Genshin Impact wears its inspiration on its sleeve. Not only does it draw from the high-chroma aesthetic and art style employed in Breath of the Wild, but the attentive gamer might also notice more than a few easter eggs and homages to other creative giants.
Like the fact that Diluc is the Batman of Genshin Impact.
Deeply shaped by the premature death of a massively influential parent? Check. Upholding an aloof playboy persona to mask a burning desire to deliver justice and rescue a city beset by crime? Check. Uber successful captain of industry by day and unstoppable one-man army by night? Check. And seriously, his alter ego is literally called the “Darknight Hero.”
For all its masterful design and sprawling artistic scope, Genshin Impact will not be remembered for its subtlety.
Related: Xiangling Genshin Impact Build: How to Get Xiangling for Free
But it’s not his extra-curricular activities that make Diluc the single most coveted character in Genshin Impact. It’s the straight-up OP damage output that Diluc is capable of — if you have a good Diluc build that is.
Down below we’ll walk you through the best Diluc build, everything from the best artifact set for Diluc, to the weapons, and even some playstyle tips to turn your Diluc into a fiery murder-machine unlike anything else in Genshin Impact.
Related: Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact Explained
Diluc Talents
Normal Attack: Tempest Sword
Diluc’s basic attacks progress in a four-swing sequence, concluding with a high damage AOE cleave that deals high damage for a basic attack.
Elemental Skill: Searing Onslaught
Searing Onslaught is a repeatable 3-part skill that serves as the “meat” of Diluc’s offense. This doles out some serious Pyro damage and can be interwoven with his basic attacks to vastly increase DPS and, when artfully done, effectively erase its cooldown.
Elemental Burst: Dawn
Diluc’s ultimate, Dawn, is the Genshin Impact equivalent of a nuclear strike, and what his Patronus would probably look like. Dawn launches forth a gigantic, flaming phoenix at enemies, dealing Pyro damage, explodes where it lands, dealing Pyro damage, and leaving a battlefield ridden with flames, also dealing Pyro damage. Oh and it also empowers your basic attacks with… Pyro damage.
Not only does it hit like a truck (or, three trucks, rather) it also looks amazing. And yes, this is what capped off that wild 100K+ combo doing the rounds on Chinese social media.
When using Dawn, make sure to line up whatever you want to hit right in front of you. Some players have had targeting issues, and the revolving camera can confuse new Dilucs — so just make sure you’re centered on your target before unleashing the devastating wave of avian fire.
Passive Talent: Relentless
Relentless halves the stamina cost of Diluc’s charged attack and extends its duration by 3 seconds — a utility to be used situationally with this weaving-heavy build. More on that later.
Passive Talent: Blessing of the Phoenix
Blessing of the Phoenix extends the duration of Dawn’s basic attack buff by 4 seconds and increases Diluc’s Pyro damage by 20% while active. This can be used to create a herculean boost when utilized correctly.
Passive Talent: Tradition of the Dawn Knight
This is an automatic passive that refunds 15% of the ore spent on the crafting of Claymore-type weapons. Something that will certainly come in handy next.
Related: Genshin Impact Energy Recharge Explained
Diluc Weapons
Wolf’s Gravestone
Wolf’s Gravestone rewards aggression by giving Diluc a further 20% Attack boost and then a 12 second 40% Attack boost to the whole party against enemies with low HP — a passive that especially shines against Bosses with tanky health bars. Harder to get than your other option, Prototype Animus, especially since the RNG gods already smiled on you by giving you Diluc, but Wolf’s Gravestone is nonetheless well worth the effort for a Diluc-centric team comp.
Prototype Animus
Prototype Animus not only gives you a huge percentage attack boost, it turns one of your auto attacks into a straight-up nuke with anywhere between a 240% to 480% attack multiplier. While you’re grinding for Wolf’s Gravestone, the Prototype Animus is certainly your best choice and the go-to for the majority of current Diluc players.
Diluc Artifact Builds
Stat Priorities
Your main priorities for your Diluc Artifact build will of course be Attack, Physical Damage Boosts, and Auto-attack Boosts. There is no other DPS like Diluc in the game and maxing him out glass cannon-style will pay you dividends once you start weaving Searing Onslaughts into your Auto-attacks and dropping nuclear Phoenixes on your opponents.
A good Diluc Artifact build should also prioritize strong base stats over set bonuses. Ideally, you’ll be able to curate your way to both, but you would rather have high base values coming from your artifacts with decent set bonuses rather than decent values and a high set bonus. Primarily because most set bonuses scale from your base values anyway.
Set Bonuses
The best artifacts for Diluc are, without a doubt, those that prioritize raw damage above all else. Any good Diluc artifact build should be well-curated to weed out subpar stats like Defense or HP in favor of damage-oriented stats like Attack, Crit Rate, Attack, Crit Damage, Attack, or Elemental Mastery. Or, you know, Attack.
- Gladiator’s Finale (4 Pieces)
The Gladiator’s Finale set, when fully equipped, will give you +18% Attack for the 2-Piece Bonus and on top of that another 35% if you’re wielding a Claymore or Polearm (which you will be!) — this gives a fully kitted up Diluc a whopping 53% Attack boost to massively increase DPS to monstrous levels. - Martial Artist/Berserker (2/2 Pieces)
The 2 Piece Bonus from Berserker will give you a hefty boost to Crit Rate, - Crimson Witch of Flames
We generally recommend against pursuing the Crimson Witch of Flames artifacts for Diluc. While it does offer a substantial boost to Pyro Damage, Vaporize, and Burning, on Diluc your main damage will be scaling from your straight Attack rather than Elemental Reactions. Thus, while the Crimson Witch of Flames set isn’t bad — it’s just not as valuable as the returns you’ll get on the Gladiator’s Finale set.
