Genshin Impact Shikanoin Heizou Build Guide

Shikanoin Heizou is Genshin Impact’s first male Catalyst user who was introduced in Version 2.8. He is a 4-Star Anemo character, with his entire kit leaning heavily towards a main or sub-DPS carry playstyle, something that aligns with his unique style of play.

As a 4 Star unit, he is able to be pulled on any Wish banner, whether regular or Event, but you are far more likely to pull him when he is on rate up.

Here is all the information you need to build the best Shikanoin Heizou including his level-up materials, which order you should prioritise levelling his talents, what his best weapon is, what artifact set and bonuses you should keep an eye out for, and what other characters synergise best with him.

Looking for more Genshin Impact content?

1. Genshin Impact Fischl Outfit Guide + All Phantasmal Conch Locations
2. Genshin Impact Kaedehara Kazuha Build Guide
3. Genshin Impact Klee Build Guide

Who Is Shikanoin Heizou?

‘A young prodigy detective from the Tenryou Commission. His senses are sharp and his thoughts are clear.’ Shikanoin Heizou Official Bio

Shikanoin Heizou is a detective from Inazuma. In fact, he is the number one detective that works for the Tenryou Commission, who is said to harbour a deep rivalry with the detective agency, run by Sango.

Heizou has been mentioned a few times, once by Kokomi and another by Kujo Sara, with the former talking about him skulking around Watatsumi Island while the latter seems to dislike his carefree attitude and lack of respect for Sara’s position. 

He is cocky but seems to dislike the need to be stern and upright as a working public servant. Heizou is certainly an odd character, one whose careless attitude and wicked grin will have you questioning whether he is even working at all.

How Do You Get Shikanoin Heizou?

Heizou is a 4-star character in Genshin Impact, meaning that it is possible to summon him even when he is not on rate up.

However, the easiest way to get Heizou is to summon on a 5-star banner that has him as one of the three Rate-Up 4-star characters featured. You have a chance of pulling him on the Standard Wish banner, but he will be competing with every other 4-star and so you will be unlikely to get him.

Shikanoin Heizou has currently only appeared on one set of banners as a Rate-Up 4-star character:

• Kaedehara Kazuha’s 1st Rerun Banner (Version 2.8) – 13th of July 2022 to 2nd of August 2022 
• Spark Knight Klee’s 2nd Rerun Banner (Version 2.8) – 13th of July 2022 to 2nd of August 2022

2.8 Banners

Shikanoin Heizou Level Up Resources

Heizou needs the following items in order to Ascend:

• Onikabuto Beetles
• Vayuda Turqouise Crystals (Anemo Crystals)
• Treasure Hoarder Insignias
• Runic Fang

Onikabuto Beetles are small purple bugs that can be found stuck to various objects and services such as trees or cliff faces. Heizou will need you to pick up 168 Onikabuto in order to get him from level 1 to level 90, so be sure to keep an eye out. Below is the map provided on the Genshin Impact Interactive Map website, showcasing where each and every Onikabuto can be found around Inazuma. 

If you’re having trouble finding them and are lucky enough to have Gorou, his passive pings Inazuman specialities on the map so that will make it extra easy to find those pesky beetles.

Treasure Hoarder Insignias are dropped by various Treasure Hoarders upon defeat. These enemies spawn all around Teyvat, usually in camps or hideouts, so keep your eyes peeled for them. The Adventurer’s Guide has a tool that tracks specific enemies, so set that to Treasure Hoarders and follow the guide to your prize. You will need 18 Treasure Hoarder Insignias, 30 Silver Raven Insignias and 36 Golden Raven Insignias.

Runic Fangs are the specific boss material of the Ruin Serpent world boss, who dwells deep within the depths of The Chasm. The Ruin Serpent is a massive snake-like monster who burrows underground, popping up to strike and requiring the aid of the light given to you in The Chasm quest chain to effectively take out. Heizou will need 46 Runic Fangs in order to Ascend to Level 90.

The Turquoise Gems Heizou needs can be gained through defeating various weekly bosses in Trounce Domains, daily commissions or through converting other gemstones using the Alchemist Table and Dust of Azoth. A reminder that you can trade in 3 crystals of a lesser type for 1 of a higher type, such as 3 green tier crystals for 1 blue tier crystal. In total, you will need 1 Sliver, 9 Fragments, 9 Chunks and 6 Gemstones.

Like all other characters in Genshin Impact, Heizou will need Level Up Books and Mora in order to Ascend. He will need 420k Mora and a total of 415 Hero’s Wit EXP Books to reach level 90.

Heizou Ability Overview

Heizou is easily one of the most unique characters in the game, with a playstyle not found in any other character, even 5-Star units, allowing him to succeed as an amazing DPS-heavy character.

