*Contains spoilers

Barbara is the lovely idol from Mondstadt and one of the best supportive healers that the game has. Her brilliant nature and determination to help others make people easily fall in love with her. So there’s no doubt why she’s admired in Mondstadt!

Here I bring a brief review of Barbara from Genshin Impact!

Barbara’s Overview

Barbara is a Hydro catalyst character from Genshin Impact and one of the first 4-star healers released in 2020.

In Mondstadt, Barbara is the deaconess of the Church of Favonius and a self-proclaimed idol adored by people. She’s the little sister of the Acting Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius, Jean and thus, a descendant of the renowned Gunnhildr Clan.

Lore’s Review

Since she was a child, Barbara has been cheerful and optimistic as well as a bit clumsy. Although her clumsiness can cause her to mess things up at times, she never gives up and tries again.

Barbara and Jean are blood-related sisters, but since they were kids, their parents parted ways and Barbara stayed by her father’s side. Barbara’s father, Seamus Pegg, is the Seneschal of the Church of Favonius and under his guidance, Barbara joined the Church and became a deaconess.

Barbara is the complete opposite of Jean, who is the pride of her family. When Barbara was younger, she tried to surpass her sister at least once. But whether it was in grades, swordplay or anything else, Barbara could never surpass Jean. She may be optimistic, but even she can get upset and feel down if she loses.

As time passed, Barbara kept her ambition buried deep in her heart and tried to be of help to her sister. Still, even if Barbara and Jean didn’t grow together and followed different paths, Barbara really admired her big sister.

Under her father’s counsel, Barbara became a healer. She wanted to help others and claimed that even if she wasn’t good at combat, she wanted to support those who are. For Barbara, there isn’t a greater reward than the smiles of those who had been helped by her. Their words and feelings of gratitude always encourage her to keep going.

Before becoming an idol, Barbara had never sung and barely knew any songs. One night, Barbara was in charge to take care of a young boy who had a high fever. The boy was suffering and there was nothing that could comfort him or stop his crying.

Someone advised her to sing a song to the boy and although she had no singing experience, Barbara wouldn’t abandon someone who was suffering. She sang a lullaby for the boy throughout the night and even if her throat was dry, she never stopped until the boy fell asleep. Feeling exhausted, Barbara leaned against the wall and instantly fell asleep as well. During the night, a blue vision appeared in Barbara’s hand.

When Barbara woke up, she realised that the boy’s fever had gone down. It didn’t matter to her whether he recovered thanks to her song or the vision, she only cared about the little boy’s bright smile. Perhaps, her sincere desire to heal the little boy with her song was what gave her a vision…

The citizens of Mondstadt have great admiration for Barbara and claim that all their problems disappear by looking at her. Still, this wasn’t always the situation because, in the past, the citizens were used to listening only to folk songs performed by bards. Considering that situation, they found her songs strange and they struggled to understand what was good about them. Therefore, Barbara didn’t have people’s adoration from the beginning. Yet, living in the city of Freedom, citizens eventually started to like the new melody of Barbara’s songs.

The citizens think that Barbara has magical powers that can heal both physical wounds and those of the heart. Yet, Barbara knows that her diligence and optimism is what gives her the strength to be of help to others.

 Barbara playable character’s review

As a healer, players can get a lot of advantages while using Barbara in their teams. What’s better is that she scales off of HP, which makes her easy to build.

Barbara’s E Skill “Let the Show Begin” will heal your party even if Barbara is off-field. The E Skill will create a melody loop that will deal Hydro damage to surrounding enemies while applying Hydro on them. It’ll also apply Hydro to your active character.

While the E skill is active, Barbara’s normal and charged attacks will heal your team depending on her max HP. Of course, her charged attacks will heal more than the normal ones. If Barbara isn’t active on the field, the loop will heal your current character every 5 seconds.

The E skill will first heal Barbara and then, after switching, it will heal the active character. Without considering the first heal, the E skill can heal the active characters three times. But the heal can increase to four times if players ascend her Passive Talent “Encore” to level 4.

Barbara’s burst skill “Shining Miracle” will heal your entire party for a large amount of HP that scales off of her max HP. Still, unlike other characters’ burst skill, her burst only heals, doesn’t deal DMG to surrounding enemies nor apply Hydro. Yet, if you have a 4-piece set Ocean-Hued Clam on her, her burst will indirectly deal some damage.

