Flins Full In-Depth Guide

by Zajef77

Overview Pros & Cons Teams The Battery Slot The Hydro Slot The Buff Slot The Rest Gameplay & Talents Lunar-Charged The Reaction The Talent Moonsigns Talent Usage & Combos Skill Mini-Burst Big Burst Combos Rotations Cooldowns Buffs Build Stat Priority Weapons Artifacts Flins’ Artifacts Artifact Stats Artifact Sets Team’s Artifacts Talents and Investment Priority Damage & Stat Targets Prospector’s Shovel R5, C0, Ineffa, Sucrose with TTDS active, Aino C1 Bloodsoaked Ruins R1, C0, Ineffa, Sucrose with TTDS active, Aino C1 Prospector’s Shovel R5, C0, Kuki, Sucrose, Aino C1 Jotaro’s Corner (For Whales) Priority Constellations Flins’ Constellations

Team’s Constellations & Weapons FAQ Do I need Ineffa? C1 or R1? C2 or R1? I have Varesa. Should I get Flins? How much ER do I need on Ineffa? Should I aim for Aino constellations? Is level 90 important? Is his big burst bad? Credits

Overview

Flins is a Burst-focused Electro carry who does most of his damage through Lunar-Charged. The only source of direct Lunar-Charged damage in his kit is his burst, and his gameplay is focused on maximizing the damage said burst does.

Pros & Cons

Pros Cons

• Very easy combos and rotations

• Uses less contested supports

• Uses multiple 4* supports, and doesn’t rely too much on their constellations

• DPS in premium teams is halfway between the average Natlan carry and Mavuika (~=Varesa)

• Powerful early constellation options

• Reliant on Ineffa

• Premium teams have no healing, only shielding with Ineffa

• Many innate auras counter him. Pyro, Dendro and Cryo prevent Lunar-Charged, and Electro is often on Electro-immune enemies.

Teams

Flins’ fairly low energy generation paired with his burst reliance makes him dependent on a battery. Electro particles generate much more energy for him than particles of other elements, so pairing him with an Electro character is almost mandatory. Flins’ burst has its damage increased more than twofold if you’ve recently triggered Lunar-Charged, so a Hydro character is also almost mandatory. Your last team slot is a bit more flexible, but will generally be best used by a character that provides buffs rather than damage. Additionally, you need 2 Nod-Krai characters to enable his full kit.

The Battery Slot

Electro particles from your battery slot and from Electro resonance are paramount. However, Flins can use many tricks to cheat out additional energy and make the most of the energy he gets, so the difference between Electro batteries that provide a large amount of particles and ones that only provide a few isn’t particularly significant, and your main focus should be on how much damage they deal and how much they buff Flins’ damage, over how many particles they generate.

Battery Description^ %Ineffa

Ineffa: SS

Ineffa has a lot of the things Flins wants. She provides him with impactful buffs, has good personal damage that benefits from the same stats as him, and gives defensive utility. Flins’ personal damage in teams with Ineffa is actually not that much higher, and sometimes even lower, than with other Electro options. However, the main difference comes from Ineffa’s personal damage and added defensive utility. Her being a Nod-Krai character allows some flexibility for your Hydro slot. Ineffa also provides you with a more flexible damage profile. With Electro characters that don’t do much personal damage, you will find yourself quite reliant on the nukes from Flins’ bursts to deal your damage, leaving you stranded when facing enemies that are already low HP, where using your burst feels like a waste.

100%

Ororon: B

Ororon’s main purpose is similar to Ineffa. Personal damage and minor team buffs, with some defensive utility sprinkled in through his taunt. However, he’s worse in every way. His buffs are smaller, since him being a Natlan support that can use Cinder City matters much less for characters like Flins who don’t value DMG buffs highly. His personal damage is much worse than Ineffa’s. His taunt is generally worse than a shield. Overall, teams with C6 Ororon are generally about 20% behind teams with Ineffa.

C0: ~73%

C6: ~81%

Iansan: C~B

Much like Ororon, Iansan’s value partly comes from her DMG% buffs, which matter less to Flins. As such, she isn’t amazing. However, she still provides a fairly large ATK buff, and while Flins doesn’t move enough to generate a lot of Nightsoul for her, he doesn’t get punished much for running around instead of hitting enemies, so keeping Iansan’s Nightsoul high is achievable. If that was all there was, since Iansan’s buffs are actually larger than Ineffa’s, she could actually be less than 15% behind. However, Iansan’s burst cooldown is 18 seconds, which forces longer rotations, and brings the team DPS down quite a bit.

C0: ~71%

C2: ~74%

C6: ~77%

Sara: C

If Sara’s buff lasted 1 second longer, she would be the best alternative to Ineffa at C6. However, her buff duration being the same as Flins’ forced cooldown between bursts means it will likely be impossible to buff both instances. You can technically extend the buff duration by having the later hits of her burst refresh it, so there may be some setups that allow both to be buffed when you use Sara’s burst. That being said, her burst has a 20s CD, so it either extends your rotation by 4 seconds (very bad), or only happens every other rotation (less bad). Sara’s buff can also sometimes miss, and her particle generation is actually bad enough to create potential energy problems for Flins. Despite that, since Flins’ C1 allows for 3 bursts per rotation instead of 2 and reduces the time between them, you’ll end up with 2/3 buffed instead of 1/2, and Flins’ signature helps alleviate the energy problems. This can make Sara C6 a fairly strong option for Whale Flins, albeit worse than Ineffa.

C6: ~75%

Kuki: C

Kuki provides nothing but healing. However, if you don’t have Ineffa or Lauma, you need to use Aino on your Hydro slot, which only allows a defensive option on either the battery slot or the buff slot. Since there are no particularly powerful battery slots outside of Ineffa, it’s generally better to use a healer in this slot than the buff slot, making Kuki an acceptable option, despite her teams being around 30% behind Ineffa’s.

~70%

Fischl: C

All Fischl does in Flins’ teams is personal damage. Since Flins has quite good personal damage himself and scales with slightly different stats than Fischl (EM vs DMG%), the Fischl teams often perform worse than the alternatives.

C0: ~73%

C6: ~76%

Dori: D

Dori’s kit provides much more for Flins than Kuki’s, but her 20 second cooldown prevents her from being good.

Q every rotation: ~56% Ignore Q: ~66%

Lisa: F

DEF reduction doesn’t increase Lunar-Charged damage, as Lunar-Charged damage bypasses DEF to begin with. TTDS is good, but Sucrose’s power makes it likely you already have it. No

Beidou: F

Beidou is another victim of rotations getting shorter. Her 20s cooldown makes her quite bad. No

Yae: D

Yae’s longer field time compared to other electro units can often mean slightly longer rotations even if the cooldowns aren’t longer than 16s. That being said, Yae is better than Lisa as a TTDS bot, since she can at least trigger ToM from off-field. On a traditional build, Yae has the same issues as Fischl.

~69%

Electro Traveler: D~B

Electro Traveler provides a LOT of energy. This extra energy can actually be enough to allow you to use Flins’ big burst every 2 or 3 rotations. That being said, properly picking up the amulets generated by Electro Traveler’s skill on the right character can be challenging. On top of that, the Electro RES reduction from the C2 only happens on burst, which you’ll use every other rotation because of the 20s cooldown. Overall, when played optimally, Electro Traveler is actually competitive with the other non-Ineffa battery options, but that optimal gameplay is much harder to achieve.

Optimized big burst rotation: ~81% Same rotation: ~68%

The Hydro Slot

Maintaining Lunar-Charged uptime on enemies is important for both reaction damage and thundercloud uptime. Hydro characters need some off-field application, but it doesn’t need to be very fast. Since no good Hydro characters deal relevant damage scaling with the same stats as Flins and Ineffa, you should generally focus more on buffers than damage dealers.

Hydro character Description^ %Aino C0 C6 Aino is generally the best Hydro slot. However, this is mostly due to a lack of powerful options rather than it being a result of Aino’s strength. Flins’ 16s cooldown favors supports with cooldowns equal or shorter. Aino’s 13.5s cooldown fits well with this. Her personal damage is pathetic, and her buffs are mediocre and reliant on constellations. However, bad buffs is

C0: 100%

Aino: A better than no buffs, and she doesn’t extend your rotations. She also functions as the Nod-Krai character requirement for those who don’t have Ineffa or Lauma, making her pseudo-necessary in their absence. Aino’s C1 is a ~1-2% team DPS increase, and her C6 is ~5% increase.

