Ranged damage in Where Winds Meet sits in a strange spot. Melee setups like Strategic Sword with Heavenquaker Spear dominate raw DPS charts, yet ranged paths have been strong enough to earn nerfs and are often described as “busted” for how safely they clear content. The Inkwell Fan, paired with Umbrella weapons, sits right in the middle of that tension: not the single highest parse on a training dummy, but a powerful, safe, and flexible ranged DPS option that holds up in real boss fights.
How the Inkwell Fan + Umbrella ranged archetype works
The core of the archetype is the Silkbind path built from Inkwell Fan and an Umbrella (Vernal or Ninefold, depending on what you own). Both weapons lean into mid-to-long range attacks and air control, letting you shred enemies while staying out of melee and using float states to avoid a lot of ground damage.
Several shared ideas run through every version of the build:
- Play from mid-range, not max-range. Both fan and umbrella basic strings have medium reach. If you stand too far back, many skills simply whiff.
- Use fan for control and buffs. Inkwell’s Q, Jadewind Shield, is both a defensive wall and a damage steroid for ranged attacks.
- Use umbrella for sustained DPS. The umbrella’s charged light attacks and air spam attacks are the main damage engine in boss fights.
- Rely on Inner Ways for multipliers. Morale Chant, Blossom Barrage, and damage-focused passives push the build from “comfortable” into “competitive.”
- Have Mystic Skills ready when you’re forced into close range. Even a ranged build needs tools like Talon Strike, Soaring Spin, and Wolflike Frenzy when enemies get in your face.
Inkwell Fan: your ranged shield and setup tool
The Inkwell Fan contributes more than just chip damage. Its skills create space, boost ranged damage, and set up air combos for both weapons.
Jadewind Shield (Q) throws up a barrier wall between you and your target. Non-boss mobs cannot walk through it, and you cannot pass through it either, so positioning matters. It has three key properties:
- It blocks incoming ranged attacks while it is active.
- It prevents many melee enemies from reaching you, especially if you place it between them and a wall so they cannot path around it.
- It grants a ranged damage buff while its effect is active, which is why spamming both charges early is a mistake — you want the buff up across your damage windows, not wasted on overlapping walls.
The fan also brings several mobility and air-control tools:
- A dash-on-tilde skill that lunges to a target, launches it, and leaves a “ghost” marker you can teleport back to if you press the key again. This lets you dip in to launch enemies, then snap back to safety.
- A charged left-click tornado that knocks enemies into the air. From that air state, you can immediately press
Rto enter an air combo without charging, chaining airborne damage safely above many attacks. - Basic fan attacks that reach out to a medium distance, offering safe chip damage and Morale Chant stacking while you wait for umbrella cooldowns.
In practice, the fan is the opener and defensive backbone: you start fights behind Jadewind Shield, launch targets into the air with your charge or dash, and either air-combo with the fan or swap to the umbrella to cash out damage.
Umbrella (Vernal or Ninefold): float-based ranged DPS
On the Umbrella side, Vernal and Ninefold both lean into mid-to-long range damage and strong single-target pressure, with different emphasis depending on which weapon you have.
Vernal Umbrella with Inkwell Fan (Silkbind – Jade)
In the Silkbind – Jade pairing built from Vernal Umbrella and Inkwell Fan, your damage revolves around Q tags, Blossom resource management, and a risky but potent float mechanic.
- Vernal Q (long-range stun and tag). The Q skill is a very long-range projectile that can stun trash mobs and mark the target. With the Blossom Barrage Inner Way, enemies hit by this Q take extra damage from all umbrella skills, roughly in the 10% range.
- Blossom resources and tilda discharge. Vernal attacks fill a visible Blossom gauge. When it is charged, the tilde skill throws the umbrella into the air where it spins, dealing continuous damage to the nearest target. You can then swap back to the fan and continue DPS while the umbrella ticks in the background.
- Float spam as main DPS. Vernal’s charged light attack is a sustained air spam that consumes endurance. While in this floating state, you move in the air and largely ignore trash melee hits, though bosses can still damage you.
- A large AoE heavy charge exists, but it is less reliable for single-target bosses because the arc can skirt around the target. Most players drop it for more consistent skills.
Silkbind – Jade offers strong ranged control, but it is tuned around enemies you can lift and juggle. It excels against humanoids and many dungeon packs, and it falls off somewhat against large non-humanoid bosses that cannot be launched or easily positioned.
Ninefold Umbrella with Inkwell Fan (classic PvE ranged DPS)
The Inkwell Fan + Ninefold Umbrella PvE pairing leans harder into structured ranged damage windows instead of constant float. It plays well with gear sets and Inner Ways that reward smooth rotations rather than risk-heavy hovering.
Ninefold’s main tools in this context are:
- Spring Sorrow (Q) to mark the enemy and apply a personal damage buff. With Blossom Barrage, Spring Sorrow gains an extra charge and further amplifies your damage to tagged targets.
- Spring Away as the sustained charged light attack that forms your main single-target damage. You hold it to deal repeated hits during your Jadewind Shield and Inner Way windows.
