Genshin Impact Barbara Healer In-Depth Guide

by Not-Casuals

Barbara is probably the most straightforward Healer Character in Genshin Impact, while also being one of the most powerful in terms of Pure Healing Power and Utility. She is also surprisingly powerful if built as a DPS, but this guide is going to focus on her amazing Heals and the importance of her Supporting role in your team, for Content such as the Abyss or Open World exploration.

It is also good to note that players who have reached Adventure Rank 20 before Patch 1.1 got a free Copy of Barbara already. With Patch 1.1, a new event has also been introduced that will give everyone another free copy of Barbara, forever, as this event will not expire, so, any and every player will be able to have Barbara in their team, which is amazing!

With the recent release of Childe / Tartaglia, it is good to note that 2 constellation Barbara is actually a super powerful supportive tool for him with 15% Hydro Damage!

The Shining Idol of Mondstadt can easily be considered an S Tier Healer/Support, especially for Free to Play players, as her healing potential and her ability to regenerate energy and break fire shield is very important, and she is the only Water character that most people could get their hands on for completely free. The only real downside of Barbara is the fact that her Elemental Skill provides the “Wet” status to your party members, which can be very annoying especially against Ice Enemies. But, even considering this, unless you have gotten lucky enough to get one of the 5 Star Healer such as Jean or Qiqi, Barbara will one of the most powerful healer to use in your party! (And can arguably be as valuable as those 5 stars in certain comps!) It is also important to note that she also enables a lot of Elemental combination with her wet effect, as it also affects nearby enemies continuously!

In this guide we will go over:

1. Her Abilities, Talents and Constellations and all they work and synergize together.
2. The stat priorities you should focus on for different types of builds and gameplay
3. The Weapon choices and Best Artifact set for healing and supporting your team
4. Lastly, we will explore different team comps, utility and tips for Barbara.

Abilities

Barbara’s main role is of course a healer. She does this through both her Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst as well as her auto attacks. Literally everything she does heals your party in some way! With certain Weapons and Artifact, she will also provide very powerful supportive abilities

• Her Auto Attack is a chain of 4 attacks that deal AOE Hydro damage and is very useful for breaking fire shields especially as well as applying Wet on multiple targets at once.
• Her Charged attack is a very high damage scaling attack that does AOE Hydro damage and is very amazing when you have her 4 th constellation especially. It is also very good to break shields and apply wet on many enemies.
• Her Elemental Skill is probably her most iconic and complicated ability. She will summon an aura of water/music around her that will continuously heal the current character, as well as apply wet to both yourself, and any enemies in close range, on top of dealing hydro damage to them over and over. This is incredibly powerful to create some elemental combos since this aura carries over to your other characters. If using Barbara’s auto attack or charged attack with the Aura Active, she will also create a lot of healing for your entire party, with charged attacks creating 4x more healing than normal attacks. This will allow you to spam attacks and top up your entire party, on top of the constant passive healing the abilitiy gives. ALL HEALING SCALES WITH HER MAX HP! This ability lasts for 15 seconds and has 32 seconds of cooldown, but the duration can be increased with her talents and the cooldown can be reduced as well through her constellation!
• Her Elemental Burst / Ult is one of the biggest source of burst healing in the game. It will do a massive burst of healing, for every character in the party, scaling greatly off of Barbara’s Maximum HP. It has 20 seconds cooldown with an energy cost of 80.
• Her first talent, Glorious Season reduces the Stamina consumption of characters who have the aura by 12%, which can be useful to permit you to dodge more easily while depleting less stamina.
• Her second talent, Encore is very powerful as it lets you extend the duration of her Elemental Skill by up to 5 seconds if you pick up elemental orbs, which is something that almost always happens.

Constellations

Due to the fact that most players will have gotten one or two copy of Barbara for free, and that she was also on the Venti Bannner, having constellations on her is not unrealistic. Some of her most powerful constellations are the first ones too, which takes her power and supporting level to new heights!

