In Genshin Impact, Xiangling has become a fan-favorite for her versatile Pyro capabilities, dynamic elemental reactions, and her engaging playstyle. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or just starting your journey through Teyvat, understanding the best Genshin Impact Xiangling build is essential to capitalize on her potential as a primary damage dealer, support, or both. A well-optimized build can elevate her from a decent character to a powerhouse capable of handling the toughest domains and Spiral Abyss encounters.
This comprehensive guide dives deep into every aspect of building Xiangling effectively. From weapon choices and artifact sets to team compositions and constellation considerations, you'll learn how to maximize her damage output and resilience. We’ll explore strategies suitable for free-to-play players and those investing in constellations, along with real-world examples of successful builds. Whether you're aiming for explosive Pyronado bursts or consistent DPS, this article provides valuable insights to help you master your Xiangling integration in Genshin Impact.
Xiangling Genshin Impact: A Comprehensive Build Guide

Xiangling is an adaptable character whose abilities shine whether she's functioning as a main DPS, sub-DPS, or support. Her kit features her quick spear strikes, her versatile Pyronado elemental burst, and her helpful party synergy. The key to building her effectively lies in balancing weapon choices, artifact sets, and team synergy to support her role in your party.
To optimize Xiangling, start by identifying her primary role—are you building her for raw damage, flexibility, or utility? Since her Pyro application is fast and plentiful, focusing on enhancing her attack stats and elemental mastery can significantly boost her performance. Properly stacking her artifact sets can also increase her Pyro damage and energy regeneration, allowing her to unleash Pyronado more frequently. A well-rounded Xiangling build feels fluid to use and amplifies her strengths while mitigating her weaknesses, like her dependence on energy regeneration and the need for team support.
Additionally, her constellations and weapon choices profoundly influence her overall effectiveness. Investment in certain constellations amplifies her burst damage and consistency, so weighing whether to pursue C6 or not depends on your gameplay style and resource availability. Comprehensively understanding her talents and synergy within different team compositions ensures she'll shine in various scenarios, whether for world grinding or endgame content.
Optimizing Xiangling: Best Weapons for Pyro DPS

Choosing the right weapon for Xiangling is arguably the most critical step in perfecting her Genshin Impact Xiangling build. For a Pyro DPS role, weapons that boost attack, elemental mastery, and energy recharge are particularly effective. The optimal choice depends on your budget, available options, and the role you want her to play in your team.
The Engulfing Lightning polearm is the top-tier option for a main DPS Xiangling, providing a substantial attack boost through its energy meter mechanic. Its ability to scale with her energy recharge makes her Pyronado even more devastating and consistent, especially at C1 and above. Alternatively, the Skyward Spine offers a solid burst-increasing effect and an attack bonus, making it a versatile and readily available choice for free-to-play players. For those seeking budget-friendly options, The Catch—a 4-star polearm—stands out as an excellent sub-DPS weapon thanks to its energy recharge and increased elemental damage.
Less optimal but still decent options include Prototype Starglitter or Whiteblind, which offer attack and defense bonuses respectively. They can be effective if you can't access the higher-tier weapons but should be supplemented with artifact enhancements to maximize Xiangling's damage. Always consider the synergy between weapon passive effects and her talents—enhancing energy recharge can lead to faster Pyronado resets, allowing her to sustain her damage output during long fights.
Finally, weapon refinement and available cons are important factors in your Genshin Impact Xiangling build. Refining a weapon like The Catch can amplify her damage output significantly, especially when paired with the right artifact sets. Keep an eye on weapon banners or event weapons to expand your arsenal and tailor her gear for optimal Pyro performance in any scenario.
Artifact Sets for Xiangling: Maximizing Damage Output

Artifacts are the backbone of any effective Genshin Impact Xiangling build. They provide vital stats such as attack, pyro damage bonus, energy recharge, and elemental mastery, all of which elevate her Pyro application and damage potential. Crafting a balanced artifact set tailored to her role will help you maximize her output in both burst and sustained phases.
