Soulshade Umbrella in Where Winds Meet: How to unlock and play it as a healer

The Soulshade Umbrella is the dedicated healing umbrella in Where Winds Meet, built almost entirely around keeping you and your party alive. It trades direct damage for strong buffs, passive healing, and synergy with other martial arts, especially Panacea Fan. Used well, it turns you into a mobile support who can contribute damage buffs while a hovering umbrella quietly patches up the team.

What the Soulshade Umbrella actually is

Soulshade Umbrella is a Martial Arts weapon with the following profile:

It is one of only two weapons that can directly heal units, alongside Panacea Fan. Its kit focuses on:

• Passive and burst healing for yourself and nearby allies.
• Damage buffs for the party against Exhausted enemies.
• Generating Dewdrops, a shared healing resource for Silk-based healers.

Its damage output is low compared with offensive weapons, so it works best in multiplayer or group PvE where sustained healing and buffs matter more than personal DPS.

How to unlock Soulshade Umbrella (Post Station route)

There are two ways to obtain the Soulshade Umbrella Martial Art:

• Steal it from the master at Soulshade Umbrella – Post Station in Kaifeng via Skill Theft.
• Join the Hollow Vale Sect and complete their requirements.

The Post Station route is more direct and is available once you can reach Kaifeng.

Requirements before you go

• Finish Chapter 1: Heaven Has No Pier to unlock access to the Kaifeng region.
• Unlock the Touch of Death Mystic Art so you can quietly remove certain guards while infiltrating the station.

Method 1 – Steal Soulshade Umbrella at the Post Station

Step 1: Travel to the Soulshade Umbrella Post Station in eastern Kaifeng once the region is available. Look for the outpost marked with an underground objective icon.

Step 2: At the station entrance, go into the house on the left and climb inside from the lower level up to the roof. This puts you above many patrol routes.

Step 3: Drop down from the rooftop on the right side and quietly eliminate the roaming guards near the entrance. Removing them opens the main path into the station without raising an alarm.

Step 4: Move deeper into the station and deal with the next patrolling guard. Loot the second chest inside the house to the right of the path to progress the mini-dungeon and pick up rewards.

Step 5: Continue forward until you reach the pool at the far side of the station. Take out the roaming disciple nearby and open the chest positioned in the middle of the water.

Step 6: Return toward the main entrance, but this time climb the overgrown branches on the wall to reach the upper floor of the main house. Grab the chest on the second floor and then use the interior ladder to head down.

Step 7: Follow the stairs to the lower floor and eliminate the disciple guarding that level. In the same room, interact with the coffin hiding a ladder and use it to descend into the underground area.

Step 8: In the first underground chamber, clear the disciples starting from the furthest from the chest and finishing with the closest, so you are not flanked. After the room is safe, climb the wall on the right to reach and loot the elevated chest.

Step 9: Push deeper into the hideout until you reach the chamber with hanging coffins. Drop down to the lower level, assassinate the disciples below, and secure the next chest.

Step 10: Use the nearby ladder to return to the high platform, then climb upward by using the hanging coffins as footholds. Defeat the disciple waiting on the ledge and keep climbing to reach the final chest in this sequence.

Step 11: From that final chest, go down the torch-lit passage. Climb the branches on the right to reach the objective arena where the master is training. Use Skill Theft on the master to learn the Soulshade Umbrella Martial Art.

Once the Skill Theft sequence completes, the Soulshade Umbrella is added to your Martial Arts list and can be equipped like any other weapon art.

Method 2 – Unlock Soulshade Umbrella through Hollow Vale Sect

If you prefer to lean into sect progression, Soulshade Umbrella can also be unlocked by joining the Hollow Vale Sect and meeting their internal requirements. The specific tasks vary with sect storylines, but the outcome is the same: Soulshade Umbrella becomes available as a Martial Art once you progress far enough in Hollow Vale’s arc.

This route suits players planning to commit to Hollow Vale anyway or who want to avoid stealth-heavy infiltration at the Post Station.

Soulshade Umbrella skills and basic moves

Even though the weapon is support-focused, it still has a full Martial Arts kit.

Core Soulshade Umbrella skills

Special and Martial Art skills unlock as you progress along the Soulshade Umbrella talent tree:

• Heavy / Charged attacks and Conversion unlock once you reach the third talent node.
• The Special Skill unlocks around the seventh node, later in the tree.

Basic attacks

• Umbrella – Light Attack: Up to three swings at close to mid range with a 0.1s recovery between strikes.
• Umbrella – Heavy Attack: Sends the umbrella forward in a spinning arc; 1.6s recovery.
• Pale Petal (Charged Heavy): A charged version of the heavy spin. If the enemy is already Exhausted, it extends the Exhausted duration. Charging increases damage and how long the Exhausted extension lasts.

