Qiqi Genshin Impact Guide for Artifacts, Weapons, and Talents

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In this article:

• Qiqi is a 5-star Cryo sword character in Genshin Impact who can be obtained on the standard banner or by losing the 50/50 on the limited-time banner.
• Qiqi’s lore portrays her as a Chinese zombie who was resurrected by the adepti out of pity for her early death. This gave her divine powers and may have made her an adeptus in her own right which is why she’s called “Fortune Preserver”.
• Though mostly considered a mediocre character, Qiqi heals your team fast enough that she can trivialize the health-draining effects of enemies such as the Golden Wolflord.
• Strangely, Qiqi’s best all-around build for supporting and carrying your team is a DPS build that increases her personal damage.

Genshin Impact updates have a way of bringing old characters and even characters that were once considered underwhelming to the forefront. This happened before with characters like Kokomi, Kuki Shinobu, Keqing, and Albedo. 

If you’re new to the game, here’s the run down: Albedo truly shined with the release of Cinnabar Spindle, an event weapon. Kuki Shinobu and Keqing needed the introduction of Dendro reactions to unlock their potential. Lastly, Kokomi needed the Ocean-Hued clam set to make up for her non-existent personal damage due to her inability to crit. 

When Ocean-Hued Clam dropped, though, it buffed another character known for her excess healing: Qiqi. With her access to Cryo and the fact that she’s a sword user, the Ocean-Hued clam set together with a Physical-focused build made Qiqi a formidable character for both overworld and Abyss.

Qiqi 101: An Overview of Fortune Preserver

Qiqi is an old standard banner character introduced very early on in the game. She is one of the characters we meet when we go to Liyue where she works as an assistant to Dr. Baizhu at Bubu’s Pharmacy. When we first meet her, Qiqi seems like a regular, albeit clueless and forgetful, little girl. 

We later learn that Qiqi is actually a zombie. In Chinese myth, zombies or jiangshi are reanimated corpses that are brought to life using supernatural arts. This is exactly what happened to Qiqi who has been alive since the Archon War. During one of the battles between the adepti and their enemies, Qiqi was trapped in a cave, leading to her death. 

The adepti felt sorry for her so they brought her back to life using their adept energy. But since this wasn’t something a human body could easily handle, it gave Qiqi divine powers.

These days, Qiqi gives herself orders to gather herbs in the mountains. If you add her to your party, this is what you can expect from her. 

• Main damage dealer: Qiqi isn’t Eula so don’t expect too much, but because she is a Cryo sword character, she has an easier time dealing damage. If you build her for dealing Physical damage, you can use her to trigger the Superconduct reaction. 
• Healer: The main advantage of a shield, aside from keeping your character from dying, is resisting interruption. Because Qiqi can heal herself and her team while she’s dealing damage on the field, you can keep the ball rolling while you wait for your actual DPS to get healthy enough to swap to again. 
• Cryo resonance provider: The Cryo resonance effect increases your crit rate against enemies affected with Cryo by 15%. This makes Qiqi a viable healer and sub DPS while also serving an extra utility function.

While that might sound awesome, Qiqi has one main problem: She’s bad at generating her own energy for an 80 cost burst and she has a skill cooldown of 30 seconds, making her terrible for Cryo application if you want to Freeze enemies and leverage reactions. 

Because of this, some Qiqi users build her with Sacrificial Sword which has an Energy Recharge substat and a passive that has a chance of ending her skill cooldown. She also has low normal attack multipliers though this is compensated with a fast attack speed that plays rather nicely with Beidou and Albedo.

What Are Qiqi’s Talents, Priority Talents, and Stat Priorities?

Qiqi has six talents, three of which are active while the other three are passive. Additional constellations for Qiqi can increase her skill and burst levels past level 10 though pulling for them is not recommended since you can get Qiqi by losing the 50/50 on the event banner. 

Qiqi Genshin Impact Active Talents

Qiqi’s active talents are Ancient Sword Art, Adeptus Art: Herald of Frost, and Adeptus Art: Preserver of Fortune. All of her skills are capable of healing your team though her Normal Attacks require an active skill or for her passive to trigger in order to do so.

• Ancient Sword Art (Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks): Qiqi deals 5 rapid strikes in a row for her normal attacks, two rapid strikes that consume stamina for her charged attack, and AoE physical damage from plunging with her weapon. 
• Adeptus Art: Herald of Frost (Elemental Skill): Qiqi summons a ball of Cryo energy that circles around the active character. It will heal the active character even if Qiqi is not on field but if Qiqi is on the field and attacking, it will regenerate HP for the entire team based on Qiqi’s attack stat. It has a cool down of 30 seconds. 
• Adeptus Art: Preserver of Fortune (Elemental Burst): QWiqi’s burst has a cooldown of 20 seconds and an 80 cost burst. This deals a burst of Cryo damage on all nearby enemies and applies Cryo. it also marks enemies with a talisman that heals any character that strikes that enemy. 

Qiqi’s healing abilities involve a bit of risk since you’re only really activating your healing abilities when your characters have low HP. The fact that you need to bring them out of the field and attack with them means you risk getting your DPS killed in Abyss if you don’t let Qiqi do the healing on her own. 

