Looking for a strapping, smart, main DPS in the dendro element? Look no further than Genshin Impact’s Alhaitham. He’s the scribe of the Akademiya, and is a five-star unit that wields a sword and can dish out plenty of big green numbers when built to a good standard, so keep on reading to find out the best Alhaitham build.
For more info on Teyvat’s goings-on, here’s the next and current Genshin Impact banner, as well as a Genshin Impact tier list boasting the best of the best, and all the latest Genshin Impact codes for a stack of free primogems.
Here’s everything included in our Genshin Impact Alhaitham guide:
What’s the best Genshin Impact Alhaitham build?
| Best weapon | Light of Foliar Incision |
| Weapon substitutes | Toukabou Shigure, Sapwood Blade |
| Best artifact set | Gilded Dreams |
| Main stats | -Sands – Elemental mastery -Goblet – Dendro damage bonus -Circlet – Crit rate/damage |
| Sub stats | Elemental mastery, crit rate, crit damage |
Alhaitham’s best build is as a main DPS, with the Light of Foliar Incision, and a four-piece set of Gilded Dreams artifacts.
He’s an on-field damage dealer, as his Chisel Light Mirrors disappear when he leaves the field, and you want to capitalize on their buffs. Alhaitham’s dendro skills excel at triggering elemental reactions and as such he is best suited to a team that can apply or swirl multiple elements. The best reactions to aim for with Alhaitham are hyperbloom and spread.
How do I use Alhaitham?
To best use Alhaitham, you want to use his skill first, and throw out some charged attacks during his combo. His elemental burst can deal some damage as you swap to other party members to apply healing and other elements.
What are the best Alhaitham weapons?
Alhaitham’s signature weapon, Light of Foliar Incision, is easily his best-in-slot, as it’s tailored perfectly to his kit. The next best option is Haran Geppaku Futsu, which offers a healthy boost to his crit rate and personal damage. However, that is another limited five-star sword.
When it comes to four-star options, Black Sword is a well-rounded choice with no real caveats. An R5 Sapwood Blade is good if you consistently grab the leaf that spawns after using Alhaitham’s skill, and Toukabou Shigure is also viable, but only really makes the cut in single-target situations.
| Weapon | Effect | How to obtain |
| Light of Foliar Incision (five-star) | Bonus effect: Increases Alhaitham’s crit damage Skill: Increases crit rate by 4%. When Alhaitham’s normal attacks deal elemental damage, he obtains the Foliar Incision effect, which increases the damage dealt by normal attacks and elemental skills by 120% of his elemental mastery. You can gain one instance of Foliar Incision every 12 seconds |
Weapon banner (alongside Alhaitham) |
| Primordial Jade Cutter (five-star) | Bonus effect: Increases Alhaitham’s crit rate Skill: Increases Alhaitham’s HP by 20%. Additionally, this sword provides an attack bonus based on 1.2% of his maximum HP |
Weapon banner |
| Haran Geppaku Futsu (five-star) | Bonus effect: Increases Alhaitham’s crit rate Skill: Provides a 12% bonus to all elemental damage. When other nearby party members use elemental skills, Alhaitham gains one Wavespike stack, for a maximum of two stacks (you can gain one Wavespike stack every 0.3 seconds). When the wielder uses an elemental skill, they consume all stacks of Wavespike and gain Ripping Upheaval, converting each stack into an additional 20% normal attack damage for eight seconds |
Weapon banner (alongside Ayato) |
| Black Sword (four-star) | Bonus effect: Increases Alhaitham’s crit rate Skill: Increases damage dealt by normal and charged attacks by 20%. Also regenerates 60% of attack as HP when Alhaitham’s normal and charged attacks score a crit hit. This can occur once every five seconds |
Battle Pass reward |
| Sapwood Blade (four-star) | Bonus effect: Increases energy recharge Skill: After triggering a burning, quicken, aggravate, spread, bloom, hyperbloom, or burgeon reactions, a Leaf of Consciousness spawns, lasting for a maximum of ten seconds. When a character picks the leaf up, they gain 60 elemental mastery for 12 seconds. They can only generate one leaf this way every 20 seconds. This effect can still trigger if Alhaitham is not on the field |
Forge via blacksmith |
| Toukabou Shigure (four-star) | Bonus effect: Increases elemental mastery Skill: When Alhaitham’s attacks hit an opponent, this weapon inflicts Cursed Parasol on the target for ten seconds. This can trigger every 15 seconds. If the target dies during Cursed Parasol’s duration, its cooldown refreshes immediately. Alhaitham will deal 16% more damage to the opponent affected by Cursed Parasol during this time |
Akitsu Kimodameshi event reward |
What are the best Alhaitham artifacts?
In classic dendro character typing, Alhaitham needs elemental mastery – and lots of it. The more of it, the better, but there are some caveats. If Alhaitham is on a double dendro team, a full set of Gilded Dreams is the best option – especially if you can maintain uptime on its four-set skill. Alhaitham does work very well with a Deepwood Memory set, too – if he’s the only dendro character and there isn’t another candidate to hold DM for him, it’s best to equip him with this set.
