Alhaitham Build Guide

Alhaitham’s Role and Skills

Alhaitham is a Dendro DPS character first released in patch 3.4 with Yaoyao. His playstyle is similar to a quickswap Keqing on top of a kit that looks near identical Keqing. Its somewhat accurate to say Alhaitham is basically a Dendro Keqing. His Elemental Skill (E) rushes him forward dealing Dendro damage and giving him a Chisel-Light Mirror buff. Chisel-Light Mirror converts all his attacks into Dendro while also buffing them based on how many Mirrors he has. His Burst (Q) is pretty straightforward in which it unleashes an AOE Dendro attack and its damage is increase depending on how many Mirrors he has. Similar to Keqing, you’ll wanna use his E right before spamming NA and Q get the most damage out of him before swapping out.

How To Build Alhaitham

Alhaitham would utilize a very traditional DPS build route in which you’ll be prioritizing Crit Rate / DMG above anything else. The only exception to his build is that a huge part of his damage scales on Elemental Mastery so any ATK% stat is not important for him. Ideally, you should aim for 200-300EM for an Alhaitham build. This would also mean EM based artifact set would be his Best in Slot (BiS) putting the 4 piece Gilded Dream ahead of others.

For talent, his E will take precedent over anything else as it accounts for the majority of his damage! So you can leave both NA and Q at Lvl 6 but his E should definitely be the one you upgrade first. Energy Recharge is also very important as you’ll wanna use his Q every rotation!

Artifact set

Gilded Dreams (4): Alhaitham BiS artifact set as he benefits from the EM buff that comes when running him in a party with different elemental type as him. This is even more so since he works well in a Spread/Aggravate comp.
+80EM (2) Deepwood Memories (2): Slightly below 4GD but can perform better if has better substats.
Gilded Dreams (2) Wanderer’s Troupe (2): Unconditional and easy to farm set piece that would award him a total of 160EM without any requirements.
Deepwood Memories (4): Alhaitham does Dendro DMG so this set should give him the most damage right? Wrong! First his Ascension stat bonus already gives him extra Dendro DMG so stacking up even more from a artifact set piece would only have diminishing returns. Secondly, a huge part of his damage scales on EM so you’ll wanna prioritize a high EM preferably from a set piece bonus since substat wise you’ll be focusing on Crit Rate / DMG. Thirdly, the second Dendro character (Nahida) in Alhaitham team should preferably be the one holding this set as it can proc off-field something which he can’t do. Only use Deepwood Memories (4) on Alhaitham if you’re running him as a solo Dendro in the team comp.

Weapon

Light of Foliar Incision (5✩): Alhaitham signature sword. No surprise its his BiS weapon.
Primordial Jade Cutter (5✩): Second best option for Alhaitham. A great stat weapon that provides a huge Crit Rate boost to whoever who wields it.
Black Sword (4✩): A very strong weapon due to its Crit Rate stat on top of Alhaitham being able to utilize its NA damage buffs.
Iron Sting (4✩): A very strong 4-star F2P weapon for Alhaitham especially in multi target scenario. High EM compounded with an easy to proc weapon elemental damage bonus.
Toukabou Shigure (4✩): Another great option for Alhaitham as it provides high EM. Beats Iron Sting in single target scenario but the differences are small.

Talent

Skill (E) > Normal Attack (NA) > Burst (Q)

E takes precedent over anything else as its his main source of damage buff from his Mirrors. Additionally it also converts all his NA into Dendro. The value of NA and Q will change depending on his rotation but in general NA will take priority because you’ll wanna spam NA combos to generate Mirrors.

Main stat and substat

Similar to Ayato, his build follows the same DPS build route of going full Crit Rate / DMG above anything else. The exception is that you’ll wanna prioritize EM above ATK% as a significant portion of his damage comes from his EM. This is even more so if you’re rolling for Light of Foliar Sanction (5✩)!