Jingliu Guide

Updated for Version 1.4

Note that the information given may change if new discoveries are made. More extensive testing is in progress.

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Introduction

Jingliu is our first Limited 5★ Ice character and follows the Path of Destruction. Emulating the phases of the Moon, she also transitions between two phases, one where she accumulates stacks of Syzygy and one where she can unleash powerful Blast AoE skills while draining the HP of her teammates. Like many other Destruction units, she brings a nice mix of AoE and single-target damage to any team.

Infographic

Mechanics

Jingliu’s kit revolves around her special mechanic of Syzygy stacks, and the enhanced state that comes with it. When Jingliu gains two Syzygy stacks, she will enter the Spectral Transmigration state, in which she will gain a CRIT Rate buff and an ATK buff fueled by draining the HP of her teammates. Spectral Transmigration converts her Skill into an Enhanced Skill, which consumes Syzygy stacks instead of SP. The majority of Jingliu’s gameplay focuses on getting into her Spectral Transmigration state, and staying there as long as possible.

Trace Priority

Skill levels enhance her Enhanced Skill, which is where the majority of her damage comes from. Talent levels increase the ATK and CRIT Rate buff she grants herself, and her Ultimate, while making up less of her overall damage than her Enhanced Skill, still packs a heavy punch and is worth leveling. Her Basic ATK can be safely ignored, as it is never optimal to use.

Traces

Note: Trace levels shown are 1/10/12 (Basic ATK 1/6/7).

Eidolons

Playstyle

Jingliu invariably wants to use her Skill on every turn to enter her Spectral Transmigration state and deal the majority of her damage. Although her Basic ATK does generate the same amount of Energy as her normal Skill, its lack of Syzygy generation to fuel Enhanced Skills means it should be avoided at all costs. 

Proper timing of buffs will help to maximize damage output, as Jingliu is almost entirely reliant on being in the Spectral Transmigration state to deal most of her damage. Be sure to keep careful track of any buffs whose duration is dependent on Jingliu’s turns, as her 100% Action Advance on entering Spectral Transmigration will consume their duration much more quickly. 

Her SP use is rather variable, going from full negative during her downtime to neutral during her enhanced state’s uptime. This small amount of extra SP during her Spectral Transmigration can be used by her teammates to keep uptime on their effects.

Her Ultimate should be used during her enhanced state in the vast majority of scenarios. Her enhanced Ultimate does a significantly larger amount of damage compared to her non-enhanced Ultimate, which results in a very large loss of damage when using it out of her Spectral Transmigration state. In addition, her Ultimate is the only way to gain additional Syzygy stacks during her enhanced state. Using her Ultimate outside of that state results in the loss of its damage, as well as the damage from an additional use of her Enhanced Skill. 

Keep in mind that Jingliu does not lose her Spectral Transmigration state until the end of the turn in which she reaches zero Syzygy stacks. As long as Jingliu’s Ultimate is used before the turn ends, she can extend the state. 

However, there are a few cases in which her Ultimate should be used unenhanced, such as:

1. To prevent imminent death by causing a Weakness Break or killing a dangerous enemy.
2. To trigger her Spectral Transmigration state early, which is most relevant against weak mobs.

Otherwise, even if Jingliu needs to hold her Ultimate for a turn or two, it is worth delaying the usage of her Ultimate to ensure it is used when she is in the Spectral Transmigration state, as the damage output is otherwise pitiful compared to its damage when enhanced.

Build

Relics

Relic Sets

4-Pc Genius of Brilliant Stars	Best-in-Slot when used together with significant amounts of other forms of DEF Shred from teammates like Pela or Silver Wolf, or Jingliu’s signature Light Cone, I Shall Be My Own Sword. It also is favored in situations where the enemy is Quantum Weak. Otherwise, it is only slightly outperformed by 4-Pc Hunter of Glacial Forest. Its partner Relic in its Cavern, Guard of Wuthering Snow, is an excellent pick for squishier supports paired with Jingliu, making farming for 4-Pc Genius rather Fuel-efficient.  Keep in mind that DEF reduction from all sources has a cap of 100%, after which DEF cannot be reduced any further.
4-Pc Hunter of Glacial Forest	Despite the mediocre uptime she has on this set without Tingyun, it still provides her slightly more damage than a 2-Pc/2-Pc mix.  However, keep in mind that its partnered set, Eagle of Twilight Line, is rather niche, especially compared to the Genius/Guard cavern. Farming for the Hunter set may not be the most efficient choice for your account.
2-Pc Combinations	Combinations of 2-Pc Hunter of Glacial Forest with 2-Pc Messenger Traversing Hackerspace or 2-Pc Musketeer of Wild Wheat are very competitive with 4-Pc Hunter. Use these combinations if you have better substats. Note that Jingliu’s lower-than-average Base SPD (96 SPD) means the 2-Pc Hackerspace effect is worth slightly less in terms of SPD substats than it would on some other units.

