Genshin Impact: Yanfei vs. Klee (Who’s Better?)

Yanfei and Klee are both Pyro catalyst users that mainly act as an on-field DPS. Yanfei is a 4-star character, while Klee is a limited 5-star character.

As a Pyro DPS, Klee strictly outdamages Yanfei. However, most of this is tied to how she’s played. When played optimally, Klee deals significantly more damage. Otherwise, Yanfei can outperform Klee.

This is because Yanfei has smoother animations and combos that make her damage ceiling much easier to reach.

In contrast, Klee has clunkier animations. She also heavily relies on performing attack combos to deal good damage.

To better explain, let’s compare their character values and performance in the two game modes of Genshin Impact: Overworld (Exploration & Co-op) and Spiral Abyss (Meta).

Note: All comparisons made are between a C0 Klee and C6 Yanfei.

But let’s first take a look at their character kits.

Character Kit Breakdowns

Normal Attack

Yanfei’s and Klee’s normal and charged attacks are a significant portion of their damage.

As an on-field DPS, they always use this talent – so it’s definitely worth leveling.

Yanfei has extra mechanics for her normal attack talents.

When her normal attacks hit an opponent, she gains 1 Scarlet Seal. Every time this effect is triggered, the duration of her Scarlet Seals is extended.

Each Scarlet Seal decreases Yanfei’s stamina consumption. This is especially good since she heavily relies on her charged attacks (CA) for damage.

Performing charged attacks also consume all of Yanfei’s Scarlet Seals. Each Scarlet Seal consumed increases the AOE and damage of her CA’s.

Yanfei can possess a maximum of 3 Scarlet Seals. These automatically disappear after 10s or when she leaves the field.

Additionally, Yanfei’s normal attacks essentially have a sniper range – she can reach enemies from a great distance.

Elemental Skill

Yanfei summons flames that deal AOE Pyro damage.

If this hits an opponent, Yanfei gains the maximum number of Scarlet Seals.

Klee throws a Jumpty Dumpty at opponents. This skill has 2 charges.

The Jumpty Dumpty bounces thrice while dealing AOE Pyro damage per bounce. Afterward, it splits into 8 mines. Upon contact with an opponent or after 15s, the mines will explode dealing AOE Pyro damage.

When casting this skill while the previous mines are still on-field, those mines will automatically explode.

Elemental Burst

Yanfei deals one big instance of AOE Pyro damage.

This grants her the maximum number of Scarlet Seals and the Brilliance status.

Brilliance has the following effects:

• Grants her a Scarlet Seal every second.
• Increases her charged attack damage.

These effects end after 12s or when Yanfei leaves the field.

Her burst costs 80 energy.

Klee continuously summons Sparks ‘n’ Splash which deals Pyro damage.

These are projectiles that attack nearby opponents every 2s. The number of projectiles can range from 3 to 5 hits per wave.

This ends after 10s or when Klee leaves the field.

Her burst costs 60 energy.

Passive Talents (Yanfei)

• When Yanfei consumes Scarlet Seals via charged attacks, each Seal increases her Pyro damage bonus by 5% – this lasts for 6s. Performing a CA again during its duration will end the previous effect.
• When her CA’s deal a CRIT hit, she deals an additional instance of AOE Pyro damage. This is equal to 80% of her ATK, and it’s considered CA damage.
• Yanfei displays the location of nearby unique Liyue resources on the mini-map.

Passive Talents (Klee)

• When Klee’s normal attack or skill deals damage, she has a 50% chance to obtain an Explosive Spark. Consuming this Explosive Spark makes her next CA cost zero stamina and deal 50% increased damage.
• When her charged attacks deal a CRIT hit, all teammates gain 2 elemental energy.
• Klee displays the location of nearby unique Mondstadt resources on the mini-map.

Notable Constellations

Yanfei’s constellations are mostly quality-of-life (QoL) buffs that smoothen her gameplay.

