Nephenee

Nephenee's build allows her to trigger her special and trigger it fast. She's sufficiently fast to often secure doubles. The Dauntless Lance lowers her special cooldown from 2 to 1, and Quickened Pulse lets her start battle with her special ready, killing foes or setting her up for another special if the enemy survives. Threaten Spd is used to help her get doubles.

Wow I never updated my Neph set, foolish me. Anyways it's the same mixed phase set I used to run but now she has 2 more Mt and Armor effectiveness. She is capable of launching 2 Moonbows per round if she begins with it active (which is easy with Wrath), which is utterly devastating against foes who can't kill her before she launches both.
Spd refine is taken over Eff because the latter is enemy phase only. Use that if you like Steady Breath and Bonfire shenanigans

Pseudo-Tank by BuyMePizza

/Overview/

With this build you want Nephenee at the front lines tanking and baiting out units to murder them during the Enemy Phase. This build helps Nephenee also become a pseudo-tank in which she can take a hit, counter attack, and murder her opponent while maintaining a healthy amount of health.

/Stats/

At Lvl 40, with an HP- bane and an Atk+ boon, equipped with the Dauntless Lance and its effect, and also having Fury 3 equipped; Nephenee's stats should be like this:

HP - 37
Atk - 53
Spd - 38
Def - 37
Res - 23

These stats do not take into account Distant Defense 3, Summoner Support, nor her weapon's effect.*

/IVs/

Nephenee prefers an HP bane since her weapon refine supplements the loss of HP and having a low enough HP makes it easier to fall within Wrath thresholds. An Atk boon will raise her damage potential but you can substitute this for more bulk in the form of Def or Res. Spd can also be used to allow Nephenee to double her opponents more frequently, however, this build focuses on Enemy Phase combat and since her weapon refine already gives her 4 more Spd, increasing it isn't much of a high priority on this build.

/Weapon/

Dauntless Lance with the weapon effect is best suited for Nephenee in this build since she receives a boost to her Spd/Def which prevents her from being doubled from units in the 40ish range. Ultra fast units, and units with Speed buffs will still double but given that Nephenee's defenses are manageable she will have no problem retaliating. Also since Nephenee's weapon adds a bonus against armored units, she has no issue countering Effie, Hardin, Black Knight, Zelgius, and can even check Hector if he is allowed to attack first and doesn't have his special up.

/Assist skill/

Reposition is used in conjunction with your team, however, it isn't necessary. Reposition works well to remove teammates out of combat while potentially placing Nephenee into combat where she needs to be. You can substitute this for Swap or other assist moves.

/Special/

Sol keeps Nephenee's health patched and has great synergy with Fury, Wrath, and Dauntless Lance. With Dauntless Lance, the CD is 2 which is desirable in combat where an enemy will attack first and the counter hit from Nephenee will most likely be triggered during this turn or during the next. Since Fury takes residual damage, Sol keeps Nephenee within safe limits. Since Sol doesn't do additional damage, this is further mitigated by Wrath since you'll be receiving 10 damage everytime Sol activates.

/A skill/

Fury 3 is a great skill to raise all her stats, including her low Res, which allows her to tank more. You can supplement the recoil damage by using her base kit Atk/Spd 2 instead if you don't prefer Fury, however you lose much of your magical bulk by doing so.

/B skill/

Wrath is pretty much obvious for Nephenee. Since she'll be tanking some hits, she will fall within the Wrath range from her Fury recoil or from some of the damage taken. Wrath is also used to supplement the loss of damage from using Sol over a damage increasing special such as Bonfire/Ignis/Moonbow/etc.

/C skill/

Threaten Atk 3 is to prevent the foes within range from doing more damage against Nephenee if she is unable to KO them. Since this build focuses on Nephenee being a pseudo-tank, this further helps to alleviate damage from her opponents. If damage output is preferred over tankiness, Threaten Def 3 / Threaten Spd 3 can be used instead; which will provides better damage output, if Threaten Def 3 is used, or the guarantee to double an opponent, if Threaten Spd 3 is used, making Nephenee versatile in handling her opponents.

/Sacred Seal/

Distant Defense 3 is used as her Sacred Seal and used to mitigate her low Res. Since mages outright murder Nephenee or take a chunk of damage to her health, Distant Defense is used to mitigate those scenarios. Caution should still be taken when fighting against green mages and dragons due to their breath weapon.

/Notes/

Although Nephenee has no issue in combat against physical fighters, she can still be KO'd by magical fighters. This build helps being KO'd by most magical users but it does not guarantee Nephenee can follow up and defeat her foe. There are plenty of magic users that can still double Nephenee and destroy her as well as Bladetome users who are buffed. Nephenee requires team support to really shine as a pseudo-tank. Though it isn't necessary, it helps having a teammate running Res Tactic 3 on a mixed team to alleviate her low Res and allow her to easily counter magic foes who would otherwise threaten her. Ploy users with high magical buff should be considered alongside Nephenee such as Arvis and his weapon ploy. Arvis has great synergy with Nephenee and may be considered as a team option.

This build is definitely not a Tier 20 build, but can be used in it with proper team support, AI manipulation, and general game knowledge.

Thanks for reading. 👍 If there's any questions / suggestions please let me know.

This set makes Nephenee an extreme threat for both phases and makes her work well as a melee tank, even more so once her health is in range of the Brazen and Warth skills, causing her to have a gain of +7 Atk/+4 Spd/+17 Def/+6 Res if she get initiated on. The A skill can be replaced for Brazen Atk/Spd 3 if speed is a concern, causing a raise of +7 Atk/+11 Spd/+10 Def/+6 Res if she gets initiated on. The A skill can also be replaced by Brazen Atk/Res 3 if you want to have a chance against dragon units, causing a raise of +7 Atk/+4 Spd/+10 Def/+13 Res if she gets initaited on. The best boon/bane for this set would be +Atk/-HP as Nephenee appreciates any chance to boost her attack stat and the HP bane can be easily remedied by just refining her weapon, nullifying the bane completely and leaving Nephenee with only a boon to benefit from.

Brazen Atk/Def synergizes well with the Dauntless Lance refine to give +7 Atk, +4 Spd, +11 Def on enemy phase. It also works well with Wrath; for Wrath to be active, Neph’s HP has to be down to 30 at the most. Having that extra defense helps protect her from being KO’d in the next round of combat.

The Dauntless Lance slaying effect, Wrath, and the Flashing blade seal (helped along by Spd boon, weapon refine, and Spd Smoke) make firing off Ignis specials pretty common and pretty deadly (with 45 Def on enemy phase + Wrath effect = 46 extra damage).