Genshin Impact Mona Guide: Best Builds

In Genshin Impact Mona is one of best characters, possessing powerful elemental skills. Unfortunately, it can only be obtained through Prayers, and the probability of it falling out is very small, since it belongs to 5-star heroes. If you still managed to knock her out, then you will probably want to know what are the best builds for her, as well as what weapons and artifacts to choose for her.

Mona's characteristics

Let's start by looking at the general parameters of this heroine. She belongs to the Hydro class, and uses the Catalyst as a weapon. At level 20, her stats are as follows:

• HP: 2102
• Attack Power: 81
• Protection: 132
• Rarity: 5 stars

Advantages and disadvantages

Mona is not very strong in boss fights, but she shows herself well in battles with mobs as a support character. It is ideal for exploring the world. We'll explain why below. Its benefits also include:

• The unique style of movement allows you to perform actions at high speed.
• Weapon Catalyst allows you to deal elemental damage with standard attacks.
• You can choose where to use elemental skills, making it easy to trigger elemental reactions.

She has few weaknesses, but they still exist:

• Low base health and defense.
• Requires a combination of elements to deal maximum damage.

How to play Mona

Hitting wide areas

Mona can use her area of effect attacks to deal massive damage to entire hordes of enemies. For example, her elemental skill and elemental explosion can restrict the movement of enemies, preventing them from interrupting your next turn.

In order to take full advantage of her benefits, we advise you to activate her talent called "Mirror Reflection of Fate" to increase the effect of the "Wet" status. Then, while this attack will hold back the movement of enemies, you should switch to the character's Electro to create a negative status "Electric Charge".

Can "run" on water

Unlike other characters, Mona is able to make dashes while moving on the surface of the water, which greatly simplifies moving around the locations. Although it doesn't last much longer than a standard dash, it's still long enough to smoothly cross most rivers.

You should be aware that she cannot activate the corresponding skill while in the water, so be sure to start the dash when Mona is still on land. And watch your stamina scale, as this heroine can easily drown if she runs out of stamina right in the pond.

Gives a crafting bonus

Mona's passive talent Astrology Principle makes it possible to recover 25% of the materials used to create the resources required for Ascension. This will save you a lot of time looking for rare crafting items, so be sure to choose Mona when crafting these gizmos.

Best builds for Mona

Secondary DPS (focusing on Elemental Burst)

This build aims to store energy to use Mona's Elemental Burst frequently to disable all nearby enemies on a regular basis. You can also significantly increase this ability. In this case, as a weapon should be used:

• Skyward Atlas (5-star) - Increases elemental damage by 12%. A normal strike has a 50% chance to inflict a blessing of the clouds, causing enemies to take 160% damage for 15 seconds. The effect appears once every half a minute.
• Favonius Codex (4-Star Catalyst; Obtaining Energy) - Critical attacks have a 60% chance to cast elemental particles that restore 6 energy. Appears once every 12 seconds.
• Wine and Song (4-Star Catalyst; Obtaining Energy) - Characters using this weapon gain 8-16% increased attack power and 3-5% increased movement speed when they have heroes from Mondstadt in their party.
• The Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers (3-star) – after switching characters, increases the attack power of the new active character by 24/30/36/42/48% for 10 seconds.

As for the best artifacts for this build, we advise you to collect a full set:

• Noblesse Oblige - 2 items: Increase elemental explosion damage by 20%; 4 items: Casting an elemental burst grants a 20% bonus to the attack power of all team members, lasting 12 seconds. The stacking effect is not possible. Can be found in the dungeon "Clear Pool and Mountain Cavern" .

If you do not have the whole set, then you can try to build a set of two incomplete sets:

• Noblesse Oblige - 2 items: Increase elemental explosion damage by 20%.
• Wanderer’s Troupe - 2 items: Increases Elemental Mastery by 80 points. Drops from elite bosses.
• Instructor - 2 items: Increases mastery of elements by 80 points. Budget replacement for the previous artifact. Also drops from elite bosses.