UPDATE: The Ascendant Gleam bonus from non-Nod-Krai characters doesn’t stack, and is only calculated based on the latest character’s ability usage. This means, provided you’re using Sucrose, there isn’t a bonus from additionally using a non-Nod-Krai character on the Hydro slot. This is just enough to make Aino a bit better than the alternatives.

C1: ~102%

C6: ~107%

Yelan: A

Yelan has reasonable personal damage and DMG% buffs, but neither of those are what Flins teams really want. She also has an 18s burst cooldown. Despite that, her numbers are good enough to make her a reasonable alternative for the Hydro slot, finding herself somewhere between Aino C0 and C6.

The Nod-Krai “resonance”, which increases Lunar reaction damage when characters who aren’t from Nod-Krai use their skills/bursts, helps bridge the gap between Aino C6 and other characters, provided you have Ineffa or Lauma.

~106%

Furina: B

Furina is heavily restricted by the lack of good healing options for Flins. However, if you’re willing to accept being permanently at 50% HP, no-burst Furina is actually a strong contender for the Hydro slot, entirely because her long skill duration allows you to only use it every other rotation. However, Furina’s damage contribution in these teams is comical.

No Burst: ~104% Burst with Xilonen: ~92%

Candace: A

Candace only buffs DMG%, which isn’t very good. However, the lack of a good Hydro option takes Candace C6’s power to be around the same as Furina due to the lack of extra damage from Furina’s HP consumption. Unlike Furina, however, Candace doesn’t force you to permanently play at half HP.

~103%

Xingqiu: A

Xingqiu’s very fast Hydro application isn’t necessary for Lunar-Charged, and his 21s skill cooldown significantly increases rotation length, making him a fairly low-value choice if played normally. However, Xingqiu has off-field elemental application with his skill, which allows you to alternate the use of his burst and skill on each rotation, effectively sacrificing half a burst to reduce rotation length by 5 seconds.

Q every rotation: ~88%

Alternate Q/E: ~103%

Mona: B

Mona’s constellations provide buffs that actually work on Flins, with the 15% Lunar-Charged damage from C1 and the 15% CRIT Rate from C4. However, the duration is abysmal. Additionally, the low uptime on her skill results in less Lunar-Charged reaction hits.

C0: ~95%

C4: ~99%

Barbara: B

Barbara’s skill cooldown makes rotations way too long, but her skill does damage twice upon cast, allowing you to use Sacrificial Fragments R5 to stick to ~16s rotations. Her lack of off-field damage prevents her from using the good support sets too well, but her healing makes her a viable option nonetheless for those who deem it necessary.

~98%

Kokomi: B

Kokomi effectively has the same upsides as Barbara, but trades the inability to fully use the good support sets for a stationary source of Hydro application, leading to a similar overall team. ~99%

Sigewinne: A

Sigewinne has neither of the extra downsides present in Kokomi’s or Barbara’s cases, but is only barely better, and much less popular. ~99%

The Buff Slot

Flins’ main source of damage not scaling with DMG% restricts his buff options, but it scaling with EM introduces new ones. His EM scaling also allows for the possibility of adding additional reactions, as long as it doesn’t cost the damage obtained from Lunar-Charged. His premium Electro and Hydro slots don’t offer any RES reduction, which heavily favors Anemo characters or other shredders in the Buff slot, as opposed to ATK buffers

Buffer Description^ %Sucrose

Sucrose: S

Flins’ best shredder. Sucrose provides 40% RES reduction through VV, as well as a large amount of EM from her ascension passives. As a catalyst, she can also use TTDS. On a triple EM build with around 60 EM from both the flower and feather, plus the 120 EM from the Serenade set, Sucrose reaches 800 EM. Since she shares 20% of her EM, on top of an additional 50, she will provide a 210 EM buff. While TTDS has a cooldown longer than your rotations, it’s acceptable to just give up on the buff every other rotation, for an average of 24% ATK. All of these factors together make Sucrose an amazing shredder for Flins. On top of all of this, she has incredibly short animations, allowing her to maintain the 16s rotations much more easily. Sucrose’s value can be slightly increased with alternative weapons, but none of them is a major upgrade over TTDS.

TTDS: 100%

Wandering Evenstar R1, A Thousand Floating Dreams, Starcaller’s Watch: ~101% Wandering Evenstar R5, Sunny Morning Sleep-In: ~103%

Lauma: B

In order to fully understand why Lauma is good in place of a buffer in the buff slot, we need to explain how Lunar-Charged interacts with Dendro. When applying 1 unit of Dendro on an enemy (which happens every time Lauma’s skill hits), the enemy will gain a Dendro aura slightly smaller than 1 unit. When applying 1 unit of Hydro on the same enemy, the Dendro aura gets reduced by 0.5 units. If this reduction would bring the Dendro aura below 0, it normally simply disappears. However, if you trigger quicken with fast Electro, there can be an Electro aura existing at the same time as a Quicken/Dendro one. In this case, the overflow of Hydro that brought the enemy below 0 Dendro will trigger a reaction with the other aura present, in this case Electro. This will trigger Lunar-Charged, even if the enemy never ends up receiving an actual Hydro aura. This means that, so long as your Hydro application is faster than your Dendro application, you will still trigger consistent Lunar-Charged, and enable Flins’ and Ineffa’s additional damage when a thundercloud is present. However, the thundercloud isn’t enough to get the actual Lunar-Charged reaction damage without a 3rd hydro application before the next Dendro one. While Lauma doesn’t actually provide a single buff to Flins directly, her Dendro application introduces Hyperblooms. Since Flins and Ineffa already build a fairly large amount of EM, those Hyperblooms deal a non-trivial amount of damage. Lauma’s personal damage is also a nice addition. That being said, unlike the traditional buff slot options, Lauma makes fairly fast Hydro application mandatory. This means she will not function with low constellation Aino, Candace, Kokomi, Barbara, etc. since you won’t be able to trigger Lunar-Charged at all. Even with the fairly fast Hydro applicators like Yelan, you will still be losing out on most of the Lunar-Charged reaction damage itself. More importantly, Lauma is a character whose best teams are simply just better than Flins’ teams, making it somewhat questionable of a decision to use her with Flins.

~80%

Xilonen: A

Xilonen’s DMG% buff through Cinder City is fairly bad for Flins’ teams, although the saturation of other stats, paired with the fact that 40% is just bigger than 20%, means her best set in Flins’ teams is still generally Cinder City. That being said, Xilonen being a high uptime shredder and a healer makes her an acceptable buff slot. While using Xilonen+Hydro is generally much worse than using Sucrose+Barbara or another Hydro healer, she is still acceptable, and is a fairly powerful option for the unlucky souls that have yet to receive their first Sucrose.

~94%

Bennett: A

Flins already builds a fairly large amount of ATK, since many of his weapons have an ATK% substat or passive, and his best Goblet is ATK%. Because of that, and because of his lack of access to shredders outside of the buff slot, despite the numerical value of Bennett’s buff being much higher than most other characters, he is only one of many options. Much like Xilonen, however, his ability to heal can make him preferable in some scenarios.

~90%

Iansan: C

Iansan provides a mix of ATK% and DMG%, but no shred. That being said, the sheer amount of stats provided by a high constellation Iansan can make her, at least offensively, better than Bennett in the slot. Her particle generation also helps alleviate both Flins’ and Ineffa’s ER requirements. It may be difficult to maintain high Nightsoul through Flins’ rotation, but the outright bad numbers on his normal attacks in skill stance mean it’s not much of a downside to be forced to run around, as long as it doesn’t interfere with your particle generation. Iansan also provides a very small amount of healing, which, paired with Ineffa’s shields, can make your clears more comfortable.

C0: ~74%

C2: ~76%

C6: ~78%

Lan Yan: A

Lan Yan is held back by the inability for shields to stack with one another, meaning the weaker of two shields is effectively useless. While her shield often is larger than Ineffa’s, the duration being shorter than your rotation length effectively means that, in most scenarios, her shield won’t end up mattering when Ineffa is on the team. Lan Yan does allow the use of TTDS, and has a small EM buff at C4, but those pale in comparison with Sucrose’s buffs.

