Flins Full In-Depth Guide - Burst Electro Main DPS Strategy

Flins Full In-Depth Guide

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Pros & Cons
• Teams
• The Battery Slot
• The Hydro Slot
• The Buff Slot
• The Rest
• Gameplay & Talents
• 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 Distribution
• Jotaro’s Corner (For Whales)
• Constellations
• Flins’ Constellations
• The Rest of Team Constellations & Weapons
• FAQ
• Credits

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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

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.

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.

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, so 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.

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%

The Battery Slot Continuation

The Battery Slot and all related mechanics are central to Flins’ uptime and energy economy. The main goal is to optimize energy generation while preserving Lunar-Charged uptime. The battery choices influence your rotation flexibility and the ability to fit the big burst in optimal windows.

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 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.

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.

Because of that, big Burst rotations are possible only when the energy economy is extremely favorable. The 16s rotation length remains the practical baseline; any rotation shorter than that requires careful planning of buffs and shield uptime.

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. Due to rotation timing, most opt to use long-duration buffs right before Flins; best combos are buffs that last around 10-12 seconds. When you open, you typically start with the battery slot, then Hydro, then buff slot, then Flins.

Premium buffs (Q/E/E/Q) are planned around 16-second windows. Sara’s buffs are shorter (6 seconds) and require precise timing. Timings matter for buff uptime to maximize the first and second mini-bursts.

Build

Stat Priority

The most important stat for Flins is ER. This is true for most characters, but Flins has two ER breakpoints: the basic ER requirement to generate 60 energy per rotation, and the extra ER requirement to generate that 60 energy within his uptime so you can use the big burst at full energy. If you reach the second ER requirement, you unlock the big burst on full energy. In premium teams, typical basic ER requirement is ~125%, with extra ER requirement around ~175%. Extra ER can be worth it if substats provide ED or EM synergy. Outside of ER, CRIT is prioritized first, followed by ATK%, EM, and Lunar-Charged% in that order. EM is valuable early but loses value as EM saturates.

1. ER to meet basic requirement

2. ER if close to extra requirement already

3. CRIT

4. ATK%

5. Lunar-Charged%

6. ER that gets you to extra requirement (ER Sands)

7. EM

8. ER beyond extra requirement

9. Flat ATK

10. ER that doesn’t reach 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 base W gives energy that is comparable to a higher-rarity weapon when considering the overall stat-line. This weapon is the base weapon assumed in most situations where a weapon isn’t specified.

Bloodsoaked Ruins

Flins’ signature provides him with energy, CRIT, and Lunar-Charged%. Because the energy granted depends on the overall statline, its performance varies. It can lower base ER requirements and shrink extra ER needs, but removing ER also reduces the utility of high-ER artifacts. In some builds, it can push ER to ~140% for extra ER turns; in others, its energy refund is less valuable. It can be very good if you can leverage higher ER with it.

Favonius Lance

Favonius Lance is a high-energy weapon that can help you trigger big burst more often in 16s rotations. It’s best for F2P and can be competitive with Shovel when used with big burst rotations. It also reduces ER requirements for the team, enabling other Hydro and Ineffa uses. R4+ is often optimal for a stock roster, but not always the best choice depending on content.

Staff of the Scarlet Sands

This EM-focused weapon ignores EM-to-ATK conversion for its own EM, but it provides a flat EM boost across the team. It enables EM mainstats on the circle and reduces the gap between different mainstat choices. The main drawback is the overall CRIT Rate baseline from Nod-Krai sets; balancing it requires careful stat distribution.

Deathmatch & Ballad of the Fjords

CRIT stat sticks with different base ATK and substats. Deathmatch tends to be slightly better due to its higher base CRIT synergy.

Primordial Jade Winged-Spear

Standard weapon with decent DPS; refinement improves DPS by ~1.5% per rank; good budget option.

Skyward Spine

Standard weapon; not optimal for most, but can be better than F2P options given artifact constraints.

Engulfing Lightning

ER weapon that helps reach the extra ER requirement; lacks CRIT, but its ER is reliable for Flins’ needs.

Staff of Homa

If your Hydro slot lacks healing or shield synergy, Homa becomes valuable; better when you’re low HP and Furina is present to enable HP consumption effects.

