Elegant and graceful, Kamisato Ayaka joins the fray with her frigid blade and steadfast heart. Fans have been waiting for Ayaka’s release since the game's beta, and she released as a playable character in Genshin Impact Version 2.0 along with the Inazuma region. Now, she is available once again as a featured 5-star character in her rerun banner in Version 3.5. Check out the recommended Ayaka builds for her Talents, Weapons, Artifacts, and Teams below.

Kamisato Ayaka belongs to one of Inazuma’s Tri-Commission, the Yashiro Commission. This daughter of the Kamisato Clan is in charge of the organization’s internal and external affairs. However, Ayaka’s earnest heart pushes her to do more than just her obligation. She helps people in need which results in immense admiration and respect from the people.

Ayaka is certainly unique in terms of gameplay. Her smooth animations and straightforward abilities show that she’ll be very enjoyable to play, especially in different roles. She is a 5-star sword-wielding Cryo character. Adept at delivering swift slashes, she can weave in and out of combat with her alternate sprint, similar to Mona’s. What sets her apart from other Genshin Impact characters is her ability to easily infuse her own attacks with Cryo, making her damage output scale quite well with the right build and composition.

Kamisato Ayaka Talents Overview

The recommended leveling order for Ayaka's talent is Burst >= Normal Attack > Skill

Kamisato Art: Hyouka is Ayaka’s Elemental Skill. She summons blooming ice around her, launching nearby enemies and dealing AoE Cryo damage. This is as straightforward as it gets: single burst, good damage, and average cooldown. This is also her only way of generating energy, so you might want to have another Cryo character in your team if you plan to spam Ayaka’s Elemental Burst.

Kamisato Art: Soumetsu is Ayaka’s Elemental Burst. She summons snowstorms that move forward in front of her and can collide with enemies dealing continuous Cryo damage, along with a final blast of Cryo damage. This ability is a handful but has the potential to do immense AoE damage as the final Cryo blasts overlap. The downside of this ability is its high energy cost of 80 and a long cooldown of 20 seconds, but its high potential damage makes it worth it to build towards her burst. 

Kamisato Art: Senho is Ayaka’s Alternate Sprint ability. When sprinting, she guises herself in a frozen fog and is able to move seamlessly over bodies of water, as long as her stamina allows. After reappearing, she applies Cryo on nearby enemies and infuses her attacks with Cryo for 5 seconds. This is probably the most important aspect of her DPS kit because her Cryo infusion allows her basic attacks to scale just as much as her other abilities, without the need for external help like Chongyun’s infusion field.

Fruits of Shinsa is Ayaka’s crafting talent, which provides a 10% chance of receiving double the product when crafting Weapon Ascension Materials. Always needing more of those high-tier Ley Line Branches? This talent can help you in a pinch if you’re lucky.

Amatsumi Kunitsumi Sanctification is Ayaka’s first combat talent. After using her Elemental Skill, Ayaka gains 30% increased damage to her Normal and Charged attacks for 6s. Simple but quite powerful, the buff it provides is almost as good as the Gladiator Set’s 4-piece bonus, which is crazy. 

Kanten Senmyou Blessing is Ayaka’s second combat talent. When Ayaka inflicts Cryo to enemies on reappearing from her alternate sprint, she restores 10 stamina to herself and gains 18% Cryo DMG bonus for 10s. Her alternate sprint consumes 10 stamina on activation, so it means that you completely recoup the stamina spent if you’re looking to just activate her Cryo Infusion. Along with providing her with a decent Cryo DMG boost, this talent really goes a long way in improving Ayaka’s overall output.

Best Weapon Build for Ayaka in Genshin Impact

Mistsplitter Reforged – This 5-star sword is made for Ayaka. It has a massive potential of 40% Elemental DMG Bonus, extremely high base attack, and a great Crit DMG substat. This weapon pushes her damage into new heights, and this will no doubt be her best-in-slot for quite a long time.

Amenoma Kageuchi – This is widely considered to be the best F2P weapon you can equip on Ayaka. Since this is a craftable weapon, you can easily get refinement levels on the Amenoma Kageuchi, further increasing the synergy between the two. It provides great Energy Recharge especially on higher refinements, and the ATK substat also serves Ayaka well.

Blackcliff Longsword – You may not like spending Starglitter on the shop for weapons since it's harder to get refinement levels, but the Blackcliff Longsword performs similarly to the Amenoma Kageuchi in terms of damage output.

Best Artifact Build for Ayaka in Genshin Impact

Blizzard Strayer – Easily one of her easiest setups, this takes off a lot of load when allocating a good Crit ratio with your weapons and artifacts. 40% Crit Rate on frozen enemies, along with another 15% from Cryo resonance, means you can focus more on Crit Damage and scale your damage very hard. The ideal main stats are ATK% for your sands, Cryo DMG bonus on your goblet, and Crit DMG on your circlet. A Crit Rate circlet may be better if you lack Crit Rate substats, or have a lot of Crit DMG and want a bit more Crit on enemies immune to Cryo/Frozen, especially for bosses and those with elemental shields.

Retracing Bolide – This might be surprising, but it’s actually very good if you have Albedo or Zhongli. This set increases the shield strength of the already massive shield provided by Zhongli, but it also provides a massive 40% DMG bonus to Normal/Charged Attack DMG when protected by a shield. Keeping this buff up is extremely easy with Albedo and Zhongli’s permanent shield uptime, and Albedo can even provide better offensive support, being the best holder of the Tenacity of the Millelith set.

Emblem of Severed Fate – This is useful if she's not being played in a Freeze team. While Blizzard Strayer is the best (and only) choice for Ayaka, Emblem of Severed Fate is good as a temporary set on her while you're farming for Blizzard Strayer. On a mono-Cryo team, the Emblem of Severed Fate also serves Ayaka well in terms of Energy and ATK stats.

Best Team Compositions for the Frostflake Heron

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Ayaka Morgana (Ayaka, Kokomi/Hydro, Kazuha/VV user, Shenhe/other Cryo) – This team, also dubbed the “Ayaka Freeze” comp, centers around Ayaka as the main DPS and taking advantage of the buffs from the other members of the party to deal massive damage. 

Kokomi is the Support and Healer and facilitates the Freeze reaction by being the sole source of Hydro in the party. She is a great character to fill this spot because of her reliable and consistent Hydro application compared to the massive healing from her Elemental Skill. Not only this, as when equipped with Ocean Hued Clam she can also deal significant damage. She can be replaced by other Hydro characters such as Xingqiu or Mona, but note that other options cannot fill Kokomi's slot perfectly – so prioritize the Hydro application over the healing if you're replacing her. Other choices include Xingqiu, Ayato, and Yelan.

Kazuha is here to shred Cryo resistance, and is simply the best choice due to him being a great all-around support. However, other choices are also viable as long as they have the Viridescent Venerer set, such as Venti and Sucrose. If you need healing because of Kokomi's absence, Jean and Sayu can fill this spot.

Shenhe is here as a Cryo battery and to buff Ayaka's damage. Viable replacements include Ganyu and Kaeya, or Qiqi and Diona if you require healing. It's highly recommended to preserve the Cryo resonance when replacing Shenhe.

Kamisato Freeze (Ayaka, Ayato, Ganyu, Kazuha/VV user)

This is simply a modification of the Ayaka Morgana team, but instead Ayato becomes the source of the Hydro while also acting as the Sub DPS. Ganyu is the Burst DPS, while having great synergy with Ayato's Burst. Kazuha fills a similar role, and can be replaced with other VV users if you find yourself needing healing.