This is because of her ease of use – even without proper rotations or attack combos, her teams will still deal good damage. So she’s an especially good unit for casual players. Plus, Raiden National is one of her strongest teams. It’s a top meta team that can make light work of most Spiral Abyss and battle content – and it’s very easy to play. Raiden is the also strongest universal battery in-game. She can easily charge the elemental burst of any character and any number of characters. This lets you use niche characters and teams that aren’t often used because of their energy issues. Basically, Raiden is an overall comfortable and nice character to have. Note: This is based on meta only. If you like Raiden regardless of her power level, don’t let this stop you from pulling her.
Pros & Cons
Raiden Strengths
Although lengthy, Raiden’s kit is very straightforward. Casting her skill buffs the team’s elemental burst damage, while attacking with her burst charges the team’s elemental bursts. So you simply need to cast her skill and burst when they’re available. To compare, Tartaglia is a strong unit whose damage greatly depends on the player’s skill. Without proper combos and rotations, he’ll deal significantly lower damage and feel bad to play. But with practice, he becomes among the strongest characters in-game. Raiden does have attack combos to maximize her burst damage, but they’re not significant. She deals good damage regardless of the player’s mechanical skill. Raiden’s early constellations are among the strongest ones in-game – namely, her C2 and C3.
With C2, Raiden’s attacks will ignore 60% of opponents’ DEF during her burst C3 increases her elemental burst talent by 3
These constellations give unconditional damage boosts that greatly increase her damage by more than half – and nearly double her damage at C0. Having these constellations also lets Raiden become a strong main carry instead of a support. So instead of using Raiden to buff teammates, it becomes more optimal to buff her damage instead. The Catch R5 is a free 4-star weapon that can be obtained by fishing. This is a really strong weapon option that works great on a lot of units, especially Raiden. Plus, it’s easily accessible to all players. Even Raiden’s 5-star weapon – Engulfing Lightning – isn’t a significant damage boost from this weapon. This essentially makes her very F2P friendly. However, The Catch R5 is a heavily contested weapon. Other units like Xiangling can benefit more from this weapon than Raiden. Raiden applies good Electro application both on-field and off-field. When on-field, she can easily chain electro-charged and overload reactions to deal a lot of damage – the same applies when she’s off-field. But her off-field Electro application is most useful for Eula teams. Raiden’s skill can continuously proc superconduct reactions that further buff Eula’s physical damage. Even if you build excessive Energy Recharge (ER) on Raiden, it’s barely a damage loss. This is because she benefits a lot from ER – both in damage and quality-of-life. Her ascension passive converts her ER to Electro damage bonus and further buffs her ability to charge teammates. Building more Energy Recharge makes Raiden more comfortable to play without sacrificing much of her personal damage. Raiden National or Rational is a top meta team that excels against single-target. This team is very easy to play – enough so that it’s a great introductory meta team for casual players. Rotations aren’t significant, but they’re useful for min-maxing. This means that you will always deal good damage even without proper knowledge of the team or its rotations. And for min-maxers, you can still further increase team DPS by performing proper rotations. It’s basically a really strong team for most players.
Raiden Weaknesses
Although Raiden is a strong universal battery, other batteries already exist. They’re very often better than Raiden as batteries for their element. For instance, Bennett is the best battery for Pyro units like Xiangling. Sucrose for Anemo units, Fischl for Electro units, Kaeya for Cryo units, and so on. Raiden isn’t the best battery for all teams and units – she’s always viable but rarely the best option. Raiden needs field time to deal good damage and battery teammates. This means that teams must generally be built around her. For instance, Raiden National is composed of 3 teammates that all have deployable abilities. These characters can deal off-field damage while Raiden is on-field. This lets Raiden deal damage while charging the team’s bursts at the same time. But when used with teammates that also consume field time, Raiden ends up extending team rotations – this is simply a DPS loss. For instance, using Raiden with Xiao helps charge Xiao’s elemental burst. This team is viable, but its damage per rotation is simply lower than separate Raiden or Xiao teams.
Are Raiden’s Constellations Worth It?