~90%

Kazuha: B

Sucrose from Wish. Kazuha’s buffs are worse for Flins, and his long animations often lead to longer rotations. C2R1 Kazuha is still worse than C0 Sucrose, because his 200 EM buff is not only lower than Sucrose’s, but also doesn’t apply to Ineffa. This means you end up with similar buffs as Sucrose, but you are now forced to use Kazuha’s long burst animation. The only reasons to use Kazuha over Sucrose are not having Sucrose or wanting the grouping.

~90%

Venti: B

Sucrose from Walmart. Venti’s burst prioritizes Hydro over Electro, so it’ll almost always absorb Hydro, meaning it likely won’t help your Flins’ ER requirements ~88%

Zhongli: B

Brain off. Zhongli isn’t very good in this slot, but he honestly never is. The main reason to use Zhongli is to have an unconditional fairly strong shield. ~86%

The Rest

Chevreuse: F~SS

When enemies have innate Hydro auras, you don’t need to have a Hydro character on the team to trigger Lunar-Charged. In those cases, Chevreuse teams become significantly stronger than any of his other teams. Outside of Hydro-infused enemies, Overload Flins is not very good, but still better than very old characters like Keqing.

%Premium VS normal enemy: ~65% VS Hydro aura enemy: ~150%

Gameplay & Talents

Lunar-Charged

When Flins is on the team, Electro-Charged reactions are converted to Lunar-Charged. Upon triggering Lunar-Charged, you generate a thundercloud on the field, which provides you with 2 main benefits. First, it deals damage to enemies affected by Hydro and Electro. Second, it enables certain Lunar-Charged characters’ abilities. For example, Flins’ burst deals an additional instance of damage when there’s a thundercloud on the field.

The Reaction

Lunar-Charged shares some similarities with Electro-Charged. It allows an Electro and a Hydro aura to coexist on enemies, and those auras get partly consumed at set intervals to deal Electro damage. However, there are also many differences. Electro-Charged damage is triggered every second, but certain conditions can allow it to be triggered slightly faster. It only scales with your character’s level and EM, and deals damage when it’s triggered, even if the aura doesn’t make it onto the enemy, based on the stats of the last character to have applied either Hydro or Electro. Lunar-Charged, however, is triggered at most every 2 seconds, with no ways to make a tick happen earlier. It scales with the same stats as Electro-Charged, although its EM scaling is worse, but also has the ability to CRIT. The damage of Lunar-Charged, unlike Electro-Charged and every other reaction in

the game, actually scales with the stats of every character that applied Hydro or Electro. It calculates the damage of each contributor individually. Once the individual contribution has been calculated, it then halves the second highest contribution, and divides all others by 12, then adds them up. In other words, the highest trigger’s damage is fully accounted for, the second highest is halved, but still relevant, and additional contributors are incredibly insignificant. It also doesn’t deal damage itself, but rather creates the thundercloud, which only deals its damage when both auras are present on enemies. This means triggering Lunar-Charged in a Dendro team can often create the thundercloud without actually allowing that thundercloud to deal damage. Since many of Flins’ optimal teammates buff EM, and he favors CRIT stats wherever they’re available, on top of his passives, weapons and sets also providing you with these stats, he is generally the highest contributor to the Lunar-Charged reaction damage. The second highest is then generally Ineffa, and the Hydro character is the third, making their stats fairly insignificant. However, Flins does not have full uptime, so some procs will disregard his stats altogether, which allows your Hydro character’s stats to matter a bit more. Also, if your Hydro character is an EM scaler like Aino, they can have partial second ownership instead of Ineffa. Overall, this Lunar-Charged damage generally represents around 20% of your team DPS. Since Lunar-Charged only ticks every 2 seconds, and only consumes a fairly small amount of aura on each tick, it does not benefit from your Hydro application being fast. A basic 1 unit of Hydro allows for 2 ticks, meaning that as long as Hydro is reapplied within 4 seconds, before the third tick would happen, you won’t lose any uptime on the reaction. This allows slower Hydro applicators to still have more than enough application for Flins’ teams, although you do need some form of off-field application to properly enable him.

The Talent

Abilities can deal Lunar-Charged damage directly. Lunar-Charged damage dealt through these abilities is completely independent from the Lunar-Charged reaction damage, but is often conditional on the presence of a thundercloud, which stays present for 8 seconds after triggering Lunar-Charged. This damage, which will be referred to as Lunar-Charged talent damage, is calculated slightly differently from most other sources of damage. Instead of being increased by sources of DMG% like Electro DMG%, it is increased only by Lunar-Charged damage increases. However, this also includes the Lunar-Charged damage increase from EM. This makes Lunar-Charged damage scale with the same stats as Vaporize and Melt reactions, except DMG%. Another property it shares with those reactions is that its damage is multiplied, although the multiplier is 3, as opposed to 1.5 or

2. Unlike most other sources of damage, it can also bypass enemy DEF. Since the DEF

multiplier is generally around 0.45 in most endgame content, this effectively multiplies the damage by 2 again. All things considered, Lunar-Charged talent damage generally ends up outputting about as much actual damage as normal talent damage that is 1 digit higher. In other words, Flins’ ~300% Lunar-Charged scaling on his mini-burst is fairly similar to a ~3000% normal scaling. Maintaining enough thundercloud uptime for Flins’ burst to always get the additional hit is paramount, but specific rotations can allow this to happen without any off-field Hydro, if you’re willing to accept the loss of Lunar-Charged reaction damage.

Moonsigns

The amount of Nod-Krai characters on your team decides your Moonsign. 1 Nod-Krai character means Nascent Gleam, and 2 or more means Ascendant Gleam. Since the additional hit from the mini-burst is conditional on your Moonsign being Ascendant, using Flins with another Nod-Krai character is necessary. Ascendant Gleam also provides other bonuses. When characters that aren’t from Nod-Krai use abilities in Ascendant Gleam, your Lunar reaction damage is increased based on their stats, up to 36%. This is additive with the EM multiplier, so it isn’t necessary to max it out, but it allows for non-Nod-Krai characters to have a nice upside. The Nod-Krai artifact sets also both provide larger bonuses in Ascendant Gleam, with the carry set providing 30% CRIT rate, and the support set providing a 120 EM buff. Flins also directly gets 20% Lunar-Charged damage from one of his talents.

Talent Usage & Combos

Flins’ gameplay loop is focused on using his skill to enter a special stance, then using a special skill during that stance to change his burst into the mini-burst, which consumes significantly less energy but deals almost as much damage. This special skill has a 6s cooldown, which can’t be reduced by cooldown reduction effects. Those effects will instead apply to the base skill cooldown. During this cooldown, as long as he’s still in the special stance, he will be able to attack enemies with Electro-infused normal attacks. The damage of those attacks is fairly inconsequential, but Flins’ particle generation is tied to using those attacks instead of using the skill itself, making it important to still hit enemies despite the low damage.

Skill

Flins’ skill Ancient Rite: Arcane Light switches him to the Manifest Flame form for 10 seconds. In this form, his attacks are infused with Electro, and he gains access to another

Elemental Skill, Northland Spearstorm. Northland Spearstorm deals low damage, but using it converts his burst to Thunderous Symphony , which will be referred to as the mini-burst. Northland Storm ’s 6s cooldown means you will only be able to use it twice per Manifest Flame , but the timing will be quite lenient. During Manifest Flame , normal attacks generate an Electro particle, with a 2s cooldown. This means you’ll generally spend between 6 to 10 seconds using those Electro normal attacks between mini-bursts, and you’ll generate 3 to 5 particles that way. Flins can’t use plunge attacks during this form, but since plunge attacks don’t scale with the EM he wants to build for his Lunar-Charged damage, this doesn’t really matter. He also gets resistance to interruption.

