Kaeya and Rosaria Reverse Melt Build Guide

In this Genshin Impact Guide I’m going to be showing you my Reverse Melt Build for Kaeya & Rosaria, which specializes in a full quick swap playstyle. It relies on proccing Reverse Melt on both of Kaeya & Rosaria’s talents. It’s one of the rare teams that consistently amplify attacks of the two characters, with the potential to Forward Melt Bennett‘s Burst as well. Even with two Cryo characters, this team can establish enough Pyro aura through Xiangling Burst, and Bennett Skill. Kaeya‘s Burst hit so fast, but it has an ICD for cryo application, which slows it down, allowing Rosaria to Melt her attacks as well.

This is a budget-friendly version of quick-swap team builds, making it suitable for new and free to play players. It’s designed to just cycle through the entire team, casting elemental skill and elemental burst on cooldown. That goes without stopping to do normal or charged attacks, nor stopping to collect elemental particles on same character. The damage of this team accumulates to great heights, thanks to several characters doing damage.

In this Guide I’ll explain just how to build the Kaeya & Rosaria Melt Build to face a wide variety of content, deal potent damage, and counter all situations that Genshin Impact has to throw at you. On top of that, it makes a perfect team to finish the Spiral Abyss with. So it’s one all-rounder build if you’ve been looking for a Free to Play, four-star only build. Both Kaeya and Xiangling are guaranteed characters, while Bennett and Rosaria are easy to acquire. This team can start with zero consultations, but scale well the more you get. This setup is easy to get going for new players, and stay strong from early game to endgame. I’ll go through what Weapons to use, what Artifacts to upgrade and which companions to pick up, so check this one out!

Generally, building several characters for DPS can be expensive in resin. However, you can outfit Kaeya & Rosaria Reverse Melt Build mostly from one domain, so it brings down the cost quite a lot. With the option to farm different domains and optimize the team further if you play long enough. The team is easy and fun to use, with good visuals, fluid transitions, and no complicated combos.

In our combo, Xiangling provides a quick Pyro application to melt both Kaeya and Rosaria’s elemental burst and skill. Bennett applies additional Pyro and buffs the entire team. All of Xiangling, Kaeya, and Rosaria can snapshot the stats at the start of their burs, that’s how they maintain Bennett‘s Attack buff for the entire duration of the burst. Rosaria also buffs the entire team with Crit Rate stat upon Burst, which can be snapshot in the same way. Using two Pyro characters, a Pyro resonance buffs the team’s attack further. Then we also have Cryo resonance, which buffs Crit rate against enemies affected by Cryo. That matters only at the start of the combo to Forward Melt Bennett‘s Burst, because at the rest of rotation, enemies are affected by Pyro instead.

What Second Abyss Team to Use With a Kaeya & Rosaria Melt Build

Unlike Ganyu builds, the team doesn’t need the buff from Viridescent Venerer. The reason for this is, each single character on the team provides more value than a single anemo character. That frees up your Anemo unit to join the second team if you wanted, and also free up Xingqiu. That’s particularly good with Amp teams that don’t rely on Bennett or Xiangling, such as Hu Tao and Thoma or Hu Tao and Xinyan with Xingqiu and an Anemo character. Also Yanfei Vaporize teams, with Zhongli instead of Bennett.

The other option for a second Abyss team is to run along with this build as an Anemo hyper carry Xiao team. Also, any Geo team such as Noelle, The Invulnerable Maid, Ningguang, The Geo Empress, or new Itto builds when he comes out. Then there’s a wide variety of Overload teams, such as the Zhongli Overload Build, or Sucrose version with Xingqiu, Beidou and Fischl which is another four stars only, free to play build. Finally, you could mix and match between two archetypes as intended in the Beidou, Wolf Of Land And Sea Build.

Rosaria Melt Build Attributes

We can give both Kaeya and Rosaria an identical build, however, in a Reverse Melt setup, Rosaria will be the one melting every hit, while Kaeya only melts a portion of his damage. So I consider Rosaria the main damage dealer, and focus to build her first and foremost.

Rosaria is a very powerful character that only needs a simple build. Her energy cost is 60, and with a second Cryo teammate, she doesn’t need much Energy Recharge. So we setup her build with a pure damage stat, such as Elemental Mastery on Sands, Cryo Damage on Goblet, and Crit Rate or Crit Damage on Circlet.

