Genshin Stellar Reactions Explained: Conduct, Swirl and ATK

Version 7.0 introduces Stellar reactions alongside Snezhnaya, and they break the rule Genshin has run on since launch: they scale with ATK, not Elemental Mastery. Every reaction-building instinct you've developed over years — stack EM, build around Mastery percentages, prioritise it over raw attack — points the wrong way here. The system arrives in two forms, Stellar-Conduct and Stellar-Swirl, and the first of them replaces a damage reaction with something Genshin has never really had: a field that buffs your party and debuffs enemies standing inside it. Here's how both work, why the ATK inversion matters more than anything else about them, and which teams actually run them.

What Stellar reactions are

Stellar reactions belong to the Stellar-Glimmer family introduced with Version 7.0. There are two variants, and they require different elemental pairings:

• Stellar-Conduct — needs Cryo and Electro
• Stellar-Swirl — needs Anemo alongside Cryo

Odette, the 5-star Cryo sword support launching with the version, can trigger both, which is why she's positioned as the system's premier enabler.

Stellar-Conduct and the Polestar Field

Stellar-Conduct builds on Superconduct's foundation — the same Cryo-plus-Electro pairing — but inverts what it does with it.

Where Superconduct deals damage and shreds Physical RES on hit, Stellar-Conduct deals no direct damage. Instead it deploys a Polestar Field: an area that grants Cryo and Electro DMG bonus to your party while lowering the Physical RES of enemies standing inside it.

That is a fundamentally different kind of effect. You're not adding a damage instance to your rotation — you're creating a zone in which your whole team hits harder and specific enemies take more Physical damage.

Two consequences follow immediately:

• Positioning matters more than it does for any other reaction. A field only helps while the fight happens inside it. Enemies that reposition out, or a team that chases them, wastes the effect.
• It rewards anchored fights. Content where enemies come to you suits it; content where you chase scattered targets suits it far less.

Stellar-Swirl and its constraint

Stellar-Swirl is the Anemo-based variant, and it carries a practical limitation worth knowing before you build around it: no Anemo character currently carries the Stellar mechanic natively.

That means in Stellar-Swirl teams, your Cryo enabler has to carry the reaction herself — in practice, Odette, usually alongside Sandrone. It's the harder of the two archetypes to run for exactly that reason, and it's the one most likely to improve as HoYoverse releases more Stellar-capable units through the 7.x arc.

The build inversion: ATK over Elemental Mastery

This is the part to internalise, because getting it wrong wastes an entire artifact set.

Stellar Glimmer scales primarily with Total ATK. Elemental Mastery, the stat that has governed reaction damage since Genshin launched, is a distant third priority on a Stellar build.

Practical build order:

1. CRIT — ratio first, as always
2. ATK%
3. Elemental Mastery — a long way behind

Two knock-on effects:

• ATK-buffing teammates gain value. A support who raises the party's ATK now improves your reaction output, not just your on-field damage. That's why Nicole — a Pyro unit, and therefore off-element for Stellar entirely — is widely projected as a strong fourth in these teams: her teamwide ATK buff feeds the reaction directly.
• ATK-oriented artifact sets become competitive. Tenacity of the Millelith is the clearest example, relieving pressure on your enabler's own stat budget by supplying ATK from a teammate.

If you've been building your Cryo enabler as an EM-stacking reaction unit out of habit, that build is wrong for this system.

Teams that run it

Stellar-Conduct — the accessible archetype. Three Stellar-capable characters exist for it, one of them Electro, which makes it the easier of the two to assemble.

The premium composition pairs Sandrone as main DPS with Yae Miko as the Electro driver, Odette as the enabler, and a flex slot for Alyosha or Nicole. Alternative damage dealers include Wriothesley, Cyno and Razor — the reaction rewards sustained Cryo and Electro application rather than one specific carry, so the DPS slot is flexible.

Stellar-Swirl — the harder build. Yumemizuki Mizuki is currently the strongest DPS for it, alongside Cryo Traveler and Sucrose.

For the full breakdown of the enabler at the centre of both, our Odette character guide covers her kit, gear and teams in depth.

Is the system worth investing in?

Community reporting suggests Stellar reactions are intended to anchor the entire 7.x arc rather than one patch. If that holds, it changes the calculation on foundation pieces.

It's worth investing if you plan to follow Snezhnaya's roster through the coming versions. Early enablers in a long-lived system generally hold their value as more characters release to support it — and being early means your artifact farming is already pointed the right way when those characters arrive.

It's less urgent if you're clearing current content comfortably and your teams are settled. The system isn't going anywhere, and more Stellar-capable characters — particularly on the Anemo side — would make Stellar-Swirl considerably easier to run than it is at launch.

The honest middle: understand the ATK-over-EM rule now, even if you don't build for it yet. It costs nothing, and it stops you from farming the wrong artifact substats for the next six months.

Our 7.0 Snezhnaya preview covers the wider patch, and the Odette pull-or-save analysis covers whether buying into this meta is the right call for your account specifically.

Check the final numbers at launch

One caution. Much of the detailed Stellar data circulating before release came from special test servers, and values routinely shift between those builds and the live version.

The structure above — two variants, the Polestar Field's behaviour, and ATK over Elemental Mastery — is what to plan around. Exact percentages should be verified in-game once Version 7.0 is live on 12 August.

Build for the new system

A reaction system that scales off ATK rewards a different artifact strategy than the one most accounts have been farming for years — and re-farming is measured in weeks. Browse verified Genshin Impact accounts if you want a roster with the Cryo and Electro core these teams need, accelerate artifact and ascension farming with Genshin Impact hourly services, or clear Spiral Abyss floors and Archon Quests through Genshin Impact boosting while you rebuild.

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