Qiqi Build Guide For Genshin Impact

Qiqi is a 5* Cryo Sword Support, universally regarded as the worst 5* unit in the entire game. Being one of the five Standard Banner 5* characters, most players see Qiqi as the worst unit you can lose the 50/50 to.

That being said, in terms of the amounts of raw healing provided, no character in the game can come close to Qiqi—this includes other 5* healers, like Jean and Kokomi. The reason Jean and Kokomi are seen as better than Qiqi is because they provide other utility in addition to healing.

Qiqi doesn’t. She’s got no DMG, no crowd control, no Energy generation, nothing. She just heals, in a game where units need to do more than this to stay competitive.

That being said, thanks to the wealth of new weapons and artifacts constantly being added into the game, you can turn Qiqi into a viable Support that keeps the team alive while still providing some utility and even DMG.

So, if you want to know how to make the best out of your little Zombie disappointment, read on.

Qiqi’s Talent Priority

Talent	Description	Priority
Normal Attack (Ancient Sword Art)	Normal Attack Perform up to 5 rapid strikes. Charged Attack Consumes a certain amount Stamina to unleash 2 rapid sword strikes. Plunging Attack Plunges from mid-air to strike the ground below, damaging opponents along the path and dealing AoE DMG upon impact.	The multipliers on Qiqi’s Normal Attacks are abysmally small. We’d say don’t level this talent up at all, but for Qiqi to heal the whole party at once, she needs to be the on-field attacker. So, while you should level this talent up somewhat, it’s still the lowest priority talent by far.
Elemental Skill (Adeptus Art: Herald of Frost)	Using the Icevein Talisman, Qiqi brings forth the Herald of Frost, dealing Cryo DMG to surrounding opponents. Herald of Frost • On hit, Qiqi’s Normal and Charged Attacks regenerate HP for your own party members and nearby teammates. Healing scales based on Qiqi’s ATK. • Periodically regenerates your active character’s HP. • Follows the character around, dealing Cryo DMG to opponents in their path.	This Elemental Skill has a cooldown of 30 seconds and lasts for 15 seconds. With such immense downtime, you’d think it’d be incredible. But it’s just okay at best. On its own, the ability offers five instances of negligible DMG and four instances of fairly decent healing for the on-field character. Whenever Qiqi attacks while the skill is active, she heals the entire team. The biggest problem with this ability is that, in addition to its lengthy cooldown, it generates no Energy particles whatsoever. Despite all the drawbacks, this ability still heals a lot, making it Qiqi’s second priority talent.
Elemental Burst (Adeptus Art: Perserver of Fortune)	Qiqi releases the adeptus power sealed within her body, marking nearby opponents with a Fortune-Preserving Talisman that deals Cryo DMG. Fortune-Preserving Talisman When opponents affected by this Talisman take DMG, the character that dealt this DMG regenerates HP.	After doing mediocre DMG in an AoE around Qiqi, this ability affects all damaged enemies with a visually distinct debuff. When an active character—which doesn’t have to be Qiqi—damages an enemy affected by the debuff, they heal for an inordinate amount of HP. The debuff lasts a fairly long time, during which any DPS character is effectively able to face-tank all incoming DMG by overhealing. This is Qiqi’s highest priority talent. If you’re struggling to keep your DPS alive, Qiqi will effectively render them immortal.

Qiqi’s Passive Talents

Talent Name	Description	Evaluation
Former Life Memories	Displays the location of nearby resources unique to Liyue on the mini-map.	The materials needed to level up Qiqi are some of the most well-hidden and difficult to obtain in the game. This talent will show them on the mini-map, along with other resources required to level up characters from Liyue. It’s next to useless in the endgame, but exceptionally useful in the early game.
Life-Prolonging Methods	When a character under the effects of Adeptus Art: Herald of Frost triggers an Elemental Reaction, their Incoming Healing Bonus is increased by 20% for 8s.	Qiqi offers healing through both her Skill and Burst. This ability makes it so that she heals even more. The Healing Bonus is largely useless, as Qiqi’s already able to overheal most characters. But, if you abuse the artifact set that turns healing and overhealing into DMG—more on that later—then it becomes more useful.
A Glimpse Into Arcanum	When Qiqi hits opponents with her Normal and Charged Attacks, she has a 50% chance to apply a Fortune-Preserving Talisman to them for 6s. This effect can only occur once every 30s.	The debuff from Qiqi’s Burst is her most impactful healing asset. With this passive, she can apply a version of that debuff even when her Burst is on cooldown. If you’re finding the content in this game difficult, this talent will significantly lower the difficulty by increasing the period during which your DPS is effectively immortal.