Her most notable ones are her C1, C4, and C6.

• With C1, her charged attacks gain more from consuming Scarlet Seals. Each Seal decreases the CA’s stamina cost by 10% and increases Yanfei’s resistance to interruption. This is a great QoL buff that eases Yanfei’s need for stamina management and dodging.
• With C4, casting her burst generates a shield. This absorbs damage up to 45% of Yanfei’s max HP and lasts for 15s. This shield also absorbs 250% Pyro damage more effectively. This shield doesn’t disappear when she goes off-field. So, it allows Yanfei to become a viable shielder and support for other characters.
• C6 increases Yanfei’s maximum number of Scarlet Seals by 1. This is a nice damage and QoL buff.

Klee’s most notable constellations are her C2, C4, and C6.

• With C2, being hit by Jumpty Dumpty’s mines decreases enemies’ DEF by 23%. This lasts for 10s. Klee’s C2 is one of the few sources of DEF shreds in-game. It’s very valuable.
• If Klee leaves the field during her burst, C4 triggers an explosion that deals AOE Pyro damage. This is equal to 555% of her ATK. This constellation essentially contributes a good amount of damage to Klee’s total DPS.
• With C6, Klee regenerates 3 energy for her teammates every 3s during her burst — this effect excludes Klee. Additionally, all party members gain a 10% Pyro damage bonus upon casting her burst. This buff lasts for 25s. This is a good buff to both Klee and her teammates. Its energy regeneration will also allow teammates to run less Energy Recharge.

In The Overworld

Exploration (Single-Player)

Yanfei and Klee perform similarly in single-player.

Klee still deals more damage, but Yanfei can deal respectable damage at a greater distance.

Yanfei is especially great against enemies that tend to move a lot or float, like Spectres and Rifthounds.

For exploration, both of their abilities can also be used to mine ores. This is helpful when you don’t have a claymore user or Zhongli in your exploration team.

Co-op (Multiplayer)

Yanfei and Klee are both great units in Co-op. However, Yanfei can perform better than Klee.

This is mostly because of her sniper range – it lets her attack opponents from a greater distance. Doing so significantly reduces her risk of taking damage.

In contrast, Klee’s abilities require her to be closer to the enemy.

This makes her very prone to taking damage and getting interrupted mid-attack. She basically has lower survivability.

Spiral Abyss (Meta)

Gameplay Tech

Klee has multiple extra techniques to help boost her gameplay and damage.

Here’s a summary of all her relevant gameplay tech and its uses.

Gameplay Tech	Definition
Snapshot	Klee’s skill and burst can snapshot the stats and buffs active during their time of casting. The stats will last for her abilities’ entire duration – even after the buffs end.
Animation Cancels	Most of Klee’s attack animations can be canceled. This essentially lets you perform more attacks quickly.
Stagger	This refers to canceling opponents’ attacks by dealing a heavy hit. Klee’s normal and charged attacks are heavy attacks that can easily stagger enemies.
Stunlock	Chaining Klee’s normal and charged attacks can completely stop enemies from attacking – thus keeping them stunlocked.

Snapshot

Some abilities can snapshot the stats or buffs active when they were cast.

Klee’s burst and skill can snapshot. This is demonstrated by the photos above.

In the first photo, Klee casts her burst within Bennett’s burst (the red circle). His burst provides an ATK buff when inside its radius.

In the second photo, she leaves Bennett’s burst and the ATK buff disappears.

Since Klee’s burst can snapshot, it still deals the same damage. The same mechanic applies to her skill.

Animation Cancels

Most of Klee’s attacks can be animation canceled.

This refers to canceling or shortening a character’s attack animation.

Even when the animation is cut short, Klee’s attacks will still deal damage. This significantly reduces the extra frames consumed by her attack animations.

Since Klee’s attack combos are quite slow, this makes her feel clunky to play. She’s also very prone to interruption and to taking damage mid-animation.

