Nefer Build Guide

Lunar Bloom

Nefer - Columbina - Lauma - flex slot

• Nahida and Sucrose are by far the strongest 4th slot options, but they will make the team have no real sustain option. Ineffa or Kuki Shinobu can provide a sustain alternative but at a high damage cost. Thanks to Nefer’s Dash Cancels and fast rotations, she has a relatively easy time going sustainless.
  
• Other Hydro options instead of Columbina include Aino and Xingqiu, but they will typically be quite a bit worse.
  
• Lauma alternatives don’t exactly exist. Without Lauma, it is recommended that Nefer opt for a team of Columbina + Fischl + Sucrose instead. Fischl provides a good bit of Energy as well as 180 EM thanks to her Hexerei buffs, on top of the Lunar-Charged reaction damage the deal will deal.

Note that a second Moonsign character is essential to use Nefer because of her Moonsign passive that necessitates Ascendant Gleam.

The only team Nefer will want to use. Lauma is essential, with her kit practically being made for Nefer. Lauma provides significant buffs in the form of Crit and Dendro RES Shred alongside very powerful quills that proc when dealing Lunar Bloom damage to an enemy. Lunar Reaction damage quills are additive damage values that scale exclusively on the Crit of the character that uses them, which Nefer has a lot of. If you’re not using Columbina, Lauma will generally want to use her Tap version of her Skill, but with Columbina she will want to use Hold Skill. This is because using Hold Skill gives the team more quills at the cost of Verdant Dew, which non-Columbina teams can’t afford.

Example Rotation

Open the first rotation with Nefer Skill

1. Columbina Skill Eternal Tides + Burst Moonlit Melancholy
   →
2. Nahida Skill All Schemes to Know + Burst Illusory Heart
   →
3. Lauma Hold Skill Runo: Dawnless Rest of Karsikko + Burst Runo: All Hearts Become the Beating Moon
   →
4. Nefer on-field combo:
5. 1. Skill + 3 Enhanced Charged Attacks (dash canceled)
   2. Skill + 2 Enhanced Charged Attacks (dash canceled)
   3. 1 Enhanced Charged Attack + immediately Elemental Burst

Sucrose does not use Viridescent Venerer on this team, and is here for her powerful EM teamwide buffs instead. She is a competent holder of Deepwood Memories, but she can opt into using Instructor with specific setups for the highest damage version instead. Because her buffs are teamwide, she buffs both Lauma and Nefer’s EM, which is highly desirable as Lauma’s EM is a massive share of team damage. Nahida is comparably good, but will only buff Nefer’s EM. C2 Nahida will generally be a bit better than Sucrose, but can lead to Nefer overcapping on Crit Rate.

Ineffa and Shinobu will want to use Deepwood Memories, but they can use Instructor and go right before Nefer. The damage they offer will be negligible, but they will offer some extra EM through Dendro Resonance and Sapwood Blade in the case of Shinobu.

BiS Option: Reliquary of Truth

Nefer’s Signature Weapon and one of the strongest stat sticks in the game if you can deal Lunar Bloom damage. It offers a total of 8 Crit Rate, 120 EM and 36 Crit Damage on its passive alongside the 88 Crit Damage secondary stat, making it a massive increase of 25-30% for Nefer's personal damage over most other options. It can also be used decently well by on-field Columbina.

Limited 5 star alternative 1: Nocturne's Curtain Call

Columbina's Signature weapon excellent option if you happen to have it but not Nefer’s Signature, and it is used better by Nefer rather than Columbina in a Nefer team. The Energy isn’t a big deal, but the 60 Crit Damage is stronger than most any other Weapon passive.

Limited 5 star alternative 2: Nightweaver's Looking Glass

Similarly to Nocturne's Curtain Call, if you happen to have Lauma's Signature and neither of the above or a high refinement Dawning Frost, you should use it on Nefer instead of Lauma thanks to the massive EM it provides.

Best 4 star: Dawning Frost

Made for Nefer, it’s a very good 4 star stat stick and scales well with refinements. Unfortunately, it is exclusively found on the Weapon Banner and thus is difficult to get. It has so far only been available on Nefer's Weapon Banners.

Best free option: Blackmarrow Lantern

The Nod-Krai craftable is a strong option and entirely free. If you don’t have any of the above, use this.

BiS Option: Night of the Sky's Unveiling

By far the best option for every Moonsign on-fielder, and Nefer is no exception. The Crit Rate it provides can occasionally be difficult to build with because of the extra 10 Lauma provides, but it is generally not a big deal and absolutely worth building around. It is also found in the same domain as Silken Moon's Serenade, making it a no-brainer to farm for.

2p2p combinations ( Elemental Mastery ):

Can hold you over until you have a strong NSU set, but make sure to not compromise and farm that domain.

1. Elemental Skill
2. Elemental Burst
   >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
3. Normal Attack

Nefer's Elemental Skill talent contains almost the entirety of her damage, with her Elemental Burst talent having a small part of it. Her Normal Attack talent has none of her damage, even though Nefer uses Charged Attacks.

