In thisGenshin Impact GuideI’m going to be showing you my Driving Thunder Build forKeqing, which uses herElectroelement in conjunction withPyroelement from team mates to cause massiveOverloadexplosions. Such explosions are able to stun and knock back enemies, as well as destroying Abyss mages shields in the deeper levels of theSpiral Abyss.
Composing a party for each situation inGenshin Impactcan be a bit of a challenge to say the least, especially with the limited options for those focusing on free-to-play. So in thisFree to Play Build GuideI’ll explain just how to makeKeqinga premium damage dealer, including what Weapons to use, what Artifacts to upgrade and which companions to pick up. If you’ve been looking for a free to play Melee Electro Build then check this one out! More Guides on our Genshin Impact Guide Section, includingKlee The Short Fuse.
Genshin Impact Build: Keqing The Driving Thunder
Keqingis a five star character, who is currently available through all Wish banners. Without a rate up banner, it’s very difficult to pull for her. But with all free account rerolling done before patch 1.1, there are many players who had a chance to get her. If that’s the case for you, she might be your sole five star character in game, and that’s why you want to build a good team around her. This build focuses on a free-to-play, meaning players who are looking to build Keqing with minimal or no constellations, can still create a viable build without relying on dupes, but purely on items you can gain in game, and four star characters to accompany her.
ThisKeqing The Driving Thunderuses a combination of pure Electro and Pyro, to setup enemies up for massiveOverloadexplosions. Because theElemental Resonancegained from the two Pyro and two Electro characters are increasedAttack, and massiveenergy recharge.Keqing’s ascension passive isCritical Damage Bonus, while her passives givesCrit Rate.On top of that, she have very fast normal attack combo, which she convert to Electro damage. All of that, makes her one of greatest damage damage dealers in the entire game.
All of Electro reactions, includingOverloadare considered “transformative reactions”. These scale only with Elemental mastery, and character level, and o they don’t scale with character damage. So ideally, we want the Keqing to provide the “Aura Element”, and the Pyro support characters to proc the reaction. This way we build our supports towards Elemental Mastery, and damage dealer towards direct damage. We can useXianglingandBennetton the Pyro side, and we get canFischlas a second Electro character.
Exploration Team
Keqingis the best character in game for exploration, due to her ability to teleport up in the air, and forward. She can climb all mountains, and bypass most obstacles easier than everyone else. PlayingKeqingis like enabling easy mode for exploration, so you you want her in your exploration team. It doesn’t matter who you take with her, becauseKeqingelemental skill doesn’t consume stamina.
Keqing The Driving Thunder Attributes
Among our team,Keqingis the best Carry, so we want to build her for sustained DPS. We want to focus onElectro Damage Bonus, andCritical rate,then comes% AttackandCrit Damage.At level 80, she have 88.4% Crit Damage without any investment from Weapon or Artifacts. To optimize her damage, we need to get her Critical Rate over 45% before trying to pump Crit Damage any further. That mean as much Critical Rate in main stats and sub-stats everywhere.
Keqing The Driving Thunder Weapon
This Driving Thunder build uses a short sword, a fast weapon with lightning speed combos. Picking up a weapon forKeqingis a tough path to walk, because none of the crafted weapons are really best in slot for an ElectroKeqingbuild. That limits our options for free to play, but does not unachievable.
At the bare minimum, we need to craft four star weapon,Iron Stingfor ElectroKeqing. It’s generally an easy to use weapon that requires no special conditions to work. However,Keqingtruly shines with the more rare weapons with Crit Rate stat, likeAquila Favonia(five star),Lion’s Roar, orThe Flute. These are very good weapons if you could get your hands on them, or else, we can resort to one of the guaranteed swords.
Blackcliff Longswordis one of the weapons which you can buy with 24Masterless Starglitterfrom Paimon’s Bargains currently. It gives more Critical Damage and require even more investment in Crit Rate to balance the scale. But if you have to choose betweenIron StingandBlackcliff Longswordand nothing else, there is strong evidence thatBlackcliff Longswordis much better, especially with more than one stack of weapon passive.
The Ultimate Weapon
The Black Swordcan be acquired from the monthly Battle Pass, is the best in slot weapon forKeqing. It has everything she will ever need, huge Crit Rate, increased damage multiplier, and a good heal upon attacking enemies. The good thing is, this weapon is guaranteed, and you don’t have to gamble for it. The draw back is Battle Pass costing some real cash, though it has benefits such as ascension materials and Mora.
