Barbara is the first character to be introduced as healer in Genshin Impact. All players can get Barbara for free after completing first Archon story in Mondstadt.
Normally, players would use Barbara as a character who really focused on healing and focused mostly on HP% stats. But for players who got bored of using her “normal way” as healer, you can use dps meme build for fun.
Don’t get me wrong, with proper build she can easily delete enemy from existence, and you have more than 1 choice of a build.
Barbara Talent Overview
When building her as dps, Barbara main damage source is her Charged Attack. So when it comes to talent priority, it would be Charged Attack > Elemental Skill > Elemental Burst. Barbara DPS is recommended for several hydro elemental reaction team such as vaporize team, electrocharged team, and hyperbloom team so when building her you will also need to prepare proper team member to support her properly.
By using a set artifact that gives an increase in ATK after using elemental skill (Shimenawa for regular ATK build), Barbara’s DPS duration lasts for 15 seconds. This duration can be increased up to 5 seconds if the character gets an elemental particle (+1 second per particle with Encore passive).
Encore: When your active character gains an Elemental Orb/Particle, the duration of Let the Show Begin’s Melody Loop is extended by 1s. The maximum extension is 5s.
It’s recommended to get at least Barbara 2nd constellation before using her as dps character. Her C2: Vitality burst will reduce 15% CD of Let the Show Begin and gain 15% Hydro DMG Bonus.
Vitality Burst: Decreases the CD of Let the Show Begin by 15%. During the ability’s duration, your active character gains 15% Hydro DMG Bonus.
One of Barbara passive: Glorious Season will reduce stamina consumption for 12% when you are using let the Show Begin, means you can do more charged attack.
Glorious Season: The Stamina Consumption of characters within Let the Show Begin’s Melody Loop is reduced by 12%.
Barbara Build: Regular DPS Focuses on ATK
It’s her dps build pre-dendro release, focuses on 3 main stats: ATK, CRIT Rate, and CRIT DMG for both weapons and artifacts. Mostly used for team with vaporize or electro charged team.
Weapons
When it comes to catalyst, we have so many choices for Barbara. For 5 star section, I would recommend to use Skyward Atlas or Lost Prayer. Skyward Atlas have ATK substats and high base ATK while Lost Prayer have always sought CRIT Rate substats.
You can say that both weapon is universal for catalyst dps, and both can be obtained from standard banner if you are lucky enough.
For 4 star weapon, let’s start with Widsith. This weapon have CRIT DMG% substats and passive which is unfortunately rng, gacha again. When it’s active, Widsith have effect to increase one of these 3 aspect: ATK, Elemental DMG, or Elemental Mastery.
Second choice is Dodoco Tales which unfortunately only available from past event: first Golden Apple Archipelago. This weapon have ATK% substats and effect to increase Barbara Charged Attack for 6s.
Third we have Blackcliff Agate from Paimon Bargain Shop. This weapon have CRIT DMG% substats and effect to increase ATK after defeating enemy, stackable up to 3 times. Not recommended to use for Boss Fight.
Fourth we have Solar Pearl from monthly premium battle pass level 30. This weapon have CRIT Rate% substats and effect to increase Elemental Skill and Burst DMG after Normal Attack hits an enemy, and likewise Normal Attack DMG will be increased after Elemental Skill or Burst hit the enemy.
Artifacts
| 4 Wanderer’s Troupe | (2) Increases Elemental Mastery by 80. (4) Increases Charged Attack DMG by 35% if the character uses a Catalyst or Bow. |
Wanderer’s Troupe only obtainable from weekly bosses and elite bosses, so getting proper good stats will take quite a while. 4 sets of Wanderer Troupes will provide a consistent 35% damage bonus for Barbara charged attacks.
| 4 Shimenawa Reminiscence | (2) ATK +18%. (4) When casting an Elemental Skill, if the character has 15 or more Energy, they lose 15 Energy and Normal/Charged/Plunging Attack DMG is increased by 50% for 10s. |
Shimenawa Reminiscence is an artifact that focuses on increasing Normal and Charged Attack at the expense of 15 energy from elemental bursts gauge. By using these 4 sets of artifacts, Barbara will only have a DPS duration of 10 seconds and will use elemental bursts less frequently.
| 4 Heart of Depth | (2) Hydro DMG Bonus +15%. (4) After using an Elemental Skill, increases Normal Attack and Charged Attack DMG by 30% for 15s. |
The Heart of Depth is artifact set that can be obtained from domain in the Dragonspine. It’s 4 set is first choice for most hydro dps. You can also take only 2 sets and combine it with 2 other artifact sets that give +18% ATK such as Shimenawa or Gladiator’s Finale.
