Genshin Impact’s Nilou is truly one of a kind. She doesn’t contribute much raw DPS, but she’s not a support, either, since her teams have to be built around her. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to actually play Nilou in Genshin Impact.

How Nilou’s Skill works

Nilou’s Elemental Skill is activated by pressing her Skill key once. Once activated, you’ll see a blue icon above her head. In this activated state, you can follow up with three more Skills or Normal Attacks, which will all deal Hydro damage. Depending on whether you end this combo with a Skill or Normal Attack, Nilou will gain different abilities. You must complete Nilou’s Skill combo to activate her Bloom buffs, so make sure the blue icon above her head disappears before proceeding with your rotation.

Ending her combo with a Skill will create a ring of Hydro around you. This ring persists after swapping characters and applies Hydro in an AoE. It doesn’t deal damage, but it’s great for triggering Bloom while Nilou is off-field.

Ending Nilou’s combo with a Normal Attack will infuse her Normal Attacks with Hydro for a while. While she has this infusion, her third Normal Attack will deal increased damage and travel forward, slicing through enemies in its path. This mode generally isn't used outside of niche on-field Vaporize teams.

Nilou’s best combos

It’s usually better to end with a Skill to create the Hydro ring since this is better at applying Hydro and allows Nilou to stay off-field. However, the animations for her Normal Attacks are faster than her Skill. This means Nilou’s best combo is:

Skill > Normal > Normal > Skill

Since you are ending the combo with a Skill cast, Nilou will create the ring of Hydro around her, activating her Bloom buffs and allowing you to switch to your next character. The two Normal Attacks speed up the combo, reducing Nilou’s field time.

If you’re not able to consistently pull off the fast combo, you can just spam four Skill casts instead. This combo is slower but has the same end result while being easier to execute. 

What about Nilou’s Burst?

Like all Genshin Impact characters, Nilou has an Elemental Burst in addition to her Skill. Her Burst deals two instances of Hydro damage, both of which apply Hydro to the enemy. If you have enough Dendro applications, Nilou’s Burst can potentially trigger two more Blooms.

In general, you can cast Nilou’s Burst whenever it’s available. Don’t build extra Energy Recharge in order to Burst every rotation. If it’s off cooldown and you have the Energy, cast it. Otherwise, just perform her Skill combo and move on with your rotation.

How Nilou changes the Bloom reaction

Normally, the Bloom reaction in Genshin Impact isn’t very strong. Combining Dendro and Hydro creates a Dendro Core near the enemy. Dendro Cores look like green seeds, and they explode on their own after six seconds. Most Genshin teams that trigger Bloom follow up with an Electro attack on the Dendro Cores, triggering Hyperbloom and dealing more damage than just regular Bloom.

Nilou fundamentally alters how Bloom works. When Nilou is in a team with only Dendro and Hydro characters, and she completes her Skill combo, she confers a buff to the entire team. With this buff, the Dendro Cores created by Bloom deal significantly more damage, have a larger blast radius and explode immediately. Having Nilou puts Bloom on par with Hyperbloom without the need for an Electro character.

Now that you have a better understanding of how Nilou works, go forth and dance your way to victory!

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