Best Build for Barbara in Genshin Impact
catalyst character in Genshin Impact. This guide covers the best builds, weapons and artifacts for Barbara.Pros & Cons
- Excellent Hydro application
- Excellent Weapon options
- Straightforward playstyle
- Low investment, high impact
- Not dependent on constellations
- Added bonus, you're given a copy for free
- Not dependent on Artifact Set bonuses
- Limited range
- This limits her Hydro application's practicality
- Infamous Hydro cleanse can be detrimental (freeze)
- Catalyst DPS users are "too balanced"
- Doesn't really scale well with high investment
Skills
Normal Attack
Perform up to 4 water splash attacks that deal Hydro DMG.
Charged Attack
Consumes a certain amount of Stamina to deal AoE Hydro DMG after a short casting time.
Plunging Attack
Gathering the might of Hydro, Barbara plunges towards the ground from mid-air, damaging all opponents in her path. Deals AoE Hydro DMG upon impact with the ground.
Summons water droplets resembling musical notes that form a Melody Loop, dealing Hydro DMG to surrounding opponents and applying the Wet status to them.
Melody Loop
- On hit, Barbara's Normal Attacks heal your own party members and nearby teammates for a certain amount of HP, which scales with Barbara's Max HP.
- On hit, Barbara's Charged Attack generates 4 times the amount of healing.
- Periodically regenerates your own active character's HP.
- Applies the Wet status to the character and to opponents who come in contact with them.
Heals your own party members and nearby teammates for a large amount of HP that scales with Barbara's Max HP.
Passives
When a Perfect Cooking is achieved on a dish with restorative effects, Barbara has a 12% chance to obtain double the product.
The Stamina Consumption of characters within Let the Show Begin♪'s Melody Loop is reduced by 12%.
When your active character gains an Elemental Orb/Particle, the duration of the Melody Loop of Let the Show Begin♪ is extended by 1s.
The maximum extension is 5s.
Constellations
Barbara regenerates 1 Energy every 10s.
Decreases the CD of Let the Show Begin♪ by 15%.
During the ability's duration, your active character gains a 15% Hydro DMG Bonus.
Increases the Level of Shining Miracle♪ by 3.
Maximum upgrade level is 15.
Every opponent Barbara hits with her Charged Attack regenerates 1 Energy for her.
A maximum of 5 energy can be regenerated in this manner with any one Charged Attack.
Increases the Level of Let the Show Begin♪ by 3.
Maximum upgrade level is 15.
When Barbara is in the party but not on the field, and one of your own party members falls:
- Automatically revives the fallen character.
- Fully restores the revived character's HP to 100%.
This effect can only occur once every 15 mins.
Ascension
| Rank | Level | Cost 
|
Materials | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20 | 20,000 | ||||
| 2 | 40 | 40,000 | ||||
| 3 | 50 | 60,000 | ||||
| 4 | 60 | 80,000 | ||||
| 5 | 70 | 100,000 | ||||
| 6 | 80 | 120,000 | ||||
Teams
For a detailed breakdown of the best Barbara teams go to the Barbara team guide page.
Builds
Support Build
Barbara's healing is mostly tied to her skill and its better to use her Burst as a dodge tool/panic button instead of using it right after cooldown. Her HP% Scaling also allows for great efficiency with Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers.
Skill > Burst
Her Burst is a lot of healing but might not be practical to cast every time it goes up, diminishing your reliance on it.
Main stats: ER or HP/HP/Healing Bonus or Crit Rate
Substats: ER > HP > Crit Rate
While Barbara's damage scales with ATK, her damage profile in teams (as a support) is negligible. Stacking HP to increase her healing output is preferred. Crit Rate is only needed when using Favonius Codex.
WeaponsA 48% ATK buff is huge and what makes Barbara (and catalyst users in general) a great support. Barbara making use of the HP% substat is just icing on the cake.
Can be a useful support option in specific scenarios, will want Crit Rate investment and field time.
Could be useful with Noblesse Oblige but the healing from the passive is usually excessive. Not really recommended since TTDS is a better F2P weapon that does not require crafting.
If you have this weapon, well... it's fine on Barbara. But do not try to get it exclusively for her.
