The best Genshin Impact Nahida build, weapons, artifacts, and Nahida F2P options
A wise choice
The Dendro Archon has been in the wild for a while now, and we've made some adjustments to our Genshin Impact Nahida build recommendations to better reflect our time with her.
Nahida draws power from all elements used in Dendro reactions and can deal a significant amount of damage with her skill. While it might be tempting to use Nahida as a setup for someone else’s reactions, she shines best on her own, with a bit of help.
Unlike Nilou, Nahida functions just fine without her signature weapon as well, creating several opportunities for strong builds without having to rely so heavily on luck.
If you just recruited the Dendro Archon, check out our Nahida teams guide and materials overview to help her be the best she can be.
Make sure to stock up on Kalpalata Lotus for Nahida's Ascension!
Genshin Impact Nahida build
What is the best Genshin Impact Nahida build?
The best Nahida build centers on her two most important features: elemental mastery and Dendro damage. A wide selection of catalysts means you have plenty of viable options for doing one or both.
Best Nahida weapon – A Thousand Floating Dreams
The new 5-star catalyst A Thousand Floating Dreams is Nahida’s signature weapon, specially suited to her skill, burst, and passive talents. It has high attack, offers an equally high elemental mastery buff with its secondary stat, and increases mastery or attack based on the number of characters in your party whose elements match the equipping character’s element.
Skyward Atlas is another solid choice and one that’s comparatively easier to acquire. It also features high attack and has attack as its secondary stat – handy for getting a bit of extra damage from Tri-Karma Purification – and the passive skill offers a 12 percent elemental damage buff.
Lost Prayer to the Sacred Winds works effectively as well, though you may have more difficulty obtaining it thanks to its limited availability. Lost Prayer’s passive skill grants a 12 percent elemental damage bonus as well, but this one stacks four times.
On the 4-star weapon side is Wandering Evenstar. This catalyst has elemental mastery as its secondary stat and increases the user’s attack by 24 percent of their elemental mastery. Tri-Karma Purification’s damage increases based on Nahida’s attack, and you’re aiming for at least 300 elemental mastery or higher. That translates to a decent attack buff entirely for free.
Sacrificial Fragments is a more common 4-star choice and offers a stronger elemental mastery buff than Wandering Evenstar, granting over 200 EM at level 90. The downside is the passive skill is basically pointless. Nahida's skill cooldown lasts three seconds, so you don't really need to reset it quickly in most cases.
Best Nahida Artifacts – Deepwood Memories
The Deepwood Memories set suits Nahida more effectively than other sets and makes her normal attacks viable, while buffing Seed of Skandha damage as well.
- 2-piece effect: Boosts Dendro damage by 15 percent
- 4-piece effect: After an elemental skill or burst hits an opponent, their Dendro resistance decreases by 30 percent.
Aim for elemental mastery as your secondary stat on the Goblet, Sands, and Crown Artifacts, and try to get a 5-star Plume of Death to maximize the attack boost.
Gilded Dreams is a strong second choice, though its benefits revolve around triggering reactions.
- 2-piece effect: Raises the user’s elemental mastery by 80
- 4-piece effect: Within eight seconds of triggering a reaction, the character equipping this will obtain buffs based on the elemental type of the other party members. Attack increases by 14 percent for each party member whose element is the same as the equipping character, and elemental mastery increases by 50 for every party member with a different type.
Some players experiment with hybrid sets. Gilded Dreams and Flower of Paradise Lost is a popular setup, since the 2-piece Flower set gives the equipping character a +80 elemental mastery buff. Nahida Artifact substats
Whatever Artifacts you use, make sure to aim for elemental mastery substats. Elemental damage is a good second choice, and it wouldn't hurt to have at least one with energy recharge.
The Genshin community usually says Nahida needs 1,000 elemental mastery, which is almost impossible to reach without her signature weapon. Bear in mind that this number is just for optimized meta builds. You can make Nahida work with lower elemental mastery. As high as you can get it is fine. Don't stress about trying to hjit 1,000.
What is the best Nahida F2P build?
