In a few hours, Xiao’s banner will return to Genshin Impact for the first time in almost a year – accompanied by the newest 5 star Shenhe.
Who should you pull for? Both? Neither? Check out this guide.
OK – realistically, you can’t pull for both unless you either have a ton of primogems/fates saved up (or you’re a whale). Most likely, it’ll be a choice between one of the two, or you may be holding out for Ganyu and Zhongli in the next half of the patch. Genshin Impact is a game of biding your time… hoarding your primogems… and trying not to fall in love with every character you meet. (Though MiHoYo is an expert at causing me to fail spectacularly).
Shenhe’s demo dropped earlier today, showcasing an interaction between her and her confirmed nephew, Chongyun! Yay – I was right!
While the cuteness of this relationship is a temptation to pull in itself, I still must carefully consider if Shenhe is a good fit for my account – and so should you.
Shenhe
Shenhe is an incredibly niche cryo support unit. Her primary purpose is to buff normal attack damage with her elemental skill. I’m just going to preface this by saying that she is made to buff cryo and physical damage but leaning so heavily into cryo that she is not worth considering for your physical DPS. If you do not use a cryo DPS character (Ayaka, Ganyu, Chongyun, or maybe even Rosaria or Kaeya), she really lacks worth as a support for your account. If this is you, I only recommend pulling if you are completely smitten with her character (always love over meta!). In terms of meta, she is still most likely only worth it if you use Ganyu and/or Ayaka.
HOWEVERRRRRR! Chongyun can provide Cryo infusion for anyone who uses a melee weapon, so you could potentially make something like Cryo DPS Kazuha – the way you might use Bennett at C6 for Pyro Kazuha. Pretty fun, honestly! And Chongyun will be on the Shenhe/Xiao banner, so you should be able to snag him and a few cons if you haven’t yet.
For more on this kinda weird but fun-seeming comp, check out this video:
Shenhe will provide stacks that buff cryo damage with her skill, giving you 5 with a tap and 7 with a hold. The cooldown is, of course, longer for the hold skill, but there are some situations where you may want to use the hold function. You may need to unleash a big chunk of damage in one go if you’re dealing with abyss timers, corrosion, or are simply doing a damage showcase for content. The buff increases cryo damage based on a percentage of Shenhe’s attack. This means you will want to stack a lot of attack in her kit.
While the buffing sounds excellent, something that is important to note is that the stacks will be consumed with every instance of Cryo damage dealt. Meaning, if you hit two enemies with one cryo attack, two stacks will be consumed. This means Shenhe’s buffing can’t scale with AOE, which is pretty limiting.
All in all, Shenhe is a luxury support with a rather costly burst and some niche buffing capabilities. Her constellations look somewhat cracked, so I’m willing to bet she’s whale bait. Of course, we won’t know exactly how capable she is until she comes out. All in all, I recommend waiting for the meta gods to work their magic and look at her damage increases before you pull.
Xiao
Being a rerun character, Xiao has had plenty of analysis done over him in the past year since his release. I’m pulling for him because…. because… he’s pretty. Obviously, that isn’t the wisest mode of operation, so here is the basic rundown of this character.
Xiao is an anemo polearm-wielding hypercarry DPS. He has a very Unga-Bunga type playstyle which involves getting his burst up and then doing massive plunge damage. Since he can’t perform reactions, he has high scaling attacks. He’s actually a very similar character to Itto, in that way. Also, like Itto, he’s dependent on getting near 100% uptime on his burst. He’s relatively useless without it, though a teeny bit less so than Itto because his skill can do a lot of damage even while his burst is down. Itto, on the other hand, requires his burst to be up for his skill (Ushi!) to benefit from the defence conversion. Ushi does do enormous PP damage, though. Since I’ve raised my Itto, Ushi can now hit upwards of 100k.
Is Xiao strong? Yes, very. Certainly strong enough to tear through the open-world content. He’s an excellent character for open world, actually. He takes no plunging damage, and as he belongs to the anemo element, you can utilise anemo resonance, which is basically the best res for exploring. Is he solo the abyss without tons of support strong? No, of course not. Again, he’s quite similar to Itto in the sense that he needs some specific supports to thrive in the abyss.
The best contenders are Zhongli, Albedo, and Jean. Jean for battery and healing, Zhongli for shielding and resistance shred, and Albedo for geo resonance and additional off-field damage. It’s not the only comp that can work, but it’s sort of the go-to. You might be able to swap Jean for Sayu now or work out a similar variation of your own. I don’t have Jean (sobs), and Itto needs our geo father in my abyss run, so if I use Xiao in the abyss, I will bring Noelle (C6) for shielding and healing, Venti as a battery, and Albedo. One annoying note is that Xiao’s burst doesn’t let him reach Venti’s ult (WHYYYYYYY MIHOYO). Itto will lose Albedo but keep Zhongli and Gorou, then he can have Benny-boy too. All set.
Being a hypercarry, Xiao is stealing the spotlight and the field-time from your supports. This means that you will want to invest significantly in his kit so that he can carry the team. Yeah, this may even mean crowning him. As crowns are such a limited item, this may be offputting for some players. If you really like Xiao, though (lol same), you probably don’t care and are happy to make the investment.
Overall, Xiao is a balanced character. Definitely worth pulling if you like him; not a devastating loss if you skip him.
Wishing you all the best of luck in your wishes, may you win your fifty-fifties and your five-stars be early.
Genshin Impact is available to download and play for free on PC, mobile, and PS4, as well as the PS5. If you haven’t been able to get your hands on the new PlayStation console, register your interest at our shop.
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