This is because Hu Tao is also a single-target Pyro DPS that strictly outdamages Yoimiya. If you want a single-target DPS, Hu Tao is easily the best option. She costs the exact same as Yoimiya but has a much stronger kit. And if you want a general Pyro DPS, Xiangling – a free 4-star character – is a really strong option. But there are still instances when Yoimiya can be worth pulling but not for meta reasons. This is thanks to her straightforward kit. It makes her a great option for casual players that don’t want to learn Hu Tao’s more challenging gameplay. She will deal less damage, but she’s perfectly viable. Note: This is based on meta only. If you like Yoimiya regardless of her power level, don’t let this stop you from pulling her.
Pros & Cons
Yoimiya Strengths
Yoimiya’s gameplay is very straightforward. Just cast her burst, skill, and then perform normal attacks – that’s it. To maximize her damage in vaporize teams, it’s highly recommended to complete her entire normal attack combo. This basically lets her vaporize the biggest hits of her normal attacks. This is further explained in the ICD section. Yoimiya has a lot of great artifact options. Specifically, here are her best general builds that perform really close to each other: Because their damage differences are very minimal, you can simply use which ones have the better substats. There’s no need to continue farming for a full set. Yoimiya has multiple accessible 4-star and 3-star weapon options that work great on her – thus making her very F2P friendly to build. When ranked, these weapons include: As a bow user, Yoimiya’s normal attacks let her hit opponents from a sizable distance. This is especially good against opponents that tend to move a lot (like Thundering Manifestation) and ones that float (like Specters).
Yoimiya Weaknesses
Most of Yoimiya’s damage is entirely locked to single-target. This means that she will deal single-target damage even against opponents grouped together – she simply doesn’t have AOE potential. In comparison, Hu Tao is single-target oriented not locked. Although she’s mainly single-target, she can still hit multiple opponents if they’re grouped together. She has AOE potential. This basically means that Yoimiya is very unfavorable against AOE content. She’ll need to deal multiple times more than her normal damage to compete with AOE-oriented units. Although Yoimiya’s ranged playstyle is a great advantage, she’s still subject to auto-targeting. Basically, auto-targeting in Genshin is very bad. Auto-targeting attacks can often miss opponents even at point-blank. Plus, Yoimiya’s abilities don’t home enemies. Instead, they lock on a target upon cast. So if an enemy moves from their spot or dodges, her attacks will completely miss. Yoimiya herself is not a bad unit, but she has two major competitors as a Pyro DPS – and those two very often outperform her. Against single-target, a well-played Hu Tao is easily better than Yoimiya. Hu Tao simply deals more damage, has AOE potential, and doesn’t heavily rely on auto-targeting. And against AOE, Xiangling is the best Pyro DPS by far. Her Pyronado can easily hit all nearby opponents simultaneously. Since Yoimiya is single-target locked, she simply can’t compete.
Are Yoimiya’s Constellations Good?
All of Yoimiya’s constellations effectively buff her damage – but they’re generally underwhelming. So it’s more efficient to just pull for her 5-star supports instead of constellations. Units like Kazuha and Zhongli have significantly more value than her cons. They’ll buff both Yoimiya and all your other characters. But if you still plan to pull for constellations, here’s a closer look at each one to help you out.
C1: Agate Ryuukin
Extends the Aurous Blaze inflicted by Yoimiya’s burst for 4s. Upon defeating an opponent affected by Aurous Blaze, she gains 20% ATK for 20s. This is a good but very inconsistent constellation – for many reasons:
Against bosses, which is where she best excels at, she won’t get the ATK buff at all. Defeating the boss simply ends the Abyss floor, so she doesn’t benefit from the buff. Using the 4pc. Shimenawa’s Reminiscence set can prevent Yoimiya from casting her burst every rotation – thus reducing the buff’s uptime. Unless Yoimiya one-shots an opponent affected by Aurous Blaze, it will take some time before she gains the buff.
