Genshin Impact Barbara

An in-depth guide on how to build Genshin Impact’s idol, Barbara.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

Barbara is a 4-star Hydro Catalyst character who specialises as Healer, and is available on the Character Event Wish, Epitome Invocation and Wanderlust Invocation Standard Banners. She is also given to all players for free after completing the game’s Prologue. Keep reading to find out what materials are needed to Ascend Barbara, her best builds and an overview of how to use her effectively.

Barbara Ascension Stat

All characters in Genshin Impact have a particular stat that levels up alongside their base stats. For Barbara, this extra stat is HP%. This will help increase her healing output, since her healing scales off her Max HP.

Barbara Ascension Materials

Once you have obtained Barbara and maxed her to Level 20, she can be further levelled up through Ascension. The materials you will need to Ascend Barbara are as follows:

Level 20	Varunada Lazurite Sliver x 1 Philanemo Mushroom x 3 Divining Scroll x 3
Level 40	Varunada Lazurite Fragment x 3 Cleansing Heart x 2 Philanemo Mushroom x 10 Divining Scroll x 15
Level 50	Varunada Lazurite Fragment x 6 Cleansing Heart x 4 Philanemo Mushroom x 20 Sealed Scroll x 12
Level 60	Varunada Lazurite Chunk x 3 Cleansing Heart x 8 Philanemo Mushroom x 30 Sealed Scroll x 18
Level 70	Varunada Lazurite Chunk x 6 Cleansing Heart x 12 Philanemo Mushroom x 45 Forbidden Scroll x 12
Level 80	Varunada Lazurite Gemstone x 6 Cleansing Heart x 20 Philanemo Mushroom x 60 Forbidden Scroll x 24

Varunada Lazurite Slivers, Fragments, Chunks and Gemstones can be obtained by defeating the Hydro Hypostasis, located in Inazuma, and the Oceanid, located in Liyue.

Cleansing Hearts can be obtained by defeating the Oceanid, located in Liyue.

Philanemo Mushrooms can be found growing on the sides of buildings in Mondstadt. They grow in abundance in Mondstadt (on the sides of the Knights of Favonius Headquarters and various houses,) in Springvale, and the Dawn Winery.

Divining Scrolls, Sealed Scrolls and Forbidden Scrolls can be obtained by defeating Samachurls, which can be found all over Teyvat.

Barbara Talent Materials

In order to make Barbara stronger, you’ll need to upgrade her talents. The materials you will need are as follows:

Divining Scroll

Sealed Scroll

Forbidden Scroll

Teachings of Freedom

Guide to Freedom

Philosophies of Freedom

Ring Of Boreas

The Teachings, Guide and Philosophies of Freedom can be obtained by completing the Domain of Mastery: Frosted Altar every Monday, Thursday and Sunday. Meanwhile, the Ring Of Boreas is a potential drop from the Weekly Boss Wolf of the North.

Barbara Best Weapons

Barbara doesn’t have many weapon options, but the ones she can make use of benefit her (and your team) greatly.

Everlasting Moonglow	5-star
Prototype Amber	4-star
Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers	3-star

Barbara’s best in slot largely depends on what you need on your team, in addition to what Artifacts your Barbara will be using. If you are looking for a Barbara build that will heal massively as well as deal some DMG (more than likely paired with the 4-Piece Ocean-Hued Clam Artifact set,) your best in slot is Everlasting Moonglow. Apart from Kokomi, Barbara is the only other character who can make use of this weapon; it features a hefty HP% substat for her heals, whilst also increasing her Healing Bonus and giving her the ability to generate more Energy with her Normal Attacks.

If you don’t have Everlasting Moonglow, Prototype Amber plays quite similarly; it also has a similar HP% substat, as well as allowing Barbara to regenerate Energy after using her Elemental Burst, which she will generally proc more regularly. During the 6s duration of Energy regeneration, all party members will regenerate HP, which will help to increase Barbara’s overall healing output. On top of all that, this weapon is also craftable, making it highly accessible to F2P and low-spending players.

