Genshin Impact tends to launch new characters with significant updates with unique abilities. While it may be a personal choice whether to roll on a character or not. Players wait for the community to test the character to make an informed decision. You can say it’s more like a line between the meta and casual players. The latter wants a character because of personality, whereas others with meta potential. This happened to me when Yelan launched because I didn’t know much about her abilities.
But I liked her role in the Archon quest and her story quest in the City of Liyue. I felt she has much more room to grow in the future and may play a vital role in the story’s unfolding eventst. The lore portrays her works as commendable operations under Lady Ningguang. So, I decided to convert my primogems and wished on her banner, and Voila! I saw that golden star, and bam, Yelan came home.
In this Yelan Genshin Impact Guide, it’s time to go through her brief guide to learn about her skills, weapons, artifacts, or team comps. Feel free to experiment with her on your account and share with fellow Genshin players. So, without further ado, let’s zip-zap into the guide.
Yelan, Who is She?
Yelan is described as a mysterious person who claims to work for the Ministry of Civil Affairs in Liyue. but is a “non-entity” on the list of Ministry of Civil Affairs’
Yelan is a mysterious personality and uses her sharp tactics to get her work done. From the story, you get to know that she reports directly to Ningguang and is a master of disguise. Yelan is sharp, intelligent, and observative in nature. She can critically analyze situations and turn the tide of events in her favor.
If you think you are winning against Yelan, you have already lost. I didn’t plan to wish for Yelan, but after going through her story and archon quest, I felt I should get her. She’s someone who doesn’t have enough public records and is a part of secret intelligence.
She had an encounter with Regrator, the ninth of Fatdui Harbingers, during an operation. The Regrator is supposed to have insane wealth because of his businesses. Though she lost a family heirloom, ” Fascinating Bracelet,” and only one of it remains. She intercepted goods from a secret trade route that belonged to the Regrator.
Being a Hydro bow character, she synergizes well with teams that need to vaporize, electro-charge, or freeze. My theory is that her charged shot’s animation looks like a Fatui symbol. Who knows, it may have some significance in the future.
Referring to a mystical beast that died hundreds of years ago, whose body is intact, and a robe from its fur is worth a considerable fortune. Yelan unexpectedly intercepted a robe whose fur gave a mysterious fragrance while it was intended for Tsaritsa. She changed the design and reworked it with Liyue’s Ramie yarn to make it more fashionable.
I would say Yelan’s personality is similar to Yae Miko’s. Both work in mysterious ways and have their psychological traits to manipulate others. Though there are many differences between the two, there are some similarities. I wonder how the conversations would be if they met each day.
You can obtain Yelan as her banner runs from May 31st till June 21st, along with featured 4-star characters Yanfei, Noelle, and Barbara. I recommend you roll on her banner if you want her and don’t have constellations for other 4-star characters.
Ascension
Yelan’s ascension stat is crit rate, which makes her abilities potent, helps in off-field damage, and equips crit dmg piece on the artifact. She’s a character who is an off-field damage dealer and has unique abilities applicable in niche situations. Let’s review the ascension and talent material you need for her and start ascending her.
You need the following materials to ascend Yelan to her maximum ascension
- Mora x 420,000
- Runic Fang x 46
- Varunada Lazurite Sliver x 1
- Varunada Lazurite Fragment x 9
- Varunada Lazurite Chunk x 9
- Varunada Lazurite Gemstone x 6
- Starconch x 168
- Recruit’s Insignia x 18
- Sergeant’s Insignia x 30
- Lieutenant’s Insignia x 36
To ascend Yelan’s talent to the maximum level 10, you need the following materials
- Mora x 1,652,500
- Recruit’s Insignia x 6
- Sergeant’s Insignia x 22
- Lieutenant’s Insignia x 31
- Teachings of Prosperity x 3
- Guide to Prosperity x 21
- Philosophies of Prosperity x 38
- Gilded Scale x 6
- Crown of Insight x 1
Like any other character, you need to farm for weeks to maximize her, spend original resin on her talent materials, and farm the world bosses. Nonetheless, your efforts will pay off in the end, and she will be a good support character on your roster.
Talents
Like any other character, Yelan has fantastic abilities to help you turn the tide of combat. Even when I got her, I was excited to learn about her skills and try them myself. I love her burst animation and her ability to dash in shadow mode. Let’s go over her abilities, and I’ll put my short remarks over them.