Nahida’s F2P build is a bit murky in terms of an ideal weapon, since most craftable catalysts arer designed to work in very specific circumstances, but a common 3-star weapon stands out among the usual candidates.
Best Nahida F2P weapon – Magic Guide
Magic Guide has a decent base attack stat of 38 and buffs elemental mastery by a not-insignificant amount. The passive skill increases damage dealt to opponents afflicted with Hydro or Electro by 12 percent, and since you can find this 3-star weapon almost everywhere, it’s easier to reach the max refinement state and get that damage buff to 24 percent. Nahida’s skill means most of your opponents will, or should, be affected by Hydro or Electro anyway, so the buff is useful despite being specific.
Mappa Mare is a strong second choice. It boasts a higher base attack stat, and while the elemental mastery buff is lower, it increases all elemental damage by eight percent after the equipping character uses an elemental skill or burst. The effect stacks twice.
Mappa Mare, a 4-star weapon you can craft, is a decent second choice. However, it has lower elemental mastery at level 90, and its passive skill only stacks twice.
Best Nahida F2P Artifacts – Deepwood Memories
Since Dendro damage is Nahida’s main feature, you still want to aim for a full Deepwood Memories set with the same secondary stat emphasis as in the paid build. Elemental mastery is the best substat, followed by elemental damage and attack.
Is Nahida a DPS character?
Yes, Nahida is a strong Dendro DPS character who can hold her own with Dendro attacks or make them even stronger by triggering reactions other characters set up. Since Nahida uses a catalyst, she can apply Dendro with every attack, but her skill makes it easy to apply the element even more broadly.
All Schemes to Know is Nahida’s elemental skill. It marks up to eight enemies in front of Nahida with a Seed of Skandha if you press the skill button, and if you hold it, Nahida can aim and choose which enemies to mark.
The Seed of Skandha deals Dendro damage to all enemies it affects and links them together. If you trigger elemental reactions, including Bloom-related damage, Nahida unleashes Tri-Karma Purificiation on the affected foes, which deals Dendro damage based on her attack and elemental mastery. You can cause this reaction once ever two-and-a-half seconds, so party members such as Nilou, Fischl, and Bennett are ideal, thanks to their long-lasting elemental abilities.
Nahida’s burst is more of a support for her skill. It creates a Dendro shrine that covers a substantial area and augments Tri-Karma Purification’s effects based on the elements of your other party members. Pyro increases its damage, Electro decreases the interval between Purification attacks, and Hydro expands the shrine’s reach. You can increase the effect with multiple party members of the same element.
Since the burst only buffs Nahida’s skill, it makes her a fairly greedy DPS, one who works best if you set up your elemental reactions beforehand and then keep her on field as long as possible to maximize the damage output. The shrine lasts for 15 seconds, and All Schemes to Know has a short cooldown timer of six seconds, which means you’ll be able to pull off plenty of Tri-Karma Purification attacks during one use of Nahida’s burst.
Nahida’s passive talent Awakening Elucidated buffs Purification damage even further for every point of elemental mastery over 200 that she has, making that her most important stat.
Should I pull for Nahida?
Nahida is an excellent addition to any party and one of the few characters who's almost essential, whether you’re a new player or longtime traveler. Unlike Collei and Tighnari, Nahida is a constant source of Dendro application, and having elemental mastery as her bonus stat makes her perfectly suited to triggering elemental reactions and boosting her skill’s damage even further. That, plus the two Sumeru Artifact sets, free you to experiment with weapons that aren’t Nahida’s signature weapon, an ideal setup if you have no Primogems left over for her weapon banner.
Nahida works with nearly any party combination thanks to her burst’s unique support effect, so even if you haven’t had time to level up a few characters or have some who don’t mesh with other DPS heroes, they have a role to play in Nahida’s party.
Her second passive talent even provides an elemental mastery buff for the active character while her burst is on the field. Nahida is probably the one who would benefit the most from this buff, but it's handy for other EM-centric characters as well and gives them a chance to shine if you want to swap Nahida out.
If you're saving up for future Genshin Impact banners, make sure to check out our up-do-date list of Genshin Impact codes for some free Primogems.