Genshin Impact Build: Xinyan, The Dragonspine Explorer

In this Genshin Impact Guide I’m going to be showing you my Dragonspine Explorer build for Xinyan, that utilizes both her physical buff, and Superconduct debuff to deal massive physical damage. Xinyan has a Pyro Vision, so she can be easily paired with a second Pyro for a good damage buff. It’s designed to counter Cryo enemies found in Dragonspine, the new area introduced in the 1.2 content update. Composing a party for each situation in Genshin Impact can be a bit of a challenge, especially with the limited options for those focusing on free-to-play. So in this Guide I’ll explain how to make an explorer out of Xinyan, to do open world challenges, as well as endgame content. I’ll go through what Weapons to use, what Artifacts to upgrade and which companions to pick up. If you’ve been looking for a Free to Play Build for the newest content, then check this one out!

Genshin Impact Build: Xinyan, The Dragonspine Explorer – Free To Play Guide

Xinyan is a four star character, which was featured as a rate up character in Zhongli‘s Wish Banner during December. Due to this, you had a high chance to get her and several of her Constellations unlocked. Xinyan is good as a physical support role, and it’s the easiest way to build her. But with one or two Constellations, her damage dealing capabilities start to shine. Content in the subzero environment is dangerous, and it’s better to face them with a versatile Pyro team. If you don’t have any of the Pyro five star characters such as Diluc or Klee, this Dragonspine Explorer Build is a strong alternative.

[Update – You can also gain one four-star character during the “Stand By Me” event which starts from February 10th at 10:00 AM until February 28th 03:59:59 AM, by reaching Festive Fever Stage “Glow of a Thousand Lanterns”. You will need to spend 1,000 Peace Talismans to claim them. The options include a choice of either Xiangling, Beidou, Xinyan, Ningguang, Xingqiu, or Chongyun.]

Xinyan‘s damage has many components, and that’s why it’s not obvious how to build her at first glance. Her Elemental Skill deals Pyro damage, and creates a shield that scales with Defense. If the Elemental Skill hits more than one target, it also procs a Pyro DoT that scales with Attack. Her Elemental Burst is one of the strongest physical Talents in the game, and with her second Constellation unlocked, it always scores a critical hit, and creates a maxed shield. So, it’s ideal to build her for physical damage. We can pair her with an Electro character, and a Cryo character for Superconduct, with these two options being quite versatile. Then we pick a second Pyro character such as Bennett for better damage and energy recharge.

Xinyan, Dragonspine Explorer Attributes

Xinyan is not the best carry on her own, due to smaller modifiers on her Normal Attack. We compensate for this by building her more like a burst character, and put her in rotation with characters who have short cooldowns. The best damage Xinyan outputs is her Elemental burst, so we get Elemental Burst damage from a one-set bonus. Afterwards, we aim to get all sources of Physical damage bonus, as well as Crit Rate and Crit Dmg. Finally % Attack and Energy Recharge are good, but have the least priority. With Xinyan, if you get a random Defense stat on Artifacts, it makes a stronger shield, and does not waste stats.

If you have a second Constellation for Xinyan, her Elemental Burst will always score a Critical hit. In this case, we want to focus more on Crit Damage, than Crit Rate and it’s not necessary to keep 1:2 ratio. I’d raise Crit Rate over 40~50%, for Normal Attacks, then go all the way for Crit Damage.

There’s a specific trick to get Xinyan to recharge her Energy very fast, with a minimum investment in the Energy Recharge stat. It relies on spamming Bennett‘s Elemental Skill which has a very short cooldown. It’s viable because you don’t lose any of your buff when switching Xinyan out, and losing her sustained damage is not a big deal while her shield is down.

Xinyan, Dragonspine Explorer Weapon

The Dragonspine Explorer Build requires a good Claymore to get good burst and consistent damage. I wouldn’t recommend any of the three star weapons for this particular build. Debate Club is passable at low levels, but you are better off with a Snow-Tombed Starsilver. So replace it quickly, and pass it down to another Claymore user.

