Unlocking Yaoyao’s Potential: Choosing the Best 4-Star Weapon
The best 4-star weapon for Yaoyao depends heavily on her role in your team. However, considering overall versatility and accessibility, the Favonius Lance emerges as the top contender. It significantly bolsters her Energy Recharge, enabling frequent use of her Burst for consistent healing and Dendro application. While other options like Dragon’s Bane or Kitain Cross Spear can excel in specific reaction-based builds, the Favonius Lance offers the most consistent value across various team compositions, improving overall team energy generation.
Deep Dive into Yaoyao’s Weaponry: 4-Star Options Explored
Yaoyao, the adorable Dendro healer, is a fantastic addition to any Genshin Impact team. However, maximizing her potential requires careful consideration of her weapon. While 5-star weapons undeniably offer superior stats, not everyone has access to them. That’s where 4-star weapons come in, providing viable and often readily available alternatives. Let’s dissect the best 4-star options for Yaoyao, considering different builds and playstyles.
Favonius Lance: The Energy Recharge Champion
The Favonius Lance is a cornerstone for many support characters in Genshin Impact, and Yaoyao is no exception. Its primary strength lies in its Energy Recharge substat. Yaoyao’s Burst, which provides significant healing and Dendro application, requires a substantial amount of energy. The Favonius Lance significantly reduces this burden, allowing you to use her Burst more frequently.
Furthermore, the weapon’s passive effect generates Energy Particles upon dealing a CRIT hit. These particles not only benefit Yaoyao but also recharge the Bursts of her entire team. This makes her an excellent battery, providing consistent healing, Dendro application, and energy support.
Kitain Cross Spear: Elemental Mastery for Reaction-Based Builds
If you’re building Yaoyao specifically for reaction-based teams (Bloom, Hyperbloom, Aggravate, Spread), the Kitain Cross Spear becomes a much more attractive option. It boasts an Elemental Mastery substat, directly boosting the damage output of her Dendro reactions.
Its passive effect, while requiring some energy management, also provides an Elemental Skill damage bonus. The downside is that it drains energy, requiring careful rotation management. It’s a powerful choice if you’re actively triggering reactions with Yaoyao, but less useful if she’s primarily focused on healing.
Dragon’s Bane: Amplifying Dendro Reactions
Similar to the Kitain Cross Spear, the Dragon’s Bane shines in reaction-based teams. This weapon increases damage against enemies affected by Hydro or Pyro, making it a viable option in Burgeon, Vaporize, and Bloom compositions. However, it’s a more niche pick than the Kitain Cross Spear because the condition it provides is restrictive and doesn’t help with the Dendro based teams.
It has the same downside as the Kitain Cross Spear, though. The weapon isn’t useful if Yaoyao is focusing on healing, and the need to have a Pyro or Hydro on the team is more restrictive than other alternatives.
The Catch: A Reliable Energy Recharge Alternative
While primarily known for its effectiveness on Raiden Shogun, The Catch can also serve as a decent option for Yaoyao, especially if you haven’t fully refined your Favonius Lance or need an Energy Recharge weapon for another character. This weapon provides an Energy Recharge substat, helping to fix her Burst.
The Catch’s passive grants a boost to Elemental Burst Damage and CRIT Rate. While Yaoyao’s damage output isn’t her primary focus, these stats still contribute to her overall effectiveness.
Moonpiercer: A Craftable Support Option
The Moonpiercer is a craftable weapon with an Elemental Mastery substat. Its passive creates a leaf that grants an ATK bonus to the character who picks it up. While the Elemental Mastery is useful for reaction-based builds, the ATK buff is less impactful on Yaoyao herself, as her healing scales off HP. In general, there are better choices than this one.
Black Tassel: A Niche Healing Build
The Black Tassel, a 3-star weapon, surprisingly appears on this list due to its unique HP substat. Since Yaoyao’s healing scales directly with HP, this weapon provides the largest possible boost to her healing output.
However, its low base attack and situational passive (increased damage against slimes) make it only suitable for a dedicated healing build where damage is completely irrelevant. It lacks the utility of the Favonius Lance or the offensive potential of the Kitain Cross Spear or Dragon’s Bane. While it is good to make her healing potential at its highest, it doesn’t synergize well with the rest of the team like other options.
Building Yaoyao: Artifacts and Stats
Choosing the right weapon is only one piece of the puzzle. Building Yaoyao effectively also involves selecting the appropriate artifacts and prioritizing the right stats.
- Artifact Sets:
- Deepwood Memories (4-piece): Ideal for boosting the team’s Dendro damage output, particularly when Yaoyao is the only Dendro character.
- Tenacity of the Millelith (4-piece): Provides HP% and ATK% buffs for the team, enhancing both her healing and team damage.
