Genshin Impact Build: Yanfei The Smoky Scarlet Witch – Free To Play Guide

In this Genshin Impact Guide I’m going to be showing you my Smoky Scarlet Witch Yanfei Build, which utilizes Pyro element in a very unique way to tackle all content in-game. As a Pyro Catalyst wielder, Yanfei shoots pure fire, and plays like a wizard or a witch. Yanfei is a ranged character, with a very good range, and decent AOE. That makes her a good choice for an Overload build with Electro characters.

In this Guide I’ll explain just how to build the Smoky Scarlet Witch to face a wide variety of content, deal potent damage, and counter all situations Genshin Impact has to throw at you. On top of that, we can build a perfect team suitable to finish the Spiral Abyss, up to floor 12-3. If you’ve been looking for a Free to Play Pyro build. I’ll go through what Weapons to use, what Artifacts to upgrade and which companions to pick up, so check this one out!

Genshin Impact Build: Yanfei  Smoky Scarlet Witch

Yanfei is a four star character, that’s accessible through all banners, with an especially high rate on the second rerun of Zhongli‘s banner. She’s returned in the current version 2.0 Inazuma update, so look out for her. Whether you have no constellations for Yanfei, or unlocked several constellations, she’s good as a carry role. Her focus is dealing damage at very high speeds, from great range, and without the need for any animation cancelling. That way, you don’t have to worry about Yanfei being knock backed from Overload reactions, as enemies will not be in range to cause this.

For Overload, Yanfei can team up with very powerful Electro characters, namely Fischl and Beidou. A highly invested Yanfei who dispatches enemies quickly can benefit from a two Electro, and two Pyro team setup. Adding both Fischl and Beidou to the team is a great DPS boost, and has the luxury of better energy particle generation through Electro Resonance. However, Yanfei playstyle relies a lot on charged attacks whilst standing still, which requires more protection. For low investment builds, it’s better to use a shielding character such as Zhongli. Finally, you need Bennett to fill in the healer and buff slot, he’s typically the best support in most teams.

Yanfei, Smoky Scarlet Witch Attributes

We build Yanfei as a pure damage dealer. So we need a Pyro Damage Bonus, % Attack, Critical Rate, and Critical Damage. However, if we can’t maintain a 1:2 Crit Rate : Crit Dmg ratio, we better lean on increasing Crit Rate over Crit Dmg. The passive talent “Blazing Eye” enables charged attacks to do the additional instance of damage when it scores a critical hit.

Overload damage scales with Elemental Mastery, but we want our Electro characters to be the ones proccing Overload, not Yanfei. So in most cases, we don’t go out of our way to build EM on Yanfei.

Yanfei, Smoky Scarlet Witch Weapon

Yanfei uses a Catalyst as a weapon, a weapon magical in nature, and all its talents are elemental by default. The best craftable Catalyst weapon is the Frostbearer, but the event weapon, Dodoco Tales is a great option, if you’ve played Genshin Impact through the event in the 1.6 version. Dodoco Tales’ damage output doesn’t fall behind the best in slot five-star weapons, so Yanfei can be very cheap to build, and still perform very well.

Gasha 4 Star Weapons

If you get lucky with gacha pulls, you might obtain The Widsith, which is the best four star for Yanfei without a doubt. It has some RNG factors, and a longer cooldown, but when buffs align, Yanfei deals very massive damage with this weapon. This goes especially well, if you have a higher refinement level of The Widsith. In other Yanfei builds that utilize Vaporize, The Widsith becomes even stronger, due to the EM buff on it.

The Ultimate Weapon

Yanfei prefers Skyward Atlas over Lost Prayer to the Sacred Winds, though both are great. Lost Prayer to the Sacred Winds requires characters to stay on the field for longer than 16 seconds to reach full effect. Staying that long would waste support character’s cooldowns, so it’s easier to use Skyward Atlas for straight forward damage.

Memory of Dust is also good, if you use Yanfei alongside Zhongli, and keep her shielded all the time. But keep in mind, that using Solar Pearl on Yanfei is not as good as using other catalyst characters. The passive bonus doesn’t benefit Charged Attack at all.

Yanfei, Smoky Scarlet Witch Artifacts

Figuring out how to customize your Artifact sets is one of, if not the hardest part of making a Build in Genshin Impact as there are a lot of components involved, and generally takes a try or two before getting it right. In this section, I want to show you how I’ve set this up for a good overall performance with Yanfei.

