₪  A mechanically in-depth Lisa Guide  ₪
₪  by ArchedNosi  ₪
[Original Document]
Updated For Version 5.1

Credits & References

Thanks to the members of the Lisa Mains Discord for the help in the creation of this document!
Some clips/gifs were sourced there!

Feel free to join the Lisa Mains Discord and Lisa Mains Subreddit here!

Artwork Credit List in Chronological Order:

1. @HTKJheadache
2. @GenshinImpact & さいね
3. @GenshinImpact
4. @もじゅ
5. @richarano
6. @FallingMist
7. @yuko666_666 | Twitter | Pixiv
8. @Reiji-RJ
9. @ArtofFRanzilla

Spreadsheets used and/or maintained:

1. Motion Value and Combo Sheet by ComputingMagus
2. Lisa C4 Infodump, Lisa Burst Targeting Infodump, Lisa Equipment Calculations, Lisa Team Rotations, and Personal Calculator by ArchedNosi

External Sites referenced:

1. KQM EGT by KeqingMains
2. Lisa Theorycrafting Evidence Vault by KeqingMains
3. Genshin Optimizer by frzyc et al.

Extra Info:

1. Guide Legacy, containing items that were either patched or removed.
2. Genshin Optimizer Multi-Target Optimization Configurations for Lisa.

Terminology

Here are some terms used strictly within this guide that are exclusive to explaining Lisa:

Stacks of Conductive	Refers to the name of Lisa’s Elemental Skill’s stacks.
Cast Time and Active Time	Refers to the individual stages of Lisa’s Hold Elemental Skill.
Discharge or Bolt	Refers to the individual damaging entities emitted from Lisa’s Elemental Burst.
Arc	Refers to any of the groups of instances of when Lisa’s Elemental Burst releases Discharges or Bolts.
Bounce Tech and Bounce	Refers to the mechanic integrated in Lisa’s Tap Elemental Skill allowing Conductive stacks to spread.
Bounce Radius	Refers to the initial radius of Lisa’s Tap Elemental Skill upon impact that allows her Bounce Tech to take place.
Multi-Stack	Refers to being able to simultaneously apply multiple stacks of Conductive.
Radiation and Radiate	Refers to the property of how her Bounce Tech and relevant reactions, like Overloaded and Superconduct, may produce an additional stack of Conductive.

Preface

Welcome to the official Lisa Mains guide to Lisa, written and prepared by ArchedNosi!
Lisa is an astute and dynamic 4-star Electro character who utilizes her access to frequent, reliable Electro Applications from her various abilities to deal burst, sustained, and reaction damage while also elevating other teammates with her supportive attributes.

Lisa has a bewildering complex kit because of her stacking mechanic, interchangeable combos, and gameplay adaptations in various situations. Arguably, Lisa has one of the most nuanced kits for new players due to how little is revealed of all Lisa can do and offer. She also gets neglected for being one of the starter characters by many who underestimate her potential, especially considering her kit's affinity to the Dendro element—completing and reforging Lisa’s identity as a character. Yet even still, Lisa can be alternatively utilized as a cheap and feasible supportive option given her available value, devoid of complexity.

Lisa is a heavily misunderstood character, and it doesn’t help that both her skill descriptions are written in such a confusing way in-game as well as much of her potential being in her synergy with the Dendro element. This document was created to alleviate those issues, and we at Lisa Mains hope it serves you well as a complete guide and overview of how to play Lisa to her optimum!

Why Should I Play Lisa?

Gameplay Overview

Common Misconceptions

Preliminary Questions

Lisa's Best Role in a Team

Lisa’s most prominent role is as an Electro On-field DPS through various Electro and Dendro reactions. Her high Electro Application, from both her Burst and when on-fielding, synergizes with her greatly by constantly triggering her notable reactions: Quicken/Aggravate and occasionally Hyperbloom. She also fully utilizes her EM Ascension stat through reactions, buffs the team’s overall damage as her potent DEF Shred affects both Aggravated and non-Aggravated damage, and can maximally abuse the 4-piece Thundering Fury artifact set for more flexible rotations, better attack strings, and optimized damage.