Normal Attack: Stealthy Bowshot
Charged Attack
Yelan performs a more precise aimed shot with increased damage. While aiming, flowing water will accumulate on the head of the arrow, and a charged torrential arrow will deal Hydro damage.
Breakthrough
Yelan will enter a “Breakthrough” state after exiting the combat after 5 seconds, decreasing the time of her subsequent charged shot by 80 %. Once charged, Yelan can fire a “Breakthrough barb” that will deal area Hydro damage scaling off Yelan’s maximum health.
Plunging attack
Yelan fires off a shower of arrows in mid-air falling and striking the ground below, dealing area damage. It’s unlikely that you will be using Yelan’s normal attack or charged attack because of her supportive playstyle. You can use her charged attack to fire a “Breakthrough barb” and deal area-wide Hydro damage to your enemies. You will notice that the attack looks like a fatui symbol when it bursts and resembles their mark. It might be possible it has to do something with the Fatui.
I love to use Yelan’s AoE charged shot to break some boxes, light up some totems or put off some fire because it covers a nice circular area. Also, you will notice that the arrow has a spiral animation that suits her, and have it up every 5 seconds when you are out of the combat. You will see that the bracelet on Yelan’s arm will glow when the Breakthrough state is ready, so that’s a visual indicator for you.
Lingering Lifeline
Yelan fires off a lifeline that allows her to rush, entangling and marking enemies along its path. The Lifeline will explode when this rapid movement ends, dealing Hydro damage to the marked enemies. The hydro damage scales of Yelan’s maximum health.
Tap > Moves a certain distance forward swiftly > Hold
Â
Engages in a continuous, swift movement, during which Yelan’s resistance to interruption increases. And you can control Yelan’s rapid movement and choose to end the skill by refiring it again. Additionally, each enemy marked by the Lifeline has a 34 % chance to reset Yelan’s breakthrough state after it explodes.
At level 10, the skill deals Hydro damage that scales 40 % of Yelan’s maximum health with a hold duration of 3 seconds and 10 seconds cooldown. I found this ability suitable for exploration. However, you may get stuck in unusual terrain like mountains or if you come across a stone.
Lifeline will make Yelan dash for 3 seconds, and counting it as a skill, Yelan’s stamina will regenerate over time. Lifeline is a good skill if you want to dash on a plain surface and quick some distance in a short amount of time and fill up your stamina bar a bit.
I won’t recommend Tapping the skill as it will deal the same amount of damage as the hold version and will cover a short distance. But, also, it can be said it is like a trade-off between damage and distance and resetting the cooldown of the “Breakthrough” state.
You can mark enemies while holding the skill, position yourself better on the battlefield, and have more chances to reset the cooldown. Or, you can tap the talent to quickly damage opponents in front of you and enter the same cooldown.
The unique thing about Yelan’s skill is that the damage and cooldown are the same for both the tap and hold versions. And also, they don’t have different damage numbers, which is quite unique for a skill. It ultimately depends on what kind of playstyle you want with her
. It opts for a strategy depending on the situation. Also, the elemental skill icons and functions will change once you are in the Lifeline state. And jumping or pressing the skill again will end the state. Yelan generates 4 energy particles if you can mark at least one enemy with her Lifeline.
Depth-Clarion Dice
- It can occur once every second when your active on-field character uses a normal attack.
- It will happen each time Yelan’s Lifeline explodes and hits enemies.
At talent level 10, the skill damage is 13 % of Yelan’s maximum health, and Exquisite throw damage is around 8.7 % of Yelan’s complete health. With a duration of 15 seconds and an 18 s cooldown, you can have better uptime with this skill, and it requires 70 energy to initiate the burst.
When you cast it, the skill deals area-wide damage and gives off a cool animation that’s pure bliss to the eyes. After that, the Dice will deal coordinated damage to the enemies with you and deal Hydro damage to them.
I love to use Yelan’s elemental burst with Xingqiu’s elemental burst in electro-charged teams so that I can output plenty of damage to an opponent. Remember that Yelan’s Exquisite throw’s damage doesn’t snapshot. It means external buffs won’t apply.