- Unfading Flower as a lingering umbrella attack that adds extra DPS while you swap back to the fan for Jadewind Shield upkeep and basic attacks.
Where Vernal emphasizes float spam and Blossom discharge, Ninefold creates a more structured ranged rotation with predictable cooldowns and fewer risks. It trades some flashiness for reliability and is particularly comfortable for long PvE boss fights.
Core Inner Ways for ranged DPS fan + umbrella
Inner Ways define how hard your ranged kit hits. For both Vernal and Ninefold variants, several standouts form the backbone of strong builds:
- Morale Chant. Widely regarded as one of the strongest damage Inner Ways in the game. It grants stacking damage and physical penetration simply by attacking, up to five stacks. The priority is to keep those stacks up at all times by maintaining near-constant uptime on your basic and charged attacks.
- Blossom Barrage. Critical for umbrella synergy. It:
- Adds an extra charge to Spring Sorrow in the Ninefold setup.
- Causes enemies hit by Spring Sorrow to take increased damage from your umbrella skills, boosting every subsequent Q, float, and discharge.
- Fivefold Bleed. Provides additional bleed damage, layering a damage-over-time effect on top of your normal hits. It pairs well with constant ranged pokes and long boss encounters.
- Breaking Point. A flat damage amplifier that scales especially well alongside bleed and other multipliers. It slots neatly into a ranged DPS setup when you do not need extra utility.
For Vernal Umbrella specifically, another common Inner Way slot is a “forefront” style pick, such as Star Reacher, which grants either a large physical attack bonus against exhausted targets at higher tiers, or a temporary physical attack buff when you launch enemies. That airborne trigger is easier to maintain on trash where your knock-ups reliably connect.
Mystic Skills that support the ranged DPS playstyle
Mystic Skills round out the build with crowd control, interrupts, and extra damage. A ranged player cannot afford to be helpless at close range, and the right choices give you tools to reset fights when enemies breach your line.
For pure PvE ranged DPS with Inkwell Fan and Umbrella, several Mystic Skills stand out:
- Ghost Bind. A powerful area crowd control that roots or holds mobs in place. It is ideal for funneling packs into your umbrella damage or buying time while Jadewind Shield is down.
- Talon Strike. Knocks down a target, creating a window for free ranged damage or an air combo. It is low vitality cost, making it a reliable emergency button when melee gets close.
- Soaring Spin. Delivers two quick hits and can act as another short-range CC/damage tool. It pairs well with Talon Strike to chain knockdowns.
- Wolflike Frenzy. Adds more close-range damage for the melee air combo rotation and helps quickly delete threats that slip under your ranged game.
- Guardian Palm + Cloud Steps. Cloud Steps provides extra movement and gap closing, and when followed by Guardian Palm, you get a heavy area attack that clears tightly grouped mobs.
- Dragon’s Breath + Drunken Poet. Dragon’s Breath applies a fire damage-over-time that you can immediately animation cancel, and Drunken Poet deals extra damage to targets suffering that burn. This pairing fits naturally into ranged rotations as a supplemental single-target nuke.
- Meridian Touch. An important tool to interrupt gold attacks and prevent bosses from executing lethal mechanics while you float.
Other Mystic Skills can be flexed in or out based on content, but these cover the most common needs: setup CC, burst windows, and survival when your spacing fails.
Recommended gear themes for ranged fan + umbrella
The gear landscape in Where Winds Meet is still evolving, but some set synergies already fit the ranged DPS archetype well.
Hawkwing + Eaglerise for Ninefold Umbrella + Inkwell Fan
For the Ninefold Umbrella PvE pairing, a common approach is combining Hawkwing and Eaglerise sets across weapons, accessories, and armor. Hawkwing typically sits on weapon, disc, pendant, and ring pieces, with Eaglerise on helm, armor, greaves, and bracers. Exact stat priorities are still in flux, but the goal is clear: stack offensive stats and set bonuses that reward sustained ranged attacks.
This combination complements Ninefold’s structured rotation by amplifying your damage every time you cycle Spring Sorrow and Spring Away under Jadewind Shield and Morale Chant stacks.
Veil of the Willow for charge-based Vernal Umbrella builds
For Vernal Umbrella’s float-heavy playstyle, the Veil of the Willow set stands out. Its key effect increases attack damage by around 12% for a short duration after a light, heavy, airborne light, or airborne heavy attack. That percentage is substantial in a game where many buffs stack multiplicatively.
In practice, you weave in a qualifying attack to trigger Veil of the Willow, then immediately swap into your high-output actions — Vernal’s charged float, umbrella tilda discharge, or key Mystic Skills. When used consistently, the set keeps a large damage buff rolling during nearly every serious damage window.
Main ranged DPS rotation with Ninefold Umbrella and Inkwell Fan
The Ninefold variant has a well-defined PvE rotation that keeps you at range and leverages both weapons’ strengths. Think of it as cycling from safety and setup (fan) into burst (umbrella) and back.