Shared basic martial art moves

Like other weapons, Soulshade Umbrella inherits standard movement and utility actions:

• Deflection: Parry enemy power skills to heavily reduce their Qi or deal big damage.
• Umbrella – Airborne Light Attack: Horizontal swing while airborne.
• Umbrella – Dash: Short offensive spin during movement.
• Umbrella – Defense: Opens the umbrella as a shield to block attacks.
• Umbrella – Dodge: Quick dash to evade hits.
• Umbrella – Execute: High HP damage finisher on Exhausted targets.
• Umbrella – Jump / Jump Strike: Lightness skill leap and a downward kick for aerial pressure.
• Umbrella – Recovery: Stand up faster after being knocked down.

Dewdrops, Inner Demons, and other key terms

Dewdrop

Dewdrop is a special martial arts resource shared between Soulshade Umbrella and Panacea Fan, capping at 100 points. Soulshade Umbrella primarily generates Dewdrops—through skills like Echoes of a Thousand Plants and Umbrella – Conversion—while Panacea Fan has more skills that spend them for burst healing and utility.

Inner Demon – Healing Reduction

Before you achieve a first clear on major Campaign and Mysterious bosses, an Inner Demon – Healing Reduction effect is applied to those fights. This sharply reduces healing effectiveness across the board, including Soulshade Umbrella’s output. Early on, that means even powerful heals will feel weaker until that first clear is done.

Sense Skill

In some situations, certain skills can transform into variant “Sense Skills”. These are context-dependent and are detailed in individual skill descriptions. Soulshade Umbrella can interact with this system when specific conditions are met, but the core healing loop remains the same.

Mystic Art damage bonus with Panacea Fan

Running both Soulshade Umbrella and Panacea Fan in your Arsenal increases Mystic Art damage by 20%. This turns the pairing into a hybrid of strong support and respectable Mystic burst, especially when your buffs are active.

Soulshade Umbrella development path: Silkbind – Deluge

When you develop Soulshade Umbrella along its Silkbind – Deluge path, the weapon leans into long uptime healing and revives rather than raw throughput. The path is described by:

• Burst and sustained healing: Single-target recovery combined with group heals.
• Revival tools: Skills that let defeated allies rejoin the fight.
• Damage buffs: Party-wide damage increases while your healing skills are active.

The tradeoffs are clear:

• Strengths: Support, survivability, and relatively low execution difficulty.
• Weaknesses: Mobility, DPS, and crowd control.

Soulshade Umbrella talents and scaling

Every 10 Soulshade Umbrella levels you can perform a Breakthrough and select a new talent. Talents arrive in this order:

For healing-focused builds, Critical Heal Enhancement and the Silkbind-focused Tier 3 talents are particularly important, since they scale both your regular heals and your critical healing spikes.

Recommended Internal Arts and gear for Soulshade Umbrella

Internal Arts that support Soulshade Umbrella

Several Internal Arts are designed around the Panacea Fan + Soulshade Umbrella Arsenal. They are especially valuable when using the Silkbind – Deluge path:

• Royal Remedy (Support / Martial Arts / Recover): boosts the healing of the water clone from Panacea Fan’s Cloudburst Healing by 10%. While inside its area, each healing tick grants 1 Dewdrop. This indirectly fuels Soulshade Umbrella by refilling Dewdrops more quickly.
• Restoring Blossom (Support / Buff / Stacking): each time you perform a Critical Heal, you apply one stack of Nurturing for 3 seconds, increasing healing received by 2% per stack, up to three stacks. This ramps healing throughput on targets you’re already crit-healing.
• Esoteric Revival (Support / Buff / Recover): increases the healing of Panacea Fan’s Resurrection Perception Skill by 50% on the revived ally. This pairs well with Soulshade Umbrella’s more passive healing, letting Panacea Fan cover big revive spikes.
• Mending Loom (Support / Buff / Recover): when you cast Soulshade Umbrella’s Special Skill (named Echoing Grow in some descriptions), you restore 5 Dewdrops and heal yourself for 10% of max HP for every 100 Dewdrops consumed, while using Soulshade Umbrella in the Silkbind – Deluge Arsenal. This locks in a feedback loop of using your Special, spending Dewdrops, and then partially refilling and healing yourself.

Gear sets that synergize with Soulshade Umbrella

Two gear sets map cleanly onto Soulshade Umbrella’s priorities: critical healing and survivability.

