By Zakharov#5645, KeqingMains
Version 2.3.0, last updated 2023-02-23

Introduction

This guide will walk you through how to build a good team. It’s focused mainly on building teams for Spiral Abyss, though the same principles apply outside of the Abyss.

The summary gives a quick overview of the most important principles in team-building. The body of the guide goes over these principles in detail. Appendix A describes how each character fits into the framework established by the guide. Appendix B analyzes several different teams using the principles established in the guide. A glossary at the end defines abbreviations and key terms.

Summary

Rotations

• Give every character the time they need to do their job
• Don’t have multiple characters that need a lot of time on field to get value. For example, if you have both Raiden and Yoimiya on your team, you can have only one of them attacking at time. If you were to replace Raiden with Xingqiu, you could have both Yoimiya and Xingqiu getting value at the same time.
• Make sure you get the right buffs on the right characters
• Don’t underestimate how long characters take to use their abilities. For example, Xiao doesn’t only use his 15 seconds of Yaksha Mask time, he needs another 2.2 seconds to use his Elemental Skills and Burst.

A rotation is the order in which you use the abilities of all your characters. There are two styles of team, Fixed Rotation and Flexible Rotation.

Fixed Rotation Team

• Plan out what every character will do over the course of the rotation, e.g. 20 seconds, and repeat the cycle until you win
• You want important cooldowns to line up. For example, Xingqiu and Xiangling line up well with their 20 second cooldowns. Xiangling and Rosaria don’t, so Rosaria’s Burst will spend 5 seconds off cooldown unused in a 20s rotation team.
• If you’ve got a character that can’t switch off during their Burst, such as Xiao, you usually run a fixed-rotation team

Flexible Rotation Team

• Swap between characters freely, using Skills and Bursts off cooldown whenever possible
• Great if you want to switch in characters based on enemy actions, such as Beidou’s parry
• Great with characters that have awkward cooldowns, such as Fischl’s 25s E cooldown or any 12s cooldown burst

Energy

• Use the Energy Recharge Calculator to determine your team’s Energy needs.
• Characters who deal a lot of damage don’t usually want to build ER, so they often need other characters of the same element on the team

Reactions

• All reactions have an aura element applied first, and a trigger element applied second. The trigger character is the important one for reactions.
• Make sure that the character you want to be triggering reactions is consistently the one triggering reactions
• 1.5x reactions (Vape with Pyro trigger, Melt with Cryo trigger) are much easier to consistently trigger than 2x reactions
• Be very careful with characters who continually apply Elements that will react with the aura Element, but aren’t your main elemental trigger. For example, if you want Hu Tao to trigger Vaporize, adding Xiangling to the team will eat up all the Hydro and ruin the team.

Survival

• You usually want some characters who can keep your team alive
• Healing, shields, and damage reduction all help
• Multiple small sources of survivability, such as Xingqiu + Beidou, can be as good as a dedicated healer

Character Roles and Needs

A character will often contribute to multiple roles. For example, Bennett is a healer, a buffer and a source of Pyro Energy. Characters can also have needs that the rest of the team must fulfill. For example, Eula needs a Cryo character for Energy, an Electro character for Superconduct, and plenty of field time to use her Elemental Burst.

Many people use terms like “main DPS”, “sub DPS”, “carry”, and “support”. I won’t be doing so, but they usually translate as:

• Main DPS / Carry is a character who deals a lot of damage and (typically) needs field time
• Sub DPS is a character who deals significant damage but doesn’t need field time
• Support is any character whose primary purpose isn’t damage, especially if they provide buffs

Damage Roles

Some teams focus entirely on one character who does nearly all the team’s damage, while others have multiple characters all contributing damage. The first approach works particularly well at low AR, where you only have enough resources to fully build one character. Either approach works late-game.

It’s generally more important to meet your damage characters’ needs than other characters’ needs.

Damage characters don’t usually want to build a lot of Energy Recharge, as that diverts resources from their damage. This means they may need another character of the same element on the team to provide them with energy.

Energy Role (Battery)

A character has the Energy role if they generate particles of a type needed by another character on the team. Characters don’t need to dedicate themselves to the Energy role, they can provide Energy incidentally. For example, even though Klee picks up all her own particles, she still helps Bennett with Energy.

Elemental Application Role (Aura)

This role is for a character who applies an Element to the enemy so that a teammate can react with it. For example, Xingqiu applies Hydro so that Hu Tao can trigger Vaporize. Most good aura characters can apply Elements quickly and for a long time. Some characters, like Tartaglia, can have both the damage and aura roles.

Survivability Role (Healer/Shielder)

Some characters can single-handedly keep your team alive with powerful heals or shields. Others provide only a small amount of healing, shielding or damage reduction, but it might be enough in combination with other sources.

Buff Role

Characters with the buff role make other characters do more damage, either by buffing the target’s stats or by reducing the enemy’s stats. For example, Bennett’s Burst, anyone holding Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers, any Anemo character with 4pc Viridescent Venerer. You need to ensure that your buff characters can reliably get their buffs onto the characters who need it at the right time.

Many Talents snapshot, meaning that they lock in whatever buffs were applied to the character at the time the talent was used, and keep them active even if the buffs expire. For example, if you use Xiangling’s Pyronado while in Bennett’s Burst, the extra attack will continue to boost Pyronado’s damage even if Xiangling switches out, moves out of the Burst field, or Bennett’s Burst expires.

You want to focus the most or all of your buffs onto your highest damage dealer.

Field Time Need

Every character needs a certain amount of field time to do what they need to do. For example, Yoimiya wants to spend 10 seconds in her Elemental Skill stance, plus another 2.5 seconds casting her Skill and Burst. Zhongli needs to spend 1.6 seconds using his Elemental Skill, plus another 2.3 seconds if he wants use his Burst. Make sure there’s enough time in your rotation for everyone to meet their field time needs. It’s rarely a good idea to have more than one character with 9 seconds or more of field time needed in your team.

Elemental Application (Aura) Need

Some characters need an Element to react with. For Vaporize, Melt and Overloaded reactions, you need some other character to apply the aura before the damage-dealing character triggers it. This means you need the aura source to apply their Element faster than the aura trigger consumes it. For other reactions, the Elements can be applied in any order.

Energy Need

Characters need Energy from teammates if they need to use their Burst frequently, don’t generate enough Energy themselves, and can’t afford to build ER.

Other Needs

Some characters need various other things from their teammates. For example, Melt Ganyu wants a shield so her Charged Shots don’t get interrupted, while Xingqiu needs someone to use Normal Attacks to trigger his Rain Swords.

Rotations

Rotation Styles

There are two basic styles of team: Fixed Rotation and Flexible Rotation.