Planar Ornaments

Rutilant Arena	BiS. The majority of her damage comes from her Enhanced Skill, and she is also severely lacking in innate DMG%.  Due to Jingliu’s large CRIT Rate bonus during her enhanced state, it is not suggested to stack CRIT Rate on Jingliu to activate Rutilant Arena outside of her enhanced state.
Inert Salsotto	Even though it is worse than Rutilant Arena, Inert Salsotto has the advantage of being active at all times instead of only during Jingliu’s enhanced state. While using Jingliu’s Ultimate without being in her enhanced state is generally a large damage loss, it can be useful for quickly ending a fight.
Space Sealing Station	Because of her Talent, Jingliu has little need for the ATK% granted by Space Sealing Station, but also struggles to make use of most other Planar Ornaments besides those that offer CRIT. Of the non-CRIT sets, Space Sealing Station is the best option for Jingliu and can serve as a temporary stopgap until you acquire a decent Rutilant Arena set.

Light Cones

I Shall Be My Own Sword	Jingliu’s BiS. Every attack in the Spectral Transmigration state will be buffed by the fully stacked passive, as she will first drain her teammates’ HP, gaining 3 stacks. The stacks will then be cleared after her Skill does damage. Gains a little more value if used with other sources of DEF reduction, such as 4-Pc Genius of Brilliant Stars.
On the Fall of an Aeon	F2P BiS. Its actual value will vary with the frequency of Weakness Breaks caused by Jingliu.
A Secret Vow	A Secret Vow is quite a good option, particularly at S5. It is very competitive even without triggering the passive effect, because Jingliu does not have much DMG% in her kit. Good if Fall of an Aeon is occupied by another unit and you have this Light Cone lying around.
Collapsing Sky	Surprisingly strong for a 3★ Light Cone, but still far weaker than any of the above options. Usable if there are literally no other options.

Stats

Body	Boots	Sphere	Rope
CRIT DMG	SPD	Ice DMG%	ATK%

Substats

Substat Priority:
CRIT Rate / CRIT DMG > SPD > ATK%

Due to the large amount of CRIT Rate her Talent provides and how much of her damage is loaded into the Spectral Transmigration state, Jingliu does not need more than around 50% CRIT Rate. With Talent at level 10, the bare minimum to activate Rutilant Arena is 20%, but running higher amounts is strongly suggested for consistency.

ERR Rope?

Due to her large ATK buffs inherent in her kit, an ERR% Rope is not significantly worse than an ATK% Rope in damage, but it does not lead to any practical and consistent breakpoints. Benefiting from an ERR% Rope is often dependent on getting Energy from external factors such as kills and getting hit.

ATK Boots?

While ATK Boots can be considered if using Bronya on an extremely fast build, the overall damage is comparable to SPD Boots on Jingliu with a slower Bronya. Furthermore, a Bronya built with such high SPD takes a noticeably higher level of investment. 

Without Bronya, ATK Boots should not be considered at all. 

E1 or S1?

While her E1 sounds great on paper, only the 24% CRIT DMG is unconditionally useful. Her signature Light Cone I Shall Be My Own Sword provides great unconditional bonuses that she can easily trigger during Spectral Transmigration and will typically lead to more damage over the course of a battle. E1 gains more value the longer a fight is purely single-target, potentially surpassing her signature Light Cone if the fight stays in single-target long enough. Many fights against Elites and Bosses involve them summoning weaker enemies, making the value of E1 highly variable.

Notable about E1 is the fact that it is dynamic; If adjacent enemies die in the middle of an attack, E1’s extra Ice Damage will activate for the subsequent hits, giving it greater consistency if Jingliu has the damage to quickly clear out adjacent mobs.

Overall, Jingliu is already a very strong unit at E0 with F2P options, and both should be considered luxury pulls.

Character Comparisons

Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae

Both characters follow the Destruction path and feature Blast targeting. Imbibitor Lunae’s damage is more front loaded, provided he has the SP to use Fulgurant Leap every turn. Jingliu is more prone to downtime, being reliant on the Spectral Transmigration state to deal most of her damage. Imbibitor Lunae’s performance also scales noticeably better with Eidolons compared to Jingliu, in particular, his E2. 

