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Raiden Shogun Quick TL;DR Enabler and DPS Build Guide!

Updated for 3.3 😁!

PSA #1: An Enabler is that one friend that always there to give you that helping hand when your DPS needs it. Keep your Enablers happy, or say goodbye to your damage 😤

PSA #2: Both Raiden’s abilities scale off ATK, and she’s basically the best of both worlds as she can help your team deal damage while also bashing some heads in herself!

Raiden slashes infront of her, doing a small AoE Electro attack. Characters will then trigger an Electro DMG whenever they attack an enemy. Also boosts your burst DMG based on how much it costs. THIS E LASTS (pretty much) FOREVER!

You’ll know when Raiden’s E is active, since you’ll see this giant purple eye above your characters:

Raiden is always watching 😳

IMPORTANT TIP: Raiden’s E is what allows her to be a proficient Enabler in your teams. There’s a lot to break down!

The initial slash itself is the “Skill DMG.” So when you activate E, that first slash Raiden does will do (at level 1) 117.2% of her total ATK

Characters who DMG enemies will trigger another slash — which is based off “Coordinated ATK DMG.” This additional slash can be triggered by anything, as long as it damages the enemy

The additional slash triggers once every .9s, and provides 1 Electro particle every other proc. The E will not trigger off shielded enemies like Abyss Mages, since you technically can’t hurt them while the shield is up!

Her E lasts 25s, with a 10s duration. IT BASICALLY LASTS FOREVER UNLESS YOU SOMEHOW FORGET TO E WITHIN 25 SECONDS

While her E is active, characters will receive a burst DMG buff based off their Q cost. It’s extremely strong for basically a permanent buff! Lets say her E is level 9 (where the bonus per energy is capped at .30)

  • Characters with 40 cost Q = 12% burst DMG buff
  • Characters with 60 cost Q = 18% burst DMG buff
  • Characters with 70 cost Q (Xiao) = 21% burst DMG buff
  • Characters with 80 cost Q = 24% burst DMG buff
  • Characters with 90 cost Q (Raiden) = 27% burst DMG buff

Also her E does also give these buffs to other players in co-op, but co-op player’s additional slashes will only do 20% of Raiden’s “Coordinated ATK DMG”

Example: in co-op, if my additional slashes did 1,000 DMG, then co-op player’s would only do 200 DMG (trust me, it still slaps like a truck)

Raiden pulls out her booba sword and basically turns into Keqing lmao. You can increase the DMG of her Q by stacking resolve. More resolve = more her Q form does damage!

There’s a lot, but I’ll make it really simple:

First off: SWAPPING AFTER USING HER Q ENDS THE DURATION, SO DON’T SWAP AFTER USING Q

Secondly: Her sword form DMG counts as Burst DMG!

The infamous “booba sword” basically turns Raiden from a Polearm Phys DPS to a Sword Electro DPS. It lasts 7 seconds with an 18s CD, and during the 7s Raiden is immune to Electro-charged damage/stun + damaging enemies will give her team (besides herself) energy

  • At level 1, she gives 1.6 energy that can proc 5 times (so 8 energy back to her team)
  • At max level, she gives 2.5 energy (so 12.5 energy back to her team)

Whenever a character (other than Raiden) uses their burst (Q), she gains resolve based off how much energy their Q costs. Resolve caps at 60 stacks.

Fully stacked Resolve. Each big node = 10 resolve

So Q at max level gives .2 resolve per energy (scales higher the more you level her Q):

  • 40 cost = 8 resolve
  • 60 cost = 12 resolve
  • 70 cost (Xiao) = 14 resolve
  • 80 cost = 16 resolve
  • 90 cost (Raiden) = 18 resolve

“But 2Board, didn’t you say Raiden can’t give herself resolve?” — yes and no. In co-op, if another player uses Raiden burst, your Raiden will get 18 resolve!

When Raiden uses her Q, she gets a DMG buff based off how many resolve stacks she consumes. If she consumes the full 60 stacks, at level 1 she gains a 47.68% DMG buff to her Q (.73 x 60 + 3.89 initial).

Resolve stacks do slowly disappear, with each stack disappearing after 5s (so 300s total for a fully stacked resolve to disappear)

Basically Raiden gets free resolve whenever you pick up energy
More ER% over base 100% = more energy to her team from Q + DMG

Some quick maths: Lets say my Raiden has a level 90/90 Engulfing Lightning (55.1% ER) with ER% Sands (51.8% ER).