I recommend getting the new four star Claymore, Snow-Tombed Starsilver. The weapon is only obtainable from the newly opened Dragonspine area. It requires you to interact with eight stone tablets in Dragonspine, with some hidden behind Pyro and Cryo puzzles. It’s another reason to bring Xinyan and her party along with you.

The weapon is designed with Xinyan in mind, and it comes with the latest patch. It’s one of the reasons she competes in terms of damage with S tier damage dealers. It has the highest base attack (44), similar to Prototype Aminus. However, it has Physical Damage as a sub stat, which is much more powerful than Attack percentage. On top of that, its passive allows Xinyan to do extra physical hits on enemies every 10 seconds. The passive deals more damage to enemies who have the Cryo element, so it’s even stronger with Kaeya or Qiqi on your team. Xinyan entertains more benefits from this sword than Razor or any other Claymore user, because she has the highest Physical to Elemental damage ratio. In short, it’s the best free-to-play weapon for her.

The Ultimate Weapon

There is another weapon that came out at the same time Xinyan was released, the five star The Unforged. This weapon has higher base stats than all four stars, and the same as Wolf’s Gravestone, and also has a massive Attack sub stat. Its passive increases both shield strength, and attack value while you have a shield up. It encourages a burst style with Xinyan, where you attack while her shield’s up, and switch out when it’s down. It requires few hits to reach maximum potential, but it has no cooldown (versus Wolf’s Gravestone which has a very long cooldown).

The weapon was obtainable from the weapon banner in early December, 2020 at the same time as Zhongli‘s and Xinyan‘s banner were available. It’s no longer there, so you can’t wish for it until it shows up in another banner in few months. But if you already have this weapon and wonder what’s the best use for it, you have your answer.

The alternative

An alternative for The Unforged is the battle pass weapon, Serpent Spine. The reason Serpent Spine competes with 5 star weapons is that Xinyan takes zero damage while her shield is up, so she can maintain a full 5 passive stacks. This passive gives characters 6% more DMG and they take 3% more DMG per stack, and gain a stack every 4 seconds with said character on the field. This effect has a maximum of 5 stacks and will not be reset if the character leaves the field, but will be reduced by 1 stack when the character takes DMG. And the sub stat on it is Crit Rate, which is very strong, whether you have her second Constellation or not. So if you are a low-budget player, it’s best in slot if you don’t have perfect Crit Chance rolls on Artifacts.

Xinyan, Dragonspine Explorer 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. In this section, I will save you some time as I’ve set this up for maximum performance in this build.

Bloodstained Chivalry/Noblesse Oblige

When it comes to choosing an Artifact Set for a less straight-forward character like Xinyan, there are many factors to consider, but it all boils down to amplifying the strongest source of damage. For instance, a typical Physical Carry build such as Razor, the Incredible Wolf would choose 4 pieces of the Gladiator’s Finale Set. That’s because the Normal Attack is the source of his damage, and a 35% damage multiplier is better than everything else. Xinyan on the other hand, uses Elemental Burst, so 4 pieces of the Gladiator’s Finale wouldn’t really cut it.

What we should compile for Xinyan is two pieces of the Noblesse Oblige for 20% Elemental Burst damage, and two pieces of the Bloodstained Chivalry for 25% Physical damage. This results in a 45% damage multiplier for Elemental Burst, and a 25% multiplier for Normal Attack, which is very convenient. What’s more convenient is the fact that you can farm these two sets from “Clear Pool and Mountain Cavern”. This is a very easy domain to farm solo with Xinyan, because her shield will protect you from Cryo, and her Pyro is very effective at bringing down the Cryo shields enemies have there. You also get to farm more Noblesse Oblige pieces for a full set bonus on Bennett.

Until you farm good pieces of each set, use two pieces of Gladiator’s Finale temporarily.

Flower of Life & Plume of Death

These two pieces have their main stat predetermined, and they are flat HP and Attack respectively. I wouldn’t focus on leveling them, unless they are five star Artifacts, and have good sub-stats to go with them. To make the decision of leveling them or not, ask yourself: how likely is it that you will get a better piece next month?