Bennett provides a massive Attack Buff to the entire team, while we don’t have any EM sharing buff on the team, so this means Rosaria needs EM more than % Attack on sands. Even if you use a strong EM weapon such as Dragon’s Bane, you could still use EM Sands, as long as EM doesn’t go over 500.

For sub stats, we can utilize all offensive stats of % Attack, EM, Crit Rate, and Crit Damage. Then some Energy Recharge would be welcome as well. % HP will only be beneficial if you use Staff of Homa as a weapon.

If you build Rosaria as the main Melt damage dealer, you want to maintain a 1:2 Crit Rate: Crit DMG ratio for maximum damage. Rosaria has a passive that grants her 12% extra Crit Rate upon landing an Elemental Skill on the backside of the enemy. Some enemy bosses have no obvious backside, and Rosaria can’t go through all large enemies, making this buff situational. So for the sake of balancing the 1:2 ratio, don’t take this buff into consideration. If she lands it, it’s a nice additional Crit Chance, but we don’t rely on it solely.

Rosaria Melt Build Weapon

Rosaria is a spear user or a Polearm as the game calls it. This weapon has very strong options for both free to play and those willing to spend. We can focus on Elemental Damage and Reactions only. So Rosaria can go for an all-out Melt reaction build, with an Elemental Mastery weapon. Or emphasize her Crit buffing, which scaling with her own Crit Rate.

Note that Xiangling also uses a Polearm, so she will compete with Rosaria on which weapon to use. You have to consider how you would equip both of them.

Free & Craftable Four Star Weapons

Kitain Cross Spear is a craftable Polearm, you get its schematic from a quest in the Inazuma region. It has a high base attack (up to 565) and Elemental Mastery sub stat. Then has a passive that helps generate some energy back for the wielder. Overall a good starting weapon for free to play players.

The Energy regeneration mechanism helps recharge Rosaria’s Burst. However, it doesn’t scale damage with the Emblem of Severed Fate artifact set, as it doesn’t give a Energy Recharge stat. So for optimal setup, you might want a better weapon.

Kitain Cross Spear is decent on Xiangling as well, especially at high refinement, for the extra Energy it generates. However, it’s Rosaria who procs the Melt reaction, so Rosaria benefits more from the Elemental Mastery sub stat. While Xiangling has no use for it.

The Catch is another free weapon any player can acquire through fishing, and exchanging the fish for the weapon from a certain NPC in Inazuma. The weapon offers an Energy Recharge sub stat, and a passive that gives 32% Elemental Burst multiplier and 12% CRIT Rate.

Catching enough fish to get this weapon takes several days of fishing and waiting for fish to respawn. However, the result is well worth it, and The Catch is generally the best free to play polearm for several characters, including Rosaria. Melting Rosaria’s Elemental Burst hit does the majority of her damage, so applying multipliers to it is very beneficial.

It’s a better weapon than Kitain Cross Spear, but Xiangling will make better use of it, for the additional Energy Recharge. So if you are stuck with a free to play weapon only, give The Catch to Xiangling, and Kitain Cross Spear to Rosaria.

Gacha 4 Star Weapons

Rosaria has a good gacha alternative in Dragon’s Bane, which is another EM weapon. It has a lower base attack than Kitain, a higher EM stat, and a good damage multiplier against enemies affected by Hydro or Pyro. This multiplier starts at 20% at R1 and goes up to 36% at R5. Considering Rosaria can Melt all hits of her Elemental Burst, it’s a very good weapon for this build.

If you do your rotation properly and have enough Energy to cast all team bursts on cooldown, then Dragon’s Bane will be very valuable. At higher refinement, it can beat most five star weapons. It’s also not needed by Xiangling in this comp, since Rosaria is the damage dealer, and Xiangling is the support.

Battle Pass Four Star Weapons

Deathmatch fits Rosaria more than any other spear user character. That’s especially true with the way Rosaria buffs the team’s Crit Rate based on 15% of her own Crit rate. Deathmatch has one of the highest Crit Rate stats in the game, even higher than five-star weapons. It also has some Attack from passive, depending on the number of enemies present.