That means she has 106.9% bonus ER above the 100% base ER every character has. This means she gains 42.76% Electro DMG bonus (106.9 x .4) and 64.14% (106.9 x .6) more energy given to her team from her Q procs

  • Meaning that at level 1, instead of giving 1.6 energy per proc, she would give 2.62 energy per proc (1.6 x .6414 = 1.02 + 1.6 = 2.62) for a total of 13.1 (2.62 x 5) energy back!

Talent Leveling Order: Q > E > Normal (her Q benefits too much from set + A4 passive)

WEAPON #1 (Recommended for best DPS): Engulfing Lightning

How do I get it D: ? – It’s time to roll boys (gacha)

Has base ER% scaling and just gives a crap ton of ATK + ER% (perfect for Raiden!)

Engulfing Lightning is the best in slot for Raiden for 2 main reasons: 1) gives massive amount of ER% which is great for her A4 passive, and 2) gives a bunch of free ATK since you’re stacking ER% on Raiden anyways. With just the weapon alone, she gains 85.1% ER + 23.83% ATK bonus. Factor in ER% main/substats + her A4 passive and it’s basically built for her.

Staff of Homa and Vortex Vanquisher are a close 2nd and 3rd in damage. Homa can perform as long as you have the suitable CRIT% (over 50% pref.), and Vortex as long as you’re shielded. Otherwise, both fall far behind Engulfing in terms of DPS.

Skyward Spine may seem like a great choice due to having ER% + NA/CA ATK Speed, but it actually falls short at R1 unless you have it refined higher. It doesn’t give enough ER% at max level for it to really benefit over the raw DMG stat sticks like Homa and Vortex can provide.

Primordial Jade-Winged Spear is a strong stat stick, and the ATK + DMG bonus it provides is easy to obtain. Use it if you don’t have The Catch max refined (or any of the other weapons!)

WEAPON #2 (Recommended for F2P DPS): The Catch

How do I get it D: ? – Fishing/Kujirai Momiji Shop (6 Raimei Angelfish, 20 Golden Koi, 20 Rusty Koi)

Has base ER% scaling and boosts her Q’s damage output (great for burst DPS)

The Catch is insanely strong for Raiden, and the strongest of the 4-stars at max refinement. It provides 45.9% ER at max level, and also a 32% Burst DMG buff + a 12% Burst CRIT buff at max refinement. It’s basically made for Raiden, and the fact you can easily obtain it + the refinement material from fishing makes it the ideal option.

Favonius Lance is also helpful in getting Raiden’s 90 cost Q up faster. It also provides an ample amount of ER%. Deathmatch however will provide more damage than Favonius, as the raw ATK buffs it provides (potent at higher refinement) outscale the small amount of ER + energy Favonius provides (even at high refinements). Not ideal though cause you need max refine for it to be worth.

Prototype Starglitter is also a decent F2P choice, but does require around R3+ to be worth using. It does however provide decent ER% (same as The Catch – 45.9%), and buffs NA/CA damage for when Raiden uses her Q form.

ARTIFACT #1 (Recommended for best DPS): Emblem of Severed Fate

How do I get it D: ? – Momiji-Dyed Court Domain (AR 30 locked, 20 Resin per run)

Gives Raiden more ER% for her A4 passive + boosts her Q damage by a ton

You can kind of see where this is going. Provides 20% ER and the 4x bonus is basically made for Raiden as she will be prioritizing a lot of ER%. Keep in mind this is total ER%, so base ER also counts towards it. So if we have 90/90 Engulfing Lightning + ER% Sands + 100% base ER + 2x bonus, that’s 226.9% ER. That’s a whopping 56.73% bonus damage to her Q. Count ER% substats, and you’re looking at overkill.

If you’re not willing to farm 4x Emblem (for whatever reason), or you can’t yet, 2x Noblesse + 2x Thundering Fury will do just fine as a placeholder. Otherwise, really start looking forward to farming a full Emblem set!

ARTIFACT #2 (Recommended for early Enabler): The Exile

How do I get it D: ? – Any World Boss (40 Resin per run) or go loot some chests

Gives ER% + refunds ER% to your team

4x Exile is mainly meant for more Enabler role than DPS. It’s just meant so you can get and give energy. If you want a bit more damage, then just feel free to run two +18% ATK sets, since there aren’t that many early artifacts that can benefit Raiden fully!

4x Martial Artist can work if you want to orient Raiden for a more DPS role early on!