Shining Miracle has a high energy cost of 80, so it takes a while to be charged again because Barbara has some energy issues. But still, players shouldn’t rely on her burst skill, in fact, I must advise to only use it as a last resort.

Barbara C2 will decrease the CD duration on her E skill by 15%, making her more reliable as a healer. But her constellations don’t really make much difference because she’s already a good healer at C0. The most attractive constellation is her C6 because it can revive a fallen character every 15 minutes.

Of course, Barbara can be built as a DPS if we consider that her attribute scaling is oddly high, especially with her Charged Attack multiplier. But taking into account her talents, which focus on healing, this shouldn’t be considered Barbara’s main role. In fact, you’d need to invest a lot to build her as a DPS.

Related: Genshin Impact tier list support characters

Strengths

• Being a catalyst user, Barbara can apply Hydro on enemies easily.
• Barbara can heal through her E Skill. If she’s active, her normal and charged attacks will heal your team and if she’s not, it’ll heal your active character every 5 seconds.
• Her burst skill can heal your whole team at once after using it.
• At C6, Barbara can revive one of your fallen characters and restore 100% of their HP.

Weaknesses

• Barbara’s E skill applies Wet status onto your active character. This can trigger elemental reactions to your character like Frozen or Electro-charged.
• Barbara’s talents are focused only on healing, not on DMG.
• Although her burst skill can heal, it doesn’t deal DMG onto enemies nor applies Hydro status on them.

Recommended artifacts and weapons

Barbara’s kit is specifically designed to cover the role of a healer, therefore, she is one of the most reliable characters at healing. Still, with the right build, she has the potential to become a DPS character, although she won’t out damage other catalyst users.

To build Barbara as a healer, you need to consider that the heal scales off of her max HP and thus, you should focus on HP and Healing bonuses stats.

Meanwhile, DPS Barbara is more complicated to build, but you can go for Vaporising or Electro-charging builds. Of course, you will need to team her with the correct characters. For DPS, you should focus on EM, ATK, CRIT and Hydro DMG bonus stats.

Hydro Healer

Artifacts:

• 4-set piece Ocean-Hued Clam: This set’s bonus allows Barbara to heal the team fully as it gives a healing bonus. It also creates a Sea-Dyed Foam that will deal physical DMG to opponents when it explodes.

Or:

• 4-set piece Maiden Beloved: It gives a healing bonus. It’ll also increase the healing received by team members by 20% for 10 seconds after casting the elemental or burst skills.

Best weapons:

• Thrilling Tales Of Dragon Slayers (3-stars): This weapon has HP as a secondary stat, which is a plus for Barbara. When you switch characters, it will increase the active character’s ATK by 24%.
• Prototype Amber (craftable 4-stars): It has HP as a secondary stat. Its passive will heal your party and regenerate energy after using her burst skill. This weapon compensates Barbara’s energy problems.

DPS

Artifacts:

• 4-piece set Wanderer’s Troupe: It will increase Barbara’s EM by 80 and charged attacks will also benefit because it will increase their DMG by 35%.

Best Weapons:

• Mappa Mare (craftable 4-stars): Perhaps the best weapon for DPS Barbara because it has EM as a secondary stat. Plus, its passive grants elemental DMG bonus after triggering elemental reactions.
• The Widsith (4-stars): This weapon’s secondary stat is CRIT DMG. Its passive can increase either the ATK, EM or the elemental DMG.
• Lost Prayer to the Sacred Winds (5-stars): This catalyst has CRIT rate as a secondary stat and increases elemental DMG.

Is Barbara a good playable character?

I really like Barbara and she was my main healer until I got Qiqi and Diona. But I can’t deny that the fact that she applies Hydro status on the characters is a bit annoying… Still, her kit provides consistent healing that is of great help to your team. The best thing is that it’s not necessary to have her on-field to heal your characters.

Also, considering that Barbara’s heal scales off of her max HP, it’s easy to build her. Thanks to that, she’s incredibly tanky too, which is a plus!

Despite having other healers now, from time to time, I still come back to Barbara because she’s one of the few catalyst users that I enjoy using. But I must say that as players play Genshin Impact, they’ll eventually get other healers that can be more useful than Barbara.

So Barbara is good for the early game, but I wouldn’t recommend levelling her up more than lvl 60/70 because you can save these resources for other characters! Still, it all depends on preferences, so whether you level her up more is up to you!

What are your thoughts about Barbara? If you’re a fan, why not check out her figure from Kotobukiya?

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