Mini-Burst

Twice per rotation, Flins can use his mini-burst Thunderous Symphony. For 30 energy, he deals Lunar-Charged damage based on ~300% of his ATK. This is his main source of damage, and generally represents around half of your team’s total DPS. Since Flins can store up to 80 energy because of the 80 energy cost of his normal burst, Flins has a bit more flexibility in his energy requirements than most characters. Since Spiral Abyss allows you to start with full energy, even if his ER is lower than his actual ER requirements, it can take quite a few rotations until you actually run out of energy. Even outside of Spiral Abyss, like in Stygian Onslaught, enemies often have high resistance or invulnerability phases, during which you can store energy without using his mini-burst for future rotations. On the other hand, in situations where you generate more energy than you need, you can swap out of Flins immediately after the second mini-burst, provided you have something else you could be doing.

Big Burst

Another option available to you when you generate more energy than necessary is to use Flins’ normal burst Ancient Ritual: Cometh the Night. For 80 energy, he deals Lunar-Charged damage based on ~300% of his attack. He technically also does normal talent damage with his big burst, but it is fairly insignificant. Since it has almost the same scaling as the mini-burst, his big burst is significantly worse. That does not mean that Flins’ big burst is never worth using, however, unlike a character like Varesa. Varesa rotations often allow for 3 enhanced skills, which could allow for 3 mini-bursts, but the team’s energy generation is low enough that you would have to go out of your way to generate energy up to 90, let alone over it. Because of that, Varesa’s rotations generally use 2 mini-bursts, with extra energy allowing a third mini-burst when available. Flins, however, does not have a way to use a third mini-burst because, unlike Varesa, he can’t use

his mini-burst outside of opportunities gated by his skill cooldown. This means that extra energy simply gets stocked up until it’s full. Once it is, you can simply open Flins’ rotation with the big burst instead of the mini-burst. Since the big burst is a much less efficient way to convert energy to damage than the mini-burst, additional sources of energy on him aren’t as good as they are on Varesa, but they are better than on characters that only have 1 option for their burst. However, in order to actually unlock the ability to use the big burst without losing a mini-burst, you will need to generate the 60 energy needed for 2 mini-bursts within his uptime window, rather than within your whole rotation including setup. This means that having slightly more ER than necessary isn’t actually enough to allow the big burst. This creates a situation where energy past his default ER requirements is useless until it reaches the energy breakpoint to generate 60 energy within his uptime. The default breakpoint with Ineffa hovers around 175%, but goes down if he uses a weapon that generates energy. Kitain Cross Spear and his signature weapon Bloodsoaked Ruins have this breakpoint at around 140%, and Favonius Lance has the breakpoint low enough to be trivial. More details on energy will be discussed in the build section.

Combos

By default, Flins’ combos involve using his skill twice and a mini-burst, then attacking until the skill cooldown is back, then using skill and mini-burst again. However, as long as you use the first skill to enter the Manifest Flame form, it isn’t necessary to immediately use the special skill. Since Flins’ energy generation is tied to his normal attacks, using at least one to put the effect on cooldown before the special skill allows you to generate a bit more energy. In rotations that use his big burst, you will generally want to use the big burst after entering the Manifest Flame form and before the first special skill, ideally after the first normal attack to get that extra particle. Using the big burst before your skill means your skill cooldown starts about 2 seconds later, which will delay the start of your next rotation by about 2 seconds. During Manifest Flame , as long as his special skill is on cooldown, the time window to use the mini-burst won’t end. This means that, even if you don’t have enough energy to use the mini-burst yet, there’s no reason not to use the skill. Flins also maintains the ability to use a mini-burst even after Manifest Flame expires, as long as it hasn’t been 6 seconds since your last special skill, meaning that if your energy generation goes wrong, you can stay on him for a bit longer and still get your mini-burst.

Default combo: E N1 E Q (N) E Q (N) Big burst combo: E N1 Q N1 E (N) Q (N) E (N) Q (N)

Rotations

Flins deals almost all of his damage with his mini-burst. As such, the main goal of teams built around him should be to buff those mini-bursts as much as possible, and use them as often as possible.

Cooldowns

Flins’ skill cooldown is 16 seconds. Since his premium supports are mainly Ineffa and Sucrose, and both of those characters can be used in 16 second rotations, it’s generally recommended to try to actually execute your rotations in 16 seconds. Characters with longer cooldowns will extend the rotations unless you accept using their longer cooldown abilities only every other rotation. This means that a character like Furina, with her 20 second skill cooldown and 30 second duration, will perform better if you only use her skill every other rotation. Characters with a long skill cooldown that don’t have a long duration, like Barbara, will instead become reliant on Sacrificial weapons, where you’ll use their skill only once, and the cooldown-reset effect will allow you to use it again 16 seconds later. Since Sacrificial weapons have a cooldown that depends on their refinement level, it means those Sacrificial-reliant characters will only function when your Sacrificial weapon refinement is high enough to allow it to trigger every 16 second rotation, which is only possible at R5.

Buffs

Flins’ special skill Northland Spearstorm has a 6 second cooldown. If you add the animation time for the normal skill, and for the mini-burst, it means the shortest amount of time between swapping into Flins and getting the damage from his second mini-burst is around 8 seconds. However, due to his combo flexibility, he will often use the second mini-burst later than that. Because of this, it’s generally recommended to use buffs that don’t expire until around 10 seconds after Flins can be swapped in. Since VV lasts for 10 seconds, this means you will generally want to swap directly from your buff slot to Flins, meaning you ideally want to use Electro and Hydro characters that have quite long uptime if they have buffs. This is the main reason Sara isn’t particularly good. Sara’s buff lasts for 6 seconds, and, in order to activate it, you need to swap directly from her to Flins. This forces lower VV uptime, but it also only allows the first mini-burst to be buffed. Since Sara’s buff gets refreshed on each hit of her burst, and her burst lingers on field for about 2 seconds, there may be rotations that allow the second mini-burst to retain Sara’s buff from her burst, but this will require very specific timing, and good ping.

Generally, you want to use your 10s duration buffs right before Flins, your 12s duration buffs right before the 10s ones, and whatever else at the very beginning. This means your general rotations will open with your battery slot, then the Hydro slot, then the buff slot, then Flins.

Premium

(Q) E EQ E Combo

Furina

E (Q) E E Combo (Q) E E Combo

Sara

E EQ E (Q) or (CA) Combo

Build

Stat Priority

The most important stat for Flins is ER. This is actually the case for almost every character in the game. However, ER is only the most important stat until you reach your ER requirements, after which it is much less valuable. In Flins’ case, however, he has 2 different ER requirements. The first is the ER required to generate 60 energy throughout each rotation. The second is the ER required to generate that same 60 energy, but within his uptime. If you reach the second ER requirement, you unlock the ability to use the big burst when your energy is full, because it won’t cost you a mini-burst later on. As a general rule, going out of your way to reach the second ER requirement isn’t particularly important. However, since ER above the first requirement is wasted unless it reaches the second, as the extra energy can’t be converted to damage, it means that extra ER rolls in your substats can only be converted to damage if you go out of your way to reach the second requirement, and, if you’re only slightly below this second requirement, then going out of your way to reach it becomes important. In other words, in the premium teams where the basic ER requirement is ~125%, and the extra ER requirement is ~175%, you don’t really care about getting an extra 10-15% ER from substats, but if you have that extra 10-15% on each artifact, it circles back to being useful. When energy is converted to extra damage through the extra ER requirement, it makes a roll of ER about as valuable as a roll of ATK%. However, if you’re already at 160% somehow, then getting an extra 15% ER will retroactively also activate the extra damage from the 35% over the basic requirement you already had. This means that the extra ER rolls can be worth completely nothing, or way more than they should, depending on your specific breakpoints.

Outside of energy, Flins’ favorite stat is CRIT. After CRIT and ER, all that’s left is ATK and EM. Because of the formula for reactions, EM is very valuable at the beginning, but gets much worse once you already have a lot. Since Flins gets EM from his own kit, from Ineffa, from Sucrose, from the Nod-Krai set, and from additional optional buffs, he generally starts with enough to make it less valuable than attack through his gear. You can also get Lunar-Charged damage, which is equivalent to EM, but since it’s simply added onto the EM multiplier, its value doesn’t diminish as much at high EM.

