In this Genshin Impact Guide I’m going to be showing you my Bowless Archer Build for Ganyu, which can output insane Reverse Melt damage without using bow attacks. Even though Ganyu is a Bow user, with an insanely strong Charged Attack, we can make a build that will rely solely on her Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst alone.
In this Genshin Impact Guide, I’ll explain just how to build The Bowless Archer to face a wide variety of content, and deal potent damage. On top of that, this team is perfectly suitable to finish the Spiral Abyss, up to floor 12-3. If you’ve been looking for a Free to Play Cryo build for endgame and Spiral Abyss, look no further.
Without further ado, let’s get to the build. I’ll go through what Weapons to use, what Artifacts to upgrade and which companions to pick up, so check this one out!
Ganyu Bowless Archer Build Guide | Genshin Impact | Abyss Ready
This is a budget-friendly version of the Ganyu build, making it suitable for new and free to play players. While the damage output is slightly lower than the highest Ganyu build in-game, its ease of use and fun factor makes it ten times better in my opinion. With the new artifact sets released in the version 2.0 Inazuma expansion, this build becomes very competent and still cheap to achieve.
It’s the second-best Reverse Melt team in the game, only behind Ganyu‘s top team that relies solely on Melting every charged shot, but require a lot of hassle. It’s a lot easier, and more friendly to mobile and controller users, and more accessible overall. This build pairs well with a second team that doesn’t require Bennett, so you can match it up with Hu Tao’s team , Noelle, The Invulnerable Maid team, or even Ayaka permanent freeze team if you don’t mind using two Cryo teams.
I’ve got Ganyu only on a sub-account with no good five-star supports to pair her up with. Usually, that’s not an issue, but with Ganyu, the normal playstyle requires staying still for 3 seconds, then charging her attack into the second phase, and then release. That’s simply a nightmare without the shield of Zhongli, or the black hole of Venti. The simple solution for it back in the day was building Ganyu into a permanent freeze party similar to the Ayaka The Snow Bird Build or Frost Shattering Warrior Build Chongyun.
But again, the top DPS build for a permanent freeze Ganyu involves a full team of five-star supports such as Mona, and Venti, but both weren’t available to me. On top of that, the playstyle requires aiming charged shots, which is even harder on a gamepad. So I just shelved her for a long time, waiting for a chance to make a new kind of build with her. Until August when the Inazuma patch came out. This opened up new build options, and The Bowless Archer is one of the first ones I explored. If you don’t have Ganyu yet, her banner will most likely return soon, so make sure to save enough Primogems and use a Pity for her.
The Birth of the Bowless Archer
This build relies mainly on Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst of Ganyu doing all the heavy lifting. While using Charged Attack can increase DPS, it’s still very hard to execute amidst all aggressive enemies. In order to Reverse Melt with Ganyu you will need Xiangling‘s Burst to constantly hit enemies, and that requires you to stay closer to them and without a shield, you are pretty much vulnerable to interrupts. By focusing on Elemental Bursts, you free up time for necessary dodges and gives a chance for supports to do a full rotation faster. The new Artifact Set, Emblem of Severed Fate is used to support characters such as Xiangling. She’s the main source of Pyro application with her burst, but with this build, she also does very nice damage.
Then we use Sucrose with C1 and Sacrificial Fragments, to cast Elemental Skill three times to gather up enemies. Sucrose also gathers enemies with her Elemental Burst, can also infuse and apply Pyro for a consistent Pyro Aura. This way, Ganyu can proc Reverse Melt all her hits. The gathering is a very important aspect of this build, even though Sucrose is not as good as Venti. It all comes down to the nature of Ganyu‘s Burst, which drops ice droplets on enemy overhead. These droplets will appear over each enemy and cause AOE damage. Therefore, if enemies are gathered in close proximity they get hit by more than one instance of damage. That can double, triple or quadruple the damage, depending on how many enemies are in proximity of each other. But with Sucrose, it’s likely harder to get more than double.
