Genshin Impact's Alhaitham brings both brains and brawn! Here's how you build him

With the release of Genshin Impact version 3.4, Alhaitham is finally here!

After being an integral part in our quest to save the Dendro Archon Lesser Lord Kusanali, this 5-star Dendro sword user now brings both brains and brawn to the Traveler's party.

And while Alhaitham called himself a 'feeble scholar', don’t be fooled by his words. There’s a vicious strength hiding behind Alhaitham’s rather quiet and studious demeanour. Here’s everything you need to know about Alhaitham!

Analyse, Hypothesise, Plan, Decimate

Alhaitham boasts a kit that focuses on dealing fast Dendro-infused attacks, making him a Main DPS that requires him to take the majority of field time for your party.

And while he is similar to other 5-stars, especially Keqing, we actually headcanon-ed that he learned their techniques through the variety of Knowledge Capsules he had come across as the Akademiya Scribe and made them his own.

Alhaitham’s skill, Universality: An Elaboration of Form, is where the brunt of his damage output comes from. It allows him to enter an Aiming Mode to rush on enemies head-on, teleporting to the target location and dealing Dendro DMG to any nearby enemies, similar to Keqing's skill.

During this time, Alhaitham will generate Chisel-Light Mirrors, which will infuse his Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks with Dendro. When his infused attacks hit opponents, the Chisel-Light Mirrors will unleash a coordinated Projection Attack that deals area-of-effect Dendro DMG based on the number of Chisel-Light Mirrors existing on field. A maximum of three Chisel-Light Mirrors can exist during the duration of his skill.

Switching out Alhaitham prematurely will destroy these Mirrors and end his skill duration, so it’s ideal to keep him on-field at all times when you have deployed his skill.

His burst, Particular Field: Fetters of Phenomena, creates a Particular Binding Field which deals multiple instances of area-of-effect Dendro DMG.

When you have Chisel-Light Mirrors during the duration of the burst, all the Mirrors will be consumed and increase the number of DMG instances dealt. After the burst ends, Alhaitham will then regenerate the number of Chisel-Light Mirrors consumed.

Alhaitham’s A1 Passive, Four-Casual Correction, allows his Charged or Plunging Attacks to generate one Chisel-Light Mirror when hitting opponents. This effect can be triggered once every 12 seconds.

Meanwhile, his A4 Passive, Mysteries Laid Bare, will increase the damage of Projection Attacks from his Chisel-Light Mirrors as well as his burst by 0.1% of his Elemental Mastery. You can gain a 100% DMG bonus in this way.

Due to his A4 Passive, Alhaitham scales with both ATK% and Elemental Mastery, and maximizing his damage output will require you to maintain a good balance of these two stats alongside your Crit ratios.

Your focus in ascending Alhaitham’s talents should be his Normal Attacks, then Skill, and lastly his Burst.

Sometimes, group studies are necessary (Alhaitham's best teams)

Alhaitham may like to work alone, but he shines best in a team that pushes him towards his full capability. With his Dendro alignment, Alhaitham is a formidable DPS that takes advantage of the myriad of Dendro elemental reactions that were introduced in the game back in version 3.0.

Here are some teams you can try!

Quick-Bloom: Alhaitham, Electro Character, Hydro Character, Flexible spot

This lineup utilises the Quicken-into-Spread and Bloom-into-Hyperbloom reactions. Alhaitham will take advantage of the increased Dendro DMG from triggering Spread while creating Dendro Cores with Bloom, and subsequently detonating them early to deal homing Dendro DMG with the help of an off-field Electro support like Fischl, Yae Miko, or Raiden Shogun with an Elemental Mastery build.

This team can get on the technical side, so it’s ideal to have a healer like Kokomi for Hydro, Kuki Shinobu for Electro, and Yaoyao for Dendro. The flexible spot in this team can be taken by Dendro supports like Collei, Nahida, or Dendro Traveller.

Spread: Alhaitham, Nahida/Dendro Traveller/Collei/Yaoyao, Kuki Shinobu/Fischl/Beidou/Yae Miko/Dori

Crafted to focus wholly on Alhaitham’s enhanced Dendro DMG through Spread, this team will consist of a Dendro Support, and ideally two Electro characters that can act as a healer and off-field Electro applicator.