Passive Talents
Before diving into the passive talents, let me explain what they are. Passive talents are the buffs you will obtain after your character reaches a certain ascension level.
After that, you don’t need anything specific to trigger these buffs because they will be active passively. Yelan has some excellent passives that boost her damage potential and her overall synergy with the characters.
Necessary Calculation
Yelan Gains 25 % more rewards when dispatched on a Liyue expedition for 20 hours.
An excellent passive talent if you want to send Yelan to expeditions and collect better rewards than usual.
Turn Control
When the team members have 1/2/3/4 elemental types, Yelan’s maximum health increases by 6/12/18/30 %.
A double-edged sword, you can have a team with all unique characters and increase Yelan’s health. An increase in her health will increase the damage her abilities will do but force her to play different characters.
It may happen that those characters don’t synergize well, which results in a DPS loss in the end. Otherwise, it’s a decent passive that increases Yelan’s health by a certain percentage.
Adapt with Ease
So long as an exquisite throw skill is in effect, your team’s active character deals 1 % more damage.
This increases by a further 3.5 % damage every second. The maximum increase in damage dealt is 50 %. The pre-existing effect will dispel if the Depth-Clarion Dice skill is recast during its duration.
This passive is a fabulous addition to her kit, allowing you to use her as a supporting character and shine quite well in that role. You get a decent damage boost to your hyper carry or primary damage-dealing character, and the effect reset when you recast the ultimate. I’ll discuss a team composition in the Team composition section, where you can take the most benefit of this passive.
Constellations
Yelan is fine without any extra constellations. If you are like me, who wants to collect characters, then there is no need to go for additional constellations. Otherwise, if you can afford them, Yelan has decent constellations that will boost her damage potential. Let’s review Yelan’s constellations to see how they will affect her playstyle.
Enter the Plotters
Lingering Lifeline gains 1 additional charge.
If you mark one enemy with Lifeline, you will generate four energy particles. With this constellation, you can re-use the Lifeline and generate eight particles. You can deal a decent amount of damage if multiple enemies are on the field.
Also, with the help of multiple charges, you can cover a lot of enemies. This will make Yelan’s lifeline skill more precise for use.
Taking all comers
When the Exquisite Throw effect conducts a coordinated attack. It will fire an extra water arrow that will deal 14 % of Yelan’s Maximum HP as hydro damage. This bonus can trigger once every 1.8 s.
An excellent stopping point for free-to-play players if they want to increase Yelan’s Exquisite throw damage. The dice will deal with an extra attack once every 1.8 seconds. I’m all down for additional attacks because they can help the character do better damage.
Beware the Trickster’s Dice
This constellation increases the level of Depth-Clarion Dice by 3. The maximum upgrade level is 15.
An upgrade to her elemental burst talent, increasing the damage she deals with the Exquisite throw. You will deal more damage with the Depth-clarion dice, and Yelan will be a better off-field damage dealer.
Bait-and-Switch
Increases all party members’ maximum HP by 10 % for 25 seconds for every enemy marked by Lifeline when the Lifeline explodes. A maximum increase of 40 % in total health can be attained in this manner.
It is suitable for characters who scale with HP, and abilities depend on their maximum health. Characters like Hu Tao, Thoma, Zhongli, Diona, and Barbara are good examples of those who can benefit from this constellation. These characters’ abilities scale off their health, and having a boost in them will aid them in doing their niche tasks.
Diona, Zhongli, and Thoma are good to shield characters. Whereas Barbara and Diona’s heals scale of their maximum health. You can take the benefit of this constellation to improve their overall utility.
Dealer’s Sleight
This constellation Increases the level of lingering Lifeline by 3. The maximum upgrade level is 15.
An increase in Yelan’s elemental skill damage can help you to deal a bit more damage. More like, something is better than having nothing. Depending on the circumstances and type of enemy on the field, you can use the elemental skill.
Winner Takes All
In this constellation, After using Depth-Clarion Dice, Yelan will enter the mastermind state.
Yelan’s regular attacks will be unique Breakthrough barbs in this state. These breakthrough barbs will have similar effects to regular ones. The damage dealt will be charged attack damage, with 156 % of a standard breakthrough barb’s damage. The mastermind state in this constellation lasts for 20 seconds and will be cleared after Yelan fires 5 arrows.
