Vodyanitsa

Vodyanitsa

5★HydroCatalystSupport

TL;DR

Vodyanitsa presses her Skill and leaves. For 16 seconds a floating horn follows whoever is on the field, hitting nearby enemies with Hydro, healing your active character and lowering the enemies' Hydro and Cryo resistance. The same press banks a pile of stacks that turn her Max HP into flat bonus damage on the team's Hydro, Cryo and Stellar Swirl hits. Build nothing but HP.

Rotation

  1. Skill (E). She takes her water imp form and the horn appears beside you.
  2. Burst (Q) if it happens to be ready.
  3. Swap to your damage dealer. The horn follows them.
  4. Come back and press Skill (E) again when the horn is gone. The cooldown matches the duration, so it is ready the moment it ends.

Abilities

Skill (E) An area Hydro hit, then the horn for 16 seconds on a 16 second cooldown. Every 3 seconds it darts at an enemy for Hydro damage that scales off her Max HP. Anything it or the opening hit touches loses 30% Hydro and Cryo resistance for 6 seconds. While it is out your active character heals every second and a half and is hard to stagger.
Burst (Q) 60 Energy, 15 second cooldown. One area Hydro hit off her Max HP, a good deal bigger while the horn is out. Nice to have, not part of the job.
Her stacks Casting the Skill gives her 25 stacks for whoever is on the field and 10 for the teammates who are not, lasting 30 seconds. Each Hydro, Cryo or Stellar Swirl hit spends one for a flat chunk of extra damage, sized by how much Max HP she has past 40,000.

The one mechanic to understand

Everything is Max HP.

The horn's damage, the healing and the bonus damage stacks all scale off her Max HP. The stacks are the odd one: they add nothing at all until she has 40,000 Max HP and they stop growing at 65,000, so every point between those two numbers is a straight damage upgrade for the team. A Stellar Swirl hit gets the big chunk (up to 6,500 extra). A Hydro or Cryo hit gets a smaller one (up to 3,500). Only those three kinds of hit spend a stack. A Pyro or Electro damage dealer gets the healing and the horn's damage and none of the rest.

What actually matters

The two or three decisions that actually change how you play.

  • Max HP. Lots of it. 40,000 is where the stacks start doing anything and 65,000 is where they stop. Every slot, every substat.
  • Hydro, Cryo or Stellar Swirl damage on the team. The stacks only pay out on those and the resistance she strips is Hydro and Cryo. In a Stellar Swirl team her Skill also turns the reaction's vortex into a wandering one that lowers Anemo resistance as well.
  • The Burst is optional. It is one respectable hit and nothing else on the page depends on it. Build Energy Recharge to cast it when it is convenient, not to force it every rotation.

Gear

A build that works. KeqingMains lists every other option.

Weapon Max HP. Prototype Amber is craftable, has HP as its stat and heals the party a little more after her Burst. Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers instead if your damage dealer scales off Attack: it is a 3-star you already own and hands a large Attack buff to whoever you swap in.
Artifacts 4-piece Tenacity of the Millelith. HP for her. The horn's hits count as Skill hits from off the field, so the party's 20% Attack buff stays up the whole time it is out.
Sands Goblet Circlet Substats
HP HP HP HP / ER

No Healing Bonus circlet: Max HP grows the healing and the damage stacks, a Healing Bonus grows only the healing. Energy Recharge only until the Burst is back when you feel like pressing it.

Works well with

HydroCryoAnemo

Hydro and Cryo get the resistance drop and the bonus damage. Anemo is for a Stellar Swirl team, where her Skill lowers Anemo resistance too.

Don't bother

  • Forcing the Burst every rotation. Cast it when it is up, skip it when it isn't. The Skill is the character.
  • Counting her stacks. 25 and 10 sound like something to manage. They refresh on every Skill cast and outlast the horn.
  • Building her for damage. Her own hits scale off HP anyway, so the HP build is the damage build.
  • Holding the Skill in a fight. Held out of combat it turns her into a fast swimmer who runs on water. In combat, tap it.

Want the full deep dive? Read Vodyanitsa on KeqingMains.