Introduction

Truthfully, she can also be considered a victim of many misunderstandings and misinformation. Due to her unique scaling and diverse capabilities, surface level analysis and opinions have plagued her characterisation since her release, and her strengths have only appreciated in worth and understanding as time has gone by.

Sangonomiya Kokomi - The Divine Priestess and Supreme Leader of Watatsumi Island. Just like how she is versatile in handling military strategies and domestic affairs on her island, she is equally as busy in regards to her in-game capabilities: A healer, AoE Hydro applier, buffer, and on-field or off-field damage dealer. Enabling both vast role diversity and role compression, this affords her a spot in many teams.

This guide aims to explain Kokomi's complexities and allow players to better utilize the Divine Priestess of Watatsumi Island.


Kokomi has spotted a feral Hutao on life support.

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Pros & Cons

Talents breakdown

Normal Attack
Elemental Skill
Elemental Burst
Ascension 1 Passive
Ascension 4 Passive
Unique Passive
Normal Attack | The Shape of Water
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Talent Description

A 3-hit Normal Attack combo and AoE Charged Attack. Normal Attacks are projectiles with very small AoE. Her Charged Attack has a larger AoE and uses a separate Internal Cooldown for Hydro application. Therefore it can be useful for shield breaking or maintaining Hydro auras.

However, the usefulness of these attacks is a separate discussion to the value of its Talent scaling.

It is important to note that Kokomi's basic attacks have two sets of scaling. This talent scales off ATK and is largely an insignificant portion of her on-field damage output, which her Elemental Burst talent has more relevance towards. For example, at Talent Level 9 it can account for around 9% of her total damage in a Mono Hydro team. Past a bare minimum, investment in this talent is of the lowest priority.

With Constellation 1, the 3rd hit of her Normal Attack string will supply an additional attack with a fixed scaling based on her Max HP, although the extra hit is not considered a Normal Attack. Due to its fixed scaling nature, having this Constellation can further diminish the benefits of leveling this talent. (see Talent Level Priority section for more)

As with all Catalyst users, ATK SPD buffs like the 10% buff via her Constellation 4 act as direct multipliers to Normal Attack spam, provided she does not get interrupted.

“The Shape of Water” is a reference to 孫子兵法 (Sun Tzu's The Art of War).

Water has no constant shape.

Elemental Skill | Kurage's Oath
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Talent Description

A continuous 12s source of healing and AoE Hydro application, it is the constant pillar of her kit and used in every team to great effect. It has three significant value propositions:

  • Area of Effect
  • Sustained
  • Off-field

Bake-Kurage has no ICD on its Elemental application and will therefore be applying Hydro onto enemies every 2 seconds. Only one Bake-Kurage can exist on the field at a time. Including the initial hit, it will attack for a total of 7 times over the course of 12s. Each following pulse has a 67% chance to generate one Hydro elemental particle (requires hitting enemies), meaning on average 4 Hydro particles are generated over its base duration (the final tick cannot generate a particle).

Casting her Elemental Burst in conjunction with her A1 Talent Passive will refresh the Skill's duration. Despite it normally being locked into a stationary position for 20s (refreshing via Burst does not allow repositioning), using a weapon like Sacrificial Fragments can allow readjustments. This tech is most significantly used in Nilou Bloom teams, which lack grouping sources yet rely on Bake-Kurage heavily.

On cast, it will also apply the Wet status onto Kokomi. This can cleanse Elemental debuffs, although it can also be a disadvantage by making her vulnerable to Freeze.

Additional Tech Info: This Skill also snapshots buffs on cast. Consequently, while it does not normally snapshot the HP scaling from her Burst, it is possible to snapshot it by recasting her Skill as Burst mode is ending, and quickly swapping off before the first tick of the new Skill. Using a simple application of this, it is possible to maintain 100% uptime on bonuses just by timing your rotations. Still, this Tech can be difficult and is generally not worth using in practice.

Learn more: Kokomi | KQM TCL

Elemental Burst | Nereid's Ascension
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Talent Description

Requiring 70 Energy, casting this will activate Kokomi's Ceremonial Garment, adding considerable HP scaling to each of her abilities for a 10s duration. She will lose this state upon switching out. Although unused in popular off-field focused roles (such as Freeze), her Burst is a crucial component in all her other teams. Alongside the refreshed and buffed Bake-Kurage, players will typically spam Normal Attacks, which now heal the entire party with each successful hit. Therefore, during this period, in addition to dealing increased damage with increased resistance to interruption, the party is effectively immortal.

She will also have increased resistance to interruption during this period, although it is not Infinite Poise/Hyper Armor. Therefore, reinforcements such as Xingqius Rain Swords will result in noticeable improvements in tanking heavy hits.

Moreover, her A4 Talent further increases the HP scaling of her Basic Attacks by 15% of her Healing Bonus while under the effects of her Elemental Burst. This actually makes her damage output scale the best with stacking HP and Healing Bonus, due to how significant the damage gained from these is. Therefore, these also make the aforementioned ATK scaling of her base Basic Attacks have low relevance (See the FAQ for further explanations). For example, at Talent Level 9 the Burst mode's enhanced Basic Attacks and Bake-Kurage can account for around 58% of her total damage in a Mono Hydro team (See Talent Leveling Priority for more info). This makes resource investment in her Elemental Burst Talent the most valuable by far for her on-field playstyles.

All of her Constellations enhance her output whilst in her Burst state, although her Constellation 1 uses a separate, fixed scaling (30% of Max HP).

She is also able to walk/run on any water’s surface during this state, which has niche applications in overworld traversal.

Ascension 1 Passive | Tamanooya's Cascet
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Talent Description

If Sangonomiya Kokomi's own Bake-Kurage are on the field when she uses Nereid's Ascension, the Bake-Kurage's duration will be refreshed. This will not reposition it.

Due to Bake-Kurage normally having an 8s downtime, this Passive allows her to maintain 100% uptime on her Elemental Skill. Higher uptime means increased particle generation, Hydro application, healing and buff uptime (if using Tenacity of the Millelith).

In fact, some niche teams may just alternate between casting her Skill and Burst every 10s and immediately switch her out in order to maintain this constant Bake-Kurage. However, this is very rarely optimal, and in her most common Freeze teams, Kokomi actually hardly even uses her Burst or this Passive in favour of just using her Skill roughly every 20s.

Important Note: Refreshing Bake-Kurage requires it to be on the field when the Burst animation ends, so please cast your Elemental Burst at least a second before the Skill expires. This can be annoying as it necessitates either keeping mental timing or doing precise rotations, otherwise the window for refreshing may be missed, wasting her Burst too.

Ascension 4 Passive | Song of Pearls
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Talent Description

Whilst in her Burst mode “Ceremonial Garment”, the DMG Bonus Kokomi's Basic Attacks gain based on her Max HP will receive a further increase from 15% of her Healing Bonus. This allows her to benefit both offensively and defensively from Healing Bonus stats.

For context, a total Healing Bonus of 75.9% (easily achieved with a Healing Bonus% Circlet, Ocean-Hued Clam 2pc set bonus, and 25% via her Flawless Strategy Passive) provides an additional 11.38% HP multiplier to her Burst mode basic attacks. This more than doubles the base Burst mode HP scaling even at Talent Level 10. Healing Bonus can be boosted even higher than this standard through equipping her signature weapon, Everlasting Moonglow.

