This post is up to date with Version 3.4 Phase 1
Yun Jin is a 4-Star Geo Polearm character from Liyue. Primarily, she serves as a support for her team.
Base Kit
Yun Jin’s utility lies in her Elemental Burst, Cliffbreaker’s Banner. After striking in an AoE, Yun Jin calls forth a Flying Cloud Flag Formation. This aura provides a flat DMG buff to your active character’s Normal Attacks, based on Yun Jin’s current DEF, for 12 seconds or until the Trigger Quota has been reached. The aura can increase up to 30 instances of Normal Attack DMG; multiple enemies hit by the same Normal Attack will count as multiple triggers. With her A4 passive, this DMG boost is further increased depending on how many different elements you have on your team, with 4 different elements naturally giving the highest increase.
Obviously, a Normal Attack DMG buff is not as universally useful as an ATK buff and it is worthless for characters who seldom use their Normal Attacks such as Ganyu or characters who mostly don’t deal Normal Attack DMG such as the Raiden Shogun. For characters who do use them however, this buff is quite valuable. It can boost Normal Attack DMG by the thousands and that can make a sizable difference in efficiently clearing content. The fact that the buff doesn’t buff ATK also means that you can actually combine the two to further boost your DPS.
Whether or not the Trigger Quota is a concern is dependent on who’s the one getting buffed. For a strictly single target DPS such as Yoimiya, the Trigger Quota should be exhausted at an even pace. Conversely, someone such as Tartaglia can burn through the quota in a matter of seconds due to their penchant for AoE DMG. Regardless, 30 stacks is usually plenty to work. It’s certainly better than Shenhe’s Icy Quills, which suffers from a measly Trigger Quota of just 5-7 hits.
Cliffbreaker’s Banner costs 60 Energy and Yun Jin gains Energy Recharge as she ascends. You would think that Energy wouldn’t be an issue for her but surprisingly, this is often not the case. Her Elemental Skill generates 2.5 or 3 Geo particles depending on the input though this Energy gain is offset by a 9 second cooldown. For Yun Jin to consistently buff your carry, you will want to stack a lot of Energy Recharge on her, especially if she’s your sole Geo unit in a team.
When Yun Jin uses her Elemental Skill, Opening Flourish, she performs a spin attack, dealing Geo DMG to her foe(s). This attack can be executed with the press of the Skill button but if you hold the button instead, Yun Jin will temporarily summon a HP-based shield to tank incoming hits and charge up her spin attack for increased DMG. This variant has two levels, with the higher one being performed if Yun Jin successfully charges her Skill all the way through or (provided she’s at A1) if she performs the Skill at the precise moment she is attacked. It works very similarly to Beidou’s Skill though it’s much more generous with its windows. Unlike Beidou, Yun Jin does not need to take hits to maximize her Skill DMG.
The scaling for Yun Jin’s Elemental Skill can get pretty high. A Lv. 6, a fully charged spin attack has a multiplier of 521.92% at Lv. 6. By Lv. 12, this reaches 745.6%. Given her Normal Attack DMG buff however, you won’t really be capitalizing on Yun Jin’s Skill as you build her. However, the Skill does scale off of DEF so it will get stronger as you invest Yun Jin’s buff.
Constellations
- C1 – Decreases Yun Jin’s Elemental Skill cooldown by 18%. This Constellation is actually rendered moot as you usually only cast Yun Jin’s Skill once per rotation. Even so, a shorter cooldown is always a good thing.
- C2 – Gives 12 second 15% Normal Attack DMG Bonus buff to the whole team after Yun Jin activates her Elemental Burst. Since it’s a DMG Bonus, this counts as an entirely separate buff from the flat DMG buff that Yun Jin innately has in her kit. It also syncs perfectly with her Burst, activating right after it and lasting just as long.
- C3 – Adds three Levels to Yun Jin’s Elemental Burst.
- C4 – Increases Yun Jin’s DEF by 20% and for 12 seconds when she triggers Crystallize. While I don’t recommend banking on this Constellation, it is pretty easy for Yun Jin to proc it as Geo is almost always the trigger for Crystallize.
- C5 – Adds three Levels to Yun Jin’s Elemental Skill.
- C6 – Buffs your active character’s Normal Attack SPD by 12% while they’re buffed by Yun Jin’s Elemental Burst. ATK SPD buffs of any kind are hard to come by so this Constellation is worth having. The only caveat to it is that its uptime is tied to Yun Jin’s Trigger Quota. Should all 30 triggers get used up, you lose the buff.
As always, 4-Star Constellations are a complete gamble so pull at your own discretion. Besides C0 and C6, a solid stopping point for Yun Jin is C2.
Weapons
The following list of weapons is largely organized by descending rarity and alphabetical order. Stats provided in the parentheses are assuming the respective weapon is at Lv. 90.
