Genshin Impact Xiao Builds: Best Weapons and Artifacts to use

Got yourself a shiny new Xiao but don’t know what to give him? There’s a lot of Xiao Builds you can make, so our Xiao Build Guide will help you make the most of the Adepti Yaksha with the best Weapons and Artifacts to give him.

Xiao Weapons

Five-star Polearms go without saying: they’re great on Xiao. His best of the five-stars are Primordial Jade Winged-Spear and Staff of Homa, but even Calamity Queller, Vortex Vanquisher and Engulfing Lightning work great on him. The raw Attack base stat is what Xiao capitalizes on best.

Vortex Vanquisher in particular synergizes well with Zhongli, one of Xiao’s best supports.

Unfortunately, four-star options are not very free-to-play friendly. The craftable Polearms aren’t great for him. The best four-star Polearms for Xiao are Deathmatch and Blackcliff Pole.

Deathmatch comes with the premium Battle Pass, and offers Crit Rate as a sub-stat. It gives an Attack and Defense buff when there are more than two enemies around you, and gets stronger when there’s only one. It’s a versatile weapon for a variety of characters.

Blackcliff Pole is only obtainable in the Item Shop for 24 Masterless Starglitter. It has Crit DMG as its sub-stat, and gives an Attack bonus after defeating an enemy. Xiao’s attacks have quite a large range, so he can take full advantage of Blackcliff Pole’s passive ability as an aggressive on-field DPS.

If your Xiao has trouble getting his Elemental Burst back, Favonius Lance can help with the Energy Recharge and the passive ability that gets better with Refinement. On Crits, you have a chance to trigger extra particles. At Refinement 5, this triggers 100% of the time. Just make sure it’s Lv. 90 to get more base Attack.

Xiao Artifacts

The Artifact builds for Xiao are thankfully simple. You’re looking for the traditional DPS spread of main-stats: Attack% on the Sands, Anemo Damage on the Goblet and Crit Rate or Damage on the Circlet, depending on sub-stats and weapon.

Xiao is one of the only characters who can even go Attack% on the Goblet, but Anemo Damage gets better if you’re pairing Xiao up with supports who give Attack buffs.

2 Viridescent Venerer / 2 Gladiator’s Finale or Shimenawa’s Reminiscence

Xiao is a simple Adepti. Almost all of Xiao’s attacks will be Anemo, so the 15% Anemo Damage buff from the two pieces of Viridescent Venerer will be used to full effect. Gladiator’s Finale and Shimenawa’s Reminiscence both do the same thing with two-pieces: a simple 18% Attack buff. This is widely considered Xiao’s best Artifact build.

4 Viridescent Venerer

Of course, the four-piece Viridescent Venerer still works great on Xiao. With four pieces on, it gives a 60% damage boost to Swirl reactions, and further decreases the Elemental Resistance of the element Swirled to enemies hit by it.

This works best when there’s an off-field support dealing constant damage, like Fischl, Beidou, Xiangling or Xingqiu.

4 Lavawalker or 4 Thundersoother

These two sets are more niche, and could be great if you’re limited on characters or have a Pyro or Electro support you’ve already invested in.

They do similar things for different elements. The four-piece bonus gives a 35% damage increase against enemies affected by Pyro for Lavalwalker or Electro for Thundersoother. You’ll need someone to deal off-field applications like Xiangling or Fischl.

The nature of Anemo is to Swirl other elements, thereby spreading it more enemies. With Xiao’s constant Anemo application, you can reasonably keep enemies afflicted to the desired element.