Mualani Build Guide

Mualani's team structure will generally look the same:

Mualani - Pyro Slot - RES Shred slot - flex support slot

Pyro slot:

• Mavuika: Natlan’s Archon pairs exceptionally well with Mualani, providing very consistent Pyro application as well as buffs with her Ascension 4 passive and access to the Scroll of the Cinder City set. Mavuika can also use her own Elemental Burst for a big instance of Reacted damage in this team.
  
• Durin: The Hexerei dragon provides similarly consistent Pyro application, although is unable to really buff Mualani outside of Celestial Gift. Mona is a much better user of that set, but if she’s not being used, Durin’s value goes up. Durin can have ER issues sometimes, unlike Mavuika.
  
• Other, worse options: Traveler (Pyro) can be an okay slot here. They have good enough Pyro application to Vape Mualani’s hits and access to Scroll of the Cinder City, though not much else. Any other option like Xiangling is likelier to suffer far worse, though.

RES Shred slot:

• Sucrose: Her EM buffs give Mualani more than most, as all of Mualani’s damage is reacted. She pairs best with Mona in order to get higher uptime on Viridescent Venerer, which requires Hydro Swirls. She also activates the latter's Hexerei buffs, which are very valuabel for Mualani
  
• Xilonen: Generally much easier to use than Sucrose, as her buffs last for much longer and getting Hydro Scroll is not particularly hard. She does buff for less than Sucrose, but her higher uptime makes her easier to manage.

Flex slot:

• Mona: One of Mualani’s best partners after her Hexerei buffs. Mona’s Hydro Application is quite weak and has short uptime, making her not particularly interfere with Mualani’s Vaping. Celestial Gift is an excellent set, and Mualani will get full uptime on Mona’s Stellaris Phantasm buffs. She can also help Mualani Burst more often thanks to her Hydro Particles that Mualani will usually catch.
• Other RES Shred slot: You can always use Sucrose and Xilonen together.
• Citlali: Mainly good with Mavuika, as Citlali lets her Melt her Burst instead of Vaporizing it. She can sometimes interfere with Pyro application, but not using Citlali’s Burst will mitigate that.
  

Example teams + rotations:

Mualani - Mavuika - Sucrose - Mona:

1. Mona Skill Mirror Reflection of Doom
   →
2. Mavuika Burst Hour of Burning Skies + Skill The Named Moment + Normal Attack
   →
3. Mona Burst Stellaris Phantasm + 2 or 3 Normal Attacks
   →
4. Sucrose Skill Astable Anemohypostasis Creation - 6308
   →
5. Mualani combo

Mualani - Durin - Xilonen - Mona:

1. Mona Skill
2. Durin Skill + Skill + Burst
3. Mona Burst + 2-3 Normal Attacks
4. Xilonen Skill + N2
5. Mualani combo

Mualani - Mavuika - Xilonen - Citlali:

1. Mualani N1
   →
2. Citlali Skill + N1
   →
3. Mavuika Burst + Skill
   →
4. Xilonen Skill + N2
   →
5. Mualani combo

Surf's Up: Mualani’s Signature weapon is generally a significant increase over any other option. More or less a massive stat stick the full effects of which only she can use, as she is the only character able to consistently build up its stacks.

Reliquary of Truth: Mualani is able to use both the Crit Rate and 80 EM parts of the passive, making Nefer's signature surprisingly decent and usually her 2nd best option.

Tome of the Eternal Flow: Neuvillette’s signature is fairly decent on Mualani thanks to the HP% and high Crit DMG stat. The Energy refund is nice, but the rest of the passive is useless.

Other 5* Catalysts (Nocturne's Curtain Call, A Thousand Floating Dreams, etc): If Mualani can use a part of their passives, they’re decent. Otherwise, they’re just ok. She prefers Crit DMG secondary stats, but Elemental Mastery or HP % can be pretty decent as well.

The Widsith: The ATK effect is useless, but the EM and DMG% effects are both excellent. Also has a Crit DMG secondary, making it quite an attractive option.

Sacrificial Jade: Extremely difficult to build because of the massive Crit Rate secondary that conflicts with Obsidian Codex. Mualani is essentially overcapped without any additional Crit Rate through artifacts with this weapon. It can still be decent at high refinements though, as its passive is phenomenal on her.

Ring of Yaxche: The Natlan craftable is built for her and is a decent weapon. Not as good as the above options, but it will perform well enough.

Obsidian Codex: Massively better than any other option just like with any other Nightsoul DPS. Mualani teams also tend to make use of Scroll of the Hero of Cinder City besides very select ones, so this is absolutely the domain to farm if you want to play Mualani teams. Both sets are also in the strongbox, which helps.

2p2p combos: In lieu of a good Codex set, strong 2p2p combinations (HP % / Hydro DMG / Elemental Mastery) will do.

Scroll of the Hero of Cinder City: Mualani can use this herself with a good enough set if she's running into Crit Rate overcapping issues, particularly if it enables a teammate to hold a different support set.

