Plus she doesn’t have the benefit of being easy to play (she’s actually quite challenging to play), so she’s also not recommended for casual players. As such, Klee is just a unit that you pull for non-meta reasons – or simply because you like her character. In this case, she’s definitely a viable unit. She’s easy to build and has a lot of great F2P-friendly weapon options. Note: This analysis is based on meta only. If you like Klee regardless of her power level, don’t let this stop you from pulling her.
Pros & Cons
Strengths
Klee has multiple artifact sets or builds that work great on her – namely: The damage difference between these sets is generally quite small, so you can just use whichever pieces have the best substats. There’s no need to continue farming for a full set. This is especially true for the 2pc. ATK artifacts like Gladiator’s Finale. Since this set can be obtained from multiple sources (like boss drops and Trounce domains), you’ll likely already have good Gladiator pieces – you can easily equip this on Klee. The Widsith and Dodoco Tales are Klee’s two best 4-star weapon options. The Widsith is a 4-star gacha weapon that you can pull from every banner. It still depends on gacha RNG, but it’s likely for players to get this while pulling in any of the banners. And, at R5, The Widsith can outperform some 5-star weapons. Whereas, R5 Dodoco Tales is a free 4-star event weapon given during Klee’s first rerun. It’s highly likely for older players to have this weapon. Klee’s normal and charged attacks count as heavy hits. And when dealing heavy hits to an opponent, this can stagger and effectively stunlock them. Klee can easily stunlock opponents by continuously performing normal and charged attacks. This completely stops opponents from attacking – so it’s also a great defensive option. If opponents can’t attack = Klee won’t take damage. Klee is among the very few characters than can easily stunlock heavier opponents.
Weaknesses
Klee can feel very clunky to play because of her slow animations. Because of this, she does need animation canceling to deal optimal damage. This lets her perform an attack while effectively canceling the extra frames of its animation. However, this makes her more mechanically challenging to play – especially for casual or mobile players. Klee uses a lot of contested supports – like Bennett, Xingqiu, Zhongli, and Kazuha. These units are highly contested supports that can fit into almost every team. And, in all of these teams, there are stronger units that can make better use of them than Klee. For instance, Kazuha is a great Klee teammate. He’s useful in all of her teams, especially Mono-Pyro – aka Klee’s strongest team. But he’s equally useful in a lot of other teams in-game. This includes freeze teams, the International team, and taser teams. These three teams are explicitly better than any of Klee’s teams. So Kazuha will see better use there instead of with Klee. Klee’s small range and AOE can struggle against AOE content. Her normal attacks are single-target locked, so they will always hit only one opponent. Whereas, her charged attacks can cover a relatively small AOE. This is most effective against opponents that are grouped together and for small to medium-sized enemies. Against larger opponents, her charged attacks will very likely only hit one target. Klee is generally considered a single-target unit. Klee is a viable Pyro DPS, but she has a lot of competition in this field – namely, Hu Tao and Xiangling. For single-target situations, Hu Tao easily outdamages Klee. And, for AOE content, Xiangling is the best Pyro DPS there is – plus, she’s a free 4-star character. Because of this, there’s absolutely no meta reason to pull for Klee when there are much stronger options.
Are Klee’s Constellations Good?
Klee has decent constellations – most notably her C2. It shreds the DEF of opponents hit by her elemental skill. Since DEF shred is very hard to come across in-game, this constellation is very valuable. Her C2 can effectively buff the entire team’s damage. So if you plan on pulling for Klee’s constellations, C2 is the best place to stop. But if you’re thinking about pulling for more, here’s a closer look at each one to help you decide.
C1: Chained Reactions
Klee’s attacks and skills have a chance of summoning sparks that deal extra damage. This damage is equal to 120% of her burst. C1 is only good for non-vaporize teams. This lets Klee apply more Pyro and trigger more elemental reactions – it’s directly a damage gain. But this can be an issue for vaporize teams. Klee already applies a lot of Pyro, so it can be difficult for a non-C6 Xingqiu to enable her vaporize reactions. The additional Pyro application of C1 makes this worse. It’s highly likely for her Pyro to overtake Xingqiu’s Hydro – this is a damage loss. Still, if you already have C1 Klee, her C2 is worth considering.
C2: Explosive Frags
Opponents hit by the mines of Klee’s skill have their DEF decreased by 23% for 10s. This is an excellent constellation that buffs the team’s overall DPS. It also lets her effectively become a support instead of just a DPS. C2 is the best place to stop pulling for constellations.
C3: Exquisite Compound
Increases her elemental skill talent level by 3. This directly buffs her skill multipliers, which is a good damage boost – but less than her C2.
C4: Sparkly Explosion
If Klee leaves the field during her burst, she triggers an explosion. This deals 555% of her ATK as AOE Pyro damage. This is a sizable damage increase for every Klee build.
C5: Nova Burst
Increases her elemental burst talent level by 3. Like her C3, this directly buffs her multipliers – it’s a good damage gain.
C6: Blazing Delight
During Klee’s burst, she regenerates 3 energy for all teammates (except herself) every 3s. And, upon casting her burst, all party members gain a 10% Pyro damage bonus for 25s. The damage gain is good, but it’s underwhelming for a C6. Klee doesn’t benefit from the energy refund, but it does slightly help her teammates. Meta-wise, there are far better C6’s in-game – it’s never recommended to pull for a C6 Klee.
