Nilou is a 5-star Hydro character with an extremely unique role in Genshin Impact. She improves the Bloom reaction to the point where pure Bloom teams become not only viable, but incredibly strong. Here are the best weapons and artifacts to help your Nilou blossom.

Best weapons for Nilou

Key of Khaj-Nisut - Nilou’s best weapon overall

Key of Khaj-Nisut is Nilou’s best weapon, providing her with a chunky amount of HP and allowing her to buff her team’s Elemental Mastery. It’s an incredibly niche weapon, and due to the idiosyncrasies of Nilou’s kit, it’s the only weapon that fully synergizes with her. This means there’s a pretty noticeable gap between Key of Khaj-Nisut and Nilou’s other weapon options.

Freedom-Sworn - A 5-star second choice for Nilou

If you don’t have Key of Khaj-Nisut and don’t want to pull for it, Freedom-Sworn is a good 5-star option for Nilou. She would be using it primarily for its Elemental Mastery secondary stat, but it is capable of providing buffs to teammates who use Normal, Charged, or Plunging Attacks. Don’t pull Freedom-Sworn specifically for Nilou, though, since she has comparable 4-star Swords available to her.

Nilou’s 4-star options

Dockhand’s Assistant, Xiphos’ Moonlight, Toukabou Shigure, and Iron Sting are all viable 4-star weapons for Nilou. Dockhand’s Assistant is Nilou’s best 4-star Sword, but any of the Elemental Mastery Swords will also work. Iron Sting has the benefit of being free-to-play accessible, since you can craft it at any blacksmith using billets.

Nilou’s best artifact sets

4pc Flower of Paradise Lost

Flower of Paradise Lost is technically Nilou’s best artifact set for Bloom damage. Its 2pc effect gives her Elemental Mastery, while its 4pc effect directly buffs her Bloom damage. These combined buffs make Nilou’s Blooms explode for significant damage. While 4pc Flower of Paradise Lost results in the most damage for Nilou teams, it’s not much better than the 2pc combos below. You should pick your artifact set based on which domains you want to farm.

2pc HP and Elemental Mastery combos

Nilou only cares about two stats: max HP and, to a lesser degree, Elemental Mastery. Her unusual kit makes it so that 2pc combos of HP and Elemental Mastery are very competitive with her best 4pc set. Combining 2pc Vourukasha’s Glow and 2pc Tenacity of the Millelith gives Nilou an additional 40% HP. You can also mix in a 2pc set that gives you an Elemental Mastery buff, though combining 2pc HP/HP sets is better than HP/EM.

Artifact stats to prioritize for Nilou

Nilou does not need Energy Recharge at all. Casting her Burst applies two instances of Hydro to enemies, potentially resulting in two extra Blooms per rotation. In the grand scheme of things, those two Blooms aren’t that important, and Nilou’s raw Hydro damage isn’t significant either. It’s perfectly fine to just ignore Energy Recharge and cast Nilou’s Burst when you happen to have it.

Nilou should focus entirely on HP and Elemental Mastery stats. Prioritize HP until she reaches about 74,500 HP. This monstrous HP stat is generally only attainable with an HP weapon, full HP artifacts, and a Hydro teammate for Hydro Resonance. If you’re able to reach this amount of max HP (or get close), you can opt for some Elemental Mastery stats.

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