His Normal Attack is called Fudou Style Martial Arts and it allows Heizou to play unlike any other character in the game. Instead of elemental projectiles like most other Catalysts, Heizou uses Anemo-imbued punches and kicks to dominate his foes. His regular Normal Attack hits a 5-hit combo, whereas his Charged Attack is a wind-up uppercut kick that launches enemies into the air. This means that you want to be up close and personal to any enemy you see, a playstyle completely unlike most Catalyst users. Like all Catalysts, this deals elemental damage as opposed to the Physical damage of other weapons.

Heartstopper Strike is the name of his Elemental Skill. This is a wind up punch that Heizou can charge up to 4 times, with each stack of Declension adding more and more damage to the punch. At 4 stacks, Declension becomes Conviction, making Heizou’s skill one of the most powerful and high damaging Skills in the entire game. Unlike most characters, Heizou’s Skill does the highest raw DPS, as opposed to the Elemental Burst heavy damage of a lot of Genshin Impact’s units.

Finally, Heizou’s Elemental Burst is Windmuster Kick, an Anemo AOE attack that can hit from range. While not as damaging as his Skill, this does deal considerable damage and can hit from outside of Heizou’s normal range: it also has insanely high tracking, allowing Heizou to safely hit anything anytime he pops it. Windmuster Kick will also cause an additional explosion alongside its vacuum effect if it Swirls an element like Pyro or Cryo, dealing even more DPS.

A specific mention has to go to one of Heizou’s Ascension Passives, which gives him a Declension Stack whenever he deals any form of Swirl damage. This can be from his Normal Attack hits, his Skill or his Burst. What this means is that while his Skill is on cooldown, you can still accumulate stacks and can even instantly pop his highest damage move without charging up.

Overall, Heizou is an incredible DPS option. As a 4-star, he is easy to get constellations for, his playstyle is unique and stands out amongst all other characters and as an Anemo character, he fits into basically any team comp extremely well. Most of all, however, he’s just plain fun.

Normal Attack 1

The recommended order to level up Heizou’s talents in can be altered depending on preference, but here are the general picks:

1. Heartstopper Strike: Simply put, this Skill is Heizou’s best damaging option and so is worthy of the top spot. With more levels, comes more damage, simple as.
2. Fudou Style Martial Arts: As a Catalyst user, Heizou is incredible at reaction application and with his specific inclusion as an Anemo Catalyst, Heizou can inflict Swirl on every hit. Without Swirl, his hits are pretty weak, but with it, Heizou can deal some very impressive damage numbers very quickly on top of generating elemental energy for his Burst.
3. Windmuster Kick: While the least prioritised, Heizou’s Elemental Burst is still incredibly potent. It is a great generator of Swirl and gives Heizou the ability to deal good damage at very long ranges, something he would otherwise be unable to do.

All of Heizou’s talents require Guides / Teachings of Transience, Treasure Hoarder Insignias and The Meaning of Aeons (one of the three weekly boss materials dropped by the Raiden Shogun, which requires the completion of the Shogun’s 2nd Character Quest to unlock).

Best Weapons for Heizou

As far as Catalysts go, Heizou has a lot of really good options that increase his damage output significantly. 

The Ideal Choice

Lost Prayer to the Sacred Winds is the ideal weapon for Shikanoin Heizou, as it vastly increases increases his damage output while also helping his CRIT Rate and movement speed.

The Lost Prayer to the Sacred Winds is a 5 Star Catalyst that goes up to 532 ATK and with an additional bonus of 30% CRIT Rate. The effect on the weapon increases the characters movement speed by 10%, on top of ability to gain a stack of 8% damage for every 4 seconds the character is in battle. This stacks up to 4 times, giving the equipped character a total 32% increase to all of their elemental damage, effectively increasing the damage of all Catalyst attacks by 32%.

For Heizou, this means every part of his kit is just better: his Normals do more damage and are capable of higher Swirl and base DPS, his Heartstopper Strike Elemental Skill is able to do ludicrous damage than more you stack the buff, and even his Burst can become a very viable damaging option. Pairing this with the movement speed buff to allow Heizou higher mobility in getting to foes, especially due to his short range, and the CRIT Rate substat means you can focus your Artifacts somewhere else.

Overall, just a very solid and very powerful pick.

Replacement Options

In case you do not have Lost Prayer, here are a number of other options that you can use.

Just a note: 5* weapons on average have higher base damage and usually have better weapon effects. All the replacement weapons listed here are 4* weapons, but if you’re lucky enough to have a 5* Catalyst, try that out on Heizou become committing to a 4* option – it may end up overperforming.

The three replacement weapons recommended for Heziou are: The Solar Pearl, The Widsith and The Sacrificial Fragments.