Passive | Flawless Strategy
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Talent Description

Certainly the most obfuscated part of her kit in terms of implications. Simply put, this combines with the rest of her kit to trade CRIT scaling for Healing Bonus scaling. That's all it really has to mean for all intents and purposes. However, nuanced implications can be assessed:

The downside of this tradeoff is that CRIT stats are effectively useless. Less important for weapon choice, since that can be easily navigated, yet this still has a huge impact on her Artifacts. Typically, players yearn for many CRIT substat rolls on their pieces; however, on Kokomi, they are dead rolls. Combined with Healing Bonus only being available as a main stat via Circlet, and unavailable through substats, these elements limit her growth via artifact investment. It's also well known that typically CRIT substats provide the highest damage increases in most characters' situations, so this further accentuates the loss in growth potential.

The upside is that ultimately this tradeoff has borderline no significance to limiting her actual roles. Just because CRIT multipliers are lost does not mean she cannot be the highest damage dealer in significant teams. It’s more akin to a twist or gimmick to her builds more than anything. It’s smarter to consider it nothing more than a twist too.

Another obvious upside is that this Passive also enables her to lean more heavily into the paladin archetype. Her damage dealing builds (or any of her builds) will never shut her off from the healing role, and (aside from Bloom teams valuing EM) target investment goals are streamlined into hunting basically just HP, ER, and Healing Bonus stats to boost her entire kit.

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Combos

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Talents Priority

Constellations

In many teams, Kokomi is already a complete character at base. Constellations also provide effectively no value to off-field focused playstyles such as Freeze support. These are focused on her on-field roles, perhaps signifying Hoyoverse’s true intentions for her. In general, it’s advised to be satisfied at C0 or C1.

Important Note: Take damage increase % with a grain of salt since the values can differ depending on your exact team, gear and assumptions. Calculations made with a Kokomi-Kazuha-Yelan-Xingqiu team, which includes team buffs and Everlasting Moonglow. Full sheet with details can be found in the Resources section.

Cons. 1
Cons. 2
Cons. 3
Cons. 4
Cons. 5
Cons. 6
Constellation 1 | At Water's Edge
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Constellation Description

The hit (or fish) does not share ICD on Hydro application with her other attacks, supplementing even more Hydro application to her kit, and hits harder than her third combo hit. For DPS context, with R5 Prototype Amber, this Constellation increases her output in Mono Hydro by roughly 24%.

This is a recommended stopping point for Constellations.

Increase in damage from C0: 23% (w/ Everlasting Moonglow)

Total damage increase: 23%

Constellation 2 | The Clouds Like Waves Rippling
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Constellation Description

This constellation is extremely redundant outside of Nilou Bloom teams, or combat events with raised difficulty, and even then it’s a stretch. The reality is Kokomi-backed teams do not struggle much with survival, meaning these effects are hardly ever active.

Furthermore, the effects are considered flat healing, and it is not applied to the Healing Bonus part of calculations.

Constellation 3 | The Moon, A Ship O'er the Seas
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Constellation Description

A small increase for Burst mode, and not quite as efficient as Talent level increases for other characters who may have more of their DMG contribution % allocated in their Burst.

Increase in full rotation damage from last Constellation: 4%

Total rotation damage increase from C0: 28%

Constellation 4 | The Moon Overlooks the Waters
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Constellation Description

Provided Kokomi is being used in an on-field role, we’re actually looking at a significant amount of Energy restoration, which is neatly synergistic with the ATK SPD increase alongside it. As mentioned, since Kokomi is a Catalyst user and not subject to hitlag, this ATK SPD buff is a direct and efficient multiplier to her kit. Although do note that she still deals a lot of damage via Ocean-Hued Clam, which is independent of this.

Energy refund: ~13 Flat Energy

Increase in full rotation damage from last Constellation: 7%

Total rotation damage increase from C0: 37%

Constellation 5 | All Streams Flow to the Sea
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Constellation Description

Provides mediocre value, considering her Skill’s low damage output and already surplus healing. Remember this Constellation’s increase to her Skill’s scaling is separate to the Burst mode scaling increase.

Increase in full rotation damage from last Constellation: 1%

Total rotation damage increase from C0: 38.5%

Constellation 6 | Sango Isshin
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Constellation Description

Effectively, she always has this 40% Hydro DMG buff. Still, remember the 40% is additive with other DMG sources like Kazuha’s buff or a Hydro Goblet. It will not be a 1.4x total damage multiplier.

Since the buff lasts 4s, outside of very specific rotations or setups it should be easy to snapshot this buff onto Bake-Kurage for consecutive rotations

Typical hit damage increase: 16-20%

Increase in full rotation damage from last Constellation: 14%

Total rotation damage increase from C0: 58%

Artifacts

Note: It is highly recommended to treat the following section as a general guideline. Ultimately, we recommend using the Genshin Optimizer to finalize your builds. In particular, it allows you to choose team buffs and can more accurately judge the correct balance between offensive stats for artifacts specific to your account. In case you need one, here’s a great tutorial for how to use Genshin Optimizer: Genshin Optimizer Tutorial Playlist.

Due to her diverse role, both Kokomi’s ideal artifact sets and target stats are never set in stone. Rather, it is something to assess after deciding on a team composition and required strategy for her in that role. Consider skipping to the Teams section and reevaluating choices after.

Sets that are not mentioned are not relevant enough and not recommended for consideration.

OHC increases Kokomi’s Healing Bonus and provides a strong additional source of AoE Physical damage through her healing prowess. It does want Kokomi in her Burst mode to hit its damage cap, typically 24.3k damage 3 times during the state. Outside of the Burst state, hits often deal about ~30% of that depending on investment, but this is still highly appreciated.

This is her general go-to set in most circumstances, and highly recommended to farm for on-field playstyles especially. Probably the most versatile set too, considering it can function adequately in off-field roles, providing her HP and Healing Bonus stats are built well.

Note: OHC is also great in Bloom teams.

With her long lasting Elemental Skill, ToTM sees effective use in some of Kokomi’s off-field teams where, with its 4pc set bonus, she can give ATK buffs to significant damage dealing teammates. A perfect example would be when supporting Ayaka in a Freeze team. Kokomi’s output with OHC is replaced by increasing her buffing capabilities with 4pc ToTM. The 2pc set bonus will also give her 20% HP for reinforced healing.

With her Burst refreshing her Skill to circumvent Bake-Kurage downtime, she can have practically permanent uptime on the ATK buffs. However, permanent uptime is not necessary due to many teams having either burst damage windows that fit within the buff uptime or teammates with snapshottable abilities.

For players struggling to farm OHC for on-field roles, strong ToTM sets can also suffice as poverty alternatives.

GD sees surging use as a Kokomi set due to her partnership with Nilou in Bloom teams, although OHC can still be preferred. These teams can be somewhat random in regards to exactly which character is triggering Bountiful Core explosions; however, one constant is Kokomi being a frequent trigger of these explosions. Therefore, EM is an extremely valuable stat for her, and Gilded Dreams supplies it in mass quantities.

Note: In Triple Hydro teams, Gilded Dreams gives less EM than 2pc 2pc EM sets (Gilded Dreams/Wanderer’s Troupe/Flowers of Paradise Lost)

Nilou Bloom teams as a whole like lots of EM stats. Additionally, the domain to farm this also supplies Deepwood Memories, a must-have set in Bloom teams. Therefore, with this composition, farming GD is very efficient.

For use in Bloom teams. FoPL can provide an even bigger increase to Kokomi’s Bloom reaction damage than GD.

The reaction damage bonuses it provides is additive with Elemental Mastery, meaning the value of this set will be stronger the more EM Kokomi already has. This also works vice versa, and at minimal EM investment it may not even be an improvement over Gilded Dreams. When using this set, it is therefore recommended to stack as much EM as possible.

However, a key drawback of FoPL is that even with well invested builds, the damage increases over GD can be minimal. With Bloom teams also requiring Deepwood Memories sets, farming for GD can be more efficient for overall results. Also remember, OHC is a valid artifact set even in Bloom teams too.