Yelan will deal massive damage to the enemy, where you can use your regular attacks to deal breakthrough barb damage. After that, you can switch to your primary damage dealer to take the most benefit from Yelan’s abilities.
Specific Food
Dew-Dipped Shrimp
Original Food: Stir-Fried Shrimp
Effect: After consuming this food, all party members’ shield strength increases by 35 % for 5 minutes. In the co-op mode of Genshin, this effect only applies to your character.
Unless you are playing with a character who wants better shield strength, there’s no need to cook plenty of food items. I’ve not used many food items that give niche bonuses or are defensive. I used either sweet madame or Adeptus temptation to recover or boost the attack most of the time. You can use Yelan to cook the food and obtain her special dish. I recommend you cook it for collection as many other dishes have better uses.
See also: Comprehensive Genshin Impact Food Guide.
Artifacts
Let’s go over Yelan’s artifacts that will suit her and perform better than the rest options. I’ll put in short remarks over them, and you can see whether they fit your playstyle or have their pieces. I advise you to use a complete set for artifacts or a 2-piece 2-piece combination as the last resort.
Emblem of Severed Fate
- 2-piece set bonus: Increases Energy recharge by 20 %
- 4-piece set bonus: Increase elemental burst damage by 25 % of maximum energy recharge. You can obtain a maximum 75 % damage bonus with the 4-piece effect.
The best artifact set for Yelan for her support role as she can capitalize on her burst damage to provide extraordinary off-field damage. You will be able to manage her energy recharge requirements and increase the burst damage that scales off your total energy recharge. Having an energy recharge sands and weapon would contribute to the damage increase as the set bonus scales off energy recharge.
Noblesse Oblige
- 2-piece set bonus: Increases elemental burst damage by 20 %
- 4-piece set bonus: All party members’ attack increases by 20 % for 12 seconds after you use elemental burst. The set bonus cannot stack.
Another set that can be used on Yelan is buff attacks for team members and increasing their attacks after using the elemental burst. Yelan will need better energy recharge, in this case, to spam her ultimate and keep better uptime for the elemental burst.
2-2 Piece combination
- Depending on your artifact stats, you can use the following combination.
- Tenacity of the Millileth
- Noblesse Oblige
- Emblem of severed fate
- Heart of depth.Â
Though the best recommendation is to use a full Emblem set, you still need to make things work if you don’t have that. These artifact combinations can be used on her if you want to use them in niche situations. However, they may fall off when you compare them with 4-piece bonuses.
Artifacts Summary: You can have either Energy recharge or HP % to compensate for the sand’s energy cost requirements. A Hydro damage bonus on the Goblet with either CRIT rate or CRIT damage on the circlet would be sufficient for a general build. Though Yelan’s abilities scale off HP %, stacking up two HP % pieces would result in losing other stats like elemental damage or crit ratios.
I recommend you have a 1:2 CRIT rate to CRIT damage ratio and look for substats like CRIT rate, CRIT damage, Energy recharge, or HP%. You can have around 200 % energy recharge for a better support role on Yelan. Depending on your team composition, you can tweak the stats.
Weapons
5-Star bow
Aqua Simulacra
Aqua Simulacra is Yelan’s signature weapon with massive 88% CRIT damage as a secondary stat at level 90. The weapon’s passive increases the wielder’s HP. Whether the character is on the field or not, the damage by the wielder increases by certain % age.
The damage will depend on the refinement. If you have this weapon, I highly recommend you ascend it and put it on Yelan.
Polar Star
Polar star features CRIT rate as its secondary stat. The passive helps increase skill, burst damage with attack percent with stacking mechanism. Polar star is another good option for Yelan if you don’t want to use this weapon on Childe and put it on Yelan.
Thundering Pulse
Thundering Pulse is a 5-star weapon that increases the attack percent of the wielder and boosts average attack damage. While you cannot take the most enjoy the passive, the secondary CRIT damage stat is what you are looking for on Yelan.
Elegy of the End
Elegy of the End is a superb choice for Yelan because it features an Energy recharge that can help Yelan to recharge her burst back faster. The weapon passive increases elemental mastery and attack percent.
Elemental mastery is good for elemental reactions and attacks for increased damage. Sure, it’s a fantastic option for Yelan because you can manage her energy recharge requirements with this weapon.
