Qiqi Guide: Icy Resurrection - KQM (2024)

Written by: Sir_pick_the_prick#2209 & EggsD#9603
Consulted with: EvaRia#7777
Updated for Version 2.6

An apprentice and herb gatherer at Bubu Pharmacy. “Blessed” by the adepti with a body that cannot die, this petite zombie cannot do anything without first giving herself orders to do it. Qiqi’s memory is like a sieve. Out of necessity, she always carries around a notebook in which she writes anything important that she is sure to forget later. But on her worst days, she even forgets to look at her notebook…

Official Genshin Website

Rarity: 5-Star
Element: Cryo
Weapon Type: Sword

Qiqi is a 5-star sword user that fills the spot of a hybrid DPS/Healer unit, being able to amplify both DMG and Healing effects via ATK stat. Her ability to deal consistent, though mediocre damage while able to apply high value of healing to the whole team makes her a great asset to her team survivability and decent DMG upkeep. Later on, her passives will even provide more opportunities for healing and higher healing values.

However, it is to be noted that Qiqi has higher highs, but lower lows. In this case, Qiqi’s DMG and healing potential shared by one stat is balanced out by zero energy generation paired with long skill and burst cooldown compared to other characters. In addition, her cryo application is relatively subpar considering the cooldown times of the skills and burst (but still available to use off-field).

Such circ*mstances put Qiqi at a conflicting position: where she is trying to contest against other DPS units, while seeking perfect healing opportunities with the long cooldowns. However, when scenarios work out for her, she is able to pull off clutch situations to bring the team back from ruin.

Qiqi is seen as an unlucky unit, the 5* to avoid at all costs. Players at 50/50 make gallows humor of rolling Qiqi instead of the banner unit. However, Qiqi does have niches where she shines, even if those are rare. Qiqi’s main benefit is that she requires little to no building to heal, and so in early game situations or in situations where you do not have a coherent team, Qiqi can stand in for an entire required role of the team.

Qiqi’s main criticism is that unlike other healers, like Bennett, Diona or Jean, she doesn’t pull double duty. Other healers give utility such as 4vv, ttds, ATK buffs, cleansing, shields or batterying, while Qiqi does not appear to do anything. However, Qiqi does have decent autos, which while not that much significant damage by itself, can fill gaps in rotations, or enable on-hit abilities. Whether these benefits are as good as other healers is debatable, but they can make Qiqi more than just a benched unit.

Finally, Qiqi is a very comfy character, as her heals are very strong. It is difficult to die when she is on your team. Therefore, even in situations where on paper she is a damage loss, making the player more at ease and less stressed can lead to better performance in practice, leading to cleaner clears due to less panic.

Qiqi the General Healer

This is more of an emergency button build for players who need high team healing when things are getting rough. Going all in Qiqi’s healing capabilities make it nearly impossible to die unless you are hit by a one-shot attack. While rarely the most optimal choice damage-wise, it is extremely comfy to play and is recommended if you already can clear DPS checks and simply want a smoother experience.

Artifacts

ATK/ATK/ATK is ideal here, although the main stats do not matter since Qiqi’s healing is overkill. Fav Sword runs ATK/ATK/Crit, and 2 berserkers set.

Disclaimer

The main stats and sub stats of Qiqi, due to her scaling providing sufficient healing regardless of investment, are mostly irrelevant. Therefore, if you use Qiqi in your team in this capacity, you should prioritise set bonuses over anything else.

Weapons

The weapon choice of Qiqi in this situation is mostly irrelevant, as most of them are simply varying degrees of ATK% in the specific case of Qiqi, with no real significant difference. For the cheapest option, go for prototype rancour or the flute, although any levelled weapon works.

However, if you are using a set whose bonus is triggered on ‘triggering a reaction’ or ‘hitting an enemy with your skill’, Sac Sword is ideal here to supply more healing opportunities as well as having better uptime on said buffs. Alternatively, Qiqi can use Fav Sword to decrease the er requirement of teammates, directly translating to more damage.

Qiqi the Superconduct Support

Due to Qiqi’s long skill uptime of 15 seconds, as well as Superconduct’s long duration of 12 seconds, it is possible to extend Qiqi’s SC uptime to 27 seconds. This can be seen in the case of a Razor carry comp. While we are not the best people to explain it, we recommend you to check out our Razor guide instead to find out more.

