Build the team before you touch the artifacts. That is the single most important sentence in any Flins guide, and it is the thing most players get backwards. Flins is a strong on-field DPS, one of the highest ceilings in the current best-characters roster, but almost none of that damage comes from his own numbers. It comes from Lunar-Charged, and Lunar-Charged only fires if the rest of the party is set up to feed it. Pull him, slot him into a random four, and he feels like a mediocre polearm carry. Give him the right two teammates and he posts some of the fattest AoE damage in the game.
His rerun is live in the 7.0 second half alongside Ineffa, which is not a coincidence: they are two halves of the same engine. So this guide leads with what actually decides his output, the reaction and the team, then works down to the weapon and artifact choices that are, honestly, the easy part.
What Flins actually does
Flins is a 5-star Electro polearm carry. On field he builds toward a Lunar-Charged state and unloads a large AoE Lunar-Charged burst that is the bulk of his damage. Base stats at level 90 sit around 12,491 HP, 352 ATK, and 809 DEF, which tells you he is an ATK-scaling on-fielder, not a HP or reaction-flat unit.
The catch that defines everything: his full kit only comes online when the party reaches the Ascendant Gleam Moonsign, which requires a Nod-Krai teammate on the team. Without a Nod-Krai unit feeding that Moonsign, a chunk of his kit stays locked and his damage collapses. This is not a soft preference. It is a hard requirement, and it is the reason he "falls off sharply as the sole Nod-Krai unit" the moment you try to flex him into a generic comp.
So the mental model is: Flins is not a plug-and-play carry you drop into your best supports. He is the centerpiece of a Lunar-Charged core, and the core is three specific slots doing three specific jobs.
The reaction, in plain terms
Lunar-Charged is a Nod-Krai reaction that pays out when Electro meets Hydro under the right Moonsign. What matters for building Flins is one consequence of that:
Most of his damage is Lunar-Charged damage, not raw Electro damage. That flips the usual polearm-carry instinct on its head. A normal Electro DPS wants an Electro DMG goblet. Flins does not, because Lunar-Charged scales off its own multipliers, not your Electro DMG bonus. Pick the goblet for the reaction, not the element, and you gain a real chunk of damage for free. More on that below.
The second consequence: because the reaction needs Hydro to trigger, a Hydro applicator is not optional flavor on his team. It is a load-bearing wall.
His two teams (this is the actual build)
There are two comps worth the investment, and which one you run depends on whether you own Ineffa.
1. Lunar-Charged (the ceiling)
The intended team, and the one his rerun is timed for:
- Flins (on-field carry)
- Ineffa (Electro, the reaction feeder and second Nod-Krai presence)
- A Hydro applicator to keep Lunar-Charged triggering (Xingqiu or Yelan are the workhorses; Furina if you have her)
- A Nod-Krai Moonsign enabler, most cleanly Columbina, who is the Lunar linchpin that pushes the party to Ascendant Gleam
This is the "own the pieces" line. It has the highest ceiling in the current meta, and it is also the most demanding to assemble, because it wants two limited Nod-Krai units plus a good Hydro. If you have been saving through the wish economy, Flins plus Ineffa on the same rerun window is the efficient time to complete it.
2. Electro-Charged variant (the budget answer)
If you do not own Ineffa or Columbina, you are not locked out, you just trade the ceiling for accessibility:
- Flins (on-field carry)
- Fischl (off-field Electro, a 4-star everyone has)
- Sucrose (grouping plus Anemo shred, or any VV holder)
- A Hydro unit for the reaction
This leans on Electro-Charged instead of squeezing the full Lunar ceiling, and it clears the Spiral Abyss comfortably. The honest caveat: without a strong Nod-Krai enabler, you are not reaching Ascendant Gleam reliably, so treat this as the "I pulled Flins early, my account is not ready for his best team yet" bridge rather than his final form.
The teambuilding lesson under both lines is simple: Hydro is mandatory, a Nod-Krai enabler is what separates good from great, and everything else is grouping and comfort.
Weapons
His weapon choice is refreshingly uncomplicated because he scales cleanly off ATK and CRIT.
| Weapon | Why | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| His signature 5-star Electro polearm | CRIT-focused, tuned to his kit; the clean BiS | Best |
| Staff of the Scarlet Sands | Huge EM-into-ATK scaling, excellent for a reaction carry | Best non-sig |
| Calamity Queller | Flat ATK% plus a stacking ATK buff, always reliable | Strong |
| [Crafted / 4-star ATK polearms] | "Dragon's Bane" family or an ATK%/EM stat stick | F2P floor |
You do not need the signature. Scarlet Sands in particular closes most of the gap because so much of his damage runs through the reaction, and a crafted EM or ATK polearm keeps a fresh account competitive while you farm. If you are deciding whether to pull his weapon at all, read the epitomized path guide first; for a reaction carry, the weapon banner is usually the skippable half.
Artifacts: pick for the reaction, not the element
Here is where players quietly lose 15 to 20 percent of his damage.
Set: a Lunar-Charged / ATK-and-CRIT 4-piece is his home. If you cannot complete it yet, a clean ATK%/CRIT 4-piece is a fine stopgap while you farm.
Main stats, and read the goblet line twice:
- Sands: ATK%
- Goblet: a Lunar-Charged-relevant DMG goblet, NOT a pure Electro DMG goblet. This is the whole trick. Because his damage is mostly Lunar-Charged, an Electro DMG% goblet buffs the smaller slice of his output while the Lunar-relevant goblet buffs the big one. Same farm, more damage.
- Circlet: CRIT (Rate or DMG to hit a clean ratio)
Substats, in order: CRIT Rate, CRIT DMG, ATK%, and just enough Energy Recharge to fire his burst on cooldown. Keep the CRIT ratio near the usual 1:2 target; he does not want a mountain of EM the way a pure transformative-reaction unit would, because Lunar-Charged on his kit still cares about his CRIT.
If your artifacts are rough, prioritize in this order: a working goblet, then CRIT circlet, then ATK sands, then substat quality. A perfect set with the wrong goblet loses to a mediocre set with the right one.
Constellations and where the value sits
Flins has a good baseline at C0, which is the phrase that should keep most players honest: his first copy is the copy that matters, and the dupes question is a want, not a need. If you are a returning or f2p player, C0 Flins with the right team clears everything the game asks of him. Save the dupe primogems for breadth, not depth, unless you are already whaling.
Should you pull on the rerun?
Pull if:
- You want a top-tier AoE on-field carry and you either own or are willing to pull Ineffa or Columbina to complete the Nod-Krai core.
- You are light on Electro carries and want to invest in the Lunar-Charged archetype long-term, since it is one of the meta's highest ceilings.
Think twice if:
- You cannot commit to a Nod-Krai enabler. A Flins with no path to Ascendant Gleam is a Flins playing at a fraction of his rating, and no artifact grind fixes that.
- Your account already has a strong single-target carry and you mainly need coverage elsewhere; his strength is AoE, so he overlaps with what many rosters already do well.
For the wider read on where he sits against the rest of the 7.0 field, the best teams tier list ranks the Lunar core against the season's other top comps, and the Spiral Abyss overlay shows which half of the current rotation his AoE actually wants to be pointed at.
The short version, one more time: Flins is not an artifact problem, he is a team problem. Solve the team, put the right goblet on him, and he is one of the best carries you can build this patch. Skip the team and no amount of CRIT will save him.
