Genshin Impact Yelan build guide

(Image credit: miHoYo)

The new five star Genshin Impact Yelan character is a mysterious Hydro marksman looks cool, has awesome attack animations, and scales with HP%. Yes, that’s right: now’s your chance to use all those HP-based Artifacts!

In this Genshin Impact Yelan build guide, we’ll explain her abilities, her Constellation levels, the best team compositions, and of course… The best Sub DPS and Support builds, including a Yelan build for those of you who didn’t pull an Aqua Simulacra bow. Here's how to get the best from in Yelan Genshin Impact 2.7

Yelan Weapon, Element, and stats in Genshin Impact

As mentioned, Yelan uses a Bow and has Hydro (water) Vision. She has a base Attack of 244 at max level, which is on the lower side for a five-star character. However, almost all of her attacks scale with her HP, which is one of the highest in the game: 14,450 at max level.

Yelan’s Ascension stat is Critical Rate, with a bonus of up to 19.2%. This will make it easier to focus your build on Critical Damage.

Beware that Yelan currently has the lowest base Defense of all Genshin Impact characters, with only 548 at max level. Since she doesn’t need a lot of active time in combat though, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Yelan’s Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst

Yelan’s Normal Attacks aren’t her strong suit, but she has a powerful Charged Attack, Elemental Skill, and Burst.

Normal/Charged Attack: try to trigger the special Charged Attack called Breakthrough Barb. Yelan enters the Breakthrough state automatically after spending at least five seconds out of combat. Her next Charged Aimed Shot takes much less time to charge and deals extra Hydro damage based on her max HP.
Lingering Lifeline: a rapid movement skill with a cooldown of ten seconds. Tap to dash forward, or hold the Skill button for a longer duration (note that damage scaling remains the same). When the duration ends, every enemy hit will explode, dealing Hydro damage based on Yelan’s max HP. Yelan has a 34% chance to reset the Breakthrough state for each enemy hit by the explosion.
Depth-Clarion Dice: a Hydro area-of-effect attack that also summons an Exquisite Throw. It will follow the active character around for a duration of 15 seconds, dealing damage whenever a Normal Attack hits an opponent or when the Lingering Lifeline explodes. The cooldown for this skill is 18 seconds, and the Energy Cost is 70.

Yelan passive skills

Besides her Attacks, Yelan has the following passive abilities:

Necessary Calculation: Yelan gets 25% more rewards from Expeditions in Liyue.
Turn Control: Yelan’s max HP is increased by 6/12/18/30% based on the number of different Elements present in the party.
Adapt With Ease: the active character deals 3.5% extra damage per second while the Burst’s Exquisite Throw is active, up to a maximum of 50%.

Best Yelan Sub DPS build

Best weapon: Aqua Simulacra
Best Artifacts: Emblem of Severed Fate.

Yelan has the perfect cards for an amazing Sub DPS. In this role, you will swap her in, cast the Burst and hit enemies with the Elemental Skill, then change to a main DPS while Exquisite Throw remains active.

A few things are important: Yelan needs a high enough Energy Recharge (you want to keep that Burst going), and a good Critical Rate/Critical Damage balance. Unless you use Raiden Shogun on the team, there’s no such thing as too much Energy for Yelan, so Emblem of Severed fate (+20% Energy Recharge) is a good deal. The four-piece set can then use the excess Energy to increase Burst damage.

Yelan’s best weapon is a bit of a no-brainer: five-star Aqua Simulacra offers the highest Critical Damage increase (+88.2%) and also boosts HP.

Best Yelan Support build

Best weapon: Elegy for the End
Best Artifacts: Noblesse Oblige

Instead of maximizing her damage, this Yelan build is fully focused on increasing the damage bonus for active characters. Elegy for the End increases Energy Recharge and allows Yelan to further boost team damage by hitting opponents with her Skill and Burst. The Elemental Mastery bonus goes up to 200 and the Attack bonus has a maximum of 40%.

