Beidou had a period back in the late 1.X patches where she was being recognised for her incredibly strong elemental burst, but she was soon overshadowed and hasn’t reappeared in the spotlight since. Her burst’s bouncing mechanic is what makes it so strong, as 2 enemies standing nearby will end up being hit 5 times by it.
What makes Beidou so good:
- Her normal attacks are reasonably fast-paced for a claymore character, and her 4th constellation provides a small amount of Electro damage to them whenever she’s hit;
- The most famous part of her kit may be her elemental skill, which absorbs enemy hits and bounces them back in a powerful counterattack. It has 2 levels to it, those go up every time you’re hit while charging the attack;
- Her elemental burst is by far the best part of her kit. It gives you a small shield, an incoming damage reduction, and releases bouts of Electro damage which synchronize with your normal attacks and bounce between enemies for a total of up to 5 times at C2;
- Her 1st ascension passive allows her to instantly charge her elemental skill to its full power by pulling off a ‘perfect counter’, which is when you perform your skill within 1/3rd of a second of an enemy hitting you. This may seem hard, but it becomes very doable with practice;
- Her 2nd passive grants her a 15% damage and attack speed bonus for her normal and charged attacks upon releasing a level 2 counterattack. This generally isn’t very useful as her normal attacks do negligible damage, but it can be a small DPS increase if you’re running her on-field as it can possibly allow her to fit another burst proc during its uptime;
- Her 3rd passive grants the party a 20% swimming stamina cost reduction, which is useless in battle but can be deceptively handy in the overworld if you find yourself having to swim a long distance.
- Has insanely powerful constellations which overall increase her damage by 85%, one of the best increases of any 4-star character. Her best constellation by far is her 2nd, which increases her burst bounces from 3 to 5. This alone can up her DPS by up to 47%.
Off-field DPS Beidou
Beidou’s best role is doing heavy amounts of personal damage from off-field with her elemental burst.
Beidou is one of the few Electro characters out there to not rely on reactions at all, as her elemental burst with its bouncing mechanic ends up hitting extremely hard and can only minorly benefit from the Aggravate reaction. The important thing to note is that her burst won’t bounce if there’s only one enemy, so she falls off dramatically in single-target scenarios.
What off-field DPS Beidou excels in:
- Insane damage against multiple targets through her elemental burst;
- Provides a shield at C1 and damage reduction which increases survivability;
- Can slot into a wide variety of teams, acting as the main source of damage for a lot of them;
- Only requires Fischl to fulfill her energy demands to work on a team;
- Doesn’t rely on any reactions due to very high personal damage;
- Can still benefit from reactions such as Aggravate, Hyperbloom and Electro-Charged.
Build details:
- Her talent priority should be elemental burst > elemental skill > normal attacks, as her burst will be doing the grand majority of her damage;
- Her best weapon is the Serpent Spine, available through the paid Battle Pass. Her best 5-star option is the Wolf’s Gravestone, if you have it, although the Skyward Pride becomes good when she needs very high energy recharge. The weapon banner’s Akuoumaru is also a good option, and the best F2P option is the event-limited Luxurious Sea-Lord if you played during the 2.1 event. Otherwise, the best F2P option is the Prototype Archaic;
- Her best artifact set is the Emblem of Severed Fate, which provides extra energy recharge and a large boost to elemental burst damage which scales off her energy recharge. Atk% should be the sands’ main stat, with Electro dmg% on the goblet and Crit rate/damage on the circlet.
Best team for this build:
- Fischl
Fischl is the essential Beidou party member. Everyone else can be swapped out in some way or another, but the energy that Fischl funnels to Beidou is vital to keeping her burst uptime without investing heavily in energy recharge;
- Nahida
Nahida in this team serves to apply plenty of Dendro to fuel the Aggravate reaction, as well as doing a good amount of personal damage;
- Sucrose
Sucrose is the best driver you can find for Beidou, as her normal attack pattern can make the fullest use of Beidou’s 1 second cooldown on her burst attacks. Her normals also Swirl with every attack, meaning she can carry Viridescent Venerer and apply a practically permanent 40% Electro resistance decrease to enemies.
On-field DPS Beidou
This build also relies on Beidou’s very strong burst damage, except this time benefiting more from her skill damage too.
