Picking the right Genshin Impact Nilou build can be pretty tricky if you want to maximize her impact, since she is a unique hydro sword-wielder. Her kit is highly situational and relies on intriguing hydro and dendro interactions, and though she’s quite a particular DPS or sub-DPS, her bountiful cores guarantee an explosive stage show. So let’s take a look at Genshin Nilou‘s skills, weapons, artifacts, and more so that you can explore Teyvat with the best version of the character.
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Here’s everything in our Genshin Impact Nilou build:
What’s the best Genshin Impact Nilou build?
Nilou is a five-star hydro sword-wielder. She’s an exceptional sub-DPS with a kit that focuses on modifying and strengthening the bloom reaction, and her beginner-friendly yet varied gameplay makes her a highly desired unit across the community.
Here’s a brief overview of our best Nilou build:
| Rarity | ★★★★★ |
| Element | Hydro |
| Weapon type | Sword |
| Best weapon | Key of Khaj-Nisut |
| Weapon substitutes |
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| Best artifact set | 2pc Tenacity of the Millelith and 2pc Vourukasha |
| Main stats |
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| Sub stats | HP > energy recharge > elemental mastery |
Nilou’s best weapon is her signature five-star, Key of Khaj-Nisut, though The Dockhand’s Assistant is a solid four-star option for her. When it comes to artifacts, we highly recommend equipping her with two pieces of Tenacity of the Milelith and two pieces of Vourukasha, while focusing on HP and energy recharge sub-stats.
As her kit is almost exclusively focused on bloom reactions, she excels most in teams with one to two dendro units, and one to two other hydro units. Outside of that, her team comps are quite flexible, allowing you to use your favorite dendro and hydro characters – including four-stars. You can learn more about her equipment, kit, and team comps later in this guide.
How to use Nilou
Nilou’s playstyle focuses on the bloom reaction between dendro and hydro. She’s great at dishing out AoE damage with her bountiful cores when used correctly.
She has two abilities in her skill – Sword Dance and Whirling Steps. Using Sword Dance is best for DPS Nilou, as it allows her to deal more damage, whereas Whirling Steps creates water around Nilou that applies hydro to enemies. It can be tricky to work out when you can activate these situational abilities, but once you do, Nilou will be blooming all over the place.
What are the best Nilou weapons?
Nilou’s best weapon is her signature five-star, Key of Khaj-Nisut. It buffs her max HP and elemental mastery, both of which help her pack more of a punch with her dendro cores.
The Dockhand’s Assistant is Nilou’s best four-star weapon. Its HP% bonus stat is very valuable to her, but she does need to receive healing from other teammates during her field time to activate its passive.
Freedom-Sworn is a solid five-star weapon for on-field enabler Nilou. She can make full use of its EM secondary stat, but, as Nilou’s teams generall rely on transformative reaction damage through bountiful blooms, she struggles to reliably trigger its passive, meaning it may be better used on a different character.
Alternatively, Sacrificial Sword is a strong four-star weapon for on-field Nilou. It allows her to use both elemental skill forms, maximizing her hydro application, and its energy recharge bonus is great if you want to use her burst more frequently.
Finally, Nilou’s best pure F2P weapon is Iron Sting. It offers a decent boost to her elemental mastery, and is accessible for all players as you can forge it via the blacksmith.
Here are the best weapons for Nilou:
| Key of Khaj-Nisut | Bonus stat: HP% Skill: Nilou gains the Grand Hymn effect for 20 seconds when an elemental skill hits an opponent. This effect increases her elemental mastery by 0.12% of her max HP. This effect can trigger once every 0.3 seconds. When this effect gains three stacks, or when the third stack’s duration is refreshed, the elemental mastery of all nearby party members will be increased by 0.2% of Nilou’s max HP for 20 seconds |
Limited weapon banner |
| The Dockhand’s Assistant | Bonus stat: HP% Skill: when Nilou is healed, she gains a Stoic Symbol, lasting 30 seconds. This can stack up to three times. When she uses an elemental skill or burst, the symbols are consumed and the Round Effect takes is gained for ten seconds. Each symbol provides 40 elemental mastery and two energy. This effect can trigger every 15 seconds, even when Nilou is not on field. |
Weapon banners |
| Freedom-Sworn | Bonus stat: Elemental mastery Skill: When Nilou triggers elemental reactions, she gains a Sigil of Rebellion. This effect can be triggered once every 0.5 seconds and can be triggered even if she is not on the field. When you possess two Sigils of Rebellion, both will be consumed and all nearby party members will obtain “Millennial Movement: Song of Resistance” for 12 seconds. This increases normal, charged, and plunging Attack damage by 16% and increases attack by 20%. Once this effect is triggered, you will not gain Sigils of Rebellion for 20 seconds |
Limited weapon banner |
| Sacrificial Sword | Bonus stat: Energy recharge Skill: After dealing damage to an opponent with an elemental skill, the skill has a 40% chance to end its own cooldown. Can only occur once every 30 seconds |
All banners |
| Iron Sting | Bonus stat: Elemental mastery Skill: Increases all damage by 6% for six seconds when dealing elemental damage. Max two stacks. Can only occur once every second |
Forge via blacksmith |
What are the best artifacts for Nilou?