No battle content will ever require 5-star constellations. But Raiden’s early constellations are easily among the strongest ones in-game. So they are definitely worth it – especially if you enjoy playing Raiden. Her C2 and C3 are massive damage boosts that are often stronger than other characters’ C6. These constellations let her become the main carry instead of a support – she’ll end up dealing a larger portion of the team’s DPS. And if you intend to pull for more constellations, here’s a closer look at each one.
C1: Ominous Inscription
Raiden gains resolve stacks faster, especially with Electro units’ bursts. Resolve stacks buff Raiden’s damage, so this is directly a damage gain. C1 lets you gain maximum stacks quickly for almost every rotation. If you already have a C1 Raiden, it’s highly recommended for you to pull C2.
C2: Steelbreaker
During Raiden’s burst, her attacks ignore 60% of opponents’ DEF. This is her strongest constellation, and it gives her a massive damage boost that makes her among the strongest DPS’ in-game. Plus this DEF ignore is unconditional – you will always get the damage gain during her burst. For most players, this is a good place to stop pulling for constellations. But her C3 can be worth considering.
C3: Shinkage Bygones
Increases her elemental burst talent by 3. This directly buffs her burst multipliers and overall DPS. It’s a strong constellation, there’s not much to be said.
C4: Pledge of Propriety
When Raiden’s burst ends, all nearby teammates (except Raiden) gain 30% ATK for 10s. It’s a decent constellation that lets Raiden further buff her teammates, but it’s also very situational. Raiden always casts her burst last, so teammates won’t gain the ATK buff on the first rotation. Instead, it’s only useful from the 2nd rotation onwards. A very well-invested Raiden – especially at C3 – can easily finish most battle content within one rotation. In these instances, C4 is useless.
C5: Shogun’s Descent
Increases her elemental skill talent by 3. It will further buff teammates’ burst damage, but the buff isn’t significant.
C6: Wishbearer
When Raiden’s burst hits opponents, she decreases the burst cooldown of nearby teammates (except Raiden) by 1s. This can be triggered every 1s with a maximum of 5s cooldown reduction. This can reduce the rotation time of some teams. But there isn’t a team that can fully take advantage of this cooldown reduction, so it’s pretty irrelevant.
Do Beidou & Raiden Work Together?
No. Despite their great potential synergy, Raiden’s burst can’t drive Beidou’s burst. The normal (NA) and charged attacks (CA) of Raiden’s burst are considered elemental burst damage. And the Electro discharges of Beidou’s burst can only be procced by regular NAs and CAs. This is demonstrated in the screenshots above. Raiden can proc Beidou’s burst with her regular normal attacks. You can see how each proc deals 9,420 damage. But when Raiden performs normal attacks during her burst, she can’t proc it at all. Still, there are times when Raiden’s burst can trigger similar abilities. For instance, Raiden can drive both Yelan’s and Xingqiu’s bursts – although their burst descriptions state that only normal attacks can proc them. Interactions between Raiden’s burst and other abilities are pretty ambiguous. Oftentimes, in-game testing is the only way to know if Raiden works with a specific character.
Engulfing Lightning vs. The Catch R5 for Raiden
Engulfing Lightning is Raiden’s undisputed best-in-slot weapon. It does outperform The Catch R5, but not by a lot. Unlike most signature weapons, the damage difference between The Catch R5 to Engulfing Lightning is smaller – so pulling for Engulfing is much less recommended. You’ll gain a bigger damage boost from pulling her constellations instead. A C2 Raiden with The Catch R5 will outperform a C0 Raiden with Engulfing Lightning. Still, Engulfing Lightning is a great weapon that works well on a lot of units – like Xiangling, Shenhe, Thoma, and Yunjin.
Is R5 Wavebreaker’s Fin Worth Pulling for Raiden?
R5 Wavebreaker’s Fin is Raiden’s best 4-star weapon. But it’s a limited weapon only available in the weapon banner. And no, it’s not worth it due to being far too RNG-based and expensive to pull for refinements from the weapon banner. It’s generally better to just pull Engulfing Lightning if you have enough Primogems. Alternatively, every other 5-star polearm works on Raiden – or just use The Catch R5.
