Candace FAQ

Emiliabyss, Athena, Atilla, Dylan

Last updated on Oct 10, 2024


Credits:

  • Emiliabyss - Lead, Calcs, Writing Supervisor + General Writing
  • Athena – Calcs || Writing: Talents, Combos, Artifacts
  • Atilla the Pun – Writing: Weapons, Constellations
  • Dylan – Writing: Character Overview, Team Building

For all Candace Calcs you can reference: Candace Mastersheet by Emiliabyss and Athena, and Candace Frames Mastersheet by Sir Von | Skill Deficiency Cult

Pre-TC is volatile and, as always, perpetually subject to change until release (and sometimes later!). Please note that these are theoretical suggestions. Everything described in this FAQ is a good faith analysis based on the little information about the character’s kit that we know. Team calcs, additionally, are not established yet, and as with everything in TC, the content in this FAQ should be taken with a grain of salt.

Character Overview

Authored by Dylan

Candace is a Hydro polearm-user who is most comfortable being played as a support. She is the only character at the time of writing who offers a Hydro infusion to melee weapons. Aside from this, she is a character who scales entirely with HP, much like Nilou, unless you’re committing to auto-attacks (which is not recommended).

Using Candace’s burst off cooldown is essential, so you should have 220%+ Energy Recharge as a solo Hydro (no Favonius Lance), and 200% if you are using Favonius Lance. If you are using Favonius Lance with another Hydro character, Candace’s energy requirements are lowered to 180%.

Candace cares about Energy Recharge, Crit Rate (at least 30%), HP, Crit Damage, and sometimes ATK (if on-field DPS) or Elemental Mastery (if built for reactions). As far as weapons go, you can pick any weapon that has Crit, HP, or Energy Recharge, since all of her talents scale off of HP (excluding auto-attacks).

Candace’s constellations focus on improving her personal damage, increasing application, and extending Hydro infusion window. Candace’s C1 extends the duration of her Hydro infusion, C2 will increase her max HP by 20% when her Elemental Skill hits an enemy. Her C6 gives her extra Hydro application and where most of her personal damage comes from, assuming she isn’t the one on field.

Talents

Authored by Athena

Leveling priority: Burst >= Skill > Normal Attack

Analysis:

Candace’s kit mainly involves around her Burst to enable her Hydro infusion, and since she scales almost entirely of HP aside from Normal Attacks, leveling her to 90 is recommended to max out her base HP. Keep in mind that her damage contribution is not the greatest, therefore investing in other important units is advisable here.

Her Normal Attacks do not deal a great amount of damage, and it is also the only part of her kit to scale off ATK instead of HP, thus diverting her build (except for on-field Candace enthusiast, then level her Normal Attack first).

Candace’s Skill has two options, tap and hold. Both scale with max HP. On tap, she rushes forward and deals Hydro damage, while holding her Skill blocks the incoming damage with a shield that scales off her HP, has a longer cooldown but deals more damage. While holding can inflict more damage, it is not recommended since it takes a long time to cast , and the damage difference is not worth the time. After Ascension 1, when you get hit while shielding, her Skill will finish instantly (similar to Yun Jin’s Skill) but still has the same cooldown as when holding. With her fourth Constellation, her hold cooldown is reduced to be the same as her tap cooldown, which allows for more hold Skill use if get the right timing.

Candace’s Burst is her biggest selling point. Being the first character that provides Hydro infusion, she enables driver options for freeze, vaporize and bloom teams among others. Her Burst, combined with her Ascension 4 passive, will buff Elemental Normal Attacks hence also buff the on-field driver. When swapping between characters, it creates Wave Impact DMG instances that scales off HP, which is her main source of damage when playing as a support.

Finally, her overworld passive talent is great for exploring with the 20% climbing stamina reduction.

