Kuki Shinobu is Genshin Impact's 4-star Hyperbloom queen! Here's how you build her

Dendro has ruled the metagame of Genshin Impact since the game's newest element and its myriad of elemental reactions were released back in version 3.0.

Thanks to Dendro, some characters that were previously not favored in the meta have received some much-needed boosts in strength and popularity.

One of those characters is 4-star Electro sword wielder Kuki Shinobu. While she was already a versatile character thanks to the off-field healing and Electro application from her skill, she is now one of the strongest 4-stars in the game as the premier 4-star option for Hyperbloom teams.

Here's how you can turn Kuki Shinobu into the 4-star Hyperbloom queen:

Inazuma's Jack of all trades

Kuki Shinobu's skill, Sanctifying Ring, is her bread-and-butter. When used, she sacrifices 30% of her current HP to create a Grass Ring of Sanctification that follows the current active character around and deals Electro DMG to nearby opponents every 1.5 seconds while healing the active character.

With Kuki Shinobu losing HP everytime she uses her skill, her burst, Gyoei Narukami Kariyama Rite, takes advantage of this fact to let her dish out some damage of her own. When used, it creates a field in front of her that deals continuous Electro DMG to opponents based on her Max HP.

The field normally lasts for 2 seconds, but if Kuki Shinobu's current HP is less than 50% of her Max HP, it will last for 3.5 seconds and deal more damage.

Meanwhile, Kuki Shinobu's passives boosts her healing abilities. Her A1 passive, Breaking Free, increases her Healing Bonus by 15% when her current HP is less than 50% of her Max HP.

Kuki Shinobu's A4 passive, Heart's Repose, lets her become more than just a pure healer by boosting the effects of Sanctifying Ring based on her Elemental Mastery. The skill's healing and damage will be increased based on 75% and 25%, respectively, of her total Elemental Mastery.

The ideal skill build for Kuki Shinobu prioritizes leveling up her skill before her burst. As an off-field healer and reaction trigger, she doesn't need to level up her normal attacks.

Thanks to her A4 passive, Kuki Shinobu lets players build her in two distinct ways. First is a healing-focused build where she just stacks as much HP as possible.

The second will have Kuki Shinobu stack as much Elemental Mastery as possible and is geared towards boosting the damage she deals from elemental reactions, especially Hyperbloom, while still providing strong healing.

It's fairly easy for Kuki Shinobu to deal around 30,000 DMG with Hyperbloom if she has around 900 Elemental Mastery from her weapons and artifacts as well as external buffs and reductions to enemy resistances.

Tribulatio Demptio: Kuki Shinobu's best constellations

Unlike some other 4-star characters, Kuki Shinobu isn't reliant on constellations to be effective. While she's perfectly fine at C0, she still has a couple of nice constellations you can get, those being her C2 and C6.

Kuki Shinobu's C2, To Forsake Fortune, increases her skill's duration by 3 seconds, letting her get 100% uptime. This is very helpful for smoothening out your rotations as you will always have her skill up to help you keep fighting.

Meanwhile, her C6, To Ward Weakness, prevents her from dying when she takes lethal damage every 60 seconds. In addition, when Kuki Shinobu's HP drops below 25% of her Max HP, she will gain 150 Elemental Mastery for 15 seconds, which is a big boost for her healing and elemental reaction damage.

Kuki Shinobu's best gear

Kuki Shinobu's weapon choices are pretty clear-cut, but her artifacts will depend on whether she's used as a pure healer or elemental reaction trigger.

Artifacts

Let's start with her artifacts, if you're using Kuki Shinobu as a pure healer, then her best artifact set will be the 4-piece Tenacity of the Millellith. Not only does it give Kuki Shinobu a much-needed 20% HP boost, her skill also perfectly synergizes with its 4-piece effect that grants all party members a 20% ATK boost whenever her skill hits opponents.

But if your Kuki Shinobu is geared towards being the trigger character for elemental reactions, in say a Hyperbloom team, then your go-to artifact set will either be the 4-piece Flower of Paradise Lost or 4-piece Gilded Dreams.

The 4-piece Flower of Paradise Lost is Kuki Shinobu's best artifact set when she's in a Hyperbloom team, which is also the team composition where she shines the most. It gives her an Elemental Mastery bonus of 80 while also increasing the damage she deals with Hyperbloom by up to 80%.

With that said, we wouldn't recommend going all out for the 4-piece Flower of Paradise Lost as it isn't the most resin-efficient artifact set. Unless you're also building a character that uses the Desert Pavilion Chronicle artifact set, like Wanderer, we recommend going for the 4-piece Gilded Dreams set instead.

While the 4-piece Gilded Dreams set is significantly worse than the 4-piece Flower of Paradise Lost, it makes up for the difference by coming from one of the most resin-efficient domains in the game.

If you're building a Hyperbloom team, then you will need another character to carry the 4-piece Deepwood Memories set for its Dendro DMG boost since Hyperbloom deals Dendro DMG even if you need Electro to trigger it. So, going for Gilded Dreams instead will be killing two birds with one stone.

Weapons

As for Kuki Shinobu's best weapons, her best-in-slot will be the 5-star sword Freedom-Sworn. At max level, it has the highest Elemental Mastery substat for swords in the game at 198, which helps to boost her healing and elemental reaction damage.

In addition, the Freedom-Sworn also helps Kuki Shinobu's teammates by giving them a 16% DMG boost to their Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks on top of a 20% ATK bonus.

Kuki Shinobu's 5-star alternative will be the Key of Khaj Nisut, which gives her a whopping 80% HP bonus. In addition, this weapon also increases Kuki Shinobu's Elemental Mastery based on her Max HP, which further boosts her healing and elemental reaction damage.

While Kuki Shinobu has strong 5-star options, she can still shine with the 4-star swords Xiphos Moonlight and Iron Sting, with both weapons having a 165 Elemental Mastery substat at max level.

Xiphos Moonlight also provides additional utility by boosting the party's Energy Recharge based on Kuki Shinobu's total Elemental Mastery.

However, the Iron Sting is a craftable weapon and is a great low-investment option if you don't want to acquire the Xiphos Moonlight through the weapon banner.

Kuki Shinobu's best teams

While Kuki Shinobu shines the brightest in a Hyperbloom team, her healing and ability to reliably proc the 4-piece Tenacity of the Millellith set bonus makes her a great flex option for many teams, such as Physical DMG lineups.

Here are sample compositions featuring Kuki Shinobu you can run:

Hyperbloom: Kuki Shinobu, Dendro, Hydro, Flex

By far Kuki Shinobu's best team, make sure to run her alongside Dendro and Hydro characters to reliably create Dendro cores that she can then use to trigger Hyperbloom.

• Dendro: Nahida, Alhaitham, Collei, Yaoyao, Dendro Traveler

• Hydro: Yelan, Xingqiu, Kokomi

• Flex slot can be taken by another Dendro or Hydro character

Physical: Kuki Shinobu, Cryo, 2 Flex

Kuki Shinobu's reliable Electro application from her skill makes her a great choice for Physical DPS teams. For this template, we're gonna assume you're running with either Eula or Rosaria as your Physical DPS.

• Cryo DPS: Eula, Rosaria (DPS build)

• Cryo supports: Rosaria (support build), Mika, Layla, Diona

• Flex: Yelan, Bennett, Mona

So, get out there and give Shinobu some love!

Yan Ku is a full-time dog parent, part-time (gacha) gamer, and part-time writer.

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