Fixed Rotation teams have a “rotation” of a particular length, such as 20 seconds. During this time, they use all their abilities in a set order. For example, “Gorou E – Albedo E – Bennett EQ – Gorou Q – Itto Q – Itto attack combo – Repeat”. Flexible rotation teams might have an order for what to do at the start of the battle, but generally switch between characters and use talents when convenient.

Reasons to use a fixed-rotation team

• You want to make sure all the right buffs are applied to your main damage dealer
• One character needs to stay on-field for an extended period of time, so you can easily plan out your rotation around that period
• You want to reliably use your most important talents off cooldown
• You want to plan out your Energy generation and consumption to minimize Energy Recharge needs
• You have a hard time keeping track of your Elemental Skill cooldowns

Reasons to use a flexible-rotation team

• Your important cooldowns don’t line up, so using a fixed rotation would mean wasting uptime
• None of your characters need to stay on-field for any period of time, so you can swap freely
• The enemies disrupt your fixed rotations
• You want to swap Beidou in and parry when the opportunity arises
• You have a hard time remembering how to execute a full rotation and would rather just mash buttons randomly

Planning rotations on a fixed-rotation team

Rotation Length

The first thing you need to do is work out how long it will take to execute your rotation. The easiest way to do this is to try it a few times in-game and measure the results. If you want to calculate it precisely:

• Add up the cast times of all the talents you use, plus the time you spend on each character attacking. Cast times can be found in the KeqingMains Theorycrafting Library.
• Remember that a character must spend at least 1 second on field before switching out, regardless of how long it takes them to use their abilities.
• If a character needs to catch particles, include the time spent waiting for particles to arrive
• Add in a second or two for switch delay and imperfect execution

For example, Gorou E [1.0s] – Albedo E [1.0s] – Gorou Q [1.0s] – Bennett EQ [1.8s] – Itto Q [1.5s] – Itto attack combo [12.6s] (longer than 11s thanks to hitlag extension). This totals 18.9 seconds, or a 20 second rotation if you add in some slack. This lines up with the longest cooldown, Gorou’s 20s Burst. Adding in Albedo’s Burst would add 1.2s to the rotation, which would result in a lower overall damage per second than skipping it, unless you can perfectly execute the rotation. Also note that this doesn’t include any time for Gorou to catch his particles, which means he’ll require a very large amount of ER to keep up.

Buffs and Auras

You want your team’s damage dealers to get as many buffs as possible for as long as possible. In the Itto team described above, Albedo snapshots Gorou’s Defense buff when he uses his Skill, so he benefits from it for the full duration of his skill. Itto snapshots Gorou’s defense buff (100% of his Burst time), gets Gorou’s Geo Damage buff for 28-53% of his Burst time, and gets Bennett’s Burst and Noblesse buffs for 83% of his Burst time.

Elemental auras work very similarly to buffs. You want to make sure the characters who need an aura have one available for the entire time they need it.

Viridescent Venerer’s Resistance reduction is a particularly important buff to consider, because you need to have the right aura applied before Swirling, and the reduction in enemy Resistance can’t be snapshotted.

Energy

A character can “feed” Energy to a teammate by using an Elemental Skill, switching to the teammate, and catching the particles with that teammate. Plan your rotations so that the low-damage characters who can afford to build lots of ER feed their particles to teammates who really need the Energy.

Planning flexible-rotation teams

Field Time

Calculating field time requirements is trickier for a flexible-rotation team. You need to do it one character at a time. For example, to calculate Rosaria’s field time requirements:

• Her Elemental Skill takes 1.1s, and she wants to use it every 6s, so 18% of your field time is spent on it
• Her Burst takes 1.2s, and she wants to use it every 15s, so 8% of your field time is spent on it
• Adding some slack for switching delay and imperfect execution, Rosaria takes up about 29% of your field time
• Add a bit more slack if you need to wait for particles to arrive

Buffs

A flexible-rotation team is more likely to miss out on buffs than a fixed-rotation team, because they might not be available at the right time. You should still try to get buffs applied at the most important times, especially when snapshotting them.

Energy

Feeding Energy to allies is particularly useful on flexible-rotation teams, because you’re swapping a lot.

Energy

Whenever a character collects an Energy particle, they get Energy: 3 Energy for a particle that matches the character’s Element, 2 for a clear particle, and 1 for a particle of the wrong Element. Every other character also gets Energy: 1.8 for a matching particle, 1.2 for a clear particle, and 0.6 for a non-matching particle. The Energy gained by each character from particles, both on and off field, is multiplied by that character’s Energy Recharge stat.

Getting enough Energy to use your important Bursts off cooldown (or at the correct point in the rotation) is incredibly important. The best approach is to have a team that can generate enough Energy, the next best is to build enough ER to make up the difference, and by far the worst is screwing up your rotation.

Energy Recharge Calculator

Use the Energy Recharge Calculator to determine how much Energy Recharge you need to build on each character. If you need to trade a lot of damage stats (Attack, CRIT, etc) for Energy Recharge on your main damage dealers, you might want to change your team or rotation to give more Energy to those characters.

Energy Batteries

One character can “feed” another character by using an Elemental Skill, switching to another character, and collecting the particles with that character. Feeding Energy makes the Energy generation 67% more effective than passively benefiting from off-field Energy.

You rarely want to run a character whose only role is to provide Energy. They should be dealing damage, healing, or buffing at the same time. A battery who generates Energy slowly but also has a lot of value elsewhere, like Bennett, is more useful than someone who generates Energy quickly but doesn’t provide much other value, like Xinyan.

The table below lists some characters who can battery well:

Element	Characters
Anemo	Jean, Sucrose
Cryo	Diona, Kaeya, Rosaria
Dendro	Nahida
Electro	Fischl, Raiden
Geo	Albedo, Geo Traveler, Ningguang
Hydro	Kokomi
Pyro	Bennett
All Elements	Electro Traveler, Raiden, Venti (for Cryo, Electro, Hydro and Pyro)

Reactions

Explaining exactly how reactions work is too complicated to fit in this guide. The most important things to know are Elemental Gauge Theory and Internal Cooldowns. It can be difficult to determine how exactly a team’s Elements will react with one another, so the best approach is to record a video of yourself playing the team, then analyze the video to see what Elemental Reactions occur.

Hydro-Vaporize and Pyro-Melt (2x amplifying reactions)

Triggering Vaporize with Hydro, or Melt with Pyro, are the strongest reactions in the game, but also the most difficult to do consistently. They are most useful for single large damage instances, such as Tartaglia’s Elemental Burst.

If you get a Hydro aura on the enemy, you need to apply twice as much Pyro to remove it. Similarly, if you get a Pyro aura on the enemy, you need to apply twice as much Cryo to remove it. For this reason, any character that applies a lot of Pyro (e.g. Diluc) won’t be able to reliably Melt, and any character who applies a lot of Hydro (e.g. Xingqiu) won’t be able to reliably Vaporize.