His overall priority is as follows:

1. ER until basic requirement

2. ER if you’re close to extra requirement already

3. CRIT

4. ATK%

5. Lunar-Charged%

6. ER that gets you to extra requirement when you’re not already close (aka ER Sands)

7. EM

8. ER that goes above the extra requirement

9. Flat ATK

10. ER that doesn’t get you to extra requirement

Weapons

Prospector’s Shovel

Prospector’s Shovel doesn’t give Flins the stats he loves, but it gives him an obscene amount of the stats he likes. The amount of stats provided by R5 prospector’s Shovel is so high that it’s actually very similar in damage output to an R1 battle pass weapon, despite those weapons providing CRIT and Flins using the stats provided by their passives. This weapon is the base weapon assumed in every situation where the weapon isn’t specified.

Bloodsoaked Ruins

Flins’ signature provides him with energy, CRIT, and Lunar-Charged%. Because the value of the energy depends on your overall statline, its performance varies a lot. If your build is already at the basic ER requirement, the energy refund effect will be completely useless. If you can adjust your build, it can become much better. It generally leads to a basic ER requirement about 25% lower, and an extra ER requirement around 35% lower. Since the basic ER requirement in his default premium team is ~125%, this means you completely remove the basic ER requirement. However, this isn’t as good as it sounds. When you don’t need ER, it means that any ER rolls you’ll naturally get on your artifacts become worthless. Since the stats on your artifacts are affected by RNG, the removal of a useful stat from your pool of substats on each artifact is a significant hit to your artifact quality. Requiring 5 less ER rolls generally means that those rolls can be converted to 3-5 other substat rolls. However, this is only the case when your ER requirements don’t completely disappear, and the amount of useful substats in your pool stays the same. When you remove ER substats from this pool, the 3-5 substat gain generally becomes 1-3 instead. This is where the extra ER requirement kicks in. If you have no good artifacts with ER substats, you can run a 0 ER build, and the weapon allows you to reach the basic ER requirement anyways. If you do have good artifacts with ER substats, you can run a build with ~140% ER, and the weapon allows you to reach the extra ER requirement that way. In other words, the weapon’s energy refund means that you’ll only need 3 ER rolls to convert 40% ER to damage, instead of needing to go all the way to the ~175% extra ER requirement that is default without that refund.

Favonius Lance

Favonius Lance is an abomination. Favonius weapons, as a whole, are not balanced. The sheer amount of energy provided by the effect and substat is single-handedly enough to reach the extra ER requirement. However, this assumes an R5 Favonius Lance. In order to trigger the Windfall effect twice per rotation, its cooldown needs to be below half of your rotation length. With 16 second rotations, this only happens starting at R4, with a 7.5s cooldown. Below R4, with only 1 trigger, the value provided is much lower. Favonius Lance, unlike other weapons, is only good when you use the rotations that allow the big burst. As the weapon that generates the most energy for Flins, and by far at that, it becomes fairly easy to use the big burst every other rotation, which makes up for the lack of basically any offensive stats, and makes it compete in terms of personal damage with the Shovel. Unlike any other weapon, however, Favonius Lance also reduces the ER requirements for the rest of the team, which can allow you to use non-ER weapons on Ineffa and still get her burst every rotation. Because of this, Favonius Lance R4+ is Flins’ best F2P 4 weapon in many scenarios. However, the gap isn’t that large, and Favonius Lance is the best and most contested 4 weapon in the game, meaning you should only consider it if you have many copies already. Since that gap is fairly small, this also means that Favonius Lance is worse against enemies that have shields that don’t allow damage to go through, such as the Tulpa’s shield in the first Stygian Onslaught. Considering these practical issues, despite Favonius Lance being his best F2P 4* weapon, it’s generally not recommended over the alternatives unless you just want a reason to see Flins’ burst animation more often.

Staff of the Scarlet Sands

EM provided by effects that scale with a stat does not get converted to ATK through Staff of the Scarlet Sands’ effect. This means the 160 EM from Flins’ ascension passive, the ~120-200 EM from Ineffa’s ascension passive and the ~140 from Sucrose’s ascension passive all get ignored by this weapon’s effect. Despite that, since Flins still receives a flat amount of EM from his artifact set, the Nod-Krai support set, and his substats, Staff of Scarlet Sands has a useful effect. With this weapon, you also unlock the ability to use EM mainstats instead of ATK% ones. It generally still won’t be better, but it reduces the gap enough to make it a matter of substats. The biggest challenge with this weapon is that the 30% CRIT Rate provided by the Nod-Krai carry set, along with the 5% base CRIT Rate and 44.1% CRIT Rate from the weapon, makes you start above 80% already, which can make it difficult not to overcap.

Deathmatch & Ballad of the Fjords

Deathmatch is a fairly straightforward CRIT stat stick. Ballad of the Fjords has a higher base ATK and lower substat, with a passive that provides a bit more of a stat that Flins likes a bit less. Deathmatch is generally slightly better, but the lower substat on Fjords makes it easier to stay below 100% CRIT. Both weapons are only a very small upgrade at R1 over the craftable, and even at R5, are still less than 10% ahead.

Kitain Cross Spear, Missive Windspear & Tamayuratei no Ohanashi

Since Prospector’s Shovel is a new craftable weapon, it might be difficult to get a R5 copy of it on the first day of Flins’ release. As such, until you get your hands on it, there are other F2P weapons you can use. Missive Windspear R5 is effectively just equivalent to an R3 Shovel, so it’s a fine alternative if you’re low on Billets. Both Kitain and Tamayuratei no Ohanashi are decent weapons that, much like other Energy providers, have variable value depending on your overall stats. That being said, they’re generally slightly worse than the Shovel in their best case scenarios, and noticeably worse in others.

Primordial Jade Winged-Spear

As a weapon available on the Standard banner, any player could end up with one gathering dust. Flins has a very strong F2P weapon, so the PJWS isn’t a particularly significant upgrade, but it is still better. Each refinement on it increases the DPS by ~1.5%, so a high refinement PJWS can be better than non-signature stat sticks.

Skyward Spine

Much like PJWS, Skyward Spine is a Standard weapon. Unlike PJWS, the stats it provides aren’t great on most characters, making it a generally worse weapon. However, in Flins’ case, this weapon can actually be better than his F2P options. It has the same downsides as the other energy weapons, being that the ER stat is only useful at certain breakpoints, but assuming your artifacts get you to those breakpoints, it simply provides more stats than Kitain or the Torch.

Engulfing Lightning

Engulfing Lightning is an ER weapon. However, unlike most other ER weapons, it single-handedly gets you to the extra ER requirement, meaning the ER it provides is never entirely wasted. Because of that, despite not providing any CRIT, it’s still a fairly strong stat stick for Flins.

Staff of Homa

Since Flins’ premium team, by default, doesn’t actually use a healer, and gets its defensive utility through shielding instead, it’s possible to remain under 50% HP if you take some damage early on. When this is possible, Homa becomes his 2nd best weapon. You can even force this to happen very easily if you use Furina in your Hydro slot, because the condition for triggering Furina’s HP consumption is for the HP to be above 50%, but it still consumes its full value if the total after consumption is below 50%. This means you’re effectively guaranteed to end up with ~48% HP.

