In a game with fast-paced combat gameplay, you would like a character who can make quick attacks that deal large amounts of damage. Keqing, the Yuheng of the Liyue Qixing, can do the job.
This 5-star character is made to be the team’s DPS member, which means her main role focuses on offensive playstyle. She wields a sword and owns an Electro Vision that grants her the power to move swiftly and violently, similar to lightning.
As a damage dealer, you can build Keqing as a Physical or Electrotype. But if we consider her kit and all other aspects of combat in the game, which game is best for her? This guide will discuss the pros and cons of going Physical DMG and Electro DMG builds.
Talents to Consider
Keqing’s elemental skill named Stellar Restoration will have her throw a Lightning Stiletto that deals Electro damage, and a Stiletto Mark will be placed on the spot where the skill hits.
There are two ways to utilize the Stiletto Mark:
One is to press the elemental skill button again, and Keqing will blink to the spot and unleash a slashing attack that deals with Electro damage.
Because of her passive talent called Thundering Penance, when Stellar Restoration is cast again while a Stiletto Mark is present, Keqing’s sword will be infused with Electro for around 5 seconds.
The second way is to make a charged attack, which will detonate the Stiletto Mark, igniting a series of thundering cuts that deal Electro damage.
Physical DMG Type
In Genshin Impact, Physical DMG means the numbers in white that you see when hitting an enemy with normal and charged attacks. You can do this with all characters except those that use a catalyst since all their attacks deal Elemental DMG.
A Physical build Keqing will need to focus on normal and charged attacks. However, her elemental skill may disrupt this playstyle if not done correctly.
For a Physical build Keqing, you would want to avoid getting her sword infused with Electro because this will convert her normal and charged attacks to deal Electro damage. This makes the Physical DMG bonus stat useless. So make sure to use the second way to utilize the Stiletto Mark.
Elemental skill and elemental burst will be the fewer priority talents and will likely serve as fillers for your combos.
Electro DMG Type
Considering Keqing’s elemental talents and her passive, she is designed to deal Electro damage.
As mentioned above, her elemental skill can infuse Electro into her sword. This and her elemental burst have a short cooldown time, allowing you to spam them easily.
Not to mention the 40 energy cost of the said elemental burst, which is very low and most of the time is already full right after using casting it against multiple enemies.
Electro builds the safest way to go and is also the easiest way to build Keqing. This type will also maximize her kit as an Electro Vision user.
Party Composition
The physical build will have a lot to consider at a party because she cannot be in a team with support characters that infuse elements to the party members’ weapons.
A Physical Keqing can be teamed up with Kaeya, Rosaria, Diona, and Raiden Shogun or Fischl. These characters can cast elemental skills, go off-field, and trigger a Superconduct Elemental Reaction, which reduces the target’s resistance to Physical Attacks, thus boosting the damage of the Physical build Keqing.
Xinyan can also be paired with any Physical type character due to the nature of her buff and debuff.
Her shield can increase the Physical damage of the characters protected by it and reduce the Physical damage resistance of the opponents that were hit when casting the shield.
The Elemental or Electro build Keqing is safe to be teamed up with almost every character. She can be at a party with a Pyro character to trigger the Overload Elemental Reaction or Hydro characters for the Electro-Charged Reaction.
If Keqing is your main character, you can experiment with any characters without the fear of losing a lot of damage.
Artifacts
Artifacts are the major source of character stats, making them crucial in building your characters.
For Physical Build
The available artifact sets that give Physical DMG bonuses are the Bloodstained Chivalry and the Pale Flame sets. The 2-piece effect of both artifact sets gives a 25% bonus to the user’s Physical damage.
The 4-piece set of Bloodstained Chivalry works well in a setup where many small enemies are easy to defeat and if your playstyle involves a lot of charged attacks. When the artifact user defeats an opponent, the damage of their charged attack is increased by 50%, and charged attacks will not cost any stamina for 10 seconds.
With Keqing’s elemental skill that is easy to spam, the Pale Flame’s 4-piece set effect can be triggered and maximized thanks to its short cooldown time. The effect is when an elemental skill hits an opponent, the ATK of the artifact user is increased by 9% for 7 seconds. This effect can even be stacked up to 2 times, and if that happens, the Physical damage bonus will be doubled.
For this build, make sure to get a goblet with a Physical damage bonus as its main stat.
For Electro Build
The artifacts that can increase the Electro damage are the Thundering Fury and the Thundersoother sets.
The Thundering Fury can give a bonus of 15% added Electro damage for its 2-piece, making it easy if you only need that bonus. When wearing four pieces of this artifact, it will increase the Electro-related Elemental Reactions if the user triggers it. If this Elemental Reaction gets triggered, that elemental skill’s cooldown will be reduced by 1 second.
The Thundersoother could be a little difficult to get buff from because you need to equip four pieces of this artifact set to have the damage increase bonus. The 2-piece set will only increase the character’s resistance to Electro damage, but the 4-piece set will also increase the damage the character deals with against opponents affected by Electro. The damage increase is 35% and can easily be triggered by Keqing’s elemental burst or her sword infused with Electro.
For an alternative set, you can have a 2-piece Thundering Fury combined with another 2-piece set of either Gladiator’s Finale or Shimenawa’s Reminiscence.
If your play style involves spamming Keqing’s elemental burst, you can also use the 2-piece set of Noblesse Oblige, which increases the damage of her elemental burst by 20%.
If ever you are short on Resin and still haven’t gone on artifact domains to farm, you might have parts of Gladiator’s Finale with good or at least decent stats. You can use a 4-piece set of this artifact because it not only gives an ATK bonus of 18% but will also increase the damage of the user’s normal attack by 35% if they use a sword, claymore, or polearm.
With Keqing’s combat style that involves a lot of normal attacks, regardless if her weapon is infused with Electro or not, the 4-piece Gladiator’s Finale is still a good choice. This also means that for both Physical and Electro builds. This artifact set is safe to use.
To know about weapons for Keqing of either build, please see our guide on the best weapon for Keqing here.
Conclusion
Both Physical and Electro build goes well with Keqing. However, if you want to maximize her kit and combat design, Electrotype will be the best option. But at the end of the day, it still depends on your preference as a player.
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