If this game were called Healing Impact, Qiqi would easily be the best character. The amount of healing she offers is absurd.

Unfortunately, while healing is important, Supports simply have to do more to warrant a slot in the party. To make matters worse, Qiqi is a Support that needs to be supported to do her job optimally.

Her Elemental Burst has a cost of 80 Energy, but she doesn’t generate any Energy whatsoever on her own. So, to use this healer—that doesn’t offer anything in addition to healing—to maximum effect, you have to also include units that will be able to generate Energy for her in the party.

That’s a steep cost for a character that, ultimately, doesn’t carry her own weight. Compare this to Diona, a 4* healer that heals, shields, increases movement speed, generates Energy, and—with constellations—gives the party extra Elemental Mastery, and you’ll see why even players who have Qiqi rarely opt to use her.

Just to reiterate, there is a way to play Qiqi that will turn her into more than dead weight. We’ll cover this built step-by-step in just a moment, along with optimal team setups for her.

But before we do that, let’s take a look at Qiqi’s constellations.

Qiqi’s Constellations

Constellation Name	Description	Evaluation
Ascetics of Frost	When the Herald of Frost hits an opponent marked by a Fortune-Preserving Talisman, Qiqi regenerates 2 Energy.	If you manage to hit an enemy with all five instances of DMG Qiqi’s Herald of Frost can dish out, you’ll be rewarded with 10 Energy. This is still nowhere enough Energy to smoothe out Qiqi’s rotation. In other words, this constellation is effectively useless.
Frozen to the Bone	Qiqi’s Normal and Charge Attack DMG against opponents affected by Cryo is increased by 15%.	Qiqi’s Normal and Charged Attacks do next to no DMG, thanks to her abysmally low DMG scaling. With this constellation, her Normal and Charged Attacks are still garbage. In other words, this constellation is even more useless than the first one.
Ascendant Praise	Increases the Level of Adeptus Art: Perserver of Fortune by 3. Maximum upgrade level is 15.	Increasing Qiqi’s Element Burst levels means increasing the healing provided for your DPS through her debuff. This would be amazing, if not for the fact that her Burst is already able to keep DPS characters effectively immortal without this constellation. So, while great on paper, this constellation is also useless—not because it’s underpowered, but because it’s overkill.
Divine Suppression	Targets marked by the Fortune-Preserving Talisman have their ATK decreased by 20%.	This is an interesting debuff that’s supposed to make it easier for Qiqi to keep DPS characters alive while they’re hitting the enemies affected by the healing debuff. However, Qiqi is already able to do this without this constellation. Say it with us—this constellation is useless.
Crimson Lotus Bloom	Increases the Level of Adeptus Art: Herald of Frost by 3. Maximum upgrade level is 15.	C5 does nothing to address the biggest drawbacks of Qiqi’s Elemental Skill, these being the lack of Energy generation and long cooldown. The extra DMG is negligible and the added healing is unnecessary, making this constellation useless as well.
Rite of Ressurection	Using Adeptus Art: Preserver of Fortune revives all fallen party members nearby and regenerates 50% of their HP. This effect can only occur once every 15 mins.	This sounds amazing, but it’s useless. Let’s consider the Spiral Abyss, the most difficult endgame content in the game. The Spiral Abyss is not an endurance contest, it’s a DPS race. C6 can revive your team, but if your team is dying in the first place despite all the healing C6 Qiqi provides, you’re likely not getting the Spiral Abyss rewards even if you can revive the whole team. The 15-minute restriction is also ridiculous.

There are plenty of characters in Genshin Impact that have some bad constellations. For example, Xiao’s constellations are garbage across the board, but at least his C1 is genuinely good and his C6 amazing. Keqing has a constellation that restores Energy—which she has no trouble keeping maxed out in the first place—but at least all her other constellations are DMG boosts that do add up.