On the flip side, Jingliu consumes significantly less Skill Points, enabling the usage of more SP hungry supports, which makes her team compositions much more flexible and easier to play. Imbibitor Lunae’s teams are often stricter in terms of unit choices as well as playstyle due to his high SP consumption. 

Jingliu is also somewhat tankier at base than Imbibitor Lunae.

Blade

Jingliu is similar to Blade in that she uses less SP than most traditional damage units, spending many turns without using any SP. However, her overall consumption is slightly higher due to the fact that it will take two non-enhanced Skills for her to enter Spectral Transmigration and she can typically use three Enhanced Skills while she is in the Spectral Transmigration state before repeating the cycle. 

Unlike Blade, her damage does NOT scale with HP.

Yanqing

Yanqing and Jingliu both are Ice damage dealers with significant CRIT buffs in their kits.

However, despite their combat similarities in the story, their kits are very distinct from one another in game. Yanqing is more teammate-dependent, requiring a powerful shielder like Gepard for best results, whereas Jingliu’s main condition is only draining a small amount of teammate HP. 

Although both have a powerful hit in their Ultimate, for Yanqing, his Ultimate and the Skill directly following it represents the vast majority of his damage. For Jingliu, her damage is spread out further between her Ultimate and Enhanced Skills.

Keep in mind that if running both Jingliu and Yanqing together, her HP drain does not affect his Soulsteel Sync buff.

Notable Synergies

Damage Dealers

Blade

Jingliu’s ability to reduce her teammates’ HP allows her to accelerate the activation of Blade’s Talent without relying on enemy attacks, as well as build up more damage for his Ultimate. More frequent Talent activations lead to both more damage and more Energy for Blade. As Jingliu only consumes 4% of a character’s Max HP when attacking in her Spectral Transmigration state, and Blade’s Talent only requires 5 stacks to activate, this synergy has the added benefit of helping Blade to sustain himself without an Abundance character managing his HP. When run with Jingliu, Blade can equip the Guard of Wuthering Snow set to take full advantage of its HP regeneration and Energy generation.

Buffers / Debuffers

Bronya	Bronya once again reigns as the supreme support for a selfish hypercarry unit. Jingliu has very little DMG% in her kit, making Bronya’s Skill buff incredibly potent when used while Jingliu is in Spectral Transmigration. The Action Advance from Bronya helps to get Jingliu back into Spectral Transmigration more quickly. Note that Jingliu’s 100% Advance Forward when entering Spectral Transmigration means that Jingliu will cause Bronya’s buff to expire.
Pela	Pela’s AoE DEF Shred and high SP generation make her a great Jingliu partner. Additionally, her E4 can inflict Ice RES Shred on enemies, allowing for even more damage at the cost of slightly more SP usage.
Tingyun	Tingyun’s ATK buffs are fairly diluted on Jingliu due to her Talent’s incredible amount of ATK, but Tingyun still ends up being a potent support for Jingliu due to the Energy and DMG% provided by her Ultimate. Due to the Action Advance from Jingliu’s Talent, she will use up the duration on Tingyun’s buff faster than other units, potentially requiring more frequent Skill usage from Tingyun to compensate.

Sustain

Lynx

Lynx applies Healing-over-Time with everything she does, easily allowing her to keep up with Jingliu damaging her teammates. She also provides potential Energy utility. Without an ERR Rope or kills, Jingliu often finds herself 5 Energy short of a five-action Ultimate. This difference can be made up for by a singular hit or a kill. A ERR Rope is a noticeable drop in damage, however, so simply getting a hit on Jingliu every rotation is preferable.  Lynx’s Taunt buff from her Skill turns the chance of Jingliu being hit from a coin flip to a near-guarantee if the enemy attacks two or more times.

Other Healers

Jingliu’s persistent team damage adds up over time, and appreciates the presence of a dedicated healing unit to mitigate it. If your team is dead, Jingliu can’t take their HP to fuel her damage.

Notable Anti-Synergies

Anti-Synergies

Gepard	Gepard’s Shield has a duration based on the turns taken by his teammates. Jingliu’s 100% Action Advance uses up the duration on his Shield noticeably faster than other units. Additionally, Gepard cannot provide healing, potentially leading to issues if healing cannot be sourced elsewhere, especially in extended fights.
Arlan	Arlan will naturally take himself to 1 HP given time, removing Jingliu’s ability to generate ATK from his HP. Arlan also wants dedicated shielders such as Gepard, who struggle to keep up with Jingliu’s teammate damage and have their Shields expire sooner when placed on Jingliu.

