Yelan is Genshin Impact’s newest 5-star character and playable since update 2.7 – at least if you are lucky enough to pull her from her banner. The archer makes use of the Hydro element and, despite her ranged weapon, is especially powerful at shorter distances: for example, she entwines enemies with water threads, which trigger a chain explosion after a short time by sprinting around and through them.
Otherwise, though, Yelan has a lot of off-field capabilities to offer. For example, her ultimate ability is of a similar nature to Xingqiu’s, and she gets special charged attacks when she’s substituted in from the bench.
This build guide will show you how to best equip Yelan as an off-field Sub-DPS character.
Yelan: Best Weapons – Genshin Impact
Yelan’s abilities are mainly based on her hitpoints, so your choice of equipment should focus on boosting this stat specifically. You should rather avoid using standard attacks with Yelan, because unlike her skills they unfortunately don’t scale with HP.
As a 5-star character, Hoyoverse gave her a matching 5-star weapon right at release, which perfectly complements this strength: Aqua Simulacra not only provides 16 percent more HP, but also increases the damage of its wielder by a whopping 20 percent when enemies are nearby – this even applies when the character is not currently on the field, further boosting Yelan’s off-field utility.
Not lucky enough to pull Aqua Simulacra and Yelan at this point? No worries, here are some strong alternatives:
Elegy For The End.
Polar Star.
The Stringless.
Favonius Warbow (Free-to-Play friendly option).
Yelan: Best Artifacts – Genshin Impact
A special artifact set for Yelan did not appear in update 2.7, which makes the selection a bit more difficult than it is for the weapon.
Two approaches arise, each with their own advantages: The first option is to use two pieces of Heart of Depth in combination with two pieces of Tenacity of the Milleliths. This gives you a 15 percent boost to any Hydro damage and 20 percent extra HP. By doing this, you raise the damage, mainly based on HP, that Yelan does with her skills across the board.
The second option is to use four pieces of Emblem of Severed Fate. This set not only increases your recharge rate by 20 percent, allowing you to use your elemental burst more frequently, but also increases the damage of your elemental burst by 25 percent based on the recharge rate.
Which option you should prefer depends on whether your playstyle and party is more focused on using the elemental burst (and already has enough energy recharge capability) or focuses on the regular skill.
Yelan: Best Teams – Genshin Impact
One character alone doesn’t accomplish much in Genshin Impact – you need the right team to fully realize each character’s potential. Yelan can be played as the main DPS of a team, but these compositions rely on her as a Sub-DPS (off-field DPS).
Yelan National Team
Raiden Shogun (Main-DPS).
Yelan (Sub-DPS).
Xiangling (Sub-DPS).
Bennett (Support).
The National Team – so named because it includes a character from each of the game’s regions released so far – is originally made up of Raiden, Xiangling, Bennett, and Xingqiu. However, as hinted at the beginning, Yelan is a pretty strong alternative to the swordsman and takes over his role with ease by providing permanent Hydro application through her elemental burst. As a bonus, Yelan really dishes out a lot of damage with her regular skill while Raiden sits on the bench to recharge her own elemental burst.
Yelan’s Archery Club
Yoimiya (Main-DPS).
Yelan (Sub-DPS).
Kazhua (Sub-DPS).
Diona (Support).
The idea behind this group is to exploit the synergy between Yelan’s elemental burst and swift attacks. Yoimiya has a skill thanks to which she shoots large amounts of arrows in no time at all. Combined with Yelan’s elemental burst, this makes for powerful elemental reactions. Kazuha boosts such elemental attacks and reduces the resistance of enemies, while Diona helps out defensively with her shield and contributes the Cryo element. The exact composition is interchangeable, though, so Hu Tao instead of Yoimiya or Zhongli instead of Kazhua are perfectly conceivable, for example.
Yelan’s Free-to-Play Squad
Beidou (Main-DPS).
Yelan (Sub-DPS).
Fischl (Sub-DPS).
Bennett (Support).
This is a squad you should probably have access to as a free-to-play user and casual player. Yelan takes on the usual role, while Beidou acts as the Main-DPS with her Electro damage. She also protects the team against powerful attacks with her shield. Fischl contributes steady Electro damage and generates additional energy for the team, while Bennett contributes healing and a damage bonus as usual.
Yelan: How to Play – Genshin Impact
What is the best way to use Yelan in these groups? Start with her regular skill and use it to wrap up as many enemies as possible to maximize the damage done. This will also generate a good amount of energy to charge up your elemental burst. Next, activate that powerful elemental burst and then immediately switch to the Main-DPS of the squad.
Deal as much damage as possible with their attacks and abilities – Yelan’s Ultimate will assist you even when she’s off-field. Afterward, start that process with Yelan again or slide another character in between if you need healing or want to set up a specific combo. As mentioned earlier, just don’t waste time with Yelan’s standard attacks and focus on her skills.
When upgrading Yelan, be sure to prioritize her elemental burst, then her skill, and only finally her standard attacks. She’s effective even without additional constellations unlocked, but ideally you want to bring her up to C4 – this will ensure that her skill increases the HP of the entire party, which not only makes the group safer, but also boosts Yelan’s damage significantly.
Written by Marco Wutz on behalf of GLHF.