However, if you want to be assured of tanking through enemies, a shielder like Zhongli, who can also shred resistances, is welcome in this setup. A Normal Attack buffer like Yun Jin can also be a viable option.

Bloom: Alhaitham, Nilou, Kokomi/Barbara, Nahida/Dendro Traveler/Collei/Yaoyao

This team will take advantage of Nilou’s Bountiful Cores, that being Dendro Cores that explode instantly and with DMG that scales off of Nilou’s max HP. With Alhaitham acting as the Main DPS, Nilou’s off-field version of her skill will be the trigger to create the cores.

Kokomi or Barbara will act as healers, as well as triggering Hydro Resonance to further increase Nilou’s HP, while Dendro Traveler, Nahida, Collei, or Yaoyao will act as secondary off-field Dendro supports.

Burgeon: Alhaitham, Thoma, Xingqiu/Yelan/Kokomi/Barbara, Nahida/Dendro Traveller/Collei/Yaoyao

Taking advantage of the Burgeon reaction and its area-of-effect Dendro DMG, Alhaitham will act as Main DPS while Thoma’s burst will generate Pyro to trigger the reaction. Hydro characters like Xingqiu, Yelan, Kokomi, or Barbara will create the Dendro Cores. Nahida, Dendro Traveller, Collei, or Yaoyao will act as secondary off-field Dendro appplicators.

The Pen is mightier than the Sword, but not in this case (Alhaitham's best gear)

When it comes to gear, the best option for Alhaitham is obviously his signature weapon, Light of Foliar Incision, as it is tailor-made for his kit.

It boasts the biggest Crit DMG substat in the game, maxing out at 88% to make up for the low base ATK. The passive also gives you a 4% Crit Rate increase, while increasing the damage of your Normal Attacks and Elemental Skill by 120% of your Elemental Mastery.

But if you’re not too keen on pulling in the weapon banner, here are some alternatives:

Primordial Jade Cutter: Ascends with Crit Rate, which is a welcome addition. The HP increase passive won’t benefit you, but the ATK bonus scaling off of 1.2% of Max HP means you can focus on getting more Elemental Mastery than ATK in your artifacts.

Mistsplitter Reforged: Ascends with Crit DMG, gives additional Elemental DMG bonus. Works well with Alhaitham as he can trigger the passive fairly quickly with his skill and burst.

Haran Geppaku Futsu: Ascends with Crit Rate, gives additional Elemental DMG bonus, and further Normal ATK DMG bonus when your teammates unleash skills.

For 4-star weapons, you can go for:

• Xiphos’ Moonlight (Gacha)

• The Black Sword (Battle Pass)

• Toukabou Shigure (event-only)

• Iron Sting (craftable)

• Amenoma Kageuchi (craftable)

• Festering Desire (event-only)

And for the true free-to-play experience, the 3-star weapon Harbinger of Dawn is also a good option.

For Artifacts, the best set Alhaitham can use is Gilded Dreams, which will increase both his Elemental Mastery and ATK with its 4-piece set bonus, and necessary to get bigger DMG numbers. You can also equip him with Deepwood Memories, but it’s more ideal to have a Dendro support in his team to have it.

The main stats for your artifacts should be:

• Sands: Elemental Mastery

• Goblet: Dendro DMG Bonus

• Circlet: Crit Rate or Crit DMG, whichever you’re more lacking in.

Substats to go for should be: Crit DMG or Crit Rate, Elemental Mastery, ATK and ATK%, then Energy Recharge.

Alhaitham is featured as the new 5-star character for Genshin Impact version 3.4 alongside a rerun for Xiao in the version's first half. The second half will then feature reruns for both Hu Tao and Yelan.

If you're still torn between pulling for Alhaitham or Xiao, or thinking of waiting for Hu Tao and Yelan instead, we've got you covered.

After version 3.4 comes version 3.5, which will feature the debuts of Dehya and Mika. Genshin Impact version 3.5 is expected to be released in late February.

Yan Ku is a full-time dog parent, part-time (gacha) gamer, and part-time writer.

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