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Artifact Stats

Weapon Choices

Important Note: Take % differences between weapons with a grain of salt, since they can differ depending on your exact team, gear and assumptions. Weapons that are not mentioned are not relevant enough and not recommended for consideration.

Some on-field teams prioritise Kokomi’s personal output, while others can benefit from weapons with slightly reduced personal output but increased buffs for the team. Assess and adapt as needed.

Calculations made based on a Mono Hydro Kokomi-Kazuha-Yelan-Xingqiu team and Electro-Charged Kokomi-Kazuha-Yae Miko-Fischl team (single target), which includes team buffs. Yae Miko uses The Widsith R3 or R1 Kagura’s Verity if stated. Full sheets with more details can be found in the Resources section.

Everlasting Moonglow
Prototype
Amber
Thrilling
Tales
Hakushin
Ring
Sacrificial Fragments
Floating Dreams
Everlasting Moonglow

Kokomi’s signature weapon, and (aside from Bloom teams) best overall for her personal damage. It also refunds a solid amount of Energy in teams where she has sufficient field time.

Most effective in Mono Hydro and similar teams where her personal damage is of utmost importance. However, it will fall off in favor of supportive weapons like R5 Hakushin Ring in other teams. Besides, even in Mono Hydro it’s not that substantial of an upgrade compared to other characters’ signature offerings.

Mono Hydro

% Difference vs R5 Prototype Amber - 108%; Avg. Energy generated - 9 Flat Energy;

Electro-Charged

Weapon Damage Contribution Relative to R5 TTDS: 104.4%;

Prototype Amber

Generalist choice for personal damage, as well as giving a significant amount of personal Energy generation that scales with refines.

Lastly, the additional healing utility can be helpful, but since it requires her Burst to be cast, its effect is unlikely to be noticeable in many situations.

Never the best option, but always useful to have as a F2P catch-all choice. Highly recommended to craft.

Mono Hydro

% Difference vs R5 Prototype Amber: 100%; Energy generated - 18 Flat Energy at R5;

Electro-Charged

Weapon Damage Contribution Relative to R5 TTDS R1: 95.5% R5: 97.6%

Thrilling Tales of Dragonslayers

A common supportive option, providing huge buffs for an ATK scaling teammate. Very effective in buffing Cryo teammates in Freeze teams, as well as some Electro teammates in Electro-Charged comps.

However, common teammate Yelan does not scale from ATK, and other common teammates like Xingqiu and Yae Miko benefit less due to lack of snapshottable abilities

Its HP% substat does help with Kokomi’s damage output, but not enough to mitigate its lackluster performance, making the weapon the weakest option for personal damage. It also provides no utility for Energy generation and can restrict rotations.

Electro-Charged

Weapon Damage Contribution Relative to R5 TTDS: 100%;

Hakushin Ring

Another F2P alternative, providing ER and Hydro DMG for Kokomi. The main selling point though is giving Electro DMG to teammates where applicable. This can allow Hakushin to overtake other options in Electro-Charged teams.

The differences with TTDS aren’t that significant (and values can shift depending on the exact teammates and investment), but Hakushin Ring can be more rotationally flexible.

Very balanced and comfortable to use although caution must be taken with teammates like Fischl and Beidou. Avoid using Stormbreaker and Oz before the Hakushin buffs have triggered, since those abilities snapshot.

Electro-Charged

Weapon Damage Contribution Relative to R5 TTDS: R1: 98.7%; R5: 109.8%;

R5, If Yae Miko has R1 Kagura’s Verity: 104.2%

Sacrificial Fragments

Premier option for Nilou Bloom teams. Despite providing a huge amount of EM to increase Kokomi’s reaction damage, that is not the winning utility it provides.

It allows her to recast and reposition Bake-Kurage, which is extremely helpful when its AoE application creates a huge portion of the team’s Blooms, as well as making up for the team lacking Anemo grouping. It is critical to be positioning Bake-Kurage in the most effective areas of each encounter.

It can also ease Energy issues, alleviating reliance on refreshing Bake-Kurage via Burst.

Note: In Bloom teams, it is unreasonable to calculate damage differences between weapons due to their nature and infinite variables. To name a few, damage can change depending on the amount of enemies, position of enemies, position of the character and the exact timing each attack input is made. Instead, it's advised to just pay attention to total EM and utility bonuses a weapon may provide.

A Thousand Floating Dreams

It is difficult to consider this, since if this catalyst is available, it most certainly was pulled for Nahida's use in the same Bloom team. However, if there happens to be an extra copy available, then it does increase Kokomi's EM more than Sacrificial Fragments, as well as provide an extra team EM buff.

It does lack extra Skill uses, which can be detrimental in long fights since Sacrificial Fragments could easily reposition and maintain uptime on Bake-Kurage. However it is technically a strict upgrade in quick fights, or Abyss chambers with no repositioning needed.

Teammates 101

This section will be a deep dive on many potential characters you could field alongside Kokomi.

Nilou
Yelan
Xingqiu
Synergy: S

On/Off-Field DPS
Support/Buffer
Bloom

Example Weapons:
Key of Khaj-Nisut
Iron Sting
Favonius Sword

Artifacts:
2ToTM + 80 EM set
HP/HP/HP

Common Teammates:
Traveler + Collei
Nahida + Collei
Nahida + Yelan

Due to Nilou’s unique Talent Court of Dancing Petals, which enhances standard Dendro Cores into Bountiful Cores, she is effectively purely designed around Bloom teams. She is also limited to just Hydro and Dendro teammates in order to activate this and other talents within her kit. Together, the goal is to generate as much AoE Dendro and Hydro application as possible, maximising Bloom detonations. Kokomi is very effective in achieving this alongside providing additional tools with her role compression.

  • Bountiful Cores deal significant recoil damage. Kokomi’s healing from various sources provides vital role compression. This is critical, as there aren't many defensive units within the Dendro Element yet.
  • As a Catalyst wielder with on demand Elemental Basic Attacks, Kokomi can flexibly spend time in and out of Burst mode to bring additional Hydro application. As a bonus, Burst mode attacks will also ramp up recovery from recoil damage.
  • Nilou’s teammate limitations prevent Anemo supports, which are usually instrumental in AoE content due to their grouping. Kokomi wielding Sacrificial Fragments circumnavigates this somewhat. Its passive allows regular repositioning of Bake-Kurage, such adjustments aiding with the optimal coverage of its range for dynamic encounters. As a bonus, it also provides EM for Kokomi’s reaction damage.
  • The only real anti-synergy with Nilou is that Kokomi is usually incentivised to stack HP and Healing Bonus. However, since Kokomi typically deals important damage in the team by triggering a notable portion of Blooms, EM is key of raising the team’s ceiling. Focusing on EM can reduce her Max HP and overall healing potential, however hybrid builds covering all stats can also be strong and well-rounded.
  • Even if fully investing in EM (this includes artifact set bonuses), Kokomi’s base healing performance is strong enough that with careful play, surviving will be fine.
Synergy: A

