Navia

Navia

5★GeoClaymoreMain Damage

TL;DR

Navia's Skill is a shotgun. How many pellets it fires depends on how many crystal shards your team has picked up off the floor since last time, so the loop is: make shards, walk over them, fire. Her Burst hangs artillery overhead that keeps handing her shards while she does it.

Rotation

  1. Get an element onto the enemies with a teammate, so Geo hits start dropping shards.
  2. Navia: Burst (Q). The shells start feeding her stacks immediately.
  3. Walk over the crystal shards on the ground. Every one is a stack.
  4. Skill (E), twice, once you're at three stacks or more.
  5. Cycle your teammates and come back for the next Burst.

Abilities

Skill (E) The shotgun. Fires between 5 and 11 pellets depending on her stacks, spends all of them, and has two charges on a 9 second cooldown. Hold it to aim and hoover up nearby shards first.
Burst (Q) Artillery overhead for 12 seconds, dropping a Geo shell every second or so. The shells feed her a stack back as they land, up to one every couple of seconds. 60 Energy.
Her stacks She caps at 6. Any party member walking over a crystal shard gives her one, and her Burst's shells give her one every couple of seconds.

The one mechanic to understand

Three stacks, then six.

At three stacks the shotgun is firing all 11 pellets, which is the jump that matters. Stacks four, five and six each add Geo damage on top, so they're worth having but they aren't the cliff. Firing at zero stacks isn't a disaster, it's just a much smaller gun. If you're routinely short, the fix is a Geo teammate whose skill keeps dropping shards for you.

What actually matters

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

  • She needs a Geo teammate and an elemental one. Shards only appear when Geo hits an enemy who already has Pyro, Hydro, Electro or Cryo on them, which is the Crystallize reaction. Two Geo characters and two blank slots produces no shards at all.
  • Two Pyro, Hydro, Electro or Cryo teammates gives her 40% attack. Her passive pays 20% per one of those, up to two. So a team of her, a Geo battery and two elemental characters isn't just about shards, it's a big flat damage bonus.
  • Her attacks go Geo for 4 seconds after firing. Which is how she makes her own shards, and why normal attacking between shotgun blasts is worth doing rather than standing about.

Gear

A build that works. KeqingMains lists every other option.

Weapon Crit, then attack. Earth Shaker is craftable in Natlan and its bonus fires off any time a teammate has done something elemental, which in her team is always.
Artifacts 4-piece Nighttime Whispers in the Echoing Woods. Attack and Geo damage bonus with no conditions worth thinking about.
Main stats Attack sands, Geo damage goblet, Crit circlet. Energy Recharge sands until her Burst is reliable, which usually means somewhere near 130%.

Works well with

GeoPyroHydroElectro

A second Geo character for shards and energy, then two of Pyro, Hydro, Electro or Cryo to trigger the Crystallize and pay her attack passive.

Don't bother

  • Counting shards on the floor. Run through them, glance at her stack pips, fire.
  • Charged attacks. They eat stamina and give you nothing the shotgun doesn't do better.
  • Elemental Mastery. Her damage is direct Geo, not reactions.

Want the full theorycrafting version? Read Navia on KeqingMains.