Learn how to put together the best possible Shinobu build in Genshin Impact
On a practical level, Shinobu is Genshin’s first 4-star Electro sword character, giving you a more accessible and permanent alternative to trying against miniscule odds to pull Keqing from the gacha or switching the Traveler’s element in order to try out this combo. Most importantly, though, Shinobu is a rare Electro character built specifically for support, and takes the cake as the game’s first Electro healer. Read on for details of the best build we’ve seen for Kuki Shinobu, including her best weapons, artifacts, party members, and more.
How to build Kuki Shinobu for a healer/sub-DPS role in Genshin Impact
Alternative:Lion’s Roar
Since Shinobu is a 4-star character and her DPS capacities are mainly focussed around her elemental talents, I haven’t recommended equipping her with a 5-star sword. Instead, she’ll do quite nicely with one of a couple of 4-star swords that make the most of her elemental attacks. My top pick is theSacrificial Sword, which at its base level has a 40% chance to end the cooldown of Shinobu’s enviable Elemental Skill whenever the latter is triggered (up to once every 30 seconds).
Alternatively, theLion’s Roarincreases damage against enemies affected by Electro (or Pyro) by 20% at its base ascension level. The advantage of equipping this sword to support Shinobu’s sub-DPS activities is fairly obvious, even if it lacks the Sacrificial Sword’s capacity to improve her healing skills at the same time.
Alternative:Maiden Beloved 4-piece set
Because Shinobu’s best talent scales off of her max health, your artifact selection should focus on upping her HP and healing as much as possible. There are actually quite a few 1- to 3-star sets that will do in a pinch — try a mix of Traveling Doctor and Adventurer if you’re really stuck for good stuff — but since I’m here to recommend her best possible loadout, I’m going to focus on higher-tier gear.
Ocean-Hued Clammakes for the obvious choice, as its 4-piece bonus allows Shinobu to heal the party while getting a few shots off at any nearby enemies, which is her speciality.Maiden Belovedmakes a surprisingly good back-up, though, and is only in second place because its 2-piece bonus doesn’t aid the party as much as its Ocean-Hued Clam counterpart. Equip the 4-piece set, though, and you can just keep feeding Shinobu’s Elemental Skill back into itself in what amounts to an endless loop.
Naturally, you want the stats on these artifacts to further enhance Shinobu’s max HP first and foremost, although it’s a good idea to use the substats to improve her elemental attacks as well if you’re making the most of her potential in a mixed healer/sub-DPS build. Here’s an example of the stats to aim for on each piece:
Secondary:Gyoei Narukami Kariyama Rite (Elemental Burst)
Without a doubt, Shinobu’s linchpin talent is her Elemental SkillSanctifying Ring, since it deals decent damage to enemies while healing both Shinobu and her party members at the same time. Her Elemental BurstGyoei Narukami Kariyama Riteis also decent, working well with her Elemental Skill and propping up any sub-DPS/Electro support duties you want her to perform. Unsurprisingly, her normal attacks are not quite so flashy, and should be the last ones you focus on levelling up no matter what exact role you’re planning for her on your team.
Below is a run-down of each one of Shinobu’s talents and what they do:
With a 5-star DPS:
With a 4-star DPS:
Appropriately enough given her role in-story, Shinobu seems to have been designed with the idea of supporting her canonical bossArataki Ittoand his existing mateGorou. Teaming those two up has been popular since their joint launch, but at lower Constellations they have a notoriously bad time healing. Shinobu therefore fits nicely into their team as a healer, with the fourth position taken up by your best Geo sub-DPS.Noelleis an obvious pick because she’s basically guaranteed even on an F2P roster, can provide shield support and assist Shinobu on healing (although she’ll interfere with Shinobu’s health sacrifice at times if you’re not careful), and is honestly one of my own favourite characters thanks to her jack-of-all-trades skill set. But it really doesn’t matter, just as long as you keep a Geo character in the sub-DPS position to amplify Gorou’s abilities.
Of course, with Itto being a 5-star event-exclusive character, many players won’t have him. Unfortunately there aren’t many 4-star Geo DPS alternatives available, andNingguang(the best among them) doesn’t quite have the synergy with Shinobu and Gorou that Itto enjoys. Therefore, if you’re building a 4-star and/or F2P-focused team around Shinobu, you might want to consider throwing the whole Geo meta out the window and trying something else.
While it lacks the immediate crushing power you’ll get from the Geo team, you can have a lot of fun with Shinobu on a team primarily made up of Cryo characters, where she makes a great replacement for Diona as a healer thanks to her improvedelemental reactionsand self-powered damage potential. The sample composition I’ve recommended above teams up Shinobu with the 4-star Cryo DPS duo ofRosariaandChongyun, and rounds out with 4-star Hydro DPSXingqiu, allowing you to stop opponents in their tracks, wear down their defences, and deal them continuous AoE damage with the combined power of the Freeze, Superconduct, and Electro-charged reactions.
To fully ascend Shinobu, you will need the following materials:
Vajrada Amethyst pieces are easy enough to get hold of, since they’re dropped quite freely by Electro area bosses; included in random levelling material rewards and purchaseable from vendors at lower levels; and obtainable through alchemy at higher levels. Naku Weeds also come from a few different sources, but the easiest way to farm them is to literally farm them from areas of Inazuma with high Electro concentration (Seirai Island is a great example). Spectral pieces are dropped by defeated Specter enemies of increasing difficulty, while Runic Fangs are exclusively dropped by defeated Ruin Serpents at Lvl 30+.
To fully level up any one of Shinobu’s three active talents, you’ll need to collect the following materials:
Spectral pieces are gained from Specter enemies in the same way they are for Ascension materials. Meanwhile, you can pick up the books required for Shinobu’s talents at the Violet Court domain on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Finally, Molten Moments are awarded for replayingRaiden Shogun’s boss fight as part of the End of the Oneiric Euthymia trounce domain at Lvl 70+; while Crowns of Insight can be obtained through limited-time events or by making offerings to the Frostbearing Tree and the Sacred Sakura.
Constellations are the premium level-ups in Genshin Impact, in that (in all but a few exceptional cases) they are gained by pulling duplicate copies of a character from the gacha. 4-star characters like Shinobu tend to have better Constellations than 5-star characters, and fortunately you’re much more likely to roll the required six duplicates without spending ridiculous amounts of money to do so. That being said, I can’t recommend relying on Constellations to form the core of a character build. Fortunately, in Shinobu’s case, her Constellations offer nice boosts if you happen to duplicate her, but really nothing that ought to change the way you build her.
Below is a full list of Shinobu’s Constellations:
As of Version 2.8, Kuki Shinobu has joined Genshin Impact’s standard wish pool. This means that, like all 4-star characters, you have a chance of pulling her any time you wish on the Wanderlust Invocation banner, Weapon Event Wish banner, orCharacter Event Wish banner. She’ll also occasionally feature with boosted drop rates on the latter.
Remember how I said Shinobu is Genshin Impact’s 50th playable character? Well, if you’re wondering how she stacks up against all the others, you can begin by checking out our comprehensiveGenshin Impact character tier listto see where she rates. And to help you keep costs down no matter how many character and Constellations you want to wish for, be sure to see our guide togetting more Wishes in Genshin Impact.