Crimson Witch of Flames

This Artifact Set is one of the reasons that all Pyro DPS characters are highly ranked in all-tier lists. It gives higher (Pyro) elemental damage than all similar sets for other elements. On top of that, it increases Pyro elemental reactions damage. It’s a very good set for any Pyro DPS, and Yanfei is no exception.

Crimson Witch of Flames is an easier set to farm from domains with Resin, however, it’s not considered the highest DPS set in Overload build. Keep in mind that we want Overload to proc by Electro characters on the team, so the bonus goes to waste. Besides that, Yanfei’s Elemental Skill cooldown doesn’t allow more than one stack for 4 set bonuses.

Wanderer’s Troupe

Wanderer’s Troupe is a stable artifact set for every character relying on charged attacks, regardless of element. Charged attacks are Yanfei’s main source of damage, and a straight-up 35% damage bonus is universal so you can’t go wrong with it, even if Yanfei doesn’t proc any reactions.

It will be harder to farm more pieces for this set as it drops only from a world boss and Spiral Abyss clears. However, if you play Genshin Impact long enough. you will accumulate more pieces over time.

Retracing Bolide

Playing Yanfei with Zhongli enables the usage of the Retracing Bolide, as Yanfei can be shielded all the time. The 4 piece bonus is a big 40% damage multiplier to both normal and charged attacks. It’s an upgrade over Wanderer’s or Crimson Witch for Yanfei, but it is a highly limited building option for Zhongli. In this case, you have to make him a shield bot, with massive HP stat to keep his shield up as much as possible.

It’s a good choice for players on a budget that can’t afford to build 2 DPS in one team, but veterans with a lot of spare resources to spend can benefit more from building Zhongli as a burst DPS but more on that later.

If you are a new player, and can’t afford 4 good pieces of any of these sets you can temporarily use a hybrid build with 2x Crimson Witch of Flames/2x Gladiator’s Finale until you finish your Artifact farming. Or even use full sets of four star artifacts Martial Artist.

Flower of Life & Plume of Death

The main stat is pre-determined on these pieces, they are flat HP, and flat attack respectively. Normally I wouldn’t focus on levelling them, unless they’re a five star artifact, and have good sub-stats to go with it. However, in Yanfei’s case I’d prioritize levelling the Plume for the Flat attack bonus. Yanfei has a base attack value that’s not among the highest characters, so flat attack compensates for some of the lower scaling.

You ideally need % Attack, Critical Rate, and Critical Damage on sub stats, or at least two of these stats to have a good artifact worth leveling to 20.

Sands of Eon

Yanfei is the same as most DPS, as she needs a % Attack as the main stat on Sands, and Critical Rate, and Critical Damage.

Goblet of Enotherm

Yanfei deals only Pyro damage, so a Goblet with Pyro Damage Bonus is a must. Pick the best Goblet with Pyro Damage Bonus among your collection, regardless of the artifact set it belongs to. Get as many of these sub stats: % Attack, Critical Rate, and Critical Damage

Circlet of Logos

On Yanfei, the headpiece will most likely have Crit Rate as a main stat. Yanfei lacks Crit Rate on her own kit, and most of the best weapons don’t have it either for Yanfei. The only exception is using Lost Prayer to the Sacred Winds, which gives 33% Crit Rate at the highest level. Coupled with some good Crit Rate rolls on sub-stats, it might be possible to have enough Crit Rate without a Headpiece main stat. In that case, you can use a Crit DMG main stat instead.

Yanfei, Smoky Scarlet Witch Talent Skills

Seal of Approval

Yanfei’s Normal Attack shoots a fiery orb towards a far target in three combo attacks in rapid succession. This Normal Attack is what differentiates Yanfei from being a “Budget Klee” into being a great character on her own. Klee does have the better numbers, but Yanfei has a far superior range, and even better attack speed. Her range is the furthest among all Catalyst users, and competes with Bow users. On the other hand, her whole three combos take exactly 90 frames (1.5 seconds) to perform, which is a great motion value on its own, but also very reliable method for rapid application of Pyro element. On top of that, it’s a short animation that can be led into a charged attack without the need of animation cancelling. Overall, it’s a perfect foundation for a solid playstyle.

