Xianyun (Cloud Retainer) Build Guide (Patch 4.4)

Xianyun’s Role and Skills

Xianyun aka ‘Coud Retainer’ is an ATK-scaling Anemo support that provides healing and also buffs the Plunging Attacks of active character. Her Burst (Q) provides Starwicker, an aura that follows active character to provide healing, increase in jump height and damage increase in Plunging Attacks.

Xianyun’s Skill (E) gives 3 leaps into the air before plunging down onto an enemy. You can plunge down prematurely before using all 3 leaps but you would lose on some damage. Her Skill (E) is primarily for personal damage and Crowd Control (CC) and its really not a crucial part of her kit you should be concern about.

Artifact set

Viridescent Venerer (4)

A full piece Viridescent will be Xianyun’s best artifact simply because she is an Anemo character. The 40% RES shred is simply too good and remains the go-to set for most Anemo character regardless of their roles.

Song of Days Past (4)

If you’re running Xianyun with a team that doesn’t utilize Swirl, then SoDP would be her best option since it provides the active character with a damage buff relative to the amount of healing she provided.

Marechaussee Hunter (4)
Dessert Pavilion (4)

A full set of DP or MH are only ever recommended if you’re running DPS Cloud Retainer. Both of them provide a huge buff onto her damage capability by either buffing her Crit Rate or Plunge Attacks. Faruzan C6 and Furina will be critical in this team.

Weapon

Crane’s Echoing Call (5✩)

Xianyun’s Best-in-Slot (BiS) weapon will be her featured 5-star catalyst. With ATK% as its secondary stat and a Plunging Attack buff passive that can ONLY proc after the equipping character do a Plunge Attack, its an incredibly niche weapon built for her.

Oathsworn Eye (4✩)

The limited 4-star catalyst ‘Oathsworn Eye’ will be Xianyun’s best F2P and 4-star weapon. It provides ATK% as a secondary stat and its ER passive can be easily activated by her after she plunges down. Even at R4, it’s still her 2nd best option due to the sheer amount of ER it gives.

Favonius Codex (4✩)

Another decent option as she can utilize its high ER and energy particle to get her Burst up. Keep in mind that you’ll need to build her for Crit Rate to proc its passive.

Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers (3✩)

The go-to support weapon for most support Catalyst character. Its high ATK passive buff that procs after swapping out makes it one of the easiest source of ATK buff for the team.

Talent

C0-C5

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

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

Xianyun’s Burst (Q) will take priority over anything else as its the most important part of her kit. Her Q provides both healing and Plunge Attack buff towards the team whereas her E is simply for Xianyun’s personal damage and particle generation.

If you have Xianyun at C6, then NA will be her main talent focus since she can do infinite plunges throughout her Burst duration. For C6, you’ll be running her for main DPS and no longer as a team support.

Main stat and substat

Sand: ATK%
Goblet: ATK%
Circlet: ATK%

ATK%
Energy Recharge
Flat ATK

Xianyun’s kit scales based on her ATK hence you’ll want to build as much ATK as you can. This applies for both her healing and Plunge Attack buff that she provides. Secondary stat priority should be ER since she comes with a 70 Burst cost and you’ll wanna have her Q up every rotation.

Energy Recharge Requirements

Becuase Xianyun’s Burst (Q) comes with a 70 energy cost, early calculations put her around ~180 energy. This would change depending on how many Anemo characters you’re running in her team and if anyone in the team has a Favonius weapon. Her ER is of course subject to change as we are still early in the beta.

Constellation

C2 > C6

Essentially when you use Xianyun’s E, you get an extra ATK buff which adds to your damage, and your plunge damage bonus, and her plunge damage bonus modifier goes from 170% to 476% and caps at 15,300 instead of 8,500 on her A4, which means the extra damage on plunges is huge.

It doesn’t drastically change her kit, but it makes her potent damage buff extremely good. It’s already really good, but it gets crazy.

C2 makes her personal DPS go up too if you want to make her a DPS. Theorycrafting suggests her C2 is a 35-40% DPS increase over C0. Xianyun’s C2 just straight increases how much plunge damage you can do, and by a large amount, especially if your team is Xianyun / Furina / Bennett / Faruzan

C6 enables Xianyun to be an on-field DPS through spamming her Es and Plunge attack combo. Early calculation point towards 300K per Plunge damage with around 8 of them every rotation. Its the biggest jump in terms of her personal DPS.