Nilou’s best artifact set is two pieces of Tenacity of the Milelith and two pieces of Vourukasha. Combined, both sets’ two-piece bonuses provide 40% HP, which greatly lowers how much you need to supply through sub-stats in order to reach her A4 passive’s cap.
If you already have enough HP, you can instead combine either two pieces of Tenacity of the Milelith or Vourukasha with two pieces of an elemental mastery set like Gilded Dreams, Wanderer’s Troupe, or Flower of Paradise Lost. The additional elemental mastery is valuable to Nilou as it improves her bloom damage.
Alternatively, a four-piece set of Flower of Paradise Lost is a solid choice for Nilou in teams where she triggers most of the blooms. This is most common in teams where the second hydro unit primarily deals single-target damage or has a high rate of hydro application. This set sacrifices a substantial chunk of HP%, but it boosts her bloom damage by around 80%, so it’s worth it if you manage to get plenty of HP% through her stats and/or weapon.
Here are the best artifacts for Nilou:
| Tenacity of the Millelith | Two equipped: increases HP by 20% | Obtain from Ridge Watch domain |
| Vourukasha’s Glow | Two equipped: increases HP by 20% | Obtain from Molten Iron Fortress domain |
| Gilded Dreams | Two equipped: increases elemental mastery by 80 | Spire of Solitary Enlightenment domain |
| Wanderer’s Troupe/Instructor | Two equipped: increases elemental mastery by 80 | Obtain from world and weekly bosses |
| Flower of Paradise Lost | Two equipped: Increases elemental mastery Four equipped: Nilou’s bloom, hyperbloom, and burgeon reaction damage are increased by 40%. Additionally, after she triggers bloom, hyperbloom, or burgeon, she gains another 25% bonus to the effect mentioned prior. Each stack of this lasts 10 seconds. Max four stacks simultaneously. This effect can only be triggered once per second. Nilou can still trigger its effects when not on the field |
City of Gold domain |
Artifact stat recommendations
When picking stats for Nilou’s artifacts, remember that crit is not as good as elemental mastery, as bountiful cores don’t crit. Generally, you want to get her energy recharge to about 170% or higher.
Aside from that, your focus should be on getting her HP% high enough to meet the cap from her A4 passive, then boosting her elemental mastery to increase her bloom damage.
Main stats:
- Sands: HP% and energy recharge
- Goblet: HP%
- Circlet: HP%
Sub-stats:
- Elemental mastery
- HP%
- HP
- Energy recharge
What are the best Nilou team comps?
With Nilou, you want to aim for bloom reactions. That’s kind of her whole deal. Therefore, mix and match basically any hydro and dendro characters, preferably with a healer for some added benefits. Beyond that, she’s pretty flexible – combine her with one to two of your favorite dendro units and one to two other hydro units, and enjoy the bloom show!
Here are some examples of strong Nilou team comps:
 Nilou |
 Nahida |
 Kokomi |
 DendroTraveler |
| Nilou |
Nahida |
Kokomi |
 Yelan |
| Nilou |
Nahida |
 Kaveh |
 Xingqiu |
What are Nilou’s abilities?
Here’s a showcase of what Nilou has in terms of skills, and what they do:
Active skills:
| Normal attack | Dance of Samser Normal: Perform up to three consecutive sword strikes. Charged: Consume a set amount of stamina to perform a twirling slash. Plunging: Plung from mid-air to strike the ground below, damaging opponents along the path and dealing AoE damage on impact |
| Elemental skill | Dance of Haftkarsvar Nilou enters the pirouette state, dealing hydro damage to nearby opponents based on her max HP. While in this state, her normal attacks and elemental skills cause her to enter the sword dance and whirling steps stances respectively, converting all her damage to hydro damage that can’t be overridden and is considered elemental skill damage. In these stances, Nilou’s third dance step ends pirouette and has different effects based on the type of said dance step. For sword dance, she unleashes a luminous illusion that deals hydro damage to any enemies it touches. She receives the lunar prayer effect, which converts Nilou’s normal attacks into sword dance techniques. For whirling steps, Nilou unleashes a whirling water wheel that deals AoE hydro damage and creates a tranquillity aura that follows your active character around and applies hydro to opponents within its AoE. Nilou can’t perform charged attacks when under the effect of a pirouette or lunar prayer. All effects are removed when Nilou leaves the field |
| Elemental burst | Dance of Abzendegi: Distant Dreams, Listening Spring Nilou begins a dance that spawns a lotus of distant waters, dealing AoE hydro damage based on Nilou’s max HP and applying the Lingering Aeon effect to all opponent’s hit. After an interval, opponents affected by Lingering Aeon take hydro damage |
Passive skills:
| A1 | White Jade Lotus When Nilou cooks a perfect meal with adventure-related effects, there’s a 12% chance for you to obtain double the product |
| A4 | Court of Dancing Petals When all characters in the party are dendro or hydro, and there are at least one dendro and one hydro character, the completion of the third dance step of Nilou’s skill grants all nearby characters the Golden Chalice’s Bounty for 30 seconds. Characters under the effect of Golden Chalice’s Bounty increase the elemental mastery of all allies by 100 for ten seconds when they’re hit by dendro attacks. Triggering the bloom reaction creates bountiful cores instead of dendro cores. Bountiful cores burst very quickly and have larger AoEs. Bountiful cores can’t trigger hyperbloom or burgeon, and they share an upper numerical limit with dendro cores. Bountiful core damage is considered damage dealt by dendro cores produced by bloom. If the party doesn’t meet the conditions for this passive, any existing Golden Chalice’s Bounty effects are canceled. |
| Utility | Dreamy Dance of Aeons Every 1,000 points of Nilou’s max HP above 30k increases the damage dealt by Bountiful cores by 9%. The maximum increase in bountiful core damage that can be achieved this way is 400% |
What are Nilou’s constellations?
