Genshin Impact: Should you pull for Shenhe?

Last Updated on: 10th January 2022, 03:47 am

After a year of waiting and many model updates, Shenhe is finally coming to Genshin Impact, although she’s not the Cloud Retainer’s human form, as fans initially speculated. Instead, she’s another of her disciples and a very peculiar one.

Her kit is very unique and elegant, making her one of the most niche 5-star characters ever released. While she’s strong enough as a DPS for her own, she really shines when she’s inserted into specific teams.

With that said, should you pull for Shenhe? That’s what we’ll be explaining through this article! But always remember the golden rule: If you like the character, just go for it, independently of the current meta. Every character is viable, so play with what you like.

Shenhe overview

Shenhe is the game’s second Cryo Polearm character after Rosaria. She’s the first 5-star to have Atk as her ascension stat, and her skills and talents are all focused on buffing her entire team, especially Cryo allies.

Her base stats are quite good, and since she also takes advantage of her own buffs, she can also deal some nice damage even when purely focused on granting said buffs. Let’s briefly discuss them.

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Skills and Talents

As you may imagine by this point, her greatest advantage is her buffs. The first one is given through her Elemental Skill, Spring Spirit Summoning.

You can press or hold this skill to use it in different ways. By pressing, Shenhe will rush to her target along with the spirit dealing Cryo damage. If you hold it, the spirit will deal damage alone.

Either way, your team receives the Icy Quill buff after the cast, which grants every Cryo-dealing attack extra damage based on Shenhe’s own attack. The longer you hold her skill, the more it will last, and the more Icy Quill stacks you’ll receive.

This makes her really shine when paired with any Cryo DPS. This even includes Eula to a certain extent, thanks to her Burst, Divine Maiden’s Radiance. It deals Cryo AoE Damage and creates an area around her, where periodically the spirit will attack her enemies.

Opponents standing in the area will have their Cryo and Physical resistances reduced by a certain amount which scales with the Burst level, capping at 15%.

And it’s not over yet. Her first Ascension talent grants an extra 15% Cryo damage to characters standing in her Burst area, while the second grants extra damage for characters depending on how her Skill was used.

If you’re going for Skills and Bursts, use her press skill. But if you’re using a Normal Attack-focused character, go for her hold skill.

Shenhe usage in general

While she’s a good buffer in general, her true potential is only shown when paired with other Cryo characters such as Ayaka and Ganyu, her fellow disciple. Eula may take some advantage of her Normal Attack buffs and Physical resistance debuff, but not as much as the aforementioned characters.

Shenhe’s function in a team is similar to Gorou or Sara, but she definitely feels smoother than both of them. They are all great buffers to their respective elements (considering C6 Sara), but Shenhe can take this aspect to a whole new level.

She also doesn’t need to directly deal damage. You can use an Atk% weapon to grant her Skill an even stronger buff, and use sets such as 2 Gladiator + 2 Shimenawa or 4-piece Noblesse Obliged to grant even stronger buffs to your whole team.

An interesting thing is that she pairs really well with Chongyun, who infuses his team’s normal attacks with Cryo. By using the nephew-aunt combo, you can, technically, make any character benefit from Shenhe’s buffs. Offmeta your way to victory!

Should you pull for Shenhe in Genshin Impact?

If you use Cryo DPS often, you should definitely pull for Shenhe, as she’s not only beautiful but will also benefit your teams in many different ways. Her own damage is not the biggest, but shouldn’t be overlooked, and can make for some big numbers.

If you’re planning on rolling for Ganyu, getting Shenhe (if you’re able to do it without losing Ganyu) would be incredible for the Cocogoat. Her Cryo application is also good with her Burst, so she may even fit in the traditional Morgana team instead of Diona.

With the current approach for banner characters, we might see an Ayaka rerun happening soon, another character who is greatly supported by Shenhe. Some rumors say about her coming back along with Ayato, who might be the next big 5-star after Yae Miko. 

And even if you don’t own or don’t want any of these mentioned characters, you may also pull for Shenhe in order to make other characters, such as Rosaria, Kaeya or even Aloy work better as main DPS. Chongyun might also be needed for better results.

In the end, Shenhe is a great addition to Genshin Impact. She has been expected for a long time, and while she may not live up to the hype as a great DPS character, her kit is definitely interesting, making her live it instead as one of Genshin’s best supports.

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Genshin Impact is currently on its 2.4 version, “Fleeting Colors in Flight”, which marks the return of the Lantern Rites event, along with some new and returning characters, a whole new area for exploration, new skins, enemies and many more.

You can play the game for free on mobile devices including Android, iOS, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, and Pc on both miHoYo’s official launcher and Epic Games Store. A Nintendo Switch version is stated to be in development.