One of the more popular team compositions in Genshin Impact to emerge is called the National Team. Utilizing different elemental reactions centered around Pyro, this team is surprisingly free to play friendly as it is composed of all four star characters you may already own, and not much investment is needed in their constellations. The team was originally named the “Country Team” in Chinese which translates to National Team when word reached overseas. The name takes after the fact that everyone who’s played Genshin Impact since the beginning has at least one copy of these characters and is greatly accessible to everyone whether you’re a free to play player or a whale.
Because of gacha games’ inherent push for players to spend for powerful characters, a lot of people in these communities are constantly finding ways to bring costs down. In Arknights for example, there are the “low star all stars” team, which is simply an assembly of easily-accessible characters and employs intermediate strategies in order to clear all the content of the game. The National Team is that kind of setup.
National Team: Core Members
At its core, the National Team comprises Xiangling, Bennett, Xingqui, and Chongyun. This is a swap comp, meaning you really have to constantly swap between all four members to use their Skills and Bursts to deal damage. Since most of the team’s abilities are active even when they themselves are not on the field, everyone contributes to damage output.
The National Team starts with Xiangling as the main DPS of the team, but her playstyle may not be what you would expect from a traditional DPS character. Her strength doesn’t come from fast yet high polearm white damage. Her damage output comes from her Pyronado. While you won’t need her fourth constellation in order to make her work in the team, 40% additional uptime on her Burst translates to increased DPS. Her normal attacks serve to activate Xingqui’s Burst ability, allowing you to produce Vaporize reactions while Pyronado is active.
Bennett has fast cooldown times on his Skill, allowing you to quickly swap into Xiangling in order for her to catch the Pyro energy particles. He also provides Pyro resonance, decreasing Hydro debuffs by 40% and gives everyone in the party 25% increased damage. His Burst however, is the reason why he’s always a valued member of any team: big healing pulses and attack buffs to anyone inside his Burst field. He can also proc Vaporize and Melt from Xingqui and Chongyun respectively for massive damage spikes.
Xingqui is the other top tier support character included in this team, and with good reason. His Skill provides a source of constant Hydro application to enemies as well as damage mitigation to the active member of your team, regardless of who’s on the field. His Burst combos well with any of the other members because it provides Hydro debuffs and big damage to a single enemy hit, allowing Xinagling’s Pyronado to Vaporize it. Additionally, If Chongyun’s field is active, the Rainswords’ Hydro element will be able to Freeze enemies, allowing you a soft form of crowd control.
Chongyun is part of the team because of his high damage Cryo Skill and Burst. Having a Cryo field that increases attack speed for any member of your team because they are all melee weapon users. His Burst provides several instances of Cryo debuffs and high damage, allowing you a few opportunities to Melt and Freeze enemies. Having his second passive Talent unlocked also provides Cryo shred to affected enemies after the Skill duration ends (10 seconds), so be sure to use his Burst after the fact to increase damage output.
National Team: Character Builds
Because players have used the members of this team at some point in support roles, you may be familiar with how their abilities and timings work in conjunction with each other. The common thing you will see in the National Team would be high Energy Recharge. You would want a minimum of 180% Energy Recharge or better on all your characters so they can consistently and quickly gain their Burst, ready for elemental combos.
While most people will try and build Xiangling as a physical DPS with Crescent Pike, it’s actually better for the team overall to build her with support/Burst spam in mind.
Weapon: Deathmatch, Dragon’s Bane, Favonious Lance
Artifacts:
4pc Crimson Witch of Flames OR 2pc Crimson Witch + 2pc Noblesse
ENERGY RECHARGE/ELEMENTAL MASTERY hourglass (depending on weapon and stats)
PYRO DMG goblet
CRIT DMG/CRIT RATE headpiece (depending on lacking stat)
Crimson Witch of Flames, either as a two piece or a full set, gives Xiangling a massive boost in Pyro damage. The full set also gives bonus damage whenever you proc Vaporize or Melt, which this team does with deadly efficiency. Skipping the Crescent Pike in favor or Deathmatch for high damage, or for Favonius Lance to get Energy Recharge levels high enough produces higher damage output overall. Dragon’s Bane is a great option especially if you run an Energy Recharge hourglass since Xiangling scales with Elemental Mastery, allowing you to produce bigger numbers on Vaporize and Melt reactions. Remember to swap out to Xingqui and Chongyun often to get the most out of her Gouba and Pyronado.