Teammate Gearing

Low Investment Characters

Jingliu converts the HP of her allies into ATK for herself, and damages them in the process. Underleveled and under-equipped allies have less HP to convert into damage output and are more at risk of dying to enemy attacks as a result of this HP drain. A total of 10,000 Max HP is required to max her buff throughout her three other teammates. Uneven distribution is fine, such as two teammates with 3,000 HP and one with 4,000).

Teams

Jingliu Hypercarry

This is the easiest team archetype to play with Jingliu. Similar to other 5★ carries, a team like this focuses on boosting Jingliu’s damage output with support units. 

For team order, placing Jingliu in the second or third position allows her to have a higher chance of being hit for Energy, and takes advantage of her tankiness compared to the typical hypercarry support (the second position is suggested for aesthetic reasons). Sustain units also tend to have a high amount of defensive stats, and also do well in a central position while squishier supports should be relegated to the sides. 

Example Teams

F2P

Although Asta and Yukong’s ATK% buffs are less important for Jingliu, their SPD and CRIT buffs are very useful, as well as the ability to Break.

Keep in mind that Natasha’s burst-style healing can result in time periods where your team’s HP drops dangerously low before being topped up.

4★ Only

An excellent and accessible option with only 4★ teammates. 

Tingyun’s Ultimate provides incredible value here, as the DMG% greatly enhances Jingliu’s damage, and the Energy provided helps Jingliu to use her Ultimate much more frequently. A 3-turn Ultimate build on Tingyun may be preferred here, assuming she still has the bulk to survive and fuel Jingliu’s Talent. 

Pela in this team mostly brings DEF Shred, although the extra Ice Toughness damage can be useful against Elites and Bosses. Pela also tends to have SP to spare in this team, leaving room to use her Skill if at Eidolon 4 or higher. Additionally, Pela has the option of running Resolution Shines as Pearls of Sweat for higher DEF Shred over her conventional Light Cone of Before the Tutorial Mission Starts, as the vast majority of Jingliu’s damage comes from when she is in Spectral Transmigration. Due to this, building Pela for 100% uptime on her DEF Shred is not as important in this team as it may be in other teams, leading to potentially higher overall performance if one can adequately time the usage of her Ultimate and Skill with Jingliu’s damage windows.

Silver Wolf Asta

Due to the presence of three distinct Types, this team does best when the enemy is already Fire or Quantum Weak, to prevent interference from the incorrect Weakness implant. Other units can be used instead of Asta, but she is particularly nice in this slot due to her excellent Break abilities. 

Silver Wolf can be considered a strict upgrade to Pela in single-target scenarios. She is also potentially better when using the 4-Pc Genius of Brilliant Stars on Jingliu, due to Silver Wolf’s Weakness implant, or for brute forcing against enemies that are not weak to Ice. 

Most noticeably, her DEF Shred is more limited due to being purely single-target, making it difficult to keep up on multiple enemies. This is mainly an issue when facing multiple Elite enemies.

Silver Wolf Ice-Quantum

A flexible team that is easily able to adjust based on content. Often called ‘Mono Ice’ colloquially (although by definition this team name is inaccurate). The team being composed of only Ice and Quantum teammates allows for a high chance of an Ice Weakness implant, or a Quantum Weakness implant for extra DEF ignore from 4-Pc Genius of Brilliant Stars. Jingliu’s low SP usage as well as the potential SP positivity of the rest of the units allows for flexible use of the sustain unit, Pela, and Silver Wolf’s Skills based upon the scenario. 

Keep in mind that this team is very heavy on DEF reduction. DEF can only be reduced up to 100%, after which all additional DEF reduction is wasted. Pela’s Ultimate provides 40% reduction at Trace Level 10, while Silver Wolf does 45%. 

Gepard, if used, should either be placed on the side of the party to draw aggro away from Pela and Silver Wolf, who are likely the squishiest members of the team, or placed in the middle (where Pela is currently) for the sake of team Energy. 

Lynx and Fu Xuan can work in the sustain slot as well, although both have their advantages and disadvantages. Gepard and Fu Xuan cannot sustain through prolonged battles, while Lynx cannot defend against heavier hits. If running Gepard, there are no sources of healing, which over time may lead to dicey situations. For this reason, when running a Preservation unit, 4-Pc Guard of Wuthering Snow is an option for both Silver Wolf and Pela to gain a small amount of chip healing. 