Main stats:

SandsGobletCirclet
ATK% (ER% is fine too)Electro DMG%CRIT% or CRIT DMG

PSA #3: Keep in mind that Raiden’s 4th stat is ER%, so at level 90 she gets 32% ER bonus. So you can take ATK% Sands, and only take ER% Sands if you really need it to hit around 200%+. Otherwise ER% Sands on top of everything else is overkill.

Substats: CRIT%/CRIT DMG (based on what you need more) > ATK (ATK% if not main stat) > ER% > EM

Please also check out ZANTO’s in-depth Raiden charts for accurate decimal comparisons!

If you want other characters let me know. Hope this helped. Bye.

2board
2board

I spend too much time filling out spreadsheets for incoherent data, but at least I can turn them into guides :P

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  1. Regarding her passive, it says “each 1% above 100% ER will give 0.4% electro dmg bonus”. So if we have 101% ER, the math will be 1×0.4%=0.4% right? Not 101×0.4%=40.4%

    • Yep! It’s anything ABOVE the 100% base ER% characters have. So if you have a total of like 160% ER, then it would only consider the 60% for her A4 passive!

      Pfft, I wish it also included base :P. Raiden would be so strong if that were the case lmao.

    • Team comp that works well for Eula would be something like: Eula – Raiden – Fischl – Diona

      You would get increased CRIT% from Cryo resonance + have permanent uptime for superconduct procs (if you want, replace Diona with Bennett for ATK buff). Raiden would be run as a burst DPS for when Eula’s Q is down.

      So you would Fischl Q/E to start > Raiden E > Diona E for Superconduct, then Eula combo > Eula Q (you don’t have to worry about proc’ing superconduct cause it’s practically guaranteed), and then after Q explodes switch to Raiden for her Q (or that’s the premise — you can test to see what order you like more!).

      Hope that helped!

      • We don’t want to use Raiden E at the start and then all the ults for her Resolve after Eula Q explodes ? I’ll surely give that team a try anyway thanks ! Hope you’ll do a Raiden team comp post in the future to go more in depth with her.

        • Oh, I mean it’s assumed you’ll always just have Raiden’s E up (since it’s basically 100% uptime). Resetting the E in your rotation is just when you used it etc…!

  2. how bad is pjws compared to the other 5 star option? if not that good i’ll give it back to my zhongli and use the catch instead

    • I personally think 170-200% is a good minimum (I know, it’s a large range, but it’s because ER% can vary A LOT based of substats — since it gives so much per upgrade lol).

      Currently I have mine at 197% (this is with an ATK Sands + Engulfing + lvl 90/90 + 2x Emblem), and I’m able to hit 9-11k consistently when I burst. So try to aim for around that range! If you have Engulfing, ER% Sands works a lot better too!

      As for team comps, you can run it with Diluc (Diluc – Raiden – Kazuha – Bennett as an example), works with Beidou/Keqing as well (I’m aware that Beidou’s Q doesn’t work with her E etc…, but it’s still really good energy for a mono electro comp!). Another one that works pretty well is Childe – Raiden – Xingqiu – Diona/Bennett.

        • Ohh, I misread that haha. Among burst DPS, top tier (I would say S). She has high burst DMG + a lot of beneficial buffs like 4x Emblem + ER% etc… It’s low CD too, and basically up quickly since she can generate a lot of energy for herself.

          As an enabler, S tier as well. Has a 100% uptime skill that can easily control overloaded + electrocharged reactions + low CD and has a bit of AoE. While a C6 Fischl will outdamage her E, you can control Raiden’s E a lot easier for targeting enemies

  3. What’s the difference between an ATK% goblet over an Electro damage % goblet on Raiden Ei? Do you think an ATK% goblet with good substats would be a good placeholder goblet for her until I get a decent Electro damage % goblet?

    • Yep! That works great. The reason you would go ATK% is just to boost her E DMG (for enabler role), but if you’re going burst DPS, then Electro DMG also helps a lot more

  4. hello! thanks for the amazing guide, but as someone who is too lazy to do fishing for R5 Catch would the dragonspine spear be a good enough contender for her? 😀

    • Unfortunately, Dragonspine spear is a pretty poor choice for her since she can’t utilize any of the stats/effects that well.

      If you have either Prototype Starglitter (craftable), or even Deathmatch (BP), they’re both good for Raiden. Favonius Lance also can do a pretty good job as a placeholder!