Kuki Shinobu
4★
ElectroSwordHealer
ElectroSwordHealerTL;DR
Kuki's Skill costs her some health and puts a ring on the ground that follows whoever is on the field, healing them and zapping enemies with Electro every second and a half. One button, twelve seconds of cover. Build her purely on Elemental Mastery and that Electro tick becomes a hyperbloom engine that runs on its own.
Rotation
- Skill (E). Watching a third of her health vanish is normal, don't panic.
- Swap to whoever you're actually playing.
- Come back and recast Skill (E) every 15 seconds.
- Burst (Q) only if it happens to be full.
Abilities
| Skill (E) | Costs 30% of her current health, and it can't kill her, it just stops at 20%. Lays down a ring that trails the active character for 12 seconds, healing them and hitting nearby enemies with Electro every 1.5 seconds. Cooldown 15 seconds. |
|---|---|
| Burst (Q) | A field of Electro damage that hits harder the lower her health is. It costs 60 Energy, and since you're putting no Energy Recharge on her you'll skip it most of the time. |
What actually matters
The two or three real decisions. Everything else is noise.
- Elemental Mastery does everything. It raises her healing and it raises her hyperbloom damage, and hyperbloom damage doesn't care about attack, crit or Electro damage bonus at all. Three Elemental Mastery main stats, no exceptions.
- The ring follows you, so she heals from the bench. That's rarer than it sounds. Most healers make you stand somewhere. She doesn't, which is why she fits in teams that have no time to spare.
- The three-second gap. Her ring lasts 12 seconds and the skill comes back after 15, so there's always a short window with no healing and no Electro. Nothing to fix, just don't be surprised by it. C2 closes it entirely.
- Her low health is a feature. She heals herself back up off the ring and gets extra healing power under half health anyway, so leaving her sitting at 30% is completely fine.
Gear
A build that works. KeqingMains lists every other option.
| Weapon | Elemental Mastery, nothing else considered. Iron Sting is craftable, cheap and has it as the secondary stat. |
|---|---|
| Artifacts | 4-piece Gilded Dreams. Its domain also drops Deepwood Memories, which somebody else in a Dendro team wants anyway, so one run feeds two characters. |
| Main stats | Elemental Mastery sands, Elemental Mastery goblet, Elemental Mastery circlet. Enough Energy Recharge in substats to cast the Burst occasionally, and crit is worthless on her. |
Works well with
Dendro
HydroDendro plus Hydro is the whole team plan. Those two make the seeds, her ring pops them, and the fourth slot can be anyone.
Don't bother
- Healing her back up before casting. The skill takes a percentage of current health, so a full bar just means a bigger bill.
- Building Max HP for the healing. Elemental Mastery covers healing too and does a second job at the same time.
- Playing her on the field. Her normal attacks are decoration.
Want the full theorycrafting version? Read Kuki Shinobu on KeqingMains.