Role: On-Field Hydro DPS / Vaporize Carry
Best For: Players who want powerful single-hit Hydro damage and a Vaporize-focused DPS with strong mobility.
1. Recommended Artifacts
4-Piece Obsidian Codex — The recommended artifact set for Mualani. She consistently consumes Nightsoul Points while using her Elemental Skill, allowing her to maintain the set’s powerful CRIT Rate bonus while also increasing her damage.
Alternative: 4-Piece Heart of Depth — A usable alternative that increases Hydro DMG and Normal Attack DMG after using an Elemental Skill. It works with Mualani’s enhanced Sharky Bite attacks, although it is generally weaker than Obsidian Codex.
Obsidian Codex also makes Mualani easier to build because it provides a large amount of CRIT Rate. This lets you focus more heavily on CRIT DMG, HP%, and Elemental Mastery through your artifact stats.
2. Recommended Weapons
Premium: Surf’s Up
Alternatives: Sacrificial Jade, Tome of the Eternal Flow, The Widsith
F2P: Ring of Yaxche
Surf’s Up is Mualani’s signature weapon and complements her kit with CRIT DMG, HP, and Normal Attack bonuses. These stats directly benefit the HP-scaling Sharky Bite attacks that make up most of her damage.
Ring of Yaxche is an especially practical F2P choice because it is craftable and provides HP% together with a Normal Attack DMG bonus. The Widsith can also perform well, although its random ATK buff provides little value to an HP-scaling character like Mualani.
3. Recommended Teams
Vaporize: Mualani + Mavuika + Sucrose + Xilonen
Burn-Vaporize: Mualani + Mavuika + Emilie + Zhongli
Accessible Vaporize: Mualani + Xiangling + Xilonen + Kazuha
Mualani performs particularly well in Vaporize teams because her damage is concentrated into powerful individual Hydro attacks. Maintaining Pyro on the enemy before her Sharky Bite lands can dramatically increase the damage of each successful hit.
Supports that provide Elemental Mastery, resistance reduction, or other useful damage bonuses can further strengthen these attacks. Unlike many Hydro DPS characters, Mualani generally wants to be the character triggering Vaporize rather than simply providing Hydro for another character’s reactions.
4. Main Stats / Substats
Sands: HP% or Elemental Mastery
Goblet: Hydro DMG Bonus or HP%
Circlet: CRIT DMG or HP%
Substats: CRIT DMG / HP% / Elemental Mastery / CRIT Rate
Mualani scales primarily with Max HP rather than ATK, so ATK% should not be treated as an important offensive stat for her. Elemental Mastery becomes particularly valuable in Vaporize teams because it directly improves the reactions triggered by her strongest attacks.
Be careful not to overbuild CRIT Rate when using 4-Piece Obsidian Codex. Mualani already gains CRIT Rate from her Ascension and receives another large bonus from the artifact set, making CRIT DMG, HP%, and Elemental Mastery especially valuable.
5. Playstyle
Use Mualani’s Elemental Skill to enter Nightsoul’s Blessing and ride her Sharky Surfboard. Move through enemies to mark them and build Wave Momentum stacks, then use her enhanced Normal Attack to unleash a powerful Sharky’s Surging Bite.
In Vaporize teams, make sure the enemy has Pyro applied before committing to the Bite. Because Mualani deals a large portion of her damage through relatively few powerful attacks, missing a Vaporize or attacking before reaching the desired stacks can significantly reduce her damage.
Her Elemental Burst provides another strong instance of Hydro damage, but you generally do not need to sacrifice offensive artifact stats just to guarantee the Burst every rotation.
6. F2P
Mualani has a strong craftable weapon option in Ring of Yaxche, which provides HP% and improves the Normal Attack damage central to her playstyle. This means her signature weapon is not required for her to function effectively as a Vaporize DPS.
She can also be paired with accessible characters such as Pyro Traveler and Sucrose to provide Pyro application and reaction support. Prioritize a good Obsidian Codex set and proper Vaporize timing before worrying about premium weapon upgrades.
StoryBillion Tip: Don’t rush Mualani’s Sharky Bite just because an enemy is in range. Build her stacks and make sure Pyro is applied first—a properly prepared Vaporize hit is much more important than simply attacking as quickly as possible.
