Genshin Impact’s Yaoyao is an adorable, four-star dendro polearm wielder from Liyue. Having learnt from both Xiangling and Ganyu, Yaoyao is a surprisingly powerful little fighter, who can both heal and harm. So let’s get tossing those radishes as we dive into her skills, best weapons and artifacts, and more.
To see how Yaoyao sizes up against her elders, check out our Genshin Impact Xiangling and Genshin Impact Ganyu guides, or head over to our Genshin Impact tier list. We’ve also got all the latest Genshin Impact codes, along with a rundown of all current and upcoming Genshin Impact banners and Genshin Impact events.
Here’s everything in our best Genshin Impact Yaoyao build:
What’s the best Genshin Impact Yaoyao build?
| Best weapon | Favonius Lance |
| Substitute weapons |
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| Best artifact set | Deepwood Memories |
| Substitute artifacts | Tenacity of the Millelith |
| Main stats |
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| Sub-stats |
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Yaoyao is a dendro healer who acts as a strong support in many different team builds. Yaoyao’s best weapon is Favonius Lance, and her best artifact set is Deepwood Memories. When building her, we recommend focusing on HP to boost her healing efficiency, along with energy recharge to help her burst more often.
If you fancy experimenting and have another healer or a strong shielder on your team, you can also choose to build her as a reaction driver with a focus on elemental mastery – she’s a pretty flexible little unit with heaps of potential.
When leveling up Yaoyao’s talents, we recommend prioritizing her elemental skill, then her elemental burst, then her normal attack. It’s worth ascending her to level 90 if you can, as it allows you to make the most of her healing and ability to trigger reactions.
How to use Yaoyao
Yaoyao is a four-star dendro polearm wielder best suited to a support role. She can heal allies through both her skill and burst, while also applying AoE dendro damage, making her a great utility candidate for elemental reaction teams.
In combat, we generally recommend that you swap to her and use her elemental skill whenever Yuegui expires, so you can keep those heals and dendro applications coming.
In terms of her burst, we recommend keeping her on the field while it’s active, and essentially running around and jumping to make the most of the radishes that her Starscatter passive throws out.
What’s the best Genshin Impact Yaoyao weapon?
Yaoyao is quite energy-hungry, with a pretty pricy burst. As such, our top weapon pick is the Favonius Lance, as it allows her to regenerate particles at a quicker rate, especially if she’s the only dendro character in the team.
Alternatively, Staff of Homa is the best all-rounder polearm for pretty much any character, and works well for Yaoyao too – though it’s a highly contested weapon, and you may find better use for it on one of your stronger damage dealers.
For some decent four-star options beyond Favonius, Dragon’s Bane, Kitain Cross Spear, and Moonpiercer all work well with Yaoyao, offering elemental mastery to boost the damage of her elemental reactions.
| Weapon | Effect |
| Favonius Lance | Bonus stat: energy recharge Skill: crit hits have a 60% chance to generate a small amount of elemental particles, which regenerate six energy for the active character. This can only occur once every 12 seconds |
| Staff of Homa | Bonus stat: crit damage Skill: increases HP by 20%, and provides an attack bonus based on 0.8% of the wielder’s max HP. When the wielder’s HP drops to less than 50%, the attack bonus increases by an additional 1% of their max HP |
| Dragon’s Bane | Base stat: elemental mastery Skill: increases the damage you deal to enemies affected by hydro or pyro by 20% |
| Kitain Cross Spear | Base stat: elemental mastery Skill: increases elemental skill damage by 6%. After the wielder’s elemental skill hits an opponent, the wielder loses three energy but regenerates three energy every two seconds for the next six seconds. This effect can occur once every ten seconds, even when the character is not on the field |
| Moonpiercer | Base stat: elemental mastery Skill: after triggering burning, quicken, aggravate, spread, bloom, hyperbloom, or burgeon, summon a leaf of revival around the character for a maximum of ten seconds. When you pick up the leaf, it grants the character 16% attack for 12 seconds. You can only generate one leaf this way every 20 seconds. You can trigger this effect even if the character isn’t on the field |
What are the best Genshin Impact Yaoyao artifacts?
Yaoyao makes for a great Deepwood Memories holder if no one else on your team is using that set, as it offers a team-wide buff that reduces enemy dendro resistance. However, much like Noblesse Oblige, the effect doesn’t stack if you have more than one character on your team equipped with this set.
A great alternative is a full set of Tenacity of the Millelith, as it increases Yaoyao’s HP which buffs her healing, and gives a team-wide attack and shield buff. Alternatively, if you have a low constellation Yaoyao and really want to bump up her healing potential, you can combine two pieces of Tenacity of the Milelith with two pieces of a healing set like Ocean-Hued Clam.