Step 1: Start behind a Jadewind Shield. Cast Q from Inkwell Fan so the barrier sits between you and the enemy, ideally pressed up against terrain so mobs cannot path around it. This both blocks projectiles and activates your ranged damage buff.
Step 2: Use a Heavy Attack with your current weapon to trigger effects such as Veil of the Willow if you are running that set. This sets up extra damage on your upcoming light and charged attacks.
Step 3: Swap to Ninefold Umbrella and immediately cast Spring Sorrow to mark the target and gain the Blossom Barrage damage boost on your umbrella skills.
Step 4: Hold down Spring Away to deliver high single-target damage while your buffs are active. Watch your positioning to stay just inside medium range so the hits connect.
Step 5: Follow with Unfading Flower to keep umbrella damage going as you plan your swap back.
Step 6: Swap back to Inkwell Fan. Use light attacks to maintain Morale Chant stacks and recast Jadewind Shield as soon as it is safe and useful. Between Spring Away cycles, you can dip into basic fan pressure or throw in Mystic Skills like Dragon’s Breath and Drunken Poet.
This loop repeats for the length of the fight. The goal is simple: every time Jadewind Shield is up, you should be under its buff and either channeling Spring Away or executing a damage Mystic Skill combo on a marked target.
Ranged air-combo rotation when enemies get close
Even with perfect Jadewind placement, enemies will sometimes break through. When they do, a dedicated melee air combo keeps your DPS high without swapping to a whole new playstyle.
A common Mystic Skill-based sequence uses close-range knock-ups:
- Peak’s Springless Silence to launch the target into the air.
- Moon Shatter Spring as a follow-up hit while the target is still airborne.
- Soaring Spin to stay glued to the enemy and extend the damage window.
- Wolflike Frenzy to finish off the combo or at least chunk a large portion of the target’s health.
This rotation sacrifices some distance temporarily, but it converts an otherwise dangerous close-range moment into a profitable damage phase before you re-establish range with fan tools and Cloud Steps.
Vernal Umbrella boss rotations with Inkwell Fan
Vernal Umbrella’s float mechanic changes how boss rotations feel. Instead of a grounded Spring Away channel, you spend more time airborne, weaving floats, tilde discharges, and Mystic Skills.
Players often use two patterns depending on the boss’s exhaust timing.
Standard boss rotation (using fan opener)
Step 1: Begin with Inkwell Fan. Cast Jadewind Shield (Q) to gain the ranged buff and give yourself breathing room.
Step 2: Weapon swap immediately into Vernal Umbrella and cast its Q to tag the boss, activating Blossom Barrage’s extra umbrella damage.
Step 3: Hold down Vernal’s charged light attack float to dish out sustained damage while airborne. Monitor endurance so you do not drop unexpectedly in the middle of a boss attack.
Step 4: Release the charge deliberately to drop at a safe moment, then press your F finisher or other follow-up as the float ends.
Step 5: When the Blossom gauge is full and adds, or phases make sense, use the tilde discharge to throw the umbrella into the air, creating an autonomous damage source. Swap back to fan to stack Morale Chant and reapply Jadewind Shield while the umbrella does work for you.
Fast exhaust rotation (skipping fan)
When a boss’s exhaust timer cycles quickly and setup time is precious, you can skip the fan entirely:
Step 1: Start directly on Vernal Umbrella. Cast Q to tag the boss.
Step 2: Immediately hold your charged light float for damage until just before the boss’s exhaust or mechanic window.
Step 3: Drop out of the float, use your finisher, and be ready with Mystic Skills like Meridian Touch for interrupts or Drunken Poet for extra burst when the boss is vulnerable.
This pattern trades the Jadewind Shield buff for simplicity and tighter alignment with boss mechanics, which can yield better real-fight DPS even if the spreadsheet numbers are slightly lower.
How this ranged DPS build stacks up in the meta
High-end players frequently point to Strategic Sword plus Heavenquaker Spear as the top raw DPS pairing for multiplayer bosses when uptime is perfect. That combination’s ceiling is higher, but it demands immaculate positioning and timing to take advantage of its long, stationary channels. It also scales heavily with later-breakthrough upgrades.
The Inkwell Fan + Umbrella archetype sits in a different lane. It offers:
- High real-fight DPS. It may not win every scripted parse, but in real raids with movement and mechanics it competes well when played cleanly.
- Significant safety. Ranged spacing, float states, and walls like Jadewind Shield keep you out of many dangerous melee patterns.
- Good solo performance. The build chews through open-world content and solo bosses with minimal risk, making it a strong choice for players who spend time outside of group content.
Some Chinese-server veterans describe the rope dart and Vernal Umbrella as the most oppressive long-range PvP setup, and ranged paths in general have been strong enough globally to draw attention and balance changes. Even with that context, Inkwell Fan plus Umbrella remains an appealing pick for anyone who prefers to play at range without giving up the ability to compete for top DPS in day-to-day raids.
If you invest in the right Inner Ways, keep Morale Chant maxed, and learn the rhythm of Jadewind Shield windows and umbrella Q tags, the build rewards careful play with reliable, safe damage from afar.