Overview

Mualani is a character built around the Vaporize Reaction. Her gameplay loop consists of entering her Nightsoul's Blessing state through her Skill Surfshark Wavebreaker, and hovering very close to enemies to periodically gain stacks. These stacks significantly empower her Sharky's Bites. She will generally want to use her Elemental Burst whenever it’s available, although she might not want to actively build Energy Recharge. Mualani wants to trigger Vaporize on all of her hits. She will do 3-4 hits total in a rotation at C0, and Vaporize will provide the biggest boost to her damage.

Mualani’s Sharky Bites are considered Normal Attack damage, however none of her damage is in her Normal Attack talent Cooling Treatment. Leveling it provides no benefit.

Nightsoul’s Blessing State and Sharky’s Bites

Surfshark Wavebreaker is where Mualani's juice is. On cast, Mualani will enter her Nightsoul’s Blessing state, altering her Normal Attacks to become Sharky’s Bites. These have a different animation to Mualani’s regular Normal Attacks. She gains 60 Nightsoul Points on cast, and will consume 10 per second without taking other actions. She can also gain Nightsoul Points through her Ascension 1 Passive: when one of her Sharky’s Bites hits an enemy, Mualani will generate a Puffer. This is a physical object she has to catch, and if she does, she will gain 20 Nightsoul Points. She can only generate up to 2 Puffers per Skill use.

This Skill has a cooldown of 6 seconds, which will begin after Mualani exists her Nightsoul’s Blessing state. While in her Skill state, Mualani will generate either 4 or 5 Hydro Particles the first time she hits an enemy with a Sharky’s Bite.

Wave Momentum & Multi-Target Scenarios

Mualani’s Sharky Bites deal an okay amount of damage at a baseline, but Mualani can significantly enhance them by gaining Wave Momentum stacks. To gain Wave Momentum, Mualani has to stay in hugging range of enemies. If she does, she will gain 1 Wave Momentum stack and ‘tag’ the enemies in that range to be targets of Sharky’s Bite. Each enemy can only provide 1 stack every 0.75 seconds, and the Sharky’s Bite mark has a duration of 3 seconds. Sharky’s Bite itself also has a cooldown of 1.8 seconds.

Mualani can hold up to 3 stacks of Wave Momentum at a time. Each stack will increase the damage of the next Sharky’s Bite, and holding 3 Wave Momentum stacks at once will significantly increase that damage: a fully stacked Bite deals about 5 times the damage of a Bite with zero stacks. Using a Sharky’s Bite will consume all Wave Momentum stacks. Mualani does not have a hard limit on the amount of Sharky’s Bite she can perform, but due to her limited Nightsoul’s Blessing time and animation time, she will generally be able to perform 3 fully stacked Sharky’s Bites in single-target scenarios at C0.

Mualani can mark up to 5 enemies to be hit with her next Sharky’s Bite at a time. However, the more enemies she marks, the lower the damage dealt to each individual target. If 3 or more enemies are hit, each enemy will take 72% of the attack’s original damage.

Elemental Burst

Mualani’s Elemental Burst has a 15 second cooldown and an Energy cost of 60. Depending on Mualani’s team, she will generally be using it either every rotation or every other rotation. Going out of your way to build Energy Recharge for it is generally not necessary.

On cast, Mualani will launch a projectile hit that will deal Hydro DMG in a relatively large AoE around the target. Mualani has a stacking mechanic for her Burst, too: whenever Nightsoul Burst is triggered, Mualani’s next Burst will deal increased damage. This increase is equivalent to roughly 15% more damage of the original Burst per stack. Depending on the team, Mualani will get anywhere from 1 to 3 stacks on this Burst. Teams with 3 Nightsoul Characters and Xilonen that use Burst every rotation will get 3, whereas a team of Sucrose / Mona / Mavuika will get 1 or 2 stacks per Burst alternating, assuming you use it every rotation.

Mualani’s team rotations will generally always take the form of maximizing Buff uptime on as much of her damage as possible while maintaining consistent Pyro Application. These are conflicting goals for certain buffs, such as Viridescent Venerer. Mualani does require a certain duration on that Pyro Application, but it’s not very difficult to achieve. Which Pyro applicator you choose will change the necessary steps taken to maximize said buff uptime, as they have different durations and different hit timings. Mavuika, Durin, Traveler (Pyro) are generally the options Mualani will want to gravitate towards. Mavuika has a short duration and applies once every 2 seconds; Durin will apply at the same frequency but with a longer rotation; Pyro Traveler's duration is short and has a larger interval.

Puffers can be frustrating to reach in time sometimes. Each Puffer will add 2 seconds to Mualani’s uptime, making them vital for her gameplay loop. Make sure youre aware of their positioning when they spawn and be ready to reach them.

Mualani was officially released as a playable 5-star Hydro character in Genshin Impact on August 28, 2024, during the Version 5.0 update.