Aiming at the problem that the cladding layer with high content of ceramic phase is prone to crack, the forming characteristics of Ni45 + 20% Cr3C2 cladding layer with different process parameters were studied, which provides the corresponding theoretical guidance for preparing the crack free cladding layer with high content of ceramic phase by adjusting the process parameters. The results show that: with the increase of laser current, the dilution ratio, melting height and melting width increase, the increase value of melting width is bigger than that of melting height, the microstructure of cladding layer is coarse, the crystal spacing is large, and the crystal growth mode changes from fine dendrite to cellular dendrite. Under the optimized process parameters (current 150 A, scanning speed 200 mm/min, lapping rate 60%), the rarefaction ratio of cladding layer is 25.3%, and the hardness of multi pass cladding layer is slightly lower than that of single pass cladding layer, but the performance is relatively uniform and stable. For the cladding layer with high content of ceramic phase, the control range of dilution ratio should be appropriately relaxed. By adjusting the process parameters, the cladding layer with good crack free forming quality can be obtained.