As the Yelan Support build is focused on keeping her Burst hits going, Noblesse Oblige is a great choice of Artifact set. It boosts Burst damage by 20% and increases party member’s Attack by 20% after triggering Yelan’s Burst.

Best Yelan F2P/new player build

Best weapon: Favonius Warbow (four-star) or Slingshot (three-star)
Best Artifacts: Tenacity of the Millelith and Heart of Depth

Short on five-star bows? No worries, you can still have a great Yelan build with three- and four-star weapons instead. Although four-star weapons like the Stringless and the Sacrificial Bow are fine, the Favonius Warbow is arguably the best free-to-play option. It has a very high Energy Recharge and the ability to generate more Energy for the whole team.

If you don’t have a four-star bow, try Slingshot. It offers extra Critical Rate, which allows you to choose Artifacts with different stats.

As for Artifacts, you can swap the Emblem of Severed Fate set from Inazuma for one that’s easier to collect. A two-piece Tenacity of the Millelith (+20% HP) and Heart of Depth (+15% Hydro damage) can be found in Liyue and Dragonspine respectively.

Best team build for Yelan in Genshin Impact 2.7

Let’s start with the team-based bonus: if Yelan is on a team with four different Elements, she receives a 30% max HP increase. Although this is obviously the best team choice for her, only try to get the full bonus if your current roster allows it (best not to use weaker characters just to get the bonus).

Yelan can easily apply Hydro to enemies, making her great for powerful Elemental Reactions like Vaporize, Electro-Charged, or Frozen. It’s best to team her up with a Normal Attack DPS who can trigger Exquisite Throw attacks from the Burst.

Based on that, Hu Tao is one of the best allies for Yelan. If you don’t have her, consider using another Pyro Elemental DPS such as Yoimiya or Klee. In case you’re new to Genshin Impact, simply ignore the Vaporize team for now and go for an amazing Freeze-combo with Kaeya.

As for the remaining Support or Sub DPS roles, consider using an Anemo character like Sucrose for Swirl Reactions, and a Geo like Zhongli or Noelle for shielding. A Burst-battery Support like Raiden Shogun is also a good option. Any remaining spots can go to a passive DPS like Fischl.

Do you need Yelan’s Constellation upgrades?

Constellations cost Wishes, Wishes cost Primogems, and Primogems cost… Well, either a lot of time or a lot of money. So, is it worth spending them on Yelan’s Constellations?

If you don’t have many five-star characters yet, the answer is probably no. The first Constellation level seems worth the effort at first glance, but you can get an additional Skill charge from the four-star Sacrificial Bow as well. The second and sixth Constellation levels are useful if you want to increase Yelan’s DPS role, but it’s probably less costly to spend your Wishes on her signature weapon, Aqua Simulacra, instead.

Here’s an overview of Yelan’s Constellations:

Enter the Plotters: the Elemental Skill, Lingering Lifeline, gains one additional charge.
Taking All Comers: Coordinated attack from Exquisite Throw will fire an additional water arrow dealing 14% of Yelan's Max HP as Hydro damage.
Beware the Trickster's Dice: Increases the Elemental Burst level by three.
Bait-and-Switch: Increases all allies’ max HP by 10% for 25 seconds for every opponent marked by Lifeline when it explodes. The maximum HP increase is 40%.
Dealer's Sleight: Increases the Elemental Skill level by three.
Winner Takes All: After using the Elemental Burst, Yelan enters the Mastermind state which transforms all of Yelan's Normal Attacks to special Breakthrough Barbs. They’re similar to normal ones, but the damage dealt will be considered Charged Attack damage. The special Breakthrough Barbs deal 156% of the normal damage. The Mastermind state lasts 20 seconds and is cleared after firing five arrows.

And that’s it for the best Yelan builds! If we’ve inspired you to try some Yelan Wish pulls… Best of luck!