Layla Guide and Best Builds for Genshin Impact

Strengths

• Stone Shielding with great uptime
• Low Energy requirements for her Elemental Burst
• Easy to build due to scaling on HP

Weaknesses

• Elemental Skill can accidentally Freeze yourself on use
• Needs later Constellations to unlock further supportive and damage capabilities
• Losing the shield ends her Elemental Skill early and stops Energy generation

The main way to play Layla is by focusing on her shielding and ensuring you can able to consistently shield your team. This means focusing on HP to increase shield strength so that it lasts until your Elemental Skill cooldown is back.

HP scaling weapons such as Key of Khaj-Nisut and The Dockhand's Assistant are best for Layla or weapons that provide additional Energy Recharge such as Favonius Sword which supports the entire party. Tenacity of the Millelith is Layla's best artifact set due to further increasing both her HP and shielding.

Playing Layla as a Sub DPS sacrifices some of her Shielding capabilities to improve her damage. This can be beneficial in situations where you simply do not need such a powerful shield and would rather improve your party's DPS. This is common in team compositions that have multiple supports/healers for example Bennett.

With regards to weapons, your best options can change depending on your needs. Primordial Jade Cutter is great for damage and shielding but will require a CRIT DMG Circlet when used with Blizzard Strayer.

You can maintain 2 stacks on Mistsplitter Reforged using your Elemental Burst making it a strong option. However, Light of Foliar Incision is there simply for stats with its passive effects not being worth it. Favonius Sword is a great general option lowering your entire teams energy requirements.

Blizzard Strayer is Laylas best set as a Sub DPS especially in Freeze teams and even synergises well with Favonius Sword. Emblem of Severed Fate however is a great artifact set helping buff your teams damage.

Listed below are several suggestions for Layla's Energy Recharge depending on if you have Light's Remit as well as how many Cryo characters are in your party.

Layla's gameplay focuses on her ability to generate Night Stars and Shooting Stars using Nights of Formal Focus. When you use this Elemental Skill, it creates a Night Star every 1.5 seconds and 2 Night Stars when a character protected by Layla's shield uses their Elemental Skill.

After creating 4 Night Stars, they transform into Shooting Stars that attack opponents, dealing damage and applying Cryo. When a Shooting Star hits an enemy it generates Energy.

Most mechanics surrounding Layla's gameplay require her shield to be available. If your shield breaks you lose any related effects such as the Shooting Star damage and Energy generation. This therefore lowers your damage and limits your Elemental Application.

Layla's shield will also only last for 12 seconds but does have a cooldown of 12 seconds making it possible to have 100% uptime on said shield. The problem however is that most team compositions will not have 12 second rotations. This does mean you will need to use Nights of Formal Focus a second time.

While having slightly weaker shields than Zhongli, Layla still provides some incredibly powerful shields making her flexible in a wide range of teams. Because she is able to provide Cryo to the party, Elemental Reactions are something you do need to consider when slotting her in.

Freeze teams benefit from Layla due to the survivability she brings alongside the Cryo Resonance that she can enable. Additionally, Layla can even function as a battery for a Cryo Main DPS such as Ayaka ensuring they can consistently use their Elemental Burst to deal damage. An Anemo character is incredibly important here to help swirl to provide grouping, swirling and resistance shred.

This is currently one of Layla's most popular teams using Wanderer almost like a Hypercarry by primarily buffing them but with Hydro and Cryo in the background helping to keep enemies in place and creating additional reactions. Layla provides not only elemental application and shielding but also interruption resistance helping Wanderer stay in the sky.

Layla is great in Mono-Cryo teams which entirely focus on Cryo damage, which works great for bosses or enemies that you can not freeze. Mono Cryo teams allow you to more efficiently utilise Layla by often having shorter rotations and easier Energy Regeneration making it easy for Layla to always have 100% uptime on her shields. Ganyu and Ayaka being some of the most powerful Cryo DPS and Shenhe providing damage buffs.