Xiangling

Overview

A character from Genshin Impact originating from Liyue. Xiangling is a young head chef and waitress at the Wanmin Restaurant in Liyue Harbor. Fighting with a polearm alongside her Pyro Vision, she brings boundless passion to her culinary craft. Rejecting rigid tradition and costly exclusivity, she freely uses unconventional ingredients to create bold dishes, establishing herself as a talented and widely renowned cook.

Appearance

Xiangling features short blue hair tied into looped braids, golden eyes, and distinct thick eyebrows. Her primary attire consists of an off-the-shoulder Qipao-style outfit worn with fingerless gloves, a bell accessory, a thigh ring, and footwear designed for bare feet. She is accompanied by Guoba, a small bipedal panda-like creature. Her alternative outfits include the "New Year's Cheer" costume with a Guoba-themed hat and coin purse, as well as a red dress custom-made by a designer from Fontaine.

Personality

Xiangling is an energetic and cheerful girl defined by her deep love for cooking. Driven by the belief that good food should have no class distinction, she opposes culinary pretension and ingredient monopolies. Possessing an adventurous spirit, she willingly experiments with bizarre materials like slime condensate and monster parts. Persistent and resilient, she views broken pots and upset stomachs as steps toward perfection, often inviting friends to taste-test her new creations.

Abilities

Xiangling fights using a polearm and Pyro Vision. Her normal attack delivers up to five consecutive spear strikes, complemented by a spinning charge attack. Her Elemental Skill, "Guoba Attack," summons Guoba to continuously spray fire at targets, leaving a chili pepper upon vanishing that boosts the attack power of whoever collects it. Her Elemental Burst, "Pyronado," creates a spinning flame wheel around the active character that persists even after switching characters. Additionally, her utility passive provides a chance to gain double yields when perfectly cooking attack-boosting food. Her Constellations offer benefits such as reducing enemy Pyro resistance, extending Pyronado's duration, and increasing the team's Pyro damage.

Background

Born as the daughter of Chef Mao, the owner of Wanmin Restaurant in Liyue Harbor, Xiangling grew up mastering the culinary arts while also studying polearm techniques under the Adeptus Madame Ping. Seeking fresh ingredients and new culinary horizons, she traveled across Teyvat, befriending the Traveler in Mondstadt's Springvale and winning a cooking duel against a local chef. She later won the championship at Liyue's culinary contest during the Moonchase Festival, during which her companion Guoba was revealed to be the ancient Stove God Marchosius, who lost his power eons ago after protecting Liyue.

Relationships

Xiangling learned culinary craft from her father, Chef Mao, and trained in spear combat under Madame Ping alongside her junior disciple Yaoyao. She shares a deep, family-like bond with her companion Guoba. Among her peers, she is close friends with Hu Tao, Xingqiu, and Chongyun, with Chongyun frequently serving as an unwitting test subject for her fiery dish experiments. She also maintains friendly relations with frequent patrons of her food like Beidou, Xinyan, and Zhongli, as well as the Traveler.

Trivia

Her full name is established as Mao Xiangling based on her father's family surname. Her signature specialty dish is the Wanmin Restaurant Black-Back Perch Stew. In battle mechanics, her Elemental Skill and Burst lack internal cooldowns (ICD) for elemental reactions and feature a "snapshotting" property that retains stat buffs upon activation, making her a mainstay off-field damage dealer in popular player team compositions. She is also well known for a voice line during battle where she refers to attacking enemies as potential ingredients.