Best Kuki Shinobu builds, weapons, and teams in Genshin Impact

Kuki Shinobu is a 4-star Electro Sword user in Genshin Impact and one of the best Hyperbloom triggers in the game. To accompany your latest team recruit, here’s the deputy leader of the Arataki Gang’s best weapons, artifacts, and teams.

Playstyles

Kuki is an off-field healer and reaction DPS. Her Skill sacrifices a small amount of HP to create a ring that pulses every 1.5 seconds, dealing Electro damage in an AoE around the active player. Each pulse also heals the active player based on Kuki’s max HP. Her Burst deals a rapid blast of Electro damage in an AoE in front of her.

Kuki’s Electro damage is quite low. She deals damage in Hyperbloom teams by building as much Elemental Mastery as possible. Even if her Skill doesn’t do much damage, it hits all Dendro Cores within its AoE, triggering Hyperbloom at a consistent rate.

Even if she is not in a Hyperbloom team, Kuki can provide consistent Electro application for Quicken or Superconduct. Her healing is also nice, though it can be stressful for Kuki to constantly remain at low health due to her self-sacrificing mechanics. This guide will focus on her Hyperbloom build.

To play Kuki, simply swap to her, use her Skill and Burst (if available), then swap to teammates. Her Burst is more for bonus Electro application than damage, so it’s not imperative to use it every rotation.

Weapons

Freedom-Sworn
This is Kazuha’s 5-star signature Sword, but it works great on Kuki as well. She is able to reliably trigger its passive with her Skill and Burst, providing a teamwide ATK buff.

Xiphos’ Moonlight
This banner-exclusive 4-star Sword converts a portion of Kuki’s Elemental Mastery into Energy Recharge and shares it with the team. Kuki herself doesn’t need the Energy Recharge, but her teammates might!

Iron Sting / Toukabou Shigure
These two are pretty interchangeable 4-star options. They provide the same amount of Elemental Mastery with passives that are only marginally useful to Kuki. Iron Sting can be crafted with billets, but Toukabou Shigure was an event-limited weapon. Don’t use additional billets to refine Iron Sting; it’s not worth it.

Key of Khaj-Nisut
This 5-star Sword can actually be very good if you’re able to stack its passive. The catch is that Kuki is unable to stack it from off-field, forcing you to waste valuable field time on Kuki. Still, if you can afford the field time or want more healing from Kuki, this is a viable option.

Favonius Sword
Favonius sacrifices damage in favor of team utility. If you build some CRIT Rate, Favonius Sword allows Kuki to generate additional Energy for her team, making your rotations more comfortable.

Artifacts

4pc Flower of Paradise Lost (4FoPL)
This is technically Kuki’s best set for Hyperbloom teams. It will result in the highest damage overall from your Hyperblooms. However, this artifact set comes from a domain that’s inefficient to farm if you’re not also building Wanderer. You may want to consider one of the sets below.

4pc Gilded Dreams (4GD)
4GD is my generally recommended set. It results in almost as much Hyperbloom damage as 4FoPL, but it comes from a much more resin-efficient domain. Kuki’s best teams feature at least one Dendro teammate, and you’ll want to equip them with 4pc Deepwood Memories to reduce enemy Dendro RES. You’ll need to farm this domain anyway if you want to play a Hyperbloom team, so you might as well get a 4GD set for Kuki.

2pc combos
If you’re unable to obtain a full 4pc set, feel free to combine 2pc combos that provide Elemental Mastery. 

Artifact Stats

Since Kuki’s Burst isn’t essential to her gameplay, feel free to ignore Energy Recharge. It can be worth it to use her Burst when you have the Energy, but you don’t need to specifically build for it.

For Hyperbloom builds, go all-in on Elemental Mastery main stats with HP substats. Her healing is usually still sufficient with a full Elemental Mastery build, but if you would like more healing, try an HP main stat on one of your pieces.

Teams

Hyperbloom

Hyperbloom teams rely on Dendro and Hydro teammates to trigger Bloom, creating Dendro Cores. Kuki is able to hit the Dendro Cores with her Skill at regular intervals, making her a reliable Hyperbloom trigger. As an off-field character, Kuki allows for a Dendro or Hydro unit to take the field, leading to more team flexibility. Choose your favorite on-field Dendro or Hydro character, then an off-fielder of the other element. Finish off with either another off-field Dendro unit or a Flex unit of choice. Fischl and Beidou may steal some of Kuki’s Hyperblooms, but they also allow for greater Quicken uptime.

• Dendro: Dendro Traveler, Nahida, Collei, Alhaitham
• Hydro: Furina, Xingqiu, Yelan, Childe, Ayato, Kokomi
• Flex: Fischl, Beidou, Zhongli, Yae Miko, Sucrose, Kazuha