ER Requirement

Authored by Athena

Candace’s Burst is the core of her kit; therefore, Bursting off cooldown is very essential. Her Skill only generates 2 to 3 Hydro particles per Skill use, making her ER requirements very high for a 60 Energy Cost character. However, due to her lack of damage contribution compared to other characters in the team, funneling particles to her is not advisable. If possible, using 2 Skills per Burst is highly recommended to reduce her high ER requirements.

Weapons

Authored by Attila the Pun

Weapon ranking: Favonius Lance if available

R5 Kitain Cross Spear if billets are available

Any ER weapon, Black/White Tassel

Candace follows the general trend among recent 60 cost units that dictates that they need more ER than 80 cost units, and she follows this quite well. Despite having 2 / 3 particle gen on her burst, she often requires 230+ ER and Favonius Lance if no other Hydro units are present to alleviate her needs unless you make room in your rotation to swap back to let her E a second time. This seriously impacts her weapon choices outside of double Hydro team setups, and any weapon that does not help her with this issue is a non-starter there

Favonius Lance is the obvious best choice here with a 30.6% ER substat plus a passive that is often worth another 40-50% on a unit as energy starved as she is. Engulfing Lightning is technically better with an 85.1% ER stat, but unless your team has all their energy needs already met, the extra energy given off Favonius’s passive will likely be more relevant than whatever you’d gain.

After this, there’s 2 different 45.9% ER sub weapons to choose from: The Catch and Prototype Starglitter. While The Catch techincally does do more damage, it’s also generally wasted on her, so Prototype Starglitter will do.

The last ER weapon of note is the Kitain Cross Spear. Depending on team and rotation, its passive can be worth anywhere from 30-60 ER. In most solo Hydro comps with no additional help, a R5 Kitain Cross Spear is on par with generic ER sub weapons, pushing her ER by a multiplicative 25-33%. However, with an Exile set in the mix, this number gets pushed to a multiplicative 30-40%, enough to potentially get close to even Favonius while being 100% craftable. This weapon also shines in Fridge team where you want to stack EM on her.

However, in double Hydro setups, her ER needs fall to a somewhat more manageable 180% with either Favonius, or making room for a 2nd E. At this point, ER is still an issue, but no longer crippling to her entire kit. Feel free to use more damaging weapons if you feel the need to, but her damage by and large does not matter, so Favonius remains king.

Artifact

Artifact Main Stats

Candace has two build options: On-field and Off-field. Depending on what purpose you choose, her builds will change in order to fit the corresponding playstyle.

Off-field:

Sands of Eon: HP% or ER%

ER% sand is always recommended to easily reach ER requirement. For situations where her ER requirement is lower, HP% sand can be considered to further buff the on-field character.

Goblet of Eonothem: Hydro DMG% or HP%

Hydro DMG% let Candace deal more damage while HP% one boost the driver’s DMG.

Circlet of Logos: CRIT or HP%

Same as Goblet, CRIT for more personal damage and HP% to enhance on-field driver Normal Attacks damage.

Substats priority: ER% (until meet requirement) > CR > CD > HP% = EM

On-field Hydro DPS build:

Sands of Eon: ATK% or ER%

ER% sand is always recommended to easily reach ER requirement. For situations where her ER requirement is lower, ATK% will increase her Normal Attack damage.

Goblet of Eonothem: Hydro DMG%

Hydro DMG% let Candace deal more damage through her Normal Attacks

Circlet of Logos: CRIT

Same as Goblet, CRIT let her dish out more damage overall.

Substats priority: ER% (until meet requirement) > CR = CD > ATK% > HP% > EM

Artifact substats

On-field

For on-field Hydro DPS Candace, her artifacts choices are quite flexible. Usually you would aim for 4pc Heart of Depths or 4pc Gladiator’s Finale, but a combination of 2pc ATK% (Gladiator’s Finale, Shimenawa’s Reminiscence,...), 2pc Tenacity of the Milleliths, 2pc Heart of Depths, 2pc Emblem of Severed Fate with better substats than the 4pc options above should also perform very similarly.