Outside of Lisa’s Aggravate teams, she can also function as an On-field DPS or a Reaction DPS (Hyperbloom or Overloaded), though with much less of an incentive due to the omission of Dendro or being less effective. Regardless, either of the two remains a valid archetype to play and enjoy, even if inferior.

If Lisa isn’t being purposed in teams to be a core source of damage, she can have prominent use as an Off-field DPS: occasionally swapping in to deal AoE damage from her Burst and Skill in a relatively short time. Even still from off-field, she prefers to be alongside at least one Dendro teammate for reasons explained prior.

Alternatively, at cheaper investment levels or for accessibility as a supportive option, she can also suit as a tertiary Support/Buffer/Enabler. While it does not make the most use out of Lisa’s kit, she can be a popular choice as she offers Electro aura uptime, an innate 15% DEF Shred, and can wield the Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayer (TTDS) Catalyst to buff a teammate. Be aware compositions that utilize Support Lisa are often rare. Nevertheless, her buffs and what she provides make her a viable choice as a Support—sometimes even ideal.

Talents

Talent Priorities

Respectively, the Damage Distribution (%) of Lisa’s Burst, Skill, and Normal Attacks assumes C6 and 3 Enemies averaged upon Primary Target.

Electro On-field DPS

> ≥ >

Level 90 > Burst ≥ Skill > Normal Attack
~40%, ~35%, ~25%

As an On-field DPS, Lisa’s talents are almost uniform in how they each contribute to her overall damage. While most of her damage lies in her Elemental Burst and Elemental Skills, her Normal Attack talent offers fair value because of her effectiveness as a Driver in her relevant teams—like Aggravate. Lisa often alternates using Tap Elemental Skills, Normal Attacks, and Charged Attacks with routine Elemental Bursts and Hold Elemental Skills.

Lisa should prioritize leveling to 90 in her Aggravate teams for a substantial boost, if not greater than leveling her talents. For instance, the difference in leveling her from 80 to 90 will be ~34% more additive (Aggravate) and transformative (Hyperbloom, Overloaded, Superconduct, Electro-Charged, etc.) reaction damage.

Electro Off-field DPS + Support/Buffer/Enabler

>> > >>

Ascension 4 >> Level 90* > Burst > Skill >> Normal Attack
~45-65%, ~35%, ~20-0%

Lisa's Elemental Burst and Elemental Skill should be leveled in tandem as both are integral as an Off-field DPS, while Normal Attacks have less of an importance. If in a Quicken team, leveling Lisa to 90 is also a priority.
Supportive builds are more or less just less invested Off-field DPS builds, so the same priorities apply. Do note there are cases where not using her Elemental Skill is preferred, in which case only leveling her Elemental Burst is necessary.

*Level 90 should only be considered if Lisa is meant to deal off-field damage in a Quicken team.

Reaction DPS

Talent Levels are irrelevant for this archetype. In order to maximize Lisa’s damage, focus on leveling herself instead.

Lisa’s Reaction builds focus on maximizing her transformative reaction damage, often through either the Hyperbloom or Overloaded reactions. Correspondingly, the damage output from Lisa’s talents here will be relatively low.

Leveling Lisa to 90 is another notable method in increasing this build’s damage as it is one of the only few ways to scale with investment aside from getting more EM and ER%, unlike her other builds.

Constellations

Many of Lisa’s Constellations are good to very good. Notably C4, C6, and arguably C2.
Approximate Constellation% Increases assume Lisa as an On-field Aggravate DPS.

Constellation Afterword

Having taken all of the information given about Lisa’s Constellations into account, there arises a valid string of thoughts:

Lisa's MV/s and Optimal Strings

Credits to ComputingMagus for the frame data and MV/s.
(% Values are taken from Talent Lv. 9)

This section is separate due to Lisa having what are essentially four string-able actions:

• Her NAs, CAs (C), Tap Es, and Hold Es.
• Along with cancels: J/DC, or Jump/Dash Cancels, where Dash Canceling is often more time-efficient but costs Stamina.
• For ease, the strings here will assume both are equivalent time-wise to Dash Cancels and will be simply referred to as "cancels."