Skyward Harp
Skyward Harp features CRIT rate as its secondary stat, and the passive helps increase CRIT damage by a minimal percentage. Depending on the refinement of this weapon, the CRIT damage may increase slightly.
Overall, you can use this weapon on Yelan if you don’t have other options and equipment CRIT damage on her artifacts.
4-star bow
The Stringless
A fantastic option for Yelan if you want to use her in reaction-based teams and increase her elemental mastery. The bow passive is unique and increases elemental skill and burst damage.
On top of that, you can capitalize on an elemental mastery boost that will help you trigger better elemental reactions like Vaporize.
Sacrificial Bow
A sacrificial bow is also a good option for Yelan if you are looking for better energy recharge on her and want to use her skill twice. Depending on the refinements, the time and chance to reset the elemental skill cooldown will decrease.
A sacrificial bow with the first constellation will give you three charges for the skill and generate plenty of energy.
The Favonius Warbow
A fantastic option for Yelan that can help her manage energy recharge requirements reasonably well. The passive weapon will generate energy particles on a CRIT hit and feature energy recharge as its secondary stat.
At level 90, you get around 61 % energy recharge and will get extra energy particles on a CRIT hit. If you don’t have better options, Favonius weapon is a superb choice on Yelan.
Mouun’s Moon
This weapon features attack percent as its secondary stat, and the passive helps to increase the elemental burst damage. This is a good weapon if you focus on increasing Yelan’s burst damage and capitalize on it to deal massive damage.
Fading Twilight
Fading Twilight is a free-to-play weapon launched alongside Yelan in the Perilous Trails event and given for free to the players. You can quickly refine this weapon to the maximum level and obtain the refinements. The weapon features Energy recharge as its secondary stat. The passive helps increase the damage irrespective of the character’s availability on the field.
Team Compositions
I will go through various team compositions that you can use Yelan in, and feel free to experiment and come up with a unique one that suits your playstyle. I have mentioned the Anemo character in the team compositions because they can use the Viridescent Venerer artifact. Whenever I’m using a team that focuses on dealing elemental damage, I always have a slot for an Anemo character to shred elemental resistance.
Good options for Anemo characters are Jean for healing, Sucrose or Kazuha for elemental mastery boost, and Venti for crowd control. Elemental mastery is an underrated concept. I highly recommend you review our elemental mastery guide to learn more about it.
In short, it’s awesome to have extra elemental mastery in reaction-based teams like vaporizing or melting. I’ve also left a Flex slot where you can have a similar element to the team’s characters or a unique element to take the benefit from Elemental resonance.
Electro-charged
Anemo Yelan Electro Flex
Raiden Shogun, Xingqiu, Yelan, and Sucrose were the team I tried to test this team composition. So far, the results didn’t disappoint me. I tried team compositions while farming for Yelan’s materials and collecting Ruin serpent’s drops.
You can swap Sucrose with Jean if you want healing or Kazuha for an elemental damage boost. I like the combination of Yelan with Xingqiu because of how good that combination is at pumping out severe off-field damage to an opponent.
Mono-Hydro
Anemo Hydro Yelan Hydro/Anemo
Mono-Hydro focuses on dealing pure Hydro damage to the enemies. We have Xingqiu and Yelan in this team composition as off-field damage dealers. And an Anemo character to shred Hydro resistance from the enemies.
In niche situationsler, you can use Kamisato Ayato, Childe, or Sangonomiya Kokoas the main damage dealerons.
Sometimes, you may require Xingqiu in other teams, so you can swap him for Barbara or Sangonomiya Kokomi in a healer role.
Vaporize
Anemo Pyro Yelan Flex
Klee, Sucrose, Yelan, and Xingqiu were my pick for this composition because of the insane Hydro application from both of them. You can also use Hu Tao with Yelan, but you may miss some vaporized reactions. That’s why running a combination of Xinqiu and Yelan can help you.
I recommend Sucrose in vaporize team composition because of her ability to boost Elemental mastery. Likewise, you can also use Kazuha for the same. Elemental mastery that helps in triggering massive vaporize reactions. They deal an insane amount of damage to the enemies and sometimes even one-shot them.