Off-Field DPS/Buffer
Mono Hydro,
Electro-Charged

Example Weapons:
Aqua Simulacra
Elegy for the End
Slingshot

Artifacts:
4pc EoSF
HP/Hydro/CRIT

Common Teammates:
Kazuha + Xingqiu
Kazuha + Fischl
Nahida + Nilou

  • Just pairing these two together in a team is a buff. Two Hydro teammates will activate Hydro Resonance, increasing party HP by 25%, a straight increase to both characters’ output. Obviously, this also increases their survivability.
  • Yelan’s A4 Talent will also provide a significant DMG bonus to Kokomi on-field, which she can utilise whilst repeatedly triggering Yelan’s Exquisite Throws for mutual benefit (though it won’t increase OHC’s damage).
  • As they both create Hydro particles, they can reduce each other's ER requirements notably. The specific highlight of this is that with Yelan, it’s a lot easier to hit breakpoints to where she no longer has to run Energy-oriented weapons. Due to her own off-field DMG strength, trading something like Favonius Warbow for Aqua Simulacra is a huge benefit.
  • Yelan’s Elemental Skill can minorly group up enemies, setting them up closer for Kokomi and other common teammate’s deployable Skills.
  • For higher budget players, Yelan’s C4 provides rare HP% buffs which is not only beneficial to Kokomi and herself, but also common teammates they can pair with like Nilou.
Synergy: A

Off-Field DPS/Debuffer
Mono Hydro,
Electro-Charged

Example Weapons:
Primordial Jade Cutter
Harbinger of Dawn

Artifacts:
4pc EoSF
HP/Hydro/CRIT

Common Teammates:
Kazuha + Yelan
Kazuha + Fischl
Nilou + Nahida

Due to Nilou’s unique Talent Court of Dancing Petals, which enhances standard Dendro Cores into Bountiful Cores, she is effectively purely designed around Bloom teams. She is also limited to just Hydro and Dendro teammates in order to activate this and other talents within her kit. Together, the goal is to generate as much AoE Dendro and Hydro application as possible, maximising Bloom detonations. Kokomi is very effective in achieving this alongside providing additional tools with her role compression.

  • His C2 reduces enemies Hydro RES, increasing both characters’ output.
  • His Rain Swords provide increased resistance to interruption. During Kokomi’s Burst mode state, she also increases her interruption resistance and can constantly Normal Attack, allowing her to efficiently trigger his Burst’s Sword Rain hits.
  • Just as with Yelan, Xingqiu can also reduce Kokomi’s ER requirements and vice versa.
  • For low budget setups, Kokomi’s party-wide healing, and just strong healing in general allows Xingqiu to constantly be at full HP. Combined with reduced ER requirements, this can allow him freedom to use the 3* Sword Harbinger of Dawn without concern.
Kazuha
Sucrose
Venti
Synergy: S

Grouping/Off-Field DPS
Buffer/Debuffer
Mono Hydro, Hyperbloom,
Freeze, Electro-Charged

Example Weapons:
Freedom-sworn
Xiphos' Moonlight
Favonius Sword

Artifacts:
4pc Viridescent
EM/EM/EM

Common Teammates:
Ayaka + Shenhe
Yelan + Xingqiu
Fischl + Yae Miko

  • Kazuha is the premier Elemental DMG buffer, and combined with RES Shred via 4pc VV, he can boost Kokomi’s damage tremendously. This is exceedingly useful with common teammates like Yelan who do not benefit from common ATK buff sources, or teammates who do not snapshot ATK buffs like Xingqiu or Yae Miko and therefore can often lack buffed damage.
  • Elemental DMG bonus itself is also more universal than perhaps how Sucrose primarily buffs EM. Teammates, whether focusing on reaction damage or not, will benefit from Elemental DMG bonus, so it is commonly more efficient.
  • His crowd control is tied to his Elemental Skill, but unlike other options this Skill is very versatile with short cooldowns. This actually makes him the most consistent grouper due to his Skill’s regular uptime throughout fights.
  • His grouping also pulls enemies towards him, and its circular nature has natural synergy with Kokomi and common teammates, such as being able to pull enemies towards an AoE Freeze zone, or towards Kokomi’s and Fischl’s deployable Elemental Skills, in a controlled manner.
  • His plunge can Shatter Frozen targets, potentially undoing careful grouping when using low Hydro application. However, with Bake-Kurage’s long and sustained Hydro application this is a non-issue.
Synergy: A

Grouping/Debuffer
Buffer
Electro-Charged,
Hyperbloom

Example Weapons:
Sacrificial Fragments
Hakushin Ring
TTDS

Artifacts:
4pc Viridescent
EM/EM/EM

Common Teammates:
Fischl + Beidou
Fischl + Yae Miko

  • Sucrose has similar buffing utility to Kazuha (4pc VV, Elemental DMG Bonus from her C6), but specialises more in sharing huge amounts of EM to her teams. This can be very effective in raising the floor of the team’s collective reaction damage. It allows teammates without EM investment to still do appreciable reaction damage, particularly in Electro-Charged teams which typically have chaotic reaction ownership.
  • As a Catalyst user, Sucrose is effective in triggering frequent reactions on field. She also has a separate Elemental application ICD on her Normal Attacks, Charged Attacks, Skill, and Burst, further bolstering this utility.
  • Although Kokomi is very capable of spending time driving in her Burst mode, pairing her with Sucrose offers more flexibility. Sucrose is available to share the on-field driving role (if not focusing on Sucrose driving entirely) whilst triggering additional reactions and constantly refreshing 4pc VV debuffs.
  • Sacrificial Fragments can also be used on Sucrose for additional grouping and Energy. This grouping flexibility can be very important for keeping enemies within Kokomi and other teammates’ AoE range.
  • Kokomi and Sucrose also synergise with each other well in terms of gear. One can focus on damage whilst the other covers utility, or they can both give additional buffs to teammates. These decisions are very flexible and generally will not dramatically shift total output, although one should pay attention to practical differences. For example, Sucrose using Sacrificial Fragments offers more grouping, and TTDS can make for less rotational freedom.
Synergy: B

Buffer/Debuffer
Grouping/Off-Field DPS
Freeze, Hyperbloom
Electro-Charged,

Example Weapons:
Elegy for the End
The Stringless

Artifacts:
4pc Viridescent
EM/EM/EM
ATK/Anemo/CRIT

Common Teammates:
Ayaka + Shenhe
Fischl + Yae Miko

  • Venti’s powerful Elemental Burst grouping and Elemental application make him an ideal candidate for reaction-heavy teams facing a lot of incoming enemies.
  • All of Kokomi’s attacks, particularly her Elemental Skill and Basic Attacks, can all reach inside Venti’s Burst. Outside of Freeze, the Energy refund he provides helps a great deal as well, especially in Electro-Charged teams where Kokomi may be the only Hydro character.
  • Unfortunately, he doesn’t really supply additional DMG buffs like Kazuha or Sucrose, and his effectiveness is limited outside of AoE content, meaning he isn’t ideally suited to many battles Kokomi’s teams may be readying for.
  • Take caution: Kokomi’s Bake-Kurage gets placed next to her, and Venti’s Burst is aimed a few meters in front of him. This can require careful repositioning.
Ayaka
Ganyu
Shenhe
Rosaria
Synergy: A+

On-Field DPS
Freeze

Example Weapons:
Mistsplitter Reforged
Amenoma Kageuchi

Artifacts:
4pc Blizzard Strayer
ATK/Cryo/CRIT or ATK

Common Teammates:
Kazuha + Shenhe
Kazuha + Rosaria

  • Ayaka’s Elemental Burst and its DPS window are the significant portion of her team’s damage and playstyle. Its accuracy, as well as Ayaka’s overall kit, has high synergy vs Frozen targets, and therefore she commonly seeks a Hydro teammate.
  • Kokomi provides long lasting, AoE, off-field Hydro application. Her Bake-Kurage’s range may not literally cover the entire map, but it is as close to an ideal Hydro applicator as Ayaka could ask for.
  • Additionally, Kokomi allows faster setups than other Hydro options due to only needing brief field time to cast her Elemental Skill.
  • She can buff Ayaka via TTDS and Tenacity of the Millelith. Building for this is incredibly accessible and has a low investment cost.
  • Just like Kokomi, many common teammates’ talent casts are also centered around the character model. Teams can have great control and fluidity over the Freeze AoE zone, with a character like Kazuha pulling enemies towards Bake-Kurage to maintain consistency.
Synergy: B