Bennett is your primary buffer and is the primary carrier of the full Noblesse set. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, since he is usually build this way anyway.
Weapon: Festering Desire, The Flute
Artifacts:
4pc Noblesse Oblige
ENERGY RECHARGE/ATK hourglass (depending on weapon and stats)
PYRO DMG goblet
CRIT DMG/CRIT RATE headpiece (depending on lacking stat)
Bennett’s Burst is highly valued, and a full set of Noblesse will give him more damage upon cast to help your team. More importantly, the full set also gives a damage buff to everyone outside of the Attack buff Bennett himself gives when inside his Pyro field. Like with Xiangling, you want Bennett to have high Energy Recharge which you could hopefully get in some of your artifact substats and completed with Festering Desire.
In Spiral Abyss 1.5, some players use a full Thundering Fury set on Bennett because it gives 40% increased damage when you proc Overloaded and lowers the cooldown of Skills by 1 second, allowing him to spam his Skill for a continuous flow of energy particles for himself and Xiangling. Since the Abyss Lectors are always debuffed with Electro, using Bennett’s skill to proc Overloaded guarantees the full set bonus of Thundering Fury to activate.
Xingqui’s build is the same as his standard support build you will find people use.
Weapon: Sacrificial Sword, Favonious Blade
Artifacts:
4pc Noblesse Oblige OR 2pc Noblesse + 2pc Heart of Depth
ATK hourglass (depending on weapon and stats)
HYDRO DMG goblet
CRIT DMG/CRIT RATE headpiece (depending on lacking stat)
Xingqui can be your full Noblesse carrier or if you are lucky, a secondary Noblesse carrier alongside Bennett. Just remember that Noblesse set effects DO NOT stack with each other. However, having two Noblesse users in the team means you can have zero downtime of Noblesse effects if you are strict with your timings. Alternatively, you can also use Hearth of Depth pieces on Xingqui in order to squeeze a bit more damage from your Burst. Prioritize Sacrificial Sword and Energy Recharge substats for him, so you can have an ATK hourglass for more damage. The weapon’s ability also allows you to farm energy particles more consistently, not just for Xingqui, but for the rest of the National Team as well.
For Chongyun, you can prioritize upping his Elemental Mastery in order to make up for the fact that his abilities are more spike-oriented versus the constant damage output of Xiangling and Xingqui.
Weapon: Skyward Pride, Wolf’s Gravestone, Sacrificial Greatsword, Favonious Greatsword, Rainslasher, Lithic Blade
Artifacts:
2pc Blizzard Strayer + 2pc Noblesse OR 2pc Wanderer’s Troupe + 2pc Noblesse
ELEMENTAL MASTERY/ATK hourglass (depending on weapon and stats)
CRYO DMG goblet
CRIT DMG/CRIT RATE headpiece (depending on lacking stat)
Chongyun works with a full set of Noblesse, which shows how versatile and forgiving the National Team can be when it comes to builds. However, increasing his Elemental Mastery and Cryo damage with Wanderer’s and Blizzard Strayer respectively will help the team more in prolonged fights, especially in the Spiral Abyss. For weapon choices, he can carry the Skyward Pride if you lucked into it, or the new Lithic Blade, since you have three members hailing from Liyue. If you are using Favonious, make sure you have high crit rate on Chongyun to make full use of the energy particle generation ability of the weapon.
Team Showcase: Spiral Abyss as of Update 1.5
Chinese players have been using the National Team to great success in almost all of the endgame content for the game, including the most recent Spiral Abyss Chamber 12. Youtube user Ten Ten gives a breakdown of the team, discussing artifact and weapon choices as well as a showcase of the team’s power. Note that the members’ levels and weapons are not maxed out. Having maxed out weapons, artifacts, and character levels will of course increase their efficiency and power even more.
Overall, the National Team brings together the four most powerful support characters in the game, allowing you to tackle all kinds of content with minimal investment in terms of levels and talents. Even if you don’t prefer this team to use as your main team, taking the time to build the individual members – with a focus on Energy Recharge – will make any team they are in more powerful especially as we prepare for incoming content.
For light spenders who feel like they don’t have anything to do in the game anymore, building each member of the National Team to their maximum potential will be a great way to spend your time after doing your dailies!
JD Pablo Editor-in-Chief
JD Pablo is the current Editor-in-Chief of twenty8two. Enjoys video games, pizza, banana bread, and tea. Takes coffee black.
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