Furina

Furina

5★HydroSwordSupport

TL;DR

Furina's Burst provides your whole team a large damage bonus of up to roughly 75%. It charges up when your team's health bar moves up or down. Her Skill summons three little minions that do damage to enemies as well as your own team ( which your healer can then heal) and every bit of that bar movement feeds the Burst buff. At the start of a fight, you press your Skill and Burst buttons, swap to a different character and everyone else on your team hits much harder for the next 18 seconds. Bring a healer.

Rotation

  1. Skill (E) to summon your minions.
  2. Burst (Q) straight after.
  3. Swap to your healer and top the team up.
  4. Swap to your damage dealers for the rest of the 18 seconds.

Abilities

Skill (E) Summons three little creatures that float around attacking enemies while she's off the field. They take small bites out of your team's health to do it, which is the point, not a bug.
Charged attack Switches her between the attacking minions above and a healing one. You almost always want the attacking version. If you notice a friendly otter healing you instead of three minions stabbing enemies, one charged attack swaps them over. No need to spend the skill again.
Burst (Q) The reason she exists. For 18 seconds the whole party gets a damage bonus that grows every time anyone's HP moves (up or down). It starts small and climbs, so cast it early.

The one mechanic to understand

Losing HP is how she works.

Her Burst is charged by changes to your team's health, not the total health you have. Getting hurt builds it and getting healed builds it just the same, so the drain from her minions and the healing that undoes it both stack the buff up. That's why she wants a healer instead of a shielder: a shield stops your HP moving at all, which starves her. The drain won't kill anyone either, it skips anyone already below half health.

What actually matters

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

  • A healer in the team. Not optional. Without one your health sits low and stops moving, so the buff never gets going and your team is one bad hit from dying.
  • Max HP. Her minions damage and her healing both scale off her HP, so stack it everywhere. Around 35,000 is comfortable.
  • Energy Recharge. Her burst is the whole character and it's expensive, so she needs a decent chunk of it. Roughly 180% if she's your only Hydro, less if you have another.

Gear

A build that works. KeqingMains lists every other option.

Weapon Energy Recharge first, Max HP second. Fleuve Cendre Ferryman is a good free one if you've done any fishing in Fontaine.
Artifacts 4-piece Golden Troupe. It boosts skill damage while she's off the field, which is exactly what her summons are doing.
Main stats HP sands, HP goblet, HP circlet, with Energy Recharge substats until her burst comes back every time. Swap the sands to Energy Recharge if it doesn't.

Works well with

PyroElectroDendroCryo

Honestly the buff is element-blind, so she improves nearly any team. The elements above are just the reactions her Hydro sets up.

Don't bother

  • Counting her stacks. Press the buttons, let the healer heal, the number sorts itself out.
  • Panicking about the HP drain. It's how she works and it can't finish anyone off.
  • Building her for damage. Her minions do respectable chip damage on a HP build anyway and crit stats come at the cost of the buff everyone else is relying on.
  • The healing form, unless you genuinely have no healer. It works, it just gives up most of her damage.

Want the full theorycrafting version? Read Furina on KeqingMains.