The most popular artifact set for Xiangling’s main DPS role is Shimenawa's Reminiscence, which boosts attack and provides an additional attack bonus when her shield is active. This set is particularly effective with her quick attack cycle and Pyronado, allowing her to reach high damage peaks. The Crimson Witch of Flame set is another core choice, significantly increasing Pyro damage and reactions. When paired correctly, this set can turn Xiangling into a reaction-triggering machine capable of unleashing heavy damage through Overload, Melt, or Burning reactions, especially when combined with the right sub-stats on her artifacts.
For sub-DPS or support roles, Instructor or Noblesse Oblige sets can be more suitable, offering boosts to elemental mastery and burst damage respectively. Combining a 2-piece set of either of these with a 2-piece Crimson Witch can yield an excellent balance, increasing her damage while maintaining energy regeneration. Prioritize artifacts with sub-stats like crit rate, crit damage, attack%, and elemental mastery to complement her talents and weapon choices.
In terms of sub-stats, focus on crit rate/damage, attack%, and energy recharge to ensure her Pyronado can be deployed as frequently as possible. Energy recharge hybrids with Pyro damage bonus circumstantially enhance her consistent damage output without sacrificing critical stats. Balancing artifact priorities based on your specific Xiangling build goals is essential for hit-it-hard effectiveness.
Xiangling Team Compositions: Unleashing Her Potential
A well-composed team can unlock Xiangling’s true damage potential by maximizing elemental reactions and synergies. Her Pyronado, when integrated correctly, interacts explosively with other characters’ elements, especially Hydro, Cryo, and electro, enabling her to trigger powerful reactions like Melt, Freeze, and Overload.
For a Pyro damage-focused team, pairing Xiangling with a hydro character such as Mona or Xingqiu can sustain consistent Melt reactions, boosting her damage exponentially. Cryo characters like Kaeya or Ganyu can capitalize on her Pyronado to trigger Freeze, providing crowd control and safer damage windows. Electro characters like Fischl or Raiden Shogun can augment her reaction damage through Overload or Electro-Charged, culminating in higher burst potential with the right elemental setup.
Team roles also matter; Xiangling benefits from functional support characters that can provide shields, energy regeneration, or buffs. Characters like Zhongli or Diona can ensure her safety and energy flow, allowing her to stay on the field longer. Meanwhile, elemental resonances and buffs such as Blizzard Strayer or Pyro resonance can further boost her critical rate and damage, maximizing her burst damage during fight phases. This delicate balance of team synergy and complementary interactions turns Xiangling from a glass cannon into a formidable Pyro powerhouse.
To truly optimize her potential, consider the overall composition's energy management, ensuring that her burst is available at critical moments. Supporting her with characters that can facilitate quick reactions and damage amplification allows her to shine in single-target and AoE scenarios alike, making her a flexible and devastating core element in your team.
Pyronado Powerhouse: Understanding Xiangling's Talents
Xiangling’s talents are the keys to unlocking the explosive potential of her Pyronado and her primary attack capabilities. Her Normal Attack, Guoba Attack, and Pyronado talents each contribute uniquely to her role as a Pyro DPS or sub-DPS. A thorough understanding of how these talents scale and interact is necessary to maximize her damage output and utility.
Her Normal Attack: Julian delivers rapid spear strikes that form the foundation of her damage potential. Upgrading this talent enhances her consistent damage output, especially when combined with attack% and crit-based artifact sets. It's important to balance her normal attack level with her elemental burst to ensure smooth DPS rotations. Her Guoba Attack summons Guoba, who constantly applies Pyro, setting the stage for reaction-based reactions or continuous application for her Pyronado. Leveling this talent increases Pyro application rate, making her more effective in triggering reactions like Melt or Overload.
Her Pyronado talent is the core of her kit, unleashing her elemental burst and providing a large AoE of Pyro damage. Its scaling determines how powerful her burst damage can become, making talent upgrades critical. Additionally, understanding how Pyronado triggers off her energy recharge and how it synergizes with talents that boost her attack or elemental mastery offers strategic advantages. Upgrading her talents allows her to maintain high damage throughout prolonged fights, making her invaluable in both single-target and AoE combat.
In competitive scenarios, talent priority often favors Pyronado, especially if your team can maximize its reactions. Properly timing her burst for critical moments, combined with talent upgrades, ensures that she remains a consistent source of Pyro damage while her normal attacks and Guoba assist with consistent Pyro application. Her talents are synergistic, so investing in them strategically will elevate her from an average support to a Pyro damage juggernaut.
