When Serena dropped in the First Descendant for Season 2, everyone was creating a belly-flop build for her. Typically people associate a new character with the skill/abilities they can do. As a long-time Gley fan, I noticed she had some weapon buff stuff and decided to build her out as a weapon Descendant. Well, it turns out that was apparently the meta, which is somewhat unfortunate because I'd like to play odd-ball builds; and I thought using her for guns was an odd-ball build, oh well.
Note 1: You don't reload with Serena, you press V (Hymn) to automatically reload the weapon.
Note 2: You should press Q (Sacred Flame) to burn enemies you're shooting to get some ammo back automatically.
So this is the build I setup for her, we'll start with the descendant mods:
Serena descendant modules
| Mod | Use |
|---|
| Hymn | You can leave this one out, but I find it fun to give my party some buffs now and then (speed/trampoline) |
| Long-Distance Maneuvering | You can pick whatever you want for this slot |
| Increased HP | More HP = more firearm attack |
| Overwhelming HP | No shields needed for this build, convert to HP for more firearm ATK |
| MP Conversion | Having a super low cooldown is essential, even at the cost of MP |
| Maximize Duration | Having a longer duration for Z-ability (Redemption) is essential |
| Maximize Conservation | Lower the cost of using Redemption, skill power not needed |
| Stim Accelerant | More HP = more firearm ATK |
| Focus on Chill | Only used for Skill Cooldown, no upgrade needed (any -6.1% cooldown will do) |
| Focus on Dimension | Only used for Skill Cooldown, no upgrade needed (any -6.1% cooldown will do) |
| Nimble Fingers | More skill cooldown = more uptime for Redemption |
| Skill Extension | Longer duration for Redemption (can be swapped for something else if you have a good reactor with gold cooldown and duration) |
Serena Arche tree
For the Arche tree on Serena, we went all HP and Shield. Why shields? So that we can have more HP of course (due to overwhelming HP). When I ran out of shield options, I opted to get a purple movement speed.
Inversion Reinforcement
| Skill | Use |
|---|
| Chill Focus Rounds | More attack power in core farming (purge) level 30 |
| Biodensity Augmentation | Increased max HP (5 stacks) on enemy kill, so more firearm ATK |
| Evolutionary Cutting Mechanism | More bounces/damage for Malevolent |
Weapon - Malevolent modules
With the inversion reinforcement this season combined with multi-hit from Serena's Redemption ability, this gun clears rooms and verhy high HP enemies very quickly. Be sure to turn on the setting in the game to auto-fire for you. I have all chill stuff on here for farming purge 30.
Weapon Tuning - More bullets in the clip
Expand Weapon Charge - More ammo in the clip
Charge Amplification - Firearm ATK
Rifiling Reinforcement - More firearm attack
Action and Reaction - Even more firearm attack
Multi-Bullet - Multi-hit damage + DOT
Fire Rate Up - Faster fire rate
Modes you should swap depending on scenario
Chill Enhancement - For purge 30
Chill Priority - For purge 30
Snowflake Conductor - For purge 30
Malevolent core rolls and readjustments
I put everything into fire rate, chill attack boost, firearm attack boost and extended mags. Below are my rolls, but I'm going to not bother putting the % or other values I rolled as the goal should be to get the highest possible on these.
- Chill ATK X
- Firearm ATK X
- Chill ATK X
- Fire Rate X
- Fire Rate X
- Rounds per Magazine
- Chill ATK
- Attribute Status Effect Trigger Rate
- Firearm ATK
Reactor and components
The reactor should be skill cooldown and duration. Or if you have enough duration/cooldown overlap from your descendant mods, then you can pick something elsehere; type match-up doesn't matter here. For the components, you should be doing anything you possibly can to increase your HP. If you don't have a good HP roll on a component, then use one with a good Shield roll since the shields are converted to HP.