However, Barbara’s other best in slot can also be a three-star weapon: Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers. While not as high as the other two Catalysts, it features an HP% substat as well as an incredibly useful passive; at max Refinement, when you switch out Barbara, the next character you bring on-field will have their ATK increased by 48% for 10s, which is a huge amount. This means that after activating her Skill or Burst, you can switch her out to your Main DPS and start dealing increased DMG. And since it’s a 3-star weapon, you more than likely already have it.

Barbara Best Artifacts

Barbara has a couple different Artifact sets she can use, depending on what you want to get out of her. If you want to absolutely max out her healing output, you could use 4-Piece Maiden’s Beloved or 2-Piece Maiden’s Beloved with 2-Piece Ocean-Hued Clam. If your Artifacts are a little lacking in HP, you could also use a combination of 2-Piece Tenacity of the Millelith with either 2-Piece Maiden’s Beloved or 2-Piece Ocean-Hued Clam. The exact set you choose will likely depend on what Artifacts have the best substats, and mixing and matching accordingly.

However, if you want to give Barbara more utility than just healing, look no further than 4-Piece Ocean-Hued Clam. The in-game description is unnecessarily long-winded; so in summary, what it essentially does is create a bubble whenever you heal a party member, and the bubble will pop every 3s, dealing Physical DMG. The amount of DMG the popping bubble deals is dependent on the amount Barbara heals – so the more you heal, the more DMG the bubble deals. Since Barbara’s Skill will be in effect the majority of the time, and therefore she will be passively healing, you’ll be able to proc the bubble quite frequently.

For low-level players, 4-Piece Instructor works well until you’re able to get higher level Artifacts.

For your Artifact main stats, you will want to run:

Sands	HP% / Energy Recharge
Goblet	HP%
Circlet	Healing Bonus

In terms of Artifact substats, you’ll want to focus on HP%, Flat HP, Energy Recharge, and a little Elemental Mastery.

How to use Barbara

Her Elemental Skill, Let the Show Begin, allows Barbara’s Normal and Charged Attacks to heal all party members and nearby allied characters for a certain amount of HP, which scales with Barbara’s Max HP.

Her Elemental Burst, Shining Miracle, heals all party members for a large amount of HP that scales with Barbara’s Max HP.

It’s also worth mentioning Barbara’s sixth Constellation, Dedicating Everything to You. When Barbara is not on the field and one of her party members falls, she automatically revives this character and fully regenerates their HP to 100%. This effect can only occur once every 15 mins. This can help in a pinch during Spiral Abyss.

Whilst she’s not the strongest healer in the game, Barbara is easy to use and she gets the job done. With the added bonus of being given to all players early-on in the game, she’s highly accessible and essentially acts as a budget Kokomi, since she both heals passively and applies Hydro to enemies. This means she can help proc Elemental Reactions to increase your team’s DMG output, as well as keep them healthy. That being said, she doesn’t do this as well as Kokomi, but she definitely works as a decent substitute. Barbara herself doesn’t do much DMG, but she does have a fair amount of utility and as such she can fit onto a few team comps.

For example, you could use her as your Hydro slot in a Taser (Electro-Charged) team consisting of two Electro units, herself and an Anemo support. Potential Electro characters you could use are Raiden Shogun, Yae, Beidou, Fischl or Keqing. For your Anemo unit, Sucrose, Venti or Kazuha are your go-to’s. In this comp, Barbara will both apply Hydro and heal with her Skill, and use her Burst as and when your whole team needs a chunk of healing. Your Electro characters will be able to Electro-Charge enemies with their Electro attacks, and your Anemo support will help gather enemies together, spread Hydro amongst them, and shred their Elemental RES thanks to 4-Piece Viridescent Venerer.

Barbara can also work well with the other F2P characters; she can proc Freeze with Kaeya to form a Freeze team, or Vaporize with Xiangling in a Vaporise team. And of course, she also fulfills a healer role.