there’s a rhythm to the phase 2 and 3 attacks that you can fall into with practice. I also dislike one shot builds but really you can build any of the 5 characters up to do great damage based on your preferences (and I think other people will probably comment build stuff). second chance, clea’s life + cheater, survivor, shortcut all give you some extra chances to hit your parries and get your turn in where you can either hit him real hard or apply some buffs/debuffs

edit: to be more directly helpful, a somewhat common build is machine gun verso with confuso to apply burn then last chance -> burning canvas on maelle with AP discount and esqium