Sayu is a ninja introduced in Genshin Impact patch 2.0 known for being sleepy and short. While not being the most impactful character in the meta, she’s carved out her own place as a fun Anemo support and driver.
The big standout of her kit and what she’s most known for is her elemental skill, where she curls into a ball and rolls around. With both her skill and burst, she’s also able to heal, providing a nice defensive bonus to her teams.
Without further ado, let’s delve into her full kit and what how Sayu makes use of it:
- Her normal attacks are nothing special, and really not the focus of her kit. However, as a claymore character who scales off elemental mastery, she has the unique position of being able to make use of the shatter reaction;
- Her elemental skill has two ways to be used: pressing it will deal a single strike, and holding it will make her roll. If you’re not spending much time on the field with her, instead of pressing the skill you should hold it for a moment then let go, as it will then Swirl twice and give 3 elemental particles;
- Her elemental burst will summon Muji-Muji Daruma, healing the party or dealing Anemo damage depending on your current HP. With her 1st constellation, both occur at the same time;
- Her 1st passive will heal your party a bit every time she triggers a Swirl reaction, scaling off her elemental mastery. This is useful in her driver build, but is negligible otherwise;
- Her 2nd passive increases the AoE of her burst’s attacks, while enabling her to heal party members when in co-op. This is useful in co-op, and the extra range also helps in singleplayer:
- Her 3rd passive makes it so that critters in the overworld (such as frogs, lizards and most notably crystalflies) don’t try to flee when you approach them. This is very useful for farming.
- Her best constellation is her 1st, which enables her burst to attack and heal at the same time. After that comes her 6th, which scales her burst off elemental mastery, and then her 4th, which provides energy every time a Swirl is triggered, which is useful for her driver build.
On-field driver Sayu
This Sayu build relies on her using her elemental skill to produce Swirls while her teammates do massive damage from off-field. This build can be slotted into many teams, most notably a Xiangling-Kaeya Melt team and a Nahida-Fischl Aggravate team. It should be noted that when using Xiangling and Kaeya, you should roll in a counter-clockwise motion to increase the amount of hits their elemental bursts deal.
What driver Sayu excels in:
- Very high flexibility in team building, as she can slot into a wide array of teams based on different reactions;
- High personal damage using Swirl reactions;
- She also acts as a teamwide healer, negating the need for a dedicated defensive unit;
- She can make use of the Viridescent Venerer artifact set, decreasing the elemental resistance of targets hit with her Swirls;
- It is, subjectively speaking, very fun to roll circles around her enemies, or rolling into them like an unstoppable force.
Build details:
- Talent priority is elemental skill > elemental burst > normal attacks, as her skill is by far what you’ll be using most;
- Her best weapons are those which provide her with lots of elemental mastery, such as the Rainslasher, Bloodtainted Greatsword, and the limited-time event weapon Mailed Flower;
- Her best artifact set is by far the Viridescent Venerer, which provides a small 15% boost in Anemo damage and, most importantly, increases her Swirl damage by 60% and decreases the elemental resistance to the element Swirled by 40% when hit.. For this build, you want to prioritize elemental mastery above all else in artifact stats.
- For Sayu, it’s very useful to level her all the way up to 90, as it increases the damage of her Swirls by a significant margin.
Best team for this build:
- Xiangling
The Sayu Melt team is the one which makes best use of her skill’s mechanics by increasing Xiangling and Kaeya’s burst hits by moving counter-clockwise.
- Kaeya
Like Xiangling, Kaeya’s burst moves clockwise in a circle around the active character, meaning he can make special use of Sayu’s quick rolling.
- Bennett
Bennett serves to buff the attacks of Xiangling and Kaeya, as well as funnel energy into Xiangling.
Off-field burst support Sayu
This build focuses on making use of Sayu’s elemental burst, which heals and triggers swirls in an AoE. Sayu in this role can fit into any team with an open slot where an Anemo character can go, and isn’t constrained to any particular character.
What burst support Sayu excels in:
- Good amounts of healing from her elemental burst;
- Triggers a reliable amount of Swirl reactions with her burst, shredding the resistance of enemies to the elements swirled;
- Is extremely flexible, being able to be slotted into any team with the space for an Anemo support;
- Takes up little field time, allowing her teammates to do their thing;
- Works with low investment, only needing the energy recharge required to use her burst every rotation.
Build details:
- Talent priority is elemental burst > elemental skill > normal attacks, as she’ll mostly be used for her burst in these teams;
- Her best weapons are the Skyward Pride, which provides a bit of energy recharge and a high amount of attack (used for her healing), and the Favonius/Sacrificial Greatswords, which allow her to gather energy for her elemental burst much easier;
- You still want to use the Viridescent Venerer artifact set, as its role in buffing Swirl reactions and debuffing enemies’ elemental resistance can’t be understated. Her artifact stats should be focused on having enough Energy Recharge to use her burst every rotation, followed by atk% to increase her healing and elemental mastery to increase her Swirl reactions.
- You also want Sayu level 90 for this team, as her Swirl damage will still be valuable.
Best team for this build:
- Xiangling
As stated above, Sayu using this build can fit into any team with the space and need for a Viridescent Venerer user. As an Anemo support, she doesn’t need any specific characters to unlock her full potential, rather she serves as an enabler for other characters. So really, her best team comes down to what the best possible team is that makes use of an Anemo support.
- Xingqiu
Enables Vaporize for Xiangling’s elemental burst.
- Bennett
Provides an attack buff for Xiangling’s elemental burst, and funnels energy to her.
Shatter Sayu
This build isn’t exactly meta, but it is quite fun to make use of an underused reaction. As a claymore character scaling off elemental mastery, Sayu is one of the few characters that can maximize damage from Shatter, which is when a heavy attack hits a frozen enemy.
What Shatter Sayu excels in:
- One of the best users of the Shatter reaction, for what it’s worth;
- Adds a nice amount of supplemental damage to an otherwise ordinary Freeze team;
- Doesn’t require building anything but elemental mastery, as shatter only scales off that and character level;
- Makes use of Sayu’s normal attacks;
- The supports can still end up dealing pretty decent damage.
Build details:
- Talent priority is elemental burst > elemental skill > normal attacks, since leveling up her normal attacks won’t do anything to increase her shatter damage;
- Her best weapons are elemental mastery stat sticks like Rainslasher and Bloodtainted Greatsword;
- The best artifact set for maximizing shatter damage is Gilded Dreams as it provides additional elemental mastery, however Viridescent Venerer can still result in higher team damage if there isn’t another Anemo character using it. Substats should focus on elemental mastery;
- As always with Sayu, she should be leveled to 90.
Best team for this build:
- Chongyun
His elemental skill deploys a field in which your normal attacks will be converted to cryo, which lets Sayu freeze enemies with her normals;
- Yelan
She provides exceptional damage and keeps enemies frozen with her elemental skill and burst;
- Sucrose
She can Swirl Cryo or Hydro to provide additional application, as well as carrying Viridescent Venerer and sharing elemental mastery with her team using her passive talent.
Sayu is a very fun and underappreciated character who, despite only being the best in slot for a couple of teams, still holds value as a powerful Anemo support and driver. She’s also undefeated in the overworld when it comes to utility: her rolls are fast, and she doesn’t scare the crystalflies!
If you liked this article, you should consider reading these:
https://www.gamersdecide.com/articles/genshin-impact-healer-tier-list
https://www.gamersdecide.com/articles/genshin-impact-best-claymore-1
https://www.gamersdecide.com/articles/genshin-impact-best-kaeya-builds-1