Off-field

Off-field Burst DPS

For off-field Burst DPS, Candace has two main choices: 4pc Emblem of Severed Fate (EoSF) and 4pc Noblesse Oblige (NO). For 4pc EoSF, combining with an ER% weapon can increase her burst and C6 damage; while 4pc NO is generally used for buffing other teammates. The other 2pc options can be viable with good substats, but in most cases it is not recommended.

Off-field Support

For off-field support, Candace has two main choices: 4pc Noblesse Oblige (NO) and 4pc Instructor to buff teammates after using Burst. Using 4pc Emblem of Severed Fate or combining 2pc sets can achieve higher damage, however it lacks the utility provided by the two mentioned above. In certain 15-second rotation, 4pc Exile can also be worth using to lessen other characters’ Energy Recharge, making it useful to invest the substats leaning more toward damage (Note that in 4pc Instructor and 4pc Exile case, a 5 stars ER Sands is very recommended for more Energy Recharge on Candace to meet her Energy Recharge requirement).

You can also consider 4pc Deepwood Memories on her if your teammates have better options for DPS and your team needs Dendro RES Shred. However, this is usually unlikely to happen, as most Dendro characters synergize with the set better than her.

Team Building

Authored by Dylan

General Normal Attacks DMG buffer

Candace can be played as a Normal Attack buffer in a team where you have an on-field hypercarry that uses Normal Attacks as their primary source of damage without worrying about the Hydro Infusion. Elemental attacks from Catalyst and Bow characters cannot be overridden by Candace’s Elemental Burst, which is actually an upside here, while either Hydro characters or ones that have Conversions can fully utilize her without the Hydro Infusion in the way.

Mono Hydro

Candace - Xingqiu - Yelan/Anemo - Flex

One of the safer team compositions, since it allows characters with higher energy recharge requirements to build less ER. Xingqiu will likely be the character exploiting Candace’s Normal Attack infusion, since he will have a Hydro DMG bonus goblet. Yelan works nicely with this team, since she has good off-field damage and makes use of the new Hydro resonance. Sucrose and Kazuha work nicely as the Anemo flex, since they have crowd control and gives enemies Resistance Shred. Jean and Sayu also work well, if you think that Xingqiu’s healing is not enough. Zhongli can also be a fine option with his shield and omni RES Shred.

Bloom Teams

Fridge

Candace/Dendro/Cryo/Flex

Fridge is a playstyle where Cryo and Dendro coexist on a target, so applying Hydro will cause both Frozen and Bloom. It’s also important to note that Frozen enemies preserve a Dendro aura longer, so more Blooms occur. These teams focus on creating as many Blooms as you can for Burgeon, Hyperbloom or in this case, Blooms itself, since Blooms will automatically detonate when there are more than five on field.

Some recommended Cryo characters are Kaeya, Rosaria, and Diona (recommended for heals, though application isn’t the best). Both Rosaria and Kaeya would have better Cryo application, but having a healer is basically mandatory with Bloom. The Anemo flex can be Sucrose or Kazuha (Though you can use Jean or Sayu if you aren’t using Diona). Sucrose would buff the party with Elemental Mastery while providing crowd control. If you use Kazuha, you can use him as a driver since he will be the one with the most Elemental Mastery, and also providing better CC than Sucrose. Either Collei or DMC will work in the Dendro slot, as they can both apply Dendro off-field.

Nilou Bloom

Candace/Nilou/DMC or Yaoyao/Dendro or Hydro

Candace's Hydro Infusion give DMC or Yaoyao more Bloom ownership, allowing them to build more EM for higher Bloom damage. Candace can also proc some Bloom with her Constellation 6, thus she can also use EM artifacts as long as she can still Burst off cooldown. Nilou would want as much HP as possible to increase Bloom damage, while the Flex slot should be a healer to keep the team healthy.