However, doing animation cancels solves most of these issues.

Animation canceling lets Klee better manage her stamina and perform more attack combos.

Performing animation cancels significantly increases Klee’s DPS. She has multiple ways of canceling animations – namely, jump cancels and dash cancels.

Jump cancels are done by jumping shortly after her animation starts. Jump canceling is highly recommended since it consumes no stamina.

However, she can’t dodge while mid-air. So it’s slightly more dangerous than dash cancels.

Dash cancels are done by dashing shortly after her animation starts. Dashes have a short invisibility frame that helps Klee dodge enemy attacks. During this frame, Klee won’t take damage.

However, dash canceling consumes a lot of stamina – so it’s still less recommended than jump cancels.

But during her burst, her CA’s no longer consume stamina. In this case, dash canceling becomes a better option.

Knowing when to do jump and dash cancels is a massive boost to Klee’s gameplay and DPS.

Unlike Klee, Yanfei’s animations are much harder to cancel. Failing to properly cancel her attack animations is a DPS loss. It’s not worth attempting.

Stagger

When taking a heavy hit, enemies can be staggered.

Stagger triggers an animation that pushes them backward and cancels their attacks.

Since both Klee’s normal and charged attacks count as heavy attacks, she can easily stagger enemies. When used effectively, this becomes a really strong defensive option.

If enemies can’t attack, then Klee won’t take damage.

Stunlock

When chaining multiple heavy attacks, Klee can completely stunlock enemies.

She’s one of the few characters in-game that can lift and juggle opponents in the air. This effectively stops enemies from doing anything.

Stunlocking is done by continuously casting charged attacks before the enemies can recover.

Team Compositions

Yanfei’s and Klee’s playstyles are very similar.

Because of this, they’re interchangeable in most of their teams.

To further compare them, here’s a TL;DR on who performs better in five of their best teams and why.

Team	Who’s Better?	Why?
Vaporize Teams	Yanfei	Xingqiu’s Hydro application can better keep up with Yanfei’s attacks. In contrast, Klee’s entire kit applies too much Pyro – it’s harder to control which attacks will vaporize.
Mono Pyro	Klee	Klee’s best team. She deals significantly more damage than Yanfei in this team.
Overload Teams	Yanfei	Yanfei’s normal attacks have sniper range. Since overload knocks back opponents, her range lessens the need for Yanfei to chase after them.
Reverse Melt	Klee	Klee applies more Pyro thus better enabling reverse melt reactions for teammates.
Tankfei (Hu Tao Team)	C4 Yanfei	Yanfei acts as a shielder and buffer for Hu Tao. Klee doesn’t have a shielding ability – so she simply can’t replace Yanfei.

Vaporize Teams

Vaporize teams are the standard teams for most Pyro DPS units.

It’s usually composed of:

• 1 Pyro DPS
• Bennett
• Xingqiu
• 1 Anemo unit

Although these teams have a high damage potential, they’re often inconsistent.

Vaporize reactions are triggered when Pyro reacts to a Hydro aura. This multiplies the Pyro attack’s damage by 1.5x.

Forward vaporize refers to the opposite of this – it’s when Hydro reacts to a Pyro aura. This multiplies the Hydro attack’s damage by 2x.

The key to vaporizing Yanfei’s and Klee’s attacks is to maintain a Hydro aura on the enemy.

Since both Yanfei and Klee apply a lot of Pyro, Pyro can easily overtake the Hydro aura. If this happens, Xingqiu will end up triggering forward vaporize and gaining its damage multipliers.

However, this can be solved by performing proper attack combos or using a C6 Xingqiu.

Still, in most cases, Yanfei will outperform Klee.

Yanfei’s kit applies less Pyro. This lets Xingqiu’s Hydro application better keep up with her attacks.

Although Klee’s vaporize teams should deal more DPS, it’s not great in practice.

Her skill and burst are very likely to overtake Xingqiu’s Hydro aura. This causes her to deal significantly less damage.