This problem can be solved by using both Hydro and Cryo on a Pyro-Melt team. For example, if you use Hu Tao, Xingqiu and Kaeya, whenever Hu Tao applies too much Pyro, Xingqiu will Vaporize it away. You’ll get a combination of Freeze, Pyro-Melt and Pyro-Vaporize. This doesn’t work with blunt attackers (Klee, Diluc, Yanfei) who will Shatter Frozen enemies, preventing both Melt and Vaporize.

Pyro-Vaporize and Cryo-Melt (1.5x amplifying reactions)

Triggering Vaporize with Pyro, or Melt with Cryo, is less damage than the reverse but much more consistent. A single application of Hydro can generally enable two Pyro-Vaporizes, and a single application of Pyro can generally enable two Cryo-Melts. Many teams are built around enabling a damage dealer to consistently do these 1.5x reactions.

If you apply too much of the trigger Element, that can ruin your team. For example, a team of Hu Tao, Xiangling and Xingqiu will apply so much Pyro that it overwhelms Xingqiu’s ability to support it with Hydro. The enemy will end up with a Pyro aura most of the time, and neither Hu Tao nor Xiangling will Vaporize their damage.

Internal cooldowns (ICDs) are an important factor in who can profitably trigger amplifying reactions. Ayaka’s ICDs mean she only applies Cryo on ⅓ of her hits, meaning she can only Melt ⅓ of her damage, and is therefore a poor Melt user. In contrast, Hu Tao applies Pyro on every one of her Charged Attacks, so she can Vaporize all of them and is a great Vaporize user.

You can have an off-field character applying an aura and an on-field character triggering the reaction (e.g Xingqiu + Hu Tao), or an on-field character applying an aura and an off-field character triggering the reaction (e.g. Tartaglia + Xiangling), or off-field characters doing both (e.g. Xingqiu + Xiangling). The first is most common, because on-field characters tend to have higher damage output.

Quicken, Aggravate and Spread

When you combine Dendro and Electro, you trigger Quicken. This is an aura which causes subsequent Dendro applications to trigger Spread, and Electro applications to trigger Aggravate. Spread and Aggravate don’t consume Quicken aura, so you don’t need to worry about how much of each you apply. Quicken lasts at least 6 seconds, so you don’t need to apply Dendro or Electro that quickly.

Aggravate and Spread deal damage based on the EM, level, damage bonus, and CRIT stats of the triggering character. Attack and Talent scaling don’t matter. Aggravate and Spread work best with Talents that apply a lot of Electro or Dendro quickly, regardless of how much damage those talents do. Good examples are Alhaitham’s Chisel-Light Mirrors or Fischl’s A4 and C6 passives. On a Quicken team, all Electro and Dendro characters trigger Aggravate or Spread, though if they have high talent scaling relative to their elemental application rate, they might not want to build EM.

You can add a small amount of Hydro (e.g. Kokomi) to a Quicken team while still maintaining Quicken aura. If you add a large amount of Hydro (e.g. Xingqiu), you’ll lose most of your Quicken uptime. Similarly, Quicken can survive a small amount of Pyro application, especially if you have a lot of Electro to overload it away. Cryo, Anemo and Geo do not interact with Quicken.

If you want to Swirl Electro in a Quicken team, you need to have Electro + Quicken, which means you need more Electro application than you have Dendro application. This can be difficult if you’re using Nahida.

Bloom, Hyperbloom and Burgeon

A single application of Dendro can enable 2 applications of Hydro to trigger Bloom (3 for Nahida’s Tri-Karma Purification). A single application of Hydro can enable only one application of Dendro to trigger Bloom. To get the most out of these reactions, you want fast Dendro (Nahida, Alhaitham, or double Dendro) and Hydro that is fast but not too fast. Because of the interaction of Dendro and Electro-Charged, fast Electro can prevent overapplication of hydro from causing problems.

Pure Bloom teams without Electro or Pyro are generally weak unless they have Nilou to enhance their Bloom damage. It’s often difficult to determine which characters will trigger Bloom in a pure Bloom team. You can either record your team and measure who’s triggering bloom, or build EM on everyone who can afford to build EM.

You want area-of-effect Electro application, such as from Kuki or Raiden’s Elemental Skill, to trigger Hyperbloom. An enemy can take damage from only two Hyperblooms at any one time, so you don’t want to let a lot of Dendro cores build up before triggering them. Only the Hyperbloom trigger wants EM, and they want a lot of it. Electro Swirls or Electro absorption from Anemo characters are effective ways to trigger Hyperbloom. Fischl and Beidou don’t generally trigger Hyperbloom.

Burgeon teams are similar to Hyperbloom teams, but they’re more concerned about having fast Hydro application because they need it to get rid of Burning. While Hyperbloom teams want to apply a lot of Electro to the enemy, Burgeon teams want to avoid applying Pyro to the enemy but still need to apply it to Dendro cores. Thoma is an ideal Burgeon trigger. Adding Electro to a Burgeon team will generally make the team Burgeon more reliably.

Burning

Burning uses the EM of whichever character most recently applied Dendro or Pyro, so you need EM on all of your Dendro, Pyro and Anemo characters to use it effectively. Burning requires fast Dendro application to remain active, but does not need fast Pyro. Burning can enable Cryo Melts, but this is generally less practical than just using pyro alone.

Burning has a small area of effect, so if you group a lot of enemies really tightly (e.g. with Venti’s Burst), you can do a lot of damage quickly. Burning also does a lot of damage to you, so if you stand next to this group of enemies you will die very quickly.

Overload

Overload is the same reaction whether it’s triggered by Electro or Pyro. It uses the Elemental Mastery (EM) stat of whoever triggers the reaction. Overload only cares about the level and EM of the trigger, so to maximize its value you want a trigger that’s level 90 with all their stats put into EM. The most practical way to use Overload is to have Fischl provide an Electro aura and a Pyro character (or Kazuha) provide the trigger. You can also have a team that uses Overload for a bit of extra damage without focusing on it.

Overload deals damage in an area around the enemy. Each enemy can only take Overload damage from a given character once every 0.5s, so you can’t get a ton of damage by triggering many Overloads simultaneously on multiple enemies.

If you apply Pyro to a character affected by Electro-Charged (both Electro and Hydro), you will trigger both Overload and Vaporize. Adding Hydro to an Overload team will also Vaporize away any Pyro auras you accidentally apply so your Pyro character can consistently trigger Overload.

Electro-Charged

Electro-charged uses the EM stat of whoever last applied Electro or Hydro to the target. This is impractical to control, so you don’t generally build EM to boost Electro-Charged damage. Electro-Charged damage is a nice bonus, but not something you usually build a team around. Electro-Charged also staggers enemies, which can delay their attacks.