You can mix and match two sets of two different elemental mastery sets, and also combine two pieces of an EM set with two pieces of Deepwood Memories, or even Emblem of Severed Fate, to improve his personal damage.
| Artifact set | Effect | How to obtain |
| Gilded Dreams | Two equipped: Increases elemental mastery Four equipped: When Alhaitham triggers an elemental reaction, he obtains buffs based on the type of his teammates. His attack increases by 14% for every other dendro party member, and his elemental mastery increases by 50 for every other elemental type in the team. This effect can trigger once every eight seconds, even if he is not on the field |
Spire of Solitary Enlightenment domain |
| Deepwood Memories | Two equipped: Dendro damage bonus Four equipped: When Alhaitham’s elemental skills or burst hits an opponent, their dendro resistance decreases by 30%, lasting for eight seconds. This triggers even when Alhaitham isn’t your active party member |
Spire of Solitary Enlightenment domain |
| Emblem of Severed Fate | Two equipped: Energy recharge Four equipped: Increases the damage of Alhaitham’s elemental burst by 25% of his total energy recharge stat. A maximum of 75% bonus damage can be obtained in this way |
Momiji-Dyed Court domain |
Artifact stat recommendations
In general, your main focus should be on stacking up Alhaitham’s elemental mastery and crit rate/damage so he can dish out as much damage as possible. You should be able to get enough energy recharge on Alhaitham through sub-stats alone, especially if you have two dendro users on the team.
Main stats:
- Sands – Elemental mastery
- Goblet – Dendro damage bonus
- Circlet – Crit rate or crit damage (whichever brings you closer to a 1:2 ratio)
Sub-stats
- Elemental mastery (aim for at least 500 total EM)
- Energy recharge
- Crit rate/crit damage
- Attack%
What are the best Alhaitham team comps?
Considering Alhaitham is a dendro DPS unit, he is relatively flexible. Using him for hefty reaction damage is still the best option for big numbers, especially in a bloom or hyperbloom team. Here is what we recommend:
| First character slot | Second character slot | Third character slot | Fourth character slot |
 Alhaitham |
 Kuki Shinobu |
 Yelan |
 Nahida |
| Alhaitham |
Kuki Shinobu |
 Raiden Shogun |
Nahida |
| Alhaitham |
 Furina |
 Nilou |
 Baizhu |
| Alhaitham |
 Yae Miko |
Furina |
Baizhu |
What are Alhaitham’s abilities?
Here are all the skills Alhaitham has in his kit, including his on-field attacks and passive talents. When leveling them up, it’s best to prioritize Alhaitham’s elemental skill, then his normal attack, and then his burst.
Active skills:
| Skill | Effect |
| Normal attack: Abductive Reasoning | Normal: Perform up to five rapid strikes Charged: Consume a set amount of stamina to perform two rapid sword strikes Plunging: Plunge from mid-air to strike the ground below, damaging opponents along Alhaitham’s path and dealing AoE damage on impact |
| Elemental Skill: Universality: An Elaboration on Form | Alhaitham rushes forward, dealing dendro damage to nearby opponents. Holding this skill enters aiming mode, where you can adjust the direction of this attack. After unleashing this skill, Alhaitham generates one Chisel-Light Mirror, and, if there are no pre-existing mirrors, he generates one additional mirror. When he hits opponents after summoning mirrors, they unleash a projection attack that deals AoE dendro damage based on the number of mirrors on the field. A total of three Chisel-Light Mirrors can exist at once. The mirrors disappear one after another over time or despawn simultaneously when Alhaitham leaves the field |
| Elemental burst: Particular Field: Fetters of Phenomena | Create a Particular Binding Field that deals multiple instances of dendro damage in a large AoE. If Chisel-Light Mirrors exist when you unleash this ability, the mirrors get absorbed, increasing the number of damage instances dealt. Two seconds after you unleash this ability, if it consumes 0/1/2/3 mirrors, Alhaitham generates 3/2/1/0 new mirrors in turn |
Passive skills:
| Skill | Effect |
| Four-Casual Correction (unlocked at ascension one) | When Alhaitham’s charged or plunging attacks hit opponents, they generate one Chisel-Light Mirror. This can trigger once every 12 seconds |
| Mysteries Laid Bare (unlocked at ascension four) | Each point of Alhaitham’s elemental mastery increases the damage he deals with his Projection Attacks and Particular Field: Fetters of Phenomena by 0.1%, up to a maximum of 100% |
| Law of Reductive Overdetermination (unlocked automatically) | When Alhaitham crafts weapon ascension materials, he has a 10% chance to receive double the product |
What are Alhaitham’s constellations?
