Qiqi Build and Guide

Qiqi is a 5-star Cryo Sword character who is mostly played as a sustain in Stellar-Glimmer teams. Both her Skill and Burst provide ample amounts of continuous healing, while she is also able to provide buffs to Stellar Glimmer damage after a corresponding Stellar reaction is triggered.

Stellar-Conduct is a reaction that replaces Superconduct when certain characters are on the team. It deals no damage when triggered, instead spawning a Starlight Prism which generates a Polestar Field around it. This applies the 40% Physical RES Shred from the base reaction while also activating Radiance: Stellar-Conduct effects in kit. It additionally provides a DMG Bonus for the Electro and Cryo DMG and a Base Reaction Coefficient for direct Stellar-Conduct damage based on a tally which counts whenever these elements are applied; this starts at 29% and 1.45 at one stack, and increase by 1% and 0.05 to a maximum of 40% and 2 respectively. These bonuses are granted every 4 seconds, with the tally beginning anew each time.

Stellar Swirl meanwhile replaces Cryo Swirl, and activates Radiance: Stellar Swirl effects when triggered. It also deals Anemo Stellar Swirl reaction damage to the target and creates a “Level 1” Vortex; this Vortex levels up after Stellar Swirl is triggered two additional times, exploding after 3 seconds or 5 additional Stellar Swirl triggers to deal Cryo Stellar Swirl reaction damage based on the Vortex’s level. A large jump can be performed just after the Vortex explodes, though this is generally impractical to use. Note that if both Stellar-Conduct and Stellar-Swirl are triggered by the team, Radiance: Stellar-Conduct will take priority.

Similar to other damaging reactions, Stellar damage scales with EM, reaction damage bonuses, ignores DEF, and does not benefit from standard DMG% - unlike typical reactions, it can also CRIT. Stellar Swirl damage from reactions also takes into account the level and stats of all characters who contributed to triggering reaction based on their damage dealt to the enemy: 60% of the stats of the strongest participant, 30% of the second, and 5% for the third and fourth. Direct Stellar damage is considered to be of the element of the unit dealing it and is based on the multiplier and the scaling stat listed in the ability instead of level, with Stellar-Conduct damage additionally being multiplied by the Base Reaction Coefficient. 

Her kit centres around her Elemental Skill, which summons a “Herald of Frost”. This follows the active character, healing them while dealing Cryo damage to surrounding enemies roughly every 1.7 seconds; additionally, it can also fire a coordinated attack when the active character attacks an enemy on a 2.2 second cooldown. These attacks share an “internal cooldown” on their Cryo application — that is, the rate at which these attacks can apply their element is limited by the game to only occur once every 2.5 seconds or after 3 hits are made. These conditions are monitored independently of each other, allowing Qiqi to apply Cryo roughly once every 2 seconds. The Skill’s cooldown and duration are both 15 seconds, meaning she has little issues with uptime. 

Two of her Passives are also tied to her Skill. Her first Ascension Passive allows Qiqi to increase the Incoming Healing Bonus of the active character by 20%, boosting her already solid healing. Meanwhile, Qiqi’s Revelation Passive allows the Herald of Frost to provide a 50% DMG Bonus buff to Stellar Glimmer damage of her current Radiance. Her Normal and Charged Attacks also gain the ability to heal the party while the Herald of Frost is present, but they are otherwise weak and rarely used even for this purpose.

Qiqi’s Burst deals Cryo damage, applying a Fortune-Preserving Talisman to enemies hit for 15 seconds; these provide a substantial amount of healing when attacked by an active character. If a Stellar Reaction has been triggered, the Burst can additionally deal a hefty it of direct damage of the same type as the reaction. Despite these benefits, her Burst is often not worth using due to its long animation time and instead typically serves as an emergency button. 

Her second Ascension Passive also allows her to generate the Fortune-Preserving Talisman from her Burst can also be generated for 6 seconds through her Normal Attacks. By default, this Passive has a 50% activation chance per Normal Attack and a 30 second cooldown; luckily, when Qiqi has Radiance: Stellar Glimmer, it is guaranteed to trigger and its cooldown is halved. This allows Qiqi to easily handle situations with high sustain pressure without bogging down rotations.

Finally, as a standard character, her Constellations are relatively easily accessible; unfortunately, Qiqi’s are rather mediocre. Her C1 provides Qiqi Energy, C2 with ATK%, and C4 allows her Talisman to reduce enemy ATK and additionally heal an off-field party member with the lowest health when triggered — but since Qiqi had little issues with sustain and rarely uses Burst anyway, these are of fairly low value. Her C6 retroactively improves them with its Radiance: Stellar Glimmer effect: when her Burst is used, it can additionally increase the damage dealt by the next 4 instances of Stellar-Glimmer damage by the active character based on Qiqi’s ATK. Its default effect merely provides Qiqi with a revive every 5 minutes, being potentially helpful Quality-of-Life — though it is rarely needed due to Qiqi’s already impressive sustaining capabilities.