Freeze and Shatter

It doesn’t matter who triggers Freeze, and EM doesn’t affect Freeze. The main benefit of Freeze is the massive amount of CRIT from the 4pc Blizzard Strayer artifact set. It’s also helpful to keep enemies in place and not attacking you. You need off-field Hydro application (e.g. Xingqiu, Mona, Kokomi) on Freeze teams.

Freeze doesn’t work against bosses, in both overworld and the Abyss. Adding Pyro, Electro, Geo, or blunt attacks (e.g. Claymore swings) to a Freeze team will remove the Freeze, which you generally don’t want. Shatter is too weak and difficult to use to build a team around.

Superconduct

Superconduct’s Physical Resistance reduction is its only relevant aspect, the damage is too small to matter. Superconduct lasts 12s, so you don’t necessarily need an off-field source of either Element to use it. Every team built around a Physical damage dealer wants Superconduct, and no other team cares about it.

Swirl

Because enemies can’t have an Anemo aura, Anemo characters will always be the trigger of Swirl reactions. Although the damage multiplier for Swirl isn’t very high, Sucrose, Kazuha, and Venti can trigger so many Swirls that it adds up to a lot of damage. Swirl removes auras at half the rate of most other reactions, so that won’t interfere too much with your other reactions. However, Elements Swirled from one enemy to another apply at twice the rate of most other reactions, so they will have a large effect on your team’s reactions.

The main purpose of Swirl on a team is to trigger the 4pc Viridescent Venerer bonus to reduce enemy resistance to the Swirled Element. Make sure to adjust your rotation so that the enemy is affected by the Element you want to Swirl before you trigger Swirl.

Like Overload, Swirl deals damage in an area around the enemy. Each enemy can take Swirl damage from a given character twice every 0.5s per Element, so triggering Swirl on multiple enemies in an area of effect can cause each enemy to take twice the damage.

Crystallize

Crystallize is the weakest reaction in the game. The shields generated by Crystallize aren’t enough to reliably keep you alive, though they can help when combined with other sources of damage reduction or healing.

Crystallize removes auras at half the rate of most other reactions, so it won’t interfere too much with other reactions. Despite this, you might want to avoid triggering Crystallize on some teams that can’t afford to lose any aura, such as Hu Tao teams.

Survival: Healing and Shielding

 Typically, you’ll want one of the following:

• A powerful healer: Barbara, Bennett, Diona, Dori, Jean, Kokomi, Kuki, Noelle, Sayu, Qiqi, or Yaoyao
• A powerful shielder: Zhongli or to a lesser extent Thoma or Layla
• Multiple sources of minor healing or mitigation

Heals, shields, both, or neither?

The most reliable way to stay alive is to run a dedicated healing character on your team. Having one of these lets you easily recover from any mistakes that don’t kill you. Apart from Qiqi, all of them also provide a secondary benefit you might want on your team. This secondary benefit is the main criteria in determining which healer to choose, it’s more important than how much healing the healer can do.

Shields keep you alive and also prevent enemies from interrupting your attacks. Without a healer, if your shield breaks and you take damage, you could find your health gradually chipped away over the course of an Abyss floor. Zhongli’s shield is strong enough to reliably not break. Diona and Noelle can both heal and shield, though you should only use Noelle on a team where she can take the majority of your field time.

Having both a healer and a shielder is great for comfort. On the other hand, there’s the opportunity cost of running fewer damage dealers on your team.

Going without heals or shields, or with only minimal healing/shielding, is difficult. You need to make sure you don’t get hit much at all. You can get away with it if you’re killing the enemies so fast they don’t have time to hit you. You can also try it if you can’t afford to sacrifice any damage for survivability and are able to play well enough to survive.

Damage Reduction and Mitigation

Having a way to reduce incoming damage or heal a small amount reduces your need for heals and shields. This could be:

• Small shields like Crystallize, Thoma, Xinyan or Yanfei C4
• Small heals like Xingqiu, Gorou C4, Hu Tao Burst, Prototype Amber, The Black Sword
• Freezing the enemies so they can’t attack you, or trapping them with Venti Burst
• Staggering enemies with Electro-Charged so they attack you less
• Damage reduction from Beidou or Xingqiu Burst
• Taunts like Ganyu’s flower or Amber’s Baron Bunny

High Defense is also a source of mitigation, though it doesn’t reduce your need for healing. The only high-DEF characters who want to stay on field are Noelle, who heals, and Itto, who takes a lot of hits while using his Charged Attacks.

Elemental Burst invulnerability (iframes)

Characters cannot take damage while casting their Elemental Burst. If you use a Burst just before an enemy unleashes a strong attack, this will negate the damage from that attack. Flexible-rotation teams tend to be better at exploiting this, because they can more easily time their Burst usage instead of needing to use it on schedule.

Interruption Resistance

Interruption Resistance prevents the enemy from knocking you back when they hit you. The most reliable source of Interruption Resistance is a shield, which will prevent all knockback. Freezing the enemy is another great source. Some characters, like Raiden and Itto, get a large amount of Interruption Resistance during their Burst.

Interruption Resistance is most valuable on characters who want to do Bow Aimed Shots, like Ganyu. It’s also quite useful on Catalyst Charged Attackers like Klee or Ningguang, and on characters who want to do uninterrupted Normal Attack strings like Yoimiya.

Smaller sources of Interruption Resistance, like Xingqiu’s Burst, are useful to keep you in place even when hit, but won’t prevent Charged Attacks from being interrupted. They’re great for melee Normal Attackers like Diluc.

Adapting your team to the enemies

When building a team, you need to consider the context in which you’ll be using that team. Most often, this means a specific Abyss floor or chamber. You don’t need to use the same team through all three chambers of an Abyss floor. You can 3-star the first chamber, abandon the run, then build a new team for the second chamber. You’ll still need to get that team through the first chamber, but you have plenty of time to do so because your 3 stars are locked in.

Elemental Resistance

Many enemies resist, or are weak to, certain Elements. See this table for a list. You can get away with running a Physical-damage team against 30% Physical resist enemies, but you’ll struggle against 70% Physical Resistance. Resistance reduction (e.g. Superconduct, Viridescent Venerer) helps a lot against enemies with high resistance.

Light (small) enemies

Grouping abilities – Venti, Kazuha, and to a lesser extent Sucrose – are extremely strong against light enemies. They let you bring the enemies to one place and hit all of them with your area of effect abilities.

Overload and other knockback effects can be weak against light enemies, because you need to chase after them. You can mitigate this with a ranged Overloader (Yanfei, Yoimiya) or by knocking enemies into a wall. Sometimes knockback can be helpful in disrupting enemy attacks. Freezing the enemy prevents them from being knocked back.