Each Normal Attack build gives Yanfei a “Scarlet Seal”, up to a maximum of three. Each “Scarlet Seal” will decrease Yanfei’s Stamina consumption on Charged Attacks, and increases the damage of it. So the playstyle revolves around building three seals, and unleashing a potent Charged Attack. You can build three seals by three normal attacks, using Elemental Skill, or using Elemental Burst. On top of that, for a short duration after using Elemental Burst, Yanfei gains additional seals every two attacks. Enabling her to use only two normal attacks before a charged attack to maximize damage.

Charged Attack

Consuming all Scarlet Seals and some stamina, Yanfei deals AOE damage at range. Charged attack damage increases, stamina consumption is reduced, and AOE increases with each seal consumed. That forces players to alternate between enough normal attacks to build up seals, and then using charged attacks at maximum seals, or else stamina consumption will be very high, and players will run out of stamina and be rendered unable to use charged attacks.

Players can bypass built up seals by using Elemental Skill, and Elemental Burst. Then bypass one normal attack in the duration after using Elemental Burst. So when Energy is fully charged, and stamina is sufficient, this combo is proven ideal:

Elemental Burst –> Charged Attack –> Elemental Skill –> Charged attack –> Normal Attack 2x –> Charged attack –> Normal attack 2x –> Charged attack –> Repeat (until Elemental Elemental Skill CD ends) –> Elemental Skill –> Charged Attack

Then it’s time to switch Yanfei out to use support characters skills and bursts. If you have remaining stamina though, you should refrain from spamming too many charged attacks, and use 3x normal attacks rather than 2x.

If you have C1 for Yanfei, the stamina consumption is reduced further per seal. And at C6 Yanfei, she has a maximum of 4 seals instead of 3, which increases the damage and decreases stamina consumption even further. While her passive skill “Blazing Eye” deals additional instances of damage upon Crit hits on charged attacks.

Signed Edict

It’s one of the simplest Elemental Skills in the entire game. Yanfei deals AOE damage, and gains maximum numbers of Scarlet Seals. There’s no additional functions or mechanics, just some damage, enabling one more Charged Attack, and generating some energy particles. The only advice I’d give is to make sure to have no seals prior to casting the Elemental Skill by consuming them using Charged Attacks to not waste the skills’ Seals.

It has a shorter range than Yanfei’s normal and charged attack. So, if you are already at maximum range, you might want to move Yanfei closer to not miss enemies.

Done Deal

The Elemental Burst for Yanfei has three mechanics that are very important to be aware of. The first is giving a maximum number of seals, similar to the Elemental Skill. This enables you to follow up with immediate charged attacks, and the animation is so compatible that you can start charging your attack before the Elemental Burst animation ends.

Then there’s a “Brilliance” buff that Yanfei has for 15 seconds after Elemental Burst cast, and allow Yanfei to gain one additional Seal every second. One second is equal to 2 attacks, so Yanfei can use charged attacks every two attacks instead of three. Though the first seal gained takes a while longer (almost 2.5 seconds) to be given.

Finally, the “Brilliance” buff gives Yanfei a damage bonus for the duration but will expire if Yanfei is switched out, so you will be locked on Yanfei for a while. This is not as long nor severe as Xiao or Razor, but long enough that you really need to cast most of your support teammates skills before using Yanfei’s Burst.

If you have C4 for Yanfei, her Elemental Burst grants her a Pyro shield. The shield can absorb damage and prevent knockback, so you might consider getting away without another shield character on your team.

Yanfei, Smoky Scarlet Witch Party Composition

Genshin Impact has a unique playstyle that relies on switching characters and chaining combos across these characters. So a solid part of Yanfei‘s build is knowing which characters will accompany her, and what roles they will play.

In this section, I’ll fill you in on some of the best characters that synergise well with this build. I’ll mostly use four star characters here, but in the current game version, it’s universally recommended for you to use a five star support character such as Zhongli, Venti, Kazuha, or even Jean. Each of these offers a slightly different playstyle.

Fischl

The princess Fischl was a cheap, and stable Electro support and sub DPS since the game released back in September 2024. She has only received buffs since then and has become a better overall support. Whether you use her paired with Beidou, or as a sole Electro in the team, she will deliver. Being available since release, Fischl has seen many appearances in time-limited banners, so most players will have her, and probably most of her Constellations by now. If you are a newer player and don’t have Fischl, try to get her as soon as possible, from banners or from Paimon’s shop when available. She is especially more valuable with the recent update 2.0 Inazuma, which adds a whole new region that favors the electro element.