The last party slot goes to Bennett who doubles as a healer and buffer. He not only gives Pyro resonance but also allows all of Xiangling‘s, Sucrose‘s, and Ganyu‘s Bursts to snapshot his attack buff. What snapshotting means is that skill takes stats of a character in the moment of casting, and applies it to the entire duration of the skill. This allows Bennett to buff the damage of all party members, even after his own burst runs out.
Ganyu The Bowless Archer Attributes
In typical Ganyu builds the sole aim is to maximize Charged Attack damage, and rightfully so. But considering how Charged Attacks are clunky, we focus on Elemental Burst and Melt damage, to gain an alternate build. Let’s start with Artifacts’ main stats, which starts pretty typically as its similar to most other damage dealers. Critical Rate on Headpiece, Cryo Damage Bonus on Goblet, and % Attack on Sands. Ganyu has one of the highest base attacks in the game, and so % Attack will make her total Attack skyrocket. That, on top of Pyro resonance, and Bennett‘s Attack boost, it might start to go into overkill territory, and if that happens, Elemental Mastery Sands starts to become more appealing.
For sub stats on Artifacts we can benefit from all as well as every offensive stat; such as % Attack, Elemental Mastery, Critical Rate, Critical Damage, and even Energy Recharge, in the case that we use the Emblem of Severed Fate set. In that case, we aim to only get around 140~150% Energy Recharge overall. Emblem of Severed Fate gives 20% on its own, so we need merely 20~30% Energy Recharge on sub stats to get 100% uptime for Ganyu‘s Elemental Burst.
Ganyu The Bowless Archer Weapon
Ganyu uses Bows, a Hybrid weapon in nature, with physical normal attacks, and magical charged attacks. Similar to Hu Tao, we can focus on Elemental Damage and Reactions. So she can go for an all-out Melt reaction build, with an Elemental Mastery weapon. Typical Charged Attack builds would prefer weapons that give Charged Attack multipliers. Such weapons are Amos’ Bow, Hamayumi, and Prototype Crescent. They are very powerful, but require solely using Charged Attacks, and not Elemental Burst. But in our Bowless Build, we have a wider range of choices.
Windblume Ode was a reward from the 1.4 event, Invitation of Windblume. In that event, we were guaranteed the highest level of refinement, so it’s a free to play friendly weapon. The weapon has a maximum of 510 base attack, 165 EM, and 32% Attack for 6 seconds after using an Elemental Skill. Ganyu at zero Constellations can use Elemental Skill once every 10 seconds, so she can’t maintain 100% uptime.
So this Bow is a starting weapon, meant only for those who have no other Bow option available. It goes well with Melt Ganyu, as EM works as a decent multiplier.
Craftable 4 Star Weapon
Prototype Crescent is still a decent weapon, even in an Elemental Burst build. The only Caveat it has is the necessity to successfully perform a headshot every 10 seconds to maintain its passive. It goes against the purpose of the build of not relying on Charged Attacks, especially with weak spots being harder to hit. So if you are a mobile or controller user who was hesitant to build Ganyu for that reason, Prototype Crescent is not the weapon for you.
In case you don’t mind the additional hassle of doing weak spots hits though, it’s very strong. Prototype Crescent gives a bonus Attack up to 113% at max refinement. The Attack bonus is a universal stat, so it benefits all damage Ganyu do, Elemental Burst or Charged Attacks.
Gasha 4 Star Weapon
There’s no doubt that The Stringless is the strongest four-star weapon for Elemental Burst builds. It gives 510 base attack, 165 EM and up to 48% Elemental Burst damage multiplier at max refinement. The passive bonus doesn’t benefit Charged Attack at all, so you will not see The Stringless in most weapon tier lists for Ganyu. But Ganyu is very powerful even in Elemental Burst build, and if mobs is gathered tightly, Elemental Burst with The Stringless is undisputedly stronger.
If you are not new to the game, there’s a high chance you have The Stringless. Its passive is unconditional, so just use it without worrying too much. Even if Charged Attacks don’t benefit from its passive, Melt hits with high EM still do a lot of damage. So throwing a couple of charged attacks in the rotation is not invalid with this weapon.
