On our latest travels across Sumeru, we’ve crossed paths with Genshin Impact’s Alhaitham, a strapping, silver-haired scholar who appears to have a trick or two up his sleeve. So let’s dive into everything we know about this handsome chap, including the best Genshin Alhaitham build, weapons, artifacts, and more.
For more info on the upcoming characters, check out our Genshin Impact Dehya and Genshin Impact Mika guides. We’ve also got helpful information on 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.
Genshin Impact Alhaitham
Who is Genshin Impact’s Alhaitham?
Alhaitham is the Scribe of Sumeru’s Akademiya, in the Harvatat – one of the six main schools that focuses on linguistics. Alhaitham is familiar with many other characters, including those who studied there like Genshin Impact’s Lisa and Genshin Impact’s Cyno. Some keen-eyed players also noticed a suspicious note outside the Wangshu Inn in Liyue that suggests Alhaitham and Zhongli share a friendship.
What’s Genshin Impact Alhaitham’s best build?
Alhaitham best fits a main DPS role, and requires quite a bit of field time – but he can also slot into a sub-DPS role if needed. His unique kit which somewhat resembles a blend between Genshin Impact Childe‘s and Genshin Impact Keqing‘s has plenty of versatility. He’s an on-field damage dealer, as his Chisel Light Mirrors disappear when he leaves the field, and you want to capitalise 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.
What are the best Genshin 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 Primordial Jade Cutter, which offers a healthy boost to his crit rate and personal damage with little to no caveats or reliance on external buffs.
Haran Geppaku Futsu and Mistsplitter are nearly tied after the last two options, with Mistsplitter offering strong damage per rotation at three stacks of bursts, and Haran pulling just ahead as long as you’re mindful of your rotation and Haran’s stacks.
For a more affordable option, Harbinger of Dawn at R5 surprisingly comes in close to the damage output of Haran and Mistsplitter as long as you can maintain 100% uptime of his passive – something that’s only really possible if you team him up with a shielder.
When it comes to four-star options, Black Sword is a well-rounded choice with no real caveats. R5 Sapwood is good if you consistently grab the leaf after using Alhaitham’s skill, and Toukabou Shigure is also viable, but only really makes the cut in single-target situations, falling behind significantly if you’re facing groups of enemies.
| Weapon | Description | How to obtain |
| Light of Foliar Incision (five-star) |
Bonus stat: Crit damage Skill: Increases crit rate by 4%. When the wielder’s normal attacks deal elemental damage, you obtain the Foliar Incision effect, which increases the damage dealt by normal attacks and elemental skills by 120% of the user’s elemental mastery. This effect disappears after 28 damage instances or 12 seconds. You can gain one instance of Foliar Incision every 12 seconds |
Gacha |
| Primordial Jade Cutter (five-star) |
Bonus stat: Crit rate Skill: Increase HP by 20%, and provides an attack bonus based on 1.2% of the wielder’s max HP |
Gacha |
| Haran Geppaku Futsu (five-star) |
Bonus stat: Crit rate Skill: Provides a 12% bonus to all elemental damage. When other nearby party members use elemental skills, the wielder 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 |
Gacha |
| Mistsplitter Reforged (five-star) |
Bonus stat: Crit damage Skill: Gain a 12% elemental damage bonus for all elements and receive the might of the Mistsplitter’s Emblem. At stack levels 1/2/3, Mistplitter’s Emblem provides a 8/16/26% elemental damage bonus for the wielder’s elemental type. The character gains one stack of Mistplitter’s Emblem when their normal attack deals elemental damage (stack lasts five seconds), when they cast an elemental burst (stack lasts ten seconds), and when their energy is less than 100% (stack disappears when energy is full). Each stack’s duration is calculated independently |
Gacha |
| Harbinger of Dawn (three-star) |
Bonus stat: Crit damage Skill: Increases crit rate by 14% when the wielder’s HP is above 90% |
Gacha |
| Black Sword (four-star) |
Bonus stat: Crit rate Skill: Increases damage dealt by normal and charged attacks by 20%. Also regenerates 60% of attack as HP when the wielder’s normal and charged attacks score a crit hit. Can occur once every five seconds |
Battle Pass reward |
| Sapwood Blade (four-star) |
Bonus stat: 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 the wielder is not on the field. The effects of the Leaf of Consciousness cannot stack |
Forge via blacksmith |
| Toukabou Shigure (four-star) |
Bonus stat: Elemental mastery Skill: After an attack hits an opponent, inflict an instance of Cursed Parasol upon them for ten seconds. You can trigger this effect once every 15 seconds. If this opponent dies during the Cursed Parasol’s duration, Cursed Parasol’s CD refreshes immediately. The wielder deals 16^ more damage to the opponent affected by Cursed Parasol |
Akitsu Kimodameshi event reward |
What are the best Genshin Alhaitham artifacts?
In classic dendro character typing, Alhaitham needs elemental mastery. The more of it, the better. He wants a Deepwood Memory set on his team, 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.
However, 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.