Overview & Lunar Bloom

Nefer is a Dendro Lunar-Bloom DPS. She enters an Enhanced State through her Elemental Skill, in which she can Verdant Dew to unleash powerful Enhanced Charged Attacks that deal Lunar Bloom damage. Lunar Bloom is a type of Lunar damage. It hits the opponent's Dendro RES and gains Lunar DMG% through Elemental Mastery. Verdant Dew is the special resource generated for the team whenever a Lunar Bloom reaction is triggered.

Because Nefer's Talent damage also scales on Elemental Mastery, it becomes about as good as CRIT on Nefer.

Elemental Skill & Enhanced Charged Attacks

Nefer’s Elemental Skill has two charges. On cast, she will either generate 2 or 3 Dendro Particles and if the team has Moonsign: Ascendant Gleam active she will ‘lock’ Seeds generated by the Bloom reaction. She will do this to already existing Seeds and ones generated within the next 15 seconds. Locked Seeds will not explode. Nefer will also enter a special state, during which she gains an Enhanced Charged Attack. This Enhanced Charged Attack will consume a Verdant Dew to deal massive Lunar Bloom damage to all enemies in a certain AoE. She can do this up to 3 times during the special state. Nefer will absorb nearby locked Seeds to boost her damage whenever she casts the Enhanced CA. Up to 3 Seeds will be consumed at once to give her a ‘Veil of Falsehood’ stack, and when Nefer has 3 such stacks or refreshes the duration of the 3rd stack, she gains 100 EM.

Nefer’s Skill charges have separate cooldowns, with each charge having a cooldown of 9 seconds. She wants to use 2 charges per uptime, which means performing 2 * 3 = 6 Enhanced CAs per rotation, requiring 6 Verdant Dew. Due to this, Nefer wants consistent Hydro application throughout the team’s rotation. Even though the charges are on a 9 second cooldown, Nefer’s rotations are very fast and can go as low as 16.5 - 17 seconds. This means Nefer might run into cooldown gating very late into an encounter, such as towards the end of a Stygian Onslaught Boss fight, but this won’t be a significant issue.

The animation of Nefer’s Enhanced CA is quite long, but it can be cancelled early with timely Dashes. This will not stop the rest of the animation from dealing damage, and it lets Nefer chain CAs very quickly. Her field time can go as low as 9-10 seconds if done optimally.

Elemental Burst

Nefer’s Elemental Burst deals 2 hits of EM scaling Dendro Damage, not Lunar Bloom Damage, and deals significantly increased damage per Veil of Falsehood stack. This means that it can be worth using to fill out rotational downtime, as long as it doesn’t extend the rotation – optimally Nefer will want to use it to cancel one of her last CAs. It is not necessary to use.

Reliance on Lauma and Mechanic Details

Nefer is a strong character, but she desperately wants Lauma to reach her zenith. Lauma provides exceptional buffs, off-field Dendro application to sustain Verdant Dew and Veil of Falsehood uptime, while her Lunar Bloom quills alone can make Nefer deal up to 50% more damage. The difference between Lauma-less Nefer and Lauma-full Nefer is massive. Nefer also much appreciates the passives of Moonsign 5 stars increasing the Base DMG of Lunar Reaction damage, of which she also has one, making Lauma and Columbina even more powerful.

Rotational Optimizations for Nefer teams

Nefer usually wants to open fights with a Skill cast to not risk Bloom explosions stealing Lauma quills from her. It also lets the team generate more particles in Stygian Onslaught. Because Nefer’s charges have separate cooldowns, Nefer will generally not run into real cooldown issues until at least after the 4th rotation, even with very good Dash cancels.

Columbina wants Lauma to use her Hold Skill. Because you will generally begin encounters without any Verdant Dews, you will need to either open the fight with a Lauma Tap Skill and plan a rotation until her Skill is off-cooldown or use another off-field Dendro applicator like Nahida and wait for enough Verdant Dews to generate.

Instructor Setups for Nefer Teams

Instructor is an excellent set, and particularly strong for Nefer teams. Using it in Nefer teams requires very specific setups and has high Artifact requirements to use. Specifically, you need a Deepwood Memories set good enough for either Columbina or Lauma, neither of which cares about the Dendro DMG% 2pc. Ineffa and Shinobu can use Instructor quite comfortably, as they will consistently trigger Quicken.

Sucrose is an excellent user of Instructor as she has no Energy Recharge requirements, but the setup for it is quite particular:

( Nefer Skill in the first rotation → )

1. Lauma Burst + Hold Skill and wait until you see the deer in Lauma’s animation hit the ground
   →
2. Columbina Burst + Skill
   →
3. Sucrose Skill or Skill + Burst
   →
4. Nefer CA rotation
   →
5. ( → Sucrose Skill again if she didn’t use Burst)

The deer provides a consistent visual tell, making it relatively easy to learn the timing. This setup allows for there to be a Hydro Elemental Aura on the enemy, which Sucrose can use to Swirl and trigger Instructor with. She cannot react with Dendro, so this is required. The optional swap back into Sucrose lets you maintain maximum EM uptime for Columbina and Lauma’s damage, which you can do by either casting Burst before going into Nefer or using another Skill like this.

Nefer was officially released as a playable 5-star Dendro Catalyst character in Genshin Impact on October 22, 2025, during the Version 6.1 update (also referred to as Version Luna II).