- Maiden Beloved (4-piece): Maximizes her healing output, making her an even more potent healer.
- Ocean-Hued Clam (4-piece): Turns excess healing into damage, providing a bit more offensive presence.
- Stat Priority:
- HP% (Sands, Goblet, Circlet): Maximizes her healing capabilities.
- Energy Recharge (Sands, Substats): Ensures consistent Burst uptime.
- Elemental Mastery (Substats): Enhances Dendro reaction damage in reaction-based builds.
- Healing Bonus (Circlet): Further amplifies her healing output.
- CRIT Rate/CRIT DMG (Substats) : Only needed for her to activate the effect of Favonius Lance.
Conclusion: Choosing What’s Best
Ultimately, the best 4-star weapon for Yaoyao depends on your team composition and desired playstyle. If you want a balance between consistent heals, dendro application, and team-wide energy support, the Favonius Lance is your best choice. The Kitain Cross Spear and Dragon’s Bane are excellent picks for maximizing reaction damage.
Remember to consider your artifact stats and team synergy when making your decision. With the right weapon and build, Yaoyao can be a powerful and versatile asset to your Genshin Impact team.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Is Favonius Lance always the best option for Yaoyao?
Not necessarily. If your Yaoyao is exclusively focused on maximizing Dendro reaction damage, the Kitain Cross Spear or Dragon’s Bane might be more suitable. However, for general use and consistent support, Favonius Lance is often the most reliable.
2. How much Energy Recharge does Yaoyao need?
The ideal amount depends on your team composition and energy generation capabilities, however, at least 180% is generally recommended. If using Favonius Lance, you can potentially lower this requirement slightly.
3. Does Yaoyao need Elemental Mastery if I’m primarily using her for healing?
No. If your main priority is healing, focus on HP% and Healing Bonus. Elemental Mastery only benefits her reaction damage.
4. Is the Black Tassel truly viable for Yaoyao?
Yes, but only in very specific scenarios where you need maximum healing output and don’t care about her damage or utility beyond healing.
5. What are the best team compositions for Yaoyao?
Yaoyao excels in various teams, including:
- Hyperbloom Teams: With characters like Raiden Shogun, Xingqiu, and Nahida.
- Aggravate/Spread Teams: With characters like Fischl, Keqing, and Alhaitham.
- Bloom Teams: With characters like Nilou and Kokomi.
- Vaporize Teams: With characters like Hu Tao or Yoimiya with Xingqiu and Yelan
6. Should I level Yaoyao to level 90?
Yes, leveling Yaoyao to Level 90 is highly recommended. It maximizes her HP, which directly improves her healing capabilities and reaction damage.
7. How do Yaoyao’s constellations affect her weapon choices?
Yaoyao’s constellations, particularly C4 (granting Elemental Mastery based on HP) and C6 (improving Dendro application), can indirectly influence weapon choices. More Dendro application means she can be triggering reactions better, and Elemental Mastery helps her trigger the reactions even better.
8. Is it worth pulling for Yaoyao constellations?
That depends on your priorities. C1 and C6 are both very helpful and worth pulling for if you want to enhance your Yaoyao.
9. How does Yaoyao compare to other Dendro healers like Baizhu?
Yaoyao is a fantastic F2P-friendly option, while Baizhu is better, but has limited availability. Yaoyao provides decent off-field Dendro application and good healing, while Baizhu excels at shielding and buffing Dendro damage.
10. What talent levels should I prioritize for Yaoyao?
Prioritize her Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst talents, as these directly affect her healing output and Dendro application. Her Normal Attack talent is less important.
11. Can Yaoyao be used as a main DPS?
While not ideal, Yaoyao can be built as a Dendro DPS in specific team compositions with appropriate gear and support. However, she generally performs better as a support or sub-DPS character.
12. Are there any alternative 3-star weapons besides Black Tassel that can work on Yaoyao?
No, Black Tassel is the only 3-star weapon with an HP substat, making it the only viable option among the 3-star choices.
13. How important is it to have CRIT Rate on Yaoyao when using Favonius Lance?
It’s fairly important. You need a decent amount of CRIT Rate (around 40-50%) to consistently trigger the Favonius Lance’s passive effect and generate Energy Particles for the team.
14. Can I use Yaoyao effectively without any 5-star weapons or constellations?
Yes! Yaoyao is a perfectly viable character even without any 5-star weapons or constellations. The 4-star weapon options discussed above, combined with appropriate artifacts and team support, can make her a valuable asset to your team.
15. Is there a general “best” artifact set for Yaoyao, regardless of her role?
While the best set depends on your specific needs, Deepwood Memories is generally considered the most versatile option. It buffs Yaoyao’s healing, which is always useful, and the Dendro application helps the team as a whole, too.