Baizhu

Baizhu

5★DendroCatalystHealer

TL;DR

Baizhu's Burst gives you a small shield that renews itself every couple of seconds for 14 seconds, healing whoever is on the field each time it does. His Skill sends out a little sprite that pokes enemies then comes back and heals the party. Burst, Skill, swap off. Stack Max HP, because his healing and his team buff both read off it.

Rotation

  1. Burst (Q) to start the shield cycle. A fresh shield lands every 2.5 seconds for the next 14.
  2. Skill (E) for a party wide heal and some Energy particles on the way past.
  3. Swap to your damage dealers and let the shields keep landing.
  4. Come back and press Burst (Q) again when it's up, about every 20 seconds.

Abilities

Skill (E) 10 second cooldown. A sprite floats out, hits three times, then flies back and heals the whole party off his Max HP. If there's nothing nearby to hit it just comes straight back and heals.
Burst (Q) 80 Energy, back in 20 seconds. For 14 seconds a new shield appears every 2.5 seconds. Each time one replaces another, expires or breaks, it heals your active character and fires a Dendro hit at enemies. The shield is small in general but soaks Dendro damage at two and a half times its value.

The one mechanic to understand

The shields are what heal, not the shield itself.

His Burst isn't really a shielder's Burst. The shields are thin and each one only lasts 2.5 seconds. The point is that a new one keeps arriving: every handover heals your active character and does a bit of damage. So the Burst is a 14 second stream of small heals with a bit of chip protection attached, which is why you press it first and leave it running rather than saving it for a big hit.

What actually matters

The two or three real decisions. Everything else is noise.

  • Max HP. His healing, his shield strength and the reaction buff he hands out all read off it. Nothing else on his sheet does much.
  • Energy Recharge, a lot of it. The Burst costs 80 and it's the whole character. Around 180% is comfortable if he's your only Dendro.
  • Anyone healed by those shields gets a reaction buff. Bloom, Hyperbloom, Burgeon and Burning damage all go up. So does the bonus from Aggravate and Spread. It scales off his Max HP, up to 50,000 of it, so levelling him and stacking HP genuinely raises your team's damage.

Gear

A build that works. KeqingMains lists every other option.

Weapon Energy Recharge first, Max HP second. Prototype Amber is craftable, carries HP and drips Energy back into him after each Burst.
Artifacts 4-piece Deepwood Memories. His shields and his sprite apply Dendro often enough to keep the 30% Dendro resistance shred on the enemy, which is worth more than any healing set.
Main stats Energy Recharge sands, HP goblet, HP circlet. Take a Healing Bonus circlet instead only if your team is dying, since the reaction buff cares about HP rather than healing.

Works well with

HydroElectroPyro

His buff only pays out on the reactions Dendro makes, so the elements above are the ones that turn it into damage. Bring him for a team that's already reacting rather than as a general purpose healer.

Don't bother

  • Treating the Burst as protection. It's a heal engine with a thin shield on the front.
  • Attack or Elemental Mastery stats. Everything he does is calculated from HP.
  • Staying on the field. His attack string is slow and his Charged Attack eats 50 stamina for nothing.
  • Holding the Burst back for an emergency. It's up every 20 seconds and doing nothing while it waits.

Want the full theorycrafting version? Read Baizhu on KeqingMains.