Kamisato Ayato 
✦ Hydro On-field DPS Guide ✦
Welcome to my Ayato Guide! We will cover basic info while also going deep into mechanics and playstyles!
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✦ Quick Infographic ✦
✦ Talents Overview ✦
✦ Elemental Skill: Kamisato Art • Kyouka ✦
Enters the Takimeguri Kanka state while also leaving an illusion at his original position. This illusion will explode if opponents are nearby or after its duration ends, dealing AoE Hydro DMG.
Takimeguri Kanka
In this state Ayato will be able to perform fast Hydro AoE Normal attacks, while Charged and Plunge attacks will be disabled
• Each hit will generate 1 particle with a 50% chance to generate 1 extra with a 2 sec CD (3 times per Skill)
• After a Normal attack hits an opponent, Ayato will gain a Namisen stack. Each stack will increase his damage based on his Max HP, to a maximum of 4 stacks
• You can only get 1 stack each 0.1s (even with Attack speed buffs you will never reach this time cap)
• At base attack speed you can perform up to 16 Attacks during his Skill
• During this state he has increased resistance to interruption
Tricks and Tips
• You should always hold down your Normal Attack instead of spamming it, doing so will ensure you get 16 attacks
• The stacks mechanic is nice to have but it's not vital. Building HP is usually not recommended
• The Normal Attacks performed during this Skill DO NOT scale from his Normal Attack Talent but are still considered Normal Attacks
• This skill does not snapshot, it uses Ayato stats in real time
✦ Elemental Burst: Kamisato Art • Suiyuu ✦
Creates a field that will constantly deal AoE Hydro DMG (Bloomwater Blades) and buffs 20% Normal Attack DMG to characters within.
• Each Blade targets a random opponent in the ar
ea and deals AoE damage
• 36 Blades will spawn in each Burst duration
• It snapshots and has Standard ICD
• Energy Cost 80
• Cooldown 20s
• Duration 18s
It is often said that this Burst has quadratic scaling.
Quadratic scaling means that the damage scales with the number of enemies (x² where x is the number of enemies). If you hit 2 enemies, you will do 4 times the damage (2²) or if you hit 4 you will do 16 times the damage (4²). As the Burst is divided in groups of 4 Blades it is technically quadratic up to 4 enemies, then linear for 5 or more enemies.
TLDR: the more enemies the more damage
✦ Normal Attack: Kamisato Art • Marobashi ✦
Ayato’s Normal, Charged and Plunge Attack talent.
It is highly recommended to not level up this Talent as Ayato Normal Attacks during his Skill will scale off the Elemental Skill and not this Talent.
✦ Ascension 1: Kamisato Art • Mine Wo Matoishi Kiyotaki ✦
Makes Ayato's Elemental Skill gain 2 Namisen stack upon use and, when the water illusion created by his Elemental Skill explodes, Ayato will gain a Namisen effect equal to the maximum stacks possible (4 at c0).
✦ Ascension 4: Kamisato Art • Michiyuku Hagetsu ✦
If Ayato is not on the field and his Energy is less than 40, he will regenerate 2 Energy every second; a decent Talent for his energy hungry Burst but not very intuitive in most rotations as you often want to cast your Burst into your Elemental Skill.
✦ Talent Priority ✦
Talent priority is really simple: His Elemental Skill has priority in most teams, followed by his Burst while leaving the Normal Attack at level 1. In teams where he’s played just for his Burst, of course, that can be the priority.
✦ Artifacts and Stats ✦
Artifact sets
• 4 Echoes of an Offering
Best choice in most scenarios and don't let the RNG scare you away because it will even out and surpass other options on average. It remains still hard to recommend farming this for most people as Blizzard/HoD Domain has a way higher value, while Echoes is paired with one of the most specific sets in the game, Vermillion. One last detail is that on high average ping there can be discrepancies between procs resulting in a possibility of less overall damage.
• 4 Heart of Depths
Amazing option in a very high value Domain. It will boost your Burst a bit better than Echoes or Glad and scales really well with high Atk or Atk buffs.
• 4 Gladiator's Finale
Another very good choice that can reach the potential of the above sets. Scales better with Normal DMG or Hydro DMG buffs but it's really hard to farm and is more suited to long time players.
• 2 mix | HoD / 18% ATK
The damage provided by mixing 15% Hydro DMG and 18% Atk is actually really close to a full set of the aboves.
• 4 Thundering Fury
Reduces your Skill cooldown but only works in Electro-Charged teams (Fischl + Beidou), it will fall behind other options for personal damage but not always for total team damage. Still not recommended but usable.
• 4 Blizzard Strayer
Another set that only works in a certain team, freeze in this case. 40% total Crit Rate as an artifact bonus is very good though and should outperform any other option provided you can perma freeze and have a high Crit DMG. It will also buff your Burst like no other set but using it off cooldown is going to be really hard
• 4 Emblem of Severed Fate
It can be very good in scenarios where you are going to face multiple enemies at the same time while being able to group them, it's really bad against 1 single enemy and not amazing in random scenarios. Using just the 2 pc for +20% ER is ok
Main/Sub Stats
Ascension stat is Crit DMG (+ 38.4%)
• Sands | ATK
• Goblet | Hydro DMG
• Circlet | Crit Rate or Crit DMG
Your substats will focus on Crit > Atk% > HP%. Make sure to always have enough ER% if your Burst is necessary. You don’t need an HP Sands..