On-Field DPS
Freeze

Example Weapons:
Aqua Simulacra
Prototype Crescent

Artifacts:
4pc Blizzard Strayer
ATK/Cryo/CRIT or ATK

Common Teammates:
Venti + Shenhe
Venti + Rosaria

  • Ganyu’s Elemental Burst is powerful and long-lasting (AoE Icicles lasting 15s), and yet it can still snapshot buffs. Kokomi with TTDS and ToTM will give significant ATK buffs to her. Ganyu’s Charged Attacks also benefit more from ATK buffs, due to their increased CRIT Rate.
  • Kokomi’s brief field time and fast setups also allows for easier rotations and more Charged Attacks fired.
  • Ganyu’s damage lacks a Burst window and is more focused on constant, sustained damage output. Therefore, compared to Ayaka, she stands to gain a lot more from Kokomi refreshing Bake-Kurage with her own Burst cast; otherwise a lot of hits can lose Blizzard Strayer bonuses. The issue is that integrating the refresh is tedious and can require significant ER stat investment from Kokomi, potentially compromising with Energy-focused weapons on teammates too.
  • Ganyu can also feel a bit inharmonious with Kokomi, due to her Skill dashing away from enemies, and Kokomi casting her own Skill next to the player model. In comparison, Mona and Venti cast talents slightly ahead of the player model, synergising better with Ganyu’s Skill and overall ranged playstyle.
Synergy: A

Buffer/Debuffer
Off-Field DPS/Battery
Freeze

Example Weapons:
Favonius Lance
Calamity Queller

Artifacts:
4pc Noblesse Oblige
ATK or ER/ATK/ATK
ATK or ER/Cryo/CRIT

Common Teammates:
Ayaka + Kazuha

  • Shenhe is the premier Cryo support, especially in Freeze teams.
  • Unlike other units who provide personal offensive value or defensive utility while also providing Energy, Shenhe, while still offering good amounts of Energy, provides more buffs to damage dealers and rockets frontloaded performance.
  • Due to Shenhe scaling with Cryo DMG dealers, a character like Kokomi consolidating roles of Hydro application, buffs, and healing is greatly appreciated, and teambuilding/gearing considerations that may compromise damage are not needed.
  • Kokomi providing ATK buffs via Tenacity of the Millelith will also constantly increase Shenhe’s Icy Quill performance.
  • A niche synergy is that Shenhe’s Burst reduces enemies' Physical RES, which increases the damage from Kokomi’s OHC set (though OHC is typically not used in Freeze).
  • For practical synergies, Shenhe’s Skill when tapped lunges towards enemies whilst applying Cryo. This allows controlled positioning for Kokomi to later Freeze surrounding enemies from this spot.
Synergy: A

Off-Field DPS/Buffer
Battery
Freeze

Example Weapons:
Favonius Lance
Wavebreaker's fin

Artifacts:
4pc Noblesse Oblige
4pc Blizzard Strayer
ATK/Cryo/CRIT

Common Teammates:
Ayaka + Kazuha

  • Rosaria is commonly played alongside a Cryo damage dealer like Ayaka. Due to Kokomi’s healing role, Rosaria is able to freely play her role alongside a final offensive utility teammate like Kazuha. If not for Kokomi, many players would feel more comfortable with defensive utility from Diona, restricting Rosaria’s use.
  • Rosaria’s Elemental Skill’s ability to pursue targets and improve positioning is very underrated and brings unquantifiable value. Similar to Shenhe, this later allows Kokomi to be comfortably placed to Freeze surrounding enemies.
  • A niche synergy is that with C6, Rosaria’s Burst reduces enemies' Physical RES, which increases the damage from Kokomi’s OHC set (though OHC is typically not used in Freeze).
  • Rosaria does have short cooldowns on activating her Skill and Burst, which can clash with Kokomi’s longer cooldowns by neutering Rosaria's efficiency. This is often not much of an issue though, as their most common team plays around Ayaka’s long Burst cooldown anyway.
Yae Miko
Fischl
Beidou
Raiden Shogun
Kuki Shinobu
Synergy: A

On/Off-Field DPS
Electro Aura
Electro-Charged

Example Weapons:
Kagura's Verity
The Widsith

Artifacts:
Mixed sets
4pc EoSF
ATK/Electro/CRIT

Common Teammates:
Fischl + Sucrose
Fischl + Kazuha

  • Yae Miko’s Burst brings a flexible frontloaded nuke to Kokomi’s team which can pay increasing dividends the more invested Miko is.
  • Kokomi can easily pass on the TTDS ATK buff to Miko before her Burst, or pass buffs with Hakushin Ring. Miko does not snapshot her abilities, which can actually be an advantage in terms of capturing Hakushin Ring’s buffs, as her damage will increase whilst off the field.
  • Her Skill can be deployed near Kokomi’s Bake-Kurage. This can create a stable environment for constant damage. Their teams aren’t forced to constantly use Normal Attacks, as neither Skill triggers through them.
Synergy: A

Off-Field DPS
Electro Application
Electro-Charged
Hyperbloom

Example Weapons:
Polar Star
The Stringless

Artifacts:
Mixed sets
4pc Gilded Dreams
ATK/Electro/CRIT

Common Teammates:
Yae Miko + Kazuha
Beidou + Kazuha
Beidou + Sucrose

  • Both character’s Elemental Skills are off-field deployables, and although damage from Fischl’s C6 does scale with constant Normal Attacks, proccing it efficiently is not that crucial.
  • Kokomi also provides a stable base of AoE Hydro application. If Anemo grouping units can frequently Swirl the Elements together, this can increase the effectiveness of additional DMG via Fischl’s A4 Talent.
  • Fischl is very adaptable and does not require a lot of ER investment. This is very helpful as Kokomi’s teams want to avoid doubling up on both Elements, so one character will commonly be left as the sole Hydro/Electro member.
Synergy: B

Off-Field DPS
Electro Application
Electro-Charged
Hyperbloom

Example Weapons:
Wolf's Gravestone
Serpent Spine

Artifacts:
Mixed sets
4pc EoSF
ATK/Electro/CRIT

Common Teammates:
Fischl + Kazuha
Fischl + Sucrose

  • Beidou can provide much valued AoE DMG to Kokomi teams. She also brings damage reduction, as well as a shield at C1. Additional defensive utility is always appreciated.
  • She also has a long lasting Elemental Burst which can snapshot buffs. Many Electro-Charged teams' consistency can be thanks to Beidou snapshotting TTDS buffs for strong sustained damage output.
Synergy: A

Off-Field DPS
Electro Application
Hyperbloom

Example Weapons:
Dragon's Bane

Artifacts:
4pc Gilded Dreams
EM/EM/EM

Common Teammates:
Nahida + Yelan
Nahida + Kazuha

  • Strong in Hyperbloom teams. Whilst usually leading her own teams in an on-field role, Kokomi can effectively utilise Raiden as an off-field AoE Electro source to trigger Hyperblooms. In this role, Raiden uses a full EM build and just casts her Elemental Skill, with her Burst unneeded
  • Raiden's Skill can trigger as fast as 0.9s per hit, but it is important to consider how the Hyperbloom reactions are still capped at 2 Cores at a time, as well as it depending on how constant Kokomi and a Dendro teammate can create the Cores. These faster hits compared to Shinobu’s may not actually mean much in practice.
  • The Skill will also hit at the enemy's position, which will be conveniently close to spawning Dendro Cores. Unlike Shinobu, this also means Kokomi can utilise a bit of her range if needed.
  • Overall, their biggest synergy may be to Raiden's benefit. For example, in a Hyperbloom team core of Raiden and Nahida, neither have healing or shielding. This can create a dilemma for the remaining teammates, especially as one has to be a Hydro character. Kokomi meets all conditions, and can even take on an off-field only position. Thus, she can allow an array of options for their last teammate.
Synergy: A

