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The best Genshin Impact Nilou build

Our best Genshin Impact Nilou build draws on the synergy between her passive skills and Dendro elemental reactions, transforming her into a blooming nightmare

Genshin Impact Nilou build: Nilou, the red-headed dancer that's part of the travelling Zubayr Theater troupe, performing her dance of the lotus blooms as her white veil billows around her.

Looking for the best Genshin Impact Nilou build? Nilou is a five-star Hydro user that’s set to make her debut during the second phase of the Genshin Impact 3.1 update. This graceful dancer will be available to pull in the Twirling Lotus Genshin Impact banner alongside Albedo, a Geo user that could also be a valuable asset to your team – just check out our best Genshin Impact Albedo build to see how he fares in the sub-DPS role.

Our best Genshin Impact Nilou build revolves almost entirely around her transformative Bloom abilities, balancing her stats and passives to maximise their potential. Nilou is the first character that’s capable of modifying an elemental reaction, suggesting that the anime game’s combat mechanics could be in for a serious shake-up in the near future. For the time being, Nilou offers an entirely unique moveset never before seen in Hoyoverse’s RPG game – but it’s worth noting that her hyper-specialisation is offset by a number of restrictions. Read on to learn more about the best Genshin Impact Nilou build.

Genshin Impact Nilou Bloom build

  • Weapon: Key of Khaj-Nisut
  • Artifacts: Tenacity of the Millelith (two-piece) and Heart of Depth (two-piece)

Genshin Impact Nilou build: Nilou performing on a stage that's painted to resemble a red lotus flower, gazing upwards as the power of her elemental skill takes hold.

The best Genshin Impact Nilou build relies heavily upon the performance of her elemental burst and passive skills. Her elemental burst causes a Lotus of Distant Waters to bloom, which deals area-of-effect Hydro damage to multiple enemies in one fell swoop. This creates the perfect opportunity to trigger Bloom with an accompanying Genshin Impact Dendro character in your party.

Nilou’s follow-up is where her passive skills come into play, which are a crucial element of this build. Her Court of Dancing Petals passive replaces the Dendro Cores created by Bloom with Bountiful Cores. While Bountiful Cores can’t generate Hyperbloom or Burgeon elemental reactions, they have a greater area-of-effect and explode faster than their regular Bloom counterparts.

Her other passive, Dreamy Dance of Aeons, further increases the damage dealt by Bountiful Cores created by teammates affected by Golden Chalice’s Bounty. Golden Chalice’s Bounty is triggered via the third step of Nilou’s Dance of Haftkarsvar elemental skill, so don’t neglect to use it as long as you’re using the correct Nilou team composition. While Golden Chalice’s Bounty is active, Bountiful Core damage is increased by 7% for every 1,000 points of Nilou’s maximum health above 30,000.

Given that the damage dealt by Lotus of Distant Waters and Bountiful Cores is determined by Nilou’s maximum health, it’s vital that you prioritise health bonuses above all other stats to ensure that figure is as high as possible. Consequently, our build turns her into an unlikely tank, capable of soaking up the damage inflicted by Bountiful Cores. We would also recommend energy recharge serve as your second stat priority to offset her elemental burst’s high energy cost, allowing you to reach that threshold and trigger Lotus of Distant Waters more often.

Genshin Impact Nilou build: Nilou with her arms outstretched, bursting with elemental Hydro energy, coming to the end of her lotus dance performance.

Key of Khaj-Nisut is ideal for our Genshin Impact Nilou build due to its flat 20% health increase and situational passive ability. As long as Key of Khaj-Nisut is equipped, the Grand Hymn Effect triggers each time an elemental skill deals damage to an enemy, increasing Nilou’s elemental mastery by 0.12% of her maximum health for 20 seconds. Grand Hymn can trigger once every 0.3 seconds, for a maximum of three stacks. What’s more, after reaching the maximum number of stacks – or the third stack’s duration is refreshed – the elemental mastery of all party members is increased by 0.2% of Nilou’s maximum health for 20 seconds.

Elemental mastery is certainly beneficial for Nilou, but neglecting it in favour of boosting her health is a necessary evil in our build. Key of Khaj-Nisut provides the opportunity to generate elemental mastery through that investment into her health. It’s undoubtedly Nilou’s signature Genshin Impact weapon, and no other weapon comes close to surpassing it.

As for her artifacts, Tenacity of the Millelith (two-piece) provides a further 20% increase to Nilou’s health, an obvious choice given the degree to which her skills all scale with her health. However, the set bonus provided by the four-piece isn’t worth it for Nilou. Instead, we would recommend Heart of Depth (two-piece) for a 15% Hydro damage bonus. Alternatively, the Gilded Dreams (two-piece) is a great option to further supplement Nilou’s elemental mastery by an additional 80.

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That’s a wrap on our best Genshin Impact Nilou build. If you’ve decided to follow our build’s team composition, check out our Genshin Impact Collei build and Genshin Impact Dendro Traveler build to ensure her teammates are performing their best. Alternatively, if you’re struggling to pair Nilou with the artifacts you already own, consider utilising the Genshin Impact Mystic Offering mechanic to trade them in for something better.