Fischl relies on Oz, her night raven to stay on the field, to deal damage, and to apply an Electro element, long after she switches out. This goes well with Yanfei who loves taking the field for some time. We use Fischl to put her Elemental skill and summon Oz, and switch, then when her Elemental Burst is ready, we cast it and switch again. Depending on her Constellation count, Oz adds further features to you on field carry. C6 being the ultimate buff, adding additional Electro hit alongside every normal attack hit your carry does. Which scales very well with a fast attacking carry like Yanfei.

Additionally, Fischl has a passive talent that causes Fischl to attack every time an Elemental reaction occurs while Oz is on the field. This passive is the reason why Fischl and Yanfei goes hand in hand in overload teams. Yanfei applies Pyro faster than most other carries, so she causes more Overload reactions, and procs Fischl’s passive more times for greater overall damage. This goes especially well if Fischl is C6, because she deals several instances of Electro damage on every hit, and procs her passive even more. On top of that, you can give Fischl some Elemental Mastery, so Overload damage itself becomes more potent, though, at this point, it’s a luxury and not necessary.

Stats

For the best results, we build Fischl as a typical damage dealer. It means we prioritize Electro Damage Bonus, % Attack, Critical Rate, and Critical Damage. Add some  EM to substats to have better Overload damage.

Weapon

As a bow user, Fischl has a wide variety of strong weapon choices, be it a Four-star or Five-star. Skyward Harp is best in the slot for all purposes, but Fischl doesn’t need it to give a solid performance. The Stringless is an amazing four-star weapon that increases both Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst damage, especially at a high refinement level. On top of that, it adds Elemental Mastery to buff Overload damage procced by Fischl.

Aside from these two options, any Five Star weapon such as Amos’ Bow or Elegy for the endgame is great for higher stats. If you have none of these, you can buy the Blackcliff Warbow from Paimon’s shop, or just use Rust as a stats stick. Finally, Windblume Ode is the best free to play bow, granted from playing the Invitation of Windblume event during 1.4 version.

Artifacts

This straightforward build involves using the Thundering Fury Artifact set. It’s especially better after the Elemental Reactions buff in patch 1.5, and goes without saying with Fischl. If you don’t have four good pieces of the set, just use 2x Thundering Fury and 2x Gladiator’s Finale.

Your main stat should be % Attack on Timepiece, Electro damage bonus on Goblet, and Crit Rate or Crit Damage on Headpiece.

Bennett

Bennett fills the second pyro role, to have elemental resonance, but he also plays as a healer, and a buffer. One more thing he adds to Yanfei is generating Pyro elemental particles by rapid use of his Elemental Skill, which is very useful against Abyss Herald enemies found in higher levels in Spiral Abyss. He becomes more useful at Recharging Energy for Yanfei, just uses Bennett‘s Elemental Skill and switchs quickly to Yanfei to collect generated particles.

If you use Bennett with Fischl, make sure to cast Bennett‘s Elemental Burst before Fischl‘s Elemental Skill, so Oz gains the attack boost for its entire duration. Then switch to Yanfei last, and perform her combos while all buffs are up.

Stats

We build Bennett with Percentage HP, to scale his healing, and Energy Recharge to maximize uptime of his Elemental Burst. Bennett‘s Attack buff scales with his Base Attack, which comes from levelling and Ascending him, and his weapon, and is not affected by Attack stat on Artifacts.

Weapon

We need an Energy recharge weapon for Bennett. Both four stars, Favonius Sword and Sacrificial Sword are great for the job. It grants more damage and healing for the entire party if his Elemental Burst is up on cooldown, and Energy Recharge is great for this. If you can’t find a four star weapon, just use the three star weapon Skyrider Sword, as it has Energy Recharge as well, and better than any pure damage sword.

If you have been a long time player and played through event “Dragonspine” during 1.1 patch time, you got the Festering Desire weapon from the event. Festering Desire is a better weapon for Bennett, as it increases his damage as well as Energy recharge. Clearing the event grants a maximum refinement version, which makes it a much better weapon.

Artifacts

Bennett is a classic support character who prefers good old Noblesse Oblige, to grant attack buff for the entire party. Stick with HP as the main stat as much as possible, and get Energy Recharge on sub-stats. Pyro damage bonus and offensive stats are acceptable if you got a huge HP pool already, and Bennett healing is sufficient.