✦ Weapons Ranking ✦
✦ 5 Star ✦
• Haran Geppaku Futsu • ATK 608 • Crit Rate 33.1%
His signature weapon and overall best weapon in the right scenarios. It's unfortunately conditional but it's not hard to get the 2 stacks required. The Crit rate passive builds very well with his Crit DMG Ascension stat.
• Primordial Jade Cutter • ATK 542 • Crit Rate 44.1%
Unconditional and in some scenarios (HoD set) it might even be better than his signature weapon while also making use of any HP substats. Even more Crit Rate that goes well with his Crit DMG Ascension stat.
• Mistsplitter Reforged • ATK 674 • Crit DMG 44.1%
An amazing weapon for Ayato if you can keep the relatively easy to get stacks up.
• Summit Shaper • ATK 608 • ATK 49.6%
Very high Atk but requires a shield to pull its weight. Not great if you plan on buffing his Atk further.
• Skyward Blade • ATK 608 • ER 55.1%
This weapon has a lot of good things going for Ayato: ER%, Attack Speed and some Crit Rate but unfortunately when looking at raw damage it's behind the above 5 star options and a few 4 stars.
✦ 4 Star ✦
• The Black Sword • ATK 510 • Crit Rate 27.6%
Ayato's best 4 star option. Crit Rate passive goes well with his Crit DMG Ascension stat while the passive is simply amazing for his damage. It scales really well with refinements. The only downside is that it's only obtainable once per patch by purchasing the Battle Pass.
• Kagotsurube Isshin • ATK 510 • ATK 41.3%
Ayato's best f2p option. Grants a small nuke every 8s and is obtainable via Kazuha’s Story Quest. Not refinable.
• Blackcliff Longsword • ATK 565 • Crit DMG 36.8%
Decently high base Atk with a Crit passive is already enough to make this somewhat good. Getting the Atk stacks makes it really shine but it's too conditional. Also expensive and not worth refining.
• Lion's Roar • ATK 510 • ATK 41.3%
Amazing choice but only in Electro-Charged teams.
✦ 3 Star ✦
• Harbinger of Dawn • ATK 401 • Crit DMG 46.9%
If you can pair this weapon with ATK buffs and keep Ayato healthy (>90% HP) this weapon is surprisingly good and can beat most 4 star options thanks to its high Crit Values.
Sac and Festering Desire do not work that well as the only work on your water illusion, not your Normal attacks
Other options you can use but are not that amazing: Amenoma, The Flute, Sac Sword, Prototype Rancour and Fav.
Note: Generally if you have any of: Haran, Jade and Mistsplitter just use them. Summit Shaper is ok if you can shield and the top 4 star options are better than Skyward usually. Black Sword is the only real 4 star I'd recommend though (and Lion's Roar but only in EC teams).
✦ Teams ✦
Ayato Taser
A very stable, easy and flexible team that can be played with Ayato. The strengths of this team lie in helping Ayato’s energy requirements with an Electro battery like Fischl and Electro resonance. Using Lion's Roar, in this team, is very viable.
Freeze (Morgana variation)
A variation of the famous Morgana team that welcomes Ayato in place of Mona, trading her buffs for Ayato's personal damage.
The team will work with both Ayaka and Ganyu but it's usually better with Ayaka as Ganyu paired with Ayato in this team doesn't really find the time to use her strong Charged Attacks and becomes a Burst Sub-DPS, Ayato and Ganyu Bursts are also a bit redundant.
The rotation is not always the same and you can get creative but make sure you keep enemies frozen especially if your team members are using Blizzard Strayer Set.
Freeze (Kaeya/Rosaria)
Hyper Carry
This team's only purpose is to buff Ayato Normal Attacks during his Skill making it hit crazy numbers. It's not a very good meta team to be honest and its rotations are going to be very energy demanding but it's fun to play and makes Ayato shine a lot.
Soup (Anemo reactions)
This team tries to give the Anemo unit as many reactions as possible, abusing a full EM build. Considered by many Ayato’s best team.
Mono Hydro
Surprisingly great, especially if you can afford to play someone like Kazuha to boost everyone’s damage. The real strength of this team is in lowering everyone’s ER requirements.
Bloom/Hyperbloom/Burgeon
As an Hydro unit with multiple ways of applying his element, Ayato can be great for Bloom and subsequent Hyperbloom and Burgeon archetypes. While his role in mono Bloom teams with Nilou is harder to justify, he’s still a viable option and might see more play once we get a Dendro healer.
Hyperbloom and Burgeon teams can instead use either just his slower off-field Hydro application (with high ER requirements) or both his off-field and on-field abilities, trying to provide as many Blooms as possible for Electro or Pyro units to react with.
Xiangling?
Pairing Xiangling/Bennett (classic National team) with Ayato is an ok choice but just because of the high amount of DMG everyone in that team will provide. Unfortunately they don't synergize that well for a few reasons:
• Ayato's Elemental Skill only lasts 6 seconds while Pyronado lasts between 10 and 14 seconds depending on Constellations
• Ayato Burst has a long cast time and alone doesn't apply enough Hydro
Ayato provides high AoE personal damage in a short time paired with a good Burst. It must be pointed out that almost all of the above teams work similarly with other Hydro units like Mona, Xingqiu, Kokomi and Childe. Ayato is great but is not a must pull.
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