On-field Beidou has some advantages and disadvantages: she requires less energy recharge built into her as being on-field will mean she absorbs more elemental particles, but not using a dedicated driver will mean her burst can get less hits off. To sweeten the deal, though, using her on-field means you can make use of her 4th constellation. This grants an additional bit of Electro damage to her normal attacks whenever she’s hit that can help trigger more Aggravate reactions.
What on-field DPS Beidou excels in:
- Still a very high amount of burst damage;
- A significant amount of elemental skill damage thanks to the Thundering Fury set decreasing its cooldown;
- Less reliance on Fischl to funnel energy to her, although she’s still a very good team member;
- Makes use of her 4th constellation, dealing small amounts of Electro damage with her normal attacks;
- Also makes use of her 2nd ascension passive, as the 15% attack speed increase can allow her to fit in another burst hit.
Build details:
- Talent priority is still elemental burst > elemental skill > normal attacks, as her burst still makes up the bulk of her damage;
- Her best weapon will still be the Serpent Spine, followed by Wolf’s Gravestone and Akuoumaru. Luxurious Sea-Lord and Prototype Archaic are still the best F2P options;
- Whilst Emblem of Severed Fate will still provide the most DPS, Thundering Fury can be used viably to reduce her skill’s cooldown and thus decrease her energy needs. This set will also slightly buff her skill’s damage with a 15% Electro damage increase. Artifact stats remain the same: Atk%, Electro dmg%, Crit.
Best team for this build:
- Fischl
Despite not being strictly necessary, Fischl remains Beidou’s absolute best teammate. Not only does she help her meet her energy requirements, but she also does very good damage with her elemental skill;
- Nahida
Again, her elemental skill provides lots of Dendro application that makes running this Aggravate team viable, as well as her own personal damage;
- Jean
Jean is here to serve the role as Anemo support and healer, providing the 40% Electro resistance reduction from Viridescent Venerer.
Support Beidou
Beidou is used as a support unit for one particular team: Sucrose’s Anemo Hyperbloom. Here, she serves mainly as a source of Electro application which won’t trigger Hyperbloom, allowing Sucrose to Swirl the Electro applied to enemies onto the Blooms herself.
In this team, Beidou is the only Electro unit, and so requires an exceptional amount of energy recharge to reliably recover her burst in good time. This means a good chunk of her personal damage will have to be sacrificed for the sake of maintaining burst uptime.
What Support Beidou excels in:
- The way her burst works means she won’t apply Electro to Bloom cores, only to enemies. This enables Sucrose to Swirl the Electro onto the Bloom coresherself;
- Her shield becomes especially important as Sucrose is a fairly frail character;
- Her incoming damage reduction from her burst also becomes important in boosting Sucrose’s survivability;
- Still does pretty okay damage, even with the increased focus on energy recharge;
- In this team, she doesn’t rely at all on Fischl, instead focusing her own stats on recovering her elemental burst.
Build details:
- Talent priority is elemental burst > elemental skill > normal attack, as always;
- Her best weapon for this team is Skyward Pride, as it provides important energy recharge. F2P options can be the Favonius or Sacrificial Greatswords;
- Her preferred artifact set will still be the Emblem of Severed Fate, as it gives extra energy recharge. Crit rate/damage and Electro dmg% can still be used on the circlet/goblet, but her sands should be Energy Recharge%.
Best team for this build:
- Sucrose
Really, there’s only one team for this build, that being this one. Every other team would rather have Beidou do more damage. Sucrose in this team is the main DPS and driver of all reactions;
- Xingqiu
Xingqiu is here to provide Hydro application to fuel Sucrose’s reactions;
- Nahida
Again, Nahida’s mainly here to enable Sucrose. She provides Dendro applications.
Beidou is one of the most underappreciated characters in the game, regularly being outshadowed by other Electro units like Fischl, the Raiden Shogun and Kuki Shinobu. While these characters are indeed superb in their own right, Beidou remains one of the most reliable sources of extremely strong elemental burst damage, regardless of what team you put her in.
If you liked this article, you should also check out:
https://www.gamersdecide.com/articles/genshin-impact-best-claymore-1
https://www.gamersdecide.com/articles/genshin-impact-best-aoe-characters
https://www.gamersdecide.com/articles/genshin-impact-enabler-tier-list