Artifacts

Flins’ Artifacts Artifact Stats

ATK% or ER EM

ATK% EM CRIT

The most important stat for Flins in artifacts is CRIT. A CRIT mainstat by itself increases his overall DPS by ~25%, whereas the next best mainstat is ATK% at about half that value. Generally, your optimal mainstats will be ATK%/ATK%/CRIT, but due to the saturation of every stat except CRIT, it can sometimes be slightly better to use a different useful mainstat if the substats are much better. While the specifics will vary based on your build, a good shortcut is to convert each useful stat to a DMG increase value. Using EM as the lowest value useful substat, you can assume that each ATK% roll is worth about 2 EM rolls, and each CRIT roll is worth 4. An ATK mainstat is worth about 21,

and an EM mainstat is worth about 9. This means an EM sands or goblet with 5 CRIT rolls is a damage increase equivalent to around 29 EM rolls. An ATK sands or goblet with 1 CRIT roll and 2 EM rolls would be worth 27 EM rolls, making it slightly worse despite the better mainstat. As you can see, however, the difference in quality needs to be very high for the suboptimal mainstats to win. This does not account for ER requirements. Because ER requirements are variable, and because Flins has both a basic ER requirement and an extra one that enables the big burst, it is very difficult to properly compare the two. However, since the extra ER requirement in Flins’ premium teams is around 50% higher than the basic one, and since an ER sands provides 51.8%, it becomes fairly easy to evaluate a basic ER requirement Flins with an ATK% sands versus an extra ER requirement Flins with an ER one. Since this extra ER only comes at the cost of ATK%, rather than the potential CRIT rolls you could lose getting it from substats, there’s actually an incredibly small difference between the two. Since Flins’ big burst playstyle is slightly harder to play, and the damage is distributed throughout more different hits, with the big burst itself having the downside of missing enemies very easily because of its bad AoE, an ATK sands is still generally preferable. However, the very small difference between the two means that those who get a very good ER sands while farming for Flins will be able to use it. The main reason why EM mainstats and substats are fairly inconsequential is the oversaturation of them. This is a result of Flins’ premium teammates providing a lot of EM, but it also means that if you decide to play him in different teams, EM can become a bit more valuable. Artifact Sets

Artifact Set Description

%Night of the Sky’s Unveiling Team DPS Personal DPS

Night of the Sky’s Unveiling

This set only provides stats that Flins wants. However, the EM saturation means that both the 80 EM from the 2p effect, and the 10% Lunar-Charged% from the 4p effect, aren’t all that impactful. It also provides less CRIT Rate than the signature sets from both Fontaine and Natlan. Despite that, it is still his best artifact set, but the difference is a bit lower than the difference between signature set and alternatives on characters from Natlan and Fontaine.

100% 100%

Maréchaussée Hunter

Maréchaussée Hunter is actually Flins’ best set for personal DPS, but is slightly worse for team DPS because it doesn’t buff the team’s Lunar-Charged%. However, there are some major roadblocks for this set. Since the most important members of his premium teams are Ineffa and Sucrose, it’s impossible to actually enable MH’s CRIT effect, because consuming HP is reliant on Furina, and Furina’s healing mode is so bad it might as well not exist. This means that, once your HP reaches <50%, it will stay there, and you won’t be able to gain stats from MH anymore. Maréchaussée could be good in future teams if we get a Sucrose alternative that provides healing, but this is still assuming you keep Furina to enable the set, which relies on the Hydro slot option not getting any upgrades, as Furina is only a viable option because of the laughably low competition for the slot.

~99% ~100.2%

Thundering Fury

Flins’ special skill Northland Spearstorm has a fixed cooldown that can’t be reduced. However, his actual skill Ancient Rite: Arcane Light does not share this property. This means its cooldown can be reduced with cooldown reduction effects like the 4p effect from Thundering Fury. This gives you 3 options.

1. Don’t do anything with this cooldown reduction. If this is what you do, all that you gain from the set is the DMG% and Lunar-Charged%, which makes it fairly similar to a 2p2p.

2. Use the skill again right after your Manifest Flame form expires. This is basically never more DPS, but it allows you to quickly kill an enemy if they’re already low HP, which provides you with some gameplay flexibility. This doesn’t translate to the set calculating higher, but it is an actual upside.

3. Change your rotations. You can either try to do a longer rotation with 2 skills to fully capitalize on the effect, but those longer rotations generally have worse uptime on buffs, and much higher ER requirements, or you can simply use the effect to effectively remove the rotation length lower limit of 16 seconds. When playing Flins with teammates that have low field time and allow for shorter rotations like Sucrose in the buff slot, and Aino or Furina in the Hydro slot, it can be possible to do rotations lower than 16 seconds. However, Ineffa’s skill cooldown is 16 seconds. This means that those <16s rotations must give up on shield uptime on Ineffa, and instead alternate the usage of her skill and burst on each rotation. That being said, it isn’t as though you can just do 3 second rotations. You will still have a lower limit dictated by Flins’ special skill cooldown and animation time, as well as your setup time, and potentially Aino’s burst cooldown. This means that the cooldown reduction effect from TF will generally only lead to a ~2s reduction in rotation length. This 2 second reduction also means a bit less particle generation, which can slightly increase Flins’ ER requirements. This effect is quite powerful, as a reduction in rotation length is an amazing way to increase your DPS. However, it isn’t quite enough to make TF compete with Flins’ signature set unless the reduction in

Same rotation length: ~87%

Same rotation length: ~82%

rotation length exceeds 3 seconds, which will only be possible in specific scenarios, and using Furina. It’s also important to remember that if the rotation length lower limit becomes too low, it becomes better to swap out of Flins before his Manifest Flame form expires, which will lead to even lower particle generation, and higher ER requirements.

14s rotation: ~96%

14s rotation: ~94%

Gilded Dreams

Gilded dreams provides useful stats, but Flins’ EM saturation makes it fairly weak compared to other sets. This is one of your options while farming for his signature set.

~89% ~85%

2p2p ATK or EM

2p2p is effectively a slightly worse 4p Gilded. It has the same purpose, which is to be a placeholder until you get his set. ~88%^ ~83%

Team’s Artifacts It’s very easy to get confused about which sets are best on each unit in Flins’ teams. Outside of Anemo units whose set is basically set in stone, it’s very easy to find an account where a suboptimal set will perform better. As a general rule, support sets tend to outperform damage sets on everyone except Flins himself. However, different support sets can be viable based on the situation, and the same can be said for some damage sets. Your best performing combination generally heavily depends on the quality of each of your sets.

Viridescent Venerer

This set, by itself, represents a 25-30% team DPS increase. It is impossible to have a different set perform better than VV, no matter what the artifact quality is. A VV set with the wrong mainstats is significantly better than any other set, even if you could choose the perfect substats.

Silken Moon’s Serenade

The new Nod-Krai support set is good. However, the stats it provides are already fairly saturated. This means that, despite it always being part of the theoretical optimal team setup, you might prefer using a different set until you get a fairly good one. The support effect increases your team DPS by around 9%. This is always better than the alternatives for your Hydro slot, but a good set of an alternative might be better than a bad Serenade on Hydro characters that have their own personal damage like Yelan. That being said, if your Hydro slot is a character with fairly low damage like Aino or Candace, you will generally want to use this set on them. It can also be used on Ineffa or other battery slots. Since it’s obtained from the same domain as Flins’ best set, you will eventually have a fairly good Serenade. This means that, unless you’ve farmed for a very good damage-focused or ToM set already, the long-term goal for your artifact set distribution should be Serenade on Ineffa, and Noblesse/ToM on your Hydro slot.

Tenacity of the Millelith

A 20% ATK% buff is equivalent to about a 5% team DPS increase. The biggest downside to ToM is that only characters with off-field skill damage can maintain good uptime on it. However, Ineffa just so happens to be one of those. Since Ineffa’s personal DMG set options aren’t very strong, with her best one giving about 14% personal DPS, and since the ToM buff applies to her own damage, it means you’re trading the option for 9% more personal DPS on Ineffa for 5% more DPS on Flins. This tradeoff is generally worth it, but the difference is small enough to allow for both possibilities. Since the 2p effect from ToM does nothing for Ineffa, if your Hydro slot can use ToM, you’d rather give Ineffa the Serenade set so she can benefit from the ER 2p. The shield strength effect from ToM doesn’t help offensively, but it does make the team more comfortable to play, which means that you can also consider a 4p ToM as your long-term goal for Ineffa if your Hydro slot can’t use it.

Noblesse Oblige

Unlike ToM, Noblesse will generally not have 100% uptime. The 12s duration means that, by default, Ineffa likely won’t be able to have more than 75% uptime. Flins, however, can still have full uptime on this set as long as your rotations don’t activate it too early. This means the set is generally a 5% DPS increase for Flins, and a bit less than that for Ineffa. Noblesse can be equipped either on Ineffa herself, if your stats on it are very good, or on the Hydro option. On Ineffa, the comparison is effectively the same as ToM, but only when you use Ineffa’s burst every rotation, and you don’t get the added bonus of the shield strength. On your Hydro characters, you generally have decent damage-focused sets, but those characters themselves deal much less damage in Flins’ teams than in other teams. For example, while Emblem on Yelan increases her damage by ~25%, since her damage is only a small portion of the team DPS, it only leads to ~3% more team DPS. This means you need your emblem set to have quite a few more substats than your Noblesse for it to be better.