Solar Pearl

The Solar Pearl is arguably the best weapon if you are going to be weaving in and out of all his different abilities. This weapon comes with a CRIT Rate substat like the Lost Prayer, and a very good weapon ability: whenever you deal damage with your Normal Attack, you increase the damage of your Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst by 20/25/30/35/40% (depending on refinement level) and vice versa if you use your Elemental Skill or Elemental Burst it increase Normal damage by the same amount. For Heizou, this means that his Normal attacks will not only charge his Declension stacks (if using Swirl) but they also be dealing damage and prepping Heartstopper Strike for even bigger damage. The Solar Pearl is available from the seasonal pass available at level 30.

The Widsith is generally just a good Catalyst for more characters due to the diversity of its effects. This weapon has three states: a 60% ATK buff (Recitative), a 48% buff to all Elemental DMG (Aria), and240-point increase to Elemental Mastery (Interlude), one of which will randomly trigger when switching the character in. This is Widsith’s ‘random theme song’, giving benefits for a duration of about 10 seconds.  All 3 of the bonuses benefit Heizou, as his Swirl damage is relative to his Elemental Mastery, and a CRIT or ATK increase just makes him hit even harder. A very good pick, which is exclusively available through Wishing.

Finally, Sacrificial Fragments. This may seem like an odd choice at first, as it doesn’t directly increase damage like the other two options. However, the skill on Sacrificial weapons means that they have a set chance of refunding the characters Elemental Skill completely upon dealing damage with said Elemental Skill. Heizou’s Heartstopper Strike is on a relatively long cooldown, so having the chance to get two strikes back-to-back is very handy and a way to get a lot of damage very quickly. Sacrificial Fragments can only be obtained through the gacha system.

Best Artifact Set for Heizou

Simply put, there’s only really one set that rules supreme for Heizou: 4 Piece Viridescent Venerer.

This is the Anemo set bonus, granting 15% increase to Anemo damage at 2 Pieces and an increase in damage to all Swirl reaction damage at 4 Pieces, alongside causing an Elemental resistance decrease on those hit by said Swirl. Considering that everything Heizou does is Anemo damage and that he is at his best when Swirling opponents with his Normal Attack or Skill, this artifact set is just too good to pass up: the 15% free elemental dmg bonus, the Elemental resistance drop whenever he uses his Normal Attacks and Swirl reaction, all of it just makes his kit shine.

If you cannot get a full set with good pieces, Gladiators can sub in as a 2 Piece, granting an 18% ATK bonus to whoever is wearing it. While not as good as 4 Piece Viridescent Venerer, any increase to Heizou’s ATK stat will make him infinitely better to play so if you really need to, go 2 Piece Gladiator and 2 Piece Viridescent.

Main Artifact Stats for Heizou

As for what stats you want on those artifacts, you can go down two roads if you want the best Heizou build:

1. Elemental Mastery / ATK
2. CRIT Rate / CRIT DMG
3. ATK / Elemental Mastery (the opposite of your first choice)

Heizou Idle

Elemental Mastery is here because it determines how much damage Heizou’s Swirl actually does, with the higher the EM making his reactions hit very hard. With super high investment into EM, Heizou can deal some absurd damage every time he uses anything in his kit so long as he can actually Swirl… which in lies the one draw back. If you do not want to go very Swirl heavy, or you just miss an opportunity, that EM will do nothing for you. However, it is still very important and you will more than likely use Swirl, so Elemental Mastery should be an important stat – it is just that your playstyle should dictate how important of a stat it is.

ATK is simple – more damage. Heizou does not stack off HP or DEF, just straight ATK, so crank that sucker as high as it can go. This one is in the most contention with EM, as this increase Heizou’s damage overall but not as much as EM increase his Swirl. Once again, though, higher ATK just makes him more consistent all around, so build and focus based on playstyle.

CRIT is also self-explanatory. For a DPS character, they want to be dealing as much damage as possible, and considering how fast Heizou attacks and the potential damage he can deal, you want to get both of your CRIT stats as high as they can go while not sacrificing other stats.

A final side note, but just like on all characters who focus a lot on Elemental damage, getting Anemo Damage / Anemo DMG Bonus on a goblet will massively increase Heizou’s damage on… well, everything, as he is a Catalyst character.

Best Team Compositions for Heizou

Heizou excels as a DPS, whether that be main or sub, but cannot do very well as a supporting character. As such, all 3 example teams will have Heizou as the leading role, or as part of a duet, in damage dealing. This includes our Budget Team, which is made completely of free-to-earn characters that do not require any gacha pulls at all, making it a safe bet for newer players.

Main DPS Heizou Team 1

This team consists of: Heizou, Fischl, Diluc, Jean

Heizou DPS Team 1

This team takes full advantage of Swirl and Overload in order to deal massive damage with both Heizou and Diluc, our Main-DPS and sub DPS.