Xiangling Constellations: Worth the Investment?
Xiangling’s constellations provide meaningful enhancements to her capabilities, but whether investing in them is worthwhile depends on your playstyle and resource availability. Her C1 and C2 significantly boost her damage potential and Pyronado’s efficiency, making her far more consistent and formidable, especially in endgame content like the Spiral Abyss.
Her C1 allows her to deploy her Pyronado without a recharge cooldown, greatly increasing its uptime. This makes her burst much more flexible and potent during sustained fights, especially when she can continuously trigger reactions or stay on-field longer. C2 introduces a new Pyronado variant, which can deal additional damage and provide additional reaction possibilities. Collectively, these constellations transform her from a niche character into a reliable Pyro engine capable of rivaling other top-tier damage dealers.
While her C3 and C6 offer further attack and elemental mastery boosts, their value is less immediate compared to the first two constellations. C3 enhances her normal attack talent, and C6 provides a significant damage bonus for her Pyronado, increasing overall output. If you are running her at C0, investing in constellations can be a worthwhile investment for long-term payoff, but for free-to-play players or those with limited resources, prioritizing her weapons and artifacts might be more effective initially.
Overall, whether to chase Xiangling constellations depends on your available resources and the level of challenge you face. If you aim to maximize her damage ceiling, especially in competitive or endgame scenarios, then constellations—particularly C1 and C2—are highly recommended. However, even without constellations, and with just her talents and gear, Xiangling remains a highly impactful Pyro character.
Dragon's Bane vs. The Catch: A Xiangling Weapon Comparison
Weapon selection can make or break your Genshin Impact Xiangling build, especially when trying to optimize her damage. Among the most debated options are Dragon’s Bane and The Catch, each with its strengths tailored to different playstyles and team compositions. Comparing these two weapons helps you make an informed choice suited to your current resources and goals.
Dragon’s Bane is a 4-star polearm that excels when facing enemies affected by Hydro or Pyro, increasing damage dealt to such targets. Its passive boosts damage against enemies affected by Hydro or Pyro, which makes it ideal for a hyper-focused, reaction-based Xiangling who aims to maximize Melt or Burning reactions. The weapon’s scaling with attack makes it reliable even in less reaction-dependent setups. Its strength lies in its situational utility, which can shine in specialized compositions or domains.
The Catch, on the other hand, is a free-to-play friendly 4-star polearm that excels with its energy recharge passive, allowing Xiangling to deploy Pyronado more frequently. Its damage bonus scales with energy recharge, and it grants additional elemental damage, making it a versatile and consistent choice across different compositions. The Catch is particularly effective when paired with artifacts that emphasize energy regeneration and crit stats, ensuring a steady flow of Pyro bursts.
In practical terms, The Catch offers more reliable performance across various teams, especially if you aim for consistent Pyronado uptime. Dragon’s Bane is a niche weapon, highly effective in reaction-focused builds but less versatile overall. Your choice ultimately hinges on your team synergy and target enemies: if you're going for reaction-based, elemental-heavy strategies, Dragon’s Bane could shine; otherwise, The Catch provides a more general, adaptable solution for sustained damage.
Endgame Xiangling: Ideal Stats and Substats Prioritization
Achieving peak performance with Xiangling in the endgame requires meticulous stat prioritization. In terms of main stats, focus on attack%, pyro damage bonus, and energy recharge on artifacts—these directly boost her damage output and burst frequency. To handle the demands of high-level content like the Spiral Abyss, her substats should be optimized for critical stats, attack, and energy recharge, creating a balanced approach for sustained DPS and burst uptime.
Attack% boosts her overall damage, making her normal and charged attacks more lethal. Pyro damage bonus significantly amplifies her Pyronado and reaction-based damage, so artifacts with this main stat are highly desirable. Energy recharge ensures you can unleash her elemental burst more frequently, which is essential for maintaining pressure during prolonged fights and achieving high reaction synergy throughput.
Prioritize substats such as crit rate and crit damage to maximize her damage efficiency. A typical ideal Xiangling build might aim for around 55-65% crit rate and 120-200% crit damage, depending on her weapon and artifact sub-stats. Substats like elemental mastery can also be valuable if you favor reaction damage, boosting Melt, Burning, or Overload effects. Ultimately, a well-balanced stat distribution tailored to her role—whether main DPS or sub-DPS—will ensure she remains competitive in all scenarios.