Battle Pass 4 Star Weapon
The Viridescent Hunt is gated behind the battle pass, which is ten bucks of real money for one time. There’s no urgent need for anyone to pay anything to get this weapon, but if you already paying, this weapon is a good choice. It has a Crit rate sub stats, which is very solid to maintain the Critical Rate: Critical Damage ratio. It makes artifact building much easier and gives an unconditional bonus.
The passive on this weapon is very useful from Ganyu, especially on Elemental Burst Melt build. When you hit enemies with normal or charged attacks, there’s a chance to create a vortex that pulls and gathers enemies. This gathering can double, triple, or quadruple the damage, depending on how many enemies are gathered. It also helps with the small downtime of Sucrose’s Burst.
The Ultimate Weapon
For Reverse Melt Ganyu without a focus on charged attacks, it’s hard to pin which of the five-star Bows is the perfect match for her. Without charged attacks, her signature weapon, Amos’ Bow, becomes a stat stick, as she doesn’t utilize 100% of passive bonuses. That’s not a bad thing, as it brings other five-star weapons on par with it. Such as Skyward Harp, and Thundering Pulse. Any of three will be slightly better than The Stringless, with the bonus of having universal damage buffs like Crit Rate and Crit Damage on Skyward Harp. So you are not restricted with how you play your Ganyu.
Both Amos’ Bow and Skyward Harp can be obtained from standard banners. So some f2p players have either of them, without the use of any primogems. If that’s the case, Ganyu can make good use of them.
Ganyu The Bowless Archer Artifacts
Figuring out how to customize your Artifacts is one of, if not the hardest part of making a Build in Genshin Impact, as there are a lot of components involved, and generally takes a try or two before getting it right. With the continuous release of new artifacts every couple of patches, things get a bit complicated. In this section, I will save you some time as I’ve set this up for maximum performance in this build.
Lavawalker
For a team with two Pyro characters, and a guaranteed reverse Melt comp setup, Lavawalker becomes a very solid choice. It either grants 35% all damage multiplier against enemies affected by Pyro, or gives nothing against enemies with no Pyro aura. This is an issue in domains and Abyss floors that add energy drain or cooldown increase debuff on you. Your main source of Pyro is Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst of Pyro units. However, in a standard setup that doesn’t mess with Elemental Burst availability, Lavawalker is just a perfect choice to go with.
It’s true that Lavawalker gives a similar damage bonus to charged attack as Wanderer’s Troupe, minus the Elemental Mastery. But Wanderer’s Troupe boost only Charged Attack, and Lavawalker boosts both charged and Burst damage. We also have several other sources of EM across the board, such as Sucrose, Instructor set, and Ganyu’s weapon.
If you are focusing solely on Charged Attacks, Shimenawa’s Reminiscence shall be the strongest option. However, it grants nothing to Elemental Burst, and drains the energy of Ganyu as well, as it’s totally meant for a different playstyle.
Emblem of Severed Fate
The new Artifact set coming which came with the Inazuma patch is suitable for the Elemental Burst playstyle. It grants Energy Recharge, and gives Elemental Burst damage bonus depending on how much Energy Recharge character has. However, at 150% Energy Recharge, it has only 2.5% better Burst DPS than Lavawalker, and doesn’t give any bonus to Elemental Skill nor Charged attack.
If Ganyu‘s Burst required more Energy Recharge, Emblem of Severed Fate would be best in slot. But as the current situation entails, it’s only viable in situations where Lavawalker is unusable. Such as domains with CD increase and energy drain, or against challenging floors with only non-Pyro slimes enemies.
Blizzard Strayer + Gladiator’s Finale/Shimenawa’s Reminiscence
This hybrid combination is the safest starting choice for a general build. Both 15% Cryo damage and 18% Attack are a universal bonus, that applies to all damage without any condition. It’s also easier to make a hybrid build than finding perfect four pieces from the same set, so it can carry you for a long time. It’s less damage than Lavawalker if you constantly use Melt, but it’s good if you are using your Ganyu team in the open world.
