Serena will join your party at the same time as her sister, Veronica. She could be considered your main healer, although that kind of loses some effect depending on whether you use Sylvando or Rab. Despite that, though, Serena does have some tremendous support for your party in other areas. She has two weapons she can use in the game, one-handed wands and spears. While spears do have some use for a short amount of time, Serena should be sticking with wands. The only reason to go with spears is because of hunting Metal Slimes and nothing more, since you’re not going to get much else out of that tree.

View Full-size

Serena in Dragon Quest XI

It should be mentioned that during the middle portion of the game, Serena’s skill trees and spell list will be expanded greatly. This expansion is only temporary and will shrink some once you reach the final portion of the game. Due to this expansion in the middle portion, though, you will likely need to change the focus on your Serena build.

Spells¶

Serena can be considered the healer of your group, but she is also a good buffer. She learns a variety of healing spells, but they are all single-target until level 35, which is when Serena learns Multiheal. This will put her a little behind both Rab and Sylvando, especially if you head straight for Hustle Dance. Despite this, though, she will probably be your main healer for a while, since it takes a while to get to Hustle Dance and the fact you get Serena earlier than the others. She also gets a bunch of support spells, like Squelch to get rid of poison, Buff/Kabuff to increase defense, and much more. Do not neglect the support spells with Serena, as they have a variety of uses.

Her offensive spells leave a little to be desired, since her Magical Might won’t be much, due to her healing abilities requiring Magical Mending. Also, her Whoosh line of spells only target a single group of enemies, so you’re better off leaving the damage to others. The Whack line of spells can prove useful, though, provided the enemy is susceptible to them. These might help against the more bigger enemies, although Serena tends to be on the slower side, so she’s almost always going last.

View Full-size

Serena’s initial skill tree

Wands¶

Wands is one of two weapons that Serena can use in the game and is probably her preferred one. All of the wands for Serena are one-handed, so she is able to use a shield with them. It is possible to learn Dual-Wielding with her, meaning you can equip two wands, but the lack of a defensive option for Serena means that it might be best to just stick with a single wand. Apart from that, the rest of the passives are your typical ones you will see in pretty much every tree, with an emphasis on Magical Mending and MP.

The highlight of the Wand tree is definitely Snap, Crackle, Poof, which allows you to make sure a single ally doesn’t get debuffed or have an ailment on them for four turns. Of course, if they already do have one on them, then this doesn’t cure them, but there are some fights where this comes in super handy. Once her tree opens up later in the game, Divine Intervention allows an ally to survive a killing blow, no matter their HP, with Alma Mater requiring them to have more than 50% HP in order for it to count. Grace of the Goddess is a nice fail-safe, as it applies an auto-revive buff for Serena, just in case something goes wrong. Lastly, Divine Restitution gives Serena a HP regeneration buff, while also deal some big damage to a group of enemies.

Harpistry¶

The Harpistry tree, at first glance when you get Serena, is a purely support one. You have various Hymns to get, which help protect your characters from those elements. There is nothing else, besides a few minor passives, in this tree, until it fully opens up later in the game. While the Hymns might seem very useful from the start, they do get a lot better once you learn the two Holier Hymns passives with the full tree. The only other ability in this tree is Doleful Dirge, allowing you to deal more elemental damage to an enemy, but the skill doesn’t always hit.

Spears¶

Spears are a bit of an oddball for Serena, as they can be extremely useful early on in the game, but once you obtain Jade, there is pretty much no point to them. For this reason, it’s probably best to just avoid them, unless you plan on doing early Metal Slime hunting in Gallopolis and need Thunder Thrust for the critical hits. You’ll find a lot of similar abilities here to Jade’s tree, although there are others that are exclusive to Serena. Be Like Water and Counter Wait will allow Serena to evade and do a counterattack, which might be nice, but she’s likely not going to be doing a lot of damage with those counters. The odd choice of a skill in this tree is Kaswooshle, which is a strong wind-elemental spell.

Character Build¶

When you first get Serena in your party, you do have a bit of a choice to make, depending on whether you want her to focus solely on Wands or dabble in Spears for a bit. If you choose the latter, then your goal is to unlock Thunder Thrust and Party Pooper, the two best spear skills for Serena at the beginning. Once you get Jade, who is by far the better spear user, you can respec Serena to send her back on the Wands path. Your primary focus should be to stack her with Magical Mending for the first portion of the game, as that is needed for her healing spells.

In fact, you should send her down the Wands tree and grab Snap, Crackle, Poof, since it’s probably the best skill from her initial selection in all three initial trees. The Harpistry tree isn’t bad, as the skills there can come in handy, but they aren’t super useful until that tree opens up at the end of the game. Once you get to the second portion of the game, you will have a lot open to you, as well as the addition of possibly investing in some Magical Might.

In the final portion of the game, once Serena’s trees open up all the way, you can go back to Magical Mending. You can grab the two Holier Hymns in the Harpistry tree, as well as all of the Hymns. You will also want to look at snatching all of the passives in the Wands tree, as well as Divine Restitution skill. Whenever you learn Omniheal and start using it regularly, there is really no need to worry about Magical Mending too much, since that spell will always heal your party to full.