We want any combination of Crit Rate, and Crit Damage on sub-stats here. With % Attack, Energy recharge, and % Def being good bonuses, but with a lower priority.

Sands of Eon

We want % Attack as the main stat on the Timepiece, because it’s the best among various choices here. It’s easier to roll the stat we want (% Attack) on this piece than other pieces, so wait until you get some good sub-stats to go with it. These stats are Crit Rate, and Crit Damage. Second to them is Energy Recharge, flat Attack, and Def percentage.

Goblet of Enotherm

We must pick up a Goblet with Physical Damage Bonus as its main stat, and nothing else. What’s good about the Physical Damage Bonus is that it rolls a higher number on Goblets than Elemental Damage. A fully leveled five star Goblet would have either 58.3% Physical damage, or 46.6% Cryo, Pyro etc. So in a perfect scenario, we could get 58.3% from a Goblet, 34.5% from the Snow-Tombed Starsilver, 25% from Set bonus, and 15% from the “Now That’s Rock ‘N’ Roll!” passive, for a total of a 132.8% Physical Damage multiplier! This is insane amounts of damage already, that can be multiplied again by Critical Damage, and Elemental Burst Damage.

Now it’s harder to get the right main stats on the Goblet, because it can roll every type of damage, making the pool of modifiers huge. So what we do is complete our Set with the 4 other Artifacts, and prioritize Physical Damage Bonus on a Goblet from any Set. This freedom allows us to pick the best Physical Damage Bonus Goblet, with some good sub-stats. These stats are Crit Rate, and Crit Damage. And second to them are % Attack, and Energy Recharge.

Circlet of Logos

We need this Headpiece dedicated to either Crit Rate or Crit Damage as the main stat. It’s a very important stat you can’t easily replace. Crit Rate is usually the better stat in the early game while your build lacks Crit Rate anywhere else. But by endgame, you should have better and better Artifacts with better sub-stats, so you should shift the focus to Crit Damage on the main stat. Get as many good sub stats as you can, such as % Attack, Crit Rate, and Crit Damage. With Energy recharge and Def being better than HP.

Xinyan, Dragonspine Explorer Talent Skills

Dance on Fire

Normal Attacks consist of four times the combo, which is typical for the majority of Claymore users. Xinyan however, doesn’t have a forward slash, meaning she will not knock enemies back very far. Her first two hits are quick and fast, the third hitting slower but wide. Finally, her fourth hit is much stronger and knocks enemies a short distance. Animation cancelling doesn’t help Xinyan do more damage, so you want to finish her combo for the stronger final hit. As she uses a shield, you are less inclined to dodge with Xinyan. This gives you a small increase in damage, as you spend more time attacking, and less time moving.

All of the above barely compensates for her low damage modifiers on Normal Attacks. What truly compensates, is her First Constellation, which gives her 12% Attack Speed for 5 seconds after scoring a Crit hit. Now that takes her damage to a whole new level, and allows fluid combat movement between enemies. That’s why I wouldn’t seriously consider Xinyan a good Carry without C1, and would use her only in a burst role. But with C1, you can comfortably stay and attack with her longer, especially while her shield is up.

Sweeping Fervor

The famous shield of Xinyan is the weakest Talent shield in the game, and you need to acknowledge this fact to build her correctly. No matter how hard you try to keep their shield up, 100% of the time, there will be many situations where it goes off. It has less damage absorption than any other character’s shield. So if you use Diona‘s shield on top of it and take damage, Xinyan’s shield will go out before Diona’s. That causes loss of the Physical damage buff, and renders building around the Retracing Bolide Set impossible. It’s a trap that you don’t want to fall for. That being said, let’s talk about the huge advantages you get from this shield.

Even though it will not stay for the full duration, Xinyan‘s shield will stay for long enough to do enough burst damage, before switching out. It will not last 12 seconds, but can stay between 6~8 seconds, which aligns well with the Superconduct duration. This time frame is also perfect if you pair Xinyan with Beidou, who has a 7.5 seconds cooldown on her Elemental Skill, and Kaeya who has a mere 6 seconds CD on his Elemental Skill. Switching to dealing damage with other characters and refresh Superconduct is a quick and dynamic playstyle, that rewards you for mastering it.

