A guide on the current end-game content in Genshin Impact: the Spiral Abyss. I will explain in detail best units, F2P teams, enemies and effects from floor 9 to 12.

The Spiral Abyss

The Spiral Abyss is a repeatable content that can be cleared bimonthly for Primogems. First time clears offer a one-time reward of various resources and equipment.

There are 12 floors in total, and each floor is divided into three chambers.

You begin on floor 1 chamber 1, and must clear three chambers in order to advance to the next floor. From floors 6 onwards, the floors are also divided into halves, requiring two separate teams of different characters.

During your attempt to clear the three chambers, you cannot use food, change equipment or re-arrange your party.

Each floor also provides a specific buff/debuff to your party. For example, Floor 9 increases your Pyro damage by 75% and your overload damage by 200%.
- Using these buffs is crucial to take on the floors effectively, especially since floors that buff a certain type of damage usually contain monsters weak to it.
There are also a set of buffs you can choose from when entering each chamber. Some of these will carry onto the next floor, while some will only be active for that chamber.
Finally, there is a set of buffs that apply to every floor, that are rotated out every two weeks. These range from extra energy generation to AoE damage after sprinting.

Best units

Typically, you can achieve the best results by using characters and elements that are buffed by the floor. However, most players have limited resources to upgrade their characters, so they are not able to prepare a team for every floor.

Instead of giving you an “ideal” team for every floor, I’ll go over the floors and recommend F2P setups where you can replace units based on the characters you have.

Also, since the earlier floors can mostly be powered through as your AR increases, I will focus on floors 9-12 as they are the repeatable ones.

Extensive floor explanation

Floor 9 summary

Floor 9 provides a 75% Pyro/Electro and 200% overload damage buff. Note that the overload buff is multiplicative with any other bonus, meaning this essentially triples your overload damage. If you have +200% from EM, your overload will deal 9x the base damage.

Beside the buffed elements, it is important to study which enemies you’ll be fighting inside each floor. Floor 9 contains several enemies with shields, so you should consider how you will break them.

In the first half there is a Stonehide Lawachurl, so you’ll need either Geo or a Claymore to deal with that.
In the second half there are Cryo and Electro Fatui Skirmishers that need Pyro and Cryo to be dealt with, respectively.

I would strongly suggest building EM and focusing on creating overload since the buff is so strong.

First half: Pyro/Electro DPS, Claymore/Geo for Geo shield.
Second half: Pyro/Electro DPS, Cryo for Electro Fatui’s shield.

Example F2P teams

Team 1: Xiangling, Noelle, X, X.
Team 2: Lisa, Amber, Kaeya, Barbara.

Floor 9 breakdown

Ley Line Disorder

Fire element damage caused by all characters in the team increased by 75%.
Lightning element damage caused by all characters in the team increased by 75%.
Damage caused by overload reaction increased by 200%.

Notes

Electro and Pyro are both the best elements for this floor.
A Claymore on both sides could help to clear the Stonehide Lawachurl’s shield on 9-3-1 or Geo Fatui Skirmisher on 9-2-2.
Cryo could help with clearing the Electro Skirmisher’s shield on 9-2-2.
You don’t need a lot of healing because most enemies are easily dealt with, assuming you break their shields and DPS well enough.

First Half

9-1: LVL 72 - Large Pyro Slime, Large Electro Slime, Mutated Electro Slime.
- Pyro is strong versus Electro Slimes, and you need something to deal with Pyro Slimes (Electro/Hydro/Cryo).
9-2: LVL 74 - Electro Cicin, Treasure Hoarders (Hydro, Pyro, Electro, Cryo, Standard).
- No specific enemy weaknesses; just use floor bonuses.
9-3: LVL 76 - Stonehide Lawachurl, Vishap Hatchling.
- Claymore is the best option to deal with the Lawachurl’s shields.

Second Half

9-1: LVL 72 - Large Pyro Slime, Large Electro Slime, Mutated Electro Slime.
- Pyro is strong versus Electro Slimes, and you need something to deal with Pyro Slimes (Electro/Hydro/Cryo).
9-2: LVL 74 - Fatui Skirmishers (Cryo, Electro, Geo, Anemo).
- Mixed enemy weaknesses: Pyro -> Cryo, Pyro -> Electro, Claymore -> Geo.
9-3: LVL 76 - Ruin Guards.
- High physical RES, so elemental damage works best (or archers/weak spot).