By contrast, Qiqi’s constellations are all horrid, and there’s a chance you’ll get one of them instead of the desired Limited Banner 5* character any time you lose the 50/50. This is why Qiqi is so disliked in the community. It’s not just that the base unit is bad, her constellations can’t even be considered consolation prizes by any metrics.

If, however, you still wish to know how to build Qiqi in the best way possible—not making her a viable unit, so much as a fun-to-play unit—the rest of the guide is for you.

Best Weapons For Qiqi

Weapon Rarity	Explanation
Sacrificial Sword 4*	There are plenty of great 5* Swords in Genshin Impact. None of them offer nearly the same value on Qiqi as the 4* Sacrificial Sword. This sword not only gives Qiqi much-needed Energy Recharge, but it also has the ability to completely reset her Elemental Skill cooldown. At max refinement, this effect can occur once every 16 seconds, meaning much better uptime on Qiqi’s Elemental Skill.
Favonius Sword 4*	Favonius Sword is another great weapon for Qiqi, providing her with not only Energy Recharge, but also a much-needed alternative method of generating Energy. Her Elemental Skill can proc this passive while she’s off-field, but you’ll need to invest in CRIT Rate if you’re going with this weapon.
Skyward Blade 5*	Skyward Blade benefits Qiqi both with its Energy Recharge substat and high base ATK. Remember that all of Qiqi’s healing scales off of her ATK, so all 5* weapons will make her a better healer in that sense. That being said, she can’t benefit from the substat of any other 5* weapon nearly as much.
The Flute 4*	If you’re opting to use Qiqi as an on-field attacker, or simply want her to be more dangerous when she needs to heal the entire team at once, then the Flute is a good option. It will make her better at healing and also imbue her with some AoE DMG.
Prototype Rancour 4*	Prototype Rancour isn’t the best weapon for Qiqi, but it’s by far the best craftable weapon she can use. Not only does it have exceptionally high base ATK for a 4* weapon, its passive also increases her ATK while she’s on-field and attacking.

Best Artifacts For Qiqi – 4-Ocean-Huel Clam

The 4-piece Ocean-Hued Clam set bonus was what transformed Qiqi from completely useless to underpowered but potentially fun-to-play. This is because with it, whenever she heals, a bubble will appear next to the on-field character. For 3 seconds, it will track Qiqi’s healing output, including all the healing characters couldn’t benefit from because they were already at 100% HP.

Then, after 3 seconds, the bubble will explode, dealing 90% of the accumulated healing as Physical DMG, with a cap of 27000 DMG. A new bubble can be produced merely half a second after the old one explodes.

As this is Physical DMG, it can be increased by lowering the enemy’s Physical Resistance, but not by increasing Qiqi’s Physical DMG, for some reason. In any case, with the insane amount of healing Qiqi can produce, it’s not difficult for her to consistently reach this DMG cap and deal upwards of 27000 DMG every 3.5 seconds.

This still isn’t enough DMG to make her competitive or meta-viable, but it is enough DMG to make it so that she doesn’t feel like dead weight. In essence, this turns Qiqi into a mini-Eula who can continuously burst enemies around her in an AoE. Each instance of DMG is significantly lower than C0 Eula’s Burst, but in the time it takes Eula to cast two of her Bursts with immaculate Energy generation, Qiqi can proc the Ocean-Hued Clam set bonus approximately 6 times, for well over 160000 without Physical DMG Resistance shredding.

In case this is raising any eyebrows, we should make it clear that we’re not stating Qiqi is even close to Eula in terms of overall DMG output, just that the effect is similar and Qiqi’s DMG output admirable.

As far as main stats go, Qiqi works best with Energy Recharge on the Sands, ATK% on the Goblet, and ATK% on the Logos.

If, somehow, you find that your Qiqi doesn’t suffer from Energy issues, you can give her an ATK% Sands. She doesn’t do nearly enough Cryo DMG to warrant using a Cryo DMG Goblet, meanwhile, a Physical DMG Goblet will lower her overall healing potential without increasing the DMG of the set bonus healing explosions. She set bonus explosion can’t CRIT, which is we’re ignoring CRIT.