Shield Tiers

There’s more though, shields have three tiers in strength, depending on the number of opponents hit with the Elemental Skill. Xinyan has a passive unlocked at Ascension level 4, “The Show Goes On, Even Without An Audience…”, which decreases the number of opponents required to hit. So if you hit nothing, you get shield Tier 1, one opponent gives you Tier 2, and finally hitting two opponents gives you the maximum tier. The highest tier shield has an extra feature that pulses with fire every two seconds, dealing AOE Pyro damage. This DoT is a very crucial part to Xinyan’s kit, as it’s very effective at bringing down Cryo shields of the Fatui, Slimes, and Hilichurls found in Dragonspine. Also this helps a bit against other elemental shields.

It’s not possible to get the highest tier shield against single targets, unless you have the second Constellation, and use an Elemental burst. So make sure to bring down foes with shields first, and not leave them for the end.

Riff Revolution

Elemental Burst is the main reason why Xinyan shines in DPS, specifically Physical Damage. It’s the single highest physical DPS talent in the entire game. Not only that, but it also releases some waves of fire, dealing additional Pyro damage. We don’t scale Pyro damage, but similar to her Elemental Skill, Xinyan’s Elemental Burst is good at bringing down Cryo shields. It has a 12 seconds cooldown, and a moderate 60 Energy cost, but with smart switching to Bennett and using his Elemental Skill, we can regenerate Energy very fast to spam it. It also launches enemies a couple of times in the two second duration. This way they lose their footing, and can be knocked over and fall down, which is a good crowd controling method.

Finally, if we have Xinyan‘s second Constellation, the Elemental Burst always causes a Crit, regardless of Crit Rate. It’s huge a modifier, that lets us focus more on the Crit Damage stat on our equipment. But also, it grants the highest tier shield, allowing Xinyan a second round with a Physical Damage buff, and protection, not to mention the amazing animation of the talent being performed. Overall, this skill is the reason we pick Xinyan, and make a dedicated build featuring her.

Xinyan, Dragonspine Explorer Party Composition

Genshin Impact has a unique playstyle that depends on switching characters, and chaining combos across these characters. So a solid part of Xinyan‘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. I’ll only use Four Star characters here, to make sure it’s achievable for free to play players, but also mention worthy five stars.

Bennett

Our second Pyro character must be Bennett, because we have some offensive uses for him. Previously, our philosophy in building Bennett revolved around getting the best heals and Attack buffs from him. But with the release of 1.2 and The Chalk Prince and the Dragon event, we are granted a free four star weapon, Festering Desire, alongside free refining materials to get it to maximum refinement level. This weapon is the perfect fit for Bennett and several other characters. We use it to maintain his role as healer and support, and also adding layers of damage and energy recharge.

With this build, we focus on both his Elemental Skill, and Elemental Burst, as the first deals some good damage, and generates Pyro particles that recharge energy for himself and Xinyan. And the latter provides the typical healing and attack buff. So build Bennett for both damage and healing, which makes him a bit more expensive, but totally worth it.

Stats

For healing, we need HP stats, and it’s easy to get % HP as the main stat on most Artifacts, then get some flat HP on sub stats. Also naturally leveling Bennett increases his base HP, and increasing his Elemental Burst talent level is very important to maximize his healing. but getting Healing Bonus on a Headpiece is more efficient than HP though. The weapon takes care of Energy Recharge, so we are free to build more useful stats on Artifacts.

For the damage counterpart, we need the Pyro Damage Bonus on main stats, and some Attack, Crit Rate, and Crit damage on sub stats.

Weapon

If you took part in The Chalk Prince and the Dragon event, you were guaranteed to get the Festering Desire sword, and its refinement materials. The weapon combines very interesting stats together, with Energy recharge being a secondary stat, and Elemental Skill damage and Crit Rate. At max refinement, it increases Elemental Skill DMG by 32% and Elemental Skill CRIT Rate by 12%. If built for full offense, it turns Bennett into mini Diluc. And if built for healing, it still provides very nice damage, without messing with the healing capabilities.