Evasive enemies

If enemies like Cicin Mages are running away from you, Freezing them is the best way to keep them in place. Suction abilities like Venti and Kazuha also help.

Dispersed enemies

The best way to deal with enemies that stay in place and remain separated is to group them up, especially with Venti. If they can’t be pulled, you can either use abilities with a large area of effect (e.g. Ganyu’s Burst) or defeat them one at a time with single-target damage. Ranged damage dealers like Yoimiya reduce the amount of time you spend running between enemies.

Abilities that require enemies to stay in a particular area, such as Rosaria’s Burst, tend to be weak against dispersed enemies.

Heavy (large) enemies

Venti loses a lot of value against heavy enemies, who can’t be pulled into his Burst and might walk out of the area of effect. Kazuha is still good despite being unable to pull them.

Combos that deal a lot of damage over time to an enemy that stays in one place, such as Xiangling + Rosaria, often work well against large enemies.

Large enemies usually can’t be knocked back, so you can use Overload and knockback abilities without needing to chase after enemies.

Bosses

Bosses can’t be Frozen, so don’t run Freeze or Freeze-Melt teams against them. Most boss fights are against only one enemy, so you want to focus on single-target damage.

Aggressive enemies

Some floors, such as triple Kenki or Hydro mimic swarms, can very quickly kill your characters. You can solve this with additional healing or shielding. You can also run a flexible-rotation team that uses a lot of Elemental Bursts, and time those Bursts so that the Burst invulnerability periods negate powerful enemy attacks.

Elemental shields

Elemental shields don’t care about the damage of abilities used against them, only the Elemental Gauge strength. In other words, to break a Cryo shield, frequent Pyro attacks are better than powerful Pyro attacks.

You more or less need to have a character capable of breaking any Elemental shield you’re fighting against, unless you’re overwhelmingly stronger than the enemy. You can avoid Fatui shields by killing or Freezing them before they have a chance to shield up.

Anemo and Geo can break any Elemental shield, but only very slowly. Swirled Elements are very fast at breaking shields, though this can be difficult to pull off.

Element	Counter Element	Counter Characters
Cryo	Pyro (good), Electro (OK)	Bennett, Xiangling, Amber, any on-field Pyro character
Dendro	Pyro (good), Electro (OK), Hydro (bad)	Bennett, Xiangling, Yae, any on-field Pyro or Electro character
Electro	Pyro (OK), Cryo (OK), Dendro (OK)	Bennett (especially with 4pc Thundering Fury), Chongyun, any on-field Pyro or Cryo character
Geo	Blunt damage	Zhongli, Overload, any on-field Claymore character
Hydro	Dendro (Good), Cryo (OK), Electro (bad), Pyro (bad)	Nahida, Alhaitham, Chongyun, Ganyu, Ayaka
Pyro	Hydro (good), Electro (OK), Cryo (bad)	Xingqiu, Tartaglia, Yelan, Kokomi, Barbara, Mona

Worked Example: Building a Rosaria Melt team

The first thing to decide on is an objective for your team. Let’s say that your goal is to do a lot of damage by triggering Melt with Rosaria’s Elemental Burst.

Reactions

If you want to Melt Rosaria’s Burst, you’ll need a source of Pyro aura.

On-field Pyro aura

Diluc, Hu Tao, Klee, Yanfei, and Yoimiya can all apply Pyro quickly and consistently while they’re on field. Of those, all but Diluc want a long, uninterrupted block of field time. This prevents Rosaria from using her Elemental Skill, which means Rosaria will do less damage and have more Energy problems.

Off-field Pyro aura

Xiangling can apply a consistent Pyro aura while off field. Thoma, Xinyan, and Kazuha + Bennett can all apply some Pyro. However, the Cryo application from Rosaria’s E will likely interfere with the reaction and break the team.

Best Choices

The contenders for Pyro aura source are Diluc, Klee and Xiangling.

Diluc

• Wants substantial field time
• 12s Burst cooldown doesn’t line up with Rosaria’s 15s
• Works well on a flexible-rotation team where his teammates have low field time requirements

Klee

• Wants substantial uninterrupted field time
• Applies a lot of Pyro, able to support more than one Cryo
• 15s Burst cooldown lines up with Rosaria’s
• Prevents Rosaria from using E off cooldown
• Works well on a fixed-rotation team that can funnel a lot of Energy to Rosaria, and with teammates that have low field time requirements

Xiangling

• Doesn’t need field time
• Applies a lot of Pyro, able to support more than one Cryo
• 20s Burst cooldown doesn’t line up with Rosaria’s
• Allows Rosaria to use E freely
• Needs a lot of Pyro Energy
• Works well on a flexible-rotation team that can provide Pyro energy

Energy

Rosaria has three ways of meeting her ER needs:

1. Use E off cooldown, and build a fair bit of ER
2. Use E off cooldown, and have another Cryo on the team
3. Use E once per rotation, build a fair bit of ER, and have a dedicated battery

If option 2 is chosen, the Cryo options are:

• Chongyun, who also allows Rosaria to Melt her Charged Attacks if she remains on field
• Diona, who also provides heals and shields
• Ganyu, who can do a lot of damage but might interfere with Rosaria’s Melts
• Kaeya, who like Rosaria wants to E every 6s and Q every 15s. Might interfere with Rosaria’s Melts.
• Shenhe, who doesn’t provide that much Energy, but who works particularly well if there’s a third Cryo on the team

Buffs

We’d like to buff Rosaria’s Burst so it does even more damage. The best options are:

• Bennett: Very good buff, provides Pyro Energy for the pyro source, heals
• Jean: Can use Viridescent Venerer to reduce Cryo Resistance and heal
• Kazuha/Sucrose/Venti: Can use Viridescent Venerer to reduce Cryo Resistance and provide other buffs
• Shenhe: Can buff Cryo damage and provide Cryo Energy

Survivability

We need a way to stay alive. The best options are:

• Bennett: Also provides Pyro Energy for the Pyro source and heals
• Diona: Also provides Cryo Energy for Rosaria
• Jean: Can also hold VV
• Zhongli: Provides Interruption Resistance and resistance reduction

Team Options

Diluc – Rosaria – ??? – ???

Start by putting Bennett on the team, because Diluc wants Bennett’s Energy and buffs. Diluc’s combo of Q-N1-E-N1-E-N1-E takes 6.6s, and he wants to use it every 12s, so that’s 55% of your field time. Bennett wants at least 2 Es and a Q every 15s, that’s 2.6s or 17% of your field time. Rosaria wants 2 Es and a Q every 15s, that’s 3.4s or 23% of your field time. That’s 95% already, even before accounting for slack. Not enough time to fit a 4th member in. Maybe we can do a 15s fixed rotation, and lose some value from Diluc. Now we’ve got up to 2.4s in our rotation, or maybe 1 second after slack. We might have to extend our rotation out to 16 or 17 seconds and lose even more value.

