An in-depth guide to Genshin Impact Shenhe’s kit: Exploring her potential before the rerun

As the second phase of Genshin Impact 3.5 is on the horizon, players are waiting patiently to pull for Shenhe. She is an amazing Cryo support unit who has a dominant Freeze team composition in the game. However, her character kit is something that has to be talked about to understand if she is a requirement for anyone’s account. 

Shenhe is a reliable buffer to any Cryo DPS unit in Genshin Impact and has a very simplistic kit that is easier to understand and use across different endeavors. Here are some of the notable things to consider before pulling on her banner.

A guide to Shenhe’s kit from Genshin Impact to understand her potential 

Elemental Skill

Upon press, Shenhe rushes forward with a talisman spirit to deal her elemental damage to enemies along the path.

Upon holding the skill, she summons the talisman on the field to deal AoE Cryo damage.

Both versions of the ability leave behind the Icy Quill effect. Under it, Cryo damage from any source will be significantly increased based on Shenhe’s current attack. 

Elemental Burst 

Her burst deals Cryo damage in an area and creates a field. Now, any enemy within the field has their Cryo and physical resistance decreased. 

Her 1st Ascension passive ties to her ultimate allowing a 15% Cryo Damage bonus to the on-field character.

Reasons to pull for Shenhe 

1) The best Freeze team in the game

From both of her abilities, it can be articulated that her sole purpose in the game is to buff other Cryo characters’ damage output. She pairs extremely well with Ayaka to form one of the most broken Freeze compositions in the game. The team is composed of only 5-star characters, which might seem like a lot but it outperforms many rosters in the Spiral Abyss.

2) Simple and easy to build 

Shenhe is an extremely build-friendly character for free-to-play players and whales of Genshin Impact. She has a handful of artifact sets to choose from and in most cases, fans run her with two-piece attack sets. The stat priority on the artifact should be: 

• HP% on flower with Atk% substat 
• Plume with energy recharge 
• Atk% Goblet
• Energy recharge/ Atk% Sands depending upon the weapon 
• Circlet with Atk%

To top it all off, she has a lot of 4-star and 5-star weapon options to choose from. 

3) Good off-field presence

The Cryo exorcist is capable of offering seamless elemental application and damage boost to the party when she is not present on the field. Her AoE covers a decent portion of the arena, which is always a plus. She enables clear rotations with her minimum presence to activate her buff. Overall, players who have Shenhe like her for ease of use.

Limitations of the character 

1) Niche support unit

Shenhe’s kit as mentioned above makes her a niche unit that works in either the Freeze team or a mono elemental team. Despite being a 5-star character, her kit can only be utilized by another Cryo or a Physical DPS. Genshin Impact pushes players to play around with different element and she loses value in absence of a Cryo meta. 

2) High energy cost

80 Energy cost is a big issue for the character as she suffers to keep her burst uptime. Her ultimate, a big part of her utility, takes about 80 energy to recharge, which can be a deal breaker. Players cannot just stack attacks for her damage buff as they might have to sacrifice it for energy recharge.

3) There are better options

Ideally, travelers can pull for Shenhe given that they have someone to use her with. But there are better characters in the game that are worth the Primogems spent. In the current meta of the game, characters such as Nahida or Kazuha have more value to an account than Shenhe has.