Constellations are buffs that improve how a character performs in battle. You can level up Nilou’s constellations when you pull more than one copy of her.
Here are all six of Nilou’s constellations and what they do.
| C1 | Dance of the Waning Moon Enhances Dance of Haftkarsvare, increasing the luminous illusion’s damage by 65%, and extending the duration of the tranquillity aura by six seconds. |
| C2 | The Starry Skies Their Flowers Rain After characters affected by the golden chalice’s bounty deal hydro damage to an opponent, that opponent’s hydro resistance decreases by 35% for ten seconds. After a triggered bloom reaction deals damage to opponents, their dendro resistance decreases by 35% for ten seconds. Requires the ‘Court of Dancing Petals’ talent. |
| C3 | Beguiling Shadowstep Increases the level of Dance of Abzendegi: Distant Dreams, Listening Spring by three. Max upgrade to level 15. |
| C4 | Fricative Pulse After the third dance step of Dance of Haftkarsvar’s Pirouette hits opponents, Nilou gains 15 elemental energy, and damage from her Dance of Abzendegi: Distant Dreams, listening spring increases by 50% for eight seconds. |
| C5 | Twirling Light Increases the level of Dance of Haftkarsvar by three. Max upgrade to level 15. |
| C6 | Frostbreaker’s Melody For every 1,000 points of max HP, Nilou’s crit rate and crit damage increase by 0.6% and 1.2% respectively. Can increase a maximum of 20% crit rate and 60% crit damage. |
What are Nilou’s ascension materials?
Nilou requires varunada lazurite pieces to ascend, as well as Sumeru-native Padisarah flowers. To find the fungal spores and their two evolved versions, you need to hunt down plenty of fungi enemies. Here are all the materials you need to fully ascend Nilou.
| 20➔40 |
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| 40➔50 |
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| 50➔60 |
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| 60➔70 |
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| 70➔80 |
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| 80➔90 |
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Here’s where to get all of Nilou’s ascension materials:
- Varunada lazurite – dropped by Rhodeia of Loch in Liyue, Primo Geovishap in Liyue, and Hydro Hypostasis in Inazuma
- Padisarah – can be found in forest region of Sumeru, Vanarana, Pardis Dhyai, and The Palace of Alcazarzaray
- Perpetual calibers – dropped by Aeonblight Drake
- Luminescent pollen – dropped by Fungi, purchased from Paimon’s Bargains, or created using Fungal Spores in alchemy
- Crystalline cyst dust – dropped by Fungi over level 60, or created using Luminescent Pollen in alchemy
What are Nilou’s talent materials?
Here’s the shopping list for upgrading Nilou’s talents. You need the praxis family of talent books, and Tears of the Calamitous God which are a drop from the weekly Raiden Shogun boss fight.
Here are all the materials you need to get one of Nilou’s talents up to max level.
| 1➔2 |
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| 2➔3 |
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| 3➔4 |
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| 4➔5 |
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| 5➔6 |
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| 6➔7 |
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| 7➔8 |
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| 8➔9 |
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| 9➔10 |
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Talent priorities:
When it comes to building up your Nilou’s talents, aim to do them in this order:
- Elemental skill > elemental burst > normal attack
That’s everything we know about Genshin Impact’s Nilou. For more great builds, check out our Genshin Impact Noelle, Genshin Impact Eula, and Genshin Impact Nahida build guides. For even more exciting adventures, check out our list of the best games like Genshin Impact. There’s plenty more gacha goodness for you to get your hands on, so check out the latest Zenless Zone Zero codes, Wuthering Waves codes, and Honkai Star Rails codes for some extra freebies!