Nezha

Straddling the line between construct and humanity, Nezha’s fiery tempest protects her Master so they can live to see another manufacturing date birthday. In practice, Nezha is a Buster-based all-rounder who can unleash strong critical damage and charge her Buster NP for fast-paced farming sessions.

Nezha’s main offense is actually captured in the powerful skill Taoist Technique which combines a shared Buster/Quick Performance up with a sizeable Critical Damage steroid for 3 turns on a short cooldown. The stacked buffs are what grants Nezha her critical potential, especially as Protection of the Tathagata’s single turn of Star Gathering and self debuff cleansing will often ensure at least 1 turn of full critical damage. For her farming prowess, Nezha looks to Spirit Jewel which grants a crucial 20% NP Charge to top off her NP bar along with 5 turns of guts. As Masters do not need to sacrifice one role for the other, Nezha can easily fulfill both roles at once.

Unfortunately, that flexibility is also what harms Nezha the most in the broader scheme. With only her small Card Performance steroid and an NP Damage steroid on NP to draw on, Nezha’s NP Chihi Sourei - Kasensou deals rather mediocre damage compared to her AoE Lancer peers. In addition, actually charging that NP is fairly difficult as Nezha’s NP Gain on her BBAQQ deck is noticeably on the weaker side whenever Taoist Technique is down as well. Even keeping her alive can prove problematic on more difficult content, as her guts is often activated very early to charge her NP. 

Ultimately, Nezha lacks a specialization in which she truly excels and is often outperformed by Servants that are more uniquely suited for the task at hand. Nonetheless, her NP Charge makes her a capable farmer, and new Masters will find her flexibility perfect until their roster fully develops.

NP Charge for Farming

The access to an NP Charge is one of the main steps towards becoming a strong farming Servant. With an up to 20% NP Charge on Spirit Jewel, albeit on a 7-turn cooldown, Nezha can neatly fill a slot as part of a farming team.

Decent Critical Potential

While the up to 30% Critical Damage Up on Taoist Technique may seem lackluster by itself, it stacks multiplicatively with Taoist Technique’s Quick and Buster Performance buffs. As these buffs all stack together for 3 turns, Masters can wait for an excellent card draw with which to unleash Protection of Tathagata’s 1-turn Star Gathering buff for a turn of good damage. Indeed, Masters can even use Nezha’s NP to start off the critical extravaganza with a Buster start.

Flexibility

Nezha’s greatest asset is that she can unleash her critical and farming potential without having to sacrifice in performance for either role. In addition, she has a debuff cleanse on a short cooldown to help out with various difficult content. This makes Nezha a great starter Servant for Masters without a varied roster, and she retains her farming role even as a Master’s roster expands.

Low NP Damage

With no NP Upgrade to her name, Nezha only has 2 smaller steroids to draw on for her NP Damage. While the NP Damage buff from her Overcharge scales very well with most supports, her lack of a strong Mana Burst-type buff makes her one of the lowest AoE NP Damage options for the Lancer class.

Master of None

Some upsides do come with very heavy downsides as Nezha’s flexibility is also her greatest flaw. Her lack of a specialization in either her critical role or her farming role makes her one of the weaker options in either role, being readily outperformed by specialists as well as higher rarity generalist Lancers especially in terms of AoE NP Damage.

Mediocre NP Gain

It is fortunate that Nezha can draw on a 20% NP Charge to patch up her otherwise rather weak base NP Gain, although it has a rather massive 7-turn cooldown at max rank. Only with her Taoist Technique active does her NP Gain catch up with the NP Gain performance of other Lancer Servants, and even then she is rather reliant on any Axx-chain with at least one Quick card (she can charge decently off her 3-hit Buster).

Lack of Survivability

Nezha only has her Guts to draw on when it comes to her defenses, and that Guts is tied to a long cooldown with her ever-important and more highly prized NP Charge. In practice, she is thus often defenseless and will have to rely on her allies to keep her healthy.

While Nezha’s lack of focus makes it more difficult to justify completely maxing out all her skills compared to dedicated critical or farming specialists, Nezha improves tremendously if all her skills are maxed. Not only do her skills hit key benchmarks, but the shorter cooldown is a large improvement in her sustained offense. It’s best if Masters level her skills based on what they need most from her.

• Taoist Technique A packs a lot of offense in a single skill, on a short cooldown, with a 3-turn duration. It scales very strongly, and Masters who wish to use their Nezha as their main sustained DPS should invest heavily in this skill. Otherwise, for general use, level this second. 

• Spirit Jewel A is Nezha’s main NP Charge skill. Crucially, it provides the all-important 20% NP Charge any (Kaleidoscope) farmer worth their salt desires at max level, and it opens up plenty of AoE farming and CE options once fully leveled. Thus, this should generally be leveled first.

• Protection of Tathagata B combines a single turn of Star Gathering with a debuff cleanse on a rather short cooldown. It’s a decent skill as Masters can exploit the 3-turn duration of Nezha’s Critical Damage buff to wait for the best card draw, but it has rather low uptime. Level this skill last, and Masters can leave it at 6 as well.

Masters need to decide ahead of time what part of Nezha’s kit they want to make use of the most. Either way, given Nezha’s mediocre NP Gain, Starting NP Gauge is always a strong option especially if combined with Attack Up (which stacks multiplicatively with everything she has). Otherwise, Masters are best-off mixing Buster Performance Up with a desired secondary effect for the role they desire, such as Critical Damage Up or NP Damage Up.

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element / Dragon’s Meridian: Nezha’s most common role in practice is as one of the AoE Lancer farmers. With only a 20% NP Charge to work with, she is often required to use pure Starting NP Gauge. 

• Golden Sumo / Aerial Drive / Holy Night Supper / Starry Nights: For situations that require more sustained offense but still a fast NP, the standard Buster-favored Starting NP Gauge CEs are all excellent. Note that all buffs being equal Aerial Drive slightly out-damages Golden Sumo for her NP, but it lacks flexibility.

• Victor of the Moon / Joint Recital: At the end of the day, Nezha is a Buster Critical Servant, and despite these effects stacking additively, these two CEs provide her with the largest sustained damage increase.

• Limited Zero/Over / Verdant Sound of Destruction: Pure Buster Performance CEs are a much more competitive option than usual due to Nezha’s own spread of buffs.

• The Black Grail / Hero Elly’s Adventure: If pure NP Damage is required, these remain the strongest options, even though Nezha carries an NP Damage buff of her own.