- Favonius Lance (4-Star | 565 ATK | 30.6% Energy Recharge) – Yun Jin’s go-to weapon. In addition to the Energy Recharge, the weapon has a percent chance to generate neutral particles with a CRIT. It is an absolute must for addressing Yun Jin’s Energy needs. The only caveat is that you will need to prioritize CRIT Rate in addition to DEF and Energy Recharge.
- Prototype Starglitter (4-Star | 510 ATK | 45.9% Energy Recharge) – Craftable. While the passive does synergize with Yun Jin’s kit, it isn’t suited for her use as an Off Field support. The Prototype Starglitter is largely a stat stick for those who lack a Favonius Lance for Yun Jin.
Artifacts
Set(s):
- Husk of Opulent Dreams (4) – DEF set; characters wielding this set can gain up to four Curiosity stacks to increase their DEF and Geo DMG Bonus. Stacks are obtained by dealing Geo DMG or staying off the field for a period of time. Stacks are lost if either condition is not met within 6 seconds. This is generally Yun Jin’s best Artifact set as it improves both her buff and her personal DMG. To gain stacks, Yun Jin has to stay off field most of the time. Her Geo application simply isn’t fast enough. Given how quickly she swaps in and out of the field, this shouldn’t be an issue.
- Noblesse Oblige (4) – Elemental Burst DMG set; provides a teamwide 20% ATK buff for 12 seconds when the wielder casts their Burst. Frankly, this set does squat for Yun Jin. Her Burst DMG is generally weak and while it does scale off of ATK, Yun Jin needs DEF a lot more. Regardless, this set does make Yun Jin a more versatile support and the ATK buff is desired by most other units in the game.
- Emblem of Severed Fate (4)/Husk of Opulent Dreams (2) – Energy Recharge & DEF 2-Piece combo. This is a solid stopgap if you’re struggling to get a full Husk set.
Stats:
- Sands: Energy Recharge
- Goblet: DEF%
- Circlet: CRIT Rate or DEF%
- Sub-Stats: CRIT Rate, CRIT DMG, DEF%, Energy Recharge
Once again, Yun Jin has high Energy needs so an Energy Recharge Sands is often needed. If Yun Jin is wielding the Favonius Lance, she absolutely needs a CRIT Rate Circlet.
ATK% and HP% are technically usable but I wouldn’t bother building those on Yun Jin. Avoid Elemental Mastery as best you can. All it does for Geo characters is improve the DMG Absorption of Crystallized shields (which you almost never bank on).
Synergy
Technically, you can team Yun Jin with almost every carry in the game. So long as they use Normal Attacks in a rotation (and it does count as Normal Attack DMG), Yun Jin can support them. For the sake of brevity, the list of recommended teammates down below will just list a couple of characters who especially benefit from Yun Jin’s kit.
Given Yun Jin’s A4 passive, you are encourage to have a “rainbow” team comprised of four different Elements. However, this should not mean that you should write off any Elemental Resonance that you may want for your team. Elemental Resonances that benefit Yun Jin are Electro (extra particle generation) and Geo (15% Shield Strength and 15% more DMG while protected by a shield).
As a disclaimer, the following lists of recommended teammates and example teams is not necessarily a comprehensive one. Also, the example teams may include characters that are not included in the recommendations as they arguably synergize more with someone else on the team and less so with Yun Jin.
Recommended Teammates:
- Ningguang (4-Star | Geo) – While Ningguang’s Charged Attack shines more than her Normal Attacks, you do have to perform the latter up to three times for optimal use of the latter. Each of Ningguang’s Normal Attacks hit twice so she can go through Yun Jin’s Trigger Quota at a good rate. There is also the fact that Ningguang is arguably the best Geo character at particle generation, making her an ideal teammate to mitigate Yun Jin’s Energy needs.
- Noelle (4-Star | Geo) – While Noelle’s C2 encourages her to use her Charged Attacks, you can forgo that with Yun Jin’s Normal Attack DMG buff. Noelle’s Normal Attacks are sluggish but they have solid AoE and range.
- Razor (4-Star | Electro) – Since Razor’s entire playstyle is spamming his Normal Attacks, Yun Jin is an appealing support for him, especially when he’s buffed by his Elemental Burst. Between the ATK SPD provided by Razor’s Burst and the buff provided by Yun Jin’s C6, Razor can fight very quickly.
- Yoimiya (5-Star | Pyro) – Once she activates her Elemental Skill, Yoimiya has one of the fastest and strongest Normal Attack combos in the game. She is easily one of the best characters for Yun Jin to support.
Example Teams:
| Noelle | Gorou | Yun Jin | Bennett |
| Ningguang | Yun Jin | Fischl | Diona |
| Yoimiya | Xingqiu | Yun Jin | Bennett |
Closing Words
Yun Jin is a solid support unit and one of the best 4-Star characters released during Genshin Impact‘s 2.0 era. While her kit does cater towards a niche, she performs quite well in it, being a valuable asset to characters who often use their Normal Attacks during combat.
This post was originally published on May 22, 2022
Xenodude's Scribbles 