The most important thing to understand about Keqing is that unlike any other character in the game she offers multiple playstyle choices. Depending on which one you prefer, building her is going to be a little different than you’re used to your regular character guide.
We’ll be taking a look at what stats you should be prioritizing, how to build your artifact sets, what weapons you’ll get the most performance from, and what talents you should focus on.
So without further ado let’s jump right into it…
Types Of Keqing Build
Before we get into the different builds for Keqing, you need to understand all the possible builds for Keqing. There is no perfect or strongest build because it all comes down to which you prefer and how much you invest into her.
Keqing has two main play styles that we’ll be looking into during this guide. Both an electro build and a physical focused build. Although she can’t apply electro quite consistently it should be noted that she only does so when she’s on the field and her skills and talents only relate to her. So, it’s advised to not consider her as a supporting character.
The playstyles across her two roles play very differently and should be heavily considered before choosing which road to go down because the way you build her will also differ drastically.
Physical Damage Build
Keqing’s main focus for her damage output will be her charged attack due to the high frequency you can perform these dual strikes and the increased damage scaling this will be overall more effective than performing auto attacks.
The Physical build is likely to be more effective when in combat with bosses or any enemy that generally stays in one place. This will make it much easier to perform your attacks but also because you’ll constantly run out of stamina and you can’t teleport to your stiletto, your mobility overall suffers from this build.
Electro Damage Build
This setup is highly mobile centering around her skill usage to teleport around the battlefield and infuse her blade with electro energy. Since we’re focusing on electro damage, her burst will also deal far more damage than her physical counterpart which instead will use it more for the added crit rate.
The downsides to the electro build revolve around the electro element itself. For one, electro reactions scale pretty poorly into the end game since they can’t crit and they can only scale with the triggering character’s level and elemental mastery.
Her reactions can also fall to a lot of immunities. Her electro damage has no effect on either the purple or yellow electro Slimes, her overloaded reactions will not affect pyro Slimes, and superconduct will have no effect on cryo Slimes. She can also be a mechanically difficult character to play so if you have trouble with fast inputs or making fast movement decisions, you may struggle to play her optimally.
Electro Keqing Weapons
Electro Keqing is one of the crowd favorites because her constellations are mostly electro-based. The best in slot weapon for Electro Keqing will be the Primordial Jade Cutter followed closely by Summit Shaper.
| Best in slot weapons | |
|---|---|
  Primordial Jade Cutter | Jade Cutter performs best with no conditions, high base attack, and crit rate. |
 Summit Shaper | Summit Shaper with shield support is able to provide an equal amount of DPS as Jade Cutter. |
The Primordial Jade Cutter has a very high crit rate which allows you to only focus on crit damage stats on your artifacts.
| Alternative Weapons | |
|---|---|
 Aquila Favonia   The Black Sword  Blackcliff Longsword  Lion’s Roar  Prototype Rancour |
It all comes down to what stats you want to build around. You might be wondering why Aquila Favonia for electro builds? I would say that the Aquila Favonia is a good option because of the extremely high attack boost. A level 90 Aquila Favonia gives 500 more attacks than a level 90 Black Sword.
The Black Sword is also a great weapon because it gives a critical rate and has a perfect passive for Keqing which boosts her normal and charge attacks. Both the Aquila and The Black Sword also provide self-healing which makes Keqing able to solo almost any content in the game.
As for Lion’s roar and Blackcliff Longsword, they are not exactly free to play but they are very good options if you already have them. Both these weapons are able to give you the highest damage multiplier among all the 4-star weapons for Keqing
For the free-to-play options, I would go for Prototype Rancour over the Festering Desire. Keqing is a character played around with her normal attacks and does not need more energy recharge.
Electro Keqing’s Artifact
These are three main sets that you can go for and it all comes down to your priority. The main stats to get are attack percent on your timepiece, electro damage on your goblet, and crit rate or crit damage on your circlet.
 4-Piece Thundering Fury | Good option for faster skill rotations, damage divided equally among normal attack, charge attack, skills, and burst. It also drain less stamina. |
| 2-Piece Thundering Fury  2-Piece Gladiator’s Finale | High damage option with no conditions. Focused around infusing normal and charge attacks with electro element. |
 4-Piece Thundersoother | Highest damage option for electro Keqing only if conditions are met. Requires you to manage Keqing’s skills to maintain electro debuff on enemies. Does not work well with Pyro supports. |
Thunderfury
The 4-Piece Thunderfury is a set that reduces Keqing’s cooldown every time she triggers an elemental reaction. People often underestimate reduced cooldowns but this is effectively just as good as increasing your damage because you are able to spend your skills faster. It is also less intense on your stamina because you divide your damage among your skills and not just charge attacks.
Thunderfury/Gladiators
This is the most universal build which does higher damage than the 4-Piece Thunderfury. The playstyle of this build is more focused on infusing your attacks with electro and then using charge attacks as your main source of damage. You also do not need to trigger elemental reactions to get the full effect of this set which makes it very popular.
Thundersoother
This set objectively speaking is the set that has the highest damage potential for Keqing. In terms of damage, Thundersoother outperforms even Thunderfury/Gladiators so if you like big damage numbers this set is for you. However, this set will only work on enemies that are affected by electro. Your Keqing skill rotation is also very important to keep electro constantly on the target. This also means enemies such as Slimes and Hypostasis are not affected.
There are also a handful of reaction supports such as Xiangling and Xinyan that will hinder the full potential of this set so pick your supports wisely.
Physical Keqing Weapons
When it comes to her equipment there’s definitely a lot of exciting choices to go over and some of which have been surprisingly doing well since the game’s launch.