Putting Kaeya or Ganyu in the team will steal Melts from Rosaria, given that Diluc has a short Pyro application window and you’re relying on Bennett Es outside of that. Diona’s healing is redundant with Bennett’s. Shenhe can fit a 15s rotation window if she uses her Hold E and Bursts every second rotation. She also gives Rosaria some Cryo Energy. She’s not getting a lot of value from her Skill, though. We might just need to build ER on Rosaria so she can meet her own Energy needs.

We can use an Anemo character to Swirl both Pyro and Cryo, and shred it with VV. We don’t need the healing from Jean. Kazuha takes too much field time. Venti lifts enemies out of Diluc’s reach. Let’s go with Sucrose, she doesn’t need much field time.

Our best contender for a Diluc team is Diluc – Rosaria – Bennett – Sucrose.

Klee – Rosaria – ??? – ???

Because Klee only gives Rosaria time for one E, Rosaria’s only reasonable option for Energy is Sacrificial Bow Diona. Diona’s shield also prevents Klee from getting knocked out of her Charged Attacks.

Klee’s taking 11.7s of field time during her Burst, Rosaria’s taking 2.3s for EQ, and Diona’s taking 0.8-1.6s depending on whether she Bursts. That’s a total of 14.8-15.6s without slack, so this team also can’t fit into a 15s rotation. We could either extend the rotation or cut off the end of Klee’s Burst.

Klee’s going to have Energy problems as the only Pyro in the team. Bennett’s the only reasonable source of Pyro particles, but we’ve already got a healer in Diona. We could just use Klee’s Burst every second rotation; this also eases the pressure on field time.

Klee probably puts out enough Pyro to support Kaeya or Ganyu as well as Rosaria. Both of these have ICD meaning they’ll only Melt ⅓ of their damage, but they also contribute Cryo Energy. Neither of them will be able to use their E off cooldown, though.

We could run an Anemo for VV Shred, as Diona’s double Hold E can reliably give us a Cryo aura. Venti works exceptionally well at grouping enemies up for Klee and Rosaria to hit them in AoE. Rosaria and Klee can both hit in Venti’s burst, so that’s not a problem. Venti can also help with Klee’s Energy problems. If we’re fighting heavy enemies, we can replace Venti with Sucrose.

Shenhe can fit a 15s rotation window if she uses her Hold E and Bursts every second rotation. She also gives Rosaria some Cryo energy. With two Cryo teammates, Shenhe can get decent value out of her Skill.

Our best contenders for a Klee team are Klee – Rosaria – Diona – Venti against light enemies, and Klee – Rosaria – Diona – Shenhe against heavy enemies.

Xiangling – Rosaria – ??? – ???

Xiangling needs a lot of Pyro Energy. Bennett’s the obvious choice to fix this problem, especially in a flexible-rotation team that can spend time batterying Xiangling with Bennett. If Bennett’s not available, maybe you could use Thoma instead, but that would be substantially weaker.

Xiangling wants to use E every 12s and Q every 20s, for a total of 17% of your field time. Rosaria wants to use E every 6s and Q every 15s, for a total of 26% of your field time. Bennett wants to use E every 5s and Q every 15s, for a total of 23% of your field time. To have Xiangling catch the particles, add another 10% or so. This leaves 24% remaining, minus slack time. Not enough for an on-field attacker, but enough for an off-field that wants to switch in a lot.

Rosaria would like to have another Cryo on the team so she doesn’t need to build ER. Every Cryo option has ICD preventing them from getting full Melt value, but that ICD also stops them from applying too much Cryo and breaking the team. Ayaka’s Burst works best against Frozen enemies, so she won’t be great here. Ganyu or Kaeya are both reasonable choices. Ganyu might sometimes steal Melts from Rosaria, but if Xiangling Melts, that’s good too. With Bennett to provide Energy and buff, Xiangling’s personal damage output will be significant. Kaeya’s capable of providing a lot of Energy for Rosaria, but deals less damage than Ganyu. Ganyu’s probably stronger overall, but Kaeya’s perfectly good if Ganyu is unavailable.

Shenhe’s not getting much value from her Skill with only one Cryo teammate, so I wouldn’t recommend her.

This team will have some difficulty getting a Cryo aura for an Anemo character to Swirl, because there’s a lot of Pyro application and the flexible rotation means you have a hard time controlling auras.

Any Electro or Hydro character would interfere with your reactions. You could run Albedo, Yun Jin, or Zhongli, but they wouldn’t add much value.

Our best contender for a Xiangling team is Xiangling – Rosaria – Bennett – Kaeya/Ganyu

Conclusion

Overall, the Xiangling – Rosaria – Bennett – Kaeya team fits together really well without awkward compromises. It’s the team I’d recommend in general.

However, this team does have a significant weakness. It wants enemies to be grouped together in Rosaria’s Burst, but doesn’t have any way to keep them there. Against some enemies (e.g. Ruin Guards) this won’t be an issue, against other enemies it will. You could put Kazuha in the team to solve the problem (Venti would lift enemies out of Xiangling’s Burst), but you’re not getting full value from Kazuha because you can’t reliably swirl Cryo.

Against light, dispersed enemies I’d recommend the Klee – Rosaria – Diona – Venti team. Venti is absurdly strong in this scenario, so you want him in your team.

Against heavy, dispersed enemies there’s no way to make Rosaria work well, so you’ll have to either build a different team or accept some loss of value.

Of course, what teams you can build depend on what characters you have, and what characters are needed for your other team. You might have to make compromises because of that. Weapons also influence your choice – if your only good Polearm is The Catch, you’re more willing to build teams with Rosaria as the only Cryo.

Appendix A: Characters

Appendix B: Teams

This section will describe how various teams work. This section contains more abbreviations than usual, check the glossary for definitions.

Bennett – Sucrose – Xiangling – Xingqiu

Objective

Maximize the damage dealt by Xiangling’s Pyronado by giving her buffs, Energy and Hydro aura

Roles and Needs

• Bennett: Buffer, Pyro Energy source
• Sucrose: Buffer, damage, field time user
• Xiangling: Damage, Hydro aura need, Pyro Energy need
• Xingqiu: Hydro aura source, damage

Rotation

Fixed rotation (23-24s) with some flexibility. Tends to go a bit over the ideal 21-22s rotation because of the time needed to feed Bennett’s particles to Xiangling

Bennett EQ [1.7s] – Xingqiu EQN1 or EQEN1 [2.1-3.4s] – Xiangling EN1 [1.0s] – Sucrose EN1 [1.0s] – Xiangling Q [1.7s] – Sucrose attacks and Es until Guoba expires [8s] – Bennett E – Xiangling [1.6s] – Sucrose attacks [2.4s] – Bennett E – Xiangling [1.6s]. Total of 21.1-22.2s, or 23-24s with slack. Bennett E will be on cooldown at the start of the second rotation, so Bennett will start with a plain Q.