If Lisa will be on-field for a prolonged time, her most notable strings are:

(With NAs/CAs/Tap Es)

(Including Hold Es; Hold Es will be calibrated at [3] Stacks unless specified)

How or when should I cast Lisa’s Tap and Hold Elemental Skills?

For Tap Es, they will often be her opening attack when she is swapped into. This is to ensure that she radiates Conductive stacks if applicable. Beginning with a Tap E also smoothly transitions into the other combos represented above. 

Otherwise, for Hold Es, it is tangentially better to confirm a Hold E after her Burst has been cast. This is to take advantage of the 15% DEF Shred from her Burst as well as be efficient with Energy Generation and coordinating both of the cooldowns together (for future rotations).
Do keep in mind that it is never necessary to connect a Hold E at maximum Conductive stacks, it is only more optimal to do so. If, by chance, there is high mob density, which allows for her Hold E to damage more opponents, purely connecting it with 1 or 2 Conductive stacks can result in more overall DPS if stacking to 3 stacks isn’t easily doable. Of course, her C6 makes doing so more tolerable but only slightly.

Choosing when to use her Hold E in a given rotation can be slightly complex, however, it can be easily explained when sectioning her rotations around her Hold E itself.
For example, the Pre-Hold E combo(s), the actual Hold E, and the Post-Hold E combo(s).
Combos before the Hold E consist of those that weave in Tap Es in order to generate some Conductive stacks—N2tE or N3tE.
Combos following the Hold E often consist of the alteration of her NAs and her CAs to both maximize Electro Application and passive Conductive stacks—N1C, N2C, or sometimes N3.

There exists the scenario in which doing no Hold Es at all is optimal, like as a sole support unit or if it just is impossible to do so at a given moment. In those cases, she necessitates having more ER% as compensation.

When should I cast Lisa’s Burst for optimal use?

If you ever want to cast her Burst, it is most optimal to cancel her Tap E by following with her Burst. Doing so won’t interfere with potential Conductive stack radiation since the Initial Summon DMG of Lightning Rose does not inflict an Electro aura and can edge out another Aggravate trigger.

Tap E > Q can be further evolved to Tap E > Q > N1C for more additional Aggravate triggers.
Furthermore, Hold E > Q is an attack string that allows Lisa to catch and funnel all of her generated Electro particles for her next Elemental Burst afterward, which can be useful for off-field uses due to the time it saves.

4TF Specific Combos

As the following combos within this section are dedicated to when Lisa has the 4-piece Thundering Fury artifact set equipped, the info collected here is only directly usable within her preferred use case—her On-field Aggravate teams.

Generally, these combos are primarily only functional if Lisa is positioned close enough to enemies to allow for quick execution, but if that parameter is met, then these combos become both efficient and add even more variability to her kit’s options as expecting the CDR to trigger is easily confirmable with Aggravates.

Hidden Tech./Mechanics

Violet Arc's Bounce Mechanic

Lisa's Violet Arc's bouncing property is her most influential hidden mechanic—often ubiquitously used when on-fielding. Although bouncing her Violet Arc becomes less relevant in single-target scenarios as it usually requires another entity to bounce Conductive stacks off from, exceptions still exist, and the mechanic remains vital to understanding how to play her.

In the example shown above, Violet Arc was tapped once, yet applied 3 Conductive stacks to most of the 6 Hilichurls. This was because of the "Bounce" Mechanic of Violet Arc.
In essence, the initial impact of Violet Arc’s projectile has a small radius, and enemies within the radius, including the tagged enemy itself, will all gain one stack—as the ability’s description would imply. The very initial radius will be referred to as the “bounce” radius.

Do note that the radius of how the first Conductive stack spreads is virtually a slightly larger radius than what is actually shown in-game.