Off-Field DPS
Electro Application
Hyperbloom

Example Weapons:
Iron Sting
Key of Khaj-Nisut

Artifacts:
4pc Gilded Dreams
EM/EM/EM

Common Teammates:
Nahida + Yelan
Nahida + Kazuha

  • Strong in Hyperbloom teams. Despite normally having a slow Electro application rate due to ICD on her Elemental Skill (Grass Ring of Sanctification), each Dendro Core she hits is considered a fresh entity. As long as Kokomi and her Dendro teammate(s) are creating the Cores, this allows Shinobu to constantly trigger Hyperblooms every 1.5s in an AoE around the player model. The duration of Shinobu's Elemental Skill is 12s at C0 and 15s at C2, which makes her a very practical teammate for Kokomi.
  • Whilst Shinobu usually further synergises with Hyperbloom teams due to both her healing utility and natural EM scaling via A4 Talent, this is obviously less relevant for Kokomi.
  • In terms of their damage, Shinobu's Skill does tick slower than Raiden's Skill (meaning theoretically slower Hyperbloom reactions), but it can be a very insignificant difference in practice. Importantly, Shinobu can be considered more accessible as a 4* character.
  • If available, Shinobu can also boost the team even more with the Key of Khaj-Nisut. Not only can this boost her own EM further than 4* weapons can, but the EM share it provides can also be very useful for common Kokomi teammates like Nahida or Kazuha.
Nahida
Traveler
Collei
Yaoyao
Synergy: S

On/Off-Field DPS
Support/Buffer
Bloom, Hyperbloom

Example Weapons:
A Thousand Floating Dreams
The Widsith

Artifacts:
2ToTM + 80 EM set
EM/EM/CRIT or EM

Common Teammates:
Nilou + Collei
Nilou + Xingqiu
Yelan + Raiden Shogun

  • A staple of Dendro teams, Nahida can apply on-demand, sustained and strong Dendro application within a massive range. She can do this entirely off-field, or supply even more Dendro application with on-field Basic Attacks. Her level of consistency is unmatched across Dendro characters, and as such she is very much appreciated in both Bloom and Hyperbloom compositions.
  • Her reaction potential is further boosted by her Elemental Skill (the core of her kit) having direct EM scaling. In addition, her A4 Talent further enhances her Skill's DMG and CRIT Rate. These together allow her to benefit heavily from EM investment, and coupled with CRIT stats she can deal both strong reaction and non-reaction damage.
  • Nahida's Elemental Skill duration being both long lasting and frequent is very helpful to Kokomi. Firstly, unless the marked enemies are defeated, there's no need to worry about it running out whilst Kokomi enters her Burst mode. Secondly, the frequency and strength of this off-field Dendro application is ample enough for consistent reactions, whether it's just Bake-Kurage solo or in tandem with Kokomi's on-field attacks. Overall, there are rarely issues with the sufficiency of Nahida's Dendro application.
  • Another key synergy is role compression. As Dendro reaction-focused teams can involve 3 Elements reacting together, Kokomi's ability to take a Hydro teammate slot whilst covering the healing role is very helpful for Nahida. The fact that Kokomi can also do this all off-field allows full offensive choice for their teammates without having to compromise the team's survival.
  • Nahida's Elemental Burst is also able to provide Kokomi with a huge EM Buff whenever Kokomi is on-field. The value of this can vary depending on how many reactions Kokomi is triggering in any given team. It will also increase Nahida’s own damage when Kokomi is switched out or even solely used in an off-field role.
  • The main annoyance to Nahida is having to recast her Elemental Skill each wave of spawning enemies. This can interrupt Kokomi during her Burst mode.
Synergy: B

Off-Field DPS
Support/Buffer
Bloom, Hyperbloom

Example Weapons:
Sacrificial Sword
Favonius Sword

Artifacts:
4pc Deepwood
EM or ER/EM/EM
EM/Dendro/CRIT

Common Teammates:
Nilou + Collei
Nilou + Nahida

  • Traveler has a wide AoE on their Lea Lotus Lamp created from Elemental Burst cast, which is further increased by absorbing Hydro. This will increase its range by 3x and hit AoE by 2x. This lays a good base for surrounding enemies being set up for Kokomi (and Nilou) to create many Bountiful Cores.
  • When Kokomi is on-field, Traveler can also increase her EM by up to 60 through their A1 Talent.
Synergy: B

Off-Field DPS
Support/Buffer
Bloom, Hyperbloom

Example Weapons:
Elegy for the End
Sacrificial Bow

Artifacts:
4pc Gilded Dreams
4pc EoSF
4pc Instructor
4pc Deepwood
EM/EM/EM
EM/Dendro/CRIT

Common Teammates:
Nilou + Traveler
Nilou + Nahida

  • In Nilou Bloom teams, an EQE combo (w/ Sacrificial Bow) from Collei can be powerful, and noticeably spike the team’s Bountiful Core production rate and overall damage during the duration. Although real caution is needed over the recoil damage she can sustain during this on-field period, particularly with her fragile max HP, Kokomi’s sustained healing (even when prioritising EM stats) can mitigate much of this concern.
  • Her Skill can be recast every 12s, which has synchrony with Kokomi’s Bake-Kurage duration and common teammate Skills like Fischl’s Oz. Despite her Boomerang + Sprout not lasting with 100% uptime, this is still very helpful in Hyperbloom teams as the reaction feeds off of continuous application from all 3 Elements
  • Collei provides 60 EM to teammates at C4, as well as an extra 100 for those fortunate enough to own Elegy for the End. 4pc Instructor for an extra 120 is also optional.
  • Although she provides flexibility and increases a Bloom team's frontloaded damage, Collei doesn’t really have many other areas of direct synergy with Kokomi.
Synergy: C+

Off-Field DPS
Healer
Bloom, Hyperbloom

Example Weapons:
Favonius Lance
Dragon's Bane

Artifacts:
4pc Gilded Dreams
Mixed Set
HP/HP/HP
EM/EM/EM
EM/Dendro/CRIT

Common Teammates:
Nilou + Traveler
Nilou + Nahida

  • In Nilou Bloom teams, Yaoyao’s own healing can reinforce Kokomi’s healing to create more comfortable teams. Yaoyao also has increased Dendro RES whilst her Burst’s “Adeptal Legacy State” is active, making her very suitable to tanking Bloom Core explosion recoil damage
  • This increase in team healing can also allow Kokomi to more easily trade HP and Healing Bonus investment for more EM stats. Furthermore, since Yaoyao can spend time effectively on-field, Kokomi rarely needs to spend much time in her Burst mode to take advantage of OHC. Overall, Yaoyao allows Kokomi to focus on building for her reaction damage.

Teams

Kokomi is an extremely versatile character due to the role compression she provides. Below are a range of compositions to demonstrate how she functions in teams. This is not an exhaustive list of options.


Bloom
Mono Hydro
Electro-Charged
Hyperbloom
Freeze
Pros
High floor yet high ceiling.
Low in demand teammates. 2nd abyss team has many options for literally any account.
Playstyle utilises the full range of Kokomi’s kit.
Cons
Requires Nilou to play to its true potential.
No Anemo grouping means traditional methods of crowd control and grouping must be employed.
Can see a damage drop off in single-target content.

