Genshin Impact’s Ganyu, a five-star bow-wielding cryo user from Liyue, is sure to decimate any enemies in her path. She’s a half-qilin Adeptus devoted to both Rex Lapis and the Liyue Qixing. Heralded as one of the best DPS in the game thanks to her hefty charged shots, she’s an extremely powerful unit and a great asset to any player’s roster.
Once you’ve come to grips with Ganyu, head over to our Genshin Impact tier list to see where the rest of the characters rank, and then grab some Genshin Impact codes from our handy list. Check out the next Genshin Impact banners, too, to see who you can pull for.
Here’s everything in our Genshin Impact Ganyu build guide.
What’s the best Ganyu build?
| Best weapon | Polar Star |
| Weapon substitutes | Amos Bow, Prototype Crescent |
| Best artifact set | Blizzard Strayer |
| Main stats | Sands – Attack Goblet – Cryo damage bonus Circlet – Crit rate/damage |
| Sub stats | Crit rate, crit damage, attack |
Ganyu is a super powerful ranged DPS with many playstyles for different situations. She’s reliable across a wide range of team comps, and with some investment, is capable of dishing out some of the highest damage in the game. She relies on a well-invested team involving a shielder and/or a healer.
The best pieces to equip her with are the Polar Star or Amos Bow, and a set of Blizzard Strayer artifacts to up her cryo damage.
How do I use Genshin Impact’s Ganyu?
Ganyu can deal a ton of damage with her charged shots, so we recommend focusing most of your time on that. Dropping her ultimate, especially if you also have a unit like Ayato, Kokomi, or Mona that can deal off-field hydro damage, will keep enemies frozen so you can take your time targeting them.
What are Ganyu’s best weapons?
Generally, the best weapon for Ganyu depends on your build. In a freeze team where Ganyu is your main, on-field DPS, Polar Star is the best choice. For a quickswap freeze team where you’re switching between characters regularly, Aqua Simulacra takes the top spot. For a melt team, Hunter’s Path charges into the lead.
For a strong four-star choice in both freeze and freeze quickswap teams, Mouun’s Moon at refinement rank five is your best option. However, if you’re looking for something that relies on a little less RNG, R5 Prototype Crescent is a great option.
| Weapon | Effect | How to obtain |
| Polar Star (five-star) | Bonus effect: Increases crit rate Skill: Increases elemental skill and elemental burst damage by 12%. After a normal attack, charged attack, elemental skill, or elemental burst hits an opponent, gain one stack of Ashen Nightstar for 12 seconds. When 1/2/3/4 stacks of Ashen Nightstar are present, your attack increases by 10/20/30/48%. The stack of Ashen Nightstar created by the normal attack, charged attack, elemental skill, or elemental burst counts independently of the others. |
Weapon banner (alongside Tartaglia) |
| Hunter’s Path (five-star) | Bonus effect: Increases crit rate Skill: Gain a 12% elemental damage bonus. Obtain the Tireless Hunt effect after hitting an opponent with a charged attack. This effect increases charged attack damage by 160% of Ganyu’s elemental mastery. This effect ends after 12 charged attacks or ten seconds. You can only gain one instance of Tireless Hunt every 12 seconds. |
Weapon banner |
| Aqua Simulacra (five-star) | Bonus effect: Increases crit damage Skill: Increases HP by 16%. When there are opponents nearby, your damage increases by 20%. This takes effect whether Ganyu is on-field or not. |
Weapon banner (alongside Yelan) |
| Amos Bow (five-star) | Bonus effect: Increases attack Skill: Increases Ganyu’s normal and charged attack damage by 12%. After a normal or charged attack is fired, damage dealt increases by a further 8% every 0.1 seconds the arrow is in the air up to 5 times. |
Weapon banner (alongside Ganyu) |
| The Viridescent Hunt (four-star) | Bonus effect: Increases crit rate Skill: Upon hit, normal and aimed shots have a chance to create a Cyclone, which pulls in opponents and deals 40% of Ganyu’s attack as damage to said opponents. |
All banners |
| Prototype Crescent (four-star) | Bonus effect: Increases attack Skill: Charged attack hits on weak points increase your movement speed by 10% and attack by 36% for ten seconds. |
Forged at blacksmiths |
What are Ganyu’s best artifacts?
For freeze or mono-cryo teams, Blizard Strayer is the best set with no competition. Its crit rate boost is a true asset to Ganyu, and it’s hard to go wrong with the cryo damage bonus. For melt teams, Wanderer’s Troupe is your best option. It offers a valuable boost to her elemental mastery and is very easy to farm passively or through artifact strongboxes. Any attack-boosting two-piece won’t go amiss either, as Ganyu will gladly make use of a higher stat.
| Artifact set | Effect | How to obtain |
| Blizzard Strayer | Two equipped: Cryo damage bonus Four equipped: Increases crit rate by 20% when attacking an enemy affected by cryo. If the enemies freeze, it increases crit rate by an additional 20%. |
Peak of Vindagnyr domain |
| Wanderer’s Troupe | Two equipped: Increases elemental mastery Four equipped: Increases charged attack damage by 35%. |
Weekly and world bosses, artifact strongbox |
| Shimenawa’s Reminiscence | Two equipped: Increases attack Four equipped: If Ganyu has 15 or more energy when casting an elemental skill she loses 15 energy and normal/charged/plunging attack damage increases by 50% for ten seconds. This effect won’t trigger again during that duration. |
Momiji-Dyed Court domain |
| Gladiator’s Finale | Two equipped: Increases attack Four equipped: Not recommended |
Weekly and world bosses, artifact strongbox |
Artifact stat recommendations
When picking artifacts for Ganyu, you should prioritize the following stats.