Mono Pyro

Mono Pyro teams are generally composed of:

• 3 Pyro units
• 1 Anemo unit

The 3 Pyro slots are usually Bennett, Xiangling, and any other Pyro unit – in this case, Yanfei and Klee.

This is a strong and flexible meta team that’s really easy to play.

Although running them in a vaporize team can deal more damage, Mono Pyro’s comfort can’t be understated.

It’s mostly a quickswap team where you just cast all their skills and bursts off cooldown – team rotations aren’t that significant.

Unlike vaporize teams, there’s no need to manage elemental auras.

Additionally, Yanfei and Klee rarely perform attack combos in Mono Pyro. So, stamina management becomes less of an issue.

With most of Klee’s problems solved, her raw damage easily pulls her ahead of Yanfei.

Mono Pyro is essentially a team where Klee can go all out with her Pyro application.

Overload Teams

Overload teams are usually composed of:

• 1 Pyro unit
• Beidou
• Fischl
• Bennett

Beidou and Fischl are really strong DPS units that help carry most of this team’s damage.

Since both Yanfei and Klee apply consistent Pyro, they’re great units for triggering overload reactions.

Overload is an explosive reaction that knocks back enemies.

Yanfei’s sniper range is especially great in this situation. This is one of her strongest teams – potentially even stronger than vaporize teams. So Yanfei does outperform Klee in this team.

In contrast, Klee’s shorter range and character model are unfavorable for overload.

If opponents are knocked back too far, a lot of stamina will be wasted chasing after them. Her slow attack animations also make this team feel worse to play.

Overload teams are generally not recommended for Klee.

The only exception is against enemies that can’t be knocked back – namely bosses.

Reverse Melt

This team is composed of:

• 1 Pyro unit
• Bennett
• 1 Cryo unit
• 1 Anemo unit or 1 Cryo unit

Melt reactions are triggered by Pyro reacting to a Cryo aura – reverse melt is the opposite of this.

Reverse melt is when Cryo reacts to Pyro.

Yanfei and Klee can quickly and consistently apply Pyro. With this, Cryo units can reverse melt most of their attacks.

The Pyro unit stays on-field, while the Cryo unit deals damage while off-field. The Cryo unit only goes on-field to refresh their burst or cast their skill.

This team plays exactly like Mono Pyro. It’s a quickswap team where you simply cast all your skills and bursts off cooldown. The only difference is the presence of 1-2 Cryo teammates.

Similar to Mono Pyro, Klee outperforms Yanfei.

She simply deals more damage and applies more Pyro than Yanfei.

Tankfei (Hu Tao Team)

This team is composed of:

• Yanfei
• Hu Tao
• Xingqiu
• 1 Anemo unit – usually Kazuha or Sucrose

This is Yanfei’s only top meta team. Her roles include being a shielder and buffer for Hu Tao.

• As a shielder, her C4 provides a shield that helps increase Hu Tao’s survivability.
• As a buffer, Yanfei equips the R5 Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers catalyst. This buffs Hu Tao’s ATK by 48% for 10s.
• She also applies Pyro for the Anemo character to swirl. This allows the Anemo character to proc the 4-piece Viridescent Venerer set and further buff Hu Tao.

Klee doesn’t have a shielding ability, so she can’t replace Yanfei in this team.

Who Should You Build?

If you’re planning to use them in any of the teams mentioned, then build the unit that performs better in that team.

Otherwise, it’s best to build whose playstyle you prefer.

Yanfei is easier to play, but she has a lower damage output. In contrast, Klee is mechanically challenging to play but deals higher damage.

Generally, Klee is stronger than Yanfei – although her learning curve is also much steeper.

She’s better for players that want to practice harder attack combos and learn deeper game mechanics.

Otherwise, Yanfei is a great option for most casual players. Her kit is smoother and easier to use. This lets you reach her damage ceiling much faster.