For more information on the current artifact sets available in the game, check out our Genshin Impact artifacts guide.
| Artifact set | Effect | Where to get |
| Deepwood Memories | Two equipped: dendro damage bonus +15% Four equipped: after elemental skills or bursts hit opponents, the targets’ dendro resistance decreases by 30% for eight seconds. You can trigger this effect even if the equipping character is not on the field |
Spire of Solitary Enlightenment domain in Sumeru |
| Tenacity of the Millelith | Two equipped: HP +20% Four equipped: when you hit an opponent with an elemental skill, increase all nearby party members’ attack by 20%, and their shield strength by 30% for three seconds. You can trigger this effect once every 0.5 seconds, even if the wielder is not on the field |
Ridge Watch domain on Bishui Plain, Liyue |
Artifact stat recommendations
The two most useful stats for Yaoyao in a support role are HP and energy recharge, which both help maximize her healing potential. If she’s the only dendro character on your team, you realistically need about 200% energy recharge for her to burst in every rotation.
Generally, HP%, energy recharge, and healing bonus main stats are the best fit for her when it comes to team flexibility and strong heals. If you equip her with the Favonius Lance, you can also opt for a crit rate circlet to trigger its passive more reliably.
Alternatively, if you’re using Yaoyao in a hyperbloom team, you can instead equip her with a full set of elemental mastery main-stat artifacts to make the most of her dendro cores. However, this comes at the price of lower heels, and the dendro cores can still damage you, so keep that in mind.
Main stats:
- Sands: HP%, energy recharge, or elemental mastery
- Goblet: HP% or elemental mastery
- Circlet: HP%, energy recharge, crit rate, or elemental mastery
Sub-stats:
- Energy recharge
- HP%
- Elemental mastery
- Crit rate/crit damage
- Flat HP
What are the best Genshin Impact Yaoyao team comps?
Due to her great healing and dendro application, Yaoyao is a pretty flexible character that can slot into many team comps. Personally, we love putting Yaoyao on a hyperbloom team, with our favourite line-up being Ayato, Raiden, Nahida, and Yaoyao in a quickswap rotation.
In this team, we recommend using Raiden’s skill, Ayato’s burst, Nahida’s skill and burst, then switching to Yaoyao to unleash her burst. In this situation, you can simply let Yuegui dish out that delicious hyperbloom damage, while simultaneously healing your allies up to full HP – and charging Raiden’s burst in the process.
Another great hyperbloom team consists of Alhaitham, Xingqiu, Raiden, and Yaoyao, which works much in the same way, only with the handsome Grand Sage taking up a bit more field time to maximise his mirror damage.
If you fancy something a bit more bloom focused, you can pair Yaoyao up with Nilou, Nahida, and either Ayato, Yelan, or Xingqiu, making the most of Nilou’s brilliant bloom buffs. Alternatively, you can also swap Nahida out for Alhaitham if you want some more offensive dendro application.
Yaoyao also synergises well with Genshin Impact’s Kaveh, alongside Nilou and another hydro character (once again, Ayato, Xingqiu, and Yelan are great choices here), as Kaveh’s kit allows him to burst all of those dendro cores with ease.
Truly, the options are quite limitless with Yaoyao, though we generally advise against putting her on freeze teams as dendro doesn’t react with cryo, and it’d be a waste of her main utility – leave those cryo heals up to her pal, Genshin Impact’s Qiqi.
Here are some visual examples of our top Yaoyao team comps. Click on the icons to view the full build guides for each of the teammates.
| First character slot | Second character slot | Third character slot | Fourth character slot |
 Ayato |
 Raiden |
 Nahida |
 Yaoyao |
 Alhaitham |
 Xingqiu |
Raiden |
Yaoyao |
 Nilou |
Nahida |
Ayato |
Yaoyao |
| Nilou |
Alhaitham |
Xingqiu |
Yaoyao |
What are Genshin Yaoyao’s abilities?
Here are all of Yaoyao’s talents and skills.
Active skills:
| Skill | Effect |
| Normal attack: Toss ‘N’ Turn Spear | Normal: perform up to four consecutive spear strikes Charged: consume a set amount of stamina to lunge forward, dealing damage to enemies on impact Plunge: plunge from mid-air to strike the ground below, damaging enemies along the path and dealing AoE damage on impact |
| Elemental skill: Raphanus Sky Cluster | Call upon Yuegui: Throwing Mode, a special device created by a certain adeptus to help Yaoyao solve her problems. Hold the skill button to enter aiming mode and adjust the throw direction. When deployed, Yuegui: Throwing Mode tosses radishes that explode upon hitting characters or opponents, dealing dendro damage to opponents within a certain AoE, and yealing characters within that same AoE based on Yaoyao’s max HP. If the radish doesn’t hit either an opponent or a character, the radish remains where it is and explodes on contact with a character or opponent, or explodes after its duration expires. Yuegui: Throwing Mode chooses its radish-throw targets based on these parameters:
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| Elemental burst: Moonjade Descent | Call upon Yuegui: Throwing Mode, a special device created by a certain adeptus to help Yaoyao solve her problems. Hold the burst button to enter aiming mode and adjust the throw direction. When deployed, Yuegui: Throwing Mode throws out White Jade Raishes that explode upon hitting characters or opponents, dealing dendro damage to opponents within a certain AoE, and healing characters within that same AoE based on Yaoyao’s max HP. If a radish doesn’t hit either an opponent or a character, it remains where it is and explodes on contact with a character or opponent, or explodes after its duration expires. Yuegui: Throwing Mode chooses its radish-throw targets based on these parameters:
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Passive skills:
| Skill | Effect |
| Tailing on Tiptoes | When Yaoyao is in the party, your characters don’t startle crystalflies and certain other animals when you get close to them. Check the ‘other’ sub-category of the ‘living beings/wildlife’ section in the archive for creatures this skill works on |
| Starscatter | While affected by the Adeptal Legacy state caused by Moonjade Descent, Yaoyao constantly throws radishes at nearby opponents when she is sprinting, jumping, or running. She can throw one raddish this way once every 0.6 seconds |
| In Others’ Shoes | When radishes explode, active characters within their AoE regain HP every second based on 0.08% of Yaoyao’s max HP. This effect lasts five seconds |
What are Yaoyao’s constellations?