Main stats:
- Sands: Attack%
- Goblet: Cryo damage bonus
- Circlet: Crit damage, crit rate
Sub-stats:
- Crit damage
- Crit rate
- Elemental mastery
- Attack/%
To find out more about how these items work, check out our Genshin Impact artifacts guide.
What are the best Genshin Impact Ganyu team comps?
Ganyu excels as a main DPS thanks to her charged shots and as a sub-DPS, if you make use of her AoE burst. Here are some of the teams we recommend using her in.
| First character slot | Second character slot | Third character slot | Fourth character slot |
 Ganyu |
 Xiangling |
 Bennett |
 Zhongli |
| Ganyu |
 Mona |
 Diona |
 Venti |
| Ganyu |
 Ayaka |
 Kokomi |
 Kazuha |
| Ganyu |
 Shenhe |
Kokomi |
Venti |
What are Ganyu’s abilities?
Ganyu’s kit overflows with icy benefits that cause devastation to enemies. Here’s what her normal and elemental skills do on the battlefield and what passive skills she possesses.
Active skills:
| Skill | Effect |
| Normal attack: Liutian Archery | Normal: Perform up to six shots with a bow. Charge level one: An icy shot that deals cryo damage. Charge level two: Fire a Frostflake Arrow that explodes on impact dealing AoE cryo damage. Plunging: A shower of arrows that deals AoE damage. |
| Elemental skill: Trail of the Qilin | Deals AoE cryo damage and leaves behind an Ice Lotus. The Ice Lotus taunts enemies into attacking it and deals AoE cryo damage when destroyed. |
| Elemental burst: Celestial Shower | Summons a Sacred Cryo Pearl that deals AoE cryo damage. |
Passive skills:
| Skill | Effect |
| Undivided Heart (unlocked at ascension one) | After firing a Frostflake Arrow, the crit rate of subsequent Frostflake Arrows increases by 20% for five seconds. |
| Harmony between Heaven and Earth (unlocked at ascension four) | Celestial Shower gives a 20% cryo damage boost to party members. |
| Preserved for the Hunt (unlocked automatically) | Refunds 15% of the ore cost when crafting bows. |
What are Ganyu’s constellations?
Here’s every buff you receive when you level up Ganyu’s constellations.
| Constellation | Effect |
| C1: Dew-Drinker | When an enemy takes damage from a charge level two Frostflake Arrow Bloom their cryo resistance lowers by 15% for six seconds. A hit regenerates two energy for Ganyu. This effect can only occur once per charge level two Frostflake Arrow. |
| C2: The Auspicious | Trail of the Qilin gains one additional charge. |
| C3: Cloud-Strider | Increases the level of Celestial Shower by three. |
| C4: Westward Sojourn | Enemies standing within the Celestial Shower AoE take extra damage. Damage increase begins at 5% and increases by 5% every three seconds, up to a maximum of 25%. The effect lingers for three seconds after the enemy leaves the AoE. |
| C5: The Merciful | Increases the level of Trail of the Qilin by three. |
| C6: The Clement | Using Trail of the Qilin causes the next Frostflake Arrow shot within 30 seconds to not require charging. |
What are Ganyu’s ascension materials?
Ascension can be an expensive process, so we’ve listed all the items you need to save up while leveling. The Cryo Regisvine drops hoarfrost cores in Mondstadt and qingxin flowers pop up all over Liyue.
| Required level | Mora | Materials |
| 20 | 20,000 | One shivada jade sliver, three qingxin, and three whopperflower nectar |
| 40 | 40,000 | Three shivada jade fragments, two hoarfrost cores, ten qingxin, and 15 whopperflower nectar |
| 50 | 60,000 | Six shivada jade fragments, four hoarfrost cores, 20 qingxin, and 12 shimmering nectar |
| 60 | 80,000 | Three shivada jade chunks, eight hoarfrost cores, 30 qingxin, and 18 Shimmering nectar |
| 70 | 100,000 | Six shivada jade chunks, 12 hoarfrost cores, 45 qingxin, and 12 energy nectar |
| 80 | 120,000 | Six shivada jade gemstones, 20 hoarfrost cores, 60 qingxin, and 24 energy nectar |
What are Ganyu’s talent materials?
Ganyu requires whopperflower nectar and shadow of the warrior items, which are drops of the weekly Tartaglia boss. The talent book that Ganyu needs is the diligence set. For the highest levels, you’ll need three crowns of insight if you want to completely round out her talents.
| Level | Mora | Materials |
| Two | 12,500 | Six whopperflower nectar and three teachings of diligence |
| Three | 17,500 | Three shimmering nectar and two guides to diligence |
| Four | 25,000 | Four shimmering nectar and four guides to diligence |
| Five | 30,000 | Six shimmering nectar and six guides to diligence |
| Six | 37,500 | Nine shimmering nectar and nine guides to diligence |
| Seven | 120,000 | Four energy nectar, four philosophies of diligence, and one shadow of the warrior |
| Eight | 260,000 | Six energy nectar, six philosophies of diligence, and one shadow of the warrior |
| Nine | 450,000 | Nine energy nectar, 12 philosophies of diligence, and two shadows of the warrior |
| Ten | 700,000 | 12 energy nectar, 16 philosophies of diligence, two shadows of the warrior, and one crown of insight |
Talent priority:
As Ganyu focuses on charged attacks, you want to prioritize this when leveling her skills.
- Normal attack > elemental skill > elemental burst
Now that you know all about Genshin Impact’s Ganyu, you may be on the lookout for something new to play. If that’s the case, head on over to see the Honkai Star Rail tier list and any Honkai Star Rail codes that may pop up.