Depending on how often the effect can be triggered, C1 can be a good damage gain.
C2: A Procession of bonfires
When Yoimiya’s Pyro damage crits, she gains a 25% Pyro damage bonus for 6s. This can be triggered even while off-field. C2 is a good damage boost that’s a lot more consistent than C1. With a standard CRIT build, Yoimiya can easily proc this effect up to around 100% uptime. This 25% damage bonus is a sizable buff – there’s not much to be said.
C3: Trickster’s Flare
Increases her elemental skill talent by 3. Yoimiya scales mostly from her normal attack talents – not her skill. It does give a decent damage buff but definitely not a lot. C3 is even weaker than her C1 and C2. It’s not recommended to pull for this constellation.
C4: Pyrotechnic Professional
When Yoimiya’s Aurous Blaze explodes, her skill cooldown is decreased by 1.2s. The value of C4 largely depends on Yoimiya’s teams. When paired with units that have a 20s burst cooldown (like Xingqiu and Beidou), this constellation is irrelevant. Even if her cooldown ends earlier, she still needs to wait for her teammates’ cooldowns. But, with units that have shorter burst cooldowns (like Bennett and Kazuha), C4 has more value. The cooldown decrease lets her sync better with her teammate’s cooldowns – thus having smoother rotations.
C5: A Summer Festival’s Eve
Increases her elemental burst talent by 3. This directly buffs her burst multipliers but not by a lot. It even has a smaller damage gain than her C3. And, like her C3, this constellation alone isn’t worth pulling.
C6: Naganohara Meteor Swarm
During Yoimiya’s skill, her normal attacks have a 50% chance of firing an additional arrow that deals 60% of its original damage. This is her most significant damage gain from constellations. But it can cause problems for vaporize teams – this is further explained in the ICD section.
Does Yoimiya Have an ICD Problem?
Yes, but it’s not because it stops her from triggering more vaporize reactions – this isn’t a problem. Since not every attack applies an element, characters often have an Internal Cooldown (ICD). This is the cooldown between attacks that do apply an element. This also means that only some attacks can trigger an elemental reaction. The standard ICD is 2.5 seconds or every 3 hits. Yoimiya’s Pyro infusion follows this pattern. Yoimiya’s entire normal attack combo hits for a total of 7 times – the 1st and 4th attacks hit twice. This means that she applies Pyro on her 1st, 3rd, and 5th attack. These are the attacks with the highest multipliers, so specifically vaporizing them is very important. It basically gives the 1.5x damage bonus of vaporize reactions to Yoimiya’s biggest hits. In theory, this is very easy to achieve. Just make sure to complete her entire normal combo and don’t stop in the middle of it. But many scenarios can cause Yoimiya to stop in the middle of her attack combo – like getting interrupted by opponents, dodging attacks, and repositioning. Doing so offsets Yoimiya’s ICD, thus causing her to vaporize her much smaller attacks. It’s directly a damage loss. This is Yoimiya’s ICD “problem”.
Overview: Yoimiya’s C6 ICD
The extra attack from her C6 shares the same ICD as her normal attacks. This can easily offset Yoimiya’s ICD and cause her to vape her smaller hits. And because the chances of her C6 proccing is entirely RNG, there’s no way of fixing this issue. Still, her C6 is always damage gain – you might just end up seeing smaller numbers.
Rust vs. Hamayumi for Yoimiya
Rust is easily Yoimiya’s best 4-star weapon option. But it is a gacha weapon, so some players may not have it. In this case, Hamayumi is a good alternative. However, Hamayumi’s passive can have an unfavorable synergy with Yoimiya’s rotations. It’s highly recommended to cast Yoimiya’s burst before her skill – doing so drains her energy and stops her from triggering Hamayumi’s passive. Because of this, it’s not simply optimal to refine your Hamayumi. It’s better to just wait until you pull Rust and its refinements. Plus, an R1 Rust can even outperform an R5 Hamayumi without its passive.
