❅ Who is Shenhe?

Shenhe is a 5 star cryo polearm unit whose kit mainly fits the roles of both a support and sub-dps, and has been proven to shine especially within cryo comps.

❅ What role does Shenhe fill in a team? ❅

Shenhe is designated as a cryo-buffing support, while her kit contains elements attributed to sub-dps units, her own personal damage output is rather low, which is significantly compensated by amplifying the damage dealt by her teammates. Her kit mainly provides buffing capabilities through a combination of DMG% bonus buffs, Cryo and Physical RES shred, and the ability to add flat damage to instances of Cryo damage dealt by teammates. In addition she’s able to provide cryo resonance, cryo particles, as well as holding artifact sets with buffing capabilities such as the 4-piece Noblesse Oblige set.

❅ Why should you play/pull for Shenhe? ❅

Disclaimer: Whether you should pull for Shenhe or not is first and foremost your own decision, so please remember that only you can decide if a character is worth spending your time, money, and resources on. This guide’s main purpose is to give you the most information possible in order to clear any misunderstandings about the unit and help you understand their kit better. With that being said, below are some of shenhe’s pros and cons.

Pros:

• Relatively cheap to build since her kit scales on attack and doesn’t require important crit ratios.

• Can offer up to 30% total DMG% bonus for a Cryo elemental burst, while also having built in Cryo RES shred.

• Decent weapon access and good synergy with already available 5* options.

• Fairly low field-time, opening the possibility for “Quick Swap” rotations using Shenhe.

• Universally good with Cryo units, giving her high flexibility within teams that deal mostly Cryo damage.

• Opens up non-traditional Cryo teams, such as Mono Cryo.

• Quills can apply to off-field abilities after they are cast, allowing flexibility in rotations.

• Icy Quill damage scales with the level of investment of your team.

• Viable in physical comps and other non-Cryo comps that can make use of her A4 buff and off-field Cryo application.

Cons:

• High ER% requirements due to high burst cost (80).

• Her damage contribution mainly comes from her teammates triggering her Icy Quills rather than her own personal burst and elemental skill damage, due to her personal multipliers being relatively low.

• Icy Quills are treated as instances of single target damage and are consumed as such, meaning Shenhe’s quills become less impactful as target count increases.

• Can be difficult to slot into existing compositions, as she is often competing for a slot with other supports such as healers/shielders, Anemo units for grouping and VV shred, or Hydro/Pyro enablers for Freeze/Melt teams respectively.

• Lower value in teams that do not use other Cryo or Anemo units that cannot consume her Quills or take advantage of most of her buffs.

Conclusion

Shenhe is a well-designed, balanced and competitive support/sub-DPS unit who’s unique blend of energy generation, RES shred, DMG% buffs and damage through Icy Quills both improves existing compositions while also enabling new ones such as Mono Cryo. As a supportive unit, she is reliant on bolstering already well invested Cryo units – however, the utility she brings in doing so makes her very competitive.