Buff Xiangling with Bennett Burst, Bennett 4NO, Sucrose VV Shred, Sucrose TTDS then snapshot all of that with Pyronado. Xingqiu’s Rain Swords enable it to trigger Vaporize. Sucrose can attack during this time, with her Swirls doing decent damage and sometimes Swirling Hydro to other enemies so they can be Vaporized. Wait until Guoba expires before you start using Bennett Es so you don’t overapply Pyro and break your Vaporizes. If Xingqiu isn’t C6, you might need to wait until Pyronado expires before using Bennett Es.

Energy

• Bennett doesn’t care much about damage, so he can afford to feed his particles to Xiangling
• Sucrose doesn’t Burst
• Xiangling gets particles from Bennett. She wants to minimize the amount of ER she needs, but usually has to build ER anyway.
• Xingqiu needs to support himself with Energy. He can do that with Sacrificial Sword or a lot of ER.

Reactions

Xingqiu can easily provide enough Hydro on a single target for Xiangling to trigger Vaporize. The team can’t reliably get Hydro aura on multiple targets, though.

Sucrose can VV Shred Pyro by using her E when Guoba is breathing fire, and Swirling that. Sucrose can VV Shred Hydro by Normal Attacking while Xingqiu’s Burst is active.

Sucrose doesn’t use her Burst because if it absorbs or Swirls Pyro, it can apply too much Pyro for Xingqiu to keep up.

Survivability

Bennett provides a lot of healing. Xingqiu adds in damage reduction and a bit more healing. The team is free to dodge whenever it wants without losing out on damage. All of this makes the team very good at staying alive.

Ideal environment

Because the team can’t reliably Vape against multiple targets, it works best in single-target fights. The team can easily deal with Cryo, Electro or Pyro Elemental shields.

Diona – Ganyu – Mona – Venti

Objective

Group enemies up with Venti, Freeze them, and deal a ton of damage with Ganyu’s Elemental Burst and Charged Shots. Ganyu’s Burst works particularly well against grouped enemies – if there are 4 enemies next to each other, each will receive an icicle, and each icicle will hit all 4 enemies, for a total of 16 damage instances.

Roles and Needs

• Diona: Shielder, healer, Cryo Energy source
• Ganyu: Damage, grouping need, Cryo Energy need, Hydro aura need, field time need
• Mona: Hydro aura source, buffer
• Venti: Grouper, buffer, Cryo Energy source (from his A4)

Rotation

Fixed rotation (15s) with some flexibility. 15 seconds matches the cooldown on Ganyu, Mona and Venti Burst.

Ganyu EQ [2.3s] – Venti EQ [1.9s] – Mona QE [2.8s] – Diona hE or QhE [1.0-1.2s] – Ganyu 3x aimed shot [5.4s]. Total of 13.8-14.0s, add in some slack for 15 seconds. Can use a second venti E between Ganyu’s Charged Shots, which will extend the rotation slightly unless you have very good execution. If using TTDS on Mona, move one of Ganyu’s Charged Shots before Diona.

Starting with Ganyu – Venti – Mona ensures that Venti will absorb Cryo so he gives Energy to Ganyu and Diona, and maximizes the duration of Mona’s Freeze and Omen extension. The downside is that if Mona runs Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers, it can’t buff Ganyu’s Burst.

Following that with Diona – Ganyu lets Ganyu take Diona’s particles, and ensures Diona’s shield will be active to protect Ganyu while she uses her Charged Shots.

Ganyu doesn’t attack very much on this team, because that would extend the rotation past 15 seconds and result in fewer Ganyu/Venti/Mona Bursts.

Energy

• Diona feeds Energy to Ganyu. She can afford to run ER, and doesn’t need to Burst off cooldown.
• Ganyu receives Energy from Diona and from Venti’s A4, so she doesn’t need to run ER herself.
• Mona gets very little Hydro Energy from herself or the team, so needs to run a ton of ER to make up for it
• Venti can support his own Energy needs easily using two Elemental Skills, or use only one Skill and build ER

Reactions

The team doesn’t have perfect Freeze uptime, but it’s good enough. Venti can consistently VV Cryo, and there’s plenty of Elements for him to Swirl for damage.

Survivability

Freezing the enemy and having Diona makes the team very resilient.

Ideal environment

This team is incredible against a large number of small, light enemies who can be sucked into Venti’s Burst and destroyed by Ganyu. It struggles against heavy enemies, and is very bad against bosses. It’s great at breaking Hydro Elemental shields.

Beidou – Bennett – Fischl – Kazuha

Objective

Get good value from Beidou’s Burst. Trigger Overload with full-EM Bennet and Kazuha for a lot of damage.

Roles and Needs

• Beidou: Damage, Electro aura source, Electro Energy need
• Bennett: Buffer, damage, Pyro self-application source, Electro aura need
• Fischl: Electro aura source, Electro Energy source, damage
• Kazuha: Damage, buffer, Electro aura need, Pyro self-application need

Rotation

Flexible rotation, as most of the cooldowns don’t line up. Everyone uses one normal attack when they swap in to trigger Beidou’s burst.

• Beidou swaps in whenever she gets the opportunity to parry an attack, and wants to Burst off cooldown, ideally in Bennett’s Burst. Takes about 20% of the field time.
• Bennett swaps in to use E whenever nobody else needs to do anything, and wants to Burst off cooldown. Takes about 30% of the field time.
• Fischl swaps in to replace Oz ever time it expires (12-13s). Takes about 10% of the field time.
• Kazuha swaps in to use his E every 6 seconds, and his Burst off cooldown. Kazuha wants to burst in Bennett’s Burst, which is easy to achieve since their cooldowns line up. Takes about 40% of the field time.

Energy

• Beidou generates a reasonable number of particles for herself because the team lets her swap in and counter at any time. Fischl generates a lot of Electro particles.
• Bennett can use his Skill quite frequently, because with his Burst and 4pc Thundering Fury its got a 1 second cooldown.
• Fischl can sustain herself while helping Beidou, because she only needs to use a 60-Cost Burst every 25 seconds and the team makes a lot of Electro particles
• Kazuha can use 2 or 3 Elemental Skills per Burst, which lets him sustain himself quite well. Although nobody else makes any Anemo particles, the large number of Pyro and Electro particles help Kazuha a bit.

