This post is up to date with Version 3.4 Phase 1
Xingqiu is a 4-Star Hydro Sword character from Liyue. In addition to the gacha, he can be obtained with Masterless Starglitter in “Paimon’s Bargains” during the months of March and September. Primarily, Xingqiu serves as an Off Field DPS for his team.
Base Kit
When Xingqiu uses his Elemental Skill, Guhua Swords: Fatal Rainscreen, he performs two Hydro strikes and leaves behind 3 Rain Swords that’ll circle around your active character. The Rain Swords come with a variety of utilities. They apply Wet on your active character and any nearby enemies. Unlike with Barbara’s Skill, the Hydro application on you is not persistent so there is no need to worry about getting hit with Cryo and constantly getting Frozen (take that, Barbara!). While the Rain Swords are active, they provide an increased resistance to interruption. When you take DMG, a Rain Sword will be sacrificed to reduce the DMG taken. With Xingqiu’s A1 passive, the Rain Swords gain another property of healing your active character by an amount equivalent to 6% of Xingqiu’s Max HP when you take a hit or when the Skill duration expires.
As an offensive Skill, Xingqiu’s Skill is just alright. The double strike does possess a high multiplier (235.2% + 267.88 at Lv. 6, totaling to 502.88%) but it also suffers from a lengthy cooldown of 21 seconds so you can’t attack with it frequently. To be fair however, this is not where Xingqiu shines as a sub DPS and his Skill’s value lies more with its utilities. An increased resistance to interruption and a DMG reduction are very helpful buffs to have if you lack a shield (and even if you do have one, the latter effect is still useful). Obviously, the Rain Swords’ healing pales in comparison to that of more dedicated healers such as Barbara and Bennett but they can heal just enough to get by in most fights.
Where Xingqiu’s DPS lies is with his Elemental Burst, Guhua Sword: Raincutter. In addition to generating and refreshing the maximum number of Rain Swords, this ult initiates Rainbow Bladework. This attack is a flurry of 2 or 3 Hydro-based Swords that attack in coordination with your active character’s Normal Attacks. While an individual sword possesses a low multiplier (75.98%), the DMG adds up over time. Furthermore, the bladework has amazing potential for Elemental Reactions. It follows traditional Internal Cooldown but since the Sword Rain attacks at least twice, it generally bypasses the rule and can therefore apply Hydro and set up or trigger its related Reactions with each attack. This makes Xingqiu incredibly good for Reactions.
As a trade off, Raincutter comes with a high cost of 80 Energy. You can team Xingqiu with another Hydro character to lower his Energy needs. However, this isn’t always ideal. Post-Version 3.0, Hydro Resonance provides a 25% Max HP increase. Xingqiu can technically benefit from this as it’ll make his Rain Swords heal a bit more. Other than that, you should only consider Hydro Resonance if someone in your team primarily scales off of HP. In most cases, Xingqiu is usually the sole Hydro unit in his team. Fortunately, Xingqiu is great at particle generation, with his Elemental Skill providing him with 5 Hydro particles upon hitting at least one enemy. With enough Energy Recharge and depending on his weapon, Xingqiu is capable of being his own battery.
Constellations
- C1 – Increases the maximum number of Rain Swords Xingqiu generates with his Talents to 4. While irrelevant to Xingqiu’s DPS, this Constellation is still useful in that it offers more healing and DMG reduction.
- C2 – Extends Xingqiu’s Elemental Burst duration by 3 seconds and allows it to decrease enemy Hydro RES by 15% for 4 seconds. This is an excellent Constellation to have. It bumps the Burst duration from 15 seconds to 18. Against a 20 second cooldown, you’re only looking at 2 seconds of downtime. Despite the short duration, the Hydro RES debuff’s uptime is 100% as it technically resets with each Burst proc.
- C3 – Adds three Levels to Xingqiu’s Elemental Burst.
