Traveler (Dendro)
DendroSwordOff-field DamageTL;DR
The Burst plants a lamp that sits there ticking Dendro onto everything nearby for about 12 seconds, and hands your active character Elemental Mastery while they stand in it. The Skill is a cheap spray of Dendro on a short cooldown that mostly exists to keep the Burst fed. Plant it, swap off, let your Electro or Hydro character react with it.
Rotation
- Skill (E) for particles and a first splash of Dendro.
- Burst (Q) to plant the lamp on top of the enemies.
- Skill (E) again once it comes back, about 8 seconds later.
- Swap out and let your damage dealer work inside the lamp's circle.
Abilities
| Skill (E) | A spray of leaves straight ahead for Dendro damage. About an 8 second cooldown and no Energy cost, so it is the cheapest Dendro you have. |
|---|---|
| Burst (Q) | Costs 80 Energy, back in about 20 seconds. Plants a lamp that hits everything in its circle with Dendro over and over for about 12 seconds. It cannot be moved once it is down, and you only get one at a time. |
| The lamp's buff | Every second it is out, the lamp gives your active character another 6 Elemental Mastery, stopping at 60. It only counts while that character is inside the circle. |
The one mechanic to understand
Whatever touches the lamp first decides what it becomes.
The first element to reach the lamp changes it, once, for the rest of its life. Hydro widens it and everything it throws. Electro speeds up how fast it attacks. Pyro makes it detonate after a moment and then it is gone, which is a real cost if you were counting on the other eight seconds of Dendro. That does not make Pyro teams wrong, it just means you should plant the lamp knowing you are trading it for one explosion. If you want the lamp to run its full length, keep Pyro off it.
What actually matters
The two or three real decisions. Everything else is noise.
- Energy Recharge. The lamp is the character and it costs 80 Energy. Push the stat until the Burst is up every time you come back to them, which usually means somewhere past 160%. The Skill and its particles are how you get there.
- The buff arrives slowly. It climbs at 6 Elemental Mastery a second and the lamp only lives about 12, so your damage dealer is nowhere near the full 60 until the last stretch. Plant the lamp before your big damage window, not during it.
- The artifact set is the team buff. 4-piece Deepwood Memories cuts enemy Dendro resistance by 30% for everyone, and the lamp keeps refreshing it from the bench without any effort from you.
Gear
A build that works. KeqingMains lists every other option.
| Weapon | Exaiphanes Blade, handed over free by the Snezhnaya Archon Quest and the best sword on any Traveler form. It levels and refines at that region's Statues of the Seven instead of costing you materials, and its passive keeps ticking while they are off the field. Fleuve Cendre Ferryman is the free stand-in if you have not got there yet, and its Energy Recharge is the stat this build is short of. |
|---|---|
| Artifacts | 4-piece Deepwood Memories, for the resistance cut above. Give it to a different teammate and wear 4-piece Gilded Dreams instead if somebody else in the team is applying Dendro more often. |
| Main stats | Energy Recharge sands, Dendro damage goblet, Elemental Mastery circlet. Crit is close to worthless, since almost everything they contribute is reaction damage and reactions do not crit. |
Works well with
Electro
HydroElectro and Hydro are what the lamp is built to be reacted with, and both of them upgrade it on contact. Pyro works too, it just costs you the lamp.
Don't bother
- Normal attacks and the talent behind them.
- Expecting the lamp to follow the fight. It stays exactly where you planted it, so plant it where the enemies will still be.
- Crit substats. Put the same rolls into Energy Recharge or Elemental Mastery.
- Pulling for constellations. Dendro Traveler's come from levelling Sumeru's Statues of the Seven.
Want the full theorycrafting version? Read Traveler (Dendro) on KeqingMains.