Reactions

Bennett triggers Overload with his E. Bennett’s burst applies Pyro to the active character, meaning that Kazuha’s E and Q will absorb Pyro and trigger Overload. Kazuha will also Swirl a lot. With both Bennett and Kazuha building full EM, this is a lot of damage. Kazuha can trigger Electro VV reliably, and Pyro VV sometimes if an enemy happens to get a Pyro aura.

Fischl can provide a very reliable Electro aura thanks to her A4. Beidou also applies quite a lot of Electro.

Survivability

Between Beidou’s damage reduction and Bennett’s healing, the team has no trouble staying alive.

Ideal environment

The team really wants to stay in Bennett’s circle at all times, so you don’t want to move around a lot. Against light enemies, Kazuha’s suction can keep them in place.

Beidou works best against exactly two enemies. The team fares very poorly in single-target scenarios.

Fischl – Kokomi – Sucrose – Xiangling

Objective

Trigger both Vaporize and Overload with Xiangling against multiple enemies, without needing to use Bennett or Xingqiu. See this video for an overview by the team’s creator.

Roles and Needs

• Fischl: Electro aura source, damage
• Kokomi: Hydro aura source, healing, buff, field time need
• Sucrose: Buff, damage, field time need
• Xiangling: Damage, Hydro aura need, Electro aura need

Rotation

Fixed rotation (25s) to allow for 2 Oz summons and 2 Guoba summons.

Fischl E [1.0s] – Kokomi E [1.1s] – Xiangling E [1.0s] – Sucrose N1-E-N2-E-N1 [1.6s] – Xiangling Q [1.7s] – Kokomi Q-N2C-N2D-N2C [5.4s] – Fischl Q [1.0s] – Xiangling E [1.0s] – Sucrose N1-E-N1-Q-5xN3D [9.4s]. Total of 23.2s, or 25s with slack. See here for a full detailed breakdown. Sucrose C4 allows an extra Sucrose E towards the end of the rotation.

Xiangling benefits from Kokomi’s Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers and Tenacity of the Millelith buffs, and from Sucrose’s EM sharing, all of which gets snapshot. Fischl benefits from TotM except for the first Oz.

Energy

• Fischl can meet her own needs, because she makes a lot of particles and has a relatively cheap Burst
• Kokomi needs to build a lot of ER, but she can afford to sacrifice damage for ER
• Sucrose can meet her own needs thanks to frequent Skill usage
• Xiangling generates 8 Pyro particles with two Guoba uses, though she’s unlikely to pick up any of those herself. Combined with the Energy from an R5 Kitain Cross Spear, she can meet her own Energy needs.

Reactions

Fischl and Kokomi both have good uptime on their summons, giving reliable Electro-Charged. Sucrose supplements this by Swirling auras from one enemy to another. All of these auras allow Xiangling to reliably Vaporize and Overload her Pyronado. Sucrose’s Swirls also do good damage, and she can trigger Electro-Charged for extra damage a lot of the time. This team does a whole huge mess of reactions which somehow come together perfectly.

Survivability

Kokomi’s jellyfish is a good source of healing, and when she gets on-field time she’ll heal the whole team up to full health.

Ideal environment

This team works best against multiple heavy enemies. You want enemies to be close to your jellyfish, because you need it for Hydro application and you can only reposition it once every 25 seconds. Overload will knock light enemies away. Fighting multiple enemies increases your Swirl damage, and lets you take advantage of being able to Vaporize Pyronado against multiple enemies.

Bennett – Kazuha – Mona – Raiden 

Objective

To maximize the damage dealt by Raiden during her Burst

Roles and Needs

• Bennett: Buff, healing
• Kazuha: Buff, grouping
• Mona: Buff
• Raiden: Damage, universal Energy source

Rotation

Fixed rotation (21s). Need to build around Raiden’s field time, and need to maximize buffs on Raiden. Can go down to 19s with perfect execution.

Raiden E [1.0s] – Bennett Q [1.0s] – Kazuha Q [1.6s] – Mona Q [2.1s] – Raiden Q [1.9s] – Raiden attacks [8s] – Bennett E [1.0s] – Mona E [1.0s] – Kazuha hE [2.2s]. Total of 19.8s, or 21s accounting for slack. Hitlag extension means Raiden’s Burst lasts 8 seconds, not the 7 seconds in the description.

All the Bursts are used at the start of the rotation, and Skills at the end, to maximize buff uptime on Raiden. You end up with Bennett’s Burst and 4NO, Kazuha’s VV Shred and damage bonus, Mona’s Omen, and Mona’s TTDS all on Raiden during her Burst, for a huge damage bonus.

Energy

• Bennett, Kazuha and Mona can afford to build ER, and Raiden helps with Energy.
• Raiden wants to build some ER anyway, and between her Skill and Flat Energy can fund herself without problems.

Reactions

At the start of the rotation, Raiden will apply Electro, Bennett will Overload with his Q, Raiden will apply Electro with her Eye of Stormy Judgment, then Kazuha will Swirl Electro for VV Shred. Kazuha will deal a reasonable amount of Swirl damage, and might get some Electro-Charged or Overload triggers as well. Nobody else on the team will deal meaningful reaction damage.

Survivability

Bennett’s good at keeping the team alive

Ideal environment

This team performs well in any environment, though it works particularly well when Raiden can hit all the enemies at the same time with her attacks.

Glossary

• A4 – the talent unlocked at your 4th ascension (level 60/70)
• ATK – Attack
• Aura – an Element which is on an enemy. An enemy gets an aura when you apply an Element to an enemy without an aura. Distinct from a trigger, which is an Element applied to an enemy who already has an aura; the trigger reacts with the aura.
• Burst – Elemental Burst
• C6 – sixth Constellation
• CD – cooldown
• CRIT – Critical Rate and Critical Damage
• DEF – Defense
• E – Elemental Skill
• EC – Electro-Charged
• EM – Elemental Mastery
• ER – Energy Recharge
• GU – Gauge Units
• hE – Held Elemental Skill
• ICD – internal cooldown
• N1C – 1 Normal Attack, followed by a Charged Attack
• N2E – 2 Normal Attacks, followed by an Elemental Skill
• NO – Noblesse Oblige artifact set
• Off-field – Not the active character
• OL – Overload
• On-field – The active character
• Shred – resistance reduction
• Skill – Elemental Skill
• TF – Thundering Fury artifact set
• TotM – Tenacity of the Millelith artifact set
• Trigger – an Element applied to an enemy that has an aura, which reacts with that aura
• TTDS – Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers (3-star Catalyst)
• Uptime – The amount of time a talent is active
• Q – Elemental Burst
• Vape – Vaporize reaction
• VV – 4pc Viridescent Venerer artifact set bonus (-40% Elemental Resistance to Swirled Element)