentially increase her Speed enough to avoid a good number of doubles, she will still struggle to double enemies without it.

Spd Ploy makes very good use of Julia’s Resistance stat, as with Fury she can easily apply Ploy debuffs to any enemies with 34 Resistance or lower. Spd Ploy in particular allows her to effectively increase the threshold that enemies need to reach to double her from 38 to 43. However, as Spd Ploy is a difficult skill to obtain (and it’s sole user is already extremely similar to Julia), it can be replaced as needed to fit any team composition.

Atk Ploy and Distant Def seals both increase Julia’s bulk significantly. The difference is that Distant Def is more reliable, since it is guaranteed to be active when Julia is attacked from range (such as by mages). However, the advantages of Atk Ploy are that it can be effective even when Julia is initiating combat, is effective versus melee as well as ranged, and also benefits the team instead of only Julia.

• Preferred IV: +ATK / -DEF
• Weapon: Divine Naga / Naga
• Assist: Reposition
• Special: Glimmer / Iceberg
• Passive A: Swift Sparrow / Fury
• Passive B: Watersweep
• Passive C: Spd Ploy / Res Ploy / Varies
• Sacred Seal: Phantom Spd

One of the biggest changes brought in with the 2.0 update is that dragons’ breath weapons can now be refined to target the lower of a ranged enemy’s defense or resistance. This means that despite Julia’s solid Resistance and anti-dragon weapon Divine Naga (or her base Naga), she can struggle to effectively deal with non-blue dragons due to her pitifully low Defense. To counter this, Watersweep can be utilized to prevent dragons from counter attacking her, allowing her to safely attack them without fear of being KO'd in the process.

As this build is designed to deal with dragons, Divine Naga is very important; both for the effective damage, as well as ignoring any buffs the dragons may have (such as Fortify Dragons). Julia’s default Naga tome can work on a budget, but it will lose a lot of effectiveness, because the +2 Def/Res when Julia is attacked is not very useful for this build. +ATK is chosen over +SPD because although Watersweep functions based on Speed, Julia will have more than enough speed with Phantom Spd to activate it. Also, every point of Attack is important because she can only attack one time, and it can make the difference for a OHKO.

Glimmer is chosen as the special as the 50% damage boost stacks very well with the additional 50% damage boost gained from Divine Naga’s effective damage against dragons. With Glimmer active, Julia can even OHKO Young Tiki, who is normally very difficult to KO with Naga or Divine Naga due to the weapons triangle.

For the A slot, Swift Sparrow is more reliable since it provides slightly more Attack and Speed, both of which are vitally important for a Watersweep build. However, Fury has the perk of increasing Julia’s Resistance, making it easier for her to activate either Spd Ploy or Res Ploy, either of which can more than make up for Fury’s slightly lower offensive stat gain.

Spd Ploy allows Julia to lower the enemy’s Speed to more easily activate Watersweep, as well as providing team support. Res Ploy similarly provides team support, but instead allows Julia to deal more damage, potentially resulting in a KO that would not otherwise happen (this typically happens more often when accounting for merges). However, as both of these skills can be difficult to obtain, they can be replaced as needed to suit the team composition.