- C4 – Increases Xingqiu’s Elemental Skill DMG by 50% so long as the Talent is used while his Elemental Burst is active. The usefulness of this Constellation will depend on whether or not you use Xingqiu’s Skill first to pre-funnel Energy.
- C5 – Adds three Levels to Xingqiu’s Elemental Skill.
- C6 – Alters every third Elemental Burst proc to fire 5 swords as opposed to 2 or three and restore 3 Energy to Xingqiu. Why it’s every third proc is beyond me but whatever the case, this is Xingqiu’s best Constellation. It increases his Burst DMG while also lowering his Energy needs to a varying degree.
As always, 4-Star Constellations are a complete gamble so pull at your own discretion. Bear in mind also that Xingqiu’s Constellations can be obtained over time via Paimon’s Bargains. Besides C0 and C6, a solid stopping point for Xingqiu 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.
- Amenoma Kageuchi (4-Star | 451 ATK | 55.1% ATK) – Craftable. The Kageuchi’s passive generates a Succession Seed whenever the wielder casts their Elemental Skill (note that you don’t need to hit with it). Up to three seeds can be obtained and they’ll be used up when the wielder casts their Elemental Burst, giving them free Energy two seconds later. This is a good, F2P-friendly way to refuel Xingqiu’s Burst, his lengthy Skill cooldown means that he’ll almost never have more than one stack so he may need the Sword at a higher refinement.
- Favonius Sword (4-Star | 454 ATK | 61.3% Energy Recharge) – Has a percent chance to generate neutral particles with a CRIT. This can be a great weapon to address the Energy needs of Xingqiu and his entire team.
- Sacrificial Sword (4-Star | 454 ATK | 61.3% Energy Recharge) – Arguably Xingqiu’s most popular 4-Star option. The passive gives the wielder’s Elemental Skill a percent chance to reset its cooldown when it hits an enemy. Since Xingqiu strikes twice with his Skill, he has a pretty good chance at triggering the passive. More importantly, this allows him to double his Energy gains, making Sacrificial one of the best ways to refuel his Elemental Burst. At R3, the passive’s cooldown is just a second longer than that of Xingqiu’s Skill. At R4, the passive outpaces it, making the passive proccing your only concern.
Artifacts
Set(s):
- Emblem of Severed Fate (4) – Energy Recharge set; provides Elemental Burst DMG Bonus in proportion to 25% of the former stat. Since much of Xingqiu’s DPS is concentrated in her Burst, this set is perfect for him. A lot of other characters in Genshin want Emblem of Severed Fate and this set is farmable alongside Shimenawa’s Reminiscence (another useful set) so any Genshin player ought to farm this set in general.
Stats:
- Sands: ATK% or Energy Recharge
- Goblet: Hydro DMG Bonus
- Circlet: CRIT Rate or CRIT DMG
- Sub-Stats: ATK%, CRIT Rate, CRIT DMG, Elemental Mastery, Energy Recharge
With Xingqiu often being the sole Hydro unit in his team, Energy Recharge is usually the preferred main stat for his Sands, even if his weapon provides that stat. Some factors that may allow him to comfortably use an ATK% Sands is if he has both his C6 and the Sacrificial Sword, he is with a second Hydro character, or he is with the Raiden Shogun.
Given the healing provided by the Rain Swords, Xingqiu can use HP% but I wouldn’t bother building it on him.
Synergy
Xingqiu excels in Vaporize comps, which happens to be one of the strongest Elemental Reactions in the meta. He also works well with Electro-Charged, Frozen, and Hyperbloom. Using Xingqiu for vanilla Bloom isn’t really recommended unless you also have Nilou and I’d recommend Yelan over Xingqiu due to the former benefiting more from Hydro Resonance.