However, the description does not mention at all that mobs within the initial impact, or “bounce,” radius will also themselves output additional radii, and those enemies inside of those radii will be additionally stacked once more. Within a group, multiple radii and therefore multiple stacks can occur.
Only the initial bounce radius applies an Electro aura; none of the other resulting radii apply any aura.

In the video, notice how the uppermost and right uppermost Hilichurls only gained 2 Conductive stacks because they were only inside 2 resulting radii, unlike others who were in potentially 3 or more.

Using this mechanic, Lisa can easily stack 3 Conductive stacks given a group of enemies. Thus, grouping can act as a “conductor” of sorts and becomes greatly beneficial.

Radiating Violet Arc with Elements

In addition to the Bounce Mechanic explained above, the Overloaded and Superconduct reactions allow another way to simultaneously afflict more than one Conductive stack. While this specific mechanic remains useful for Lisa, it is not as applicable as other mechanics because many of her synergistic teams omit Pyro or Cryo teammates and instead focus on the Dendro element and/or the Quicken root reaction. Regardless, radiating Conductive stacks should not be ignored as sources of external Pyro or Cryo, like elemental enemies, may still allow this mechanic to occur.

This radiation property is unique to the Overloaded and Superconduct reactions only.

When Violet Arc‘s projectile triggers Overloaded or Superconduct upon impact, enemies gain Conductive stacks equivalent to the number of resulting radii they are within. The applicable radii include the initial/bounce radius of the Violet Arc projectile and the respective Overloaded/Superconduct reaction radius.
For example, should Violet Arc trigger Overloaded/Superconduct onto an enemy, the enemy hit directly receives 2 Conductive stacks for being within the initial radius and the reaction’s radius. Surrounding enemies receive 1 Conductive stack because they were within only the reaction’s radius and thus were "radiated" a stack instead. 

This mechanic can be improved if the Overloaded/Superconduct reaction triggers near a Pyro/Cryo environment, such as Burning Grass/Frozen Water. In those cases, the directly affected enemy receives 3 Conductive stacks, and surrounding enemies receive 2 Conductive stacks.
These additional effects happen because these environments act as “entities” just as enemies would, so they also create their own radius that would allow for Conductive stack radiation to occur.

Pyro/Overloaded

Cryo/Superconduct

Optimizing Violet Arc

Via utilizing the two mechanics mentioned above, here is a quick overview of situations players can create and abuse in order to make the most of Lisa’s Violet Arc and its Conductive stacks.
This section strictly covers her Violet Arc in situations when elements like Pyro or Cryo are present. This does not take into account her CAs also producing a Conductive stack.
All of the following graphics will assume enemies will have no initial Conductive stacks.

Legend

The Basics

However, it is possible to generate 3 Conductive stacks at once as seen in the previous section, right? So where is it here?

Well, that scenario fits the scenario directly above this text, which is where 2 enemies/entities both garnered 3 Conductive stacks from them being close as well as having an accompanying reaction. Recalling that, in order to generate 3 stacks on a single enemy requires an elemental environment, so to speak, like Burning Grass, Frozen Water, or even Flaming Flowers and Mist Corollas, all of those “environments” act as “entities” to which can radiate as if they were mobs.

Therefore, it is, at least currently, not possible to realistically generate 3 Conductive stacks on a single enemy with a single Tap Skill in a neutral non-elemental environment, say the Spiral Abyss for example.

Playstyles (2)

Electro On-field DPS

Electro Off-field DPS

Reaction DPS

Support/Buffer/Enabler

Artifacts (2)

Artifact Stats

Artifact Sets

Weapons (2)

Electro Lisa Weapons

Support/Buffer/Enabler Weapons

Synergies (3)

Electro Units

Dendro Units

Anemo Units

Geo Units

Hydro Units

Pyro Units

Cryo Units

Team Compositions (3)

Electro On-field DPS

Reaction DPS

Off-field DPS/Support

Epilogue (3)

Changelog (3)