Scrolls of the Hero of Cinder City

Flins doesn’t really like DMG%. However because he doesn’t obtain any from his optimal teams and gear, it’s not saturated at all. While DMG% is still noticeably worse than the other stats you want on Flins, 40% is a very large amount of DMG%. Because of that, when using a Natlan character in Flins’ teams, Scrolls is actually generally around the same ~5% team DPS increase as the ATK buffing sets, if not slightly higher. On non-Natlan characters, Scrolls is a 1-2% team DPS increase, making it pretty inconsequential.

Instructor

Since Instructor provides the same amount of EM as Serenade in Ascendant Gleam, and you’re always in Ascendant Gleam on Flins’ teams, Instructor isn’t very good. Despite that, if you’re using a Hydro slot that doesn’t need good stats themselves, Instructor is a viable option that increases your other characters’ DPS by ~4%, but decreases the wearer’s DPS due to it being a 4* set.

Talents and Investment Priority

Flins’ damage is split across 3 main sources. His burst Lunar-Charged damage, which scales with burst talent levels, ATK, EM and CRIT. His skill and normal attacks, which scale with skill talent levels, ATK, Electro DMG% and CRIT. Finally, his Lunar-Charged reaction damage, which scales with level, EM and CRIT. Since his burst is the large majority of his damage, focusing your investment in stats related to the burst is generally recommended. That being said, since the return on investment for the reaction damage’s level scaling is very good, it’s also worth leveling him up all the way, and since early talent levels are incredibly cheap, the return on investment there is good too. Here’s the general recommendation for Flins’ investment priority:

1. Minimum investment. Get him to level 60/70, talent levels 1/6/6, on a 2p2p or other set you already own of your choice, with a level 90 weapon.

2. Basic artifact farming. Farm his signature set until you have at the very least the right mainstats everywhere. This step should be skipped if your 2p2p set already has around 20 useful substat rolls or more, or if your rainbow no set bonus artifacts have 25 useful substat rolls or more.

3. Basic leveling. Get him to Ascension 6 (80/90), get his burst talent to 10 (or 9 if you want to keep your crowns). If you have an unleveled weapon that is better than your current one, now’s the time to level it.

4. Normal artifact farming. Farm his signature set until you have at least 4 useful rolls on each piece. You’ll be aiming for around 28-30 useful rolls, but it’s good to also aim for individual pieces, since getting lucky on a goblet, for example, doesn’t change the odds of you getting an upgrade through a flower with better stats. The circlet can be kept at 3 if the rest is good enough for this step.

5. Final leveling. Get him to level 90, get his skill talent leveled up to however much you’re willing to for the fairly high Mora cost.

6. Take a break! At this point, it’s generally more resin-efficient to farm for upgrades on the rest of your team, unless they’ve already been brought to a similar level of investment.

7. Back to the mines we go. Set up camp in his domain until you’re satisfied.

Damage & Stat Targets

Prospector’s Shovel R5, C0, Ineffa, Sucrose with TTDS active, Aino C1

KQM Standard Top 1% Estimation Stat Sheet In Combat Stat Sheet In Combat ATK 2451 3037 2494 3080 EM 280 836 280 836 CR 59.8% 89.8% 68.1% 98.1% CD 179.6% 179.6% 196.1% 196.1% ER 127.5% 127.5% 125% 125%

Thunderous Symphony 1st hit

Average Non-CRIT CRIT Average Non-CRIT CRIT 172000 66000 184000 195000 67000 198000 Thunderous Symphony 2nd hit

Average Non-CRIT CRIT Average Non-CRIT CRIT 251000 96000 268000 285000 97000 288000

Bloodsoaked Ruins R1, C0, Ineffa, Sucrose with TTDS active, Aino C1

KQM Standard Top 1% Estimation Stat Sheet In Combat Stat Sheet In Combat

ATK 2530 3228 2530 3228 EM 280 836 280 836 CR 70.0% 100.0% 70.0% 100.0% CD 210.0% 238.0% 243.0% 271.0% ER 111.0% 111.0% 111.0% 111.0%

Thunderous Symphony 1st hit

CRIT CRIT 230000 252000 Thunderous Symphony 2nd hit

CRIT CRIT 334000 367000

Prospector’s Shovel R5, C0, Kuki, Sucrose, Aino C1

KQM Standard Top 1% Estimation Stat Sheet In Combat Stat Sheet In Combat ATK 2451 3037 2494 3080 EM 280 690 280 690 CR 59.8% 89.8% 68.1% 98.1% CD 179.6% 179.6% 196.1% 196.1% ER 127.5% 127.5% 125% 125% Thunderous Symphony 1st hit

Average Non-CRIT CRIT Average Non-CRIT CRIT 144000 55000 154000 164000 56000 166000 Thunderous Symphony 2nd hit

Average Non-CRIT CRIT Average Non-CRIT CRIT 210000 80000 225000 238000 82000 242000

Jotaro’s Corner (For Whales)

Priority

Just in terms of DPS upgrade per Primogem spent, Flins’ signature weapon is fairly unremarkable. The main reason for this is that for players that will invest vertically in Flins’ teams, the big burst becomes much less valuable, which means that the extra energy provided by the weapon is also a bit less versatile. While the increase over the Shovel is fairly similar to the increase from C1, most players considering Flins’ signature weapon already have at least 1 5 polearm. Unfortunately, the increase from the generic 5 stat stick to his signature is less than either his C1 or his C2. It’s actually fairly similar to the increase from Ineffa’s C1 or R1. Flins’ middle constellations are fairly weak, but his C6 makes up for it. If you’re not planning on going all the way to C6, it’s better to stop at C2, and use extra primogems on either Ineffa’s C1 or R1, Flins’ signature weapon or his C3. However, you can also hold on to them in anticipation of Columbina’s potential role in the Hydro slot.

Constellations

Flins’ Constellations

Description %Increase to team DPS

C1

Allows Flins to use 3 mini bursts per rotation instead of 2. However, this isn’t necessarily equivalent to 50% more mini burst damage. The increase in energy cost from using 90 energy instead of 60 is mostly alleviated by the additional 24 energy, but since this extra energy isn’t affected by ER, it increases his ER requirements by around 10-15%, since you’ll need to generate 66 energy instead of 60. It also increases the minimum amount of time spent on Flins, since waiting out a 4s cooldown twice is 8 seconds, as opposed to a 6s cooldown once. Additionally, C1 makes it harder to fit the big burst into a rotation, since the extra animation length might make it difficult to get your third Northland Spearstorm before Manifest Flame is over. At C1, you will rarely if ever use the big burst, which means the increase from this constellation can be lower than the one stated here if your specific team and build allows you to use it.

~20-25%

C2

Adds damage to each individual mini burst, by enabling the next hit to deal some extra Lunar-Charged damage. This damage is around 15% of one mini burst. Since the trigger condition is the Northland Spearstorm special skill and not the mini burst, you can decide to use this either before or after the mini burst, which allows you a bit more flexibility in your damage profile. In other words, you can finish off a low HP enemy with the C2 proc and use the mini burst on the next wave. Additionally, you gain RES reduction, which increases both Flins and Ineffa’s damage. This RES reduction is fairly nice in Flins’ default premium teams, but it also finally provides him with some shred outside of the buff slot. Thanks to that, the non-shredder buff slot options become much more appealing, especially ones that provide the healing Flins’ teams often lack such as Bennett.

~20-25%

C3

Adds damage to each individual mini burst just like the C2, and the damage added is around the same as the C2, but without the flexibility or the added RES reduction. C3 is the first constellation that is likely to be less impactful than your alternatives, whether they be the signature or good constellations/signatures on support characters.

~10%

C4 Just a bundle of stats. The amount of stats provided is fairly small, so the increase will be fairly small as well. ~7%

C5

Garbage. Not only is it a constellation that increases the talent that represents an incredibly small portion of his damage, but previous constellations already shift his personal damage distribution even more towards the mini burst.