Floor 10 summary

Floor 10 provides a 50% increase to healing, but also applies the “Smouldering Fire” debuff, which causes you to take a Pyro damage DoT until the Pyro effect is cleared.

The debuff can be tanked with a decent healer or Geo, but clearing it with Barbara makes the floor much easier (you can only use Barbara on one half though).

First half: Any DPS, Hydro for Pyro shields, healer/shield/debuff clearer.
Second half: Any DPS, Hydro for Pyro shields (or Electro/Cryo if you don’t have a Hydro for this team), healer/shield/debuff clearer.

Example F2P teams

Team 1: Xiangling, Barbara, X, X.
Team 2: DPS, Kaeya, Noelle, X.

Floor 10 breakdown

Ley Line Disorder

Periodically applies “Smoldering Fire” to the character: until the attached fire element is eliminated, it will continue to suffer fire element damage.
Increases the healing bonus of all characters in the team by 50%.

Notes

Healing and the ability to clear the Pyro element will be important: units like Barbara/Qiqi are especially strong here.
Lots of Pyro Abyss Mages so Hydro > Claymore > Electro will be useful to clear them.

First Half

10-1: LVL 80 - Blazing Axe Mitachurl, Large Pyro Slime, Hilichurl Berserker.
- No necessary weaknesses except for Hydro/Cryo vs Pyro Slime. Any element should be fine (except Pyro vs the slime).
10-2: LVL 82 - Pyro Abyss Mage, Hilichurl Fighter, Hilichurl Bomber, Pyro Whopperflower.
- Hydro > Claymore/Electro vs Pyro Mage’s shield.
10-3: LVL 85 - Fatui Skirmishers (Anemo, Pyro).
- Hydro is strong to clear the Fatui Skirmisher’s Pyro shield.

Second Half

10-1: LVL 80 - Blazing Axe Mitachurl, Pyro Abyss Mage.
10-2: LVL 82 - Blazing Axe Mitachurl, Pyro Abyss Mage, Pyro Hilichurl shooter.
10-3: LVL 85 - Pyro Abyss Mage, Dendro Samachurl, Pyro Hilichurl Shooter, Pyro Whopperflower.

Note: Hydro > Claymore/Electro vs Pyro Mage’s shield.

Floor 11 summary

Floor 11 provides a 75% Cryo/Electro and 300% superconductor damage buff. It also causes superconductor to reduce enemy Phys RES by another 20% (60% total).

As with the overload buff from Floor 9, the reaction buff is multiplicative, meaning your superconductor will do 4x damage. However, Superconductor inherently does low damage, so you should not focus on it to kill enemies.

Funnily enough, despite the buffs to Cryo/Electro, Pyro is still a solid choice for the first half. Chamber 1 contains Electro/Cryo Slimes, both of which are relatively weak to Pyro and not really easily dealt with by Cryo or Electro.

You could also opt for a physical damage dealer if you plan going for the superconductor route.

First half: Pyro to clear Cryo Slimes/Fatui, Electro/Cryo/Phys DPS, Claymore/Geo for Geo shields.
Second half: Cryo/Electro/Phys DPS, Cryo to clear Fatui’s shield, Geo/Claymore to clear Geo shields, Pyro for Cryo shield.

Example F2P teams

Team 1: Xiangling, Noelle, X, X.
Team 2: Lisa, Kaeya, Geo MC, Amber.

Floor 11 breakdown

Ley Line Disorder

Lightning element damage caused by all characters in the team increased by 75%.
Ice element damage caused by all characters in the team increased by 75%.
The damage caused by the superconducting reaction is increased by 300%, and the physical resistance of the reaction target is reduced by 20%.

Notes

Electro, Cryo and phys (assuming you proc superconductor) are all strong on this floor.
60% total Phys Res reduction: ~39% damage multiplier to Phys versus most enemies that have 10% phys RES.
Claymores is useful for both halves: Razor/Chong seem like the best units for this floor.