Elemental Resonances that benefit Xingqiu are Cryo (15% CRIT Rate against enemies affected by Cyro/Frozen), Dendro (increased Elemental Mastery; more so if Dendro-related reactions are triggered), Electro (extra particle generation), Geo (15% Shield Strength and 15% more DMG while protected by a shield), and Pyro (25% ATK). Hydro Resonance (25% Max HP) is usable for Xingqiu but it’s not that great for him and it should be used more to benefit someone else on the team.
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 Xingqiu.
Recommended Teammates:
- Cyno (5-Star | Electro) – Cyno’s barrage of Normal Attacks infused by his Elemental Burst make him a good driver for Xingqiu in a Hyperbloom team. If Xingqiu is the sole Hydro unit, Cyno can still get an occasional Aggravate proc.
- Diluc (5-Star | Pyro) – The first of many Pyro drivers whom Xingqiu can team up with. Because of the different Internal Cooldowns of both characters, Diluc can get Vaporize on all three attacks of his Elemental Skill so long as he interweaves each strike with a Normal Attack.
- Hu Tao (5-Star | Pyro) – Arguably the best carry for Xingqiu team up with. While Hu Tao mainly fights with her Charged Attack, she has to precede with at least one Normal Attack so she is guaranteed to trigger Xinqiu’s Elemental Burst. With her zipping up to enemies and the low Internal Cooldown of her Charged Attack, she makes great use of Xingqiu’s Hydro application. Additionally, Xingqiu is more or less the best “healer” for Hu Tao with his Rain Swords providing just enough healing for Hu Tao to stay alive without constantly bringing her HP past 50%.
- Keqing (5-Star | Electro) – Pre-Version 3.0, Xingqiu was one of Keqing’s best teammates for an Electro-Charged comp. Post-Version 3.0, the two still work well together though they now have the option to work in a Hyperbloom team with some Aggravate procs for Keqing. Like Hu Tao, Keqing mainly fights with her Charged Attack but since she has to precede with a Normal Attack, she is still guaranteed to trigger Xingqiu’s Elemental Burst.
- Kamisato Ayaka (5-Star | Cryo) – Ayaka’s most F2P-friendly Hydro teammate. Xingqiu’s Rain Swords allow Ayaka to freeze enemies up close, setting them up for Ayaka’s Elemental Burst. While Ayaka prefers to use her Charged Attack, she can still trigger Xingqiu’s Burst with the preceding Normal Attack in her combo.
- Raiden Shogun (5-Star | Electro) – Xingqiu enables Raiden to use Electro-Charged and his Elemental Burst’s high cost of 80 Energy will supply the Electro Archon with a lot of Resolve stacks. In turn, Raiden provides Xingqiu with Elemental Burst DMG Bonus while her Elemental Skill is active and some free Energy while she attacks with her Burst.
- Yanfei (4-Star | Pyro) – The most F2P-friendly driver on the list; similar situation as all the other Pyro drivers mentioned here.
- Yoimiya (5-Star | Pyro) – Unlike the other Pyro carries mentioned here, Yoimiya has standard Internal Cooldown so she’d only get Vaporize every three hits. It’s a shame as her combo being entirely comprised of Normal Attacks would make her Xingqiu’s best driver. Even so, it’s worth pairing the two together for some extra DMG.
Example Teams:
| Yanfei | Xingqiu | Sucrose | Bennett |
| Raiden Shogun | Xingqiu | Xiangling | Bennett |
| Hu Tao | Xingqiu | Yelan | Zhongli |
Closing Words
Xingqiu is unironically one of Genshin Impact‘s best playable characters. His Elemental Burst is simply that good for Hydro and reaction DMG, to the point that he’s the quintessential or at least a very ideal member of many different teams commonly used by players. Post-Version 2.7, the need for Xingqiu has been lessened thanks to the release of Yelan, who performs the same role as him. But while Yelan is potentially stronger, Xingqiu still remains popular thanks to his own strength, his utilities, and his availability as a 4-Star character who can be occasionally obtained for free.
This post was originally published on February 6, 2022
Xenodude's Scribbles 