Electro vs Physical Keqing: comparison and best build
There are two viable endgame styles for Keqing: AutoKeq (physical) and ElectroQueen. We will learn the difference between these two builds, combos, pros, and cons.
Keqing’s E: Stellar Restoration
Before talking about the builds, we must first fully understand Stellar Restoration.
The first cast can be used to apply electro debuff to multiple enemies.
If the skill is recast within 5 seconds, it will teleport Keqing to the marked location, dealing a single slash of AoE electro damage, and converting her normal and charged attacks to electro damage.
Otherwise, performing a charged attack after the first cast will cause the mark to explode and deal two slashes of electro damage. Keqing’s normal and charged attacks are not converted to electro.
The significance of Stellar Restoration
If your preferred playstyle involves teleporting and recasting Stellar Restoration, then you cannot go physical Keqing. The conversion of attacks to electro damage causes you to lose any %physdmg bonus.
In addition, physical Keqing’s Q (Starward Sword) mainly serves to buff critical rate and act as an i-frame. The damage is significantly reduced compared to Electro Keqing.
This does not mean that physical Keqing is necessarily weaker than the electro variant, however, Physical Keqing loses the character’s innate mobility.
It is important to note that both builds have their respective conditions where they likely outperform the other one.The main difference between both builds boils down to whether or not you can recast Stellar Restoration.
What is the ElectroQueen build
The Keqing’s ElectroQueen build aims to maximise electro damage from normal and charged autoattacks, Stellar Restoration (E), and Starward Sword (Q).
As Keqing’s Stellar Restoration electro conversion lasts for 5 seconds and the cooldown of the skill is 7.5 seconds from initial cast, there is about a 2-3 second downtime where your autoattacks are not electro-empowered. During this period of time, it is recommended that you switch to a support to prepare the next round of elemental reactions.
Common combos
Casting E to apply electro > swapping to a support to proc a reaction > swapping back to Keqing to re-cast E > normal-charged attack combo until electro conversion finishes > Q burst > repeat.
This combo casts Q after E to maximise cooldowns. However, this means that you do not benefit from the increased energy recharge and crit rate until the next cycle.
With Venti: Venti Q > Keqing E cast above the Venti Q > Recast E to blink above and deal damage to enemies in black hole > M1 to perform a plunge attack with electro dmg > normal-charged attack combo or go straight to Q burst.
Q whenever possible to maintain the +15% crit rate buff and energy recharge.
Advantages
The ElectroQueen build is probably why you wanted to play Keqing in the first place. The high attack speed and high mobility aspects of her kit are highly enjoyable, especially when paired with her 3-second i-frame Q on a 12-second CD.
It rewards risky and reckless play and gives you many options to outmanoeuvre enemies. By far, ElectroQueen builds are very flashy and make for great montage videos.
Keqing can maintain 90+% uptime on electro-debuffs to monsters with little effort (except to innate elemental units).
Has higher mobility to dodge boss/stage mechanics.
Generally runs well with any support (except Chongyun cause he converts your attacks to cryo) due to her high rate of application of electro-debuff.
Performance against mobs versus a single stationary target is about the same, more consistent across the board.
Disadvantages
Deals 0 electro damage to innate electro enemies (Aleph the Electro Hypostasis, Yellow/Purple Electroslimes).
Electro-related elemental reactions do not scale very well into endgame (pyro, melt, and vaporise do).
Electro-related elemental reactions like Overload, Superconduct, and Electro-Charged cannot crit.
These reactions are only affected by the Elemental mastery (EM) of the character proccing the reaction, the level of the triggering character, and any elemental resistance/debuff.
Example: Keqing applies electro, then Xiangling’s Guoba Attack applies fire to trigger an Overload reaction. The reaction will only take into account Xiangling’s EM and level even if Keqing was the active character. If fire was applied first, and Keqing caused the Overload reaction, then it would only use Keqing’s EM and level.
In addition, overload deals 0 damage to Pyroslimes (because it’s pyro damage) and superconductor deals 0 damage to Cryoslimes (because it’s cryo damage).
There is currently no 5* weapon that synergises well with ElectroQueen.
What is the AutoKeq build
The Keqing’s AutoKeq build aims to maximise physical damage from normal and charged autoattacks (white/physical damage) and forego any electro (purple) damage.
I must point out that one of the main reasons that this build is viable is because of the 5* Aquila Favonia providing a passive %physdmg bonus. This build will still do significant damage without Aquila, but it is the weapon with the most synergy.
You are unable to take advantage of Stellar Restoration recast converting your autoattacks into electro damage, and Starward Sword will deal significantly less damage. Starward Sword will simply serve to boost your critical rate by 15% (Ascension 4 talent) and to i-frame.
The ideal electro-related reaction to trigger is Superconduct:
It deals AoE cryo damage and reduces the target’s PHYS Resistance by 40% for 8-9 seconds.
If you reduce the defence below 0%, any leftover reduction is halved. For example, if the target has 10% physical defence originally, and you trigger Superconduct, the target will have -15% physical defence total.
Apply cryo, then switch to Keqing to proc Superconduct, then repeatedly cycle charged attacks.
It is important to note that when you perform a charged attack, you are really performing 1 x normal attack (hits once) followed by 1 x charged attack (hits twice) for a total of 3 hits.
Typically, triggering other elemental reactions aside from Superconduct is not recommended.
It works best for stationary targets and bosses.
Advantages
The playstyle is straightforward and easy to learn.
You can trigger massive white numbers due to the nature of Superconduct.
Better versus innate elemental slimes.
Better against Electro Cicin Mage (and any other mob with higher electro resistance and lower phys resistance).
Disadvantages
High consumption of stamina, which may leave none for iframe/dodging.
The notable exception is if you are using 4 set Bloodstained Chivalry.
Cannot use Stellar Restoration for mobility purposes (down smash, dodging, etc.) otherwise you will convert your damage to electro and lose any phys% bonus.
Elemental Skill (E) and Burst (Q) do significantly less damage because they do not scale with %physdmg.
If the target is not stationary, you will lose a lot of DPS constantly trying to walk up to hit them.
It has little to no synergy with Keqing’s constellations. If you get high constellations on Keqing, you are basically forced to go ElectroQueen.
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Disclaimer: This guide is a work in progress and may be updated in the future.
Credit to Doug#8888 who provided the information for this article. He is a theorycrafter in the r/KeqingMains subreddit and Discord.gg/Keqing server. - Images: miHoYo