It helps with the fact that Rosaria doesn’t have a Crit ascension stat, to ease down the artifact requirements for her. Due to the massive Crit Rate it gives (37%), this allows you to switch to the Crit Damage Circlet. Overall a great weapon, with the only downside of having to pay real money to get it.

Gacha 5 Star Weapons

Staff of Homa is the signature weapon of Hu Tao, featured only in one limited weapon banner that was released alongside her banner. It’s the best Polearm in the game, and the best in slot for many other Polearm users, Rosaria included. It’s also considered better than most other weapon categories, and just an overpowered weapon in all regards. If you manage to get Rosaria’s HP under 50%, Homa is the best in slot weapon. But that’s very hard with Bennett in the party, so the damage difference between R5 Dragon’s Bane and Homa is not huge. Considering this team synergizes well with Hu Tao in the second half (Abyss), so if you ever pull this weapon, it’s best to give it to Hu Tao rather than Rosaria.

With 4 pieces Emblem set, and 140% Energy recharge, overall weapon strength order is as follows:

Staff of Homa (Under 50% HP) > Staff of Homa (100% Hp) => Primordial Jade Winged-Spear (2 stacks) > R5 Dragon’s Bane > R1 Deathmatch => R5 The Catch > R1 Dragon’s Bane > R1 Skyward Spine > R1 Kitain Cross Spear > everything else

To check the damage calculations behind this conclusion, feel free to take a look at my Rosaria Google spreadsheet.

Rosaria Melt Build 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 do get a bit complicated. In this section, I will save you some time as I’ve set this up for maximum performance for this Kaeya and Rosaria Melt 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 debuffs 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.

If you play Hu Tao in the other half of the Abyss, then you are likely to farm the domain of Lavawalker. Hu Tao uses the other set dropped from this domain, and you will be left with many Lavawalker pieces in your inventory anyway.

Assuming perfect rotation, and elemental application, Lavawalker is at least 3% better than any other option. However, it only provides a raw damage bonus, conditionally with no other utility. So other options with utility can compete with it, even with slightly less damage.

Emblem of Severed Fate

The new Artifact set 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 the character has. With a character like Rosaria who relies mainly on Elemental Burst, it’s a perfect fit. That’s especially true with the help it provides to generate energy for maximum uptime of Elemental Burst.

With merely 140% Energy Recharge, Emblem of Severed Fate can compete with other sets in terms of damage. It outshines them in terms of Burst uptime, so I’d say Emblem of Severed Fate is the standard set for Rosaria, as well as Kaeya and Xiangling. So you can farm one domain and equip almost the entire party.

Hybrid set

There are four artifact sets you can mix and match, handpicking the best pieces of each set to get better sub stats. That option is likely the option every free to play player leans towards. It costs less Resin to use Hybrid sets, and the damage output can be the equivalent or even better than full sets. These sets are:

Blizzard Strayer for 15% Cryo Damage bonus, Noblesse Oblige for 20% Elemental Burst damage, Gladiator’s Finale or Shimenawa’s Reminiscence for 18% Attack. There’s a fifth option in Wanderer’s Troupe for 80 Elemental Mastery. But that’s only good if you don’t use an Elemental Mastery weapon such as Dragon’s Bane.

Rosaria Melt Build Talent Skills

Spear of the Church

Performs rapid 5 attacks, with wide swings, and vertical hits. Rosaria has actually a good Normal attack combo, that helps her physical builds. However in a quick swap build, melt comp, it’s irrelevant so we don’t end up using it.

Ravaging Confession

A dash that can cut through enemies, and a backstab Rosaria performs by using her elemental skill. The skill hits twice, with two different modifiers, and usually it’s hard to Melt both hits. The second hit has a higher multiplier, but is harder to Melt because the first hit likely will consume most of the Pyro aura. You can test some rotations to Melt both hits, but it’s a huge effort, and messes with team energy generation.

There are other unique mechanics tied with Elemental Skill, which give it a utility more important than direct damage. Rosaria buffs her own Crit Rate by 12% upon landing the backstab on the backside of the enemy. This buff can then be snapshotted with her Burst, for higher overall damage. Landing backstab on the backside of the enemy is harder on larger enemies, as the dash can’t go through them. It requires you to position her perfectly behind enemies just before you cast an elemental skill.