If you pull a duplicate of Yaoyao, you can unlock one of her constellations. Here are all six of Yaoyao’s constellations and the buffs they provide.
| Constellation | Effect |
| C1: Adeptus’ Tutelage | When radishes explode, active characters within their AoE gain 15% dendro damage bonus for eight seconds and have 15 stamina restored to them. This form of stamina restoration can only trigger every five seconds |
| C2: Innocent | While affected by the Adeptal Legacy state caused by Moonjade Descent, if radish explosions damage opponents, Yaoyao restores three energy. Can only occur once every 0.8 seconds |
| C3: Loyal and Kind | Increases the level of Raphanus Sky Cluster by three. Max upgrade level 15 |
| C4: Winsome | After using Raphanus Sky Cluster or Moonjade Descent, Yaoyao’s elemental mastery increases based on 0.3% of her max HP for eight seconds. The maximum elemental mastery she can gain this way is 120 |
| C5: Compassionate | Increases the level of Moonjade Descent by three. Max upgrade level 15 |
| C6: Beneficent | For every two radishes Yuegui: Throwing Mode throws out, it also throws a mega radish that has a larger AoE than the standard radishes, and has the following effects upon exploding: – deals AoE dendro damage based on 75% of Yaoyao’s attack – restores HP for the active character based on 7.5% of Yaoyao’s max HP Every Yuegei: Throwing Mode can throw out a maximum of two mega radishes |
What are Genshin Yaoyao’s ascension materials?
You can level Yaoyao up to a maximum of level 90, but you need to use a specific set of materials at certain intervals in order to ascend her. Here are all the materials you need to fully ascend Yaoyao.
You can find jueyun chilis growing around Liyue, and the slime materials are drops from – unsurprisingly – slime enemies. Quelled creepers come from the Dendro Hypostasis world boss in Sumeru.
| Level | Mora | Materials |
| 20+ | 20k | One nagadus emerald sliver, three jueyun chili, three slime condensate |
| 40+ | 40k | Three nagadus emerald fragments, ten jueyun chili, 15 slime condensate, two quelled creeper |
| 50+ | 60k | Six nagadus emerald fragments, 20 jueyun chili, 12 slime secretions, four quelled creeper |
| 60+ | 80k | Three nagadus emerald chunks, 30 jueyun chili, 18 slime secretions, eight quelled creeper |
| 70+ | 100k | Six nagadus emerald chunks, 45 jueyun chili, 12 slime secretions, 12 quelled creeper |
| 80+ | 120k | Six nagadus emerald gemstones, 60 jueyun chili, 24 slime concentrate, 20 quelled creeper |
What are Genshin Yaoyao’s talent materials?
You can upgrade Yaoyao’s normal attack, elemental skill, and elemental burst each to level ten. Here are all of the materials you need to raise one of her talents to max level.
As above, you can farm the slime materials by defeating slime enemies. The diligence books come from the Taishan Mansion domain on Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday, and you can earn the daka’s bell materials by defeating the Joururi Workshop weekly boss.
| Level | Mora | Materials |
| Two | 12.5k | 12.5k mora, six slime condensate, three teachings of diligence |
| Three | 17.5k | 17.5k mora, three slime secretions, two guide to diligence |
| Four | 25k | 25k mora, four slime secretions,, four guide to diligence |
| Five | 30k | 30k mora, six slime secretions, six guide to diligence |
| Six | 37.5k | 37.5k mora, nine slime secretions, nine guide to diligence |
| Seven | 120k | 120k mora, four slime concentrate, four philosophies of diligence, one daka’s bell |
| Eight | 260k | 260k mora, six slime concentrate, six philosophies of diligence, one daka’s bell |
| Nine | 450k | 450k mora, nine slime concentrate, 12 philosophies of diligence, two daka’s bell |
| Ten | 700k | 700k mora, 12 slime concentrate, 16 philosophies of diligence, two daka’s bell, one crown of insight |
Talent level-up priority
When leveling up Yaoyao’s talents, we recommend prioritizing them in the following order:
- Elemental skill > elemental burst > normal attack
That’s all we’ve got in our Genshin Impact Yaoyao build. If you’re looking for another adventure to embark on, check out our Honkai Star Rail tier list, Honkai Star Rail codes, and Honkai Star Rail events guides to explore Hoyo’s star-trotting RPG.