Qiqi build guide

Qiqi functions as a dedicated support healer for her team similar to Kokomi and Barbara. Her Elemental Skill (E) gives her a circling cryo orb “Herald of Frost” that makes Qiqi normal attacks regenerate health for everyone and periodically regenerates your active character’s HP. Meanwhile, her Elemental Bust (Q) marks nearby enemies called “Fortune-Preserving Talisman” so that anyone who damages these enemies will regenerate their HP. On her 4th Ascension Passive, she gain a 50% chance to mark the enemy she damage with her normal attacks with “Fortune-Preserving Talisman” for 6 seconds. This substantially improve her healing capabilities and rotation of her skill.

Maximize Qiqi

To properly build Qiqi you’ll first have to fix the 2 biggest shortcomings with her which is cooldown timer and energy regeneration. The Sacrificial Sword (4✩) is by far her best weapon as it fix the massive 30 second cooldown with her E skill while also giving her ER% as a secondary stat. Concentrate on ATK% and ER when building her to maintain a high heal and burst uptime.

As for artifact set, you’ll wanna run 4 piece Tenacity of Millelith as she’ll be able to proc the 20% ATK buff for her team when the circling cryo orb from her E hits an enemy. This gives her more utility outside of being healer for her team. She now can act as an off field character that can boost her team’s damage with her E. Also, remember that with the Sacrificial Sword (4✩) she’ll be able to use her E twice meaning that the ATK buff pretty much be proc all the time.

Qiqi’s weakness

Qiqi’s 2 biggest weaknesses is long cooldown from her E and high burst cost at 80. Her long cooldown can simply be fixed by running her with a Sacrificial Sword (4✩) whereas her burst can generally be fixed by building her for high ER. Consider running Qiqi in a team with another cryo character to help build her burst off field.

Remember, that until you have Qiqi at C1, her E does not generate any energy for her. This is mind boggling when you realize that she has a burst cost of 80 and no way of generating energy for herself.

More about Qiqi:

Qiqi’s Burst has an 80 energy cost with her skill not generating any energy until [C1]. Energy Recharge will greatly benefit Qiqi, while her Burst should be kept as a last resort.
Qiqi’s Burst allows other characters to maximize DPS field time while offering healing from being off-field. At Ascension 4, her Normal Attack applies the healing talisman onto an enemy with a cooldown of 30 seconds.

Regarding Weapon and Artifact Choices:

Sacrificial Sword and Tenacity of the Millelith (4): Tenacity of the Millelith allows Qiqi to give the team a decent ATK boost while staying in enemy melee reach with Skill active. Sacrificial Sword increases the uptime of her Skill, which in turn increases the uptime of the team’s ATK boost. If you find that your Qiqi’s heals are often more than enough, you may consider switching her to this artifact set. Do note that other characters might utilize Sacrificial Sword more than Qiqi, such as Xingqiu, Kazuha, etc.
Ocean Hued Clam (4): This ranking assumes Qiqi does not get her Elemental Burst up often and is instead relying mainly on her Elemental Skill for healing. If she is in a team which funds her enough energy particles, or if she acts as the on-field DPS, this set can overtake Tenacity of the Millelith (4).