Due to Nilou’s unique Talent Court of Dancing Petals, which enhances standard Dendro Cores into Bountiful Cores, she is effectively purely designed around Bloom teams. She is also limited to just Hydro and Dendro teammates in order to activate this and other talents within her kit. As a tradeoff, she warps the entire reaction and its potential around her. She could be considered both the main support and main damage dealer of these compositions.

Activated after Nilou completes her Skill setup, the team's Bountiful Cores explode significantly faster with increased damage and AoE. Since these Cores are created with Hydro and Dendro reacting together, her teams are primarily designed to facilitate as much Elemental application for these reactions as possible. Nilou’s kit and signature weapon also provide lots of EM with her teams, elevating the floor of the damage no matter which teammate is creating the Bountiful Core. The damage is so significant that her teams focus almost entirely around maximising Bountiful Core damage, with her teammates’ separate personal output being secondary. As a drawback, just like normal Dendro Core explosions, nearby characters suffer recoil damage. Since the damage and frequency is higher than normal, so too is the recoil. Therefore, a key focus of the team is survival.

Kokomi is exceptionally synergistic here. Arguably almost everything about her kit is ideal for Nilou’s needs. See Nilou’s section in Teammates 101 to learn more.

Key points:

  • Bloom reaction damage scales heavily with Levels, so consider raising all members of a team to Level 90 as compulsory.
  • Bloom teams are specialised in AoE. Only a maximum of five Dendro Cores can exist at a certain time; if a sixth core is created, then the oldest existing Dendro Core will explode to trigger Bloom. The foundation of these teams is straightforward, constantly applying Dendro and Hydro to enemies, and combining this mechanic with Bountiful Cores innately exploding faster will compound the team’s explosive output greatly. The more EM the triggering character has, the more DMG will be dealt.
  • Bloom output also comes down to how much Dendro and Hydro teams can apply. Yet in practice, calculations of rotational DPS are futile, and expectations are going to be different from reality. Depending on the amount of enemies, where exactly they are positioned relative to the player and each other, the exact second and order you press each skill. All of these can affect the outcome. The exact character who creates a Bountiful Core as well as the exact ratios of who creates how many, cannot be perfectly known or controlled. Smart rotations and building EM on all characters is the best counter to this unpredictability.
  • A basic trick for smart rotations is understanding how Hydro interacts with Dendro. Hydro is the weakside Element in their interactions, similar to Cryo being the weakside to Pyro in Melt reactions. To put it simply, applying Hydro onto an enemy already affected by Dendro will produce more Dendro Cores than the reverse. See the KQM Dendro Guide for more information on this interaction. In practice, this can mean starting setups with a Dendro unit and then using Hydro teammates’ abilities after can be very efficient. However, despite being a good rule of thumb, Nilou still needs to complete an Elemental Skill dance to allow Bountiful Cores to be made, so there can be situations where she should be the first to set up.
  • Despite everything said thus far, because these teams are specialised in AoE, the exact Elemental application potential of each ability does not matter that much. Multiple enemies, as well as the AoE range of these Cores, can raise the performance. For example, due to their poor ICD on Elemental application, Traveler and Collei theoretically have limited Dendro application on their Bursts. However, each new enemy suffers their own fate, and is affected independently by Elemental application. In a nutshell, whilst these units may only apply Dendro X amount of times from their Bursts, that number is per enemy. Dendro can be applied to another enemy, and a Hydro teammate creating a Bountiful Core explosion will damage both enemies with its huge AoE.

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Example Team 1 - Traveler + Collei

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Example Team 2 - Nahida + Traveler/Collei

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Example Team 3 - Xingqiu/Yelan (Triple Hydro)

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FAQ

Pros
Keeps scaling the more invested and geared the team is.
No “Circle Impact” or positional restrictions.
Very low Energy requirements; offensive gear thrives.
Cons
Requires specific 5* teammates to be played not as a novelty. Effective Mono teams are not gimmicks but rather, actual synergy and Mono happenstance.
Mono Elemental, poor for Shield Breaking content, especially Hydro shields.
Less effective in AoE.
Loses advantages without strong weapons in the team. Budget but usually viable options like Favonius or Sacrificial weapons are weaker when the party is in Energy overflow.

Mono Hydro isn’t a gimmick, but rather an example of strong synergy between the characters. Specifically, Mono Hydro teams are born from the concept of developing teams that can maximise the output from the Yelan+Xingqiu Double Hydro core. This is a well known powerhouse duo that is not tied to “Circle Impact” (positionally locked down in an area due to buffs or abilities), and is not restricted to any particular team archetype. Yelan is also a powerful damage dealer in general and only gets stronger with more investment. Naturally, players began searching for balanced and well rounded teams to pair them up with.

A character like Kazuha is the immediate pick in this situation, as Genshin Impact’s premier Elemental DMG booster who offers significant grouping utility for practicality. Where does Kokomi fit in? Between these 3 characters, none of them fulfill the defensive role. So in order to have a practical and rounded composition, the final slot must be a healer or strong shielder. It would be disappointing having to replace Kazuha with another Anemo support with less team buffs and less consistent grouping utility. This team has been solved with genuine solutions like Hu Tao or Zhongli. Yet Kokomi, despite bringing weaker overall output, also solves the team and synergises with the Xingqiu-Yelan core exceptionally well.

Kokomi lowers the Double Hydro core’s ER requirements, allowing them to comfortably use even their strongest 5* weapons without compromise. She takes the defensive utility role, being a great healer, and together with Kazuha they take little field time away from Normal Attack driving, thus maximizing the amount of Xingqiu and Yelan’s Burst procs as this team can be constantly Normal Attacking. Similar to Hu Tao, Zhongli, and her teammates, Kokomi does not miss losing out on Bennett’s prominent ATK buffs. She is very efficient in capitalising on all the buffs and debuffs her teammates are getting. Kokomi is providing all of this, whilst being very straightforward to pilot and keeping the team essentially immortal.

This end result of these teambuilding considerations just happens to have Hydro characters.

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Example team

Pros
Adding Electro facilitates improved shieldbreaking.
More AoE.
Greater teammate selection.
More budget options.
Cons
Lower ceiling and scaling potential through higher investment.
Less effective in single-target.
Increased Energy Recharge requirements for Kokomi.

In these teams, Kokomi co-exists with Fischl to provide both Hydro application for teammates to react with and extremely valuable role compression, allowing much flexibility for the last 2 teammates without needing concern for defensive utility.

Both characters’ Elemental Skills are off-field deployables, and although damage from Fischl’s C6 does scale with constant Normal Attacks, proccing it efficiently is not that crucial. Therefore, the teams that they create can play very fluidly and are not forced into driving with constant Normal Attacks to get value.

Anemo grouping/buffs certainly add lots of value, and with smart synergy either Double Electro or Hydro can round things out.

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Examples team 1 - Beidou Sucrose

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Examples team 2 - Beidou Kazuha

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Examples team 3 - Yae Kazuha

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Examples team 4 - Venti Flex

Pros
Multiple Elements for strong shieldbreaking.
High damage floor.
More budget options.
Cons
Single-target focused.
Lower ceiling and scaling potential through higher investment.
Tendency for taxing Energy Recharge requirements.

Hyperbloom compositions are an exciting blend of Mono Hydro and Electro-Charged teams in terms of functionality. Instead of Yelan and Xingqiu elevating the 1 on 1 performance, off-field Dendro support is played.

