Returning after long time and I’m lost 😅
I need help with maybe some helpful tips and figuring out a lineup. I’m maybe halfway through Liyue, and the characters I have available are: MC, Qiqi, Noelle, Amber, Kaeya, Barabara, Fischl, Lisa, Yaoyao, Bennett, Xiangling, Lynette, and Xinyan. I’ve got no idea about artifacts or decent lineups, so even pointing me to a good guide would be so helpful 🙏🥺
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That said, having great artifacts and über team builds and all that wont matter for quite a while. Put together a crew of characters you like — go explore and do Main Archon Quests and just soak in the awesomeness!
if you're on America server and need help I can send my UID, just DM me.
when it’s comes to artifacts there are two key aspects, the set buff and the stats. the set buff varies across different artifacts set and is what determines which artifacts sets are good for what characters. these set buffs appear when you have 2 pieces from a set and 4 pieces from a set. the 2 piece buffs are a lot smaller, usually only buffing one stat. 4 piece buffs go on top of the 2 piece buffs and are usually activated after a certain requirement is met during combat.
artifact stats on the other hand are the stats that an artifacts has. these are broken into two categories, the mainstat, a stat which increases largely as you level the artifacts and the substats. there is multiple substats on an artifacts but the amount of stats depends on the rarity of the artifacts !! 3 star artifacts which are the ones with a blue background have 2 substats, 4 stars which are artifacts with a purple background have 3 substats and 5 stars which artifacts the ones with a gold/yellow background have four substats, although sometimes one will be deactivated which means you will have to level the artifact to level four to activate it.
now for mainstats. there are two pieces where the mainstat is fixed and cannot change and will NOT be a percentage. These are the flower of life, a flower looking artifacts piece that always has a raw hp mainstat and the plume of death which looks like a feather which will always have raw atk as its mainstat. on the other 3 pieces, the sands (a timepiece looking artifacts piece), the goblet and the circlet the mainstat is not predetermined and can change. Each piece has a different selection of possible mainstats. For the sands the possible mainstats are **HP%, DEF%, ATK%, Elemental Mastery (EM), or Energy Recharge%.** these 5 substats are also available on the goblet and circlet however the goblet can also get flat **HP**, **ATK**, **DEF**, **Physical DMG Bonus%**, or specific **Elemental DMG Bonus%** (Pyro, Hydro, Electro, Anemo, Cryo, Dendro, Geo). for the circlet the possible mainstats are **HP%**, **DEF%**, **ATK%**, **Elemental Mastery (EM)**, **Crit Rate%**, **Crit DMG%**, or **Healing Bonus%.** these stats have a chance of appearing on a piece from any set and there is no fixed way to guarantee a certain mainstat.
substats on the other hand have a fixed pool of all possibilities. These substats can appear on any artifact, however the mainstat will never be a substat. For example if you have a hp% sands, it is impossible to get hp% as a substat. You CAN however, get flat hp as a substat on a hp% goblet !! The pool of artifact substats includes the following ::
* **Flat HP (HP)**: Adds a fixed amount of Health Points to the character, increasing their overall survivability.
* **HP% (HP %)**: Increases the character's total Health Points by a percentage of their base HP, which is generally more effective for characters whose skills scale with HP.
* **Flat ATK (ATK)**: Adds a fixed amount of Attack power to the character.
* **ATK% (ATK %)**: Increases the character's total Attack power by a percentage of their base ATK, a key stat for most damage-dealing characters.
* **Flat Defense (DEF)**: Adds a fixed amount of Defense to the character.
* **Defense% (DEF %)**: Increases the character's total Defense by a percentage of their base DEF, which is vital for characters whose damage or shield strength scales with Defense (e.g., Noelle, Albedo).
* **Energy Recharge (ER%)**: Increases the rate at which a character gains energy through combat and particles, allowing them to use their Elemental Burst more frequently.
* **Elemental Mastery (EM)**: Increases the damage and effectiveness of elemental reactions like Vaporize, Melt, Overloaded, and Bloom.
* **Critical Rate (CR%)**: Increases the chance that a character's attacks will be critical hits, dealing significantly more damage.
* **Critical Damage (CD%)**: Increases the amount of damage dealt when a critical hit occurs.
