Kuki Shinobu

4★

ElectroSwordHealer

TL;DR

Kuki's Skill costs her some health and puts a ring around whoever is on the field, healing them and zapping enemies with Electro every second and a half. One button, 12 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). Losing a third of her health is normal.
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%. Summons a ring that surrounds 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 lasts longer if she is under half health when she casts it. It costs 60 Energy and with little Energy Recharge on her you'll skip it most of the time.

What actually matters

Elemental Mastery does everything. It raises her healing and it raises her Hyperbloom damage. 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. Most healers make you stand in one place. She doesn't.
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.
Her low health is fine. She heals herself back up off the ring and gets extra healing power under half health anyway, so leaving her sitting at 30% costs nothing.

Gear

Weapon	Elemental Mastery and nothing else. 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.

Sands	Goblet	Circlet	Substats
EM	EM	EM	EM / ER

Enough Energy Recharge in substats to cast the Burst occasionally. Crit is worthless on her.

Works well with

Dendro

Hydro

Dendro 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 do nothing worth the field time.

Want the full deep dive? Read Kuki Shinobu on KeqingMains.

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