Hyperbloom/Quickbloom

Candace/Electro/Dendro/Flex

Hyperbloom focuses on building Elemental Mastery on the Hyperbloom trigger, to maximize the amount of damage dealt by Hyperbloom. When having Electro and Hydro characters in your team, Electro-Charged proccing is also expected, providing a vehicle to get additional Blooms and / or Quicken Aura. This is called Quickbloom, by applying Dendro to an Electro-Charged aura can result in both a Bloom Reaction and Quicken Reaction, which can help proc more Spread, Aggravate or simply more Dendro Cores for Hyperbloom. Candace’s kit is uniquely able to maintain high Quicken uptime to help boost damage through Aggravate and Spreads due to her slow Hydro aApplication. Some recommended Flex characters are Anemo character like Kazuha, Sucrose, Jean, and Sayu; additional Electro character like Beidou or Yae; Zhongli with his shield and RES Shred is also great.

Vaporize

Candace/Pyro/Flex/Flex

Candace’s Elemental Burst enables Pyro carries to Vaporize their Pyro abilities with their Hydro Normal Attacks. The 2 last slots are quite flexible: Anemo characters with 4pc Viridescent Venerer to enhance overall team damage by debuff the enemies; Hydro characters to provide more Hydro aura, Hydro Resonance and battery capability; supportive Pyro characters enable Pyro Resonance which gives all teammates ATK%, while also being able to battery the Pyro carries. Bear in mind that in most cases, 2 Pyro characters is usually more than enough; more Pyro characters can interfere with Hydro aura on the enemies, leading to lost Vaporizes on important abilities.

Freeze

Candace/Cryo or Hydro/Cryo/Anemo

Candace in freeze would allow Kaeya or Rosaria to drive to apply Hydro, while their Skills and Burst allow them to apply Cryo. A Hydro flex like Yelan or Xingqiu would increase the amount of Hydro application and do a good amount of off-field damage. If you are using a Cryo flex, Diona works if you feel like you need healing and aren’t using Jean or Sayu as the Anemo character. Otherwise you can use both Kaeya and Rosaria for the Cryo slots.

Constellation

Authored by Atilla the Pun

artifact C1 - Returning Heiress of the Scarlet Sands

Gives 3 more seconds of burst uptime and infusion. Doesn’t increase her damage, but increased uptime means more uptime on Hydro aura and her buff, allowing for greedier rotations, which is basically always a welcome addition. Rating 4/5

artifact C2 - Moon-Piercing Brilliance

Gives 20% more HP to Candace, which results in ~7% more personal damage and an extra 1% on her NA buff. More stats is more stats, but it’s nothing to write home about. Rating 1/5

artifact C3 - Hunter's Supplication

Adds an extra 3 levels to her burst. However, this only adds a little damage for a character whose damage by and large does not matter. Rating 1/5

artifact C4 - Sentinel Oath

Reduces hold CD to match tap CD so you no longer have rotations ruined by accidental perfect counters. Largely QOL, but a large QOL. However, you can simply forgo this the A1 passive by tapping very quickly. Rating 3/5

artifact C5 - Heterochromatic Gaze

Adds an extra 3 levels to her Skill. However, this only adds a little damage for a character whose damage by and large does not matter, Rating 1/5

artifact C6 - The Overflow

C6 is an entire kit, almost doubling her damage while also bringing her up to 9-10 Hydro apps over 12s in addition to the normal infusion. This alone makes her damage actually notable, while also making her a very usable Hydro aura for characters that can work around her infusion, while also making her a good bloom proccer should we ever get the Dendro app to support it. Rating 5/5

While it is hard to specifically quantify how much better C6 than C0 is for a unit whose primary usage is for Hydro application, an extra 3 seconds of infusion in addition to 4-5 extra waves generally will translate to 6-7 more apps in a 15 second period. This is a very large amount of additional application and brings her from a niche unit with incredible energy issues to an invaluable addition to teams that cannot reconcile themselves with Xingqiu's long cooldowns.

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