Kinich Build Guide

Burning

Kinich - Nicole - Emilie - Durin

Nicole is arguably the most important unit here thanks to her buffing and Shield. Characters like Bennett over her are viable, but will be a significant downgrade. Durin's RES Shred is not as valuable as in most teams due to Deepwood Memories, but it's still helpful; Durin is also a competent holder of that set, allowing Emilie to use Unfinished Reverie.

• Iansan is a unit that's competitive with Emilie if the former is at C6, but she's not great without it.
• Bennett can be a strong alternative to Durin if Kinich is fighting a Boss enemy. Burning does not inherently require off-field Pyro to maintain uptime, as long as you can consistently apply Dendro to the enemy.
• Mona is an alright option for the Emilie / Iansan slot as well.
• Mavuika is still a competent option, but certainly worse than Durin or Nicole.

Example Rotation

1. Nicole Skill Revelation: Uncreated Light ( + Burst Revelation: Ladder of Divine Ascent if required to fill rotational downtime)
   →
2. Durin Skill Binary Form: Convergence and Division + Skill + Burst Principle of Purity: As the Light Shifts ( Light Mode )
   →
3. Emilie Skill or Burst
   →
4. Kinich on-field combo

BiS Option: Fang of the Mountain King

Kinich's Signature Weapon sports the highest Base ATK available in the game, which is typically favorable considering the 40% Crit Rate he gets from Obsidian Codex. It gives him 60 Skill DMG%, which is quite a bit, and 60 Burst DMG% which doesn't do a whole lot. A strong option overall thanks to its statline, but not as impressive as some modern signatures. Will typically be a 10-15% team DPS upgrade over Serpent Spine

Limited 5 star alternative: A Thousand Blazing Suns

Not too far from his own weapon, Mavuika's Signature is comfortably Kinich's second best option. Kinich's Normal Attacks during his Skill state unfortunately do not extend ATBS's passive's duration, otherwise it would be straight up better than his weapon.

Other 5 stars are fine, but usually will be worse than ATBS. Gest of the Mighty Wolf is another strong option when Hexerei: Secret Rite is active, although Kinich does not maintain great stack uptime. The high Crit Rate is also a problem to build around.

Best 4 star option: Serpent Spine

The Battle Pass Claymore is as great as always when you can actually use its passive. Comparable to most 5 stars at a high refinement, but even at R1 it will keep up with a lot of them.

Standard 5 star option: Wolf's Gravestone

An alright option. Worse than Serpent Spine, even at R1 assuming high stack uptime, but a little bit better than Earth Shaker.

Best free option: Earth Shaker

The Natlan craftable is practically made for Kinich, with Navia being the only other notable user of the weapon. Skill DMG is Kinich's primary DMG type by an overwhelming majority, and alongside the high Base ATK, it's a surprisingly attractive option.

BiS Option: Obsidian Codex

Comfortably Kinich's best option, just like any other Natlan on-field DPS. Kinich is the only Natlan DPS that will not necessarily have Scroll of the Hero of Cinder City in his teams, making the domain a little less attractive. It is available in the strongbox though.

Alternative: Unfinished Reverie

Also Emilie's best set, and a fairly good option for Kinich. Still worse than Codex, but not by a lot. If you happen to have a set lying around, can be quite good.

1. Elemental Skill
   >>>>>>
2. Elemental Burst

Kinich's Burst contains very little of his actual damage, and is not particularly worth leveling. His Elemental Skill on the other hand absolutely is, and contains the talent values for the entirety of the rest of his damage.

Overview & Nightsoul's Blessing

Kinich is an on-field Burning DPS. Upon casting his Elemental Skill, he will enter his Nightsoul's Blessing state and latch onto an enemy. Kinich's Normal Attacks in this state become special 'Loop Shots', which will move him in a loop around the enemy. The direction this loop takes will either be automatically chosen by the game or taken as a player input.