Stats Priority
It’s pretty much regular dps stats at this point. Go for ATK% Sand, Hydro DMG Bonus% Goblet, and CRIT Rate%/CRIT DMG Criclet, and so on.
| Sand | Goblet | Circlet |
|---|---|---|
| ATK% | Hydro DMG Bonus% | CRIT Rate%/CRIT DMG% |
| Substats |
|---|
| CRIT Rate% > CRIT DMG% > ATK%/ATK > Elemental Mastery > Energy Recharge% |
Team and DPS Rotation
For team, you will mainly need support character that can keep applying pyro for vaporize or electro for electro charged. For pyro you can go for Xiangling, while for electro you can go for Raiden Shogun or Fischl.
Other characters in your team is depend on what you need. You can go with buff character like Bennet, shield support like Zhongli, etc.
For Barbara DPS rotation, the best rotation would be use elemental skills first to reduce stamina consumption, followed by Normal Attack > 2x Charged Attack > Jump to cancel the animation, repeat until the DPS duration is complete.
Semi DPS With 4 Ocean Hued Clam
This build maximizing both her regular support build as healer while giving her damage from 4 Ocean Hued Clam bubble explosion. It’s literally her healer build with HP% weapon, HP% Sand, HP% Goblet, and Healing Bonus% Circlet but with 4 Ocean Hued Clam artifact.
| (2) | Healing Bonus +15%. |
| (4) | Healing effect generates a Healing Bubble up to once per 3.5s. Healing Buble will accumulate Stacked Healing as characters get healed. Healing Bubble bursts after 3s, healing nearby characters (50% of Stacked Healing) and damaging nearby enemies (90% of Stacked Healing). |
For weapon section, take any catalyst that give huge percentage of HP like Everlasting Moonglow (premium option), Prototype Amber (craftable, easy to get r5), or Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayer (less damage compared to previous 2 but come with extra ATK buff)
Dendro Bloom DPS
Release of dendro come with a lot of new alternative build. Just like many electro character getting spotlight with quicken-aggravate elemental reaction like electro keqing, hydro also getting attention thanks to bloom elemental reaction.
Barbara as Bloom DPS is specifically for Bloom teams where Barbara is the character intended to trigger the majority of Blooms. This build prioritizing Elemental Mastery stats for her weapon, artifacts, etc.
Weapons
Weapon with Elemental Mastery for Barbara: A Thousand Floating Dreams is 5 star definitely the best EM catalyst, Sacrificial Fragments have effect to reset elemental skill cooldown, Mappa Mare is craftable and east to get while the rest is extra.
Worst scenario, you can use 3 star Magic Guide until you can get better EM catalyst
Artifacts
You have 3 options for Barbara Bloom DPS: 4 Flower of Paradise Lost, 4 Gilded Dreams, and combination of 2 set with +80 Elemental Mastery bonus set.
| 4 Flower of Paradise Lost | (2) Increases Elemental Mastery by 80. (4) The equipping character’s Bloom, Hyperbloom, and Burgeon reaction DMG are increased by 40%. Additionally, after the equipping character triggers Bloom, Hyperbloom, or Burgeon, they will gain another 25% bonus to the effect mentioned prior. Each stack of this lasts 10s. Max 4 stacks simultaneously. This effect can only be triggered once per second. The character who equips this can still trigger its effects when not on the field. |
| 4 Gilded Dreams | (2) Increases Elemental Mastery by 80. (4) Within 8s of triggering an Elemental Reaction, the character equipping this will obtain buffs based on the Elemental Type of the other party members. ATK is increased by 14% for each party member whose Elemental Type is the same as the equipping character, and Elemental Mastery is increased by 50 for every party member with a different Elemental Type. Each of the aforementioned buffs will count up to 3 characters. This effect can be triggered once every 8s. The character who equips this can still trigger its effects when not on the field. |
| (Gilded Dreams,Flower of Paradise Lost,Wanderers Troupe) | (2) Increases Elemental Mastery by 80. (2) Increases Elemental Mastery by 80. |
Artifact Stats and Substats
Stack as much Elemental Mastery as you can, now is your chance to check unused artifacts with EM stats in your inventory.
| Sand | Goblet | Circlet |
|---|---|---|
| Elemental Mastery | Elemental Mastery | Elemental Mastery |
| Substats |
|---|
| Elemental Mastery > Energy Recharge% |
More details about Barbara for bloom team, please read: Barbara Bloom Build.