First Half

11-1: LVL 88 - Large Cryo Slime, Large Electro Slime, Mutated Electro Slime, Cryo Hilichurl Shooter, Wooden Shield Hilichurl Guard.
- Anything should work for this one; phys damage dealers work versus anything.
11-2: LVL 90 - Blazing Axe Mitachurl, Rock Shieldwall Mitachurl, Hilichurl Bomber, Rock Shield Hilichurl Guard.
- Claymore is useful to clear the Mitachurl’s shield.
11-3: LVL 92 - Fatui Skirmishers (Cryo, Geo, Anemo).
- Pyro/Claymore is useful to clear the Skirmisher’s shield.

Second Half

11-1: LVL 88 - Electro Cicin, Cryo Abyss Mage, Hydro Samachurl, Cryo Hilichurl Shooter, Electro Hilichurl Shooter.
- Pyro>Claymore>Electro versus Cryo Mage’s shield.
11-2: LVL 90 - Blazing Axe Mitachurl, Rock Shieldwall Mitachurl, Large Cryo Slime, Large Pyro Slime, Cryo Hilichurl Shooter, Electro Hilichurl Shooter.
- Claymore is useful to clear the Mitachurl’s shield.
11-3: LVL 92 - Fatui Skirmishers (Electro, Geo, Anemo).
- Cryo/Claymore is useful to clear the Skirmisher’s shield.

Floor 12 summary

Floor 12 provides a 75% increase to Pyro damage, but also applies the “Condensed Ice” debuff which causes your stamina usage to increase greatly until the Cryo effect is cleared.

As far as I know, the only way to self-clear Cryo would be Bennett’s Q (Fantastic Voyage), or Barbara’s E (Let the Show Begin), but this will freeze you.

Pyro units can deal with almost every enemy themselves, with only Cryo needed to clear Skirmisher’s shields on both halves, and a Geo/Claymore to clear a Skirmisher’s shield on the second half.

Example F2P teams

Team 1: Xiangling, Kaeya, X, X.
Team 2: Amber, Geo MC, Cryo?, X.

Floor 12 breakdown

Ley Line Disorder

Periodically applies “Condensed Ice” to the character: before the attached ice element is eliminated, the physical exertion is greatly increased.
Fire element damage caused by all characters in the team increased by 75%.

Notes

Pyro is strongest element here: Bennett is really good since he can self inflict Pyro with Q.
Claymores can help on the second half to deal with the Cryo Mage’s shields, but realistically both teams should have a Pyro user
Amber could actually be good for this if your only other Pyro is Xiang.

First Half

12-1: LVL 95 - Wooden Shield Mitachurl, Large Cryo Slime, Cryo Whopperflower.
- Pyro to clear the Mitachurl’s shield/melt Slime.
12-2: LVL 98 - Cryo Whopperflower, Pyro Hilichurl Shooter, Cryo Hilichurl Shooter.
- Anything can work here, but obviously Pyro is the best option.
12-3: LVL 100 - Fatui Skirmisher (Cryo, Electro, Anemo).
- Pyro to clear the Skirmisher’s shields.

Second Half

12-1: LVL 95 - Cryo Abyss Mage, Large Cryo Slime, Cryo Hilichurl Shooter.
- Pyro > Claymore > Electro=Hydro for the abyss Mage’s shield.
12-2: LVL 98 - Cryo Abyss Mage, Wooden Shield Mitachurl, Large Cryo Slime, Cryo Hilichurl Shooter, Electro Hilichurl Shooter, Pyro Hilichurl Shooter.
- Pyro > Claymore > Electro=Hydro for the abyss Mage’s shield, Pyro deals with Wooden’s shield.
12-3: LVL 100 - Fatui Skirmisher (Cryo, Electro, Anemo, Geo).
- Pyro to clear Cryo/Electro shield, Claymore for Geo shield.

F2P note

You can definitely get by with the base F2P team assuming they are built properly and you are level 90. You likely won’t be able to complete it at a lower AR, but that’s the downside of being F2P.

If you have other units, replacements can be made where possible, for example, Chongyun for Kaeya or Bennett/Diluc for Amber.

Since you need two healers, if you’re F2P, you will have to invest in both Noelle and Barbara to be able to clear everything smoothly. Noelle has the added benefit of being able to clear Geo shields and provide shields herself.

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Credit to robin who provided information for this article. - Images: miHoYo