Ivorybloom Set

• 2-piece bonus: +0.1% Critical Rate.
• 4-piece bonus: While at max HP, you gain an extra 5% chance to land Critical Healing and Critical Damage, and those crits are 15% stronger.

Ivorybloom rewards staying healthy and fishing for crit heals. As a healer sitting behind the front line, it is relatively easy to maintain high HP and benefit from its bonuses.

Ivorybloom pieces drop from:

• Campaign – Ever-Normal Granary.
• Sword Trial.
• Group Dungeons.

Whirlsnow Set

• 2-piece bonus: +1 Physical Defense.
• 4-piece bonus: When you lose more than 40% of your max HP in a single hit, or your HP drops below 20%, the next heal you receive within 5 seconds restores an extra 25% of your max HP. This can trigger once every 60 seconds.

Whirlsnow acts like a delayed safety net, turning your next incoming heal into a large emergency top-up after a near-fatal hit.

Whirlsnow pieces drop from:

• Campaign – Ever-Normal Granary.
• Campaign – Furnace of Righteousness.
• Sword Trial.
• Group Dungeons.

Suggested tuning priorities

When tuning Soulshade Umbrella gear, the following stats are particularly valuable:

• Minimum Physical Attack
• Maximum Physical Attack
• Critical Rate

Even though Soulshade Umbrella is a healer’s weapon, these offensive stats matter because Critical Rate and attack scaling feed both damage and critical healing values through the talents and Internal Arts listed above.

How to actually play Soulshade Umbrella

Echoes of a Thousand Plants as your healing engine

Echoes of a Thousand Plants is the heart of the weapon. When you cast it, the umbrella detaches, hovers, and tracks the ally with the lowest HP percentage in range, including yourself. The effect:

• Provides constant, automatic healing for 60 seconds whenever allies drop low.
• Applies 50% stronger healing when the target is you, making it a reliable self-sustain tool.
• Generates Dewdrops over time up to 60, refuelling Panacea Fan’s Dew-consuming skills.

Because the cooldown is also 60 seconds, the skill is effectively up whenever it is available. A common pattern is to cast Echoes either on pull for steady sustain or slightly delayed to align its uptime with expected damage waves.

Floating Grace for team-wide damage buffs

Floating Grace is the second pillar of the kit:

• +15% damage for you and nearby allies for 8 seconds.
• Instant heal on cast for some immediate recovery.

With the Buff Enhancement talent, the buff gains extra value against Exhausted targets, and it also increases Mystic Art damage if you run Soulshade Umbrella together with Panacea Fan.

In practice, you want to:

• Cast Floating Grace just before major DPS windows (boss break phases, large add waves, or Mystic Art bursts).
• Follow it immediately with Echoes of a Thousand Plants to keep your buffed allies topped up while they commit to damage.

Best weapon pairings for Soulshade Umbrella

Soulshade Umbrella and Panacea Fan

The most natural pairing is Panacea Fan. Together they form a full healer arsenal:

• Soulshade Umbrella:
  • Generates Dewdrops via Echoes of a Thousand Plants and Umbrella – Conversion.
  • Provides long, passive healing and damage buffs.
  • Boosts Mystic Art damage when paired with Panacea Fan.
• Panacea Fan:
  • Consumes Dewdrops to deliver burst heals that Soulshade Umbrella lacks.
  • Offers a true resurrection Perception Skill, strengthened by Esoteric Revival.
  • Has better offensive tools, making it the main offensive weapon in the pair.

When using both, you typically:

• Play mostly on Panacea Fan for damage and active healing.
• Swap to Soulshade Umbrella to cast Floating Grace and Echoes of a Thousand Plants, generate Dewdrops, then switch back.

Alternative pairing: DPS + Soulshade Umbrella

Some builds pair Soulshade Umbrella with a pure DPS weapon such as Infernal Twinblades, using the umbrella as an off-healer and buffer while the main weapon handles damage. In this setup:

• Start fights by dropping Echoes of a Thousand Plants and Floating Grace.
• Swap to your DPS weapon and follow its full combo rotation while the umbrella handles background healing.
• Return to Soulshade Umbrella for more buffs and to generate Dewdrops on demand.

This approach trades maximum healing for smoother solo and small-group PvE, where partial self-healing plus strong DPS often clears content faster.

Used thoughtfully, Soulshade Umbrella is less about spamming heals and more about setting up a long-lived, automated safety net while you keep the group’s damage windows buffed. Whether paired with Panacea Fan for full support or with a damage weapon for hybrid play, it turns the healer role into something active and timing-based rather than purely reactive.