Keqing The Driving Thunder Artifacts
Figuring out how to customize yourArtifactsets is one of, if not the hardest part of making a Build in Genshin Impact as there are a lot of components to consider, and generally takes a try or two before getting it right. In this section, I want to show you how I’ve set this up for an overall good performance with this build.
Thundersoother Set
As we are building Keqing to provide Electro aura, it’s very easy to equip her withThundersootherSet. This provides a massive damage multiplier against all enemies affected by Electro. Even after Overload reaction occurs, and it consumes Electro debuff, you will apply Electro again and again and again. It’s also a good defensive set to take less damage from all Electro reactions enemies can deal you. Overall, it’s the best set for our build, but beware that you need to farm this Set from Domains after AR 35. It doesn’t give good rewards until AR 40 or 45, so it’s more of an Endgame goal.
Thundering Fury Set
This set has very good damage, dealing a 15% Electro damage bonus, and massive 40% damage bonus for Electro reactions. Also, it reduces elemental skill cooldown. It’s overall a good Set forKeqing, but she needs to be the character proccing the reactions all the time to benefit from the damage bonus.Keqingstill proccs some reactions, but she applies Electro much faster than most other characters can apply other elements. We also are not buildingKeqingwith Elemental Mastery, because Electro reactions doesn’t scale with her damage, nor Critical hits. SoThundering Furyis a nice alternative Set if you don’t get goodThundersootherpieces.
Flower of Life & Plume of Death
The main stat on theseArtifactsis predetermined. The Flower artifact always gives a flat HP stat, and the Plume always gives a flat Attack stat. This makes it easier to get an Artifact with perfect stats on these two slots, because you have less variables to worry about. We wantCritical rateon sub-stats here, along with any combination of% Attack, FlatAttack, , andCritical Damage.
Give priority to leveling up the Plume piece, it’s important on the main damage dealer of the team. However, the Flower piece has less priority, unless it has absolute perfect stats.
During early game you can use pieces from Sets with attack bonus on two pieces, such asBrave Heart,Resolution of Sojourner, orGladiator’s Finale. It’s easy to pick flower or plume pieces from these sets, as leveling them will not be wasted, but passed down to other characters after you replace them withThundersootherSet later in game.
Sands of Eon
TheSands of Eontimepiece is a more flexible Artifact, with the focus being on the main stat. It can roll different stats as a main, and that’s why it’s harder to acquire the perfect pieces, but it also has a higher ceiling. We seek% Attackmain stat, then seek a couple of good sub-stats. These areFlat Attack, Crit RateandCrit Damage.
Goblet of Enotherm
We needElectro Damage Bonus,as the main stat here. It’s harder to get the right bonus because Goblets can roll every elemental damage bonus, so the pool of modifiers is large. So Goblets don’t have to belong to your 4 piece set. You can have the four piece set on the other slots, and roll the Goblet with best stats possible, without being part of any Set. Make sure to seek couple good sub-stats, such as% Attack,Flat Attack, Crit RateandCrit Damage.
Circlet of Logos
Headpiece is as important as Goblet, if not more, because it can roll Critical stats. GetCritical rateorCriticaldamage, and attempt to keep 1:2 Crit Rate: Crit damage ratio at all times. So if you have 100%Critical Damagefrom the default stat, you’re better off investing inCritical Rateto push it to 50%.
Get some of good sub-stats on Circlet if applicable, these are% Attack,Crit Rate, andCrit damage.
Keqing The Driving Thunder Talent Skills
Yunlai Swordsmanship
Normal Attacks are fairly quick, stylish, and involve a lot of movement around using this talent. They can chain in 5 attacks combo, and any of attacks can turn into charged attack very quickly. So you get to avoid most enemy attacks by just going all offensive withKeqing, and you’re able to knock back small enemies with charged attack at any stage of the combo.
The Charged attack does two hits, has a huge damage modifier, and performs quicker than most other characters. The power of combining normal and charged attacks is very high, and it’s even better when you infuseKeqingwith power of lightning, making all attacks deal Electro damage. WithOverload,this combo can be very effective against enemy shields as well. It’s overall a delightful effective talent that defines how goodKeqingis.
Stellar Restoration
On 7.5 seconds cooldown,Keqing’s Elemental Skill is pretty much spammable. The talent has two stages, in the first actKeqingthrows a Stiletto made of pure lightning. If it hits enemies, it deals Electro damage, and you can press for quick throwing, or hold to aim where the Stiletto launch. The Stiletto stays on its place for few seconds, allowing you to perform other actions while it’s still there.
