Tighnari

Tighnari

5★DendroBowMain Damage

TL;DR

Tighnari is one button held down. Aim the bow and keep holding until the shot reaches its second charge level. The arrow splits into a fan of little homing arrows that carry most of his damage. His Skill makes that charge much faster for a few shots and his Burst is a big homing volley on a short, cheap cooldown. Bring an Electro teammate so all of that lands as a reaction.

Rotation

  1. Skill (E) to plant his field. This is what makes the big shots fast.
  2. One fully Charged Attack.
  3. Burst (Q).
  4. Two more fully Charged Attacks, then swap off.

Abilities

Skill (E) Throws something ahead that does a bit of Dendro damage and leaves a field of illusions enemies waste their attacks on. The real effect is that it cuts a couple of seconds off the charge time for the big shot. The illusions hang about for 8 seconds, the faster charge for 12 or three big shots, whichever runs out first. 12 second cooldown.
Charged Attack Hold to aim. There are two charge levels and only the second one matters: it fires an arrow that, on hit, spits out four homing arrows that chase whatever is nearby. Let go early and you get a plain Dendro arrow and none of the good part.
Burst (Q) Costs 40 Energy, which is cheap, on a 12 second cooldown. Fires six homing shafts and each one that lands sends out a second wave that homes as well.

What actually matters

  • Reaching the second charge level. Everything else on the page serves this. Without the Skill up the charge is slow enough that you will let go too early, which is why the Skill goes first and why you only take three big shots per rotation.
  • Elemental Mastery and a lot of it. His passive turns every point of it into damage on his Charged Attacks and his Burst specifically, up to a 60% bonus at 1,000 Elemental Mastery. That is a long way past what you normally build, so treat Elemental Mastery as a damage stat here rather than a reaction stat.
  • Electro in the team. Dendro landing on an Electro-soaked enemy turns his shots into Spread hits and that is a large slice of his damage. He works without it, he just works a lot less.

Gear

Weapon Crit first, then Elemental Mastery or Attack. Slingshot is a 3-star you almost certainly already own, with a big lump of Crit Rate on it. Prototype Crescent is craftable and pays out more if you are comfortable putting arrows into weak points.
Artifacts 4-piece Deepwood Memories, which strips Dendro resistance off enemies. If a teammate is already wearing it, 4-piece Gilded Dreams instead for the Elemental Mastery.
Sands Goblet Circlet Substats
EM / ATK Dendro DMG Crit Crit / EM

Around 110% Energy Recharge is plenty, since his Burst is cheap and his Skill comes up twice a rotation.

Works well with

ElectroDendroAnemo

Electro is the one that changes his numbers. A second Dendro character can carry the resistance shred set so he does not have to and Anemo groups enemies up, which helps his homing arrows.

Don't bother

  • His Normal Attack string, plus the talent levels behind it. He almost never taps the bow.
  • Levelling his Skill much. It does almost no damage and the charge time it saves is the same at level 1.
  • Half-charged shots. A level 1 charge is a plain arrow, so if you are going to let go early you may as well not have aimed.
  • Pairing him with someone else who needs the field for ages. He wants a solid 8 seconds to himself every rotation and a second character with the same demand means neither of you gets it.

Want the full deep dive? Read Tighnari on KeqingMains.

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