Qiqi the Taser Driver

A highly synergistic comp. Qiqi is good here because her attacks are fast and thus cause Beidou’s burst to generate more discharges. As Beidou’s discharges are generated only after a fixed ICD and cannot be buffered (commanded to generate before the ICD ends), the timing of each auto-attack of Beidou’s driver is absolutely essential, and Qiqi does that perfectly.

Teammates

In this specific case, it is optimal to use n2j as Qiqi’s melee cancel above all else, as this combo when executed perfectly is exactly the duration of Beidou’s discharge ICD (Internal Cooldown Duration), thus generating the maximum number of discharges possible.

Flexible Options:

• Xingqiu: Extremely good option for his swords that also proc on autoattacks just like Fischl c6. Furthermore, opens the door to EC, which is inconsistent but at minimum an appreciable amount of damage.
• Albedo: Decent option for his extremely low field time, allowing Qiqi to spend more time on field to in turn enable Beidou to a greater extent. Produces crystallise shields which can prevent minor chip damage.
• Kazuha: One of the best options in general for a Beidou driver comp. Does significant personal damage through his swirls, and can buff Beidou to incredible heights both through using 4VV and his A4.
• Sara: an electro analogue to Bennett. While her c6 buff does not snapshot on Beidou, her personal damage is still decent and her buff is nothing to scoff at. She also unbinds the comp from the mandatory field time Bennett requires to self battery. Her generation with sac bow is close to Fischl’s if she uses Skill > Burst > Skill, swap funnels to Beidou and later in the rotation uses e and swap funnels to Beidou again.
• Bennett: Another contender for BIS. His burst buffs Beidou burst by an incredible amount, and he does have the option of also driving Beidou through a 4tf set. Qiqi is still useful here though as she does not cause overload, and thus will not throw back lighter enemies. Do note that if Bennett is not the carry, he will need both ER and field time to regain his burst.
• Barbara: As a ttds bot, she can increase Beidou’s damage significantly. Additionally, her Skill enables EC, and as a unit with no fixed set she can use the 4 set instructor set to buff the team’s EM, thus increasing the EC damage the team deals.
• Ganyu: An acceptable burstbot, and although it would be optimal for Ganyu to just carry the team with Mona instead, burst Ganyu still has significant damage.
• Rosaria: An excellent mix of subdps and utility, Rosaria has decent subdps ability as well as a crit rate buff that increases the damage the entire team can deal. Furthermore, she generates cryo energy which Qiqi appreciates, if you depend on her burst a lot to cover her downtime.
• Kaeya: An alternative to Rosaria.
• Other: Any reasonably self sufficient low field time sub dps should be able to fit here reasonably well. Failing that, you could bring in any anemo unit with 4VV or any unit capable of using ttds.

Artifact sets

Qiqi uses ATK sands, physical damage goblet and crit/crit damage circlet. Prioritise Crit rate /Crit Damage in a 1:2 ratio.

Disclaimer

Qiqi’s main benefit to the team is her ability to auto attack at an incredibly quick rate. Her personal damage is actually a really tiny share of the teams’, around ~10% depending on the last unit. As such, the main stats and sub stats of the artifacts themselves are really not important, either because the set itself sabotages Qiqi’s damage already (4ins, 4tom), or because it is simply more resin efficient to invest into your teammates’ damage instead (4pf, 2glad2pf, 4glad). Qiqi driver’s artifacts should be the same level of priority as a support’s artifacts (that is to say, low) and the main priority should be getting the correct sets. Offsets that break set bonuses are rarely, if ever, a good idea.

Weapons

From a pure damage standpoint, here are the weapon rankings. Calcs done with 4ToM.

However, Qiqi makes the comparison more difficult, as her damage is only around 15% of the team’s total damage. As such, even a jump from the effective bottom of the list to the top is only a gain of 9% total DPS. As such, the ranking of Qiqi weapons is much less concerned with the actual damage increase and more concerned with the benefits the weapon gives to Qiqi’s team. Note that this is an analysis made at a decent Qiqi investment. As such, if you use a barely built Qiqi, teammate-buffing weapons (like Sac Sword or Fav Sword) would favour your team better than personal damage increasing swords. Here are the recommendations:

Disclaimer

With Ocean Hued Clam, Qiqi’s damage has been heightened significantly. However, it is also important to note that the variation across weapon have decreased significantly, when in regards to Ocean Hued Clam. As such, the only significant weapon of note in this circ*mstance is Sac Sword. Following that, any sword will do, although Black Sword is also pretty ideal. As such, the following lists above and below are written in the context of any Qiqi not using Ocean Hued Clam.