Afterwards, you have a choice of how to proceed with a second stage. You can use a charged attack which are performed inKeqing’s location, and some deal some thundering cuts, performed in the Stiletto’s mark location. Or otherwise, use the Elemental Skill again, soKeqingteleports to the Stiletto, dealing a wide lightning slash. This talent makes her very versatile, and very mobile, and can be performed in and out of combat. It also doesn’t require an enemy target, and can be used to climb, or jump in air to perform Plunging attack. You can also aim for aerial enemies weak spots, to bring them down. Or you can hide behind tanky team mates in Co-op and slash at enemies from range.
There are many uses for this Elemental Skill, but the game changer here isThundering Penancepassive thatKeqinggets after Ascension. It gives her a 5 seconds buff, converting all her normal and charged attacks to Electro after she teleport withStellar Restorationsecond cast. That behavior differentiates between Electro and PhysicalKeqingbuilds. With Physical builds using charged attacks to keep her attacks physical, and Electro builds usingStellar Restorationtwice to convert her damage. We are aiming for an Electro build here forKeqingas this is far more accessible, and has better mobility.
Starward Sword
Keqing’s Elemental Burst and signature move is the Starward Sword. Utilizing lightning speed, she performs so many slashes from all directions, in a wide area of effect for a duration. The Talent has a very low 40 Energy cost, which makes it very spammable, and she is invulnerable during this duration. So Keqing is a character that can be built as a glass canon without worrying about her survivability. In dangerous situations, you’re able to also use her Elemental Skill the first time to throw a Stiletto mark, using her Elemental Burst for massive damage and invulnerability, then quickly uses the Elemental Skill for a second time, to teleport away if danger is still present. That way, you can keep dealing damage against most aggressive enemies (e.g against Ruin Guard whirlwind), and stay safe.
The better part of her Elemental Burst is again the passiveAristocratic Dignity. This buffsKeqingwith CRIT Rate and Energy recharge by 15% for 8 seconds after using her Elemental Burst. Very potent buff that have very good uptime.
Keqing The Driving Thunder Party Composition
Genshin Impact has a unique playstyle that requires you to switch characters while performing attacks, and chaining combos across these characters. So a solid part of this Keqing build, is knowing which characters will best work with her, and what roles they will play. In this section, I’ll fill you in on some of the best characters that synergise well with this build. I’ll only use Four Star characters here, to make sure it’s achievable for free to play players.
You had aFischlas a guarantee reward from completingUnreconciled Stars Eventduring November. She had the better drop rates in Venti’s Wish banner during October. So most free-to-play players will have her, and probably some of her Constellations unlocked. She’s a very good damage support for any build, but more importantly for anyElectroDPS carry likeKeqingorRazor. The reason is thatElemental Resonanceyou get from having twoElectrocharacters in team is Energy recharge. Each time an Electro reaction occurs, you get to regenerate Energy from that reaction, which is very good.Fischlis specially proficient at dealing Electro in a highly consistent rate. She can also build damage while playing a Support role, and she’s very friendly to free-to-play.
On the field, we switch to her and use either her Elemental Skill or Elemental Burst, then switch her out, focusing on other characters.
Electro Damage Bonusis a very nice damage boost, always get it wherever applicable. Then Build someCrit Rate,Crit Damage, and some Percentage and flatAttack.AsFischl’s Elemental Skill can score critical hits, and it stays on field long enough to score many of these.
you may useRust, it’s the universal bow of choice forFischl. It has a consistent damage output across the board, and competes with five star weapons when it comes to normal attack damage.
But for a Critical build, I recommend buyingRoyal Bowfrom with 24Masterless Starglitterfrom Paimon’s Bargains. It has the same damage numbers as Rust, but has a Critical Rate on top of that. So theRoyal Bowis one of best weapons for characters without an inner Critical rate modifier. What this bow does is gives you a stacking Crit Rate modifier, that goes up until you score a critical hit, then rest. It’s not ideal for high critical rate characters who score critical more often than not. But for characters with a moderate 25%~30% critical rate, it will make them score one additional Crit hit out of four hits.
If you buy this bow, you may swap your Critical Rate Headpiece for a critical damage bonus one. Also beware that you will not have enoughMasterless Starglitterfor buying two weapons from the shop. So only get this bow if you are not using a weapon from the shop for your main, Keqing.