A win for 4-Pc Guard Pela. Source: skylarke

Keep in mind that with multiple extra sources of DEF reduction, such as from Jingliu’s signature, Pela’s Technique, or the 4-Pc Genius of Brilliant Stars set, this team may end up reducing the enemy’s DEF to zero, after which it cannot go down further.

Bronya Fu Xuan

A rather offensively oriented team. The most practical way of running Bronya in this team is to have her slightly slower than Jingliu, and to run SPD Boots on Jingliu. However, Bronya can also be run at a high SPD while Jingliu uses ATK% Boots, but the increase is marginal for the amount of investment required. 

Fu Xuan’s buffs are not tied to Jingliu’s turns, preventing them from expiring when Jingliu triggers her 100% Advance Forward effect. Fu Xuan’s massive pool of Max HP and Max HP buffs help Jingliu to cap her Talent’s ATK bonus. 

Fu Xuan does not redirect the HP drain Jingliu causes on her teammates. While Fu Xuan is not able to heal the team a lot, the possibility of running 4-Pc Guard of Wuthering Snow on supports can allow the team to be healthy enough to keep supplying Jingliu with the full ATK amount when paired with her damage redirection.

Jingliu-Blade

Jingliu and Blade have very solid synergy. Her damage to allies triggers Blade’s Talent, resulting in more frequent attacks as a result. With Jingliu’s first Eidolon, their synergy becomes even more noteworthy as Blade’s AoE and Blast damage helps to isolate enemies for Jingliu’s incredible single-target damage.

When played together, Jingliu’s build remains the same, but allies who apply multi-target buffs and debuffs like Fu Xuan and Pela become more valuable.

It should be noted that currently, dual damage dealer teams are generally weaker than using a hypercarry team composition with either of the damage dealers. Their main use case would be on accounts lacking sufficiently built or a sufficient amount of supports for multiple hypercarry teams.

Example Teams

Destined Destruction

Destined Destruction relies on the synergy between Jingliu and Blade to rapidly trigger Blade’s Talent, while maximizing Blade’s AoE damage potential through Fu Xuan’s buffs and Pela’s debuffs. As both Blade and Fu Xuan scale with Max HP, Jingliu’s talent will always grant the maximum possible amount of ATK.

When running Destined Destruction, Blade and Pela should make use of the Guard of Wuthering Snow set to ensure their survival. Team arrangement is also important, as Blade should be positioned between Fu Xuan and Jingliu to maximize his odds of being hit by Blast attacks, and Fu Xuan and Pela should be given the corner positions to keep Pela and Jingliu as safe as possible.

FAQ

Q: “Can Jingliu kill her teammates?”

A: No. She stops draining HP when her teammates are at 1 HP. This also means that she does not receive an ATK% buff from that teammate. 

Q: “Is Jingliu’s downtime really that significant?”

A: Her Action Advance upon entering Spectral Transmigration helps to mitigate her downtime significantly, but you will generally have at least one turn of downtime where all Jingliu can accomplish is use her normal Skill, and let her turn pass. Her downtime is a fundamental mechanic that must be played around in order to get the most out of her. This may include using Energy generating supports to help her get her Ultimate faster, or careful use of her Ultimate to extend Spectral Transmigration.

Q: “Can Jingliu be a Sub DPS?”

A: While dual damage unit team comps are certainly viable, Jingliu does not bring any inherent synergy to any other damage dealer besides Blade. Even in those teams, Jingliu ends up owning the lion’s share of the team’s damage. Overall, while a dual damage dealer setup is definitely viable, it is often not much stronger, or even weaker than a dedicated hypercarry setup for either of the two units.

Q: “Does Jingliu need to cap her ATK buff?”

A: While Jingliu does not strictly need to fully cap her ATK buff, it is ideal to do so to maximize damage. Furthermore, it is very easy to max it out assuming a full 4 unit team with decently leveled Relics. 

Q: “How much sustain does Jingliu need? Does she need 5★ units or double-sustain?”

A: Jingliu’s team HP drain is not significant enough that her team is on the verge of death on every turn, but is noticeable enough to affect gameplay. Her HP drain amounts to a couple hundred per unit per Enhanced Skill, about as much as a weak enemy hit. This means that units without or with weak healing, such as Preservation units, do not pair well with her if no additional healing is supplied for example from 4-Pc Guard of Wuthering Snow.

Credits

AnemoneMeer
ducc.
nyte
qq
Reens
skylarke
soul_fish

References

JL ATK and Energy by Soul Fish

Changelog

• 22 October 2023 – Published for v1.4
• 29 November 2023 – Added Infographic for v1.4