Yae Miko Genshin Impact Guide for Artifacts, Weapons, and Talents

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In this article:

• Yae Miko was one of the characters introduced during Genshin Impact‘s Inazuma Archon quest arc. The pink-haired shrine maiden was revealed to be the Raiden Shogun’s head priestess and familiar that could take the form of a nine-tailed fox.
• Like the Raiden Shogun, Yae is an Electro unit designed as a main damage dealer. With the release of the 3.0 patch and the introduction of Sumeru and the Dendro element, Yae Miko has gotten stronger.
• Since she’s an Electro DPS catalyst, Yae Miko builds favor the traditional Crit Damage and Crit Ratio-focused build paired with supports that give her access to elements that interact with Electro.
• Get a breakdown of Yae’s best talents, artifacts, weapons, and team compositions with consideration for the Dendro element update.

While she may not have become as popular of a DPS as the Raiden Shogun, Yae Miko was among the most anticipated characters during Genshin Impact‘s Inazuma Archon quests. The shrine maiden quickly became a fan favorite because of her sly personality and deprecating (towards the player) sense of humor.

The hype died down a little when leakers revealed Yae Miko to be relatively underwhelming compared to fan expectations — which was later made worse when Yae’s release in the 2.5 patch revealed bugs that affected her damage.

But that’s all old news. Now that Yae Miko’s bugs have been fixed and Genshin Impact has finally released the Dendro element, Yae is poised to become a powerful component for many Dendro-Electro team compositions.

Yae Miko 101: An Overview of the Shrine Maiden of the Grand Narukami Shrine

Yae Miko is a character we meet around the middle of the Inazuma Archon quest arc. She is introduced as the Guuji of the Grand Narukami Shrine and effectively serves as the head priestess of the Raiden Shogun/Ei.

Her playful and fox-like personality is owed to the fact that she’s literally a fox. Well, a fox spirit. Like the last Guuji of the shrine, Yae Miko is a kitsune, a type of fox creature known in Japanese mythology for its mischievous nature.

Yae has no problem with making slightly derogatory jokes towards the god she serves and often makes dismissive remarks about how boring some people’s lives are. Because of her love for amusement, she runs the Yae Publishing House, a local publishing house that specializes in light novels.

Yae Miko is an especially ruthless editor, but she’s also fierce on the battlefield and has several kit features that make her well-suited to the following roles:

• Main damage dealer: Yae Miko’s kit is completely geared towards the main DPS role. Her constellations and passives are designed to either increase her damage or decrease her opponents’ resistance to taking damage. Other features of her kit, particularly Constellation 1, are designed to help her get her burst active so you can deal damage faster.

• Electro applier: Since Yae is an Electro catalyst all of her damage is Electro damage, making it easy to trigger Electro elemental reactions. That’s the no-brainer part. What makes her a great Electro applier are her turrets. Yae Miko’s Elemental Skill lets her put down three turrets that deal AOE Electro damage.

• Single target and AOE damage: Many DPS characters like Yanfei rely on their charged attacks and single target capabilities. While these are powerful DPS characters, they’re usually limited by their ability to only deal with one or two enemies at a time. Yae’s kit, on the other hand, lets her set up her turrets for dealing AOE damage, leaving her free to perform her normal attacks. Her burst is also an AOE damage dealer that doesn’t oblige the player to keep her on the field after activation the way characters like Kokomi do.

These abilities also make Yae a great sub-DPS and a worthy addition to a quick swap team. Quick swap teams leverage the game’s elemental reactions by letting you swap cycle through each team member, bringing them to the field just long enough to use their skill or burst, before swapping back to whoever deals the best normal attacks (a.k.a your designated DPS).

When building your Yae Miko, you want to prioritize her talents as follows: Elemental Skill > Elemental Burst > Normal Attack.

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Don’t let her Elemental Mastery-related passive fool you, she gets the most out of her damage by focusing on Crit Rate, Crit Damage, and Attack. Fortunately, she isn’t too difficult to build a good Crit Ratio for since Yae’s ascension stat is Crit Rate.

What Are Yae Miko’s Talents, Priority Talents, and Stat Priorities?

Yae Miko has six talents, three of which are passive while the other three are active. The active talents can all be upgraded to Level 10 using a Crown of Insight and Yae’s corresponding talent materials. If you can get Yae’s constellations, Constellations 3 and 5 increase the levels of her Elemental Skill and Burst to Level 13.

Yae Miko Genshin Impact Active Talents

Yae Miko has three active talents: Spiritfox Sin-Eater, Yakan Evocation: Sesshou Sakura (E), and Great Secret Art: Tenko Kenshin (Q). Both her Elemental Skill and Burst revolve around her turret mechanic with each of them supporting the other.

• Spiritfox Sin-Eater (Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks): Yae Miko shoots three attacks that deal Electro Damage to her enemies. Using her charged attack and plunging attack lets her deal AOE Electro Damage, albeit to a limited degree.

• Yakan Evocation: Sesshou Sakura (Elemental Skill E): Yae summons lesser kitsune spirits in the form of three Electro turrets that she can scatter across the battlefield. The area covered by these turrets is struck periodically with lightning. If you keep the turrets connected, they will boost each other’s damage. You can summon up to three turrets.