Heizou will be the character we play most often. With aid from Fischl and Diluc, Heizou will always have something to make Swirl reactions, making sure he gets the most damage possible out of his Normal Attacks while also charging his stacks for Heartstopper Strike.

Fischl serves as both a battery and as off-field support, primarily through Oz, her Elemental Skill. Send Oz out, switch to Heizou and you have a perfectly Electro application so Heizou can do Swirl reactions. In addition, C6 Fischl will make it so that Oz attacks as you do, meaning that Heizou will literally Swirl on every attack when Oz is on the field, making Fischl even better if you are lucky enough to have her C6. If you want a bit more DPS, Yae Miko is also good, with her Burst, in particular, making her a great support and damage dealer.

Diluc serves as our backup DPS when there isn’t much to Swirl for Heizou. He deals very good damage, gets his Elemental Burst back insanely quick, and can apply Pyro to multiple enemies in quick succession. Using him right before popping Heizou is great, and he works as a very good DPS unit against enemies Heizou cannot hit, such as Anemo slimes or Spectres.

Jean acts as our healer but can be more than that too. C4 Jean has an effect where any enemy stood inside of her Burst has their Anemo resistance reduced, making it a great fit for main DPS Heizou. This, of course, means having Jean C4 which many people don’t have – luckily, she’s mainly here for healing and the Anemo resonance bonus applied to the party.

Overall, this team is all about elemental reactions (Swirl reactions and Overload reactions) and giving Heizou the opportunity to shine. From personal experience using this exact team, it gives me exactly what I want in terms of power fantasy, while still being secure enough that I don’t get frustrated. Most importantly: it’s just fun to punch stuff with Heizou and do big damage, and this team let’s that happen.

Main DPS Heizou Team 2

This team consists of: Heizou, Yelan, Yae Miko, Shinobu

Heizou DPS Team 2

The first team focused on Swirl and Overload, this team focus on Swirl and Electro-Charged. Once again, Heizou is our main DPS with Yelan as our sub-DPS, Yae as off field support and Shinobu on healing.

Heizou does exactly what he did before: Swirl any element he sees and do massive damage when his hits connect.

Yelan plays an interesting role in this team comp, as she can duck in and out of combat with her Skill, applying Hydro at just the right time. This helps both Heizou, who needs Hydro to Swirl, but also Yae, who can utilise the Hydro to Electro-Charge enemies, dealing a small damage over time alongside the auras that will aid Heizou in his own reactions. Yelan also just deals respectable damage on her own, so having her in this team is a great boon to have.

Yae can be replaced with Fischl, or vice versa, and essentially fulfils the same role as the previous team. She serves to inflict the field with Electro, dealing decent damage and allowing Heizou easy access to Swirl. Alongside helping Yelan, Yae can also dish out some impressive damage with a full set of talismans, and her Burst does very nice damage for an off field support. She does generate less orbs than Fischl, however, so decide what you prefer when making this team.

Shinobu acts to give the team healing (which also gives Heizou an instant access to constant Electro for several seconds) and also to trigger the Electro team resonance, allowing any Electro reaction to generate elemental orbs 100% of the time.

Once again, this team is very reliant on reactions and Swirl, but in a different way to the first. Here, the reactions outside of Swirl are just as important, making the team gel together well and giving you a good opportunity to switch and use all characters equally. Heizou will still be doing the most damage here, of course, but his companions aren’t anything to sneeze at either.

Budget Team

Team consists of: Heizou, Fischl, Lisa, Barbara

Heizou Budget Team

For this free-to-play friendly team, we use a lot of off-field aid from Fischl and Lisa in order to help Heizou with Swirl.

Barbara here serves as a way to heal us should we get low, but she also has instant access to Hydro as a Catalyst user: pairing her with Heizou gives him Swirl instantly, or pairing her with Lisa gives Electro-Charge instantly, both of which help out the teams DPS beyond just being a healer. Barbara is also super easy to get, so that helps.

Fischl serves as our battery and main off-field support, using Oz to help Heizou do maximum damage with Swirl.

Lisa is an interesting pick here. If you want raw DPS, Xiangling may be a better option as her Burst synergises well with Heizou and gives the team another element to react to. Lisa, on the hand, provides the team with the same Electro team resonance bonus of more orbs on Electro reactions but also serves as a backup DPS. Her Burst provides constant damage, which is good for giving Heizou Swirl, but she is also decent in just doing damage herself, especially with her wide range Elemental Skill – when there are enemies that Heizou just cannot touch, you can turn to Lisa for aid.

This team is a bit more bare-bones than the others, but it still accomplishes the job well enough: good and easy access to reactions, two potent reactions at that, and strong characters that will help you through a lot of the game with very little stress or strain.