Aquila, PJC, Summit Shaper and Mistsplitter

All very good stat sticks. While it gives Qiqi no buffing ability, its ability to increase Qiqi’s personal damage output to something halfway respectable is appreciated. While it would be recommended to give Aquila to a unit that can utilise it to greater effect (Bennett, for instance), it’s fine to give Aquila to Qiqi if you somehow have given something of equal worth to every unit of greater priority.

Favonius Sword

While it is the actual lowest weapon on the personal damage chart, the fact that Qiqi’s personal damage is insignificant works to its favour. Fav Sword’s generation, combined with Qiqi’s long field time, means that the passive of this sword will proc very often. As such, if you are able to adjust your team ER to the absolute minimum distribution possible with Fav Sword, this is on par with even Aquila. This makes it a highly unorthodox but effective option if played optimally.

Lion’s Roar, Black Sword, Prototype Rancour

They are excellent 4* options providing good damage, although Lion’s Roar’s passive is only valid in this specific comp, and Black Sword’s healing ability is overkill. Any of these 3 are highly recommended due to being in the sweet spot of having a low opportunity cost and high damage.

Sacrificial Sword

While also incredibly low on the personal damage chart, Sac Sword is capable of generating double the superconducts, which, in a Fischl comp, will activate double the Fischl a4s. This increases the team’s damage to an extent. Additionally, the extra heal uptime is very nice, and the increased e uptime can drastically change the optimal sets Qiqi uses, making sets such as 4tom have greater relevance even at high investments.Additionally, this is just about the best option for 4 Ocean Hued Clam Qiqi, which is in turn the best option for Qiqi in this scenario.

The Flute

Definitely worse than Rancour in damage, but it comes with 20% more total ATK, even after optimization, which directly translates to more healing. Very much a comfort pick.

All the other swords on the list

Rancour is a few swords above this, go and use that instead.

Comparison to other good units in the same slot

Qiqi the Permafreeze Carry

Permafreeze carrying relies on the 4pc Blizzard Strayer and Cryo resonance to invest heavily on critical damage and ATK on her own gear. With a hopping 55% crit rate boost, Qiqi can comfortably make a high crit damage build without any repercussions.

There are two methods to build the Permafreeze Carry: Physical and Cryo. The Physical perma-freeze build simply auto attacks as normal, while the cryo perma-freeze build uses the cryo field Chongyun creates for Qiqi to deal cryo damage. Qiqi uses the n2cj combo in this team.

As a disclaimer, Qiqi is not an optimal pick for this team. However, she is most definitely the most comfortable unit in the slot.

Teammates

Flex Options:

• Bennett: As long as he does not melt too often, he will be a net gain by providing an excellent attack buff for the team.
• Barbara: If you can’t use Xingqiu, you can use Barbara for the close proximity hydro application.
• Zhongli: While his resistance shred is very useful for more damage, players must make sure his geo pillars are not placed close to permafreeze as it will shatter.
• Kujou Sara: One instance of electro can provide a small superconduct to shred Phy resistance alongside her ATK buff, which is helpful for phy permafreeze Qiqi. Her electro application rate is not too detrimental to freeze comps.
• Kazuha: Works best with the Cryo perma freeze build, although he still is very potent in the Phy permafreeze comp. He will increase the cryo damage for Qiqi inside the Chongyun cryo field. Other than that his 4-VV application will still increase the overall team damage due to increasing the damage of Qiqi’s offield dpses.
• Aloy: Aloy can be used as a quick swap burst DPS and coil damage to take advantage of the permafreeze situation
• Mona: Her omen and burst provides higher damage windows and hydro application against the enemies
• Other: any unit with 4VV can suffice here, or failing that any ttds 4NO user or low field time high damage unit which doesn’t significantly mess up freeze.

Artifact Sets

Qiqi builds ATK sands, physical/cryo goblet and crit/crit damage circlet. Prioritise ATK%.

Weapons