~1%

C6

This is a simple x1.45 to his Lunar-Charged damage, and x1.1 to Ineffa’s. In terms of a %increase per primogem spent, it is much less effective than his first two constellations, because C3-C5 aren’t amazing. However, if you are willing to spend a lot of wishes on his banner, the best damage you’ll get for obtaining 6 extra 5 copies is by getting his C6 instead of looking at signatures or support constellations. This assumes you have a 5 CRIT stat stick for him. However, since the value provided by wishing for constellations past 2 is mostly unrealized until the C6 is obtained, it’s generally better to stick to alternatives if you don’t have enough primogems to guarantee it.

~35%

Team’s Constellations & Weapons

Description %Increase to team DPS

Bloodsoaked Ruins Refinements

Signature weapon refinements are generally a last step for vertical investment. In Flins’ case, since Ineffa’s middle constellations are very weak, it’s reasonable to go for Bloodsoaked refinements after Ineffa early constellations.

~3-4%

Ineffa C1

Very straightforward 50% Lunar-Charged%. With the large amount of Lunar-Charged% Flins already has, this generally represents about a 10% increase. Less valuable than Flins’ first 2 constellations, but a good consideration after them, competing with R1 signature.

~10%

Ineffa C2

Ineffa’s C2 is a fairly large amount of frontloaded Lunar-Charged motion value. However, other sources of vertical investment in Flins’ teams focus mostly on improving his own personal damage. As such, Ineffa’s C2 can be much less valuable when Flins’ own constellation is high.

~5-10%

Ineffa C3 Dogshit <1%

Ineffa C4

Its value depends on your overall setup, but it generally allows you to simply completely ignore ER requirements on Ineffa. Much like her C2, that’s only really impactful for her personal damage, which doesn’t scale that well with other sources of vertical investment.

~4-6%

Ineffa C5 Dogshit also <1%

Ineffa C6

Basically just doubles the effectiveness of her ascension 1 passive. It has the same problem as C2 and C4, but actually provides a much larger increase to Ineffa’s damage, making it a bit better.

~10-20%

Fractured Halo Basically the same as Ineffa’s C1. It can be a bit less valuable if your Ineffa weapon is already good. ~10%

Key of Khaj-Nisut

Better than a signature refinement, but only applies to teams that use a character that can equip this. Since the Furina teams have a few problems, this is generally not recommended

~5%

Xilonen C2 Xilonen’s C2 decreases Ineffa’s ER requirements. It can also ~10% (~5% without big

reduce Flins’ ER requirements, but it won’t necessarily be impactful. It’s fairly easy to reach his basic ER requirement, so it’s very possible your best offensive set already has enough ER. If that’s the case, Xilonen’s C2 doesn’t help. Since the additional energy provided by C2 is obtained during your setup, it can’t be used to enable Flins’ big burst unless you are already at his extra ER requirement. In other words, it’ll only lead to more bursts if your ER meets the extra ER requirement. Additionally, Xilonen is at a baseline not the best buff slot for Flins, meaning she’s still generally slightly worse than Sucrose even at C2. You should think of this constellation as a way to make use of the C2 Xilonen you already have, and not as a way to vertically invest into Flins’ teams.

burst playstyle)

FAQ

Do I need Ineffa?

Ineffa is generally a ~20% increase over the strongest alternatives offensively, but this increase goes up to ~30% if she is instead replacing a character that provides defensive utility. This means she provides varying value, that is generally fairly similar to Flins’ early constellations. Flins’ power level in the premium team with Ineffa is in line with the upper half of Natlan carries, like Varesa. In teams that don’t use Ineffa, he’s generally slightly below the lower half of Natlan carries, like Kinich or Chasca. Slightly below Kinich or Chasca isn’t bad. It’s still more than enough to clear favorable bosses in Fearless Stygian Onslaught. That being said, reaching the DPS requirements for Dire without Ineffa or constellations or signature weapons is likely not something he will be able to do. If you didn’t get Ineffa and love Flins, you can achieve similar results with Flins C1 in a non-Ineffa team, so it isn’t necessarily going to ruin your experience. Additionally, even without that, his teams will function. If you don’t have Ineffa, the biggest obstacle to

good performance is your reliance on Aino to activate Ascendant Gleam. This means that a low constellation Aino will still have to be played if you don’t have her C6. Since other Hydro slots are generally better than non-C6 Aino, this can increase the gap between Ineffa and non-Ineffa teams even more. Lauma can also be used instead, but Lauma herself has such powerful teams that focus exclusively on bloom reaction damage that it is generally not worth considering. Everything considered, getting your first copy of Ineffa is generally the best way to spend primogems to improve a Flins team, but you aren’t in deep trouble if you missed her banner.

C1 or R1? C2 or R1?

C1 and C2 are always fairly good. R1, on the other hand, is much less valuable if you already have a 5 polearm. The upper limit of value provided by R1 is slightly higher than C1 or C2, but that value can always retroactively diminish if you obtain a 5 polearm later. Since Primordial Jade Winged-Spear is a standard weapon, this means that obtaining it after R1 is very possible. Because of this, banner quality aside, both C1 AND C2 are generally more appealing than R1.

The investment priority is discussed in more detail in the whale part of the guide.

I have Varesa. Should I get Flins?

Varesa and Flins do not share a single teammate in their respective best teams. This means there is nothing stopping you from playing both. However, since both of them are Electro carries, neither will be very good against enemies with high Electro resistance. Additionally, if content requires the presence of Electro-Charged or Lunar-Charged, Varesa’s Furina teams will generally be able to deal with it. For the purpose of getting your account ready for as many lineups of Stygian Onslaught as possible, getting Flins when you already have Varesa isn’t a great idea. For the purpose of getting 2 strong abyss teams, however, it’s completely fine to use both.

How much ER do I need on Ineffa?

Ineffa’s burst is worth using. However, because Ineffa represents a significant portion of your team DPS, it isn’t worth sacrificing a lot of damage stats for ER. Ineffa’s ER requirement to use burst every rotation is around 165%. It goes down to ~120% with Kitain or ~140% with Favonius. However, it’s completely acceptable to be below the ER requirements, and just use burst every other rotation. If your Flins build has very low ER, using Favonius Lance on Ineffa can help fix that problem, and since the weapon gives 30% ER itself, you’ll generally use Ineffa’s burst every rotation. Otherwise, the team DPS with burst every rotation on ER sands is about the same as burst every other rotation on ATK sands. The damage with Ineffa on ATK sands on Kitain is similar to ER sands on Shovel or an R1 battle pass weapon. If you have a 5* stat stick for her, it’s generally slightly better to use it, either with ER sands burst every rotation or ATK sands burst every other rotation. If your ATK sands build has high ER from substats, it can be worth sacrificing a bit of offensive stats to actually reach the ER threshold.

Should I aim for Aino constellations?

No. C6 Aino is Flins’ best current Hydro teammate, but it’s less than 1% ahead of other Hydro options. The only reason to aim for Aino constellations is if your main goal is getting Flins constellations or Lauma. Even the C1 for Aino is insignificant.

Is level 90 important?

Not really. Every character benefits in some way from being level 90, but Flins’ damage is mainly done through Lunar-Charged talent damage, which is the only type of damage in the game that doesn’t use the level in any part of its formula. This means the mini burst damage only increases from the 25 extra base ATK from level 80 to 90, which is very small. That being said, the Lunar-Charged reaction damage is still a significant portion of your team DPS, and that damage does scale with levels. In other words, your screenshot numbers from the mini burst at level 80/90 will be the same as 90/90, but the team DPS will be a bit higher through the Lunar-Charged reaction damage. Getting Flins to level 90 is good, but it’s fairly unimportant. Check out the investment priority section for more details.

Is his big burst bad?

Flins’ big burst is weak. However, even a weak ability can be worth using if it doesn’t come at a cost, or if the cost is fairly low. A good way to think about Flins’ burst is that the big burst and mini burst are effectively the same ability. The first two you use are heavily discounted, and cost 30 energy. The third one is at base cost. Despite the mini burst being much better, if your energy economy is very good, it can still be worth additionally using the big one.

Think of it this way: if Fates for Stardust in the Paimon’s Bargains went back to 125 Stardust instead of running out of stock after 5, you’d use all your stardust there, despite it being less efficient.

Check out the Talent section for more details

Credits

Me I made it all :)