Raiden Shogun, also known as Raiden Ei or Beelzebul, is an Electro Polearm user and the archon of Inazuma.

She is one of the best burst dps and utility supports in the game. As a utility support, her niche is as a universal battery and burst buffer.


Scenes from one of Ei's cutscenes

Contents

Talents

Elemental Skill

The raw damage scaling is not as high as Fischl's skill, and the skill will not proc on certain enemy shields. However, it compensates for this in the following:

It applies 1A electro on each slash.

It can buff her own burst so it is recommended to use her E before her Q.

Elemental Burst

The initial slash of the Musou no Hitotachi is one of the highest scaling nukes in the game, and it is just pure Electro damage. The initial slash applies 2B electro.

During her burst, she also changes stance from polearm to sword. Her attacks are converted to Electro, which cannot be overridden by any other infusion, and her charged attack AoE becomes huge. All damage during this stance is considered burst damage (so the Emblem set and Catch's passives apply to all attacks here). Hitting opponents will restore energy for party members.

The scaling on her burst depends on the number of stacks of Chakra Desiderata she has (max 60). She can gain stacks via:

The burst costs 90 energy with an 18s cooldown (which is shorter than 80 energy cost burst cd and equal to 70 energy cost burst cd). It lasts 7 seconds.

Ascension 4

Converts ER% to extra energy generation during burst and Electro DMG Bonus. For each point of ER above 100%, she gains:

Utility Passive

Decreases Mora cost of ascending polearms and swords by 50%, which is actually quite nice.

Constellations

Raiden constellations are quite friendly for dolphin spenders. Some of her biggest upgrades are:

Her C6 allows her q to decrease the cd of other party members' bursts up to 5s. This excludes the Raiden Shogun herself. This can be a significant increase in team dps. For example, in a Raiden national team when her teammates have 20s cd on the burst that lasts 15s or less, they can capitalize fully on the 5s cd decrease. If a character has a 20s cd on a burst that lasts 15s, they can essentially have a 15s cd or 100% uptime on the burst. The dps increase will then be $$20/15 \approx 1.33$$ times (multiplicative), which is similar to a TTDS buff. If a character has a 15s cd on a nuke, then C6 Raiden can reduce it to a 10s cd, increasing that dps by $$15/10 = 1.5$$ times. By comparison, Raiden's C2 gives a similar buff to herself (ignoring 60% DEF is around a 1.4 multiplier). How good the C6 buff is depends on which teams one uses Raiden in.

Build

Artifact Set

Emblem of Severed Fate 4 piece for most purposes. When running hyperbloom Raiden, one can opt for Gilded Dreams 4 piece.

Artifact Stats

ATK% on sands, Electro DMG Bonus or ATK% on goblet, CRIT on circlet.

Raiden innately gets a lot of Electro DMG Bonus. If one is deficient on ATK, then it is feasible to run an ATK% goblet. If one has enough ATK or is running Bennett, one can opt for an Electro DMG Bonus goblet.

Substats: CRIT, ATK, ER

For hyperbloom comps (just use Raiden E), one can do full EM Raiden.

Weapons

5 stars
4 stars

Teams

Examples

Raiden synergizes with the following supports:

Calculations

C0

Suppose one uses 4-piece emblem with 200% ER (very achievable). This gives:

In total she gets 163.6% DMG Bonus, which is getting in the range of Xiao level DMG Bonus.

Her base ATK is quite high, and it is very possible to get her total ATK to the same level as some of the top DPS units in the game.

Suppose her burst is used at max stacks (60 stacks) and is level 10. The scaling of the initial slash is:

\(y_{0}=721.44+7(60)=1141.44 \)

During the 7s duration, she can do a N1C1 (1 normal + 1 charged attack) combo around 4 times. Basically she can spam her charged attack 4 times. For simplicity we will ignore dash/jump canceling and other types of combos. The scaling for one cycle:

\( y_{1}=79.82+(109.9+132.67)+3*1.31*60=558.19 \)

Doing this 4 times gives

\(4y_{1}=2232.76 \)

In total during her burst her scaling is

\( y=y_{0}+4y_{1}=3374.2 \)

Factoring in damage bonus her MV becomes

\( z=2.636y \)

Her 90 energy cost burst has an 18s cooldown (without other modifiers), so assuming she can spam it on cooldown (which is actually very possible given how much ER and energy generation she can have), the DPS is:

\( x_{b}=z/18\approx 494.13 \)

Note without using her E it is 443.52. For a support this is actually quite high (perhaps the highest), but still less than a C0 Xiao's DPS.

