Xingqiu and his favorite pastime
Xingqiu and his favorite pastime

Xingqiu is widely regarded by the “Genshin Impact” community as the best Hydro support in the game. What he lacks in raw power is compensated by his reliability and consistency in applying the Hydro status on enemies to achieve maximum damage with Elemental Reactions.

Here’s a short guide exploring Xingqiu’s ideal team compositions, his best builds and the best ways to use him in “Genshin Impact.”

Xingqiu’s Playstyle

Xingqiu wields a sword and the power of Hydro to help set his team up for long damage windows with certain characters. His Elemental Burst, Raincutter, is his bread and butter ability that players should always pay attention to.

When active, this ability will cause Rain Swords to strike enemies with every attack for 15 seconds. It also creates a trio of Rain Swords that will protect Xingqiu and his party from damage.

This effect works even when Xingqiu is off-field, making it great for characters like Diluc or Hu Tao who can both trigger Vaporize reactions multiple times with their abilities.

Xingqiu is a consistent source of Hydro damage thanks to his abilities

Xingqiu is a consistent source of Hydro damage thanks to his abilities Photo: Genshin Impact

Xingqiu can also apply Hydro and create Rain Swords on-demand with his Elemental Skill, but this ability is offset by a lengthy 25-second cooldown. Due to this, Xingqiu is best used as a Sub-DPS/Support character with heavy investment on his Elemental Burst.

Best Xingqiu Builds

Xingqiu is best used as an offensive support character. Stacking ATK and Hydro DMG will help maximize his off-field damage thanks to his Raincutter, but stats like Elemental Mastery, Energy Recharge and CRIT shouldn’t be neglected.

He also benefits nicely from HP since his Rain Swords will heal characters whenever they break. Any weapon that boosts these stats will work well with him.

A full Noblesse Oblige set is ideal for a support Xingqiu build, buffing his team’s overall DPS with the artifact set’s passive buff. However, a mix of Heart of Depth and Noblesse Oblige will make his Raincutter deal significantly more damage, further boosting Xingqiu’s elemental damage potential and further boosting Vaporize damage.

Team Compositions

Xingqiu works extremely well with any Cryo, Pyro and Electro characters, but he works best with units that can proc Vaporize, Freeze or Electro-Charge for the full duration of his Elemental Burst.

Xingqiu and Chongyun make for a great perma-freeze duo. Meanwhile, Xingqiu and Hu Tao can deal massive damage during their respective damage windows by maximizing Vaporize procs with Raincutter.

Beidou also works very well as a Main DPS or Sub-DPS with Xingqiu because of her Elemental Burst’s persistent chain lightning effect.