Nero – review and ratings

Disclaimer

This is an early review for Nero, so her rating can change in the future as we will able to do more testing.

Information

Rarity: SSR
Burst: II
Weapon: SMG
Class: Defender
Element: Fire
Manufacturer: Tetra
Squad: Happy Zoo

Skills

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 pretty interesting skill that requires Nero to be healed and in return, she will decrease the damage taken by whoever healed her, but also decrease the damage she takes herself.

This means that you NEED to pair Nero with a healer to even activate the skill.

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 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.

Skill 2 of Nero drastically increases her own Max HP the moment she enters the battle and this buff makes her the highest HP tank in the whole game. Paired with her Skill 1, Nero can be super tough. On another note, the second part of the skill is a bit RNG dependent – whenever Nero gets hit, she can increase the damage taken by the enemy who dared to attack her. Furthermore, if she activates her burst while having max stacks of Cat’s Repayment, she can also deal damage to whoever she is attacking, although the damage is minimal due to her being a Defender. Still, her Skill 1 and Skill 2 together can turn her into a fearsome beast. Overall, it’s a very strong skill!

Burst – Grumpy Cat

Cooldown – 20 seconds

■ 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.

Nero’s Burst has a 20 seconds cooldown which makes her a very flexibly Burst II character that can be used in a variety of teams. The skill consists of 3 elements:

Nero will deal damage to one enemy,
Nero will Taunt all enemies for 15 seconds which combined with the 20-second cooldown means that she can have a great uptime on the Taunt,
Nero will buff herself and increase the healing received.

The issue is that you need to be able to keep Nero alive by constantly feeding her with heals or the 15-second Taunt will be her early grave.

Summary

Nero is the beefiest tank in the game (highest effective HP), meaning that at full HP with all her buffs, she can tank massive hits. At level 7 skills, her effective HP is twice of Noise’s!
However, she relies on healers to activate those buffs and heal. The only options you have for PvE are Pepper and Rapu, while for PvP you can get away with Biscuit and Rapu.
With enough investments in Pepper and Nero, Nero can actually survive the entire game only relying on Pepper’s heals.
But, I already have Ludmilla. Good point. Nero and Ludmilla actually fill similar roles in PvE, but one of them is B1 and the other one is B2. One of them needs healer, and the other one doesn’t. Effective HP-wise, Nero wins. But Ludmilla is cheaper since she only wants S2, but Nero wants everything.
She is the only B2 with the longest taunt, and a reliable one at that, which allows dependable retargeting. This is especially more important in PvP, where some targeted attacks like Power’s burst and Alice’s burst, can be diverted away from key units and blocked using Biscuit.
Since her taunt is behind burst, this means faster burst means earlier taunt. She is the only unit in arena alongside Ludmilla whose taunt can be expedited with higher burst regen. Makima needs 7s, and Sin needs 6s.
But, why is Nero better than Ludmilla? That’s because the B1 in Arena are meta units like Noise and Rapunzel. Ludmilla, being B1, will severely limit team compositions. Still, there are some specific cases where B1 like Ludmilla is better.
Her drawback is that she only works well with very specific units, such as Pepper or Rapunzel, but she might see more synergy in the future.

Pros

The beefiest Tank in the game that can survive nearly anything thrown at her,
Taunt for days,
Damage Taken debuff gives her some nice utility,

Cons

Requires to be babysit by a Healer to actually work,
Needs to Burst to activate her Taunt.

Ratings

Story – A (early), B (late)
Bossing – S (solo), A (with adds)
PVP – S

Should you pull?

If you’re a F2P player? Not really. But if you are serious about Raids or PVP, grabbing 1 copy of her might be worth it.

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