Alternatively, you can mix and match two pieces of two different elemental mastery sets (e.g. two Gilded Dreams and two Flower of Paradise Lost) to get a whopping 160 additional elemental mastery out of the gate. You can 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.
| Artifacts | Effect | Where to get |
| Deepwood Memories |
Two equipped: +15% dendro damage bonus Four equipped: When elemental skills or bursts hit opponents, the targets’ dendro resistance decreases by 30% for eight seconds. You can trigger this effect even if Alhaitham isn’t on the field. |
Spire of Solitary Enlightenment domain |
| Gilded Dreams |
Two equipped: Increases elemental mastery by 80 Four equipped: Within eight seconds of triggering an elemental reaction, Alhaitham obtains buffs based on the elemental type of other party members. Attack increases by 14% for each ally whose elemental type is the same as the equipping character, and elemental mastery increases by 50 for every ally with a different elemental type. Each of the buffs count up to three characters. This effect can trigger once every eight seconds, even he is not on the field. |
Spire of Solitary Enlightenment domain |
| Flower of Paradise Lost | Two equipped: Increases elemental mastery by 80 | City of Gold domain |
| Emblem of Severed Fate | Two equipped: +20% energy recharge | Momiji-Dyed Court domain |
| Wanderer’s Troupe | Two equipped: Increases elemental mastery by 80 | Boss drops or artifact strong box |
Artifact stat and sub-stat recommendations
In general, your main focus should be on loading him up with plenty of 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 Genshin Impact Alhaitham’s skills?
Here are all of Alhaitham’s skills. For Alhaitham, it is best to prioritise his elemental skill, then his normal attack, and then his burst.
Active skills:
| Skill | Effect |
| Abductive Reasoning (normal) | Perform up to five rapid strikes |
| Abductive Reasoning (charged) | Consume a set amount of stamina to perform two rapid sword strikes |
| Abductive Reasoning (plunging) | Plunge from mid-air to strike the ground below, damaging opponents along its path and dealing AoE damage on impact |
| Elemental Skill: Universality: An Elaboration on Form | Alhaitham rushes forward, dealing dendro damage to nearby opponents when the rush ends. Holding this still allows you to enter aiming mode to adjust the direction of this attack. After unleashing this skill, Alhaitham generates one Chisel-Light Mirror, and, if there are no pre-existing mirrors at this time, he generates one additional mirror. When Alhaitham hits opponents after summoning the 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 leads the field. |
| Elemental burst: Particular Field: Fetters of Phenomena | Create a Particular Binding Field that deals multiple instances of AoE dendro damage. If Chisel-Light Mirrors exist when you unleash this ability, the field absorbs all mirrors, increasing the number of damage instances it deals. 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 | 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 | 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 | When Alhaitham crafts weapon ascension materials, he has a 10% chance to receive double the product |
What are Genshin Impact 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’s 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. Max four stacks and each stack’s duration is counted independently. This effect can trigger even when you’ve reached the max number of Chisel-Light Mirrors |
| C3: Negation | Increases the level of Universality: An Elaboration on Form by three. Max upgrade level 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 it generates grants Alhaitham a 10% dendro damage bonus for 15 seconds. The pre-existing duration of the aforementioned effects are cleared if you use Particular Field: Fetters of Phenonema again while they’re in effect |
| C5: Sagacity | Increases the level of Particular Field: Fetters of Phenomena by three. Maximum upgrade level 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. Additionally, 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 Genshin Alhaithams’s ascension materials?
Here’s everything you need to ascend Alhaitham to level 90. The Pseudo-Stamens come from the Setekh Wenut boss added in version 3.4, and you can hunt down sand grease pupas in the underground Wenut tunnels of the Desert of Hadramaveth. Thankfully, there seem to be plenty of them around, unlike Genshin Impact Cyno‘s scarabs…
Keep in mind that you need to complete the Golden Slumber quest line before you can gain access to the part of the desert where you can farm these materials.
| 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 |
What are Genshin Alhaitham’s talent materials?
You can level up Alhaithams normal attack, skill, and burst to level ten. Here are all the materials you need to level one of his talents all the way to ten.
Alhaitham uses the Teachings of Ingenuity book set, which you can get from the Chatrakam Cave domain on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. He also requires the Mirror of Mushin drop from the weekly Balladeer boss fight.
| 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 Mirror of Mushin |
| Ten | 700,000 | 12 rich red brocade, 16 philosophies of Ingenuity, two Mirror of Mushin, one Crown of Insight |
Which Genshin Impact Alhaitham team comps are the best?
Alhaitham, as a dendro DPS unit, is relatively flexible, though using him for hefty reaction damage is still the best option for big numbers. Here is what we recommend:
Hyperbloom
- Kuki Shinobu, or Raiden Shogun
- Ayato, Yelan, or Kokomi as hydro applicator and/or healer
- Nahida ideally, or Yaoyao as healer
Bloom
- Nilou
- Xingqiu, Yelan, or Ayato as hydro applicator
- Nahida ideally, or Yaoyao as healer
That’s everything we’ve got in our Genshin Impact’s Alhaitham build. If you need a break from scouring Sumeru for sand pupa, head over to our list of the best games like Genshin Impact to find something fresh to play.