Secondary DPS (with a focus on Hydro damage)

If you plan to use this character more often, and not immediately switch to other heroes after activating the explosion of the elements, then we recommend that you maximize her Hydro damage. In some cases, she can even play the role of the main DPS in the squad. We recommend giving Monet the following catalysts:

• The Widsith (4-star; Critical Damage) - After switching to a character, a random piece of music plays for 10 seconds, can increase attack by 60%, elemental damage by 48%, or elemental mastery by 240%. Activates every half minute.
• Skyward Atlas (5-star; attack power) - Increases elemental damage by 12%. A normal strike has a 50% chance to inflict a blessing of the clouds, causing enemies to take 160% damage for 15 seconds. The effect appears once every half a minute. This catalyst is more suitable for those who want to use Sucrose more often directly in combat.
• Sea Chart (4-star; Elemental Mastery) - Spawning an elemental reaction increases elemental damage by 8 percent for 10 seconds. The effect stacks up to two times.
• Magic Guide (3-star; Elemental Mastery) - Increases damage by 12% when fighting enemies with Hydro or Electro status.

As for artifacts, you can try one of two sets to choose from. The first includes 2 incomplete sets:

• Wanderer’s Troupe - 2 items: Increases Elemental Mastery by 80 points. Dropped by elite bosses.
• Heart of Depth - 2 items: Increase Hydro damage by 15%. Can be found in the dungeon "Peak of Vindagnyr".

The second set consists of the following 20 incomplete sets:

• Noblesse Oblige - 2 items: Increase elemental explosion damage by 20%. Can be obtained from the Clear Pool and Mountain Cavern dungeon.
• Heart of Depth - 2 items: Increase Hydro damage by 15%. Can be found in the dungeon "Peak of Vindagnyr".

Combination with other characters

Mona is one of the best secondary damage dealers in the game, so she pairs well with many characters. For example, with Pyro heroes, she can create such an elemental reaction as Steam, and with Electro - Charged. Below we will indicate some of the most interesting commands with it.

First team:

• Main DPS: Diluc
• Secondary DPS: Mona
• Secondary DPS: Xingqiu or Ganyu
• Support: Bennett

Second command:

• Primary DPS: Klee
• Secondary DPS: Mona
• Secondary DPS: Xingqiu
• Support: Bennett or Xiangling

Third team:

• Primary DPS: Mona
• Secondary DPS: Fischl
• Secondary DPS: Xingqiu
• Support: Sucrose

Mona leveling

How to improve skills

To do this, you will need special materials, namely:

• Doctrines, directions and philosophies about "Struggle" - they can be obtained in the Forsaken Rift dungeon on Tuesdays and Fridays.
• Whopperflower Nectar, Shimmering Nectar and Energy Nectar - can be obtained from Jumper mobs or created using alchemy.
• Ring of Boreas - Dropped by Lupus Borealis Elite Boss.

How to level up a character

You will need to collect a lot of fairly rare items. Below we have listed them and talked about the methods of extraction.

• 1st Ascension (Max Level 20) - 1 Varunada Lazurite Sliver, 3 Philanemo Mushrooms, 3 Jumping Nectar
• 2nd Ascension (Max Level 40) – 3 Varunada Lapis Lazuli Fragments, 2 Cleansing Hearts, 10 Filanemo Mushrooms, 15 Jumping Nectars
• Ascension 3 (max level 50) – 6 Varunada Lapis Lazuli Fragments, 4 Cleansing Hearts, 20 Filanemo Mushrooms, 12 Shimmering Nectars
• 4th Ascension (max level 60) - 3 pieces of Varunada lapis lazuli, 8 cleansing hearts, 30 filanemo mushrooms, 18 shimmering nectars
• Ascension 5 (max level 70) - 6 pieces of Varunada lapis lazuli, 12 cleansing hearts, 45 filanemo mushrooms, 12 elemental nectars
• 6th Ascension (Max Level 80) – 6 Varunada Gem Lapis Lazuli, 20 Cleansing Hearts, 60 Filanemo Mushrooms, 24 Elemental Nectars

Varunada's Lapis Lazuli and Cleansing Heart drop from Elite Boss Named Oceanid (from level 30 and above). Filanemo mushrooms are a local curiosity of Mondstadt. We talked about their location in separate guide.