While in his Nightsoul state, Kinich will begin gaining Nightsoul Points, provided through 4 different ways:

• Kinich will passively gain 2 Points every second while in Nightsoul's Blessing
• Whenever Kinich's performs a Loop Shot, he will gain 3 Points
• He will periodically gain 7 Points if the enemy takes Burning damage, through his Ascension 1 Passive. Burning deals damage on 0.5 second interval, making it a gain of roughly 7 a second.
• Lastly, Kinich will periodically spawn zones called 'Blind Spots' around the enemy. If Kinich enters one of these zones, he will gain 4 Points.

Elemental Skill: Spikescaler Cannon

Once Kinich reaches his maximum of 20 Nightsoul Points, he will become unable to gain further NSP and gain access to his Enhanced Skill, Spikescaler Cannon. This ESkill will deal significant damage, and will general account for the majority of Kinich's damage output. Kinich does not have a hard limit on how many he can perform, but his Nightsoul's Blessing has a maximum duration of 10 seconds, unless extended through his Elemental Burst.

Kinich's first Enhanced Skills will deal additional damage through his Ascension 4. Due to the amount being reliant on the amount of Nightsoul Bursts triggered, this passive will vary in value depending on the amount of Natlan characters present in his teams. Kinich's best teams don't contain many Natlan character despite this, as the passive is not powerful enough.

Within those 10 seconds, Kinich will comfortably be able to perform 4 Spikescaler Cannons. However, with some skillful play, he can relatively eaily perform 5. This accounts for a fairly significant boost to his damage. In order to perform it reliably, Kinich can use the 'Short-Hold' technique for his Spikescaler Cannons.

Short-Hold Spikescaler Cannons

Kinich can either choose to Tap or Hold his Enhanced Skills. The Tap will have him perform a relatively lengthy and clunky animation, and it is the baseline way to cast it. If Kinich opts to Hold it instead, he will enter an Aiming Mode of sorts, similar to Bow characters. If the player then quickly lets go of the Hold command, Kinich will fire off the Spikescaler Cannon after a much shorter delay and animation.

While it is possible to use Spikescaler Cannon 5 times with just Taps, but it requires relatively clean usage of his various Nightsoul gain mechanics. This will include hitting several Blind Spots and quick reaction time, and is arguably harder than performing the Short Holds. Kinich can perform 5 Short-Hold Spikescaler Cannons without any Blind Spots, if done well enough.

Elemental Burst

Kinich's Burst has an Energy cost of 70 on an 18 second cooldown. Upon cast, Kinich will power up his companion Ajaw to deal a small burst of damage, and for the next 15 seconds, periodically deal damage and apply Dendro to nearby enemies. Ajaw does not deal notable damage. The main use of Kinich's Elemental Burst is either filling out rotational downtime, or making it easier to perform 5 Enhanced Skills.

Kinich's Burst does not pause his Nightsoul's Blessing state or his Nightsoul Point gain. Additionally, he will extend the duration of his Nightsoul's Blessing by 1.7 seconds, about as much time as the animation takes. If Kinich casts his Burst immediately after using an Elemental Skill, he will extend his Nightsoul's Blessing while gaining extra Nightsoul Points, making it relatively easier to perform a 5th Enhanced Skill.

Spikescaler Cannon Notes

There are a few other techniques Kinich can utilize to make it easier to perform more than 4 Spikescaler Cannons.

If Kinich's Nightsoul bar is near full, Kinich can choose to not perform an additional Loop Shot and instead wait to fill it up passively. This can save some extra time and can be worth doing so, even if it misses out on another Loop Shot.

Blind Spots can be worth chasing after, but not always; if they're too far, Kinich will take too much time to reach them. Similarly to the above, it can be worth it to gain Nightsoul Points in alternative ways.

If Kinich is the only Dendro unit in the team, performing extra Spikescaler Cannons becomes a bit easier. This is due to how his Ascension 1 Passive works. If Kinich is the one to trigger Burning, he will instantly proc it and perfectly sync it up with Burning damage. This will make it far more consistent in when it provides Nightsoul Points.

Kinich was officially released as a playable 5-star Dendro character in Genshin Impact on September 17, 2024, during the Version 5.0 update.