Freeze
Anemo Yelan Cryo Flex
The freeze team composition capitalizes on Yelan’s elemental burst to apply Hydro to the enemies. Combining that with Cryo will result in a freeze reaction. Kamisato Ayaka, Chongyun, or Kaeya can be good options here because of their ability to apply Cryo to the enemies.
Anemo and Extra cryo characters can be added if you want to benefit from their elemental resonance. Personally, if there’s an option, I always like to run Double Cryo characters to take the benefit of the extra crit rate.
Protective Canopy
Yelan + 3 Unique Elements
You must be wondering what kind of team composition name is this. Some players do call a team with unique elements a Rainbow team. Feel free to call this team whatever you want to. The team focuses on increasing Yelan’s maximum health due to her passive “Turn control.” Her passive increases her health depending on the unique elements characters in the team. On top of that, Protective Canopy gives you a 15 % increase in physical and elemental resistance.
A Few Questions
Let’s go over a few questions that you may have after reading this Yelan guide.
Question: How good is Yelan in exploration?
Answer: I would say if the terrain is stable and plain, then Yelan is quite decent in that, but more than that, it’s still not good enough for exploration. Lifeline skill helps to get into a shadow state where she can cover a short distance, regenerate stamina over time, and speed up her movement.
It’s unlikely that you will encounter such terrain beside the main cities or their roads and may get stuck over a rock or even a stair. So, yes, for short distances, Yelan is good; you can shoot some boxes with her arrows to get the items inside them. But, for overall exploration purposes, there are better characters like Venti or Zhongli. They have much more utility on their plate than an average player.
Question: Were you pre-farming for Yelan or planning to get her?
Answer: I wasn’t planning to roll for Yelan at all. I’ll be honest; I didn’t even see her character teaser or demo until she came out and had no clue what Genshin was planning with her. Everything happened because of the archon quest and the story quest that made me roll for her. I like her personality, witty and intelligent nature, and critical thinking ability in tense situations.
Yelan’s nature is quite formidable, and once she sets her mind on something, nothing can stop her from achieving that. I’m all down for characters like her because she is ambitious, manipulative, and gets her work done by any means necessary. But also has a sweet side to her, which we get to know in the story quest, and if you haven’t completed the archon quest and story quest, I won’t go into its details. I can say that she’s pretty damn awesome in the story, and you should complete the archon quest recently launched in Genshin Impact version 2.7.
Question: Should I use Yelan or Xingqiu in vaporize team compositions?
Answer: It’s a matter of choice in the end, though there are some issues with Yelan in vaporizing team because Xingqiu is still the king with Hu Tao. But, this doesn’t mean that Yelan is bad at all. Some friends jokingly say that Yelan is a 5-star Xingqiu, but their kits are different. While their elemental bursts are a bit similar, their kits are unique on their own. In the case of Yelan, you get a damage boost to your character, and her abilities scale off with HP and provide an area-wide application. But, Xingqiu’s abilities’ are single target, healing, and reducing damage.
You can get Yelan, but getting constellations for Xingqiu is more workable for free-to-play players and light spenders. So, feel free to use any of them, depending on the enemies you are facing. Still, if you have Xingqiu, you should give him a priority in vaporizing compositions. But combining both isn’t bad; they will provide insane off-field damage.
Yelan, Final Thoughts
Yelan is a 5-star hydro bow character who recently launched in the game. Her role in the archon quest was significant enough to turn the tide of the events. Her personality, backstory, and mysterious appearance in the game are something you cannot ignore. Reporting to the Tianquan of the Liyue, Yelan has proven to be an indispensable asset for Liyue. She is someone who prefers to work behind the shadows and protect her city.
Much to her surprise, she could intercept something precious of value going for the Tsaritsa. I would say she’s one of my favorite characters to play because of her skill and incredible burst animations. Yelan can perform well in some team compositions and scales off HP, making her easier to build. You often end up with HP and DEF artifacts, so the time has come to use them on Yelan.
With that, I should say the time has come for me to take a leave and meet you in another exciting guide. Feel free to check out the character guides and see how their abilities complement Yelan. Till we meet next time in another guide in the future.Adios!
- Genshin Impact Fontaine Region Guide - January 5, 2024
- Genshin Impact Wild Fairies of Erinnyes Guide - December 17, 2023
- Genshin Impact All Dendroculus Locations - December 12, 2023