Artifacts

As usual, we use four pieces of the Noblesse Oblige Artifact Set, since it provides damage for the entire party. It buffs Bennett‘s damage as well as Xinyan‘s, so it’s a must-have on the team. If you have a full Noblesse Oblige set on another party member though, we can use two pieces from the Maiden Beloved Set, and two pieces from the Gambler or Crimson Witch of Flames sets, for both better healing and better damage.

For the main stat, we use HP% on most pieces, to the point where we feel we are safe enough with his healing. If we don’t need a full HP setup, we can get Pyro damage bonus on the Goblet, and % Attack on the Headpiece. The reason why I wouldn’t give him Crit as the main bonus on his Headpiece is that Xinyan uses two pieces of Noblesse Oblige as well, and she’s better with such strong Artifacts. For sub stats, get Crit Rate and Crit Damage where applicable, as well as flat HP.

Beidou

The leader of Crux Fleet, and the Pirate Queen, is Beidou. Her vision is Electro, and her weapon is Claymore. Normally, she’s in a niche position, with her very unique playstyle that focuses on Perfect Counters with Elemental Skill. It’s typically a binary decision, whether you are capable of performing perfect counters or not determines if you will play Beidou or not. Both higher ping, and delay input from FPS drop on lower end devices affect timing your perfect counter. In addition it’s the hassle of switching to certain characters in certain situations every few seconds. All of this results in many people opting out of playing Beidou. In this build however, we cheat the system and bypass most restrictions by simply pairing her with Xinyan.

Beidou’s perfect Counter

So here’s how Beidou‘s Elemental Skill works. Upon pressing and holding the Elemental Skill button, Beidou channels her Electro power into a shield that can absorb incoming damage. And when she releases the button or the duration expires, she swings her greatsword with massive Electro power. The damage she deals with this skill scales with the number of hits she has absorbed, with maximum damage achieved at two hits taken. That’s the normal counter, that takes some time to pull off, and is usually inefficient. The perfect counter however, involves pressing and releasing the Elemental Skill at exactly the right time when an enemy is about to hit her. Fully charged or Perfect counter have a wider area, releasing full damage, and gives Beidou some buffs.

What we do to conjure a Perfect Counter is using Xinyan’s Elemental Skill to set the grass on fire. Standing on burning grass is considered being hit all the time, even if we don’t take damage because of shield absorption. So we simply switch to Beidou, press her Elemental Skill, and release, and even if no enemy is hitting us at all, it still guarantees a perfect counter.

There’s another method we use in Domains and Spiral Abyss, where there’s no grass. We simply stand in AOE damage circles on the ground, while having Xinyan’s shield up to avoid taking damage or negative effects. And as you see, it all possible, thanks to Xinyan.

Beidou’s Elemental Burst buff

Similar to Xingqiu, the Elemental Burst of Beidou allows her to attack with Electro with each Normal Attack, and persists after switching. The Additional attack jumps between two enemies, and with her Second Constellation, it jumps up to 4 enemies. This creates effective AOE at range with just Normal Attacks. If Beidou is built for damage, it’s great additional damage, and if she’s built for Elemental mastery, it’s good for an elemental reaction. The elemental reaction we are interested in is Superconduct, which requires a Cryo character like Kaeya to perform. Superconduct lowers enemy Physical resistances, allowing Xinyan to deal more damage to them.

There’s a chance that Beidou’s damage will react with Pyro damage instead, resulting in an Overload explosion. This will knock back smaller enemies, and stagger larger enemies. But if both Kaeya and Beidou have their elemental burst up, they will apply Cryo and Electro fast enough to proc Superconduct. Or you can switch to Kaeya after Beidou uses her Elemental Burst, and do two quick normal attacks to clear any Pyro element before using his Cryo talents to proc Superconduct. It lasts around 8-9 seconds, so you only need to proc it once.

If all of the above proves a big hassle to you, or if you don’t have Beidou, just use Fischl instead. She’s very simple to build, and effective at the same time. I’m just letting you know that you are wasting a good opportunity to utilize Beidou.