Barbara is often viewed as a simple Support character whose role is outshined by nearly any other healer. Her role as a DPS requires some setup but there are a few ways to go about it. The sets, weapons, and teammates are optional but for the most effectiveness, there will be some recommendations for the Barbara mains wanting to explore each option.
Vaporize Build
Barbara has a uniqueCharged Attackthat has a very high scaling. With no Talent Level investment, this does 166 percent damage and at Talent Level 10, the damage scaling increases to 316 percent.
Artifacts
With theWanderer’s Setfour piece set, Barbara’s Charged Attacks do an additional 35 percent damage as well as giving her an additional 80 Elemental Mastery. This can make her Charged Attacks do as much as 351 percent.
Utilizing this set for aVaporizebuild is advisable as Vaporize is the only Hydro Reaction that is capable of dealing Crit Damage. This makes characters that deal passive pyro damage the best when paired with Barbara.
Stats should prioritizeCrit Rate,Crit Damage, andAttackorAttack%as this will be the main source of Barbara’s damage. Attack%, Hydro Damage, and either Crit Rate or Crit Damage spread among the Goblet, Sands, and Crown are the recommended focus. If possible, the Crit Rate and Crit Damage should have a one-third split between them.
Weapons
Team And Rotation
There are some teammates that make Barbara especially powerful when paired together. Characters can be swapped out for others but for the highest damage potential,BennettandSucroseare recommended.
Bennett’s Burstwill increase everyone’s Attack based on his own Base Attack while within the circle.Surcrose’s Passivemakes it so upon proccing Swirl on Barbara’s attacks, her Elemental Mastery is increased 50. Additionally, Sucrose hits an enemy with her Elemental Skill, all party members gain 20 percent of her own Elemental Mastery.
The idea is to have another Pyro character, such asXiangling, using their Burst within Bennett’s Inspiration Field, and having Sucrose use her Elemental Skill before switching to Barbara to spam Charged Attacks. The amount that Vaporize does will depend on whether she crits or not and can reach six digit numbers relatively easily.
Related:How to get Barbara’s Summer Skin in Genshin Impact
Freeze Build
There are a few ways to play around with builds that utilize Barbara’s attacks in unique ways. Her Elemental Mastery becomes more important if focusing on Reactions, but her Crit Damage is just as important in a Freeze team composition.
There is a lot of room to swap things around with this sort of build as it can be played for Freeze, Vaporize, or Electro Charged teams.
Focusing on Barbara’sAttack,Hydro Damage, andCrit Damageis the main priority as teams utilizing Freeze will have two Cryo characters for their resonance. This will increase Crit Rate by 15 percent when damaging frozen enemies or enemies affected by Cryo.
Shimenawa’s Reminiscence
Shimenawa’s Reminiscenceis a good choice for Freeze builds as the increase toCharged Attacksis easy to acquire. The increase is 50 percent and only requires Barbara to have more than 15 Energy after using her Elemental Skill. The two piece Attack increase only adds to her damage capabilities and is a welcome bonus.
Heart of Depth
Heart of Depth increases Charged Attacks as well and its two piece increases Barbara’sHydro Damageby 15 percent. Her Normal and Charged Attacks are increased after using her Elemental Skill but the bonus is only 30 percent.
Mix And Match
A two piece Gladiator’s Finale and two piece Shimenawa’s Reminiscence will increase Barbara’sAttackby 36 percent, making them both useful options for her. Alternatively, players can instead use a two piece Heart of Depth for the Hydro Damage Bonus and pair it with either Gladiator’s or Shimenawa’s for the additional buff.
Because Crit Damage is used again for this build, the same weapons used in the Vaporize build are recommended.
Electro Charged Build
Using Electro Charged makes use of Barbara’s shortInternal Cooldownfor causing Elemental Reactions. Focusing entirely on herElemental Mastery, Barbara’s Charged Attacks are never used.
Wanderer’s Troupe’stwo piece is very important for the increase in Elemental Mastery, but even theInstructorset can be put to good use. Other stats have little importance as Barbara’s main source of damage will be based on Reactions.
Electro Chargeddamage is based entirely on Elemental Mastery and isn’t capable of critting. Barbara should be the one making these Reactions because if the Wet status is already applied on a character before Electro is applied, the damage will instead be based on the Electro character’s Elemental Mastery.
While it might be hard to find an Elemental MasteryGoblet,Sands, andCrownof the same set, set bonuses won’t matter nearly as much for this build.
Team And Function
The best applicator for Electro isBeidou,Lisa, andFischl. The key to making Reactions work is to make sure that Electro is appliedBEFOREusing Barbara’s Normal Attacks so that the damage is based on her Elemental Mastery.
Lowering the enemy’s Elemental Resistance with anAnemocharacter using the four pieceViridescent Venererbonus is advised.Sucroseraises the Elemental Mastery of characters after using her Elemental Skill but any Swirl applicator works.
Against single targets that do not have the Electro aura, Barbara’sElemental Skillmay be used to applyWetin between another character’s Normal Attacks. Although she isn’t the active character, the damage is based on Barbara’s Elemental Mastery so long as her Skill’s Aura is applied after.
Related:How to get Barbara for free in Genshin Impact
Hyper DPS Healer
This build makes Barbara’s entire kit valuable and makes use of what player’s already know how to do; Heal.
Ocean Hued Clamcauses a Bubble to appear that dealsPhysical Damageonce it pops. The damage is based on how much healing the character does but caps out at 30k HP. It deals 90 percent of this healing as damage, up to 27k, but this number can be higher if the enemy is affected bySuper Conduct.
Because Barbara’s healing is based entirely on herHP, artifacts should focus on raising this as high as possible. This shouldn’t be any different than how most people build Barbara and makes her deal tons of healing while now also dealing plenty of damage.
Team Members
This Barbara works best on a Super Conduct team. Characters likeLisa,Beidou, andFischlcan use their Burst and swap to a Cryo applicator. Super Conduct teams are great for Physical Damage DPS characters such asEula,Rosaria, andRazor. Rosaria in particular has a Burst that can be activated and swapped.
When a character is affected by Super Conduct, either Barbara or a Physical Damage character can come out to take full advantage of the lowered Physical Resistance of the enemies.
For more Genshin Impact guides, check outHeart of Depth Artifact Set: Stats, how to get, and who can use it in Genshin Impacton Pro Game Guides.