If using Gladiator’s Finale or Shimenawa’s Reminiscence two pieces gives you so much Attack, it starts to overflow, try replacing Attack sand with EM one. Or use the following suggested set.
Blizzard Strayer + Noblesse Oblige
That combo strikes a good balance between general DPS, and Burst DPS. 15% Cryo damage from Blizzard Strayer is universal, and 20% damage bonus from Noblesse Oblige is specific to Elemental Burst. It gives overall more damage to burst, almost identical to Lavawalker, but works all time regardless of Pyro Aura.
This combo is harder to obtain as it requires the need of farming two different domains, that are different from the one you will farm for your supports. So it needs more resin and time.
Ganyu The Bowless Archer Talent Skills
Liutian Archery
Normal attack is irrelevant for Ganyu, regardless of build, while Her Charged attack is the strongest in game. She can charge up to two levels, with first level being similar to any bow user charged attack. If you hold charged attack button longer, Ganyu will go fire a Frostflake Arrow instead, which deal higher Cryo damage. After hitting a target (or the ground), the Frostflake Arrow bloom, dealing AOE Cryo damage.
The goal of playing Reverse Melt Ganyu with Charged Attack is to Melt the Bloom damage, or the two hits if possible. The Charging animation is long enough to give Pyro skills a chance to re-apply Pyro before hitting again. Since Pyro aura is stronger than Cryo, there’s a good chance that you can double Melt the Charged Attack with Ganyu. However, the multiple hits of Elemental Burst is likely to mess up with element order, since it apply additional Cryo, and cause a third Melt. That’s why we Infuse Sucrose Burst with Pyro rather than Cryo, to always apply Pyro faster than Cryo.
Second level of Charged Attack takes too long to reach, and usually Ganyu will get hit and interrupted before she finishes. That’s why it’s highly recommended to play Charged Attack Ganyu only with Zhongli shield or Venti black hole. In our f2p version, we rarely do Charged Attack, likely once or twice per rotation, and only during Sucrose Burst.
Trail of the Qilin
Elemental Skill is nothing special, it has a cooldown of 10 seconds, and allows Ganyu to retreat rapidly. It deals with initial Cryo damage, and leave a bloom that can hit a second time in a couple of seconds. It’s a simple skill to generate some Cryo elemental particles, and do some additional damage. Try not to leave the field before collecting the particles, so you can follow with a charged attack before enemies close the distance to you.
Celestial Shower
Ganyu have one of the best burst in-game, from its huge AOE, to its long duration, and the ability to shotgun multiple enemies. You can utilize this burst to the max if you have a character that can gather enemies. It drops five Ice droplets, one for each enemy present, then the rest drop randomly on the field. If enemies are gathered, each droplet will hit a small AOE around the enemy, so they all get hit by all droplets. When one enemy is present, or several enemies spread out, each gets hit once. If two enemies are gathered, each gets hit twice, and when five enemies are gathered, the entire five droplets hit them all at once.
This encourages a playstyle of going against a larger group of enemies and using Anemo characters to gather them. In a normal scenario, gathering more than two enemies very close is challenging, so don’t go theory-crafting Ganyu’s damage with a 500% multiplier.
The damage of Elemental Burst can continue off-field, but Ganyu gains a Cryo damage bonus within the AOE. So if you have room to shoot a couple of Charged Attacks before switching her out, that will deal very good damage. If you have problems aiming Charged Attacks, just shoot the floor, and the bloom will hit in the AOE still.
Make sure to Cast Ganyu’s Burst within Bennett‘s Burst, to snapshot the attack buff he provides.
Ganyu The Bowless Archer Party Composition
Genshin Impact has a unique playstyle that relies on switching characters and chaining combos across these characters. So a solid part of Ganyu’s build is knowing which characters will accompany her, and what roles they will play.
In this section, I’ll fill you in on some of the best characters that synergise well with this build. Even though in the current game version, it’s universally recommended for you to use a five-star support character such as Zhongli, Venti, Kazuha, or even Jean. Our Build for The Bowless Archer with Ganyu can function without them.
