Genshin Impact: Nilou Best Build and Talents Guide

Nilou is a 5-star character in Genshin Impact. Utilizing the power of Hydro, and in conjunction with Dendro, she’ll create powerful explosions and can be a potent addition to your team. 

Best Build and Talents for Nilou in Genshin Impact

Our Genshin Impact Nilou build guide looks at every facet concerning the character, further detailing her ascension materials, talent priorities, passives, and constellations. However, you can jump right ahead to check out our separate guides on the following topics if you’re looking for information on those:

• Best Nilou weapons
• Best Nilou artifacts
• Best Nilou team comps/teammates

Nilou has a strict party composition requirement if you want to make the most out of Bountiful Core Bloom explosions. Because of this, you won’t bother with Electro-based Hyperbloom or Pyro-based Burgeon. Instead, you’re simply focusing on Blooms over and over. 

Moreover, Nilou is expected to stack a lot of HP to maximize the damage of her elemental skill, elemental burst, and Bountiful Cores. There are several items that can help her out. 

Nilou’s Ascension Materials

Here’s where to find all of Nilou’s Ascension Mats. 

Character Ascension Materials

• Varunada Lazurite: Drops from Hydro-based bosses or those that use Hydro attacks; can be converted via the Crafting Bench.
• Fungal Spores/Pollen/Cyst Dust: Drops from Fungi-type enemies.
• Padisarah: Found in Sumeru.
• Perpetual Caliber: Dropped by the Aeonblight Drake.

Talent Ascension Materials

• Fungal Spores/Pollen/Cyst Dust: Drops from Fungi-type enemies.
• Praxis talent booklets: Obtained from the Steeple of Ignorance domain every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday.
• Tears of the Calamitous God: Dropped by the Raiden Shogun weekly boss.

Screenshot by GameSkinny

Nilou’s Talent Priorities

Normal Attack: Dance of the Samser: Boosts her normal, charged, and plunging attack damage; can be ignored.

Elemental Skill: Dance of Haftkarsvar: Enters the Piroette state to deal Hydro damage based on Nilou’s max HP. Attacks are overridden to cause Hydro damage. The third step of the Pirouette can have two different effects based on what you used to hit a target:

• Sword Dance (normal attack): Deals Hydro damage and grants Lunar Prayer; converts normal attacks into Sword Dance techniques, with the final hit unleashing another Hydro strike.
• Whirling Steps (skill): Deals AoE Hydro damage and creates an aura that follows your active character to apply Wet on nearby foes.

Elemental Burst: Dance of Abzendegi: Creates a bubbling pool to deal AoE Hydro damage based on Nilou’s max HP. Enemies will be afflicted and will take another instance of Hydro damage after a while.

Note that you should prioritize Nilou’s elemental skill if you’re building her as a main DPS character. Alternatively, a sub-DPS Nilou should prioritize her elemental burst. Her normal attack can be completely ignored.

Image via Hoyoverse

Nilou’s Passives

White Jade Lotus: Achieving perfect cooking with any adventure-related food gives a +12% chance to double the item result.

Court of Dancing Petals: This requires all characters in the party to either be Dendro or Hydro:

• The third step of Nilou’s skill will grant the Golden Chalice bounty buff to all characters.
• Golden Chalice grants +100 elemental mastery to themselves and others in the party when they’re damaged by Dendro attacks, including Bloom explosions.
• Triggering Bloom will create Bountiful Cores, which explode earlier and have a larger AoE radius compared to regular Dendro cores.

Dreamy Dance of Aeons: Every 1,000 points above 30,000 HP increases Bountiful Core damage by 9%, up to a maximum of 400%.

Screenshot by GameSkinny

Nilou’s Constellations

C1: Dance of the Waning Moon: The third step of Nilou’s Pirouette will either gain +65% damage or +6 seconds duration, depending on the effect that you trigger.

C2: The Starry Skies Their Flowers Rain: If characters affected by Golden Chalice deal Hydro damage, they decrease that target’s Hydro resistance by 35% for 10 seconds. Any Bloom reaction that damages enemies will also decrease their Dendro resistance by 35% for 10 seconds.

C3: Beguiling Shadowstep: +3 levels to your elemental burst.

C4: Fricative Pulse: Gives +15 energy after the Pirouette’s third step, as well as increases the damage of her burst by 50% for eight seconds.

C5: Twirling Light: +3 levels to your elemental skill.

C6: Frostbreaker’s Melody: Every 1,000 points of Nilou’s max HP grants +0.6% crit rate and +1.2% crit damage, up to a maximum of 30% and 60%, respectively.

That’s our best builds and talents guide for Nilou. Be sure to follow the links above to maximize Nilou’s power even further. For a whole lot more on Genshin Impact and the 3.6 update, you can take a look at our Genshin Impact guides hub.

Featured image via Hoyoverse.