Diluc Gameplay Guide
Weave Your Basic Attacks into Searing Onslaught
Even without the ridiculous level six Constellation that turns Diluc into an absolutely broken damage-dealer, Searing Onslaught can be almost effectively without a cooldown by weaving the full 4-swing basic combo in between each strike. Doing so creates an uninterrupted chain of auto-attacks and Searing Onslaughts. If you’re trying to finish a big mob or a boss, you can go with the other form of weaving: Animation canceling.
Anybody who’s played a lot of hardcore eSports might be familiar with the way animation canceling works, but in case you’re not here’s the short: Everything on-screen is just the animation used to represent the data really going on behind the curtain. When you swing a sword, for example, there is a specific moment in time when that strike is registered as a hit on the target — while the animation that is shown may not line up 1:1. In many cases, the animation lasts slightly longer for artistic reasons.
Skilled players can pay attention to when the hit is registered, and initiate a new maneuver that cancels that animation — shaving off a tiny sliver of time from the damage-dealing process. In League of Legends for example, as soon as a basic attack projectile is cast you can move to end the recovery animation and initiate a new attack, shortening the length of time between shots.
Weaving single basic attacks between strikes of Searing Onslaught shaves off recovery animations and can seriously up your DPS for short bursts. This will put Searing Onslaught on cooldown for a few seconds.
Elemental Resonance
Be absolutely sure to include another Pyro in your party to take advantage of the free, party-wide 25% Attack boost that comes with the Fervent Flames elemental Resonance. While Elemental Resonance actually stacks, and you could theoretically take advantage of a gargantuan 50% Attack boost, this is the one time we would recommend against maxing Attack at all other costs. Not only would that necessitate getting all four pyros — Amber, Diluc, Bennet and Xiangling — it would leave you way too overexposed when fighting Pyro resistant enemies. Plus you wouldn’t get to take advantage of other great combos, like…
Venti Combo; Spamming Plunge Attack, Combined Ultimates
Using Venti in your team alongside Diluc opens up a couple interesting combos, including the Genshin Impact version of the original uppercut spam: Venti’s ability to create a Wind Domain with Skyward Sonnet makes it possible to spam plunge attacks with Diluc and cheese out enemies with pure, unrepentant AoE.
The more respectable combo it makes possible is the Wind’s Grand Ode + Dawn combo. Venti’s ult basically creates an AoE pull that can cluster enemies up and prime them for one, unopposable, unstoppable nuke by way of Diluc’s Dawn.
Yeah, they basically go together like peanut butter and jelly. Except in this case it’s an enormously destructive sandwich made of forest fires and hurricanes.
Diluc Voice Actor
Like all things animation and manga related, it didn’t take long for numerous Jojo references to start popping up throughout the game. Which is fitting, because — unbeknownst, perhaps, to a majority of Genshin Impact’s western audience — the game’s original Japanese voice acting cast is a certified ensemble.
Most notably, Kensho Ono, the famous voice behind the famous Giorno Giovanna from part five of the long-running, widely celebrated, and downright inexplicable JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Nobody says daga kotowaru to animation royalty like Ono, which is perhaps why he’s given the prestigious role of Diluc — the undeniable fan-favorite of Genshin Impact.
While Genshin Impact gives lets you take Diluc for an early-game test drive, for those looking to make their relationship with the Winery tycoon permanent, you’ll have to get ready for a few Gacha pulls. Perhaps more than a few.
As a 5-Star character, the odds of drawing Diluc out of any banner is pretty low. That said, in the absence of a Diluc-oriented banner, your best bet to acquire Diluc is any non-weapon banner. Even if the featured promotional characters aren’t Diluc, the absence of weapons means that, at the very least, you will pull a character. The chances are pretty scant at 0.6%, so keep your fingers crossed!
For more Genshin Impact guides, tips, walkthroughs, and altogether awesome information be sure to check out our Genshin Impact archives!
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Why on earth would you recommend AGAINST Crimson Witch? The set is tailor-made for use with Diluc. His skill activation gets to trigger it multiple times, making it easily his best in slot set.
Uptime on Pyro Damage is arguably greater than uptime on Physical with proper cooldown rotations and weaving autoattacks and E (Ele. Skill), especially once the first Q (Ele. Burst) is used. It cascades into Q on cooldown rapidly once your sequence is started for constant Pyro-imbued attacks, meaning that combined with his incredibly short E cooldown, the -majority- of your damage is actually Pyro when in full swing.
Furthermore, the damage calculation formula heavily favors taking advantage of Elemental % Damage over straight ATK adds. Raw ATK falls off in the late game in favor of Elemental %, Crit Rate, and Crit Damage (the latter two ideally at a 1:2 ratio) as you gain more base ATK natively through core stats, weapon stats, and substats picked up on artifacts.
You do your readership a disservice by steering them down a path that may lead to weeks of wasted resources. I would highly encourage you to research the existing, readily available documentation on these characters in the future before publishing your own guides.