If you’re lucky enough to pull more than one copy of Alhaitham, you can unlock one of his constellations. Like other characters, he has a total of six constellations for you to unlock, each with a powerful bonus that makes him even stronger.
| Constellation | Effect |
| C1: Intuition | When Alhaitham’s Projection Attack hits an opponent, the cooldown of Universality: An Elaboration on Form decreases by 1.2 seconds. This effect can trigger once every second |
| C2: Debate | When Alhaitham generates a Chisel-Light Mirror, his elemental mastery increases by 50 for eight seconds. This can stack four times, and each stack’s duration counts independently. This effect can trigger even when you’ve reached the maximum number of Chisel-Light Mirrors |
| C3: Negation | Increases the level of Alhaitham’s elemental skill, Universality: An Elaboration on Form, by three. The maximum upgrade level is 15 |
| C4: Elucidation | When Alhaitham unleashes Particular Field: Fetters of Phenomena, each mirror the field consumes increases the elemental mastery of all other nearby party members by 30 for 15 seconds, and each mirror grants Alhaitham a 10% dendro damage bonus for 15 seconds. The pre-existing duration of the aforementioned effects clears if you use Particular Field: Fetters of Phenonema again while they’re in effect |
| C5: Sagacity | Increases the level of Alhaitham’s elemental burst, Particular Field: Fetters of Phenomena, by three. The maximum upgrade level is 15 |
| C6: Structuration | Two seconds after Alhaitham unleashes Particular Field: Fetters of Phenomena, he generates three Chisel-Light Mirrors regardless of the number of mirrors it consumes. If Alhaitham generates Chisel-Light Mirrors when their numbers are already maxed out, his crit rate increases by 10%, and his crit damage increases by 70% for six seconds. If this effect triggers again during its initial duration, the duration remaining increases by six seconds |
What are Alhaithams’s ascension materials?
Here’s everything you need to ascend Alhaitham to level 90.
| Required level | Mora | Materials |
| 20 | 20,000 | One nagadus emerald sliver, three sand grease pupa, three faded red satin |
| 40 | 40,000 | Three nagadus emerald fragments, ten sand grease pupa, 15 faded red satin, two pseudo-stamens |
| 50 | 60,000 | Six nagadus emerald fragments, 20 sand grease pupa, 12 trimmed red silk, four pseudo-stamens |
| 60 | 80,000 | Three nagadus emerald chunks, 30 sand grease pupa, 18 trimmed red silk, eight pseudo-stamens |
| 70 | 100,000 | Six nagadus emerald chunks, 45 sand grease pupa, 12 rich red brocade, 12 pseudo-stamens |
| 80 | 120,000 | Six nagadus emerald gemstones, 60 sand grease pupa, 24 rich red brocade, 20 pseudo-stamens |
Here’s where to find all the materials you need for Alhaitham:
- Nagadus emerald – these dendro gems drop from weekly and normal bosses, especially the jadeplume terrorshroom and dendro hypostasis
- Sand grease pupa – these insects grow in Sumeru’s desert of Hadramaveth, especially around the Passage of Ghouls
- Psuedo-stamens – this boss drop comes from the Setekh wenut boss in Sumeru’s desert
- Faded red satin, trimmed red silk, rich red brocade – these items drop from Eremite enemies in Sumeru across the desert and forests
What are Alhaitham’s talent materials?
Here are all the materials you need to level one of his talents all the way to ten.
| Talent level | Mora | Materials |
| Two | 12,500 | Six faded red satin, three teachings of ingenuity |
| Three | 17,500 | Three trimmed red silk, two guides to ingenuity |
| Four | 25,000 | Four trimmed red silk, four guides to ingenuity |
| Five | 30,000 | Six trimmed red silk, six guides to ingenuity |
| Six | 37,500 | Nine trimmed red silk, nine guides to ingenuity |
| Seven | 120,000 | Four rich red brocade, four philosophies of ingenuity, one mirror of mushin |
| Eight | 260,000 | Six rich red brocade, six philosophies of ingenuity, one mirror of mushin |
| Nine | 450,000 | Nine rich red brocade, 12 philosophies of ingenuity, two mirrors of mushin |
| Ten | 700,000 | 12 rich red brocade, 16 philosophies of ingenuity, two mirrors of mushin, one crown of insight |
To find all these items, head to these locations:
- Faded red satin, trimmed red silk, rich red brocade – these items drop from Eremite enemies in Sumeru across the desert and forests
- Ingenuity talent books – farm these in the Steeple of Ignorance domain in Sumeru on Tuesday, Friday, and Sundays
- Mirror of mushin – you can get these as a reward for the Shouki No Kami (The Balladeer) weekly boss in Sumeru. If you don’t get the right drop, you can transform them at an alchemy station
Talent priority:
If you’re not sure where to start upgrading Alhaitham’s talents, here is the priority of them:
- Elemental skill > elemental burst > normal attack
That’s everything we’ve got to tell you about the perfect Genshin Impact Alhaitham build. If you need a break from scouring Sumeru for sand pupas, head over to our list of the best games like Genshin Impact to find something fresh to play. Then take a look at our Honkai Star Rail tier list and Honkai Star Rail codes guide.