• Great Secret Art: Tenko Kenshin (Elemental Burst Q): Yae Miko reveals her true kitsune nature and strikes down from the heavens in the form of a giant Sky Kitsune that deals AOE Electro damage. If there are Sesshou Sakura turrets on the field, they will burst and deal additional thunderbolts.

All of Yae Miko’s constellations revolve around her Sesshou Sakura turret mechanic which makes it a top priority talent to upgrade.

Yae Miko Genshin Impact Passive Talents

Yae has three passive talents, two of which improve her active skills while the third gives her additional utility in terms of resource management.

• The Shrine’s Sacred Shade: Each destroyed Sesshou Sakura turret will reset the cooldown for 1 charge of the Sesshou Sakura skill. Basically, if one gets destroyed, you can replace it immediately.

• Enlightened Blessing: Each additional point of Elemental Mastery increases Yae’s E skill damage by 0.15%. Do not fixate on this. Yae Miko is still better when put together with Crit Damage and Crit Ratio in mind. Aside from that, work on getting her Attack stat to around 2,000.

• Meditations of a Yako: Yae Miko has a 25% chance to get 1 regional Character Talent Material when crafting, the rarity of which depends on the base material used.

What Weapons Should Yae Miko Have?

Without a doubt, Yae’s best in slot weapon is the 5-star weapon specially designed for her. Kagura’s Verity boosts Elemental Skill damage by 12% for 16 seconds when using Yae’s Elemental skill. Interestingly, it also only allows for up to 3 stacks, making it one of the hyperspecialized weapons that can only be fully utilized by the 5-star it’s made for.

This makes Kagura’s Verity a non-F2P-friendly weapon. Aside from the costs of getting the weapon, it’s hard to use with a different character. Yanfei and Lisa are some of the few characters able to get something out of Kagura’s Verity, though the weapon makes for a decent stat booster since it was Crit Damage as its substat.

A more flexible 5-star option would be Lost Prayer to the Sacred Winds, a Crit rate substat weapon whose passive increases movement speed and provides 8% Elemental Damage bonus every 4 seconds.

When it comes to 4-star weapons, you can give her any of the weapons that increase her Attack, Crit Rate, or Crit Damage stats.

The Widsith is an all-around catalyst classic that can be used on just about any catalyst character because of its Crit Damage substat and Elemental Damage oriented passive. Oathsworn Eye can also be used with Yae since it increases Energy Recharge for 10 seconds after you use your Elemental Skill.

What Artifacts Should I Use for Yae Miko?

Yae Miko benefits from Attack, Elemental Skill boosts, and Electro Damage. With a burst cost of 90, some players may prefer to give her Energy Recharge artifacts, but this isn’t as mandatory as it seems given that Yae ultimately relies on her skill, not her burst.

Artifacts that you can use for Yae Miko are:

• Wanderer’s Troupe: Like the Widsith, this is a generic build that works for just every catalyst. The 2-piece set increases Elemental Master by 80 which is negligible. If you opt for this, you’re better off with the 4-piece set which increases charged attack damage by 35% for catalyst users. Again, this is not ideal and barely works with Yae since she doesn’t rely on her charged attacks for damage like many catalyst characters do.

• Shimenawa’s Reminiscence: Both the 2-piece set and 4-piece set work well with Yae. the 2-piece set grants 18%+ Attack while the 4-piece set increases normal, charged, plunging attacks in exchange for consuming a portion of your character’s energy.

• Gladiator’s Finale: 2-piece set grants 18%+ Attack.

• Emblem of Severed Fate: 2-piece set increases Energy Recharge by 20% while the 4-piece set increases burst damage by 25% of your total Energy Recharge.

• Thundering Fury: 2-piece set increases Electro Damage bonus by 15%. The 4-piece set increases the damage of all Electro reactions by 40%.

• Thundersoother: A rarely recommended set, Thundersoother can work with Yae and Lisa because the 4-piece set increases damage against opponents affected by Electro by 35%.

You can mix and match artifact sets depending on what works best for your team and your preferred playstyle. All that really matters is to give Yae a decent Crit Ratio of around 1:2 and a high Attack stat.

Team Compositions for Yae Miko: Elements, Roles, and More

Sumeru’s introduction of Dendro may have brought us more options for making Yae Miko shine, but it’s still a little too early (as of the time this was written) to know precisely which team compositions will get you the most out of your Yae. And really, this guide is designed to give you an idea of ways you can play Yae, so let’s have a look at that and Dendro instead.

Right now, the only Dendro characters in the game are Dendro Traveler, Tighnari, and Collei. They can be used together with Yae Miko to trigger the Catalyze reaction. Catalyze drops an Electro Particle.

It then increases Dendro and Electro DMG for 7 seconds and applies a Catalyze debuff to enemies. You can stack more Electro onto your Catalyze reaction to increase its damage, resulting in the effect Aggravate.

If you have two Dendro characters in your team, you can increase Yae’s damage without having to invest in Elemental Mastery since the Dendro Resonance effect increases Elemental Mastery by 50 for your entire team. Triggering Dendro reactions increases it further for 6 seconds.

You can also try traditional Electro team comps such as Overload (Electro + Pyro), Electro-Charge (Hydro + Electro), and Superconduct (Electro + Cryo). Raiden Shogun makes a particularly good teammate for Yae since she makes up for Yae’s 90-cost burst with her Energy Recharge-oriented kit.