Ravaging Confession has a very short cooldown of a mere 6 seconds, so it helps greatly with a quick-swap playstyle. 6 seconds is less than the time needed to cast the entire team’s elemental skills and bursts, so you have the option to cast it twice in one rotation. Or cast it once on cooldown without a full rotation (e.g. while both Skill and Burst of Xiangling are on cooldown).

Usually, you will feed Cryo particles from Kaeya to Rosaria, to keep quick swapping nonstop. However, casting all Cryo talents in a row can consume all Pyro aura, and replace it with Cryo instead. This will not allow of Melting both Rosaria and Kaeya‘s attacks. The solution to this is casting Bennett’s Skill in between Kaeya and Rosaria’s. Which in turn make Xiangling not collect the Pyro particles from Bennett, so do it only if Xiangling‘s burst is already full.

Rites of Termination

Rosaria has a very strong elemental burst, that has no internal cooldown. It ticks every two seconds, and you can melt every tick of it. At zero Constellations, Rites of Termination lasts for 8 seconds, ticking 4 times total. But at C2, the duration is extended to 12 seconds, with a total of 6 ticks, that’s why C2 is a massive damage upgrade. Two seconds is a generous amount of time to re-apply pyro aura, even with Kaeya melting his attacks as well.

The most tricky part about Rosaria’s elemental burst in this composition is positioning. Since we don’t get to freeze enemies, they can simply, walk away from it. So you need to cast it on top of ranged enemies since melee enemies will chase after you anyway. Against enemies capable of teleporting, it’s better to hold until they teleport, then use it. That way you ensure enemies get more hits before they move away.

Rites of Termination snapshot Rosaria stats on cast, and last the entire duration. So depending on your rotation, you are able to catch all the buffs the team provides, and get to abuse full damage. These buffs are: Rosaria’s self-buff of 12% Crit Rate, Bennett attack buff, then either Noblesse Oblige Attack buff or Instructor EM buff, depending on which you use on Bennett.

Snapshotting

There’s another buff Rosaria gives to the team, and not herself, upon casting Elemental Burst. Its Crit Rate buff equals 15% of her own Crit Rate. It takes into consideration the self-buff from the Elemental Skill. That means if Rosaria has a 60% Critical Rate in her character sheet, she gets another 12% from the Skill cast, for a total of 72%. Then she gives 15% of that as a Crit Rate for the entire party, which is 10.8%.

That’s an amazing boost in team damage, especially in a situation with a second damage dealer such as Kaeya. The buff generated with Elemental Burst lasts for 10s, which is usually enough to snapshot into other characters’ Bursts.

Rosaria can snapshot all buffs by herself, and also allows other characters to snapshot her own buff. This creates a paradox, where you want to use Rosaria last in the rotation to max out her own damage, but also you want to use her first to buff all of the other characters. This is mostly resolved with a quick swap playstyle. Mostly, you want to use her last in the first rotation, since that will max her damage. Then you will have enough time in the second rotation to snapshot her buff with Kaeya.

Kaeya‘s Burst has a 15-second cooldown, so you can use his Burst early on in the rotation, and Rosaria bursts late in the rotation. That way, Rosaria’s buff starts late, and Kaeya‘s burst ends its cooldown and is ready before Rosaria’s buff ends.

Finally, if Rosaria doesn’t have enough ER, you might want to alternate your second rotation to funnel energy from Kaeya‘s E to Rosaria.

Rosaria Melt Build Team Composition

Genshin Impact has a unique playstyle that relies on switching characters and chaining combos across these characters. So a solid part of Rosaria’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 synergize well with this build. It’s universally recommended for you to use a five-star support character, but our build could be done with four-star characters only as well. There’s hardly any five-star characters (at zero constellations) worth putting in our quick swap setup, if you don’t have one then it’s not a lost cause.

Kaeya

Kaeya in our Reverse Melt team is not a support, not a sub DPS, and is also not an enabler. He is the second DPS character with a similar or identical build to Rosaria. That requires much investment for endgame content of course, but he can start slow at early game, and you keep building him from there. He’s a guaranteed character so every player has him, and he works perfectly fine without any constellations. So he will establish his strong presence in the team from quite early on.

You can build Kaeya for reaction damage, Burst Damage, or a general Cryo Damage multiplier. You can give him pieces left from Rosaria, or build a different set entirely.