Zhongli

The best support in the game hands down is Zhongli. He’s one of the very few characters that are worth saving Primogems to get, regardless of your team composition. Zhongli is a Geo character, with the strongest shield among the entire roster of playable characters. Shields simply bypass most mechanics in the game, as they prevent 100% of damage, and prevent all stuns, knockbacks, and knockdowns. Having Zhongli built as a shield bot equals enabling easy mode in Genshin Impact, especially for a glass cannon character, who’s very mobile such as Yanfei.

On top of the protection, Zhongli provides his shield shreds enemy resistances, allowing any kind of DPS to do more damage, regardless of element. This is the most important tool in his kit. Finally, His Elemental Burst petrifies enemies for a long duration, giving one of the hardest CC in the game that’s most enemies have no counter for.

The icing on the cake is that Zhongli can sacrifice some of his shield strength in favor of building very potent burst DPS. Zhongli is (S Rank) in our Geo DPS tier list, and (SS Rank)  for Physical DPS tier list, so you can expect very solid performance if you opt to build him for damage. However, his shield build is very cheap and can be put together with the least amount of effort. This is due to his best weapon for shield strength is a mere three star weapon, and his main stat being HP.

If you don’t have Zhongli for any reason, don’t despair. You can either use other shielding characters such as Diona. She gives a good shield, but no resistance shred. Or just any Anemo support such as Venti, Kazuha, Jean, or Sucrose. They can gather enemies, swirl your Pyro damage to shred enemy Pyro resistance and add good DPS on their own. The only weakness that Anemo support characters have in current META is losing the ability to gather against Abyss Heralds, who are the toughest opponents in Spiral Abyss. So Zhongli is still a better option in my opinion.

Stats

For pure shield scaling, we only need HP stat. Zhongli is amazing at this because there’s not many other characters competing with him over this stat, so he will always get the best HP artifacts. After that, we either build more HP on sub stats, or add some offensive stats for more damage. You can use Geo Damage Bonus, Critical Rate, and Critical Damage.

Shield bot Zhongli doesn’t even need Energy Recharge, because his Elemental burst is less important and deals less damage, and has a long animation. Care about it only if you have burst DPS Zhongli.

Weapon

Similar to Albedo, Zhongli best support weapon is a three star Polearm, Black Tassel. It’s the only Polearm that gives HP stat, and that’s all we need for a stronger shield. It has no downsides, and it makes Zhongli trivialize most content in the game.

However, if you play a hybrid or DPS Zhongli, you need to ditch the Black Tassel for a stronger offensive weapon. You can find many free to play options that are decent for DPS, such as the Prototype Starglitter or Favonius Lance. Or better, you can get the Battlepass weapon Deathmatch, or buy Blackcliff Pole from Paimon’s shop, as both are decent DPS weapons.

But the ultimate weapon for Zhongli is the Staff of Homa, and nothing else. It has higher base stats, adds Crit dmg, and HP, and provides an attack buff that scales with HP, and another buff that scales with HP lost. It’s the best single weapon in the game, and Zhongli‘s kit is compatible with it. The only issue with Staff of Homa is that it has only shown up in the limited weapon banners, which was a bad banner to waste your Primogems and/or money on previously. However MiHoYo has resolved this issue with 2.0 update though, by adding pity to weapons banners. So such a limited weapon is going to be more accessible to free to play players who have finished picking characters for their roster and need better weapons for them.

Artifacts

The choice of artifacts for Zhongli is flexible, and you can go down different paths. I recommend using Tenacity of the Millelith four pieces set for better HP scaling, and party buff. However, you can mix 2x Tenacity of the Millelith with 2x Archaic Petra for more damage.

If you’re building a burst DPS Zhongli, you would go for 2x Archaic Petra, and 2x Noblesse Oblige for maximum Elemental Burst damage.

Genshin Impact 2.0 update is now available to play on PC, iOS, Android and PS4 and PS5. If you enjoyed this Genshin Impact Guide be sure to check out more even more info on our Genshin Impact Wiki. You can also keep an eye out for more guides for upcoming 2.0 and be sure to not miss Genshin Impact’s new character Kamisato Ayaka trailer, as well as our Genshin Impact Tier list for Reverse Vaporize reaction.