The top two weapon choices for physical Keqing will be the jade cutter or the Aquila Favonia. Many people have done damage calculations for this and both of them perform very closely next to each other.
| Best In Slot Weapons | |
|---|---|
| Primordial Jade Cutter | Jade Cutter will require you to only focus on CRIT DMG in your artifacts. |
| Aquila Favonia | Aquila Favonia will provide physical Keqing the highest damage numbers but you will need to balance her CRIT RATE and CRIT DMG. |
While Aquila Favonia provides higher damage, you will need to balance your crit rate and crit damage in order to get full use out of it. As for Jade Cutter, the high crit rate allows Keqing to tunnel only into crit damage on the artifacts.
| Alternative Weapons | |
|---|---|
 Skyward Blade Summit Shaper The Black Sword Prototype Rancour |
Prototype rancor is able to outperform even The Black Sword and Lion’s roar when it comes to maximum stacks which make Physical Keqing very free-to-play friendly.
Skyward Blade works just like the Crescent Pike. After you have used your burst every normal attack and charge attack creates an additional attack that can also hit critical.
I would say Physical Keqing is more free-to-play friendly as compared to Electro Keqing because of the existence of Prototype Rancour. Physical Keqing also does not need any constellations because they mostly buff Electro Keqing anyway.
Physical Keqing’s Artifact
When looking at the artifacts it’s not as complicated as weapons and for her Physical build you will want to have attack percent on your timepiece, physical damage on your goblet, and crit rate or crit damage on your circlet.
 2-Piece Thundering Fury 2-Piece Gladiator’s Finale | High damage options with no conditions. Focused around normal and charged attacks only. |
 4-Piece Retracing Bolide | High damage option but requires a shield support to be viable. Perfect with Zhongli’s elemental resist reduction and durable shield. |
| 4-Piece Thundersoother | Highest damage option for Physical Keqing only if conditions are met. Requires you to manage Keqing’s skills to maintain electro debuff on enemies. Does not work well with Pyro supports. |
Bloodstained/Gladiators
The Bloodstained Chivalry and Gladiator’s Finale is an all-around group build that has no conditions to gain the maximum effect. This is also what most Physical Keqing users are using because of how reliable it is.
Thundersoother
Just like Electro Keqing, Physical Keqing can also benefit from Thundersoother as long as the enemy is affected by electro. However, you do not want to activate your stiletto and infuse your attacks with electro.
Keqing is able to apply electro debuff by detonating hostile attacks or activating her elemental burst before spamming charge attacks. In terms of damage output, the Thundersoother is actually higher than Bloodstained Chivalry/Gladiator’s Finale setup. The good thing about Thundersoother is that it can be used in Physical and Electro Keqing build and the only difference is the main stat of the goblet.
Retracing Bolide
This set also has conditions and you will need to use a shield in order to get the maximum potential of the set. With the rise in popularity of Zhongli retracing bowler has slowly become more viable. However, it is not as universally beneficial as the Bloodstained/Gladiators setup.
Talents And Constellations Priority
For Electro Keqing, focus on leveling her normal attacks and elemental bursts equally. If you’re swapping out often or using her more for a burst, level her elemental burst first. Prioritize her elemental skill last and in my opinion, I wouldn’t go past level 8 with it. Charge attacks and her burst are more valuable for Electro Keqing.
For Physical Keqing, you want to prioritize your normal attacks as much as possible. You can keep your elemental skill and burst at level 6 max.
While constellations give good damage buffs, it isn’t until constellations 4 where the damage really kicks in. A constellations 0 Keqing can build Physical and Electro just fine and you don’t need to worry too much about chasing constellations.
With all of this said and done, you’re probably wondering which build is better and the answer usually relies on what equipment you have. If you got lucky with the weapon Gacha system or have purchased the battle pass, you can choose either of the builds but for a lot of people it will mostly come down to artifacts and the weapons they already have.
But this Lightning Queen doesn’t just rely on equipment and her teammates could be the deciding factor for you.
Keqing Team Setup
Even though there’s no one that can match her stylish playstyle, we still need teammates to unleash her full potential and the first consideration that comes with every decision would be to identify her build.
If you’re using her as your main physical damage dealer, then she basically needs a cryo teammate by default for those Superconduct reactions. Anyone who can provide bursts or elemental reactions that linger on the battlefield is going to be the ideal strategy for her.
The most exceptional teammates being Xingqiu, Fischl, Xiangling, and Beidou while not forgetting guys like Bennett or Zhongli who can boost her own damage. And of course, you can’t go wrong with Anemo characters like Venti or Sucrose.
Now for her Electro build, everything is pretty much the same except you don’t need to rely on a cryo character and you have slightly more freedom in team compositions but there’s going to be a strong emphasis on Anemo who will need to make sure they can group enemies into a tight place so that your Electro attacks can hit as many enemies as possible.
It’s kind of unfair to call Keqing a support damage dealer if you choose to only use her burst and elemental skill by quickly swapping to her. Her damage is seriously impressive but you are also not that limited by team pick choices because you aren’t really building a team around her anymore.
Of course, don’t forget to sneak in a few of those charged or normal attacks before swapping her out. Either way, most of the teammates work well with her thanks to her Electro element which helps her out when you need to fill those mandatory team spots for the best benefits.
Wrapping It Up!
So, should you go Electro or Physical? I think the most important thing to answer that question is to choose your preferred play style. If you want a more straightforward playstyle and just one attack, go for Physical. If you want a more dynamic and agile play style then go with Electro Keqing.
In terms of damage, optimal DPS rotations with Electro Keqing and the right support characters with good elemental synergy will out damage Physical Keqing with single targets coming very close. Electro has more potential of AoE damage as well. Also, if you do end up getting more constellations for Keqing it will benefit electro Keqing a lot more. Both playstyles are solid so I think ultimately it’s up to which playstyle you prefer.