Stats

Go straight for EM on Sands, Cryo Damage on Goblet, and Crit Rate or Crit Damage on headpiece as main stats. For the sub stats, focus on Attack, and Crit Rate or Crit Damage. If you are using a weapon with EM though (such as Iron Sting, or Freedom-Sworn) you should switch to % Attack Sands. The reason is to not get massive diminishing returns from EM, since Kaeya doesn’t Melt every hit from his combo.

With two Cryo characters, and Kaeya‘s Ascension stat of Energy Recharge, you will rarely suffer Energy Recharge problems. Kaeya can use the Emblem of Severed Fate set, without any Energy Recharge stat from the main or sub stats. At level 80/90, he has a 26.7% ER, then Emblem of Severed Fate comes with a 20% on its own, for a total of 46.7% ER. That’s enough to make Emblem his best set, while still using Attack or EM as the main stat on Sands, and Crit stat on the weapon. It’s a huge advantage that makes him very strong.

Weapon

If you are a newer player, without many weapon options available, you can equip Kaeya with the three-star weapon Harbinger of Dawn. This weapon beats most of the four-star weapons in terms of damage. With one caveat being it requires Kaeya‘s HP to stay over 95% all the time. It gives both a high Critical Rate and Critical Damage, which elevates all damage.

With Bennett healing only up to 70%, and no shield source on the team, it’s impossible to recover Kaeya over 95% HP once he gets hit. So your only option with the Harbinger of Dawn is to never let Kaeya take damage. It might seem easier on paper, with a quick-swap team, where Kaeya stays for very little time on the field. However, it needs so much practice, because one mistake can cost you damage for the entire floor.

If you don’t want to deal with such a hassle, you can craft Iron Sting. It gives a little less damage but provides more consistency. However, that weapon is only a starting point and not a great option for DPS in the long run. Keep it as a placeholder, until you get the true best four-star, Lion’s Roar.

Gacha 4 Star Weapons

Lion’s Roar is a massive upgrade over any free weapon, especially on higher refinement. That’s mainly due to the passive that gives a straight damage multiplier to all enemies affected by Pyro. The bonus gets up to 36% at refinement level 5, which makes it a very good weapon to pull, if you ever spend primogems on a weapon banner.

Use Lion’s Roar for all intents and purposes, and replace it only if you get the Mistsplitter Reforged, or Primordial Jade Cutter. These are the only five stars worth using on Kaeya‘s reverse melt setup. They are still not worth spending real money to get, as Kaeya‘s DPS is only a portion of the team’s DPS, so the impact they make is not huge.

Of course you can use Blackcliff Longsword or The Black Sword, if you don’t have Lion’s Roar. However, they are not optimal, and results in less DPS. To check my damage calculation on different weapons and artifacts, feel free to take a look at this Kaeya Google spreadsheet.

Artifacts

Kaeya needs the Emblem of Severed Fate Artifact set. It boosts Kaeya’s own Elemental Burst damage, and makes him regenerate energy faster. It’s overall the best DPS, especially with Kaeya‘s Energy Recharge ascension stat.

However, if Rosaria takes most of the good pieces, and Kaeya is left with somewhat understated pieces, you can resort to a hybrid setup. With 2 pieces of Blizzard Strayer and two pieces of Noblesse Oblige, damage can somewhat compete with Emblem of Severed Fate. A hybrid set also gives a chance to have better sub stats, since you are free to pick only the best pieces from each set.

Xiangling

Having Xiangling is a must in this team, especially on higher Constellations, with C4 being the most important. That’s an easy requirement to meet, since Xiangling is a guaranteed character, from clearing the Spiral Abyss third floor. She has been featured in many limited banners, and older players will have enough copies of her.

What Xiangling does is applies a Pyro aura constantly with her Burst. Said burst has a high energy cost of 80, but the Emblem of Severed Fate Artifact set solves the entire problem.

We build Xiangling as a support or sub DPS, depending on how much resin we are willing to spend on domains to equip a third character. She can snapshot her Burst if cast within Bennett‘s own Burst, and the damage increase lasts for the entire duration. She can snapshot Rosaria’s Crit buff, as well as Noblesse Oblige buff. She can also increase team DPS, if you have spare resources to spend on her.