In terms of substats, she wants Energy Recharge and ATK%.

Alternatively, you can run Qiqi with the 4-piece Tenacity of the Millelith set bonus. This will turn her into an ATK buffer for the entire team. This set bonus is overall less synergistic, but still worthwhile running.

Best Team Composition For Qiqi

F2P Qiqi Physical/Taser

• Qiqi
• Razor
• Fischl
• Xingqiu

Unlike the typical Taster team, where you’re only looking to proc Electro-Charged or occasionally sprinkle in a few Swirls, the Qiqi Taser team also seeks to sneak in a few Superconducts to lower the enemies’ Physical Resistance and make Qiqi’s set bonus explosions all the more devastating. Qiqi can also be used as the on-field attacker in this team, although she’s not the ideal candidate for this role.

Razor is the best on-field DPS for this team. Not only is he capable of applying Electro on enemies with every attack during his Burst, but as most of his DMG is Physical, he also benefits from Superconduct. Those without access to Razor can instead use Beidou or even Electro Traveler. Beidou is the better choice for this role, as she can also be used as an on-field Physical DPS.

Fischl is the secondary source of Electro DPS for this team, as well as consistent source of Energy generation. She’s the ideal choice thanks to all of her Electro DMG persisting while she’s off-field. However, if you don’t have Fischl, you can once again turn to Beidou or Electro Traveler. Electro Traveler is the better choice for this role, as he can be used to generate loads of Energy.

Xingqiu is here for his off-field Hydro DMG needed to proc Electro-Charged reactions. When Xingqiu’s Hydro happens to Freeze enemies, Razor’s Normal Attacks will instantly Shatter them for extra DMG, allowing the team to keep piling on Electro-Charged reactions. If you don’t have Xingqiu, it’s best to just abandon the Taser plan entirely and go all-in on Superconduct. You can do this by replacing him with Rosaria or Kaeya, both of whom can provide plenty of off-field Cryo DMG and generate loads of Energy for Qiqi.

Whale Qiqi Team

• Qiqi
• Eula
• Raiden Shogun
• Rosaria

Eula is the main DPS in this team, unleashing massive amounts of Physical DPS with both her Normal Attacks and Elemental Burst.

Raiden Shogun still remains Eula’s ideal partner in crime, providing her with Energy, a reliable source of off-field Electro DMG for procing Superconduct, and filling in for her as a DMG dealing during Eula’s downtime. Qiqi benefits from Superconduct and extra Energy batterying just as much as Eula.

Rosaria may be a controversial pick. Usually, these whale team compositions are made up of 5* characters, with the occasional exception for S-Tier 4* units like Bennett or Xingqiu. But Rosaria is the perfect pick. She provides additional Energy generation for Eula and Qiqi, increases the CRIT Rate of on-field attackers. C6 Rosaria also reduces Physical Resistance at C6, which, benefits both Eula and Qiqi. Zhongli is a nice alternative for the beefy shield and both Physical and Electro Resistance shredding.

Is Qiqi Worth It?

In most cases, Qiqi is not worth it.

Even with the introduction of the Ocean-Hued Clam artifact set, she still suffers from Energy issues and long cooldowns that pigeonhole her weapon choices and teammate variety. For reference, this artifact set got her out of the F-Tier in our Character Tier List, but she’s still far from topping the list.

However, Qiqi is not a character that you chose. She’s a character that chooses you.

So the question, instead, should be whether or not she’s worth investing resources into if you’ve lost the 50/50 to her.

For most players, the answer is no, with a few exceptions.

If she’s your first 5* character and you’re still playing through the story and exploring the map, then she’s great. She’ll keep you alive and trivialize the dangers of open-world exploration and hazardous areas like Dragonspine.

If you’re looking for ways to spice up the Eula/Raiden team comp, she’s also a viable pick.

And finally, if you really enjoy her character and/or playstyle, go for it—don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The game is easy enough to where you can even use her as a main DPS. Equip her with The Flute and watch as different sources of AoE DMG continuously pop around her—it’s a fun way to experience the game’s content.

But outside of these three very specific cases, we just don’t see her being a worthwhile resource investment for most players.