ArtifactsBarbara with good investment doesn't really need set bonuses to have good healing. Set flexibility can be more valuable than going for a 4PC set.
You will probably get a lot of Maiden's Beloved while farming for Viridescent Venerer so the 4PC might not be as expensive but the value of the 4PC effect goes down with investment.
Barbara needs field time to really maximize the 4PC effect due to her healing's mechanics. Not practical for solo play but great in co-op.
At the end of the duration, the Sea-Dyed Foam will explode, dealing DMG to nearby opponents based on 90% of the accumulated healing. (This DMG is calculated similarly to Reactions such as Electro-Charged, and Superconduct, but it is not affected by Elemental Mastery, Character Levels, or Reaction DMG Bonuses). Only one Sea-Dyed Foam can be produced every 3.5 seconds. Each Sea-Dyed Foam can accumulate up to 30,000 HP (including overflow healing). There can be no more than one Sea-Dyed Foam active at any given time.
This effect can still be triggered even when the character who is using this artifact set is not on the field.A very good set but not really on Barbara as you need more ER to burst consistently. Since her burst is usually better utilized as an emergency button, a lot of healing can end up wasted.
DPS Build
DPS Barbara can be used as for Vaporize/Charged Attacks or Electro-Charged/Normal Attacks. Due to her low Base ATK, she is very dependent on external buffs to be effective.
Normal Attack > Skill = Burst
Her normal attack talent is her only talent that can deal damage. Skill and burst are still worth leveling for the healing since Barbara will be on-field most of the time anyway.
Main stats: ATK/Hydro DMG/Crit
Substats: Crit > ATK > EM
Barbara requires a lot of ATK to make up for her low Base ATK. EM is only needed in a Vaporize setup.
Weapons5★ weapons are good because of the raw stat advantage they have. Usable on either Vaporize or Electro-Charged builds.
The Widsith provides Crit DMG and a random massive stat bonus from its passive. Unfortunately, the passive's short uptime does not synergize with Barbara's constant field time so she usually ends up without the passive.
Recitative: ATK is increased by 60~120%. Aria: Increases all Elemental DMG by 48~96%.
Interlude: Elemental Mastery is increased by 240~480.Barbara is unable to benefit from the passive, so this weapon is only valuable for its Crit Rate.
The Blackcliff Agate performs very well due to its Crit DMG and ATK buff from its passive. Although the passive is powerful especially with refinements and stacks, it can be inconsistent since stacks cannot be obtained when fighting a single tanky enemy. Loses even more value in an Electro-Charged team since it can be hard to guarantee a kill for Barbara.
Very powerful especially for a Vaporize build, but it is an event-exclusive weapon.
Though usable for Vaporize and Electro-Charged, the EM stat skews this weapon towards Vaporize.
An extremely niche weapon but Barbara can constantly buff her Electro teammates with this weapon.
ArtifactsThese sets have very similar performances so it boils down to substats. The sets are ranked in order of decreasing resin efficiency. Take note that Wanderer's Troupe is only useful on a Vaporize build.
These set combinations are weaker in terms of damage but are much easier to farm.
Bloom Driver Build
When Barbara is paired with Nilou she usually ends up as the Bloom Driver, the one triggering most of the Blooms. So to maximise their damage, she would need a different EM focused build.
Note: this build is NOT NEEDED in Hyperbloom and Burgeon teams.
Skill > Burst
Barbara's own damage is negligible and since Bloom doesn't scale with talent levels but with character level it is better to bring her to 90 rather than investing resources here. Healing is however needed since Bloom inflicts self damage.
Main stats: EM/EM/EM
Substats: HP > EM
Bloom damage scales with Elemental Mastery so this is what you want to look for. HP is still valuable for increasing healing output.
WeaponsAny cheap EM catalyst will work, Base ATK and passives are mostly irrelevant.
ER% option that gives EM with its passive. Useful if Burst is constantly needed for healing.
Favonius becomes valuable if the team is struggling with Energy generation. Use Crit Rate circlet with this weapon for consistency.
ArtifactsThis set specifically boosts Bloom damage, it's the best possible option but a full 4pc might be expensive to farm, especially in a domain where the other set isn't really useful.
Any 80 EM + 80 EM combination is perfect on Barbara.
