Nero Early Analysis

Intro

She comes with so much boobs, her model physics can’t keep up. Which makes sense as she needs something to cushion all the incoming attacks! Nero is a tank who can taunt, increase healing received, damage reduction and comes with a large health pool.

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Basic Info

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Skills

Note: Assume all skills are level 10

Skill 1: Cat’s Repayment

■ Activates when recovery takes effect. Affects the target who applied the recovery effect.
Damage Taken ▼ 14.14% for 5 sec.
■ Activates when recovery takes effect. Affects self.
Cat’s Repayment: Damage Taken ▼ 8.43%, stacks up to 5 time(s) and lasts for 5 sec.

A rather messy skill that does not explain on how stacks are acquired very well. first of all, healing that “ticks” or heals overtime does NOT give Nero multiple stacks despite the healing her over time. examples of such units are Noise, Biscuit, Blanc.

The same also applies to life-steal units such as Yuni and Helm. However, if there are multiple instances of healing in a burst skill such as Emma’s and Summer Mary’s, the amount of stacks will be gained accordingly. To further clarify, Emma has 2 sources of healing in her burst, therefore Nero gets 2 stacks.

■ Affects all allies.
Restore HP equal to 39.6% of the caster’s final Max HP.
Restore HP equal to 39.6% of ATK for 5 sec.

–Emma’s Burst skill

The only way she can properly stack her skill 1, is to have units that proc healing often and not tied to a burst. Such units are Rapunzel and Pepper (Manual and with Privaty).

The damage taken down for the healer does help healer survivability in Arena.

Skill 2: Lil’ Paw

■ There is a 30% chance of activating when attacked. Affects the target.
Damage Taken ▲ 8.26% for 5 sec.
■ There is a 30% chance of activating when attacked in Grumpy Cat status. Affects the target.
Deals 158.05% of final ATK as damage.
■ Activates when entering battle. Affects self.
Max HP ▲ 60.28% continuously.

A more straight-forward skill. This skill increases Nero’s max hp from out the gate while also providing pretty ok side utility. Proc’ing the DMG taken debuff and return damage part of her skill won’t happen very often outside Arena, so don’t count too much on them.

The Max HP buff does retain if she is destroyed in battle, then promptly resurrected. not only that, the re-applied Max HP buff from this skill heals her as well when revived. This basically means that she revives with pretty high/more health than others due to the nature of how this skill works.

Burst : Grumpy Cat

Cooldown: 20s

■ Affects 1 enemy unit(s) with the highest HP.
Deals 1104.91% of final ATK as damage.
■ Affects self.
Attract: Taunt all enemies for 15 sec.
■ Activates when Cat’s Repayment is fully stacked. Affects self.
Grumpy Cat: HP Potency ▲ 60.08% for 15 sec.

Her burst has a pretty long lasting taunt. The taunt duration however is based on skill level. With the breakthroughs being level 4 and 7, giving 10s and 15s respectively.

HP potency increases the amount of healing she receives, which perfectly synergizes with her tanky nature. but she does require full stacks of skill 1 to take advantage of it, which means she pretty much requires Pepper/ Rapunzel in the team to consistently keep her stacks active.

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Campaign | Boss Stages

Tankers/Taunters are not quite used in campaign stages with waves, especially Nero as she needs a healer to be “tanky”, and even so, at high enough CP deficits, Nero would get destroyed just as fast as any other Nikke.

However she would shine more in boss stages where damage is not really an issue most of the time, but survivability. She can offer the literless an easier time in boss stages where cover is important such as Nihilister, Cocytus, etc etc. By being able to taunt and face tank hits that might’ve been hitting cover instead.

Rapunzel, Pepper = Healer
Dorothy = CDR | Liter, Volume (if literless) = CDR
Nero = Tanker/Taunt
Flex b3
Flex b3

As mentioned, if DPS is not an issue, this team would do rather well in regards to overall performance. This team will only see usage if Liter is not available and cover is a vital mechanic in the stage, or if tanking very hard hits is required (Harvester, Material H, Bowtie etc etc).

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Arena

While this may look like her strong point, Nero actually just does “decent” in arena. She’s forced to have Rapunzel in her team just to keep her skill 1 stacks up. Her taunt is tied on burst, which means units can get taken out before her burst can proc. Furthermore, her taunt lasts a limited time, so after its duration is over, other units may be attacked if the round lasts long enough.
If fighting strong enough opponents, they’d simply melt through her HP however, she would do rather well against equal CP opponents.

A direct comparison to Nero would be Makima, a collab unit. She has a very similar role, but she is able to tank higher CP deficit teams due to the fact that she has a invulnerability period when fatal damage has occurred. While Nero does not have that, and is unable to tank nearly the same punishment Makima can in these case scenarios.

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Special Interception

Only notable uses for Nero here is Blacksmith and Modernia and only if Survivability is an issue. Recommended teams would follow example team comp from Story | Boss stage section.

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Strengths

• Theoretical Tankiest unit in the game when disregarding Invulnerability periods
• Wallpaper eye candy

Weaknesses

• Requires specific healers (Rapunzel, Pepper w/Privaty)
• Similar units that do Similar roles better than Nero can (Noise, Makima)
• Requires to run a 2-1-2 or 1-2-2 team to take advantage of her tanking abilities
• would probably ruin your carpet

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Should You Pull?

Not really if you’re a f2p. Nero doesn’t really excel anywhere, therefore not really a must pull unless you’re very into cat girls.

Spenders can pull copies of her for SR, as her tanking abilities might be able to shine there due to rather the challenge mode having overtuned damage, Nero sandbagging abilities might come in clutch.

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Temporary Rating

Category	Rating
Overall	6.0
Story	3.0
Bosses	7.0
Arena	7.0

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Skill Priority

Nikke	Skill1	Skill2	Burst	Notes
Nero	5	5	4	Skill 1 increases Damage resistance. Useful but not worth investing too high into unless very pvp orientated Skill 2 has a good amount of utility packed to it, but the scaling is pretty bad. Her burst can stay at level 4 or 7 because of taunt duration break throughs. Level burst as needed.