Xiangling
Having Xiangling is a must in this team, especially on higher Constellations. That’s an easy requirement to meet, since Xiangling is a guaranteed character, from clearing the Spiral Abyss third floor. In the first Ganyu banner, Xiangling was featured as an up-rate four-star. So most people who got Ganyu at release will likely have high Constellations for her. With C4 being the most important.
What Xiangling does is applies a Pyro aura constantly with her Burst. Said burst has a high Energy cost of 80, but with patch 2.0 Inazuma there’s a definitive solution for this issue. The new Artifact set Emblem of Severed Fate grants Energy recharge, and scale damage with Energy Recharge. This allows using Energy recharge Sands piece, and still doing very potent damage.
We build Xiangling as a sub DPS, because she really does great damage, even without reactions. She can snapshot her Burst if cast within Bennett Burst, and the damage increase lasts for the entire duration. In case you apply too much Cryo, Xiangling will be the one triggering Forward Melt which is hardly a loss in DPS. That’s because Forward Melt has a higher multiplier, and Xiangling benefits from both EM bonus provided by Sucrose, and the Attack bonus coming from Bennett. All of this while being off-field.
Stats
We build offensive an Xiangling in all cases, to increase team DPS. So for the main stat, we give her Crit rate/Crit Damage Circlet, Pyro damage bonus Goblet, and Energy recharge Sands. For sub stats, we take all % Attack, Crit rate/Crit Damage, and Energy Recharge we can get.
With Emblem of Severed Fate set, we aim to hit 200% ER to make sure she can burst on cooldown. This provides a 50% Burst damage multiplier, which is a massive increase over anything else Xiangling could acquire prior to version 2.0.
In version 2.0, the number of Polearm choices for Xiangling has increased a lot and she’s got so much flexibility with them. However, most new weapons such as “The Catch”, or Kitain Cross Spear are meant for the main DPS role. With Xiangling being the Aura in Reverse Melt comb, she gets more DPS from using Favonius Lance. It has highest base attack among four-star weapons, and a decent Energy recharge sub stat. Which would double down as more Burst uptime, and more damage with Emblem of Severed Fate.
This weapon also provides the entire party more energy, so you can have higher uptime of burst of the entire team.
Artifacts
If I have not mentioned Emblem of Severed Fate enough times, let me say it once more. It’s the best set for all support characters with high energy recharge, and Xiangling is not an exception. It alone takes her an entire rank up in any tier list, whether as support or main DPS.
Bennett
Bennett fills the second pyro role, to have elemental resonance, but he also plays as a healer, and a buffer. One more thing he adds to Xiangling is generating Pyro elemental particles by rapid use of his Elemental Skill, which is very useful against Abyss Herald enemies found in higher levels in Spiral Abyss. He becomes more useful at Recharging Energy for Xiangling , just uses Bennett‘s Elemental Skill and switch quickly to Xiangling to collect generated particles.
In this team, make sure to cast Bennett‘s Elemental Burst first, then using Burst of other teammates. Both Xiangling and Ganyu can snapshot their Burst, so they get full damage for the entire duration.
Stats
We build Bennett mostly with offensive stats, as he can do some Forward Melt hits for big numbers as well. Then we focus on Energy Recharge to maximize the uptime of his Elemental Burst. Bennett‘s Attack buff scales with his Base Attack, which comes from leveling and Ascending him, and his weapon, and is not affected by Attack stat on Artifacts.
Weapon
All-Energy recharge weapons for Bennett are decent. Both four stars, Favonius Sword and Sacrificial Sword are great for the job. It grants more damage and healing for the entire party if his Elemental Burst is up on cooldown, and Energy Recharge is great for this. The three-star weapon Skyrider Sword can work as a substitute, as it has Energy Recharge as well. But if you have been a long-time player and played through the event “Dragonspine” during 1.1 patch time, you have got the Festering Desire weapon from the event. Festering Desire is a better weapon for Bennett, as it increases his damage as well as Energy recharge. Clearing the event gave a maximum refinement version, which makes it a much better weapon.
