The Dendro element has been out for a long time now and it’s dominated the meta since its release. Even today it’s being treated as a special element and for good reason. But it shouldn’t affect your playstyle as much as you think it does.
To hone in on a specific trend, support units like shielders and healers exist in all elements but even so, they are treated and built for the utility they provide- a.k.a. Shielders are built to be the strongest they can be and the healers are built to be the best they can be. But this has not been the case with recent Dendro support units.
What’s Changed in Genshin Impact With Dendro
In the past 2 patches, including the current one, we’ve got two Dendro healers and one Dendro shielder. Baizhu and Yaoyao are not just any healers- but are always referred to and treated as Dendro healers. Kirara is a great shielder, potentially the strongest 4-star shielder in the game but she’s more valuable as a Dendro shielder.
If Baizhu or Yaoyao were of any other element, they would’ve been given the best healer build regardless of their element a.k.a the Ocean-Hued Clam or the Maiden’s Beloved artifact set. But the best-in-slot for both Baizhu and Yaoyao is the Deepwood Memory artifact set which reduces Dendro RES on enemies. While they aren’t living up to their maximum healer potential, they are still more valuable than traditional healers because they can shred Dendro on enemies and use that artifact set.
It’s the same for Kirara when it comes to shielders. As a pure shielder, her preferred sets are a combination of Vourukasha’s Glow and Tenacity of Millelith to get as much HP% on her as possible. But as a Dendro shielder, her best-in-slot is 4-pc HP% Deepwood Memories. Here, in addition to functioning as a reliable shielder, she also acts as the Dendro shredder for the team.
The community maintains that if they are the only Dendro units in your team, then they should wield the Deepwood set. But the fact is all three of them- Baizhu, Yaoyao and Kirara, aren’t qualified to be the sole Dendro on the team because their Dendro application isn’t consistently reliable. More often than not they are paired with someone like Nahida or the Dendro Traveler because of their consistent and reliable off-field Dendro application.
In this case, the community will tell you to build the Dendro MC or Nahida with Gilded Dreams for more damage because the healing or shield you get from even a Deepwood-wielding Dendro support is enough to carry you through all difficulty. While that is true, it’s also true some players just want a comfier playstyle and needed those units more because of their over-the-top healing and shielding rather than just survivability.
We’re here to assure such players that it’s okay to give your Dendro supports dedicated healer or shielder builds and keep your Deepwood set on your Nahida and Traveler because at the end of the day, you’re still winning with more survivability and comfort and maybe only a teensy less damage. In fact, you can use these dedicated builds even in other team comps which aren’t Dendro-focused- because not everything needs to be.