As with Bloom, Kokomi’s Hydro application reacts with Dendro to produce Cores. When these Cores are hit with AoE Electro (ideally from EM-built teammates) it transforms into a Sprawling Shot that homes in on a close enemy. As hinted at, these reactions scale heavily with EM, so most Anemo supports already built for EM are ideal candidates for this task , either through Electro Absorption or Swirls. Importantly, a useful byproduct of this is that Kokomi’s Bake-Kurage spreading its Hydro application every 2s can be slow enough to allow Quicken activations, which can increase the team’s Electro DMG output.

Two Strategies:

  • Triggering Sprawling Shots with off-field Anemo teammates (but may share reactions with AoE hits from Electro teammates)
  • Triggering Sprawling Shots solely with off-field Electro teammates

As with many Transformative Reaction-heavy compositions, the damage floor can be high, and builds can be relatively straightforward to complete. This strategy is very effective for newer players pushing for 36*. However, the downsides can be off-putting, particularly for endgame players. The limited damage ceiling is evident, and despite being single-target focused compositions, with rainbow teams Energy management can be a pain. This is ironically compounded by Boss Fights, the primary single-target content, generating less free Energy than other fights.

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Example team 1

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Example team 2

  • Ayaka’s Elemental Burst and its DPS window are the significant portion of her team’s damage and playstyle. Its accuracy, as well as Ayaka’s overall kit, has high synergy vs Frozen targets, and therefore she commonly seeks a Hydro teammate.
  • Kokomi provides long lasting AoE off-field Hydro application. It doesn’t always hit, but is as close to an ideal Hydro applicator as Ayaka can get.
  • Additionally, Kokomi allows faster setups than other options due to only needing brief field time to cast her Elemental Skill.
  • Bake-Kurage lines up perfectly with Ayaka’s rotations and its AoE radius matches just right, overall creating a very comfortable option.
  • Buffs Ayaka via TTDS and Tenacity of the Millelith. Building for this is incredibly accessible and has a low investment cost.
  • Overall, her power budget focused this way and little care for personal damage allows the final teammates to be focused completely on utility or further enhancing Ayaka’s damage. In comparison, options like Xingqiu or Ayato could want buffs or debuffs themselves which can end up compromising on the uptime or consistency of Ayaka’s own buffs and debuffs.
  • Just like Kokomi, many common teammate’s talent casts are also centered around the character model. Teams can have great control and fluidity over the Freeze AoE zone, with a character like Kazuha pulling enemies towards Bake-Kurage to maintain consistency.
  • It is generally considered a DPS loss to spend field time refreshing her Hydro application via casting her Elemental Burst. It is also very hard to achieve such ER stats to sustain this. However, it is definitely comfortable for more casual players who will enjoy potentially 100% Freeze uptime and the ease of fights.

Common flex options:

Learn more: Ayaka Guide: 優雅な踊り - KQM

FAQ: Should I use Kokomi’s Burst?

Use her Burst if:

  • It’s available, you’re fighting a stationary enemy, and you would appreciate the longer Freeze uptime in this situation. It’s a perfectly valid reason to make fights easier.
  • You need emergency healing.

Don’t use her Burst if:

  • You think it’s tedious to mentally keep track of the jellyfish’s duration timers. As her Elemental Skill doesn’t have a clear indicator for when it will disappear, it’s possible to be late in casting to refresh, and you’ll end up wasting her Burst.
  • You want to stick to smooth, seamless rotations. For people who care about efficiency, Kokomi’s Burst takes enough time to where it might interfere with refreshing buffs off cooldown, Anemo Absorption, generating Energy and mixing in Ayaka’s auto attacks. For various reasons, it’s often a DPS loss.
  • Enemies are no longer next to the jellyfish. Her Burst only refreshes its duration in the current position.

Side note: You may not even have the artifacts to consistently Burst. ToTM is a commonly recommended set for Kokomi in these teams, and it’s a rather niche set in general. For most players, it’s recommended to just get her a set with the ideal mainstats, and then stop spending the Resin. Getting pieces that have enough Energy Recharge, especially when her Burst will only have niche use is hard to justify. However, it is up to the player to judge accordingly and to spend their Resin where they see value; this is only a recommendation.

  • Ganyu is also a Cryo damage dealer, and has fairly similar needs and benefits to freeze like Ayaka. Still, their playstyles are pretty different.
  • Ganyu’s Elemental Burst is powerful and long-lasting (AoE Icicles lasting 15s), and yet it can still snapshot buffs. Kokomi with TTDS and ToTM will give her significant ATK buffs. Ganyu’s Charged Attacks also benefit more from ATK buffs due to their increased CRIT Rate.
  • Kokomi’s brief field time and fast setups also allows for easier rotations and more Charged Attacks fired.
  • One thing to be careful of, though, is unlike Ayaka, Ganyu does naturally synergise better with teammates who cast talents slightly ahead of the player model. Think Venti’s Burst, Rosaria’s Skill, Mona’s Skill and Burst. This can lead to awkward AoE Freeze zones when mixing different styles of teammates together. This can be averted by using Kokomi’s Skill immediately before Ganyu’s Skill.

Common flex options:

Learn more: Ganyu Guide: 循々守月 - KQM

FAQ

How do her Elemental Burst, A4 Talent and 4pc OHC “Flatten/Normalise” her damage output?

These talents add significant Bonus Flat DMG to Kokomi’s attacks, and 4pc OHC adds further damage based on healing. These scale from HP and Healing Bonus.

Conversely, Normal Attack and Elemental Skill talents scale from ATK, and contribute to a minority of her damage output even when well invested.

Kokomi’s Burst scaling gives the same damage increase to all Normal Attacks, and “flattens” the initial difference between specific hits in a combo. Song of Pearls similarly gives the same boost regardless of hit. Lastly, 4pc OHC makes up a notable amount of her damage, and synergises with the aforementioned damage sources by also scaling from the same attributes.

Therefore, her Elemental Burst and A4 Talent in particular can be considered to reduce the differences in damage with individual attacks, and consequently makes investments in Normal Attack talents and ATK less valuable.

Is it a problem that Kokomi cannot CRIT?

See Passive: Flawless Strategy in Talent Breakdown.

Should I use Kokomi’s Burst in Freeze teams?

See Freeze section in Teams.

Which artifact set in Bloom teams?

There are several options. It is difficult to state a true Best-In-Slot and it mostly depends on the exact team, your playstyle, and the content faced. In Double Dendro teams where Kokomi will be an important reaction damage dealer, Gilded Dreams and Flower of Paradise Lost can be very efficient in maximising her Bloom damage. The downside of these sets is her healing will be lower than normal, which can make survivability difficult. These sets also suit high EM stat investment, meaning without HP and Healing Bonus artifacts her non-reaction damage will be dramatically low.

On the flipside, Ocean Hued Clam is a viable set in all Bloom teams, with the build’s goal being balanced, Hybrid investment into all useful stats (HP/EM/ER/HB). It’s important to note that Bloom teams can have lots of EM buffs via Nilou, Key of Khaj-Nisut, Dendro Resonance, Instructor etc. Since EM is a stat that will have diminishing returns, there can be reduced value investing completely into EM and ignoring other stats. OHC’s damage to a lesser extent Healing Bonus, are unique sources of damage in comparison to EM which is much easier to get from Abyss Buff Cards. Overall, the reduced EM investment affecting her reaction damage can be made up for by increased non-reaction damage and Sea-Dyed Foam explosion damage. This can also improve the team’s versatility and Single Target damage potential.

Resources

The Art of War - Wikipedia

Kokomi mono hydro v1

Kokomi constellations

Kokomi updated electro-charged weapon calcs

Kokomi artwork

Special thanks to

_Maxi#1776, Steno#3469, leah.#2212, idkanonymized#4166, sexyeboy69#2687, Kaleamaranth#6687 and Rare Possum#0511 for helping through the editing process!