Qiqi Genshin Impact Passive Talents

Qiqi’s passive talents increase her healing abilities and provide some utility. When exploring Liyue, Qiqi is a great team member to have on your party since she is able to reveal the location of Liyue specialties on your mini-map.

• Life-Prolonging Methods: When your active character is being healed with Qiqi’s skill and triggers an elemental reaction, Life-Prolonging Methods will increase their incoming healing bonus by 20% for 8 seconds. 

• A Glimpse Into Arcanum: Qiqi’s normal and charged attacks have a 50% chance of putting a talisman on enemies she strikes, making you less dependent on her skill and burst.
• Former Life Memories: Marks Liyue specialties on your mini-map.

Qiqi’s Genshin Impact Talent Priority and Stat Priority

Generally, Qiqi needs Energy Recharge and high Attack stats as her healing scales off her attack and she has a high burst cost. If you intend for Qiqi to mainly be support, focus on her Energy Recharge and cooldown management methods for her skill.

A DPS Qiqi gets the most out of her damage with a Physical damage bonus, Attack, and Crit ratio oriented build. With Ocean-Hued clam, you can turn Qiqi into a tank that covers for whenever your DPS isn’t on the field while allowing Qiqi to contribute damage when she is off field.

Because Qiqi gets a lot of utility and damage out of her healing capabilities, her most important talent is Adeptus Art: Preserver of Fortune making Energy Recharge her most important stat overall. 

What Weapons Should Qiqi Have?

Qiqi has multiple viable weapons that you can choose from. As usual for Genshin Impact characters, she benefits from Crit rate, Crit damage, and  Attack in addition to her need for Energy Recharge. Because of this, you have a variety of weapons to choose from ranging from 5 stars to even a 3 star. 

• Aquila Favonia: Aquila Favonia contributes a high base attack of 674 at Level 90 and at 1 refinement. It has a Physical Damage bonus substat and a passive that heals Qiqi in proportion to her attack while also dealing 200% of her attack as AoE damage. 

• Skyward Sword: Skyward Sword is a Best-In-Slot all-rounder for Qiqi that has a high base attack, an Energy Recharge substat, and a passive that increases her Cit Rate anytime she uses her burst. 

• Prototype Rancour: A free-to-play alternative to Aquila Favonia, Prototype Rancour has a Physical Damage bonus substat and increases Qiqi’s attack whenever she strikes enemies with Normal or Charged attacks. 

• The Flute: Another viable alternative to Aquila Favonia, The Flute has an attack substat and has a chance of dealing 150% of Qiqi’s total attack to her surrounding enemies. 

• Sacrificial Sword: Sacrificial Sword sacrifices Qiqi’s personal damage to go all in on her healing capabilities. It has an Energy Recharge substat and a passive that has a chance of ending her skill’s cooldown, letting you play around her 20-second cooldown. Alternatively, you can use Favonius Sword which is another 4-star Energy Recharge weapon.

• Harbinger of Dawn: Once a favorite among F2P Albedo mains, Harbinger of Dawn is a 3-star weapon with a Crit damage substat. It even increases your crit rate by 28% at refinement 5 provided that your health is over 90%. Not a hard task with Qiqi. 

What Artifacts Should I Use for Qiqi?

Though Qiqi is a Cryo character, her bad Cryo application means that she gets little use out of the Blizzard Strayer set – the typical go-to artifact for Cryo characters. 

• Ocean-Hued Clam: Undoubtedly Qiqi’s best artifact set, Ocean-Hued Clam’s 2-piece set increases her healing bonus by 15% while the 4-piece set makes Maiden Beloved useless. The 4-piece set summons an Ocean Dyed Foam bubble that will deal 90% of accumulated healing for the active character (including excess healing) as AoE damage to nearby enemies. 

• Pale Flame/Bloodstained Chivalry: The 2-piece sets for both artifacts increase Qiqi’s Physical Damage by 25%.

• Gladiator’s Finale: An artifact set for when you’re saving your resin, Gladiator’s Finale grants 18% attack with its 2-piece set while the 4-piece set increases Normal attack damage by 35% if your character is wielding a sword. 2-piece set alternatives for this are Vermillion Hereafter and Echoes of an Offering. 

• Emblem of Severed Fate: The 2-piece set increases Qiqi’s energy recharge by 20%. 

Team Compositions for Qiqi: Elements, Roles, and More

Qiqi is fun to play on her own since her formidable healing and fast attacks enable her to tank pretty much any enemy in the overworld. If you play her in a team though, you can partner her easily with other characters that don’t need reactions. Qiqi works quite well in a mostly Geo comp with Itto and Albedo whose elemental skill damage she can easily proc with her fast attacks.

Fischl, Beidou, Lisa, and Raiden all make great teammates because of their Electro application that helps trigger Superconduct. Raiden is best for this since she can make up for Qiqi’s bad energy regeneration though you might want Raiden in a team like Raiden National instead. 

If you’re using Qiqi as a DPS, you can try teaming her up with Yun Jin who buffs Normal attacks. 

Generally, though, Qiqi is a little like Zhongli in the sense that you can stick her in any team and she’ll make playing a more comfortable experience.