Also note this is an optimistic estimate as it assumes she has 60 stacks each time she uses her burst on cooldown (when in reality, it may be less).

C3

At C3 she gets +3 levels on her Q and ignores 60% of opponents' DEF. This time

\(y_{0}=851.7+8.26(60)=1347.3 \)
\( y_{1}=93.54+(128.8+155.48)+3*1.54*60=655.02 \)
\( y=y_{0}+4y_{1}=3967.38 \)
\( z_{b}=2.636y/18\approx 581.00 \)

When we factor in 60% DEF shred, we get another multiplier of roughly 1.4

\( x_{b}=z_b/(1-.6/2) \approx 830 \)

So assuming she spams her burst on cooldown and has max stacks each time (which may or may not be achievable in practice), C3 Raiden can have higher DPS than almost all C0 characters (including C0 Ganyu), but less than a C6 Xiao's DPS (and less than C0 Xiao with midair plunging). The main boost is the DEF shred which gives Raiden an innate multiplier almost reaching the 1.5 multiplier of melt or vaporize. This combined with her innate high scalings makes her one of the best sub-DPS units in the game.

Note this number is basically the same for a C6 Raiden. The only difference is that a C6 Raiden may be able to spam her burst on cooldown much more easily than a C3 Raiden given her other constellations.

C6 Raiden does not reduce her own burst cooldown, but can decrease the cd of other party members' bursts. In effect, this may make it faster for Raiden to accumulate resolve stacks.

Dendro

Dendro gives access to the aggravate reaction for Raiden. This is usually relevant for dendro international teams where Raiden also batteries the entire team. Because aggravate is an additive reaction, the buff it provides will be less for higher scaling attacks, and Raiden's q can give really high scaling. That said, aggravate can still give a noticable damage increase. Moreover, Raiden's E can also be buffed by aggravate given its lower scaling, but note that ICD will regulate how often the E (and Raiden's other attacks) can proc aggravate.

Perhaps people have already discovered that Raiden-Nahida is a broken combo, especially for overworld.

Hyperbloom

Similar to how Thoma can act as a burgeon driver, dendro has enabled Raiden to act as a hyperbloom driver with her E (and Q). That is one can do a full EM Raiden build, giver her Dragon's Bane, pair her with a dendro (Nahida) and hydro unit, and have Raiden proc hyperbloom with her E. So Raiden synergizes very well with dendro in a number of ways (Nahida quicken, hyperbloom, etc).

It may not be the most efficient use of Raiden's ER abilities, but given hyperbloom's high scaling, such a team is actually viable and legit. That said, other electro units such as Cyno (with his EM buff/scaling) are perhaps more suited for driving hyperbloom, whereas Raiden is more suited as an ER hypercarry.

Raiden is one of the best characters in the game. She can be built in multiple ways, including standard ATK hypercarry and full EM build. But not just that, she excels in all these roles. And in some cases, her full EM hyperbloom build can out-dps her ATK-sands hypercarry build. Moreover, Raiden regenerates energy for the entire team with her burst, which is useful for any kind of team she is in. Combine that with her naturally high damage bonus passive, large range on E, long duration on E, excellent DEF-shredding C2, and Raiden becomes the premier electro unit of the game, worthy of her title as electro archon.

Raiden and Beidou

Why doesn't Raiden Q work with Beidou Q? There have been many theories and questions circulating in the community. But suffice to say, when Kublai Khan conquered land across Eurasia during the Mongol Empire, he gloated about how his conquests surpassed those of Tang Taizong.

Raiden in the media

Raiden has appeared in many other video games. Raiden Mei is a character from Honkai. Raiden is also the one that defeated Armstrong in an iconic boss fight with dialogue scripts written as if they came from a 'cushy' Ivy league school.

Baal is also the name of a demon (king of hell) from Ars Goetia. Raiden also goes Beelzebub. Nahida goes by Buer, Venti by Barbatos, zhongli by Morax. The hydro archon goes by Focalors.