For the most effective endgame Xiangling, focus on artifact sets that bolster her survivability and damage, like Crimson Witch of Flame or Shimenawa's Reminiscence, and craft sub-stats that keep her energy recharging swiftly while delivering consistent crits. Proper stat allocation transforms her from a decent character into a true Pyro menace capable of tackling the most challenging content in Teyvat.
Free-to-Play Xiangling: Effective Builds on a Budget
Building Xiangling effectively on a budget is entirely feasible with the right approach, focusing on free-to-play weapons and artifact farming. Many players overlook the impact of artifact sets or undervalue their potential; however, carefully farming and leveling artifacts with sub-stats optimized for her role can produce impressive results without wasting primogems on banner weapons.
For free-to-play players, Whiteblind is an accessible weapon that provides a solid attack boost and increased defense, which can be useful in early stages. Pair it with artifact sets like Crimson Witch of Flame or Shimenawa's Reminiscence to maximize her Pyro damage and attack performance. Prioritize farming from domains that drop artifact sets compatible with her role, and refine sub-stats to enhance crit rate/damage and energy recharge over time.
Another viable option is to craft weapons through game events or shop exchanges, such as Prototype Starglitter, which is obtainable via certain game features and still offers respectable performance. Focus on leveling her talents and optimizing her artifacts rather than chasing rare weapons initially—this ensures your Xiangling will serve as a formidable presence in fights without investing heavily. Flexibility and smart resource allocation are the cornerstones of a robust free-to-play Xiangling build.
With patience and strategic farming, even basic weapons and artifacts can be turned into high-impact tools through level upgrades and sub-stat optimization. The key lies in balancing the upgrade priorities—attack, crit damage, and energy recharge—so that she remains competitive in endgame content and daily domains alike.
Xiangling Build Showcase: Examples and Strategies
Let's explore real-world Xiangling builds that exemplify different roles—main DPS, sub-DPS, and support—showcasing how weapon choice, artifacts, and talents come together for optimal performance. These examples help ingrain effective strategies and inspire your own customization efforts geared toward your playstyle.
One popular main DPS approach involves pairing Xiangling with the Engulfing Lightning polearm, focusing on increasing her attack and energy recharge to sustain Pyronado uptime. Complement this with a 4-piece Crimson Witch of Flame artifact set, stacking Pyro damage bonuses and casting Melt reactions for colossal burst damage. Prioritize crit stats on her artifacts while leveling her talents, especially Pyronado, for maximum burst damage efficiency. This setup excels against single enemies or groups vulnerable to Melt.
In a sub-DPS or support role, a build utilizing The Catch and artifacts emphasizing energy recharge and elemental mastery can alleviate her energy needs while supporting her reaction damage. Pair her with Hydro characters like Xingqiu or Mona to continuously trigger Melt, amplifying her damage during elemental reactions. Combining her talents and gearing toward energy flow allows her to function as a flexible support unit providing consistent Pyro application.
A versatile strategy involves rotating her Pyronado with other characters' elemental abilities, maintaining high reaction triggers and damage output. Timed well, Xiangling can serve as an on-field damage dealer while her Pyronado provides reliable Pyro status for reactions. These showcase her adaptability and potential to excel in varied combat scenarios, making her a valuable asset in any team composition.
Conclusion
In summary, the Genshin Impact Xiangling build encompasses an array of choices—from weapons and artifacts to talents and team compositions—that can elevate her from a simple support to a primary damage dealer or a reaction catalyst. Effective weapon selection, such as Engulfing Lightning or The Catch, paired with the right artifact sets like Crimson Witch of Flame, unlock her full potential. Understanding her talents and constellations allows for strategic upgrades that maximize her Pyronado ability and elemental reactions. Well-constructed team compositions with Hydro or Cryo characters, shields, and energy generators further enhance her performance, enabling her to unleash devastating Pyro attacks across all content. Whether you are a free-to-play adventurer or a seasoned spender, optimizing her build and playstyle ensures Xiangling remains a fiery force within your Teyvat adventures, capable of overcoming the most challenging foes with flair and efficiency.