The best Genshin Impact Yaoyao build, artifacts, and F2P options
Radish of death
Genshin Impact 3.4 is here, and that means it’s time to get your Genshin Impact Yaoyao build ready.
Yaoyao occupies a unique position among her fellow 4-star characters. She’s a hybrid healer and sub-DPS, but if you want to maximize her healing potential, you have to use her as both. Her burst won’t work unless Yaoyao is active.
While that means her playstyle is more complex than Genshin Impact 3.4’s other new character, Alhaitham, there’s still a range of easy-to-assemble builds to help her fit right in.
What is the best Yaoyao build in Genshin Impact?
Since Yaoyao’s skill damage and healing scale with HP, we’re treating her as a Dendro healer and sub-DPS for this build and focusing on HP instead of Dendro damage and elemental mastery.
Best Yaoyao weapon – Black Tassel
The absolute best weapon for Yaoyao is a 3-star polearm: Black Tassel. It raises the user’s HP by up to 46 percent, which is a substantial boon, and best of all, you’ve got a high chance of getting more than one of these. As a 3-star weapon, Black Tassel shows up frequently in Wishes.
Staff of Homa is the only 5-star polearm that raises HP, and at the base refinement level, it’ll buff the equipping character’s HP by 20 percent. It also raises their critical hit rate and boosts attack by a percentage of their HP. That, combined with Yaoyao’s respectable normal attack scale rates, means you can dash about dealing damage with normal attacks while her skill is active and actually see good results.
There’s not really another suitable 5-star for Yaoyao, though Calamity Queller comes close. It raises elemental damage and attack when the equipping character uses their elemental skill.
On the 4-star side, the Favonius Lance serves Yaoyao well. It generates additional energy particles, which Yaoyao needs to help meet her steep energy cost of 80.
Best Yaoyao Artifacts – Tenacity of the Millelith
Like most characters who rely on HP, Tenacity of the Millelith is a strong pick for Yaoyao.
- 2-piece effect: Increases HP by 20 percent
- 4-piece effect: When the user’s elemental skill hits an opponent, all party members get a 30 percent attack buff for three seconds
The 4-piece effect is particularly useful given how often Yaoyao’s skill will hit opponents while it’s active.
You could also try a full Deepwood Memories set and focus on Yaoyao’s Dendro damage instead.
- 2-piece effect: Increases Dendro damage by 15 percent
- 4-piece effect: After the user’s skill or burst hits opponents, the affected opponents’ Dendro resistance decreases by 30 percent
If you’re still early in the game, the 2-piece Gambler set – which raises elemental skill damage by 20 percent – and the 2-piece Noblesse Oblige set, which boosts burst damage by 20 percent, are good options. You may also want to try the 4-piece Noblesse Oblige set. The 4-piece effect buffs the party’s attack by 20 percent after the equipping character uses their burst.
Whichever set you choose, the ideal substats are HP, Dendro damage, energy recharge, and elemental mastery.
What is the best Yaoyao F2P build?
Yaoyao’s F2P build is pretty similar to the paid one, although “paid” is perhaps a stretch considering you often get Black Tassel with event and other Primogems. There are some craftable weapons that suit Yaoyao just as well, though.
Best Yaoyao F2P weapon – Kitain Cross Spear
The forgeable Inazuma weapon Kitain Cross Spear is a strong pick for Yaoyao. Its secondary stat raises the user’s elemental mastery, and the passive skill boosts elemental skill damage and slightly raises energy recharge.
Moonpiercer is also a possible choice. It generates a leaf that boosts attack 16 percent, up to 32 percent at the highest refinement level, when the user triggers a Dendro-based reaction. The way Yaoyao’s skill and burst work means she’ll likely be triggering quite a few of those, so Moonpiercer lets her deal extra damage with her normal and charged attacks while she’s on field.
Best Yaoyao F2P Artifacts – Tenacity of the Millelith
Yaoyao’s F2P build functions pretty much the same as the other build, so our Artifact recommendations stay the same as well. Tenacity of the Millelith is still the ideal, all-’rounder set, and Deepwood Memories is a strong choice if you want to focus just on Dendro damage and reducing the enemy’s Dendro resistance.
Is Yaoyao a DPS character?
Sort of. Yaoyao is a mixed healer and Dendro sub-DPS. Her skill and burst can heal and damage, but a quirk with her burst means you want to focus on both attributes to get the most out of her. Yaoyao’s skill and burst do the same thing. She produces a throwing device that lobs radishes onto the field. These will either damage enemies or heal allies, depending on how much health your active party member has.
During her burst, the radishes do both, and she can produce up to three throwing devices. The radishes will heal the entire party, but the burst ends as soon as Yaoyao leaves the field. If you need the healing, that means you’ll likely have to put up with a drop in damage numbers while Yaoyao stays on the field. However, you can buff her Dendro output and still deal a respectable amount of damage or pair her with a character whose skills remain active for longer periods so she can trigger Dendro reactions.
Yaoyao’s talents aren’t particularly complicated. Her second passive lets her throw a radish every time she jumps or sprints, and the third will boost her healing power based on her HP.
Yaoyao has some pretty decent attack multipliers, but unless you pair her with Yun Jin, we recommend focusing on Dendro damage through the radishes while Yaoyao is active.
Should I pull for Yaoyao?
If you’re adamant in your desire for a Dendro healer, then Yaoyao is your only choice for now. For everyone else, Yaoyao’s usefulness depends on who you already have in your party. The main considerations to bear in mind are how effective the White Jade Radishes are without aiming properly and the fact that her burst ends when she leaves the field.
If you have Sayu, Kokomi, or Bennett, and don’t desperately need another healer, then you’d be fine to skip Yaoyao. She can be a potent healer and, with the right Artifact set, can help buff your party as well. However, she doesn’t do anything unique compared to other healers.
Her Dendro application and the fact that her burst ends when she’s off-field also create some complications. The Throwing Device aims automatically, so you can’t control which enemy the radish will hit, and any Dendro reactions you want to trigger will need Yaoyao to trigger them. Her skill damage and healing scale with HP, so you’ll have to split your stat focus between HP and elemental mastery to get the most out of her.
Not that there’s anything wrong with such a setup. She’s just a bit more complicated than her counterparts and needs her first and fourth constellations – which increase Dendro damage and grant an elemental mastery boost – to really shine.
You can, however, ignore the healing and use her as a capable Dendro sub-DPS character. She applies Dendro more regularly than Collei and, as a 4-star, is easier to recruit than the likes of Alhaitham and Tighnari.
If you like the way Yaoyao plays in the version 3.4 test run, you can also invite her for free in the Fortiutous Invocation event.
If you're saving up for future Genshin Impact banners, make sure to check out our up-do-date list of Genshin Impact codes for some free Primogems.