• Her 1st constellation provides her with 1 Energy Regen every 10 second, which in itself is very straightforward and powerful.
• Her 2nd constellation is one of her most powerful when used with Hydro characters. It reduces the cooldown of her Skill by 15% and gives 15% Hydro damage to the characters while the skill is active.
• Her 4th constellation will allow her charged attack to regen up to 5 energy every time, since it is an AOE attack, you will regen 1 energy for every monster hit. This is crazy powerful to allow her to have her ult constantly if needed.
• Her 6th constellation is completely game-changing, especially for the Abyss, as it will allow one of your character to fall in battle and get resurrected to full HP once every 15 minute! This can make all the difference on some hard levels or allow you a mistake without ruining you 20 minutes run!

Stat Priority

• Energy Recharge or HP on the Sands, HP on the Goblet, Healing Efficiency on the Circlet
• Healing Efficiency and HP are the most valuable stats, as they both directly impacts how much she will heal for. It is important to note that Healing Efficiency scales much better than HP and should be prioritized. As for sub-stats: HP% – HP – Energy Recharge will be what you will be looking for.

Weapons

1. Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers is probably one of the most amazing option on Barbara, even though it is a 3 star weapon. Not only does it provide her with HP as a substat, which is great for her healing scaling, it also has an amazing effect that gives 48% ATK (at max refinement) to the character taking the field when you switch to another party member. This is really incredible value and your DPS will love it!
2. Prototype Malice is also an amazing option for her, as it is a 4 star, and it also provides her with HP as a sub-stat. Is is also craftable which makes refinement levels possible for any type of players. The effect on it is amazing for her, as it will allow her to regenerate 12 energy over 6 seconds when casting her ult, which equals to 15% of the energy cost. Additionally, all party members will also regenerate 4% of their HP every 2 seconds, for 6 seconds, which is great additional healing.
3. Another great option could be the Favonius Codex, as it provides Energy Recharge, which can be very good for Barbara. The effect also makes it so her crits have a chance generating Energy Particles which is again, amazing for her ult and thus, her healing powers!

Artifacts

1. The obvious first choice here would be the 4-Piece Maiden Beloved as it enhances her healing in many different ways, and as a pure healer, there is nothing better, especially since the other options do not have 5 star versions of their sets.
2. Another great option is the 4-Piece Exile Set, which works very well with her especially when focusing on energy recharge builds and provides a powerful Energy Regeneration tool for her and your party as it provides the entire party with energy regeneration when using her ult.
3. You could also use the 4-Piece Scholar Set can be extremely powerful as well, especially in teams that include a few catalyst and bow users, as Barbara has a lot of ways of gaining energy through her abilities and her fourth constellation. This is probably one of the best set with Barbara if you are playing a team that can benefit from it!
4. It is also entirely possible to mix and match these sets for 2-Piece bonuses, and get both some healing efficiency and energy recharge! Small mention goes to the Instructor set that can also be good with certain comps, but is more focused on damage than healing, and sadly does not have a 5 star option either.

Team comps and Tips

• While Barbara’s Elemental Skill can sometimes hinder you by making you wet, it also provides a very valuable tool to elemental combinations, as it also makes every monsters around you wet as well as damage then every few seconds while the aura is around you, this can be great for many elemental combos such as Vaporize. The thing to remember here, and the reason its so powerful, is that the aura will apply wet effect continuously for many seconds, which means it can keep repeating more and more elemental combo which, in this game, is insanely powerful and is the reason Barbara is such a strong Healer/Support.
• Due to this fact, she can be a very important part of a shatter or vaporize comp, and due to the fact that having constellations on her is realistic, she is not to be underestimated with characters such as Mona and Childe (for the 15% Hydro damage bonus) or Chongyun (One of the best character for Shatter Comps)
• She is probably the cheapest and easiest healer to build and use, and while not perfect, she is more than good enough to be the healer in your party for all the currently available content, without question. Even if kept at Level 60, she will be able to perform very well and heal your entire team easily.
• She can also be built as a very interesting burst dps character, though it is probably not optimal, it can be very fun due to her insane scaling!
• One plus of Barbara is that you also do not really have to invest materials in leveling up her Basic Attack talent, as it does not change anything for her healing powers, it simply increases her damage which is not relevant if using her as a healer/support.

I hope you enjoyed this guide and that you will enjoy your extra copy of Barbara in 1.1! I am aware that there are other ways of building Barbara that can be a lot of fun, especially as a burst damage dealer, so feel free to let us know of your personal experience with her and the builds you have tried on her in the comments below, as I love hearing about them!