Ever wanted to feel like a Dragoon from the Final Fantasy series and jump high then slam down with your spear while also dashing around the battlefield and obliterating enemies as you yell edgy lines like “Boring!”: “Useless!” and “Lament!”? Yeah, me too – well, with Xiao and U7BUY you can do this in Genshin Impact.
Who is Xiao?
Without delving too much into spoiler territory, Xiao is our edgy, angsty green anemo boy who likes to jump around a lot and skewer enemies with his spear. If you haven’t played through Xiao’s story and his parts in the Archon Quests – I recommend that you do as the whole Chasm series of Archon quests is one of the best I’ve experienced in any game, not just Genshin. I wouldn’t want to spoil that experience for any newcomers. However, I will just leave this here: Xiao has every reason and excuse to be the way that he is.
Xiaos Abilities
Xiaos main play-style is jumping high and slamming down. However, he does have uses for his Skill: Lemniscatic Wind Cycling (Whew, that’s a mouthful). It has two charges and you can use it for quick reposititioning and dodging enemy attacks. It also deals some damage, but this is insignificant compared to the damage he does with his plunging attacks when in his Bane of All Evil form.
If you manage to get Xiao at C6, though – his Skill becomes your main DPS tool and he becomes one of, if not THE most fun character in the game.
Now, his Burst ability, aptly named “Bane of All Evil” is where most of his damage lies. Once he activates it, he puts on his Yaksha mask and becomes a plunging monstrosity that evaporates enemies with ease.
Being a selfish on-field Anemo DPS, Xiao does require a bit of investment and a specific team to work with, much like Itto and Cyno.
Xiaos Best Teams
Xiao has multiple team build options, and some of them are (from best to worst):
- Faruzan, Jean, Bennet
- Faruzan (C6), Bennet, Zhongli
- Sucrose, Diona, Rosaria
- Raiden, Bennet, Xiangling
Faruzan is easily the best support character for Xiao as she is to Anemo characters what Gorou is to Geo. If you can get her at C6, she is almost enough to support Xiao on her own – slap in Bennet for more DPS and Zhongli for insane sustain, and your Xiao is going to be a monster.
Xiaos Best Weapons
As with most 5* characters, Xiaos best weapon is his Signature Spear, The Primordial Jade
Winged-Spear. It was practically built for him and if you have it, that’s mostly what you’re going to use. Other options include:
- 5 Star Options: Staff of Homa, Vortex Vanquisher, Calamity Queller
- 4 Star Options: Lithic Spear, Deathmatch, Prospector’s Drill, Blackcliff Pole
Xiaos Best Artifact Sets
Xiao has 3 main artifact sets that you can use.
- 4 Piece Vermillion Hereafter. It’s no wonder that this set is his best in slot as it feels like it was made for him. Xiaos burst lowers his HP and the VH set gives the equipping character more and more damage every time they lose HP once they activate their Burst.
- 4 Piece Marechaussee Hunter. Similarly to Vermillion Hereafter, the MH set provides a boost in stats when the character loses HP and this set has great synergy with Xiaos Elemental Burst. It gives him 12% Crit Chance every time he loses HP and stacks up to 3 times, giving him an impressive boost of 36% Crit Chance.
- 2 Piece ATK% + 2 Piece Anemo% – You can mix and match any of the sets that give ATK% and Anemo DMG% while having the appropriate stats on them and these mixed sets will usually perform around 10% worse than the aforementioned sets, which isn’t a lot – but they’re a lot easier and more efficient to farm
As for Stat Priority – Crit% > ATK% > ER%
Note: You will want to reach a certain threshold of ER% if you do not have a good battery for Xiao on your team as he is highly ER dependent.
Final Thoughts
Xiao is a fan-favorite and an all-around great character to play with. He’s fun, albeit some may consider his playstyle repetitive and he might lack in elemental reactions that might make certain bosses and enemies trivial, he makes up for that lack with raw damage numbers. Top up Genshin for Xiao now!