We use 2 pieces fromThundering FurySet, and two piecesGamblerSet. This way, we get two permanent damage multipliers for Elemental Skill. The hybrid build allow picking only best items you have from both sets.
For Main stats, getElectro Damage Bonuson Goblet,% Attackon Timepiece, and thenCrit RateorCrit Damageon Headpiece. ThenAttack, andCrit rateon sub stats. This way we get a bit of every modifier, and have a strong elemental skill that keep dealing damage after we switch from Fischl to Keqing.
We had an increased chance to getXianglingby using wishes on the “Venti Ballad” banner, while it lasted. We also have a guaranteed chance to get her by beating floor 3 in the Spiral Abyssal Event after reaching AR 20. So if you are a new player, you are guaranteed to have her. If you started earlier back in October or September, you will not only have her, but probably have unlocked several constellations for her.
In this party, we will buildXianglingfor support, and for proccing elemental reactions, namelyOverload. Overload deals Pyro damage, and is the strongest of “transformative reactions”. It can’t score critical hits, and scales only with character level, and Elemental Mastery, so we will be levelingXianglingand not leave her behind. This also prompts us to use a secondary Pyro character, for a good 25% Attack bonus for all party members fromElemental Resonance.
We go straight withPyro damage bonus, andElemental mastery, then fillAttackstats where applicable. We can useEnergy rechargeon sub-stats for better uptime of her Elemental Burst.
Xianglinginflicts Pyro on enemies slower than our Electro characters (KeqingandFischl), so she will proc the Elemental reactions, rather than being an Aura. This way, she will benefit most from Elemental mastery. When it comes to Polearms,Dragon’s Baneis the best weapon for Elemental Mastery scaling. At level 80, it entertains a massive 201 Elemental mastery, which is like a 60~80% damage multiplier depending on how much EM you already have.
TheCrimson Witch of FlamesSet is a very appealing choice forXiangling, it boosts both her direct Pyro damage, andOverloaddamage. However, it does not benefit the party as a whole, and the main damage dealer for this build isKeqing. So an alternative option is to use theInstructorSet, which gives a nice Elemental Mastery bonus, for the entire party.Instructorhas a lower ceiling though, being four star Set that can’t be leveled beyond +16. So considerInstructoras a leveling Set, and aim forCrimson Witch of Flamesfor endgame goal.
GetPyro Damageas a main stat on Goblet, andElemental Masteryand/orEnergy Rechargeon other pieces. For sub-stats, getElemental mastery,%Attack, andEnergy Recharge.
We use him as both a healer and a secondary Pyro character forElemental Resonance.So we build him towards spamming his Elemental Burst at cooldown, first and foremost. His Elemental Burst provides some nice Attack buff for any party member inside the Inspiration Aura created by Elemental Burst. However, it’s more important to have a higher uptime for his Elemental Burst, than having more potent buffs or heal. So we aim to have the most Energy Recharge onBennett.
If you don’t haveBennett, useXinyanfor the shield she provides, and relay solely onThe Black Swordto healKeqing. It’s less than ideal setup, but it will pass until you getBennett.
We buildBennettwithPercentage HP, to scale his healing, andEnergy Rechargeto maximize uptime of his Elemental Burst.Bennett’s Attack buff scales with hisBase Attack,which comes from leveling and Ascending him, and his weapon, and is not affected by Attack stat on Artifacts.
We need an Energy recharge weapon forBennett. Both four stars,Favonius SwordandSacrificial Swordare great for the job. It grants more damage and healing for the entire party if his Elemental Burst is up on cooldown, and Energy Recharge is great for this. If you can’t find four stars weapon, just use the three star weaponSkyrider Sword, as it has Energy Recharge as well, and better than any pure damage sword.
Use eitherNoblesse ObligeorThe ExileArtifact Set. the first buff Attack, and the second buff Energy Recharge for the entire team.Noblesse Obligeis a five star Set, so it will have better scaling and higher main and sub-stats so it will also result in a better healing. Stick with HP main stat as much as possible, and get Energy Recharge on sub-stats.
Genshin Impactis available to play on PC, iOS, Android PS4 and PS5 through backwards compatability. If you enjoyed thisGenshin Impact Guidebe sure to check out more on ourGenshin Impact Wiki.You can also keep an eye out for more guides for Genshin Impact, and be sure to not miss ourGenshin Impact Getting Started Guide, as well as ourRazor The Incredible Wolf Guide – Free To Play Guide.