What substats you are aiming for depend entirely on the character, their build, the role they are being used for (DPS, sub-DPS, buffer, healer, shielder) however to give you a rough idea of what substats you may be looking for depending on role in a team I will say that when building a dps you are almost always looking for crit rate and crit dmg. The goal is to have a 1 (CRIT rate)/2 (crit dmg) or 1/3 ratio but the specific amount you want depends on the character and artifacts set. For a sub dps you are generally looking for crit dmg, crit rate aswell However it is less required. For a buffer you are almost always looking for energy recharge (ER) so that you can maintain uptime on their bursts to apply their buffs aswell as usually whatever stat they scale off of so for Bennett this is atk but for another character it may be hp or em so make sure to research whenever you plan to build a new character !! Finally for healers you want as much hp as humanly possible as 99% of the time they scale off of that, especially with fontaine and after characters while some healers may also appreciate healing bonus.
Now I’m sorry to make this so long but i have two final bits of advice. first of all you said you have Bennett, he is still one of the absolute most universal buffers and practically a must build. He buffs attack and slots into many teams.
And finally do not feel forced to pull meta units !! I see it too much in newer players, always pulling the brand new character on the banner but please, take your time and find characters you genuinely like playing, like their design and like their lore because it will affect how you see the game !!
Give her prototype rancour sword (you should have one, as it's required to craft at some point to complete beginner tasks), and focus on artifacts that increase damage. Best would be atk% sands, phys dmg goblet and crit rate or crit damage circlet (as a general rule of thumb, always try to aim for 2% crit damage per 1% crit rate until you reach \~70% crit rate).
For early artifact sets, aim for 2-piece Berserker + 2-piece Martial Artist, but if you can't find good set pieces, just focus on artifacts that give the most crit rate/crit damage, then atk%, then flat atk, and level them up as much as you can (level them all equally, but prioritize goblet and circlet, then sands, then feather, then flower; in fact you can leave the flower at +0 if you can't afford upgrades).
Level up first talent as much as you can (normal attacks). Level up E as well, if you're dying a lot. Later on, switch to Ocean-Hued clam artifacts and change circlet from crit to Healing Bonus% (Ocean-Hued deals explosions periodically, based on received healing, so you'll want to do more healing).
As for the team, use Fischl, because this way you'll have access to cryo+electro, which triggers superconduct reaction, which lowers enemy physical resistance. Fischl wants similar things, crit dmg, crit rate, atk%, and some elemental mastery too. She's a bow user so you'll also be able to hit those pesky archer hillichurls on the towers, etc. Later on you'll want to switch to 4-pc Golden Troupe artifacts, which will make her viable in endgame. For her bow, you can use 4-star stringless or favonious if you have them. Otherwise, anything with atk% will do.
Then you could add Kaeya; his role is just to be in the team, so you have 2x cryo in the team. With double cryo, you get a special bonus of 15% extra crit rate versus enemies affected by cryo (which will be active pretty much all the time because). For artifacts, just pick any damage you can get to help the team. Atk% sands, cryo dmg%, crit circlet. Later on you can switch to something more useful for support, like 4-pc Noblesse Oblige. For a sword, he can go with 3-star Harbinger of Dawn (you should definitely have some lying around, it's very strong). Alternatively, if you want more elemental coverage, you could pick Bennett or Xiangling for some pyro.
And for the final slot you could go for Anemo MC to help you deal with some shields, groups of enemies, and enemies that take reduced physical damage (like ruin guards). Focus on elemental mastery on all artifacts, level up E skill and some Q won't hurt too. For early game try to get 4-pc Instructor artifact set (it boosts EM for the whole party). Later on you can switch to Viridescent Venerer. Best sword here would be the craftable Iron Sting. The sword itself is very strong so you're not wasting resources.
Again, Qiqi is not a meta character by any means, but it will make the game much more comfortable for casual play. And I'm pretty sure that if you wanted, you could clear \~70% of endgame with a well invested team like this. This is a low-floor but also low-ceiling team.
Ultimately, these characters will always be useful, because there's one endgame mode that requires you to use a LOT of characters. So, at worst, they'll serve as a filler.
As far as pure meta is concerned, Fischl, Bennett and Xiangling are probably the best.
If you want to play Gaming, you'd have to make some adjustments. Probably should run with Bennett, it would make sense. But no idea what else.
You can check more detailed guides at kqm if you're interested
[https://keqingmains.com/q/gaming-quickguide/](https://keqingmains.com/q/gaming-quickguide/)