Artifacts

Flins’ Artifacts

Artifact Stats, main stats: ATK% or ER, EM, ATK%, EM, CRIT. CRIT mainstat is the most valuable. Generally, ATK%/ATK%/CRIT is ideal, but substats can override mainstats in some cases. EM has value early on but saturates. ER requirements make ATK% substats valuable as well. The difference in substat value can be represented by EM rolls vs CRIT vs ATK. A useful heuristic: each EM mainstat roll is worth about 9 EM points; ATK mainstat about 21; a CRIT mainstat about 4x-5x more valuable than an EM mainstat depending on the stat distribution. ER mainstat is valuable for enabling big bursts.

Artifact Sets

Night of the Sky’s Unveiling (2p EM, 4p Lunar-Charged% not too impactful)

Maréchaussée Hunter (MH) (buffs personal DPS but requires HP consumption; limited uptime due to Furina healing)

Thundering Fury (TF) (reduces cooldown via 4p; leads to shorter rotations but sometimes not worth it)

Gilded Dreams (EM-focused but EM saturation makes it weaker in Flins’ team)

2p2p ATK or EM

Team’s Artifacts (VV, Serenade, ToM, Noblesse, etc.)

ToM, Noblesse, Serenade interplay with Ineffa and Hydro slots. Serenade on Ineffa is often recommended; ToM on Hydro is useful when your Hydro slot can maintain uptime.

Talents and Investment Priority

Flins’ damage is split across three main sources: Lunar-Charged burst damage, skill/normal attacks, and Lunar-Charged reaction damage. Investment priority:

1) Get him to level 60/70 with 2-piece sets and a level 90 weapon.

2) Farm signature set to get right mainstats; aim for ~28-30 useful rolls total.

3) Level him to Ascension 6 (80/90), max burst, etc.

4) Normal artifact farming to get 4 useful rolls per piece; aim for a high total of ~28-30 rolls.

5) Level 90; adjust as needed for resin efficiency.

6) Take a break and farm other team upgrades.

7) Return to the domain for further farming.

Damage Distribution (Key Focus)

• Burst Damage: ~72.7%
• Reaction Damage: ~18.1%
• Electro Damage: ~9.1%

Jotaro’s Corner (For Whales)

Priority and Constellations

• Bloodsoaked Ruins: Signature weapon; ~3-4% team DPS increase once refined; best after Ineffa early constellations.
• Ineffa C1: ~10% increase; C2: ~5-10%; C6: ~10-20% (strong but diminishing returns).
• Ineffa C3-D/C4-D: low value; C5: ~1%;
• Ineffa C6: doubles Ineffa’s ascension 1 passive; ~10-20%
• Fractured Halo: ~10%
• Key of Khaj-Nisut: ~5%
• Xilonen C2: reduces ER; ~10% (depends on ER)

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 replacing a character that provides defensive utility. In premium teams, Ineffa situates Flins in the upper half of Natlan carries like Varesa; without Ineffa, Flins sits lower. If you don’t have Ineffa, a C1 can still work in non-Ineffa teams, though performance may be reduced. Lauma can be used as an alternative, but its teams are bloom-focused and may not suit all lineups. Overall, obtaining Ineffa is the best upgrade for a Flins team, but missing her banner isn’t a disaster.

C1 or R1? C2 or R1?

C1 and C2 are generally better than R1; R1 can be tempting if you don’t have a 5* polearm, but later you may obtain Primordial Jade Winged-Spear which reduces the value of R1.

I have Varesa. Should I get Flins?

Varesa and Flins do not share teams; you can use both, but you’ll face Electro resistance in many cases. It’s fine to have both for Abyss runs, but for Stygian Onslaught versatility you can focus on one.

How much ER do I need on Ineffa?

Ineffa’s ER requirements are around 165% for continuous burst; it drops to ~120% with Kitain or ~140% with Favonius. Favonius Lance helps further by producing ER itself. Burst every rotation with ER sands vs burst every other rotation with ATK sands yields comparable DPS.

Should I aim for Aino constellations?

No. C6 Aino is marginally better than other Hydro options; you shouldn’t chase Aino constellations unless you’re aiming for Flins’ constellations themselves or Lauma.

Is level 90 important?

Not particularly. Lunar-Charged damage scales with level, but the main DPS comes from bursts; level 90 adds modest increases and is not a strict requirement.

Is his big burst bad?

Big burst is weaker than mini-burst but can be worth using if energy economy allows; think of big burst as a less efficient but occasionally useful option when energy is abundant.

Credits

Me I made it all :)