If you have got a Skyward Blade that no DPS character is using, you can give it to Bennett. The increase in base attack will translate to a higher attack buff for the entire party, and yield a huge damage boost. That’s especially true if you’ve got a Skyward Blade, which has a high base attack, and Energy Recharge sub stat.
Artifacts
Bennett is a classic support character who prefers good old Noblesse Oblige, to grant attack buff for the entire party. It compensates for Xiangling using Energy Recharge and Ganyu using EM on Sands. The main stats for Bennett goes as follows: Crit Rate/Dmg on Circlet, Pyro damage bonus on Goblet, and either % HP or % Attack on Sands. It depends on whether you need more healing, or you want to maximize damage in short rotation. Stick with HP and Energy Recharge in sub stat as much as possible.
Sucrose (or Any five star Anemo support)
Any Melt team can benefit greatly from Anemo support, with Sucrose giving more damage, and five-star supports giving better crowd control. You can Swirl Pyro, Cryo, or both, though to get both, you need to go through much hassle. You first need to use Ganyu Elemental Skill on one enemy, then Bennett Elemental Skill on a different one. Then use Sucrose Elemental Skill once on first enemy, and once on the second enemy, that way you shred both Cryo and Pyro resistance with Viridescent Venerer.
However, Viridescent Venerer in this setup is not a must, and we aim to infuse Sucrose burst with Pyro anyway. We can go with Instructor Set, and just enjoy the EM buff for the entire party. It can be deal less damage on an overall scale, but more consistent, and easier to execute. Sucrose passives give the team another two instances of EM buff, depending on her own EM buff. She’s especially good at C2, for the extended duration on her Burst, and the double casts on her Elemental Skill. But if you lucked her out to C6, your team gets an Elemental Damage bonus similar to Kazuha. So don’t underestimate the damage increase Sucrose can provide in such a setup.
It’s important to note that upgrading Sucrose talent skills add almost no value at all. Instead, spend your resin to aquire Ascension material and level her up to 90. That gives much more value to Sucrose , and the entire team.
Stats
Sucrose build is very simple, we go full EM on all Goblet, Headpiece, and Sands. That’s meant to maximize Swirl reaction damage of Sucrose, and EM buff for the team. Swirl damage is not affected by Attack or Crit stats, so we fully ignore them. On top of that, Swirl reaction is affected by character level, so Sucrose is one of the characters we can level up all the way to 90.
For sub stats, you always need more EM, and Energy Recharge. Though using Sucrose with Sacrificial Fragments, gives Elemental Skill three charges, which generates enough particles to fill most of her energy.
Weapon
Most Anemo characters work well with ER weapons, like Favonius or Sacrificial series. The only exception in the Sacrificial series is Sacrificial Fragments, which grants EM as sub-stats. That weapon is meant for Sucrose, to give her EM and a second third cast of Elemental Skill. You can hardly find a better weapon, unless your team doesn’t have Bennett, in that case, Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers becomes an option.
Artifacts
Sucrose works with either the Viridescent Venerer or the Instructor Set. Viridescent Venerer deals more damage, but requires more specific rotations, while Instructor gives stable but lesser damage. The Instructor set is also easier to farm, and cheaper to upgrade.
Note that both sets require Sucrose to be an active character on the field to proc the reaction and give a bonus. So make sure to apply Cryo, or Pyro before switching to Sucrose and using her Skills. Also stay on her to collect Anemo elemental particles otherwise you won’t recharge her Burst in time. If you are in the Abyss, and have her Burst ready at the start, just use her Burst in the first rotation, and switch to cast all other characters Elemental Skills and Burst, before coming back to her to cast Elemental Skill to fill the downtime on her burst.
We hope you found this Ganyu build useful, and hopefully it gives you a good idea of how to maximize Ganyu’s potential.
Genshin Impact 2.1 update is now available to play on PC, iOS, Android and PS4 and PS5. If you enjoyed this Genshin Impact Guide be sure to check out more even more info on our Genshin Impact Wiki. You can also keep an eye out for more guides and be sure to not miss our Ayaka The Snow Bird build. As well as, our Genshin Impact Character Tier List: Reverse Melt (Cryo).
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