Genshin Impact has had its fair of excitement in the past few months. Not only has the game garnered massive success, making over $400 million in revenue in its first two months, but also has revealed a roadmap filled with exciting new features that will be coming in the next few months. The roadmap in question showed three major updates, of which the first two, 1.1.and 1.2, have already been added, with 1.3 coming soon in February. The second update, however, caused waves in the community as it added a brand new area with a few new mechanics, as well as a couple of characters to the roster.

New characters in Genshin Impact are always a big deal, not only because the game had a fairly small roster at launch, but because every new character brings awesome new skills and play styles to the table, and the newest heroine, Ganyu, is no exception.

In this guide, we’ll be giving an overview of the new Ganyu character in Genshin Impact, and explaining her moveset, strengths, and practical uses.

Ganyu Overview

Lorewise, Ganyu is the secretary at the Yuehai Pavilion. As a character that’s part Qilin, Ganyu can borrow power from her mythical bloodline and unleash fearsome attacks. In practice, however, she’s a 5-star archer that can wield the power of Cryo to freeze and shatter her enemies. She’s proficient with the bow, which is her main weapon.

Her basic attack consists of a series of bow shots that deal regular physical damage. She can chain up to six shots in a row with this move. However, she can also charge her shots to gain additional effects. At level 1, her charged shots gain Cryo element, while at level 2, they turn into frostflake arrows. The latter, when used on the ground, sprouts an ice flower that, when blooming, deals lots of AoE Cryo damage. Meanwhile, her plunging attack simply has her shoot a volley of arrows in mid-air, and then slamming into the ground dealing AoE damage.

Ganyu’s two main passives help to boost her own damage as well as that of her allies. The first passive is “Undivided Heart”, and makes it so that, after firing a frostflake, her next frostflake has 20% increased critical chance. Additionally, her second passive, “Harmony of Heaven and Earth”, boosts the Cryo damage of everyone within her Celestial Shower by 20%. Meanwhile, she has a third passive that refunds 15% of the ore used for crafting bows, which is always a welcome bonus.

Her elemental abilities is where things get interesting.

Elemental Skill:Trial of Qilin

Ganyu’s elemental skill is similar to her frostflake arrows, but with few additional aspects. When using this skill, Ganyu summons a frost lotus on the ground that taunts and attracts enemies. Once the enemies attack the lotus enough, it’ll explode, dealing considerable Cryo damage to everyone caught in the blast. The damage of this skill scales with Ganyu’s max HP.

Elemental Burst: Celestial Shower

Ganyu’s powerful elemental burst attack summons an orb of ice to deal continuous Cryo damage across a sizable AoE for a few seconds. This skill combines well with her Trial of Qilin since the enemies will be taunted and grouped together, and will suffer maximum damage from a well-placed Celestial Shower.

It’s worth noting that, when she uses her Elemental Burst, all allies within the AoE will also gain a 20% damage boost when using Cryo attacks. This is due to her “Harmony of Heaven and Earth” passive that we mentioned above. In this sense, her ultimate skill can not only be used to deal damage, but also to maximize the damage of combo setups that revolve around dealing Cryo damage.

Constellations

Last but not least, to wrap this Genshin Impact Ganyu guide, we’re going to talk about the five different constellations available to this brand new character:

• Dew Drinker: Whenever an enemy suffers damage from a frostflake arrow, they will have 15% less Cryo resistance for 6 seconds. Whenever this ability activates, Ganyu will also recover 2 energy. 

• The Auspicious: This passive gives Ganyu’s Trial of the Qilin an additional charge.

• Cloud Strider: Increases the level of Celestial Shower by 3.

• Westward Sojourn: Enemies that are within Ganyu’s Celestial Shower start to take increasing damage. This boost begins at 5% and stacks every 3 seconds, up to a maximum of 25%. This effect persists for up to 3 seconds after the enemy exits the AoE.
• The Mericul: Increases the level of Trial of the Qilin by 3.

Ganyu’s constellations are quite difficult to unlock, not to mention to level up, but they’re definitely worth the effort as they can unlock her real potential.

Ganyu Release Date

While Ganyu was implemented in the 1.2 Genshin Impact update, she still wasn’t obtainable as of the patch launch. However, this new character should be summonable in her own special banner a few weeks before the 1.3 update drops. In this sense, it’s very likely that Ganyu will be made available in a few days, probably after Albedo’s banner ends on the 12th. 

What are your hopes and expectations for Ganyu? Are you looking forward to unlocking her when her banner goes live? We hope you saved up your resources not only to try and pull her, but also to upgrade her if you manage to unlock her. After all, even the strongest characters aren’t very useful if they’re way behind in levels and gear.

Let us know your expectations for Ganyu in Genshin Impact in the comments below!